GOODBYE NINE TO FIVE...HELLO AFTERNOON MOVIE

I remember when i had a 'real' job. A full-time, salary paid into bank account, show up for 8 hours a day JOB. It was in music television, it was creative, and for the most part i enjoyed it. But I was always distinctly aware, for the five whole years that i worked there, that it was NOT what i was meant to be doing. I'd spend countless hours logging interview footage from intellectual morons, vacuous dollybirds, 'taking-themselves-too-seriously Artistes' and so called musicians who hadn't even written their own songs yet waxed (un)prolific about how 'all-consuming' it was being a musician. Every sentence was peppered with "Ah...Ya know....Well...Like". Yawn.

I'd have to put catchy, enticing promo's together to lure unsuspecting teenagers and wasted, 'sound-turned-off-but-gyrating-pelvis-in-technicolour' twenty-something viewers into tuning in for yet another 'Britney Spears Weekend' or a compelling 'Ronan Keating' special. I started to make my pieces quite ironic, taking the piss out of these artists in my own sneaky way, and yet i was never called on it. I grew to exploit this even further and put hidden messages in - either lyrically in the promo soundtracks or visually in footage i had shot myself and snuck in. Still i never got caught. I soon grew very bored indeed.

I remember my last official day at work. No one knew it was my last day of work. I don't think even i suspected that it was. But the incompetant moron i called my boss finally stepped over the line one day and surprising myself as i did so, i calmly but furiously walked out of that office forever.

I initially felt high - elated even. If i recall correctly, 'You Got the Love' by Candy Station was pounding through my earphones as i exited the building and jumped on the tube. I was a hero of the oppressed. I was acting with integrity. I was...well, i was out of a job.

I won't bore you with the details but i went through hell for a few months, then emerged out the other side with two choices: get another job OR pursue my dream. Easy. Choose the impractical but oh-so-artistically-fulfilling option.

Do i ever regret it? Not yet. Somedays it's hell. I have a creative block, my computer erases a piece i've been painstakingly working on, i suddenly decide i hate a song i thought i loved, or maybe i just get BORED and LONELY. It's so trite but it's true. What often sustains me is something i read on an obese woman's t-shirt at Disneyland Florida when i was a kid: "If it were easy everyone would be doing it". It may have taken a few reads navigating her enormous and wonky cleavage, but it left a huge imprint on me.

Maybe it's true that there are those lucky few who just happen to get 'discovered' by a hotshot agent while working in a bar and become a Hollywood star. Maybe there are those lucky bands who can barely play their instruments but are 'discovered' by an enthusiastic Record Exec who just happens to duck into the little pub they're playing. For such a rare occurance you do hear a lot of these 'success stories'. But for those of us who haven't just 'happened' to have been discovered yet, well, i think tenacity is the name of the game. Good old perseverence. IF you love it, IF you're good at it, and if you absolutely HAVE to do it or you'll never truly be happy, then i reckon (perhaps foolishly) that something will happen. Do it or die trying, I say.

Sometimes i go for walks and see other people on the streets, strolling somewhat aimlessly like myself...or lone souls with laptops quietly tapping away in various Cafe Nero's (i can't tell you how many hundreds of loyalty cards i've gotten through by now...my local barrista is a good mate now) and i wonder "are you all like me? have you stepped off the straight and narrow and are in this giant waiting room of uncertainty? are you skint? are you full of both self-doubt and uncompromising belief? Do YOU regret it?"

Answers on postcards please...