It’s a while since i had a good heretical rant on camera.
RAAAAAAAAAAAA
Since I became a freelance, I’ve spent the whole time feeling I should be working harder, and worrying that I’m not making enough money. Enough already.
Vanity note: My hair’s not greasy, I’d had a shower and it was raining.
Also today (when I was feeling a little calmer) I set up a video comments vlog – see link at top.
Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)
Seems to me you’ve just said what most of us feel. Gave me thrills to hear you actually saying my thoughts. Freaking truth. But you urgently need a huge lottery JACKPOT, man :-))
I guess the trick is to arrange your life so that you get paid for what to you feels like play. When it becomes work again, do something else, or at least find a way to get back to the play feeling with it. It’s not possible to do this 100% of the time, but it’s a goal worth stiving for, no? And, no, you don’t have to be totally efficient all the time. I’ve been farting around with videoblogging for four years now, spending far more time on it than my original reason to do it warranted – I just kept doing it because it was fun. Guess what? Now I’m getting paid to do that (along with a bunch of other stuff).
Beautiful chaos, fucking pastries, Network – a brilliant triumvirate. And disembodied voices talking at me in echoes through yackpack freaked my shit out.
I wish we could just embed these – good idea though Rupert.
Here’s my comment.
Wow! I guess that’s vPIP that automatically puts the linked video in the thickbox player!! That’s really cool!
Rupert you took the completely inadequate but unbeatable words right out of my exhausted, weary mouth. I’m at work right now (BAH!) so I canÄö?Ñ??àö?ëàö¬t scream into a camera right now to prove it … but “Amen Brother!”
As to where we all might go to escape … I suggest Fiji.
this was refreshing. i wish i could watch every twittervlog post, but i have too much work!
ha ha i’m kidding. but yeah i think for me freelance is freedom. and it comes and goes. sometimes i have so much fucking work and sometimes i have nothing. but god it’s so much better than having someone watch over my shoulder and tell me which graphics *not* to use, which cut was bad, how i should expand the story blah blah blah. this is why freelance is freedom to me. but yeah i hear ya, it gets deep sometimes and videos that were supposed to take an hour take days. but i feel like the freedom out weighs the bullshit.
You are doing it exactly correct. If you’ve just started freelancing, then you’re learning how to work smart. It’s also about figuring out exactly how much money you need to make to be happy. in the last 18 months, I’m surprised how little money ryan and I need to live. Since we enjoy our time and take jobs we like, we dont spend so much on stuff to help us “get away”.
But then again, freelance is always a hustle and we’ve been lucky to find work we like. We also do a lot of free work…in order to show people what we like to do. Maybe some company will hire you because of your rant ability.
Wow. RESPONSES! Thank you, my friends 🙂
A video response:
http://blip.tv/file/get/Ruperthowevideomail-replyToCommentsOnTwittervlogMadAsHell285.flv
That’s SO AMAZING that a link will just open in a thickbox because of VPIP. Futuristic!
Ironically, I’m going to add to it with text, because it got a bit sidetracked to being about ice cream and I hadn’t had a chance to read properly yet.
Wise and funny thoughts, all. I love having this support. When I made this, I was all cranky from too much work, and playing with that – I felt I should purge the thoughts that dared not speak their name. I know I’m headed in the right direction really, and in good company 😀
Always opt for the larger ice cream!
I know. What was I *thinking*? I think it was because I was recording it and I was worried about seeming like a greedy decadent fat bastard. And Amy ended up having most of it. We’re trying to get her to bed an hour early, too – so that we can go out on a romantic date (bowling)… so what she really needed an hour before we leave was a big old cone of sugar, cream, syrup and chocolate. Oops. So I guess it’s a good job I didn’t go large!
So funny!
Just talked with Jay. Will look at having vPIP simplifyputting video links in comments.
What a wonderful rant, Rupert, and then the wonderful followup! Verdi in his PJs, unwashed and rumpled. That’s pretty much what I look like as well. And I’m about to dive hard into a freelance gig. And then the universe handing you an ice cream in the calm wake of your rant. Wonderful. I couldn’t be starting my day more inspired.
You know what you are? You’re an alchemist. Of the most magical sort.
OH MY GOD this was a great rant.
I have so much to say on this topic – I will do it in a video. I guess. Um, Yeah. Arr. Time!
When you go somewhere… take me with you.
RAAAAAAR!
Brilliant, Rupert, especially with your happy ice cream video later.
I hate being broke, I hate the unpredictability of my income and work,
and yet I love the freedom and not having a job. It’s a constant struggle
but yeah — karma. I think we’re on the right path, for the kind of people
we are.
OK, Verdi inspired me to try this video comment biznass.
http://blip.tv/file/get/MinnesotaStories-ResponseToRupert998.flv
Wow. Yes. Fuck work. I want to play too.
Responding with my video comment to you…
http://blip.tv/file/get/Taoofdavid-ForRupert825.mov
Wow, you are truly a force of nature, my friend. I love your videos so much.
I think I may be becoming one of these assholes driven by their ambition, I can admit that much. My whle life I can always remember feeling like I have to find a way to demonstrate to everyone how much I can do, how well I can do it, whatever. What is that, inherent insecurity? Is it in my DNA? Who the fuck knows…
The past 3 or 4 years I’ve worked like I swore I would never, ever work. 18 hours days, 7 days a week, 360 days a year. And I kind of look around and I don’t quite know what it’s gotten me, if anything. The only thing I do know is that I know myself better that I would have if I didn’t put myself through that.
So maybe that’s the value of what you’re doing freelancing in an expensive city. You’re getting to know yourself better and better and what you want and don’t want. That can’t be all bad, I suppose?
Just make sure you don’t listen to the assholes talking about what constitutes wasted time. Those fuckheads don’t understand that when you’re a creative person, there is no such thing as down time because even when you’re doing nothing, your creative mind is bubbling and boiling away.
As long as that stays alive and doesn’t get choked off by too much work, too much booze, too much whatever, everything else has a way of working out.
Amazing Video. You, Verdi, and Chuck prompted me to make a video comment too. It’s not so hard.
Here’s my response video:
http://storage14
27/75/video-2775549.mov
Here’s the video I’ve been working on:
http://blip.tv/file/get/Spicesoflife-BehindTheScenesOfAmericasTestKitchen963.mov
Blog post here:
http://spicesoflife.com/2007/07/13/behind-the-scenes-of-americaÄö?Ñ??àö?ëàö¬s-test-kitchen/
I am a bit pissed. I didn’t get a full time job today, so I went out and drank beer, and felt weird and discombobulated, which I don’t know how to spell
and then I came home
and wanted to say:
thank
you
ru
x
ha ha ha ha
i love the ice cream response that’s amazing!
yeah it’s great to vent
and have your friends *completely* understand it.
What can I add to all the other comments? Probably nothing…..and then again who knows? We don’t think like “regular” people, and to be honest I never want to…you know I want to say so much, but I don’t know where to even begin……I work at a bank and my life feels empty, the only time I feel alive or even feel good, is when I am creating…I bitch, I moan, I cry about how “un-talented” I am, I complain about this or that…but when I am filming and creating, I feel at peace……I like Batman, I like comics, I like toys and I like filming…..I’m a freak and I know it and I am learning not to care…Heck my wife keeps telling me, “do what you love”..I’m the one who is a chicken-shit, I’m the one who’s scared, scared because I make “some” money, do I want to lose that, I have to be responible, I have to do this, or I have to “do” that….When do I deciede to live my life? When do I deciede that doing what I love is better than doing stuff that just fills my time?….don’t go back to being normal, don’t…..don’t be like me and feel trapped, don’t……….(sigh)……live free, it’s the only choice you can make…..
Trying out vPIP code generator to create a video “no-comment” comment
QuickTime
😉
21 comments so far but not one about having a nice job they are proud of. So even this 22nd comment has a purpose. Telling you like minded people that it can happen, having a nice job that pays the rent, feeds the kids and you still have time to be with those kids.
For more that ten years I have been my own boss and off course loved it, but the money factor killed many of my playfulness. Why? Because I’m a creative people person and not a business suite. The value of making is not the money I earn with it. It’s the added value I bring to the other person by my creativity.
I found out this can be true (even more true) within a regular job.
All the business (hate it) is done by my boss and I just do what I’m good at. Adding more productive hours and finding my knowledge and creative thinking touching more people.
You can only do so much as a one mans army.
Not that I’m saying I will never be “free” again, heck I still have my foundation for the remaining two days in the week.
I am confused. Steve Garfield seems to be saying you figured out how to show your video comments for this post one after another, and that is somewhere over at blip.tv. But I can’t find it on your show page. What’s he talking about? Halp!
cheryl:
It’s part of how the flash player works on the blip.tv show page. If you go to,
http://twittervlog.blip.tv/
and click play on the last video. It’ll play through and then go to the previous one, one after the other.
— Enric
Enric, I know the show player will do that. But *surely* it will not come over here and detect video links from the comments and play them as well? Even though they’re stored all over the web, vimeo for example, not just on blip? I thought that’s what Steve was saying.
I just found out that you have to become a member of Vimeo to be able to see my comment video. Not such a bad thing, but that’s a new ‘feature’ of Vimeo I think.
I hope I can embed a flickr photo – made in honor of this post:
looks like I couldn’t – you’ll have to go here:
http://flickr.com/photos/hummingcrow/824504340/in/set-72157600574892744/
P.S. I will buy the “fuck work” tee from cafepress if it also includes a caricature of you!
and you must offer the women’s fitted style
i’ll get back to you on this. phew. intense.
Hey everybody!
Thank you for amazing amazing comments. I haven’t had a moment to respond, but late last night I was reading and watching, and was inspired by Steve’s misunderstanding of what I’d done.
So I’ve done what he thought I’d done – set up a Blip Show & Player for *your* video comments, and a Blipfoot email address for you to email them to. That way, you can make your videos in whatever format you want, and then email them to the address shown on this page, and they’ll automatically be added to the video player at the bottom of the comments section, and play in sequence.
BUT – in reverse sequence, and it’s not post-specific. So you might find that just posting the links in the comments section is a better solution, since they play when clicked. I don’t know. But I thought I’d set it up and give it a shot. See what you think.
I’ve also done a quick screencast of how I did it, to prove it’s not long-winded, as Phil thought it might be.
http://blip.tv/file/get/Twittervlogcomments-HowToSetUpTheVideoCommentsPlayer996.mp4
I’m getting on a train now, and maybe I’ll get a chance to respond to some of your comments 🙂
just recorded a video comment and am emailing it to blip – I hope it shows up!
This is playing in your flash player now, but here it is as clickable:
http://blip.tv/file/get/CherylColan-GoodMorningRupert949.mp4
Yeah, i missed this because 2 years of my great life was spent working a job that caused me so much grief. Damn it. Where have I been.
yeah.
fuck work.
Fucking lovely!
You are so right!
Nicely done.
Cf. Bob Black, “The Abolition of Work” (1985) http://tinyurl.com/2e4ddt
Buddy…you have an old fashioned case of “Building Society Syndrome”, wishing you had a desk job…great stuff. Ah man been 6 years freelance for me now. and it’s getting more and more stressful to be honest. The most stressful thing being that every time I say to anyone there is absolutely no way I could invisage raising children happily in the is poxy country, they stare at me in disbelief..Every single one of my friends doesn’t want to be here and is packing up to leave, be it Europe, North America, the Antipodes. Classic.
You gotta pay to play I guess.
Rupert I loved that and SO AGREE! Want to be part of the social media book I’m writing (phil campbell and documentally are in) – go to http://butterbeep.com/tweetgeneration and send me your mad energies!
Man, I couldn’t agree with you more. My (future) wife is a worker. She loves working and climbing the corporate ladder, blah blah blah. I couldn’t care less. Good for you, I’m glad to hear someone else is fed up with the system.