1) He is an American but has lost the accent after travelling and living in England for a few years. 2) He wants to present, and has passed numerous screen tests, both for Carlton (the ITV people) and MTV - only three more screen tests and he's 'on'. Presenting is what he really wants to do. What did he find most difficult during the screen tests? a) The way that you have to act as though you've known someone all your life when the cameras are rolling, when in fact you've only just met them. b) The earpiece. At first it was difficult to talk and be talked to at the same time, hard to differentiate between receiving an instruction and carrying out an instruction simultaneously. c) The way some people just freeze up when they have cameras on them was annoying - that doesn't happen to him. 3) He could never 'do Blue Peter' because it's all scripted - he could handle jumping out of planes and all the other traditional Blue Peter fare, but spontanaiety of speech is what he craves. 4) Thinking long term he'd really like to do a show where he gets to 'just paint and talk' in front of the cameras (at this point I interjected, he wasn't talking to me, with "Like Bob Ross?" his reply was "Who?"). Thats what he wants to do. 5) His girlfriend is a model back in the states. She is soon to be seen on 'trashy' American soap 'Days of our Lives' (I'm not familiar with this, but I have seen 'The Bold and the Beautiful' which, I'm told, is similar). 6) He wants to 'travel' - "You learn so much more during a year travelling than you ever would during a year at school." He has been all over the place already. 7) He doesn't want to be tied down to one thing - "That would be boring." Life, for him it seems, is all about variety. "So why are you training to be an art teacher?" the boy he was talking to asked, "It's just something else - so i *can* teach at the end of it." he answered, with a faraway look. 8) He could spend his whole life just painting, he could paint solidly for a day - a week, "... just have loads of canvases on the go at once..." "Thats how Kerouac wrote 'On The Road' isn't it?" I again interjected, "I don't know." He answered, bemused. 9) He has sold his work before, and reckons that the best way to get your work exhibited at a gallery is just to go to the owner, or person in charge and show them something you've done and ask if they're interested - "He might see three people in a week, and take on two, or maybe three.." 10) He thinks i need more 'texture' in my work because "When you first look at it, it suggests texture, but then when you actually touch it, it's smooth." The first time he said that I said that I liked that idea, the discord. But now I haven't the heart to disagree, so I just nod, knowing full well the deadline was weeks ago. 11) He didn't like this years Turner Prize winner because the artist couldn't justify what he had done when he was interviewed, couldn't intellectualise about his art. Graham Greene said that no human being can ever truly know another human being. Remember Pyle, the quiet American, so much lay below the surface there didn't it? _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+