I am a Stevi. I am a unique Stevi as I am not a porn star... hmm... although... no, I can't mention that now.
Marshmallows - aren't they nice? Yes they are.
So as a unique, non-porn star Stevi, my Stevi lifestyle is a bit different from any other Stevi and for all you other Stevis who are probably reading this while panting and recovering from "work", please take a drag on your Marlboros and sample an alternative way to live your life.
On Thursday I went to work and didn't screw anyone. I kept my clothes on and sat at a wide wooden desk with a flat-screen PC and a beautifully decorated array of staples and paperclips which gets designed differently whenever I get bored. I wore a suit... or some of a suit (the team I'm in are a bit scruffy so I have to blend in by not wearing a tie or jacket. Sometimes I don't shave or even shower for a week, and my boss seems to be pleased). So at the end of the day I said "see you tomorrow" and hopped on a long distance coach to Bradford with Shelley for the Widescreen Film Festival. Having not booked Friday off I was going to have to call in sick the next day and pretend not to be 300 miles away.
So I left the office, slowly and casually, trying to look tired and worn out, and as soon as I was out of sight, I sprinted as fast I could to my Luxury Westminster Apartment around the corner from my office, and got changed and gathered my bag as quickly as possible because I was going to be late for the coach.
When I got to the coach station Shelley was there and was getting hassled by some guy who wanted some spare change so that he could either buy drugs or weapons to overthrow the government or both. As Shelley didn't have any spare change, she gave him a bag of cocaine and a sub machine gun and he went off to hassle someone else.
Sadly, on the coach, Shelley didn't want to play "I spy" or even sing "The wheels on the bus go round and round" so I crooned to her in the immortal Scottish song "Ye ken shav yer ather granny aff the bus" and as I serenaded her, she went cross-eyes and passed out on my shoulder, in a deep state of confusion and numbed into a trance.
When the coach stopped, I thought to myself "We're early" and when we were stood outside with our bags on our shoulders, watching the coach drive away I realised that we had gotten off at the wrong town and now we were in Leeds instead of Bradford. As Shelley had told me that this was her worst nightmare, I pretended that it was a fantastic adventure, finding ourselves in unexpected places with no idea how to get where we wanted - but Shelley has a genetic condition that makes her intellectually superior (symtoms include having breasts and a vagina) and she wasn't easily fooled. So I continued singing "Ye ken shav yer ather granny aff the bus" and distracted her for a while.
When we got to Bradford we were lucky because our hotel was just opposite the coach station, but it still took us around ten minutes to find it, since we were in disbelief that it could be so close. Although we saw our hotel, we went about looking for another hotel with exactly the same name, on the same street, and not finding one, we realised and booked in.
Meet the folks.
At the reception of the hotel my boss Dave from the TV company where I work when I'm not working at work and his wonderful wife CJ came to meet us. They both recognised me instantly as I had been working with them for two years, but it was the first time they had ever met Shelley / Michelle / Little Miss Alien. So we had a quick drink in the hotel bar with my boss and his wife and then we retired for the evening.
In the morning I woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, then went to watch films, came back to the hotel for a while and then both Shelley and I went back to watch Vertigo, the Alfred Hitchcock film. That night we went for a meal at the Hilton Hotel, changed our minds and walked out, pretending to be deeply dissatisfied with something (anything) and went around the corner to a Franky and Benny's which was much more fun. We drank cocktails, ate great food and then went back to the hotel.
For the rest of the weekend we watched films and then came home on the Sunday afternoon.
On the Monday I worked on the business - the new wedding video business I set up a few weeks ago but didn't even mention it in my diary. Hmmm... So Monday night I was designing a brochure to send out to potential customers. I had added a "request a brochure" form to my website, without actually having a brochure for them to request. So when people started to show an interest in having a brochure, I quickly set to making sure I had one. Great.
On Tuesday I got my first booking, which was for that weekend (this Saturday just gone.) I knew that I wasn't prepared to take the booking - I had no cameras, no cameraman, no car, no preparations, no edit suite, but I took the booking and made sure that everything went to plan by working my ass off for the rest of the week. I organised everything, hired cameras, arranged travel, interviewed the Bride to see what she wanted her video to be like and spent virtually every waking hour either working in my day job or making sure the wedding video was going to be as good as it could be. This was the beginning of a whole new business and a life as a business man.
Thursday night I went to see Bugsy Malone, a school play at Raymondo (AKA Babs) old school. They support us in our theatre shows and it's our duty to go to their school plays. Had I been more of a professional business man I would have printed business cards and made sure that I could have filmed future productions but I just had too much on that week and didn't get around to it, but that's a great idea, thanks.
The show was great fun and afterward we went to the pub.
Friday I spent four hours collecting cameras, lights, microphones, tripods and other broadcast equipment from a hire place a few miles away and spent the rest of the night setting it all up and configuring the cameras to identical settings so that when I edit the video both pictures will look the same. And I stuffed myself with pasta and had an early night.
COMING NEXT... the wedding....!!!!
The first ever ANGELS video production with pictures.