Why I love this website and a film that happened to me in Oslo.

I find myself updating this website or this blog part at least once a month. I met my good friends The Stifani Borthers who run a blog themselves. They were showing me how it worked and I was catching glimpses of the kind of figures they were getting. It was great. About 3000 people a month or a week on average, not sure which. At one point they had 8000-9000. They explained that the reason for that peak was because during that time they updated the website very often ie every day. I doubt i’ll ever attract those kind of figures as I don’t have enough to say and it can take quite a lot of time making links to things. Twitter makes me feel like I am giving babysweet updates more regularly these days. But it’s a sort of dangerous game. It is a babysweet twitter, so does that mean it should just be for babysweet business such as “Hey here is a new video…”?

I use it under the babysweet moniker and do updates about all that kind of thing but then also fire out messages about wrestling or whatever else is going on. I don’t know if that alienates people or is a good thing. On facebook for instance I have a personal account and a babysweet account. I therefore get all the crap out through the former and post videos and updates through the latter. With those things being so prominent in peoples online interaction I dont seem to give a thought to updating this site even though it is actually built for the promotion of babysweet itself. The thing is that I love this website with all my heart. There are times when I had asked Dom to change it and build it with a different program. I was going for something that was more “professional”. He would then give outlines and I would say things that made it resemble it’s current state a little more and then I realised that this site is what it is and I love it. It isn’t really like any other video websites I have seen. It isn’t flashy at all but then it isn’t a piece of shit. I would describe this site as a perfect accomplice to babysweet and the whole idea of babysweet itself.

What I mean by that is the other designs I may have had in mind have now been used everywhere and they look great. But it is almost expected that your site will look like that. Sites like the Cargo Collective ones. They look great. They are slick and professional. It’s remarkable how much Vincent Moon has influenced the world of video hosting in fact. I’m not a V-Moon addict but that man was ahead of the game and should be a millionaire but I don’t know if he is or isn’t. I doubt it. Anyway this site has remained loyal to me and in fact in 3 0r 4 years the current state is only the 2nd design. There was another one that lasted about 4 months until the buzz of  having any kind of website wore-off.

This website can be as professional or unprofessional as you want it to be. It can be “lo-fi” or it could be time efficient. It could be friendly or it could be immature. It really doesn’t matter and who cares what it is? It has everything you need. If it’s someone looking for me to have a job then they can basically see the most up to date video that I am happy with on the homepage. If it is someone who is interested in babysweet as a brand then they can look at all the other stuff such as the the very beginnings as babysweet tv, which I wish was at the bottom of the videos page rather than top, the records section which has been promising an EP for 2 years, the essays section, the contact section which I don’t often look at as I usually ask Dom to update it in a rage when I am angry about money. There is a mailing list. I love that. I think I sent one mailing list out that said “test by babysweet”. I don’t know if anyone ever got it. That was 3 years ago. I haven’t sent one out since. I’m not totally sure how it works and I dont mind, anyone who likes stuff like that would get updates on facebook or twitter. I battle technology every day. I have been saying I will learn after-effects for 2 years. That is a more serious thing and I really should as there is only so much I can do without it. So the simplicity of this site is my mistress. For instance I will let you in with a secret that only the inner circle of babysweet know. If you take any vimeo video and copy the code that follows it:

example: http://vimeo.com/10928435

If you then go to website and in the video section click on say David Clements Promotional Footage you will see this in the address bar : http://babysweetsessions.com/videos/?vid=36303844

If you then take the code that you copied from vimeo (10928435) and put it in place of the code that follows the David Clements video (36303844) and hit refresh then the video from vimeo will appear in place of David’s video. It’s magic. I think Dom asked me not to mention that in case of something but that may just be my imagination.

SO WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING IN FEBRUARY?

February has been a great month. I have been a busy gentleman. There will have been some stuff you have seen online but I have been busy doing other jobs as well. I have started a new music video project. I have shot a couple of things for it. It’s very laid back but very interesting visually. The only problem with it is that it will take a long time to shoot as I need about 50 different locations. I don’t know if there is time or not as the band are still waiting on the mix to be returned. I think the band and I are in agreement about delaying the video until it is ready anyway. Potentially it will be my best music video if the standard of what I have shot already hold up through out it.

I have just returned from Oslo, Norway. I finally had a dream fulfilled of getting a flight to place I have never been covered on the basis of filming a subject.

park in oslo

It was an honour to be asked to do it. It is for a growing electronic label based in Oslo called “Electropix“. It is a genre of music I am not familiar with and that provided an interesting perspective for me. There was lot’s of footage for the music video shot in Chicago earlier this year and my job was to shot footage in Oslo with the artists that could be cut with the Chicago stuff and turned into a video. It was a little tense at times as I hadn’t and still haven’t been able to see the Chicago footage. I saw one or two stills that we later learnt were actually taken by somebody else. I arrived in Oslo on the Friday evening and met Calixte who runs the label and one of the artists who appears in the video. We went for dinner in a lovely restaurant and chatted. It was quite surreal but very natural. Calixte then went away and Elsa, the artist, and I went back to her place after spending 200 krone on 6 beers, a packet of haribo and a kind of Rolo rip-off brand. We talked through video ideas and tried to work out if I was directing this video, what we were actually trying to do and what we needed. Calixte joined us later and put a blanket of calmness around us before he and I headed to the gorgeous Drammen to sleep.

Where i laid my head.

This was my first time in Scandinavia. The house was what I imagined. It was so warm in the house. Not in an over whelming way.In a blissful way. The snow was the deepest on which I had stood. It was nice.

The house in Drammen

We got up early in the morning. Calixte made me breakfast and then we ran with my equipment to get a train. I wanted to vomit my omelete up but I held it together. We arrived to the opera house where we were shooting about 20 minutes late. I went up to the roof and started sourcing where the angle should be. Calixte said he would be back in 15 minutes and an hour and a bit later he returned, found the artist who had been really cool and was still there and we got started. About 2 hours behind schedule on the tightest video deadline I had ever shot on. Once we got filming it went really quickly. The ideas are very simple. The delay actually proved a great benefit visually as the sun came at just the right time and bounced off the lens. We got a coffee inside and I attempted to order in Norwegian. I ignored the “What?” I was greeted with by the lady at the till, asked in some kind of Norwegian for two coffees to take away, “What would you like?” was the reply and then I said “Two coffees to take away please.”

The rest of the shoot that day went well. Then there was a gig that evening featuring one of the other musicians doing a show. I filmed a bit of that and was a tired lamb. The show finished at around 3:30 am. Calixte, the DJ and I left the venue at around 4:00. We walked to the train station it was closed. We went to a Kebab shop got some dinner. People started falling asleep and it started snowing. Calixte said we would chill for 30 minutes as he started nodding off and the snow kept falling. At around 5:00 am we walked to the station where there wasn’t a train leaving for blissful Drammen until 6:15 am. We sat down and the next 90 minutes could have been a wonderful one take, avant-garde film masterpiece. It went in roughly this order.

INTRO

We sat down. Calixte started sleeping. The DJ sat opposite me and lay down. I was determined to stay awake as I was slightly worried about the film equipment and also didn’t see the point in sleeping as I had to leave Drammen at 8:45 am anyway. There was the obligatory gentleman sleeping across three chairs on the other side of the sitting area. He was snoring like an Ox. This noise would continue until we left the area 90 minutes late. He wouldn’t move. It was the same rate and with an occasional increase or decrease in volume when the script determined. Two Norwegian girls sat a few seats up on my left. They were both completely drunk and had been crying. One lay on the others lap and didn’t participate in the film until the end when she sat up. Her friend who she was lying on possibly had a learning difficulty. In the distance some lady who was in good physical condition and possibly late 20′s was holding her mobile phone to her ear but on speaker as some ringtone along the lines of “Crazy Frog” was playing. She used her other arm to hold a can of blackthorn cider as she performed for people. She was fully clothed and not being outrageous but she was turning to people, bending over a little a shaking her ass. She would thrust her hips forward towards people as well.

At this point two fellows came over and sat in the sitting area. One went straight for the Norwegian girl with the friend on her lap and they started speaking.

Drunk 2

“Why have you been crying? I seen you crying.”

His friend started talking to the DJ opposite me who had already explained to me that he was from a rough part of America so he always felt like he had to keep an eye out for trouble. The gentleman who we will call “Drunk 1″ was saying to him that if he lay across three seats then he would be thrown out by security. He was saying it so quickly though and in a long winded way that the DJ had no idea what he meant. I was so angry with tiredness that I just listened and looked at the ground. Eventually I threw a look to the DJ and had to bite my lip as the cloud lifted over me and I nearly erupted with laughter at this scene in “the film”. This part carried on for a little while longer. The man asked where I was from. I said in the strongest Northern Irish accent I could muster,

Me

“Nnnn Iiii……Northern Ireland”.

He actually seemed a little scarred or thats how I interpreted it. He looked at the ground for a while. The snoring picked up and I heard Drunk 2 ask the Norwegen girl out for a cigarette. She preceded to tell her comatose allie on her lap that she would be right back. Drunk 1 asked me for a cigarette. I told him I didn’t smoke. He came right over into my face and told me where he was from and how we was about one love and peace. I was prepared for a smack in the face and felt as if it would have no effect on me and that then I would no fear in hitting the gentleman. He then joined up with Drunk 2 and the Norwegian girl who maybe had a problem and they went outside. I had a horrible image of a disgusting threesome.

Snoring reached an unhealthy peak. The DJ sat up again and looked around. Calixte neck kept rocking as he continued to sleep.

Interlude for toilet break.

Part 2

While those 3 where doing God-knows-what a small plump gentleman from Pakistan came in and gently threw himself into a chair opposite the comatose girl. He was wearing a tie, a hat and had a smile on his face. The three drunk lovers came back. They sat down in the same place from which they left. The Pakistani man eyes lit up when he saw the women. He began asking me to look at the women. Drunk 2 had his arm around the back of the Norwegian woman as her friend lay just on the seats beside her. I heard him mutter something and she said

Norwegian Girl

“I like you but not in that way….You understand…Are you alright with that?…I like you but not like that….please take your arm off me.”

Drunk 2 surprisingly then stood up and walked off. ”What about their friendship?” I thought.

Drunk 1 fucked off with him and I was really happy about that. Suddenly some horrible noise began getting louder and louder. It started to form some beat and then a can of blackthorn came into my vision.

Pakistani Man

“Jesus Christ”

He said it with much pleasure and sexual undertones. It was the dancing lady, still with her phone to her ear.

Pakistani Man

“Oh Jesus Christ”

He uttered again as she bent over and thrust her ass back and forth opposite me. I looked at the floor.

Pakistani Man

“Look at her man. Jesus Christ…”

The man said in my direction.

Pakistani Man

“The Female body is a blessing from God”.

I started laughing loudly at how absurd the whole situation was. Calixte and the DJ woke up. Calixte was chuckling and trying to get back to sleep. I began roaring with laughter as the lady straightened up and began shaking her ass as she looked at her reflection.

Pakistani Man

“Look at yourself…you like that….Yeah….Oh Jesus”

The Pakistani man said as his filled with joy.

Pakistani Man

“You like looking at yourself”. ”Look at her man”.

He directed towards me.

Me

“I’m married”

I lied.

Pakistani Man

“Your married? Once a man marries he is wasted.Your not married? How long have you been married?”

Me

“3 years”

I replied.

Pakistani Man

“If you had said 1 year I would have believed you. 1 year is fun but if you had been married 3 years I would see it in your face. Your not married man.”

He turned his attention back to the dancer,

Pakistani Man

“Jesus Christ girl.”

The girl stopped and sat down beside the Pakistani gentleman as she looked at her phone.

Pakistani Gentleman

When was the last time you had sex?

The lady didnt seem to notice the question or respond and I started laughing.

Pakistani Gentleman

When was the last time you had sex? Dont be embarrassed. This is a modern society. You are a modern woman. You know what I am saying.

The drunk Norwegian woman looked at me and asked how long I was married. When I kept up the lie she said that was good for me and she was happy for me. She couldn’t understand where I was from so I dropped the Northern and just said Ireland. I then said beside England and she told me how she would like to like to live in England for a year just to see what it was like. I started to feel depressed as I thought that she never would leave Norway. What do I know about it. Maybe she would. But I will leave the story there for now and maybe continue the rest of it in the Essay section a little later.

I was going to mention other projects I was working on but the story above got more detailed. All will be revealed. I’m sure you wont be able to sleep with excitement. You love this website too.

a street in scandinavia