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So who is this schmuck, Roy Blumenthal?

I'm basically your common-or-garden creative type. I live the whole spread of creative endeavours, except for music. Although I did sing in my school choir, and I've taught myself to play the mouth organ.

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops, sketching people in my book, and directly onto the screen of my iPAQ 2210 PocketPC. It communicates vrey nicely with my Nokia 6600, so I can check email and surf the web wherever I am.

I'm a ka huna masseur, having completed an intensive retreat/workshop, taking me up to level 2.

I still do work as a writer/director/producer of media content.

I used to work on contract to SABC3 as a Promo Producer, making trailers for tv shows such as Survivor, Dark Angel, The Kumars at No. 42, The Osbournes. 

I've also worked on contract as a producer for a company called Memar. I produced chemistry lessons for beaming directly into Ethiopian classrooms via satellite. My team pushed out fourteen half-hour episodes every week. Sheesh. Grades 9 to 12. ALL of their schooling is now coming out of the Memar studios. (There are five other subjects the company's did... English, Physics, Civics, Maths, Biology.)

At the end of 2005, I finished directing six of thirteen episodes of a show called Go_Open for SABC2. It's a magazine series dedicated to spreading the word about the open source movement. Hugely exciting.

I used to be on national radio every Friday night somewhere between 8:30pm and 9:00pm on SAfm's "The Computer Gig". I had a slot called "Priceless Advice", which I did for around 6 or 7 or 8 years now. Got canned in a recent shakeup at the great South African Broadcasting Corporation. Jon Gericke is working on some plan or other to get me back on the airwaves.

Having been a successful poetry slammer, standup poet, standup comic, I'm also pretty good with my voice. Which is why my voice reel is online, seeing as I'm a voice-artist too.

In a previous incarnation, I was a freelance advertising copywriter. When called on, I still teach the occasional copy course at Vega, AAA School of Advertising. I also deliver creativity seminars. Not to mention making movies. But you'll read about these things as this site develops.

I'm also a pretty widely published poet. And I've finished the first draft of a novel. A bunch of short movie scripts have been made into little films. Two feature film screenplays that I'm busy writing too.

Oh yeah... I do tai chi in the garden every night when I get home. Some of the old ladies in the block I live in spy on me. They think I can't see them standing behind their curtains. But they're pretty obvious. So I perform a bit for them.

I love getting SMSed on my cellphone, and I enjoy conversational emails. So make contact with me. But I have some preferences. I DO NOT want you to send me jokes, attachments, movie files, Word documents. Only email, written by you. Don't forward me things. I get more than 90 emails every day, and most of that is junk.

And please don't phone me unless you absolutely have to speak to me. And if you do get hold of my voicemail, please, I beg of you, leave a clear and detailed message, stating exactly what it is you're calling about. The more detailed your message, the more likely I'll be to answer. I have to admit something to you -- I have a small neurosis. If someone leaves the following sort of message on my voicemail, I'm almost incapable of replying: "Hi, Roy, this is Joe Soap. Please call me." I know this sounds feeble of me, but it's the truth. I simply cannot call back. Give details. The more details, the better equipped I am to call back.

So, with these things in mind, here's how to contact me:

schmucknews[at]gmail.com
+27 82 659 3165
PO Box 532 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa

Blue skies to you
love
Roy