This is something I wrote in bed last weekend after Don't Miss This. A memory and a feeling that came to me very suddenly and strongly. A call to arms.
I really shouldn't ever let myself forget what drew me into the concept of standing up in public and speaking words. I was 16. New. Just discovering a desire to put flowers in my hair and tie it up in bits of cloth. I had an image of myself as a tall, pretty, psychedelic warrior prince. I'd be an author, a poet, a musician. I'd use my writing to describe, inform and inspire - a call to arms.. and to music. Music being my biggest love of all.
I went to workshops, classes. We were, in reality, kids, and Brendan, who was running the show, facilitator-cum-teacher, told us to focus on what was needed. Taught us to pare down. Sometimes removing words from a sentence can clarify it and make a long way more potent. Like the different between smack and opium.
Suddenly a world opened up to me - I'd been writing for years already, but now I read what I wrote and I felt inspired and proud. I could see that I could do this. And when it happened it was so easy.
As we got towards the performance I grew excited, and teenage. I developed a mad crush on another of the older poets involved in the project - a woman called Bernadette, she was 40 odd, cute and spikey. She had a way with word play and vitriol and I thought she was marvelous. I knew I'd never do a thing about it.
All the sharing, bashing out, editing, reading to each other. The day time classroom exchanges, early evening visits to poets houses - oh this is how I could live!
Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I got when I got on that stage with a microphone in front of me to read my own words. It was a feeling of remembrance. Bright, shining confidence. I had never felt so sure of myself, so aware this was where I should be in my whole life. At the time I think I put that down to it being the closest I'd reached to my rockstar fantasies. I look back now and begin to see something different. And very much the same.
I feel a need to pursue poetry. I feel a need to write in my own time, and way and share it. I feel a need to see this as entirely integral to all my creative endeavors - to not be held back or intimidated by the fact I've not studied, not been consistent, and am not yet in that place.
To not be held back by my love of other art forms - my need to curate, to make music - to play with sounds. These things MUST both happen simultaneously.
So - this is my call to arms. Get me on that stage - brimming with that confidence. That power and awareness of how and where to show people, to empower them to act, make these choices, in their own way for themselves. Get me in that space - where people like us find a visceral connection with the universe that is different from any of the others. Where people like us find in the confidence to shine, the inspiration to inspire. These feelings are not negative after all, or a joke. This is something I need in my life.
Saturday, 17 May 2008
starting over/tramps in the park/being idle
Let's be honest. I'm struggling with working full time. Not a fan. I have no time for anything except work, attempts at sleep and promotional nonsense for DMT and my new London night - Dead Pets Society. I've hardly even done any actual music type things! grr... well this week anyway. and I havn't written anything here since the 1st of April simply because i find that i want to prioitise non essential things that involve being outside and doing very little.. ;)
I know a lot of people live like this all the time but it just always seems to me that there is something terribly wrong with it.
I went to a talk at the Big Green Bookshop in Woodgreen on this subject. The bookshop is fantastic in that it's just a tiny independent that's been opened by a couple of guys who used to work in the Woodgreen Waterstones. When it closed down they decided to try their hands at opening a shop, partly using their reduncy money. Kelly was there painting it at the beginning and everything - she pointed out to me the exact spot where she painted the wall. :) They're lovely guys! I was glad to finally get down there. It was the first event they were holding and Tom Hodgekinson (of Idler fame) was speaking. He spoke about how important it is to him to be able to have a nap in the day. To work for yourself and the things that matter to you. To have freedom....yes! sigh.
But aside from moaning about work, what i really wanted to write about was the photoshoot, now a couple of weeks ago (was last saturday when i wrote this in my book!). It was the craziest thing - I was in Liverpool for work. It was weird to be there, u know? Mostly just weird to be at the station - that's the pub me and John went to, there's the train/tube thing out to the Wirral.. i only went to Lime Street once.
The day went well, I was focusing on the job in hand - looking at the venues for this big event in June - except when we were looking round the university and the woman showing us round totally caught me staring at the trees. It was an irresistible lovely day! We had a nice conversation about trees, and plants, and gardening anyway. She had a funny urgency about her that made me wonder if she'd got onto it in a different way than she let on.
It was me, my boss and this mad polish girl I work with all looking around the place. The uni was right opposite Penny Lane! Anyway after looking round there and the convention centre we went and had a paid for lunch at costa opposite the Beatles museum (haha forgive me! we never did any of that the times i went up before) - as we were leaving, getting in a cab to go to this networking event, I get this phone call. weirdly i felt suspicious....
"Is this adi? Dolly?"
"err.. who is this?"
"It's Nathan, I'm calling to arrange the photo shoot for the MEN article."
"Sorry?"
"The Manchester Evening News, we need to take a photo for the article - I was thinking maybe tonight or anytime before tuesday, are you free?"
So I ended up back in Manchester in a whirlwind after a day that begun at 5.30am to get a train up to Liverpool for 9. I was disappointed if not surprised that what began as a fun celebration on a boat shaped bar on the canal, planning and excitement, ended with, after no food and lots of alcohol and a tiny bit of beuge, a fit of anger and sadness at the world coming out in all the wrong ways. Boris winning and discussions about immigration that really shocked and depressed me at the time. I think it is partly personal. It's also ideological. My parents are immigrants and that does effect the way i see it. So does my experiences working for charities that work with people who have become refugees from a humanitarian perspective. I can't help but feel that if someone comes from a country where they are so desperate that they are willing to get on a plane/truck/whatever in labour in the hope their baby will survive and have a chance in life, well they probably deserve our help. If they come from somewhere where there is no system to contribute to, where they've never had the chance to pay into something that will aim to help them if they need it. If they come from a regime so oppressive that they can't be who they need to be to survive then, u know, I can't help but feel intrinsically that they deserve our compassion just as much as anyone who has lived here all their lives. As much as any of us do. No one else is going to show them any.
hmm... controversial? I don't really see why! But i also don't see why I had to make such a scene. As if that helps! I become like a child sometimes when i know I have a valid point but I can't get myself into a state where I can express it. Silly.
Nevermind, moving on... The whole thing feels like a long time ago now. We spent the day trying to find all the items we had in mind for it. 1st though we went to the park up the road from John's and searched out places that'd work for what we had in mind. Boats, beds, buses.. things that you might miss.. and trees, flowers, natural nonsense.. things that are what we are. What we want to remind people about. We decided to set up a bed in the park with toy boats and clocks and things all around us. We found a few spaces and headed into town.
I had to buy pjamamas - I had no clothes at all with me. And then we went everywhere, encountering people and a lack of clocks designed to teach kids to tell the time. We wound up eventually in Toys R Us - where there was only one of them despite the size of the place. Kip. Don't kids learn this stuff anymore?
We were back just in time to get changed and head out to meet the photographer at the shisha place at the top of John's road. He was great. We had to gather blossom on the way, and he didn't bat an eyelid at all as John and I pulled flowers from trees and John worried about the rights and wrongs of the situation.
We set a bed up against the trunk of a fallen willow tree, with toy boats and the clock we'd found, and the DMT banner and heaps of blossom - sprinkled stuff from when we pulled it down without picking it properly - big bundles of the stuff too! Pink and bright and in balls. He told us he'd photographed Celine Dion the night before, and Beyonce last week. He told us Beyonce was one of the ugliest women he'd ever photographed! Man. and that she looked like a drag queen. that's ridiculous.
He got right into the spirit of it with us too, and that was fun. It was a massive kip of a cliche - all "Oh you ARE good at this", telling us how beautiful we looked, saying stupid things like "Now you look like a couple.. a couple of weirdos!"
It's was silliness, u know? But it was special. and then it was over and we went and had a pint and a shisha and came down and talked it over. heh.
I know a lot of people live like this all the time but it just always seems to me that there is something terribly wrong with it.
I went to a talk at the Big Green Bookshop in Woodgreen on this subject. The bookshop is fantastic in that it's just a tiny independent that's been opened by a couple of guys who used to work in the Woodgreen Waterstones. When it closed down they decided to try their hands at opening a shop, partly using their reduncy money. Kelly was there painting it at the beginning and everything - she pointed out to me the exact spot where she painted the wall. :) They're lovely guys! I was glad to finally get down there. It was the first event they were holding and Tom Hodgekinson (of Idler fame) was speaking. He spoke about how important it is to him to be able to have a nap in the day. To work for yourself and the things that matter to you. To have freedom....yes! sigh.
But aside from moaning about work, what i really wanted to write about was the photoshoot, now a couple of weeks ago (was last saturday when i wrote this in my book!). It was the craziest thing - I was in Liverpool for work. It was weird to be there, u know? Mostly just weird to be at the station - that's the pub me and John went to, there's the train/tube thing out to the Wirral.. i only went to Lime Street once.
The day went well, I was focusing on the job in hand - looking at the venues for this big event in June - except when we were looking round the university and the woman showing us round totally caught me staring at the trees. It was an irresistible lovely day! We had a nice conversation about trees, and plants, and gardening anyway. She had a funny urgency about her that made me wonder if she'd got onto it in a different way than she let on.
It was me, my boss and this mad polish girl I work with all looking around the place. The uni was right opposite Penny Lane! Anyway after looking round there and the convention centre we went and had a paid for lunch at costa opposite the Beatles museum (haha forgive me! we never did any of that the times i went up before) - as we were leaving, getting in a cab to go to this networking event, I get this phone call. weirdly i felt suspicious....
"Is this adi? Dolly?"
"err.. who is this?"
"It's Nathan, I'm calling to arrange the photo shoot for the MEN article."
"Sorry?"
"The Manchester Evening News, we need to take a photo for the article - I was thinking maybe tonight or anytime before tuesday, are you free?"
So I ended up back in Manchester in a whirlwind after a day that begun at 5.30am to get a train up to Liverpool for 9. I was disappointed if not surprised that what began as a fun celebration on a boat shaped bar on the canal, planning and excitement, ended with, after no food and lots of alcohol and a tiny bit of beuge, a fit of anger and sadness at the world coming out in all the wrong ways. Boris winning and discussions about immigration that really shocked and depressed me at the time. I think it is partly personal. It's also ideological. My parents are immigrants and that does effect the way i see it. So does my experiences working for charities that work with people who have become refugees from a humanitarian perspective. I can't help but feel that if someone comes from a country where they are so desperate that they are willing to get on a plane/truck/whatever in labour in the hope their baby will survive and have a chance in life, well they probably deserve our help. If they come from somewhere where there is no system to contribute to, where they've never had the chance to pay into something that will aim to help them if they need it. If they come from a regime so oppressive that they can't be who they need to be to survive then, u know, I can't help but feel intrinsically that they deserve our compassion just as much as anyone who has lived here all their lives. As much as any of us do. No one else is going to show them any.
hmm... controversial? I don't really see why! But i also don't see why I had to make such a scene. As if that helps! I become like a child sometimes when i know I have a valid point but I can't get myself into a state where I can express it. Silly.
Nevermind, moving on... The whole thing feels like a long time ago now. We spent the day trying to find all the items we had in mind for it. 1st though we went to the park up the road from John's and searched out places that'd work for what we had in mind. Boats, beds, buses.. things that you might miss.. and trees, flowers, natural nonsense.. things that are what we are. What we want to remind people about. We decided to set up a bed in the park with toy boats and clocks and things all around us. We found a few spaces and headed into town.
I had to buy pjamamas - I had no clothes at all with me. And then we went everywhere, encountering people and a lack of clocks designed to teach kids to tell the time. We wound up eventually in Toys R Us - where there was only one of them despite the size of the place. Kip. Don't kids learn this stuff anymore?
We were back just in time to get changed and head out to meet the photographer at the shisha place at the top of John's road. He was great. We had to gather blossom on the way, and he didn't bat an eyelid at all as John and I pulled flowers from trees and John worried about the rights and wrongs of the situation.
We set a bed up against the trunk of a fallen willow tree, with toy boats and the clock we'd found, and the DMT banner and heaps of blossom - sprinkled stuff from when we pulled it down without picking it properly - big bundles of the stuff too! Pink and bright and in balls. He told us he'd photographed Celine Dion the night before, and Beyonce last week. He told us Beyonce was one of the ugliest women he'd ever photographed! Man. and that she looked like a drag queen. that's ridiculous.
He got right into the spirit of it with us too, and that was fun. It was a massive kip of a cliche - all "Oh you ARE good at this", telling us how beautiful we looked, saying stupid things like "Now you look like a couple.. a couple of weirdos!"
It's was silliness, u know? But it was special. and then it was over and we went and had a pint and a shisha and came down and talked it over. heh.
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