...the lesser known CSS track. So it's August, my doctor tells me I have heat exhaustion, there's definitely something up as I feel like a dithering, weakly, wimpy mess. In July, myself and Raymond, hot-footed it to Norwich for a meeting with the New Writing Partnership and the other producers behind The Poetry Link. Norwich is beginning to feel like a second home, and I like it. Upon arriving to Norwich, we get a cab to our destination, and on the way me and Ray both notice, at the same time - 3 old people on a bench - the old lady on the end raises her walking stick in the air and pokes the old man sitting at front of bench. Ho ho. Quite embarrassingly this prompts us both to say at the same time: "I love Norwich!!" That's what does it for us I'm afraid. Seeing the elderly using their walking sticks to poke their friends. Anyway, the meeting went really well, we're so lucky to be working with a nice bunch of people. Met the marketing lady behind The Poetry Link & NWP, who inspired me to coin the phrase "falling off the wagon" in response to rebelling against wheat intolerances, as she too suffered from the same. There were cakes and biscuits laid out you see. Much like a plate of syringes and class A's for addicts. We had lots of poets names in our list for PHASE 2: THE POETRY LINK and some of those were names like Billy Childish, Attila the Stockbroker, Joolz Denby so we were all very excited about the second phase already.
Then came LATITUDE FESTIVAL 2008. This year I'd been programmed to perform on the Thurs night AND the Sat night which I was very pleased about. I'd been working on my 'bowel medley' poems so was looking forward to testing it out on the crowd. Thurs night went really well, mostly because there wasn't much going on in the evening so people flocked to the poetry tent, but people seemed to like my poems so I was happy. Plus I freshly painted my wellies for the weekend so I was dead chuffed to show them off. Some lovely people from the crowd came up to me afterwards, probably just to grab the free DVD's I was giving out, but it was nice all the same. I love playing this festival so much, I only hope Luke Wright continues to let me perform as I'd feel really left out if I didn't get to perform next year. Latitude feels like my favourite relative to visit, who buys me the nice full-fat milk I like to have and my favourite crisps when I pop round. On the Saturday night, I had lots of lovely friends drop by and support me and I lay witness to Rhian Edwards doing an impression of the Snoopy dance. IT WAS BRILLIANT.
Rhian?? Poetry?? Pah!! Get her to do the Snoopy dance instead man!!
We then had our SUNDOWN GARDEN PARTY on the hottest day of the year and me being a heat-phobe found this very difficult. There was a woman in the park, sitting on a bench in a massive hat shouting SEX PEST repeatedly as we arrived. Which I decided must be god's way of saying 'good luck'. We had to put up a big gazebo that we'd never put up before in our lives. There were 3 men present and with the exception of Liam, who was very helpful, it was us dames that figured out how to put it up and then eventually put it up!! OFFICIAL NEWS: GIRLS RULE. We really do. Any man or woman who comes from the 'women can't read maps' school of thought, really should have been there to see us figure out how to and then put up this gazebo. I was dead proud of my gender that day. I couldn't handle the sun/heat for too long so had to go home.
But the other Sundowners did a tremendous job and everyone went down a treat! Lots of people came too. Yay. We ended up raising £82.00 for Leukaemia Research. Good job. Shame I missed my favourite poet; Liz Bentley though.
I really wanted the Sundown crew to do a visit to the Edinburgh Festival this year but what with no money and no time off work, it didn't really happen so doesn't look like we'll go. But super good luck to all our friends performing at this years fringe festival, can't wait to read all the blogs. Just some suggestions for those going, check out: LUKE WRIGHT, LIZ BENTLEY, JOSIE LONG, VHS 3: VIDEO NASTY, RACHEL PANTECHNICON and I can't remember anyone else just now. That's just off the top of my head.
I've been jobhunting like mad. I lost my job about a month ago which is rubbish. I went for an interview as a tea-time cook for this nursery, I don't have any cooking qualifications whatsoever right but I do love cooking and I'm not bad at it. I had this romantic notion of me, whisking eggs, chefs hat hanging off my head in a jaunty fashion, doing Jamie Oliver type things to food to make it exciting for kids: "homemade burgers shaped like dinosaurs with cous cous" as children ran in and out of the kitchen with paint on their hands, me with a jovial laugh - "ah, kids!" Almost like an Iceland advert but minus Kerry Katona.
Turns out cooking yeah, is HARD WORK. So I got a reality punch in the face and thought nah, I don't want to be a sweaty cook in a tiny kitchen cooking for 99 screaming kids, fish fingers hanging out my nostrils, no sir.
There may be some job vacancies opening up at this new Antiques shop so I might investigate that. And yes, I now have a new ridiculous romantic notion of me talking about antiques: "Yah, it's a 1918 roman tea-cup original, the romans used the tea cups for their roman tea parties in roman times, yah." Even though I have no qualifications in antiques. So good luck me.
What I am actually looking for is a job in radio but apparently it's the worst time to be looking. Boo.
What I really, really want to be is a comedy writer, or writing full-stop. But this aint no one-stop-shop at LIDLS kinda career so, to sum up, good. luck. me. Sundown currently has no-one making their flyers. And I consider our flyers to be of cult status.
So if anyone out there can help us?? Please do, otherwise it all boils down to me, cutting up magazines, with sticky glue and scissors again and everytime I do a flyer, it unintentionally looks like a child has done it.
I rented I'M NOT THERE recently and was a bit disappointed. There's no arguments about it - it was a brave film to make, interesting idea and Cate Blanchett is the best thing in it (apart from Gainsbourg) but it played a bit like an arts film rather then a feature film y'know? Maybe that was the idea. Watching the extras with director Todd Haynes helped, but it wasn't an easy viewing. I've started to re-watch some of my old dvds so recently again, I saw NATURAL BORN KILLERS (makes you really appreciate all the projection imagery they had going on), BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (old Cuban dudes talking about their life is very appealing), HOWARDS END (I can do an amusing Vanessa Redgrave impression, that I might work into a poem) and SIDEWAYS (Paul Giamatti is god).
I went to the pictures recently to see BABY MAMA because I, wrongly, thought it was written by SNL writer Tina Fey but it only starred Tina Fay and Amy Poehfler (think I've spelt that wrong without looking). However, it was really quite amusing and the other SNL veteren Amy Poehfl...(give up) was superb in it. So I, unashamedly, actually, enjoyed it!
I don't get free rentals from being a Blockbusters employee anymore so I don't get to see as many DVDs plus I only have about twenty pounds in my bank until I find a job, so films are something of a luxury when I get to see them.
Anyway, I am very excited about having booked musician ADEM for our September Sundown. JOSIE LONG in October.
Ooo and JO CAULFIELD, ISY SUTTIE and AMPLIFICO in our November Sundown. Cor blimey. It's very exciting.
We have new business cards!!! Wooooo!! So humour me when you next see me and say: "you haven't got a card have you that I could take?" "why yes, yes I have!!"
We'll have a new podcast coming soon. I think I might start interviewing some of the people that we have perform at Sundown so we can stick it on our podcast. I'm still growing courgettes at home and for the most part, they're looking good but the other day my dad casually said "you don't want the male ones, get rid of those" which I thought was highly modern of mother nature, to disregard the 'male' so nonchalant in a world where the 'male' has always been in such high regard. I wonder why, in courgette world, no-one wants the 'male ones'? Answers on a postcard please. No cocky gardeners though. They're the worst.
Ok, I think I finally, have nothing left to say. We need a flyer designer. Check. Our next Sundown is in September. Check. We've got our second phase of the poetry link sorted. Check. Oh, Scroobius Pip has a new show on RADIO 1 on Thursday evenings, on the Colin Murray show 10 - 12, where he'll be showcasing the best new poets. This is a big coo for mainstream radio so have a listen. There is so much happening in the world of poetry. It's brilliant. Colin Murray did call Mr Pip the 'King of Spoken Word' which I think is a slight exaggeration as clearly Bukowski is, but he does seem to care about spoken word and this is good so tune in to that.
Jover and out.
Chief x
