Monday, September 25, 2006 Time To Go! Comrades Protesters Emblazoned accross Manchesters Town Hall a banner with the words "The city of Manchester welcomes the Labour Party Conference." Well you could have fooled me because teeming below this banner where many thousands of people from all over the country demonstrating and protesting peacefully thier contempt and rage at the Labour Party Conference. They certainly were not welcome. Another political lie. I'm deeply saddened at how lying has become the mainstay of a party I was proud to be a part of. Tony B-liar{B for bastard}has taken the last breath of decency from party politics creating a climate of paranoia and distrust palpable as smog. I was saddened that in this great northern town were workers got together to form the unions that would evetually become Labour, there was so much hate for the party it helped create. We as a crowd were literally baying for thier blood. Tony B-liar is the most hated Prime Minister in my lifetime more than ably replacing Thatcher as this countries finest shit. I feel Tony isn't just seen as a liar because a liar could if he wanted to, ask for forgivness and you might if your feeling benevolent try to forgive. I think this country sees him as a con-man {and I dont mean CON-servitive}a political spiv doctor dealing in the hard medicine of war. Theres something about being conned which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth much more than just being lied to, making it impossible to forgive. I believe Tony B-liar to be the Arthur Daley of British politics not even answerable to E.R. indoors. Tony B-liar and his party have presided over of one of the darker moments of British history,the party that gave us The National Health Service now a motley crew of child serial killers, Bush and Blair the Ian and Myra of the of the new millenium,much worse than The Moors Murderers they only had the indecency to kill eight children, Bush and Blair have the blood of many thousands of children on thier hands. An illegal war not sanctioned by the United Nations making a mockery of thier position severely weakening any authority they were supposed to possess, The Labour Party hand in hand with an imperialist power determined as a psychopath to own the worlds oil so determined that nothing not even the sanctity of human life will get in it's way. The Labour Party a slavering posse of arse lickers shivering with delight at the prospect of getting a whif of Georges clinker riddled bush. The demonstration was superb,Albert Square alive with the drone of history. It was great being a part of such a diverse and empassioned crowd. The age range as distant as it was colourful, little babies weeks old and the white shock of the aged all seemingly the same age, certainly the same rage,yes I could see the soft form of months old baby lips mouthing determinedly if a little drooling "fuck off Tony Blair!" It was a joy to see such a great range of speakers from the Muslim communities, politicians and activists. Brian Eno was superb such a gentle determination. My favourite moment was the Glasgow woman speaking on behalf of the Milletary Families Against The War a very moving account of how it feels to lose loved ones in a war that should have legally never happened. Theres something about the Glasgow accent that makes listening so much easier. Tony Benn the stalwart of many a campaign got a reception a Prime Minister would be delighted with,he was great not unlike a cross between Father Christmas and Doctor Who. I thought for one moment Tom Jones was about to sing "Whats New Pussycat" until looking again I saw it was our very own pussycat George Galloway, in a siut as sharp as his intellect. I could almost imagine the demonstrators throwing thier troops out of Pallestine Knickers at him. There was great camrarderie in the crowd and gennuine care from everyone involved. My only critisism is about the march and the staging of a mass "die in" I hate that sort of thing I find them terribly galling and insenitive. Peoples experiences around death are so profound and personal and I think things like this trivialise them. This is only my opinion I know but I coudn't join in with that. The overwhelming feeling was one of togetherness a pollitical emotional togetherness born of tragedy and deciet . It's heart-warming to know that people will still come together no matter thier differences when something incences them,a united diversity if you like proving if we want to, we can be can still be a force to be reckoned with. I belive the Anti War Movement Is more than the last word it describes itself as.I think it's more an Anti War Revolution and I love this revolution. So I can assure you Comrades the Labour Party where as welcome as rabies in a kennels. I feel they have lost contact with the grass roots of it's people a seething mess of middle class meaninglessness a quagmire of bourgeois irrelevance,tarted up in thier polite Natzi uniforms uniformidly nodding into thier Champagne and vol-au-vents. I hate what Tony B-liar has done to the to the identity of British polotics,turning a once great social reforming party opposed to the horrors of poverty into a song by Coldplay. Take care my marching friends and keep stomping those feet I assure you it does make a difference. Comrade Poems X 1:54 PM - 9 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment Thursday, September 21, 2006 Pool of Life Comrades Scousers Had a wonderful time last night at The Everyman Bistro.I was part of the Citezen 32 lineup for the Dead Good Poets Society guest night,sharing the stage with John G hall,Michelle Green and me old scouse mucker Jackie Hagen. What a night! Such fun, a turn around of the profound and hilarious. It's great sharing the stage with a group of poets who can not only hold there own but will hold yours if you flounder and flounder I did,I forgot a really good bit of my epic journey around my self a poem called "Me." You can feel quite the sausage when you drop yourself in it,so thanks for the support guys much appreciated. It's allways an emotional explosion for me revisiting The Everyman because it was there I found out who I was. In 1979 I vetured nervous and without self asteem to The Everyman Youth Theatre. I had come from Scotland Road a dog rough area of liverpool famous for it's pubs machismo and Cilla Black{who I like to call Killer Bleak} with no idea of what drama meant never mind doing it. I always as a child dreamt of collecting my Oscar tear stained and cliched accepting without speech the tumultuiose applause and cries of "More!" for doing absoulutey nothing,I had star syndrome but no idea how I might achieve it. So you could imagine my horror when I found there was a place anyone could go to be taught drama. I never thaught I could go to it but knew I must,it was there waiting and ready to take me with it,the circus I was meant to run away to . I had no confidence, frightened of my own shadow because far as I was concerned it was physically stronger and far more determined than me. I was a teenage mess with all the drive of a square boulder. It was a herculanian moment when I forced myself through it's doors,terrified and as startled as a heard of rabbits at Blackpool illuminations. If you've ever felt like you can't do anything, your good for nothing then you'll know how it feels to be overwhelmed by almost everything. When I entered the youth theatres doors I couldn't take in what I sore,hordes of young colourful people loud,confident, unafraid to touch eachother, playing what seemed to be childrens games, a mixture of punks,new wavers,goths,geeks and any other denomination of the genre,together having the most incredible time. I was gobsmacked and horrorfied,although roughly the same age as the crowd in front of me I had no way of approaching them.I froze as the feeling of complete inadequacy not only engulfed me but swept me away to an island so isolated as to be unmappable. I was skulking away hoping no-one would notice when a hippy looking girl by the name Angela grabbed my hand leading me to the kalidoscpic throng,I shat myself not litterally but such was the wieght of the metaphore you could be forgiven for thinking so. She asked me my name and enthusiasticlly started introducing me to what seemed like everybody,it was amazing these young people saying hi how are you with no menace in thier voices and no hint of ridicule when they heard mine.It was the begining of the begining of my new life,a life of theatre and performance of confidence and above all fun. I became the happiest most fulfilled teenager in the world. Finally I found something I exelled at being young and drama. The Everyman Youth Theatre was responsible for creating a roar of maurauding post pubesent monsters who would take over not only the world but the universe. Years of abuse turned from definate to memory,I had escaped,I was important and more importantly part of a community who's sole purpouse was to be creative. Halcyon days so pure and blessed they live in the air of memory a kind of immortality that haunts the aptly named Hope Street in which the youth theartre was situated. I get terribly emotional when remembering the youth theatre not because I long to be young but because I think there will never be that amount of learning and discovery again,a kind of melancholy that stings and comforts at the same time. The Everyman Youth Theatre was started by a group of socialist actors who knew drama could enrich and change the lives of the young people in Liverpool it did more than that, much more ,it enriched the lives of those who met the young people whos lives where changed by the youth theatre,it's magic is ongoing, never stops. I take the stories and experiences of the youth theatre and apply them to my life and work,without them knowing I try to share with my friends and audiences that very sense of community and wonder. It taught me being a star was not what drama was about ,it gave me art and the wherewithall to put it into practice. Above all it taught me how to be Comrade human. So a great night was had by all. I even met an old youth theatre friend and we chatted about it's joy and continuing effect on our lives. Take care Comrades,and I hope like me your enjoying some memories of your youth. Comrade Poems X 4:11 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Tuesday, September 19, 2006 Mr and Mrs Shmuck Comrades Without a Cause Tis a funny old world,tisn't it. I'v only gone and reviewd my first book havn't I. A left-field poetry biased Manchester based magazine that goes by the name of "Citezen 32"asked me to review "The Trails of Lenny Bruce."T hank the horned beast they did,what a fucking geezer. I think it's safe to say I am in love with a dead man,good crap did he bowl me over. I'v always been aware of Mr Bruce but not enough and it's a crime I,we,us in fact the whole funny old world isn't. What free speech owes Lenny Bruce actually can't be given justice by merely writing about it',but betcha by golly gosh i'll try. When I was given the book I was quite overawed by it's size and intellectual wieght,a lot of it has to do with the American legal system{a contradiction in terms}using it's language and terminology so I thought it would go over my head, it didn't surprise surprise. Thats only part of this emminately readable tome so much of it delves into the life,joys and struggles of this facinating enigmatic everyman. Jazz and the seedy genius it produces pours like bourbon as on the rocks as the musicians playing it. I long to be involved in that world where freedom means more than mortgages and hollidays to countries savaged by poverty. The book paints with it's eyes closed and it's hands tied behind it's back an underworld potrait so perfect it makes it seem that society is The Picture of Dorian Gray rotting out of time and ugly in the attic of above board normallity. A world of hookers,strippers,queers and drop outs plunged together in a haven of truth and delicious depravity.These are the things Lenny Bruce would talk of the things that populated and polluted his world, things that 1960s America with it's unatural bent toward facism and Christianity just could not and would not cope with,turning around with ironic messianic urgency this mans life and livelyhood. They hounded and savaged with rabid ferocity so unbecoming of Christians Lenny Bruces drive and spirit. Not though Comrades his legend. Lenny Bruce was not afraid of language, he loved language,liberated it - not just the language of a byegone middle class age we're taught robotically at school to admire, but the language of his class and upbringing ,singing with jazz like intricacy the melodies of back street New York putting words into the mouths of whores and strippers we'll never hear the voices of. He saw these forgotten people as relevant and as vivid as their lifestyles, Shakespeare on acid,a whore whisperer. He knew we belonged to a wider strain of humanity, a revolutionary with nothing more than a microphone and a head full of truth born of first hand experience, a man after my own heart. I feel a kinship born of experience with Mr Bruce. I love language in all it's incarnations but especially the language I was brought up with, the drive and concrete poetics of the working class. There are an infinity of invisible libraries full of autobigraphies no one will read but most people on this planet will identify with. Books of struggle and adversity, of poverty so profound we hide our eyes in fear we will feel it, our society hides from invisible literature, every day turning away from the stories based (as are so many books) on life. His was an intellect vivacious and appealing as cheap make up and fast food and possesd a delivery quick witted as a fishwife on a mission. He stank of flea markets and sharp suits, a bespoke tailored vigilante not on the side of law and order but firmly entrenched in the real lives of the dispossesd and deserving. He carried with him the weaponary of truth an aresnal of defiant observation. The more famous he became the more the gulf of privalidge opened up for him,seeing and commenting to an audience who wanted to hear ,the ludercracies of such a world. Censorship has never gone away and we still live under the illusion of free speech, of course some things slip through, but in this age of globalised news and corprate vision it's freedom at a price. Believe me we are being monitered and doctored. I have seen over the past few years a decrease in work. Organisations who would book me regulary have stopped ringing. I'm somtimes given gigs by somebody only to be told later by somebody else that my material is unsiutable,not just from the more rightwing organisations but even the so-called left-field ones who are now affiliated to either a newspaper or a brewrey,accepting sponsorship to promote free speech as long as that free speech doesn't offend. There is a culture nay a sickness of acceptence fuelled by a political correctnes not only gone mad but corrupt. I love Lenny Bruce. I fancy and would love to fuck Lenny Bruce. Maybe I'll arrange a black mass and ressurect for a brief and perfect moment his body and swallow thirstally his seed,so it may grow and flourish in my gingham heart,giving birth to a new era of brutal and tender truth. He once said "were all the same shmuck." I wholeheartedly agree,perhaps when I ressurect him I will ask for his hand in marriage {hoping it doent fall off } and we will gloriously become Mr and Mrs Smuck a title I would gladly carry to my grave. Buy the book and buy into a man we should not worship but simply listen to.The antidote for..... oh come on we all all know what for. Take all the care you want to shmucks. Comrade Poems X 2:07 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Burnt to a Crisp Comrades Outsiders I think this might be the last in the seeming trilogy of blogs on camp and effeminancy and is about one of the all time greats of the genre Mr Quentin Crisp. Like many gay souls my age I remember the first televisual screening of "The Naked Civil Servant"and the effect it had on my life and identity. It was genuinly a staggering event,at last a programme that went someway to explaining who I was and what was happening to both my mind and body,a gift from Manna.Such was the nationwide impact of the drama that the very next day in my hideous Scotland Road nightmare of a school Pope Pious the X Secondary Modern I was newly named Quentin and it took the place of puff,queer and pansy for quite some while,for what seemed like six to eight months ,oh such is the drudgery of time never seems to passes just to have happened.Yes I was Quentin for some little moment.It didn't make school life any more tolerable just a tad more decorative. He was a huge figure to this outsider gawky effeminate,not always easy but all the time huge,towering like an important event you know will happen an event with no tangible end or direction,the twin set and pearl towers. I loved and revered him, he became more than myth in fact almost a pathway, his appearances on television a must see event in the continuing adventures of ageing.In many ways he was the first Boy George, it seemed everyone from grannies to grandies loved him paving the way for a new kind of effeminacy,one that actually involved the many intracacies of homosexuality,an antidote to Mr Humphries and Larry Grayson{although I adore Larry Grayson.}An effete warrior,the blade of his tounge his only weapon barbed, sharp and witty as any rapier. I remember a great sadness in the gay community when he upped sticks in his dreamy creamy dotage.We didn't want him to leave he was our Stately Homo a part and parcel of British queerness, paradoxically and Quentisessenially English as cricket and war.Upped he did and what a transatlantic splash he made an Esther Williams without a swimsuit but with all the buzz of a Berkley routine.We loved him all the more, once again showing the courage and tenacity so evident in his youth and one of the first gay men to prove being an old queen doesn't mean your dead. I had been artist in residence at The Green Room Theatre,Manchester for some good months making poetry slams and performance extravaganses that local history will turn to legend.I had just recently finished an epic piece of work called The Effeminate which was going down great guns at events up and down the country and was widely acknowledged as my best work to date.The Green Room had succsefully secured Mr Crisps tour and he was to perform at the venue very soon,It was fair to middle November and it seemed we were due yet another fire work display not of bangs and bombs but of wit and wisdom.The Green Room and I thought it would be a good idea to introduce Mr Crisp with the poem if of course he would allow it.Then a kind of disaster happened .I say kind of because the death of a nienty two year old man is not the end of anybodys world just the full stop of his,I think it's an exeptional innings and refused to be sad about it. So on the 21st of November 1999,Quentin Crisp died the day before he was to open the British leg of probably his final tour.The Green Room instantly became the centre of focus for peoples grief and was innundated with visitors,callers and press.We held a tribute night in honour of him and had guests performing in front of his hatstanded fedora, a staggeringly simple yet effectve set almost operatic in tone.I hosted the evening and read The Effeminate and my good friend and confidente David Hoyle read extracts from The Naked Civil Servant.It was a wonderful night striking just the right note of camp and melancholy,fine bedfellows I think. The next day I was at The Green Room and Liz my manager came to me looking at the same time shocked and exited.I thought something else was wrong such was her pallour.Chuck who had been travelling and looking after Mr Crisps affairs had said that Quentin was to be cremated at the Southern Cematery ,Chorlton Manchester,and would I and David like to attend as he thought Mr Crisp would have wanted it.You couldn't have knocked me down with a truck full of feathers I was so rigid with exitment. It in many ways seemed the most impossible thing while at the same time the most appropiate.Can you imagine,both David and I were stunned at the wieght of compliment,of course we said yes. The day arrives Liz,David and I set off from our Manchester address.We arrive at the cemetery and I alight from the car in full gingham gowned glory much to the dismay of the other funeral taking place opposite. So much so, I can assure you Comrades they actually stopped grieving yes definately more agog than grieving. We entered the crematorium and met the remainder of Quentins family his niece her husband and two very grown up children. The hearse arrives silent not able to talk of the secret it keeps,and it was Comrades we were sworn to secrecy,no press to grunt tales. It was a remarkably poetic event.No fuss just some little music and a reading by Chuck.Although small it had an epic almost grand guinol atmosphere.It was huge in its smallness rather like a ship in a bottle or a continent on a television screen.It was sad while at the same time historical not just in terms of events but personal history.This man who's name both David and I were called in a derogitory way at school and who had the most profound effect on our lives was about to burn,it was overwhelming Comrades. We later went back to the house he died in for an after funeral buffet.we drank Q.C. sherry and ate Battenberg cake and cucumber sandwiches,it was like stepping back in time because the house had a Victorian design. Mr Crisps niece showed us ancient unseen photographs of Quentin when he was younger playing chess with his then elderely mother,a portal to a byegone age I think we all began to feel more than a little sepia. There you have it Comrades an uncanny full-circling of events from playground to funeral.From television to reality.Real reality not Pop Idol a real idol.One of the most important moments of my life. Never say never Comrades and keep your diarys and minds open to anything because anything just might happen. Comrade Poems X P.S. This might not be the last in the trilogy of camp and effeminancy. 2:18 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment Tuesday, September 12, 2006 F.M.IN.8! Comrades Pansies I am without doubt or confusion an effeminate,a big girls blouse in fact a blouson so florrid and frilly as to be a whole washing line of blouses all aquiver and chattering in the in the pre-cum nubile winds of spring.I'm a breeze in the machismo of tsunami a paddling pool in the vast density of ocean,a rainbow in sun and rain, the calm after a storm. All my childhood life right up to my teenage years I have been in many peoples eyes an insignificense. From family to school a failure and an embarrasment.Why?Because I was born with the most unforgivable of disabilitiesI was like a girl."Your like a girl!"I was hounded by this comment in my youth. "your like a girl, you speak like a girl, you act like a girl."I even ran like a girl Comrades.It seemed there was nowhere to run like a girl or not to escape the torrent of verbal and physical abuse I was subjected to,I also consider this sexuality abuse because it was obviously refering to my inate queerness a queerness they hated and not just couldn't but wouldn't understand.There was absolutely no escape from it,I was wrong, totally wrong even women would tell me it's wrong to be like a girl, that's how deeply buried misogyny is in our psychies,adult women telling a child it's wrong to be like a girl.In fact this abuse is some of my first memories my first experiences as it were.Deep inside I knew they were wrong even from that early age I knew that the people I'm meant to love and respect were wrong, now I don't know about you but I think thats far to much responsibilty to give a toddler.In a sense I was born to be dissolusioned,not nice. I was called all the vile names under the sun not just by other kids who apparently have the God given right to be cruel but by everybody. Puff,pansy,queer,shitstabber you name it I was called it.It was of course terribly isolating to be such a pariah,to be such a pain in the arse so to speak of your community.There was a time I was so ashamed of my voice and so terrified of the reaction it would recieve I actually stopped talking, I just wouldn't speak.People saw it as arrogence but it was quite simply protection.I would dream of being Sue Storm,The Invisible Girl from The Fantastic Four not just because she could vanish at will but she also had the power to create force fields to protect her from harm,I would have killed my mother and a ward full of sick orphaned babies to have had that power.So not speaking became my force field a way of distancing and being invisible.I know I'm not alone in this and would like to take this opportunity to reach out to other girly boys with my poem"The Effeminate" It's not a poem about being weakened by your condition but being empowered by it.We are powerful Comrades,to survive that onlaught without the power of invisibility or force fields makes us a very visible force to be reckoned with.The strength of character one has to develop to simply get through it is testimony to our tenacity and reslove.I believe adversity has made us creative and intelligent,these are the lessons that can't be taught at shool because school was to busy teaching people to be stupid.In a way I believe we are super heroes,super heroes who's powers are not acknowledged because the real truth is no one still wants to acknowledge a queer as beng powerfull,we can be acknowledged as being witty and well dressed even bitchy on good day but not more powerful and stronger than a straight man,I find this a great shame because sometimes Comrades I think we put Superman to shame. Enjoy it and bask in it's truth and joy. Comrade Poems X 11:35 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Friday, September 08, 2006 Camp as a Row of Tense Comrades Officials How the blinkin' 'eck are you?Well I hope and if not ,oops.I'm very jolly today,just chillin' and thinkin'and blinkin' about trains and boats and planes and things that generally make the merry go round."What makes the merry go round Chloe?" I without hearing feel you mutter."Many things," I frantically hear me type,food is good ,water has it's part to play even television can contribute to the cylindrical nature of our planet.For me though Comrades it is and always has been humour.It might be my inherent scousness that makes it manifest but I think more than anything else it's probably my queerness.Theres something about queers and humour that goes as hand in hand as fisting and lube{I suggest Crisco cream though Comrades, a stalwart in the world of hand in anal love.}Camp Comrades,probably saved the lives of many a homosexual,good old fashioned effeminate outrageous camp,where the pink blazes would we be without it?I think camp has singlehandedly kept the world anarchic because theres is no place it fears to tread, it's an effeminate limp wristed giant in the world of humour and intention.At best camp has liberated the homosexual spirit making us fly as free and delirious as an anphetimine crazed parakeet and at worst kept us stagnent in the unwavering unblinking emotionless eye of cliche'."Bugger cliche' and it's nanny state mindset" I screech and soar my pink unthinking birds of paradise allowing your camposity to spew from your mouths as dangerouse as it is improvisational. I believe Comrades camp comes not from a dark bitchy pithy place but from an instant imprsovisational ability to defend ourselves.When we were camp effeminate children and at the receiving end of the hienous bullying and name calling it offered unable to physically fight back, how often did we use our mouths and intellect as weapons?. As well as hysterical I believe camp has an historical context in all our lives.It seems to me Comrades everybody of all sexuality and lifestyle just loves a bit of camp and have done for centuries. If your court jester was as monosyllabic as say Schwarzenegger he wouldn't have kept his monolithic stoneage head for very long,I imagine a lot of court jesters to be as camp as a row of pavilions.The best camp can't be helped,paradoxically the more natural the camp is, the funnier.People trying to affect camp allways seem to fall flat as postage stamps and dominoes.We associate camp with artifice and rightfully so but if it's not evident in the soul it's not evident in the costume.How I hate the unending barrage of hen parties and stag do's that flow like molten drunken lava down Canal Street each weekend,tarted up in ill-fitting ill-judged costumes parading and parodying kind of camp that doesn't really exhist,I find it deeply homophobic and aggresive. Camp stands as tall as The Empire State Comrades and bears a flame more eternal than Libertys,scorching burning and blistering it's way into our collective consciousness,camp is a torch singer unafraid to hit that bum note just as long as that bum note gets a laugh. I recently had the great honour of appearing in a book about camp"Camp In Literature"By Gary McMahon{you can find him hear on MySpace} a rather groundbreaking affair.It's major concern to establish camp as a literary genre no mean feat when you consider the amount of academic non entities who for so long have dissmissed it as literary frippary.It's a great honour to sit in a book alongside such word giants as Quentin Crisp{who's funeral and cremation I attended in the sun subdued city of Manchester, but thats another blog.}Oscar Wilde{whos funeral I have never attended,no fault of mine I was niether born nor invited.}Juan Goytisolo and even the underrated and profoundly underfunded Ed Wood.The book is one of the highlights of my carreer telling me more about my writing than I ever could.It's an intellectual tome that isn't afaid to allow itself the occasional camp flourish akin to Einstien flashing us his pantihose.{of french design I imagine.}It does it's job admirably queering it's bitch and standing it's ground steady,ellegant and elloquent in stilletoes forged by Aristotle. Check it out Comrades it's published by McFarland if you google it you'll find it under McFarland not Old Macdonald an easy mistake. Take Care and drugs my effervescent posse of love and darkness and hold in your hearts the warm scalding adventure that is camp,use your skills wisely because with great power comes great responsibility and amorallity. Comrade PoemsX 2:09 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Thursday, September 07, 2006 Mentoring Comrades fetishists Had a lovely day today working with Claire Morgan a Newcastle friend and performance poet stroke artist.I'v been so called mentoring her,helping develop her one person show, well really it's a two person show as she's working with a ventriloquist doll,how wonderfull.It's been a very rewarding proccess as we've worked through her script bringing out the best in it and generally finding our creative way around it.It's an odd title mentor I think.Not only does it sound like an alien being from a long lost Star Trek pilot"I am The Mentor Captain and I need your Mind!"but it's also a parculiar responsability.You suddenly have to take on bored the mantle of somebody who knows a lot of stuff,cos if you don't know a lot of stuff then what the fuck are you doing mentoring.A wierd headspace for someone like myself who believes responsibility is for Quakers and heterosexuals. I found it profoundly rewarding not just because I'm good at it but that someone has asked one,this one to do it.Quite a humbling experience in many ways insomuch as the mentees need for your information and experience.The great thing about it Comrades is the flow of creative conversation involved it gets really fun and intense rather like riding a rollercoaster with your therapist,up down all around and in my ladies chamber.It makes you realise the joys of sharing not only your ideas but your art.I find that I seem to be learning as much about the subjects we're discussing as the mentee involved,that her ideas are feeding and enriching my own not unlike a grow-bag full of tomato plants and lady birds.Potassium and exo-skeletons a fine analogy. It's got me to thinking is there such a thing as teaching because what Claire and I were doing it seems to me was just talking.Talking in a safe unthreatning enviroment where it was as easy as breathing to be creative, in many ways making the term Mentor kind of redundant.I felt no intellectual distance from her or that my theatrical poetical experiences are somehow better and to be respected, being "The Teacher"felt semi fraudulent, not uncomfortable because it was right and lovely just the term felt fraudulent. So perhaps teaching is a lot easier than we think, perhaps were being taught everyday but because it's not a classroom or called mentoring we ignore it Maybe just being cool with eacother and talking is really all we need to do, sharing experiences without the ugly cloud and downpour of authority drenching us with the insecurity of failing.God I hated school! I don't want to piss off people who love and relish the thought of mentoring it just seems to me to be as easy as boiling an egg,I mean where our mothers mentoring us when they showed us how to make toast or boil a kettle for our Pot Noodle suppers?Where we being mentored when fumbling through the kissing process?I don't think so.There seems to be a lot of self important bolshy drawers around this teaching syndrome so much so it makes distance between two human being who if sat in the pub with a pint would just call the subject matter talking.Perhaps we don't need the distance of teaching at all just sharing and getting drunk might suffice.Perha ps I'm being simplistic and obtuse but today was a joy and without any of the barriers I associate with teaching. Ah well it's been a rewarding and brain filled day with fun and vegaterian cafes in the mix.I like today and what it's done, just not the title. Seems to me we all could learn a little something from everyone be it shopfitting or shoplifting,so easy.Take care my gingham Comrades and let that be a lesson to you,WHAT!Comrade Poems X 5:49 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Wednesday, September 06, 2006 Blog BlaG Comrades desireless Just got to thinking what a wild and wonderfull thing this thing called blogging is,it's fantastic.Revealing, magnificent and demanding in such a gentle way, we read them and read them we damn well do.I love this on line journal stuff our cyber diary if you like,making a mockery of individulism but at the same time giving it a respectfull distance.Even the most nilhist heart must flourish when it comes accross yet another end of the world blog I can allmost see them partying at the prospect.We really do need to talk to eachother don't we Comrades and not just tittle tattle really important talking.I'v read some really lovely stuff on this MySpace planet, stuff I'm glad to have come accross,for example Joe Pops "I Heart Goths."A wonderfully evocative account of his relationship with his youth culture it's both moving and uplifting a real feelgood piece of writing,now who'dve thought you could say that about such a subject I imagine every goth would be turning in thier imaginary graves at the very notion.Joe Pops account of his gothness made me want to be one, a joy to read.I think we are all in some way huddling around a great cyber mother who is tucking us in with our Ovaltine and obbsessions and regailing us with tales of the lost,lonely and downright imaginative or maybe I'm just being oedipal and wierd.I bet there are tonnes of oedipal and wierd stories all over this MySpace thing.I love the free and easy approach to writing people seem to have adopted,that not bullied and influenced by the last book you read type of writing kind of anti-intellectual while at the same time remaining very bright.I love the notion of self publishing making a mockery of Richard and Judys book club and good name.Even typing Richard and Judys name makes me feel ucomfortable, kind of oedipal and wierd.Theres a strange sat round the fire with a cup of tea and bisciuts to this blogging thing,gossiping and jangling without saying a word.We need communities Comrades,like minded groups to share and rant with and here we have one largly invisible but no less a community a working force of storytellers and misfits.I love the way language is used so forthrite and florrid the right side of eloquent and dirty, right up my shitter Comrades.I hate that new American powerspeak which is polluting language that horrific crap spoken in offices in and around our land,thats why I'm so tickled by blogging it's not so much thinking outside the box but writing within it.So lets talk and shout our lives and loves all over the internet giving the language of our voices a shape and visibility reserved for flags at festivals and a can can dancers knickers.I'm not so much hungry for your lives but I am forever peckish,lets smorgasboard Comrades pick and mix our way through the finger buffet of eachothers experiences and feelings.Until we jangle again love and gingham,Comrade Poems X 1:44 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Tuesday, September 05, 2006 Unlovely War Oh Oh Oh What an unlovely war! Comrades Poets What are we going to do about this senseless unlovely ongoing war, this battleground of belligerence and bewilderment that seems to exist persistently and precariously between page and performance poetry. Why can't the pagers accept the performers? Why must their archaic snobbery fog that which is crystal clear? What are we doing that could be considered so terribly wrong? They seem unaware of the histories of poetry and spoken word, that it evolved from the jesters, fools and players, gloriously costumed clowns touring the land and asking their audience to sit upon the ground and tell the sad, tawdry and political stories of the deaths of kings and queens. And how deliciously malleable those tales were; forming, evolving into the histories we either do or don't believe today, even then a medieval counterculture of revisionism with more than a Rabelaisian twist. How I love those old oral traditions and am proud to be a purveyor of some of the finest traditional oral this side of Wilde. Oh dear, how vulgar of me - a tawdry cheap aside - how unEnglish, how unpoetic. I can see the pagers convulsing with unforgiving rage, but I can't ask you to forgive me and my comrades for upholding and shaping an artform built from the very building blocks of performance and literature. I'm not suggesting for one moment that the pun is mightier than the word, but there are times when the pun is happily and confrontationally The Word, and sits as comfortably in Twelfth Night as it does in Carry On Cleo. 'Infamy infamy, the page poets have all got it infamy.' Due to a few recent articles I've been accused by some page poets of damning their craft. I'm not damning you, pagers. Please, don't mistake my concern for petulance. I have read, and continue to read exquisite page poetry, but sadly not enough. At its best, a joy; at its worse, unthoughtout repetition masquerading as intent. In much the same way that celebrity culture has developed lookalikes, I believe we've developed page poet readalikes, for example the word image goddess that is Sylvia Plath, without doubt an original, the Queen Kong of human emotion, how many poets have picked up her style and tried to make it their own? Too many. By aping her Lyrical Highness you are making a monkey for your own back, and a human zoo of same style symmetry and metaphor. Paul Muldoon, arguably the Elvis of his craft; but Paul Muldoon wannabes are the Shakin' Stevens of theirs. So pagers, the awe you have for your heroes, and the rigid form of page poetry, could be why, in my opinion, you are diminishing it. Break the shackles of conceit and intellectual cliché, run wild with rage, trumpet your own tune and march magnificently out of time, with a joi de vivre of your own genre. Believe me, straying from the path could lead you to the Crazy Paving of creative rebirth...a new you. I'm not being defensive and precious about my craft and am aware that performance poetry can, as is the want of any art form, topple almost endlessly into its own cliché, be as grey and boring as the people who might be performing it. BUT THERE IS A RENNAISSANCE Performance poetry is coming alive again, revitalising and redefining its shape, safe in its continuing journey from the formless mists of yesteryear and reconfiguring in today's formidable and often corrosive substance. More and more people are realising there's a space where poetry, performance, theatre and dare I say it, even stand-up, can live simply and effectively in its own commune of creativity. So pagers, lay down your arms, not your writing hands, blow the dust off your prejudices, pop out of those labyrinthian libraries of your minds and find your way to a good old fashioned piece of now. Let's face it, literature, whether it's performance or page, comes from the same place and will one day ultimately be the same thing...history. Be part of it. Comrade Poems X 12:32 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment Monday, September 04, 2006 Free Works Comrades Infantalists What a remarkably fullfilling bunch of days it's been. A heaving hamper of a weekend you might say if your into hampers,weekends or heaving.There are times Comrades I despair as a fledgling chick who's been manhandled so much, it's mother no longer recognises it's scent' squalking for nourishment and gorging only and lonely on oppulent and inedible pollution and there are times I'm a Kingisher flash, a neon of blue, bolt charged and energised as Frankenstien,understanding deep in my heart every cadaver has it's day.This weekend was about so many things it's difficult to list.It was free Comrades unashamedly out and free.It started with The Manchester Book Market a literary fayer of independant publishing,that might be good enough I hear you cheer but wait rabblerousers theres much more to shout about.Part of the event was an open air Live Literature Cafe slap bang in city centre Manchester so anybody could listen and upon my socialist soul they did.We drew a really healthy crowd of bohemians,drunks and people. A true cross section of the communities inhabiting this city and they listened, sat and listened to poetry,prose and whatever else was being said.It was a gloriously warm day the sun shining an invitation for the bourgeois and the dissposessed.My particular favourite was the alcoholic young man who sat drinking his cheap lager and engaging with the readers,nodding and lauging like a polite critic who might later on savage the show in his elite and cultured journal.I loved him and on whatever level it worked on, the event fed him making literature essential as meths.There was a roaring round of applause when it finished making it clear to me that if offered, spoken word can be as immediate as Maddonna and ulimately more satisfying.Then it was off to KaffeQueeria an event organised by a pollitical group of young people who think that commercialised prides say nothing to them about thier lives,an anarchist organisation who demand more than The Cheeky Fucking Girls and Cher impersonaters.It was an evening of self styled alternative caberet wich had me once again sharing the stage with the delightful Rosie Lugosi,Michelle Green and my old scouse mucker Jackie Hagen.It was a ragbag of everything a real bring and bi of established and emerging talent, filling my gingham heart with a pride that might be reserved for a heterosexual mother watching her children in a nativity play,I felt quite the mother hen Comrades clucking with confidence at the tenacity of her brood. It gave me as you say on Earth hope, again a hope born of small and connected not huge and daunting.Thats not all folks!The next day it was back to the book festival, you see I had been so good the day before they asked me back and it was an honour to accept.My God did it piss down[you might have sensed the scouse accent in that exclamation,I certainly typed it in one]The Heavens they opened and preceeded to open till they could open no more and then opened once again.Well as you could imagine I thought no one would sit in this downpour with only the whimsy of a canopy to keep them dry ,would they?They would!Bless thier human hearts,we opened the event and a crowd as healthy as the day before gathered and listened laughed and applauded as though the sun didn't matter.I sensed the energy of revolution and commitment and the desire for community .It was elevating. All of this FREE Comrades,FREE! Not a D.V.D of Carry On Up The Khyber free from The Daily Star but human free,not just the event but the commitment from both the audience and artists,a wider sense of free not just tackling the elements but the desire to be together free.I hope anyone reading this who could help spread the gospel of Spoken Word can understand what if funded prperly it could achieve, because for those two days it might not of won the war but it was certainly brave in battle.If I believed in medals I give it a G.B.H for vallor and honour.[G.B.H.stands for Gobs Before Hatred]So there you go my multi hued Comrades,a lovely weekend of getting wet and freedom,what more could a gay socialist transvestite poet hope for?MORE!I wish you spoken energy and anal words,Comrade PoemsX 1:51 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment