The End of Nothing.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Stage Management - American Style
The criticism of my petition for fringe reform is buggin' me a little. A lot of people are surprising me with their ceremonious offer of backpedalling. "Well, I don't agree with every single point, so I can't sign it" [erm, there's a comments feature] "Some of your suggestions are so unrealistic" [erm, the day after the story ran in the press some millionaire announced plans on sending a cruise ship to Leith Harbor to house artists next year]. And then two self-assigned morons of edfringe.com proceeded to start a ridiculous diatribe on implementing business plans...What is it? Stage management. We have it at every level - no real debate in politics, or on the smaller stages of life.
The deal: "mess with the clique and we attack the messenger, regardless of the message..." cue George Bush.
Funny how a Member of Scottish Parliament is supposed to have put fringe reform on the floor for debate.
How do you get criminals like George Bush in the driver seat? Become ambivalent in everyday life.
Ah Dear Mr. Blair...you said it better the first time:
"This is particularly the attitude of intelligent, cultivated people; one can read the substance of it in a hundred essays. Very few cultivated people have less than (say) [20,000UK 40,000US income per year], and naturally they side with the rich, because they imagine that any liberty conceded to the poor is a threat to their own liberty. Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow-rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions."
--George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Dear Mr. Clinton: Please lose your cool more often. It was refreshing.
The deal: "mess with the clique and we attack the messenger, regardless of the message..." cue George Bush.
Funny how a Member of Scottish Parliament is supposed to have put fringe reform on the floor for debate.
How do you get criminals like George Bush in the driver seat? Become ambivalent in everyday life.
Ah Dear Mr. Blair...you said it better the first time:
"This is particularly the attitude of intelligent, cultivated people; one can read the substance of it in a hundred essays. Very few cultivated people have less than (say) [20,000UK 40,000US income per year], and naturally they side with the rich, because they imagine that any liberty conceded to the poor is a threat to their own liberty. Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow-rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions."
--George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Dear Mr. Clinton: Please lose your cool more often. It was refreshing.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
youth regret, the offering: Valery if you're out there
Ever wake up alone? I tend to prefer it. I think I do. Not interested in state-installed Valentine's day pookery, or primetime television espisodic battles of control. With everyone marrying Jesus and Mohammed these days...and open relationships, I can't get me head around much of it. I can fill my day with art, literature, history or a damn-good argument on the internet. Arthur Rimbaud makes a terrific lover. So does Isadora Duncan. Thelonius is a good friend. I have raw oysters and champagne whenever I make a celebration.
In the midst my litany of unattachment remains a nagging memory: My mid-twenties in the early nineties, New York City, East Village, Thirteenth Street. Drinking too much, working too much, wearing my leather motorcycle jacket all the time. People dropping like flies from AIDS. Soul II Soul next to DeeeLite on the jukeboxes. Woke up with a guy named Valery. Eastern European. Blonde. Russia...Poland, I think Russia. We spent time, saw each other. He was ready to stick around. Something in my gut said 'you'll be sorry' just before he left for Arizona. The cards and letters came. I didn't notice what they really said 'til years later. One and only person, to which I am not genetically related, to say 'special', 'love', and the like. That I now believe. I've scoured the cards, no surname, no return address. Ran a light-leaded pencial over them, in case of an indention, a clue. All that's left are the words most in our society would die for. Many do, certainly.
Valery. Arizona.
I could let Auden pack-in September.
In the midst my litany of unattachment remains a nagging memory: My mid-twenties in the early nineties, New York City, East Village, Thirteenth Street. Drinking too much, working too much, wearing my leather motorcycle jacket all the time. People dropping like flies from AIDS. Soul II Soul next to DeeeLite on the jukeboxes. Woke up with a guy named Valery. Eastern European. Blonde. Russia...Poland, I think Russia. We spent time, saw each other. He was ready to stick around. Something in my gut said 'you'll be sorry' just before he left for Arizona. The cards and letters came. I didn't notice what they really said 'til years later. One and only person, to which I am not genetically related, to say 'special', 'love', and the like. That I now believe. I've scoured the cards, no surname, no return address. Ran a light-leaded pencial over them, in case of an indention, a clue. All that's left are the words most in our society would die for. Many do, certainly.
Valery. Arizona.
I could let Auden pack-in September.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Summer of...
Busy summer. The Fringe Festival. Writing. Performing and that. I decided to start this fancy new blog because I've not been doing it for quite some time. Did my own show on the Fringe which was a complete success. I had 15 people each night in a room for 200. It was cozy.
Brought another show over from the states which was a nightmare. Word to the wise: never work with so-called friends who claim to be so-called stars. But if you do, watch out for the pills they pop. My hunch: hormones, steroids and sleeping pills tend to get in the way of being a 'star'. Go figure.
Was on BBC radio on Monday for 9/11. I was the only person on the show who was actually in New York on the day. Go figure. The show was simulcast with a station in Dallas, Texas. Texas: American mistake extraordinaire. The Dallas commentator attacked everyone, gave speeches about the virtues of King George and got offended when I called him an 'asshole' on the air. There was no badword delay due to the simulcast. Haha. Asshole.
To lighten the mood, I did my recurring bit on Nexuslive on Friday. They'd asked me to speak on something to do with school being back in session - Fresher's Week. Something in line with an homage I'd written to Allan Bloom for the Scottish Book Collector. Decided to probe Edinburgh Uni's website, for official fresher functions. Result: all manner of boozing parties, club nights, game show parodies. So, being in the happy 9/11 frame of mind, I googled in search of other student activities, and put them together in a neat little presentation.
A simple wikipedia search...active students everywhere...Sophie Scholl and the White Rose students - beheaded by Nazi's for writing letters...the Greensboro 4 - black students who decided to have lunch at Woolworth's...Akbar Mohammadi - an Iranian student who died on a hunger strike just this past July...Tianamen Square Students...Kent State Students...who knew? what - no beer?
It went over well. Better than the BBC show. Email me and I'll send you the ppt file. In the meantime, I'm going out to find more ways of empowering freethinking humanity against the fascist end-of-the-world regimes. It ain't over.
Thanks for having me back :)
Martin
Brought another show over from the states which was a nightmare. Word to the wise: never work with so-called friends who claim to be so-called stars. But if you do, watch out for the pills they pop. My hunch: hormones, steroids and sleeping pills tend to get in the way of being a 'star'. Go figure.
Was on BBC radio on Monday for 9/11. I was the only person on the show who was actually in New York on the day. Go figure. The show was simulcast with a station in Dallas, Texas. Texas: American mistake extraordinaire. The Dallas commentator attacked everyone, gave speeches about the virtues of King George and got offended when I called him an 'asshole' on the air. There was no badword delay due to the simulcast. Haha. Asshole.
To lighten the mood, I did my recurring bit on Nexuslive on Friday. They'd asked me to speak on something to do with school being back in session - Fresher's Week. Something in line with an homage I'd written to Allan Bloom for the Scottish Book Collector. Decided to probe Edinburgh Uni's website, for official fresher functions. Result: all manner of boozing parties, club nights, game show parodies. So, being in the happy 9/11 frame of mind, I googled in search of other student activities, and put them together in a neat little presentation.
A simple wikipedia search...active students everywhere...Sophie Scholl and the White Rose students - beheaded by Nazi's for writing letters...the Greensboro 4 - black students who decided to have lunch at Woolworth's...Akbar Mohammadi - an Iranian student who died on a hunger strike just this past July...Tianamen Square Students...Kent State Students...who knew? what - no beer?
It went over well. Better than the BBC show. Email me and I'll send you the ppt file. In the meantime, I'm going out to find more ways of empowering freethinking humanity against the fascist end-of-the-world regimes. It ain't over.
Thanks for having me back :)
Martin
