A different brain space...

Photo credit: www.vintageprints.ca

Performing is integral to my art.

So I'm finding it really really realllllly hard to get it suitable for print.

I'm trying to put together a zine of some of my best work and some of the stuff that's never made it to the stage, and I gotta say, it's not easy.

Editing and fixing and fixing and editing and making sure the layout's good and running down to officeworks to print only to realise it's not right so editing and fixing and geez it'd look good in colour but i'm not rich so it's gonna have to be black and white oh mannnnnnnnn it looks terrible!!!.... blah blah blahhhh...

But it's rewarding to revisit some of my stuff from over the years that has sat there in hibernation, waiting for something other than a stage performance to let itself out of the shadows.

Pieces like The Seamstress, about a sinister old magic lady who weaves her spells throughout a small town.

Tales from Stradbroke Island last year when I met a beautiful lady who introduced herself as "Mars-like -the-planet-chocolate". 

She drove me to the ferry.

And other bits and bobs that have floated about in my subconscious.

Sometimes there is art that needs a different medium to spring forth. Whole and clear.

They certainly weren't coming out for the stage.

But now that I've thought about them with a different brain space...

who knows?

Let's play. In different ways.

The Sorry Tree

It's World Suicide Prevention Day, and after being introduced to the crew from Soften The Fuck Up, I thought I would write a piece concerning the taboo of suicide, especially in young men. However, I always felt it was rather forced for me to talk about something that wasn't directly related to me. Then I realised if I don't talk about it, and leave it only to those with first-hand experience, I just contribute to the very taboo I'm talking about.

I met a guy a year ago who talked about when I was in my rap crew M.A.S. and how, when I left, a few fellahs followed my art still.
Then he told me when they "fell off".
At first I didn't know what he meant.
Then it clicked, and I understood.

This piece is dedicated to those boys, whose names I don't know, whose faces I never saw, but knew me as someone, or something, that made their life a bit brighter.
And also to those boys who I never met and will never know and who never knew me at all.

Peace. Love to you.
Scotty

Rebirth

Once again the QLD Poetry Festival and the QLD State Poetry Slam are over for another year. Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup is done and dusted and all that is left is the party and the sunshine of B.F.F. and Brisbane Festival, West End Street Party (22nd September) etc etc... all in all though, the peak of the words are done for another year!

And at Jam Jar Poetry Slam on Sunday I was lucky enough to experience some of the spill-over from that. We had 12 poets sign up, most of whom I'd never seen before but had come to the slams and the poetry events throughout Brisbane.

Also, I got to witness one of my workshop participants win the slam on sunday, after having a huge growth in performance after entering Nimbin and the state slam. It's so great to see people go from strength to strength and realise there is no final product in poetry, or even art in general. You just keep going. Keep creating. Keep challenging yourself in new and exciting ways.

So good on you newbies, semi-newbies and not-so-newbies. Let's keep going.

I know this next year will be challenging for me in my pursuit of constant challenge and creation.

It might be time to write a show.

It might be time to tour overseas.

Either way the poetry community is in safe hands.

Yearly breakdown, break it down!

Oh my my... so I told you I was no good at keeping up with this stuff eh? Very unprofessional they tsk... but seriously... I'm just not good at writing all this out and sometimes it just becomes me venting or talking shit and I do enough of that on stage.

But anyway. What's happening?How's your 2012 going? Oh that's good/bad. Oh my.

Well I toured Melbourne last year. Hip hooray. Very successful according to feedback. I like doing shows more than I like writing in blogs because that way you can actually kinda know who I am. I'm a stage person. I like to move. To imbue meaning through words and action. Written poetry is very hard for me because it leaves out that part of the game that I like: the expression.

So this year, after doing woodford and melbourne, I'm going to go for big things.

No I'm not trying to take over the world pinky. But I would like to reach as many people with as many stories as possible.

I love Tim Minchin see? And Roald Dahl. And Ursula K. Le Guin.

The reason I bring them up is because you can watch or read anything by them and it is at once easily accessible and yet thought provoking (OK for Le Guin fans I know that some of her sci fi is incredibly dense and an acquired taste, but that's beside the point).

So I want to play smart, get active, and move crowds. Sounds easy but it's not.

And some poets out there, even some of my friends, love to raise their nose and say that's like selling out, it's like compromising your art, it's like, just not poetry man...

Well I find that point of view not only incredibly boooooooooooring but fuckin ironic. You see, to want to be great, you have to acknowledge certain things within yourself. You have to peer at yourself in the mirror and say "well, what are you going to say that's just SOOOO fuckin special mate? Who's going to want to hear YOU speak?"

And those questions leave you with answers you never thought were there. Nor ever considered before.

But when artists say "I DON'T DO THIS" or "I only do paid gigs" (that's always one for a chuckle) or "that's too easy... ohhh look at how difficult and thought provoking I am." You're placing limitations on yourself and your art. What you're actually saying is "I'm so far up my own arse to give a fuck what an audience thinks, their intelligence, their capability of holding meaning, joy, and all things art related." You're admitting you're an up yourself tosser who would rather be the fuckin elite.

"You didn't GET my poem? oh, poor YOU..."

So that's why I'm going to go to Canberra this week and blow up BAD SLAM! NO BISCUIT! on Wednesday 15th Feb, with my good friend Doubting Thomas.

That's why I'm going to perform in the installation art of Julie-Anne Milinski, the staircases, the elevator and the street corner at Metro Arts this Saturday (18th Feb) night for BEAF.

That's why when JAM JAR Poetry Slam (26th Feb) comes along I'm going to do my best to entertain, provoke and lift my game. Move. Engage the stage. Create great things through words. Because when you do that you're saying "I care about my audience and I want to give you the best. I want to tell you a story I find important. And most of all, I'm going to have a ball doing it. Because I love it and it's fun."

And I'll get paid bugger all, be out of pocket, be hungry and be lost for where to go next. And I will fail. I'll do really lame stuff. And I'll do stuff that I don't think is that good but people will like it.

I WILL TAKE RISKS!

And I'll love every step on this starving path.

And there might be dragons!

Welcome to 2012.

Other vagrants

It's been a busy year and such... Uni + Poetry + Relationships = Crazy. But I've been privileged to know and get to know many amazing artists, teachers, organisers and general vagrants of the world.

Most notably I have been a part of The Broken Records Collective for the past year with Betsy Turcot and Doubting Thomas.

Check it out, we like you, don't be afraid.

Just last Sunday I was involved with a new Spoken Word event in West End at a great lil space called Jam Jar. It involved accapella, acoustic spoken word/slam/performance poetry (so NO mics!) in a dynamic area out the back of the restaurant. The way the space sat, the crowd involvement and the abilities of the poets/rappers/slammers combined into a truly unique view of the spoken word world.

Joelistics, Doubting Thomas, Fern Thompsett, Geoff Lemon (check out his new job at Going Down Swinging too), and myself all had a lot to share and the crowd went away NOT saying negative things. Happy days. In fact there was a discreet air of people impressed with something a bit new and a bit different, kinda like if you go to Bread Top and buy a crazy roll made from green tea and it's actually yum. So yum... Damn green tea rolls...

This video was made on the (supposed) last day on earth. Rapture baby...

Darkwing Dubs - If Jesus Was Born Again. from thomas on Vimeo.

Made by Thomas Day and Darkwing Dubs sauntering through West End's main strip.

When the world begins again

So I've decided to give this another go. When last I blogged stuff it felt really weird and uninviting, especially to me. I don't think there was anything bad about what was on here. But... I dunno... it just kinda got the better of me until I convinced myself to tear the fuckin site down. Which is impossible or something because it's still here, blinking at me like the eye of Sauron.

The picture is from my recent trip to NT and a small Indigenous community I visited to volunteer in a school holiday program. I spent much time writing and exploring the surrounding countryside, when I wasn't playing basketball with kids who taught me to swear in Arrente language...

There's a road that leads to

nowhere

and everywhere

at once.

Where the earth stares at the

stars

and can't hide its

lust.

Where they roll out the

red carpet for you.

Red sky

and

red dust.

On this road that leads to

nowhere

and everywhere

at once.