Wednesday 20 January 2010

Blogging's not for me

I like writing.
I always have.
Blogging seems to be a way of sharing your writing with others, without incurring the financial wrath of the Royal Mail.

But it's not for me.

I've been sitting at my PC for nearly three hours now.
I'm trying to post a blog that I wrote on my dysfunctional laptop-thing last week.
I copied & pasted it (they taught me that at City College) and I clicked on the button that said "Publish Now'.
But it wouldn't publish.
It said I had a funny HTML or something, which I took a little personally, as I often do with personal criticism (they taught me that at boarding school)
It said my HTML thing didn't do 'Meta'.

Now I know what 'meta' means (they taught me that at UEA).
But I fail to see what is so meta about my blog post.
It's about fliers on my kitchen wall, and titting-up other poets.
The classical Greek sense of meta, nor the esoteric English language sense, have any connection with my story, so I can only assume that it has something to do with HTML, of which I know nothing.

I do assumption well (they taught me that at altar-boy practice).

If anyone could inform me of what HTML is, I would be forever grateful.
I do hope I haven't overstepped the literary mark with my meta?

Fliers/stroke/Posters



Luke’s in my kitchen

And he asks me why I’ve got a flier

for a Geldeston Locks

gig on my wall?

And I say

“Cos it was a good gig”

And he says

“But no-one turned up.

In fact, more than half the acts weren’t even there.

And it’s got my name on it.

I didn’t perform.

I was there for the conkers, but I didn’t perform!”

“It was a good gig” I say

It’s like my favourite poster, from the good old days, is like..... the Hammersmith gig”

“Yeah but. You didn’t perform” says Luke

“Yeah. But I was on the poster.

I made it to the gig, but I had serious man-flu.

So I went home.

All the way from West London to Norfolk.

On the train

With man-flu.

On my own.”

“It was a shit gig” says Luke.

And I say

“Yeah.

But we’d’ve never’ve got it

if I hadn’t felt-up the promoter's tits”

And Luke says

“Fair point mate.

Fair point.”

Wednesday 13 January 2010

I have a dream....


It’s 30years from now, and the thing that replaces TV is showing the Channel 4 equivalent of "TOP 50 GREATEST WHATEVERS", where B & C list celebrities get nostalgic about an era, or movement, or scene (preferably the same few celebs, with varying anecdotes, so that they can shoot several "TOP 50 GREATEST WHATEVERS" in one day, then fill them out with advertisements for compilation IPodettes, with loose musical connections to one of the aforesaid celebs/anecdotes).
It’s what my generation called ‘aural history’.
Well; in this 30years-hence format, a few of my contemporaries discuss the performance poetry zeitgeist that emerged at the end of the last century, having been born in the aftermath of punk, in the fine works of John Cooper Clarke & Attila, and developed to its zenith at rock & pop festivals the length & breadth of the land.
And how the art form crossed over into rap & hip hop, and the music of Lily & Kate.
And how at least two poet laureates found themselves ‘reading’, in a muddy field, in wellies, and with laminated passes around their necks.

And an ageing Phill Jupitus will say
“And of course, there was the Norwich movement, coming out of UEA and putting places like Cambridge, Southwold and Colchester on the pop-lit map”
.
And it’ll cut to a photo montage of the early pioneers;

Aisle16 with Clarkey, Polar Bear, Scroobius Pip and Francesca Beard.

Posters will fill the screen with laughable venues & entrance-fees in GBP sterling

Sundown. Express Excess. ShortFuse. Homework.

Mr.Gee will tell the Russell Brand story “one more time” and sun-bronzed John Osborne, sipping gin on a Mediterranean yacht will say

“It was a really exciting time. There so much talent around. You had your Dockers MCs, Rachel Pantechnicons, Molly Naylors and don’t forget Yanny Mac & Pikey Paddy”.

And as the technology of the mid 21st Century cuts to its modern equivalent of an ad break for Tena Lady ‘Freshness All Day’, someone, somewhere, will know that I was once a contender.