Friday, July 29, 2011

The Opposite Of People -29/07/2011

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you can hold
a crowd of hundreds
with more comfort
than carrying a conversation
with one other

you get asked
how you can seem
so confident up there
by people not noticing
the nerves off stage
talking back to them

eyebrow wrestle sweat
the gasping air scratch
hugging yourself
for the space it makes

that knows everything about
you
have told them everything about
you
can't remember umm, anybody's name
anybody watching you

hammering your head
so hard into this art
that it now has it's own corners
to fold needs into
wrists hungry cold
for hands to hold
horny breathing fistfuls
of words unrehearsed
and un-prepared words
more words

words covered with words
in a one sided title fight
one hand tied behind the backs
of claps and laughs
they like you  fuck me
-fuck me-
they really like you

if only you
could be that you
in person or
as a person

you act-modest badly
your performance
of a normal person
is abnormally mediocre
unusual at best

casual conversation
feels like being heckled
or an improv
you're unprepared for
living gig-to-gig
until the show boat spills over
and she just bails out
yet again

because you got nothing
to talk about except...
what you got to talk about

just being yourself
doesn't work so well
for a performer

or maybe this is just another stage
another stage you need to get through

where it's real life
that gives you stage fright




_______________________________________________



"We're actors~ the opposite of people."

Tom Stoppard -Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead







-Peace









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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Like -22/02/2011

.


My tongue wants the taste
of your skin
like a curl of knifed-up butter
melting


wants to be spread





______________________________






-Peace






.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Twin Tower Tease -24/07/2011

.


They struck night out of the car air

against our trip back from Bangsar
conversation rocked to a stop
impossible in vertical in person
straight up eye to eye
and I
finally got it...

skyscraper cum temples

hideously wonderful
twin tower money minarets
beacons for eastern petrol barons


The Petronas Towers


may be the most beautiful things
I barely saw
before being swallowed again
by a greedy and eager
underling skyline.

Those two,
they teased emerald
stood obstinate
and like another and next-best irony~
that you can't see Everest
from its first base camp

they disappeared behind lesser peaks,
office blocked.

Went back looking around Kuala Lumpur
tonight
and couldn't find them hiding anywhere
funnier for the fact
that,
from what I remember,

they didn't strike me
vivid-rigid
austere-elegant
compulsive-obnoxious
like European super model
twins
as the sort of sight
that would care


to hide itself away from you.





_______________________________











-Peace







.

Help me help Syahidah Ishak -Mr $ donating $ for a good cause -24/07/2011

.


Yesterday at the Readings gig, I met a woman named Syahidah Ishak, who spoke to the assembled guests there about the difficulties she has had in getting treatment for a brain tumour (diagnosed almost a year ago), and the need she has to raise funds to have surgery to remove it in the US.





http://www.yvonnefoong.com/2011/07/11/help-syahidah/


I fidgeted through the first few minutes, and I don't really want to expound too many gory details here (the links below can do that for you). Suffice to say: her situation is pretty horrible, getting worse, and she is not receiving much help from people, and worse, is being stigmatised in many ways.


http://mmail.com.my/content/77068-teacher-needs-rm150000-brain-tumour-surgery-us


I guess it comes down to this, summarily: as someone who was messed around pretty badly by a medical/health system myself, my heart went out to Syahidah, and I decided to try helping her in some small way, (other than buying one of her awesome cat badges "REAL MEN LOVE CATS"... c'mon how could I not go for that, fantastic!)





http://www.yvonnefoong.com/2011/07/24/syahidah-raised-rm705-00-at-readings-seksan-gallery/


So, yep, as it indicates in Yvonnes blog there, I'm donating any and all money on the sales of my CD on this tour to Syahidah, in Singapore, Malaysia and Borneo, and back in Sydney. (which will include retroactively those already sold in Singapore and Perth -at the exchange rate they were sold into Malaysian Ringots), it's not much... but it's something I can do, and maybe it'll inspire some people to do more. As I said to the audience yesterday, your applause in nice, but what I need though, is your help.

Besides that/on that note, you'll find a link on her blog, and that of her friend Yvonne Foong (above) on how you can donate directly to her.


http://wwwsyahidahishak.blogspot.com/



So please come along to the show/s, have a funky-good time, laugh in all the right spots, buy my filthy Product and help me help Syahidah.





Thank you






___________________________________









-Peace








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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Lost and Found In Singapore -18/07/2011

.


FOUND:

-a surprising difficulty finding a hostel in Singapore
-a propensity of Indian food places to run out of Idly just before you get there
-a re-ignition of one's tendency to dislike travelling couples
-one growing hole in travel bag
-six extras kilograms of weight previously discarded (no, not on the bag scales)
-one new cellphone number, again
-a revelation that talking to oneself can actually escalate into outright (and out-loud) arguments with oneself
-a sudden interest in chewing-chewing gum
-that of all the food courtiers, the Chinses ones make the worst vegetarian food (or the least imaginative and most MSG-laden anyway)
-pretentious and smug self-satisfaction at being able to use chopsticks (look! look!)
-a ravenous addiction to canned strawberry tea.


LOST:

-three travel buddies
-one bookmark, and it's spot
-shoulder blades that can carry a bag around all day without complaining
-two litres of sweat
-any high-minded carbon-footprint-in-mouth hypocritical disdain for air-conditioning (was last seen in the area of 35 Celsius -possibly it went right out the window around then...)
-the piece of paper where I wrote down the name of that really cool black fruit my couch-surfing host showed me
-a propensity to hold my tongue and not bitch about Melbourne when prompted,
-an interest in German backpackers whining about their whiny girlfriends,
-ability to resist temptation to take photos of every single warning sign or set of pubic instruction one encounters, including the 'no photography' sign
-some hours sleep
-perspective
-patience
-innocence
-a sense of wonder
-pre-conceptions
-that head torch I never use anyway,

and the plot.




(If any of these found items are yours, please contact management immediately. If left unclaimed they will be thrown out in five working days).





__________________________________







-Peace







.