Thursday, April 28, 2011

A Heathen Scripture blogpost that Randall wants you to read -29/04/2011

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Now I know you don't tune into this blog to read someone else' blog (and good for you), but today's different. I just read an excellent article/blog by my friend Geoff Lemon that's catching a lot of people's attention today on Twitter, and as much as I think Twitter can go eat itself, this really is worth reading.


Anyway, I'll spare you any more preamble because it's on the long side, just do it, click on the link below.



ANZAC Day not for faggots and towelheads











____________________________________









-Peace








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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Overload 2011 – Calling for Submissions

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The good people of Overload have asked me to tell you that (ahem):



"The Melbourne Overload Poetry Festival is the biggest grass roots poetry and spoken word festival in Australia. We are an inclusive and diverse festival that strives to showcase all forms of poetry, on or off the page. Overload has a reputation for pairing the experimental with the traditional, presenting them in an equal light in an accessible way.

From 10 to 19 September, the festival celebrates its 10th anniversary. We have come from being a small collective of regular, mainly pub poetry readings to a 10 day festival with a national and international presence.

In 2011 we want to celebrate this evolution with your help. We are calling for expressions of interest from poets in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia who have ideas for events, a publication or CD they’d like to launch, or would simply like to read their work at Overload.

Go to http://www.overloadpoetry.org/, download and fill out the submission form and return it to Overload before 13 May 2011. Provide as much information as possible: examples of your work, a bio, a thorough description of the event you’re planning, what kind of resources you have or need (publicity, venue, fees, etc), and if you’re coming from outside Melbourne, which dates you’re available.

Send us your proposals via email to submissions@overloadpoetry.org, or by post to Overload Poetry Inc, 176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000. Attach as much support material as you can. If sending via post and you’d like us to return any samples of your work, please provide a SSAE.


Interstate and international poets please note: Overload is unable to offer any financial support for travel or accommodation. However, we will try and make the trip worth your while by offering two gigs at the festival."

















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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Space Between My Ears Like It's a Lagrange Point with Something Up in the Sky -27/04/2011

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In one ear I got Buddy Wakefield's new book saying



"imagine what you would do if you didn't think you could fail"



and



in the other ear I got music producer Kim Lajoie, saying


"you can have your dream come true,
but you'll have to work harder for it than you ever imagined"






and my friends know
I try to be a good listener
but there are days

when I wish everybody






would just SHUT UP for a second.







________________________________




oh and it IS a great book too...















-Peace











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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Irony -19/04/2011

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Irony

is a bumper sticker
sporting an environmental slogan

on the back of a car.

it's the bicycle
being considered a greater danger
to people on the road

than a car.

it is people
who cite convenience and time
as their reason
for driving cars
who sit stuck in traffic

for hours.

it is believing
that rising amounts of carbon
in the air
causing damage
to the biosphere
is a political issue,
and the need
to address that change

considered an issue for debate.

irony
is a country
full of people
who do the most per capita polluting
who stand to suffer the most
from its effects
who are then, also
the least willing
to do



anything



about it.

irony
Is a country
constituted mainly
of endless sun scorched deserts
whose economy
is inextricably linked to natural resources

deeming solar power too expensive

irony
is people
who tell other people
to disregard science
without understanding it themselves
while transmitting their message
on digital signals

carried by satellites.

it’s the people
who cause the problem
denying the problem

its rich people
carrying more debt
paying massive interest to watch boring shows
in high definition

it’s a welfare system
that won’t help you if you’re homeless
unless

you have a mailing address.

irony
is a land stolen
from a seventy-thousand year old culture
where the invaders
who claimed that no one prior owned it
now try and justify

keeping others out of it.

irony
Is invading other people’s countries
stealing their stuff
destroying their cities
their families
their culture
then daring to complain
when a few of these people
flee

and turn up on your doorstep.

Irony is people
more ignorant of the past
the present
the world
the neighbours they have
the freedom and opportunities
they possess
ignorant of all this
now

when information access is free and limitless.

Irony
is a lonely all-consuming search
to find another

while surrounded by millions.

it’s portrayals of the sex act
touch, love and physical contact
on film
considered shameful and obscene,
while the portrayal
of people
shooting other people with guns

is somehow clean.

it's the way you use
violence or ignorance
to push people around
get whatever you want

then claim
those not doing the same
are dangerous

irony
is you not listening to me
while saying
I better listen to you
the way you say
the most horrendous things
yet are so easily offended

how you instantly wind up
when anyone tells you to calm down
pro-life death penalty
censorshipped crucifixion
guardian of information
who has no idea

what to do with that information.

that generosity
Is often hardest to find
amongst those of us
who have the most to give

It is ironic
that those of us
who are best equipped
informed and financed
to make changes

to date, have not

irony
is that you stand to gain much
by discarding a little that hurts you.

with the world waiting
patiently
for you,
urgently to


stop making excuses

and



start making changes





______________________



Okay, one last irony?...

I sat down to quickly blog this as a one-liner poem ('bout the bumper sticker), and two-point-something hours later it's become easily the longest thing I've written all year.












-Peace














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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Wealth -17/04/2011

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I will never get a chance
to go hungry
my entire life.

Poverty
only touches me
when I forget:

the people I know
are the wealth I own

When counting my fortune
in the friends I have

I am rich



rich beyond the dreams of avarice.





___________________________





I've just been spat out the far side of a weekend catching up with friends, some old, some new. I am stupid enough to forget sometimes how much I like people, and forget to pat myself on the back for the one good habit I ever formed in my life: surrounding myself with good people. Or maybe it's just that good people aren't all that hard to find, I don't know.

Thank you all, just for being who you are, and being a part of my life.


Oh and that last line is actually a quote from Star Trek IV ~ but don't tell anyone.














-Peace






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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Saharan Siren Song (an online audio recording) -13/04/2011

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Got a sound cloud, testing testing. If this works, it may change the way I present my work online from now on. Here goes


The Saharan Siren Song by Randall $tephens

or: click on this if you're not seeing a play-button/widget thing above


The Saharan Siren Song

This is the 'radio edit' of track #7 from Product, that Alex and I made for play on Santo Cazzati's 3CR show last year, with the wind tracks and a few extra echoing and sub-vocals added.


Enjoy!




___________________________________





Slowly getting an online presence sorted. (oh brave new world that has such poets in it).









-Peace









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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Randall Telling Tales: Beer Time Stories @ Edinburgh Castle -24/10/2010

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This goes back a few months, a series of afternoons held late last year at the Edinburgh Castle called Beer Time Stories, the theme for the afternoon was:

letters that got you in trouble.

The following is a six minute story about how Randall escaped the white collar world to become... Randall (more so)




or: click on this link if you can't see the video


I've always wanted to do just get up and try doing freestyle story telling. I was a little nervous and probably should have rehearsed-out all those umm and ahhs first, but it was fun, and gets me that one small step closer to being Henry Rollins.




Check out some of the other clips on their beer time stories channel. There are some great ones to be heard, each responding to the given theme differently.





_______________________________



Thanks to Leslie Morris and the crew of Beer Time Stories for inviting me along. Cheers guys!










-Peace










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Asuka Langley Sohryu -11/04/2011

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there was a dead mother in her scream
an absent father in her anger
fear of a touch
like a prickly skin
lunging at scars out her past
pricks jabs and stabs
covered up fierce
in the sharp of her voice
like the need for love

abandoned
and the pain strains
the loss like
the spotlight
on an empty room
fear
like eaten alive
in an eyeless rage blind
when no one her age
could get to her
in time

She attacked
at everything
fighting off angels
as enemies from heaven
til the end
of the world

said she hated everything
hated everyone
never helped herself
by letting others help her

lost

and the more she lost
the more she needed to win
everything to prove
the worse she got
worse she needed
to be better
and better
than anyone else

she was covered in armour
thick red
she was in absolute terror
protected
and


Asuka Sohryu Langley


really

just

needed

a hug


from anyone else around her

but no one else around her
had a way
of giving her one

no one else around her
had a way
of taking the hurt

it takes




to hug such a red hedgehog.











_______________________________





Neon Genesis Evangelion. By prescription only, not to be used in combination with other medications. For external use only, if taken internally contact a health professional for advice.














-Peace

















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Thursday, April 7, 2011

RHUM Comedy Festival review: Melissa Crotty, Changes -4/04/2011

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(click on the link below to read my...)


RHUM review of Melissa Crotty: Changes @ MICF 2011







The things a man'll do for free tickets. And I guess I'm immediately a fascist and a skeptic 'cause I wasn't buying it. I believe in Global Warming, but I don't believe in most people trying to sell us stuff under that banner.





____________________________








-Peace






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RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Big Hoo Haa -03/04/2011

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click on the link below to read my...




RHUM review: The Big Hoo Haa @ MICF 2011











__________________________________









-Peace










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Monday, April 4, 2011

RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic -31/03/2011

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(click on the link below to read my...)


RHUM Comedy Festival review: The Hermitude of Angus, Ecstatic






Does cross promoting my own work make me a sell out? Fuck me I hope so, I mean $o.



______________________________








-Peace









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Sunday, April 3, 2011

Randall reviewing for RHUM at Melbourne Comedy Festival

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Over the next fortnight I'll be doing a few reviews for shows at The Melbourne Comedy Festival, for a media website called RHUM (rabbit hole urban music). I did the same gig last year for these guys, and had a ball.





So between that and my current songwriting project, all poetry activities have been suspended in my constitution until this crisis is over. As the reviews are published I'll post entries here giving you a link to them. Meanwhile have a browse through these previous ones at your leisure, as well as last year's comedy festival, I've done the occasional film, theatre and music review for them too:


Randall's past reviews for RHUM


RHUM are great for giving you license to be as opinionated, biased and ballsy as you like, and writing some of these were a lot of fun.














_______________________________










-Peace









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