“Everyone” is an artist..”

i suppose he could have just been a nice guy?

I was sitting on my own in the queen elizabeth hall at the south bank centre. Ladytron were playing. I must be honest, their we’re-so-cool-we’re-beyond-emoting-shtick aint quite my thing, but their sound is flawless. to sweeten the deal, on a ginormous screen behind the band, the films of lillian shwartz were screening…i could have done a lot worse on a friday night.

I was sitting on my own because my girlfriend is working with this band called Tetine, and she  had to leave to set up a camera to film their set. previously to her departure we had been kissing quite…heavily. Shortly after her exit, a guy sitting a row behind me decided to strike up a conversation. as he began his interruption it did not escape me that he may have been paying attention to me and my girlfirend before. and though i’m no ego freak, logic related that my short skirt and fishnet stockings might have encouraged him a tad as well. i tried to maintain an ice queen’s composure but he was undeterred.

he was in his late thirties. a kind of "faded punk rocker" with a short mohican and a seen better days leather jacket. his opening line to me was

I’m not that impressed (nodding towards the band)
are you?

to his credit, this was quite a punk thing to say, as the event had been curated by ladytron, was headlined by ladytron, and probably would have garnered far fewer attendants without them. nevertheless i found myself responding

no…not really.

they used to be so brilliant. i’m not so into their new stuff.

i guess its just gone a different direction. i’m more into the first album

yeah! light and-

no,
the FIRST one. 604.

he nodded sagely and it was clear he had no idea what i was talking about. i turned back to the band. but I had made the mistake of responding and would not be let off so easily.

why are you here then?

my girlfriend is working with one of the bands in the event. tetine

ooooh yeah. bruno and eli. i know them. you mates with them?

my girlfriend is working with them… (deja vu?)

he nodded, unsure where to go after this. and then after a pause, he went in for the kill.

do you know a station called resonance?

i nodded. feigning interest in ladytron like i had never known before.

yeah well.. i’m doing this show. you make music?

My no sounded a bit too cold even to my own disinterested ears, so out of politeness i added

do you?

no. i wish i did… so what do you do?

COULD IT BE MY LEAST FAVOURITE QUESTION IN THE SMALL TALK UNIVERSE??!!!

I work in animation.

REALLY?????!!!!!!!!

as my new "friend" prattled on and on about dreamworks and pixar and disney i nodded numbly and longed for the time when my answer had been "i work in a bar"
the beauty of this answer is that it allows only two definitive follow up questions
1. oh…which bar?
2….Do you..like it?

and sometimes "how long you been doing that?"
generally followed by a total end to the topic of occupation and often and end to the conversation altogether. why is it you always are doing something "interesting" when you are talking to someone you’d rather not be interested?

but now the guy was looking at me expectantly and I realised he must have asked another question. I played dumb.

um..sorry?

would i have seen anything you’ve done?

not unless you wake up at 7 on saturday mornings.

he laughed..far too uproariously.

what channell?

bbc.

g-reat!

mmm

you know you could come and talk on my show.
i get five people to talk about arts events or films they’ve seen recently.
you could be on it. i’ll give you my card. i’m serious!!

i suppose he expected me to go all doe eyed, blushing, batting my lashes only to murmur ecstatically

"m-oi!!! on… radio?!!! rrrrrrrrrrrrreallly???"

but instead i nodded and turned back to the band. he continued to talk over my shoulder.there had only been three songs in the gig i had been psyched to see/hear. i’d seen two and had my fingers crossed for the third. and as the first synth chords of it rang out

….they only want you when you’re…

you could talk about… animation!… experimental animation.. (he floundered)
abstract art film!

if my girlfriend had been there she would have laughed. i must be the only hipster in the world who worships narrative. my knowledge of abstract art film is minimal for very concious reasons.

………they take a polaroid…..

i’m in animation by accident. its just what i do..

oh…

he seemed confused. in all fairness if i’d had heard someone say that three years ago i would have been just as flummoxed.

………..they only want you when

ok..but

why did he have to talk over the track? why had he come to the event? To hassle girls in miniskirts to be on his art radio show? it seemed an expensive way to go about it.

so what’s your passion… in film?

I shook my head.

you know i used to know?
but honestly i couldn’t tell you. ask me again in two years.

but there must be something you want to talk about, on the show?
I’m for real you know? i can give you my card?

i noticed that he’d said "give you my card" one too many times without presenting it. i was swiftly losing faith that said cards existed. the last chords of the track were ringing out. the audience was going mental

………..say they’ll let you know.. so come on…"

are you going to see tetine?

….yes

i silently pleaded he wouldn’t ask to walk out with me.

i’ll see you out there (thank you!)

as i walked out i wondered if i’d become too cynical. it was a legitimate radio station. i googled his show a day later and sure enough there it was. and old school punk rockers are sincere by definition aren’t they?

but then maybe it was because out of our short conversation the only "credentials" i’d revealed were

• kissing a girl
• wearing a short skirt
• not being a big ladytron fan (at a ladytron event)
• being vague about my work
• admitting a lack of passion about film ( a carefully told bare faced lie)

so maybe i’m not cynical. just pragmatic. but then maybe…

he could have just been a nice guy?????

  click on the picture.

7 or 8 years ago i met a very beautiful young man who told me he was a writer. we had met through a friend and had an easy instantaneous rapport with each other.

he was working in a high end bond street shop, i was working in a not so high end charing cross road shop. from time to time we would meet up. i suppose i kind of looked up to him . he seemed so confident about his work. he was going to write "the novel" . THE NOVEL. everything in his day to day life was "research" he was always reading or writing,

(even when he was meant to be working). he called the store "the office". he told me that working for a luxury brand was like donnie brasco, going under cover. he was going to infiltrate the capitalist system, and just happen to look fabulous in the clothes at the same time.

when i graduated from film school , he gave me a card that read

"congratulations.
now,,, live like a student as long as you can.
for when you stop, the problems begin.

i did find this true, and saw it as somehow wise, I have since repeated those words to others who have left the sometimes shelter of art school for the big wide world. i was in awe of his confidence (especially in his writing) but mostly i was in awe of his beauty. meanwhile i think he was interested in me as someone who would be enthusiastic about his work. he could tell that i was more interested in his beauty, and it annoyed him… but i couldn’t help almost… staring .i had never met a man who was so aesthetically perfect. it fascinated me. it made me feel superficial. the funny thing was i never felt attracted to him.. he seemed like a living art object and i couldn’t help losing my attention at whatever it was we were talking about. it was as if i couldn’t understand his face.

i couldn’t understand the amount of symmetry, and chiseled cheekbones, and strong jaw, and full lips. boys didn’t look like that, unless they were models. and i certainly had never met a male model before.
on the rare occasion he referred to his beauty, he spoke of it as a burden. he was totally self aware . perilously close to arrogance, but somehow not annoyingly so.

he hated the idea of capitalism, loathed globalization, and yet proudly and stylishly wore the clothes of the store he worked for. if ever teased about this hypocrisy, he would shrug. he just couldn’t fault the cloth or cut. all in all he was incongruous , and he liked to make bold statements that were meant to provoke. i remember him saying he didn’t trust women, any woman, maybe his mom at a stretch..

maybe…

and when i came out to him, he said this made me potentially trustworthy as i would not be inclined to use him or screw with his head. true to his word i never played mind games, but he got a lot of mileage messing with mine. i remember having a fall out with our mutual friend. i talked it over with him in  a cavernous covent garden bar, and instead of the solace i expect to receive he plunged into psychotic theories. she was an accessory. someone whose quirkiness i fetishized, but certainly didn’t care for genuinely as a friend. . it sounds ridiculous now, but he was as clever as he was beautiful, he talked me round in circles until my head spun and there was no more reasoning. when he finally broke me and i cried in desperation, he took back what he said. only then had i proved my sincerity.

the last time i saw him he was distant with me. partly because he’d lent me a book that i never returned, partly because i didn’t show the same level of absorption when he spoke of THE NOVEL and most crucially because when i read sections of THE NOVEL i was honest and critical. clearly THE NOVEL was not to be challenged… but as he was such an "interesting" character, i did wonder about him from time to time. i had heard that he had left bond street for new york and had publishers to meet over THE NOVEL. (i have to capitalise "the novel" so you understand the reverence in which it was always referred to) i remembered that he was against computers for creating work. the first draft was always scribbled in note books to be transcribed later.

over the years i always felt a bit guilty about still having the book he lent me. i bought my own copy finally, telling myself that the copy i had wasn’t mine, even though i doubted i would ever see him again. and then time passed and i forgot about it. until months ago when i moved into my new flat and unpacked my books, there were two copies of this volume, one a well worn hardback, the other a virgin paperback. why did i have two? and then i remembered. i thought about sending the paperback version to a friend i like to collaborate with..but i never managed to get round to posting it. which brings us to today.

i’m on the bus going home with mates. and as we are chattering away in the corner of my peripheral i see him. i remember that his mum lived at the end of the bus route i was on. as much as i kept up with my friend’s conversation i couldn’t help listening in to him. two girls sat with him. he spoke in soft tones, his charisma cranked high, the girls eagerly hanging on his words. he was speaking of course of "the novel" . and from the little i gleaned from listening, it was a repeat performance of the monologue i had received all those years ago. this made me smile. i tuned out and returned to my friends conversation. the two girls with him left. finally my friends left. i had 3 stops to go. i sat next to him and asked if he remembered me. he was cool but his eyes registered bemused familiarity.

the funny thing about this city is as big at it is you get so used to the small worldliness of it, that these encounters phase you less and less. he told me he had been to new york and was still working on the novel, as "these things take longer than you would think." and he was vague about where he was working and vague about living with his mum, but the mystery he once had evaporated, as i could easily imagine him now working in another shop, and not being bothered to lose the financial benefits living at home must provide. suddenly he advice to "live as a student" took on a new light. he was certainly living his gospel, but in a way that seemed more escapist than focused. he asked me about me and i was stuck. i gave a 5 line summary of where i worked, what i wanted to do with my own work, and having moved to the area. he seemed impressed that i worked in animation, i wondered why. i said i was still writing but had given up on writing features. i didn’t have "the stamina to sustain such a long work". then i wondered if he took it as a dig, then decided if so i didn’t care., i told him i still had the book he had lent me and would be happy to return it.

but as it was clear neither of us wanted to meet up, and he was vague about where he worked (i’m guessing he’s in a bookshop now)

i joked that i would keep the book in my bag in case we ever had another random meeting on the 55 bus. then it was my stop. i kissed him on the cheek, bolted down the stairs (the bus doors are fickle in how quickly they stay open) and walked to my flat, not once looking back. and now having written this i wonder, will he ever finish the NOVEL? because somehow finishing it would negate his essence. what would he talk about then?

 

I’m not quite together today. Yesterday I had plans to go to a friend’s art exhibition. A small event where I would show my face, nod knowingly at the work,  smile, chat a bit to any I knew,and go home by 8. How I instead ended up debating gender politics

and paul smith (as separate topics of conversation mind you) whilst juggling a generously poured old fashioned and a rather modernist glass bottle of sparkling water… well , I guess I’m not very good at saying no.

 

Actually,  the evening began with saying no. As an attempt at being twee and ironic, the exhibition featured a few ladies who seemed vaguely related to the burlesque scene. Their task at the exhibition (other than to look pretty and twee and have their picture taken) was to offer trays of drinks, cake, and cookies. I was asked many times as there weren’t many people at the exhibition when I arrived. And so in a small room again and again it was me vs. the cake girls . I know that Madonna was playing for most of the time, but the soundtrack I remember is an endless mash up of

 

“would you like cake?

 

Would you like some cake?

 

Would you like cake?

Cake?”

 

and to this with gradually less of an air of politeness, I said “no”

A friend was coming to meet me, when he came I had to get out of there. He loved the art school vibe of the exhibition but understood I had been there a little too long to enjoy. We traipsed off to the ruby lounge,

 A dark red velvety bar with half decent cocktails. My friend explained financial woes and I offered to buy us both a couple rounds of drinks. I started with a nicely tart cosmopolitan, then moved on to wine. And transformed by the two rounds of drinks my

broke

 

friend now wanted to take a black cab

to old street to go to another cocktail bar. It was only half way through the ride that we realised we didn’t have enough money to pay for the full journey. Sheepishly we fessed up to the cab driver, who kindly drove us to the bar anyway.

I wish I could have tipped him..

 

I think I would have been fine if we just had “a nightcap”. But somehow my caipirina morphed into a bellini and then the manager was giving us shots. i know I wasn’t quite myself, and may have tried to express as much.

I began to resent my heels and pencil skirt for restricting my movement,

and started wishing I could finally understand how to teleport, for a quick way home. But I was being escorted to another bar, my arm loosely threaded in my friend’s.

the bar was a gorgeous haven of antiques and expensive liquers. Everything felt a bit too fluid. Were my legs crossed or open? was I slumped over or sitting straight?

 

Somehow we got to my house, and my friend was trying to get his girlfriend to come over, I think maybe for all of us to drink more. She was on her way home, she convinced him that a much better idea was for him to wait for her at her house. (An idea I was much enamored of, as suddenly all I could think about was lying down.) so my friend left, I had 10 or 12 pints of water, took off my eye make up (badly) and crawled into my ice cold bed. Apparently a hot water bottle was filled and placed in the bed as well. But I really have no recollection of how it got there.

 

I must have text the lady to say I was in hangover hell already as she came back from work in nurse mode. I think she made me drink more water and got me to go back to sleep.

 

This morning I woke up at 7.30 and spent an hour staring into my closet utterly confused by its contents. Couldn’t I just go to work in my pajamas? My desk is at the back. If I kept my coat on no one would notice. I seriously ponder this over until I remember that I have plans today.

 

Today I have plans to go to an invitation only networking party for women in work in “media”. Today is also a good friend’s birthday. Today was the day I was supposed to be clever, stylish, sophisticated.

Today my alcohol tolerance was going to flex its muscles,

as I chain smoked and chatted. But often it’s the nights out you don’t plan at all that knock you for six. Now I have to go to this event with the hazy residual of a hangover. I have tried to compensate for this stylistically. Hopefully the fact I am still too light headed to talk will make me, quiet in an  intriguing way?

Maybe women will come up to me wondering who the quiet red lipped woman knocking back bottles of sparkling water is?

Or maybe not…

If you clicked on the title of the entry expecting something racy, or perhaps even just curse word heavy I may have led you on slightly. Only… maybe not really. Because the funny thing about the f word I’m thinking of, is it actually carries far more weight then the one you may have in mind. And because I know this word once used may make you turn away from the screen, navigate away from the site, or perhaps even scan ahead in the entry with some trepidation, I ‘m going to use that word even more repeatedly. Are you ready for the first time? I’m going to used boldface and capitals…and as its written, you can’t even bleep it out..

 

FEMINIST

 

Wait wait… still there? Here’s another one… and if you can please hold back your sighs, groans, or raised eyebrows

 

FEMINISM.

 

Now was that really so hard?

 

The weirdest thing about pop culture’s current relationship with feminism is that it still carries images of screaming bra burning activists, and stern suffragettes. In a time where women have really come along way forward, we seem very uncomfortable with both celebrating it, and recognizing how far we have to go.

 

Two steps forward, three steps back.  Today’s woman’s magazines have a lot of very intelligent and informative articles about domestic violence, sexual harassment and equality in the work place. Unfortunately all of these important and positive messages are backed by extensive advertising for cosmetic surgery, anti-age serums, and “beauty” imagery that can only make most of its readers more uncomfortable about their image. It can be awkward to reconcile yourself. My female friends are intelligent, sassy and very successful in their chosen careers. They also don’t take lightly to being pushed around. However it aggravates me slightly that for so many of them statements related to womens’ issues are always carefully preceded by the statement

 

“ I’m not a feminist but…”

 

I carry a lot of labels quite happily, and the word feminism is never one I’ve shied from. I always instinctively felt that the stigma attached to the word feminist was wrong.

 

And maybe even because of that stigma, there was something radical about attaching myself to it. 12 years since claiming the term, I’ve suddenly found myself curious about this label i’d been carrying around.  So I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I see it as catching up. Because the other problem a great number of women in our generation are facing is we are not nearly as aware enough of just how critical the state of play is, and even worse most of us are afraid to talk about it. Why are we afraid to talk about it, when that is obviously the only way we can build solidarity and move forward?

 

Because too many of us are scared of being branded “feminist”.

Is it really so dirty a word?

 

The broadest most basic definitions is very straight forward and not offensive to anyone.

 

Feminist = someone who believes in the empowerment of women.

Done.

 

If you’re reading this can you really say that definition does not apply to you? Male, female , young or old?

 

I really hope this doesn’t come across as ranting. I just feel a bit embarrassed about my own lack of awareness and am really grateful that I’m finally starting to pay attention and understand. It is about realising how indoctrinated you are in terms of body image, how little you are fighting to make change. (That doesn’t necessarily mean joining protests, it can mean being comfortable in positively valuating yourself or even arguing for a raise, or for balancing the workload of  extra chores you may naturally take on in your shared home. (complaining doesn’t count unless you affect change) we’ve all (men and women) become dangerously distracted by the shouting of a few people, a few factions, when we should be just distilling the greater problem. It affects not only the work place, but relationships between men and women, and women and women on the whole.

 

Lets please stop treating feminism as a dirty word. Or say that it is no longer relevant. It hasn’t finished yet.

 

Women in full-time work earn 19% less than men, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

Research suggests that about one percent (1%) of female adolescents have anorexia. That means that about one out of every one hundred young women between ten and twenty are starving themselves, sometimes to death

 

A recent survey showed that 42 per cent of teenagers had considered cosmetic surgery and another found that 7 per cent of women are considering a facelift.

 

· Nearly 1/3 of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.

This is not about an archetype of so-called men hating shouting separatists. This is about you, or your sister, mother, wife, girlfriend or friend. We-have-a-long-way-to-go

 

i have a canadian friend (whose parents are from india) who believes that you can always get a sense of someone’s race by hearing them speak (regardless of regional accent etc.) No one can argue that this is NEVER the case, but i’ve always disputed it as a rule . For example, several months ago i had the arduous task of phoning the police, as i had just been mugged. The policeman i spoke to (who to me sounded like an east london asian) took details of the incident, and when it came to my race he said

" you’re white yeah?"

as if it was something to be taken for granted. This no achievement in deception, just an attestment to the politics of sound.

My friends have various racial cultural an ethnic backgrounds between them. however, judged on voice alone, i think many would be hard pressed, to correctly specify the cultural backgrounds of their parents. We are second generation something or others, grown up in western cultures. the german, british and american accents clouding the presence of all else.

I’m thinking about all this, because about a month ago we had audtions for a new show at work. One of the characters is a feisty black teenage girl. As it is an animated show, one could argue that the race of the voice artist is irrelevant. For me however it has become clear that casting directors and agents still don’t consider people of colour  for voices that belong to caucasion characters . illlustrated or otherwise. Given the rare chance of casting a black character i wanted to make an effort to call in black voiceover artists for the audition. but to make the exercise even less straightforward, the show is set in New Jersery and i’m casting in london.

Once you struggle to find people who are north american, (or can at least sound convincingly like it) who are based in london, who are teenagers (or can sound convincingly like they are) , who are available, affordable and professional pickings can already be a bit thin. and now i was hoping some of this tiny niche would be black.. well it was worth trying. of course everyone would read for all of the characters anyway. this was crucial as out of the twenty women we called in, only three were women of colour.

once comforably seated, mic ready and script in place there was a tangible awkwardness when most were asked to read for the black character. (the artist would know the character was black as designs of all the characters were attached to the script. ) i think the voice coach running the session was very nervous of anyone trying to "sound black" , which is potentially offensive in and of itself. she struggled for language to express this thought.

"she doesn’t need to sound…street"

" ease up, she’s not ..from philly..play her like she could be from anywhere"

"don’t worry about putting on an accent"

[to which one coy british girl replied

" oh. but you want her to be american don't you??" ]

Many girls when asked to read for the black character mentally stuttered before they began. You could almost hear the gears turning , hear them working out what their concept of a "black voice" was. and no one, no one admitted to feeling awkward, and no one dared use the word "black" though "african american" didn’t seem effortless for anyone who said it. one giggly teen attempted to be casual by saying

"wow it must be really hard to find someone for the nikki role"

the voice coach didn’t acknowledge her comment.

I wondered if any of this PC-ness related to me being in the room. but to be honest i think my race was totally ignored, and going on my experience with the east london cop, i sincerely doubted the voice coach (patched via a phone call from LA)  had any awareness of my ethnicity at all.

one girls attempt at the black character initated what i could only describe as a brooklynite accent.i actually kind of liked it, but somehow it made the voice coach and the director very anxious. There was also an asian american teen whose read for the flaky blonde character was spot on.

No one questioned her reading for the white character, but no one was convinced by her for the black character either. i wondered if the voice coach had any notion of her race. the actress’s name  name belied her ethnicity, but then ther are those hippy white parents aren’t there….

The last actress who came in was fated with a deadly slot. it was right at the end of a very long session. I had called her in for a previous audition and we had got on instantly. But as she spoke to the voice coach a slew of "girrrrl’s" and "Girlfriend!’s" fell out of her mouth artificially. the voice she used took on a tone unfamiliar to our last encounter. and then i realised what she was doing. aware of the fact there would be few black actresses auditioning, she was playing the race card with each and every breath. why did it make me feel just as comfortable as the caucasian actresses earlier with their attempts to "sound black"

at any rate when all of the voice clips were sent to the executive producer for final casting decisions, he was flustered with his options for casting nikki. Girrrrlfriend’s affectations won out. her voice was the only one the producer

"believed was african american"  although he did apologise and acknowledge that "maybe the some of the other actists had been black too " but he "just wasn’t convinced by the rest of them".

and then it makes me think, if i had done a read just for fun, as my boss had asked me too (and maybe even that was just because i’m black) how would i have felt if my voice wasn’t "convincing"?…