not your average xmas holiday
its all been a bit spoken word-centric. it started before i even got out of gatwick. i ran into rob of beatstreet waiting at the carousel for his luggage with his girlfriend silka. he seemed happy to take a break from all things berlin and poetic. when he asked me what i was up to i explained that after a day with the parents i was going to a slam the next day and an open mic the day after. don’t you take a break? he said. i think i must have laughed. my london adventure began with a girl who is sometimes known as patsy cole. her alter ego was running a stall at camden market and i came to help her close up, and subsequentally drink up at the christmas party held for all the camden market vendors (and me…) there was a free bar and the crowd were an animated bunch. it was a little hard to leave, to go far out to stratford for this”performance poetry competititon” (oddly not labeled a “slam” on the website), but then the winner took 100 pounds so i had to give it a go.
i arrived ten minutes late, and the organizer had not got my email, or the marquis de grant’s email either… so we were fated to not slam, and beg most pathetically for an open mic slot. it was a nice event, i would have loved to compete, but i was happy just to read. it was nice to see so many familiar faces from last time i was in town. i felt part of the scene here in an honorary way. i was really excited to see performances by deanna rodgers, mc angel, kamil and bunmi hassan (who rightfully won).i performed “development” hoping to strike a chord as the venue was in stratford, heart of olympics regeneration madness. but then as the theatre was kind of the positive side of gentrification, i think my anti-development poem fell on deaf ears… andreas on the other hand stole the show with his arrogant punk braggodacio, and i was a little proud of him for it. we definitely felt like the freaks in the back of the class (and we kind of were) highlight of the night was sitting outside to smoke and having this super cool forty something woman from grenada rock out, asking me if it was true i lived in berlin. when i said yes, i was immediately charmed by her caribbean accented german, as she spoke about how much she loved german men and then asked if i would mind if she recited some erotic poetry. andreas and i of course were very encouraging, and her work was not only erotic but sharp and drily funny. she promised she would come out to visit. i hope she does.
the following night me and mr.grant were again fated to not perform. we turned up (on time this time) to the kings head theatre pub in islington, only to be told no one else had shown up for the open mic. we then considered taking the mic by force until we befriended these two girls who were so sypmathetic to our plight of non-performance that they asked we perform directly to them. They were very taken with our prose. and i was very taken with them. It helped that one of them was cute blonde and super funny, and the other was a stunning dark haired ex model. we left to catch up with patsy cole at a party in bethnal green. but sadly her phone was switched off. this meant dancing to bad house at a pub until we were so over the music and crowd we decided to leave(i had a russian boy flirting with me in the most forward fashion that involved addiing postive adjective to positive adjective until his last line to me was “beautiful gorgeous intelligent lovely darling wonderful angel”. meanwhile a bicurious (or just drunk) blonde girl from unidentifiable eastern european country just went straight for dancing against me, mouth open coquettishly while her boyfriend watched us…)
back at patsy coles, wine was drunk and chocolate chip cookies were baked, and films were watched. somehow i managed to make it back to my parents the next day. somehow the marquis joined me the day after. and here in the english countryside we’ve been making the most out of having little to do. we are clearing out the house of chocolate and red wine. smoking in the freezing cold outside. freaking out over how many stars we can see. slumming with bad telly- from top fifty celebrity meltdowns to top forty 80s films to marthons of sex and the city, frasier, peep show,little britain, friends. to fighting over who’s checking their facebook account first. keen to educate the swede on british christmas culture: i have inducted him into the world of mince pies and christmas crackers. boxing day was spent on the coast. we drove out with my dad to the sea and froze by white cliffs. mystified by those who actually chose to swim.
meanwhile as we come out of our chocolate and wine coma, we’re both super excited about spoken word rock star salena godden ’s new years eve party at the dartmouth arms in tuffnell park. it promises a debauched evening through morning of music, spoken word and mentalist fancy dress . and if we get drunk enough early enough we may even attempt some performance.
Btw, gigs are coming up i should mention. on january the 8th, his arrogance andreas de grant launches a new night at bardens boudoir, a venue i adore in dalston, east london. and on the 9th of Jan, i’ll be performing a poem or two as part of the first Farrago UK slam of the year. I’ve been nominated for some kind of award apparently. i’m very curious , to know what
