Flatman

I know now that I want to be an arts writer for a job, with fiction and humour being the fun part of living, but getting the gig is looking difficult. The Arts section of the mag is the only thing giving me any real satisfaction these days, and I would be more than happy to burry my head in arts all week long. Put my head up my arts? You bet.

I did a Q & A with a guy who runs a script assessment and reading business. He is affiliated with a theatre group and assesses scripts, then draws on a pool of professional actors to do readings. I needed about 400 – 500 words from him, and what I got (all very last minute because email went down and I am not good at being organised anyway) was 2600 well-written words. Holy fuck. I’ve started a column called Art Beat which covers the best of what’s on (according to me) and this was to take up some of the half page, but I bumped it until next week and went to work on editing the Q & A. He wanted to see the finished product before we went to print, but there was no way that was going to happen. Pain in the arse cutting it in a hurry and keeping the quality, but it came out all right. Very well, actually. I admire and respect people who have a passion for the arts. This guy is into literature and acting and theatre and story telling, and I just think it’s very cool that people are passionate about such things.

I went to the play that the guy produced as a result of one of his readings, and it was kind of old fashioned (well it was based on an old French novel) but I enjoyed it. It was about big business squeezing small businesses out of existence and how having a passion for something was not enough to survive in the real world of business and commerce. It was also a love story. Whilst I’m a sucker for a good love story, I was more into the comment it was making about survival and principles. I didn’t find the love bit of it convincing enough to get into it, just didn’t care whether or not the lovers got together. The sticking to your principles part and where in the world that gets you, now that had me. I’m big on doing the right thing and while not believing in karma or justice on a grand scale, I hope to always have my sense of integrity and doing what I consider the right thing even though I could see that the point the play was making was that these are silly ideals. You sometimes have to go against what you consider the ‘right’ thing. I admired the old tailor who was going under because his younger competitor was a money hungry dick, but at the same time I saw what an utter fool he was. I guess you’d call it a Quixotic story.

Hmm. I am liking the play more, now that I think about it. It was flawed, there was room for much more emotional impact, but I liked it regardless. The review will say pretty much that.

Had drinks afterwards with the opening night crowd – [holy mother of God... I was just playing some music in the shop and chatting to a customer and this freak in a full body latex suit came in. 100%, full face, no eyes or mouth holes, dick and balls bulging out... just wandered slowly around the shop staring at us (I guess he was staring)... I just smiled and said hello, other customer left the shop until he left. Fucking odd at 6pm on a Saturday].

Anyway. Some of the people were comically thespian, but fuck it, I don’t know. I like that kind of shit. Don’t want to be comically thespian myself, but I like that people are so into it.

After drinks we stopped off at a club night that some friends put on each Friday night. I don’t get it – they let us in free, in the time we chatted at the front door they let a stack more people in free, AND they gave us a drink voucher which I thought was for a complimentary glass of something but which was actually for a bottle of sparkling wine. How the hell do they make any money?

I felt like getting drunk, and that’s what I did. God, booze was doing the thing for me. Didn’t need anything else. It was fun, but I was curiously lacking in something. I just don’t have a vibe at the moment. I’m Flatman.

Although today I have felt a touch of vibe. I’ve really enjoyed chatting to the customers. I like that coming into the shop makes so many people happy. We have these crazy shoes in the front window and people stop and point and laugh, then they look at what else is in the shop, then you hear them saying the name of the shop, like they want to remember it to tell someone. It’s pretty cool. Everyone today has been super nice (except for freaky latex man, who was creepy). In moods like this, I could almost get to like humans.