Did another open-mic poetry gig last night, this time in Leicester. I’d never been to the venue before, and was surprised to see that it was pretty busy from the off. The website had advised getting there half an hour before the start to sign up; I took this advice, rolling up at half seven, and was told that there was only one place left. Blimey, it would have been a bit galling to have travelled to Leicester and not been allowed to shout at people before I left.
Of course, I don’t shout. I’m a nice, reserved chap. You’d be astonished at the number of people who do though. There was more than ample amplification for the size of the venue (the bar) in the shape of a decent mic and two big speakers. To be frank, that was excessive; you could have spoken at a normal volume and still make yourself heard. But, then people wouldn’t have been able to indulge mic frenzy*! Really, put a mic in front of people and they’re grabbing the thing and trying to swallow it while spontaneously deciding to have a shot at that primal scream therapy they read about sometime. It doesn’t encourage you to pay close attention to the words, if I’m honest. And the words! It would be churlish to say that there weren’t people who could write and perform. There were. But brevity was an unknown concept. Almost everyone would have benefited from cutting their material ruthlessly; usually, by at least half. And also by being less wilfully cryptic; there was more than one instance of someone thinking that the primary function of poetry is to sound strange, to splice together unrelated words, awkwardly, to create meaningless metaphors, and, as a result, to communicate nothing. And when this comes in 3 or 4 minute chunks…
Anyway, it was useful to get up in front of people again and deliver some stuff. There’ll be more of this, mark my words.
*Mike Frenzy sounds like the kind of fictional pop star who would pop up in cartoon strips in the 70s. No pop star in this one, but certainly this kind of strip.
UNRELATED RANT ALERT:
I’ve spotted a new, insidious way of making daily life that tiny bit more unbearable: the sneaking, weasel, inappropriate use of ‘your’. On the train last night – at the end of the interminable announcements about what train it is, where it’s going, where the buffet car is, what it’s serving, what carriage has been designated ‘quiet’, who the person talking is, where they can be found, and, finally, their gratitude that we’re travelling with them – at the end of all that came the announcement of the next station: “Loughborough is your next station stop”. Sorry, what? “Loughborough is your next station stop”. Um, no. It isn’t. I was going to Leicester, so it wasn’t my stop. What are they talking about?
It used to be impersonal: ‘the next station stop’. There’s nothing wrong with that; every stop at some point becomes ‘the next station stop’. But someone, somewhere, has presumably decided that we’ll all feel a bit more warm towards the train company if they sound as though they’re going out of their way for us – ‘this is your next station stop. We were going to go straight through, to be honest, but we know that so many of you appreciate getting off here, so, tell you what – we’ll stop here. For you’.
I noticed this a few months back on that preposterous 60-second news update that the BBC broadcast at 8pm (because we mustn’t be without news! God, no! We must have news, constantly, continually, rolling, breaking, smashing through to us – ‘fact me till I fart’ as The Day Today so accurately put it, a long time ago, before they were out-spoofed by the actuality of today’s TV-news-candy-porn) when the presenter signed off with the phrase “that was your 60-second update”. But it wasn’t my 60-second update! I hadn’t asked for it, I didn’t want it. They were, I’m afraid, assuming a far greater amount of executive power on my part than I actually hold.
But they’re weren’t, of course. They were trying, by sleight-of-hand, to imply that we’re getting a greater service than was the case before. But we’re not; the trains are stopping at the places they always have done, and some news residue has been squeezed into a gap between some other programmes. The sum total of human happiness has not really increased. But what has happened is that I feel demeaned and a bit grubby by the implication that I’m complicit, or, worse, the agent of these ‘initiatives’. If you really want to do something for me, you can revert to the impersonal, correct, definite article, and then, if you’d be so kind, piss right off.
Oh, and while I’m on the subject, can Sainsbury’s employees be freed from the mutually humiliating decree that they have to finish all in-store announcements with the meaningless phrase ‘try something different today’. Because if I hear it much more, I might, and it might well be a different shop.
END OF RANT
Fellow blogging fun now:
Jamie’s latest post made me laugh a lot. (It should go without saying that I hope Jamie gets the good news that he deserves soon).
Graham Linehan posted this, which is preposterous and funny.
And Laurence is being self-deprecating, which is nice and polite, but unnecessary, as I’ve read some of his stuff, and he’s funny.
IN SUMMARY: My ears hurt.
