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February 20th, 2011
I’m constantly learning, I mean I guess we all are but every once in a while I get taught a lesson the old school way. This weekend has been one of those occasions.
My body stopped. I started throwing up. Couldn’t eat. Felt like I’d fallen down the stairs. Passed out one minute, couldn’t sleep the next. Freezing cold (I’m never cold).
My girl told me I was run down. I said I thought it must be a bug. But it’s pretty clear when you look at it. She’s right. I think this is why people have hobbies, so that they can rest without stopping. I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday but still pretty battered.
I’m gonna go find a book on origami.
This week I’m working on this and on Friday you can see the results. Should be a lot of fun
February 14th, 2011
Hello.
I was thinking about it the other day and I came to the conclusion that the courage of convictions is the result of parenthood. In fact more than just parenthood. The fact that I am one quarter of a family has pretty much poured concrete onto my faith in my own judgement. In regards to what? In regards to what I do. What I am around. This city can warp a good person into a status hungry idiot within a year. I’ve seen it happen. People assume that if you are in London and you make something, be it music, visual art, comedy, a little thing called spoken word, that you are on a quest to become a household name at all costs.
If I wanted to be famous I would find the most famous people i could get close to and punch their faces. Why mess around with long days and arse kissing?
People don’t believe you though. Or rather than not believing you, they simply cannot imagine that you actually create something and do not have an end goal in sight. “That’s my point Polar, if you just sat down and crafted a plan, where do you want to be? then you can pursue it with tunnel vision until to get there”. Thanks for the unrequested advice but in your very statement you miss my point. I don’t want what you want.
“I don’t believe you Polar. Everybody wants to make it. Don’t you want to make it?”
Make what? I’m not sure but I think I might make it every day. Breakfast. Ends meet. new ideas. A difference. Am I missing something?
“Man, you’re full of it. Look at the people on top. You’re just as talented as them. You could be where they are if you just played the game a bit better”.
Oh. I see. Thanks. How much do I owe you? Really helpful, Oh and one more thing, shit off.
In a bit I’ll die and the world will carry on. Kids will run the world and computers will tell us who we are. Then one afternoon maybe someone will search for some information on the greatest animal that ever roamed the planet and through sheer accident they’ll stumble on the words and voice of a brummie who wrote stories to speak and maybe they’ll think, ‘this looks interesting, maybe I’ll make a brew and listen to some of this’ and just like that what I’ve left behind will matter. And nobody will be able to say anything except ‘I like that’ or ‘I don’t like that’ because it is what it is and at no point do I need anything from anyone, except an open ear and and any time you think I deserve.
Rant over.
In other news I’m performing at the Old Queens Head tomorrow night 15th February as part of the Sound of Rum album launch residency. Should be fun.
Take it easy.
February 5th, 2011
So it’s done. More or less. Last night me and Dan told RETURN in Liverpool at the brilliant Bluecoat to a bunch of people on a friday night. Having not done it for a couple of months it was a fun and kind of weird last gig of the tour. It almost felt like the start of something rather than the end and I’ve been thinking about the journey of the piece being made since we came off stage. From idea, to script, to development, to scratch, to full piece, to full run, to more development, to decision to work with sound, to development and through to the finished thing it’s been a year and a half. Nuts.
I wanted something different. Different to Jessica. Something that felt hard to pull off (that sounds wrong but I’m leaving it). RETURN is that. It’s marmite. There have been people who’ve loved it and I’m pretty sure there have been people who’ve hated it. I’ve found that so exciting. Not making people hate something, but making definite decisions for the story that it’s obvious will not be to everyone’s taste. The story isn’t about leaving and coming home and seeing nothing has changed. The story isn’t about looking at anyone you haven’t seen for a while with any feelings of superiority. The story is not even about trying to work out where you fit. There was one guy who seemed to think that the story was a middle class take on working class life full of resentment and spite with no exploration of character. He doesn’t know anything about me. He missed the point.
The story is about realising that my main inspiration is where I am from. The characters in RETURN each represent some element of my relationship with Birmingham. This is why some of them have more revealed about them than others. The relationship between Dominic and Noah represents the idea of what would have happened if I’d become more aware of myself at an earlier age. If I had found something I loved to do at 19 rather than 25 what would’ve happened.
Eve represents the part of me that never saw the point in leaving. In fact the idea of leaving was never even a possible idea before I met a girl who lived in London. Why would you leave? Life is here, just get on with it. As a result of that what we get of Eve in the story isn’t a lot in terms of her world, why would we. She is not 2 dimensional, she is not a simplification of a person, but in this story what she represents is solid and unchanging and doesn’t need to be overstated. I wrote so much of her life to make her real just so that we could take everything out except the bits that left her to represent something rather than be what the story is about.
Blah blah blah, shut up now Polar. Ok sorry. I guess I’m just putting things to bed in my head (that sounded wrong as well). RETURN is a love story. A love story about a real thing that is beautiful, boring, ugly, hard, warm, funny and inspiring. Birmingham. That is all.
If you came to watch RETURN at any point then thanks and I hope it left you with something.
All I can say now is get ready for something completely different.
sTaTe is coming………..
February 1st, 2011
I’m working on, writing, developing and involved with so much brilliant stuff right now. It’s brilliant. Too much to tell all at once. The other day i searched my i-tunes library by genre accidentally pushing the wrong button and nearly three quarters came under either Folk or Hip-Hop. Here’s the flyer for one of the things I’ll be doing this month that I’m really excited about.
It’s free too! nuts. Best to reserve tickets though because it may get busy. Get tickets here
January 24th, 2011
On 31st October 2009 John Berkavitch walked away from the Albany in Deptford, South London, having read a story called ‘Dogman’ which many believe, myself included, to be one of the finest examples of spoken word ever conceived and shared, and flew to Cambodia, where he has been ever since.
Now the general consensus is that old Berko is an aquired taste. Like wasabi or battered mars bars or lsd laced cola bottles. I think that’s probably true, but then again who isn’t? The plain fact of the matter is that of all the people I have met ‘doing stuff’ in this creative realm since I dipped my brummie toes in, John Berkavitch is the only one I would call an actual artist. That means in relation to what I imagined an artist to be. Since I’ve known him (Glastonbury 2005 we met) it’s probably a conservative estimate to say that El Berkorino has about 5 brilliant ideas a day. That’s actual bonafide ideas that, if seen through to their realisation in the world, would be amazing. Now a lot of us know people who are very talented, some of whom will never be known outside the walls of their own homes. This has always been the way. Berko is known all over. He’s done loads. His name incites an instant response whenever it is brought up from promoters, fellow artists, heartbroken schoolchildren through to awestruck pensioners. So why then Polar are you drawing our attention to him? if people already know about him and his work what are you going on about?
Shut up. I’m just saying that it’s slightly boring with him gone and I want him to come back. That’s it. Check out his blog here http://berkavitch.blogspot.com/ and below is a picture of me doing something at a festival because the pair of us thought it would be fun.
January 20th, 2011
Sitting up on this balcony looking down at people in meetings, reading, typing, eating it hits me just how many people there are. You know? Shitloads of people doing stuff. All the time.
I remember when I was an expert at doing nothing. I had it down to such a fine art that other people would drift into my circle just to soak up a little bit of my nothing. Maybe it was calming, maybe it was them reminding themselves what they didn’t want to be like, who knows? Whatever the case I was sick at it. I’d have ideas, opinions and stuff and every now and then I’d do something but basically I was drifting. Like the guy from Highway to Heaven if he didn’t really help anyone just moved from town to town and chilled.
That’s all a million miles away now. So much so that I may even have become the opposite of the old me. Stuff happens all the time. Things don’t stop. A weekend is just two week days with different names and night and day are only different because for one of them I need help to see what I’m doing.
When you live like this there’s always this danger, hanging around. In cupboards and pockets, behind oyster cards in blue plastic wallets and under finger nails. It’s this feeling that if things let up, even for half a day you will be lost. Adrift in a sea of responsibility with no paddles, oars, hands or even a boat. On the super rare occasions when I find myself with nothing to do I now feel lost. Where the old me would’ve stretched out like a leopard with the itis, the current me finds himself looking through drawers and computer based diaries searching for the thing I must have forgotten needed to get done. It’s weird and I don’t think I like it.
Of course it’s all relative. If the old me met the current me and heard him moaning about being too busy or having too many ideas or juggling opportunities, he would do his best to slap the self absorbed shit out of him (although of course I am now much stronger and dad like so if the younger me did come bright I would actually stomp him back into his pompous lethargy, but you get the point.
I flipped the coin. Tails became heads. Van Damme video marathons became Radio 4 commissions. Days on the sofa reading Lady Snow Blood for the fifth time
, working my way through a Kellogs multi-pack became mentoring young writers to craft a multi character spoken word performance story.
I love what I do. So much so I can’t imagine doing anything else anymore, which is a feeling I never even considered being a possibility 6 years ago, what I’m saying is if I have completely lost the old me and his skill for the absence of action, a part of me is a bit sad.
With the that in mind I’m closing this laptop and waiting for Eddie to reach so we can go sit and eat ribs and talk shit about films and current affairs and a whole heap of other stuff with nothing hanging over us but the moment.
Wicked. Bye
January 10th, 2011
I’ve never known Seagal swear as much as he is in this film I’m watching right now. It’s sunday evening and I’m here keeping a promise I made myself to post regularly. The twitter thing is fun and easy on the phone but this feels more grown up. What have I been doing? Alright, hold on a sec Seagal’s about to smash up a strip bar.
On saturday I took part in the Final Curtain event at Birmingham REP. The theatre building. I stood on the main stage and got a couple of hundred people to speak out words that I wrote about birmingham and the theatre. Crazy. Holy poop Seagal just administered the most gruesome knife fight death I’ve ever seen him do. Grim.
So This week I dedicate full time to writing the start of this new big story. Like a job. Wake up, eggs benedict, 4,000 push ups, 4 mile run then sit down and write until it’s school pick up time. Either that or write in chunks of time I can grab around everything else that makes up the week of a freelance dad. Can’t wait to get properly started.
I found an old folder on an external hard drive that had some old tracks from a few years ago. Always slightly strange hearing stuff you’d forgotten about. You know it’s your voice and as you listen you remember the ideas, the fun of writing it and even the jokes from the recording session, but it also feels a little bit like listening to someone else if that makes sense. Seagal is just finding out who’s behind the whole thing. Ex-wife’s new husband. Anyway I’ve uploaded the old tracks to my soundcloud if you fancy a listen.
I’m currently writing to tracks for 3 different EPs that I’ll be putting together and uploading as and when they’re done. Also going to be doing some filming of pieces this month for upload asap too. Seagal just put a hook through a guy’s shoulder then carried on beating him up til he died. This film is horrible. I love Seagal but the naffness is part of the charm. When they forego the naffness for brutality it just exposes itself as badly made violence. Laters Steven.
I got a sneaky copy of the Sound of Rum album this week. It comes out next month I think. It’s wicked. Kate and the boys got me on a track called Concrete Pigeon and the whole album is strong. I’ll be doing a set with them at one of their album launch events. Good times.
Alright so I’m gonna go fall asleep to the Breakfast Club. have a good week and remember, fingerless gloves are no longer prevalent for good reason
January 1st, 2011
So hello 2011. Somehow sounds more futuristic than 2010. Seems to me like every year since 2005 has been trying to outdo the year that came before it so god knows what’s going to happen in 2011.
I’m not really the resolution making type myself. I used to promise each New Years Eve that I’d stop biting my nails then a few years ago I realised I like doing it so why would I stop. After that, any resolution other than doing what I want to do, was pretty much a waste of my precious time.
That said, I do think that as someone doing what I do for a living and fun, having a website that is nice and only using it once every quarter is a bit of a daftness. So, in true destined to fail New Year’s style I plan to make an effort to update this site much more regularly and share what’s going on more often. Honest.
I figure that If I make a weekly time for it then it’ll become like football, or Wing Chun and just part of my routine that can’t be missed. I’m currently working on the start of two new stories at the minute. Big ones. One of them really big. I’m a big believer in not calling a egg before it’s hatched so I won’t jinx either by going into it now but it’s fair to say I’m excited.
In other news I made the entire Xmas dinner this year and general consensus is that I did good. Part Oliver, part Ramsey and a large amount of Keith Floyd. I now feel like a real man.
Our second son Dylan is on the verge of walking. Any day now I reckon which is coinciding with his big brother starting school on the 5th. There’s no stopping our Bear cubs. If you like the idea of me being skilfully undermined on a regular basis then have a gander at this www.twitter.com/homeofpolar I write down stuff our oldest says to keep a record to try and embarrass him when he’s 16 cos I figure I’ll need ammunition by then.
Ok so Happy New Year to you and yours.
September 30th, 2010
Hello.
best laid plans and all that. Lost the password for a bit then got it back and have just been a bit lame with updates. Gonna try be on it more. Look up there. No, not the ceiling, the flyer of my potato face looking wistfully into the distance against a background of brummie blue. Thats the e-flyer for the rest of the tour for ‘RETURN’.
It’s been an amazing tour so far. I’ve spoken the story in tiny independent cinemas, massive theatre spaces, at the amazing Forest Fringe in Edinburgh, Bewley’s Cafe Theatre in Dublin, back home in brum at mac and a bunch of other places.
We’re not done yet though and not only that. No not only that. The piece has evolved. We have a live musical score and sound design from the bad boy Daniel Marcus Clark. Yesterday we had our first play around with the sounds and me talking and I’m not even kidding (I take my work very seriously don’t you know) it’s gonna be ace. I can’t wait to do it live together.
Really feels now like it’s something in it’s own right that I just happen to be telling as oppose to ‘Polarbear’s new thing’, which has been the goal from the start.
I’ve never seen what we’re doing done before form wise and, while that’s not the motivation for doing it, the teenage boy in me does kind of get off on that.
We do it for the first time next week at the Roundhouse so if that’s near for you and you’re free come down and check it out.
If not check the tour flyer for dates or go to my dates page for info
I’ve never done something like this live before and I think it’s brilliant. This is all for now.
In other news. I had a play with my flip camera and did this
and this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DuS6crrShU
Amateur efforts. This weekend couple of friends and I are going to film some more stuff properly ready for a pack we’ll make with artwork, video, sounds and stuff. I’m not saying anymore cos we’re still making decisions but basically it’ll be good and finally a product. It’s only taken 5 years.
Right. Don’t wanna over do it first time back so I’ll go. But for gluttons here’s a snippet of my friend Jamie’s new single that’s coming out in a week or so. His album will follow and it’ll be good.
nice one
May 6th, 2010
Hello. If you’re at home and a bit bored between 8-9pm log onto the Roundhouse website and their Blackbox channel to see yours truly walking the streets of Camden with a camera strapped to me, rhyming stories as I walk live online. Gonna be fun.
here’s the link
lemme know what you think if you see it.
