Monday, June 20, 2011

Hit piece or free consultancy , writing about writing.


So one of the main tribes I belong to is the street theatre/performer tribe.
Been one of this cabal for close to thirty years. 
Over the last 15/20 years various methods have been used to corral our talents to be focused in specific places. The Edinburgh fest was one of the older congregative venues, so was Vallach in Austria, Canada starting running festivals starting with Edmonton then Halifax then a host of others. Meanwhile NZ started the Christchurch festival and led the way in Australasia, there's now an Auckland festival and intermittent Wellington attempts as the political winds are wrestled by various folk with their arts admin dreamcatchers. Oh and not forgetting Dublin. That started up about 5 years ago and touts itself as the 'busking world championship' a kind of shared joke. We tend not to compete nor want to but sponsors are bred in their dog eat dog worlds and looking down from their  plinths of business conquest like the idea THAT THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Plus it's demonstratively cheaper to offer prize money and have otherwise professional performers prostitute themselves for a chance at earning their keep than to actually pay fees and do it properly.

Now up on the Gold Coast of Australia they have a problem, they have a domestic violence problem and a few other problems that I may get into later.

They [some 'business allegiance' outfit] have a festival they want to put on in a month and lets just put it this way. If their business management philosophy were a puppy you'd take it outside, tie it to a post and shoot it for it's own good. It's stillborn, all the pro's have pulled out of the program and while they might put their best faces on, they're floundering and their event is going to suck because they have designed it to suck.

Now I've done my homework and I could do more. I have the entire business associations administrative staff, their spotty educations, their limited experience, their prior media statements and their various mentions in the press all researched and have done some, if i may say so , exquisite lambasting, toe curling, skin peeling writing that I was going to spend a further week on and polish it till it glistened with venom. Because these people are messing with my tribe and diabolical writing is a talent of mine.

But then I stopped... I thought it through. Maybe these people are not venal pompous deluded dysfunctional half men half/stale Lemingtons.

Maybe they just need help?

So I'm going to finish my vicious broadside on all that is wrong with Queensland and business associations and executive directors with bog average business degrees and possible prior experience with putting on events in student cafeterias and then I'm going to put it aside and rewrite it with my helpful free consultancy hat on.



 I don't know why. It could be age, it could be my belief that the more useful I am the more successful I will become or it could simply be that it's so easy for me to rip the shit out of people that I need the challenge of actually trying to communicate with them in a way that helps them see where they themselves could improve rather than them flushing with embarrassment and righteously hating me.

Cos if They hate me their festival will still suck and if I can help them it might suck less and if it sucks less it's better for my tribe.

5 comments:

Lynne said...

Geriatric-onset generosity. Interesting.

winsomecowboy said...

I'll have the hit piece to fall back on. I'll be like mother Teresa going into an orphanage with explosives strapped to her body just in case the kids get out of hand.

Ed said...

Fools barge in where even Lynne refuse to tread. E.

winsomecowboy said...

Well I traipsed into Roberts world fearlessly, as I'm wont to do, I must be immune to certain types of fear or more likely being a student of self annihilation I'm not phased by external threats so much.

Robert is like a defanged gummy badger now although there's always the threat of well armed psychosis. He's like my disgruntled twin. Only married. : ) :(

But at to the matter at hand, annoying strangers for the amusement of others has been my chosen milieu for decades now and I am, if I may say so, very good at it however I've decided it's best for all if I'm also useful to my fraternity at large rather than a bunch of strangers pre-programable via their primate curiosity and my ability to create tension gateways allowing them to bray instinctively and get endorphin rushes leading them to divest themselves of minor currency in my direction.

[I love long sentences]

So Robert and I are going to collaborate a little and share with prospective festival producers what we think makes a good festival and why, with examples of noted successes and failures.

Because nobody has really done that before and it would be useful. [don't you think]

Lynne will certainly get a mention as a stirling example of the kind of exemplary philosophy of excessive ninja hospitality that was displayed with her now legendary morning fridge/evening fridge ying yang.

The ability of the evening fridge to never be emptied while seemingly restocking itself has been noted extensively by those of us present at the miracle and reports have been sent to Rome but as you know these things take time.

winsomecowboy said...

well I can't say I was particularly kind.
*sigh* change is hard..

http://winsomesrevenge.blogspot.com/2011/06/series-of-rambles-about-festival.html