A cabin in the woods (or technofuckery)

I mentioned to a friend recently that I was spending a month in Berlin to work on editing a short film ( an overview of the past years of Queer Beograd performances) and working on our next book ( a compilation of scripts from the same material). He laughed and said 'Oh, you're going to a cabin in the woods!'.

I suppose I could try to do this work in London, but it seems to me that city is always clamourous. Compared to a usual day in London, Berlin feels like a villiage. Plus as I don't have any fixed place of residence at the moment, when some one offered me a sublet in Berlin I thought 'why not?'. It's quiet, its a lot CHEAPER to live here and because the majority of my income comes from working online, I can move about.

Well that's the theory anyway. 

All of this sounds very glamourous, oh and dont get me wrong it is kind of fabulous. The apartment is bigger than several of my friends london flats combined, the weather is glorious, I'm slap bang in the middle of one of Berlins most notoriously gentrified neighborhoods, something I would curse in London but which is luxurious to visit. But then the gritty realities of life keep sneaking in.

My first night here I had a massive burst of enthusiasm, coupled with paranoia as I wanted to check my rather antiquated technology was working. without lap top, web cam and internet...I'm fucked.

This is the thing about the glittering high flying world of showbiz/activism/or as we call it 'queer superstardom' *cough* -  all of this takes place on sweet fuck all money.

Plugging in my creaking old power book, I find a tape to test and connect up the half broken/but still plays things camcorder. After an hour or so of tinkering around I have an edit of some very old performance material - one of my first fully realised pieces  - performed in
Sydney 2001.

From there it was all down hill. Filled with excitement about showing off my early work I converted it to a quicktime and went to upload it to youtube, NO JOY... youtube tells me it will take 1,465 minutes to upload my video. There's something weird about the internet here that is not an altogether happy story. I give in for the night.

As morning dawns I realise I still need to earn a living. I put on some sort of trashy outfit, set up my lighting (good lighting is the key to everything) and turn on the webcam.
In the jizz mines many of my regulars ask me if Im enjoying myself in Berlin and how the film making is going. Bless their little cotton socks, but for some reason their imaginations only stretch as far as thinking that 'Mistress' is in Berlin making porn!

Unfortunately there is some sort of weird techno-misallingment between my webcam streaming software and the internet connection here. Lot's of comments along the lines of 'I'm sorry Mistress your cam feed is running slow' or 'my apologies Mistress but your sound is breaking up'. argh fuck and damn it! I lose a bit of business because of this but still manage to tweak in at the end of the day with enough to pay the rent.

I decide to battle on with the film making, another technofear is that if I over burdern the warhorse of a powerbook it will blow up completely and I will again ...be fucked.
So the scheme is to make the video on an external drive. *sigh*. Drive one is dead, drive two blinks its lights sweetly but appears to have compatibilty issues (its not from the ark). I trek across town to pick up some of the collectives funds and invest in another drive. I arrive and read the cheery note 'sent most of the money to Belgrade, I'm sure you will manage'. The money is 70 euros less than I expected. I check drive prices, the one I think I need is 9 euros more than I have. I find a bank, draw out my last 20 euros and go and buy the sodding thing, counting out the last bit in change.

At home again I nervously plug it in, ...it blinks, flashes lights at me, then crashes my computer. Scary, scary moment....VERY 'cabin in the woods'.  I guess I will return it tomorrow - the upside of this being that if i get my money back then I can afford to eat!! :D

Oh well, Im not sure exactly HOW Im going to do this editing, but I WILL. Eyeing the applestore here, checking the exchange rates and thinking about more debt. Hmmm....maybe.

It's a funny combination to be a jetsetting, political activist, gender queer, sex working, performance artist, cam mistress, film maker. That also somehow makes sense. This techofuck of a world. Not sure where I will live when I return to London, not sure exactly what I will be living on while I am here. This weird precarity - but still  - LIVING THE DREAM.

baby you're a class act (or why chavs are not funny)

I walked out of a performance the other night, pretty unusual for me as I will sit through most things. in this case I found I was close to tears and just needed to leave.
The venue was 'Bar Wotever', a place which has been very important to me as a safe space and which I have very much felt 'part of'. It's a space in which I've often test run performance material and had a lot of fun on stage playing to a lovely and responsive audience.

Overall performances at BW are always a bit of a hit and miss affair, I've seen moments of glorious brilliance alongside the less inspiring, self indulgent and bloody awful car crash type affairs. It's an open stage and as such exhibits the strengths and weaknesses of a very open curatorial hand. The strength of the space is it's safety and commitment to fostering a genderqueer flavour, welcoming all genders, alongside a sort of 'soft wash' political edginess.

To set the scene: there was 'community news' : because this is about more than about my dislike of a particular performance its about my extreme uncomfortableness with what happened in the setting.

So we begin with 'community news' a regular weekly fixture at the bar.

There are a LOT of announcements. Someone has spotted the BNP's majoral bid advertisement on television and takes the stage to educate people about what the real adgenda of the BNP is. A visiting film maker makes a call out for more diverse (trans inclusive) participants in his documentation of gay mens personal lives. Someone else highlights that there is a health survey targetting trans experiences of the healthcare system on line and asking people to take part. Then theres a celebratory announcement of the role a BW regular has played in making the voices of trans people visible in a Ken Livingstones majoral manifesto.

The community news announcer is wearing a 'Sack Boris' T-shirt and talks of their own involvement in the Livingstone campaign, how important it is to use our votes and have a more fair and representative system of government. Like I said, it's not exactly storming the barricades, but it is community politics in action; A real expression of people talking about things of concern to themselves and those they identify with as a community.

Which is why I was so shocked by the performance in question. It seemed strange to see a show like this hosted at Wotever, particularly after all the community news about the political change we can make. How we need to educate others about the racist adgenda of the BNP and what good work is being done to have the voice of LGBT people represented at the level of local government.

The performance seemed to make a lie of everything previous because while racism is held up as 'bad', homophobia and transphobia 'bad' it seems that bashing the working class is still very much OK.

How to describe it? I suppose in many ways it was standard 'comedy club' fare - I admit Im not a fan of stand up, the culture seems too dependent on the staples of rascism, sexism, class, transphobia and homophobia for its 'gag' material.

But what I saw was a slightly racier and harder edged revamp of 'Little Britains' 'Vicky Pollard character, its a tried and true formula  - The female 'Chav' stereotype.  The performer appeared on stage bling-tastic, in the best of Primark and wearing a British Bulldog T-shirt to (of course) signify their characters nationalism and political ignorance. She then performed a set centering around: how much prison time she has served, how many children she has, the depth of her substance abuse problem, her habitual minor criminal behaviour; all played 'in character' with a sort of aggressive and yet hopeless stupidity. Excuses for why the performance was really ok (offered by friends/the promoter/casual bystanders) so far include: That it was 'edgy', that it was an attempt to reclaim/challenge the stereotype, that I shouldn't be so sensitive, that I lack a proper sense of humour.

I know many people will dismiss the shows content as 'just humour' or even dignify it as 'satire' ... But satire undercuts itself, it shows the stupidity of what it sends up. This performance was as I have said fairly standard comedy club fare....so enough on that.... What I found really strange was to listen to those around me laugh at the jokes. I wanted to ask them why they laughed. Not as a criticism, but purely because I felt so confused, but then my own tears started to come and I needed to leave.

Perhaps some of my sensitivity is how much I have been thinking lately of my own distanced relationship with family and where I come from. My queerness, politics and education makes it difficult for me to blend comfortably. I live as part of a queer diaspora and yet, invisible, within me my class background trips me up, causes me to stumble and feel uncomfortable in some situations.

For a good while afterwards I thought of the stereotypes used as 'humor' in that show.

I mean yes, surprise, surprise the ridiculing of  different groups of people via the use of stereotypes DOES exist! But that this passed as humour in a space dedicated to safety was what really caught me off my guard and felt like a sucker punch to the gut.  

What really made me wonder was why it was ok to make fun of working class people in exactly the same way as the conservative government.

That while we talk about how terrible racism is, how we must fight for the inclusion of trans and queer people.... it's JUST FINE to laugh at exactly the same portrayal of working people that the government promote. 

 'The Chav' character sums up much of the hatred and resentment directed towards working class people in a time of economic recession. As the papers constantly tell up its POOR people who are really to blame for the state this country - gobbling up precious resources while sitting around their council houses living on benefits; It's either them or 'Immigrants'.

No matter how knowingly or ironically you laugh at 'The Chav' the point is that groups like the BNP feed off working class disenfranchisement to promote a racist and nationalist adgenda. The Tories meanwhile sell the middle classes the idea of being trapped between dangerous "immigrants" and the greedy "hoi polloi'. The function of divide and rule still runs strong as long as you refuse to see a complex system in which each oppression plays off against each other.

The media and government manipulation of racism on the one hand and class on the other is SMART but its NO JOKE.

Epic Bleakness

LONG TIME since signing in.

Just as I was coming to terms with the whole 'ill/burnt out/not being able to get it up for life' I got side swiped. LIFE decided it wasn't going to take my lack of attentiveness and ran me over with a clown car. A clown car with spikes on its' wheels, loaded with rubble, towing a semi trailer. What a fucker. October 31st and November as a month can best be described in anothers words....I can't sum it up alone. Thank fuck for the epic bleakness of that great Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo

The Black Heralds

There are in life such hard blows . . . I don't know!
Blows seemingly from God's wrath; as if before them
the undertow of all our sufferings
is embedded in our souls . . . I don't know!

There are few; but are . . . opening dark furrows
in the fiercest of faces and the strongest of loins,
They are perhaps the colts of barbaric Attilas
or the dark heralds Death sends us.

They are the deep falls of the Christ of the soul,
of some adorable one that Destiny Blasphemes.
Those bloody blows are the crepitation
of some bread getting burned on us by the oven's door

And the man . . . poor . . . poor!
He turns his eyes around, like
when patting calls us upon our shoulder;
he turns his crazed maddened eyes,
and all of life's experiences become stagnant, like a puddle of guilt, in a daze.

There are such hard blows in life. I don't know!

- Cesar Vallejo

Rock n Roll Cardigan wearing

I do most things slowly these days, apart from falling into bed.

Anyhow despite MY dealing with intense burn out the rest of the world rolls on.

A few of the Epic highlights in my small world include Beograd Pride being banned by the Serbian government (again) , widespeard rioting in London, joining the LURVE squad and taking part in trying to reorganise our Queer Beograd event on class and borders.

So yeah, completely NOT in chronological order.

Beograd Pride was due to take place on October 2nd in Beograd - prior to the event people I knew there were already wondering about wether it would go ahead or not. A lot of disillusionment was being voiced as to how mainstreamed and noninclusive of any radical poltical message the pride had become. In advance of pride meetings had taken place between Police and one of the more 'respectable' rightwing groups with an agreement being reached that some police would call for a boycott on policing pride. Serbias bids to join the EU are not going at all well. Pride organisers refused the offer of striking raspberry pickers to join in solidarity with the pride march. More radical autonomist groups are told that their messages would not be welcome at Pride. (let's keep the rainbow flag squeaky clean)

At the end of the day same old story - the Serbian government banned the pride on the grounds that too much violence could be expected and it would beyond their capacity to prevent this. A COP OUT - in more ways than one.

A few months earlier in London; it's old news now but yes there was rioting. Initially sparked by the police killing Mark Duggan in Tottenham and their brutal response towards protests over his death. Rioting rapidly spread across London.
One thing I found interesting with the riots was the huge range of opinions about what the rioting meant and wether or not it was a valid response. From cheering on the social unrest to condemming the rioters as 'criminal scum' it was unpredictable to say the least as to who would voice which opinion.

Being present at the beginning of rioting in Hackney was also interesting. Ive been in plenty of 'riot' situations but usually in a semi organised activist context. This was something else. Outside Hackney town hall I watched the tension grow, cops advance with standard space claiming strategies and a fluid crowd response from people who I'm guessing hadn't spent a great deal of time studying protest techniques practiced in the global south (those so often cited in activist circles).

Its weird being in a riot where you have no knowledge of a pre-established goal, crowd coherence or an affnity group that you can relate to. The group of young guys sitting next to me were discussing what the police would do next. My house mate and I both experienced in crowd dynamics and police tactics during demonstrations attempt to chip in. The boys look straight through us, we are not part of the group, we are not visible. Its one of those rude moments when I realise that everyday I live looking away from these boys...my own racism/class divides/social separation/alienation... believing the media, living with the reality of violence in my neighborhood. Not being able to find answers to these very complex questions that are part of the day to day in this city, this economy, this capitalist fucking mess.

When Im sure things are about to kick off with the cops I leave, Im not up for a street fight, I don't have it in me. I spend some time dodging half bricks and bottles being thrown at a police van that pulls up next to me in the street, I run with other people around me, reaching out and making contact to make sure others are ok.

Later I stand at the end of my street with other people who live on my estate watching as the local service station and pawn shop are looted. Some one runs thru our estate clutching their new free wide screen TV. I walk down a brick and bottle strewn high street with my neighbour to pick up her teenage girls from the other side of a police line. Once we find her girls they ignore us and rapidly walk off as we are not 'cool enough' to be seen with.

the next days and nights in my neighborhood are tense, quiet in a way that is scary - its never that quiet here - always full of sirens. All this fear of violence its like the usual events of any given month or year have been compressed into a few hours of rioting - a flare of the frustration, crime and poverty that is part of everyday.

Again in Beograd - where again I dont go because I'm too tierd, because I want to conserve my energy and get well. Because i just dont fucking have it to stand the fear involved in not knowing what will happen, what fascists are or arent going to do - the shear stress of being there. Instead I read the crew emails and comment on discussions (before the fucking Pride is banned) on how meetings and organising for this event on class and borders are going, how some believe it's essential that we should attempt to define what 'working class' means.

Me - i can see sweet fuck all point in defining 'working class' because i dont want to fall back into simplistic old methods. Clearly there IS a class system operating but im not prepared to accept it's so simple as some would want us to believe.
i just want to know why there are always people out drinking coffee and eating lunch in the gentrified part of my neighbourhood when on the other side of the estate its all street drinkers, crack, stabbings and garbage. why in the midst of those polite cafes i can see the police in riot gear harrassing the local youths.

I forgot to mention love, its there amongst all this violence, poverty, confusion, exhaustion... i still have a love heart embroidered on the sleeve of my rock n roll cardigan.

in sickness and in health

It's been bloody ages since I wrote anything here. Post Athens/Sanfran helter skelter...June and July were BAD health months. *presses whinge button* My health is a bit dodgy, I'm prone to a boom and bust cycle of living. When I'm 'up' I run hard, when I'm not I tend to fall over for a while and say things like 'would someone PLEASE make me a cup of tea, cos I can't move.' resting....sure can get boring when it's not a choice.

Anyhow I've been doing mammoth amounts of lying down, a bit of weeping from time to time and a lot of feeling sorry for myself. Not sure about doing any Edith Piaf cover songs in the future. 'No Regrets'?? well sometimes I really DO wish I hadn't taken shit loads of drugs and partied so hard way back in the 80's. I come over all 'Nancy Reagan' (on the drugs policy not the right wing politics) and find myself muttering 'kids, just say no' :P

Sometimes it occurs to me I also might have 'poor health' cos it's been almost 20 years of the run/fall down/run/fall down cycle. fuck it. it's a long time of 'getting by'. I know I'm not the only person who has developoed a habit of doing too much on too little, living on adrenaline... it's a common mode of opperation in activist and creative circles. And the irony of it is that when that level of activity can't be sustained there may be very little support or visibilty for those who work very hard for their communities.

Over the years I've been to a fair few activist burn out workshops, tho it's not a matter just of health, but also of what happends when peoples lives change. I've heard similar stories of instant invisibilty from those who have become parents, or have ceased in other ways to be able to sustain the usual punishing schedule.

I feel like a bad friend, I can't keep up with my basic correspondance let alone all the various projects I have on hold. Plus I have the invisible sort of crap health where people say 'hey you look great'...I'm not complaining. But I do have a few issues around denial with this stuff.

In some ways what I wish for is that as soon as I 'out' myself as having such chronic poor health that it will cease to be true. Bring on bucket loads of energy, the abilty to leap tall barricades in a single bound! or right now I would even go for the abilty to walk in a semi reasonable demonstration without being utterly knackered the next day.

It makes me laugh but seriously what I need at the moment is a P.A. (personal assistant)...I currently lack sufficient energy to move forward with one or two pressing projects and I need to do so. I have a stupid situation where it's often too painful for me to type long stretches of time.

So....dear future totally unpaid but loving interns....come to me!!!! (I.AM.NOT.KIDDING) I promise that as I dictate from a propped up position I can teach you much about the art of creative chaos and rable rousing....and we have such great projects to work on!

1. Is the Queer Beograd event to be held in Serbia in a couple of months time.
(performance/politcal panels) on class and borders.

2. is the publication of the 'border fuckers' scripts. We have funding to produce a small book of the scripts written by myself (in collaboration with others) over the past 6 years or so. It's a total of around 20 scripts and accompanying photographic documentation of queer political threatre produced as a part of queer beograds festivals.

ok have to stop typing for now, ...and go and do something that involves resting/or making a living. Let's call this an update.

Athens Report back

Ok a million years later.....

It's been ages since I went to Athens as part of the Queer Beograd crew, but it's taken me a while to come to ground after bouncing back into London....and all the usual struggles that go with precarious health, precarious employment and trying to pay the rent.
(Please feel free to PRESS THE DONATE BUTTON on this blog!!)



'QUEER BEOGRAD BORDER FUCKERS IN ATHENS'

Our Hosts picked us up at the airport and as we travel into the centre of Athens there is that process that occurs with every new city, of forming first impressions. In Athens what is at first apparent is the heavy police presence on the streets, not one motorcycle cop on patrol but squads of four at a time, groups of police every where. And on the streets as we have heard, many migrants, many people living in streets.

As we travel our hosts are catching us up on the political situation and the developments since the previous weeks general strike, the deaths that have occured, the racial and economic tensions, the beating of migrants in the streets by police and fascists, and the raids on local social centres.

As we travel each landmark is explained and set in a political context. We point out sights to each other, Exarchias' main square, a tiny old church, and then I spot a delapidated set of houses and ask 'what is that?'
One of our hosts replies, 'ah that, this is some of the social housing that was built back in the 1950's when the first wave of migrants came from Turkey. It was going to be knocked down but now there is a movement to restore it and keep it as a historic building.' It seems ironic in the midst of the current tension.

We arrive at where we will be staying in Gazi, our hosts tell us 'well I'm afraid it's going to be a bit loud' apparently what used to be a very cheap area of town and a central district for gay clubs has recently become gentrified, transformed into an all night club land. There's not loads of sleeping going to be happening while we are in Athens.

The next day there is some free time before we meet with the rest of the crew, after a bit of staring at our lines we decide to go out and explore.

Wandering about we find ourselves in the middle of the tourist places, ruins and ruins and more ruins, surrounded by many rich looking cafes and people sipping their drinks in the sun. On the way home we see ruins of another kind; shanties built in any free ground amidst the city, a make shift houses formed out of old sofas and pieces of carpet, a whole bed set into the door way of a building. At the tiny church we spotted the night before we stop and sit for a moment. Alongside the building next to the church are people with cardboard matresses camped out. Everywhere there are people living on the streets.

Finally we make it to the autonomnous Steki - a squatted social centre - for some very familiar organised chaos as the sound system is set up. We hang the Queer Beograd exhibition and then some how I pull myself together for 5 hours of rehearsals. The funniest part of which is trying to work as a director (from a script in English) with the two Athens crew members (who are performing in Greek), some how it DOES actually work. We take a short break and then carry on to the occupied polytechinic for another quick hour of rehearsal and then home for a night of no sleep.

The schedule for the next day is a high speed technical rehearsal, a film screening, a panel discussion - starring a very unprepared Queer Beograd - and then the show.

The panel discussion is kind of weird, our hosts have prepared a very theoretical introduction which i struggle to read through (ive never quite understood the point of obscuring what you want to say with academic language).
The basic premise seems to be a desire to draw parallels between the experience of queers in Beograd - othered and persecuted by the state and fascists - and the current situation of racisim against migrants in Athens. That and the situation of embattled queer and feminist groups fighting to make themselves heard within the movement.

The hope seems to be that we might offer some tactical or inspirational fuel for how to build connections outside of our particular movements and how to break down predjudice inside our movements. For us to show how our refusal of single issue politics has worked at a practical level, but its a hard discussion.

Many times we stumble over how to fight against a system that manifests itself not only OUTSIDE but also INSIDE our movements. As homophobia, racism, sexism and class issues are not abstract ideas but lived experiences, I find open ended 'discussions' of this can be less than fruitful. What I find to be a more helpful is to purposefully and deliberately bring to the fore stories and voices which are less often heard, that is something that has the potential to truly shift the balance of power.

Enough of talking, we head off to our improvised dressing room and prepare for the show. Back stage is one of my favorite places, apart from always being nervous its also somewhere in life that I understand what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing.
I scrawl out a set list, as of course its the thing that hasnt managed to make it backstage, and then we are off... into the close camaraderie of cheering each other on as the show gets underway.

After the flatness of the discussion there is now a feeling of excitement, as each peice builds there is also a tangible energy building in the room.

When the two Local crew go on stage with "La Rage" as their sound track there is a huge cheer and it's great to see both of the performers respond and start to have a good time. They have both been nervous in the preparation, but if nothing else their piece is an example of taking ground and standing up for what you want to say.

They tell of the conflict with being both anarchists and queers in a movement which can be homophobic and sexist. Describing the situation of going to demonstrations where the popular slogans are 'cops, cunts, you kill children' and 'police lesbian whore'. The derision they often face when objecting to these slogans.

they pause and deliver the lines:

'I am dyke
I am a cunt
my friends are whores

fuck anarchismo!'

AND THE CROWD CHEERS!!!

the closing lines of their piece:

'You say you believe in a world with everybody equal
You say you believe in a world with out hierarchy
You say you believe in every voice being heard
Then why do you shout me down?

If prvileges are to be shared, then share them
If power is to be shared, then share it
all voices must be heard
from the margins to the centre

Let us stand together
let us fight together
let every voice be heard

Love and rage
Love and rage
Love and rage'


Last in the show is 'The Easy Jet Set' - the full text of this is published as an entry in this blog titled 'Im not afraid to say forever'.

we do this as a live 'hard core' style set with one of the local women on drums - Its a set that requires a lot of emotional energy... but it also gives back a lot if it works. on the tiny stage in Athens one of those beautiful moments occurs where you see and feel peoples hope and energy rising and begin to feel part of something happening in the space and shared amoung those present.

prior to the show some of the women read the piece and said they liked it very much but could not see how it would function as a live perforance....after the show they told us they were left with 'a revolutionary feeling' :D
THANK YOU beautiful Athens crew xxxx

Counting down to Athens

Counting down to the Queer Beograd trip to Athens (we travel in 3 days time) presenting the 'Border Fuckers Cabaret' and also our booktour and exhibition.
For years members of the Athens crew have been coming to our 'Queer Beograd' festivals, supporting us and adding their voices to our program, now finally we go to visit them. I have to say the situation in Athens looks a little 'tense' to say the least. A few days ago one of the people we go to stay with and with who we collaborate with to organise the whole visit wrote to me:


'dear jet

good morning.

Athens is tough with unrest the last days, with horrible things happening, the one after the other.

monday morning a man was killed, when 3 people tried to steal his video camera. (his wife was in labor and he was fetching for the car to take her to the hospital, he was greek, tragedy).

monday afternoon, fascists were beating up immigrants, all over the center (because supposedly the people who killed the man where immigrants), and also attack two anarchist squats.

tuesday morning general strike and a big demonstration takes place. 30 people end up in the hospital beaten up by the police, two very seriously, one in critical condition, since he had a hematoma in the brain, and now is in icu. the other one had his spleen removed.

early today in the morning fascists kill a 20 year old immigrant from Bangladesh.

last week in exarxeia square (the movement's part of town) violent encounter leads two people in the hospital (both alive by chance).

which makes me think: how much is a life worth?

the atmosphere in athens is really dark and gloomy and like no hope.

just wanted to let you know what is happening in my head..

many kisses and sorry for the horror newsletter

A'

For much of the time leading up to the Athens trip myself and the rest of the beograd crew have been going 'yay! we get to have a summer holiday together'. One of the great things about going to OTHER places with Queer Beograd stuff is that they can pretty much be guaranteed to be LESS scary and violent than Beograd.

Our friend in Athens was also worried that she doesn't have the time or focus to carry on with performing in the event we prepare. Ive been collaborating with her to write a script about the Greek political situation and that can include some of their concerns as women and queers - issues of violence/sexism/homophobia - which often get ignored as part of the 'REAL' political agenda and seen as side issues. For me it also makes sense to try and collaborate in a way where we have at least one piece that can be performed in Greek.

me....being me... well I try to talk her around to carrying on with the show - because its been hard work to get the whole gig organised like fuck am i going to let it drop so easily - and because this is how i survive everything, I write about it, i make shows about it. For sure we might be performing in the midst of a totally crazy situation - but my solution is to do a speed rewrite that includes much of what she wrote about. I dont wan't to be too much of a bastard about it but i WILL have a go at pushing this through.

Again i ask myself about how i can focus on such 'frivilous' things (writing/performance/books/queer and feminist stories)when the situation is so serious. But i believe we need beauty, creativity, i can't cope if all there is... is to fight....and i tell myself, at least if we write the stories, they will remain and our struggles can be there for others to know.

And as i rewrote the script - I tried to talk (yet again) about how hard it is and how despairing one can feel when all the fighting for a better world includes so much actual FIGHTING. That being surrounded by violence can bring so much sadness, and always the search of how to keep unpicking this from underneath.... to keep on and on and on trying to change the actual power relations of a society rather than to find ways to be bigger or stronger in the fight.

Love and rage, love and rage, love and rage.

Im a little scared of the whole 'tear gas and rubber bullets' sound of Athens, but also excited to see my crew very soon.

Here's a link to the Athens Crews page for our visit:
http://queerbeogradinathens.blogspot.com/