Another show and an announcement.
It's time for what appears be my monthly update. It's sort of like menstruating, only messier.
Well, summer came for a bit, but I'm not quite sure what's happening now. Anyway, the Freedom Fields Festival was great. Once we got all the youth work bits out of the way, I enjoyed the weekend of the 7-day community festival half naked and drunk with my friends:
And last month, Kitty's Doll's Burlesque did the Plymouth Volksfest, which is an annual festival in a big valley where everyone who owns some sort of Volkswagon automobile spends an extortionate amount of money on a ticket to park it up and go get drunk. Or so I thought. Actually, the festival was brilliant and there was way more to do than just drink - stalls, stilts, stomach-pumping, those little toilets like Doctor Who's time machine (I call them TURDISes).
The band on before us cleared off and left all their instruments for the roadies to pack up, so as they did, I jumped onto the main stage, dressed like a transvestite triffid, sat on an amp and screeched into the microphone "SEAL THE DOORS. NONE OF YOU FILTHY HIPPIES ARE GOING ANYWHERE." As the guy tried to drag the amp away, I sort of draped myself across it and screamed something horrific. It wasn't until after the show that I would learn I had managed to keep about 400 people in the cabaret tent to watch Kitty's show. Probably the biggest audience I've done so far and aside from trying to remember the names of one of the groups, I think I did pretty well!
"Who likes watching women take their clothes off? [cheer, applause] Well I don't; I'm a fag and a feminist and I think you're all perverted wife-beaters. But I'm also getting paid, so please welcome the first act..."
Here be piccies:
And I guess I should do my little 'announcement' here too. I put it on Facebook (Dana Fox, if you want to find me/add me), but I realise that stuff gets buried quite quickly there. Quick version: I'm going to Australia on a working Visa in January 2012. I passed my Masters, so you're talking to Foxy BA, MA now (more letters after my surname than are actually in it) and I figured, well, I have three options:
1. Get out of Plymouth and go wherever I want, perhaps find that job working with young people in London or Brighton that I always wanted.
2. Stay in Plymouth and get one of the jobs working with young people here.
or 3. Do something completely unexpected and leave the country for a year, getting as far away from anything remotely familiar and doing what I want to do, rather than what I feel I must do.
So I picked number 3. because well, I want to. And that's always been good enough reason for me. I've been offerd a place to stay in Perth, but I really want to go to Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin, which are all on the East Coast. But I guess I'll have 12 months to do it all. The plan is to land with enough money for a while, then get one of the many jobs available for backpackers (bartending, fruit-picking, whatever), live in a hostel with all the other people doing the same thing, find a merry band of freaks to hang with and go clubbing, exploring, sunbathing and maybe traveling with.
Ultimately, I want to find a 28 year old surfer called Brad, marry him and emigrate - but I won't hold my breath for that one.
The sort of downside is that any of the youth work jobs I see advertised, I may as well not apply for. My conscience won't allow me to work with young people, develop a relationship and do my job ... only to leave in six months time. I'm going to find it hard enough telling the little guys I work with now that I won't be here come January. :( But yay Australia. So I'm working in my job now, saving up all the cash I can and making it happen. Yippee!
So yay. Doing stuff. Massive arts collective exhibition in October too - I'm apparently going to be a mystical creature at the centre of a labyrinth in the Plymouth Guild Hall, which is essentially a big cathedralesque building. I'm going to get the young people to make some amazing masks for the exhibition too.