My White Friends – you are not listening.

I have been very tempted, to be boundaried enough, to share screenshots here of what goes on in my private messages. Because some of you are not getting it and you need to be told in a different way it seems.

And right now, I have to break it you: most of you are still being racist. I think I need to break it down for you more, what racism really means. It is not them over there, it's you and it's us right now, daily. Most of you are still using your White Privilege and upholding the White Supremacist structure. The fact that I am even spending my time having to write this, proves that fact.

But this will be one of the few times I will give you this education for free.

My main points are this:

• Stop centring yourselves and your Whiteness
• Stop stealing my time.  
• Stop taking up space where it is not wanted. Black & POC need safe spaces. Whiteness likes to invade all spaces. Whiteness assumes that it has access and should have access to all spaces. The fact that some of you do not even think if you “should” or if it is “appropriate” to message me is proof that you do not see your White Privilege and you centre yourself over my needs. (My needs right now are to rest and heal from this pain btw… )
• Stop Private Messaging me, DMing me, Whats-apping me, emailing me. (especially if I haven’t heard from you in a long time, and you chose now to message me).
• By asking if I am “ok”, or “did I do something to upset you?” or telling me you are thinking of me “at these times” after not speaking or messaging me for weeks/months/years.
• Asking me to do the work to make you feel ok in your whiteness. Wasting my precious time and my Blackness, to alleviate your guilt and uncomfortable feelings. (have you stopped to think about mine?)
• You are centring yourself by asking for me to attend to you right now. In the middle of Black Lives Matter, when I am dealing with so much community pain. YOU want attention, you want the cookie, you want to take my time.
• This is still racism – this is White People colonising/stealing (still) from Black people. Because none of you are paying me.

• Stop looking to me as the voice of all things "Black" in your lives.
• Stop reaching out to me as your one Black Friend to speak on these things
• Blackness is not a monolith. I do not speak for, nor can I answer for ALL of Blackness and the Black Community. I am not the spokesperson. And if I am your only voice, one of your few Black Friends, then you need to look at that too.
• Stop treating racism like some arbitrary debate. This is not something for you get together and “discuss over pizza or wine”. This is not up for debate… EVER. This is not a discussion on whether apples or oranges are best. This is about a world denying humanity to the majority world population. This is about people’s lives, their dignity, liberation and freedom.
• Stop expecting Black people to be nice to you. I am having some really shitty days right now and I do not have the fucking bandwidth to always be nice. Ps. Also, by expecting Black people to always be nice to you – that is racism. Research: the Mammy figure – how Whiteness expects to be coddled by Black Womxn.  
• Again here is the expectation that your discomfort takes precedence over my life/wellbeing. Again, this is racism/White Privilege
• If it wasn’t for racism, I could just get on with my life. I literally could have written that novel, or play I still dream of. I could have created the drama training school I dream of. I could have started the family I wanted to earlier, I could have been able to save for a house or a world wide adventure trip. Racism is a thief of time and energy. And the time you take from me is part of that racist White Supremacy structure.
• Stop sharing material without thought. The effects of racism are know to elicit PTSD/ CPTSD. PTSD is  chronic and debilitating mental illness. This is what racism does. This is what suffering from racism does. Sharing images and posts without real thought and reflection, is to reintroduce trauma to PTSD’s sufferers. Again, you are centring yourself with your empty performative attempts to look like and ally, and what you are actually doing is reinforcing the racism and trauma.
• Stop watching the Help.
• Stop watching 12 years a Slave.
• Stop watching The Butler.
• Stop perpetuating the narrative  of Black = trauma.
• Stop expecting Black and POC to do the work.
• Stop putting the onus on to us to serve you the answer. Us doing the work for you, for free… guess what that      sounds and looks like???
• Stop emailing them for reading lists, or advice, or research.
• Stop calling them into your work institutions to speak on their personal experiences to validate that racism exists. Why do you people to re-enact their trauma for you to believe racism exists? Talking about racist experiences are so painful. It can trigger PTSD. Why are you asking Black and POC to do this in work spaces?
• Stop asking Black people for the answers to “solve racism” when White People created it. Racism is a White problem.
• PAY PAY PAY for the work that you take from Black and POC  

Just so we are clear: every single thing above I have mentioned is STILL racist. Still perpetuates racism. Still keeps the White Supremacist Structure intact.

Genuinely, I am not excited at all about the current “tide of change”, because all I am seeing is racism showing up but with a different face. I would rather handle an out-and-out racist than the white Liberal shit I see right now, which is fucking deadly. (read MLK on the danger of the middle ground).

I don’t think people in the UK are really ready to face themselves. Because what we are going to see is fucking ugly. I don’t think you are all really ready to do the work. Because I don’t really see anyone really listening to Black people. I see a lot of performance, action without reflection and guilt.

Black and POC have been telling you for decades what we need. You may think you have woken up – maybe you have. But you are still not listening. Time and time again we are asking you to listen, banging our heads against a wall telling you to listen -  then watch as you post a Black Square, sing a song, post a few articles, wrote an email, made a statement of “solidarity”, then go back to your day and feel satisfied that you did enough.

So go back to my previous posts and read them while they are still there. Buy Layla F Saad as a starter. Then: Be quiet. Sit still. Be uncomfortable. Listen. Do the work you were asked to do. Don’t debate. Don’t ask for a cookie. Don’t look for validation. Get on with it…

Truth

Truth.

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“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid”

~ Hardeep Matharu (from Double Down news article) .

Truth has been missing for a long time. It has gone into hiding.

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bell hooks speaks of the greatest part of love. And she means the practice of love, of love being the verb, love being in the doing. The greatest part of love is being truthful. Truth and honesty are the nuts and bolts that build the connections that show love in action. Love without action is nothing but a performance.

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Lies have taken over and infected so much of our modern lives. In the early histories of the 20th century American Dream, the cult of persona took over person-hood as part of a community. Born into this cult of persona both personally, politically and globally, we have all constructed a Wizard of Oz style mechanical glamour. One that we exhaustively push and pull buttons behind the scenes while trying to maintain this façade.

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What is it serving?

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Short term ego based self esteem. It eases the difficulty of painful conversations. It saves us from bruising to the ego’s extreme fragility. Rather than deal, experience and understand the hurt, connect, then heal; we obscure the truth. Bury it deep inside. Instead go back to pressing buttons and maintaining the façade. Conceal and spritz up the painful truths with white lies here and there. (Isn’t it a fascinating fact of English that the term “WHITE lie” is perceived as a “harmless lie”?) anyway I digress.

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Each lie we tell ourselves, tell others, and perpetuate, creates a debt to real love, real progress, real revolution. The quote above has been with me in my heart all week. As I look around at the mountain of debt we are accruing, it scares me. Terrifies me. I see nothing but debt that will need to be paid off at a severe cost.

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Personally I’ve been facing a few of my own in the last few weeks. Lockdown is asking us to face ourselves. And trust me, if you are offered the grace of space to do this right now, I would encourage you to use this time (if you are able) to do so.

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The hubris of those lies I tell myself comes from a deep seated inadequacy. An unshakeable sense that no matter what I do I am not good enough. I am facing the points in my life where I feel I haven’t lived up to what I had hoped for myself or where I have been educated to believe I should be. In each situation, the deep frustration, guilt, shame and anger, turn out to be where I haven’t been honest with myself. Then I look towards things I want to do with this deep seated inadequacy and I am immobilised with sheer panic that I’m not good enough to fulfil them and achieve them. Because I have begun to believe the lies told about me and that I have turned into believing myself without any outside influence or manipulation.

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White Supremacy creates a hierarchy. We have almost ALL lived with this since birth. It has infected almost all of us to a greater or lesser degree. It harms those most obviously and violently at the bottom of this created hierarchy. However those closer to the bottom are closer to the truth. Closer to reality. Closer to being outside this matrix of lies. I see no love at the top of the WS hierarchy, only lies and shame all cloaked behind a false ideal of success.

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Those further up/deeper within the hierarchy have been taught that any sense of inadequacy and raising the sense of self up “through the ranks” of WS is possible. Consciously or unconsciously through the stepping on or denigrating those “below”. Those lies have to be told to ourselves over and over again to mask the inadequacy with false superiority. The sense of self is built on lie after lie about ourselves and about others. Those lies, told over and over again throughout a lifetime drag us further away from reality. The definition of Psychosis is the loss of connection with reality. bell hooks speaks of real love and connection only through the telling of truths. If there is no truth telling. No honesty. There is no real love. Only a psychosis of lies told over and over again till all connection with love and humanity is lost.

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Those of us within the WS structure have greater truth telling work to do. And I mean with ourselves. I’m not wholly about people telling others about themselves. No until we have invested all the time teaching ourselves about ourselves. Most times, it’s being in that which teaches other people best. A truthful telling of ourselves looks like being honest about where the lies we tell or believe about ourselves have harm and cause violence, disparity, and disconnection with others. As a person of mixed heritage that includes Whiteness, I have seen and I live both sides. I have spent years (and will spend many more to come) dissecting the ways in which I am not part of the system, but also a part of that system. Lies I have taken into my heart to create some version of myself that attempts and desires to rank and rate me higher in the WS system than the reality, truth and love of who I really am. Lies that disconnect me from both the truth and love.

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Loving yourself. The practice of loving yourself. Is telling yourself the truth. Being honest with yourself.

(This is why I am not here for “self-care”. Self care speaks to caring about the self only in the way that you can then go and serve your capitalist function. Self care does not speak of revolution. Love and Truth are the only languages of revolutionary) 

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So take this time as an opportunity, to make the decision to take an honest truthful look at yourself.

I ask this, because right now I see a lot of hiding from our guilt and shame. Action and zero reflection on who we really are. If we really want to dismantle White Supremacy, we need so much more reflection than I am seeing right now. Reflection & understanding MUST come before action.  We MUST going and look within before we storm without. I started this type of therapy in 2016. I made a conscious and wilful decision to step into therapy that specifically looked at finding meaning (Logo-therapy). I still feel like I have only just started (and I have only just started). So a Black Square on one Tuesday or a week’s worth of hashtags, is just not even gonna cut the starting ribbon on this marathon that we are on.

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Real time needs to be taken to dismantle the parts within ourselves that fear the difficult and painful road of truth and love.

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For more reading:

The cult of persona “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking” – by Susan Cain 

“All about Love” bell hooks 

“The Art of Loving” Erich Fromm 

“Man’s Search for Meaning” Viktor E. Frankl

Tate Modern Talk: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race Reni Eddo-Lodge, in conversation with curator Zoe Whitley. 3 November 2017 - 19.00–20.30

Tate Modern Talk: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race

We made it in! But unfortunately hundreds more did not.

We made it in by the skin of our teeth, and only thanks to two wonderful (White) women who stepped aside to give us their tickets. I may have been crying. However, I am not sure if that was sheer anger and frustration at how badly handled we all were by the event hosts. Those trying to keep us safe did a great job, as best they could under the circumstances. Giving us whatever small pieces of information they had. However, that, and the marginally bigger venue they produced, does not take away from how utterly poorly and mismanaged the event was (see Reni’s answer to this below). Warning had been given about the popularity of the event. 100 capacity allocated. 500-600 arrived. Only 230 made it in to see Reni Eddo-lodge.

I had promised an absent friend that I would make notes of the night. She was the one who initially pressed the book into my hands. But I realized that many people were left outside and not able to listen to the talk promised… and maybe not able to make or afford the next ticketed talk of Reni’s in the coming weeks.

My friend Kemi, and I made notes.

They are disjointed. There are changes between narrators, changes between quotes, general summaries, and also tenses. Apologies if some of it doesn’t make sense. But hopefully enough of it will.

Author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge, in conversation with curator Zoe Whitley.

3 November 2017 - 19.00–20.30

Eddo-Lodge began the talk with the conclusion that white people just don't care.

There is talk of “Diversity” this and that.  And then I came to the conclusion that most white people at the top, really don't care.  And once you accept that. Then things will be easier for you. White people talk but take no action and White feminist talk but there was no action. Within the feminist circles, that once race began to be questioned, in opposition to the accusations of racism, there began the creating the narrative that "I am the problem".

The other reason for the book was that the onus is always on us to do the work the psychological heavy lifting all the time when it comes to understanding and explaining racism. Referencing the film The Colour of Fear (1994). And so the book came about because this is what someone else needs to read, so that we don't have talk to people about this anymore.

Eddo-lodge talked about getting the work up and running:

She started her blog 2nd year at uni. She interned as a journalist but was aware that all black people were cleaners. She blogged, then she got attention from the establishment. But no one in the “establishment” really took a risk. Seeing how Nepotism, middle class white they get all the real opportunities. The fallacy of being colour blind. Black women’s’ voices are just not taken seriously at all. “I don't know what happening with white peoples ears but it’s not penetrating”.

She had been doing the work for years before her book. It had been in the public domain but no one cared. The standard response always seems to be "There is not a market for this kind of work!" The queues tonight are a testament against this absurd argument.  

And as the host began in her introduction, Tate Modern underestimated both this talk and the interest in the Soul of A Nation exhibition which had 60% more attendance than the Tate was expecting.

We have this idea that the internet is democratizing, but that is only if people are investing in you. "No space was given to me in the mainstream media."

There is a lack of money resources and the time. The anchors which are vital in the real world are not investing in these issues. The internet is not the answer for the minority voices. It does not develop these.  Again, this is an example of the systemic systems of racism.

#guerrillagirls

"Unless the history of art includes all our voices it's not the history of art, it's the history of power"

Then these beacons can become the only reference point. 

No one is willing to be a mentor or an advocate of black people. 

No one is offering access or a leg up and assistance. 

These are the structures that are in place that lay this bare. 

The fallacy of being "colourblind" 

Intersectionality. Black women's voices are just not being taken seriously. It's not like those work is not in the public domain. White people are choosing not to see it and listen to it. It is the silencing of our voices. 

Having to tease out some of these spaces that we can find. 

Responses to "Girls." These are not voices of "all women" only "all women like me" 

If you could talk to black people about race. What would you say?

Share out the opportunities. Attempt to increase the unity of the movement.

This work is bigger than any one person’s ego. It's about the politics and not me.

People are waiting for the book and not me. Focus primarily on the work and not the ego. Don't revel in the issue. Work out how do you do it so that we don't remain in this position. Push aside and against the culture vultures. Get like-minded people together, regardless. 

"Don't ask for permission. Get on with the work"

Focusing on the work, creates the situation means that people around you just become fascinated, even if it's to criticize. Just work with likeminded people and focus on the work. 

Why no Political involvement?

We have much more power as the electorate than we realise.  

Personal stance, on not taking a political party alignment; if it means aligning and moving and changing beliefs to fit in, then what is the point.  We don't have to be part of politics. There are opportunities of standing up in a different way, or through different means. If politics works for you then do that. Do whatever you can, as long as you do the work.

What did you think about the space we were given? 

There is a tradition of us being underestimated. 

I emailed and told them I need a bigger room. 

I was told it wasn't going to happen. 

POC interests market/audience was always underestimated. 

This is the perfect example, books like these are not written in Britain very often. 

White feminist books are ten a penny. 

Sorry that people were turned away. But I knew this was going to happen. 

What will the impact of this book in the long term? What about this book being on the National Curriculum?

The National curriculum has not notified her... not as of yet!...  J

Start the petition for colonialism to be put on the national curriculum. 

Govt have asked her in a tokenism way to contribute to Black history month. But they haven't asked ask to come and influence Policy.

The book is creating a different dialogue. The book title is really like a red rag to a Bull for White people. Then they read it, and they go away. I hope it doesn't get subsumed into merely an intellectual curiosity: but only time will tell on the impact. 

The way you write is incredibly healing. The anger is very real. In your mind, how were you able to take that anger and channel it and make it healing? 

All that anger around feeling unheard went into the book. 

I have been watching and reading feeling very angry. Looking at narratives about equality and thinking they are rubbish. So someone has to try and give it a go. Wanting to talk about race on own terms and not wanting to be in Politics, or to be employed by anyone. You have got to try and channel the anger and put it into something creative. Manage the anger by having a project to work on.  I was tired of biting my tongue and swallowing my words just talking to people. And not working for other people, having to channel it for myself. 

I don't want to be the only voice here. So channel that anger into something creative. Like the art exhibition. Artists, writers, filmmaker are all around us if you are willing to see. 

What’s the difference between American and English Black politics?

"Passive aggressive" 

The court case of the woman who put the pot plant in front of the man’s face is a good example of this. British are all very passive aggressive. 

That's why the books made waves, because it's very direct. I say what I mean.

With right winged you know where you stand but with white liberals all you get is passive aggression

Father in the audience asking for advice for his daughter as she start her career in engineering – “How does a young black woman navigate themselves in the corporate world without losing her essence?:

Have to work at critical mass to create change. Cultural change as well as a policy change. It’s not only that we are not reflected but that we don't get the opportunity to work. 

Lorraine O'Grady “We need mirrors to see ourselves.” find mentors watch, read about people you can identify with.

I wouldn't want to misconstrue that this is easy, in any sphere. Just find the likeminded people, even if different situations and different spheres. Need to build the support network. Find your critical mass of people. Just people you can call. Need a support network, find a place of sanctuary, a place of refuge.

Basically at the moment, White women have the mic on diversity. ("White woman's tears")

"White liberals, if you consider yourself to be truly liberal. Then step up to the plate."

Change is afoot; something is in the air. We are reaching a critical mass. 

Suffragettes Revolution... for everyone?

On Monday evening, I was waiting for my date among the popcorn and beers of the Ritzy Cinema, Brixton. I was clutching the BFI festival brochure; reading the review for Suffragettes, out this week, and remembered an article a friend posted on Facebook from Stylist Magazine. Swapping paper for pixels, I pulled up and read the related article. The Politics of Being a Woman: by Romola Garai, Carey Mulligan and Ann-Marie Duff. 
 

Unaware of their own ironic position, the Stylist journalist writes, "a bittersweet celebration"of the story of those women. A magazine, which rarely falls outside the usual 'snoring' paradigms of reducing women and their "needs" to "style" (and rarely any other substance). That all said, they were here discussing the revolutionary nature of a film that was produced, directed and acted by some phenomenal women in the industry. This was fantastic, a great article vocalising how this movie has illuminated just how far... we haven't come! How there is still a battle, how we are still championing equal pay for female actors and representation in the industry. And the song they sing echos out across to all women and all industries. The inequality shown by the very fact that we still have to have these arguments and that these women still face these questions (compared to their male counterparts). No one ever gets asked; "So, why did you feel the need to tell this story about men..." they just do it. 

Yet I couldn't get this nagging tug in my brain that something is missing. As a female, as a female actor, as a female actor of colour. Yes, that is it. That was what's missing. But then (immediately) it feels wrong to knock such a powerful film. A film that (without having to even watch yet) I can see is doing and going to do (hopefully) so much in opening up huge gaping chasms for discussion on this issue of sexism and gender inequality. I cant really complain about colour representation, can I? "Besides", as my brain tries to soothe me as my date strolls in, "this was such a long time ago and things were different back then. And there probably weren't even many people of colour in the movement anyway." And so, neglectfully, we slipped into the dark womb of the cinema to watch a very bloody Macbeth.

That was Monday.
It's now Thursday - and as I read more about the Sisters Uncut protesting at the film premiere in London's Leicester Square. How they stormed the barriers and lay in protest along the red carpet.The Twitter scandal surrounding the use of the Pankhurst quote; " I would rather be a rebel than a slave" on t-shirts, and how this has been construed as disrespectful to racial sensitivities. I can't get that nagging thought to quieten down.

The actors were right about the bringing to the foreground the battles of suffrage. Although won here, but still in it's infancy, and only nominally, in Saudi Arabia for example. This film brings a glaring light to inequalities still present 100 years later. Suffrage has been attained but suffering is an ever present risk to all women. Eve Ensler has raised the cry again with her campaign 1 Billion Rising. We are still living with the statistic that 1 in 3 women are abused violently or sexually at the hands of men. That equates to 1 billion (and rising) women in the whole world. 
But fuck big statistics. Think about yourself. Pick 3 women in your life, fuck it, pick more. 
Pick 6 or 9 or 12...

And just do the maths.
Yes, think about it...
Who are they?
Do you know what is going on?
Do you suspect?
Do you help?
Ahah!
Got it? 
Enough said!
Actually no!
There is never enough said!

The protest from the the premiere was made by Sisters Uncut, an organisation which are campaigning against the government cuts to vital resources in the UK to assist and care for women in violent situations. Resources that are being systematically obliterated while we see another unchanging statistic that 2 women in the UK a week die in acts of violence from men. Bonham-Carter, Mulligan and others, shared support for this protest in their interviews to the press. Sisters Uncut also raised the point that there are disproportionate levels of non-white women in dire need of this service. That these cuts disproportionally affect "women of colour". And despite this film highlighting all the incredible issues, achievements, and battles still to be fought. It also brings up from its depths something else just as uncomfortable. How it disproportionately shows women of colour. 

And by disproportionately I mean: none.

And I am not discussing the racial implication of the promotional slogans, "I would rather be a rebel than a slave". I think most of us are grown up enough, despite any sensitivities, to see how that was meant. And personally, following the line of De Beauvoir's thoughts, women treated as property. Bodies monitored and censored with no autonomy outside the male subjective; was/is a form of slavery. But this is not my song to sing, becasue I feel it misses a bigger and more urgent issue than semantics and implied meaning. 

In terms of this film, as a non-white female actor; I have no representation and I have no opportunity for work (and selfishly is is probably the latter that bothers me most!)

In a film which, not only in its internal message but in its production values, is about the injustice of inequality: I am effectively barred from the discussion. And  I think what is most frustrating is that this is not the usual  "numbers/quotas" critisicm of film, tv and theatre. Where a mindless piece of work lacks any acknowlegement of gender/race/sexuality/disability. This is a film carefully and willfully constructed to challenge this: Both inside and out. 

I have seen the reasoning that, with very little historical evidence for ethnic minorities protesting within the Suffrage movement, it would be too difficult to place a character of colour within this story. In the first instance, as a champion Googler, I already found one. Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Who, to quote her biographer, Anita Anand,  "despite her own personal losses to Imperalism, saw the value of the sisterhood in campagining for women's rights." Yes the history books are a bit of a blur. With the majority of minorities well within and below the working class and subject to little or no historical records. 

Yet I still can't help feel that something is amiss...

This film isn't a factual account of historical figures, despite its deeply historical context. I believe that those producing this film are keen to demonstrate this is not about the more famous conterparts of this movement. Isn't its truer aim to show the lives of normal working class women. And the problem is this then: "normal" reads "white".  

Even IF there is recorded evidence of non-white Suffragette experience, as perhaps there was more of for white women. This is a fictional tale, so why do we need historical validation as the go-to excuse for not representinng non-white Suffragettes in this movie. 

Despite the wonderful and praiseworthy roll-call of great female writers, directors, producers, actors, etc... (and I will reiterate that this shouldnt be an issue still in 2015). Notwithstanding that. I can't help but see the same pattern of sexism being played out, but this time with regards to colour.  The charge held against this and any other male-dominated industry, has been that: women, at the very best (and most optimistic way of putting this) are: overlooked.

This is exactly the same problem I can see here in the lack of representation of colour (and even sexuality, and disabilty for that matter). And is the charge here worse? That as part of a supressed group we should understand better than anyone, and be hyper-vigiliant not to commit the same mistakes as those who have subjugated us. It is not good enough to simple take hold; to regain some equality, only to use that same methods to ignore others in the same plight. To fall foul of to the same mistakes as before.

And I am aware that this puts women that I admire and am intensely proud of and awe of, in that awfully difficult female position again. That we always seem to be balancing on a knife-edge. Be it work or motherhood or family, is that we are "damned if we do and damned if we don't".

Yes, it would be more complicated to write and show and explain the relation of colour, or sexuality or disabilty in relation to the Suffragette movement. Yes, it may highlight a darker and more complicated structure of the movement, perhaps less positive, albeit still reedeemable. Yes, it may be more complicated to fit all those stories in to only two hours. 

But isnt "complicated" what we women do best?...  

Episode 4: Life is like Bugsy Malone

Hey,

It's been far longer than I have anticpated since I put my pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

I have actually been in a dilemma as to what to write about - that is how much is going on right now. I have been torn between all the weird karmic things going on in my life and my first 'gig' as an Extra. And both (as usual knowing me) have provided me with a lot of comedy material that is waiting to fall out of my brain and onto here for my own masochistic need for humiliation and of course, for your amusement.

But then I had my mum come to visit on the Granny Express. And mums' have a knack for swooping in and changing everything, don't they?

~

It was Jean's birthday a few weeks ago, getting well into her 60's now, but still not managing to look a day over 40. We are ALL praying fervently that we got her genes. So we decided to bring her to London to watch a show with Future Cinema - Bugsy Malone at the Troxy for her birthday. It was an utterly amazing show they put on. The gorgeous art deco cinema was opened up to a roomfull of bundling, bouncing, cajoling actors. Romping around in 20's gear, boxing matches, chase scenes over the bannisters and terraces, sultry songs, razzmatazz dance competitions, mad-cap silent movies, and all the characters running around in real time, real life. The day couldn't get any better. We had gone to the matinee and trust me, I was the biggest kid there. Then when I couldn't possibly get more excited; they showed the film. Then when I thought I couldn't possibly get more excited; we had a SPLURGE FIGHT!


I could have literally died right there. Happy.

~

So let's fill you all in... 

This was a liii-ttle bit of a double-edged "gift". For those who know me - I needn't say a word. For those who don't know me so well... Here's a clue....

I AM OBSESSED WITH BUGSY MALONE  

I can recite it word-for-word, sing it note-for-note, describe the clothing in every detail, "Bangles De Bell, you look teeerrible", I can do the dancing with my eyes closed, and lord help the person who ever hands me a custard pie - they will get it returned back in the their face!

I have absolutely no doubt that Bugsy Malone forms part of my acting DNA. And I believe that for most of our generation, and even those below and beyond, it is a movie that burrowed its way into your brain, like it or not. I defy any of you to NOT know a song from the movie...


You are singing one now aren't you?


That moment when you first watch THE BEST FILM EVER and it's being acted by people like you! Your age, your height, your brand new teeth that don't quite fit your face yet, that ears that your Gran promises you will "grow into", your puppy fat, your almost teenage training bra breasts, your awful hair that just will not behave and just be straight/curly how grown-up hair is. All those child-to-teenage bodily awkwardness's, made to look so slick, so glamorous, so polished, right down to their manicured gloves...

With make-up, and moustaches (the boys anyway), slicked hair, the hats, the dresses, the suits, the dancing, drinking fancy jewel coloured green and red drinks "on the rocks", the attitude, the peddle cars, the gangsters, the Splurge guns. YOU truly could be Tallulah, Fat Sam, Velma, Baby Face, Bangles, Dandy Dan, or Bugsy... Nobody wanted to be Blousie, did they?... Seriously! But I will get to that later. 

It wasn't about being a kid and wanting to be that person or that person when you grow up. You didn't have to wait! You were able to be those characters right now! Forget having to be at school wearing the awful itchy red gingham dress and the woolly red tights given to you at christmas, that no longer fit you in July, so that you spend all day with the crotch area around by your knees. The matching ribbons for your hair for school. The stupid plaited hairstyle your mum has given you to try and control this unruly hair, that then reveals those massive Spock ears, giving everyone at school the gift of being able to tease you alternately between your hair and your ears. 


When you got home, the gingham was off and the fancy dress was on, the video was in the VCR faster than the fat kid with an ice-cream in the sun.

"My name is Tallulah..."

And school was forgotten in an instant.


You could charm men (okay, boys... and not the boys in your class - ewwwww!) with your dulcet tones and ruby red lips. Run a gangster racket with your pack of hoodlums. Become a singer, or a dancer, or find prize-fighters. Or cheat your way into eating 8 banana boozer specials and 6 beef spitfires. 

"You could have been anything that you wanted to be..." 

This is why life is like Bugsy Malone, or should I say, life should be like Bugsy Malone.

We should always try to make life glamorous. In Bugsy, even the cleaner Fizzy can tap dance beautifully. This was the depression era, and yes this isn't a historical project here, but the essence of always trying to create a sense of beauty and glamour in your life is still important. Like Fat Sam, trying to make things look normal as things fall apart within his empire. I am not saying we need to cover up the bad times, but it can help to make the best and put the most positive, and glamorous spin on what we do have.

We should all dress like we are in Bugsy Malone. The clothes themselves also seem to be having somewhat of a revival too. Maybe it's more likely down to the new Great Gatsby film. However, I it still contains that same sense of theatricality & glamour to the art of dressing up, that I find particularly appealling in Bugsy.

We should all dance like Tallulah - at least once in our lives.

My friend, who will remain nameless, her crowning moment of glory has to be the drunk "Tallulah dancing" on a stage up against a wall. I am positive this did the trick with her then and now partner... and we a have little Tallulah, her daughter, as proof this works!

And you all know the dance ladies - languishing back against a wall, arm up... prey singled out!

We should all have friends like in Bugsy Malone. From an acting perspective, the characters in this film are fantastic. There are so many real characters who all have such a depth to them. Which is rare for about 80% of all adult movies, let alone a childrens' movies. From a kids perspective, I spent my time watching this and identifying all my classmates as each of the characters. And as an adult, I could pick out the Tallulah, the Fat Sam,the Fizzy in my friends circle right now. And this movie is great, what you see is that there is no real star, you are rooting for them all, even Dandy Dan by the end. They all have their distinct characters and they all need one another to get along in the their world.

 

But the theme alone is enough for me.

Life should be like Bugsy Malone. 

From Fizzy the cleaner, to Leeroy the boxer, even to Blousie Brown, the loaf of bread, ok, sorry I mean singer. You really could be anything you wanted to be, even the kids starring as adults in a movie. If you have the desire and you have the drive, to even keep coming back tomorrow, then you could be anything that you wanted to be.

I think that as adults we forget sometimes. We forget that child inside, our inner Bugsy, our inner Tallulah. Who are ballsy, funny, creative, gutsy, and not afraid to be exactly who they are. We get caught up in our own little "rackets", people telling us we can't, Fat Sam telling us he's too busy to listen, or we shouldn't, or that's not the way things are done. Our little battles, our feuds, our fears, our own stupidity or grandiosity. Sometimes, we need that piano moment, you know the one...

*Bammm*

de de-de de de

de de-de de de

dum... dum... dum...

"We could've been any-thin that we wan-ted to be...  

and it's not too late to change"

We can be anything that we want to be, if we have the dedication of Fat Sam and Fizzy, the ingenuity to find a means to an end like Bugsy or Tallulah, friends like Knuckles, and Velma, and a big heart like Leeroy and Blousie.  

"You give a little love and it all comes back to you. You know you're gonna be remembered for the things that you say and do" 

We need have our dreams, we need to try and live our dreams and we need our friends to help us get there.

 

And yes, you may have guessed, Blousie is not my favourite character... Maaan, the girl is so bland - exactly like a stale loaf of bread, always moaning and whining (sorry was that her singing?). And way too reliant on a man to deliver her dreams. But her dreams are  the same as mine, "I'm going to Hollywood!"... 

And if I get to meet Scott Baio in the flesh then I have hit the double jackpot! 

 

Episode 3: The Paper Man

I often see him on the train, on a bench, in a park; the paper man. Weary of the world and thin. Being blown about as the world sees fit to move him. Apparently carefree; underneath wild-eyed with fear drowning in big distant watery blue pools.

I saw him on the train a few weeks back. Upright, clinging to a pole as the train tried to dislodge him from this world.

The last time I saw him, I carefully measured out the correct level of morphine, the 3 pink pills, 2 white and a rattling handful of bulbous capsules. I tried not to look as his crepe paper hands folded around the pills, painfully rolled up and into his mouth with a creaking swallow. Like translucent paper the world pressed in on him until the pain was visible in every movement of what was left of his body. Unable to touch, trying to cocoon his frame with some warmth of the lightest duvet. I fed him tepid tea. I said goodbye. I shut the door.

3 hours later I got the call.

~

This one has been a long time coming. To the point where I am now up at 1:30 writing everything that is bursting out from my head. There is so much I want to say, but I am at a loss how to write this.

~

It was five years ago this week that he passed away, my dad. Not something that gets brought up frequently. In class we talked about how we make the really big events in our lives as small as we possibly can. Don't you think - think about those life-changing events? How do you talk about them to others? We scrunch them up into tiny little balls, so that we can deal them better and make less visible the feelings and emotions. 

It was all so cliche, all so mundane. Life is at times. It was ultimately his own fault. Other people have worse problems. Worse lives. Worse sufferings. And I am certainly not alone in facing this one; it was nothing more than a banal fact of life we must all face as children growing into adults.

~

Aged about 8 I would go to bed and regularly asked God not to let my dad die. He didn't believe in God, he was an Atheist. But I prayed for him anyway. He made me a real dog kennel for Percy the PoundPuppy. He looked after me when all these strangely dressed grown-up people were in our house for a party and made me cry. He put me on his shoulders when I was too scared to climb down the hill at Dovedale. He took me, my sister and Corinna to parks, pools and farms in his embarassingly bright banana yellow Ford van. (I think on this one my mum traded her roast dinner making skills in for a Sunday outing after!) 

On outings he would often stop on a Derbyshire lane. Pick up the road kill, pop it in the boot and take it home to pluck and eat. First we were grossed out, in time curiosity got the better and we learnt how to skin and pluck game. He would threaten to put my rabbit in a stew, I would find him feeding him in his hutch every morning that I had forgotten. He woke us up at 4:30 in the morning when we begged him to take us into work with him at the newsagent, then take us to Jock's cafe for breakfast after. He would draw us silly pictures and cartoons.

It was a waking nightmare that persisted before each bedtime (that and making sure the wardrobe door was shut so as not to allow the alien monsters in). It was always my dad dying that I worried about most in the world. The bossiest 8yr old you ever saw; I would tear around the house indignantly ripping up his packets of cigarettes. Taking them to my spot in the garden and tipping them in a hole along with his whiskey. Poor sod, whole bottles of Teacher's whiskey I poured down the back of our garden along with broken, no soggy, golden packs of B&H. 

I loved my dad. Aged 8 he was the world, he was my world. Him, my mum, my sister who followed me around and annoyed the hell out of me (or so I told everyone), my bunny rabbit, our shop, our house, our garden, Corinna our neighbour, and our awful bright yellow banana car.

~

A few years later things had changed; a lot. And by now I was an atheist.

~

I felt like I lost my dad a long time before the physical reality occurred. What was once tall, sturdy and strong had been shredded into a pile of nothing. Many knew him as the mild-mannered paper man, and he was to others. This guy would stop and talk to the tramps on the street. Tell us that he had a theory that Trolley Ted the tramp who collected the trolleys was a secret millionaire. He would do his weird mortifying embarrassing flirting with the church ladies, chat and moan to the workers as Bass; it is difficult to admit that at home was quite different.

He barely spoke to anyone; we most definitely barely spoke. I set my stall out from that night I accidentally overheard a nasty comment he made about me and how I looked to my brother. It was the final piece of shit that stuck. It hurt. But aged 16 I was going to act in the most mature way I knew... and just ignore him from that point on. We barely spoke till my 18th. People who knew us would come to our house, with my mum, a very warm giving person, who let in any waif and stray. They would see my dad sitting there in silence with his cigarettes and whiskey, folded in a corner of the living room, under our giant overgrown cheeseplant and beach mural wall, silently doing paperwork. Those who didn't know us automatically assumed he wasn't even around.

I could never understand why he started to disappear from our lives. No more games, trips out, to work or presents from trips abroad. No picking me up or dropping me off at netball or sports events. It seems quite trivial, as I know many people who would kill to have had any kind of relationship with absent parents. But it was that very change from presence to absence that was most affecting. I knew and exactly what I had lost. And couldn't work out what I had done wrong.

Meanwhile, Sareka and then Vaughan were still having the relationship I once had. I had been replaced. I took it personally. I started to grow up, our relationship changed. I'd tried the lot: trying to please him and make him like me again somehow. Cooking foods he liked, helping at the newsagent, good grades, lots of reading so that I could argue with him about maths, science, literature the things he liked to discuss. I would always match his obstinacy, stand my ground no matter what and we would argue till my mum told us to shut up. 

By my later teenage years I hated everything about him, hated the very things about me that were like him. Railed at him for all his stupidities; did whatever it took to garner some sort of reaction. I got beyond frustrated. Nothing worked. I got angry. Very angry. I set my stall out. I was rude, abusive retaliating. I could be just as stubborn as him and fight my corner. Even cooking foods he hated, like pasta, just to piss him off! Who knew pasta could be so offensive!

Nothing.

I remember getting ill aged 18, seriously ill, one Christmas. Slipping in and out of consciousness for about two weeks. I remember two things. 1. Every time I woke up, Frank Sinatra was on TV. EVERY SINGLE TIME - it freaked me out. 2. When my mum finally got him to come upstairs to see me (not Frank, but my dad). Even despite how long it had  taken him. It was days. All I wanted was a hug from my dad. I cannot even tell you the last time I'd had one. It was years. It was awful. He couldn't even hug me properly. It was as if he'd never hugged anyone before in his life. I don't think he knew how.

Now THAT was the final straw.

I got well, saw a counsellor,  retook my a-levels and I left for Birmingham University.

I never spoke to him much after that.

Leaving home changed things further. As Rick grew up, a similar pattern emerged. They were closer. they shared a love of art and drawing. Despite that, even their relationship changed - but that is her story to tell. And I have no doubt my brother has his own too. I learnt that on the plus side it wasn't just me and in some warped sense of relief at least it wasn't personal; he was equally absent to us all.

The paper man seemed to struggle under the weight of life.

He took redundancy. Had operations on his feet leaving him barely able walk. He faced an attacker in our newsagent with a machete. At his fathers funeral, we learnt about his childhood. He drank more and smoked more and by now you could see the fright in those wan watery pools staring out at you.

When he got ill there was no surprise. No drama. No sadness. A perfunctory "well what did you expect" from drinking and smoking so much. The doctors chased the cancer around his body like the Coyote after the Road Runner, constantly being outsmarted and never catching the prize. Too late for radiotherapy. Too late for chemo. Strips were torn from him until his skin was translucent. I could see his veins and bones. I could pick him up and move him from sofa to bed. I had carried bundles of newspapers into the shop that weighed more than him.

You think when someone is facing (I can't even write it)... It makes them see the wrong in their lives and want to correct it. The reality is, we don't live in a soap, or a TV drama. This person is not finishing this series to go on and star in a West End Musical. It's just too incredibly frightening to deal with.

We had no revelatory moment. The moment I had perhaps invented and replayed in my head a million times. The moment where he says he's sorry for all the things he's done. I thought - "God, this man is STILL so f**king selfish". 

No, God, this was just a sad, scared man who was just petrified of dying.

When the doctors said they could do no more for him. His response was: "I want to go home".

Home with us.

We boxed away all our anger and frustrations. Took him home and tried to look after him as best we could. 

The rest is obvious, tedious, predictable, unsurprising and sad.

~

5 years on, those little balls of scrunched up grief, have slowly and painstakingly been unravelled. Some are torn, some are ruined. Some have opened up, very creased around the edges, to revelations about our relationship I can only look at and understand now:

I am stubborn.

I always fight for the underdog.

I loved arguing, believe in what I am saying and fighting for.

I don't draw the pictures of his imagination that he and Sareka saw, but I  imagine and write those images that are in my head. We all share a strange little fantasy world born from 'Milo Minderbenders' fantasy life.

I went to university to study literature.

I could pluck a pheasant. (If EVER the opportunity arises).

All the emotions I went through with my dad have given me the ammunition and the tools to explore my acting in ways I would not have had the capacity to do otherwise.

I learnt to question everything, not settle for things at face value.

As a result I am an Atheist. I appreciate life for life's sake and the beauty and frailty of everything around us.

I love Pink Floyd.

I ABSOLUTELY hate pasta!

Thank you for the weirdness.

You crazy, mad, gentle, emotionally stunted, scared, sad, passionate: 

paper man