Tawdry HeartburnsManic Cures

The Long Drink Between Gigs

2010-11-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

What am I drinking?
Well time really.
It's November and the last THMC gig was February but it's takes a while for things to get going.
So, two more sleeps until the next gig isn't a problem, in fact the hiatus hasn't been a problem either.
Time to make other stuff happen, pay some bills, travel, live life, survive living, and build some stuff to happen after all the current stuff has happened and will soon happen.
Am I being vague?
In short,Tawdry has had a digital revolution and is geared up to go touring and getting all of that done while he's not paying his way with this show, requires a lot of other work and life stuff to foot the bill and make the necessary changes he's made to THMC.

What do I know about time?
I can't hold it in my hand or control it any more than I can put a lid on it or pace it to suit my needs.
Nonetheless, on the balance of payments, it's been good to me.
The long drink between gigs has been quenching a thirst I was probably not fully aware I had.
Thanks time.

So, in two days the CANWA 25th birthday celebrations and hopefully I can tease out some juicy secrets from the world of WA community arts practice, well me or the flowing Champers!

Then it will almost be Xmas break and before I know it, the pre-flight check begin for touring in March 2011. In case you haven't heard, Tawds is touring Tassie as part of the Ten Days on the Island festival and also setting up shop at WOMAD in Adelaide. Very exciting....

Hopefully the folks in those place are up for getting off their collective chest and into some well typed words that will make us laugh, wince, frown and grin...

Time will tell.

25 words or less

2010-10-07T09:26:00.001-07:00

OMG I have 8 followers on my blog!
It's been two years maybe, nearly.
That must be a record he he he.
Of course it's not about approval of the masses, it's about having something to say.
I know that!
I'm sure I know that???
Well in any case, what can I possibly say that's new to 8 people who have already read some of this blog. What can I add to a blog about a show that is waiting for it's next gig?

Well, how about 'Hello'?
How are you?
I hope this finds you well.
I'm sorry I haven't blogged for a while, so here's what's been happening:

I finished my cert 4 in vocational training and assessing - something I am also planning to do between gigs.
I trained a danceskill course to WA teachers and am now the only qualified person in wa to do so...
I had a development of new work earlier in the year and out of it came three potential works all connected to the main idea which is, in 25 words or less, about - "What it's like to stand in front of a mountain of learning and not at first cope..."
Part of that theme was explored in a way that is in fact an old teaching practice of mine where I bind the body in abnormal ways to change the experience of it as a performer...
Been doing it for 20 years, think it's about time I called it something, how about The Berlyn Method? LOL
Maybe not. Not yet anyways!

Anyhoo, from the development showing, 'Held Up' came an idea and the opportunity to make a duet for two dancers using this 'method'. I should clarify this by saying that I have used this restraint technique in class and workshop situations for performers since 1990 but only recently have I started to use it in performance.
So I'm making a work, 'Shackle' for the Strut's Short Cuts season: new contemporary dance works at King Street Arts Centre, see strutdance.org.au
What's it about?
25 words or less: retraining the body in rehearsal and performance, as a way to make, modify and perform choreography...
The season at KSAC is almost sold out, yay!
No freebies peeps, box office is how dancers are getting paid.

So I'm trying to finish my piece b4 I go off to Sydney for a month to make a work with a choreographer there Sue. That gig came out of my trip to APAM. She is actually an old dance lecturer of mine from uni (last century) and Tawdry gave her a very long appointment at APAM. (So fun, thanks Sue! Oh that's right, she's not one of my special 8 ;-) )

I've been really enjoying working with Stefan and Russell; amazing dancers/collaborators.
I think it's been going pretty well, but one of them has come down crook, he didn't sound at all well today. Get well!
Think I'm now officially running out of time.
I'm leaving for Sydney next week, which is two weeks b4 the season so the work has to be finished.
And I will need to reschedule rehearsals but studios are rare as coz it's
Short Cuts and it's bigger than Ben Hur this year, and everyone is making a work.
Hence no spare studios, nor dancers for that matter.

The other two shows out of the development are in meeting and planning stage but have had some good response to the ideas thus far.

What else?
Finally, did my tax and paid a chunk off the evil credit card debt, but I'm still getting air con for flat. Yahooooo!
I'll be stuffed if im doing summer here again without it, and it already feels like it's gonna be a long hot one this year too.

BF has a puppy Beau... Tox I have bonded and he knows it. Dunno if he cares. Beau that is.

Did some grant-writing training for some emerging dance artists and went on about being able to simply and clearly articulate their practices. "If you can't say it in 25 words of less then how are you gonna keep track of the basics, let alone make something that others can feasibly get a grasp of in one viewing?"
It seems clearer to me with each thing I try to make or on each project where I am a collaborator that it's easy to do it badly, really easy. Much harder to do it well. Being clear about what it is I'm trying to do, seems to give me a better shot and making something or doing it well and if not well then, to the best of my abilities.
Doesn't guarantee it by any means, but it helps massively.
So my 8 trusty readers, give it a whirl sometime. Try saying to yourself this: "In 25 words or less, what the hell am I trying to do here?"
Enjoy!
TH

APAM back in Feb.

2010-04-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

So then there was a call on my mobile while I was working in a community arts organization. "James just to let you know that we really want you to come to APAM and given the nature of your show we need to make some special arrangements."

And so we did. I know it's a long time ago now, but the point is, Tawdry did 49 twenty minute one-on-one shows in the national trade fair and now finally I can say that some tours are coming out of it! Can't tell you where yet.

What's my point? Simple really, state your case, hang in there and it may end up going your way.

It hasn't been what i thought it would be but it is another chapter and more than that the chance to continue the project in new places. That's kewl.

Thanks for the folks and agencies who are helping to get me there!

Yay. Cya soon, on tour!

TH & JB

Who is Matt Power?

2010-02-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

I read my notes that I carefully made.
I flip through the pages back and forth.
A sinking feeling becomes evermore present in my gut.
I look at the screen I type in some commands, I open yet more windows and as I suspected, not much happens.
Is it in gigs or css?
Again with the notes.
I'm actually sweating.
It's OK just go to the template and alter the scanned images in Photoshop. Yeah kewl that I can do.
Where's the template? It was just here on the desktop! It's not in the Tawds file anyomre and it's not on the desktop.
Oh Oh I have to get this done for the site, the new secrets should be up now.
Can't call Trev until after Stargate...
Oh Oh Oh Why did I wanna do a work with a web component?

You get the idea?

I call Trev again and again and again.

Never wanted to know this stuff, really, until now.

His wise words of advice, "You will do it, you just have more pain to go through first."

After sleep I pack up my mac and head to Trev's for another lesson in html pain management...

Oh yeah, who is Matt Power?

Short answer; dunno.

I do know he she or it tagged all the pages on my appointment book last weekend during the show and also scratched into the aluminum clip board of the booking sheet in large capitals MATT POWER

Nice to know that this art project also works as a street lamp for those dogs who feel compelled to cock their leg and leave their calling card!

Nice to know that I will take Matt Power now to wherever THMC goes next, but fortunately, it's a secret as to who Matt Power actually is.

At first I was angry but after thinking about it, I realized that I or rather the project THMC was given a secret in a different way and that is kinda kewl. I hope I never know who Matt Power is. The question in this case, is so so much better and more intriguing, more elusive, than the answer.
Don't get me wrong if he/she defaced other things in the project I would simply replace them. But I choose to see this graffiti as a lesson: Don't ever pigeonhole how people will interact with an arts project that has an element of invited participation. People are constantly surprising, and I think that (most of the time) is a good thing. :-) TH

Drunk Secrets Contents Warning

2010-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

I'm doing my show THMC in an outdoor concert venue that after the concert is over becomes a club/pub.

I let drunk people loose on typewriters and ask them to reveal something poignant and personal.

What was I thinking?

"Mate! Hey mate! Mate Mate Mate Mate Mate!!! (Think the seagulls in Finding Nemo) Mate! This typewriter is fucked! Someone before me fucked it up. "

Have you tried returning the carriage? Just move it along like this.

"Oh, thanks buddy. Geez you're awesome. Hey Macca! Macca!!!!!!( or in fact Bazza , Dazza or Shazza) C'mere you gotta type out a seekrit doooood!" Macca doesn't give a fat rats about secrets until, (as actually happened last Saturday night) he sees the hot chicks trying to type up theirs. I know for a fact that one such dude successfully pulled by asking the babe next to him to read his secret. She declined, he slurred his insistence. Miraculously, it worked and the babe in question read his 'secret', his 10 digit mobile number.

Later that night.

"Hay, you in the hat. How do you delete stuff? I spelled whore wrong.

And later still.

"Oh c'mon! Those secrets aren't real dude. It's all bullshit."

Really? Thinking to myself, do you know all the three hundred people who typed those secrets up?

"Then they're just losers."

Smile Tawdry, remember to smile. Drunk people have rights. Drunk people are patrons of the arts too. Concentrate on the fact that the piece is so not about the voice of the alcoholically emboldened. It just so happens that in the last hour of the performances the audiences change dramatically. And actually, getting off my artwanker high horse for a moment, that's a good thing and the process of adapting to audiences of diverse sobriety has been a very useful challenge for me as a performer. But for the sake of documentation here is a very small sample of the secrets of the drunk.

BE ADVISED I DO NOT ENDORSE THESE VIEW POINTS OR DISPLAY THEM ON THE WEBSITE OR INSTALLATION OF THE WORK. CONTENT WARNING. SOME OR ALL OF WHAT FOLLOWS MAY OFFEND OR, IN MY CASE, JUST MOMENTARILY SADDEN.

If you are going to fspew (sic) in front of a prostitute don't fart'

She's a bit fat but she has nice teeth

I am the walrus

I stole a kidney from a drunk in the street

I've always wonderd what colour smurfs turn when you go and choke their ass....

My mother secretly wishes to drown children, morso (sic) if they are asian

I like to kick em to the kerb unless the fuck like Mick Jagger

I saw yer mom on the corner with a mattres on her back offering curb service

As I said, i want to fuck a goat

Once, when i was asleep I began to dry umphump (sic) the dog who sleeping in next bed bause (sic) my wife was having her period wen I woke up I could;nt stop

And these are the contributions of some people who tell me that the more heartfelt secrets currently on display on the website and at Becks Music Box are by sad losers??

Oh yeah, and after packing the show up the other night I came back to the display boards to find still more fun, pissed, party people whooping it up whilst over-writing their own witty commentaries on top of other people's displayed secrets. For example over one secret about a childhood trauma was written,
"Die you sad Emo losers die!". Hilarious...

However, enough said, there is so so much more that is completely fab about THMC at Becks and I am really digging the experience. Just needed to get that off my chest!

Thanx peeps TH ;-)

THMC Opening Weekend, Tick

2010-02-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

THMC opened last weekend at the Perth International Arts Festival's outdoor music venue, Becks Music Box.

It's Wednesday and I'm still knackered. How was I feeling beforehand? Tense, queasy, nauseous, and like I'd rather be anywhere else before the show goes up. Easier just to pack up and run, of course. Is it a viable option to pull the plug on all the hard work invested enthusiastically by a heap of people for this project? I think not, not unless I want to be run out of town.

Weeks of stuff, getting, making, fixing, arranging, learning, writing, driving, meeting, building, thinking,and then doing it all again, tweaking tweaking tweaking. At the end of all of that, I'm stuffed, completely. Nothing much left but excitement, fear and massive reservation. Then you have to do is the damn show!

Friday last, bumped into the outdoor venue. My reserve of performance energy evaporates, as the wind blows forcefully about the venue, threatening to tear the secrets from the board and reaping havoc with my carefully designed How-To cards and hand dyed paper for the typewriters. It's easy to have a bad feeling about all this, 'so not how it was in my head'. Others around me, Malcolm and Fiona, communicate their faith. Eventually, nothing left to do but the show.

On the first night, after a slow kinda shaky start, we ended up getting more secrets than the display board (meant for the whole season) could handle. It got very busy.
I didn't feel like a freak with nothing to offer. I didn't feel like that kid still looking at his bemused parents for approval. (thought about him a fair bit during the building of this show, actually.) It felt like the show did have something to offer for those people who were up for interacting with it. And yes, the more peeps drank the more they seemed up for it. So, lots of take-the-piss drunken secrets.

One damp one that I could tell was soaked in beer, claimed to have been soaked in piss, nice, not. One, and I quote, "I'm gonna rape you like a shoe". The mind boggles.
And then The Gift happened. Well that is to say the gift I received from the show.
OK, the show, Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures, is about an exchange of gifts, a manicure or palm reading in exchange for a secret donated anonymously etc etc.

Lots of interesting conversations and anecdotes with and from people, shared opinions and insights maybe, but I didn't realize there would be more than that coming my way.
These days it seems that palm reading is the thing that will get men to interact with THMC, and interact they did, both Saturday and Sunday nights. The first night a guy and his girlfriend were hanging around a little tongue tired and shy till Fiona and I had practically finished packing up. "Like I'm not trying to hassle you or anything but could you take a look?" They had had all night to ask and had even turned down the invitation to make an appointment earlier. Maybe they were just more comfortable at the end of the night. No wux fella. So, I do the reading as he and his girlfriend listening on, completely oblivious to the state of their faces. They were giving me that look. I found it shocking. OMFG how come I hadn't been prepared for that?

So on the second night the same thing again. even from this one fella and his mate, late twenties maybe. I give him his reading based on the study I've done and speak as plainly as I can. After, he says, 'Look, I'm scientist and I don't believe this stuff ever. But you were 95% accurate with everything you said'. And he gave me that look too.

So, what is this unexpected gift, this look I'm talking about? People who think that you are a unique and vital source of information, people who think that you know stuff about themselves that will change their lives irrevocably, and for the better, and people who have maybe had a few... these are the people that give you a look of unfailing openness and attention.It's like you get access to some inner part of people through that look because they are so focused, so intent on making sense of and remembering everything you say. I understand what they mean by a person hanging off every word you say. Powerful and needing a lot of respect, it's a big responsibility that look... It is a gift that look. It's a gift equally commensurate with all the secrets people have given THMC. Those secrets, now all piled up on the display board at Music Box, as I have said before, make me feel connected or rather not alone. They remind me of the stuff, not always clever, or poetic, and sometimes base and banal, but stuff nonetheless that I have burdened myself with over the years. The secrets remind me of all the stuff that I have often thought was nobody's but my own and how so much of it is seemingly so common to many of us.

Rationale

2010-02-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

We all have that dream yeah? Be an artist make a show that rocks and have it take you places... OK well maybe that's my particular nocturnal obsession and not as many folks as I think are into it. No matter, in the course of trying to make this fanciful notion become some kind of reality you often are required along the way to put down a few thoughts for the peeps who might assist you to get that dream happening. You know, funding bodies, producers, media outlets etc etc..

What follows then is a kind of rationale for THMC... feedback welcome. Cheers TH

“Confession is always weakness.” Dorothy Dix

Nothing weighs so heavily upon us as a secret. Chinese proverb

I am a performance artist or more than twenty years experience. I am interested in intimate, small-scale self-devised and group devised work that embraces the new but not at the expense of flexibility, portability, and quality. Of particular interest to me, and possibly the one area that has remained a constant throughout my work, has been an ongoing investigation into the dynamics of the performer-audience relationship. Specifically, what exchange occurs between these to ‘entities’ when notions of invited participation are introduced into the performance environment. I abhor enforced participation of all kinds in performance both as audience member and performer/maker. However invited participation I believe opens up a much broader range of possible relationships between audience and performer. Not new conceptually, perhaps, but I would contend still very relevant in the Australian context, particularly given the new media technologies and levels of interconnectivity possible between us all today.

The idea for Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures (THMC) stemmed cumulatively - if that’s possible - from three specific experiences. The first of which happened 15 years ago as a freelance artist newly arrived in big expensive Sydney and having done a CertII in Nail Technology of all things as a way of paying bills. I quickly discovered that I hated working in a salon but found it fascinating to talk to clients and extended that into doing nails in big warehouse parties at the time and having hilarious exchanges with peeps at four o’clock in the morning. Secondly, a Symposium run two years ago by Perth's own PVI Collective (This Is the Time, This is a Record of the Time) about hybridism in performing arts. It inspired me to think about new technologies around and how I might incorporate these burgeoning digital elements into my own making. Finally, a flat mate showed me the work of American community artist Frank Warren whose books about his project, Post Secret were an incredible document of a marvelous project. However, I wanted to find a way to explore with an audience the moment leading up to personal disclosure, what happens just before revealing a secret or a decision to confess.

The work has three distinct components. The performance one-on-one of a 'Manic Cure' with a 'client', a single audience member which, as well as being a genuine manicure by a trained nail technician, is a guided conversation/exploration of the possibility that the client may (or may not) have secrets to divulge.
The second section of the work is the installation of the typewriters and Wall of Secrets, here, the client after his or her nails have dried can type up a secret/confession (anonymously) and place it in the Secrets Box. After the session of performances for that day has concluded the secrets donated are removed, logged and or scanned and then installed on the wall of secrets for the following days performances. Passers by who wish to can used the typewriters without an appointment for a Manic Cure.
Finally, the work has a dedicated website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter page. The site details the show and archives the secrets, the blog details the process of making and running the show. Facebook is for networking the show and Twitter is for followers of the show to receive secret tweets from the past secrets archive PSA.

In making the work, I didn’t want to demand of an audience that they consider the possibility of disclosure of and by itself. Two things emerged for me in thinking about an approach to the work that were subsequently designed into the work and have existed from the first performances in 2008, and have remained there up to and including the current version of the work today. As a performer, if I wanted an audience to give or donate to me a secret, then I felt I had to on an ethical level give the audience something in return beyond a performance situation that allowed them to donate. I had to actually give something to anyone who chose to actively participate in the performance. I reasoned that beyond performing, I could do nails, and salons lend themselves to a kind of contemporary confessorial atmosphere… So it seemed like as good a gift as any to offer. The other stipulation or parameter that remains today is that the donation of secrets happens anonymously. I felt and still feel that it is imperative that the audience’s privacy is honoured.

It’s important to note that a passer by can see the work in situ an d without getting a one-on-one performance from Tawds they can still participate if they want to by typing up a secret and putting it in to the Secrets Box. They have the opportunity to book a performance and receive the nails ‘gift’ from Tawdry but if they elect not to, that shouldn't preclude them from interacting with the piece in other ways.

So, the credo of THMC basically boils down to this: do something for someone else in exchange for a secret. Make certain that their privacy and anonymity is protected before any of the secrets are disseminated in any way. Once that was in place then all the other features of the work, the web page, the blog , Facebook and Twitter fell painstakingly into place. Piece of cake!

Done Yesterday

2010-01-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

We'll soak it in a caustic soda bath says M. The old white plastic bin will do fine. The bath'll take a while but it'll strip all the paint off the metal. Then we can distress it a bit, steam punk it up, and it will be a perfect secret box for Tawd's new gigs at Music Box.

Well, the days go by...
And in January in Perth, it gets a lot, a lot, a lot hotter.
44 was it? 43?
Dunno, after 35 it's all nasty.
Scorching, cloudless, still and why the fuck aren't I at the beach or under an iceberg?

But to no avail. Back in the bath, still the fire-engine red reins supreme every time I check. To be fair, at last look, there was a sickly but self-effacing film comprised the worlds most pathetically small bubbles on the soda's surface, but still the paint lingered on, seemingly untrammeled by the supposedly intense chemical assault.

We need more paper by the way! It has to be the same size for all the typewriters and all the gigs to come, Web Designer says so. For when the 'secrets' are scanned and displayed on either the website or in the archive. And, it has to be not sooooo white; it's too new looking and hardly atmospheric or inviting, altogether too clinical. Well maybe we could dye some in tea baths I say to M. Yes, he says but it will make it all crumpled and more difficult to stack and for peeps to load onto the typewriter roll. Well, dammit, can't we just buy some, I need it yesterday. You and your bloody generation wants everything now now now says M rather too predictably but no less damningly and he's got a point.

So, I drag our sorry arses pronto to the local branch of the multi-national hardware chain; I must get the job done yesterday OK? The job being a second old tool box M has found coz one aint gonna be enough given the new paper size and all.
A liter of your finest paint stripper please... Home again home again jiggerty (sweaty) jog. then out the back with me, the goop, the brushes, gloves, apron, paper and scrapers.

Leave it on. Just leave it on! M again.
Nah... It's good look at the bubbles, big toxic proper bubbles...
Yeah but that's only the first layer and the scraping you've done looks pretty shite. Nah, it's fantastic. Look how quick it's working. Will be done in a jiffy old guy. You'll see.

It wasn't in a jiffy or even two. Molten paint scrapings get everywhere.
The box, despite my best efforts and in spite of the latest chem-tech that money can buy from virgin-rain-forest harvesters, LOOKED CRAP. It ended up at the end of a very hot WA summer arvo in the soda bath with the other one.

But not before...
Hey M, if this stuff works that fast on paint, this burning through these gloves isn't good right???

Now now now, grins M.

Mountains Molehills and the First Step, Part 2

2010-01-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

I still have sleepless moments where I'm convinced catastrophe is just around the corner.
Even if I have discovered that I still have the ability to show up and focus on what I can.
I don't have to obsess about if the whole 'massive' collection of tasks that is this project or the next one; I still know somewhere that the whole thing will be OK, and so will I.

I still have eye liner stuck to my eye lashes despite several attempts to remove it.
That was from yesterday, the photo shoot for the new look Tawds for the PIAF shows and for APAM. Yesterday was a great day. Photos done, results to follow soon. On way from studio saw two deck chairs with a sign 'free' on them. Perfect for the 'waiting room' concept part of the show. Done.

Folks rang me to say that there neighbour down the road from there place in the hills just happens to repair and collect typewriters. Two more portables on there way to me in the post... done.

Studio sorted and directorial consultant in place for rehearsals... done.

Past secrets almost all logged and web designer ready to go... done

Despite myself and my fear-based lethargy, things are moving and the project will happen as envisaged and on time..OMFG...

OK, so maybe the bank balance is worse than it's been for ages, but that's not for ever and other things are gonna happen that will cover that too...

Point is all in all this version of the Manic Cures project is coming along...
And I am coming along...
I don't have to panic...
I really don't
;-)

:-)

Mountains, Molehills and Looking at the First Step, Part 1

2010-01-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

To state the blindly obvious, sayings are sayings because they have been said lots.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as they say. Or in my case, a longish swim begins with a single lap.

I love to swim laps. Perhaps it's not very patriotic for an Aussie, but I like a beach with lanes ropes and black centre lines along the bottom of the tiled or white cement floor. It's my exercise thing, and though I'm not fast or slow, I try to be consistent.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that I don't put it off or wince like a big girl if I think the water is gonna be cold. However, what I've noticed is that slowly, gradually, I seem to have got better at doing laps, doing them more regularly and with less fuss than before.

These days, when I get into the pool, my 40s body aches and my joints hurt blah blah blah. So? Well these days, I just try to focus my thinking on the actual lap I'm doing; I lose focus and think about a million other things too, but I try to come back to the lap I'm swimming. Sense it, enjoy it, and not freak out about it. What I don't think about these days, more and more, are any laps that may or may not come after the one I am currently swimming.

In the past I would think about all the other laps to follow, even before I started. The whole tedious job of trying to get fit/ stay fit would loom menacingly and unachievable before me. Suddenly, my body's normal aches and pains would hurt more, any number of new pains would make themselves known to me. Quickly, I'd become a hurty, brain-screaming, panic-stricken wuss and have to get the hell out of Dodge to seek solace in the spa or leave indignantly, and in hot pursuit of a latte to nurse the phantom pains and wounded pride.

Conclusions?
I think I have begun to really understand the difference between a mountain and a molehill.
Also, I have become better at not being daunted by the task ahead, rather I have become better at choosing to focus on the first step/part/action/lap instead.

The kewlest thing about these all-too-slowly developed insights, which seem to me at least to be well known by just about everybody else, is that they are rubbing off in other areas of my life.

James has been better able of late to break down 'the task' that is Tawds at PIAF and APAM in February 2010 AND NOT FREAK OUT...

I suck at blogs

2010-01-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

I suck at blogs because:

I'm a naive blogger, unschooled, drifting in blog land with out a qualification.
I'm undisciplined and irregular as a blogger and everybody says you should do it a lot more than I can manage and at regular intervals.
I have decided or rather been able to settle upon a concise reason for this blog, there are lots and I don't really know which reason holds sway or is the most pressing.
I try unsuccessfully to write this blog about only the things that matter to Tawds, but that's bollocks because it's James monitoring the whole way. "Give it up already."

So what's the point?

Well, firstly it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.
I thought initially that it would become viral and well read.
Then I woke the frock up!!!
It's just a space is all.

So what if I suck at it?
What is that -sucking as a blogger- anyways?
I write what I want when I want about the Manic Cures Project and how I feel about it.
I'm gonna focus on that.
That doesn't suck to Tawds or to James!

Blog drought

2009-12-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

Well... What do you expect?
Course I haven't been blogging when I've been busy.
I've been getting it sorted.
I've been thinking about getting it sorted.
I've been procrastinating about getting it sorted.
I've just been OK...

SO I had some dreams that have refused to go awasy. I made some plans on those dreams, which oddly for me, I kept liking. Not everyday, not always. There was always a lot of confusion and lethargy, but the impulses and the germs of ideas didn't seem to wane, peter out or wander off.

Then I showed some stuff to some peeps on those ideas, and tried to be as true to the stuff as I could.
A few peeps saw some good, reacted well, said the odd encouraging thing.
A few other amazing peeps wanted to lend a hand. They were happy to; always amazing and totally gob-smacking when the genuine nature of people and their responses to you and your silly dreams actually sinks in...

Long story short...

Tawdry lives again, his shot and healing the world one set of nails at a time might actually materialise in some form or another. The Manic Cures show is being reworked, further distilled and finished with much more clarity collected wisdom by virtue of the other incarnations of the show and the thinking and talking time I've had on it up to the present.
And you know what?

Think Tawds is gonna have a few good years ahead of himself!!

Soon as the signing is done, more will be revealed....
But...
But...
Tawds has been showing me the value of sticking to your guns however far out they may at first or, even after a long time, seem...

Everyone who's been kind enough to interact with the project so far has taught me the value of listening to criticism and understanding the opportunity criticism represents, constructive, ill considered, hurtful or otherwise...

And as Tawds always says.... "Never underestimate the value of a slow burn..."

OK so this reads like some schmultzy overly vague waffle about some kind of show thingey or other...

I get that.

Can't talk specifics atm but as it's been too long. Really wanted to just say that the pay off for all this work and non- work is just around the corner....

San Fran Pre-burn

2009-08-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

You get the most beautiful view of San Francisco as you fly in over an endless Pacific on a clear day. Didn't know there were so many mountains. Just before we banked right to prep for final approach, there poking through the mist and low cloud, the red towers and part of the suspension girders of that bridge. Funny, for something I've never seen with my own eyes, it's amazing how well I know the graceful span, and how much I'm looking forward to a face-to-face 'reunion' with it.

Cloudless and about 80 degrees or 26C by the time we landed, hot and hazy on the runways as we taxied to the terminal. Shiny corridors, travel-ators and slow slow customs queues. Fingerprint scans, a dodgy no-sleep-in-24hours mug shot and then find your way to the confusing, easy-to-follow instructions of the BART rail system ticket machine...

Powell and Market was a heaving mass of buskers,beggars and shoppers galore.
Canyoned avenues of flagship stores, a smart, well dressed, cashed up crowd, and for the most part not that overweight.

A stupidly sexy cop standing guard buy some store with a perfect handle bar mo, black uniform stretched across a big fit frame. Are you kidding me with that look? I haven't slept in half a world away, but do you really expect me to dig out the digi and start snapping, cliched magnificence notwithstanding?

Check in at the hostel equals a rank smelling entrance and no room at the room of the inn to swing a cat but who cares when the bed is a bed and me and the posse are in the God damn US of A.
OK, it's only taken me 43 years to get here.

Don't try to sleep. Readjust your body clock by mixing it with every soul in town who knows this is a uniquely rare and sublime late-August, San Francisco day. Set the dial on your wobbly jet-lagged legs to Steep Hills and get out there for god's sake.

transamercia pyramid
the piers
fishermans warf
Pier 39 and huge crowds of uppety sea lions and tourists eye balling each other
lombard the crookedest street
broadway
china town
noodles followed by darkness
Oh I get it now, the hostel is on the corner of Nightclub and Exotic Ladyland
then three weary souls clamber over the piles of bags and hit their bunk beds
call me old for a travelling manic curist but ear plugs rock

As for today, woke up legs last.
Did you know that the one deemed to be best dressed each day on the playa at the burn can vie for the title of Sparkle Pony
Clearly sparkle ponies need sparkle and the best of desert bling is to be found up hill, many of them actually and down tail over in the Lower Haight.

But first the SFMOMA, and the AVEDON, O'keefe and Ansell Adams exhibitions... OMG, no really, OMFG

Then it kicked in...
A long long street of colour and mayhem
And the shops were full of soon to be burners, itching for the right bit of desert bling
Portable neon for the body or bike
More cheap-arse plastic battery operated sparkle than you could poke a very big stick at
But it all kicked in...

It was the night before christmas
It was the last shopping moments before the mardi gras parade
It was exciting
It is exciting

This city is immense and beautiful and as changeable as the tempestuous weather
Walk away from the shiny shops on Market and it all changes with every step; rents, incomes, the appearance of happiness and apparent trappings of success leach out of the place. Keep walking turn right and you get the city buildings with commanding avenues, parks and a gilded dome, lying on the grass of the surrounds on a chilly overcast day are many folks being given lunch by community support staff and charity workers. Keep walking past the concert hall and ballet centre and it all changes again. Ornate houses, street after hilly street of them, in mostly very well kept states of repair.

Get lost, ask for directions, receive ambiguity, finally get found and end up under the biggest rainbow flag ever right beside Harvey Milk Plaza. Maybe it was the jet lag but a street full of ubiquetos rainbow culture and rainbow peeps set off a massive set of fashion insecurities for the BF and I... I mean we just hit the street for the time ever and memories of Harvey, Tales of the City and all the doccos and the movies of the city and the Castro come flooding back at the exact same time as we pass a gaggle of queens....
"Oh but I only way 175 pounds honey. Well girl I'm down to 168 now.
Really.... A quick burito and a corona and we were outa there!

So that was days one and two...

Other best bits...

The homeless guy begging on Haight, silver hair and beard, his jingle, "A couple of coins so I can get my life started."

The muso playing in the hostel mess hall... "If anyone here knows Tim Burton personally, come see after the show, this next song has sooo got to be in one of his movies."

Day three, Oakland and Wal Mart

Hello, we aren't in the land of charming anymore...

Decisions and feedback

2009-08-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

If James were writing this blog and not Tawdry, he would probably say...

So, I get ideas

Lots usually

In the past I didn't always recognize their value

In the past I found it hard to follow many of those ideas through

But now I try to honour each of them

Regardless

Where ever possible

Tawdry Heartburns Manic Cures has been for me a lot about honouring ideas

Despite fear, reservation, cost or potential disaster

Just shut up

Put up

And do it...

So I had an application to take the collection of ideas that make up this show to a

national arena that could potentially have spin off internationally

An application to get invited at least, let's not get carried away here

An application to be considered for a performing arts trade market

I put it off and put it off and got 'busy' and distracted and blah blah blah

At almost deadline I went to bed to watch episode after episode of a fave show

I spent almost an entire day procrastinating and worried sick about it

Not enjoying the show

Not enjoying me

Not enjoying time slipping and slipping and f*****g slipping

Finally, I had to stop watching the crap I was pretending to be interested in

And ask myself a simple question.

Actually, there was an observation first

James I said, you are scared and in hiding

Do you want to turn your back on your ideas yet again because you are scared?

Actually, there was another observation and another question

It feels almost painful this hiding and procrastination

You could just turn give in to it and walk away again, the ideas will come again and

You can turn away again

Do you want to do that?

Do you want to be that person James, decide now?

I don't know why but it takes a lot of 'pain' to sometimes overcome fear or at least

Knock sense into myself

I want to be someone who talks about it and does it

Not someone who just talks about it

I decided that again despite the relative fear and pain

I can work with those parts of myself more than I can work

With the acknowledgement that I am someone who chooses not to follow through on

Inspiration however profound or otherwise I might imagine it to be

Around the time that this was all going down I had some very honest feedback about

Tawdry's week long gig at PICA in Perth a few weeks ago.

Some good stuff but also some very clear and straightforward stuff about what hasn't

Worked, about where attention should be paid to move the work forward

Stuff about opportunities missed and preformative moments not delivered well or

Handled to the best effect for the work

I don't find it hard to hear honest appraisals about my ideas based work, because it's

The only way to make the stuff that really matters to me better. But more than just

Hearing it, it re-energized my approach to the work, distilled some of it in my head

and made the procrastination easier to work through too

Not a magic remedy but a clear pathway forward, not confusing, not scary just work

That will help make those ideas of mine sharper, clearer, easier for peeps to

Interact with

Armed with objective insight, the decision to do can be all the more productive, and

low and behold, enjoyable

Who knew???

Golden Bilby Award

2009-08-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

At last year's Putting On An Act, the performance manager at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), renowned local choreographer Chrissie Parrot instigated an award for the best / most innovative act of the week long contemporary performance season.

Somehow, a bronze of a bilby (a small endangered Australian marsupial) was procured from somewhere and stuck on a small plinth. One was given to the recipient last year, another was engraved as a perpetual trophy and this year, after the show last Saturday night, I was given one too! I was pretty shocked and actually in the middle of doing the nails of a Taiwanese sound artist who is here in Perth on a residency. So ducked around the corner of the PICA library where I had set up my week long interactive instillation doing nails and walked into the PICA bar to get the gong.

Funny, nobody in the rest of the world knows or cares about a tiny homespun thing like this but here in Perth WA, for me it meant a lot. No, I didn't have an Oscar moment although I did manage to forget to thank my support network my tech support Jude and my partner Jamie. Doah. Sorry you guys. But I did get to see that beyond the typed notes, hand-written secrets, and the yelled-out audience confessionals (in the live report on stage) that people got it.

It makes it all worth while when an audient get it. Apologies grammarians because I don't know the singular of audience. It is awesome when loads of people dig your work but even if only one does it still makes a difference. Yes the more the merrier and it would seem that a bunch of people saw the ideas in the Manic Cures Project, and yes it may be in the most isolated city in the world and completely unimportant for everybody else not here, but that's not the point. It's not my point.

My point is that if you show up and put it out there, no matter where you are, no matter what the cost there is always the chance that someone is gonna see it and embrace it. That makes it worth while. Sure, I got a few negative responses, peeps not digging it so much. I grateful for those too. But people were moved to respond; people embraced the concept and the content and responded appropriate to the level of their comfort with the project. Some where moved to reject it others were moved by it. I felt tangible interaction with a wide variety of people over the course of the week and that is a pretty amazing thing to experience I have to say. I am inspired and fascinated by the variety and generosity of responses that this project has received.I feel a debt of gratitude and hope that the manicures I give in some way make recompense to the people who share their confidences (anonymously) with the project.

My thanks to all the Putting On An Act punters who stopped by and to PICA for their support and encouragement too.

See you next gig...

Tawds

Putting on a show

2009-07-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm installed in the 'library' of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, PICA all this week 28/7 - 1/8 2009, doing nails for secrets 7-9.30pm until Saturday. It's my gig for this year's Putting On An Act, the contemporary performance week that PICA hosts annually.

For it and out of it, will come a short performance of the secrets that my 'clients' and their friends have donated over the course of the week.

If you have followed this blog you may know that this isn't new in the Manic Cures Project, the performance of the gifted secrets. However, it is an evolutionary process.

For this next performance in addition to reporting on the secrets I received in exchange for nail tech services rendered, I would like to find a way for the audience to have the opportunity to divulge secrets 'en masse'.

But how do you get a bunch of theatre punters to 'get it off their chests' to loosen their lips as a group? Who in their right minds would want to divulge personally charged information amongst a group of strangers doing the same thing simultaneously?

Given that I hate the idea and the practice of enforced audience participation this is a tricky proposition. I'm fine with invited participation... But how do you successfully invite a group of strangers in a dark theatre to scream out their most private, most personal and possibly most gut-wrenchingly embarrassing secrets, AND make them feel empowered and protected while doing it????

I have some ideas about that...

Maybe you will just have to come and see................

Putting On An Act

2009-07-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

The night before

Think I have all the prep done

Think I will sleep without waking at thought of things not

yet done

It gets easier though it feels like it doesn't

So I'm doing a week of nails for secrets at the illustrious

PICA in Perth WA July 28 to Aug 1 2009

It will be kewl to see what comes of it; to see the PICA

crowd's preparedness to loosen their lips

I would like to blog more but it's late and there are three

jobs I'm doing tomorrow, the last of which is Tawdry

But it's never a chore, it's a dialogue with surprising directions and interjections

And And And this time I get to do more

This time it's evolved a little and that's exciting

And And And

It's the last gig before heading to Burning Man where Tawdry visits the Nevada and nail beds,

hot beds and restless beds of the Burner's secrets as yet un-Manic Cured...

Kewl Kewl

Can't wait

Night night!

meeting the deadline

2009-07-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's about the lack of sleep
Not because of all the work but all the procrastination
It's not that easy to do, to sit down and commit your honest ideas to a form knowing
you will submit that form to a panel who will rate that form amongst a whole bunch of
other such forms
You give you ideas in that form to a panel which is made up of people you probably know well or at least know of

And they tell you if you have shown good form, are on form, informed, reformed, form fit
Or if it doesn't go so well formless out of form or poor form
All the more problematic coz you used to be on that panel and even chair it
So you better commit those ideas in a way that looks like you know what you are doing
Oh did I leave out the part where I used to run workshops on how to fill out those forms
Hahaha

Still it's no laughing matter
Well, I mean I'm talking about the stuff that means more to me than just about anything else
The communication of the stuff that really keeps me awake at night
The stuff that takes my eyes off the road and takes my focus from a dull conversation and puts the joyful sinful duration into my showers

My ideas
My being a conduit for fresh thoughts
And the sending those thoughts across time and space to who ever is roughly in front of me
When they pick up my ideas my thoughts
When they toss them around their brains for a bit
Mull them over even for a little
Even if they turf them out quickly
Or think about it then decide no
Or hang on to them
Or run with them
Or laugh or wince or be dumbstruck or just cynical because of them

When that happens

I know I'm alive

So despite all the procrastinated sleep deprivation
It's worth it
Coz if this application bares fruit
I get to build some ideas and send them out
And in so doing when I see hear feel those ideas get received
I know I'm alive

And it's a good feeling that...

Cottonmouth.org.au

2009-05-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

Didn't get much sleep coz i put everything off till the last minute, so didn't really prep till 11 last night.

Work all day, training course actually that was a little full on.

Bought typewriter ribbons then home to eat and rest.

Get to the Rosie at 7.30 for 8. Kinda empty , kinda scared but at least I can busy myself with setting up; hanging Tawd's poster, putting out the polishes, making sure I find a good pozzie for the table and the secrets jar.

It's a performance poetry, music and writing gig. Tawds is gonna do a secret wrap up at the end after doing a bunch of punters' nails.

Here's my intro:

Hi Cottonmouth
I’m Tawdry Heartburn and I’m a nail technician
I do your nails if you give me a secret (assumed names only)
I'm going for a world unburdened by secrets; a world without
secrets that one set of nails at a time
heartburn is tawdry don’t you think
Then again, Dorothy says ‘Confession is weakness’. She
goes on, ‘The grave soul keeps its own secrets and takes its
punishment in silence.’
Though Ben says, ‘Three can keep a secret if two are dead.’
Of course Sigmund says, ‘He that has eyes to see and
ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep
a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his
fingertips; betrayal oozes out of every pore.
Zola says if you shut up the truth it gathers explosive power
and bursts threw blowing up pretty much everything in it’s way
Geewiz google is fun huh?
For me the jury is still out so I pretty
much pick my battles, burden being foremost, and suck it and
see
And my clients tonight and I’ve done a bunch of them???
Lets see what’s keeping them awake shall we?

I took up about 8 secrets to read (all posted on www.aworldofsecrets.com soon!)
Some were funny some sad. Didn't have to be rude or cutting about them. I think underplaying ti worked better and for me is much more respectful.

But it worked and people responded well and I know my structure is right (performatively speaking)

I could do a little get it off your chest dance at the end too, might be silly
I could do a spontaneous 'everybody turn to the person next to you and blurt out a secret!

Probably if I had a bunch of my own that I could rapid fire vomit up each getting progressively worse it might be funny. Specially if I hyped up the crowd before to get all 'walk over hot coals with me' and they leave me high and dry...

Shoulda started with, "What if you could tell your deepest darkest and get away with it, really get away with it. No one would ever ever know it was you? Would you?

With the 'I have no secrets' variations that seem to come in with each gig I think I can respond with lots of silence and then maybe a questioning, this is your big chance to get rid of the shit that's been hanging over your head all your life, keeping you downtrodden with guilt and fear and shame and you... (re-read secret very dead pan)

Hmmm so I was feeling crappy beforehand as usual but had a good night. A big bunch of folks I know showed up and some newbies had some nice things to say. All in all, pretty good.

The MC introduced me as a woman which was kinda fun but I coulda made more of that. Still I know it's kinda obvious but I am gonna pat myself on the back for going through with it. For being open to learn new stuff and see new ways Tawds can grow.

Had a convo with a artist who's nails I did this eve and who has a sibling who is also an artist. Long story, long history but the gist is the sibling isn't winning the making war atm. That is to say fear is winning and no work is being made. I know that story. I know it well. I found the discussion sad but also re-affirming. It's never gonna not be scary, and that's getting more and more ok.

Time Marches On

2009-05-11T01:52:00.001-07:00

A whole month nearly, but if you discount these ramblings, then months have passed. OMG...
initial interest and early momentum have waned and the choice is obvious.

What is going on with the Manic Cures Project?

Where is Tawdry Heartburn now?

Happy to report he is around and though almost dormant, not quite!

In fact, in a few days time he's gonna be out and about doing nails again, getting secrets and doing a live 'secret report' at the end of the night at a Cottonmouth gig.

www.cottonmouth.org.au

Spoken word performance and the like every month at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth...

How will it go?
How will the new aspect of reporting work?

Suck it and see. That's what Tawdry usually says in these situations.

So, if you are around and you wanna 'Get it off your chest"

Come see Tawds at the Rosie Hotel this Thursday from 8pm

Chookas

TH

Constituional Boredom

2009-04-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

It starts with a bit of a head throb, then feeling somehow low, then the voice starts to croak as the eyes and nose get runny, finally the body temp goes outta whack and the next thing I know, I'm down for the count.

When I get sick, with a cold/flu it usually means two to four weeks. Sound alarming as I write this, but having just emerged from the latest bout, it is pretty much what happened. I had a week off work canceled interstate flights and schlepped through work feeling crap for ages. Such a waste of time.

What happens to Tawdry's dreaming and scheming in that fog? It takes a hit too.
I wish I could cut it off at the pass and prevent the huge shutdown of my life's good stuff but I haven't yet found a way. so much for the weight loss, get fit detox thing I had done (two months of it) prior.

Still and all, I'm back and looking forward to getting the secrets project back on track. So onwards and upwards Cottonmouth will be the next gig I think. More of that later.

Not trying to whinge or carp on here, but put the experience (which has been a very common one in my life) down in bytes for the first time. Worst part, as mentioned above the waste of time and resources. Best bit, the up swing of mood, energy and ideas coming out of it.

Glad of that...

In Between Gigs

2009-03-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

The photos are not back from the last gig.

I haven't got the public liability insurance yet for the next gigs.

The website isn't where I want it to be developmentally.

SO WHAT...

The idea of the manic cures project is still good enough to get me out of bed in the morning.

That's the kewl,

the rest will follow...

soon enough

TH

Cenzo's Pic

2009-03-05T22:02:00.000-08:00

So, last Tuesday night, 3rd of March 2009 was my last gig at the Blueroom Theatre foyer as part of their 25 Summer Nights festival, and though I am now in Sydney for a week of frivolity and friends for the annual Mardi Gras mayhem, the secrets instillation still adorns the walls of the theatre foyer. (Picture from the season courtesy of Vinn P, ta for that Cenzo!))

It's been a rather amazing and large personal experience out of something so inconsequential as do free manicures. Here's what I know.

People love to tell their secrets especially if they think they can 'get away with it'

I have loved that the performance aspect of this project is very intimate and strictly one on one

I love Perth, although I am not a native of that city, because it never fails to provide me with opportunities where I can play and try out stuff

Many grateful thank yous to Janis, Diana, Sally and everyone at Blueroom for giving me the opportunity to have a go

I am finally able to just relax and enjoy the moments of a project such as this and not laden each

experience of it as it develops with some ridiculous ambition or agenda for the project as a whole

By which, i think i am saying that I am finally comfortable with the here and now of The Manic

Cures Project; it will be whatever it will be. I really don't have to worry about that so long as I

simply show up and focus on the bit of it I'm doing right at the time I'm doing it

I owe a debt of gratitude to my friends who just came along and 'showed up', who didn't blow smoke up any ones you know what; they just embraced the ideas, showed faith and gave support in many different ways: Jude C, Jamie L, Shaun S, Nikki J, Zarin D, Deidre N, Zoe W, Danae G, Vinn P, Tracey H, Steve H, Tim B, Monica M, and many others...

Cheers I'm very grateful...

Finally, now that this first gig is done I'm looking forward to organizing some more around Perth and beyond...

Stay tuned and check Tawdry Heartburn's Facebook page for details - the place I really wanna set Tawds up in in public places with regular peeps who are walking by... Who knows what secrets they may have to share...

Who knows if they will dig it or dis it...

Maybe the shoeshine thing will work maybe it will die a quick death...

Only one way to find out he he he

Cya real soon

TAWDS

Lightbulb Moment

2009-02-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

So, I was in town on my way to a physio appointment and along the way, I wandered by a Festival of Perth event which was some street theater done by a French street performance group. Well, group, it was two women who sew the clothes of passers by while they are waiting, alterations, additions whatever but the women have their sewing machines on the back of their bicycles.

The cool thing was that when someone wanted something done to their clothes, they had to hop on the bicycle and peddle to provide the power for the machines to work!! It was very interactive, visual and a fun idea that had gathered a big crowd of people in Forest Chase ( downtown Perth CBD). No mean feat in a place that usually is too paranoid to embrace public art in any major way, much less show tacit acceptance or a public display of approval. Don't get me wrong I'm not bitching about this city. I'm an exile here and I love it. But generally the locals don't go gaga in public over anyone except a movie, music or sports star.

What's this got to do with light bulb moments? Well, not long after I left the peddlers and sewers(with a bit of a puzzle). I hadn't seen what happened to somebody on the street who wanted their dress sewed. In as much as, what did they wear while they were generating power on the bike? And, I did see dresses having lace added to them and riders wearing, presumably, not their own dresses. Perhaps the French seamstresses gave each participant a stunt dresses to wear.
Anyway anyway... Back to Tawdry and the light bulb moment. Tawdry as a nail technician, does people's nails in exchange for secrets, however, it's mostly (but not exclusively) women and girls. And if I wanna hit the streets with this little performance/instillation/website thingey after the relative safety of a risk taking fringe theatre audience and interact with the general public, then how do I make it more engaging for men who may also have secrets they want to get off their chest? For in Australia certainly, a lot of men would find it next to impossible to sit down at a table in a public place and have their nails done and then be expected to write or type a secret to give to a virtual stranger. This is even more critical if I want to take the show to country and remote areas of Australia (and maybe other countries eventually)

So, it's summer here, it was hot in the mall (Forest Chase) and I was late for my appointment, but as I left the street performance and made my way through the crowds the idea popped into my head. Shoe Shine... What if I alternated? One time Tawdry would do free nails for secrets and the next time I would do free shoe shines for secrets. Hmmmmm I can see the possibility. Given the ubiquitous nature of trainers, I may have to make it shoe cleaning. But...out in the country, men and particularly older men wear shoes or boots. Old men with secrets to get off their chest!!!
Yes... I think I can work with this idea... Stand by for more. I'll keep you posted.

For now, here are some secrets from last Tuesday's gig 24/02/09 at the Blue Room theatre in James Street Northbridge Perth WA...
Cya soon TH!

ON AIR

2009-02-24T08:03:00.000-08:00

Here's the interview I did with the wonderful DANAE GIBSON on Morning Magazine courtesy of Perth's RTR FM last Friday...

Self explanatory i reckon

Cheers,

TAWDS

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Up Late

2009-02-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 1am 25th/02/09
sat at the nail table in the Parlour of the Blue Room Theatre in Northbridge WA and did people's nails from 7pm until 11.40 pm.

The diet coke and the anti exhaustion eye balm didn't work so well...

But, again I learned if you show up and do the work, surprise surprise, progress and perhaps even change happens. Nothing is immovable, who knew???
How have I managed to not metabolise this simple fact for sooo long.

I have ideas but now I commit to them and even when I'm tired or not up for it so much
Because I show up and because I stay in that place even for a small while
I get results...

Penultimate 'show' for Tawds this evening at the Blue Room in little old Northbridge WA and yet again I was busy all night doing nails and having the best chat's with peeps and came away with more than 40 secrets (loose definition there) point is, it will happen, and because it happens it inspires me I have a great night and along the way more ideas pop up and furthermore, I have a clearer idea of 'where to next'

Yeah , I worked two gigs of 15 hours with just over an hour off, whose complaining?
I got to prove my existence
I got to talk with people about stuff, not random, not all flippant, much of the talk was a kind of mutual delving and quite revealing but entertaining and re-affirming.

WHAT WERE PEOPLE UN-BURDENING TONIGHT?

I still am jealous of them
It'll be 7 months since they got together

when i was young my bike got a flat tire and instead of pushing it all the way home i threw it in the bush and told my mum it got stolen
i got a new bike and the next day that got stolen

i'm afraid my life will come to nothing, what a waste

My brother used to beat me up at the bus-stop

the girl of my dreams doesn't dream of me

I'm not really ALLERGIC
I just DONT like SEAFOOD

and more besides these...
Check the website www.aworldofsecrets.com for the full archive of all the secrets collected from the 25 Summer Nights Festival

There is much more to write about this silly little project that is creating it's own life and direction but at this point I gtg get some rest. One more post and I'm done...

PS Silver is the new black on boys' nails LOL
Keep it to yourself though, it's a secret

The Haul From The Crab Pots

2009-02-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

I'm loving the learning that comes by way of a project that evolves along the way
I'm having fun seeing what it offers up and throws back
Sometimes it feels like I have to go and 'check the crab pots'
Have been allowed to leave a secret box at the theatre for the duration of the season and people have been adding to it on other nights when Tawdry isn't in the Parlour

No. I'm not Frank Warren and yes, his ideas and work with the whole Post Secret thing is mind blowing and humbling and gorgeous

But I was inspired by one of the secrets in his book published in 2007 where the writes of the post card basically said they used to write secrets for post secret but not send them whereas now they tell their secrets to friends and family

Kewl... I wanted to do a user friendly performance that could allow but not require the opportunity for people to tell their secrets.
Additionally, I have been doing manicures in performance since 1995 and it seemed like a kewl way to bring these things together...

So, here's a little of what has come up so far, and they are already up and on display at the theatre and soon to be on www.aworldofsecrets.com though they will be better presented on the there...

: - ) TH

After 13yrs as a performer I'm too scared to ever perform again.

I'm scared I won't make a difference

I have NO idea what anybody thinks of me. This scares the shit out of me!

I was once a stayer...

Now I'm the minute man...

I fear this could be forever.

I jerk off at least four times per day at work just to cope with the stress

I hate my job and I am not a people person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prostitution paid for my HECS fees

Thanks boys!

I text and drive and hate the thought of other drivers doing that

when i was 8 i stole a watch from a boy in my class

the next day after everyone had looked everywhere

i was rewarded for having found the watch

this i have never told till now

I love leather even though I look like the cow that lost it in the first place

if my father-in-law asked me to f..k him

I would in a heartbeat

Is it bad I think all the secrets are about me!!!

Thanks perth for having the guts to have a go at getting it off your chest!! TH> xoxox

Mum, Check The Paper Page Fifteen

2009-02-04T00:32:00.000-08:00

Do we ever stop seeking approval, really?

It's a group shot about the entire 25 Summer Nights Festival in the state rag and frankly it could have been better

It does however serve to spur me on because if I'm gonna really do this thing then I have to show up and really do this thing

Not sure really where the Manic Cures Project is going but I have to say that I am enjoying doing this project differently than others I have done in the past

It wasn't produced as a finished entitiy and as such it is roughly some type of dialogue regarding the evolution of ideas and reaction to changing circumstances.

There were traffic flow problems last night in the Parlour space.

The audience who knew what to look for where fine but the passers by were kinda bemused

Not everyone could get their heads around the concept

Almost no one read the fine print but that's kewl coz it's early days...

Still and all (love that phrasal conjunction) stuff is being done

photoshoot on the way

website upgrade on the way

re jig of the space at Blueroom, done

other gigs, in discussion

kewl

And She Said Coz It Feels Good

2009-01-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

I bumped in
I did the press photo
We all sweated in the uncommonly humid Perth 4.30 styled afternoon
Lucky I had a hand fan coz it was more than moist
Lucky I wasn't in drag coz it all would have been in my lap within half an hour

In a small theatre complex inhabited by independent theatre practitioners and arts workers in the world's most isolated large(ish) city, a twenty five night festival got under way.

Dedicated following, and a good feeling.

And Tawdry Heartburn in the Parlour??
What your to be the old bar of the theatre is now a kind of inner foyer to the main theatre space and characterised by the famous and much loved mural that adorns pretty much all most of the wall space. Round cafe tables. A collection of old lamps. Comfortable couches and red velvet chairs. Theatre flats painted white or black becoming progressively more covered with the secrets I pull out of the secret jar and add to the walls. All the secrets from this five tuesdays of Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures well get onto the secret archive on www.aworldofsecrets.com

I was nervous but hey we are talking about a skill I have been using since I did a truely-ruley nail technician's course in the mid-nineties. (Long story but, seemed like a good part-time job to train for at that time, so I could support myself as a freelance art-wanker type)

So now, the 'show' is up and running, all the random experiences over 14 years and more specifically the last 3 months of work have come to some kind of constructed but not fully intended piece

I am resisting the urge to control it too much, what I wish for is that it takes me on a journey rather than the other way round

In case you missed it, the concept is pretty simple.

DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE IN EXCHANGE FOR A SECRET AND PROVIDE A METHOD FOR THAT SECRET TO BE GIVEN ANONYMOUSLY

Why Tawdry Heartburn?

Because heart burn is tawdry

Vision: a world without secrets

Mission: un-burden the world of its secrets, one set of nails at a time

So I did about twenty people and got perhaps a few more secrets than that - some just wanted to add a secret, others, wanted to add two

there were some cool insights and some funny moments

i loved that people got it and seemed to dig it

i love that feeling more than anything as far as i know

anyways one of the 'clients' was a performer I have admired the times I've seen her work but, i had never me her

she was very cool and i loved how different she was compared to any of her onstage personae

she does stand up very very well amongst other things and im fascinated by the concept of it but have no desire to walk onstage with that kinda pressure -be funny or else- on me

so i wanted to know why she would subject herself to that kind of cauldron of potential scorn

she was so elegant in her answer

'coz it feels good'

i had to agree...

it's been so worth it , even to get to this point and now im looking forward to seeing how this TH gig plays out...

stay tuned and see you soon

for now i gotta sleep

chookas TH

Night Before

2009-01-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

It's nearly midnight.

Most of the prep is done for the first preview tomorrow night in little old Perth Western Australia.

I'm struggling with the home page content but it will get done. Trying hard not to repeat myself while another part of me is just wanting to stay focused and on message.

And now the more I think about it, the more what I want to write about is drying up. Think I'm at the point where I have to trust the ideas that were part of the original concept and even more so the experiences that perhaps brought about the concept in the first place.

What's the concept?

Easy.

Do something for someone in exchange for a secret they have never revealed and find a way to make the documentation of that secret completely anonymous.

Why?

Because heart burn is a tawdry...

And it's amazing how it feels to have actually 'said' something unsaid for the first time...

Oh, and by the way, HAPPY NEW YEAR all you oxen...

Ciao,

Tawdry

Art Family and Inspiration

2008-12-26T22:54:00.000-08:00

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never underestimate the value of a slow burn approach.

Tawdry Heartburn

Home for the holidays, it's an On Christmas. Every second year we all gather at the folks' place in the hills and jam more than a dozen peeps into a place built for two. Off Christmases, are when we all go to in-laws or to our respective partners' families places and give the grand parents a rest.
This year almost didn't happen, simmering tensions and ''Don't mention the war!' But a last minute text from the eldest sibling - confirming well intended meddling - kept everyone on their best behaviour. Nothing like a Xmas gathering of all the clan to show you where you come from, like it or not; around a big table, the same receding hairline in all the brothers, the same olive skin in the nieces. I have heard it said that possibly as many as 25% of all kids may unwittingly or otherwise, be fathered by someone who isn't their biological father. It's very hard for me to believe such a secret lurks at this table. The ordinariness of this particular set of genes has re-emerged in all three generations present! But can such a get together with all the inherent sentiments and agendas lurking unavoidably beneath the surface show you much about where you are going?

Dunno... It's hard to be objective when the same old dynamics and triggers are just begging for a response.

Then it's off to the cousins to see their home and studios in a town nearby, leafy and hot, thunderous clouds looming above and it's quite cool out of the intermittent sun, it's definitely summer in the highlands, south of the equator. Good coffee and home made festive biscuits and a wonder through the gardens and the two artist-studios and large gallery built in the last ten years out the back of the originally small, broken down workers cottage. A quiet suburban street in a small country town and in what was a modest residence not so long ago there is now a kick-arse place of work and dreaming that is continuing the inspirations and practices to two increasingly well known artists.

There is a distant family connection here. However, what's much more interesting for me is the diligence and commitment of these two artists. Over the years, I have had a lot to do with artists and their ideas in many ways; as an artist myself, as a collaborator and as an assessor of artists' funding applications. As such, I don't think the strength of any artist lies overly much in their ideas; there are no new ideas anyway, and good ideas are as common as doggy doo. It is what you do with a good idea and how you commit to a good idea, that makes the difference. Does a family produce an artist? You could produce evidence to argue both sides of the case I guess. It would be my argument that perhaps what is more important is firstly,what you do with your practice and secondly what you do with your family once you are an artist?

Nevertheless, what sticks in my mind is the inspiration of practice itself and practice over time. Come rain or sun it is the doing that counts, and this commitment eventually, will confirm for yourself and others that you are in fact serious....
Or seriously nuts.

Note to Tawdry.
Keep blogging, keep building your site (aworldofsecrets.com) and keep harvesting secrets.....
And, in a world of instant gratification, stay focused on the things that bring meaning and hold to a path you have faith in.

"The secret of happiness is not doing what you like, but liking what you do."

James Matthew Barrie, best known as the creator of Peter Pan, 1860-1937

Guerrilla Pix

2008-12-16T22:56:00.000-08:00

They hadn't slept. They came over to chill, just to hang, coming down.

"Sure, sounds like a good idea. Of course you can put it on your website.
And yeah, I'd love you to do my nails.
Nah not from here, do you know Paraparaumu?
Studying law and commerce.
We went to school together and after she started, she got me a job behind the bar.
Nah, it pays the bills.
She loves it for now; has a fair few regulars.
It's all good."

"Oh yeah, nice red.
Might take it further.
I've thought about training, not sure yet.
Last time I had my nails done, I ended up sleeping with the manicurist.
Didn't tell my boyfriend at the time, he would have wanted in."

I have a rental and I really wanna get a shot with the beehive.
Bit windy, well isn't that par for the course in this place?
Capital city buildings.
Some one's cohort of brass walks by, no one even bothers to notice...
In and out, guerrilla pix with 'Don't want people to think I'm some random munter' and friends.

DC3 LUST

2008-12-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

So, I'm driving down one of the main streets of Taupo, in New Zealand and there is a burger joint, McUbiquitous blah blah blah and then, I have one of those blokes-on-the-beach, first-fleet kinda moments.

You know, the locals, having never seen tall ships before or the people on 'em, don't see them because they can't imagine the possibility of them. It's only when they notice the ripples of the water on the beach are unusual that they figure out something unusual is causing those 'weird' ripples. They look up and see, well, they see their world about to be turned upside down really.

So, back to Taupo, my world wasn't turned upside down, but only when I noticed the weird shadow in the car park, did I look up and see the huge silver wing of a DC3 over my head. Turns out McGlobal or rather, this particular franchise has it as part of their kiddie playground.

Against my better nature I go through the 'restaurant' to get to the playpen and then up the stairs to the play that has been tastefully fitted out with tables inside. Revisiting the past glories of this flying work horse is only a greasy portion of chips away.

Sadly a small bird had somehow got into the cock pit and had died, trapped in there. It's final resting place just to the side of the starboard pedal, head tilted at an odd angle, looking toward the port-side cockpit window. Unlike the bird, I could get in, have my fill of the memories and post-war, aerospace engineering, and get out again, safely, with body and diet intact.

What's the point of this story? I enjoyed it. I found myself thanking McFranchise and all the tourists who keep Taupo profitable. It's getting harder to be black and white, to dismiss things out of hand. I don't wanna eat in those establishments, but I will compromise if it means having a keenly desired or nostalgic experience not offered elsewhere.

Does Taupo have any secrets? Masses of them, as many undercurrents as there are thermal spots quietly boiling and steaming away: beauties, history, precious memories and unseen delights. However, in this instance it was the unexpected public displays that were the most fun.

FEAR

2008-12-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. Saint Jerome

So I want to do this gig where I chat with folks whilst doing their nails and in return, they give me something they have been holding on to for perhaps a long time, but, they won't give me enough to connect the information back to themselves.

Am I nuts?

Who do I think I am to do this?

Who is going to want to do this?

Who in their right mind would permit me to take a 'valuable' piece of private information and publish it on the web?

Is anyone really going to be better off if I do this?

Are they really going to feel better for having done it?

More to the point right now, as I am still building this site and project, am I really going to go through with it?

Isn't this just another idea that gives me some fun and fancy for a while and then I gradually let it slip away, like so many others before it?

Aren't I going to be sitting at a table in some public place waiting for some stranger to interact with 'the show', and nobody is going do it?

Won't I just look like a fool?

Won't I just be an object of pity and derision, not to be taken seriously?

And then I decided to just acknowledge that I have a significant amount of fear and anxiety built up around this project already and, well, once I realised that, I just said to myself, 'You're kind of scared about this project Tawdry, aren't you? Yeah, I certainly am. Well so what?' Fear is just fear, and as one of my best girl buddies is always telling me, fears are not facts. It's no secret that this project both excites me and frightens me at the same time. Of course until Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures is much better known to me, and as the opening quote implies, you will probably see the fear in my eyes. Then again, I did feel a little fearful and anxious doing the photo shoot for Tawdry in Brisbane, but only initially. After a short while I began to relax and just enjoy the process and even began to find it a kind of actor's journey discovering who Tawdry is, in the flesh, as opposed to the imagined character that I had initially envisaged.

So, while I am in Wellington NZ, I will continue to scope out some venues for the next photo shoot and then as soon as there is a good day weather-wise, I do some more shots. And yes, I'm sure I will be a little scared, but in this construction phase, building up to the launch of the website and the first public performances in February, I am not scared enough to want to abandon this project. In fact, given all that I have learned over the last few months (with calamity visiting several friends and family members), life seems at the moment way too short to be wasting it through fear or by procrastinating.

But it is an interesting question, well to me at least. How much fear does it take to thwart one's dreams? Perhaps though, and more relevant for me, do fear levels ever subside when that fear is produced through or in and around things which we have newly begun to care significantly about. That is to say, I would have thought, the more one does things despite the fear, the easier it is in general to deal with this kind of fear. Not so. At least that hasn't been my experience. I still find myself quaking at the thought, and petrified by the action of bringing art projects to life. After twenty years or more of doing that, I had expected to be more resilient, even at this stage, impervious.

Well another friend who has quite a track record of making, nationally and internationally, said to me a while back, and funnily enough, with his so doing, he was giving me a valuable gift. It has been useful to think about it recently in the light of the feelings that this project has generated for me thus far, 'Tawdry, I've worked with some of the best in the world and they all get scared, but they do it just the same.'

The Show, The Vision & The Mission

2008-12-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

“The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep”
Edgar Watson Howe

You may be wondering just what A World Of Secrets, and Tawdry Heartburn are all about. I have been thinking much the same thing, for quite a while! As you might have seen in the previous entry, Synchronicity, the name Tawdry Heartburn, a draggy word play on that movie star and you'd be surprised how many don't get it, has been rattling around in my head for years.(Depending which of my buddies you talk to, I've been blathering on about doing something with Audrey Hepburn/ Tawdry Heartburn for 5 or 6 years, but I didn't wanna do just another drag thing. Finally I realised early this year that Tawdry was a man! Funny how if you stick around for long enough, life conspires for a seemingly haphazard confluence of events to add up to something that is possibly well ordered and more significant. Know what I'm saying? Life falls into place and now all the pieces of the puzzle seem to make sense. However, trying to articulate that effectively and succinctly, well that's the trick, huh?

The project is basically, a free interactive performance and webwork (web network of sites, blogs, social networking pages) performed by Tawdry Heartburn, who is a character written and created by performing artist, teacher and qualified nail technician, James Berlyn. I knew that course would come in handy one day. God knows I hated the six months I ran my own business in a hair dressing salon in Sydney in the mid 90s! But that entry, "The Evolution of Tawdry" is for another day.

So, TAWDRY HEARTBURN'S MANIC CURES, can be a street performance or festival gig with just Tawdry doing the nails of participants/audience members, passers by or depending on the budget of the sponsor, promoter, funding body, there can be multiple Tawdrys, but the key element is that the audience doesn't pay. Tawdry does their nails and in return they write down on the note paper a genuine personal secret, and then fold it up like a ballot paper and put it into the cookie jar on Tawdry's table, and of course, they use ASSUMED NAMES ONLY!!!! But everyone is free to interact with Tawdry or the sites at no charge.
aworldofsecrets.com (launching in February 09)
Tawdry Heartburn on Facebook (now)
A World of Secrets on Myspace (coming)
and here! http://www.tawdrytawdry.blogspot.com/

As far as I can make out at this point in time, the vision behind the 'A World of Secrets' project is pretty simple.

"A world without the burden of secrets."

The mission, again at this point, though I guess it could change, is also pretty simple if a little more segmented,

"To assist by way of free performances and webwork, audience members/participants at Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures articulate without risk to themselves, their secrets, and in so doing, to provide an opportunity for those audience members/participants to feel better for having done it."

So that's the whole box and dice (as I understand it) as of this moment.
I have performances coming up soon and more of that later, so let me know what you think...

Cheers,

Tawdry

What's it all about, Alfie?

2008-12-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

“The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep”

Edgar Watson Howe

Sychronicity

2008-12-06T06:55:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't you know it, a world of funny names, including this one I've had bouncing around my head for years, and never knowing quite how I wanted to use it.
Finally, I discover that Tawdry Heartburn is a male manicurist on a global mission to unburden the world of its secrets. Naturally enough, I googled and searched months ago and that turned up nothing. I get my website and my show and my international mission to create world peace and bang! On the day of my launch an article from the end of September that mentions in passing a silent New York drag queen with the same name!!!!!
Well, just to put the record straight. I am no drag queen. I am a free public resource. I am a conduit to world peace. I am a performance-art / instilation / hybrid / multi-platform Manic Curist of Secrets.
I will do your nails for free...
All you have to do is give me a secret, a real secret. No names or even better, assumed names...
But a real secret just the same. If you come to a show you can write it on a piece of paper that gets folded up and put in the secret jar when I do your nails. Or soon you will be able to log onto the website and put your secret there.
Trust me I've been doing this gig for years and I know how much better people feel when they have finally told someone, that thing or things they have kept buried for years...

So would you do it? If I was performing in your town, on your street. Would you come up and say "Hi Tawdry, can I put a secret in your secret jar and would you do my nails please? Oh and, for today, you can call me Madonna."

So what's in a name huh? I don't even want to know your real one.
Truth is I am Tawdry Heartburn too and who really cares anyway.
I could also be TOM hanks, DICK cheney or HARRY winston, too/2/II
But if I was... Id assume a name just the same.

Tawdry Heartburn, welcome to Blogville Saturday 6 Dec 2008

2008-12-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

This is Tawdry's Heartburn's blog.
If you don't know, Tawdry Heartburn is a global manic-curist of secrets.
FREE NAILS FOR SECRETS,
ASSUMED NAMES ONLY...
All will be revealed in the next few months on the site, aworldofsecrets.com
It's been a long day and the techo babble of getting this all going has fairly done my head in...
What's the point???
Do you keep secrets and wish that you didn't?
What if you could tell them and get away with it?
How would it feel?
What would it be like?
To get something off your chest...
To let something out of the bag...
To loosen your lips...
To let something slip...
Come find out, soon...