Wondermentalist

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘we need suggestions for the audience poem. Open your mouths. Be free.’ (I didn’t say this last bit. I might have done). A voice from the back pipes up playfully, ‘Giraffe Café’. There is a low groan, with an element of ‘tch!’ to it. In case you didn’t know, and why should you, the respondent was referring to the café in nearby Exeter that was, last week, the scene of an attempted terrorist attack, bringing home the dark realities of contemporary extremism to us sheltered south-westerly breeze-blocks. Not the kind of start you’re looking for in my position as ‘theme-find focuser’. ‘You’re steering us toward a dark place,’ I acknowledge, ‘but we don’t seem to want to go there.’

Others begin to chip in. ‘Toffee apple’ is offered from near the front, I can hear that everyone’s relieved. We’re not into being edgy tonight it seems. Someone else suggests ‘good taste’, which I reject on the grounds that it’s a bit abstract and they were just making a point. A muffled voice from the middle of the room shouts ‘putty’. Or was it puppy? It’s unclear. I ask for clarification, but there are too many contending voices. Someone woofs, helpfully. But can I trust them? I decide to go with putty, it’s more interesting, less expected. Offered the choice of ‘giraffe café,’ ‘toffee apple’ and ‘putty’, the audience also opts for putty.

Liv Torc put the poem together, and it goes like this…

Putty

Pick it lick it roll it flick it

You are the smooth edge to all my panes

Push and press it feel it smooth and oily

Friendly bendy all-purpose squishiness

I modelled you on my own image and was unhappy

Like playing with my balls – with oil

Oh the pain of your thumbprint as the putty pushed and pored…

Pretty shitty smelly smutty putty

You’re so slutty

And oh, in my dreams, you will be putty in my hot, hot hands!

Oily chalk beneath my nails

I glue you, join you, fill you, bond you,

Aren’t you glad that I belong to you

Putty come quick, putty come slow,

Give me your stick and I will start to glow

Putty sticks things together, in this poem

It oozes out of the Mastic Gun

Can be all things to all men

Picks up the imprint of the morning news,

Expanding and stretching obscenely under thumb.

Putty potty, potty putty, pity putty

In your hands

Without putty, life would be paneless   (geddit?)

Use that putty to fill the holes of life

Putty is now obsolete, it isn’t what it used to be…

It was our last Seven Stars outing till October and what a wonderful and ever so very pleasant evening it was. Isn’t Jude Simpson a star? She is. If I had a pound for everyone who’s come up to me since the show to tell me how much they enjoyed her set – well, I’d have enough to go absolutely bonkers wild at a car boot sale, I can tell you.

For the introductory poem I put myself entirely in the hands of Dan, drummer of Nomad Shuffle, whose job it was to throw first a sugar-free biscuit then a packet of crisps from the wings directly into my outstretched hand. In such a way that I could catch it. Whilst not making it look easy. He did this, as if not making it look easy was easy. Which it’s not. Nor is it easy in the first place. Not for any of us.

The unusually talented John Elliott was next to stand up and be counted and he assured us, musically and lyrically, that ‘everybody’s different’ – in way that left me nursing the suspicion that some are more different an others. He was followed by Jackie Juno – without husband Brian Abbott, with whom she assures us she has a very special chemistry – nevertheless she achieved a winning musical-comedy intimacy with deceptively cherubic George Cooper. You may wish to confirm this for yourself on Traydio.

The Dead Poets’ Slam was one of the best in memory with Bill Greenwell, Surabhi Forest, Tony Gee, Jude Simpson, Jackie Juno and John Elliott treating us to ‘Banjo’ Paterson, Rumi, Anonymous, AA Milne, Vivekananda and Emily Dickinson respectively. Emily Dickinson won, by a one point, from Rumi, who was one point clear of AA Milne. It’s lovely to see late poets getting into the spirit of things. Her prize – a copy of Jude Simpson’s Secret Rapper – was collected on her behalf by John Elliott. What would Jude have received if AA Milne had won? It’s hard to say, because he didn’t. Not yet.

Jerri Hart was last up before the interval and like Ms Juno was accompanied by the engaging Mr Cooper, whose first name had stepped sideways to Jorges. Together they performed a rousing version of Sheikh of Araby that shall live long on the memory for the acts of wanton violence perpetrated by Mr Hart upon the dogged and persevering Jorges, and also for Mr Hart’s splendid trumpet playing which was in danger of being forgotten alongside his assaults on his accompanist, which fell somewhere in that happy middle place between slapstick and attempted manslaughter.

It was, as ever, a magnificent interval, with multiple contributions to the audience poem, this month on the chosen theme of ‘putty’. The poem, put together by Liv Torc, can be found in the next or next but one post on this very blog.

A prize was awarded and the poem was read out, to gasps of wonder, recognition and dismay. There had been talk of the audience poem being placed in the Totnes Times. Hmmmm, not this month maybe. However close to our various edges the putty poem took us, it was all a good introduction to episode six in the continuing adventures of Empath Man. I won’t tell you more than that the two muggers who attempted to rob him that night got more than they bargained for. One of them discovered a gift for rap and rhyme while the other, articulate beyond his aspirations, discovered a different form of self-expression. Please visit traydio. Subscribe to the podcast, if you can.

(By the way, everything I’ve said here is utterly butterly true - don’t you agree??)

It just remained for Jude to charm our pants off and win a deserved encore for her funny and moving poems and songs, before Jerri and I put the everyone into and then quickly out of their post-Jude misery with a beautifully moving and argumentative Shorelines of your Mind.

There’s a fine line between ‘works perks’ and ‘petty theft’, and this poem, performed at the April Wondermentalist Cabaret, explores that line. Ultimately it comes down on the side of law and order, but on the way I like to think it shows a compassion for the perpetrator that is almost akin to aiding and abetting.

Works perks…

…it’s just a little thing,

I wouldn’t call it pilfering

Or petty theft. I took one, yes

But look – there are so many left.

I’m in on time. I smile, work hard.

Why should my conscience twitch or flinch?

Each working week you take a yard,

So why begrudge me my half-inch?

You take the best hours of my day

What do you give me? Take-home pay.

I’m so tired I can hardly speak

You take the best days of my week.

You take the best weeks of my month

I take some paper, this hole-punch.

You take the best months of my year

I take this swivel-chair. Oh dear.

You take the best years of my life…

… a laminator for the wife

So now please look the other way –

I need my little takeaway

To give myself a token raise

To supplement my take-home praise

Some get to meet celebrities

Or go on junkets overseas

I’m simply taking some of these –

Some paper clips, some folder files

A pritt stick, stapler, carpet tiles

Some tippex, a waste-paper bin

This thing for putting thingies in

This ream. Okay this box of reams

This laptop…

…well, you take my dreams

How did ever come to this?

My perky chirpy perquisites

Have been turned into exhibits –

These trinkets I gave house-room to:

Exhibits ‘A’ to ‘W’

Don’t ask what reason or what rhyme

Drove pretty me to petty crime

Nobody’s perfect

I guess it built up over time

Because I’m worth it

 We’re going to Exeter Phoenix on Saturday July 5th. Isn’t it exciting? I’ll take that as a yes.   Bill Greenwell will be there, one of the funniest parodists and spoofers in the business, we’ll have comedy from Jerri Hart, music from Nomad Shuffle and some brilliant young Exeter-based musicians and Matt Harvey (that’s me, writing abut myself in the 3rd person for the sake of clarity and, um, insanity) will host and do an extended set. We’re going to be upstairs in the Voodoo Lounge, a great space, tickets are available in advance through the Phoenix Box Office 01392 667080.  It’s going to be so, so good that in my head I’m already hoping and planning for this to become an annual event.