DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GRIND YOU DOWN!
I'm not giving up
though I'm never gonna win
maybe they've given me the best view
from the outside looking in
Yes, it's that whacky time of year again where the arts money is distributed by the local arse council. Last year I didn't get any for the soon to be LEGENDARY Poetry BUs Magazine.
Stupidly, perhaps even naively, I worried that maybe I hadn't done a great application, that I hadn't adequately conveyed the special brilliance of the magazine, that I hadn't spelled it out, that I perhaps mistakenly thought the brilliance of the mag shone through and spoke for itself, therefore I hardly needed to speak at all.
So this year I went to town,there would be no margin for error, this bus would be watertight, like a duck's arse. I gilded the perfect lilly, I dotted every i for idiot and crossed every T for Twat, I spent 18 hours in total on putting together a beguiling and cast iron case for funding, I included a copy of the first issue in all it's glory, I included artwork and projections and poems from issue two. I included a copy of Popshot magazine to shop how the mag could look if I got funding.
In short I presented the perfect application, I thought of everything, I thought of things I hadn't even thought of! I fashioned a beautifully impassioned argument for funding as eloquent and convincing as Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech.With all due modesty it was perfect and irresistable.I had no doubts and no regrets.
Unfortunately I also had no funding either as my application was routinely rejected.
I have deleted/censored most of the rest of this post but If you had got to read it and enjoyed it even half as much as I enjoyed writing it, then you'd have LOVED it! Venting your spleen can be very therapeutic.
I know that there are people out there who believe the arts world and it's establishments are well meaning and fair and do their best in difficult times with limited funds. Igenuinely wish them luck in their belief.
I was bitterly disappointed but also see it as a silver lined cloud. To be blunt I needed their money but deep down I didn't want it. It may be a lucky escape, I'm not sure that I will apply for funding again,but I am honest enough to admit to being a well meaning but weak hypocrite. I really know I shouldn't apply again, and not just because of the fact that I would never get any. That isn't a good enough in the real sense of 'good'
The truth is I have always been on the outside looking in, usually critically, it has made me ( both good and bad) what I am.
The day that I am accepted is the day I lose everything. Fuck them.
And also talking to myself I would have to say to me, in order to get a bt of world perspective here, in my decadent luxury,that if , for argument's sake there is a God , TFE, which I believe you still believe there is, despite total disillusionment bordering on revulsion with your Catholic faith, what will you do when you die (if you die,- you may be the first being to live forever) and you are up there , wherever that may be, being 'judged' and' somebody', God for instance, he or she says to you,
" Well TFE, look at you there in March 2011, you look a little fed up, unhappy wth your life and the way things are going"
And you reply" Yes Boss, truly terrible, I didn't have the Porsche 911 I always I thought I'd have by the time I was 30, let alone 40! And also I didn't get funding for my lovely poetry magazine!"
And God says , somewhat ironically,
" My god! That's awful! Poor you! And did you know that at the very same time children were living in sewers in Brazil because they would be shot if they didn't, and that other children around the world were were dying by the minute of starvation, and that thousands of families and homes had just been wiped out in Japan?"
And the reality of my dichotomy is that I'm caught between the divil and the deep blue casket, that I'm a little bit of this, I'm a little bit of that, if I smoked I'd have a' crushed up Carrols packet in my hand' and that if I was MOR pretend mock rock megastar I'd contradict that' Hearts of fire' NEVER' turn cold'.
But mainly I'm just pissed. In every sense of the word.
I was bitterly disappointed but also see it as a silver lined cloud. To be blunt I needed their money but deep down I didn't want it. It may be a lucky escape, I'm not sure that I will apply for funding again,but I am honest enough to admit to being a well meaning but weak hypocrite. I really know I shouldn't apply again, and not just because of the fact that I would never get any. That isn't a good enough in the real sense of 'good'
The truth is I have always been on the outside looking in, usually critically, it has made me ( both good and bad) what I am.
The day that I am accepted is the day I lose everything. Fuck them.
And also talking to myself I would have to say to me, in order to get a bt of world perspective here, in my decadent luxury,that if , for argument's sake there is a God , TFE, which I believe you still believe there is, despite total disillusionment bordering on revulsion with your Catholic faith, what will you do when you die (if you die,- you may be the first being to live forever) and you are up there , wherever that may be, being 'judged' and' somebody', God for instance, he or she says to you,
" Well TFE, look at you there in March 2011, you look a little fed up, unhappy wth your life and the way things are going"
And you reply" Yes Boss, truly terrible, I didn't have the Porsche 911 I always I thought I'd have by the time I was 30, let alone 40! And also I didn't get funding for my lovely poetry magazine!"
And God says , somewhat ironically,
" My god! That's awful! Poor you! And did you know that at the very same time children were living in sewers in Brazil because they would be shot if they didn't, and that other children around the world were were dying by the minute of starvation, and that thousands of families and homes had just been wiped out in Japan?"
And the reality of my dichotomy is that I'm caught between the divil and the deep blue casket, that I'm a little bit of this, I'm a little bit of that, if I smoked I'd have a' crushed up Carrols packet in my hand' and that if I was MOR pretend mock rock megastar I'd contradict that' Hearts of fire' NEVER' turn cold'.
But mainly I'm just pissed. In every sense of the word.
13 comments:
For your reading pleasure, check out Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," which is a perfectly composed, 10 page argument. He began it in the margins of a newspaper and completed it on a donated legal pad. It's a pure work of genius!
Below is a link to a professor who made a colour-coded rhetorical analysis of this masterpiece. Once you reach the site, click onto the link to the Word doc.
http://faculty.millikin.edu/~moconner/writing/king1a.html
TFE, I think you're right, as in getting funding might've been the beginning of the end, you'd have only gone mad with the power, driving around in your helicopter from media office to filming location controlling your magazine based empire from your i-touch phone. Who knows where it would've all ended.
Better stay on the edge.
sorry ... sorry ... it's a bitch, no? But believe me, I think it's much better on the outside - look at those once idealistic (well maybe?)pollies who are eating crow feed all the time because they joined in to the great public game.
I think you're great!
now see.. this whole page should bcome a song... sorry about the funding, it's the same old same old. I applied for two jobs lately, washing upper and glorified cofee maker/money taker.. not even a thanks for your c.v. I'm so un-qualified I don't even qualify for menial tasks!... I guess this is how everything works, unless you have fucking letters, numbers and arse kissed lips attached to your name you can go fuck yourself. I can't wait till I win the lottery! The things I would do.. * wibbly wobbly hallucinations... it would start with uber funding for the poetry bus ;-)
chin up!
It's clear to see from the last part of your post, that you have things in perspective Peadar, but that doesn't lessen the bitterness of disappointment. You can still write good poetry - they can't take that away. If you had to delete it, that must have been a heck of a rant!!
I am immensely fond of you TFE, and sometimes it really is just so obvious why.
Except the Shane McGowan.
Great protest!
We win in the strangest ways-
I do not bother with our local Arts Council or the State grants anymore.
I don't bother with any letters after my name either! (after each achievement,) the job I was seeking required the next level of degree.
So I did learn how to put all that rebellious energy to the best use- close by & on my own behalf!
And that is why we all love you!!
Pull yourself together, m'lad. Chin up, back straight.
Now, start shooting.
I'm just reading along smiling a little at all the affirmations you're getting & then I get to Peter's comment & started cackling. I'm not sure you should really take him seriously :)
I love your rant - the whole darn thing. You went through the same checklist I go through when I don't win the lottery - about how in comparison with the world I'm doing pretty good actually.
Your entire post ~ the most ardent and impassioned of protests (with or without edits.)
I'm back, just to say: Top o' the morning, (actually it's top o' the evening now) and to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day.
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