Yes, yes, good day to you all
Welcome to another edition of Lager Time; whoever you are, wherever you are, if you do it all exist. So what’s been happening?
Not a lot to report from my end, I’ve been pretty busy. Working on two different rap projects, with some young people out in Bromley and Romford and I’ve resumed duties with the Friends From Afar project, with Dream Arts - we’re working with a group of unaccompanied asylum-seekers and are slowly developing a show. I co-lead the sessions and have written a short script along with some music, I’m really enjoying it. The project hits all the three of the things I like doing.
All the while, bumbling through with my own creative projects; which are mainly this show, Make Your On bed and Hope for the Best and an EP of music I’m taking forever to produce. But we’re getting there. Sort of.
Made a little bit more headway with the show this week, just a bit though. I’ve currently got this gut feeling that I just have to write through this malaise and the bit I’m currently working on, will probably face the axe but may find life elsewhere. Like the piece below.
I wrote this some time last year when I started re-editing all the stories. I highly doubt this will make it in as it’s not in the timeline of events but either way, I enjoyed the process, as I enjoy doing this. I think I’ve worked-out how to the audio a bit better, so hopefully it sounds a little more pleasing to your ears. That’s progress. Tortoise and the hare, mate. Until next time
MYOB Draft Bits - Spitalfields
I’m at a point where I can genuinely say I don’t hate what I do for work - to earn a living - it’s just that it don’t pay much.
I’m walking through Spitalfields market - in between jobs - killing time before the next bit of work. Winter is very much here, it’s dark by four and cold most of the time, snotty nose and tickly coughs soundtrack my journeys. There’s a lot of homeless people around here, often asking for change, on foot and sat on doorsteps or crowding outside Tesco. I’ve got a sever hankering for caffeine, sweets and stodge
I finished my school job earlier, walked to Streatham bus station and caught the 133 to Liverpool St, it always gets me here much earlier than I need to be but I know that if get on the bus in Streatham, by Brixton Hill I’m asleep, then by Liverpool street, I’m slowly coming too, dazed and confused before I get slung off, wiping the dribble off my chin, it’s a vital little bit of kip that keeps me going. And it’s cheaper than the tube.
To have enough money to get by, I need to work my school teaching assistant job five days a week, with at least two gigs or workshops in the evenings or the weekends to make up the shortfall. Some weeks I’m working all seven days, going to bed late and getting up early, to work on bits of writing, though sometimes, I just cant get out of bed for it and I feel guilty for not utilising my time.
Some weeks I don’t get those extra gigs and workshops and though its a bit of a relief to go home after school and have an early night, it just causes me to pull more out hairs from my head when the bills come
Spitalfields is busy, a party part of town and city workers and students are packing out the pubs and restaurants. I look in the windows of a few, and see smiling faces wishing I could be with them sinking a few of those expensive pints, enjoying a social life.
I’ve got just enough to dough to get home on my oyster and maybe grab a reduced sandwich from Tesco but I’m kinda holding out that they’re might be some leftovers at the centre where I’m working tonight as they get given a lof of food from Pret a Manager, which I have to go and pick up, as part of my job.
I’m a workshop assistant at a charity that works with people who are or have been homeless and we do drama. Most of these people there have lives a lot harder than mine and sometimes the sessions can be tough but more often than not, they’re fun, educational and uplifting, and a good laugh. I often leave knackered but enthused,
I think that feeling is how work could be, should be, possibly, it’s a possibility. They’re worse ways to work for living but maybe better ways to earn, especially in this city. I’m somewhere in between the two. When I’m super skint and wiped out it can hard to see the upside of it all but generally, if I think about what I was doing before, chances are I’ll leave tonight tired feeling good, feeling valued and feeling like I might have some value and they got free tea, that’s a good start
