Thursday 21 July 2011

To Be or Not To Be...

ThisVideo is a remix of my track "You're the very definition" (By Michael Baines) which ought to cement my credentials with regards attitude towards the monstrous nature of the TV industry.

But now I have an offer to consider, so I thought I might as well blog about it and see if I can decide through the power of collective wisdom.

Magnum TV have expressed their first level of interest in using me on their forth coming Sky 1 talent competition. Why would I even consider this?

I may well be a curmudgeonly aging barren man, but I am as haunted by my future as the next man. As a photographer I regularly steal from myself moments I may overwise have experienced, in order to create some permament record. I am forever foisting my pictures off on to my friends, in the hope they will be hung on walls and occassionally noticed - so that in some way I can transcend the limits of my geography and chronology. One day I want to be a famous corpse.

The same is true of my performance work. I only do it to insinuate myself into the lives of others. To try to make it normal to be me. To give my thoughts and words a validity. At christmas I was on Sky Showcase II - allegedly to 30,000 viewers. What ever little sense my work may contain, it is a potent brew when multiplied by 30,000. The allure is inescapable.

I believe it is perfectly valid for a performer to seek radio and television exposure. The sex pistols famously did exactly that. Clearly I don't want to bend over for a spit rotating by the Cowell/Walsh cabal, but equally I ain't ever going to find myself with a cosy spot on one of the Radio 4 poetry programmes - not even in these enlightened times that have put JCC on the school English syllabus.

So there's my dilemma. Do I risk being caught up in some obscene industry gang bang with me as the cum bucket in order to participate in something that might, just might, be handled with decorum? After all, the bastards managed to make that Victoria Coren quiz show about copnnections (I think it was called Only Connect). And Charlie Brooker used to be good. And I should have the job that crap poet had with Brooker. And there's money. I could do with some money as it happens.

They go to great lengths to explain there's no judging panel, no telephone votes (the cheap bastards). The studio audience have voting buttons. I can split a room so it would be touch and go, but I don't mind being judged by the audience so much. I've had some heady run ins around the pubs of London on that score. I reckon I can just about handle failure. Just so long as they don't film me in a way that makes me look like a scary peadophile santa - which of course they might.

So what do you reckon? Should I get entangled with this or not? Will you still love your GameCat if I do and it all goes horribly wrong?

If I do and I win it, I'll buy all contributors a pint. Unless I don't, if this post goes stupid viral...