Monday, February 4, 2013

Drum Roll....


Ladies and Gentlemen...I am pleased and terrified to announce that I am finally ready to launch 21st Century Showgirl in the (lights up!)  REAL WORLD...






She has never had a REAL WORLD launch. She has only been launched on Myspace. Check it out.
(VJ has gone home because Slideshow has closed down. But punters are still gathered...)

http://www.myspace.com/wednesdayfkennedy/blog/475144277

That book launch was like the first man landing on the moon but with a smaller viewing audience.  It ran for 48 hours. I sold 100 copies and the Reviews came in from all over the world....

http://www.wednesdaykennedyink.com/?p=162 

After that I was so exhausted that I couldn't stand the sight of her.  So I tied her up in the basement and I went on a road trip...








My readers came with me. We had so much fun that I published my blogs and our conversations in the Myspace Diaries. I sold about four copies and kept moving.  I was becoming like the snake. Drop the eggs and run....





But I realised this week that before I present The Snake Kennedy Trilogy.  I need to give the 21st Century Showgirl a launch in the real world.  It's only fair. Since she's been on ice for so long it is less like a birth and more like a Christening.   We'll put the baby's head under water and watch her scream. There will be music, champayne and video.




I've booked the Bordello Theatre at the Kings Cross Hotel for March 6th.  I'm thinking 7pm. The Kings Cross Arts Guild will be presenting it!!  I'm talking to the Caterer. He's mulling over Garlic Icecream and Pancetta. I need some one to sponsor the Champayne? Bruce Davies who did the cover for the book is working on the poster as we speak!  I have a super sexy DJ.   The most exquisite Tina Harris is going to sing a song she wrote especially for the book! Tonight I meet with Andrew Worboys to edit some video for the Opener. Ru Bella is going to take us out with a bang!  I get by with a little help from my talented friends.  I have ONE MONTH. 




There will be Firemen!

In the meantime join the facebook page. All the latest news will be posted here.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snake-Kennedy/405339756223610

Send money and guns

xxx



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Sole Sista




My life is littered with Entrepreneurial Failures.  Some of them immortalised on video.

There was the Virtual Tourism Brain Wave.   (Disaster Diva will take you where Oprah fears to tread)   That gave everyone a laugh before it went down like a bird in a heatwave.

http://youtu.be/m-Fft9ljwzk

There was the Digital Diva business that nobody wanted to pay for.  Everyone either does it themselves or finds some sucker to do it for free.

http://youtu.be/Z4rJ0j0H7Tc

There was the Speech Writing business that I started in FNQ.   Which was a bit like opening a bar in a mosque. I didn't get stoned  (if you don't count the spliff) but I didn't get customers either. Pig Hunters and Fishermen don't need a Speech Writer. And the white collar set all had their speech in their pocket before they flew in. 

Then I became a self Publisher. While I was still high on the idea that Social Networking was going to change my world..


The first book sold 100 copies and the second book sold 4. So I got out while I was still ahead...

There was the Pet Companion Business.  Cheaper than a Kennel and more love than a doting mother. I was the ultimate 'man's best friend'.  But with the growing amount of homeless who were taking up pet minding in exchange for shelter that business didn't take off either.  


So I dropped the Entreprenerial Act and tried to Work for the Man.  Applied for everything from tele marketing to bar work, picking fruit, holding a lolly pop stick and working in a car wash. I knocked on doors, sent resumes, made phone calls, answered Ads. Turned out that The Man didn't want me either.  

You need a certificate in Germ-ology to clean a toilet these days.  You need a Drivers Licence to hold a lolly pop stick. You need a Responsible Service of Alcohol Licence to work in a bar.  Every job opportunity needs a ticket and every ticket costs money and at every turn you're cornered by someone from health and safety.  It makes me want to live in the third world. 

But ever the optimist I am never short of a new business idea.  And so this week I created 


After walking on the back of a friend at Christmas who lay down a wreck and stood up in 7th Heaven. She told me I had a gift and called me a Sole Sista. A true healer. That I'd made her feel ten years younger and light as a feather.  She reminded me I had some skills I hadn't used in a long time. 

I'd taken up holistic massage in New York. It was growth industry in a post 911 climate. I used shiatsu, aryuvedic and swedish techniques and I also did a little bit of back walking.  I learned my skills in an East Side Day Spa. And then I started my own business called Australian Bush Massage. 
The catch cry was  'Vacation Laying Down'  I burned Eucalyptus Oil and worked to didgeridoo and I sold it as a 'Holiday Down Under.  Experience the Australian Bush without leaving Manhattan!'   You can feed off a novelty act in New York. They love a bit of blarney and they'll try anything once.  

But when I came back to Sydney my bag of tricks didn't work. My chutz lost its pah and my shtick sounded nuts.  Nobody needed healing here anyway. They were too busy feeling lucky and patting themselves on the back. How the hell do you heal the smug ? My business was over.  

But after walking all over Suzie at Christmas I was once again inspired. And then I walked over my friend Misty and he too came to life. He particularly loved the part where i stood on his head and rubbed his face into the ground with my feet around his skull.  His jaw clicked out for a minute but he clicked it back again.  He said it was like being bumped around a spin dryer. He felt dry cleaned when I had finished with him. By this stage I was feeling very confident. 

But then I walked on the petite back of my lovely friend Isabelle and when she moaned in pain I just told her to breathe. I was very arrogant when I think about it. The more pain you have, the more tension you're carrying' I told her.  As if I knew what I was talking about. 

But last night she told me that I'd cracked her rib. 

I know. That's not funny. And I'm not joking.  She had to get an xray and everything. She can't laugh without it hurting. The doctor said she'll be in pain for at least six weeks. And it's all my fault. 

I said sorry about six million times but sorry isn't really enough. So I told her she should come around and punch me in the face just so we're even.  But she's too kind.  'That's her problem' she said.
'She's too kind. She lets people walk all over her and her cracked rib is just a metaphor. That I had taught her a lesson to speak up for herself.'  Oh Gawd! she really should punch me just to drive that lesson home. Because God knows if she cracked my rib that's what I'd want to do to her.


Soooooo  I'm closing down my Walkabout Massage Business. I'm putting my feet to bed.  Out of respect to Isabelle and her poor cracked rib. Mea Culpa.  I'm just lucky she's my friend and is too sweet to sue me. She is satisfied with a bottle of wine as long as I don't make her laugh.  So we'll forget the healing and go get drunk. I got off very lightly. She told me 'I should go back to writing my show. It's what I am meant to be doing.' There's no money in shows but the main thing is she forgave me. Thousands wouldn't. She's a sista. 

I'm a heel. 























Thursday, January 10, 2013

Bikram Brain


DANDAYAMANA-DHANURASAN

Feet together.  Side by Side. 

I am standing in a stinking hot room wearing my South Sydney Rabbitoh  boxer shorts and a  black sports bra.  I'm at least twenty years older than the rest of the class and standing  just close enough to the mirror to bring on a mid life crisis.  

Living in the moment is great at twenty five but the older you get the more discipline it takes. 
 All I can see in the moment are the bags and the sags and a neck that appears to be ringbarked. Life's relentless and cruel to the very last breath.  But at least I have a spine. 

Lock your knees. Lock your knees. 


I had no spine left to speak of when I started Bikram Yoga. Psychopaths melt the spine first before they short wire the fuse box and start pulling apart your brain. I came into this class as a gelatinous glob of post traumatic stress disorder. I had just escaped from my Manhattan Psycho and flown home to seek the comforting bosom of my mother. (well Kerouac did it! Why can’t I ?) But my Mama took one look at me and Hollered 'DON'T YOU DIE BEFORE ME!' before booting me back into the world to stand on my own two…

Lock your knee. Lock your knee. 


Six years later and my spine is as fluid as  the snake that I have slowly become.  Since my return to Australia I've survived a cavalcade of rejections, a bunch of thwarted business ideas, a road journey, Queensland,  Centrelink, Adelaide,  Depression, Anxiety, an alcoholic Disaster Chef who offered me a vat of Kool-aide and a very long stretch of vagabond style homelessness.  I even survived Perth and an suicidal miner.  I mean how many people can say they survived that outpost of xenophbobia!   But I have fortitude and resilience. Six years of Bikram yoga have re-built me cell by cell from the bone to the skin. Although my nervous system still needs a little fusing and my mind sometimes betrays me...


Imagine you're holding a platinum credit card between your thighs.


Did the teacher actually say that? 
 At the mere mention of a credit card  anxiety coils around my organs and squeezes like a red belly black in a bad mood.  She takes me forward, takes me back, takes me anywhere but this hideous middle aged moment where the tables have turned and I'm counting the cards that are left...  

Put out your hand. 


 I paid thirty five dollars in cash and fifty dollars on my card. I promised to pay the rest tomorrow but I don't have the rest tomorrow? Why did I promise that? I’d already paid this month. I know I did ? Am I going mad ?

Put out your left hand.  Say (all together) Mama Give me your money'.

I bite my tongue and roll my eyes. Oh brother!

The class repeats his mantra like the pack of Ken and Barbies that they are.

MAMA GIVE ME YOUR MONEY.

 Talk about rubbing salt in the wound! They just took all my money! They took my money twice this month and when I told him the computer was wrong he didn't believe me.  In his eyes I was already guilty.

Raise the left arm up by the left ear and keep the left leg absolutely straight with the thigh muscle tight. The standing leg must stay engaged throughout the entire pose.

I'd committed the capitalist sin of taking the $99. 00 special twice. Nobody can take the $99.00 per month special twice. It's a once in a life time offer and there's no re-incarnation at Bikram yoga. You only get one life. You don't get three.

‘You also took the $99.00 special in 2008’

'Oh dear! Did I ? But that was five years ago ?  ‘L
ong memory these yogis. Just not for your face…

‘Yes You Did !  Look. It's all here on the screen.’

I didn't think it would help to ask him to think of me as a cat on her 9th life. The dates on the screen swam like gold fish before my eyes.  I couldn't make head nor tail of them. All I knew was that I had a receipt of payment on the 19th December 2012. And I had forwarded that receipt in a letter to them the day before.

Start to kick the right leg back and up whilst keeping a firm grip of the foot with the right hand. keep leveling the hips forward and keep the right knee pointing down to the floor.

Lock the Leg. Lock the Leg. 


‘Read the letter.  Read the letter. The receipt is in the letter!’

But he didn't have time to read the letter. It was twenty minutes before class but it might as well have been closing time on Wall Street. He wanted to punish me for my greedy grab at the Once in a Life Time Special and I suspected someone told him about the mats.

I didn't have my own mat when I was homeless. I had enough to carry door to door and I didn't need a yoga mat to add to it. So I'd re-use mats that are hanging off the back window instead of paying two bucks for a fresh one.   But I figured if I was willing to lay on a mat with old sweat then good luck to me. I was probably the only person in the room who was not afraid of germs. And forking out for Bikram was already a loaves and fishes act.  It's $120 per month on concession.  That's a whole heap of chump change if you add it up over the years.  I could have given that money to an honest pot dealer or a bar! but nooooo I gave my money to Bikram studios all over Australia! To keep me off Anti depressants and focus my inner masochist. To maintain my spine in the land with no brain and no heart!   The world was immune to my charms and my pockets were empty but long as I could stand on one leg with sweat pouring down my body and some yoga nazi in my ear yelling ONE PIECE LAMP POST ONE PIECE LAMP POST I knew I would make it.

And I did.

But it's moments like these that I realise the parts of me that are still broken. The part that closes down when I'm being bullied. The part called my BRAIN.

'Don't waste my time!' the Manager warns me. 'Are you going to make this easy for me?'

'Oh yes!' I cry as I empty out my pockets and hand over my card yet again.'

Four legs good and two legs bad! Just let me in that sauna…

Keep kicking, and start to pivot the upper body forward, aiming to get the abdomen parallel to the floor

In class my mind mulled it over and over. I was sure I had paid. Did I imagine that?  Had I finally cracked? If you trigger my PTSD then it's not so difficult to convince me that black is white and night is day. It's part of my schism.  And unfortunately this practice is not designed to make you think.  The teachers pay ten thousand dollars to learn a script written by a Yogi who wears a Rolex and who tried to copy write the sequence so he could knock out the competition.  You make a bomb if you own the joint but I don't think the teachers make much. So why do it ?  It's a great gig for narcissists with no creativity and a sadistic streak.  And if the torture chamber of the room isn't enough they'll happily humiliate you at the front counter for an added cost.

Lock your leg. Lock your leg.

 Bikram was my medicine, my discipline, my legal high.  But never mistake your dealer for your friend! Because that Dealer knows you are an addict and that you're never going to leave them. They know you think you need them. They know you think without them you will die. And I did.

So I handed over every last cent I had on me and the last fifty dollars on my credit card.  And then I spent the entire class thinking maybe I'd gone nuts? After class I asked the owner if he’d check the the email for my letter but he said his wife would do it later. Now he had my money the bulls rush was over.

So I went home and I found the letter and the receipt that vindicated me.  And I checked the statement on my bank account just to be sure.  And there it was in black and white. December 19th. $99.00. . And all the gold fish disappeared. Funny about that.

When I went back to pick up the money that they now owed me I was told that it would be credited forward to the next month. But there won’t be a next month of Bikram yoga. I'll finish off my final classes and that will be that.  Because it’s not enough to have a spine. You also need a brain and a heart and you can’t nurture those with a platinum credit card jammed between your thighs while you are meditating. So after six long years of locking legs and standing up straight this cat has finally got enlightened. Mama aint giving you all of her money. And she aint gunna take lying down either. This is your epitaph.  Thanks for the fish.