I Was Going Underground

And Shouting Inside My Head

Feb 25, 2025

By way of an apology for not posting anything for a while all I can really say is this - that I appreciate you bearing with me as I keep sinking below the surface, swallowing a big mouthful and then coming up for air. On re-reading that sounds dramatic or a bit scary, so please don’t be worried, I am searching for the right words to describe the bobbing life situation that I am experiencing right now.

During this time, I’ve not been posting here, I’ve done a lot and also, not a lot. There are quite a few bits of writing I’ve begun and not completed; they will appear in the next week or so. I was going to write you a list to prove my participation in all thing’s life, but as I began to do this, I started to feel like the Quantified SeIf or self-knowledge through numbers and this is of course a specific perspective.

But if you like lists and I definitely do, there are a few in this piece of writing here.

And The Jam song sprang to mind – here is the video, pertinent still perhaps from 1980 and Rick Buckler, the drummer died recently, and well, I love the drumming in this track, keeps a kind of steady forward motion for me.

I hope you enjoy.

One of my favourite pieces of work ever apart from Ryoji Ikeda’s Spectra III, is by the Neo Futurists from Chicago called, Too Much Water Makes The Baby Go Blind. It’s participatory, live, interactive and the technology is pretty straight forward - a mic and speakers, a basic lighting rig and a phone.

It’s funny, serious, surprising and transporting. This piece or rather the form of the piece, has been running for over thirty-five years, the work is currently called The Infinite Wrench. However, unlike something say The Mouse Trap, the play by Agatha Christie which opened in the West End of London in 1952, it changes every week and not just because it’s live. Too Much Baby comes back to me often. Let me explain some of its’ features, which may well have changed by now, although the central structure remains the same.

1. You book but pay on the door – $3 plus whatever you roll on the dice.

2. At the door everyone is given a new name on a “Hello my name is ….” sticker which the person on the door fills in, renaming you for the duration of the show based on their impression or immediate instinct about you – it’s charming!

3. The Central Structure - You are given a menu with titles on it. These are scenes or small performance pieces which the cast will perform based on which one is shouted for the loudest by the audience. The performers have to do 30 in 60 minutes.

4. On the door one audience member is given a cowboy hat to wear which means that at any moment, they can stop a scene they don’t understand and ask the person responsible for that scene, to explain it. The show will not continue until that person feels happy with the answer. So, this adds extra pressure to the 60 minutes.

5. Once everyone is seated these rules are explained to the collected audience.

6. And the host explains – “if it sells out we order out”. The show that I saw sold out, so the performer calls a pizza company live on stage and orders a pizza, to be delivered for 100 people with these toppings on it – and then they hold up the phone for the audience to scream their topping preferences out loud. It’s thrilling. We have been primed for the unknown and are ready to shout.

7. The set is a string of all the menu items hanging just in front of the audience, in a fairly intimate black box space, upstairs ,in an old building.

8. The scenes unfold after crazy shouting. A cast member rips that scene off the string and they go straight into it, getting faster and faster towards the end of the 2 minutes, or if time is running out.

9. It’s like a marathon, or the Royal Variety Performance on speed. Some are earnest, some sad, some just odd and now I imagine/hope that some are very political.

10. At the end, the performers are dizzy and exhausted, and the audience is not far behind.

11. Then the largest pizza I have ever seen in my life comes in on a platter cut into 100 small squares. The audience applause and mosh onto the stage to take a piece as they leave.

12. But not before one more crucial structural element ensures – A performer or audience member, I’m sorry I can’t remember which, rolls a giant dice on stage. They declare that the number rolled on the dice is the number of sections they will replace with brand new sections before next weeks shows.

There are things shouting in my head every day to get my attention and I’m not sure it’s the loudest or most important things that win out. Certainly not always.

Here is what’s on today’s menu (from early January to be a little more precise) – there is a title and some have details. In no particular order.

1. From One Brother Into Another Brother Stem Cells – 4 packets

2. Falling Over on a 200-Year-old path – I won’t last that long

3. Something Blew And The Room’s Still Not Bright Enough

4. Waiting For The Giant Sack Of Dog Food –Insects

5. Who Would You Interview And Why?

6. Who Lives Next Door To The House I Want To Buy?

7. Do I Stay In Or Draw Portraits In A Pub?

8. Is The Cleaner Worth The Price?

9. The Sweet Punk Lad From Sheppey – writing

10. What’s Your Name? - Sort out the confusion

11. Swallow The Frog – the water saga continues