We’re all familiar with being on auto-pilot.  Usually because we come to a sudden realisation that that’s where we’ve been.  Luckily most of the time it’s because something or someone interrupts us gently.  Occasionally it’s more serious, it’s the car horn that alerts us to the fact we’ve stepped into the road without thinking. 

I think we’re all also familiar with the paper tissue or towel on the public bathroom floor.  Who’s going to pick it up? Not me.  God knows what’s on it, what it was last used for, whose hands it has been in.  I may have just exposed some of my most intimate parts to a piece of porcelain that is less clean than that tissue, but I’m not going to pick it up.  It must be someone else’s job.  And anyway how the hell does it get there?  How can people be so messy, dirty, slovenly?

Here’s my theory on how it gets there.  Someone drops it accidentally and unconsciously while on auto-pilot.  They’re on their way to meeting someone, having lunch, getting back to a knotty problem at work and they’re oblivious to the single sheet of tissue falling to the floor.  Simple as that – it happens everywhere, it’s not a measure of the depravation of the people using it, it’s a measure of how unconscious they are, and I’d argue unconsciousness is, if anything, more prevalent in communities of clever people who are doing lots of thinking.

So what happens in a place where it isn’t anyone else’s job to pick it up?  At C4CC we do have cleaners who come in regularly, but not at the end of every day, nor does anyone do a regular cleanliness check during the day and scribble their signature on a chart on the back of the loo door.  What’s the solution? Employ cleaners in such a capacity? No money.  Put up signs to encourage mindfulness of your surroundings while you’re here? Signs are highly susceptible to being ignored by unconscious people.  Hold meditation sessions every day to generally raise the level of consciousness of people working here? Tempting… very tempting…

Or how about, whenever I find myself in a conscious state in the bathroom and I spot the residue of someone else’s unconsciousness, I just pick up that piece of paper, put it in the bin and wash my hands afterwards?

Originally posted on Centre for Creative Collaboration – blog

We expect finished, polished product.  For a long time, only the polished was worth publishing – just from a cost point of view.  And so people think {if published, then polished}.

In truth the cost hasn’t necessarily been removed completely, but we as producers have externalised it, we’ve moved the cost of replication and distribution to the internet and we’ve shifted the cost of re-writing, re-thinking, re-working and polishing to our “readers”

And so now as a “reader” I can no longer rely on publication as a marker.

And as a producer, I have to put up with “readers” complaining that they don’t understand my work that it doesn’t seem thought through.  Because it isn’t.  And actually their complaints are part of the process.

If we’re telling a story, we’ve learned that it should have a beginning, a middle and and end.  Unless of course we twist that and say “this story has no beginning” or “this story has no end”. Then it’s not a story – it’s a conversation starter – isn’t it?

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

I think of very different groups of people under:

social media experts

“social media experts”

“social” media experts

social “media” experts

social media “experts”

“social media” experts

social “media experts”

“social” media “experts”???

etc…

 

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

I stopped opening up my RSS reader a while ago.  I don't know how long ago, but I'm pretty sure it was last year sometime.  It was just too much on top of everything I saw in Twitter and Facebook.  Most blog posts I wanted to read were being lost in the noisy flood of people saying very little, badly.  I tried unsubscribing, cutting down my list but it was a bit like cutting down my twitter following – what if? what if? what if? What if, what? What if a miracle happened and one of these wankers actually said something interesting?  Well yes.  It could happen. Couldn't it?

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

Some random notes on what to do with the stuff that I want to keep but don’t want to take with me.  The biggest single item is my bed frame (and mattress) and then I’ve kitchen stuff, some clothes, books, records and a computer or two.  I’ve slimmed down a lot.

I’d like to keep it all in one place I think – having stuff spread over several attics, box rooms and garages is probably more cost-effective and doubtless more interesting artistically, but a pain in the bum that I don’t really need.

So I think the questions are:

To store in Central London or not? and whereabouts anyway?

What “visiting rights” do I need?

How much does it cost roughly? 

Any recommendations for good service?

Those big storage places are weird aren’t they? The other day, talking to Nick, we came up with the idea of a documentary just asking people as they went in what they were storing and why, so many interesting stories, I’m sure.

btw that photo is from when I moved into Dolphin Square nearly 5 years ago…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

I’ve moved out and moved on many times but some things seem to stick around in boxes no matter what.  One of those things is my notebook from Drama School.  Yes I had just one – I don’t seem to remember there being a lot to write down…

This though is the first page of several directions for the basic stage fighting exam that we did.  I think it was the only subject I did an external exam for while there (although I also did the advanced one).  It was great fun – if you want to try it out you’ll need to know that the V column is the Villain and H is for Hero.  Then T=Thrust, Py=Parry, S=Sword and D=Dagger and you’ll need to dig out a couple of rapiers and daggers.

Oh, and take extreme caution “I’ve seen an eyeball on the end of one of these” 

Here’s me practicing at home…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

People arguing with me over whether Hobo 2.0 was or wasn’t a good description for what I’m doing led me to the wikipedia page for Hobo which provides some useful distinctions in terminology.

So it turns out there’s a difference between a “bum”, a homeless person who doesn’t work and doesn’t go anywhere unless moved on by the police; a “tramp” who avoids work but keeps moving and a “hobo” who is simply an itinerant, nomadic or migratory worker.

That fits much better than I thought with what I want to do.  This trip is not about sponging and living on the minimum amount of money.  It’s not about using social capital as a replacement for money although as with the American trip, most of the time I won’t be paying for things that one might ordinarily expect to.  It’s not about doing the minimum possible to get by.

It is about seeing what the experience can be of being a migratory performer, artist, knowledge worker when enhanced by an online presence and access to more social capital than many.  If it works, I will get to do bolder, more exciting work than ever.   

Of course I’ve got a number of things that I want to do while I’m out and about: talks, tuttles, busking, house gigs, people I want to interview and make stuff with.

But the exciting thing it opens up for me is the possibility of working with lots of people that I know around the country whom I rarely get to see face to face.  If you’re in the middle of North Yorkshire and I’m in London we might know that there’s something really valuable we could do if only we could spend a few days at the kitchen table together, but it’s unlikely to happen ordinarily.  

So let’s do it – let me know if there’s a project you’ve been itching to do that you want some Lloyd-shaped help on – if you’ve got a comfy sofa or spare bed then all the better 🙂

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

So the plan as of today is to set off at the end of this month without any fixed abode for the following three months at least and to review what I do next after 2 months.  That means July, August and September definitely on the road and to make a decision at the beginning of September about what to do next.  

Immediately I’m reminded that that time of year is not a good one for finding rental property as you’re up against hordes of students starting college, so that’s something to bear in mind.

Thinking then about what I need to do this month:

• Throw away a lot of stuff
• Decide what to keep in storage and how to store
• Work out what clothes I’m going to take with me
• Find a good backpack/rucksack
• Get a light but tough ukulele gig bag (preferably with built-in live-streaming!)
• Sort out a mailing address
• Close down all utility & household accounts
• Work out some rules/guidelines for making choices
• Set up some online system for people offering accommodation/work/things to do

What else?

Well some nice-to-have’s would be a new phone and lightweight laptop but I can manage for the time being.

There’s more, but this will do for now…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

This week I did a couple of nights of talking, playing and singing to sum up The American Trip.  It was great fun – very different audience reactions each night, the first was chatty all the way through, the second lot sat quietly while I spoke and then wanted to talk all night afterwards…

It reminded me above all that I really enjoy interacting with a small group of people in this way, the form, of me talking, with comments from the floor, punctuated by bits of ukulele or other stuff is something that I’d like to do much more of.

Now then.  The lease on my flat ends at the end of June.  I’ve been here nearly two years.  I’ve been thinking over the possible next moves.  

Continuing to live on my own in a 1-bed flat in Central London doesn’t feel like the way forward.  I simply can’t afford to live in areas I’d like to live in and don’t want to live in the areas that I could afford.  So I started looking around for flat- and house-shares, perhaps it’s time to live with a bunch of people again, but then as I look it becomes clearer to me that city life, at least, this city, all the time, seems to have run it’s course with me for now.  Perhaps I’m tired of life, but I feel in need of a break from full-time London.

So I looked at alternatives, where would I like to live, outside London but within easy enough reach so that I can keep doing cool stuff at #C4CC and see my kids regularly.  Hmmm… lots of places appeal and are full of lovely folk that I know, but paying rent, even outside-London rent *and* commuting into town regularly makes things almost as tight as living in zones 1-2.  Perhaps I’d have to just go and not come back very often.

Then something else occurred to me.  What about the way of living and travelling I’ve just been waxing lyrical about this week?  I’d talked about a possible UK-wide wander as a preparation for the American journey, but there’d never really been time to do it.  There are certainly plenty of interesting questions about social capital still to answer.  What if, rather than the UK being a warm-up for the USA, perhaps it was the other way round.  Perhaps it’s time to go on a study of this stuff right here at home?  So how about I don’t take on another place straight away, but get on the road again.

Hmmm…

It would have to not just be about saving money, it’s not about becoming a hobo 2.0 rather it’s about seeing what happens when you give up the need to have a “permanent” base and use the value of your network to give you that support.  However, the net effect would be that I would be spending money on things other than ongoing accommodation.

It would need some other, light, structure than for the US.  It wouldn’t be about getting from one side to the other, it would be just about moseying along, meeting up and staying briefly with folk, doing some house gigs, some village hall versions of the #plate11 show, doing some work with people I don’t usually get to work with because we’re too far apart.  I’d love to do some busking outside of London and perhaps stream it live… See what happens!

I like the idea of doing an evening at #C4CC perhaps every fortnight to report on what things I’ve been up to.  Of course there’ll be lots of blogging and content creation.  There are quite a few interesting projects that I’ve been itching to work on but which require me to travel outside London and I haven’t found time or funds for them because I’ve been working hard to find ways to pay the bills.

Or something…

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous

In the middle, stripes and red wellies.

I don’t look like that on the outside much anymore.

But on the inside… yes.. pretty much all the time.

Originally posted on Lloyd’s posterous