Stray Cat Rescue. Part 3. Street Art and Lounge Singers - A Utopian Vision for Imagine Wirral.
Her first night was a dream, for me at least, she woke herself up squeaking in a little nightmare at about 2am, but quickly settled back down with a head stroke and spent the whole night next to me in a comfy coma.
It was the best nights sleep I’d had since my birthday in the pink B&B in Bournemouth. It was one of those sleeps that are almost too good to be true, when you wake up bright and alive at five o’clock, full of energy and endorphins, but you find out at 10 o’clock that it was a chemical lie, that you’ve been scammed by your own body and you want to die.
Feral days gaze
We got up and went down to the kitchen for breakfast. The descent down the stairs is a far greater challenge than the slithery slink up and overcome by a zigzag sideways diagonal technique. My fear that she belongs to someone and is ‘missing-not-feral’ is slightly abated by her total inability to process stairs. If she does have a home, it’s a bungalow (oh god she belongs to an old lady), but hopefully it’s because she never used the stairs in the feral cat colony in the horse field behind the garden centre. Either way it’s high entertainment watching her side-step, back-bump, and bunny-bounce down the stairs. I would have carried her down, but she is not a picker-upper.
Stair step challenge
She is so small and I’ve never felt so tall looking down at her looking up at me in the kitchen over-confidently expecting food and skittish with every step I take and move I make. She pees in her litter tray (how do they know?) she meows, she bites, she purrs, she’s shabby, she’s perfect. She’s a tiny little scouser mouser with huge energy and a powerful life force. I love her and I think she loves me.
At the moment I believe her emotions are confused and this new feeling of love she is experiencing is mainly motivated by hunger. The game of food roulette begins. The ladies at the garden centre had fed her extremely well, but I didn’t ask what brand they were giving her so I bought everything. She wouldn’t eat anything. Refused dry food, rejected two brands of wet food, finally sucked the jelly off some meaty chunks if I stood next to her cheer leading. I put it down to stress from being in a strange environment and still rushing on adrenaline I left her all alone in the house to attend a long booked arts conference in New Brighton in the Wirral.
New Brighton Beach ~ The Wirral
Liverpool from New Brighton
Sure enough, by the time I reached the Floral Pavilion, my endorphins had drained themselves down to my shoes and were stuck to George Michael’s pedals. I parked 100 meters down the road on the shore front and I was exhausted before I got to the steps of the building, I know how Begonia feels. The energy crash had been so fast as I passed through the Williamson Tunnel I was desperate for tea, hysterical for tea, delirious for a cup of tea and, fixated on my target like Terminator 2, emotionally yet politely as I could manage, I asked the first person I saw inside the building where the tea trolley was please. He was very kind and asked if I was alright, I told him I had taken in a feral kitten last night as my eyes rolled into the back of my head, he laughed and said “did she not sleep?” I said “she did”, emphasising the ‘she’ and intonating the reason for the depleted state of ‘my’ disposition.
Driftwood shipwreck New Brighton beach
It was a fantastic conference, the aim was to invite local artists and creatives to submit ideas for projects for “Imagine Wirral” ~ the Liverpool 2019’s award of Borough Of Culture. Filled with incredibly talented people all full of ideas, it turns out the chap who had assisted me with my tea fix was on my table and was the Events and Projects Officer for the council and was very encouraging and receptive to ideas. There was also a retired sign writer who was keen to initiate and teach mural painting. Good quality public wall art really blows my hair back. I realised how effective it can be in regenerating run down areas when I moved to Bristol in 2009 just as Banksy was starting to gain world wide interest. I had never been to Bristol before, but I’d rolled into town in my transit with a plan to set up and sing in my own candle-lit cabaret club. That plan turned out better than I expected, ending up with more friends than I’d made in a lifetime in London, an album and eventually a move to Hong Kong, but in the mean time I moved into a converted Malthouse in Montpelier and walked through Stokes Croft every day.
I was told by locals that Stokes Croft had a troubled history of homelessness, heavy drug dealing and violent street crime along with graffiti. Faced with many issues they couldn’t control, Bristol Council took the unprecedented step to embrace the graffiti and actively promote it. It was an extraordinarily successful decision as Street Art flourished, Banksy went global, graffiti artists were commissioned to paint entire buildings and the look and culture of a city was transformed into a vibrant and colourful thriving environment. It’s hard for a disenfranchised community to feel angry and stay disaffected with giant Japanese waves at the end of your street. It’s uplifting.
DJ Derek ~ by Stewy, stencil graffiti street art Montpelier, Bristol
It was in Bristol where I initiated and developed the foundations of my own vocal coaching methods. I focused intensely on my own voice and spent most of my time performing, however I was growing more and more interested in creating new singing teaching techniques and slightly frustrated with the drum n bass or nothing attitude of most of the venues. I ended up moving to New York, but that’s another story for another blog.
Street art sand graffiti ~ “I Do Dream”, Brighton Beach, Coney Island, New York.
Back in New Brighton, it was directly through the discussions, punctuated by wide eyed “I’ve got a feral cat at home don’t you know, got her from the garden centre”, at this brain storming conference that stormed my brain and inspired me to formulate an idea to initiate a program to train young jazz singers. Merseyside has a rich history of live music and bands, buskers and choirs are very well catered for, as are their audience. My passion however is singing and if singing is your art form there really isn’t any outlet for you to perform and practice your craft. Also, importantly, there is nowhere for people who don’t want to go to a pub or club to see a band to go to be entertained.
Graffiti Black Cat - street art Madrid.
Graffiti Flamingo - street art Milan.
When I was teaching singing in Hong Kong there was a wonderful group of people who would organise performers to go and sing old songs to the old folk in care homes. There are so many opportunities to bring so many people together from young to old and share in the love of the song. To get dressed up, go out, sit down and be entertained in a safe environment.
Graffiti “All Gangsters Are Pussies” - (All Pussies Are Gangsters) cat street art, Hong Kong.
My dreams of teaching and running a glamorous candlelit club with a showcase of emotional singers will never die, it is only dormant. It’s not possible to build up an event over time anymore as licensing laws, open mic nights and inexperienced pub managers have killed off the traditional venue options, but regular monthly lunchtime tea dances and One Night At The Museum are just two of my sizzling ideas where singers can learn their craft, collaborate, create new opportunities, styles, expression, confidence and empowerment. All genres of vocal styles can be expressed from swing, jazz, soul, lounge, country and pop and from this repressed talent can flourish and a culture for the next generations created.
At the end of the conference we were all invited to go to see some black and white photos exhibited in a derelict factory. I’d rather see some kids making waves on a wall in a deprived housing estate or listen to a burgeoning singer in the glory of an art gallery please. Jazz, graffiti and kittens are the future, trust me, fund me.
Graffiti Black Cat - street art Tuebrook, Liverpool.
When I got home, I came though the front door to a silent house, I called out hello to her for the first time in coming home, it was exciting to call out hello. She appeared at the top of the stairs like a tiny Miss Haversham, covered in cobwebs.
Flamingo Wall Art & Black Street Cat - Bedroom, England.
