Reality and punk cabaret

The boaties among you will be wondering what on earth punk cabaret has to do with sailing, and those of you reading this because I posted it up on a punk cabaret forum will be wondering the exact opposite – but bear with me, the twain shall meet, honest!

So after spending the best part of last year sailing around the South Pacific, reality has come crashing in with a loud and rather inconsiderate thud. I am back home, back at work and back to the world as I once knew it.

It’s been great – it’s been wonderful to see the family and friends I have missed so much, to catch up with my workmates and to see my cat again, but it hasn’t been easy.

Once the novelty of not having to do laundry in a bucket or ration your showers wore off, I was faced with a stark reality – the world was the same, I was not. I’m a lot better now but when I first got back I was a complete insomniac. I’d gone from being out in the middle of nowhere with sporadic communication (other than radio and the odd burst of internet or celphone reception if you were lucky) to constant connectivity – celphones, blackberries, emails that can reach you wherever you are, television, radio, advertisements, planes, trains and automobiles. And when I went to bed I just didn’t know how to switch off anymore. I would lie there staring at the ceiling with stupid radio jingles, work emails, TV cop shows and what was trending on Twitter that day whirling around in my head. It was clearly a case of over-stimulation, I just didn’t know how to turn my brain off.

The other thing that is different about cruising is the way that you look at the world. The things that are important when you are sailing are much different from the things that are important in the ‘real world”. When you are sailing the decisions you make are simpler but the ramifications much bigger. When you are sailing the decisions often boil down to where and when you are going and how you are going to get there. They are simple decisions but ones that potentially, if you screw them up, can kill you or somebody else on the water. You don’t really have time for the nuances, it’s ‘pull this rope right bloody now before we lose a sail”, obey the collision avoidance rules or you could smash into somebody else’s boat, plan and look where you’re going or you could run smack into a reef – there isn’t really much time for interpretation. Interpersonal politics, other people’s agendas and whether or not you might have offended someone kind of takes a back seat.

For some of the people we met on the islands it was even more black and white – grow, catch and find food or you starve, look out for your family and your village or you won’t have a world. If you have books to read or pens to write with, you treasure them. It’s hard to go from that mindset to “he said this, she did that” and öh my god I missed my bus and I have to wait another 15 minutes for the next one!” A lot of the crap that I used to give myself an ulcer stressing over just doesn’t seem so important anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the details aren’t important. I know that the minutiae behind the decisions that are made can have massive “consequences. I know that the political arguments and intrigues are deeply important (nowhere is that more apparent than in places like mainland Fiji which is so politically screwed up it’s beyond words) – I just need to get my brain working back on that level again. I can do it if I concentrate, but it’s not natural like it used to be.

So where does the punk cabaret come in? Well I decided I needed something to bridge the gap, something creative (other than writing), that no-one was paying me to do, and something that wouldn’t be the end of the world if I screwed up.

So when I heard that ticket sales for punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls weren’t going so well in New Zealand and they were looking for street teams to poster and get the word out, I jumped at the opportunity.

Listening to the Dolls on my i-Pod helped heaps during my first few night-watches at sea. They are so punchy and anarchic and joyful that it’s almost impossible to be scared when  you are listening to them.

This song was a particular favourite:

The Dresden Dolls – Sing

Those of you who are masochistic enough to have been with me from the beginning may remember this blog I wrote before we left:

And I never lose my wallet

The Amanda Palmer who wrote that particular song is one half of the Dresden Dolls, so I figured it was worth a repost

They are not everyone’s cup of tea, and definitely not Paddy’s (he is more of a Tom Petty man – who I also think is awesome). But I figure if we can survive eight months at sea without killing each other then we can cope with having different tastes in music. Though when admitted he didn’t particularly like my one true obsession – David Bowie – it did nearly end in mutiny. It kind of put me in mind of a song by a lady called Eileen Quinn called “”If I killed the Captain” – A sample of the lyricS:

But if I killed the captain – really, who would know?

We’re two weeks out of port, we’ve got one more week to go,

And all that it would take,

Would be a timely little shove… whoops!”

For some reason this is a favourite song among many women cruisers! She’s a little bit country and not my normal style, but the lyrics are brilliant and I’ve developed rather a weakness!

So anyway, I’ve been spending my evenings going around Wellington putting up posters in strange places, playing with glitter pens and fraggles – and it has been damned therapeutic! It’s helping me find the other Anna again. She was always there, but she’d just taken a back seat for a bit. Punk Cabaret Therapy might not work for everyone, but it certainly has for me!

So the Wellington Gig is this Saturday at the Opera House and the details for that and the Christchurch and Auckland gigs are here:

Upcoming shows

If you want to come along I am pretty sure it will be awesome!

In a nutshell yeah, I’m a different person – I’ve done some things that scared the hell out of me, I’ve stuffed up some things but was lucky enough  to be able to learn from my mistakes. I found things about myself I didn’t really like very much and things that I am extremely proud of – and I am sure I will be able to find a way to channel that into my life back home.

In the meantime – thanks to punk cabaret, I am starting to appreciated the stimulation again – bring the noise!