Tell yu what yeah,

Have you ever had one of them really busy days? 

I'm talking about the 12 hours of workshops in 2 different cities, 

50 cups of coffee and a pack and a half of bacco, 90 miles on road kind of days. 

Well yu know ain't nothing more refreshing at 

the end of one of these kind of days than 

half a bag of mixed cans.

Costs £3.50/£3.60 

(depending on whether they're 50p or 60p) 

and yu get half a bakers dozen (6/7)

Drink 'em wi'yu cheese-on/beans-on eh.

Birthday Suit.

It was my Birthday t'other week.

Below is a picture of my favorite Birthday Present.

Nuff said.

Thanks Nat x

You know me so well.

I'm retracting that retraction

Right yu know the whole thing about the me not making it to the radio and it all being my fault?

Well Fuck that shit.

I ain't in the wrong on this one.

It all comes down to this woman.

Jen Roberts

Look if your a poet/musician/comic then heed the name cos I reckon this woman is out to rip you off.

This is the woman who runs the 2-bit piece of shit radio station that don't fucking exist and if it does don't get any fucking listeners 'sept for folks tuning in to be disappointed that I ain't onit.

Well last night I done a gig for her again. (I know, I must have dickhead written on my forehead).

But seeing as how I've not performed both the last 2 times I was supposed to be in London I figured this time I had to do it. Either that or get a reputation. 

Anyway the gig its self was at the Library on Upper Street. Crazy thing for me is that this venue is on the corner of my Auntie and Uncles street. Small World eh. I didn't ring 'um cos I figured they'd of seen the flyers etc what with it being like 45 seconds from their front door.

So I've arrived met this woman and sat down to write a set list. To be honest there were maybe 25-30 people in the venue and probably about 40% of them were there for the event. The rest, as far as I could tell looked like they'd come out because they like having poetry in the background as they talk really loudly about how cultured they are. Dicks.

I'd talked my mate Steve into filming my performance and had decided to do the whole set as a homage to Bernie Mac. 

"Straight off the bat, I ain't scared of you mother fuckers"

Turns out that's not what they wanted. In a moment of panic I tried to fall back on some A material (a joke about wanking off midgets), but again not what they were looking for.

Here's a video so you can see how much they weren't into it. Note the amount of other people talking over me eh.

I'd managed to win a few people round by the end but generally they weren't into what I was doing. Still I only had to do fifteen minutes and Steve enjoyed it.

Sound of Rum were also performing on the bill and that's about 80% of why I agreed to do the gig. After the gig I was chatting to Kate Tempest (S.O.R) and it turns out neither one of us could remember making any arrangement about money. (I know, Dickheads init.)

Well i approached this Jen Roberts woman putting on my best gentleman's goloss all like 

"hi Jen I can't remember if we made an arrangement about money, am I invoicing you?"

She comes like "No we didn't make an arrangement about money and I've only just broken even so I'm afraid I can't give you anything."

I'm like, "sorry what do you mean?"

She's like "You should have made an arrangement about money before you came because we didn't make any money. what do you want me to do? pay you out of my own bank account?"

I'm like, "yeah you could at least cover my petrol that way I don't have to pay money out of My bank account for your night." 

She's like, "Well I didn't even know you were coming from Leicester."

I'm like "Yeah maybe on Tuesday but after the message you sent me regarding my blog and driving home etc,"

She's like, "Well you can't expect to get paid for gigs if your not, yu know, right up there. This is good promo for you."

I'm like "How's UK Slam Champion for right up there? How's 4 star reviews in the Sunday Telegraph? that up there is it? To be honest Luv I probably didn't need to drive all this way to promote my self to 25 people who are more concerned about being seen here than they are about listening to the acts, also I have family that live on this street and they usually travel all across London to watch me and my brother perform, If they're not here that's down to your promotion."

It was part way through this sentence that she just turned her back and started walking off and it was at that exact moment that I switched.

I'm like, "Oi, Oi, OI. Don't be just walking away from me mid fucking sentence"

But she did.

went and hid in the toilets for like half an hour. I waited in the bar and eventually she came out and went over to the bar manager. I watched her talk to him. I saw him take money from the till and give it to her. Then she walked over to me and Kate and she's all like "The Bar Man will give you both petrol money and I'll sort it out with him next month, I hope you're happy." Then she scuttled off no doubt to try and find her next mark.

Well anyway we waited about till like 1 in the fucking morning. (I was on at 8.45) 

Eventually when we are the only people left the bar manager comes over and asks us 

"What are you still waiting for?"

I explain what This woman said to me and he's like "No, I gave her the money for you from the till."

I went off a little bit but it weren't this geezers fault. Eventually he gave me and The Rums £15 each but that was only because he knew that if he didn't I wasn't leaving.

Brass Tacks.

If you're a poet, and a woman called Jen Roberts tries to book you for an event called behind the mic, then do us a favor.

 Agree to do the gig and on the day don't show up. If you do this I'll give you £10. 

Trust me that's £10 more than you'll get out of Blood-Stone Roberts

and Jen if you're reading this and I hope to fuck that you are then I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you to go fuck yu self you pretentious vacuum of shit. Oh and fuck your piece of shit nobody's-ever-heard-of radio show an all. That's what I think.

This is not a retraction

In regards to my blog about the radio last night.

My second cousin half removed Tom has pointed out that I should have just called the lady runing the show.

He's right. The whole thing was completely my fault.

Sorry.

War Magazine

That's an article about Pillers in the first issue of the relaunched 

War Magazine.

Here's a review I've sent them for the next issue.

See if they print it eh.

The Man in The Mirror

By John Berkavitch

Have you heard the expression Turkish Cousins? 

It’s when instead of actually touching each other, 

a man and woman just watch each other masturbate.

 

See I was keen to try it and I'd heard about this technique 

for stand-up-show-wanking, (wanking for an audience). 

In the absence of any woman willing to consent to my experiment 

I used a mirror, but the basic principals are the same. 

Here’s the theory. I stand naked with my left side facing the mirror 

and grip my erect penis with my right hand. Holding the hand in place, 

I thrust with my hips simulating the action of sex. 

Basically fucking the hand.

That’s the pretence. The reality of it was very unsatisfying. 

It was a lot more tiring and time consuming than your standard wank 

and eventually I just gave in and finished off as usual. 

I also found the mirror very distracting. Looking at myself really 

brought home the reality of what I was doing and inspired feelings of 

disappointment, guilt and shame. So in that respect a lot like actual sex. 

I’ve been trying to put the whole thing behind me 

but still can’t make eye-contact with my reflection. 

Next month I plan to give myself a stranger. 

Long Drive to nothing

Yo,
Sposed to have a gig on't' Radio in London yesterday.
Yeah I drove down.
South London so 2 hours drive from Leggy.
The address I had was number 144.
I got to the building numbers 140-148, I rang all the buzzers and waited


I continued to ring buzzers every couple of minutes for about half an hour then decided to drive home.

Yeah 2 hours back an all.

Turns out I was knocking on the wrong door, idiot.
The woman who runs it said I should have come to the side door.

I didn't know that till today.

Look, the long and short of it is that for a wile some people close to me have been calling me "No-Show-Berko" cos I tend to not show up to social somethings.

I'm not sure if I'm completely to blame this time, but I am pretty sure that as far as the radio listeners were concerned I was a No-Show. 

So now my side of it's out there eh, .

Self portrait

I've been doing quite a few of these.

Get in the Van.

Yo, picked up some hitch hikers yesterday.

I took them from Junction 23a all the way to Junction 21 of the M1.

They were doing it for Charity trying to get to Berlin. They'd come  from St Andrews in Scotland. Yeah the school where the princes go/went.

I said to the geeza, "you don't look like the stereotypical Hitchers."

He's like "What do you mean?"

I's like "Well you don't look like some potentially psychopathic murderer with a thick beard and a red-neck hair cut that hangs about on motorways looking for strangers to murder."

He looked at me then looked away and was silent for a bit 

Smoking and Wanking.

Remember back in the good old days of 2004 when they changed the law regarding the classification of Cannabis?
Downgrading it from Class B to C.
Well they've decided it's going back up.
B again.
Plus apparently now if you get caught with it in your possession then it's an instant £80 spot fine and potentially 5 years in jail.

My experience with weed tells me that 

if someone's got green on them, plus they've got £80 in cash. Then they're probably selling eighths. 

Also none of the information I've been reading about this says anything about how much is considered to be, "for personal use" and the decision to fine/charge you comes down to the individual officer involved. 

So basically the police can operate at their own discretion. 

Which means that all it takes is for some jumped up little oike with a can of CS gas and a chip on his shoulder to come at you on some power trip and out of nowhere your up on a 5 stretch for smoking twos on a spliff.

Bullshit.

The other law that's changed or changing recently is about porn.

It's now illegal to own/view porn that is considered to be of a violent or aggressive nature.

To be honest if you where going to think up a statement like that then you probably haven't watched any porn since the 70's.

All porn is aggressive.

In fact I'll tell you what porn isn't aggressive.

Shit porn.

I mean where does it stop?

 What about if the dudes like "Take it you bitch" That's quite aggressive. 

Or if he's got his hand round her throat for a bit of sexy pseudo-strangling? 

Or what about just smacking the girl's ass while he rocks it from the back?

What about that eh? And again as far as I can tell this law is only about watching it. 

Actually doing it seems to still be allowed, provided everyone involved knows what's going on and safe-words have been established.

But yeah I was just a bit surprised to hear that if

If I want to smoke a little reefer while I'm watching a bit of fuck-fighting then I'm potentially looking at an 8 year bid. 

It's almost enough to make me take the satsuma out of my mouth, put the bong down and turn the web-cam off.

Telly

Right, New year New Telly.

As we approach February and 2009 is starting to lose it's shiny edges. you're probably having a cheap weekend as you wait for the no doubt anti-climatic arrival of next weeks long awaited first pay day of the year.

Good news for staying in though.

After months of wait it's finally here.

LOST SEASON 5 

If you haven't seen it yet then I ain't going to ruin it for yu. To be honest whatever I said probably wouldn't make any sense even after you've seen it.

In fact my mate Eddy is offering £200 to anyone who can come up with a way of ending the whole thing with out it seeming really disappointing.

See we've been trying to scrape some sense of what's-going-on since episode 1 season 1 and to be honest I do better than most at this but am still way off figuring out where it's going. 

Right I will give you this and it's not a spoiler cos it's been all over the net for months. 

Time Travel.

Yeah exciting init. 

But you probably could have guessed that by the fact that Marty McFly's one of the main ones this season. 

It's not actually Marty it's his cousin Daniel Faraday-McFly Jr. Him and Doc Desmond Brown are gunna either arrive at a reasonable conclusion to four seasons worth of unanswered questions or bring about the instantaneous end of reality. As Lost is planned to finish with season 6, that means they've only got 44 episodes to do it in. I personally believe that the last episode is going to start with Jack waking up and realising it was all a dream.

If you want to down load the first two episodes of season 5 then here yu go.

Lost S5E01  Lost S5E02

Heroes is back on Feb 2nd

Now a lot of folks that I've spoken to seem to be getting a bit frustrated with Heroes an all.

In my mind the second half of this season is set to be the most exciting yet. 

The government's after them all.

Peter's got his powers back

Silar's still reppin hard

SPOILER(apparently one of the main ones dies)

Plus due to the fact that the whole season is 23 episodes and the first 13 were fairly light on special effects I'm under the impression that the post production budget for the second half of Season3 should be pretty high. Hopefully translating into more CGI violence.

The frustrating thing for me about Heroes is that I've been banned from posting on the online forum. 

The reason for this is a 17 year old administrator called Darth Carp. 

He's a bitch.

Basically he ruined season 2 of Dextor for me by posting a spoiler in a heroes thread. I called him a dickhead in my reply to him and he deleated my post. I posted again including the signing off line 

"If you deleate this post you are a bitch."

He deleated it again so I took it upon my self to reply to every post he had on the sight with the comment "You're a bitch." By the end of the second day of this, the site administrator sent me a message saying that if I posted again he would block my i.p address from accessing the site.

If you fancy telling Darth Carp he's a bitch then his name is a link to his Forum-Profile.

Also Flight of the Conchords is back for a second series episode 2's on Sunday.
Here's a link to the first episode of the new season

and a video from the first ever episode.

Supposed to have a gig last night..
Supporting Kat Vipers for the launch of her album.
Didn't go according to though.


I'm not completely sure what happened but I know the end result was that the drummer +drum kit was unable to get to the venue in time for the doors opening so the venue decided to pull the night. It wasn't anybody's fault but I did feel bad for Kat because I know she put a lot of work in.

I dunno if yu can see in the photos but on stage there was a full size harp, a whole load of percussion, 2 double basses, keyboards and a myriad of other instruments.

 

It was a sad moment when they turned the lights on and everybody realized that it wasn't going to happen.

Still it was also Kyle's Birthday and him and Jon had come down with me so we went out with a few of our London mates and hung around Brick Lane for a bit.

We met these 2. Our new mates.

These two look and speak like Guy Ritchie created them as a bit of comic relief.

I imagine that at the end of the film they'd be the ones walking off with the money after a series of amusing and almost implausible coincidences. 

Proper pair of chancers

Plym off

Yu know the last Lord of the Rings Film?

Yu know how it feels like it's reached the end and then it goes on for about half as long again.

Well thats what it's like going to Plymouth from Leggy.

Seriously long yu get me.

and Bristol is like that fake ending 'cos it's still another 2 hours to the Moff

I've been here befor so I sort off knew what to expect.
They've done a bit of remodeling though.

Check that out for a dynamic juxtaposition of the old and new.

Anyway I was working in a school doing poetry init.

Then there was a gig in the evening organized through the same people.

Thing is I didn't realize is it'd be in the school.

Thankfully I wasn't alone in my awkwardness.

I had a friend.

 Byron Vincent. 

If you don't know his name then check him out.

I personally believe that neither one of us is really suitable for a performance in a school.

But they give us free wine so that took the edge off. 

But it sort off fucked up the self editing 

I'm sure that I said a few things that were pretty far from suitable

I went and chilled with my old mate Lacey after drank some Red Wine then went back to my hotel

I was supposed to go home today but instead I stayed on so I could go breaking in the evening with my mates Mike and Ricky.

I'd had a little bit of time off dancing since finishing Tag last year but I've been back on it since November and I'm almost ready to start posting videos.

Anyway I managed to find something to do with the rest of my day.

I went for a photo-shoot.

Thanks to Tim Cresswell

Clash and Clash Photography for the hook up

The studio space was dope and we made this funny thing to tunnel the light.

Here's some of the pics

that's the action shot

Blue Steel

Stick um up

Check out this billboard down near my house.

That's last night                                 

This is this morning.

Good init. It's nothing to do with me.

They asked me if I wanted to go help them do it but I didn't go.

People I want to punch

Have you seen that program on E4 called Rude-Tube. 

It used to have Alex Zane presenting it.
Well I sin it t'other day and it's got a new presenter.

I tell yu what though I have never wanted to punch a stranger in the face as much as I want to punch this guy.

Almost as bad as him but not quite is the new host of Big Brothers Big Mouth.

You're number 2 mate.

New year.

So it's a new year then.

2009

Year of the ox.

Only 3 years left till the end of the world

If I were you I'd start accruing some debt cos there's no point in saving

My plan for this year is to sort my life out a bit

I'm gunna start actually looking for work rather than just waiting for it to rock up.

I also plan to try and be a little bit more serious in my approach to a lot of things.

That's why I've not been on here for a week or so.

Because I've been being really serious about my self.

Seriously.

So anyone who's got a job offer can get hold of me via

myspace facebook or by email johnberkavitch@yahoo.co.uk

Right that's bout all I wanted to say.

I've recently realised that I must have at least 8 or 9 regular readers so hello to you.

Feel free to send me topic suggestions or things to review.

I'll try and keep it interesting.

ich bin ein ausländer

So while I was in Germany I kept a little diary. Here it is.

What's the German words for day One?

Right after like a 6 hour journey I arrived at Munich airport and met Ko, (my German guide).
Ko lead me through a searies of trains (none of which were paid for), and finally ended up ren dez vousing with 5 other poets on a duble-decker "sub-urban train." I'd also like to take this opertunity to point out the inhearent cultural differences. No one has their feet on a seat, there's a little geeza offering a waiter survice for beer and I watched my new German friends holding onto their litter until they found a bin. We rode the train for about an hour and they all talked in German.

Eventually we arrived in Regensberg.
First thing upon arriving at the venue we were given free food and drinks. Being in Germany I went for the Currywurst met pomme.
Sausage and chips with curry ketchup.
Then it was into the gig. I was shown the backroom where I had permision to smoke and then after more free beer was hurded into the room of the Slam.

Oh My Days.
Litterally like 400 people.
Paying money to watch poetry.
Crazy.

I was a bit nervous upon taking to the stage as I was the only person in the room who couldn't speak German and so had not understood anything that had happened to that point.
I explained it was my first time infront of a crowd whom didn't have English as a first language and taught them 2 new English words,Clout and Giz.

In the end it seems like they were fucking well into it. so that's alright eh.


Apparently I'm staying in the venue tonight. they've got a perpouse made room for the acts to sleep in.
All in all my first day in Germany, and what is esentially my first time propally abroard, (if you don't count the numerouse Amsterdam trips), has been more than successful.
I like Germans
They ain't nothinbg like what I've been conditioned to think they'd be like

Tag Zwei (german for day Two)

Yeah work up today in a room with 4 German guys all of us sleeping in our own pair of bunk beds.

Not what I'm used to to be honest.
Are bunkbeds called pairs or sets?
I had a quick duschen (shower) then we went and got the train back to München (Munich).
I tell you what Germans seem to be really good at judging distance all ways saying things like "Yeah it's about 160 kilometers" or "Its only 90 meters"
See I'm a terible judge of distance so I don't know if there right.

Anyway when we got back we went to essen (eat) some traditional essen (food, yeah same word, crazy init).
I ordered a thing that turned out to be like a pile of beef and a pile of potatoes. Mate. Half way through I stopped and looked at my plait and fucking hell it was still massive.
While I was there I decided to drink a drink. (essen's not sounding so crazy now eh).
Then I checked out Lederhosen (you know what that is and if not then google it)
Thing is it costs like 550 Euroes so I didn't get none.
Then Rayl my new German mate had organised entertainment for me for the afternoon/evening.
Check his myspace by hitting his name he's a ledgend init.

I wanted to go see my friend Halil today but he lives about 160 kilometers away and I'm short on Euros foe now. Hopefully I'll see him tomorrow.

Thats over half way through my Germany trip now but they tell me tomorrow night's gunna be the one so I'm looking forward to it.

Was ist der Englisch für tag drei?

This morning Rayl woke me up around 1 o'clock with a cup of tea and some German breakfast sausage and swiss cream-cheese on toast.

Man that shit was tastey. seriously if I think about it I can still taste it.

We chilled for a bit he played me music by Audio 88 and Misanthrope I played him Kate Tempest and Sound of Rum. (click names for myspaces).

About 6 o'clock we went to prepare for the Munich slam.

Now anyone familer with slam poetry will probably have some idea of the usual rules. The rules here were a little different and to be honest the whole thing benifitted from the change in convention.
Here instead of 3 minutes each and a score card system, each poet has 10 minutes and after 5 have performed the audience vote via applores/general noise making.The winner goes on to face the winner of the next round in the final where each poet does 1 poem.
What this means is that essential every poet in the slam is a feature and the standard is high.
I'd like to point out that I was in the slam, but I didn't win my group. I blame it on the fact that I was the only person performing in English but to honest didn't feel the disapointment I usually assosiate with getting knocked out of slams in the UK.

I think I might try and put a little slam together in the UK following Rayl's format.

Some other key differences between our two countries that became apparent today.

This difference is in how we imbibe our controlled substances.
Yep smoking and drinking.
In Germany you have to drink beer all day with everything you do.
Anyone who's been out on't'lash with me'll be able to confirm that I'm not really much of a drinker so there were times when I was struggeling to say the least.

Smoking indoors has been banned in Germany for about a year but the rules are very vaige. for example we were allowed to smoke in the club before people came in and then again when most had left. You just can't smoke when it's busy.
Probably for the best 'cos at it's peek there were around 600 people in there and very poor ventilation. One girl in the audience actually collapsed and had to be carried to the door for air.
Heinner told me that this happens everytime sometimes 3 or 4 in one night.
After the slam me and Rayl did some hard drinking late into the night and talked about not understanding women, (turns out that's the same in any language. )

I have to go back to England now, I'm actually sat in the airport as I write this waiting to board my flight.

As far as my first international tour goes I feel like it was a great success, I've seen a beautiful country and made some amazing new friends. It's really opened a door for me.

So don't worry Deutschland Berko will be back, sooner rather than later.
Oh I also got asked yesterday if I'd perform at the newly formed Madrid Slam in April or May, so who knows maybe this is the start of EuroBerko tour de internationale. (Probably have to learn another language eh, my English is often missunderstood in England so Europ might get a little tricky).