Well, there have been some big changes in Daveyland since I arrived back home.

One of these has been the strange process of becoming reacquainted with friends and family, after a long period overseas. It’s weird. Everyone’s exactly the same. I’m exactly the same. Australia is exactly the same. Except, different.

Perhaps I should have expected this. What’s perhaps even weirder is the process of preparing for a spoken word gig, my first in a long time (unless you count the essential battiness that was my reading for the Korean Modern Poets Association). Yikes!

This gig will be held tomorrow night at Babble, Melbourne’s (heck, Australasia’s) premier spoken word event, and I’m not just saying that coz I owe host Mr Sean M. Whelan aka Dr Feelgood a favour or two. Okay, that’s the only reason I’m saying it. For you superfreaks in Melbourne, I urge you to come on down and support this great tradition. Expect the unexplainable. Here’s the juice:

‘Golden Days’ Babble will feature the poetry of David Prater, back in
Oz after travelling the globe for a while. Also in the house will be MC Raceless of the amazing Curse Ov Dialect.The Babble open mic returns for 2006 with the theme of ‘Golden Days’. As usual, readers are invited to interpret the theme anyway they wish. There will be a special prize given to the best ‘Golden Days’ poem. DJ Dutch Uncle will be battling it out with DJ I Was Young & I Needed The Money.

Hosted by Sean M Whelan.

8:30 pm.
Wed Feb 1st
$5 entry.
Bar Open. (upstairs.)
317 Brunswick Street.
Fitzroy.

For all you virtual readers who will be unable to be there in person, there’s a lucky door prize: I’ll be interviewed on Melbourne’s coolest community radio station RRR tomorrow at 12.30pm AEDT by the delightful duo of alicia sometimes (yes, she has a website: welcome to the 20th century alicia!) and Steve Grimwade (no website, dude), who host the spoken weird show Aural Text. Possibly the coolest married couple I know, apart from Elton and his new husband.

You can stream the show via the RRR homepage, but you’ll need some kind of Real Player thing to do it. That’s 12.30pm, Australian Eastern Daylight Time.

Please, consider …