Pete Hindle

I wrote this application for the Platform ’09 live art event back before I knew I was ill, but I was definitely suffering from all of the symptoms that would later see me hospitalised. I checked with a few people I knew, and found out that at least two of the people on the Platform judging panel had a sense of humour, but before I could send it off I found myself taken into hospital. I don’t know if I would have been given a place at the event, but the application, I think, stands by itself as a piece of writing.

Not only am I sure that I shouldn’t really be in Platform this year, I’m also sure that if you were to award/chose me to be in Platform you’d only be getting something along the lines of “Pete Hindle is nebbishly funny in a sarcastic manner about an element of geekdom.” This would suck; not that I’m not funny – far from it, the other day I made somebody laugh by putting on a jumper, and I’m pretty practised at making ladies laugh from the other side of the room by wiggling my eyebrows. But the reason that it would suck is that you’ve commissioned it before, I’ve done it already, and frankly, we’re all a little tired of stuff like that happening.

Hey, since Platform… whenever I did my last thing… nerds have taken off. In fact, you better be nerdy these days, since all the other social niches are pretty much played out, giving us this massive glut of homogenised stylish young people (girls: pretty, boys: dishevelled) who will no doubt be applying to do various things at this event. Hoo-fucking-rah; even the audiences at Platform are pretty darn hot these days, and considering that it’s a live art event (the epitome of niche) that’s saying something. I came to Platform last year with the pretty young girlfriend who broke my heart into a thousand pieces when she dumped me in Berlin, and even she was intimidated by some of the girls in the audience. Which is why I left early to go and drink mojitoes with her rather than stare at performance art.

Because, honestly, drinking with pretty girls is far more fun than performance art.

I was actually drinking with a few pretty girls recently when I made my nerd credentials quite clear. I said I was going to go home and watch Star Trek, at which point they laughed. I pointed out that I was wearing a red bodywarmer, and that I really was going home to watch Star Trek. I think they might have laughed some more at that point, but in a good way. I was, in fact, desperate to get home owing to the side effects of carrying around an ulcer in my stomach area for the past few months, such as not being able to drink and creating evil smelling farts out of my bottom. I’m presumably carrying around this ulcer owing to the stress of not working on my thesis, but I’m not entirely sure that having a useless fine art education and nowhere to display my “skillz” hasn’t also played a part in it.

So, if you really want an evil smelling, post-graduate educated sarcastic asshole who would rather be off drinking with pretty girls than making lame jokes about the puerile obsessions of a set of closeted individuals that value gadgetry and science fiction over personal contact and the real world, I’m your man. I do carry around in my head a few ideas that I might be able to turn into performances, so I thought I’d make a note of them in a list format in case you didn’t read any of the above.

•    The Quaker Performance: everybody sits in a circle and we have a traditional Quaker meeting, where there is silence for an hour. It’ll be awesome, promise.
•    Juggling: possibly with glasses. I can do a three ball cascade for around ten minutes.
•    Dialogue: I talk with the people in the audience, making them the focus of the performance. People will laugh.
•    The Fleetwood Mac Thing: I explain how I was in the unlikely position of having two girlfriends, and how I adopted the Fleetwood Mac album “Rumours” during that period.
•    The Roman Talk: I heart Romans. Did you know that Caligula tried to make his favourite horse a consul of Rome? Romans are comedy gold.
•    Full Lock: Somebody puts a car in the full lock position and does multiple donuts outside the venue. Again: awesome, with the added bonuses of illegality and danger of death.

Obviously, rather than fleshing out any of these ideas you’d be better employing another artist and giving them an opportunity that they’d enjoy. I’d probably find the whole prospect of standing in front of another audience gut-wrenchingly fear inducing and it’s not like I care enough to keep my CV updated anyway.