I’ve started another blog.

This one has two distinguishing features:

1. It’s going to be focused strictly on my professional quest — I figure it’s worth documenting in more detail. Besides:

2. Allegedly, I’m getting paid for this. So I’m trying to make it of interest to a more specific audience and bring in the advertising revenue. If it doesn’t pan out, it’s a low impact experiment at the very least.

Check it out if you like: “snakepilot” (cough, cough) at http://candyham.com .

More later — and I’m not abandoning this one. This is where the poems and the personal stuff will go.

The feature at the Cantab was pretty damn good last night. I did a set of mostly newer stuff (not published), including “snakes on a plane,” “kirsten dunst,” “music for funerals” (which seemed to be the hit of the night), and “there is no chance like the present.” Also tossed in a couple of oldies (“Punk,” for the oldtimers in the room; “Radioactive Artist;” and I sacrificed for the slam with “Mission Statement”). Sold quite a few books, and picked up a prospective booking at Stone Soup to boot.

I wore Chris Branch’s ring where my wedding ring used to be — some of you may recall that Chris was the St. Louis poet who hanged himself a couple of years ago. He gave me a ring in response to a gesture while we were on SlamAmerica in 2000. I try to wear that ring whenever I feature somewhere, and suddenly, I can wear it on my finger instead of on a chain. Both good and strange.

In other news, the feature on Saturday at the new Zodiac Cafe appears to be off due to organizational reasons. More info as it develops.

The down news: I’ve received an e-mail that may affect the future of the contract I just signed — the one I went to San Diego to prep for. Gotta hustle to figure out what it means, if it means I get the dates and fees I was counting on, and what I do instead if it’s not panning out. Grr.

If ANYONE needs a trainer, an instructional designer, a presenter, a poet, and/or a diversity consultant, or knows how to connect with an agency that does this stuff or with someone who needs one, let me know. (Note: craigslist hasn’t been any help so far, but i check it every day…)

Over and out for now…

Gotpoetry Live was good tonight — very slightly smaller crowd, but the fact that there wasn’t a single Worcester poet in the house was kind of heartening — it means there’s a local audience for this that will grow with time and not be dependent on imported audience members.

The feature, Mark Binder, was quite good — more a storyteller than a poet, but funny and down to earth.

Next week, Adam Stone. Sadly, I won’t be there as I have a prior committment, but another member of the collective will be ably hosting.

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In other news, I can’t sleep, and I’m getting mighty tired of that. I’d take a pill but I need to be up in the morning. I’d write a poem but I’ve got no viable brain cells to devote to the effort right now. I’ll just scan the news until I get drowsy, I guess.

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I passed a bar today that advertised “karaoke and darts on Saturday night.” Lord, I’ve been praying for such a thing for years. I have so many questions. Do they supply the darts, or do you have to bring your own? Do you get more than three shots at a singer? Do we take turns throwing?

And most important, can I get double credit for taking out that fat guy who always does “Just a Gigolo?”

Um…well, ok, maybe not really:

Andrew Card resigns as White House Chief of Staff.

Gee, who didn’t see that coming? Any thought about him jumping back into the Mass governor’s race? ( I think not, but would like to hear any competing thoughts.)

Random Note: I keep forgetting how much I like Steve Earle.

is the second installment of the new weekly series, Gotpoetry Live!

We’re at Reflections Cafe, 8 Governor Street (corner of Wickenden and Governor), Providence, RI. Signup book goes out at 7:00, reading starts at 7:30 sharp.

Our feature tomorrow is Mark Binder, Providence poet and author of a wide variety of work including children’s books and plays.

Come out and support this lovely cafe and series — buy food, coffee, and hear some great work. If you were there last week, you know what I’m talking about and we’d love to have you come back and keep the momentum going.

ALSO: on a personal note —

I’ll be featuring twice this week:

Wednesday night at the Cantab Lounge, Mass Ave, Cambridge (in Central Square)
Saturday morning @ the Zodiac Cafe, Plantation St., Worcester (near Umass Medical)

1.
smoking at 3AM on the porch reminds me that 23 years ago when i last smoked i once did it seated on the trunk lid of a chevy nova naked in the woods after parking with a woman older than i was by ten years in the deep summer and i was too coked up to notice the mosquitoes feasting on me.

she sat next to me not smoking but sucking down a budweiser while downing percodans. she had a broken leg and on another night soon enough i would carry her out of the place where we got stuck to a house to awaken a man who pulled us off the sandbar with his truck.

that was the same night mike was stabbed to death about a mile and a half from where we were — pulled off arthur by a well meaning friend in the middle of a fight and arthur then got up bloodied from the ground and stabbed him once in the heart.

i did not learn of this until the next afternoon when i awoke and refused to believe it until i was shown the article in the paper.

2.
smoking at 3 AM on the porch reminds me that 23 years ago when i last smoked i had a clear singing voice that was decaying rapidly under the tobacco and cocaine assault. everything in my head was a constant drip and hack. i expected it to stop of its own accord and it never did.

when i tried to sing along with a southern rock band at the local roadhouse i croaked like a bullfrog. i stood in front of the speakers and swayed while screaming along at the top of my lungs.

in those days we could smoke indoors. i recall going to the machine and buying my fourth pack of the day, then lighting up on the dance floor while i tried to be cool for yet another remotely interesting face.

there were times when i knew the face was trouble and yet i danced anyway.

3.
tonight, the porch is lonely and cold. i am trying to recapture every dangerous and wonderful moment and it’s not working. i remember the faces and the music. it was the last time i thought marshall tucker was even close to ok. i would have fucked anything with a cowboy hat and valenti jeans.

all the time i lived a better life elsewhere — in legion posts in worcester and dank bars in providence and boston there were bands that played no song longer than two minutes. i never picked up anyone in those places but the music was sexier than a long neck beer because it made me hurt.

i liked to hurt. i liked to bash my head against the music. i liked the way i rapidly forgot the girls of the roadhouse, the chevy hanging in midair on the embankment, the blood on mike’s shirt. i forgot it all in the clean pain of admitting i knew this music better than my birthright.

i don’t recall smoking in those places, although i know i did.

4.
in a small town your cigarette is your banner. are you a marlboro man, a salem smoker, a newport fan? when you offer a seatmate in the bar a light, are you betraying your faith? do you know the secret handshake? can you blow a smoke ring or do a french inhale?

these days i switch brands on a daily basis. back then i had a main brand, a backup, and brands i would not smoke at all. i like this better because it allows me to pretend that i am still a dilettante when it comes to smoking — all that history seems so quaint when i light one up from the next of an endless variety of packs.

and as for music — tonight i’ve got parliament on the box in the bedroom. somewhere out there i’ve got a girlfriend who likes jimmy buffett. a wipers CD sits unplayed on the shelf and there are a hundred reasons why there are no southern rock CDs anywhere within reach.

smoking again at 3AM and i bet i will want another cigarette after this one’s gone. i always have, no matter what comes between them.

for the second night in a row. cut a Seroquel in half and took it. that ought to do it.

y’know, i used to think my initial skepticism about medications was born of my recreational drug use — i already knew that drugs didn’t change the world and just because it was my therapist trying to convince me otherwise didn’t mean i trusted her more.

since then, of course, i’ve become a devoted anti-depressant/mood leveler/SSRI/anti-psychotic fan. maybe even an addict.

are you an addict if you truly can’t live without them? if everyone says it’s ok to be addicted to them? if the medical establishment doesn’t use the term “addiction” to describe the feeling of not wanting to be too far from any of them at any time?

are you an addict if you judiciously weigh out your options when considering your day? ( take two now, one at night…hmmm…)

are you an addict if you don’t “abuse” them?

i don’t have a clue. i do know i’m getting sleepy. i do know that 50 mg of Seroquel is killing the fear that a couple of sleepless nights might be the precursor to a manic cycle.

i do know how much there is to fear. i keep my drugs dry. i keep them close.

i just finished editing a series of pending submissions to the gotpoetry.com site.

they were by a woman screen-named “fortywife.”

most were about a hard life lived as well as could be expected.

she writes of abuse, pregnancies, love, hard times.

the poems are not “good.” they are not “skilled” or “professional.” they are “heartfelt” and “sincere.”

i left them as is and posted every single one of them. i didn’t necessarily want to, but something made me do it.

we are such snobs, all of us. sometimes, a website is the only place anyone can hear you.

Tom asked me to forward this to anyone who might be interested. Worth checking out.

The Online School of Poetry

Due to circumstances beyond my control — and a raging head cold — I’m cancelling the reading tonight.

Spread the word, k? Don’t want people driving who don’t have to.