If you have literally done nothing during the course of a day, are thinking about nothing in particular, and the evening promises a similar lack of substance, then why the hell do you feel compelled to write about that?

Answer: I want someone to love me anyway.

We had an excellent feature tonight at Gotpoetry: Alveraz Ricardez, a poet/screenwriter from LA who is travelling across the country. He’s doing readings and filming a documentary on the state of poetry in the US.

Alverez is a relatively recent entrant into the poetic ranks, but he’s a VERY strong writer. His reading style is quiet but intense, and (befitting a screenwriter) he has a great sense of how to structure a feature — he interwove a variety of stand alone poems with an ongoing series of works in the form of letters to a woman named Helen, with the speaker relating his disquieting experiences in a foreign land. The images were deep and evocative while not revealing so much of the narrative of events that you were ever completely sure of what was going on — why he was there, why he couldn’t come home, etc.

I like this type of feature — it’s a good example of the type of work you WON’T see at many slam venues.

The room itself was full and quiet throughout the reading.

Alveraz is a pretty consistent contributor to our forums on Gotpoetry.com under the screen name “hot_mud.” I’ve always liked his work, but I have even greater respect for it now. If he’s near you, go see him — his next gig’s at the Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC this week (a wonderful venue).

The gig tonight went well, although I have to say I’m glad Faro and I have been rehearsing — due to time and audience concerns (it was late and the crowd was tired) we completely shifted the set at the last minute.

For the first time, we didn’t do “Jim’s Fall” at all. Instead, we did:

Getting Ahead
Snakes on a Plane
I Need A Guitar
Julie
Revisiting Roses and Violets

So — the first two with Faro on bass, the last three with him playing the guitar.

We were both pleased with the results — it’s freeing to know we’ve got enough stuff down to allow us to change up a bit to respond to things changing.

I’ll be mixing and posting another Duende piece in the next day or two.

The open mike was also excellent, as were Bob Hoeppner and Victoria Munoz, the other two features.

And once again, happy fifth anniversary to Community Voices!

I guess when they say it takes time, they really mean it. But it’s finally there — yes, “Snakes on a Plane” in all its glory, complete with Faro.

It’s at:

http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown

Anyway — once again, Duende is at Jester’s Cafe tonight in Westfield MA as part of their 5th anniversary celebration.

And tomorrow night, the first Gotpoetry Live show of the new year with Alveraz Ricardez, who’ll also be filiming for his documentary on poetry in the US.

Come out to two hot events!

If you check my Myspace soon, you’ll find a very rough mix of “Snakes On A Plane” that Faro and I recorded this afternoon. It hasn’t appeared yet and I expect to take it down when I get a better mix up — I’m still learning the Audacity software and this is the first multi-tracked stuff I’ve touched. I just wanted to get something up so those who haven’t heard Duende can get a sense of the dynamic.

Remember that we’ll be at Jester’s Cafe in Westfield tomorrow nite!

It seems to me that everything I want to say only fits into the gaps between the words I have at my disposal.

Poetry gets harder not because I don’t have things to write about, but because I don’t have the proper bricks to build the poems with.

Aging has made me acutely aware of how much I haven’t done yet. I feel like I’ve got so much more work in me and so little time to capture it as it should be captured.

I also feel like there’s no place for these poems to live once they’re born. I’ve married myself to a world of youth and immediacy and there’s no place for things that take more than a few minutes to truly comprehend.

Nothing feels right anymore. Working with Faro has made me uncomfortable in the best way: it’s made me discontent to rest on my laurels and repeat myself. I have so much new in me waiting to be born. Who’s going to listen to the new poet in me when all they want is the “elder statesman”?

Faro had a fairly serious car accident tonight before rehearsal, but it didn’t stop us from getting more work done. (He’s fine, if a little sore.)

We’re getting ready to lay down more tracks, and his acoustic playing on the classical guitar has added yet another dimension to the collaboration. I’ve got a bunch of tracks sitting here on CD for me to work with as I start stepping up to the next challenge: writing new material just for the duo, instead of just setting my existing poems to music.

Speaking of the duo: we’ve decided on a fairly ambitious name for the collaboration: “Duende.” Those of you familiar with flamenco music will recognize the term as the name given to the indescribable essence of the best flamenco — a poor attempt would be to say that the music contains a passion and intensity informed by the knowledge that death is present, urging you to do your best work as it may be the last work you do. A better way to say it is to say that you know it when you hear it. Its closest analogue in English might be to say that a piece of music has “soul.” Lorca wrote an entire book on it, which I highly recommend.

We toyed with calling ourselves “Cante Jondo,” or “deep song” — also a flamenco term for the most profound forms of the music. We thought that implied both the nature of the bass and my baritone voice as well as our ambitions for the group. However, we settled on “Duende” as being more all encompassing — and, in the spirit of the word, being something daunting to live up to.

So — we are “Duende.”

Right now, we’ve got the following pieces settled and lined up — there are more in progress.

With bass: “Getting Ahead,” the “Jim’s Fall” suite, “Snakes on a Plane”

With guitar: “I Need A Guitar Right Now (Or Something Like It),” “Where Do You Live?,” “Revisiting Roses and Violets,” and “Julie.”

I know a lot of the old-timers here will recognize those pieces. We hope to have a couple of them recorded soon and on Myspace.

I throw all this out there because we’ll be performing Monday night in Westfield, MA as one of the features at the Community Voices reading’s fifth anniversary party, at Jester’s Cafe. It’ll be our first performance under the name of “Duende” and the first one where we bring the guitar into the mix. We’ll be doing “Jim’s Fall” and one or two others, time permitting.

Please come. We’ll have the CD and chapbook of “Jim’s Fall” available for sale, of course; Faro will have his CD “Leap…and the net will appear,” and we hope to make it all worth your while. Also featuring will be Victoria Munoz and Bob Hoeppner, two outstanding poets worth making the trip for at any rate; and there’ll be the usual open mike, all hosted by the personable and talented Dave Keali’i.

Again — this is the most exciting work I’ve done in a while. I’m thrilled to be a part of this, and to work with such a talented musician.

Yay!

My own recording of my poem “Punk” followed by the Damned’s “Neat Neat Neat.” Yup.

Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues” followed by Public Enemy’s “911 is a Joke.” Yup.

“Mineola Rag” by the East Texas Serenaders. (No follow up, I just love the song. It’s from the R. Crumb collection of ancient 78s by blues, country, and jazz players from the early 20th century.) Yup.

And my recording of “The Hole” followed by “Flashlight” by Parliament. Because you need a flashlight when you’re in a hole.

Yup.

NOTE: There are 5 recordings of me reading my poems on this laptop. I’ve heard two this morning. What’s up with that?

I got a 100 dollar Visa gift card from my folks for Xmas, and I’d been torn about what to do with it.

Today, I decided that what I really needed was a pair of good solid knockaround shoes — my old Timberlands are nearly falling apart and I have good dress shoes already for work, so off to the stores and malls I went.

After MUCH running around, I ended up at Newbury Comics (local CD/comics/all things trite and wonderful store) and bought a pair of Docs — first I’ve owned in years. Nice low cut 5 eyelet black pair. They feel great.

Because they were on sale, I was even able to splurge and buy a DVD of a recent Samuel L. Jackson movie about aviation and herpetology. (Hee hee.)

I also got some pirate/skull and crossbone stickers to ironically decorate the headstock of my electric guitar (because it’s plain black and I got tired of seeing no logo up there) and a considerate bumper sticker that explains what to do if you’re on a plane and there are snakes on it. Good to be prepared. (It’s going on Blondie’s case — Blondie being the big dreadnought.)

What? I don’t believe in being entirely practical with gift money…and God knows I proved it today.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a muthafuckin’ movie to watch.

because I feel better and don’t want to jinx it.

I’m ripping a bunch of CDs onto the laptop and it’s fun to think of the mixes that will happen when Sleater-Kinney, AC/DC, Breakestra, My Chemical Romance, and three discs of traditional and modern flamenco music are introduced into the shuffle pool.

Also adding some Sonic Youth, some Ornette Coleman, and some 70s soul to the mix…a little “Across 110th Street,” anyone?

Maybe some Roots, some Public Enemy, some Gang of Four, some fado, some Nick Cave?

The shuffle technology is cool shit — although I have to confess I still prefer a good freeform radio station like WFMU, which keeps the old anarchic spirit of the 60s-70s underground radio alive. I think good radio will always be my preferred medium for music. Surprise me, baby.

It’s not the one I originally planned to post — that one’s got an American Idol metaphor in it, and I’m gonna wait till next month for that one. This one had a more immediate inspiration.

The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!

Very much more than Nothing!

Please go, visit, comment. First one in a while and I need to get going again.