Been gone all day, so this is the post about the Provincetown gig.

drgeorge and I headed out to P-Town mid afternoon, made decent time, grabbed pizza before the gig. Met with our fellow poets back at the lovely little Provinetown Theater around 6:30 or so.

We each (there were six of us) did about ten minutes each, followed by the headliners, “The Bitter Poet” and “Howlin’ Vic.” More about them in a minute…the six of us were:

Terry Rozo, who read a well-written monologue about heroin addiction;
me
Skip (lj user=”drgeorge”> who did the “Artist’s Statement” from his book;
Jose Gouveia who read three excellent poems;
Chase, a 17 year old from Orleans who is someone to watch;

and a guy who walked in off the street and asked to read.

It was Bobby Miller.

Some of you may recognize that name from such places as “The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry” and “Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe.” This guy was doing performance poetry before anyone had coined the name — frequently funny, often poignant, and always sharp work from the fastlane 70s punk and disco scenes in NYC. He’s been living a reclusive life in P-Town for the last seven years, working on a couple of books, and hasn’t been to a reading in a while. He’s still got it. It was a treat to hear it.

The headliners were hysterical. “The Bitter Poet” is a performance artist/actor who’s developed an act around a character called the Bitter Poet — a rock star-ish turn with funny poem-songs about relationships, many costume changes, and his own Les Paul providing back up music. Skip described it as Jack Black meets Steve Martin — good description. “Howlin’ Vic” is a burlesque performer who killed me with some great routines — highly recommend the striptease to “All Of Me” (think bloodstained lingerie and jumping rope with intestines) and the outstanding, deliberately bad routine to “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These.” I ’bout died. Not at all what I was expecting but a good time anyway.

They’re trying to establish this as a regular series – will be putting in a bid for a Duende headlining spot. I think this is a good thing.

It’s late and it’s been a long day. See you later — probably at Regie Gibson’s show at the Q tonight.