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Author Archives: Tony Brown
About Tony Brown
by the way…
I may be heading out to Amherst tonight to catch Alix Olson, Karen Garrabrant, Genevieve Van Cleve, and others at the release reading of “Word Warriors” (the new women’s poetry anthology) at Food for Thought Books. It starts at 7, and I’m trying to arrange my schedule to get out there early since I expect a big crowd in a small place. Not sure what my schedule looks like right now, but it’s gonna be tight. Not sure I can offer a ride either — but is anyone from the friend’s list planning on going?
And for further road trip adventures, Duende will be playing the Lizard Lounge Sunday night….love to see you there. I just spoke with Jeff and we’ll most likely be adding Jerome DeuPree (drummer, ex-Morphine for you Sandman heads out there) on at least a couple of cuts, so that’s exciting…
Recent speculations
about the death of slam aside…
I’ve read a lot of stuff lately about how slams are suffering in attendance, places are losing venues, etc.
A few interesting local counterpoints to this:
1. Gotpoetry Live, which has an open and no slam, is growing. Our core audience is expanding, we have a good variety of styles, ages, and readers, and if the switch to the new one feature a month format that we started this week is any indication, the audience is welcoming the opportunity for greater involvement with the event.
(For the record — we’re a weekly venue doing one week of “new poems,” one “theme open” (this week, the theme is “ring” interpreted anyway you like), one feature, and one poetry + music night with house musicians available to back you up; Faro’s committed to being our house bassist, and bring-yer-own noisemakers encouraged too).
2. I don’t attend much anymore, but the Poets’ Asylum in Worcester only slams once a month and it seems to me that the non-slam nights get greater attendance than the slam nights. Generally, attendance is good.
3. Bobby Gibbs’ new reading at the Hotel Vernon — the only Worcester reading taking place in a bar — seems to be picking up speed.
4. Worcester’s Storytellers Reading has been revived and seems (from the one time I’ve been there) to have picked up right where it left off.
5. Cantab nights are flourishing, but when I’ve been there recently, the crowd diminishes by at least half right before the slam starts.
Maybe the question isn’t about poetry, but about what’s offered in terms of variety. These are all very different types of readings and they all seem to be doing OK. It seems to me that when the readings in one area offer community and variety, it works; when it’s not, it doesn’t. Maybe slam is old hat now.
Open Mike Blues
I had a busy day yesterday, which closed with a visit to a folkie open mike I visit occasionally in Fall River. (For you non-locals, that’s in Massachusetts about a half-hour east of Providence.)
It’s held at the Narrows Center For The Arts, a venue in an old mill down near the waterfront, close to Battleship Cove where the WWII battleship Massachusetts is on permanent display. Great (REALLY great) sound and a good eclectic lineup of performers in a given season — Robert Fripp just played there as did the Mekons; folks like Dave Alvin, Marcia Ball, Richie Havens… you get the drift.
The Wednesday night open features a particular kind of vibe that will likely be familiar to some folks here: pseudo-genial cutthroat competition for hot guitars and licks among middle-aged white guys who can finally afford their Martins and Taylors and custom shop Gibsons so they can sound just like the heroes of their youth, Mississippi John Hurt and Tom Paxton chief among them. The host is a nice old-style folkie who used to write with Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary — again, you can probably picture what I’m talking about here. Think “A Mighty Wind” and you’re on the right track. But there’s tons of good guitar playing, and the place has high quality standards for the most part, so overall it’s a good time.
We (we being Duende) like to play there because we stand out and it gives us good shakedown time in front of audiences not comprised of poets. They also pay their features well, and we’re angling for that at some point — paying the dues comes with the territory there, so we hit it semi-regularly.
I frequently tweak the folkies by bringing a vintage guitar with me and playing during breaks and such, then never getting on stage with it. Last night, I brought the ancient Stella with me and passed odd down moments running a bunch of drop-D fingerstyle riffs in the back corner. Love to watch people try to figure out what kind of to-drool-over instrument I’ve got; the blues guys in particular get all wet when they see it. If there’s anything more seductive to a stereotyped “white boy lost in the blues” than a beat up instrument from the 20s, I don’t know what it is. I hadn’t had it out of the case more than a minute last night before one guy was all over me wanting to check it out. ( I admit it, I can do the sword fight with the best of them when it serves my purpose. I’m not proud of it. But it’s kinda fun to feed into the frenzy, and more to the point, it got people waiting to see what we’d do.) Of course, Faro running riffs on either the guitar or the bass gets their attention too.
It was a long night, and we went late in the evening. Things went fine and we got a couple of folks all excited about our shit, so it worked out well for us. We’re all about expanding Duende’s reach to audiences other than poets lately, aiming at working music venues as well as the slam/poetry circuit. This is good practice for that.
But that’s not actually what I’m here to tell you about. No, not at all.
No, I’m here to say that last night I heard
THE WORST FOLK SONG EVER WRITTEN.
“The Legend of Don Gato” is an epic, seven minute retelling of the sad tale of Don Gato, a cat who breaks his leg jumping off a shelf, is tended by his distressed owners, is finally sent to be euthanized, and then is brought home in a monumental funeral procession where, heralded by the pervasive smell of tuna fish, he suddenly comes back to life to the joy of the assembled mourners.
Yes, I’m serious.
And so was the penulitmate performer of the evening, who sang it. Dead serious, no sense of irony, deeply felt, etc., etc. Furious sincerity delivered by an overweight guy in his late thirties with long black ironed-straight hair in a sleeveless rawk t-shirt, in a huge baritone voice with prog-rock operatic pretensions, accompanied by rapidly strummed acoustic guitar. The closest I can get is to say “Robert Goulet tone meets Tiny Tim vibrato meets Geddy Lee histrionics meets the acoustic sound of Boston.”
Yes, I’m serious. I could not detect one shred of humor here. Jack Black wishes he could come off this sincere when he does his schtick.
ETA: theklute has revealed that this is a COVER. Lyrics in the comments below.
The remaining crowd was…bemused. After that, the drunk who couldn’t play his signature tune on request was a complete let down.
Oh, dear. It’s way too easy to make fun of this stuff. I’m reminded of sateenduraluxe‘s standup comic friend who saw a poetry slam and characterized it as being a place where people poured their souls and trauma and passion onto paper and then delivered it to strangers as if it were a Limp Bizkit tune.
I bet someone’s said something like this about me at least once.
I hope I was at least this funny to them.
Poem for Chris Branch
I met him
on a bus full of poets
in Baltimore
Funny guy, long
fellow always trying
to stretch out and sleep
in those cramped seats
with his cowboy hat pulled down
as low as it would go
Knew him for
five whole days
before the night
we argued about medications
outside a Boston club
Leaning against the wall
he told me he’d never agree
to take them
if it meant losing his poetry
I told him I’d rather
lose the poetry and keep
him alive
My bracelet matched his tattoo
I gave it to him
He hugged me and tugged
a woven silver ring
from his finger
and set it on mine
It was too big
I wore it
on my thumb
Several years later
while scouring the Web
I came across the news
that he’d hanged himself
a few months before
I dug out the ring
that now fit my fatter hand
I wear it still
on the nights
when I’m on stage
and feeling a rope
might fit me better
I wear your ring, Chris
I did not know you well enough
to bear your legacy
just well enough to remember it
Weary of its weight tonight
I remember
you had a son
One of these days I’ll find him
Give back the ring
Tell him the little I knew of his father
How you wore your hat
How you wore your ring
How you snored for miles and miles
Gentle on stage
Played a wooden flute
Hugged a stranger when it seemed right
I did not know you well
but I still have your ring
When I take it off for the last time
and hand it to your son
I will tell him of my promise to myself
that I will never learn your final secret
of how it feels
to let the man go
and leave the poetry behind
Incident on Mott Street
When she crossed Mott Street
toward me, her blonde-gone-to-gray hair
straying back in the evening wind,
I thought I might have known her once.
I thought I might have known her
when she was named Sandra
and she lived near me for a year or two.
We waited together
at the bus stop for school. Puberty
was just a morning hint then,
the kissing years were a year or two away.
I never really had
a full on crush upon her
(and she moved away soon after)
but many mornings kissing her seemed
all but inevitable,
I didn’t know exactly how
but suspected that
I’d kiss her someday at a party
because there were parties all the time
where older kids kissed,
the neighborhood was flooded with kissing
back then.
And now here she was on Mott Street
crossing toward me
again. We did look at each other
but it was evening.
She kept going.
I stayed on the corner
for one moment more
then turned and walked back
toward the Bowery,
turned down Elizabeth Street
past the few shops still open and the
impossible women who waited
to pour out onto the sidewalks,
heading for the bus stops,
ready to be kissed now
in the last warm rain of autumn.
NYC
Great time at the November 3rd club reading last night at the Bowery Poetry Club. Good poems and good friends — those who missed it missed a lot.
Thanks to ocvictor for organizing the night and maintaining a great and important site.
I swear, sometimes, that the biggest snobs I know are the people who most despise snobbery in others. I think it’s an American characteristic these days that we justify ourselves strictly by how much better we think we are than other people. It’s so damn insecure.
Tomorrow night in NYC!!!!
At the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 The Bowery, NYC:
6:00pm – 8:00pm
The November 3rd Club -$7
A diverse collection of writers read to promote an online literary journal of political writing.
Poet and Nov3rd editor Victor D. Infante hosts, featuring: Tony Brown, Jane Cassady, Brian Dauth, Lea Deschenes, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Gary Hoare, Lynne Procope, Skip Shea, Jackie Sheeler, Rachel McKibbens, Michael Cirelli and Patricia Smith
Who’s coming?
Tourists at the WTC
We come, then go.
We gawk, we stare,
absorb it though
there’s nothing there.
No damage left.
It’s clean and spare.
When a planet shifts
we want to see.
We come, we lift
our cameras high.
We strike a pose.
We mourn, we sigh.
We were not here.
We’re glad we weren’t.
We wish our fear
gone with the dirt
and all the ash.
We feel so hurt
that all this passed
but then convert
our awe to cash
and buy a shirt,
a flag, a book.
We dare to flirt
with second looks
and our recall.
We think: we shook,
we cried, that’s all.
The hole is huge.
We did not fall.
NYC the day after
Sorry, gang. I deeply regret going. Tourists that afternoon, snapping pictures, getting pictures of themselves “with it”…
I will likely be asked to go back because class attendance was so low. I will likely go back because I need the money. But my first instinct was correct. It was severely triggering.
I appreciate everyone’s faith in me and your congratulations on my “breaking through.” But it doesn’t feel like a breakthrough, and honestly, I feel bad about breaking the promise I made to myself and to my friends. There are things more important than personal strength.
I do not understand why this continues to be a big deal, but it does.
NYC
I’m blogging right now from One World Financial Center, across the street from the WTC site.
It’s smaller than I recall from the last time I was here. Of course, then it was a five story high heap of smoking rubble and many of the streets I just walked were closed off.
I compromised on the whole thing; drove down here from Worcester at 3AM, got into town and was parked and on the street by 6 AM. I decided — rightly, I think — that staying in the Embassy Suites on the other side of the street overnight was too triggering (and way too expensive for my budget, since I have to pay for my room upfront — even with the D&T corporate rate it was well above 300 bucks for the night).
As it is right now, being outdoors and up close to it was OK this AM, but I did have to get away from it after a bit. Kinda hoping the training room doesn’t overlook the site; 8 hours of it might be a bit much. One good thing: no sense of presence here for me right now; I expected to be haunted by memories of my coworkers, but all I keep thinking about is the smell, the way it smelled last time I was here. I can still smell it, but it’s OK.
In retrospect, I should have canceled, gotten someone else to cover this session, if only because I will miss TheKlute tonight in RI at Gotpoetry if I run into the slightest bit of traffic on the way back (and leaving NY at 5 or so, I think the odds of that are reasonably good).
Last time I listen to you guys. 😉
See you on the other side.
If you think I’m disappointed that I predicted
a Rockies win and got a Red Sox win, you’d be wrong.
🙂
NYC and thereabouts: incoming poetry!
I’ll be in NYC next weekend to be part of the imminently spectacular reading for the November 3rd Club next Saturday night at the Bowery Poetry Club.
Here’s the write up right from the BPC site:
“6:00pm – 8:00pm
The November 3rd Club -$7
A diverse collection of writers read to promote an online literary journal of political writing.
Poet and Nov3rd editor Victor D. Infante hosts, featuring: Tony Brown, Jane Cassady, Brian Dauth, Lea Deschenes, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Gary Hoare, Lynne Procope, Skip Shea, Jackie Sheeler, Rachel McKibbens, Michael Cirelli and Patricia Smith”
If you look carefully at that lineup, you will undertand why you WILL be there.
The zine itself is here:
http://www.november3rdclub.com/
I think we’ll be staying over, though probably not in the city (not many hotel rooms available for under 400 bucks a night that weekend) and then spending some time in the city on Sunday. I could use a NY fix.
Love to see you. Come on down.
Dark Matter 