I’m not a Terry Pratchett fan, but another LJ friend posted it and thought you might like to know that he’s been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s…

http://www.paulkidby.com/news/index.html

Rufus Wainwright doing “Hallelujah:”

I joyfully posted a few days ago that “Lady In The Harbor,” which was published in “The November 3rd Club,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize…and a random, insomniac look at the new edition of “Breath and Shadow” reveals that my poem “Man At The Pharmacy” has also been nominated for a Pushcart.

Considering that I’m having a bad day/week/life in general right now, this feels good.

You can check out each of these fine publications at:

http://www.november3rdclub.com

and

http://www.abilitymaine.org/breath

Cool. I needed that.

I pretty much am indifferent to this journal right now, and don’t feel much like keeping it up.

That’ll likely change again, as it always does; but this is the longest spate of indifference in a long while.

Still writing poems, got a new Zero Point Zero column in the works for posting at GP in the next day or so, and even have a couple of songs in the works (been having some interesting growth in my guitar playing of late and it’s helping me write). But this place? It’s just not compelling to me right now.

I am still reading all your posts, though. But if I seem to disappear for a bit, it’s just a lull in my own desire to share stuff. I’m feeling reclusive right now.

Had a great time tonight with ocvictor and Regie Gibson doing the Eclectic Word show. Listen to it here if you like:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword/2007/12/08/The-Eclectic-Word

We weren’t even all that snarky, and ended up talking about some interesting subjects. You may find it of value.

I joined Facebook not so long ago, and the more I look at it, the less reason I have for staying on it.

It just seems like a giant time suck of limited value beyond sheer entertainment — and as such, it doesn’t interest me.

So if you’ve friended me there lately, be aware of an imminent departure. Gonna give some space here to let people convince me other wise, but I don’t see much point in this.

Come hear reasoned, careful and sensible criticism and commentary (HA!!!) on a variety of topics both poetic and otherwise here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword

Here’s the skinny, direct from ocvictor —

Winter weather is here, so this Friday night you should cozy up by the fire and listen to two of my absolute favorite poets and people to hang with.

If anyone was waiting for this show to set the world on fire, this would be the installment. Turn on the Internet, cozy up to someone you love, and hold on for dear life.

7:00 tonight (Friday, Dec. 7). Be there. There will be laughter, kvetching, and as Regie said when we set this up…”let’s get ready to GRRRRUMMMMMMBLE….”

It’ll also be available as a podcast later on, too…so you can take the love with you.

It’s cold. It’s snowing off and on.

It’s winter in New England. Time for dark, and cold, and more night than day.

I’ve been running around crazy getting ready for a business trip, working at home, etc. Errands and such. Never made it to the Poets’ Asylum Craft Sale. I feel down and blue about this and many other things.

I dislike summer, but there are times when winter makes me more profoundly sad. This is one of those times.

badgaryhas a painting up in his journal that I’m in love with.

a Pushcart Prize nomination?

http://ocvictor.livejournal.com/606408.html

Honored, humbled, and…wow, the company I’m in…

Well, the Duende show turned into a Tony solo show last night…due to a bartender at the Vernon who decided to be a hardass and who wasn’t informed about the fact that bars with entertainment licenses in MA are allowed to have performers under 21 if they don’t drink. She tossed Faro out unceremoniously without an apology or chance of appeal AFTER we’d set up all the equipment.

Bobby, the host, was mortified. I had talked to him about Faro’s age earlier when we set up the gig, of course, and we assumed the usual rules would apply (never had this problem anywhere else), but this was a new bartender and not amenable to discourse.

We consulted outside. My first reaction was to simply cancel — no Faro, no Tony — and if we had been anywhere else but a mile away from home, we would have. But Bobby’s assured us that we can get the situation remedied and come back in the future, so we mutually decided to not bail on the gig entirely and take care of the reading (which is slowly building steam) and the audience with me solo, while Faro and Capri and Missy and Chris went back home and hung out playing guitars and such.

In retrospect, I think it was the right decision for this gig and this gig alone because of the circumstances — but in the future, if someone books us and then has an issue at the gig itself, it’s a cancelled gig.

The old school audience got an old-school set — I skipped all the material we do as Duende (with the exception of “Chrysler” which I perform solo on “Americanized” and which was requested) and for most of the set I went WAY back for poems I haven’t done regularly in years:

Why I Killed The Buddha
Poem For Eddie (these two are from REALLY old chapbooks, and date back more than ten years)
Punk/Seafoam Green (I still do “Punk” often, but rarely include the companion piece anymore)
Jazz Under The Nazis
Chrysler
Light and Glass
First Letter Home
6AM, Hell’s Ditch, USA
Aunt Mary’s Family
Radioactive Artist (something I still do regularly, but a traditional closer)

Good times. At the Ship reading, you get paid “stripper style” — money in the belt, on the stage, between the man-boobs (or woman-boobs if that’s whatcha got) and it was a decent payday. Add in Bobby giving some money to Faro for gas and sorrow, and we ended up OK money wise when all was said and done.

It’s a shame we didn’t get to do the set we’d planned — we were going to do “Jim’s Fall” start to finish and then toss in some other stuff including some likely improv work — but all in all it was OK. I still feel bad about the mixup, but now this makes it IMPERATIVE that you come see us on December 14 at Storytellers, of course, where we’ll be doing the Worcester premiere of “Americanized” in its entirety with a few choice bits added.

Onward, Duende…

Come to Ze Ship, he said…the Ship at the Hotel Vernon, of course…and see the wonders of the world! Long Bar! Cheap, cold beer!! A Parrot!!!!

AND…of course, me ‘n’ Faro doin’ our thing.

Show up early, stay late, read poems, drink beers, and suchlike. Throw money at the stage (fer real, cause that’s how we get paid unless you buy our stuff). Wheeee!!! Avast, Esteban…!!! Belay that. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Come anyway!!!

A fine and exciting night of poetry and music last night at GP Live.

Faro took on sole backup duties last night on both guitar and bass, and rocked the place. Some real standout performances including Adam (from behind the counter) ripping up an excellent rhythmic poem, dkeali_i doing his oracle piece and another fine cover by an Hawaiian poet whose name escapes me, and Michel’s harrowing addiction piece.

Faro and I had some fun with our parts of the show last night, opening the evening with an improv poem over a guitar line, doing “Americanized” to close the first half, and then (by request) creating an impromptu bass/vocal version of “Conspiracy” to end the night’s poetry, following which he laid down a massive solo of tapped harmonics and all that good stuff.

And, thanks to the mad skillz of John Powers ( johnpowers ), we Webcast the whole thing, which is likely to be a feature of the reading in the future. Video was saved. I’ll let you know if it becomes available. (It was a spur of the moment attempt, so we didn’t make a prior announcement of it — there weren’t a lot of viewers from what I understand, although I hear brags2bitches made it for most of the show.)

For her and anyone else who was listening/watching, I’d like to personally apologize for the octopus joke…but you should blame theryk for telling me the joke in the first place, so direct any real ire his way. I merely channel the Master.

Next week, it’s new poem night and a feature by Chris Chandler.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duende will be at the Ship (Hotel Vernon) in Worcester on Thursday! We’re planning a loose but interesting set — some old stuff (possibly even a full performance of the “Jim’s Fall” suite) — and perhaps more of the improv stuff we did last night, in prep for future recording…our next project is looming on the horizon, a CD of poems and music where we switch up the usual process and Faro takes the lead, writing a set of music I’ll then write poems to.

We’ll also be doing the full “Americanized” album, front to back, for only the second time live on December 14 when we feature at the Storytellers reading at the Village Arts Center in Worcester. Not to be missed.

At the moment, we’ve only got one other gig planned in the near future, but it’s gonna be good — February 18 as part of Richard Cambridge’s Poets’ Theater series at Club Passim in Cambridge, as a guest of urbanitus when he features there. We’ll be doing a short set, 20-30 minutes or so.

If anyone is interested in having us feature, let me know — we’re probably sticking close to home for the winter, but after that we’ll see what’s what. (NYC is definitely on the prospect list for winter “close to home” if anyone’s interested down there, by the way.)

More later, maybe…till then, happy trails…

Faro had this on his Myspace…it might be my favorite picture of the two of us.

Not bad, eh? Thank god he’s the eye candy in the act…