First Saturdays at the Zodiac Cafe
Saturday, May 6th
Noon to 2pm
50 Lake Ave. Worcester, MA
(just off rt.9 near U-Mass Med)

open mic & feature.
this month’s feature is
Tony Brown!!

the reading is all ages. a hat is passed.
the reading is PG.

hope to see you there!

in other words: get up and get over there!

it’s too early to be up so late.

i have been trying to write, but i’m too wired to write well.

the strangest thing about my writing recently is that i’m at this stage where i feel a change coming and i’m impatient for it to happen.

this recent series of “jim poems” is weak, i know, on the surface, but i’ve got the definite feeling that somewhere in there is the seed of something really exciting. i haven’t been putting all of them up here because i feel so odd about them right now; not sure where all of them will lead or how many will stay around.

i’ve also been working hard on the curriculum for the online course. i expect it to be completed before monday.

it’s such a strange time…i’m starting to feel really discouraged by the whole freelance/contractor process. things i thought were happening keep being postponed, and i really want to work. i’m not bored so much as i feel useless right now. after 25 years in the workforce, this is the longest i’ve been out of work ever. ever. i’m reaching the point where i might just take a full time job and forget the whole thing. it’s so hard to feel so useless.

well, springer’s on, so i can feel superior for a few minutes, anyway.

If someone is flying into an airport near you, make sure you know which airport he is flying into before you go pick him up.

As in, Providence is not all that close to Boston, so going to the latter instead of the former makes it a LOOOOOOOOOONG trip.

At least I’ve been in two state capitals today.

At some point soon, I’m going to start pulling together the Jim series as one piece, or a connected series of pieces.

And now, I’m ready to head off to Boston to pick up javabill.

Later, gators.

I seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest on Gotpoetry.com with my comments about the Providence Poetry Slam.

Oh well.

I spent a good deal of the afternoon and a separate section of the evening with a guitar in my hand.

This afternoon was spent with my shiny new Ibanez dreadnaught, digging in and really getting to know what it can do. A good guitar makes you a better player, and this one’s doing the job for me. I haven’t spent as much time with it as I would like with everything that’s been going on. I get very self conscious about my playing in standard tuning — I need to practice constantly to feel good about it, and when I don’t have time, I fret about it a lot.

I do wish I had started playing guitar before I did (in my late 20s), because I think I could have been a pretty good player if I had. As it is, I’m a competent first position fingerpicker willing to make occasional forays up the neck when I’m feeling adventurous. I do not think I’ll ever be better than that unless I woodshed far more than I’m capable of right now, and that bugs me from time to time.

Still, it gives me great pleasure to play and write the occasional song (I worked on one today).

The evening offered a different perspective — I pulled out my 20s era Regal, “Blackie,” which I use strictly for playing slide. It’s not a piece of crap at all, but an instrument that was set up to be played lapstyle for Hawaiian music. I removed the high nut off it but continue to use it for slide.

It’s what’s called a “ladder-braced” instrument, with an open headstock and a 12 fret neck, and quite small compared to modern guitars. The fingerboard is actually numbered so you can tell what fret you’re at when it’s in your lap — kinda quaint.

This thing sounds dead as a doornail until you slap it into Open D or G and toss a hunk of brass on your finger. Then, it cuts the air like a Dobro and delivers a right-on authentic blues sound.

I love playing slide. Again, I’m not a great slide player, but somehow, I care less about that when I play; the sheer joy of chord and note experimentation and sonic pleasure takes over, and I feel far more free than I do with the big dread; it’s almost as if I forget to care about my limitations.

I think, sometimes, about the parallels between my guitar playing and my poetry. I wish, sometimes, that I had more of a beginner’s mindset with my poetry. I try to get back to it but it’s hard. I experiment but I care too much for whether I’m writing a good poem or not, rather than caring about that joyous sense of doing something because it feels good.

I need to be more of a slide poet, I guess.

Anybody want me short term for an East Coast gig?

I’m trying not to establish full scale tours until I know more about my schedule for the summer, but am game for about 8 hours drive time from here.

I’m a little broke and jonesing to get out there.

ALSO: I posted a revised and expanded version of my comments about the Providence Poetry Slam on http://www.gotpoetry.com . Feel free to direct anyone who needs to see it there.

My guess is Providence won’t be booking me anytime soon.

Our local alternative rag features comments about Worcester made on various blogs they seek out.

Your comments about the Java Hut show were in Wednesday’s edition!

I went to the Providence Poetry Slam tonight.

Some thoughts:

1. If you say you’re going to start at 7, start at 7. Don’t be knocking around with your thumbs up your asses at 8:05.

2. If you advertise Corbet Dean as a feature online, and then advertise C.R. Avery as a feature on your flyer, and THEN have neither of them for a feature and in fact have no feature, try to let people know at some point.

3. If your official slam flyer contains a ratio of 10% information about the slam and 90% information about the May 1 general strike (like, 1 column of slam info and the remaining two sides of the flyer devoted to the strike), be prepared to have someone suspect that your reading is less about the free expression of poetry and more about pursuing a specific political agenda.

4. If that someone — namely, me — is completely down with your political agenda and STILL finds the pervasiveness of said agenda obnoxious, be prepared to consider that you may not even being reaching the converted.

I scratched my name off the list and left at 8:05. I won’t be back.

I may regret this in the AM, but I doubt it.

ETA on Tuesday May 2 @ 5:30 AM: The anonymous comments here were by Bernard Dolan. I answered them all a day or two ago on the Gotpoetry.com site and didn’t reproduce the answers here, as I didn’t see and unscreen these comments till just now.

ETA on Thursday May 4 @ 4:00 PM: It’s been brought to my attention that the flyer I saw was not the official slam flyer. Apologies to all who were confused by this. Should have checked my facts better.

But thought I’d pass along one moment of Ick.

At a gas station today, saw an 18 wheeler with a sleeper cab.

On the cab was painted, “If it’s rockin’ don’t bother knockin’.”

The name on the side of the truck?

Earl Spanos and Daughter Trucking.

Ick. Ewwwww.

As of tonight, I’ve removed myself as the host of SPEAK…although it will continue on the same schedule, 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month, in the same place.

I’ve just decided that my schedule and my current life issues/job issues make it too difficult for me to hang on to the sole responsibility for that reading.

Cathy Taylor, one of our regulars, is taking over as the “door-opener.” I think the reading will likely host itself after that.

I’ll be focusing my non-Asylum poetry efforts on Gotpoetry Live from now on.

The appointment of Tony Snow as White House Press Lackey got me thinking.

I need a spokespoet. Someone to read my poems for me and then answer criticism. I’m tired of doing it myself.

I need a loyal minion with no ambitions of their own who really, REALLY hates other poets.

Any thoughts?