I am in Scottsdale, Arizona, where it’s 135 degrees at 9:30 at night and I can’t tell the difference between this place and Irvine, CA except that this place has better mountains.
The hotel is good, though, and the bartender at the casual bar and I had a nice chat about pretty much nothing.
Tomorrow, I’m training all day. In a conference room with the oh-so-quaint historical name “Apache.”
Truth in advertising, for once.
as Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, AKA Poet Laureate of the Plogosphere, AKA PLOP:
Whereas half, at least, of those of you on my friends’ list will be in Madison WI this week for the National Poetry Slam, and will therefore be partying, poetizing, and otherwise satisfying your appetites both spiritual and carnal, I hereby decree that you shall:
1.
Kick it old school, new school, or in whatever educationally descriptive manner that you most fervently wish to kick it;
2.
For those opposed to kicking it in a school-like fashion, that you shall ROCK;
3.
That you nonetheless shall not forget your duties to the blogosphere, and to the Plogosphere, and that you shall report back at least occasionally (dependent, of course, upon the Internet access you have, which considering the number of you who are bringing devices of access to said NPS should be NO EFFING PROBLEM) on poetry heard, scandals and protests raised, hook-ups of general interest to all, chunderings, blunderings, and shaken babies du jour;
4.
That while the bout scores are not of particular interest to me, as in I could give a rat’s ass myself, you should recall that I’m just one guy and there are others sitting at home who are dying to know and if past experience is any guide the official Websites won’t have the scores up within the 30-40 second window following the bout that some of your more anally driven compatriots at home will demand regardless of the practicality of trying to do things in said window, so please keep those people happy or they’ll do something stupid like commit suicide by prop or fill the Intertubez with pissings and moanings;
5.
That you shall have, maintain, and if neither is possible develop, a sense of humor about it all.
Have fun. I order it!!
Witness now my seal and hand and sea lion and handbanana, this the 3rd day of August, 2008.
Tony B
PLOP
Just came back from seeing it.
Honestly?
It was pretty good. No more than pretty good.
Heath Ledger was great. I thought he was amazingly creepy and authentically nihilistic. I get the Oscar buzz, completely.
Christian Bale was fine, although I liked him better in “Batman Begins.”
And as for the rest of the movie…eh. The interrogation scenes were great and thought-provoking. But I saw through every other plot twist with no trouble and I HATE that.
Sorry, gang. Rates a B+ at the most from me.
It’s my job
My job
Is to be
Backwards
Eat a big can of dog food
with a picture of a puppy on the label
Tell everyone that puppy tasted good
Put on my shoes and socks in that order
Go outside nude in the rain
with a soap bar and a loofah
Tell everyone I’m Gene Kelly
My job
Is to be Gene Kelly
Get you laughing at me
Make you say “he’s crazy”
I’m your umbrella man
Taking the pissing sky to be my friend
so you can stay dry
and love the daffy anyway
Gene Kelly wasn’t crazy
But he kept singing
Gotta dance
In the old days
the Lakota called us heyoka
Contrary boys
Thunderbird dreamers stuck
with wings on the brain
all day and night
We heard them and we were cursed
To test the rules
Piss people off
Keep the kids away from them
they used to say
but they knew they needed us
because we let them sleep
Secure that the world
only gave the worst dreams
to some
and most people could follow the rules
and be safe at night
I have a dream that one day
I’ll be able to sleep
You think it’s easy to be Gene Kelly?
You better be glad I’m here
I’m the only thing
making you look sane
These days
You don’t know how to dance
Don’t know shit about the taste of food
Don’t know dope from hope
The noise of wings
from the song of your frightened hearts
Gene Kelly could smile when he danced his pain
And you loved to watch
You still watch though he’s been gone for so long
But I am not Gene Kelly
Not really
I’d be better off flatfooted
Stalking a living like you do
I want the easy chair
and the nights by the TV
Stop the damn wings and let me be
Till then I’ll keep at it
Laughing as I show you up
You wish you had the naked need’
to jump around out here
Cold and wet but not caring for once
about the way you looked
as long as it was you doing it
and not the mask you are becoming
You secretly wish you were Gene Kelly
No secrets here
I wish you were too
The last war ended
with a distant explosion
that was all but unheard
but caused a ripple on the surface
of a puddle of grimy water
in a bomb crater.
We all crawled out
of our holes,
blinking, unbelieving
under a perfect sky.
Then we went to look for food,
keeping an eye on each other
to make sure we were all going to share
anything we found.
Regarding the end of GPL at Reflections: Thanks to everyone who’s passed on well wishes. I’m fine, I’m pretty sure Ryk is fine. I’m feeling almost like it’s worth starting it up again at some point, although it likely won’t be till after August if it happens and it’ll be contingent on getting at least some local help hosting once it’s up and running, since part of my concern is about the 80 mile round trip drive to do it once a week and its frequent conflict with business trips. But I think we’ll likely do something at some point. We’ll keep you posted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ll be in Scottsdale AZ next Monday night without a car. I know most of the folks from the area will be out at Nationals, but if anyone’s around and wants to hang out, I’m game for a light evening (gotta fly the next AM).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m re-reading one of my favorite books right now: “Finite and Infinite Games,” by James Carse. It’s a book of comparisons of the nature of game playing to the patterns of human behavior, both large and small scale, and includes a meditation on the true nature of good and evil. I’d love to say more, but it’s complicated and you really need to read it. Anyone else out there who’s read this?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How are you this evening?
It was a great 2 and a half years, but for a variety of reasons, we’ve decided to close down the GP Live venue for the time being. Consider us to be on indefinite hiatus until you hear otherwise.
More tomorrow. I’m beat. Go read theryk for more details if you need them.
Big night on Tuesday, folks…so I’m bumping this up as a reminder.
Andrew Watt is our feature. ( anselm23, that is.) So you know that’s good. Plus: NEW CHAPBOOK!!
It’s Pagan themed night — bring your poems about the world before Christianity and monotheism.
It’s the return of poetry and music as Faro will be back!
And there will be a TV crew in the house, filming it all for RI public access TV! So you know you wanna be there just to get your bright, kissable mugs on the tube.
GotPoetry Live
featuring Andrew Watt, Poetry + Music, and TV
Reflections Cafe, 8 Governor Street, Providence, RI
7:15 signup
Reading starts at 7:45 sharp this week.
2.00 cover
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/28/haiti.conviction/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
It’s good to know he didn’t get away with a really, really henious crime.
People, lately,
have developed a bad habit
of walking into churches
to kill other people,
which (I suppose)
is the natural evolution
of several thousand years
of people walking out of churches
to kill other people. Of course
it’s a bad thing so
no wringing of hands
is strictly necessary, although
(as is true of the killing)
we’ll do it anyway, even though
we get into that “us vs. them” thing
when we do, with our sad fingers
pointing outward while our trigger fingers
itch in sympathy, if not (at least to our hopeful minds)
solidarity. You have to wonder (or at least
I do) if the problem is really in the churches
or in us when people (not all people, of course,
it’s never “all people” when we talk of this)
put so much faith in the ability of
the God of the gun to bring peace
that the God of the hymns is relegated to
providing the soundtrack to the crusade.
For instance, in one of those violated churches
they have a song that goes,
“come down peace, come down peace,
let peace come down and surround us.”
On the news this morning a man, survivor of the killing,
wipes his eyes and says, “It’s gonna be hard
to sing that now,” and of course it’s always hard
(I know, I know how hard it is myself, for I have wanted
more times than I should count to bring my own pain
upon those who bring me pain)
to sing that, to wish for Something
to come down and bring a blanket to smother
our fire as it consumes us, but it’s harder now to sing it
as people (not our people, we know
it’s never our people) are reloading, adding fuel
to pyres, blaming people (other people,
not our people, it’s always other people)
for bringing the fire upon themselves
in the first place because God (our God,
or perhaps some other God, we can never quite
put our fingers on that God) isn’t in the church
where the fire came down in place of the desired peace.
When the fire came down this time people were singing,
“the sun will come out tomorrow, tomorrow…”
and maybe it will, we hope it will; a sun
to cover all of us (all people, all people
who walk beneath that sun) in something that
resembles peace. Until it does we’ve got
just three things to remind us of what we claim to want:
we’ve got churches, we’ve got people,
we’ve got a God who may not live in any church
if the death toll that comes from churches is any
indication, although I’m sure God stops in there
from time to time just as we do;
a God who sometimes appears deaf and blind, who
may not know much of peace at all (if we are the measure
of peace), who holds the blanket high above us
(perhaps to block the sight of all this)
and waits for us to call for it before letting it fall.
We are so hoarse from shouting at people
(other people, all the other people) who seem to feel
that the road through death is the only path we truly share
that when we sing (why must we sing
so hard? why is it so hard for us to just sing?)
we don’t believe it’s singing (but it is). Let peace
come down and surround us. Tomorrow. Tomorrow (if not today).
for the Asylum’s continuation and its new home at Jumpin’ Juice and Java, 335 Chandler Street, Worcester (in the old Tatnuck Square Bookseller building, for you expats).
Nice to think home base will be with us for a while longer, eh?
I’ve been reading your chapbooks and seeing you perform for quite a while now.
A few thoughts:
1.
Could you consider adding some silence to your performances here and there? Just a few seconds, to let the tumble of imagery and important thoughts register?
I know you can do it; I’ve seen the way you write and you use things like line breaks, stanza breaks, and punctuation that imply occasional pauses here and there in your flow. Allowing your performance to actually reflect the text might actually allow people to judge and absorb your work better. Just a suggestion.
I know that might make some of your poems longer than three minutes, but there’s this nifty thing called editing that can help take care of that. You might even consider having, in rare cases, two different versions of the same poem — one for slamming, one for reading at features where you have more time.
2.
There’s this cool concept called “dynamic range.” It’s the idea that you can do everything from whisper to scream in a piece, and use a wide variety of techniques in the same poem. Things don’t always start out loud and get louder, or start fast and get faster. A wider range of dynamics might actually help you make a poem more powerful in performance.
Again, just a thought.
3.
I like listening to Buddy Wakefield too. When I want to hear him, I put on one of his CDs.
If I’m listening to you, even if it’s for the first time, I’d like to hear you, not Buddy.
(By the way…you can substitute a lot of names in there for Buddy’s — Andrea Gibson, Rachel MacKibbens, Saul Williams, Mike McGee come to mind. It’s a natural thing — I tried to be Robert Bly for most of the 70s after seeing him read — but at some point, it’s best to be yourself, don’t you think?)
4.
I know you won’t listen to me. That’s OK. I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to listen to you, either. I’d like to hope that may change, but if it doesn’t, that’s OK too.
5.
Try doing a poem you fully expect to tank sometime because it’s not what you do best, and see what happens. If you tried it at NPS, that’d be great, but I understand if the pressures are too great then. But really, try it sometime.
Have fun at NPS. I’ll miss you because you’re colorful, wonderful inspiring people. I won’t miss the slamming though. I don’t feel like I always see you at your best then, and that hurts. A lot.
Of course, if you feel this doesn’t fit you, don’t try it on. But I hope it’s worth your time to at least consider it.
Love (and yes, I mean that),
T
Looks like we get to meet in person.
Looks like it might be on November 12.
Looks like a fun time.
I’m psyched! Are you?
Can anyone point me to a direct, official citation of the laws in either Worcester or Massachusetts regarding 18 year olds in bars?
I do know the official state law is that you have to be 21 to drink, 18 or older to serve or work with alcohol. But I’m looking for restrictions on performers, and I can’t find anything specific…I know that we all think, but I’m not sure it’s really true.
Thanks.
Dark Matter 