My good buddy Skip Shea ( drgeorge ) has been touring and performing his one man show about being a survivor of clerical abuse for some time now. Here’s a Youtube clip of the show for your consideration; worth hearing and seeing.
Category Archives: uncategorized
observation
the dark truth we won’t admit
is that many of us
think the world would be better off
if different people were bleeding
as if putting the pig
in the apple’s mouth
would keep either
from burning
Quick note: I’m having some major problems with my phone — serious battery drain. I need to pick up a battery for it, but this will be the third one I’ve had in it and I think the problem’s with the phone itself; I follow all the charging guidelines so I know it’s not something I’m doing.
I’m only turning it on for short bursts for a couple of hours a day, so if you call and I don’t get back to you, be patient, I shall. Email is probably your best alternative till I figure this out.
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For folks in NYC and connections to same, I would love it if you could read my previous post and if you have any ideas, let me know. Help a brother out…thanks.
http://radioactiveart.livejournal.com/683702.html
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Last night was the Budweiser Shootout, the first race of the NASCAR Cup season. It was good to watch a race again. I think I finally get the excitement that some folks feel for the opening of a sports season, something I’ve never really gotten before.
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Tonight is dkeali_i‘s feature at the Q, where he’ll be releasing his new chapbook AND a CD. You should go. Dave’s become one of the most consistently interesting poets in the Worcester scene, working with stuff most of the rest of us don’t. I recommend the show, which I expect to be excellent.
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More later — I’m headed for bed for a bit (was up early, not all night, but another hour or two of sleep will do me good).
This Just In: Two New Duende Shows!!!! (Edited)
Just confirmed two dates for the future:
— May 6 at the Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, where we’ll be doing the full “Americanized” show**;
— September 7 (tentative, but pretty firm) out on Nantucket Island, in a double feature with Melissa Guillet.
More info to follow!!!
And as always, let me know if you want to bring us in…we’re open to anything. Weddings, ritual scarifications, even movie premieres. Have chops, will travel.
Storytellers tonight with badgary as the feature. Who’s in?
**A note about the BPC show: We’ll be going on in the 7:30-9:30 slot usually reserved for the Urbana Poetry Slam. The slam will have ended their season at that point, and we’ll be looking to pack the club on a night that won’t have its usual crowd. Any of y’all in NYC who can help put with ideas for promotion for that show, or who are willing to spread the word — let me know. We’re definitely looking to impress and make a showing for the work. I don’t normally make a big deal about this kind of plugging, but I’m going to bite the bullet and do it — even flyering and stuff like that. Let me know what I need to do…thanks!
Oh, this makes me…happy???
http://www.newsweek.com/id/73896
There’s an article in the print edition of Newsweek this week that explores the idea that the quest for happiness is overrated. It draws an important distinction between depression and sadness, too…but it speaks to something I’ve felt in my gut for a long time.
This online version isn’t as comprehensive, so I recommend the print version if you want the full story.
Go ahead…flame away.
Heads up — dumping Facebook
After a couple of months of using Facebook, I’ve decided it’s pretty much a timesuck and I’m going to dump it. I’ve already got a Livejournal, a Myspace, and my work at Gotpoetry.com and FB just takes up time without having much appreciable benefit.
At heart, I find I’m just not the pure social networking type, and FB — with its endless spam — is just not for me. I use the other spaces more for blogging and art and promotion; just not finding a useful purpose there.
So…adios to that, gang. I’ll be getting rid of it later tonight after a lot of folks have seen the notice I placed there.
Whirlwind days lately
Too much going on, and spending a lot of time working on stuff old and new…little time to post. The new project with Faro is taking a lot of my creative juice, hence the short poems I’m posting here are pretty much respites from that.
Tonight is Gotpoetry Live, our monthly new poem night. Read something new! C’mon down, dammit.
Last night was fun — javabill and I went out to Hampshire College and did a workshop for the gang out there. Lots of fun and good stuff emerging from everyone in the writing exercises. Cool night.
See you tonight, I trust; if not, see you around…
Cultural Analysis
Highbrow was sorely vexed
when (while riding into town
upon his tall horse) he spied
Middlebrow crouching on the roadside
waiting to fawn all over him
or bite his ankles, perhaps at
the same time.
Middlebrow, seeing only that something fast and lovely
saw the world from a different level,
just knew he wanted some of that,
was set on getting some
whether it be by wooing or attack.
Meanwhile, Lowbrow
loved both of them not. But
both of them noticed him there on the porch
with his bluff shoulders and fat lip, his eyes
sexy and dull, his ever-chewing mouth loud
with a cheap song they could believe in,
and they dreamed of catching his eye.
Drive By Posting…
Busy as hell, but thought I’d pass this along:
the new Zero Point Zero is up.
The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!
Very much more than Nothing!
GotPoetry Tonight: Poetry + Music
Faro’s coming. I’ll bring a guitar and maybe more. Bring your own instruments, too. Songs are OK tonight, too.
Please come. The holidays are over and it’s time to come back out and play.
7:30, Reflections Cafe, corner of Governor and Wickenden, Providence, RI.
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.
Fin
That’s the North Star, he tells himself
as he turns from the window. That’s
the way to go.
He’s wrong.
It’s Betelgeuse, but it doesn’t matter because
he’ll never get to share the thought,
and no one will get to correct him.
Then, there’s one final act
of tragedy:
it comes unexpectedly to him
that her hands
on his forehead feel false, as if
her compassion includes some measure
of contempt. He grasps at the hope
that he’s wrong,
but it eludes him
as she shuts his eyes.
Dark Matter 