lets go to the video tape!

the tale of the tape

SET LIST
Where’s the new shit, O?
Zero Hour at the Event Horizon*
The Perfect Omelet*
Federico Gracia-Lorca’s “Dawn“
like dawn in new york*
Paying the Toll*
America: My First Love Poem
Spanglish- The new mother tongue*
Poem for the Hispanics who insist on mispronouncing the menu items at the Chino-Latino restaurant
Anything to Declare?*
Sorta-Rican
Let me end it with this…
* new hotness

your thoughts on preparing for the match?
actually, some of the new hotness had already been performed but they did get edited (especially “Paying the Toll”) also “America: My First Love Poem” was written for the DC feature last year but i have rarely read it.

the theme of the set was the whole immigrant experience with 8 of the 11 poems dealing specfically with that topic. how did i come to that revelation? easy- i knew that the classic would be “Sorta-Rican” the rest then kinda fell into place.

speaking of which, “Sorta” was the gem of my solo feature from last year and this year’s gem is a tie between “Paying the Toll” and “Anything to Declare?” i really like the fact that one is a definite shift away from my narrative style and that the other is an embrace of my narrative in the direction of straight prose.

the other poems in the set include my handshake to the crowd, a new kind of poem that is weird in its structure yet still delivers the goods, (there was also a satirical rendition of my NYFA artist statement that i threw in for fear that i didnt have enough material), the obligatory love poem, and then the lorca cover which actually IS an immigrant poem of sorts and kicks off the theme.

the ride to the big game
after getting some stuff to help with the knee pain (i was NOT limping to the stage- hell no!), i proceeded to hit the barber shop and get a good beard trim. the barber came through like gangbusters with a massage seat, face scrub, noxema, hot towel, face massage, astringent and a cool shave. praise the clippers & pass the martini!

i got to 13 mad early and was able to enjoy some great viet food as fish finds my ass and we proceed to talk and chow. let me say here, a highlight of the last few months have been the peace & calm between me & fish. werd.

upstairs to 13 which gets more & more packed by the minute. thank hay.zeus of orchard beach! i was seriously worried that the weekend blizzard was gonna have me reciting to 11 folks. (this poems is for YOU, and this one for YOU…) now the nerves start kicking in and i curse the gout for preventing me from taking a hike and showing up 10 minutes before and for not letting me take a sip of liquid courage. all for the best, i guess, because the way my nerves were acting up, i would have been toast by the time i hit the stage.

now why the nerves, you ask? basically, 13 is my home venue, the place where i talk mad shit, praise & not.so.praise folks, hang and walk around like if i’m a poet and very sonn that swagger will be put to the test. if i don’t deliver, the conversations will go down like this- “well, let me say this first, i really like oscar as a person but…” and you can figure out the rest. i am very sure of this because i have heard this conversation quite a number of times. this may be the WORST set of pre.feature jitters i have ever experienced. it may have to do with the fact that i did invest a bit into the layout of the feature. yep, that’s it. i am a little past the “start with a good piece/end with a good piece/and have fun in the middle” mind set that i had earlier on.

(a nice omen preceeds the feature as both rich & fish make the last round of the slam & luis cartegena gets the crowd away from the slam mind set with a great “sorbet” poem)

kick off!
once i am up there, the jitters are gone. cool thing of this set is that i have a lot of moments recorded in my mind. in contrast, i only recall a few things about the upperCASE and the CD recording zoomed by.

good set. horrible banter. what happened? i dont know but i think i would prefer it this way, ya know?

at this point, much thanks to ed & omar for sitting me down one day and encouraging me to use my wit in my poems. it was a tool i used to great effect for this set.

and i’m audi 5000!

in the locker room
as i’m leaving the stage, jayne pierce hits me up with some flowers (ahhhhhhhhh) and i see tata crying in a moment that almost gets me to cry and will forever go down as a piece of my personal history. i love you, jess. mad props soon follows and i can start to breathe easy.

i never count who comes to my gigs. either you do or you dont but let me tell you, all the right folks were there and here i praise UPHA for being there when it was just me & my pen, when all i had was one good poem. these ladies i also love madly.

a shout to Nuyo Clothing for giving me a cool shirt to wear on stage. buy their stuff!

matt, jess & maria on the open mic and all thats left is res which was mad mad fun.

the post game wrap up
i just heard the tape of the performance and for the first time EVER, i am not cringing at the sound my voice though i am wincing at the awful mic chatter i delivered. ;-) (thanks for tape, ray)

more shouts to guy, willie, ed & jeannie, rachel, raj, ellie, michele, peter, jessica elizabeth, scot, louder and especially to jai & nina for being there in spirit

i have been getting quite the number of compliments on the blog ring and i thank all you crazy mofos for the kind words, for reals.

in baseball, your pitcher is only as good as his next game. i guess in poetry, i am only as good as my next feature. this one is in the books and done. normally, i would brush it off and keep on truckin but on the real- i have had a lousy 6 weeks of arthritis pain & had some more of my past come back to bite me in the ass. guess what? i’m going to enjoy this glow for a little while. nights like moday dont happen all the time. i used to have rock star fantasies as a kid, picture myself on air guitar or drums or even as the lead singer. i never thought that shit would come to pass but it kinda has & life is too short to worry about the next feature.

yeah, i may just play the tape again and enjoy myself for once.

the sign off
love ya like if you helped make mah dreams come true

The times they are a changing

I just the last few hours actually working on some stuff for tomorrow’s set. The set is shaping up nicely with a consistent theme, a cover poem, some rarely heard work, some brand new hotness, a “classic” and a surprise or two. There are some more surprises that I would like to add but it’s really just a question of time & inspiration.

News flash- The Goddess Perlman will be doing a live recording tomorrow at 13. Perlman is a former synonymUS (at the BPC) feature and she always delivers some outrageousness on the mic.

Off to write some more… Hope to see all your bright & shiny faces tomorrow.

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

There have been zero developments in my life as of late. Everything is mad status quo. This is why there have been no updates as of late.

Here is the typical day as of late-

Stretch up a mornin’ yawnin’ (which will probably lead to pain cuz I can’t really stretch out my legs) mad late in the am cuz I didn’t get no sleep.

Assess which of my joints are flared up and to what degree.

Ponder the possibility of staying right in this bed and not moving until the pain goes away.

Realize that may take weeks.

Gingerly get out of bed and then find out which of my joints are truly shot cuz this I have learned- Gravity don’t lie.

Look for my cane.

Get to the shower and scald myself in the hopes that this will alleviate my joints.

Head to work.

As of late, work has been quite fun & one of the things that I really look forward to. Some bumbs on the road thru Mordor (inside reference) but nothing I can’t make it thru.

Leave work.

Return home where I will give my joints some rest and LOSE MAH MIND FROM BOREDOM

– or –

Hang out with some friends and try not to illicit too much sympathy or undue attention. I really hate the fact that people have to give me a head start and sheet like that. On the bright side, I have some real cool friends that only make fun of it when it is GENUINELY funny and not when it’s a chance to get in a good joke to make you seem like more of a man (2nd inside reference).

Return to the crib.

Assess where the pain has shifted in my body.

Hot epsom salt bath.

Get to bed.

Sleep.

Wake up an hour later from pain.

Sleep.

Wake up half an hour later from pain.

Sleep.

Continue to the break.a break.a dawn.



In the final analysis, I am very very much sick of it and look forward to healthy joints again cuz there is nothing better than being back in effect when this is all done and over with.

I am trying some new therapies and I must be getting healthier cuz I have limited the amount of junk I eat and have had NO alcohol in over a month.

Which is kinda sad cuz I would have loved to end the set on Monday with a nice stiff shot of single malt scotch but there’s always the next feature.

Speaking of which, I don’t care if I have to go up there with tubes in my arms- I am walking to that stage like if I was god damn Edwin Moses! I may be medicated to the gills, but hey, it might help my tones! ;-)

Love ya like two for one drinks (copyright- rich)

no sleep till brooklyn

last night was another Acentos crew appearance, this time for RL and his Lyric Lounge. a deep trek into brooklyn was required but what the hey- these are the things you do while on the path to, er, something.

this will have been my first reading since Amherst last month. i’ve had a few scheduled but i had to back out of em cuz of the gout. if you are keeping score at home- the right knee is still swollen, the left knee is still tender, my right big toe joint is getting worse and myleft elbow is trying to get into the act. end medical report.

anytime i have to perform with the crew, i get excited. if we are performing for some college gig or such, i know i have to dig deep and find some new nuance to the poem, some crevice that i havent really explored. one way to do this is just to change lines around to match current events or make it more familiar to the crowd you are addressing. the first way is a cop out i’ve resorted to on occasion but anytime you violate the page version of your poem, it should be towards improving said text and not just to help calm you own stage fears. the second way is a little more fun and makes you dig a lil deeper- “how can i stay true to every word i’ve sweated over but still make it interesting to these new folks?”

this time around, it was the challenge of putting together some new hotness and for the first time in a long time, i had the joy of rookie writing with me. rookie writing is that sheer joy of jumping on stage with a poem that is fresh off the griddle, some shit that is going to affect the Dow Jones, current PGA stats and the ratings for Charmed all in one fell swoop. of course the poem is raw. of course it needs edits. of course its only the first step… but how soon is now?

so i came up with two new pieces, reworked a blog entry and started on the beginning of a fourth piece, was able to get some critique from ms raina, made a few edits, and got them printed out on the quick. i know for a fact that these pieces are only scratching at some deeper truth and that i need to work on em but… EF IT! i wanted to come up with some hotness and here it was.

strangely enough, the performance of the poems came through very well. could i actually be on the road to being a good stage reader? maybe. then again, the mic on stage wasnt working well (forcing my voice to fill the room on its own) and i didnt want to awkwardly climb up to the stage (so i stayed at ground level and had my leg movement come under serious resistance thus making my voice shoulder more of the performance burden)

a damn fine start, i would say. my compatriots dazzled as well in their own inimitable style. the free brownies were off the hook. i realized that ordering a non-alcoholic drink from a fine waitress can be flirting gold.

tomorrow, i am off to see the doc and hopefully get some more releif for my joints which better be in order for (cue the shameless plug!) my january 24th feature at bar13. a feature set that now, i am feeling more and more optimistic about as i get to writing some new shit.

love ya like tourists love mapquest