to let y’all know about the open mic showcase goin’ down tomorrow in the bx!

SAMPLE

Hosted by Oscar Bermeo

An Open Mic Showcase

featuring Michele Kotler

and the Voices of Community~Word Project

Wednesday, September 8 @ 7:00 pm

Bronx Museum of the Arts

1040 Grand Concourse @ 165th St• Bronx, NY

718.681.6000

4 or D Train to 161st St Station

For more info: bxma.org

FREE!

friday, 08.20.04 (poetry in the park/cherry hill- central park)

:: travis from Not in Our Name organizes this suckah in record time

and gets a real impressive slam line up to appear. on ed garcia’s

recommendation he asks me to co-host with him. sure, why not. i get

SO friggin nervous that i show up an hour early for the thing! the

set-up is amazing.

picture a path in central park alongside the lake with some amazing

architecture filling in the space between the pet and the horizon

which is tinged with orange clouds that occasionally flash with

lightning. just amazing.

everyone rocked and kept true to the time limit. well, not everybody,

a bunch of me homies- scot, duffy and raj were on the open mic list

and they lamost didnt get to go on thanks to this one lady that

thought she was the feature. some other lady also ran off in a huff

when she couldnt get on since the cops were kicking us out at 9 on the

dot.

in nebulous news- i made an alliance and pissed some one off. i am

happy about the former and indifferent as to the latter.

a long walk, a dashed dream of peruvian shrimp soup, some good noodles

and laughs at the nuyo made this one of the events that made life

really worth it. oh yeah, i didnt fuck up in mah hosting duties or so

say some folks.

sunday, 08.08.04 (un-conventional poetry at the nuyorican)

:: this time around i have some more back up as ray, scot, raj and

mara join me and raina for this gig. the women who invited me is an

old workshop buddy who is busy documenting the insanity that will be

the RNC. the reading is cool. i start finding out that i have a lil

bit of political poetry in me thanks to ‘getting ronald reagan to

visit the south bronx’ and ‘sorta-rican’ this time around i nail them

both pretty well. raina also brings some new hotness and a classic.

mara keeps shining and glowing. raj’s star is rising. synonymus

almost gets screwed- again but i am able to bogart the mic and keep

the crowd from watching the boys set up their gear on the fly but at

least they didnt get jipped like they did earlier in the week when

they were told they would close out for 20 minutes and instead given

five. and the PROFE is back!!! rich arrives back from NPS half way

through and the love grows.

this time around both the reading and the after party rock in many, many

ways

review of some gigs i’ve done lately

thursday, 08.05.04 (latino cultural festival open mic in the queens theatre)

:: get to queens on time(!) but the trolley that is supposed to take us to the theatre is not showin up is what luis cartagena tells me. i tell em that i gots a map and a dream so lets troop it. we also grab a few folks that have been waiting around and lead em on the trek. luis and i go up fairly early in the program. i do “sorta-rican” and fuck up part 3 cuz i still brought the paper up with me like an ass. luis does a kick ass rendition of ‘putomayo.’ manny xavier does a great hosting gig. i am desperately listening for some new voices for acentos and vibe nicely on a few folks that would be great on the open. some 16 yr old kid comes up all cocky and sheet rapping about how great a lover he is. i am crackin’ up inside. the crowd does NOT feel him. i go up again and make up for my sad first half performance with ‘MOTB’ it generates a good feedback and the attention of a lady in the audience- job done!

some schmoozing afterwards and then me and luis walk through flushing meadows park at night (mad cholos pumpin mexican rock!) and the roles are reversed as luis does to me what i do to most folks- answer every question with a deeper question to the point where there is no right answer. im cool with that as it gets us talking about russian acting techniques and their application to performance poetry. nice!

a great night of meeting new folks and learning a lil bit more about my process.

For Eliel- Hola, Grande!

For Rich- Profe, you act like we don’t talk. ;-)

For Matt- Jiabro, mah pretty “Yes! He finally updated!” niggah!

For the rest of y’all- I’m back from a great “I aint go no place but Damn! I got to see a lot of Charmed” vacation!

Gots to stay focused and remember that at one point I set up this blog to track my progress as a poet (who happens to perform) and as such, Ima have to tell y’all about the two gigs I recently did especially since one was almost a pure cluster F (the WAHI reading with Raina) and the other was real chill (Dowtown Bronx Café)

I’ve also been hosting like a motha even when I didn’t really plan it that way and have had WAY too much fun (Poetry in Central Park) and then wasn’t really into my element like I shoulda been (upperCASE)

There is a super cool project in the works (got to stay blog.nebulous)

Contrary to rumor, I am not dating any one (my love life gets mentioned in the oddest places) and I don’t know if I am actually ready to date some one on the serious.

Make your plans now! January 24th is my full.balls.to.the.walls feature at louderMONDAYS. Ya know, between you me and the rest of the internet, I acted like quite the 16 year old on prom night when I got the call to bring my game to the spotlight. For a fact, major things happen to my work when I am given chances like this and the opportunity to have 20 minutes at Bar13 is pretty damn cool.

Yesterday, I wrote another love poem to “the one that got away.” It’s not the one I’ve been toying in my head for the last year (I take all the nights we’ve spent together/Wrap them around my chest like chain mail/Hold the days we’ve wandered lost together/Silent pearls I place around your neck) Nah, not that one… some other new food.equals.love type shit that may have way too many coincidences with “Ceviche” but then again I don’t really care.

That’s it for now as I look out the window and see the Bronx moving along like if it was any other day which, if you plan on staying in the Bronx, is just that- another day in the ‘hood.

Love ya like if I drew you mah self with charcoal and pencils on a breezy Bowery night…