Which Star Trek Captain are you?
Mackenzie Calhoun- You are the wild man of
Starfleet. You love outwitting oponents by
doing the one thing they wouldn’t expect from a
Starfleet ship… fighting dirty. Of course
to get away with your craftiness, you only
exist in books. Doesn’t matter, you’re much
cooler than Archer. Some people say you’re a
self righteous SOB. They might be right, but
you don’t give a damn.
Before I start with the Acentos recap-
Catch me and Jessica Torres this Friday and Sunday as the Teatro La Tea at the Clemente Soto Velez Center presents the WHATS IN A WORD SHOWCASE this Friday and Sunday ($10 for adults/$5 for kids). Here is a link to the flyer. I spent Monday afternoon giving the kids a performance workshop and I was really surprised (in the best possible way) as to how focused and strong their writing was.
So come down and join us… afterwards I am thinking of hitting a dope mofongo spot that is crazy cheap and damn good.
Monday:: OK, Ima get to the bX in a sec but lets knock it out in order-
Big thanks to Viv for recommending me for this gig. Just saying that I am performing at the Soto Velez Center feels good but working with teenagers just makes it that much better.
All my Mind-Builders training paid off as the workshop was a breeze and the two hours flew by. The organizers were happy, the teachers were happy and the kids performed like mad dog- can’t ask for much more.
Shot over to 13 and was happy to see that last week’s crowd decided to stick around as we had a packed house at 7:30. Typical 13 as the Open Mic ran long, we got to be a family and sang Piper ‘Happy Birthday,’ George McKibbens rocked out in his normal style. No apologies, no excuses… his writing is hard biting and a refreshing change of pace from the ‘what will the crowd like’ mentality.
The Slam was tight and fun as a bunch of people went over the time limit, tried new shit and Celena Glenn decided to win it.
Tuesday:: Mind-Builders has been hectic as I am doing twelve things during the day and then I have to throw them all out the door when PYT (Positive Youth Troupe) starts.
I fucking love this job! Which explains why I am willing to get to Acentos at 7:31. PYT lets out at 7:00 and with all the ‘bye y’all’ and wrapping up of last minute details I don’t get out of the building till 7:10 and then I jump in a cab to the Blue Ox… and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
My confidence as a teacher has steadily improved over the last few months and the payoff was the Kwanzaa celebration last month (were six of the kids rocked out) and the workshop at Soto Velez. It’s not all bubblegum and HBO as some of the kids don’t know where they fit, some try to grab the spotlight all the time and some are getting frustrated with the rest.
I am really trying to hold on to this one group that could be writing some real world changing shit in a few months but I also don’t want to give up on the troublemakers. It’s all still new to me but I’ve been picking up quick and some of the kids love the writing classes and I was able to snatch up a stray dance student to join the writing group so I must be doing something right.
Enough of that on to Acentos… tomorrow!
testing out my new ‘insta-BLOG’ feature…
tonight:
Tuesday, January 13th @ 7:00pm
Acentos – Blue Ox Bar – Corner of Third Ave & East 139 Street
Open Mic & feature Hector Rivera of the Welfare Poets
6 Train to 138th Street Station
Hosted by Oscar Bermeo
FREE! ($5 Suggested Donation)
…all of tonight’s proceeds go driectly to the Reverend Pedro fund.
…all bullshit aside, the buzz i have been getting from people says that tonight will be a real jam packed house. i am not big on strong arm and threatening (fish handles that chore) but i am good at asking cool peeps with strong vibes, good intentions and strong poetry to drop by and lend their energy- so far, the response has been above my expectations and i am looking forward to a packe open mic which is always my goal (sad part- turning folks away but thats the pitfalls)
hector rivera is your feature and he is one of the few voices that gives me hope that hip-hop and poetry are not two separate roads that meet at the crossraods of commerce (all poetic and shit!)
…Acentos_Ver_2.0 is already for take off! catch ya latah!
ok, forget poetry for a minute-
ROGER CLEMENS IS THE BIGGEST LOWLIFE IN SPORTS.
i go to double check when pitchers and catchers report and i see that the hilbilly is going to sign with the astros?
for the record, i have NEVER been a fan of clemens. he is a thug. plain and simple. and not even a good one. a real thug would take his chances behind the plate and not try to take the whole worlds head off with the shield of the AL in front of him.
now that he is going to the Astros i cant WAIT for the retaliations to begin. in fact, i am GLAD that he is coming out so that he can get his clocked clean but good.
rant:over
“Now I’m cycling all my video tapes”
We have a new louderCHAMPION and I am SO fucking spent. Rachel Hyman asks me, “Did you have fun?” and all I could say was, “No.”
Even as it came out of my mouth I was in that weird space where it makes all the sense in the world but you still can’t believe you said it.
Sunday at the Pietri Tribute I was all over the place. People had no idea when they would be going up and some folks didn?t show up. I just juggled all the balls I had and tried to make it look like magic. It worked but it can get taxing to deal with that shit.
This last Monday was the same shit- squared. With the louder showcase being put together in just a few days. Concept, performers, length of time, affect on the show, all the details and the closed mic was also put together in the same way but with less detail on flow and more emphasis on personality.
On to the Slam? this has been my baby for a few weeks and I tried to nail all the details especially the time issue. Slams at 13 start monstrously late and the third round can be a chore. The normal Slam format doesn’t sit that well with me as I am not a fan of having people prepare work and take a chance on getting bumped in the first round.
The original version of the Slam had TEN mofos going at it but when I crunched the numbers and came up with a time table on how long it should take, the powers that be were not too thrilled. A compromise was reached and we narrowed it down to eight.
The next trick was making it different from the regular semis or finals at 13 and I came up with the 3-2-1-2-3 idea not even realizing that the iWPS was using a similar formula. (Trust me, if you saw the knuckle headed e-mails from the SM list serve you would stop reading most of the shit that comes across the board.)
I came up with a couple of other twists in regard to cumulative scores advancement and tiebreakers to spice up the pot a bit and the end result was (in hindsight) a bit too much for most. Oh well?
The simple breakdown was eight poets in the first round (3 min, 10 second grace period, regular slam rules), six poets in the second round (2 min, 10 second grace), five poets in the third round (1 min, 5 sec grace) and three poets in rounds four and five (2 mins in round three and no clock in the last round, cumulative scores of the last round determines the winner).
I was really high on deading the clock in the last round to allow the poets to go out in a blaze of poetic glory by focusing on the performance of the piece and taking their time to convey the truest sense of the word. Well, that was a good thought but in the end Fish, Mahogany and Cirelli all went Nuyo and took their time to promote their poems beforehand and then delivered them in the same style. Live and learn.
The scoring was the most stressful thing as I always triple check my figures to make sure that we are all on the same page and nobody gets jerked. If I had let somebody else take care of the math I may have enjoyed the Slam but it has all been lessons learned.
Quick thoughts- Rich did amazingly well as he was fighting the #1 draw the whole time, Elana gave a BEST ever performance but the audience (and the clock) wasn?t feeling her, I was surprised to see Morgan get cut so quick, Fish put together a great game plan and went all out to win with his choice of editing older work, Mahogany on the other hand took some chance with newer, shorter stuff and almost pulled it out, Abena got bit by the clock and would have easily made the final three but that?s the breaks,
and Michael Cirelli is kick ass! When Rog (our #8) found out that he wasn?t able to make it back in time, I placed my money on Cirelli. Tapes of him from 2000, the work he?s done at 13 and the amount of energy he puts into the actual WORK of poetry makes him an awesome champion for our venue. The fact that he is a genuinely nice dude (except for the fact that he is a Red Sox fan) only makes the cake that much sweeter.
Typing it up now, I can say that I had a fun time putting the show together and I was really happy that we accomplished everything we set out to do as the crowd was into the ?closed mic? (Rachel, Chavisa, Roberto Ascalon and Mara really came through for me on short notice), the louder showcase was a nice step in bringing the Wizard out from behind the curtain and the audience stayed for the WHOLE slam which clocked out at 10:50 (mind you this was a five round, eight person slam and it is Bar 13).
And did I mention the drunken fool that got all belligerent on me in the hallway after I asked her friend to keep her quiet? Ah, yes! Memories of the Spic incident reverberate in my mind but that?s a story for another day.
