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Any Excuse

to spit an opinion, so here goes a new feature on the bliz-og (Thanks to Agendacide for putting this up on her page first)

the friday five

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.

that’s a tough one. of all time, i may have to say ‘the macarena’ i don’t care how dumb some people think the song is… the hatah in me always gets a nice chill and warm glow when i see the calvacade of losers parade onto the dancefloor and start line dancing like a bad atari video game… all square and blocky movin’. side note: my true hate for the song comes from seeing the video with all the hot girls and then watchin’ two dudes that look like my uncles singing the song.

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.

“Don’t Go Away” by Oasis

… the soundtrack to the worst break up i’ve ever had

“Light Years” by Pearl Jam

… amazing song that proves that eddie vedder is a severely underrated talent. this bad boy hit me hard after a friend died.

3. Name three songs that turn you on.

“Moments in Love” by The Art of Noise

… the ULTIMATE lets get nasty song and it’s 10:30 long

“Crush” by the Dave Matthews Band

… bass is the sexiest instrument and this song uses it to the fullest with lyrics screaming of sex & friendship

as soon as this hits all i can think about is a smoky jazz bar and

“How Soon is Now?” by the Smiths

… electric guitar riffs that recall spasmodic body reaction with a calming voice that lets you know its all right in the palm of yo hand

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.

“Canary In A Coal Mine” by the Police

… the police always rock and this bad boy screams of ska/funk/pop love

“Groove Is In The Heart” by Deelite

… it has to be the version with the q-tip rap or no go!

“Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest w/ Leaders of the New School

… whenever this song kicks everybody HAS to form the circle and jump

“Boricua Anthem” by Robi Rob

… both my salsa moves come out in full force when this jam hits along with a couple of freestyle & hip-hop moves

5. Name five songs you couldn’t ever do without.

“(Pride) In the Name of Love” by U2

… best song EVER from the ONE band i can’t live without

“Jeremy” by Pearl Jam

… this song and video would probably never get on the radio now. vedder’s demon cry in the video rocks which, by the way, is the best video ever.

“Numbers” by Kraftwerk

… there wouldn’t be a hip-hop without this electronica classic that afirka bambaata used to make a number of hits and taught all future producers to look far and wide for samples

“Rebel Without A Pause” by Public Enemy

… what hip-hop should always try to be

“Pedro Navaja” by Ruben Blades

… a look in the day of the common thief from the master salsa story teller

…so take off all your clothes

What does it take to make the team at Bar13’s Finals? Endurance. The emotional output is bananas and you have to be ready to go at it 100% for all the rounds. Stumble, even a lil, and the judges will pick up on it and lower your score. Same holds true for the audience. You can feel them giving you their hopes and fears, waiting for you to validate their political convictions (or lack thereof) or to take them somewhere they can forget the world for a bit.

After all that, I am glad that some of the louderCREW was able to come out to Acentos. The night started slow which left me worried as to whether or not we could fill the Open Mic with enough voices. The Open Mic, as I’ve stated before, is the bread & butter of any reading series; the place where you best display what your audience wants and gets in regard to a poetic voice. My worries went unfounded as we were able to keep a nice mix of old and new voices in stage. Grisel, the night’s feature, rocked to the fullest, even as the mic stand was collapsing around her and the heat in the Blue Ox was getting worse and worse by the second.

The Ox is a pretty small spot and the heat of 40 or so audience members was enough to turn a pretty warm late spring night into a end of July swelter. Our only recourse was to open the door and let in some fresh air but then we were also letting in the sounds of the night into the bar and had our feature fighting off sirens and kids yelling outside. She was able to compensate and still came through like a pro but I was still worried about our, mostly, inexperienced Open Micers. I let the audience take a vote as to how we should proceed with the rest of the evening and they decided that they would deal with the heat in exchange for giving the poets a quieter environment to share… That’s my people!

Great feature and diverse Open Mic (still need more ladies, though) mixed with a lot of heat still equals a flat show and that’s a shame as I felt good throughout as host and was really trying to lay down a good show for a couple of first-time audience members. Still, I can’t control the lack of AC in the venue and was still satisfied with the show and the direction the series is taking. Next show should be a great one with Emanuel Xavier coming through after his HBO Def Poetry appearance.

Tonight is the last Semi-Final at 13 and this is going to be a tough one to call. When it’s all is said and done the results will be most interesting and I am going to end up processing all of the info to see what may or may not work for me next Slam season. The actual fact is that I may not be cut out for Slam. My work may be too internally focused and not give the audience that escape they may be looking for. The political question keeps coming up in my head. I just don’t want to write a political piece for Slam’s sake besides after reading Martín Espada’s “City of Coughing & Dead Radiators,” I see that there are some wonderful political pieces that focuses on the individual and their personal victories & defeats that can truly lay out the (he puts fingers in the air) political (fingers come down). All my ideas revolve around this simple concept but I am seeing how the Slam judges want to hear how the WHOLE world is fucked up, how the WHOLE system has to be brought down, how we are ALL responsible for it and only ALL of us can effect change—TOGETHER. I may be speaking from the bitter (probably) but that’s my take. Actually, what pisses me most off is this whole fixation on the past. I am so fucking sick of hearing about the stolen election, Andrew Jackson pulled off the same rip-off (check Gore Vidal’s “1876“) and the mighty patron saint of all Democrats, JFK, stole a couple of states himself on the road to martyrdom. Oh well, maybe I’ll just go off on a long rant about this forgotten history later and turn that into my Slam piece.

“love you like a fat kid love cake”

I Spy

To the left hand side, you will see quite a number of links to all kinds of different poetry stuff. The big thing, for me, is the list to the journals that are on-line. Everyone listed there is pretty much a daily check for me, as I love to see what other motherfuckers are thinking or at the very least writing. They vary in content and all are not related to poetry.

One of the new ones I started checking out is Morris Stegosaurus’ journal… “how you do in a poetry slam says as much about the quality of your poetry as how you do in Monopoly says about your financial acumen”… Yeah, that about sums that up.

Skybox View

Watching the next semifinal round unfold this past Monday, I was kinda glad that I was out of the mix. It was good to just enjoy the Slam for what it is and not worry so much about the results and who I might meet at the Finals and shit like that. Still glad that I competed at the first one since it gives me a completely different perspective as to what is going on up on the mic & what may or may not be going through the mind of the Slammers. Last year, I was still pretty much an unknown quantity and it was easy enough to watch the drama unfold and be in slight amazement as to what’s going on and also be a little disappointed at the choice some of my more favorite poets made and wondering why some people that I didn’t like made it into the Finals.

It’s all still in the hand of five random judges and they are always the x-factor and they hit hard when Lynne did ‘Rakim’ in the second round. It was the right poem to do as the judges were, again, swinging wildly toward the political and ‘Rakim’ has all the elements that should have scored well based on what the judges previous score. It didn’t and I have no idea why. I’ve seen Lynne do this poem about 12 times in every possible setting (Slam/Rehearsal/Jammin’/Collaborated) and this was a very good rendition of the poem. The judges scored it low anyway… why? That’s the x-factor and why we can never take this shit too seriously. The reast of the Slam progressed in normal fashion, the judges picked their favorites early and those folks, as seasoned competitors, never let go and kept giving the judges what they wanted. The battle was in the middle as Mara Jebsen & Lynne ended up tied for third going into the last round. Both brought their a-game and Lynne took out Mara by a real small margin.

The dark horse in this race, my friend Ray, couldn’t capitalize on his good draw and ended up in the last place. His first piece, which is usually pretty hard-hitting, came out a bit flat and he never recovered. He still left the night impressing his peers as opposed to the judges and that is pretty good. A victory is better but what the hey… live & learn.

Saturday was a crazy day as I checked out Jayme & Mahina Movement over at the Brecht Forum at a fund raiser that is going to send LBGT youth to a conference in the Philippines. A great night with Regie Cabico rockin’ out with his cock out (not literally, must clarify when talkin’ about Regie). Even got a chance to chat with Reg about the Slam right before the event got going and he shared his views on busting out the golden oldies and his thoughts on the whole angle of the Slam. A good talk and one of the great things about being in the scene—that chance to talk to people away from the mic and all that other jazz.

The actual reading was dope but it ran long and then they had the Open Mic at a real late hour and that shit is very unwise. The angry for anger’s sake poet hit the mic & then some dude ran a marathon “no…/no…./yes!…” poem. Exit stage left, now!

Sunday was a beautiful Easter day that ended in a workshop facilitated by your truly. It was a last minute thing and I was lucky enough to be prepared for the task and had a good lesson plan already worked out in my head. Afterwards, my workshop crew and I hit Westside Rhyme for a less than energetic outing. Oh well, shit happens and not every show can be a winner. More on that laster with the Acentos report.

Pulling a “45”

The optimism I had in regard to my showing last Monday has been tempered somewhat by the actual scores that emerged from the night. I didn’t realize how far I was slipping in the judges scorecards and my dynamic, gut-wrenching rendition of my final poem only generated a so-so score as opposed to the amazing score I had alluded to. Just throwing this out so it can be part of the actual record. I don’t want to be looking back at this journal and seeing some historically incorrect entries.

I am still happy with my performance both the good and bad of it. Which is kinda rare for me, at this point of the game I should be deflating myself and going over all the negatives but I accomplished what I wanted to—making the Semis. The experience is crazy and there is no way that it could be duplicated under any other conditions and while I had a tough match I am truly happy that I was able to put my poems to the test.

The optimistic viewpoint is that I will continue developing as a writer and have enough poems in my arsenal to be able to rock out in a future slam. Which is leading to the semi-retirement of both “Mercy on the Battlefield” and “Ceviche” poems. Unless, I have a feature, I don’t see myself using either any time soon. Time to put “Canto” & “Capicú” to the test at different open mics and not just be the guy that does the Salsa poem. Hope I can live up to this claim. Don’t want to be pulling a Jordan and retiring and unretiring all the time.

Another residual positive is some of the really constructive advice I have been getting in regard to my stage persona. I’ve received a few tips, here and there, and I do believe I will be putting them to the test.

Two new poems got birthed today and I’m going to flesh them out lovely to see how well they work into the scenario. (Tentaive titles- “Love Poem Request” & “Corner Shouts”) All this is coming from the two workshops I’m taking. Looking at my work SO differently now. One of my exercises revolves around copying someone’s style as your own. I could go the easy way and do a Baca poem, especially since “Canto” is kinds my attempt to do a JSB style poem but I think I may look elsewhere for some inspiration. Maybe Tony Medina or some other more socially conscious writer. Hey, I know who! I’ll go over Martin Espada’s book and see what I can grab. Either would do but I’m feeling Espada just a but more. You never know, I could get my ever elusive “Political Poem” out of this.

For something different, check out Elmore Leonard’s “Cuba Libre.” It’s just a plain novel but sometimes that’s good. Too much poetry will catch up to you after a while.