the weekend
friday: no poetry! instead, i had a nice dinner at my sister’s , ate paella and backed ziti, watched the knicks retire ewing’s jersey and hung with the fam. who got mad at me because they found out i have been on some local cable stations doing, what else, poetry at a local reading. i would let them know when it’s on but it’s a pretty bad performance (i didn’t know they were taping this to air) of one poem and then ‘mercy on the battlefield’ thank god for that poem.
saturday: yes poetry! shot over to a music gig ray was doing down in crook.lyn. met up with seve and his boy chris (who owns a fire engine, two state trooper cycles, can make bombs and used to own an ambulance! and meanwhile, brown people everywhere get stopped just for winding their watches) at the spot we met up with lynne, elana, sabrina, syreeta and were joined by mara.
the music was good but ray only played on two pieces. what’s up wit dat? hakuma matata, as we brought a fifth of j.d. and enjoyed it with some coca-cola that we had to travel deep into the ghetto to get.
afterwards, we hit a local bar, overtook their jukebox and got crunk for the rest of the night.
line of the night: as we are partying, a group of caucasians shoots us a dirty look like if dancing and singing in a bar is inappropriate behavior. i say. “the white people are mad because we are showing people how to get their groove on.”
mara then jumps in, “too bad! cuz that’s my job!” of course, mara is white with the soul of a blueswoman which makes this joke extremely funny. trust me. we cavaliered till 2 in the am and then the ride home had a TON of off-color jokes that involved sean connery, astroglide, horse carriages, alex trebeck, dildoes, asians, unicorns, the ghetto, frank sinatra, being single, honesty, toilets and blondes. ya had to be there.
sunday: hosted the youth slam, went to the blue ox, had a convo with the owner, took ed garcia home, had some drinks, saw the simpsons, talked about staging national competitions in nyc, hit a local bar, talked about a latino writers workshop, more drinks and then started plotting on making CDs for this bar that had god-awful music and from this there will be a poem for sure that should have been written a while back.
monday: memorized a new poem, ‘el ultimo canto’ which is the first poem i have been in love with for a long, long time. i am slamming tonight which means i will be very happy tomorrow or will question why i ever picked up a pen. the last slam where i had high hopes ended with the death of a journal and some severe depression. add the fact that ed, lynne and ray are sure to slam and i am living dangerously.