“I watch the ripples change their size”
checked out another pepatian show at BAAD. this was my first time at BAAD and the space was dope… straight out of some movie… its in a loft office space warehouse building and its the first thing you hit when you get to the second floor. candles, pictures, statues… all very santero… then you had the dance studio area with a big structure pole in the middle that had all the circuit breakers hooked up to it. the saeting area was this bunch of wooden coaches piled up on tope of each other bleacher style… so f’ing ghetto and thats what makes it all good.
the show itself was very interesting in that they did everything in a shock tv type format… lights off… performer… lights off… performer… no intros and almost no set up from the actual artists… a very cool way to see how good your work is… my mind set has alwasy been this: if you need three minutes to introduce a four minute poem– you wrote it bad… so i really dug the whole flash-in/flash-out format
i wont comment on what i didnt like and just focus on the poets.. which were excellent… the 2 one-woman shows were off-da-hizzy with a great combination of drama and dance… the exerpt of ‘positive women’ (a play of latinas living with AIDS) was great… carlos rice-gonzalez read an exerpt of his fiction with a dancer interperting his words– that shit rocked! and let carlos concentrate on just reading as opposed to the performance he tried to sneak at pregones… gane gabriel is an amazing singer… wanda is both a fabulous artist and a damn funny sketch comedian.. and i may have found another feature for acentos… handed out flyers, of course, made some new friends and may have found a musician to help with synonymUS… that is a damn fine night of entertainment
guy was one of the readers and it was great seeing him outside of 13… especially with his departure from the louderARTS project. interesting times indeed in the future which has suddenly become a bigger part of my thought process… when i was first asked to join the collective and be co-slammaster, eric & fish both asked the same thing “will you be hosting 13?”… “hell no!” was my answer and not because i dont love mondays (i do) its just that my brief hosting stints at synonymUS and some other events let me know that it is hard work being up there… co-hosting ONCE at 13 and acentos have also let me know that it is physically draining at times… now, here i am, a year and a half after walking in the door and a big part of the process that makes louder happen… so weird… last monday, for a minute, i was chillin with j’ai, youlanda and jayme on the couch and was so happy to just be the audience… back to the present and i dont fully understand all the reasons guy has decided to walk away but i do know he has a family and as much as 13 is like a family there is no substitute for the real thing… one day i may write this long ass post as to the fact that guy was the person that helped me take my first steps on the mic and encouraged me to keep coming back… that, to me, is what mondays is all about… the slam will determine who are the best performers… workshops will help the better writers emerge… but the open mic is where people can go and make a statement… they can fail… they can be who they never thought they could be… but they have that chance and that shot… and thats what it should always be about… thats how i started and its something that i wont ever forget
speaking of mics… tonight is poetically incorrect at cornelias… it is a miserable saturday and a holiday weekend… hope they get a good crowd… i know i’ll be paying my eight bucks…i’ll also try a new poem and see what happens… more on that latah
had to miss some events this week… first was poetry hill, a new open mic that chance has a hand in… really feel bad about missing that one but louder business called… then i missed a meeting with the freshstart program, the group that lets me and fish teach at rikers… fish said the meeting was an exercise in repetition, so i guess i’m glad i missed that becuase ihate when mofos go in circles for meetings… also missed my first class with the fellas at rikers… wonder if they missed the class too… fish says this goes on till the middle of july and i wouldnt mind doing all the classes till then… would also be nice if someone could lend a hand and see if they like working with the fellas… when i first volunteered for this program i had some residual regret… other louder stuff was piling up and i thought that this wasnt as important but now i’m glad i did volunteer as this, along with the reading i did at the elderly home, are what i really use to prove that i can wear the title of poet