“Don’t care if it’s Chinatown or on Riverside”

Poetically Incorrect had a good turnout this Saturday. Not as packed as I’ve seen it before but pretty good considering the holiday weekend and lousy weather. Debuted a new poem. The crowd reaction was positive even though my voice cracked halfway through.

The nervous jitters are a bitch! On one hand, there are many people that tell me they still get the jitters and I am talking about mofos that have been doing this for five plus years. They claim that when they don’t get the jitters there performance is off and therefore they look forward to that sinking in the stomach feeling. I can relate. When I started to hear the nervousness come out in my voice I upped the volume and added some intensity to make the PeterBrady in my voice. Looks like it worked and coming off stage towards the end of the poem seemed to have worked as well.

The other hand says that anytime you feel like you are about to fall out of a plane with no parachute is BAD. Only thrill seekers with nothing better to do should be in the position that you are in! Running is a perfectly acceptable option and isn’t it the better part of valor and isn’t *that* poetic.

The Open Mic was similar to Acentos’ (we share many of the same regulars) and Henry even gave us a free plug when he was on-stage. {Brief Aside— After Chance outros Henry he re-mentions Acentos and then drops my name as host. Mild applause follows, so I yell out “Clap muthafuckas!” Which makes everyone turn around to notice that I snuck in right as Henry was on-stage! “Clap! You didn’t think I was here did ya? Clap!”) The features were all good. RAC did here entire set while holding baby Holden in her arms! Rob Neil got to go over his set that he is going to drop in Friday at the Nuyo. If he wins, he goes to Nationals but he has to beat the Hebrew Mamita and she has some distinct homefield advantage. Babtunde is this new cat hailing from Nigeria but living in NYC for seven years. His poetry is a diamond in the rough in that he makes a few too many cultural references for my taste but his work has a great narrative feel to it and he sounds like he firmly believes in his politics. Ras is the host of an Arab-American poetry series at Cornelia and his work was brief but strong. Nathan P hosts the Wednesday Slam at the Nuyo and he runs the mic like if its his 80lb little brother. So natural and confident, his work is good even though I am not a fan of rhyming couplets.

I was talking to Rich and Maria afterwards and they invited me to hang. No prob. Youlanda joined our goup and then we trekked all the way to the other side Manhattan to check out “Raising Victor Vargas.” Caught some Thai food at Kai-Kais met Rich’s friend Nikki(sp?) and then casually strolled into the theatre about 10 minutes late. Hey, it’s an independent film about young Latino. How packed could it be? Very! I though we walked into X2 and had to catch seats in the fifth row. The film was a tight story, only lost me for a second and the performances were all very genuine as was the dialogue. As the film ends and the credits roll I start commenting when the star of the movie, Victor Rausk, pops out of the aisle and says that the Q&A will start as soon as the lights go on. Holy Shit! “I am coming her for the next Salma Hayek film!” is all I can say. No wonder the palce was so packed. The Q&A was pretty good with only a few dumb moments which is pretty rare. The dumb moments were “I am an actor, like you…” No dude, he was just on the screen in a critically acclaimed film. You are still hustling. “What pool did you use for that scene?” Huh? What does that have to do with the process? Another trek back across Houston for some slammin(!) ice cream capped off the night.

Only in New York…

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