What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time

last time, when our boy decided to blog about his continuing adventures, he decided to drop a random quote he found in martín espada’s excellent book of essays “Zapata’s Disciple

since then i have quite the good times at home and at work. home is now a much larger space than i have ever been used to. and with great space, comes great responsibility and a fly ass tool box! for reals, y’all, i have never used a power drill so much in my life but i still refuse to allow it to define me… yeah right! i would be dead in the water without me trusty black & decker. i have also stayed busy in the kitchen and even dabbling in a lil gardening. all this has kept me damn happy and busy.

meanwhile, at the nine-to-five, i have adjusted to my surroundings in record time and a frequent comment is “you only been here for two months??” yeah, it feels like i have always been at this space which has quite its own history and i am happy to be a part of the new history that is generating from this space. to stay true to the spirit of the blog, i am NOT going to be bitchin when work is rough or dropping chinche when people piss me off or any of that other trivial shit that do make its way into some blogs but, i hope, this blog stays clear of. to echo the sentiment of the last paragraph, i am both challenged and content at my new desk.

wedding plans are in the fullest of effect with most of the details falling together lovingly in place. this too is keeping me busy and happy. wedding cake tasting (equals) yum!

all this leaves little room for the poem and my place in poem. privately, i have been talking a lot about theory, poetics and community but all theory and no practice makes oscar nuthing more than just another commentator. i recently dropped some poems on an open mic in SF during anthem salgado’s excellent set. this is the first time i have been in front of a mic in months and, seriously, i sucked. my voice cracked like three times, my delivery was slow paced and the emotion felt forced. maybe this has something to do with the (over)exuberant energy on the open mic, or, most likely, just with the fact that i am not as comfortable on the mic as i used to be. this, into and unto itself, is not a bad thing.

one of the great liberations of leaving new york was the fact that i could discard the OB persona and focus on just being oscar. the freedom of being able to share poems without any reputation preceding them was the biggest factor that sent me out to find the open mic and landed me in the community i called home for almost five years. the five year anniversary of being on the mic has come and gone sans fanfare which is all kinds of cool but i am still stuck in a place where i need outside stimulus to keep the writing going something i didnt need five years ago. well, maybe thats where i have to get back to. today sounds like a good day to start.

the artist formerly knows as ob.

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6 Comments

  1. I have to tell you: New York doesn’t seem the same in my mind without you in it.

    Miss you, bro!

  2. that may be true. but you what that means, right?
    .
    ..

    when ya comin to oaktown, scott?
    i got a pot of homemade chile & cornbread with ytour name all over it!

  3. I imagine I’ll only ever be that way through professional invitation, so if you hear of anything…

  4. truth be told, i have been to maybe five poetry events in the last six months. but you know that if i hear of something, i will let you know with the quickness.

  5. um, no, i don’t think you *sucked* at the open mic. i think you sounded like you hadn’t read in a while, and that you’d hardly read on this side of the country before.

    that is totally different from sucking.

    my 2 cents.

  6. thanks for the real deal on my reading. kinda hard to really judge when you are on one side of the mic; so when in doubt, i take the hard negative stand on myself. probably cuz i hear of so many readings where the poet is always on point and the audience is off.

    rollin wit ya,
    oscar

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