Category Archives: Uncategorized

this monday! not only do you get to hear from the queen of new hotness- miss raina león but you also get to see TEAM ACENTOS (ob, fishdawg, profe & tata) hit the slam stage.

the devil is in the details…

louderMONDAYS
Monday, June 20th, 7:00 pm
Slam This!
featuring Raina León
plus the Open Mic & mini-feature Tim Cook

Catch this rare visit home from local favorite gone south to pursue (get this!) her PhD in education at the University of North Carolina, RAINA LEÓN! This spitfire Cave Canem fellow has been multiply published and widely admired for her craft and spirit – don’t miss out!
PLUS a mini-feature all the way from the birthplace of slam, one of Chicago’s favorite wordsmiths, TIM COOK!
PLUS an exhibition team slam featuring: Team louderARTS, Team Acentos, Team Boston/Lizard Lounge & a “Special Edition” Team!
AND of course, NYC’s best open mic.

Open Mic & Slam sign-up @ 7pm sharp!
13 Bar Lounge
35 East 13th Street @ University Place 2nd Floor New York, NY 10003 * 212.979.6677 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, W to 14th Street  Union Square
$5  $4 students
2 for 1 drinks  

rumor also has it that raina will be featuring in NYC over the weekend as well…

Lumimuma on Sunday, June 19th at 519 West 36th Street between 10th and 11th in NYC. The reading is in celebration of the summer solstice. It’s $20 at the door or $15 in advance. For more information you can call 212 633-1979. Just going to be a beautiful event.

Bonchiche News Network- signin’ off…

seems i do a pretty good job of updatin ye ole blog spot (includin the new ob.photogenic section- thank ya much flickr.com)
EXCEPT for the ob.currently section which is hella old (note that i am still anticipatin Sin City)
with that said, here is the new hotness version of the currently

READING: i just got done with the truly excellent Random Family : Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
if you ever wanted to know about livin in the hoodrat section of the boogie down from the start of the hip-hop generation to now, then this is it. all the stories, and are there a ton of stories, are authentic and complete. no preaching. no exploration in to how these people can change it all around. just the facts and the amazing will to live through what seems like a dead end existence. the only flaw is that it may just a bit too complete with a cast of hundreds (actually scores but ya get what i mean) and at one point, i actually thought about putting together a flow chart to keep track of everyone. that minute point aside– pick this book up if you want to know the real deal and not hollywood’s version of the bX.

i am re-reading Christopher Maurer’s intro to García Lorca’s The Collected Poems: A Bilingual Edition but am not so sure what to read next.

right now it’s a toss up between Miles and Caramelo… me thinks miles wins this battle

LISTENING: nope. not the new Coldplay CD. i think i may be over them. so we go a complete 180– Putumayo Presents: Music From the Chocolate Lands. that shit is rockin. cool easy music that speaks to me in a voice that feels as familiar as my first taste of scotch.

next on the rack is Mos Def’s The New Danger. this particular soundtrack has been #1 on the P Train’s chart for the last few weeks and looks like its gonna stay there for a minute. ray and rich also think that they can get me to actually sing (in public!) by using the same technique Mos uses on track 11 aka The Panties. we shall see…

ANTICIPATING: right this minute- Batman Begins. all indications say that this is the real deal. im getting good vibes from the regular press and (mos importantly) guy. please hay.zeuz, dont let them fuck this up. please…

the immediate future sees me anxious to get to nats. ‘burque still looks like they got all their eggs in the right baskets. i may get to host a bout or two and familia acentos will be almost all together.

and the edge of the horizon sees me chillin in some lounge with a tumbler of Glenlivet (neat, thank ya very much)

ROOTING: normally, it would be all about the yankees. fuck it! its STILL all about the yankees. the pennant will still be ours!

i am torn between the Spurs and the Pistons. both are great teams that really send the whole “we need a superstar” mentality to the curb (though Duncan is a superstar, its just since he has lil street cred cuz he focuses on b-ball rather than being the next NBA Idol) with a two game to none leads, lets say the Spurs in six.

STUDYING: what else- poetics! the form contest is goin on hard and strong over on pat’s blog and me thinks i have to seriously delve into the classic structures some more. i also have to get my metrics down. meter has never been my strong suit, if there is any of it in my work it is purely accidental.

on the double edged sword tip and the whole beginning-is-the-end shit i love so much, i am intensifying my Lorca studies (he does not describe the bat/he sees the bat in his writing) to not only help me find my poetic ritmo but to also brush up on the spanish and avoid further shame from la patria

PLUS! i hear it makes for excellent conversation over drinks… jus sayin

love ya like an ice cream sandwich on a sweaty sunday afternoon

un poquito tarde, pero aqui esta un articulo en univision sobre el festival de artistas en el bronx

Primer Festival de Artistas de El Bronx reconoce talento local

01 de Junio de 2005, 03:01pm ET

Nueva York, 1 jun (EFE).- El Primer Festival de Artistas de El Bronx comienza hoy con el propósito de honrar y dar a conocer el talento artístico de este condado, a través de presentaciones y muestras de artes visuales, teatro, cine, danza, música y poesía.

Organizado por el Consejo para las Artes de El Bronx, el festival celebra por cuatro días consecutivos el trabajo de los artistas reconocidos con los premios “Bronx Recognizes It’s Own” (Brio), o “El Bronx reconoce lo suyo”.

sigue

The reading last night at La Mama’s was off the hook. First off, I showed up late (I need to make a macro for that particular phrase) but todo bien as the reading went by poet time and started a bit late as well ;-)
(Note: You can have poet time and you can have CPT/latino time/etc but you should never have a combo of both)
Eliel was right by the front when I got there and hooked me up with a seat so all systems go.

How good was the reading? The AC was off almost the whole time, not a window or a fan in sight, and everybody stayed for the whole reading. Big ups to Kundiman for putting together a dope reading that was graciously MCed, well thought out and delivered the poetry in rapid fire succession.

None of this is rocket science, y’all. The formula for a successful reading event is right in your face and when you choose to stray the path— Don’t be surprised when people walk out at all the wrong time. Jus sayin.

The poets all delivered the goods with sets of newer work that cut straight to the point. Minimum commentary/Maximum poetry. Again, not rocket science.

Somewhere towards the last third of the reading, it felt like someone was cooking pies in the basement of mi abuela’s concina en Guayas. Actually, it felt like WE wuz the pies but no worries as the show kept rockin and rollin.

When the last poet did finish, I was off to the races and ready for some hydration. La Mama has a water cooler down by the entrance with free cups… I wouldn’t be surprised if all the profit they made went towards refilling the jug.

Afterwards– ¡Fiesta! I got to chill with Pat, Oliver de la Paz, Paolo Javier (who was a phenomenal host), Serena, Francis, Lara Stapelton, Jessica Nepomuceno O’Connell, Nicky Paraiso and Sarah Gambito (plus a few other folks whose names I don’t want to butcher up here). We ended up at a spot on Houston that had a full salsa band in effect (violin, trumpets, todo) there was Ginger Martinis, Mojitos and Coronas all over the place. Yours truly is saving himself for a couple of shots of Jameson for later this fall (Ding! The Hint Bell!) so I had to settle for a concoction of mango juice, seltzer, chopped mint and ginger that I dubbed the “Twist & Shout” since it looked like it packed a lot of alcohol and I have to maintain at least some illusion of machismo.

Casual Observer: What’s that?
ob: A Twist & Shout
CO: It looks strong.
ob: Ah, hell yeah! You should stick to drinking your SoCo and lime.

Good fun all around with me passing on some heckling lessons, talking to Pat & Oliver about maintaining the dome– Out there are a couple of pics of me, Pat & Oliver trying to vie for the Savalas award. Followed by dancing at Bob’s where everyone seems to have done something they regret there (meself included).

I am happy to report that my knees survived my attempts to reclaim the 80s and that Full Force’s “Aint My Type Of Hype” is, truly, the hotness.

A fun night that was almost perfect ‘cept for the absence of a certain Ms. Reyes who was sorely missed.

Love ya like West Coast Poppin’ loves Rerun!

Victor Delgado, Bronx poeta and frequent reader at Acentos & First Wednesdays, passed away on Monday. Victor was over seventy years old and had already survived two strokes but found a way to make it to Acentos as often as he could. He even made it through a flash snow storm that came out of nowhere this last February and got on the mic to read a poem.

He may have read two. Actually, he probably did read two. Victor was infamous for sneaking in one extra poem. I’ve seen him rock a couple of mini-features at First Wednesdays and, more than once, I would have to (cough) remind (cough) the folks at Acentos that it was only one poem per night after Victor would make the most of his mic time.

This would be the time to say that he is probably in a better place and all that, but I’ve never been one to rock that speech. I think life, in all its fucked.up.edness, is a great thing and everything else has got to rate second. From a purely selfish standpoint, Ima say that I’m going to miss Victor like mad dog. I remember meeting him at a reading in Spanish Harlem (yeah, he got around) and telling him about a new series that was gonna start in the Bronx and he was excited from jump street. He read at the very first Acentos and, a few readings later, I found out he lived just a few blocks from my old job and offered him a car ride down. At that Acentos, he dropped a poem about kicking it to the model on a Corona poster and earned the nickname “the gangster of love.” It didn’t last though; he was just Victor and kept coming to Acentos until another stroke kept him away for a few months. But as soon as he could, he was right back in the mix.

He also was one of the stalwarts that made the trek to the Bruckner Bar & Grill for the “displaced nation” edition of Acentos. He read two poems that night too. ;-)

Victor may not go down in the canon as a major player in the Nuyorican movement but he will always be a poeta that earned the love and respect of Acentos. Anytime somebody tries to rock more than one poem, I’m gonna body tackle them off that mic cuz only one person can lay claim to that… Victor, Ima miss you.