I think I have officially crossed the line and become completely jaded about poetry slam. I've never been so bored at an event as I was at last night's Urbana Finals. Not that it was a terrible show, mind you. It just didn't have the energy of a FINALS! The host, John S. Hall, sucked the life from the room every time he took the stage and the long setup of the club itself means what ever energy is there dies halfway up the bar. (They had the same problem when they were at CB's Gallery across the street.) The most fun was four of us in the back predicting the scores for each poet and just generally hating on everything. Fish won the pool, getting three out of four team members and the alternate correct. Best line of the night, not in a poem but from someone IN the slam: "I'd rather be watching a pay-per-view abortion."

Overall, I was surprisingly disinterested in the proceedings. So much so, I couldn't even drink! Two beers and it was on to Ginger Ale. No one blew me away either. It was a bunch of the same ole, same ole, even from the people I like. The lack of time limits didn't help either with two of the ironically named PostMidnight's poems approaching 7 minutes and several of the others testing the audience's patience as well! RAC did her thing but her lack of range and odd choice of third round piece made it easy to categorize her as the angry woman poet. Cristin was Cristin and I was disappointed she didn't drop her Mother piece in the midst of all the angst the others were bringing, choosing to stick with more full-steam ahead humor. Celena was in the zone, making it look effortless, something she'll even admit to at times. Giving less effort, I mean. Julian Curry actually surprised me. I didn't love his work but there's more to it than first glance would suggest. Dawn and George were probably my favorites of the night, which of course means they both got bumped after the second round! Shawn Randall narrowly beat them out and did his freestyle thing in the third round to nail his spot on the team.

And there lies the problem. I had assumed he would drop out of our Finals if he made Urbana's team, letting Ishle or Mara step up in his place but he seems to be on the fence about it. I told him to sleep on it and we'd talk later so everything's on hold at this moment for finalizing our lineup for the 12th. As it stands right now, though, Urbana has not just its first ever black male on the team, it's got three of them, plus Celena! No all black team has ever won Nationals and if Taylor Mali pulls THAT off, Marc Smith will permanently retire from slam!

I think I'm just getting too old for this shit.