Oh, yeah!

I've tweaked loudpoet.com somewhat over the past couple of weeks, among other things, improving navigation between it and this journal - check it out over on the right. I'm still too lazy to figure out how to post this thing directly into my web site and kind of like the blogspot address.

I've also added some new content to the words section, primarily essays, including my review of It's A Wonderful Life that originally appeared in my zine, zuzu's petals. In short stories, a life in progress is the first chapter of the never-completed novelization of the ill-fated screenplay that drew me into the slams at the Nuyorican back in the day.

Still recovering from a long weekend...

-> My new favorite song: Harder to Breathe, Maroon 5. Also, I bought the Nappy Roots' new CD, Wooden Leather, and, after the first listen, it sounds like another winner.

-> Taylor's Teacher, Teacher was a lot of fun. A little unfocused and uneven in its tone but I think it stakes out interesting ground for him and has a lot of potential. Not as self-indulgent as some other one-person shows I've seen and has a couple of really powerful moments. He's got rights-of first-refusal on further commentary.

-> Kids and pictures are a tough combination. We went to Picture People yesterday to get Isaac and India's birthday pictures taken - she turns 1 on Saturday; Isaac, 3 on 10/24 - and between Isaac's reluctance to smile (must get that from me) and India's refusal to sit still, it was a crazy experience. Salomé and I jumping up and down behind the camera trying to get their attention, yelling and waving props and generally acting like fools. The things you do for your kids! Ended up with great pictures of Isaac and the two of them together but India's solo shots weren't so good.

-> When growth is the goal, change is inevitable. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. PSI needs to decide whether they have to shit, pee or just fart, and then do so or get off the pot. It might help for them to realize that their continued existence has little bearing on the future of poetry and focus on the one thing they can influence and nurture: the slam COMMUNITY.

-> Brooks Bollinger. Paging Brooks Bollinger. I mean, really. Why the hell not?

It's felt like an unusually long week and I'm tired as hell. Might have something to do with letting myself get dragged back onto the poetry_slam listserve yet again! Grrrrr...

Went to Urbana last night for Cristin's surprise tribute and send-off to Australia for her six-week trip. Hadn't been there in a while and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I lost count of how many of us read but we took over the open mic and each chose a poem of Cristin's to share - except for Orion who did his usual whacked-out Orion thing. I read Mother, my all-time favorite of Cristin's. Cristin was alternately blushing, laughing her ass off and hanging her head in shame as we covered everything from Hard Bargain to Funny Poetry Isn't Poetry? George McKibbens is a trip and Regie Cabico...well, Regie is Regie!

I was conflicted earlier in the day when I found out there was a Neruda tribute happening at the same time in midtown at the CUNY-Graduate Center for only $5! I kept flip-flopping on whether I'd ditch Urbana (especially since I had no interest in the features or the slam) to catch it. I stuck with Cristin in the end and was glad I did as I had a good time and bumped into Ed (who had the same Neruda conflict) and Eric. Eric and I bailed when the open mic ended and wandered over to the dive bar on 7th Street where I'd hung out with Phil West a couple of weeks ago. We killed off two pitchers of Magic Hat #9, plus a couple of mugs, and talked shit like we hadn't in a long time. It was particularly refreshing that the majority of our conversation had nothing to do with poetry or the scene in general.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Acentos had one of their best shows yet, both in terms of turnout (yay, Sarah Lawrence!) and content. Jorge Monterosa was quite impressive, delivering 16 tight, well-crafted poems - 15 of them on page - that had the audience in sheer rapture. The kid was good, plain and simple. After the show, the Acentos Cabal got together to talk and make some plans that I think are going to make this next year extremely exciting. I feel like I did back in the early days of a little bit louder, when it was all about developing and community and sincerity and making a difference. I like that feeling.

Going to catch Taylor's Teacher, Teacher performance tomorrow which will make this one of the fulllest weeks of poetry I've had in a long time. Throw in my trip to Oneonta from last week and I'm beat!

Thought for the day:

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change.
-Frank Lloyd Wright

I have something of a reputation for being both stubborn and contentious.

While it's true that I will debate most anything with a passion - no matter how right or wrong I may be - just for the hell of it, I will only fight for the things I truly believe in. Contrary to popular belief, however, it is not impossible to change my mind on something I believe in, but it is most certainly a difficult, sometimes daunting task.

Rightfully so, I think.

If you truly believe in something, I believe you should be willing to fight for it. I would expect no less from anyone else and have no respect for anything less.

This isn't because I don't respect other people's opinions or think that I know everything or that I'm always right. It's because I hate wishy-washiness. I hate passive-aggressiveness. I hate indecision.

You may have to take me to the mat to get me on your side but, if you succeed, it will be because your own passion was strong enough to make me consider your take on things. Accomplish that and you not only win my respect, you gain a tenacious ally who will go to the mat for you.

Otherwise, if you come at me with faulty logic or disingenuous arguments, I will eat you alive. As my toughest nemesis once said about himself, "I am formidable and relentless."

Now THAT was some arrogant shit! And words to live by.

PS: The guestbook is working again.

Tonight is Acentos and the cluttered attic that is my brain has been toying with an idea that Rich Villar mentioned last month, a couple of weeks after their show with Louis Reyes Rivera.

When I heard they had a disappointing turnout for it - including my stupid hungover ass among the missing! - I was extremely surprised. Not even the scenesters made the short hike to the Bronx for what was, by all accounts, an amazing experience. At the following Acentos, Rich and I talked about it and some interesting ideas he was considering.

In a seemingly unrelated moment, while preparing for the Oneonta show last week, I was putting together a list of poetry resources for the audience and was dismayed to realize that I had nothing representing Latinos! Spent a while on Google looking for an equivalent to the Asian American Writer's Workshop or Cave Canem and came up empty.

Nada!

All of this got me thinking about the significant gap that exists between the generation of poets that founded the Nuyorican Poets Café back in the '70s and my own generation of relatively unpolished but well-intentioned newcomers, echoing the concerns Rich had raised a few weeks earlier.

In my mind, the Café no longer represents what it did back in its early days, having morphed into a multi-cultural tourist attraction promoting starry-eyed wannabes with no real understanding or appreciation of what came before them, like some bizarre version of the American Idol auditions. Not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself but, reading Aloud and renting Piñero just isn't enough to call yourself a poet, much less a Nuyorican!

Rich and I, along with Fish and Oscar are going to brainstorm to figure out ways to address this problem. Oscar's already suggested convening a barbeque-summit which I think is a great idea! Stay tuned.

PS: During my search, I did come across an interesting magazine I'd never heard of before, US Latino Review, but I can't tell if they're still publishing as it doesn't seem to have been updated since last year and I can't find ANY information on the Hispanic Dialogue Press, its non-profit publisher. Going to try a find a copy at the bookstore today at lunch and see if there's any info in it.

Also, today I came across a pretty good list of writers at lasculturas.com and links to relevant sites.