Beat Me in St. Louis: A Journey Through the Worst National Poetry Slam Ever, As Revealed In Livejournal Entries
Wednesday, August 4, 12:21 am
Journal Entry Title: St. Louis, Day Zero
So far, I have seen/felt/heard/experienced:
* 89 degree heat, plus 140 degree humidity, in Busch Stadium watching the Cardinals play in front of thousands of sweaty fans, pretty much all wearing red.
* Free Metro Link rides. I think you're supposed to pay, but we couldn't get the machine at the airport to take our money, and no one seems to be monitoring. So, okay, thanks for the free rides.
* Dinner at Show-Me's, which is the St. Louis version of Hooters. This sounds bad, but we actually had a good time, because Alvin Lau was with us ordering a drink so totally gay (with Malibu spiced rum, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice) that I had to dub it "the studded leather thong of drinks." We later got into a conversation with the waitress about the mixological content of a drink called the Red-Headed Slut. Apparently, this exists, and this led to a hilarious exchange which managed to embarrass both the Show-Me waitresses and Big Poppa E. Which is good.
* There's a freaky poet who's a perennial rep for Arkansas at the College Nationals named Russell, with multiple face piercings. He met a woman named Lacy in Oklahoma City, who can swallow her own tongue. She demonstrates, often, to whoever will ask. Mike's film crew got it on tape, and got her to sign the release pronto. You know, just typical weirdness at Nationals, but here's the kicker -- they HITCHHIKED to St. Louis from Oklahoma. People picked them up. In their cars.
So far, I've kept the Scrabble to poetry ratio to a fine balance. As in, lots of Scrabble, and no poetry yet. Skipped the smooth jazz open mike -- apparently a good move from all accounts.
More later.
Wednesday, August 4, 7:38 am
Journal Title Entry: Forgot the Best Anedcote of Nationals So Far
So, we're at the ballgame, and Adriana goes to the bathroom, where she runs into a woman who says, I kid you not, "Your skin is so amazing -- how did you get so tan?" When Adri replied that she's naturally that way, the woman responds ... "Wow ... you don't look black."
I predict la raza poetry is not going to do so well here this week.
Thursday, August 5, 3:21 am
St. Louis, Day One
Worst. Nationals. Ever.
That, and I miss my family.
Thursday, August 5, 8:19 am
Journal Title Entry: Furious Invective, Go!
So, I'm typing this from the Hampton Inn's business center, because my team took our room's computer chair across the hall last night, and are dead to the world, as I should be right now. My hangover is hideous and well-deserved, and I didn't really drink that much at all last night, which only leads me to conclude that I'm sick from what might be the worst Nationals ever. Worse than Connecticut. Worse than Seattle. Allow me to elaborate.
I hosted a bout and coached a bout last night. The bout I hosted started 45 minutes late because the sound guys failed to show up to assemble the microphones until 8:35, when I think they were supposed to be there at, oh, around seven. We had to use two volunteers as judges and beg three reluctant audience members (part of entourages) to judge as well. As it turns out, we were lucky in that we had people we could ask. I'm not sure if there was a single paying customer from the outside world in the venue when we started. We got the bout in at 65 minutes, which is lightning quick for 16 poets, and Deb Marsh thanked me by challenging our math and delaying us another ten minutes after the bout, when I was thinking, oh my God, our bout is the only one that's late, and I have to get to my team down the street, and oh my God, I hope they don't start without me. Turns out, of course, that my math was fucking perfect, and she wrote scores down wrong. I also had Logic from their team challenging the scores. Guess what? Your team got a 5? How do ya like my deductive reasoning now, Logic? *busts a kung fu move*
So, I get to my bout, and it's ... an intimate audience. As in, the teams. And the entourages. And about three poet-affiliated people. For a bout featuring two perennial finalist teams. It took 45 minutes for us to dredge up the judges we needed, including the owner of the club (who had to be deliriously happy with what was going on) and one of the Slammasters from Random, Indiana.
In all, here's a quick rundown of other highlights:
* After being told that venues would be 18 and over no-problem, the doorman at Fat Tuesday (and yes, indeed, it is part of the frozen daiquiri bar chain) wouldn't let Adri into coach Houston because she's 20, and after much begging, their 19-year-old poet was only let in to perform. The "stage" was actually an unlit patch of floor at the front of the club. Adri coached Houston to a 0.1 win sitting at the club's entryway next to the doorman.
* Jared Paul became NPS's first arrest because Providence decided it would be in good taste to help market NPS by doing their Abu Ghraib piece outside on a public street (site of opening ceremonies) at 2 pm, and his balls fell out of his loincloth (now there's a disturbing clause to type) and he got arrested for indecent exposure. Providence almost got kicked out of the tournament, but now, they're just on double secret probation. Gee, this isn't going to be make Jared Paul feel any more self-righteous or oppressed, will it?
* I asked Kevin McCameron, one of the organizers, "What is going on here? Where are all the people?" He just bewilderedly replied, "I don't know. I don't know."
* There was, to be fair, a tiny calendar mention in their entertainment section yesterday, and an article in their alt-weekly, tiny-but-grayboxed, written by a former slammer now living here. But it failed to get any audience out. I think maybe, if you count everyone who paid last night, in all the venues, you might have 50 paying people.
* Oh, and it's impossible to get to the late-night event unless you take a cab from the hotel ($10). Metro Link doesn't run that late, and it's not walking distance. Luckily, the LIVEJOURNAL READING tonight is at the hotel.
* Oh, and Austin got the 4 in their bout last night, so currently, our largely unrehearsed, just-glad-to-be-here team is above them in the rankings. 34 out of 69. Middle of the pack, third in our bout last night -- which, given our draw, is the best we could hope for.
I think I knew this was going to happen, and told people who refused to believe me, for two solid years. Though I feel like I can now do the I-told-you-so dance, I'd much rather do the hey-they-pulled-this-off dance.
Ugh.
Current Mood: Bad Nationals
Thursday, August 5, 5:19 pm
Journal Title Entry: The Bright Ray of Light
Nerd slam.
Oh. My. God.
I didn't even get to read (J. Bradley beat me in a livejournal trivia-off for a spot on the roster; how lame is that?), but Cristin's hosting was drop-dead funny, and there was community, and there was joy, and there was David Hendler against Paulie Lippman in an anagram-off, and then I had to leave early because I had to fix my computer through some weird place I found downtown at random. The U was falling off. It's better now.
Just waiting for the rest of the team members to get back to set strategy. My strategy tonight ... is for us to win. Brilliant, huh?
Friday, August 6, 1:46 am
Journal Title Entry: And Now, More on Travesty
First off, apologies to all expecting the Livejournal reading tonight -- postponed, not cancelled, we'll get it rescheduled as soon as everything blows over.
Believe me, many things are blowing right now.
My night went this way: team bout at Crazy Louie's, bar with a jaunty nautical theme, stage was small and looked more appropriate for puppets than poets. We took the 4, did some dice rolling in the second round which didn't work out, and by the end of the evening, all that was left was beating Corpus, after realizing that we probably couldn't get the 34 or so we needed in the final round.
I was ready to give PSI the benefit of the doubt though -- issues were getting addressed today from yesterday. Sound equipment was in the venues on times. More volunteers showed. Audience was still thin, but not anemic like yesterday's. It looked, early on, like the ship was getting righted.
Then, I bout managed at Fat Tuesday's on the Austin - Miami - Montclair - Norfolk - Salt Lake City bout, with Danny hosting. A Miami poet got kicked out by aggressive Fat Tuesday security staff at the start of the bout, there was some melee involving the poet (I think, still not sure) trying to rush the door three poems in. We had a ten-minute delay that started with the bouncers yelling that we were kicked out, and ended with us settling the place back down and letting poor Schuyler from Salt Lake (you know, the one we thought was dead last Slammasters) start over. We got our bout in. We even avoided a protest at the end, and the poet who raised the stink thought I needed a massage, and offered me a naked message. I am reasonably sure that she was just kidding, but I politely thanked her, and showed her my wedding ring to eliminate all doubt. Danny, predictably, God bless him, took the baton from me at that point. I hope it works out -- we worked our asses off to get that bout in as cleanly as we did.
But wait, it gets better.
For the first time in Nationals history (I believe), a bout didn't finish. Three poems from the end, in the middle of the leading team's third round poem, the DJ started spinning techno music, because the dance club wanted to honor its regular patrons (and thereby dis its out-of-town guests). There were rumors that the bout finished on the street, but indeed, it did not finish, and the result affects semis. Stay tuned, sports fans.
What's becoming markedly apparent in all this is that the relationships between the St. Louis organizers and club owners are not rock solid. I imagine there was a promise of a lot of money and excitement coming through these club's doors, which is not happening. The clubs are oriented toward drinking, and the poets are being regarded as a nuisance by the clubs and the hotel staff. As the mood gets uglier, I fear that the poets will act out at the hotel, and the hotel will start booting poets, and then we'll have a whole other layer of crisis on top of what we have now.
I don't imagine this will happen in Austin, since we'll have a much better core audience, much better relationships with the clubs, and much better relationships with the host hotels and the cities, but if we don't do something to cap teams at a managable number (and I think that's 64), PSI is in serious trouble. This can't continue this way -- something more grave than a bout not finishing will go down if we continue down this circus-y path.
I am utterly frightened at the prospect of a semis bout at Fat Tuesday. But, as Daniel Brewster told me tonight, with word about the fuckery of tonight going around (note: fuckery is my word), no other club is going to want to touch this.
On the bright spot, you can order a frozen Sex on the Beach at this club, if you so desire.
Beau Paul once proclaimed, "St. Louis is the only city that built a monument to getting the hell out of it."
I say: Westward Ho.
Current Mood: Horrified, Really
Friday, August 6, 5:31 pm
Journal Title Entry: It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better: The Group Piece Showcase
So, the group piece showcase at NPS this year was in something called the Art Lofts district on the edge of downtown, on something billed in our program as the Outdoor Mainstage. The Outdoor Mainstage turned out to be two microphones and a box in a courtyard off the sidewalk. To get us ready, we had to move the box (which only had room for two people to stand on) and get three mikes from the coffee place four blocks down the street, where the makeup bout from last night was held. (This is the bout that was shut down by Overzealous Techno DJ.)
But wait, it gets better.
So, a few poems into the group piece showcase, we hear sirens. And then fire engines and cops show up. Guess what? Hazardous materials situation. Hydrochloric acid spill about a block from where we're at. Apparently, we're fine -- as long as the wind doesn't shift. The reading continues, and it's going well -- the T.O.F.U. piece (Shane Koyczan/Mike McGee/CR Avery project) wrecks shop in particular. Helicopters appear. I notice that the local Fox station has sent a van over, which pulled right up to where we were doing the reading, so I quip to Mike, "Hey, we finally got the media out!" Sometimes, I crack me up.
In the meantime, the poets are swearing a-plenty, 'cause, you know, slam poets. About 2/3 of the way through, Daniel Brewster pulls me aside and says, "I don't know how to tell you this delicately," so I say, "Just tell me." Turns out a cop has told him to tell us to control the profanity, because there are parents picking up their kids. This mystifies me a bit, but I make an announcement to please be more PG. The poets, being a responsible lot, ignore the request.
Then, we figure out a few poems later what the hell he's talking about -- the courtyard is right next to, and I mean right next to, the Downtown Children's Center. We've had four hours of poems and rants and multiple f-bombs next to a daycare. Though Wicker Park had a piece near and dear to my heart, about the frustrations of growing up short, I missed part of it because a mustachioed, Tom of Finland cop who is probably not voting Kerry/Edwards in '04, dressed us down. "Those are little kids in there," he said emphatically. "Little kids." Mike said, non-plussed, "I heard you the first time," and again, I issued a request for PG mindfulness. Mike actually had to stop Andy and Kari from Vegas, up right after that second warning, blissfully unaware that their patently vulgar duet was not very PG. We ended with one other poem, despite Daniel's urging to have us pull the plug right then and there. Gee, that wouldn't have made things end on a sour note or anything.
Punchline: when we commented to Daniel on the lack of foresight evinced by putting an outdoor reading next to a daycare, his response was, "We weren't expecting the cops to show up. We didn't know there was going to be a chemical spill."
Really? I thought I'd seen "Chemical Spill Friday" in the NPS program.
By the way, more fuckery: there's a tie for 20th, so we're going to have a six-team bout tonight. Don't worry, fans of slam integrity: I'm already working on a play-in rule for a tie for the last semis slot for April.
Also, in other news, my committee's corporate sponsorship policy passed.
And: Livejournal reading will be 4-6 tomorrow. It'll be indoors, so you pottymouths can go to town.
Current mood: Hydrochloric Acid Exposure
Saturday, August 7, 10:13 am
Journal Title Entry: Firewood
Today's slam family meeting will possibly involve a sterling new issue on the table -- one of last night's indie finalists, Will Da Real One, only read one of the two preliminary nights. In fact, he was the poet who was kicked out of Fat Tuesday in the Thursday night debacle. The rumor is that a poet brought it up to one of the indie finals hosts before the bout, the host asked the poet, and the poet said, "Yeah, I spit on Thursday." So, I guess "Da Real One" is sort of a misnomer now. [Update: This rumor has since been refuted, but there still seems to be some kind of questions around communication of this information to the people who needed it. The bout officials didn't know that Will hadn't read Thursday until the third and final round of indie finals.]
Apparently, it was a data entering error from the tournament director that put him into the mix, and it was the departure from making sure every poet was represented once in a bout that allowed this to happen in the first place. As bout manager for that bout, I would have brought something up if I'd scanned the list for the indie finalists, but stuff was posted so late on Friday that I didn't get the chance to comb it -- I only checked to see that San Anto finished 45th in the nation. And I didn't really clue in to his presence on stage, because Hilary and Greg and I were having way too much fun, and, you know, vodka tonics.
Wow, it didn't take long for that innovation to bite PSI in the ass.
Hey, are those locusts I see in the sky?
Current Mood: Pre-Ritual Flaggelation
Saturday, August 7, 10:13 am
Journal Title Entry: Ow, My Life Hurts: Saturday Afternoon at Nationals
Just finished hosting the Little Reading That Could, aka the Livejournal/Blogger reading. Special thanks to all the participants: natawn84, hallawayjoe, karinotvery, fengi, poetryslam, loudgirl, auralfiend, dokuritsu, spentpenny, zadriana, jbradley, Bad Andy Neely, and neuraleyes for the use of his wireless laptop. I was thinking about doing an entry on the reading during the reading, but that would have been too dorky and too meta.
Slam family meeting was basically an evisceration of the St. Louis organizers, our corporate sponsorship committee election -- and with Jared Paul getting elected, this is a great opportunity for him to serve the community on an issue he clearly cares deeply about. I'll be watching his participation with interest.
The Miami indie finals situation went like this: tournament director explained and apologized, EC asked the committee to let them know if they see discrepancies, no one ever really demanded an explanation from Miami as to why they didn't say anything before Will actually got up on stage for indie finals. It can't be that they didn't realize he didn't read both Wednesday and Thursday. I know this for a fact. Also, later in the meeting, the person who initially got thrown out (starting the chain of events leading to Will getting thrown out) stood up to complain about how the bout officials handled it. Given that we nearly had a riot on our hands and diffused it, I find his perspective deeply unsatisfying.
But the focus of the meeting was on St. Louis. Michael and Kevin stayed to take the beating, Daniel wasn't there. Everything was covered, and I'm sure it had to be the worst couple of hours in Michael and Kevin's lives. It was horribly sad and excruciating.
Speaking of: only 45 tickets sold for the finals as of noon today. Let's just say I don't feel compelled to get there early to get good seats.
Current Mood: Sick of St. Louis
Sunday, August 8, 7:38 am
Journal Title Entry: Would Prefer a Transporter; A Plane Would Do
Nationals is over, except for the hotel checkout and the tearful goodbyes. I'm glad so many people managed to have a good time despite the monumental fuckups, but to me, that just underscores that this event is turning more and more into a navel-gazing, self-congratulatory, poetry summer camp. Poets should have an expectation that an audience will come to see them, but the overall package we're offering, with an increasing number of mediocre-at-best writers and performers not filtered out through a regionals system that would allow the hardest-working and most accomplished teams to be at a Nationals, gives little impetus to bring audience back night after night. And at the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Man, I'm sick of poets not being able to edit out their profanity when they find themselves on an outdoor stage in front of restaurants at Opening Ceremonies or at an outdoor stage which has been placed right next to a daycare center. Slam, at its core, is supposed to be about adjusting your performance of a poem to your situation to best suit it and to best reach the audience.
Also, if I hear anyone say they are "spitting" a poem one more time, I will throw up.
The absolute best thing about last night's finals was Team Normal's piece during the showcase. Not only was it cleverly written, and brilliantly meta, but it was creative and utterly innovative. It showed that there are other options despite the standard tropes so many of the poets are relying on. Finals, overall, was better than last year's: the hosting was crisper, and the poetry covered a wider range of the palette (though things skewed heavily toward X is Good/X is Bad, as opposed to the barrage of I Am A Real Poet poems that bloated last year's finals).
Hollywood won, opening with Rives doing "Deaf Poetry Slam," then doing two skit-like group pieces (one opened with mikes used as guns, with two black poets enacting an armed robbery -- only they demanded that you give up your poetry rather than your wallets; the other was a conversation between Mr. White and Mr. Black about race relations and whatnot), and finishing with Javon the Golden Child (that's what he calls himself). Denver finished second, and I really like them as people, but of their three team pieces, one borrowed heavily from "Prayer," a 1998 poem written by Matthew John Conley, and their piece about suburbia (suburbia is bad) was a bizarro-world version of "Tube," the television-themed piece that Hilary, Wammo, Danny and I did in the Hindenburgian '96 Finals. It felt like "I Love the 90s" had suddenly crept in.
St. Louis claims we had 1200 total in the theater; I'm guessing it was more like 750, which means there were 300-400 paying customers in the audience. With the kickback they're getting from the hotel, they may actually break even, though I know they're raw about the registration money going to PSI rather than to the host city.
I talked to EC members about the Miami situation. The way they tell it, it was more of a comedy of errors where Will was shepherded along to indie finals an hour before it started, with Miami's slammaster assuming some concession had been made to Will for being thrown out of the Thursday night venue. They seem totally at ease with their decision, claiming it to be the tournament director's honest-to-goodness mistake, and since he's a nice, sweet guy that works hard, they might even be assuming that most of us will look the other way. Of course, if we hadn't adopted a system that now makes it optional rather than mandatory for a poet to perform each night, we wouldn't have even opened up to this possibility. Will there be improvements made to how we process information from the bouts, or will we continue to put four different people's scoresheets in a plastic tub and have a single person inputting the data in a hotel conference room at 1 in the morning?
It probably also helps that the 11th-place poet kept out of the competition, rather than being someone well-established in the community, is a first-year poet from Lexington who, at the slam family meeting, in a classy move destined for Slam Family Low Moment Annals, compared his not getting into finals to "child molestation." Um, no. That's not figurative language you're allowed to use. Of course, he got to read in the showcase, to make up for Friday's blunder.
Ultimately, I feel more like I have endured than enjoyed.
Current Mood: Utterly Defeated, Yet Willing to Buy a Souvenir Snowglobe, So Long As It's Ugly
Journal Entry Title: St. Louis, Day Zero
So far, I have seen/felt/heard/experienced:
* 89 degree heat, plus 140 degree humidity, in Busch Stadium watching the Cardinals play in front of thousands of sweaty fans, pretty much all wearing red.
* Free Metro Link rides. I think you're supposed to pay, but we couldn't get the machine at the airport to take our money, and no one seems to be monitoring. So, okay, thanks for the free rides.
* Dinner at Show-Me's, which is the St. Louis version of Hooters. This sounds bad, but we actually had a good time, because Alvin Lau was with us ordering a drink so totally gay (with Malibu spiced rum, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice) that I had to dub it "the studded leather thong of drinks." We later got into a conversation with the waitress about the mixological content of a drink called the Red-Headed Slut. Apparently, this exists, and this led to a hilarious exchange which managed to embarrass both the Show-Me waitresses and Big Poppa E. Which is good.
* There's a freaky poet who's a perennial rep for Arkansas at the College Nationals named Russell, with multiple face piercings. He met a woman named Lacy in Oklahoma City, who can swallow her own tongue. She demonstrates, often, to whoever will ask. Mike's film crew got it on tape, and got her to sign the release pronto. You know, just typical weirdness at Nationals, but here's the kicker -- they HITCHHIKED to St. Louis from Oklahoma. People picked them up. In their cars.
So far, I've kept the Scrabble to poetry ratio to a fine balance. As in, lots of Scrabble, and no poetry yet. Skipped the smooth jazz open mike -- apparently a good move from all accounts.
More later.
Wednesday, August 4, 7:38 am
Journal Title Entry: Forgot the Best Anedcote of Nationals So Far
So, we're at the ballgame, and Adriana goes to the bathroom, where she runs into a woman who says, I kid you not, "Your skin is so amazing -- how did you get so tan?" When Adri replied that she's naturally that way, the woman responds ... "Wow ... you don't look black."
I predict la raza poetry is not going to do so well here this week.
Thursday, August 5, 3:21 am
St. Louis, Day One
Worst. Nationals. Ever.
That, and I miss my family.
Thursday, August 5, 8:19 am
Journal Title Entry: Furious Invective, Go!
So, I'm typing this from the Hampton Inn's business center, because my team took our room's computer chair across the hall last night, and are dead to the world, as I should be right now. My hangover is hideous and well-deserved, and I didn't really drink that much at all last night, which only leads me to conclude that I'm sick from what might be the worst Nationals ever. Worse than Connecticut. Worse than Seattle. Allow me to elaborate.
I hosted a bout and coached a bout last night. The bout I hosted started 45 minutes late because the sound guys failed to show up to assemble the microphones until 8:35, when I think they were supposed to be there at, oh, around seven. We had to use two volunteers as judges and beg three reluctant audience members (part of entourages) to judge as well. As it turns out, we were lucky in that we had people we could ask. I'm not sure if there was a single paying customer from the outside world in the venue when we started. We got the bout in at 65 minutes, which is lightning quick for 16 poets, and Deb Marsh thanked me by challenging our math and delaying us another ten minutes after the bout, when I was thinking, oh my God, our bout is the only one that's late, and I have to get to my team down the street, and oh my God, I hope they don't start without me. Turns out, of course, that my math was fucking perfect, and she wrote scores down wrong. I also had Logic from their team challenging the scores. Guess what? Your team got a 5? How do ya like my deductive reasoning now, Logic? *busts a kung fu move*
So, I get to my bout, and it's ... an intimate audience. As in, the teams. And the entourages. And about three poet-affiliated people. For a bout featuring two perennial finalist teams. It took 45 minutes for us to dredge up the judges we needed, including the owner of the club (who had to be deliriously happy with what was going on) and one of the Slammasters from Random, Indiana.
In all, here's a quick rundown of other highlights:
* After being told that venues would be 18 and over no-problem, the doorman at Fat Tuesday (and yes, indeed, it is part of the frozen daiquiri bar chain) wouldn't let Adri into coach Houston because she's 20, and after much begging, their 19-year-old poet was only let in to perform. The "stage" was actually an unlit patch of floor at the front of the club. Adri coached Houston to a 0.1 win sitting at the club's entryway next to the doorman.
* Jared Paul became NPS's first arrest because Providence decided it would be in good taste to help market NPS by doing their Abu Ghraib piece outside on a public street (site of opening ceremonies) at 2 pm, and his balls fell out of his loincloth (now there's a disturbing clause to type) and he got arrested for indecent exposure. Providence almost got kicked out of the tournament, but now, they're just on double secret probation. Gee, this isn't going to be make Jared Paul feel any more self-righteous or oppressed, will it?
* I asked Kevin McCameron, one of the organizers, "What is going on here? Where are all the people?" He just bewilderedly replied, "I don't know. I don't know."
* There was, to be fair, a tiny calendar mention in their entertainment section yesterday, and an article in their alt-weekly, tiny-but-grayboxed, written by a former slammer now living here. But it failed to get any audience out. I think maybe, if you count everyone who paid last night, in all the venues, you might have 50 paying people.
* Oh, and it's impossible to get to the late-night event unless you take a cab from the hotel ($10). Metro Link doesn't run that late, and it's not walking distance. Luckily, the LIVEJOURNAL READING tonight is at the hotel.
* Oh, and Austin got the 4 in their bout last night, so currently, our largely unrehearsed, just-glad-to-be-here team is above them in the rankings. 34 out of 69. Middle of the pack, third in our bout last night -- which, given our draw, is the best we could hope for.
I think I knew this was going to happen, and told people who refused to believe me, for two solid years. Though I feel like I can now do the I-told-you-so dance, I'd much rather do the hey-they-pulled-this-off dance.
Ugh.
Current Mood: Bad Nationals
Thursday, August 5, 5:19 pm
Journal Title Entry: The Bright Ray of Light
Nerd slam.
Oh. My. God.
I didn't even get to read (J. Bradley beat me in a livejournal trivia-off for a spot on the roster; how lame is that?), but Cristin's hosting was drop-dead funny, and there was community, and there was joy, and there was David Hendler against Paulie Lippman in an anagram-off, and then I had to leave early because I had to fix my computer through some weird place I found downtown at random. The U was falling off. It's better now.
Just waiting for the rest of the team members to get back to set strategy. My strategy tonight ... is for us to win. Brilliant, huh?
Friday, August 6, 1:46 am
Journal Title Entry: And Now, More on Travesty
First off, apologies to all expecting the Livejournal reading tonight -- postponed, not cancelled, we'll get it rescheduled as soon as everything blows over.
Believe me, many things are blowing right now.
My night went this way: team bout at Crazy Louie's, bar with a jaunty nautical theme, stage was small and looked more appropriate for puppets than poets. We took the 4, did some dice rolling in the second round which didn't work out, and by the end of the evening, all that was left was beating Corpus, after realizing that we probably couldn't get the 34 or so we needed in the final round.
I was ready to give PSI the benefit of the doubt though -- issues were getting addressed today from yesterday. Sound equipment was in the venues on times. More volunteers showed. Audience was still thin, but not anemic like yesterday's. It looked, early on, like the ship was getting righted.
Then, I bout managed at Fat Tuesday's on the Austin - Miami - Montclair - Norfolk - Salt Lake City bout, with Danny hosting. A Miami poet got kicked out by aggressive Fat Tuesday security staff at the start of the bout, there was some melee involving the poet (I think, still not sure) trying to rush the door three poems in. We had a ten-minute delay that started with the bouncers yelling that we were kicked out, and ended with us settling the place back down and letting poor Schuyler from Salt Lake (you know, the one we thought was dead last Slammasters) start over. We got our bout in. We even avoided a protest at the end, and the poet who raised the stink thought I needed a massage, and offered me a naked message. I am reasonably sure that she was just kidding, but I politely thanked her, and showed her my wedding ring to eliminate all doubt. Danny, predictably, God bless him, took the baton from me at that point. I hope it works out -- we worked our asses off to get that bout in as cleanly as we did.
But wait, it gets better.
For the first time in Nationals history (I believe), a bout didn't finish. Three poems from the end, in the middle of the leading team's third round poem, the DJ started spinning techno music, because the dance club wanted to honor its regular patrons (and thereby dis its out-of-town guests). There were rumors that the bout finished on the street, but indeed, it did not finish, and the result affects semis. Stay tuned, sports fans.
What's becoming markedly apparent in all this is that the relationships between the St. Louis organizers and club owners are not rock solid. I imagine there was a promise of a lot of money and excitement coming through these club's doors, which is not happening. The clubs are oriented toward drinking, and the poets are being regarded as a nuisance by the clubs and the hotel staff. As the mood gets uglier, I fear that the poets will act out at the hotel, and the hotel will start booting poets, and then we'll have a whole other layer of crisis on top of what we have now.
I don't imagine this will happen in Austin, since we'll have a much better core audience, much better relationships with the clubs, and much better relationships with the host hotels and the cities, but if we don't do something to cap teams at a managable number (and I think that's 64), PSI is in serious trouble. This can't continue this way -- something more grave than a bout not finishing will go down if we continue down this circus-y path.
I am utterly frightened at the prospect of a semis bout at Fat Tuesday. But, as Daniel Brewster told me tonight, with word about the fuckery of tonight going around (note: fuckery is my word), no other club is going to want to touch this.
On the bright spot, you can order a frozen Sex on the Beach at this club, if you so desire.
Beau Paul once proclaimed, "St. Louis is the only city that built a monument to getting the hell out of it."
I say: Westward Ho.
Current Mood: Horrified, Really
Friday, August 6, 5:31 pm
Journal Title Entry: It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better: The Group Piece Showcase
So, the group piece showcase at NPS this year was in something called the Art Lofts district on the edge of downtown, on something billed in our program as the Outdoor Mainstage. The Outdoor Mainstage turned out to be two microphones and a box in a courtyard off the sidewalk. To get us ready, we had to move the box (which only had room for two people to stand on) and get three mikes from the coffee place four blocks down the street, where the makeup bout from last night was held. (This is the bout that was shut down by Overzealous Techno DJ.)
But wait, it gets better.
So, a few poems into the group piece showcase, we hear sirens. And then fire engines and cops show up. Guess what? Hazardous materials situation. Hydrochloric acid spill about a block from where we're at. Apparently, we're fine -- as long as the wind doesn't shift. The reading continues, and it's going well -- the T.O.F.U. piece (Shane Koyczan/Mike McGee/CR Avery project) wrecks shop in particular. Helicopters appear. I notice that the local Fox station has sent a van over, which pulled right up to where we were doing the reading, so I quip to Mike, "Hey, we finally got the media out!" Sometimes, I crack me up.
In the meantime, the poets are swearing a-plenty, 'cause, you know, slam poets. About 2/3 of the way through, Daniel Brewster pulls me aside and says, "I don't know how to tell you this delicately," so I say, "Just tell me." Turns out a cop has told him to tell us to control the profanity, because there are parents picking up their kids. This mystifies me a bit, but I make an announcement to please be more PG. The poets, being a responsible lot, ignore the request.
Then, we figure out a few poems later what the hell he's talking about -- the courtyard is right next to, and I mean right next to, the Downtown Children's Center. We've had four hours of poems and rants and multiple f-bombs next to a daycare. Though Wicker Park had a piece near and dear to my heart, about the frustrations of growing up short, I missed part of it because a mustachioed, Tom of Finland cop who is probably not voting Kerry/Edwards in '04, dressed us down. "Those are little kids in there," he said emphatically. "Little kids." Mike said, non-plussed, "I heard you the first time," and again, I issued a request for PG mindfulness. Mike actually had to stop Andy and Kari from Vegas, up right after that second warning, blissfully unaware that their patently vulgar duet was not very PG. We ended with one other poem, despite Daniel's urging to have us pull the plug right then and there. Gee, that wouldn't have made things end on a sour note or anything.
Punchline: when we commented to Daniel on the lack of foresight evinced by putting an outdoor reading next to a daycare, his response was, "We weren't expecting the cops to show up. We didn't know there was going to be a chemical spill."
Really? I thought I'd seen "Chemical Spill Friday" in the NPS program.
By the way, more fuckery: there's a tie for 20th, so we're going to have a six-team bout tonight. Don't worry, fans of slam integrity: I'm already working on a play-in rule for a tie for the last semis slot for April.
Also, in other news, my committee's corporate sponsorship policy passed.
And: Livejournal reading will be 4-6 tomorrow. It'll be indoors, so you pottymouths can go to town.
Current mood: Hydrochloric Acid Exposure
Saturday, August 7, 10:13 am
Journal Title Entry: Firewood
Today's slam family meeting will possibly involve a sterling new issue on the table -- one of last night's indie finalists, Will Da Real One, only read one of the two preliminary nights. In fact, he was the poet who was kicked out of Fat Tuesday in the Thursday night debacle. The rumor is that a poet brought it up to one of the indie finals hosts before the bout, the host asked the poet, and the poet said, "Yeah, I spit on Thursday." So, I guess "Da Real One" is sort of a misnomer now. [Update: This rumor has since been refuted, but there still seems to be some kind of questions around communication of this information to the people who needed it. The bout officials didn't know that Will hadn't read Thursday until the third and final round of indie finals.]
Apparently, it was a data entering error from the tournament director that put him into the mix, and it was the departure from making sure every poet was represented once in a bout that allowed this to happen in the first place. As bout manager for that bout, I would have brought something up if I'd scanned the list for the indie finalists, but stuff was posted so late on Friday that I didn't get the chance to comb it -- I only checked to see that San Anto finished 45th in the nation. And I didn't really clue in to his presence on stage, because Hilary and Greg and I were having way too much fun, and, you know, vodka tonics.
Wow, it didn't take long for that innovation to bite PSI in the ass.
Hey, are those locusts I see in the sky?
Current Mood: Pre-Ritual Flaggelation
Saturday, August 7, 10:13 am
Journal Title Entry: Ow, My Life Hurts: Saturday Afternoon at Nationals
Just finished hosting the Little Reading That Could, aka the Livejournal/Blogger reading. Special thanks to all the participants: natawn84, hallawayjoe, karinotvery, fengi, poetryslam, loudgirl, auralfiend, dokuritsu, spentpenny, zadriana, jbradley, Bad Andy Neely, and neuraleyes for the use of his wireless laptop. I was thinking about doing an entry on the reading during the reading, but that would have been too dorky and too meta.
Slam family meeting was basically an evisceration of the St. Louis organizers, our corporate sponsorship committee election -- and with Jared Paul getting elected, this is a great opportunity for him to serve the community on an issue he clearly cares deeply about. I'll be watching his participation with interest.
The Miami indie finals situation went like this: tournament director explained and apologized, EC asked the committee to let them know if they see discrepancies, no one ever really demanded an explanation from Miami as to why they didn't say anything before Will actually got up on stage for indie finals. It can't be that they didn't realize he didn't read both Wednesday and Thursday. I know this for a fact. Also, later in the meeting, the person who initially got thrown out (starting the chain of events leading to Will getting thrown out) stood up to complain about how the bout officials handled it. Given that we nearly had a riot on our hands and diffused it, I find his perspective deeply unsatisfying.
But the focus of the meeting was on St. Louis. Michael and Kevin stayed to take the beating, Daniel wasn't there. Everything was covered, and I'm sure it had to be the worst couple of hours in Michael and Kevin's lives. It was horribly sad and excruciating.
Speaking of: only 45 tickets sold for the finals as of noon today. Let's just say I don't feel compelled to get there early to get good seats.
Current Mood: Sick of St. Louis
Sunday, August 8, 7:38 am
Journal Title Entry: Would Prefer a Transporter; A Plane Would Do
Nationals is over, except for the hotel checkout and the tearful goodbyes. I'm glad so many people managed to have a good time despite the monumental fuckups, but to me, that just underscores that this event is turning more and more into a navel-gazing, self-congratulatory, poetry summer camp. Poets should have an expectation that an audience will come to see them, but the overall package we're offering, with an increasing number of mediocre-at-best writers and performers not filtered out through a regionals system that would allow the hardest-working and most accomplished teams to be at a Nationals, gives little impetus to bring audience back night after night. And at the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Man, I'm sick of poets not being able to edit out their profanity when they find themselves on an outdoor stage in front of restaurants at Opening Ceremonies or at an outdoor stage which has been placed right next to a daycare center. Slam, at its core, is supposed to be about adjusting your performance of a poem to your situation to best suit it and to best reach the audience.
Also, if I hear anyone say they are "spitting" a poem one more time, I will throw up.
The absolute best thing about last night's finals was Team Normal's piece during the showcase. Not only was it cleverly written, and brilliantly meta, but it was creative and utterly innovative. It showed that there are other options despite the standard tropes so many of the poets are relying on. Finals, overall, was better than last year's: the hosting was crisper, and the poetry covered a wider range of the palette (though things skewed heavily toward X is Good/X is Bad, as opposed to the barrage of I Am A Real Poet poems that bloated last year's finals).
Hollywood won, opening with Rives doing "Deaf Poetry Slam," then doing two skit-like group pieces (one opened with mikes used as guns, with two black poets enacting an armed robbery -- only they demanded that you give up your poetry rather than your wallets; the other was a conversation between Mr. White and Mr. Black about race relations and whatnot), and finishing with Javon the Golden Child (that's what he calls himself). Denver finished second, and I really like them as people, but of their three team pieces, one borrowed heavily from "Prayer," a 1998 poem written by Matthew John Conley, and their piece about suburbia (suburbia is bad) was a bizarro-world version of "Tube," the television-themed piece that Hilary, Wammo, Danny and I did in the Hindenburgian '96 Finals. It felt like "I Love the 90s" had suddenly crept in.
St. Louis claims we had 1200 total in the theater; I'm guessing it was more like 750, which means there were 300-400 paying customers in the audience. With the kickback they're getting from the hotel, they may actually break even, though I know they're raw about the registration money going to PSI rather than to the host city.
I talked to EC members about the Miami situation. The way they tell it, it was more of a comedy of errors where Will was shepherded along to indie finals an hour before it started, with Miami's slammaster assuming some concession had been made to Will for being thrown out of the Thursday night venue. They seem totally at ease with their decision, claiming it to be the tournament director's honest-to-goodness mistake, and since he's a nice, sweet guy that works hard, they might even be assuming that most of us will look the other way. Of course, if we hadn't adopted a system that now makes it optional rather than mandatory for a poet to perform each night, we wouldn't have even opened up to this possibility. Will there be improvements made to how we process information from the bouts, or will we continue to put four different people's scoresheets in a plastic tub and have a single person inputting the data in a hotel conference room at 1 in the morning?
It probably also helps that the 11th-place poet kept out of the competition, rather than being someone well-established in the community, is a first-year poet from Lexington who, at the slam family meeting, in a classy move destined for Slam Family Low Moment Annals, compared his not getting into finals to "child molestation." Um, no. That's not figurative language you're allowed to use. Of course, he got to read in the showcase, to make up for Friday's blunder.
Ultimately, I feel more like I have endured than enjoyed.
Current Mood: Utterly Defeated, Yet Willing to Buy a Souvenir Snowglobe, So Long As It's Ugly
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