I don’t know either
Went to the local Poetry Slam for the first time in years. I wanted to have a good time. I really did.
It was just odd. First, it was supposed to start at 9PM and they were still doing sound check at 9:30. Not that I expected it to start on time, but there was a feature ( the amazing Mama Blue) and a DJ and an open mic that just kinda dragged on dispite a lack of participants and the actual Slam didn’t start until 11:30 and I have to work tomorrow, so I left after the first round.
The format was strange. Kevin and the DJ were riffing off each other in this Jay Leno/Kevin Eubanks or David Letterman/Paul Schaffer sort of way, which would have been really funny if A) Kevin were a better host B) Kevin knew how to ad-lib worth a damn C) The DJ had any idea how a slam was supossed to work.
Apparently Kevin and DJ Bootsie have been doing this together for eight months, but to the casual observer, it looked like this was Bootie’s first time DJing a slam and that he and Kevin had just met. Bootsie was funny as hell and his interactions with the poets was the best part of the show, but they made it take forever. I say, get rid of the DJ or better yet, teach the DJ how to run a slam and get rid of Kevin.
I hate the fact that I hate everything. I hate the fact that I don’t do anything, but I playa hate on everybody else’s shit. But, ya know Kevin fucking deserves it. I’m sorry.
Me, Kevin, Hari Sky Campbell and Peter Sparks started the first regular slam in St. Louis after the Wabash Triangle Cafe burned down. When I read the program for the National Poetry Slam this year, I noticed that in Kevin’s bio, he mentioned all the founders of that slam, but me. It pissed me off, but I didn’t say nothing about it because A) I’m too old to let petty shit like that get to me and B) I don’t expect anything less from Kevin.
So, anyway, the only cool thing about going to that slam, aside from seeing Mama Blue and Elizabeth Vega perform, was that before the slam started, Peter Sparks got on the mic and pointed me out to the audience and acknowledged that I was one of the founders of the Blueberry Hill slam. It was a really sweet gesture on his part.
OMG!! THE WABASH!!! I never got to go… 🙁 Glad you got some props from Peter. Some people conveniently forget those who helped them along the way. 🙁
I love Elizabeth Vega.
I think she’s a genius.
^_^
Yeah, the Wabash was my second home until it fuckin’ burnt down.
And she’s cute too.
Maybe your generation will do a better job than we did.
At least it’s not just me…
Elizabeth is the cutest ever.
*since me*
^_^
She’s an amazing woman. I’ve never had the chance to hear her perform, though I did hear a piece-in-progress while at her apartment with a friend.
She also does “energy readings” (I don’t remember what she calls them) and nearly had me in tears. That woman has many gifts, to say the least.
Yeah. I wanna be her when I grow up.
Indeed.
^_^
She also smile all of the time, wich I find to be empowering.
^_^