Fuck The Slam

​Haven't even bothered to come home for the past couple of days. By the time I get out of work, I'm not always able to catch the T home, so I've been crashing with Su. Theoretically, I have tomorrow off, but if someone calls looking for me to pick up a shift. Fuckizzle the Cantizzle, I'm pimping the polyester. "Would you like to add any mushrooms, onions, shrimp, or crablegs with that?"

J*Me's show at the Lizard on Sunday was the best thing I've seen since Blair and Dale from Detroit were in town over a year ago. He did two new pieces. One was good, the other was the best thing I've heard him write. It's way too long for slam, and it's really more of a monologue than a poem, but it was A++ work. It was so good, I'm going to go buy At Swim Two Boys if I ever get a chance to frivilously spend money again. I'm so glad I went.

Because I'm a man of contradictions, I'm so pissed that I went to The Lizard last Sunday. I'm burnt out on slam. I'm tired of losing to shitty poems about how someone is a good slam poet who writes slam poems because he feels them not because he's trying to get points. BULLSHIT. If you wrote from the heart you'd have a poem about a family member, or a pet, or a memory, not a poem about how you write poems from the heart. Even the Heartsongs kid could tell you that. Buy one of his fifty million books at Barnes&Noble, or better yet, call Oprah and tell her to book the kid again. I'm sure he hasn't been on in almost two weeks.

For clarification, I'm the only wildcard from the Lizard Lounge. I have come in second in EVERY slam this year. It doesn't bother me when I lose to good poets or even when I lose to bad poets who have some sort of variety, but when a poet gets up and essentially reads the same poem about why he writes a poem three times and you TROUNCE him two out of three rounds but lose in the last, which is the only one that matters...UGH. I don't even think I need to mention that I heard him perform all three of these poems for years. Not a single new poem in three years. Viva slam.

Next month I'm hitting the theatre slam. Ten minute plays are submitted to a panel of judges they select the top ten plays and hold a slam with them. I believe it's two celebrity judges, three random judges. I'm not sure whether or not they drop any of the scores. I've been itching to write some non-poetry for a while now. I've even started testing the prose waters again. The plays come more naturally though. I was doing theatre work when I followed a boy into slam over five years ago, and I think it's time to go back. Otherewise, I WILL be making slam Bingo cards and passing them out to all the judges every week whether it's a rule violation or not. To make it fun, I might even suggest keeping a tallyboard with the regular poets' names and putting up a mark every time they do a certain poem. "...ok, that was Adam doing 'When Bad Sodomy Happens to Good People' for the twelfth time in twelve weeks. I think we all heard the BINGO. Judges, scores please."

In an unrelated but disturbing development, after years of poo-pooing erotic poetry, I've somehow gotten myself into writing serial semi-erotica (really just a journal of awkward sexual experiences). I was keeping it anonymous until I figured out whether it was worth showing to other writers, but people seem to like it. If anyone's interested in reading it, let me know.

I know return to my regularly scheduled coma. With any luck I will be able to do shit tomorrow. Of course, I will be doing it in a fucken blizzard. C'mon snowflakes, show me what you're made of! Oh, water, right.
Current Mood:  cold
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(Deleted comment)
Tue, Jan. 27th, 2004 10:22 pm (UTC)
thisisstaroh adam. we will do something about this. i promise.
also. my show is friday. pat's show is thursday. up for a weekend of punk rock?
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 03:47 pm (UTC)
akamuufricken fracken, shmickledy-frip. I'm working both Thursday and Friday. I'll try and get at least one of the nights off, but I can't make any promises.
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 05:58 am (UTC)
mom_starYou HAVE to give me more info on the play slam!!! I mean, you must you must you must you must. Do I make mahself perfeckly cleah?

Ahem.

Also: slam sux. Go to Worcester.
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 03:46 pm (UTC)
akamuuI love Worcester, but as I don't have a car, and the Sunday night T schedule is...not kind...I can only get out there when I'm travelling with Su or someone. In the nicewhile, I'm talking with Jeff about ways to make the slam unsuck.
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 06:15 am (UTC)
campanaah yes, a poem about writing a poem. 
because there is nothing else to write about. absolutely nothing left in this world worth documenting. 
"this poem takes a sliver of my brain and puts it to the test. 
this poem is an echo in a gas chamber and gas in an echo chamber."
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 08:05 am (UTC)
mom_starPoetry will change the world!
Poetry is the REVOLUTION!
Poetry is REAL EVOLUTION!
Poetry isn't about the SLAM!
Poetry is about the HEART!
Poetry is about the SOUL!
Poetry is a FIST raised agains the OPPRESSOR!
Poetry is the CRACK in my ASS that spews SHIT!
Poetry is something YOU can't HANDLE!
I AM POETRY! I AM A POET!
A SQUID eating DOUGH in a POLYETHYLENE bag is FAST and BULBOUS!
Got me?

(I bet I could turn that into a poem that gets all 10s)
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 08:43 am (UTC)
campanai have already incorporated my comment into tonight's cannon blast.
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 07:25 am (UTC)
girlsnqueersLyralen Kaye, who runs the play slam, was on the Amazon Slam team in July. She wrote one of the group pieces we did--the one that ends "Because I am a lucky girl/ And I have everything, everything, going for me." Anyway, I know she's always looking for good work. And like most folks from The Amazon Slam, she's pretty big on the openly queer thing. I haven't gone to any of the play slams yet, but if something like The Journal of Awkward Sexual Experiences were up on stage I'd definitely go. Let me know if you want her email and I'll send it to you backchannel. Take care.
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 07:44 am (UTC)
postmaudlinpleeeease send them to me? pleaaaase?
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 09:33 am (UTC)
kattullusAt Swim, Two Boys is really good. Let me rephrase that, brilliant, but flawed. I'm really looking forward to Jamie O'Neill's next book. (Another novel has been published, Kilbrack, but I've heard it's not as good. It was an old novel he wrote a decade before AS2B and only got published after AS2B came out. I intend to at least take a look at it one of these days).
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Wed, Jan. 28th, 2004 03:31 pm (UTC)
akamuu: Re: Play slamThe Journal of Awkward Sexual experiences as a play...yowch. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet.

I, too, am used to writing longer plays. I have one three act, and one 45 minute or so one act that I think are worthy of not being shredded and burned to protect my name. I really want to try something different for the ten minute competition, though. I may try something reminiscent of David Ives.

Hopefully, I'll be seeing you at the play slam if not before.