NESL Bout #1

​Wed night marked the inaugural New England Slam League bout. Worcester Java Hut versus Providence vs Boston Cantab. Tomorrow night is bout #2 Worcester Java Hut versus Worcester Youth versus Boston Lizard Lounge. While I am not in a slam sort of mood these days, I'm going to try and make my way out there in order to see asthecrowflies's feature. 

NESL was a blast. Hosted by the friendly version of Michael Brown (scary), the drunkenly heckling J*ME (scarier), and Ryk Macintyre (no scarier than normal). After an extremely disappointing open mic, we got down to business. 

The rules of NESL are posted in either slammasters or mstegosaurus's LJ. I'm too lazy to look it up. The gist of it is: three judges listen to the entire round, then rate the poets on a scale of 1-3 based on which poet they liked best. Low scores win.

The 4 Minute Round:

mstegosaurus and Erin (help me out, anselicious, what's her LJ name?) started out the slam with a dual voice version of Fingerfood Jesus. I've never seen Morris cop a feel on stage before. Luckily for Erin, he wasn't wearing the kitty mask.

Next up was a girl from Providence whose name started with an M. She did a piece that was somewhat reminiscent of androidlustre but not as tight. She was the first person to go over time. In NESL bouts instead of being penalized for going over time, the hosts badger you off the stage. Michael Brown with a broom in his hand is a very scary thing.

Cantab closed out the 4 minute round with Simone and hot_rod_poet doing a very rough version of their Hemingway group piece. It was ok last night. It will be fucken amazing when they've got it down.

Results: Cantab 3, Worcester 6, Providence 9


The First Three Minute Round
I want to preface this paragraph by saying I love Jared Poul. He's one of the most sincere, caring political activist I know. But JFC do I miss him doing actual poetry. I hate that he's resorted to shock value politics. Put off, I imagine, by how poorly his teammate was received (she was a good poet, but her piece needed to be pared down quite a lot) he did his New England Winters/racism piece singling out Boston for being the most racist place north of the Mason Dixon line blah blah blah. I'm incredibly tired of hearing little white boys complain about racism. I appreciate that unlike score hungry slam poets, Jared really means what he says, but I'm tired of hearing it. Also, boo for his picking on laklare who agreed to act as judge. Bad Jared. No vegan treats, adoptions, or voting research for you.

I got to go next doing "Tigers". I have so much more fun with this poem as a solo piece.

bad_gary from Worcester closed out the round with his Disco Soul poem. I love Gary Hoare.

Results: Cantab 3 (total 6), Worcester 8 (14), Providence 7 (16)

The Second Three Minute Round
hot_rod_poet opened with his frantic Starbuck's poem.

Worcester's cheesy_goodness went next for Worcester. Wow. I've always enjoyed her poetry, and it gets consistently better every time I see her. She did a dead baby poem. You have to be a great fucken writer to get me to enjoy a poem about abortion or cradle death or anything along that line. She joins Jack McCarthy and androidlustre in the good dead baby poem category.

Providence's "Who black man? What black man? Where black man? When?" Carlos went next. I'm soooo not a fan of political poetry, but damn it, Carlos has some great lines. He did a piece about his name. C-A-R-L-O-S G-O-M-E-Z. It was g-o-o-d.

Results: Worcester 5 (19), Providence 5 (21), Cantab 8 (14)

First Two Minute Round
Worcester bad_gary opened with his hot-water hot-water cold-water poem. I've also known it as the Waiting for Sleep poem or the Lather-rinse-repeat poem. Whatever you want to call it, it's a damned good poem. Glad to hear it. He so should have won the round.

Providence Carlos followed with a poem about Grammar School. It was a little too thematically close to his first poem for my taste, but, again, it had some great lines in it.

I did "Deconstructing Freedom" (the Jewish grandmother poem) for kicks.

Results: Cantab 5 (19), Worcester 6 (25), Providence 7 (28)

The Second Two Minute Round
Surprise surprise, Providence Jared did a political poem. This time about being straight edge. I think it was directed at drunken J*Me. Le sigh.

Simone followed up with "Poets in Love". I love that poem. The judges, not so much.

Erin from Worcester, who I'm starting to crush on nearly as much as I was crushing on her boyfriend earlier, did her poem about a Wal-Mart Cactus. "If you're not outraged then you're not paying attention!" She makes me giggle with, and not at.

Results: Worcester 4 (29), Cantab 7 (26), Providence 7 (35)

Barring a tie, the final round...One Minute
Sue Savoy was our ringer, performing a piece about a Magic 8 Ball but...gah...she got cut off due to the time limit. I didn't car about the points or the penalty, I just wanted to hear the rest of her poem. Oh, well.

mstegosaurus went up for Worcester doing one of my favorite Morris poems, the one about rhyming with genitalia. I had a feeling we were in trouble.

Providence was in the final spot and they sort of did a group piece. All three members of the team took the stage and stayed silent for about thirty seconds until Jared decided to lay some (surprise surprise) politics on us. I wasn't paying attention.

Results: Worcester 3 (32), Cantab 6 (32), Providence 9 (44).

So, that's a fricken tie between Worcester and The Cantab. What next?

The Two Minute Tie-Breaker Round

After a coin toss, Worcester sent up mstegosaurus who did the pared down version of "Big Man 2". Coming soon to an HBO series near you.

I followed up with an extremely sped up version of "Communicative Properties" (The math poem...or the tennis poem, if you prefer). It somehow clocked in at 1:43. It's always been short, but I was reading it at damned near "Truth is a Revolution" speed.

Results: Cantab 3 (Win), Worcester 6 (Not Win)

Sunday night at Worcester is Worcester Java Hut versus Boston Cantab versus Worcester Youth. I will be skipping out on it to see the return of Kwesi Davis and Thema Bryant at The Lizard. Provided Omekongo shows up, every member of every Lizard Lounge Slam Team will be in attendance.
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 01:16 am (local)
scottwoodsA GREAT recap, and a great experience, it sounds like. I hoped that people would remember to have fun with it, and it seems like there was a measure of that, so kudos to you guys for that. You're probably too close to the East Coast to have true Midwestern throw-a-chair-against-the-wall fun, but we love you anyway. ;-)
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 05:01 am (local)
akamuuthrow-a-chair-against-the-wall fun?
Daaaaaaaaaang. I don't know what type of fun that is, but I hope I can at least witness it before I become eligible for The Underground Slam League.
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 02:10 pm (local)
hot_rod_poet: As a member of The Cantabulous Thunderbirds, I can say,don't worry Scott. Between Morris and I, you've got two MWSL veterans out here to advocate for lunacy. Our group piece was a first-ever-read last night, Adam did a three minute piece in under 2, I did my stupidest performance piece, Providence chose to throw away the last round by being political (which wasn't anything like chairthrowing or any other kind of fun, but at least it showed a disregard for the points) and the hosts heckled unmercifully. It will hopefully only go downhill from here.
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 11:49 pm (local)
scottwoods: Re: As a member of The Cantabulous Thunderbirds, I can say,That's good to hear. If it ain't fun, don't do it.

Oh, and never cancel a bout if you can. No-shows suck!
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 01:19 am (local)
asthecrowfliesthe drunkenly heckling J*ME (scarier)...

that's my favorite part!

aside, tho' - if you come out tonight it'd really be great to see you =)
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 05:08 am (local)
akamuuThere was one point when he, Morris and I (the only three out poets in The Boston Slam Scene that I'm aware of) were all on stage at once. J*Me was fondling the mic stand in a way that made even the other gay poets uncomfortable. 


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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 06:29 am (local)
asthecrowflieswow... go, Jme?
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 02:13 am (local)
laklare: If you weren't taking notes...If you weren't taking notes, then you have the best memory of all currently living mammals. If you were taking notes...well, what can I say? You're still special.
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Thu, Jun. 17th, 2004 05:04 am (local)
akamuu: Re: If you weren't taking notes...I'm special. Wooohoooo.

Nice job judging, and I'm not just saying that because I won all my rounds.