Saturday at the Roxy - 10.

Welcome to the matinee.

As this is Halloween weekend, today's videos tend towards the macabre, nothing heart stopping but in the spirit. This may be it for the Roxy for a while. I decided to give NaNoWriMo a shot which, if I stick with it, will severly limit my time. At any rate enjoy the show.

Happy Halloween!

Dylan Moran's

TELL IT TO THE FISHES

00:41

CAT WITH HANDS

03:33

Be careful.
Be very, very careful. The mind is
a very powerful thing. Ask
VINCENT

05:52

Watch out!
Shaye St. John
wants to wish you a
TRASHY HALLOWEEN

02:33

Poetry Unplugged

Poetry Unplugged's cave

Poetry Unplugged is the only open mic I've read at in London. It's not because I like the room which is the tiny basement of the Poetry Cafe. Yes, it has a certain funky charm but it also gets very crowded, stuffy and extremely hot. And it's not because everything read at Poetry Unplugged, or any open mic, spoken word or slam event, is wonderful because it's not. It's because Poetry Unplugged is early enough, it's not held in a shitty, noisy bar and, for the most part, the people who show up to read there are not pretentious dicks who swagger through their own reading then leave.

The credit goes to the MC, poet Niall O'Sullivan. He does a wonderful job of keeping things interesting, fair, fun and moving. That said, included below is a review of the event which, to my delight and his credit, Niall posted on his own blog.

One of the worst evenings I’ve ever endured was at an event called Poetry Unplugged. About 50 people were crammed into a sweaty basement, all perched expectantly on orange plastic chairs. How nice, I thought, to see such an enthusiastic audience for poetry. As one figure after another leapt up to read their doggerel, the truth dawned. They were all here not to listen, but to perform. They would suffer each other's poetic rants, but only for their moment of glory. A woman in a red wig recited a poem about her vagina. A man in a blue jumper did a lengthy lament on lost love. It was a very long night.

Duh. Of course people are there to read but it's not the feeding frenzy this nube describes. Generally people are pretty open to each other at readings but come on! Why wouldn't that include a little quid pro quo? Yet, for all the years I've read at these things, I am still prone to what is sometimes breath stopping shyness. At the reading two weeks ago it hit me full force. By my second poem I basically caught up with my breath but that night I never fully got into the words.

Uncle Monkey, Ugly Bear and Clarence
discussing my NaNo manuscript

This week I was more at ease. The difference? Before reading I acknowledged my nervousness to the audience. Simple, right? No. When I got to the mic it was all I could do to glance at people and whisper, "I'm really nervous". Still it was enough to break the tension. It also helped I read Jazz which is more a performance piece than anything else.

I extracted it from the NaNoWriMo "novel" I wrote a few years ago. In fact, thus far these four paragraphs are all I have used from that entire 50,000 word manuscript. No worries. I may even write a second one some November. I loved banging through a month of crazy intensity, 2000 words a day, the world be damned, though no doubt it helped that I had zero expectations and no plot. I naturally share the NaNo point of view, "No plot? No Problem!". 

The cafe is now closed until the first of September. We leave London in about a week so that's it for me this time around.

Don't shoot the piano player!

Piano serenade, Comma Coffee in the morning

Friday was a long day in NaNoWriMo land. I met some friends in the morning at the Comma for a NaNo write and stayed until 4:30. Susan did about 3500 words but I didn't even break a thousand. I don't work well mixing writing time with a social event. I didn't go to the Reno write yesterday for the same reason. Rasabhasa. In general though the Comma is a fine place to write, surf, read, meet friends, day dream, study, people watch, give a poetry reading, oh and get a cup of coffee or have a few drinks. It's directly across the street from the Nevada State Legislature and in the middle of the legal district, even the Governor lives a few blocks away so on any given day you might see politicians, skate boarders, lawyers, outlaws, old ladies playing Mahjong, the cat, or geeks on laptops wiling away the hours together. This morning some guy cranked out a couple of saloon tunes to nobody in particular on the tin-voiced piano. If you listen carefully to the video, you can hear snippets in the background of a conversation a couple of women are having with an 82 year old man about the politics of "messin' around." Nevada. Ya gotta love it.

You can't edit a blank page

I need a reader. This spring I finally dug up and printed out my now four-year-old NaNoWriMo manuscript and am currently halfway through the first read. Other than being determined to make the required word count, having had no expectations from the start is a good thing. The fact that I can read it at all is encouraging but it's a slow go. Thus far, I have managed only two sessions, months apart. I am surprised to find that it amuses me. This morning one particular section had me laughing out loud. Why can't that be enough? I said from the beginning that there would be no plot but, now that the manuscript exists, it needs one. Why does this all have to be so goddamn complicated? I read the funny part to Mr. Lee this morning but he wants a story goddammit. I'll read it when it has one. He's not a first draft kind of guy. That fucker would red pen a suicide note.


So I am half way through the first read and won't inflict it on anyone at the moment, but I need a reader. Okay. Okay. So that reader will have the same response as Mr. Lee, but WTF?! I have assembled 50,000, 12 pt. words on 197 double spaced, one inch margin pages. What else do you want from me? Blood? I know. A plot. And there is one, buried throughout the manuscript, like a dismembered body. Yes. Yes. I must sew my Frankenstein together but what the hell? That's work. Anyway, somewhere along the line I am going to need a reader, not a teacher, a reader. Doesn't every writer get a reader? I need a sounding board, someone to complete the loop between the ears, self to self, heart to head, someone who can help piece together the map of the story, the one I wrote in invisible ink, tore into tiny pieces and ate. Anyway, it's too soon for a reader. Just thinking out loud.

How to avoid meaningful work and meaningless despair

In case you happen to be doing NaNoWriMo this year, Paula over at Lite Motifs has posted a list of things you can do to avoid working on your project. Her suggestions are very useful, not only for NaNoers, but for anyone wanting to distract themselves from pressing and important work. And, as distraction is my special area of expertise, I felt compelled to add a couple of ideas to her list. They work. I myself managed to waste today's precious last hour of daylight drudging them up and writing this post.

For starters, try this zippy but soothing video of guys getting left behind when the International Space Station reboosts. Then watch and re-watch it again and again and again for, you know, as many times as you can stand it.

And if you still need more, because if you're looking for more you've already watch an ungodly number of cat videos, there are always surfer dog videos. I include them as a special homage to dear little Bella the happy dog, recently departed. Surfer dog videos are like popcorn. You mindlessly want more, even during times of deep despair when life is slipping through your fingers and you are crushed by an overwhelming sense of meaningless tedium and you are least able to remember when you last had even one fleeting second of fun.

More surfer dog videos.

We just got back from Southern Oregon. We were there to attend a going away party for a longtime friend who is moving to Portland which is located far far away at the other end of the state. About 150 people showed up. It was very nice. Everybody loves him. He's a sweet guy. And we saw lots of old friends. After the slideshow, whoever wanted to shared at the mic and the event took a decided turn, becoming more a memorial than farewell roast. The fact is, he is dying. Everybody knows it. Nobody mentioned it but most of us realized we will probably never see him again. Life. We are now entering the part where, one by one, we begin leaving the stage.

And I got a rejection (with comments) from The Fine Line, one of the magazines to which I recently submitted poems. In case you're wondering, a rejection with comments is preferable to getting a rejection without one. I submitted two poems to this particular magazine. The other is still "in progress".

Chillin'

Things are pretty mellow around here right now. After his stunning Halloween performance last night Lucky Pete is basking in the whole troupe's admiration. In fact he has been hanging out with Monsieur La Chance all day, who has taken him under his wing and been trying to convince him to give up, as he says, that bastard version of his fine French name. It is his opinion, of course, that form is everything but we shall see. Lucky Pete, or Pierre as the case may be, is a proud fellow even in a clown suit and obviously not one to be controlled by other people's or cat's opinions.

As for me, I wrote 2955 words on this, the first day of NaNoWriMo. PURE CRAP! TERRIBLE STUFF! I'd rather throw myself off a cliff and into the thrashing sea than let anyone read it but hey, it's all about the word count. When I was done my head felt like a blob of sour, warm meat. Well that's it from this outpost border crossing. Now I'm off to Otherland. G'night.