juge

our first slam was last night. during the day, there was the intro ceremonies at the cultural center. we practiced our intro that morning, not having worked on it before. just talk before, now . . . wow, juge, you should have seen them. san jose blew up the spot! everyone was doing something very similar, lots of noise, sharing space/time/stage, simple repetitions, blah, blah, blah. 60 minutes was there, along with something like 6 other local news crews all filming the intro. we found out later that a few of them got on tv, ours was one. juge, the entire piece was put together holistically, by the entire team. it was made up of snippets of one poem from each read at the same time, all one cacophonous chaotic voice, with "do you know the way to san jose?" and "san jose is here" thrown in between. we were awesome!

later that night, all sorts of folks came up to us to say that ours was the most original. not to toot my own horn (though you know i do that often), but we ripped shit UP!

then we went home to practice and get ready. our bout was at 8.30 versus Chicago MadBar(our hosts here) and the nuyorican slam team. rumor had it that nuyorican was rather weak, so we thought it would be the better of us in there, san jo or madbar. we checked in at our venue then went to watch oakland v. manhattan (taylor mali) v. providence. we stayed through sonia whittle, the second rotation, before we needed to leave. the judges were giving no love to oakland at all. when we left they were down 2 or 3 points. halfway through our bout a block away, we got news that oakland won, by 2 points! what a damned nice surprise!!

turned out, that nuyorican was the judges favorite, whether by skill or by name. none of us, felt that their performances merited their scores, but what can you do? they got up and worked the mic in a very testo-male-checkthisdickout kinda way. madbar team gave such amazing poetry. it was poetry, nothing less. words descended from stars and satelites, thoughts like gods on chinese altars, images as vivid as pain and clear as what love used to be. juge, they were . . . i wish i had the words myself.

marc started off the team, then robert, cas, melinda. we tried the big sur line-up, and it seemed to work. everyoine here's trying soi hard to figure out who's the anchor and who's the weak poet and who's the high scorer and who's willing to suck the judges dick, that it seems like they're forgetting what poetry is, then i remember i'm at a slam. a national one at that. (where did that high horse come from?)

the final scores were: nuy-111.0 sj-108.7 chi-108.2

we beat the hometown favorite, lost to favoritism, and got varnished in the history books as the litte team that just probably could.

last bout of the night had santa cruz/salinas in venue and san francisco in another. sc came in second, behind boston (who were amazing!!![there's that word again]), and over the other homtown team green mill. sf dominated. there's nothing else to say. big poppa did mosh pit jesus from the atop the audience. he walked right up and over the seats and belted out the poem for a 29.3 - very first poet of the bout! when we got there, it was in the 4th rotation, seeking was up, and, uhm, uhm, you know how he has a way of taking the stage, making it his. well, he took souls and made them his. he worked the stage so well, i thought i was gonna kum(& go).

after all that, we went to the heart of chicago for a party. the entire motel is filled with poets! imagine, a motel brimming with poets. POETS!

the cops came around 2 to kick everyone out, so we left. now, everyone's awake and we're about to head off to perform and workshop an adult literacy group. wish us luck!

btw, it's raining? how's it there?

vadim