Whale Sound poem

Nic Sebastian selected my poem "After Adultery" (which originally appeared in Blue Fifth Review) for her  brilliant new website, Whale Sound. Nic records each of the poems she selects and it's strange to hear my words coming from someone else, but Nic has a beautiful accent and her interpretation of the poem is excellent. Whale Sound's mission is "celebrating your poems," and she's previously recorded work by Amand Auchter, Ivy Alvarez, Kwame Dawes, Brent Goodman, Amy King, Reb Livingston, Peter Pereira and many more. Look through the author index and then sit back and listen to this wonderful work.

Weekend Report

A very hectic, but productive weekend and – finally – some fall-like weather in Atlanta. Enough with the hot weather already.

On Saturday, I loaded up the car with my old word processor, printer, camera, cordless phones and assorted cables and took them to an e-recycling event. I've been in full de-clutter mode all year, because I've noticed as I get older, the less stuff I want around me. I've thrown out boxes of magazines and useless brick-a-brack, sold off cassette and VHS tapes and now I'm moving on to some furniture pieces. I have a nice trunk (pictured) that's perfect for storing blankets, books papers, toys, or other treasures. I also have a wooden TV tray set in espresso color, very rarely used. Anybody in ATL want 'em? Let me know – they're going cheap.

I had another social media consulting gig and then met up with the wonderful poet and novelist Andrew Demcak, who was in town for a conference, for dinner. We shared publishing and publicity ideas and traded books. He's a sweetheart.

Sunday was spent working on a questionnaire for Vanilla Heart as part of an upcoming holiday publicity push for their titles, including Conquering Venus. Speaking of Venus, I did a little editing and writing on the sequel. I feel like I'm falling behind on the schedule I've set for myself, so gotta get focused.

Last night, I went to the National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness event at St. Mark's Church. Cleo Creech read some of his work along with other poets and singers. Afterwards, there was a candlelight vigil on the steps of the church. That's Cleo in the photo at left. Gay or straight, I encourage everyone to get tested on a regular basis.

Take your pledge and shove it...

The LGBT community has taken a number of hits this week: the Democrats tried to ram through a defense bill with the repeal of   "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" tacked on to it (a bad idea) and were blocked by Republicans. That same afternoon, one of Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss' moronic staffers posted "all fags must die" on popular LGBT website Joe.My.God. It was quickly traced back to Chambliss' office using the IP address. Chambliss is an anti-gay bigot, so the fact that one of his staffers did this is not a surprise.

Homophobic Bishop Eddie Long has found himself the subject of three lawsuits from young men who claim he molested them when they were 16 and 17 years old. Long leads the Atlanta New Birth megachurch, drives a Bentley, wears tight clothes and loves to take suggestive photos of himself in front of bathroom mirrors with his iPhone. Long has led anti-gay marches and preached about "gay conversion" so often that many had already suspected he was a secretly a down-low peen lover himself. We'll see how this plays out, but it's got Ted Haggard stank all over it.

Today, the GOP released its A Pledge to America – 21 pages of empty promises, patriotic jargon, tired talking points and a little anti-gay discrimination thrown in for good measure. They can scream about how the Dems are ruining the country, but, as usual, they have no solutions – just rhetoric.

The GOP is just like The Wizard of Oz  – pay no attention to what's happening behind the curtain. Just quake in fear, half-truths and a little more fear.

Teabaggers, Christine O'Donnell & other crazies

The Republican Party has been splintered by the crazy Tea Party and since Obama didn't turn water into wine the moment he set foot in the White House, Democrats seem to be wandering in the wilderness. As Bill Maher suggested on Larry King Live last week, Obama has been successfully painted as a "foreigner," a Muslim and a Manchurian Candidate who has hijacked the soul of America.

Republicans and Democrats have allowed these myths to flourish, giving rise to the Teabaggers, who claimed to be only interested in fiscal conservatism but have allowed the lunatic right wing to became the face of the movement. The Teabaggers have ripped the fearmongering page from the GOP playbook and their rallies have become racist, bigoted, fringe gatherings attended by people short on facts and long on paranoia. I am a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal -- always have been. If the Teabaggers had kept on message they might have held some interest for more moderate Democrats, but the Teabagger movement is too right even for some right-wing Republicans. Karl Rove, for instance.

Because Republicans have had the rug pulled out from under them and Democrats are struggling to hold onto even a spark of the energy Obama brought to the party two years ago, Teabaggers have grabbed the media spotlight and they aren't letting go. While the face of the Teabaggers has been Sarah Palin, she's temporarily passed the mantle to her doppelganger, Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell. The Teabaggers have thrown money at her and lifted her up as the future of the movement, despite the fact that her personnel file is chock-full-o-crazy.

Last week, O'Donnell's Christian-crazy views were spread virally across the web as an old appearance on MTV surfaced where she claimed masturbation was ungodly. Uhhhh, boy...  Then, on Friday night, Bill Maher rolled out clips from his old Politically Incorrect show where O'Donnell talked about dabbling in witchcraft. Over the weekend, O'Donnell played the Palin card and cancelled appearances on two of the big Sunday talk shows. Maher says he has clips of her saying other crazy stuff that he plans to air every Friday on his HBO show until she comes on and explains herself. I love Bill Maher.

While being anti-masturbation and pro-witchcraft is amusing and makes for good soundbites, O'Donnell's fiscal past is seriously troubling. She was sued by her university for not paying her tuition, defaulted on her mortgage and claims to be living off "savings" and doing PR consulting work for unnamed clients. There are allegations she's living off campaign contributions. She's never held public office, obviously has no concept of money and has aligned herself with right-wing religious groups against abortion, sex, gay rights and believe "Biblical principles" should be applied to government. The Teabaggers are so desperate to get one of their own in the Capitol, they'll turn a blind eye to all this and throw a few million her way. It's absolute insanity.

Speaking of insanity, Teabagger senate hopeful Jim Miller from Alaska believes millions should be denied unemployment benefits, wants to dismantle social security, the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts and wants to repeal Obama's health care reform. He's more scary than O'Donnell because he doesn't appear to have any skeletons in his closet other than he likes to rail against Obama turning America into a godless, socialist nation. Give me a frickin' break.

Look, I totally get wanting to go against the "establishment" in Washington, of electing someone who will wade into the shark-infested political waters and make change, but are the Teabaggers so desperate for their own brand of change that they'll send unqualified, fringe-types to get the job done? That appears to be the case.

Repeal DADT

Call your senators and ask them to repeal DADT. If Lady Gaga can do it, so can you.

Self-portrait at 41

Social media, poetry and playwriting

Since I've been giving workshops on social media for writers and artists, I've had a number of folks ask if I do private consulting work. I do now. I met with my first client tonight and helped her set up a number of platforms, including a Facebook fan page, a YouTube channel along with an easy tutorial on making and uploading videos and we're working a blog. Yes, this is basic stuff, but many people don't have the time or tech savvy, so my goal is to guide them along so they can maintain their on social media. I do have a day job and my own writing/social media to maintain, but I can make time for a few more clients, so if you're in metro Atlanta and need some help, let me know. Reasonable rates! You can email me at collinkelley@gmail.com

It's been a poetry can kind of week, so no work at all on the Venus sequel. I've submitted poetry to two anthologies and a literary journal. The files from my old word processor also arrived, so I've been pouring over those to see what's salvageable. I'm still jazzed about The Portrait of a Lady stage adaptation. For the life of me I can't remember why I abandoned it, but I definitely want to finish it. I haven't written a play in more than 15 years (gulp!), so this might be a way to get my feet wet again.

I can't believe I'm going to be 41 (double gulp!) on Friday. Time do fly.

Here she is boys...here she is world...

Photos by Dan Lax

I had the honor of interviewing the legendary Patti LuPone onstage this afternoon at Agnes Scott College's Presser Hall. Patti's new memoir is out tomorrow and she's only doing four readings around the country to promote it, since she's in rehearsal for two shows in New York, including the musical version of Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Atlanta got her first and it was the only event where she agreed to talk about her career and the book at length.

I'm not gonna lie – I was scared shitless about interviewing Patti. She does have a "reputation," but after reading her memoir and then meeting her today, I found her to be warm, generous and hilarious. And she swears like a sailor, so she's my kinda gal. And, yeah, it's a gay man's wet dream to actually meet Evita, Fantine, Norma Desmond and Mama Rose – just some of the iconic roles she's played on Broadway and in the West End.

My goal with the interview was to ask questions that would give her room to tell stories, because she has some funny and harrowing stories to tell (Andrew Lloyd Webber firing her from Sunset Boulevard takes up two chapters and is a gripping read). She got emotional after one of my questions, talking about her high school music teacher, Mrs. Esther Scott, and had the audience rolling with her very direct answers about Webber (we all swore her comments wouldn't leave Presser Hall, and I'm keeping the promise). She even got up and sang a few bars. The audience was small, but when they stood up to give her a standing ovation, it sounded like the place was packed to the rafters. We were actually going to do some of Pivot/Proust questionnaire (like James Lipton does on Inside the Actors Studio) but we ran out of time, because the audience had some great questions of their own.

If you missed the event (you have my pity), but Outwrite Books has some signed copies, so drop by and pick up one this week!

Many, many thanks to Georgia Center for the Book for asking me to do the interview. It was an absolute thrill to meet you, Patti LuPone.

P.S. You can see what AtlantaBoy.com had to say about the evcnt at this link.

Patti LuPone & Me

Patti LuPone was the original Evita on Broadway, originated the role of Fantine in Les Misérables and redefined the iconic stage mother, Rose, in Gypsy. In other words, she’s musical theatre royalty.

LuPone will sign her eponymous memoir tomorrow (Sept. 13) at 1 p.m. at Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall in a program presented by Georgia Center for the Book. She’s only making four appearances to promote the book and Atlanta snagged the only one where she’ll actually be speaking. And I'm the one who will be interviewing her live on stage in front of the audience.

LuPone has a reputation for being opinionated, mercurial and difficult and she’s not afraid to admit it in her memoir. She’s had a run-in with nearly every actor, director and producer in the world, and yet they still want to work with LuPone. Even after Andrew Lloyd Webber fired her from Sunset Boulevard, he toyed with the idea of asking her to appear in another show.

In two long chapters, LuPone goes deep into the debacle of Sunset Boulevard, how Webber undermined the show by allowing Barbra Streisand to record the show’s big songs before the musical even opened; casting Glenn Close in a competing version in Los Angeles; inviting New York critics to the London previews before the show was ready; and then firing LuPone before the show transferred to Broadway after the US critics drubbed the London show.

The backstage dish makes up the bulk of the memoir, but LuPone is also a fierce advocate for actors, especially when it comes to working conditions and salary. Although she’s won two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award and nominated for a raft of others, she refreshingly pissed off when she loses (especially for her role in the revival of Anything Goes on Broadway).

LuPone has an Atlanta connection, too. She played Florine Worthen, Boolie’s clotheshorse wife, in the film version of Driving Miss Daisy, written by Atlanta native Alfred Uhry. It was Uhry who gave LuPone one of her first big breaks, when she was cast in his musical, The Robber Bridegroom.

For more information, visit www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.

Two hours on Chatroulette

I finally checked out Chatroulette and The Daily Show's Jon Stewart nailed it with this description: it's five percent curiosity and 95 percent free-floating dong.

Founded last year by a 17-year-old Russian computer geek, Chatroulette is a cross between a chat application and a game of chance. You are randomly connected via webcam, voice and text to others who are on the site. You hit a big, unmarked button and that disconnects you from one conversation and randomly starts another. It's free to use, there's no sign-in, there's no policing, there's no age restriction (although the creator suggested you be 16 to use it), but there is a whole, heaping amount of penis. I'll get to that in a minute.

As with any web chat, some folks have recorded themselves and others (y'all did know that was possible...right?) doing silly things, like lip-syncing to Lady Gaga songs and Lionsgate used Chatroulette to virally market the horror film, The Last Exorcism, showing a young woman seductively unbuttoning her shirt – another common image on the site – and then turning into a demon. With 1.5 million users in less than a year, Chatroulette is a neophyte in social media, but it's already crossed over into pop culture, with South Park even featuring it in an episode. New York book publicists and literatti-types Russ Marshalek and Brett Sandusky tried to market a novel on the site. You can watch the video of their attempt at this link. 

I had never tried Chatroulette until this past weekend. It took a few minutes to get my webcam set up, but then I was connected and what was the first image I saw: a close-up of a guy masturbating. I clicked the button and was connected to a teenager who called me an old man, flipped me off and moved on. Next were two giggling college girls who offered to show me theirs if I showed them mine (I declined), followed by a man who appeared to be in his 60s reading a newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee, and then it was a guy wearing nothing but a ski mask and a hard on. There were also a group of drunk frat boy-types huddled around a computer hoping to see some female skin. They told me to go fuck myself.  

I have to admit, I found Chatroulette intriguing, because the curiosity factor is so high. You never know who – or what – is coming next. I tried to keep count of the number of connections I made in the two hours I was on Chatroulette (yeah, I know, but it was research), but people on the site often took one look and moved on quickly, and so did I. The reputation Chatroulette has for being a "sausage factory"  is totally true. I would say that more than half the people I connected with were men exposing themselves or masturbating. 

In that two hours, I also actually had sustained conversations with two people: one was a girl who eyed me curiously and then noticed the Orlando movie poster on the wall behind me. She was at college (high school in the UK) and we had a 20 minute conversation about movies and British television. She was very nice and didn't offer to show me her boobs once. The other was a guy from South Carolina (who was clothed and actually cute) and we talked about the World Cup.

Will I ever visit Chatroulette again? Probably not. It's a curiosity and I can see how teens and college kids (and exhibitionists) find it amusing. Although you're showing your face (well...), there's still a feeling of anonymity that allows people to say and do things without fear of reprisal. That is unless their chat session is captured and put on YouTube.

If you're not easily offended check it out, but please keep your free floating dong and boobies to yourself. Unless you're Taylor Lautner or Gillian Anderson or....

For the September dead...

Leonard Slatkin conducts the BBC Orchestra at Albert Hall in London on September 15, 2001 in tribute to the dead of September 11. The music is Barber's "Adagio for Strings."

Consequences

The video for Vanessa Daou's "Consequences" from Joe Sent Me. Beautiful!

A weekend of books

I spent the entire weekend at the Decatur Book Festival, listening to authors, hanging out with friends and making a few new ones.

The festival began Friday night with Jonathan Franzen's keynote reading from his new novel, Freedom. I went with Frankin Abbott and Cal Gough and we grabbed a bite of dinner at Figo before heading over to Agnes Scott College's Presser Hall. We arrived early and there was already a line wrapped around the building. Tickets were free, but had been snapped up weeks ago, so folks were milling around hoping a few seats remained.

I have to be honest – I'm not a Franzen fan. I thought The Corrections was okay, but tedious, and judging from the passage he read Friday night, Freedom sounds like more of the same. I know reviewers are praising the book left and right – just as they did with The Corrections – but it's not my cuppa tea. Publisher's Weekly, who was blogging from the festival this weekend, said Franzen "knocked it out of the park" during his reading, but I beg to differ – unless I was in some kind of Fringe-like alternate universe. 

Franzen strolled out on stage, took off his jacket, tossed it on the floor and rolled up his sleeves. He brought a copy of Freedom on stage and stripped off the dust jacket and through that on the floor, too. The audience was all twitterpated over these actions, while I just gave it one big eye roll. He told the audience it was hard to pick a chapter since they were all so long and involved, so he decided to read parts of the second chapter. It was obvious he hadn't prepared, so the reading was punctuated by pauses as he decided what to edit out. The part he read was full of the usual minutiae that is a Franzen hallmark, but drags on the narrative. During the Q&A, Franzen never actually answered a question, but was admittedly "free associating." Ummm...yeah.

On Saturday morning, editor David Groff discussed Persistent Voices: An Anthology of Poets Lost to AIDS and then I, along with Franklin Abbott, Theresa David, Cleo Creech and Megan Volpert, read a selection of the poems, including those by Reginald Shepherd, Assotto Saint, Tory Dent and Reinaldo Arenas. The ballroom at the Decatur Conference Center was far too big for such an intimate reading, but it was fantastic nevertheless and quite moving. 

The social media panel I moderated was in the same ballroom and we – Karen Head, Jessica Handler, Laurel Snyder and Jef Blocker –expected maybe 30 or 40 folks to show up since there were so many competing events, but there was more like 130! Plenty of practical advice about using Facebook, Twitter and blogs to build a community of writers, interact with fans and using the social media sites to do more than just browbeating folks to buy your book. We could have answered questions for another hour, so we're hoping the DBF folks will let us have more time next year.

After a leisurely lunch at Leon's Full Service with poet Charles Jensen, his partner Beau, their friend Douglas, David Groff, his partner Clay, Dustin Brookshire and Julie Bloemeke, I wandered over to the Local Poetry Stage at Java Monkey and heard Robert Lee Brewer and some other fine poets. I then introduced the self-publishing workshop and headed home. I was exhausted.

Yesterday, it was back to Java Monkey to hear more poetry and then to hear the great poet, novelist and essayist Rigoberto González read a new essay about how Truman Capote's writing had influenced him as a child. It was a beautiful memory piece about being an immigrant and growing up in California. Rigoberto and I met earlier this year at Saints & Sinners and I think he is just a lovely man. I had to rush back over to Java Monkey to host for the final two hours of the Local Poets Stage. Great poetry from Anne Webster, Eve Hoffman, Mike Dockins, Lisa Allender (who just got a major role in a big movie!), Dustin Brookshire, Cleo Creech, Charles Jensen and Gypsee Yo. I read a few of my new ones, too.

After dinner at Twain's with all my poetry pals, I went back to Java to read during the open mic and to hear Patricia Smith read poetry from her new Motown project. Patricia's poetry is mind-boggling good and her double sestina and crown of sonnets were so effortless that it made me want to write more formal work. As expected, the coffee house patio was packed with folks, with many standing on the street trying to listen in. An amazing way to wrap another great Decatur Book Festival.

Decatur Book Festival returns

The annual Decatur Book Festival returns this weekend, Sept. 3-5, with hundreds of authors on hand for readings, signings, panel discussions and more. Here's what my schedule is looking like.

On Saturday at 10 a.m. I'll be reading poems from Persistent Voices: An Anthology of Poets Lost to AIDS with Franklin Abbott, Megan Volpert, Cleo Creech and Theresa Davis. Editor David Groff will be on hand to discuss the anthology. At 11 a.m. I'm moderating a social media panel with Karen Head, Jessica Handler, Laurel Snyder and Jef Blocker. Both of these are happening at the Holiday Inn/Decatur Conference Center.

On Sunday from 4-6 p.m. I'm hosting a great group of poets on the Local Poetry Stage at Java Monkey Coffee House including Mike Dockins, Lisa Allender, Eve Hoffman, Dustin Brookshire, Cleo Creech, Anne Webster, Gypsee Yo and the fab Charles Jensen. The regular Java Monkey Speaks open mic will begin as usual at 8 p.m. (sign up at 7:30, but come early to find a seat and get your name on the list!). The special guest is my pal, the wonderful Patricia Smith.

For a full schedule of events at the Decatur Book Festival, visit www.decaturbookfestival.com.