RANTS AND GRANTS (OR VICE VERSA): Let me start by saying that I want to either A) kill my drag queen neighbor or B) have a mob hit put out on him or C) snatch his ugly ass wig off his bald head and throw it off the balcony into the street for a pit bull to gnaw into shreds. At 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, this drunk bitch was screaming the lofts down at his sad-sack boyfriend, stomping on the concrete floors, throwing stuff and generally being an overblown drama queen. So, I banged on my bedroom wall as hard as I could and this slack ass ho started screaming at ME for banging on the wall. However, when I screamed in my scary-Mercedes McCambridge-Exorcist voice "SHUT THE FUCK UP" it went all silent and it's been that way ever since. Good. I weathered the screaming lesbians who used to beat the shit out of each other and...to quote a favorite drag queen diva...I will survive.
I spent the weekend absorbed in movies and writing grant proposals for two different things: one is for the 2005 edition of Voices Carry and the other is for a fellowship that I really can't discuss at the moment. Trust me, if I get this fellowship, I'll be hiring skywriters to proclaim it over the city. It would be a huge and humbling feather in my cap. Since I sit on the city's poetry board (I'm good for the demographics) I'm going to use it for every dollar I can get to further both my poetry and the art in general here my hometown. Voices Carry, with apologies to Poetry at Tech, was THE poetry event of the year. A standing room only crowd at the Carter Center with the most diverse list of performers this city has ever seen. In 2005, we want to get more publicity and give the poets an honoraria for their excellent work.
As for the movies, I rented the Robert Altman/Garry Trudeau mini series Tanner '88, which is still as hilarious and important as it was 15 years ago, especially in this political climate. I also watched the surprisingly moving "gay" flick Latter Days about a Mormon boy struggling with his homosexuality. Saturday night, I went to dinner with my friend Brent and to see The Motorcycle Diaries, a beautiful account of Che Guevara's younger days (and Gael Garcia Bernal is VERY easy on the eyes). On Sunday afternoon I watched The Human Stain, which was pretty much savaged by the critics, but I found haunting. Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman were (natch) brilliant, and although it was hard to suspend disbelief to accept Hopkins as a black man, he managed to carry it off and move me.
Last night was the first Java Monkey Speaks Slam, which began the process of selecting a team to go to the national slam competition in 2005. I planned to just sit and watch, but host Ayodele talked me into being scorekeeper. I didn't bother to tell Ayo that I failed math in high school and college. Oh, well...there was a calculator and I managed to do just fine. There were 10 slammers and they were all fabulous. Bryan and Samuel-Eddie were the top two and will advance. The slam will happen the second Sunday of each month at Java Monkey. If you have never seen a slam (or ignorant about the concept, as so many academics are) get your ass to JM next month.
Today, the Republicans jumped on a quote made by Kerry in a piece published over the weekend in the New York Times Magazine . Kerry said he believe terrorism would always exist, but wanted to move America to a place where terrorism is not the focus of our lives, and he hoped to reduce terrorism a "nuisance." Not the best choice of words, but I understand the context. However, the Republican response has been quite frightening. Basically, Cheney and Dubya said that America can never go back to a pre-9/11 era and that we will always be at war with terrorists. This is the kind of fear-mongering the Republicans have been peddling all year long. Obviously, we'll never go back to those days when we thought America was impervious to attack. However, we MUST get to a place where we cower in fear at the thought of terrorism. For Cheney and Dubya to twist Kerry's words and continue to promote the climate of fear is unconscionable.
Finally, please check out my two new poems at the excellent online literary magazine Split Shot. The two new poems are Lost and Reunification. The zine, edited and supervised by John Bush and his students at North Gwinnett High School in Georgia, is a fantastic blend of both well-known and student work.
I spent the weekend absorbed in movies and writing grant proposals for two different things: one is for the 2005 edition of Voices Carry and the other is for a fellowship that I really can't discuss at the moment. Trust me, if I get this fellowship, I'll be hiring skywriters to proclaim it over the city. It would be a huge and humbling feather in my cap. Since I sit on the city's poetry board (I'm good for the demographics) I'm going to use it for every dollar I can get to further both my poetry and the art in general here my hometown. Voices Carry, with apologies to Poetry at Tech, was THE poetry event of the year. A standing room only crowd at the Carter Center with the most diverse list of performers this city has ever seen. In 2005, we want to get more publicity and give the poets an honoraria for their excellent work.
As for the movies, I rented the Robert Altman/Garry Trudeau mini series Tanner '88, which is still as hilarious and important as it was 15 years ago, especially in this political climate. I also watched the surprisingly moving "gay" flick Latter Days about a Mormon boy struggling with his homosexuality. Saturday night, I went to dinner with my friend Brent and to see The Motorcycle Diaries, a beautiful account of Che Guevara's younger days (and Gael Garcia Bernal is VERY easy on the eyes). On Sunday afternoon I watched The Human Stain, which was pretty much savaged by the critics, but I found haunting. Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman were (natch) brilliant, and although it was hard to suspend disbelief to accept Hopkins as a black man, he managed to carry it off and move me.
Last night was the first Java Monkey Speaks Slam, which began the process of selecting a team to go to the national slam competition in 2005. I planned to just sit and watch, but host Ayodele talked me into being scorekeeper. I didn't bother to tell Ayo that I failed math in high school and college. Oh, well...there was a calculator and I managed to do just fine. There were 10 slammers and they were all fabulous. Bryan and Samuel-Eddie were the top two and will advance. The slam will happen the second Sunday of each month at Java Monkey. If you have never seen a slam (or ignorant about the concept, as so many academics are) get your ass to JM next month.
Today, the Republicans jumped on a quote made by Kerry in a piece published over the weekend in the New York Times Magazine . Kerry said he believe terrorism would always exist, but wanted to move America to a place where terrorism is not the focus of our lives, and he hoped to reduce terrorism a "nuisance." Not the best choice of words, but I understand the context. However, the Republican response has been quite frightening. Basically, Cheney and Dubya said that America can never go back to a pre-9/11 era and that we will always be at war with terrorists. This is the kind of fear-mongering the Republicans have been peddling all year long. Obviously, we'll never go back to those days when we thought America was impervious to attack. However, we MUST get to a place where we cower in fear at the thought of terrorism. For Cheney and Dubya to twist Kerry's words and continue to promote the climate of fear is unconscionable.
Finally, please check out my two new poems at the excellent online literary magazine Split Shot. The two new poems are Lost and Reunification. The zine, edited and supervised by John Bush and his students at North Gwinnett High School in Georgia, is a fantastic blend of both well-known and student work.
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