Slam has officially kicked my ass.
I was at finals tonight. I was the DJ. I played a lot of music that people weren't expecting, since I'm nobody's hip hop DJ. I'm also figuring out there are some particularly annoying kinks in my DJ software that i have to avoid in the future which left me hanging once or twice, but I manage and things went just fine. Such is the job of a DJ at a poetry slam. We're like leg warmers in winter - nice, but not necessary, kind of silly looking where we are.
I have to say, Nuyorican's deal with doing a group piece with microphones for people offstage was a really stupid idea. That said, they didn't deserve to have their other mics cut off by the FOH operator until halfway through their piece. There was a guy backstage who could obviously tell that people were trying to say their lines and weren't getting broadcast. When Mike Henry came out at the end, there was a comment about how the FOH operator shouldn't have been reading his email while performers were working. As someone onstage with a laptop with wireless, I know they have that access, and I know it can get boring. But I didn't have time to browse the internet (unlike at the women's reading, guilty confession), and I'm wondering how that guy did. Obviously he didn't have enough time to do both effectively. In his defense, unless you've specifically told an operator, if you're putting mics offstage, he's gonna shut them off so you don't get backstage chatter. I don't know what was said to him over the radio while he was there, either, so that's as it is.
This bout tired me out. Not only were there really "slammy" teams (including the slam winners, but they had people who *didn't* make the finals doing two group pieces and an individual piece (Shira's piano piece). Berkeley did the team piece about the pirates, which I'm convinced got nominated because girls thought they were cute and they had a bit where one poet jumped onto the arms of two other poets - very well-choreographed. The pirate motif couldn't have been what drew people - it was incredibly...oh hell, I know the slam kiddies loved it. The other people were Omaha, with yet *another* love poem that really shouldn't have been a group piece. I think it was about how the female on the team used to date satan (or a guy who she made out to be satan from the way it was written) and...gah. Well, her tattoos were cool (the scrolls like on a violin on either side of her waist - neato).
A moment for consideration - I've seen Nuyorican two nights in a row, and they've got an annoying habit of taking a full ten to thirty seconds to move microphones around (taking all four other microphones fully off to the sides in a single piece, or doing all sorts of weird things for group pieces that seem to take much longer than needed). It's so purposeful that it almost makes me want to say they should be considered "interacting with the audience" when they're doing it. Of course, there's no time penalty needed because that blocking with the group piece cost them with the microphone snafu. At least the powers that be didn't decide to redo the round or some ridiculousness. *whew* Honestly, I couldn't even tell you what that piece was about, but I do remember thinking they could have done it with the people who weren't the central poet facing the back of the stage, or the sides but still being on the stage...I also thought it was illegal when they were doing it, but I'm not one of the people in charge. Seems if you're doing a poem, your ass should be onstage. It's not a theatrical production...oh wait. Nevermind.
There were a few mistakes in reading scores for rounds that were corrected in the next pass. I have to say, I understand the desire to get the scores up quickly and move the reading along, but taking an extra ten seconds to get it right would have been fine. The MC usually kept going for a bit after the score was tabulated and announced anyway.
Denver's "group piece" with the two guys pointing up all the man-is-devil themes in slam and then bitching about them for the whole poem really pissed me off. It's like when white guys bitch about affirmative action and how they are a "minority" - you're not getting my sympathy, and it's really hard to pull it off well. As a summary, the best I can give of their poem is - stop calling all guys evil just because we have a penis, we're on your side so don't pick on us. They may have also said "please don't pick on us with your poetry anymore" but I don't remember. "Don't hate us because we have a penis" is about the sum of it.
I'm tired. The staff at the Parmount altered between really friendly and a couple who were really rude. I don't know what was up with that, but it's all good. I passed on the afterparty at 501, so I told the other guy who was doing the DJ thing that he could do it all, made sure it was okay. If you're a DJ, you'll realize how silly "making sure it's okay" is - giving a DJ more time to play is like giving a poet a free feature. ;)
Gotta jet. Hope you all had a lovely week.
I have to say, Nuyorican's deal with doing a group piece with microphones for people offstage was a really stupid idea. That said, they didn't deserve to have their other mics cut off by the FOH operator until halfway through their piece. There was a guy backstage who could obviously tell that people were trying to say their lines and weren't getting broadcast. When Mike Henry came out at the end, there was a comment about how the FOH operator shouldn't have been reading his email while performers were working. As someone onstage with a laptop with wireless, I know they have that access, and I know it can get boring. But I didn't have time to browse the internet (unlike at the women's reading, guilty confession), and I'm wondering how that guy did. Obviously he didn't have enough time to do both effectively. In his defense, unless you've specifically told an operator, if you're putting mics offstage, he's gonna shut them off so you don't get backstage chatter. I don't know what was said to him over the radio while he was there, either, so that's as it is.
This bout tired me out. Not only were there really "slammy" teams (including the slam winners, but they had people who *didn't* make the finals doing two group pieces and an individual piece (Shira's piano piece). Berkeley did the team piece about the pirates, which I'm convinced got nominated because girls thought they were cute and they had a bit where one poet jumped onto the arms of two other poets - very well-choreographed. The pirate motif couldn't have been what drew people - it was incredibly...oh hell, I know the slam kiddies loved it. The other people were Omaha, with yet *another* love poem that really shouldn't have been a group piece. I think it was about how the female on the team used to date satan (or a guy who she made out to be satan from the way it was written) and...gah. Well, her tattoos were cool (the scrolls like on a violin on either side of her waist - neato).
A moment for consideration - I've seen Nuyorican two nights in a row, and they've got an annoying habit of taking a full ten to thirty seconds to move microphones around (taking all four other microphones fully off to the sides in a single piece, or doing all sorts of weird things for group pieces that seem to take much longer than needed). It's so purposeful that it almost makes me want to say they should be considered "interacting with the audience" when they're doing it. Of course, there's no time penalty needed because that blocking with the group piece cost them with the microphone snafu. At least the powers that be didn't decide to redo the round or some ridiculousness. *whew* Honestly, I couldn't even tell you what that piece was about, but I do remember thinking they could have done it with the people who weren't the central poet facing the back of the stage, or the sides but still being on the stage...I also thought it was illegal when they were doing it, but I'm not one of the people in charge. Seems if you're doing a poem, your ass should be onstage. It's not a theatrical production...oh wait. Nevermind.
There were a few mistakes in reading scores for rounds that were corrected in the next pass. I have to say, I understand the desire to get the scores up quickly and move the reading along, but taking an extra ten seconds to get it right would have been fine. The MC usually kept going for a bit after the score was tabulated and announced anyway.
Denver's "group piece" with the two guys pointing up all the man-is-devil themes in slam and then bitching about them for the whole poem really pissed me off. It's like when white guys bitch about affirmative action and how they are a "minority" - you're not getting my sympathy, and it's really hard to pull it off well. As a summary, the best I can give of their poem is - stop calling all guys evil just because we have a penis, we're on your side so don't pick on us. They may have also said "please don't pick on us with your poetry anymore" but I don't remember. "Don't hate us because we have a penis" is about the sum of it.
I'm tired. The staff at the Parmount altered between really friendly and a couple who were really rude. I don't know what was up with that, but it's all good. I passed on the afterparty at 501, so I told the other guy who was doing the DJ thing that he could do it all, made sure it was okay. If you're a DJ, you'll realize how silly "making sure it's okay" is - giving a DJ more time to play is like giving a poet a free feature. ;)
Gotta jet. Hope you all had a lovely week.