Busybusybusy
Headed to Chicago today for the weekend. Like 99% of my admittedly few trips to Chicago, it's all business: the PSI Executive Council retreat (wherein we hole up for 3 days and discuss all things PSI, plot the demise of poets' souls and otherwise seek to expand our nefarious Midwestern reach over the poetry world, yadda yadda yadda) and a feature at the legendary Green Mill Sunday night.
I wanted to have a totally new set of stuff for the Mill this time, but don't.
Didn't have time between work and more work, especially in the past week. The night has had great shows the past couple of weeks [1] and I plan to do this year what I didn't do last year and take a break here and there, but the night has to be in a certain zone to before I'd feel comfortable doing that. It isn't simply handing someone the MC reigns; that's easy, and Vernell is the only other local person I trust implicitly and without fear to do as much on a whim. And while I've had some solid offers that I plan to use in the future from other cats, not MCing doesn't sum up what needs to happen to "give me a break". MCing the night is fairly easy; it's the commitment of setting up and ending a long work day by signing up for more work and handling the money and lining up announcements...and all of THAT'S just on a regular open mic night. When it's a slam night or an MPSL night, forget about it.
All of this is to say that I'll have a mixed set Sunday; some new, some old. I don't do Chicago enough for it to be a problem - it'll be mostly new to most of the audience regardless - but it's a personal thing. That, and I like watching Marc Smith watching me make people laugh and think.
Anyhow, I got laundry to do before I hit the road. Next week I start writing a lot of non-poetry stuff. I'm out.
NOTES
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[1] ...but only OK MCing this week. I let the hecklers run over me because I'm just too damn tired sometimes by 8:00 on Wednesdays, so I just ran over them through the slam. They get excited by the show's energy sometimes, so I understand, but sometimes I wish they'd just let me jack people on the mic without trying to turn it into Abbot AND Costello, stepping on my lines and giving away some of my punchlines. Of course, I can handle the issue when I feel like it's necessary to, but sometimes I don't have the strength to be the heavy.
I wanted to have a totally new set of stuff for the Mill this time, but don't.
Didn't have time between work and more work, especially in the past week. The night has had great shows the past couple of weeks [1] and I plan to do this year what I didn't do last year and take a break here and there, but the night has to be in a certain zone to before I'd feel comfortable doing that. It isn't simply handing someone the MC reigns; that's easy, and Vernell is the only other local person I trust implicitly and without fear to do as much on a whim. And while I've had some solid offers that I plan to use in the future from other cats, not MCing doesn't sum up what needs to happen to "give me a break". MCing the night is fairly easy; it's the commitment of setting up and ending a long work day by signing up for more work and handling the money and lining up announcements...and all of THAT'S just on a regular open mic night. When it's a slam night or an MPSL night, forget about it.
All of this is to say that I'll have a mixed set Sunday; some new, some old. I don't do Chicago enough for it to be a problem - it'll be mostly new to most of the audience regardless - but it's a personal thing. That, and I like watching Marc Smith watching me make people laugh and think.
Anyhow, I got laundry to do before I hit the road. Next week I start writing a lot of non-poetry stuff. I'm out.
NOTES
-----
[1] ...but only OK MCing this week. I let the hecklers run over me because I'm just too damn tired sometimes by 8:00 on Wednesdays, so I just ran over them through the slam. They get excited by the show's energy sometimes, so I understand, but sometimes I wish they'd just let me jack people on the mic without trying to turn it into Abbot AND Costello, stepping on my lines and giving away some of my punchlines. Of course, I can handle the issue when I feel like it's necessary to, but sometimes I don't have the strength to be the heavy.