Gigging like painters do
I got in off the road last night from my gig in Jackson, Michigan at about 2 AM and after having been pulled over for doing the Super Bowl Shuffle across some white lines due to weariness (just a warning, no ticket. Guess I was already too close to home to care. Thank you Polaris 5-0! I must have looked like a shopper), found I couldn't. Go. To. Sleep.
So now I'm getting ready to go to work and I'll be frighteningly surly if the slightest thing doesn't go my way today at work. I'm giving it until 10 AM to make the monster come out. Any takers? I promise not to spike the water bottle in the cutman's corner.
Anyhow, my feature last night was stupendous! It was a small crowd, and only one person I know in Michigan came out (thank you Esther!), so now I'm going back to being a Buckeyes fan. Boo Wolverines!
The reading was at The Cottage Retreat Center, which is sort of a converted house that's a center for meditations and workshops and writing groups, et al. It's a nice space, with sort of a home-reading feel. I liked it a lot. Reminded me of the Thurber House a LOT. Reminded me of the early days of featuring a lot.
I had to do a hour long set, which is a piece of cake for me, but once I started to get a feel for the crowd as they came in, I started taking out the raunchy stuff. They would have been okay with it, but I didn't want to come off as Slam Poet, so I pulled out my NPR stuff and some newer stuff and some oldies but goodies on paper. Lot of typical stuff done differently because of the mood, and we had a LOT of fun. It's been a while since I've featured proper - a couple of months, I think, but I don't have my calendar in front of me - and it's been a LONG time since I had to cover a straight hour. I LOVE the long ones. It's like painting a picture, but getting the colors handed to you as you go along. The better you paint the picture as you go, the more colors Mysetry Art Store hands you from behind the canvas. So we had a LOT of fun, and I got to talk some theory afterwards too, which you KNOW I love to do. I was pretty high off of the whole affair wihle driving back, and between that and getting a good report on how my night went while I was gone, I was feeling mighty fine.
The Jackson setlist is interesting. Some of my standard pieces are non-slam poems (meaning they're way longer than 3 minutes and THAT'S ALL THAT MEANS, doctortina, *snarksnark*), so there are those pieces. But they also have you do an encore piece, which means they survey the room and have you do the most popular piece you did in your set AGAIN. I told them that I actually do have more poems if they'd rather hear a new one. They said, "oh, great, then you can do TWO more!" So I did a repeat and added one that wasn't in the original set.
They also usually have a poem by the next month's feature read aloud to give people a sample, and the MC (Jeanne, who rocks) asked if I would read it. I said sure, and of course it's Steve Marsh. So I read his poem, then did the other two, but not before I gave this gushing intro about Steve that would have embarassed us both if he were there (he was sick, so I forgive his absence. I do not forgive him trying to get me to stay over at his place if necessary, with his sick ass, trying to get me sick).
The setlist:
- Elementary
- Jesse
- Black Country Club (which had one guy say, "That was on NPR last week. You're the guy.")
- The Delacroix, Louisiana Barbecue and Funeral Session
- Queen Takes Black Knight
- Fine Art
- The End of the Further Adventures of Jimmy Fontaine
- Judas, After Seeing "The Passion of the Christ" for the Fourth Time
- Moonwalk (which I almost had to read twice, but was saved from, which is good.)
- "Roots" (title in utero. It's a new piece about my father I'm still working the kinks out of, but that apparently has laughs in it when performed right. This was only my second time reading it.)
- ScottNTony4: Streetlights (my infamous 8 minute poem)
- Shaman
Encore:
- Jesus is My Quarterback
- Shaman
Like I said, a great night. I did the stuff I like, the stuff that moves CDs, some of the stuff that appeared on NPR, two-minute pieces, an eight-minute piece...a nice gamut.
Esther asked that I post more about the poetry manuscript process, so I will do that. It really is an interesting process, like trying to teach 35 kids how to ride a bike at once. Once I get past this PSI investigation, that's my top priority.
So now I'm getting ready to go to work and I'll be frighteningly surly if the slightest thing doesn't go my way today at work. I'm giving it until 10 AM to make the monster come out. Any takers? I promise not to spike the water bottle in the cutman's corner.
Anyhow, my feature last night was stupendous! It was a small crowd, and only one person I know in Michigan came out (thank you Esther!), so now I'm going back to being a Buckeyes fan. Boo Wolverines!
The reading was at The Cottage Retreat Center, which is sort of a converted house that's a center for meditations and workshops and writing groups, et al. It's a nice space, with sort of a home-reading feel. I liked it a lot. Reminded me of the Thurber House a LOT. Reminded me of the early days of featuring a lot.
I had to do a hour long set, which is a piece of cake for me, but once I started to get a feel for the crowd as they came in, I started taking out the raunchy stuff. They would have been okay with it, but I didn't want to come off as Slam Poet, so I pulled out my NPR stuff and some newer stuff and some oldies but goodies on paper. Lot of typical stuff done differently because of the mood, and we had a LOT of fun. It's been a while since I've featured proper - a couple of months, I think, but I don't have my calendar in front of me - and it's been a LONG time since I had to cover a straight hour. I LOVE the long ones. It's like painting a picture, but getting the colors handed to you as you go along. The better you paint the picture as you go, the more colors Mysetry Art Store hands you from behind the canvas. So we had a LOT of fun, and I got to talk some theory afterwards too, which you KNOW I love to do. I was pretty high off of the whole affair wihle driving back, and between that and getting a good report on how my night went while I was gone, I was feeling mighty fine.
The Jackson setlist is interesting. Some of my standard pieces are non-slam poems (meaning they're way longer than 3 minutes and THAT'S ALL THAT MEANS, doctortina, *snarksnark*), so there are those pieces. But they also have you do an encore piece, which means they survey the room and have you do the most popular piece you did in your set AGAIN. I told them that I actually do have more poems if they'd rather hear a new one. They said, "oh, great, then you can do TWO more!" So I did a repeat and added one that wasn't in the original set.
They also usually have a poem by the next month's feature read aloud to give people a sample, and the MC (Jeanne, who rocks) asked if I would read it. I said sure, and of course it's Steve Marsh. So I read his poem, then did the other two, but not before I gave this gushing intro about Steve that would have embarassed us both if he were there (he was sick, so I forgive his absence. I do not forgive him trying to get me to stay over at his place if necessary, with his sick ass, trying to get me sick).
The setlist:
- Elementary
- Jesse
- Black Country Club (which had one guy say, "That was on NPR last week. You're the guy.")
- The Delacroix, Louisiana Barbecue and Funeral Session
- Queen Takes Black Knight
- Fine Art
- The End of the Further Adventures of Jimmy Fontaine
- Judas, After Seeing "The Passion of the Christ" for the Fourth Time
- Moonwalk (which I almost had to read twice, but was saved from, which is good.)
- "Roots" (title in utero. It's a new piece about my father I'm still working the kinks out of, but that apparently has laughs in it when performed right. This was only my second time reading it.)
- ScottNTony4: Streetlights (my infamous 8 minute poem)
- Shaman
Encore:
- Jesus is My Quarterback
- Shaman
Like I said, a great night. I did the stuff I like, the stuff that moves CDs, some of the stuff that appeared on NPR, two-minute pieces, an eight-minute piece...a nice gamut.
Esther asked that I post more about the poetry manuscript process, so I will do that. It really is an interesting process, like trying to teach 35 kids how to ride a bike at once. Once I get past this PSI investigation, that's my top priority.