I spent the beginning of this week decompressing from last Friday’s Oversocial Mofo Revue. Only the second one held so far and another sell-out crowd. Perez and I have hit upon something here in San José. The every other month schedule must have something to do with it.
I followed Mofo with a pleasant weekend of relaxation with the occasional session of friends. I love open mics and the one at Philz Coffee in downtown San José is pretty handy. I spent this last Monday night there with Tristissima, my roommate William, and various open mic-ers. A lot of swell talent seems to land there from time to time.
I overslept a bit on Tuesday and was rushed by my godsend-of-another roommate Charlie to San José International Airport. One Houston layover and six hours later I ended up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My good man Ronnie Stephens met me at the pick-up curb and we immediately drove two hours to Fayetteville, Arkansas. So much for Tulsa.
I spent 48 fantastic hours in Arkansas. I am aware that I may be one of the only people to ever use that phrase. I got to catch up with the Stephenses, Russ Ritter and Doug Shields and eat some great food.
I was in town to perform at the University of Arkansas Coffeehouse Open Mic and Poetry Slam. I watched the open mic, did a 35 minutes set, then hosted the poetry slam. It was packed and electric throughout the night. Don’t sleep on Fayetteville. They’re excited about words.
In the morning, Ronnie and I headed back to Tulsa. I hadn’t slept after my gig, so I slept pretty hard on the ride to the airport. I felt bad dozing off on Mr. Stephens, but he’s too kind and generous to ever complain about me. He really should though. One Houston layover and ten hours later I ended up back in San José.
I met Perez to discuss Mofo. Listened to a poem he’s been stuck on for a while and his new edits made it perfect. He’s such a good writer. We joked around a bunch and talked about women. We ate pizza and called it a night. At home I watched an episode of Futurama and dozed off.
This morning I woke up at 7:04am and saw William off to work. I made some brown rice and coffee. I took some phone calls and washed clothes, dishes and surfed the tres-dubs. Before I knew it, William was home and we watched a few episodes of Mr. Show.
My self-imposed exile indoors got me a bit stir crazy, so William and I have come to this café near the house. There is a very tiny live music performance happening. A man is playing the blues, switching between an acoustic and a steel guitar depending on the song. The three people left in here are bobbing and tapping to his tunes. They either have nothing better to do or are pretending they came for him.
I am drinking decaf because it is almost 10:00pm and I want to sleep again. The musician has no idea that I am blogging about how horrible his music is. I feel guilty saying so, but it’s an important detail to my subtle week. It’s also a closing capper to a decade-plus of open mics and live performance. I’ve sucked on stage before, most certainly.
But he sure is making me think. I should put a dollar in his tip jar. Not for his talent, a redemption. My unspoken two cents for all the bad open mic performers I’ve seen this month alone. This guys number 51, I’m sure, so he gets the dollar.
It’s been a good week.
This entry was written by , posted on 20 November, 2010 at 2:11 AM, filed under Uncategorized and tagged arkansas, open mics, San-Jose-California. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.