MUST HAVE
Betty White Calendar for a good cause
MOVING ON – 11 DAYS LEFT IN WORCESTER
Admittedly, due to expenses, I have been on a deep, deep search for the least expensive flight from BOS to SFO. I found a one-way ticket through United that required 12,500 miles. I have 11,544. Ugh. I purchased 1,000 miles for $67 on United in order to get the ticket. It takes two days for miles to post. I called the airline and held the flight for 3 days. Hopefully it will work, but the sadness lies in the fact that the flight leaves Boston on July 27. It was all I could find. This means I am gone in 11 days. No August for me.
I have been wrought with every emotion possible on this move. Worcester has been so good to me. I cannot express it all at the moment.
MONEY SUCKS ASS(ES)
The hardest part about performance touring for a living is budgeting – living off of what you make during your “tour season.” Summer sucks for touring. Less interest, less gigs. Even if you make good money on the road in the summer/winter, you have to deal with uncomfortable weather, incorrigible travel conditions and high costs.
CHANGES TO THE KITCHEN SESSION SCHEDULE
Because I love Kitchen Sessions so much, I booked four of them at my house for July as a month-long series of final hoorahs here in Worcester, plus Simone Beaubien took on tonight’s “Kitchen Session – Boston #1” in which I am the feature. A week after planning these, I canceled July 10 due to over-extending myself. And this week I moved the July 30 “Tony Brown/My Feature” to Saturday, July 24, which was supposed to be “New York Poets Invade Worcester.” I was really hoping to foster a poet-love-in between New York and New England. The very last Kitchen Session at my house will be July 24 in Worcester.
Geography lesson for you west coasters: New York is not in New England. New England = Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. No one knows why Connecticut made it on the list. It’s wedged between NY and MA, I believe it’s a toll road.
Of the 20+ NYC poets I initially invited, three or four excitedly offered to attend. I’ve learned over the past 1.5 years on this coast that New Yorkers really prefer not leaving New York. Ever. I think people in big cities have this subconscious expectation for small towners to come to them.
“Hey, I live in this giant city. Everybody comes to us.”
To the New York poets I invited: I love you. Deeply. Wet.
I understand money concerns and loads of poets are lacking funds these days, but I think a lot of people underestimate the generosity of my peeps here in New England. New England poets adore other poets. I’ve seen more money get passed to features then at most poetry slams. Reps from Manchester, NH’s “Slam Free or Die” crew are always supporting everyone’s events in New England. I nominate them as the most supportive poets in New England. They’re just really good people. And sexy.
HERE, TAKE THIS, I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE IT
I wish more people here in New England especially, and the rest of North America would consider having a Kitchen Session in their homes. It can be so fulfilling and if you’ve never experienced spoken word in a crowd of people you really dig, with the performer less than 6 feet away from you, then you don’t know what you’re missing. I will say that the interest in your reading will depend heavily on the personality of your host. Because the event really only has your house to rely on for consistency, so you have to look to the face of your event for the feel of the night. Your host has to be comfortable and free to talk and be themselves.
There is something about a room full of people who came to an event specifically for the event. It’s quite familial.
I could also see people organizing poetry slams in their homes. Imagine the San Jose/McGee’s Kitchen Slam Team or Chicago/Robbie Q’s Laundry Room Slam Team representing at Nationals.
Can’t say this enough: The writing at these events MUST be new or never-before-read work (NONBRW), or poets just won’t be as consistent. When you have 8-15 regional poets doing their signature poems over and over again, you WILL lose interest and you WILL NOT put butts in seats. I guarantee it. Also, it’s good to pressure your features to do a minimum of two NONBRW so that your home event has something to offer the community of regulars who intend to follow the feature to other venues. People who’ve been to a Kitchen Session can sit comfortably knowing they are in for something new throughout the entire night.
Actually, I’d recommend this to anyone starting any type of show.
I am stoked that Boston is putting the moves on creating a more permanent Kitchen Session in the region. It should be awesome because it is in good hands.
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 16 July, 2010 at 2:17 PM, filed under Uncategorized and tagged kitchen-sessions, moving, San-Jose-California, United States. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.