As I sit here in the Cincinatti airport, being the airpoet I am, and an easy misspelling of airport, I am honored to be alive on this Saturday, of all weekend days.
I want to make (it) out, with the women, the cash, the alive. There is a passion I’m feeling that is very mature, but different for me. I dig life experience, but I’ve been such a vicarious-type most of my life, and now I am yearning for all sorts of stuffs involving life, liberty and love.
I was in Manchester, New Hampshire last week and it was more than interesting. I had a blast hanging out with my host Matthew Tremblay (aka: Unseen the Poet or USP), his ladyfriend Meg, Mark Palos (ate w/him at Red Arrow! Good times!), his roomie Rem, and a score of other cast and crew involved in the ManchVegas scene. I very specifically enjoyed my time with Frumpity:
Experienced my second Noreaster of the year. I’m collecting a bunch of weather stories for ’07.
We ate lobster, my first actual lobster in New England. Nice! Matthew scraped out my lobster poop for me.
Matthew, pictured with Frumpity and I, is one of the swellest hosts there is and can be found slamming at the Bridge Cafe in Manch, or at the Boston Cantab. He’s one of the few poets I know who owns his own badass house.
Had one of the best gigs of my life at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham. The kids there were stupendous and I performed for over two hours. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. On average, I perform for 1:25. It is nice to pull out such a long set, but my show has been getting more and more personal, with responses from those in attendance equally as personal after the show and by email. If you’ve emailed me in the last month, I’m getting to your message.
Then I headed out to Portland, Oregon to hang with Anis Mojgani, Sarah, Ted, and Chris. Met up with my friend and old Kinko’s boss Tadashi Andrews, who also took the black and white image that is my “Smoking Quasimodo” userpic.
They all joined me in McMinnville, OR for my show at Linfield College, which went very well.
My time in Portland was far too short and I hope to spend more time with those homies this summer.
I then made my way to Bellingham, Washington where I napped at Ryler Dustin, Jake Tucker, and Graham Isaac’s house. I had a noon show at Whatcom Community College with Ryler opening for me. If you have not heard of Ryler, or his poetry, you have missed out. He’s fabulous.
The one and only Jack McCarthy made his way up for my show. It was pretty damn swell to see him.
I hung out throughout the night with the B’ham peeps, then Greydogged it to my friend Art’s place for a day and night and a day.
I caught a red-eye to Cincinatti, where I am lay-overed toward Hartford, Connecticut for a gig at Quinnipiac University. Been to Manchester and Hartford several times this year now. It’s good.
Due to scheduling, I had to back out of Chicago’s Mental Grafitti Slam Final, but I am available for Berkeley’s slam semifinals. I am also hosting San José’s Slam Final on May 11. Lots of finalization.
I will be featuring at HawaiiSlam on May 3, 2007. Looking very much forward to it.
I head to B.C. on May 12. Won’t get to spend too much time in Vancouver, so I hope to make plans with a large group of people on May 12.
I cannot get enough of R.E.M.’s “Imitation of Life.” Great fucking song.
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 21 April, 2007 at 10:20 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged bellingham, connecticut, manchester, portland. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
Berkeley!
So glad you will be home soon! So glad I will get to see you while you are home!
…and actually compete against you… but y’know, that’s ok.
Which one is Matthew and which one is Frumpity?
BTW, a great dog!!
New England/England
Reading about your visit to New England when I’ve been living in England for nearing four years, I suddenly had one of those revelations as to why the area is actually called New England. Manchester, Durham, Hampshire, etc.
Grand goings on in my corner of England at the moment. Chris and I have a poetry/spoken word residency starting next week at a theatre. We will be working there every Tuesday and Thursday evening. We will get paid what they make on the door initially, but if things go well and the theatre gets art council grants, Chris and I might turn into paid workers for this place. We may even have our own Radio show, we are getting an interview series starting with one of our favourite writers. The possibilities are booming, we just have to make the whole thing actually work. No pressure.
Anyway, we will be starting up the South Devon Slam pretty soon, and you are more than welcome to come on out and perform. Chris and I are also talking about perhaps coming out there in a bit and maybe doing a mini-tour with you. Call it an international cultural exchange.
I need to get your new phone number soon. I’ll e-mail you.
Bryce
Your mentioning of New Hampshire made me homesick… thanks a lot… jk
I used to stomp around in Durham… if you went to Durham House of Pizza or went by it I used to work there. I went to Upward Bound at UNH… I miss that place.
I hope you are enjoying the places that you go to and getting to take in sights. Some days I envy you. When i went to Ohio I thought about what it would be like to travel and how much I would love to do something like that. But on the flip side I know it must be hard and that you must get home sick.
I am very excited to have you coming to Presque Isle Maine… I plan on making the time you have here the Best! We should chat sometime… email me…
Tinky
though i already found out
kinda disappointed this is the first i’ve heard about mg from you.
I was surprised to hear that you are going out for Berkeley.
Come back soon homey. Miss ya buddy and thank you for getting my car to smell un frump like.