Monday night was Sierra DeMulder’s last show in Worcester, The Dirty Gerund at Ralph’s Rock Diner was its usual growing, vivacious self. A really rocking weekly show run by Alex Charalambides and Nick Davis. It’s the adult answer to Alex’s monthly Worcester Youth Slam. Two very different venues, but the same excitement toward expression, just drunker older people.
Sierra’s friends Alex and James drove up from NYC to see her set and to take her back with them in time for her Bowery show. They were already at Ralph’s when we arrived and when Sierra introduced us, I hugged them realizing we’d all met a couple of times previously. Sierra was not surprised, so I punched her in the neck to get ‘surprise’ out of her. They’re all good kids. Real sweethearts. I had met James in ’07 at the Revival show Gabrielle Bouliane set up in Buffalo. I met Alex at SUNY Oneonta on that same tour. One of my favorite shots I took last year is of her in a hoodie outside of the Bowery Poetry Club on a very rainy night.
We stayed up very late chatting while Sierra made me an apple pie for my birthday. They slept in the living room and we woke in the morning to see them off. So much fun. Melinda and I really love hosting people at our place. Roger Mindfucker could take it or leave it.
Alex Charalambides picked me up in the morning. He’s been pushing spoken word events and programming non-stop, like a madman. He’s wearing a lot of hats and writing grants and such to get monies for features and whatnot. Alex has really stepped up to the plate of poetry organizing. He is to Worcester what Val Kilmer is to frisbee-golf.
Charalambides, Danny Balel, Nick Davis and I headed to Marlboro, MA where we met Erin Jackson at a vocational high school to run a demo slam at an assembly. It was awesome. Those kids were just delightful. Couldn’t have been a better way to start my birthday and make a bit of dough for Alex’s causes. I cheated my ass off in the slam: I mentioned it was my birthday, used gray-area-quasi-cursing, did "Pudd’n" and "Mailed Myself a Love Letter," and took five to six minutes in both rounds because of pre-poem banter. Hey, if you are running a slam and you don’t mention time limits or produce a stopwatch, you are giving poets carte blanche. I will use this to my benefit! Assured!
Suffice it to say, I won by 3-million points. I think Nick, Erin and Danny let me win for my birthday. I really love those peeps. So good at being good people.
We grabbed some sit-down lunch in town and had a blast joking and talking. We were undoubtedly one of the most vulgar groups of people ever to socialize in Marlboro, Mass. As all hell. Had you been sitting next to us at the restaurant, you’d never have guessed that we just came from a high school where we’d just introduced clean spoken word to a bunch of teens. Or maybe you would have… Either way, I got a small bit of chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream with a candle in it. Alex bought us lunch for our slammage. I love all of them peeps.
EDIT: As noted in the comments, one of the coolest phone calls I got last night was indeed Shappy calling from the Urbana Poetry Slam to have the entire audience wish me a happy birthday. Very, very cool!
We then parted ways and I went home. Melinda was at work, so I caught up a bit on "Community" and ate Mac & Chee with tuna for dinner. Played with Roger MF for a bit. Chatted with family and friends on the phone. Tony came home, so I headed downstairs to hang with him and Missy. We drank a birthday cider and rang out my first day of 34 by watching Adult Swim while I washed a load of clothes.
A very relaxing and quiet day for the McGoof.
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Word to the nerd.
2010: Only do.
This entry was written by , posted on 13 January, 2010 at 11:26 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged alex charalambides, birthday, danny balel, demo slam, erin jackson, nick davis, tony brown. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
So glad to read every bit of this. I love you, Beast.
I’m a graduate of that voc school. Class of ’83.
Belated natal anniversary wishes to you!
It was fun to write. Even more fun to experience. Give Pipes a big belated birthday high five for me. Tell’er she’s always gonna be rad in my book. Miss you, fam.
No kidding! No wonder they were awesome, you set the standard, sir. Thanks so much, Bob.
But you forget to mention how the entire audience of the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam wished you a Happy Birthday last night!
Duly noted and edited above! Thanks for the reminder because that was definitely a highlight! As a was the entire San Jose Poetry Slam calling me at midnight on my birthday to sing to me. So very cool.
Belated Hugs!
Tight enough to take your breath away. And air kisses so close they might be real ones.
FYI–Zork may have a surprise new Casa Poetica next time you visit. An actual house with extra room for visiting poets (who aren’t allergic to cats) AND not much more than 5 minutes from the White Plains library (and Applebees).
I have never lived in a house (unless apartments in houses count) my entire adult life. And you know I am A LOT older than 34!