Wednesday.

Wednesday, Megan made her first appearance @ the Nuyorican in six months. It was her first slam/competition of any kind in all that time and so she was obviously very excited to get back into a place like the cafe.

Natually, im predisposed to selfishness. In the poetry world, im normally very concerned with my own success and my own development. Coaching has done strange things to me. Now ofcourse, Im always happy for the success of my colleagues and glad to see them improve and impress. But with folks like Tracy, Kerri, Chris, Mike, it’s almost like my happiness is dependent on their success. I find myself out-and-out screaming in joy for the poets ive coached. The first time this really happened was in semis, when Tracy fucking throttled a room of 200 poets and coaches from all over the country at UPenn at Nat’s.

Then wednesday. I told Meg I expected her to win. The energy had to be all bottled up inside her, ready to pop. And predictably, she went OFF in her first round piece. This is a poem which includes a reference to a fairly notorious regular at the Nuyo. She makes an excellent point about some logical issues in one of his pieces that makes Port41 look like a feminist’s convention (more on that later). Anyway, when she got to this point of the poem, I made sure to look back at many of the other regulars in the building, including the host, who were familiar with the kid she was talking about. Their faces as they realized what she was doing were literally priceless. They had all been waiting for someone to do this. And ofcourse, Megan did.

Still, being in third place out of the final five is often tough to overcome at the Nuyo. Scores creep is so high by this time. Its very rare to pull off a leapfrog like that in the final round. But ofcourse, as predicted, she put a 30 on em and won the whole thing. When the ten’s went up my fucking whole body exploded with happniess.

God, that felt good. It was like I had won. Like the Bills had won the Superbowl, the Rangers won the cup, and I was given a Nobel Prize for having this biggest penis on earth. I love when she’s successfull. I love when the people I love get what they deserve from their effort and hard work. It makes me. fucking. joyfull.

Happy Happy Happy.

Thursday.

Last night was the Inagural Intangible Slam. I thought it went really really well. Then again, I also managed to lose like $80, wasn’t exactly gonna pass a sobriety test when i left, and apparantley insulted a number of colleagues by my choice of venue. If that’s the worst of the evening, I’ll take it.

Putting 60-75 people in a room for poetry and seeing the faces of the people I love makes me happy. Sorry to anyone who needs to be apologized to. Blanket apology.

For everyone who enjoyed themselves, thank you for coming. Should have some dope pictures soon.