GENESEO, NY
DAY 14 – 9/30/10: We roll through the hills of upstate New York entranced, as mile after mile of oak, acorn, and birch in fall burn disappear behind us. This has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the US and we’re lucky to be here at just the right time of year. The drive up to the University of New York, Geneseo, is a bit of a climb and it’s raining so the van keeps stalling every time we come to a stop. Alice is getting really good at double-footed driving, one on the gas at all times and the other working the brake; if the van is getting a constant feed of gas it won’t die. When we arrive in Geneseo, Ingamar Ramirez, our host and poetry booking agent for the school, braves the rain to come find us and show us the way to a warm shower. He takes us to the student union and sets us loose. It’s still a few hours till show time. Being here has already started to take Alice back. Geneseo, with a student population of approximately 4,000, isn’t much bigger than where Alice went to college at the University of MN, Morris, and just as Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Wobegon” parables could refer to just about any small town, so does Alice’s knowledge of life as a college student stranded in small town USA. Ingamar comes back to find us in the study lounge a few hours later and takes us to the Knight Spot, where we’ll be performing. As we ascend the steps through the school grounds (SUNY Geneseo is built on the side of a hill and offers a fantastic view of the forests sprawled out below) Ingamar stops to point out the sunset scorching a swatch of burnt sienna across the sky and tells us, “Athletes listen to rock n roll to get pumped up, and here poets get the sunset.”
Students quickly file in and before long the room is full, so we begin the show. Alice starts the show off right out of the gate with a nasty little poem and it’s cl
ear from their shining eyes that the students are going to eat up her dirty work, and they do. Except for a few of Alice’s heavier poems, we keep it light for most of the show. Ezra wins the crowd with the college work-study reminiscent poem “New Batch,” and we end the show with our new rendition of “Campaign” (Alice’s ode to female masturbation as in inalienable right) as a duet.
After the show, the enthusiasm and gratitude of the audience is overwhelming, as they stop to chat and buy our merchandise on their way out. We end up at Ingamar’s house with a few Geneseo students, which is on a huge lake reminiscent of home. Synchronicity
seems to be doing its job lately, as just a few days ago Alice was telling Laura Yes Yes that what she wants most in life is to be on the end of a dock over a calm lake on a fall day, and that is exactly what Ingamar serves up, along with great conversation and his roommate’s warm bed. Thank you, Geneseo!
Peace
NIAGARA FALLS
DAY 15 – 10/1/10: After Geneseo, we decide to do a little bit of the “travel” portion of our travel and performance tour and visit the legendary Niagara Falls, which is only about 90 minutes’ drive from Geneseo. It is extremely beautiful, as expected, with waterfalls and rapids in all directions, and we spend several hours just walking around the huge national park before heading into the town’s Little Italy district in search of food and a dive bar, preferably in the same place. We find it at Mujunz, a nicely priced tavern with a sandwich and quesadilla joint attached to it, with a window between the two so you can order food without leaving the bar, which is tended by a sassy, energetic lady named Tina. It’s always good to get off the well beaten path and meet the locals. We drink a lot of inexpensive whiskey and beer before returning to the van for some much needed sleep.
ONEONTA, NY
DAY 16 – 10/2/10: Well, we have a few days to kill before we hit NYC, and it’s just our luck that once again we find the perfect solution. In Geneseo, while killing time before our show, Ezra started to chat with Philip Morris’s (see Chi-Town blog) girlfriend, Glam Damage, on FaceBook, and found out that she is now living in Oneonta, NY, which is about halfway between Geneseo and NYC, and she agreed to let us crash at her place for the next two nights. On our way, Phillip Morris texts Ezra to let him know that we’re in good hands with Glam, and he is right! We arrive in the evening and are instantly greeted with libations, a delicious three-course meal, and a room all to ourselves.
DAY 17 – 10/3/10: Today Glam Damage takes us out to the Fly Creek Cider Mill, one of the main tourist attractions in upstate New York. It is a beautiful ride out and the Cider Mill is full of delicious samples and treats. We pick up some apples and other snacks for the road before heading back to Glam’s house for pizza and a couple movies, a very relaxing break from our tour. Glam and her roommates Rachel and Joel are excellent hosts and we pay them back as best we can by performing a few poems and leaving them with a book and CD before we hit the road for New York City! Thank you again Glam for all of your generosity.
Ezra hanging out on Glam Damage's Couch
NEW YORK CITY
DAY 18 – 10/4/10: We arrive in NYC just in time to take the last two open mic spots at the Louder Arts Poetry Slam, hosted by Emily Kagan Trenchard. The open mic begins with special guest Mongo Bearwolf, host of the IndieFeed Live podcast, reading his poem, “Small,” about the little things worth dying for, such as “a misplaced comma that totally changes the meaning of my life.” Alice instantly falls for Corinna Bain, who reads a poem during the open mic with the very true line, “I move to New York because it’s not the woods. Because people move like blood cells through the subway. Because in the handful of city blocks an average person walks in an average day, it is somehow guaranteed that you will see one of the most beautiful women in the world.” New York – it was love at first sight. Then it’s time for the slam and we’re asked to judge. We gladly accept; this will be Alice’s first time judging and only Ezra’s second, after seven years in the scene. We’re determined to stay consistent though, so we keep track of the scores we give throughout the night and are not surprised to find out that more often than not we’re the lowest scoring judges. We give Jon Sands and Geoff Kagan Trenchard (a longtime favorite of Ezra’s) the highest scores in the first round. Thomas Fucaloro, who does a poem on paper about “soberism,” gets a somewhat low score from us, inciting a round of “boos” from the crowd. He doesn’t give the usual rousing performance most slammers do; instead he reads like a professor might. In the second round we begin to question our first impression of Thomas when we does a brilliant piece about his dictionary. Later, we find out Thomas is one of the New York scene’s new favorites when he places third in the slam after Geoff and Jon, who wins with a hilarious piece in the voice of a Puerto Rican lady whose boyfriend “don’t do shit but smoke weed – like, that’s the only shit … he do.”
DAY 19 – 10/5/10: We check into a hostel in Manhattan this morning. Though it cost us more than we’d budgeted for the whole week in NYC, we’ll be closer to everything here. Also, we get to relish spending the morning sitting around naked, a rare treat when you’re living out of the back of a van. Later, we head for the Bowery Poetry Club, home of the Urbana slam, to watch the recording of a number of IndieFeed Live shows. All of the NYC Slam Masters were asked to choose an up and coming poet from their scene to interview on IndieFeed, the Slam Masters and a poet from their scene performing a poem and then getting into the interviews. We get to see performances from Mahogany Browne (Nuyorican Slam Master), Jeanann Verlee (Slam Master of Urbana), Emily Kagan Trenchard (Slam Master of Louder Arts), and James Merenda (Slam Master of the Intangibles). Then each of them brings up a poet from their scene; at this point though, we’re unsure who came from which slam, so in no particular order, they include Bamboo MC, Corrina Bain, Thomas Fucaloro, and Jivepoetic Droopist. All of them give fantastic performances; Alice particularly enjoys Corrina again, while Ezra especially likes Bamboo MC, and we both agree that Jeanann is stellar. We also get an opportunity to do our duet “Movie Geeks” during the open mic, which earns us a free drink from the bartender, Diane. After the show Alice is so inspired that she rushes back to the hostel to write and Ezra stays at the Bowery to watch a series of three webisodes that star Jon Sands, which he quite enjoys, followed by poetry by the cast and the writer of the series. Ezra is particularly impressed with a poem by Sands’s co-star Angel, who reads an open letter from her heart to the sea, including the awesome line “Why you leave so much dry land – didn’t your mother teach you how to swallow?” Ezra is also very inspired after this show and heads back to the hostel to write a couple of short poems, including his best one in a long time, “Life Story (In 60 Seconds Or Less).”
Check out IndieFeed Live’s poetry channel here.
DAY 20 – 10/6/10: On the advice of Alex Zimmerman, another New York poet, we head out to Chelsea to check out the Highline Gardens. We get off the subway at Times Square after deciding to walk the rest of the way. On the way we happen upon the famous Chelsea Hotel, once home of Henry Miller, Leonard Cohen and others. We spend a few minutes in the lobby daydreaming about the luxury of living in a hotel with housekeeping and fellow artists at the bar down the block. The Highline Gardens are built on a boardwalk above the neighborhood streets; real estate is priceless in NYC. Here you can walk for blocks and gaze down at the city below, out at Hudson Bay, and enjoy local art work and well-tended flower beds. After the gardens we head to the renowned Nuyorican Poets Cafe for their poetry and Hip-Hop open mic. There we’re treated to the workings of a violinist and later a skilled jazz band as back up during our performances. One of the best performances of the open mic is an emcee named Rugged n Raw, who is one half of the brilliantly named duo Mohammad Dangerfield; his solo album includes production by Remot, an excellent producer from New Hampshire who is also featured on Ezra’s album – small world. Then we wait 45 minutes for the subway to come and take us back home. Timing is everything in NYC.
Street Art Seen From the Highline Gardens
DAY 21 – 10/7/10: We get up early (for us) and head out to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the day. After setting out to walk across Central Park on our way there, we turn back to the hostel, twice, after talking to Amie on the phone and getting worried about getting our bags searched at the door (Ezra has his Leatherman on him and Alice has a paring knife). The Met is everything that one might hope for in an art museum; huge lofted ceilings, art from all different regions and periods, and too much for one day. Here are a few favorites:
Ezra seeing his first real live Dali
Afterwards, we sit on the steps of the Met eating some snacks, being entertained by a street performer, and watching the pedi-cab drivers pick up their fares. Alice can’t help but daydream about having that job.
Central Park
DAY 22 – 10/8/10: Today turns out to be a bit of a bust: we manage to finally get some laundry done after checking out of the hostel, but later in the evening we make some crucial miscalculations and arrive late to the Nuyorican, where the wonderful poet Jared Singer is featuring at their Slam. Unfortunately, he goes on first and finishes his set while we are still standing in line; the second feature and first round of the slam are also over by the time we get in. Since it costs 10 dollars each to get in and there is literally no seating whatsoever in sight, we decide to get our money back and spend it on some nice, greasy New York pizza (later we find out that Mo Browne had actually saved us a couple seats near the stage and would have let Alice sacrifice before the Slam if we had made it there in time – c’est la vie and thanks anyways Mo!).
DAY 23 – 10/9/10: Today is the day of Brian Omni Dillon’s birthday party, where we meet a lot of cool new NYC folks and get to spend more time hanging out with a few we’ve already gotten to know, including Bamboo MC, Mo Browne and Jivepoetic, who is the DJ of the party. Omni serves up a lot of delicious food, including vegetable lasagna for the few vegetarians at the party (there are at least two others besides us), and the wonderfully friendly and vivacious Stephanie Olga brings some severely delicious spinach pies as well. There are also margaritas, whiskey and lots of beer, so much of the rest of the night is kind of a blur before we retire a bit early to sleep in the van.
DAY 24 – 10/10/10: Tonight is our first and only planned show in NYC, at a place called Lolita Bar near Chinatown, and we are a little worried about attendance. It turns out we have good reason to be: of all the people we’ve met in New York this week and all the makeshift fliers (Alice’s business card with the show info handwritten on the back) that we’ve given out, the one and only person who shows up to see us is Kurtis Melby, an old friend Ezra used to work with at the Riverview Theater back in Minneapolis, who only stumbled upon the show by accident earlier today on facebook. We don’t mind too much, though, and proceed to give him an hour-long show anyway, featuring Alice’s very venue-appropriate poem “Lolita’s Revenge” (perhaps her best performance of it yet) and a 20-minute rap set by Ezra (aka Tom Swifty). All in all, it’s a very fun show, much more intimate and conversational than usual, and Kurtis enjoys it enough to buy a book and CD afterward. Then we head back to his place about five blocks away, where he kindly lets Ezra take a shower and we watch the Christian Bale/Russell Crowe western 3:10 To Yuma (which played at the Riverview a few years ago when Kurtis and Ezra were working there together) before heading out to the van for one more nights’ sleep in New York. Next up: Providence, Rhode Island, where we will be staying with Slam legend Ryk McIntire and his family.
Audience of One