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Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...
Whatever zombie-malaria that seems to have afflicted Link seems to have gotten me too, today. Been walking around all bleary eyed and fuzzy headed. Granted, my head really IS fuzzy what with the buzz clipping but whatever.



Sunday was all kinds of nervously manic for me. Got home, poured booze down my throat and stumbled over to the computer, posted the LJ entry and opened up Pokerstars to play some 5/10 shorthanded limit. $200 richer and something like fifteen minutes later I closed that window in a bit of a daze and dropped down stakes to 3/6. Made about $100 in another fifteen minutes or so. First place prize money ($80 for the night) didn't seem all that important anymore. I climbed into bed only to wake up 3 hours later. Great. So now I was going to be tired at the show tonight. Redbull or Viso, here I come once we hit 6pm. Speaking of which, doors opened at 7pm, so I planned to get out the door at my house at 6:30. Did my usual day to day thing up until 5pm or so when I got my stuff together for the show. The Vista website has a couple nifty stopwatches for download, so I timed out all the pieces that I was bringing with me. 2 serious, 2 funny. For 3 rounds at an unknown venue I figured I'd be ok. I wanted to do well but I really didn't care if I made it to the final round. Crap-on-a-stick you mean I don't have to drive a billion miles every month in order to get to the show? Got to the venue, parked way the fuck away, walked over and got some cash out of the ATM. It's a weird feeling having a slam venue in your backyard. I used to live within walking distance of the Hawthorne Theater. What a strange set of circumstances this is. Half of me wanted to turn right and walk down to the Baghdad Theater to catch the indoor version of "Trek in the Park". This was a live theater production of the classic Trek episode "Amok Time" (the one with the Pon'far and the fight between Kirk and Spock and the music and the whatnot). Woodlawn Park (the Park of "Trek in the-" fame) is 3 blocks from my house, so I had seen it live opening weekend. The live performance was awesome and Cort and Fatboy were going to be introducing it and Abrams' Trek was going to be following it. But not on Slam night. I was committed. We're here to get this done, son.

So I get to the Hawthorne, pay my 5 bucks. Bar only has Rockstar in cans. Rockstar burns my guts on no food, so I ask if they have Redbull. Guy says there's a Redbull machine around the corner in the hallway leading to the theater. I've got three fives and a one. 3 bucks for a can of Redbull when I could run across the street and get a Viso for 2 bucks. Sigh. Whatever. I feed my five in but the thing asks for correct change and won't give me my five back. Dude! WTF!!! I go talk to the barkeep fully expecting him to tell me in which dark and stinky region I can pull my 5 bucks from but instead he grabs 3 bucks out of the till and goes and obtains my Rebully goodness. I thank him profusely and notebook in hand I plop down and grab a seat. Sitting turns to standing and pacing as it always does with me. Hey look, Hawthorne Theater Lounge has video games! They have Tekken 4! 25 cents per play! I'll take Steve Fox please. This kills some time while more people filter in. I find Lady Day, the girl who runs the show. She has a laptop in front of her and I act charming and make smalltalk about how she looks official and that's how I knew she was probably running the slam. I get signed up and go back to nervously pacing. I walk outside to the smoking patio to get a flavor of who is here and maybe find a slam/poetry conversation to stick my uninformed opinion into. Bingo bang-o. Some people are talking about the closed one year anniversary slam next month. I ask a few questions and mention my slam bonafides. Midwest travelling blah blah blah Ann Arbor blah blah blah Kalamazoo 2004 blah blah blah Dayton blah blah blah.

then this gentleman



says...

Gentleman: What did you say your name was?

Me: Mike...

Gentleman: Mike...Swinkey? (inside my brain I'm thinking *wait, I never mentioned my last name*) Hi, I'm Eirean Bradley.

Me: Fuck.

My whole goddamn mindset going into this thing was based on being anonymous! Now I've got a goddamn ringer in here with me?!?!? If this were feudal Japan and I was trying to be all wandering ronin Samurai Champloo (which was what I kinda fancied myself as, back when I was driving around Michigan/Ohio) we would have busted out the katana and it would have been ritual combat time.
Fuck! But Eirean had history with Taneka being a former roommate of hers. Apparently another ex of hers from Arizona lives here in Portland as well. We talked about what a seething, draining ball of hatred she can be, we got all bitchy/burnt-out about slam and nationals and the 2003-2005 years. He told me that he had a warm spot in his heart for team Kalamazoo and the bottle of cheap-ass rum that we bought him. I have no recollection of this. We traded St. Louis war stories. It was cleansing. I also found out that I'm not the only guy in the slamfam hacking some cash out of poker online and offline. Apparently Alvin Lau is also a grinder. He allegedly went to the World Series of Poker this year. (well fuck me. Read more: http://blogs.cardrunners.com/citizenwind)

Slam time rolled around and I was in the middle of the pack. Eirean complained about how bad it was some months. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of what was being thrown around. It wasn't "every-poet-here-has-been-to-nationals hair-scorchingly" good but it was far far far from Toledo open mic/Cleveland slam in March kind of bad. He complained about the feature in the kind of way jaded slam vets sometimes get. I gave him a world weary hairy eyeball and told him he doesn't know from bad. Bloomington, IN in the middle of February. That was a bad show. Manos in Toledo when we had to clear out before 10pm so they could do reggae night. That was a bad show. You don't know from bad shows, Eirean.

Scores Sunday night were lowlowlow. Day didn't have anyone using score paddles/dry erase boards/whatever. People were just shouting out scores from the audience and those scores were LOW. People didn't crack the 20s until I got up and did a cleaned up, stripped down version of "Evil Overlords In Love". It got people laughing and talking. I was able to go a bit crazy and work off some of my nervous energy that I'd been storing up for the last week or so. While I only got a 21, this seemed to have been the breaking point. Pieces got louder, scores got higher, room went into higher energy mode. Top six moved on to the second round. It was me, Eirean, and four of the local regulars. We had ourselves a 20 minute break. 20 minute break between 1st and second round! Jesus christ, woman. Don't like to have an audience for the second round, do you?

Second round I was second up and scores were WTFcumulative so "Nerd Revolution" for the first time onstage in 4 years. One of the regs said something along the lines of "oh, so it's an MC battle now" as stuff got more and more Haduken-fireball-y. Eirean ended up winning the whole thing. I finished 4th or 5th. I had a bunch of poets and audience members coming up to me and telling me how funny/great/nerdy I was. It was fairly awesome. Eirean came up to me afterward and told me it was an honor sharing the stage. Part of me thinks it was sincere, part of me thinks it was simply flattery. Even though I didn't finish in the top 3, I did get invited back to the closed slam next month to compete for the $500 first prize. It'll be another month of hard work but it will be fun. Once I get the car situation sorted out I'll be heading up to Seattle, down to Bend, maybe to Eugene. With Karen Finnyfrock and Jack McCarthy up in Seattle I think I'll be in for my biggest test up there but I know I'm up to it. In this thing you either adapt and bring yourself up to the level of play around you or you quit. I've already quit for a while so I guess it's just time to step up my game. =)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...
Whatever zombie-malaria that seems to have afflicted Link seems to have gotten me too, today. Been walking around all bleary eyed and fuzzy headed. Granted, my head really IS fuzzy what with the buzz clipping but whatever.



Sunday was all kinds of nervously manic for me. Got home, poured booze down my throat and stumbled over to the computer, posted the LJ entry and opened up Pokerstars to play some 5/10 shorthanded limit. $200 richer and something like fifteen minutes later I closed that window in a bit of a daze and dropped down stakes to 3/6. Made about $100 in another fifteen minutes or so. First place prize money ($80 for the night) didn't seem all that important anymore. I climbed into bed only to wake up 3 hours later. Great. So now I was going to be tired at the show tonight. Redbull or Viso, here I come once we hit 6pm. Speaking of which, doors opened at 7pm, so I planned to get out the door at my house at 6:30. Did my usual day to day thing up until 5pm or so when I got my stuff together for the show. The Vista website has a couple nifty stopwatches for download, so I timed out all the pieces that I was bringing with me. 2 serious, 2 funny. For 3 rounds at an unknown venue I figured I'd be ok. I wanted to do well but I really didn't care if I made it to the final round. Crap-on-a-stick you mean I don't have to drive a billion miles every month in order to get to the show? Got to the venue, parked way the fuck away, walked over and got some cash out of the ATM. It's a weird feeling having a slam venue in your backyard. I used to live within walking distance of the Hawthorne Theater. What a strange set of circumstances this is. Half of me wanted to turn right and walk down to the Baghdad Theater to catch the indoor version of "Trek in the Park". This was a live theater production of the classic Trek episode "Amok Time" (the one with the Pon'far and the fight between Kirk and Spock and the music and the whatnot). Woodlawn Park (the Park of "Trek in the-" fame) is 3 blocks from my house, so I had seen it live opening weekend. The live performance was awesome and Cort and Fatboy were going to be introducing it and Abrams' Trek was going to be following it. But not on Slam night. I was committed. We're here to get this done, son.

So I get to the Hawthorne, pay my 5 bucks. Bar only has Rockstar in cans. Rockstar burns my guts on no food, so I ask if they have Redbull. Guy says there's a Redbull machine around the corner in the hallway leading to the theater. I've got three fives and a one. 3 bucks for a can of Redbull when I could run across the street and get a Viso for 2 bucks. Sigh. Whatever. I feed my five in but the thing asks for correct change and won't give me my five back. Dude! WTF!!! I go talk to the barkeep fully expecting him to tell me in which dark and stinky region I can pull my 5 bucks from but instead he grabs 3 bucks out of the till and goes and obtains my Rebully goodness. I thank him profusely and notebook in hand I plop down and grab a seat. Sitting turns to standing and pacing as it always does with me. Hey look, Hawthorne Theater Lounge has video games! They have Tekken 4! 25 cents per play! I'll take Steve Fox please. This kills some time while more people filter in. I find Lady Day, the girl who runs the show. She has a laptop in front of her and I act charming and make smalltalk about how she looks official and that's how I knew she was probably running the slam. I get signed up and go back to nervously pacing. I walk outside to the smoking patio to get a flavor of who is here and maybe find a slam/poetry conversation to stick my uninformed opinion into. Bingo bang-o. Some people are talking about the closed one year anniversary slam next month. I ask a few questions and mention my slam bonafides. Midwest travelling blah blah blah Ann Arbor blah blah blah Kalamazoo 2004 blah blah blah Dayton blah blah blah.

then this gentleman



says...

Gentleman: What did you say your name was?

Me: Mike...

Gentleman: Mike...Swinkey? (inside my brain I'm thinking *wait, I never mentioned my last name*) Hi, I'm Eirean Bradley.

Me: Fuck.

My whole goddamn mindset going into this thing was based on being anonymous! Now I've got a goddamn ringer in here with me?!?!? If this were feudal Japan and I was trying to be all wandering ronin Samurai Champloo (which was what I kinda fancied myself as, back when I was driving around Michigan/Ohio) we would have busted out the katana and it would have been ritual combat time.
Fuck! But Eirean had history with Taneka being a former roommate of hers. Apparently another ex of hers from Arizona lives here in Portland as well. We talked about what a seething, draining ball of hatred she can be, we got all bitchy/burnt-out about slam and nationals and the 2003-2005 years. He told me that he had a warm spot in his heart for team Kalamazoo and the bottle of cheap-ass rum that we bought him. I have no recollection of this. We traded St. Louis war stories. It was cleansing. I also found out that I'm not the only guy in the slamfam hacking some cash out of poker online and offline. Apparently Alvin Lau is also a grinder. He allegedly went to the World Series of Poker this year. (well fuck me. Read more: http://blogs.cardrunners.com/citizenwind)

Slam time rolled around and I was in the middle of the pack. Eirean complained about how bad it was some months. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of what was being thrown around. It wasn't "every-poet-here-has-been-to-nationals hair-scorchingly" good but it was far far far from Toledo open mic/Cleveland slam in March kind of bad. He complained about the feature in the kind of way jaded slam vets sometimes get. I gave him a world weary hairy eyeball and told him he doesn't know from bad. Bloomington, IN in the middle of February. That was a bad show. Manos in Toledo when we had to clear out before 10pm so they could do reggae night. That was a bad show. You don't know from bad shows, Eirean.

Scores Sunday night were lowlowlow. Day didn't have anyone using score paddles/dry erase boards/whatever. People were just shouting out scores from the audience and those scores were LOW. People didn't crack the 20s until I got up and did a cleaned up, stripped down version of "Evil Overlords In Love". It got people laughing and talking. I was able to go a bit crazy and work off some of my nervous energy that I'd been storing up for the last week or so. While I only got a 21, this seemed to have been the breaking point. Pieces got louder, scores got higher, room went into higher energy mode. Top six moved on to the second round. It was me, Eirean, and four of the local regulars. We had ourselves a 20 minute break. 20 minute break between 1st and second round! Jesus christ, woman. Don't like to have an audience for the second round, do you?

Second round I was second up and scores were WTFcumulative so "Nerd Revolution" for the first time onstage in 4 years. One of the regs said something along the lines of "oh, so it's an MC battle now" as stuff got more and more Haduken-fireball-y. Eirean ended up winning the whole thing. I finished 4th or 5th. I had a bunch of poets and audience members coming up to me and telling me how funny/great/nerdy I was. It was fairly awesome. Eirean came up to me afterward and told me it was an honor sharing the stage. Part of me thinks it was sincere, part of me thinks it was simply flattery. Even though I didn't finish in the top 3, I did get invited back to the closed slam next month to compete for the $500 first prize. It'll be another month of hard work but it will be fun. Once I get the car situation sorted out I'll be heading up to Seattle, down to Bend, maybe to Eugene. With Karen Finnyfrock and Jack McCarthy up in Seattle I think I'll be in for my biggest test up there but I know I'm up to it. In this thing you either adapt and bring yourself up to the level of play around you or you quit. I've already quit for a while so I guess it's just time to step up my game. =)