A Quest

For many years the comic book community has celebrated its holiest day. When Stan Lee stumbled across the following lost verses of the bible, the world knew that action had to be taken.

Thou shalt do all that in thy humanly power, to spread the good news about the holy medium of comick books
The sabbath that precedeth the second sabbath of the month of Maye, shall be a holy daye above all others.
This holy day shall be dubbed "Free Comick Book Daye" and shall be observed as follows:
The chosen few with the power and responsibility to create great works in this holy medium shall produce a comick specifically for this holy day
The Temples of Comicks shall give away these great works, along with any others they deem appropriate, without the expectation of recompense.

The catholic church refused to accept that there were really fifteen commandments. So the comics community acted without the support of the church. The publishers, producers, suppliers, retailers, and distributors all met and Free Comic Book Day was created. This is the seventh year that it will take place. In honor of this momentous occasion, I have planned a quest.

Tucson has four establishments participating in this holy day. I plan to travel to all four in a single day. I have no car, so I will be taking the bus. It is Saturday, so the buses do not run as often. But I have studied the schedules. I have a plan. I will succeed. At the end of my quest, I will have great tales of my journey. Watch this space tomorrow around five, for those stories.

May your spidey sense always tingle,
Faldwin

A Poet's Moment

This email is to inform everyone who might care, that this week I am going to be on the KXCI mini-program, "A Poet's Moment" This short program showcases one local poet a week, and this week that local poet is me. The show is on five times during the week. The times listed below may vary by a few minutes, so if you are planning on listening I would reccomend turning it on about five minutes early. You can listen at 91.3 FM, or if you are not near a radio, you can listen online at this link:
KXCI Stream

3pm Wednesday
8pm Wednesday
8am Saturday
2pm Sunday
10am Monday

WOOT!!

I will be going to the National Poetry Slam to represent Tucson. That is all.

To Lighten the Mood

The hour draws nigh. My slam is tonight. Yes I am afraid, but that is a good thing. Fear is a powerful motivational tool. So to further embrace the fear, here is the scariest video in the world. I want to buy one of these.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Thoughts Before the Slam

As many of you already know I have a poetry slam on Saturday. But this is not any ordinary slam. These are the finals. Twelve poets will compete in a three round, no elimination slam. The scores from all three rounds will be added up for each poet. The four poets with the highest cumulative score go on to represent Tucson at the National Poetry Slam. I haven't wanted anything this much in a long time.

I know that the point is not the points, that the point is the poetry. My mind knows that, but no one bothered to tell my gut. Normally with poetry slams I want to do well, but only for the sake of the audience, and the opportunity to read more poems. Now I not only want to do well, I want to do better than eight other poets. I'm not a competitive person, which is why I'm freaking out, because I'm forced into a competitive mindset. I remember Logan Philips telling me that nervousness and excitement are the same emotion. But that is not what I'm feeling. Its not nervousness. The only word I can think of is fear. A huge "what if" hovers over my head. I don't want to think about what will happen if I don't make it. I don't know if I'll be able to support Tucson team if I'm not in it. I know that sounds awful, and I hope I won't feel that way, but I don't know.

Last night I had a dream. It began as a great dream. I was watching a new anime series. It was amazing. The art was breathtaking. The plot twists had me jumping out of my seat. The relationships between the characters were incredibly complex. I was horrified, touched, and inspired all at the same time and it was beautiful.

Then I realized it was 8:00 and Saturday. The slam finals had begun an hour ago. I clumsily called my mother, and barely stuttered out the word "finals". The next thing I knew I was screaming into the receiver, "TV IS EVIL! TV IS EVIL!" and trying really hard not to cuss to my mother. I had missed the finals and it was my fault. Then I woke up.

As soon as my heart stopped hammering I began to think about the dream. My mother and father are reading on Saturday and would never let me miss something this important. And there's no way anime that awesome would air at 7:30 in the U.S.

I realized that the dream was a manifestation of my fear. As soon as I realized this I was comforted. I did not dream that I froze on the mic, or that I got straight 1s, or got booed off the stage. The worst thing that could happen would be for me to miss it. I'm a good poet. I'm a good performer. I know what I'm doing. Its going to be alright.

Finals

This Saturday I will be slamming in the Slam-off to determine who becomes part of the team that goes to nationals. Below are the official details

This is it, y'all!

After nine months of struggle, the top twelve slam poets in Tucson go head-to-head to determine who will be the 2008 Tucson Slam Team.

Saturday, April 26
Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, 1730 E Speedway, Tucson
6:30--Sign-up for qualified poets
7:00--SLAM FINALS! Three rounds of no-elimination poetry, the best of the best.
Hosted by Arrian Wissel.
Suggested donation $5--help send the team to Nationals

The top four scorers will be the new Slam Team, representing YOUR community at the 2008 National Poetry Slam!

THIS is the biggest event of the year for the Slam, so don't miss it! Bring your family, bring your friends. Bring your enemies and we'll make them judge.

The points are not the point... but they do keep things interesting.

See you Saturday,

Webster's

More Ninjas!

Cookies?

This post is to explain the constant reference to cookies in many of my posts. In an attempt to get more people to comment, I offer virtual cookies to the person who best completes the challenge to my entirely subjective specifications. It might be as simple as offering a cookie to the first commenter, or as complicated as offering a cookie to the person who gives the best answer to a deep philosophical question that has puzzled mankind for generations. The cookie for this post will go to whoever I want it to. In this case the rules are secret, or perhaps nonexistant. Post a comment. Maybe you'll win a cookie.

Woman

Today is Saturday. That means there is a poem today. One of mine, believe it or not. Today's cookie goes to the person who can tell me what is ironic about posting this particular poem, on this particular day.

Edit: The poem that was originally here is an older version that is not as good. The newer version can be found here.

Balancing

I have way too much poetry stuff to be doing. Fortunately, little of it requires actual memorization of poetry, but I still have to be prepared to read it with passion. Let give me you an idea of what my next couple weeks look like in terms of poetry.

2/23 Next Wednesday I am reading some poems for the faculty. My "Oda a Los Calcetines" poem is what got me this gig, but now that I have it, I decided I would take advantage of it. So I am reading a poem about my aspirations as a teacher, and a Taylor Mali poem (Not the one I read here, one with more "appropiate" language) I also need to get some more images together so I can create visuals. Most of the faculty don't speak Spanish, so they need visual cues.

2/26 This is the biggie. The slam finals. Twelve poets will compete in a three round, no elimination slam. The top four poets go on to represent Tucson at the National Poetry Slam is Madison Wisconsin. I have my three poems in mind, and I am going on page that night, but I still need to practice. I also want to order some business cards with my email and this blog address on them. That way I can point them to the "Recordings" link on the left, so they can hear more of my wonderful poems.

5/2 I am performing some poems in Spanish, at my brother's cultural festival. My original plan was just the "Oda" poem, but I decided it might be nice to be ready to do a few more. But this has somehow morphed into a requirement. The poems I have found will not be enough. I need to find a Puerto Rican poem, longer than six lines.

This should be fun.

Hello

Goodbye.

Election

No, I am not hopping on the bandwagon of blogging about the '08 presidential elections (though I can't promise I won't) A friend of mine is running for Prom King. He has many famous friends so we rounded up a few of them and took pictures. I did a few little touch ups, but I assure you all of the pictures you see below are entirely authentic. KIMON FOR KING!

Amore

Today we have a ninja comic. I don't really like the title of it (Ninja Love) so the cookie for today goes to the person who can come up with the best title. As always, if you need help translating my scratch, let me know.