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.

Weekend

I know that I'm supposed to post Ninja Comics on Mondays, but so much cool stuff happened this weekend, that the poetry Gods would probably strike me down if I didn't blog about it.

The language fair on Saturday was awesome. I rocked my poem, and the group from my class did great on their skit. However when they put the names of the "winners" on the screen (we were evaluated on a rubric, and got ribbons/trophies based on our scores alone) my name was not there and neither was that of the drama group. We found out later that there was a hole in the database, and many people were not posted, that did very well. If I knew how to hack their techie would be brute-forced into the stone age by now. I got a perfect score, and the drama group was only one point short of a perfect score. If you scroll down, you can see my ribbon on the left hand bar.

That night I managed to get the money to go see the performance. Ayisha Knight was very interesting. She is a deaf poet and all of her poems are in ASL. She had a translator for all of the poems except for the first one. But that one was the most interesting. She said before she started that it was about the first people coming to America. Even though I know almost no sign, I could see that it really was about that. I could tell that it was poetry.

After Ayisha, Verbobala Spoken Video performed. And what a performance it was! There was video, acrobats, people on stilts, and lots of cool poetry. If you ever get the chance to go see them, do it.

The next morning there was a panel on poetry and voice, with the festival guests. That was very interesting. Then early that afternoon Logan Philips, the leader of Verbobala gave a workshop on perfomance, and voice. I learned lots of cool stuff, that I think affected my performance that night.

That night there was poetry slam with a 100 dollar prize instead of the normal fifty dollar one. My first poem was excellent, and I got the highest score in the round. So I got to choose whether to go first or last in the second round. I chose first. That was the first of many mistakes, and unfortunate circumstances that got me low scores on my second poem, a poem that normally gets high marks. But I really liked my performance for the first round and that is what I am choosing to remember about that night.

Today's cookie goes to the person who can tell me what two poems I did at the slam. There are ways of figuring it out even if you weren't there, but if you were there, then this is an easy one. You don't need to tell me titles, just enough information so I know what poem you're talking about.

Poetics

I'm at the language fair now, desperately trying to upload and scan and post and read, all while people read over my shoulder. Here we have a poem about poetry, which is rather appropriate for today. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to the performance, or the open mic tonight because funding is still complicated. Anywho, today's cookie goes to the first person who can tell me the name of a poem, by one of the poets I mention in this poem.

Oda

"Oda a Los Calcetines"

I have blogged about this poem before, but last time it was in despair, now I have a message of hope.

When I began this process I struggled over the memorization. I had a mere two weeks to get this poem presentable. It had been nearly a week and I was barely halfway through the poem. But I kept on trying, knowing that I had a responsibility as a poet to do this poem justice. Soon I had the poem memorized, and recited to my teacher. She handed me back my poem, with numerous words highlighted. I have always thought I have excellent Spanish pronunciation, but I was ignoring accents, accenting the wrong syllables, and pronouncing "z"s with the English sound, instead of the "s" Spanish pronunciation. How could I have gone through four years of Spanish not saying "sapatos"?

But again I pushed forward, and corrected my mistakes, and soon had the poem memorized with the correct pronunciation. On Tuesday after school, I performed the poem for my teacher and one other teacher. I appreciated the slightly larger audience, and the other teacher gave me some good advice on pacing. By this point I was brimming with confidence. I did the poem perfectly when walking to and from school, and so on Wednesday I performed it for my Spanish class.

I rocked it. I owned the class. All the other's reciting poetry were boring, and barely had it memorized. I don't mean to be mean, but they only had fifty words, while I had 200. I had fifty words of my poem in the first two days. I was doing excellently, but then I got near the end, and my mind went blank. What was the next line? It was in my head, but I couldn't get it to come out of my mouth. My teacher refused to prompt me, because they wouldn't at the language fair. I thought for a bit and repeated some lines, and soon figured it out and was on my way. I finished the poem, and was complimented but I felt like I had failed.

I took a look at the stanza that I couldn't remember and figured out why it refused to come into my mind. I didn't know why it was there. It made no sense why the poet would have put in those lines. So I read the English translation, and figured it out. Not only did it help me to get it memorized, but it also improved the quality of the performance.

The next day in class I recited it, and this time I really rocked it. I went all the way through without messing up. I was still pronouncing the z wrong in one of the words, but it was minor. I'm working on fixing it as we speak. That afternoon I met at my teacher's classroom to practice some more. She asked if I wanted an audience again, and I said "sure, if you can round one up"

Five minutes later she returned with nine or ten teachers, and the principal. Most of these teachers knew little to no Spanish. But they seemed to enjoy themselves. They could tell it was a good recitation. After I finished, one of the teacher came up to me and asked me about the poem. It had already been mentioned that the title was "Ode to my Socks" this is our conversation.

Her: "So did he like his socks or not?"
Me: "He liked his socks, but his feet were bad, compared to the socks, his feet paracieron inaceptables, they seemed unacceptable."

I never intended to use the Spanish from the poem, but that was the easiest and most natural way to describe it. I am beginning to think in Spanish. Thus is the power of poetry. I wish I had got the chance to do this as a beginner to the language.

Today I am doing the poem for another of my teacher's classes. I'm not worried. Then the language fair is tomorrow. This should be fun.

Today's cookie goes to the person who can tell me who wrote this poem.

Festival

Below is the information, for Sunday's slam. There are also some things happening Saturday, which are not important enough for their own post, but I will mention them here. I am competing in the Southern Arizona Language Fair. So if anyone wants to come to the UofA to listen to me recite a Spanish poem, let me know and I'll give you further details. Saturday night there are two potential events. One of them is a performance at the Tucson Poetry Festival, by a few different awesome poets. But it costs ten dollars to get in, which is great price, but I don't have that money right now.

So if that event doesn't happen, I will be going to the Tucson Premier Open Mic. I am sure that it is actually happening this time. I don't know anything about it, other than what is on the Myspace paged linked above. If it turns out to be awesome I will start promoting it, and attending when I can. There is also an event Sunday, morning, but I am still trying to figure out what it is, so I will post details later. Until then here is the details for Sunday's slam. By the way, I will be reading something new there.



Hey y'all,

You're going to the Tucson Poetry Festival this weekend, aren't you? I figured you were. And since you're already planning to be there, I know there's no way you would miss the FREE, OPEN SLAM with a $100 PRIZE!

Sunday, April 13, 2008
8:00 pm (show up early to get on the list--wait, you'll already be there watching the rest of the Festival)
THE HISTORIC Y, 300 E University (just west of 4th Ave, near Epic Cafe)
Hosted by Lindsay Miller

Did I mention the $100 PRIZE, donated by none other than the lovely, talented, and generous Jo, of Bentley's Coffee fame? And hey, since we're not gonna be at Bentley's this weekend, why not stop by there this week if you have time for a cup of coffee? They are wonderful and supportive to us, so let's show the same love to them.

This is the LAST qualifying slam for the 2008 Slam-Off. Poet standings to follow in a separate e-mail.

See you Sunday! It's gonna be a big one, so bring your friend, bring your loved ones, bring your enemies and we'll make them judge.

Lindsay

Daffodils

There is no cookie today, only a poem. Not my poem, just me reading someone else's.

Conspiracy

As promised I have recorded another one of my poems, and am posting it for your enjoyment. This poem is also in the playlist, that you can access by clicking on "Recordings" to your left. Today's cookie goes to the person who can tell me what the natural enemy of the subject of this poem is. (Yes, there is a right answer to this one)

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

Bread

As promised I bring you yet another ninja comic. This time the entire post is dedicated to it, instead of being buried amidst old men, and the like. If you need help translating my scratch, let me know.



I have decided to make a recent running joke, into a somewhat continuous thing, in the hopes of garnering more comments to feed my inflated ego. But don't worry, there is something in it for you. I am giving out cookies. Virtual cookies, but nonetheless, cookies. People who get them will get recognized in a later post. Today's cookie is for the person who can come up with the best explanation for the last frame of today's comic.

Retreat

I have just returned from Lake Havasu, from the last retreat that I will take with my youth group. Fun times were had by all, but I didn't get to read any of my poems. Oh well, I'll survive. I have a slam in a week, so I shall just have to wait until then. I will post details about that event when I get some more details on it. I will try to post another recording of a poem sometime soon. There should be another Ninja Comic tommorow as I plan to go to the library, so I can use their scanners. I also have plans for another series of posts, but I think I will wait until Blogger adds scheduled posting. That will make these series, much easier. In other news I intend to buy a domain name soon for this blog. I may build a website later, but for now I will just host this blog at www.faldwin.com or maybe www.faldwinthebard.com. What do you all think?

L

The title is the roman numeral for the number 50 (It is also the alias of a brilliant, international detective. If you know who I'm talking about, cookies for you! But I digress) The reason that fifty is important is because this is my 50th blog post. *CONFETTI*

But instead of boring you with my words I will give you this quote that I got by googling "50 funny" and choosing the first result.

“In at least one way we are atypical bloggers. That’s because we just keep on posting. The typical blogger, like most people who go on diets and budgets, quits after a few months, weeks, or in many cases, days.” (Stephen J. Dubner)

Time

Yet another of my mortal enemies.
This afternoon I set out to record a Spanish poem, so that I could make it into a video for spanish class. I have very good Spanish pronounciation, and still after an hour of trying I couldn't get through the poem without mispronouncing any words. So I took a break. When I came back I thought I made it through the entire poem without messing up, but then when I listened to it I discovered I pronounced "oro" like "ora" At this point I gave up, and made to head off to the library.

Even though I couldn't make my video for spanish, I could at least do some other stuff, like work on my dad's website, scan a ninja comic or two, and perhaps finally start working on my teacher's website. But as I am about to head off my mom informs me that I must buy cheese, for the retreat this weekend that will keep me from a functional computer until Monday afternoon. I still have math homework, and I still have to memorize that poem for Spanish that I can't pronouce right.

I've put a great amount of effort into avoiding this kind of schedule overload, and yet it is happening. I blame society's obsession with time.

Short

Yes, this really is the whole post.

Threesome

Because I am not really able to commit to anything, I have decided, instead of the traditional, one subject per post, this post will be about three, totally unrelated things.

The first topic is yet another one of shame. Normally the last Saturday of the month would also be the fourth Saturday. But this weekend it was the fifth Saturday. You might wonder why this is a topic of shame. If you are not wondering, than I am incredibly impressed. Cookies for you! (virtual ones) For those of you cookieless people still in the dark, I will explain.

The Tucson Premiere Open Mic is held on the second and fourth Saturday of the month. Thinking that this past Saturday was the fourth Saturday, I showed up planning to read poetry and found the place nearly abandoned. Confused, I hiked back to the library (a five minute walk) and checked the website. The event was still being held on the second and fourth Saturday. Some part of me must have realized that, because I looked for a calendar online, and soon found that it was indeed the fifth Saturday of the month. We need to go back to a lunar calendar. All the months have the same number of days. It would simplify things greatly.

Our second topic is the one that I mentioned before. Ninja Comics! As promised, here is yet another ninja comic. If people have difficulty reading my chicken scratch I will gladly translate.



Now we move on to the third and final subject of the day. This was an image created by an online generator. I think I look pretty good as an old guy, don't you think?

The Old Timer’s Machine

Have a go, and see what you look like when you’re old

Shame

Once more I have neglected to cater to the needs of audience. Once more I have failed to provide a recording of one of my poems. I realize this is the third week in a row, but their is good news. I don't have any other recordings available to post. This means that next Saturday I will have something original to post. Until then here is a recording of me reading, "Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams.

Realistic

Two thing happened recently that inspired this post. The first is the meltdown of the family computer. Because we have little money and my brother has access to a computer teacher willing to help us, we decided we would simply buy all the parts we needed and save a whole lot of money. Which we did. But in the process I learned a great deal about computer hardware. Trying to decipher all the massive lists of specs to figure out if all the parts you just chose will work with each other is a complicated task. But I found it to be quite enjoyable. (Yes I am a computer nerd, it says so in my profile to the left)

The other is a post I did recently entitled "Dream" in it I maxed out all the stats on a Mac Pro, and found that I could finally accomplish my dream of world domination if only I could scrape up 23,000 dollars. Today, as the post title indicates I am doing a slightly more realistic build. This time of a PC. These were the rules I set down for myself.

1. I must spend as little money as possible
a. Exception: Because I am trying to be realistic I decided that I would spend up to five extra dollars per product in the name of increased performance
2. The sum of all the parts must be able to result in a fully functional computer.
3. All parts must be available on Newegg.com
4. No monitor, mouse, or keyboard is neccessary. (I already have those)

So after much head scratching, clicking, and replacement of products, this is what I ended up buying.

A black and silver case with included power supply ($38)
An 80 GB hard drive ($36)
An AMD motherboard with an onboard graphics chip ($40)
A CD-ROM drive ($12)
A 512 MB RAM stick ($10)
A 2.2 Ghz AMD processor ($45)

Even when you add in the price of shipping the total comes to a paltry sum of 210 dollars. You might wonder why everyone doesn't do this. Just figuring out what to buy took all of my nerd powers. Then you have to put it all together, without breaking any of the expensive parts. It doesn't require years and years of training, but you need to know what you're doing.

Then comes the operating system. There is no way that this thing would run Vista, and it would have a hard time with XP. Plus both of those operating systems cost money. I built this system with If I ever happen to come across a spare 200 bucks I might do this, if only for the sake of testing the limits of my nerdiness.

If anyone that know about building PCs is reading this, I would be much obliged if you would check my work. As far as I know it will all work together, but you never know.

As I write this post I realize that this computer needs a name. I've always like the idea of naming computers, but never had the chance. I have decided that this computer will be called Siddhartha. This is both because of its spartan nature, and because it is the book I am reading right now.

I realized also that the computer I am typing this on needs a name. It is an older iMac, that I got as a gift. I have decided to name it Freen. I have three reasons for this. The first is that it was free, so that is in the name. The second is that Freen, rhymes with sheen, which reminds me of the eternal Mac sexiness. The third reason is that Freen rhymes with green, which is the color of the speakers and side panels.

Wow, this has been a long post. If you've made it this far I'm impressed. But fortunately for you, this post is over. I'm off to read Siddhartha.

Most

I found out yesterday that I was voted most intellectual male for the yearbook. After they took our picture, I began to think about how I came to have this honor bestowed upon me. Somehow, despite my mediocre grades and persistent laziness, I have still managed to maintain the smart guy reputation I had when I was acing my classes in my sleep. I realized that this was a result of two things.

The first is that highschool students understand the lazy genius phenomenom much better than younger students. In middle school when people found out that my grades were dropping, the usual response was "But I thought you were smart." Now in highschool, I get that much less now, and when someone does say that they will readily accept the answer of "Yes, but I'm also lazy"

The second reason is that even though homework is a rarity for me, in class I still have the attitude of a smark kid, I know the answers to questions, and I often ace tests (something that annoysand confuses teachers when I ace the test without doing any of the homework) There may be other more intellectual males, but I don't know him, and I am not turning down another picture in the yearbook. Besides, if ten years from now I'm living on the street because I dropped out of college becuase I didn't do my homework, I'll at least have something to my name.

Green

I bring you the beginning of a new series of posts: Ninja Comics! Every Monday I will post a new ninja comic. If you don't like my sense of humor, shut up. If you don't like my art, go away. but if you wish to shower me with praise for my amazing wit, then feel free. The first comic is entitled: Green Ninja. This one is in color, but the others will not be.

Easter

This year for Lent I set myself the task of keeping a blog. The "rules" that I set up for myself were that I must post at least every other day. Even though I failed to do this on two occasions, I do not think that I have failed. The goal of this Lenten commitment was to see whether I enjoyed blogging. I have found that I do, and intend to keep at it. In fact, I will probably continue at a similar rate. This Lenten experiment has given me 33 posts and inspiration for many more. Tommorow, I hope to begin a new series of posts. Until then, happy Easter!

Jabberwocky

I have been rather congested lately, so I haven't been able to record another poem for you all. So once more I have a poem by someone else, but read by me. This one I have blogged about before. This is pretty close to the performance I gave at the Poetry Out Loud competition. the one that got me second place. I am going to change my schedule to posting poems on Saturdays because I won't really have access to a decent computer on Wednesday for a while. You won't see anything this Saturday, but next Saturday I should have a poem for you all. Hopefully my allergies will have cleared up and I can record one of my own poems.

Homework

There are two reasons that this post is short. One of them is because I don't have any ideas, the other is because of the title.

Tragedy...

Just kidding!

I am getting a beret from a friend of mine, so all is well. Hope to see many of you at the slam tonight.

YAY POETRY!

Beret

Many of you that know me, know me by my beret I have hat for years now, and wear it always to church and poetry events. I will also occasionally wear it other places. That is where the trouble lies. The beret is currently out of my possesion. I put it in my pocket it Target to listen to the Bose headphones (amazing by the way) I realized later that it was not in my pocket. When I went back, the store had just closed. They let me check the lost and found, but it was not there. It opens tommorow at eight, so I am planning on calling to see if the cleaning crew picked it up.

I have been close to losing it before. But if I do not get it back, then I will see if someplace in Tucson will sell me one. It will not be the same one that was with me for so many years, but it will be a beret. I think I look pretty damn good in a beret, and people have come to expect it of me. How could I ever call myself, the Dashing French Pilgrim without a beret?

I don't know where I would buy a beret in Tucson, but presumably it is possible. It is a somewhat common hat. I'm thinking a costume store would be my best bet. But I want to be a real, wool beret, and not a fake costume one. I will wait to research until I am sure I have lost my original one though.

Teacher

This Wednesday I have a recording for you, but it not one of my poems. This is me reading the poem, "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali. This poem, was what got me into slam poetry. That combined with the teacherly subject, makes this poem one of my favorites. In order to get the last few lines I have to explain, a bit though.

If you've got this
Then you follow this,
And if anyone tries to judge you, based on what you make,
You give them this!

On the first "this" the poet points to his head. The second this, the poet points to his heart. And the third this, the poet gives a good 'ol fashioned middle finger. Got it? Good. Here's me doing the poem. If you are interested, in hearing how Taylow Mali does it, search his name or the poem name on YouTube, and there are a few recordings.

Deathmatch

This post is linked to on the left. Below is Lindsay's email about Saturday's event. I hope to see as many of you there as possible:

Hey y'all,

This weekend the Ocotillo Slam brings you the poetic stylings of the inimitable Kim Johnson! Kim's gift for wordplay and dirty haiku made her a huge hit last year, and if you missed her that time, don't make the same mistake again!

Kim will be giving a poetry workshop on Saturday afternoon, 3:00 pm at Bentley's focusing on haiku. The workshop costs $5 and is well worth it! If there's a good turnout to the workshop or a few haikusters eager to share their stuff, we will have a Haiku Death Match before the slam to see who can REALLY walk the walk (in 17 syllables or less!).

Saturday, March 15, 2008
Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea
1730 E Speedway, Tucson

6:30 Sign-up
7:00 Featured poet KIM JOHNSON & Haiku Death Match
8:00 The Coronation Slam hosted by MICKEY RANDLEMAN--Watch your favorite local poets and newcomers battle it out for fame, glory, $50 and the Crown of Golden Laurel Leaves!

All ages
Suggested donation $5

Poets, this IS a qualifying event for Team Tucson 2008, and the day of reckoning is drawing nigh, so get your points in while you can! For more info on qualifying check out http://poetryslam.com/forum/index.php?topic=3799.0

See you Saturday,
Lindsay

Dream

I was playing around on the Apple website, and created the computer of my dreams. Observe its supreme awesomeness:

Two 3.2Ghz processors
32 Gigabytes of RAM
4 Terabytes of harddrive space
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5 GB
2 30" widescreen HD monitors
2 Super Drives (both capable of playing, and burning CDs and DVDs with Dual-Layer support)
Airport Extreme card for connecting to Wi-Fi networks
Wireless Mighty Mouse
Wireless Keyboard
iWork '08 (Apple Office Suite)
Final Cut Express 4 (professional video editor)
Logic Express 8 (professional audio editor)
HP Photosmart C7280 All-In-One Printer, Scanner, Copier
AppleCare Protection Plan (extended warranty and support)

This computer could run ten, high end, next generation games at the same time, without blinking. This computer is overkill incarnate. Computers won't need this sort of power for years. This computer could take over the world, three times over, while rendering an entire computer animated feature film, in the time it takes to check your email. This is the Mac Pro. It will not simply blow your mind, it will twist it in so many ways you will be convinced that you are a pineapple ballerina. Fortunately this computer probably has the power to examine the complicated processes of the human brain and figure out how to straighten you out again. But there is one reason I have not already ordered this beautifully terrifying machine. Click the link below and look at the column on the right. You'll see what I mean.

Mac Pro

Okay

Considering we were a doing this for the first time, we actually did pretty good at that mock trial team. The first round we went against UHS, so we really had no chance. That's one of those college prep highschools, and those people have some crazy drive. Then we went up against St. Gregory's and actually did pretty decent. Then we went against Cholla. They did rather badly, and we probably beat them, but didn't perform nearly as well as we had in the previous rounds. But I was a witness, and I rocked it. The guy who cross examined me had no idea, and ended up sounding like an idiot. So, overall a good day.

But, it did have one unfortunate downfall. There was an open mic that I wanted to go to, the Tucson Premiere Open Mic. They hold them every second and fourth Saturday of the month. I am definitely planning on going to the one on the 29th of this month. I couldn't go to the one today, because this whole mock trial thing took most of the day. But unless something major happens I should be at the one at the end of the month. Click on the link above for show specifics.

Impending

I woke up at about 3:00 this morning on my own. Normally I would have
gone back to sleep, but then I looked at the clock, and realized what
day it is.

It's Friday. I have a mock trial competition tomorrow.
Am I really as ready as I could be? Did I work hard enough? I realized
I didn't know the answer to that question. I hope to be able to work on
it this morning a bit.

I suppose I won't really know until tomorrow. Our teacher seems to have confidence in us, so that at least is reassuring.

Girlfriend

I realized that all of the poems I have posted so far have had a common theme. So I decided to post this one, which follows that theme. Next week I will post something different, but for now here is another poem. If you scroll down you can listen to all of my poems in one playlist. Or you can click on the link on the left.

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

Recordings

There is a link to this post on the left. This is a playlist of all my poems I have recorded thus far. I will make new posts for each new posting of a poem, but will update this playlist so all my poetry can be accessed on a single page. Some of the poems on this list may have objectionable content and language. Be warned.

Money

I hate money. I like the things that money gets you, I just don't like money. The endlessly complicated systems of money exchange are enough to make one's head spin. We should just go back to a bartering system

Comatose

The sticky remains of a cheap McDonalds sundae sit in my lap. Spanish crooners vibrate in my ears because that's the only station that comes in. I try to ignore the pain in my sunburnt face, but it is impossible to ignore my scarlet complexion staring back at me in the rearview mirror. My mouth is slightly agape, and my eyes are barely open. I wonder how long it would take anyone to notice if I died. I wonder if I would notice if I died. Then I see my chest rising and falling in synchronisity with the radio's static. Oh well, I guess I'm not dead.

Images of dizzying heights, terrifying beauty, and rolling, tumbling, hardcore wipeouts float in and out of my head. I can't tell if I'm remembering these things, or dreaming them. I consider falling asleep, but then I realize that if I'm already asleep, going to sleep might wake me up.

And so I sit, trying to ignore the pain, but failing; trying to understand the Spanish lyrics, but failing; and trying to fall asleep, but failing.

Weird

At about midnight I woke up with a Hannah Montana song in my head, after dreaming about pirates with talking shoulders, not talking parrots on their shoulders, but talking shoulders. Then a little before 4 am, I woke up with a Simple Plan song, I haven't heard for years, in my head, after a rather unnerving dream in which I get drafted.

I don't know what they put in that skating rink pizza, but whatever it is, I want more

Aggravation

As you may have guessed from my last post, my computer has been acting up. Or more accurately, not acting at all. When I press the power button it does nothing. I'm hoping its the power supply, because if its the motherboard, then I might as well get a new computer. Anyway, in honor if this computer woe, I am posting a poem. I think that I will be posting poems every Wednesday, from now until I decide to change things. So then, without further adieu, I give you a poem.

Computers

Argh!

Procrastination

A little over two weeks ago I posted about my closest friend and foe, the brick. This four inch high beast, I am ashamed to admit, has made no progress, in the weeks since I mentioned it. That same day, I got my Writer's Market book, and the next week was spent combing through that. Then the week after, I mostly wasted away, on the internet. Now here I am, with a much more pressing deadline. But then again, that is what National Novel Writing Month has always been about deadlines.

The looming deadline helped me get 50,000 words into my novel. Surely a looming deadline will help me get it edited. I need to do some math. *runs off to get calendar and calculator*

Wow. In order to get this done, I need to do a page in about five minutes and 27 seconds. Then do that for two hours every day. Minus a few days for when I'm out of town, and you have that breakneck speed. But then again 50,000 words in 30 days is a breakneck speed. Now I just need to find a timer, clear my desk, and get editing. Onward!

Poems

SPY Girl was kind enough to review my HP erotic poem in her blog. Though I am a bit disturbed by this statement:
"I, having been exposed to some HP sex myself,"
Who knew dear old Harry was such a player?

Anyway, if you are looking for my HP erotica poem, scroll down. If you are wanting a link to it, then click on the title of the post. SPY Girl, if you are reading this, would you mind changing the link on your blog, to the post, instead of the imeem page?

Now that we are finished with that bit of shameless plugging, on with some more shameless plugging!

As you may already know I have a poetry slam tonight. I have three poems planned. Though I may not get past one depending on how ignorant the judges are feeling. The slam is done in three rounds. Let us assume that we have the maximum of ten poets in the slam. Everyone reads a poem in the first round. Then the five poets with the highest scores go on to the second round. Then the final round is one on one. I have only ever made it to the second round, but perhaps tonight will be different.

My first poem will be the poem that some of you may have heard, the one about the little girl dancing to the hymns. I am a little bit worried about this one. I know it's a good poem, but hopefully the judges will not have heard me before, so my reputation as a funny poet doesn't get in the way.

If you are reading this and you haven't gotten an email from me about tonight's slam, and you live in Tucson, AZ and want to come, post your email, and I'll try to send you the info. However, I don't think that's very likely.

Wish me luck with my poetry, I hope to see many of you at the slam cheering me on.

.77

Seventy seven cents. I need to find a way to get seventy seven cents by the end of the month. The reason? Well, I have my checking account set up to transfer $25 at the end of each month to my savings. And because I wasn't paying attention, I just made my checking account go under that amount. Now theoretically I could just transfer the money from my savings, but that would be cheating, and I don't want to touch my savings if I can help it. I could always just scrounge around in my room, and probably find the money, but then I have to go the bank, and all that annoyance.

I hate money.

(If you're looking for my HP erotica poem, scroll down a bit)

Guilty

A symphony of clacking keys and clicking mouses surrounds me. The air is abuzz with the collective mental energy of hundreds of students working on everything from poetry to quantum mechanics. There is food next to many of the stations and haunted looks on many of the patrons indicating they woke up just to come here and work on that huge project. The smell of coffee, ink, and college students who have yet to shower hangs in the air. Their perseverance impresses me. Their determination inspires me.

And here I am, posting to my blog.