Back in ABQ

Good to be home.

Definitely need a vacation from my vacation. The 2006 crew made it out to Austin and back. We still like each other and performed our poetry well. That we didn't make it past semi-finals really doesn't matter. Slam isn't really a competition. Though you hear the cliches, "if you perform your best..." There are still too many variables to make that a reality.

Gonna include some pictures:





Robbie Q (Team Normal) and Anthony Miller (Team San Jose).















The Nuyorican Poet's Cafe Team












That's me and Young American Eddie (Team Denver).













Kenn Rodriguez (Team ABQ) and Ms. Spelt (Team Vancouver)












Eric B. (Team ABQ) doing the Buddha impression at the Austin Motel.













K'trine & Lucille (Team France) at Hyatt Pool.














Jessica & Esme (Team ABQ)








Final thoughts: Having been to 5 of these things now, I'm still astounded at slams ability to bring people together. Though competitive, there's a lot of comaraderie and love amongst certain scenes that are familiar to each other. The preparation and time spent together locally is time we as poets need. The world barely tolerates us, and for a week, in August, we are surrounded by family, drawn into a fabric with words. Much respect poets. See you next year, if not before.

Friday Afternoon

Wow!

I keep "forgetting" to attend day events because I'm trying to catch up on sleep from the night before. I certainly can't party like I used to. I'm sure my doctor would appreciate me realizing this, but my brain is certainly giving it the college try.

I'm trying not to be nervous. Excited, jittery, looking forward to tonight's semi-final match up between ABQ, Charlotte, DC/Baltimore, Hawaii, and NYC-Urbana.

Not many action shots, but this one:


This is the poets from ABQ and Denver doing a group reading of a Trinidad Sanchez poem. Trinidad, or Trino, as we called him was the first city champion from ABQ in 1995. He moved to Denver and had been an active member of their scene as well. He suffered a stroke a couple of weeks passed and passed away. We wanted to honor him in some way.


Pictures from last night's bout:



Damien Flores from ABQ doing "Roommates."



Knocking it out of the park for Team ABQ.









Team Denver getting it ready.

Thursday Afternoon at NPS

Wow!

What a great couple of days its been. Austin is hot, but we march up and down Congress Ave as we head to the multitude of venues.

I "bout managed," which is basically helping the MC for the event. Locally, we don't use bout managers, but at nationals its best if you pass off some of the duties. It makes watching the bout much easier and means I get to enjoy the poetry at Nats but don't when I'm doing it all in Burque. My MC was Sonya Renee, from DC, and she was great. Gracious and in command. Hopefully, she'll come through Burque soon.

Afterwards I went over to Antone's to catch Team ABQ and loved it. Antone's is the blues club that Stevie Ray Vaughn cut his teeth at. Nice big room. ABQ squared away against Chicago, Los Angeles, Delaware, and Colorado Springs. The draw was tough being the first poem out of the gates, but after 1 round they were in 3rd place. Kenn made a great coaching call and Damien knocked it out of the park and put ABQ in 1st place after the second round. The result? ABQ wins their first bout and moves into tonight's show with a 1 and squares up against our sister city of slam, Denver (man do I love those Denver poets!), the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Delray Beach, and Salt Lake City. Both Denver and the Nuyorican won their bouts on Wednesday as well, so this one is going to be hot, even for Austin where the weather is just plain hot.

Hope to put up some live poets from our room in the Hyatt this evening.

From the 2006 National Poetry Slam, this is Don McIver

Monday Madness

What do you get when you volunteer to help out and have to take a taxi to get the Rent-a-Van?

You get three Chevy vans, three hotel rooms, and a the guardianship of a 17 year old under your name. It's enough to make the moderately responsible adult in me kind of freak out.

After picking up the vans, I got some quick directions and suddenly one of the organizers from last year is now shuttling people back and forth. At 2, I tossed my keys to someone else and registered ABQ and talked to people. About half the people are here and I ended up the evening at the Independence Brewery drinking free beer and vodka and enjoying the BBQ stylings of Bob Whoopiecat (Thank you Bob!).

Of course, just as the place is winding down the poets start heading back and the place isn't even clean. So, being the bossy SOB, I get up on the mike and pretty much tell the remaining poets to get to work cleaning this place up. Of course, there was the lost keys announcement, which I announced by making fun of the owner for putting a friendship bracelet on the key chain by saying, "Okay, we have a set of lost keys which has a blue friendship bracelet. Okay, so some hippie has lost their keys everybody."

Will try and add some pictures this afternoon.

Matthew John Conley's Pad in Austin

Family, poets from ABQ are family.

Former ABQ city champion and staple on the scene from 93-99, friend, and easily one of the funniest people I've ever met, Matthew John Conley opened the doors to his house and let 3 of us crash here before we check in at the Hyatt.

He opens his doors, calls OhioJake and friends, and we start talking and drinking even though he's working at 5 AM.





After a lengthy rehearsal, the team shows up, beer and other goodies in hand at 10 PM and we commence to get it on family style.













Laughing, sharing stories, ribbing each other and MJC heads off to bed at midnight.

At 5, he dances out and only my dysfunctional sleeping allows me to hear him.

Today the festivities unofficially begin as most teams show up at the Hyatt. Even though I don't even know where the airport is, I volunteered to run a shuttle to get poets. At Nationals, you never have enough volunteers . And ABQ has a unique perspective because we just hosted one of these and want to have fun but look on as the organizers stress and make furious phone calls. It doesn't seem that long ago that we did this very thing.

Sorry, no reports from Dallas as I was here: passing out flyers, hitting up a couple of thrift shops, doing some data entry and trying to be helpful.

From NPS 2006, Don needs a lot more sleep and he's signing off.

San Antonio Regional at Ruta Maya

What do you get when you pile 11 people, 2 baby strollers, a crib, and a cooler for an 11 day trip?

You get the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, TX!!!

There's something distinctly familial about this slam thing.

One of the organizers of this year's NPS is from New Mexico. She's also 7 months pregnant, and her parents trying, to save them time/money dropped off a high chair, two stroller, and a crib so that we could take them too her. So, the first challenge, a sort of tetris challenge was to get everyone's personal gear in a 15 passenger Chevy Van:





which, despite having room for 15 passengers, does not have any luggage/trunk space, so the big comfy sleeping seat in the back became our luggage/trunk space.



Let's just say the ride is uncomfortable, but we made it, driving across central/west Texas in the early morning where conversations descend into just random stories that the navigator tells so that I stayed awake as dawn crept up over Abilene and I saw windmills on the horizon, smelled gas and feedlots, and listened to somebody snoring in one of the cramped back seats.



And yes, Texas is hot. And humid.

The first stop on the trip is a small 8 team event at Ruta Maya in San Antonio. Featuring teams from San Antonio, Austin, Boston-Cantab, Berkeley, Bowling Green, Corpus Christy, a pick up team, and Albuquerque. Split into two 4 team bouts, with the top two teams moving to a final round (with a one poem slam-off between the two 3rd place finisher to round out the 3 round, 5 team bout), the bouts were competitive and engaging.

Using the amazing duet between Damien and Jessica, ABQ jumped out to a quick lead and cruised into the final bout. In that bout, ABQ had to work but pulled out the win in the last rotation with a great solo piece by Damien. Good work Damien, and good call Kenn with hopes of doing well tonight in Dallas, which I'm not going to because I'm in Austin helping out with the last minute preparations.

So, blogging from the road and ready to listen, this is Don McIver, signing off.

Team 2006 Going Away Party

Wow!

What a year its been for the slam team, slam community.

After hosting the largest poetry slam in history and watching the home team win it all, we started slamming again, and now we're almost ready to send the 2006 ABQ slam team to Austin for the 2006 National Poetry Slam. I say almost, cause we need some help/support to get there.

We've asked local (and some not so local) artists to donate some art for an art auction/raffle to support the team. So, want to do a bit of early holiday shopping? We're going to auction off a signed litograph from Keb Mo, some work by local artist Jeff Benham, sell raffle tickets and draw the winners of Becky Holtzman's wonderful piece. All the proceeds will help get us to Austin and back.

In addition, you'll get to hear some work from the Slam Team, enjoy the libations on the District's patio, a poetry slam, and great original blues from the Rudy Boy Experiment. What are you waiting for?

Farewell Party for Team 2006
The District Bar & Grill
(on the 4th street mall-downtown)
7 PM
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006