the new toy
 
 
Interpol "The Specialist"

done with the workshops in Oakland.
 
i think overall, mush myself josh and jimmy did the best we could. i enjoyed myself. the kids that were really into the workshop have some serious potential as writers and artists. it's funny how for a lot of the kids, being an mc is like their ticket. it used to be like playing basketball and shit like that, but now with rap and hip hop so huge (and the development of a huge "mainstream" aka white fan base) being an mc seems like the way out of Oakland.
 
one of the students had on one of those spinner necklaces, but it wasn't the battery powered ones, it was the you-gotta-spin-it-wit-yo-hand-foo kinda spinners....so he had to manually spin his shit to look hard!! ah, genius. the manual ones are 6bucks, and w/batteries 12bucks.  he stole it from Great Adventure. ahh, kids.
 
we talked shit with the students, found out ALL the drama (who likes who, who cheated on who, etc). it was one gigantic 16 year old hormones raging novela, and i loved it. 
 
i spoke to the kid that gave me his poem yesterday. i told him it was an honor to read it, and i was very thankful he felt he could share it for me. i gave him a copy of the poems of mine he asked for, as well as a typed up version of his poem, and my e-mail address. told him he could e-mail me whenever about anything. we smiled and gossipped for the rest of the day.
 
as of today mush, jimmy tran, josh begley, and myself are an officical poetry collective. if all goes well, we'll be collectively publishing a book with all our work (poetry, short stories, plays, etc) through First Word Press at Youth Speaks in early 2005. i think First Word Press is also getting support from City Lights Bookstore Press, which is awesome too.
 
we need a name though, so if anyone's got any ideas post em up.
 
back in LA again fri and sat. ahhh smog :) 
 
so in that new Twista/Rkelly joint, Rkelly has some line that says like "The girls that like to keep the DICK up inside them"
 
i heard that for the first time today, the censored version, and me and 2 other co-opers were like WTF!?!?!?!
R.Kelly, always suprising me.
 
i must admit though...
I'll take Bobby Brown over R.Kelly anyday.
 
!!!FREE BOBBY BROWN!!!
!!!SHA CLACK CLACK!!!!
!!!41 SHOTS CAN'T HOLD BOBBY DOWN!!!!!

she looked beautiful. like the night we first met in march. like the first time she spent the night. like the time weekend road trips turned into breakups. three months later she is distraught. lonely. trying to find comfort through too much weed and alcohol. i know she's hurting. i can see it hanging from the bags under her eyes. she's searching for answers to questions she's too afraid to ask. and though it's awkward being her ex, it's harder seeing her from the perspective of a concerned friend, wondering how she's doing, and what's going on inside her head. i miss her as a friend more than as a lover. i hope she's doing well.

remember the kid from mush's class that asked me for my poem? well he wrote one of his own, and sent it to me via mush with a note saying i inspired him. it's about his father who went through cancer, but is also slowly killing himself from alcohol abuse. i almost cried reading it in josh's apartment. i had never seen that type of pain at a such a young age in print. it was brilliant. i will see him tomorrow and smile with him once again.

honesty is a fucking good policy.

dry witty banter jokes make stomachs hurt from laughter. champagne keeps the hangovers light so we can dream again in the morning.

Bjork "Enjoy"

ladies and gentleman, jay-zeezer

 

please welcome to newest poet to our spoken word community!!!

comment encouraged on this one.

think he'll put out a chap book?

i like getting drunk because it justifies me being a quiet person.
 
i can walk around by myself at a gathering/show/party, speak when i want to, be alone or with a crowd, be silent, and it can all be justified under the unspoken social guidelines of inebriation.
 
hooray for Heineken.
 
"Jesus! I've seen a man jack off to a Gap window display
So don't tell me that love isn't important" - Beau Sia.
 
was in santa monica tues-fri. filmed for an anti-drug commercial in Echo Park which, if i cross my fingers hard enough, will be approved by the gov't and broadcasted nationally in september. much love to sherry from Hartford, CT and Shaun from Brooklyn, it was a pleasure meeting y'all.
 
my new hobby of lying on my floor all afternoon is going swell. remarkably productive too. 
 
book of the moment: Charles Bukowski "Ham on Rye"
 
nothing to say but a whole lot to do.
 

so today ruled.
 
woke up at 730 more energized than r.kelly at a playground.
 
performed with the cal slam team at foothill for juniors in high school from LA (wuhtwuht) who are currently doing a 6 week stay at ucb to possibly earn school credits, community service hours, maybe $28,000 in financial aid, and hopefully a good learning experience.  Mush teaches them. She asked us to come, of course we were more than happy to.
 
it was one of the moments; those cheesy "stand and deliver" moments that i always wanted to have with kids...but these kids were from my neighborhood. they understood what IE meant. these kids were all mexican too. they are all from the working class. they are dealing with the same bi-cultural issues that i dealt with at 16 and still deal with today - being a minority in America. they asked questions fervently to all of us. they wrote down the names of poets we named dropped like acme anvils in looney toon cartoons (saul williams, marc bamuthi-joseph, beau sia). they were INTERESTED in the ART of spoken word. 
 
when josh did a political piece, a discussion began about sweatshops. exploited countries like Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand were tossed around. i asked the class if they knew that on Broadway in Los Angeles, there are sweatshops. this small kid with equally short hair quietly raised his hands and said, "My mom works in one of those."
 
and i will never forget the look on his face after saying that. in front of the whole class. he said it in a tone that expressed remorse that his mother worked there, but you could tell he was not ashamed. he was proud. he raised his hand without any hesitation whatsoever....i wonder how many other kids in the class have parents that work in those conditions...
 
after class he asked if he could have my poems. i told him to send me an e-mail and i'd reply immediately. he smiled. i did too.
 
Mush left me a voicemail later on in the day while I was at work, telling me how excited the kids were to write. how they could understand all the themes and images, almost line by line, in all of our poems. how they RELATED to it...
 
i started writing to not feel isolated. to connect with others by expressing all my 'confessions' so to speak. that's what i'm still doing. i know all 4 of us connected with those kids. it feels so rewarding i can't explain it.
 
mush and jimmy told me about the massive ego's within the adult slam scene outside of the bay....i wish any poet with an inflated ego could've seen the look on these kids faces today, to see how excited they were to try and write, and just how fuckin cool they were
 
maybe they would forget their egos and ask themselves why they started writing in the first place.

seeing modest mouse on saturday night at the warfield made me realize why indie rock shows suck, so i'm on a show sabatical until The Mars Volta come around again, but they're in their own afro universe so that don't count. seriously, modest mouse was great, but why do i wanna kick it with 14 year old angry white kids from marin on a saturday night? ah, i miss the glass house.
 
after watching this movie, i saw the Gift of Gab walking around shattuck, checking out different movie theatres, seeing what was playing. i went to barnes and nobles to buy this. then i saw him again, reading every music mag he could get his hands on. he's awesome.
 
the japanese lady at cafe durant is really mean. she stole my syrup.
 
this weekend was spent laying down on my floor listening to new music (hangar 18, the roots, yesterday's new quintent, mars volta bootlegs, nina simone) and reading magazines in the heat. i did nothing.  it was incredible.
 
mexico lost to brazil. dammit.
 
loneliness is bad, but the feeling of longing is even worse. it gnaws at your side during the day, and is the main actress in your dreams, and when you wake up, it is the force that makes you wanna daydream to erase those good memories, however brief they were, and make those calls or comments that were inhaled by silence.
 
ah longing bleh.

Cursive "A Gentleman Caller" says it all
 
still smiling though. and it feels aight.
 
 

wow. an amazing couple of days.
 
re-inspired in my tired state of work.
 
tues: talking to cristina was catharsis personified. you are awesome.
 
weds: suicide kings feature at the starry plough reminded me why i stole their cd in november 03 when nobody in the slam community knew who i was. when i met geoff a month later, i paid him back after getting 2nd at the plough. the 3 of em are so fucking amazing, and weds definitely demonstrated the power they have in this often superficial and petty thing called "poetry slam"
 
thurs: featured with dhalak and sarah from youth speaks at Cafe Treiste off columbus in SF. read a new poem that i was/am/alwayswillbe scared to read. it felt good. got to talk to Alan from 8th wonder and further realized why he's so fly.
 
fri: did audio for a youth speaks commercial that will hopefully be nationally broadcasted. we're working with this crazy hipster ad agency that does saturn (i met the dude that did the "pac man" commercial!), hp, mac, nike, and even budweiser (They have Bud cans in their vending machine for a quarter!) over in China Town on California St. in the city. that was awesome. then watched a documentary me, the suicide kings, bucky sinister, caroline, bayani, rafael, and all these other cats are in - awesomesauce.
 
in LA from tues-fri of next week. a week off work to do poetry-realted-shit is a mini-vacation for Jose dammit.
 
this entire 9-5 blog could've been summed up as the following:
 
working a lot.
beginning to write again.
not reading.
just listening.
 
learning daily about honesty.
 
smiling too.
 
 

i've always been a pessimistic dreamer.

a contradiction, but it's true. i daydream constantly and never ever pay attention when it's important, hence my bad memory (and i'm a history major how?). regardless, i always see the bad side to everything that comes my way - that's why it took me 3 months sitting by myself in the back of the starry plough until i finally signed up and slammed; that's why it took me 19 years to actually play the dating game and flirt with women; that's why i deliberated and deliberated about moving to berkeley. i always see the negative, yet yearn and dream for the positive.

so when i go home, i realize why i am this way. there is no hope in my suburb. just bleak streets filled with childhood memories but no sense of urgency or hope. there are Capri Suns in the frig, mini vans in the driveway waiting for soccer practices, but no hope - you live and die in the same suburb; your kids will go to your old high school; you will be what previous generations were before you - mediocre.

we sit in the same park as always, talking about good old times and horrible new problems. 4 out of the 7 kids i grew up with have tried to commit suicide. others are "happy" being married with kids at 19 ("johnny's a real estate agent, we're moving into a 4 bedroom..."). others just disappeared.

we smile when we hug cuz we don't see each other too often. we discuss politics with fervor, as naively as we did at 14. we still get pulled over for rolling stops (damn you San Dimas). we even skateboard or play basketball at dusk, but now are utterly sore in the morning. we listen to music nobody gives a fuck about. we laugh at the trucker hats worn by the same people who laughed at us and called us "faggots" for wearing them in 97. we eat horribly. we talk to one another, we help each other. we are a family named disfunction in a land of supposed perfection.

we are the products of a picket fence holocaust.


Saul Williams "1987"

yesterday (tues), the longest day ever:::

*worked at the library from 9-12, didn't do shit, but the fact i had to be up early always messes me up.

*meet up with cal slam crew at 12, drive straight to merritt college. do poetry workshop for 2 and a half hours, from 1245-315. 4 teachers with 40 kids wears you the fuck out, but some of their work is progressing in leaps and bounds.

*get a call from james kass right when class is over, saying "wanna be on the radio?" hell yes. cal slam represented for youth speaks over at kpfa with DAVEY D! it was dope. they played a poem by josh and i performed the mom piece. you can find the mp3 somewher in the archives here http://www.kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=14

(look for july 6, we start at the 43 minute mark)

*went straight to sf with jimmy. chilled at youth speaks and played tony hawk for waayyy too long during the sf slam team meeting. bayani and liz's group piece is hot fiya!

*9-midnight, performed with rafael casals, amelia, and kirya at the hilton hotel in sf (swanky!) for the aclu youth national convention. it rocked my socks off. kiwi ripped it too. i stole a bunch of free soda for no reason whatsoever. i met a cute girl named Madeline from youth speaks seattle. smiles abound.

and now, back at youth speaks playing more tony hawk, praying for thursday night to approach, when i can just go home to Los Angeles, see my folks, and just relax for a few days.

and if you're bored next thursday and wanna hear some poetry, come to the next Spoken City in San Francisco:
@ Cafe Trieste
609 Vallejo St. at Grant St.
5 different poets, 10 minutes each.


see you in los angeles. peace.

a good four day weekend. saw napoleon dynamite twice. spent 4th of july dodging fireworks in richmond. drank a lot. sister bought me new Puma's. going home this thursday for 4 or 5 days. filming for a youth speaks commercial. performing for the aclu tomorrow night. only a month of summer left, and i still gotta pile of books to read, to-do-lists to check off, and poem ideas to actually act upon (we were skateboarders, one night stands, i am your retarded boyfriend, picket fence holocaust, pops, fall). i miss you a lot and don't know how to say that properly and with finesse, but i really really do. the sir francis wood area of san francisco is like brentwood in la. sonic youth "unmade bed". feelin sluggish. trying to be more optimistic about everything these days. i always put barriers to happiness in front of me; self-inflicted road blocks of expectations i think i'm not fulfilling - it's one big cycle. listening to stevie's "Innervisions" makes everything seem good. i can taste the socal in-n-out already. i wish i got some of those spinning g-unit madallions for 12bucks at the marin county fair, WAR played at 3pm and i missed it!!!!!!! there should be a county fair spoken word tour, like The Wonders in "that thing you do!" (i love that movie, don't hate haters!). speaking of not hating - i like Usher's music - that's right, i dig all his songs, all his melodies, i've been a quiet fan for too long dammit. these are my confessions! haha true he's an asshole and a DUMBASS for cheating on Chilli from tlc but his songs don't necessarily make up for it, but dammit they're just good. STEEL RESERVE! GHANDI EATS EXTREME PIZZA! it's 2:17am, and i can't sleep, tried for 2 hours, but to no avail. getting used to this whole having three jobs thing. it's going alright. teaching is a struggle - requires optimism all the time...i think that's the lesson i'm taking away from all this, optimism is just needed sometimes to survive. finally discovered the genius of Aesop's "Float". What ever happened to The Changing Grey? i miss rawkus records, circa 97. i will work hard, i will work hard. let's dance like The Faint.

...

it's only cold when you sleep alone.

started teaching on tuesday...

out of 20 kids, 4 kids are REALLY into it, 4 kids fucking hate it, everyone else is in the middle. full of mtv lines, tight acid wash jeans, gold chains, ecko, flex fits, and nikes. television lives on their tongues. cosmopolitan makes their bra's snap. if the shirt don't match the kicks, it's not worth going to school. 2 sessions down, 7 to go. it's hard, but the fun 'lean on me' moments out weigh everything else...and i get to kick it with josh, mush, and jimmy vietnamese.

brown-bagged my way to spiderman2 with Bruce Vietnamese/Chinese, Jimmy Vietnamese, and Rick Japanese. it was awesome. Ghandi was a b-boy. Who knew Ishle Yi Park was stronger than Peter Parker in upper body strength. Printers make great stereos. Steel Reserve beer is a hangover swimming in aluminum. Me and my pansy drink were just fine, thank you. I threw a skateboard across a parking lot. I yelled at people at Kip's. Carnage is a pile of menstrual blood, and Venom is an asshole, literally.

exhausted. youth speaks and the day job at the library take up enough of my time. need to write. going to los angeles 2 or 3 times this month for visits and poetry biz (note the use of the "z", very hip/la style suckas).

...and those 4 kids that hate the class are all mexican males that attempt to maddogg the shit outta me. they think i'm either a nerd, whitewashed, or a whitewashed nerd. at least i know how to spell "bitch" correctly - they can't even spell their fucked up misogynist poems right (ex: "rollin with my bicth"). i told the kids, "if you really wanna be a pimp, don't you think you should know how to spell "bitch" first?"

a lot of so-called liberals speak of community activism and volunteering as euphoric weekends spent singing "cumbaya" and eating hummus underneath redwood trees. many of these "revolutionaries" never go out of their own communities, which are usually middle class suburbs (volunteer work in Walnut Creek is not NEARLY as hard as, say, Oakland or Richmond). Just come to one of our classes and you'll see the direct effects of pop culture in flesh, heart, and soul. You'll see teenage women that have ALL been hit on by 30 year old men. You'll see hands wave in the air when i ask, "Has anyone ever been racially profiled?" No hummus. No cute games. No tie-dye t-shirts. No Abercrombie.

just kids.