Urban Grind, Hillcrest
the March slams..


friday, march 15, 2002

we're halfway through the qualifying, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight for the list of team potentials. it's all good, however.. it'll make for a large pool of talent for our grand slam on may 5.. the grand slam is a big fundraiser for the team, so we say "bring it on".. so we've got 15 in the hat and the sacrifice poet is about to hear her scores from the judges when in walks matt weatherman, chris mosher, and michael franklin.. there's a power trio if ever there was.. do we let them in, even though they're late? yeah, we do.. it's a qualifying slam, they want the points.. so now we've got 18 which is the magic number.. it's the max we can let slam and still be finished by 10 pm or there-abouts.. before we go on, allow me to introduce our judges for the evening.. in addition to veteran chris dison, getting a judging out of the way for qualifying, we have audience volunteers anya (love that name), simone, rick and an anarchist from britain named keith.. our sacrifice tonight is catherine medrano, who artfully wove song and spoken-word together, and grabbed high 7's and 8's for a cumulative 23.18; her decent scores reflect that she had a melodic singing voice (which ain't always the case when song & poetry are mixed!).. so it's time to start up round one.. and first name drawn from the hat tonight is belinda etezad rachman, and one look on her face told me she did not want to go up first.. oh we symapthized with her, we did.. but it's the luck of the draw, or in this case, curse of the first.. because so often, first up doesn't always get scored the fairest.. unless you're fortunate enough to have five veteran judges sitting on the bench! it's just the nature of the slam that it takes most judges a few scorings to get their groove down. so belinda suffered some low scores tonight, despite her valiant effort to put out some damn funny schtick for our entertainment.. other first-round poets tonight included jeremie z tellin' us "what it is", and talk about scores all over the place: aside from 7's and 8's, he also took a nickel & a dime.. the judges were all over that boy.. but not to worry, he'll be back leaner & meaner.. jennifer joseph put out a great piece on genderized word play within the english language: telling us that she considered changing her name to "jennifurious" in response to recent global political events, especially the ones happening in our own back yards.. packed with ha-ha's, but also thought-provoking, it deserves another playing.. scott balingit, micki adams , malik aka ragnar, and mr. hugh hyde, the professor with the props, all helped make first round a crowded house of talent.. but alas, only the Top 10 went on to second round.. we chose ten instead of the standard eight because we had no performing judges tonight for the half-time show, which allowed for a longer second round.. alright, here's your line-up for second round.. first-time slammer lesley keyes, down from escondido tonight, beguiled us in round one with her piece "sun worshipers", from the 2001 drift wood highway anthology, in which she laments "see, I used to have/ beautiful breasts, breasts I loved,/ breasts others loved.."; and if you want to know just why the title is so important to the piece, well.. guess you'll just have to ask us to sell you a copy of the anthology, which we'll be more than happy to fulfill.. lesley then came back in second round with her poem about the lack of free time & personal space all mothers of young children must endure, weeks become months become years of sacrifice.. pressure.. isolation.. so lesley walked away from her first slam tonight with a cumulative 53.48! also down from the north county: 2000 san diego slam team member sharon elise, doin' something brand new in first round then reprising, perennial favorite from her repertoire, "black love" in second round.. veterans chris vannoy, michael franklin, & chris mosher also all competed in round two.. as well as joy de la cruz, who ended up in fourth place tonight with a 56.05! first-time slammer steve klass went two rounds tonight as well, but with a slight taint of controversy swirling 'round him; see, he was totally out & up-front with his crediting of saul williams as the source of his sampling.. thanks for that, steve- we appreciate everyone going public on their sampling credits.. however, how much lifting of verse & meter constitutes a sample? at what point does one go too far over the line?? there's no easy answer on that one; it's really not quantifiable. thus, it's always better in the long run to focus aim at one's peers at a slam, as opposed to targeting all of one's work to the audience at large, who may or may not be poetics-savvy.. same can be said for putting out too much graphic sexual imagery in one's pieces- a little goes a long way, or better said: a few well-chosen words will often convey the idea more effectively than a runaway orgasmic pornologue.. sex poems often score high at slams; the audience is always gonna love 'em.. if you opt to use one, best to write it so that you earn the respect of your peers, which is more important than the adulation of a temporary audience.. imho (in my humble opinion).. OR NOT! OR- go ahead and piss on me, tune me out, do what you want.. it's his slam, it's her slam, it's your slam too, now ain't that right!?! anyway, hope that steve comes back and slams with us again, despite all the controversy.. incidentally, I heard some of the players ended up on the sidewalk out front.. remember everyone, it's just a slam! even a team-qualifier is still only a slam.. and no slam is worth coming to blows over.. maybe all that noise out on the sidewalk was just folks blowin' off some second-round steam? I hope that's all it was.. ok, in third place tonight, with a 57.17, it's rob tavakoli, who just needed that one last qp to qualify himself for the grand slam on may 5th- congrats, rob! in second place, with a 57.32 and taking home $24 (and then graciously donating 4 of 'em right back to the slam fund) it was jimmy jazz, giving us "we need a new noam chomsky" in first round and reprising personal best "I showed up drunk at my AA meeting" in second round, which took an incredible 29.32!! earning himself 2 qp's, except.. except that our first-place winner tonight is from out-of-town and doesn't need the qual points.. SO.. we gave her 3 points to jazz and his 2 to third place rob.. you with me on this?! which means that jimmy jazz also qualified himself tonight for the grand slam on may 5th- congratulations mr. jazz! now back to our winner.. scoring an impressive 58.48 and taking $36 home with her to norfolk, va: her name is queen sheba and she turned this town's spoken-word venues all upside down on her visit here.. thanks to everyone who came out tonight allowing us to stuff 64 more bucks into our slam fund.. thanks dave blue as always, for score-keeping during second round.. also thanks as always to lizzie wann for scorekeeping, for emceeing, and for tallying it all up at the end: we love you, girl- all of us, we do!
next slam is easter sunday, march 31..

sunday, march 31, 2002

at long last- it's the return of adam deutsch, everyone's favorite hard-line, take-no-prisoners, east-european judge! but alas, it's just a temporary visit.. he had to fly back to nyc right after tonight's slam.. so this is our easter sunday slam, and we had ourselves an easter parade of 18 poets up at the mic, which is the max number we can handle- perfect! you've already met one of our judges for the night, the afore-mentioned adam; let's fill you in on the others.. besides lovely audience volunteers amanda & meghan, judges also included slam veterans jim eret and chris vannoy's girlfriend linda bauer; perhaps someday we'll be writing her in as linda vannoy, hmm?!?! no pressure, y'all! ok, agreeing to be our sacrifice poet tonight it was jimmy jazz, who delivered a real crowd-pleasing new piece about the amount of oh-so-precious-life that working for a living steals away from us.. we think it's called "draggin' my ass through the day".. oh, and it took a sweet 26.5 from our five judges.. anyway, we decided that since this is an all-important qualifying slam, we'd make second round tonight same as last slam and take the Top 10 from first round.. first-round poets tonight included 1st-time slammers radwan, elizabeth & lisa, in addition to veterans chris dison, hugh hyde, jennifer burton, scotch! and r.u. sickameyet aka tom p.. hope you'll all come back and try again next slam: we'd have loved to given you all two rounds of competition but it's impossible on such a busy night as this.. we were entertained between rounds by judges jim eret and adam.. we consider adam a vip judge, coming in from nyc like he did, thus we gave him a full 5-6 minutes on the mic- thanks for the ego-boostin', adam, telling us how the nuyorican ain't got nuthin' on san diego.. even if you were stretchin' the truth a little bit! now as far as second round poets goes, let's start with first-time slammer victor, who was the only poet of the top ten to not earn themselves at least 1 qual point , and only because his second-round piece was a whoppin' 6 1/2 minutes long, forcing us to lop like 18 points off his score.. another first-time sd slammer, velma, opted to shout out her piece from atop her chair instead of from the mic, very brave (& shades of jimmy jazz).. needing just one last qual point, chris mosher got it & thus qualified himself tonight (so long as he judges one slam, that is).. chris vannoy, michael franklin, jay perez all pulled down high scores tonight as well.. 4th-place belinda rachman, with a 54.0, had us all in stitches with a piece that pointed out to the men in the room just how pathetic we can be, in that we actually believe so much of the hype that the female of the species will throw to us concerning the often exaggerated size of our.. er.. uh.. well she ain't talking portfolios, ok.. in third place, with a 54.2, it was jennifer joseph , who actually would have won tonight if not for a 20-second time penalty, arrgghh how frustrating! however, she rocked the room with a piece called "cops & robbers", which skewers performers who opt for an obviously-borrowed style of delivery instead of finding each their own unique voice.. I don't think she'd mind me excerpting a few lines here for your reading pleasure.. "back it up baby/ cuz we got your cause/ up against a counterfeit brick wall on a hollywood set/ that went dusty after wag the dog./ and we just killed your stunt double." oh yeah, jennifer, that zings real good! in second place, with a 54.3 and getting himself $11 in drinkin' money, it was matt weatherman who also fully-qualified himself tonight for the grand slam on may 5th, congrats matt.. and finally, in 1st place with a 54.6 and winning $18, it was dan woodward with a piece called "snockered (at the circus)" which forces us slamophiles to have a hearty laugh at ourselves, with this killer ending- "at ring center/ the harlequin/ grimaced,/ bounced her bouffant/ & backstabbed bozo/ until the sword swallower/ finally impaled/ his vocal cords/ unlike the evil Queen/ who slammed/ & slammed/ & slammed/ in more words".. I'm still trying to figure out who's the sword swallower and just who is bozo! so dan got hisself 3 qp 's with that win, and just needs one more now to compete in the grand slam on
¡cinco de mayo! thanks to everyone who came out to support the slam on this holiday night, and allowing us to stuff $27 into the slam fund.. thanks jacqueline for the second round score-keeping, and for putting up with our general disorganization tonight.. and thanks as always to lizzie for all her hard work score-keeping, co-hosting, and for her under-appreciated baseball commentary from the mic..
next slam is friday, april 12- it's the 7th of 9 qualifying slams.. check out the current team qualification standings..

your slammaster
and faithful servant,
ro'ss.


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