Urban Grind, Hillcrest
the May slams..
ah, the merrie month of may and ain't she been a busy little bitch.. c'mon, it's been non-stop- a slam every weekend, for how many weeks now?! it's all good, though.. but just
to catch you up- we had a slam the last three weekends in april, plus an event every
single weekend in may, beginning with the grand slam on may 5th.. have you checked out
who made our mos'awesome slam team yet? the following weekend we
hosted the team from mesa, arizona for a pre-nat'l poetry slam bout.. they won, but only
by 1 point. the official scores were mesa: 286.59, san diego: 285.28! then again, we were
the winners for hosting them in a well-packed urban grind thanks to you, san diego! we
took in a whopping $125 for the two teams to split. so mesa
went back home happy and they all said they really appreciated the turnout you folks gave
them. ok, that brings me to this past weekend, which saw our regularly-scheduled mid-
month friday slam with a less than enthusiastic turnout.. guess the city was all slammed
out! however, we still had ourselves a real good time, with 15 names in the hat plus some
out-of-town VIP's agreeing to judge for us.. yep, direct from the
flagstaff, az slam- we welcomed josh fleming, christopher fox graham and dave escobedo into our fold tonight. they're in town promoting their upcoming save the male tour. now it would have been nice if we'd had more slam fans in the house tonight, but I understand the boys from flag will be back in san diego again towards summer's end, and hopefully they'll hit up the urban grind again. our other two judges were leila (1st round) & gwen (2nd round) and mr.
porcupine smith, who also once called arizona home.. now, before I get to tonight's line-up of slammers, let's see how our sacrifice poet did tonight.. and that sacrifice was yours truly, by default.. I put out a piece called "volcano, baby!" and it came back to me in the form of three 7.8's from the flag contingent, and two high-8's from our other two judges, for a 25.18 total.. harsh judges, them boyz from flagstaff! ok, first-time slammers tonight included, from madison high, chris moreno and charles, who got turned on to slam by none other than berkeley slammaster chaz ellik, who was their school this past week promoting the art of slam.. other first-timers tonight were alfred, who's got somewhat of a chicago blues edge to his blazin'-fast-paced hip-hop flavored work- check out his website by clicking on his name; also drac, stephanie, and local shit-disturber badboy cecil, who shocked us in first round with a piece that took several past slam judges to task for some perceived sexual uptightness.. and then came back in round two with a very tight rough draft, written during first round, which played off a theme from a jimmy jazz piece. so cecil's got a gift for writing some engaging monologue
with just a dash of controversy to season.. tough luck for those of you who couldn't make the slam tonight, you missed some good stuff! speaking of, veterans tonight included
flash aka tom p; dishing out his "open letter to john ashcroft" for our dining pleasure tonight, it was tim rohrer, fresh back from six whole weeks in europe; moroccan-born
radwan lachhab, and be sure to check out his website as well.. he soon will be co-webmastering this site with me- the man's got a million ideas to give us a stronger web presence; in 4th place tonight, with a 51.0 cumulative, it was jennifer joseph, who spoke to god both candidly and pissed-off-accusatorial in first round.. the afore-mentioned jimmy jazz, givin' us a proverbial glimpse at a set of some "ugly gray dog balls", came in third tonight, with a 52.67 cumulative; in second place, with a 53.57 and winning 4 bucks, it was the snickerin' limericker herself, micki adams, giving us her hysterical "bushmaster" piece in first round, and then reprising her "kenneth starr is coming to town" segment in round two.. and in 1st place, with a 54.05 and taking home $8, it was sally bonn asking us first round "why do you write poetry? do you write poetry? do you write justto win slams?!" and in second round reprised the piece that was instrumental to last year's san diego slam team, which states unequivocably that "I wear time strapped to my body". so congrats, sally.. thanks lizzie wann for being scorekeep both rounds tonight- it's a thankless job, we know! thanks gwen, for jumping in and helping out with judging second round.. and thanks also to the boys from flagstaff for entertaining us between rounds with two pieces each from their assorted individual & collective chapbooks.. thanks also to porcupine smith- now go check out his website by clicking on his name up at the top of this entry.
next slam is sunday, may 26..
ok, we were forced to do a 3-judge slam tonight.. you know how we hate having to resort
to that, but we just didn't have enough folks out there at starting time to yield us the
normal five judges.. what's an emcee to do? we went on with the show as best we could.
and by the end of round one, we had picked up at least twenty more audience-type folks
(including some blokes from liverpool england), and ended up having a damn decent slam,
if I don't say so myself.. so you already know that we had three audience volunteers (ok,
with slightly sore arms from being twisted just a little) as judges.. our line-up of poets
included first-time slammer michael potter, as well as veterans dan woodward, christina continelli, jim eret, micki adams and alfred, who came in 2nd tonight with a cumulative 53.0 and took home six bucks.. and in 1st place tonight, with a 53.4 score and winning $8, it was first-time slammer fred smalley. thanks micki for helping out with scorekeeping, and ian from liverpool doing some between-rounds open read stuff for us. definitely the june slams will be back to normal with a full dance-card of poets again, now that everyone's had a month to chill after the grand!
next slam is friday, june 14..
your slammaster
and faithful servant,
ro'ss.
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