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02/18/2004 Entry: "2-18-04 goings on with me"

Let me catch you up on some stuff that I have been doing and stuff that I have been going to lately.

On Valentine's day I went to lunch with Jeannie to Hangawi, this Korean vegetarian fancy place it was delicious. We had four or five courses of food. We were stuffed but not so stuffed that we wouldn't eat ice cream at Stone Cold Creamery in Times Square with Omar and Emily. If you haven't been there you should go. Its a bit expensive but worth it. From there we went to the new Time Warner complex in Columbus Circle. Its this giant Multibillion dollar complex with an indoor mall. They have a new Whole foods that is gigantic so we bought some food to make dinner with. We bought fiddle head ferns, which are weird looking but delicious, and yellow wax beans, which are also delicious. We ran into Eric Guerreri, who works there in the nutritional supplements section. It was cool to see him and Whole foods is supposed to be a really good company to work for. Go head Eric.

On Sunday I went to Bonafide's book release party. I got there a half hour after it was supposed to start, but that was Ok because it didn't start until an hour later. Shaggy is cool people's but I'm not so sure he can organize an event for New York. They are different than events in other cities. Everywhere else people want a lot of stuff and want it to last a long time. This makes sense since they don't have many events throughout the year. they look forward to each and want to savor it. new York is not that way. We plan things to do before and after an event. You might have three or four events to go to in a single night. This means that your events should start relatively on time and be no more than two hours in length. The book party went from 8 to midnight, and was supposed to go longer. I think this added to people feeling anxious. the acentos crew is probably the best at organizing concise and well timed events, one of the many things they do right. But anyway, let me tell you about the book party. I was slated to read a piece at the book release. I went on right after Rich Villar. I chose to do My abuelita piece, "Clorox Christ" because I wanted to do something on a different topic than the other readers. Perhaps this was a bad choice though because there was a film playing behind me that was showing a film about the atomic bomb. It was really distracting. I started my poem ok but then I was thrown off. Apparently there was a sheep being shorn on the film behind me. After Fish pointed this out I couldn't get back into the rhythm of my poem. I just kept thinking about what was being shown on the screen behind me and even forgot some of the lines of one of my oldest and most memorized poems. I tried to cover it up though, don't know how successfully. That film kept playing as the other poets read as well and I found it really distracting. I kept losing my place in peoples pieces because there was a giant mushroom cloud or a house exploding. Other than that though it was cool. Bonafide gave a great reading, even breaking down in an emotional reading of "Rojas".

On monday I went to Oscar's feature at Johnny O's n the Bronx. It took me a while to get up there but it was worth it. Oscar gave one of the best feature's I've seen in a while, busting out with many great pieces I had never heard before. "Sortarican" was a favorite of mine from that night as he laid out the plight (may be too strong a word) of a non Puertorican in New York, something I know all too well. The open mic was also good as the Acentos crew represented lovely. I actually broke through my writer's block that night. I just started writing at the beginning of the open mic and actually came out with a piece that I was able to read by the end of the open mic. I hadn't written anything in almost five months so I was extremely happy. I attribute my break though to the Acentos crew who I have been spending a lot of time with lately.
At the end of that night I ended up taking a cab back from parkchester with Matt Siegel, because I had to work the next day and didn't want to get home at 3AM, and he lives near me. There were only Gypsy cabs around though so I got ripped as i had to pay 32 dollars for a fifteen minute cab ride. Next time I think I might have to leave early or only attend events near express trains.

Today I am taking the day off. I have a lot of comp days that I have not used, and since the schools are closed this week there is probably no better time than now to take them.

Today's song is "Where is the love" by Black Eyed Peas. Click at the top to hear it.

Replies: 1 Comment

thanks for coming through- sorry about the cab ride- next time ima make it up to ya!

paz,
o.b.

Posted by oscar bermeo @ 02/18/2004 02:14 PM EST