Yippie Tonight!

ALL THE PRESIDENTS WOMEN, POETRY AND PERFORMANCE

Yippie Museum Cafe
9 Bleecker Street, bet. Bowery & Elizabeth
New York, NY

Another DDAY Production!

No admission or minimum, please donate $3 or so to the Yippie Cafe - support the space!

No alcohol, but coffee, tea and random desserts are available!
Limited OPEN MIC - Sign Up early!

Poetry, Performance, Music, and More!
Hosted by the one and only BIG MIKE!

Featuring the Beautiful, Amazing:

FAUX MAUX (Mo Kelly) - The consummate performance artist/actress/ playwright/writer - she has brought her awesomeness all over the world! Creates plays, performances, one-woman shows, and creative havoc of all kinds!!!! Author of NUDE ARTIST MODEL and many other performance pieces! A member of the DDAY Productions trio!

FIONA HELMSLEY - a thirty- something momshell, navel-gazer and recovering fun slut. Her first book, There Are A Million Stories In The Naked City When You’re A Girl Who Gets Naked In The Naked City was released last year. A writer of creative non- fiction and poetry, her work can be found scattered about the print and online worlds while her fashion sense stays static at whatfionaworetoday.tumblr.com.

NICOLE PEYRAFITTE - a performance artist born and raised in the French Pyrenees. She considers herself a Gasco-Rican (1/2 Gascon, 1/2 American) & citizen of Brooklyn. Her work draws on her eclectic heritage and addresses the experiences of negotiating her identity across two continents and four languages. Peyrafitte pursues related multi-cultural and multi-media investigations inspired by places, history, and gastronomy often integrate her voice, texts, visuals and cooking. She has two CD’s out “The Bi-Continental Chowder” & “Whisk! Don’t Churn”.

PUMA PERL – Poet/Writer/Performance Artist/Producer/Curator and co-creator of DDAY Productions and this event - author of the recently released book "knuckle tattoos," the award winning chapbook "Belinda and Her Friends," widely published in journals and anthologies, internationally! Creator of 6 Minutes and Cut and many other pieces!

REBECCA SCHUMEJDA - the author of Falling Forward, a full-length collection of poems (sunnyoutside, 2009); The Map of Our Garden (verve bath, 2009); Dream Big Work Harder (sunnyoutside press 2006); The Tear Duct of the Storm (Green Bean Press, 2001); and the poem "Logic" on a postcard (sunnyoutside). You can find her online at www.rebeccaschumejda.com. Currently, she is working on a collection of poems exploring the pool hall subculture, inspired by her short-lived experience as a co-owner of a pool hall.

BIG MIKE is the author of 2 books, 81 Pounds and Sibling Rivalry and appears in the anthology One Millimeter, all published by Pretty Pollution Press. Big Mike is known for his performance art and was awarded Best Neptune in the 2004 Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

http://www.yippiemuseum.org/

New Poem

Only writing about one a week lately. This is it, maybe a few more edits to come.

THAT CRAZY GOMEZ FAMILY

Crossing the plaza with my beautiful young husband
Pink Houses, East New York, I was twenty-two,
second child on the way, heard that hair dye
hurts babies, so I let the wild silver streak
through my black curls, neighbors watched
and gossiped, You know the brother from 2H?
His wife’s a vieja with white hair!

Don’t listen to them! sniffed my sister-in-law,
and she turned off her favorite movie,
opened the kitchen window and yelled,
We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!

Go ahead, your turn, she said, and we all
screamed into the courtyard, people laughed,
It’s just that crazy Gomez family again, all in fun
until the pot hit the pavement, and our party
ended like they all did in those days…
police sirens, bloody heads, fists cuffed, bail money

Friday nights, how quickly the sky fell into Saturday
I remember Carmen’s café con leche,
bunk beds and linoleum, long subway rides
back to my lower east side rooms, and then..
junkie death masks knocked, I answered, yes,
come in, life only lasts a minute, but
I was wrong again, neither my tracks
nor my memory expired

I still face the wall, close my eyes,
morning turns my face to glass,
my blood’s a transient boarder,
my body’s single room occupancy, doubles
for rent, my thoughts are king-sized lies,
the windows are nailed shut, the Gomez
family moved to Florida, my back’s
against walls, doors, and yesterday’s
windows, didn’t know it would hurt,
didn’t know it would hurt so much

Across the river, I hear your warning:
The tides turn, Puma, the tides turn…

Coney Island is for Lovers

I have not one, but two love stories on the blog and the video. One is an ex-boyfriend and the story of how we met at the Siren Festival in Coney Island. The other is me and Big Mike and the Mermaid Parade.

http://www.lolasdiary.com/puma-perl-big-mike/

I included photos to accompany the story and am now shown, breasts hanging like a National Geographic centerfold. They didn't look so bad in green, but the ones with the body paint dripping off are rough. She didn't include the photo where we look the happiest in the blog, but it's in the video.

The story of me and my ex-boyfriend, Louie, is here:
http://www.lolasdiary.com/puma-and-louie/

It's a simpler story and the ending is that it ended. I don't have an ending with Big Mike yet.

There is a video too.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=10150099624409323&oid=138587312872199&comments

Coincidentally, I know the winners of the love story contest, Christine and Chris. It is a really sweet story. Mine is more bittersweet, one relationship gone and the other - future unknown at this point. I probably have done everything possible to sabotage and self-sabotage. I have acted as impulsively as I did sending in those photos, which are also in the window of the Broome Street location. I don't feel brave at all right now.