Bowery New Years Day

No onstage pics yet for several reasons - Big Mike could not take any because he was performing with me and had his hands full cutting off my clothes and improvising - side note, I wonder - since he carried me offstage with one hand over my mouth and the other one up my pussy, was it an x-rated performance??? Anyway, not included in the one album I've seen. We also co-hosted, but since the creator of that album hates me, she managed to post pics of Big Mike CO-hosting by himself.

Bowery Poetry Club, Dark Matters, 2-12 (ran over), 150 scheduled poets, and 30 open mic slots. You get a serious 3 minutes - a siren will blare and the mic will shut down seconds later - so you have to hit the audience hard with something that will grab them and that they may even remember. There are also a lot of drunken attendees, the place is packed, the bar is jumping, so if you don't grab their attention, you may be drowned out by noise and activity. Last year, I grabbed them with my performance poem The Perfect Man, which is in the archives. I developed the idea for this year's piece at the 2010 show. Since The Perfect Man was under 3 minutes, I had brought along a very short list of ridiculous surreal resolutions, in case I wanted to fill in the time. I didn't use it due to the tremendously enthusiastic response to the piece - In fact, Gary Glazner came up shortly afterwards and referred to me as THE PERFECT POET of the day.

So I had this brainstorm - write a list of resolutions that starts out in a mundane fashion - i.e become a better poet, etc - and quickly launch into absurdity while Big Mike creeps up to the stage and starts to cut off my clothes. At the time, I imagined that I would wear pants and he would cut off my top and maybe my bra. We started using the concept in a variety of ways - played for laughs, and as a deadly serious dramatic device - Mike threatening me with the scissor, cutting off a piece of my hair, writing on my body, me winding up naked - part of the freshness of the piece is that I never know exactly what he's going to do.

The prose was perfect because it didn't matter where I left off - if I had too much time I could improvise, if it stopped midway, it was unimportant because it's just a list. I hope they don't censor the video in the archives. If I ever get pictures, I'll post them, including a couple from that day. The first photo posted is backstage with Amy Uzi, who performed "Princess" with Big Mike in his slot, and the thired is with Faux Maux, who performed an excerpt from her longer piece, "Nude Artists' Model."

The Meaning of True Grit

Jew Christmas - coffee, bagels, lox, antibiotics, and True Grit. The remake is excellent, and adheres more closely, I am told, to the book. Hailee Steinfeld, who played the young girl was amazing, and, although it's hard to beat John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, Jeff Bridges did well, and I'm not just saying that because I have a soft spot for him, and also, a great deal of lust.

But this is not a movie review. I don't do those. I am pondering on the meaning of grit. Lately, I am told repeatedly how "brave" and "courageous" my writing and performances are. After the December performance at the Bowery Sex Worker Literati series, a young lady gushed about my "awesomeness and courage" and asked several times, "Can I touch you?" (She didn't say where, but I was vaguely agreeably anyway.) Women more gorgeous than I ever was or will be tell me they want to be like me, or even BE me. Why???????

Courage? Like in True Grit? Did I face down outlaw gangs, get bitten by snakes, carry 14 year old snakebitten girls through snowy mountains, shoot my horse when it fell from exhaustion and broke its leg?

Cynically, I sometimes hear "brave" as a euphemism for "fat" and "old," taking into account, of course, that size 6 is considered Medium, and size 10 Large, and that women are expected to retreat into invisibility when the gray hair they hide is no longer premature.

Should I walk through the Canyon of Heroes naked?

What is a hero? Not an overpaid athlete, or an insurance agent on his way to work. Blessed by talent, cursed by fate, but heroes for being who and where they are and were? No more than I am "brave" for having lived a fucked up life and for using in my work without anonymity, or for inhabiting the body I possess, and using IT without anonymity, as I see fit.

Nudity and performance - I've appeared onstage naked and therefore have no fear of appearing onstage fully dressed. Ever. Conquering one fear has worked on others. I have a commitment to each performance - to take risks, I must be fully committed and therefore fully in those moments, no matter what. I was watching some videos at someone's place last night, including a Best of John Belushi, and I realized that's what I had admired most about him - his total commitment while performing, as well as the sweetness that lied somewhere in his face. His life may have been fucked, but watching him perform, you would never know that, and you could tell that he probably got up black and blue from some of those falls (like in the Joe Cocker piece) but while he was in those moments he probably never felt a thing.

Does that make him courageous? No more than it makes me courageous. True grit is in the ability and motiviation to stick it out, no matter what. Probably, Belushi did NOT have that grit,although he may have developed it down the line. I can name few that do have it. Certainly not myself.