So I was cast in a reality show! A reality poetry show?! Well, they told me at the start of filming Saturday that this show is not about poetry per say, but about one girl's journey to learn more about herself…so I'm like ok, so I'm an extra, right! Screw that! I'm not staying late I've got to get to a wedding!
So I leave and then the girl who it's about calls me and asks if we can hang out and this is on the way to SD on Saturday, so I'm like Ok, sure alright, lemme call you laters…then the prod. co. calls me on Monday wanting to come to MY house and film everyone hanging out and chilling…but they buy the food and drinks and pay for cleaning, so I'm hella cool with that.
19 July 2005 @ 11:49 pm OK…so the tv show. there's some stuff I can say publicly and stuff i can't having signed some forms of some kind 🙂 but it's going alright. Went to MN/HJN’s wedding in San Diego and spent the night at mk's, going home to LA on Sunday night. Ran out of gas in San Clemente. After nearly having to barter ciggs for gas (left credit card at home) I successfully got back on the freeway…going the wrong way…ended up running out of gas again in San Diego. MK picked my loser ass up, fed me and kept me warm and nice. I’d like to think that our normative functioning had NOTHING to do with me having my laptop and her having wireless, but I think it helped. We had a nice time and talked and talked and talked and talked. And then talked some more. And sometimes we didn't and it was just as nice. Mk moves in Sept. to MA but we'll be "talking" in the meantime. Some sort of nebulousness that indicates a caring and careful situation between two people. Gotta get ready for the film crew to come to my house, they're doing a lil something here, TOMORROW.
@ 2005-07-26 23:07:00 What's my imaginary problem? Right now I'm gonna go with the irrational performance anxiety that's preventing me from performing poetry in front of others without freaking out and falling apart. Crazy huh? One of the most outspoken, loudest people ever = Me right? I become the shy wallflower who's afraid of people when you hand me a mic…it's GOTTA BE ALL IN MY HEAD! I AM NOT AFRAID OF SPEAKING or SHOUTING…I AM ALIVE! LIFE IS IMMENSE!!!
2005-07-28 21:17:00 WEDS POETRY CLASS WENT WELL Poetry class is doing pretty good, poetry wise. Yesterday I kinda just threw my hands in the air and gave up and surrendered myself to the presence and passion of pure performance…or something. I freestyled! Freestyling in this regard can be defined as, making up a coherent, rhyming and awesome poem, right on the spot. OMG, it's still hard for me to honestly believe that I freestyled for the first time, and with people watching to boot. But it was just something I had to say, I couldn't write the words down…the assignment being food it was just too weighty a subject for me to HONESTLY tackle…at least more than the previous attempt, which I still like… it's just that…well, that poem is not about FOOD per se…I wanted to grasp the feelings of confliction, loathing and love. I did cheat a bit by relying on my trove of interesting, fucked up shit that's happened to me…instead of making the words float on the page and be part of the rhyme scheme and cadence of the thing…I just let me be me and started rhyming all on my own, it was AWESOME. The beats started to come and I heard my own rhythm and threaded the words accordingly. People liked it and my teacher said that he was very impressed and really felt like he connected with me more in this style than any of the others I'd tried. One kid told me he was mad at me for hiding all of my talent just to bust it out 2nd act, to really wow. It's true that before this performance I Definitely was close to being the worst person in the class performance-wise, so it's great to know I'm making progress. Run on sentences aside. Sucky thing about a freestyle rhyme, it exists for those who hear it…many poets memorize things over time, but parts of me are just really interested in taking a poem of mine…all english lit style and memorizing that…and THEN wrapping the "right now" around it spoken word style. So next class is Friday, we'll see if that works out 🙂 Thanks again for the hella supportive and kind words everyone, it's totally helping me get thru this Poetry BootCamp!
2005-08-02 05:49:00 FUN WITH POETRI for poetry class* on friday i have to have a poem memorized on a theme. theme being: "if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?" so i was just fiddling around and came up with this laughingly, but at the same time hit a deep vein of juicy golden possibility, mmmhhmm…poetry. I was once a tree… I do not wait for you to follow instead They reach you Words washed inside the me machine and dried into tangled tales, that I hope you might repeat on your own tongue Making us once again ONE For as we give to you, I shed some stuff, shit's been a little rough… Don't mind the scratching of the paper against the pen, for me it's just a bit of sandpaper to my skin It's funny don't you see? If I take away one multiple personality does that leave me free? How many rings around the tree can one girl circle? I want to flee and be within me again. And understand what it's like to be a tree again Instead of just holding this pencil to pen Sandpaper to skin the word "pen" above IS intentional, *It's kicking my ass this class: poetry, personality and production, oh my!
05 August 2005 @ 05:24 pm Well, just about to go on to Poetry class…more like poetry book camp, but it's awesome nonetheless. finished another draft of the "if a tree falls in the forest, what sound does it make?", perhaps i relish finding ways to answer questions in different ways, who can say…
I WAS ONCE A TREE Let's flee and be within again and understand what it's like to be a tree again. It's funny don't you see? How many rings can one girl circle? Each year a ring of life…ok, stop already this metaphor's getting way too heavy. What I'm trying to say is rhyming away to the world where the insides of things alive are stupendous and mighty, alrighty? Including us of course. Let's take a second to be we? Won't you and I? Let's stand tall on the limbs of our mutual likeness, for all of us are where life began, you can nod if you understand. Don't follow? I'll be your leader, me the half breed and half breeder, the bleeder. I WAS ONCE A TREE Don't mind the scratching of the paper against the pen, it's just a bit of sandpaper to skin. It sloughs off and runs amuck, these bits of faith stuff, so YOUR parts can remember what it was like to exist in infinite spaces, without confines in all cases. I was once a tree and so were you I must insist, but if you resist THEY WILL reach you Words washed inside the me machine and dried into recycled tangled tales, that I hope you might repeat on your own tongue, making US once again ONE. How many rings can one girl circle? Me, this tree, we'll GIVE to you AND shed some stuff, for shit's been a little rough. The rubbing once again begins and keeps on, till the pile reaches high, blocking everything else out from the eye Trapped in the defeat of a tree, who ever thought I would die of suffocation from the glut of the fucked up, from the seizing and sawing, the wretched desecrations. I want it ALL BACK, I want to rewind, quickly, quickly now, get all of the scratches, each individual line, and walk backwards in time joining dust back together rhyme by rhyme come, let's squat on this hill and remain utterly still, you don't have to wait until you know who you ONCE were, what kind of tree, shrub, god's blessed creature or golden retriever… Just tap into your own truth What was once, will be again, with paper to pen, sandpaper to skin 13 August 2005 @ 05:43 pm Last day of filming last day of this kind of needed strength and stress, kindred souls misaligned but not by design test my courage but yet there is Faith.
Freestyle blather People need to be more honest with other people's kids, instead of just letting them get of on stuff and get ahead still flailing, a bit unflattering for all. Woman once said it takes a village to raise a child, and you know it MUST have been some woman shooing away the neighborhood bully from a smaller and outwardly weaker child…it took a village to raise a child then, and now it takes the world. One live is each life now and we can make ourselves better, perhaps impervious to pain, if we pass on the knowledge of us that came before. Hold hands and even the score, tell despite we will stand higher, an each times two, to you, I tip my hat to this dream of an all-of-us-together.
Alrighty I think I'm sufficiently warmed up, got the engine revving so to speak. Freestyling is awesome, but it helps if I've got something to work into. A trap set, for them or me. By them I mean the audience I think, weird to think about performing in front of possible vips, jesus christ. Tuesday, the big day of performance went really well. It was intense as I read this for about 350, poem totally went out of order and I freestyled to put it back together, freaky and intense night of awesomeness some of which might show up on TV.
FOR SUCH A LONG TIME I WAS ALWAYS WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP. I DIDN’T REALIZE I COULD WEAR BOTH.
INT. FAITH’S ROOM – NIGHT Faith sits on the bed watching tv reality. Bands Reunited, The Simple Life, The Osbournes, Boliing POint, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, Average Joe, Survivor scroll across the screen. FAITH People talk about the problems of reality tv, how bad it is for all of us, for our world. Why is no one talking about why we’re just bad for tv? Has no one noticed the pain that we must be generating as a people to produce such pain that we in turn find funny? MIKE It’s someone else, we’re laughing at. FAITH Oh, I think not.