Our slam took looks good and has done well in the competitions they have done to get ready for nationals. Its coming in AUGUST!!!

I have some thoughts that dont relate in any way to our beloved slam team or poetry in general.

1. I hate nickels. A lot of people talk about how useless pennies are because what can do with a penny now-a-days? No one has touched on how dissapointing the nickel is. How many times have you reached into your pocket and thought you had a quarter and it was only a nickel. Far too many times this happens to me and why is the dime worth twice as much and takes up half as much space? Seems like a bad idea.

2. Next time you write a check to someone write it to that person +the ghost of richard nixon. Contact me as this unfolds I really want to know how they would cash that. I recently got married and people were writing checks for mr and mrs this and that which seems useless. If you write it to me its hers as well if you write it to her its mine as well, we are at this point a singular fluid economic organism. Thats what love is about. Anyway, it got me thinking you can write a check to anyone. If I am to write a check to my mother I can write it out to her and her mailman. What is she going to do? Ask the mailman to go to the bank with her so she can cash a check? Someone has to experiment and let me know, being one fluid economic organism we don’t share my flair for experimentation.

3. Celebrities have more ways to screw up then ever, they twitter drunk tirades and leave angry voicemails and for some reason they reveal hidden racist tendencies in ways that can be constantly replayed. We as a viewing public feel a little betrayed that we have supported said celebrity in various projects over the years just to find out they have a hidden hatred of ___ that we were a part in. We need resolution. I offer a suggestion.

How about we have elections sponsored by corporations to provide an official representative that accepts major political or celebrity racist outburst apologies, for each race or minority. I’ll give a hypothetical example, Michael Keaton gets interviewed and says the holocaust never happened. Jewish people have heard this one before but I grew up loving Michael Keaton and I want him held accountable. I want him to apologize and explain his comments to Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm(he would have to be elected but he’s my candidate) some hilarious sit downs can come of this. Think of the possibilities?

We had the third annual hip hop four elements show at the north star cafe on 06/22 and it was great. We had break dancing, mcing, djing, and someone spray painted something somewhere.

Sandbag headlined and i told Ill by Instinct how great he is again, I feel like one day he is going to see me walk up to him and say “Its over between us, I can’t handle your uncomfortable admiration of me!” Anyway, anyone out there who attended or didnt that thinks the art of the hip hop mixtape is dead doesnt know and I can help. These are the five new artists you need to know.

In no particular order I’m starting with DONNIS. He’s from Atlanta and part of what I’m calling the southern lyrical revolution. Crunk music got too big and made it seem like the south was producing non-lyrical throw away dance. They basically turned into europeon pop music from the mid 90’s (barbie girl barbie world) but that whole while lyricism remained a strong part of southern rap. Outkast pushed hip hop along with Goodie Mobb and then TI made music that was lyrical and incredibly popular, Donnis comes from this line but still brings that incredible southern energy. Listening to Donnis is like stepping into a party on friday night not knowing anyone and kind of drunk but determined to have fun. He’s got two real mixtapes and a rehash thing you’ll know the difference. Download them they are free.

Big Krit is next and as tough as it to get respected as a southern MC Donnis is from Atlanta which has a heavy rep in hip hop. KRIT is from mississippi which has only produced David Banner recently and that is not a great track record. He’s put out a few mixtapes I guess but this new one(KRIT wuz here) is my mixtape of the year right now. I can’t stop listening to it, he’s lyrical and ferocious but maintains this delicate soulful production and triumphant tone throughout. I’ve heard he did the production himself and it would make sense because it sounds like it fits perfectly the whole way through. How good was this mixtape? He was just signed to Def Jam because of it.

Its hard to explain how much I love Fashawn, more then I love Ill by Instinct. Man I hope he’s not reading this. The best way to earn my all out affection is to do what Fashawn does 1. present top notch lyrical skill 2. Work visibly hard to ensure your work is conceptually sound 3. Do what is right not what is popular. West coast rap used to be my thing because I was simplistic and loved the directness and emotion in Gangsta rap(i will type the term but not say it I sound stupid saying it) Jay Rock, Game, Nipsey Hussle, and a lot of other new school west coast MC’s are busy proving they could be like MC Eiht in 92 and they sound like he does…now. Instead of sounding tired and dumb Fashawn does light hearted soul searching De La Soulish music sometimes and other times no one on earth sounds like him. Anyone think of a compliment better then that? I can’t.

Have you ever known someone who offends you so much that over time you begin to like him. If you don’t know what i’m talking about then listen to Royce da 5′9 Bar Exam 3 make sure to listen to 2 as well though(on that one he was less drunk). This is simply one of the best in the business, he will offend you somehow and a number of times but you will be forced to shake your head say “WOW!” The precise nature of his flow is what makes him amazing, he’s good with punch lines but he hits every single word which takes amazing talent. He’s the opposite of someone like lil wayne who stammers through verses that rarely make sense. He entertains himself by testing himself constantly, pushing each verse to top the last. Hip hop is supposed to be built on that.

Hopefully you know J Cole, if you do this will be easier. He’s from North Carolina and after he dropped his flawless mixtape THE WARM UP he was signed to ROC NATION by Jay-Z. The ceiling on this kids talents is way up there. He can make those catchy hooks that stick in your head while still crafting an assertive lyrically dense song. He has an authenticity in his work that speaks to his personality. After listening to the Come up and Warm up you feel like you know him and you should. He can confress, brag, and just flip words until your head nodding is out of control. People say Jay signed him because he say himself in Cole but honestly at J Coles age Jay-z wasn’t this good.

If you check these guys out and dont like them, find me, we will argue and i will win.

Performing in front of a large group is one of those strange things that everyone wants to do but pretends they are scared to do.

Nervous is different, sure anyone who performs is nervous the question is how do you manifest it? These kids reading on Tuesday nights have it tough, if it goes well its a validation of all the work you do if not…you know what happens. If you go enough the readings become a part of your normal social structure so bombing is that much worse. Your now bombing in front of people who are friends/aquintances. Not everyone is used to that.

A lot of people bomb on a regular basis. I have seen it done many ways(done it in a few) and have come to have a list of favorites.

When a poet is on stage and they have worked out physical movements to go with the lines coming up that is a good thing. When executed naturally its fantastic. When the movements don’t fail but your mouth does its amazing. Your hands are going exactly where they are supposed too while your mouth is dribbling out “Shmush ba poopy ty!” Then you have to go back figure out A) what line you jacked up B) should you go back and re do that line or just keep going?

My second favorite is Ad libbing. You throw in a funny line that came to you or you restructure a sentence mid performance because your an artist damn it and this is your art. You can adjust on the fly! You end up so pleased with your ability to change something the audience doesnt care or know you changed that you flub up the rest of the piece. I Love doing this as much as I love seeing it done.

Outside interference is high up there. We have a man with tattoos on his face who stands very close to the stage and at times yells responses to lines he likes or doesnt like. That can mess up your flow. We have some folks who whenever a younger woman takes the stage their first thought is not, boy she looks young and scared i should be quiet so she can concentrate, its the opposite. They will yell right a she is about to begin creepy things like “YOUR SO BEAUTIFUL!!!” or “I’ll DRINK YOUR BATHWATER!!” “YOU REMIND ME OF MY JEEP!!!” ok i made the last two up, but we’re not that far away. Its a lighter way of shouting “I’d have sex with you!” before someone starts reading a deeply personal prose piece or poem. Its is unbelievably distracting and would be higher on my list if it wasnt a little offensive.

I only gave you three for now but its a conversation starter. If you need more then you can contact me and hash it out. My email is dano@portveritas.com I would love to compile a list from everyone who has performed and post that. Now that is a chain poem that would be fun.

On May 11th A slam was held to find out who the members of the 2010 Portland slam team would be. Its still an amazing thing to read. The fact that Port veritas 1. exists and 2. sends a slam team to compete nationally for Portland when no one else does, is amazing. Its a big responsibility.

10 poets competed at a very high level and were all incredible. If you havent been a part of it you need to know its mind numbingly taxing to compete in one of these things(from a mental standpoint). Out of 10 Olivia came in 8th while turning in one of the best nights she’s ever given. That was how good this was.

1. Wil came in first because of his consistency and ability to pick the right piece for the crowd. The piece he closed with is an admission that he ran off on his daughter and some crowds can see it as an brave and mature admission of flaws in his character and an attempt in the right direction. Some crowds look at him like he is eating his own poop. He didn’t do the best he’s ever done but he didnt screw any round up and the pieces themselves are good enough that they dont need his best every time. Just his best attempt.

2. Krista came in behind him, she has a lot of gifts as an artist. She has an undeniably interesting mixture of personal strength and quiet sadness, frailty, that she can express as a single voice. She doesn’t have to switch gears from strong and defiant to hopeless, its all there without effort. Her perspective is completely fresh.
3. Kait-The hardest poet to help improve is the one who is skilled with words but doesnt have their own voice. They write how they think writing should sound or look. Kait is not like anyone else on the planet. Funny,off putting, and completely invested in every word. She owns every second and makes you rent it from her.
We used to worry about having female poets on the team and I always hated it. I wanted poets on the team to be valued just because they were good. I didnt want us to have to search for demographics. I won.
4. Ryan-One mans energy can change the world. I don’t care if you believe me. Ryan is where he is because he works a lot harder then a lot of other similarly talented people who just don’t scramble for the best possible performance like he does. He’ll scream till his face is crimson to make you feel what he is saying and then do it again next round. He’s a big bad ass dude who will fuck you up with poetry.
Nate-He shouldn’t have done the Catholic poem(anti-catholic) but he loves it like Tiger loves blondes(getting the all the left over Tiger jokes out). He did the love poem and and it was like the end of Joe Versus the Volcano. Pretty damn cool.

I know how hard it is to be a writer. I know how hard it is to perform what you write on stage to people while they judge your work. I also know how hard it is to organize the event(not from doing it but from watching Nate).

Port Veritas formed to create a place where community could come together to help grow its own artistic drive. If anyone thinks we’ve failed at it then they should tell us, one on one. That is not what happens.

People come to the North Star on Tuesday nights and feel left out because they dont know us yet. They get onstage raw and unpolished so people don’t celebrate them enough, then they see how much we celebrate each other when we achieve and they feel isolated.

Honestly your supposed to feel isolated. There is a preexisting social structure wherever you go and you have to make your room within it. Here you make it by blowing us away. If you never do then people will only marginally attend you.
It would be stupid of me to ask these kinds of people to create their own readings, they won’t. I would give these people one word of wisdom, don’t you ever name check a poet on stage. Your a coward if you do. You can write a piece that is directed at someone without any names and they will know but when you drop peoples names in a negative way you are abusing the situation and spitting in the face of what everybody there hopes accomplish.
If people need it to be the fault of the venue and Port Veritas that is fine but I won’t forget and if you name check Wil or Nate you just name checked me. I help them keep this going and setting them back sets me back frustrating them frustrates me. Know that what you say has consequences beyond food for your ego.

From 1900-2000 there have four boxing matches that were considered Fights of the Century. How can there be four? A combination of marketing and folklore that surrounds a fight that important. The first was Jack Johnson v. Jim Jeffries then Jack Dempsey v. Gene Tunney II followed by Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling II and finally Ali v. Frazier I. Every fight wears the mantle FOTC for a different reason, the personalities and abilities that created the atmosphere around the fight keeps it sheltered within the warmth of legend.

On Tuesday 04/13 we had a slam to qualify people for the final slam to decide our national slam team. It was a stacked room of poets. Throughout the night four different poets got a perfect score(30) and much like the FOTC each one was perfect for a different reason, each poet created a different feeling within the room that facilitated the appropriate understanding of their message. I find the comparison interesting even if I am alone in that.

Heidi is one of the most interesting. I’ve seen her perform many times, she can switch into singing or stay straight ahead slamming. I’ve never seen her as good as she was last night. She set the tone in the first round with a performance that she poured herself into. Yelling isn’t performing but the red in her face and the tension in her body as she motioned made everyone give her command of those three minutes. She talked about herself and liberating her mind from the expectations society dumps on you. It’s a good way to start a slam. Get pumped and let everyone know what your about.

The shame is that at a slam there are a lot of people with great words who underperform them or vice versa. These perfect scores were from people who ensured both words and performance were at the same high level. Its not easy but Krista did an amazing job of it. Heidi set the tone by commanding the audience to understand her viewpoint, Krista took a similar commanding tone but built a character in order to lead the audience in understanding a crazy persons viewpoint. Krista wrote a slam piece from the perspective of a beaten woman who was angry when her man beat other women instead of him and it ended with her wanting him to kill her. It sounds nuts. It was kinda nuts, but that’s awesome. She created empathy for a perspective no one in that room had and she sold it. When you’ve done that you’ve done something that 90% of people in general cant do. Having empathy for a foreign perspective is difficult but giving it life and dimension through poetry is even harder. She pulled off a very difficult thing.

I can’t tell you how frustrating Sean is. He will write and perform a brilliant, tear your hair out, beg him for a copy after he’s done, piece and then disappear for six months. His notebook is filled with scraps of images, four lines here six lines there, all astounding but needing cohesion. He has to sew all these scraps together to make a full piece. He’s not an MC. He’s more then that, maybe if you combined Rakim with Jim Morrison you could get close but you’d still be missing something. His life has drilled home in him this angry sensitivity that comes through in his words and delivery. His voice and his body and his imagery flow together and at his best your wound up in the imagery trying to unravel it and then not trying anymore. Just enjoying a fertile mind, its not a strategy he employs its him managing who he is through his poetry. It was a 30.
While a lot of people were raising their voice to command the audience Wil jumped in at the perfect time and lowered his voice, launching into one of his strongest love poems. Its not just the whispering that did it, he held himself close to the mic and carried through the idea in his body language that he was whispering us all a secret. An important secret that not everyone could know but we could, only tonight. He captured the crowd and instead of leaving them yelling and hooting and declaring “right on!” he left them silent and contemplative. It was a great performance even before the scores were in.

The results of the slam don’t matter as much as the power of the performances which is why I wanted to highlight a few that really made me happy to be losing sleep on a Tuesday night.

I spent the weeks leading up to our feature Jason Carney not studying about him. I thought about him but mostly finding interesting ways to spin his name into other funny words. Carney-val or Carney-vore or Carney-balism I had a bunch of them. I don’t like studying up on people that everyone is excited about, it lifts my personal expectations to an unfair level. My funny name game works much better.

I walked in that night looking to see if he was already there. Features and especially performers that are that big a deal have an aura of importance about them that sets them apart from the environment. I noticed someone different and looked at him but instantly shook my head and dismissed him. That goofy bastard can’t be the feature.

Then Wil introduced me to him and I knew instantly that this is one of those scenarios where he goes on stage does great and you feel bad for thinking he was a goofy looking weirdo who looked like the guy who plays Freddy in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I tried to prepare myself.

He stood near me(because there was nowhere to sit) while I ran the music and so I got to watch him view the reading. It was possibly the most interesting part of him coming to the venue. Jason Carney attends readings like he is going to church. Every poet had his complete attention and when they were done he would loudly declare “Right on!” nod his head and clap louder then anyone. A lot of people were reading there best work to impress him and he was so much more than that. Each poet molded his mood and affected his state of mind.

I read something I would not consider my best work but when I came back he gave me a strong pat on the back and said he loved it and he wasn’t lying. I believed him. Everyone who went up on stage achieved something amazing for him, regardless of the percentage of their overall potential they were utilizing.

Slam is full of honest real life problems displayed and masked by flowery language. When slam poets write about touching hard situations they have to throw in a few lines are wonderfully written and calculated to give them space from the subject matter, breathing room from the naked hard cold point they don’t want to make…they want to infer. Our feature was so brutal to himself and to us that he almost cried 5 times or more and when he was done, he was our friend. We all knew him.

So I have to thank him for being a great poet, and a new friend I didn’t count on.

He showed up to the biggest MC battle in the world in a grungy rock T-shirt, jeans and bad facial hair. No one ever capitalized off of being underestimated as much as he did.
As I began to become a part of the slam community, i was surprised to hear the same thing the hip hop kids always told me. Namely that Sage Francis as a person was an asshole. An unbelievable jerk you would never want to be around. Even jerks thought he was a jerk.
It made his albums even more interesting to me, for some reason I felt like I could hear his knowledge of this in his voice. Every song he made for that group of people who loved his work but hated him as person, he did vengefully.
I met Sage Francis once, I was buying his merchandise at a show and he was watching someone else perform. He grabbed me and started dancing with me in one of the truly odd, meeting an artist you respect moments, for some reason he doesn’t get the acclaim he used too. THe word in popular opinion is that he’s not what he used too. Funny thing is that his last album was the best work he’s ever done. You wouldn’t know if you didn’t buy it. Sage is a spoken word artist who transitioned to a rapper and has been paved a way for others in both realms. He has a new album coming out on May 11th and if I buy it and its terrible, I won’t care. He’s been so good for so long, poured so much of himself into performance after performance and made it possible for white poets to rap without being mocked for it. Their still stuck mocking Sage, saying Anticon as if it was a swear. Slam owes Sage a lot, and I’ll continue to pay him back May 11th.

When the president is elected everything changes. He rides a wave of public opinion that feels unstoppable from the other side of the tracks. The opposition party spends all of its time putting together the best talking points to attack the newfound soverign commander in ways that wont make them look petty. It doesn’t always work. One thing is for certain though, they have to hate him and there base has to hate him. Even if they don’t dislike him that much the current President has to be the worst since the last worst or worse then that.

Its marketing. You can market opposition if you do it correctly. It gives a certain degree of comfort to all voters. The ones who voted against the president in power get to say “I didn’t vote for this idiot” and use all their passion and energy to make him the bad guy. The voters for him get to flip their lid and declare “This isn’t what I signed up for!” Even if it clearly was. It makes us feel good to shake our fists at people and things that are easy to dislike. The president is that way.

A woman I work with who is a republican looked at everyone at our lunch table and said “I think he’s the devil.” She was talking about the president and I began to wonder if people will ever get tired of this easy out, the unbridled joy of Umbrage.

We’ve seen the death of the tasteful disagreement, the sensible counter-solution all of those kinds of resolutions will be things we talk to our children about and they will look at us like nuts. This is more Geraldo’s country then mine some of the time and I’m not afraid to say it.

I couldn’t have debated the woman at my lunch table. That discussion would not be a debate. My response would have turned into something ugly like “As black as he is i’m sure he looks like the devil to you. I’m sure your god looks a lot like you.”

have another thought. We all use the same tired expressions from time to time. One of the classic ones is BOY IF I COULD TRADE PLACES WITH THAT GUY! Some of the time these aren’t very well thought through. No one wants to trade places with Obama because of how dreadfully microscopic the analysis of your every act would be. Same for every president, if they catch you on camera picking your nose it’s all over every form of media. You wouldn’t want to be any of the super major stars because as rich as you are wherever you go crowds will come after you people will snap pictures. What if I’m buying dandruff specialized shampoo and the paparazzi snap pictures of me, now the world knows I have flaky skin?! You have to think about this stuff.

So we can come up with more then enough examples of the people we truly don’t want to be but who would you want to be and why?

Mine are in no particular order

Joe Biden-I know he’s the vice president so he is doing a lot and has pressure BUT not at all comparable to the President. No one cares what the vice president does and its been like that even before Bush I sent Dan Quayle to a new country every month to keep him from saying stupid things to the media. Speaking of saying stupid things to the media, Joe has such a history of saying nutty things that if you don’t say something nuts everyone is happy. All you have to do is not blabber madness and you will be loved based on experience and familiarity alone. On the other hand he’s not as overexposed as Obama so no one cares about him enough to mob him in public and even if they did, secret service has your back. You can’t beat being powerful enough for everyone to pay attention to you while not being powerful enough to shoot yourself in the foot. You can’t be fired, it would be too much of a scandal you have a guaranteed term and then after that if you don’t get picked up for the sequel you can go sell Viagra. Would I sink that low? Yes.

Christopher Nolan-Tell me what Christopher Nolan looks like? He directed all your favorite movies Insomnia, Dark Knight, Momento, etc. He’s filthy disgusting American rich and he gets to be creative for a living(write/direct films) and somehow he’s kept himself from being the media diva that Kevin Smith and Tarentino have become. He could be walking next to you in the mall and you wouldn’t know. You couldn’t bug him for an autograph. Sure a few comic book nerds have memorized his facial features and sleep with a picture of him above their bed but that’s not a majority. On the other hand if he is looking to scoop up the most appealing woman in the club, he simply needs to state “Hey, I’m Christopher Nolan how are you, I directed Batman.” Is it cheesy sure but it will work. You’re a celebrity now.

Steve Sabol-The voice of NFL films for as long as I’ve been alive. All those superbowl highlight shows that I watched as a kid with the narrated slow motion highlights he was always jumping in and commentating. So you’re a key player for all the classic sports programming, your paid very well. Your rich but not “I need a pool shaped like my face” rich, a good place to be. You have crazy job security and all you do all day is re watch classic sports. THAT IS ALL I DO NOW! Perfect.

Gary Shandling-Star of the Larry Sanders show(which I loved and most people don’t remember or flat out dislike) kind of a wal-mart level version of Jerry Seinfeld. Not as talented not as fun to watch but almost as wealthy and because he’s not Seinfeld level important he doesn’t have a ton of projects going on at the same time. He might jump in a minor movie role or a commercial and then you can back to watching cartoons and yelling at the cat for blocking the cable box when your switching channels on commercial breaks. Is that what I want to do with my life? Yup.

Cheryl Miller-Sister of Reggie Miller very famous basketball player in her own right. Couple points here. I loved watching Reggie Miller frustrate or fluster every major star of his day and would love to ask him crazy things about 1990’s era basketball. She works as a correspondent for TNT games which means she goes to GREAT basketball games free all the time, for her job. What does she do? Chime in from the sideline with an interesting nugget, factoid, or gruff coach comment. She does full time analyst duties on NBA TV and gets paid better then I do to say things I say to Sarah like. “Anderson Varejo is the best at drawing fouls of any modern player this era.” The difference is when she says it everyone loves it and pays attention when I say it the cat just looks at me with a blank stare.