It wasn’t just the scene that had changed
When I asked for suggestions for non-political topics last week, I got some great feedback. Three of the suggestions were actually closely related so I figure what better way to end the week than with some exhibitionistic introspection?
“…your first experiences with poetry/performing/and your growing pains in the scene.”
“How has becoming a father changed your perspective on life, if at all?”
“What are you doing now post louder arts?”
First, some quick background. I stumbled onto the poetry scene by accident in the summer of 1997, after three years of the Nuyorican Poets Café being a fun Friday night out and first-date spot. The first half of 1997 was without question the worst period of my life – emotionally and psychologically – with broken relationships, miscarriages, bad decisions and extreme self-doubts. In other words, perfect fodder for bad poetry. The first time I read in the Wednesday night Slam Open at the Café – July 16th, 1997 – my reasons had nothing to do with poetry. I had just completed an acting workshop and had written a screenplay that I’d converted to the stage, and really wanted to mount it at the Café – so I wanted to get to know the people in charge. I only had four poems, loosely defined, including a contemplation of suicide, a lost love piece, an old attempt at a rap song, and a rant that was really just an essay with random line breaks.
It must have been destiny because I won my first Friday night slam a month later, and qualified for the Finals two months after that when I won the semi-final against some pretty strong competition. My play was quickly forgotten and I dove headfirst into poetry and the scene itself, writing and reading like a man possessed, and getting caught up in the never-ending drama that follows self-destructive creative types like the paparazzi stalks J-Lo.
Where the first half of 1997 was full of personal disasters, the second half was classic road to self-destruction. I was a lightning rod for controversy, known for dissing people on and off stage, usually by name, and for drinking way too much way too often. At one point, Keith Roach pulled me aside for a lecture that included the infamous warning: “Broken hearts are bad for business.” By the end of the year, I’d witnessed much incestuous drama, had been at the center of a lot of it, and somehow ended up as the host of the Open Room after the Friday night slam. To be honest, I think it was partly Keith’s way of keeping a leash on me.
Three significant things happened in 1998: Salomé and I reconciled and got married that summer; I made the Nuyorican team and we won the Nationals; I added a slam format to my Monday night reading at 13 and shortly thereafter was banned from the Nuyorican.