So once again it is Friday. These things come with regularity. Isn't it great? I am not always in the best of moods on these days, but today is a different day. Someone surprised me with FREE tickets to the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall? I have been dying to see that since I was a wee little lad. Today someone just said hey would you like Free tickets, and I said YES as soon as the word Free ended. After I went to pick up the tickets I walked over to Rockefeller to see the last performance of the Declare Yourself Tour. I still get goose bumps at some performances. I realize that memorizing poems is what allow the performance to create goose bumps in others. I want to be able to give others goose bumps in a non sexual way. I guess it is all the delivery. I want to be able to move people, and I think I do that when I do the all out performance of platform plea. If I can get other poems memorized I am sure that I can get performances to be as moving as other peoples. In the slam scene Performance is probably the biggest factor in victory. A poet chooses what work they want to slam with. There are the poets who write great stuff and slam with it and perform it to its maximum, and others write not so great stuff with key words and long ass rants but still perform the shit out of them. I know which one I want to be, and I have come to the conclusion that I do want to slam, and allow the slam to build up my performance. Scores will not show how good a poem is, but how good the delivery was, and if I have to tweek the performance at all. I love the way it feels doing Platform Plea but I am eager to do the same with other poems. It took me about two weeks to get it down right, and even longer to know it, not just memorize it. I had a conversation with someone recently where we discussed the difference between reading a poem in your head and just knowing it in and out. When you make a poem a part of you, and your head it is as easy as remembering your mothers name. That takes a lot more than simple memorization and that is what allows you to focus on your performance first and foremost, and not think about what word or stanza comes next. I watched a 40 minute Declare Yourself set and wondered how was it that they could memorize so much, but then I think of actors. Especially actors in plays and musicals who have to remember a lot more, and can't check the script between scenes. I was once in a school play and I remember trying to memorize, and the biggest help that an actor has is all of his/hers co-actor. To bounce one of another, action and reaction and reaction and reaction. All you need is the first action and the reactions just cause a domino effect. It is beautiful isn't it. Writing and performing are two very different arts that can be combined, but are developed separately.

Anyway it is beautiful. I feel somewhat awesome, I have a lot of ideas ready to manifest, and a lot of things happening in my life at the moment. I am amped about the holiday season, and I am amped about 2005 which is right around the corner. Isn't it great? It is. No questions needed but they are still all fun.

Lets see if the weekend treats me as good as I would like it to be.

Until later
Lluvia morada is not just a dream.
It is coming.
Beware, be ready, be happy.