Underground Report: Jacksonville, Illinois. June 24, 2013
you can try to make sense of it, or … (just say Thank You)
so how did this all come together? the reporter asks
hhmmm. why isn’t this wifi working? how late are we running? does anyone have an extension cord??
how did what…?
he should have been a little more specific. then i said something ridiculous about snowballs and musician-eating poets or the like.
it came together.. um, i’m not sure ..i… have to give it up to the universe on this one. a gazillion things had to happen and fall into place just the way it did for THIS. whatever it is. beautiful, i think i said, and meant it.
my kid. Kari. who really came through for us, being responsible and helping her mama… deal. Kari worked at the hospital here in town a while back and i believe that’s where she met Mike Brant. how she specifically came to be the FAKE-naked chick in the first Bucky movie, i’m not sure. but she did. and in a compound somewhere in Berkeley with a gaggle of poets and a couple of creepy giant basement heads… we all laughed our asses off and became instant fans. from that connection, the Bucky movie was on the front page of Zygote in my Coffee issue #139.
sometime after 4/20 in cleveland, i got this brilliant idea to host a little poetry reading right here in jacksonville. i worked on setting one up before and it just wasn’t happening. neither colleges in town wanted anything to do with us, the book shop had already told me to take a flying leap, and the visitors bureau was not able to help in finding a venue either. so i let the idea sit for a while. this time though… completely different story.
mike brant signed on to do his stand-up comedy and show the bucky movie. then before we knew it, his whole crew was stepping up and making a BRAND NEW bucky … hilarious, insane, and frickin mimes, okay. Mimes. then mike said hey- i play in this band. check it out. maybe we could play at the show. which worked out beautiful. these guys brought the noise for real and ended the night perfect.
why not two bands? Again, Kari. had a Flamingo CD. and knew a few of the band members. checking… yes. click click. thank you, universe. not only did these kids (sorry, i’m old) bring it with their performance, they were possibly the most enthusiastic about the poets at the show… and i love that. it’s sincerely appreciated.
and they’re all local–the filmmakers, band members–from the jhole, or nearby. they handed out a shit ton of flyers, told all their friends, pimped the show on the interwebs, and came with a professional, fun, just good all around attitude.
the acoustics were terrible. shit was not set up. issues with drink here, not there and PA system.. what the fuck is a PA system. if it takes a damn village to raise a kid, it in the very least takes a family to put one of these events on. and we tend to function like that.. with our ups and downs and weirdness all exposed (some more than others) and still, there’s this love and appreciation. Unique as it was and i know i’m not doing it justice because, shit, i’m still trying to figure out what happened. there’s a bag of dead mouse in the bush. hello, officer.
i almost don’t want to call it jhole now. i have mad respect for everyone that was involved and came out to support the event. Thank you, Kari. you are so talented and you don’t even know. Thank you, Brian, el zygote editor/nothing to lose host. what the fuck would i do without you but probably air the show in braille and you know you know you know…… my brother, Eric, took flyers everywhere and enlisted even more help with that. Handyman Jason! We wouldn’t even have had a floor (mostly), if it wasn’t for you!!! stay out of JAIL, dammit. Shay tried to motivate Kari to clean and then of course just did it herself. Thank you, Shay! Nick and Jessica Brown… you know what you did! STU WRIGHT. sharing FN’s work the way you did… it was a very special moment of the night for me, personally. thank you, brother. Mike Brant, Nick Manker, Josh Peyton, John Franz… Flamingo and Utter Chaos… mimes and other actors and WOW the universe was good to us, i’m sure to be forgetting someone… i didn’t even get to meet them all… everyone that came together to make this event happen and be a success. THANK YOU. the poets. jesus, you guys. i really wasn’t sure about being able to get anyone to schlep themselves all the way to the jhole. i’m so proud and honored to call you my friends…. my collaborators… maybe someday my cellmates.
it just snowballs, yo. what else can i say? i am in awe.
luv,
mm