Reading Anyone?

Tonight is the open mic for writers night at the Darjeeling Café. I like this event a lot because I get to share what I'm working on with the people in my community and also to hear what everyone else is doing. It's mostly fiction writers, which gets a little monotonous if a lot go one after another, but most everyone is pretty good, so there's always something to come back to if you daze off.

To sex things up a bit, here's a picture of Danica Patrick, a photo yielded by google when I searched "sexy fiction writer who loves to fuck poets"

I'm glad there is a scene here, such that it is, but it also makes me miss my writer friends in big cities. I wish sometimes that I was back in a big city that had a monthly reading series or ten. I want to maybe start a reading series with poets from the east coast, but it's difficult to convince anyone to come to a backwater. Hmm. I'm thinking it would be fun to try. If anyone wants to come to Staunton and read at my restaurant to people who like literature and "edgy stuff," too, please email me. We'll get something started.

Share Something with an American You Love

I've been thinking a lot about tea in America. I've been thinking a lot about how Americans drink and maybe just how Americans are.
Before beer and wine and spirits and tea and cola, there was water. Just like animals, the only thing we drank was water, and it was by far the most important thing humans did. The first non-water drinks people got hold of was considered magical or to at least possess supernatural powers and a connection to gods and the cosmos.
Ancient people drank from shared vessels with long straws, and rituals were built around drinks. The vessels were held aloft in a gesture of thanks or offering to the supernatural. Then people shared drinks.
Unlike food, drinks can actually be truly shared. When everything is coming out of the same pot, it's not like cutting up pieces of bread or pizza, where everything is unequal and maybe you got an extra mushroom on yours and I didn't get as much onion on mine. Everything in the pot is the same when it comes to liquid, and when we're drinking from straws, we are literally drinking the same thing.
Eventually ceramics and glass and silver became more readily accessible, and people were all able to afford to drink from their very own cups. When people drank, though, they did it together and when they had their own cups, they raised them up like they did shared vessels and then clinked them together as gesture representing that what they were drinking came from a single vessel.

Drinking is a magical necessity of life. And it's something that we build our cultures around. Everything else can be put on hold as long as you keep drinking. Without drinking, you're dead.

Tea, is still drunk today–for the most part–out of a shared vessel that is displayed on or around the table. If you drink alone, it's still great, but not the same. And this brings me to Americans...
Americans like things in their OWN cups that they pour THEMSELVES. Approximately 85% of tea drunk in America is iced. They drink it in bottles from 7-11and big cups from Hardy's. This separates them from an important part of their humanity because it turns them into islands separated by liquid rather than members of a community that's connected by drink. Drink brings us together, don't let big businesses and corporations and politicians and other interests keep us from that. Share a bottle of something today. Share a pot of tea. Share a carafe. Whatever it is, do it with someone else and have an experience.

National Poetry Month and How I Quit Writing Poetry and Killed Osama Bin Laden

I always write something in April about National Poetry Month. I feel very conflicted about NPH, but this month has been a sort of return to poetry for me.

Sure, I still read and write poetry. I even publish from time to time. But since I've been in a band, writing songs and playing music and doing all the things you have to do to keep a band going has been taking precedence over all other modes of artistic expression and ambition.

This April, we had two poetry readings at the Darjeeling Cafe. I read at one of them. I read a short cycle that has been accepted for publication, and I read another short portion of a poetry book I've been working on. I'm pleased to report that poetry readings, no matter where you go, are the same as they ever were.

People still clap when they're not supposed to. There are still members of the audience that will say "hmm" rather loudly in order to tell others audience members that, yes, they are listening to poems that are affecting them on a level that pushes them to audible response. There are still those well-meaning poetry reading goers who will laugh mercifully at little jokes in poems. Kids still make noises and distract everyone in a charming way that only kids can. I've always loved it when people make noise at poetry readings (except for the hmm's), but there is still the one lady who will "shh" her fellow inhabitants of the temporary holy ground of poetry. There's still the poet who demands people participate by raising their hands or saying something when prompted. There's still wine and wine and wine and wine and purple tongues to prove it. There are poets who read too long and ones who are too nervous. There are poets who don't know what a poem is but have enough money to publish through vanity presses. There are still stacks of books that go unread attractively arranged on a table near the bar where you can buy them for a handsome fee, knowing you'll never read them because there are just too many poems in them, and they aren't organized in a way that makes you want to finish. The pretty people and the ugly people and the over-educated and the wannabes are all still there and make a hodgepodge of who's who that makes you realize everybody's a nobody in the end because the art you're performing fell out of favor long ago and doesn't matter to anyone outside of that room, so you love them all anyway.

Poetry is still dead except during National Poetry Month for most people who have ever read a poem or pretend to care about things like that.
Poetry is still the greatest form of artwork the human race has ever known, forcing it to the privileged few and fringes.

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Someone put together a poetry strike online. I thought it was funny, so I observed it. It happened on May 1. Poets were supposed to not do anything poetic except maybe look at flowers and faint. For the poet, this is very difficult.

One day of not writing poetry, and Osama Bin Laden dies. Coincidence?
Maybe poets should abstain from writing poetry more often.

Osama's death is a very strange thing. It caused many people to cry out in jubilation. I don't feel the way I am supposed to feel about it. I'm supposed to be happy, I guess. I'm supposed to be relieved. But I wonder how much information died with him, and I wonder if knowing more about him and how he became the way he was would be more valuable than his corpse. I've heard why he hates Americans, but I would like to know what made him hate Americans. I wish that that information were more public, and I wish more people would think about what makes a mass murderer. I learned almost nothing from his death, and that's why victory is often empty, and this one seems Pyrrhic if it is a victory at all.

A Typical Conversation I Have with People (Why Some People Think I "Talk Down" to Them)

 Ever since I moved to Staunton, there have been some people who think I talk down to them. I have never had this problem before moving to this town, and I am loath to think that it's a southern thing or that it's a Staunton thing. I have been trying to blame my self for this phenomenon. I get frustrated with certain people, and I think I have a reason. I need to learn to "just let go" and "just forget about it" more. Anyway, here's a typical conversation that gets me going and pushes my buttons and makes me crazy and sticks in my craw (you can change the topic to suit):

Random Person: Moby Dick is about Gays and Gay Rights and Gayness.

Jack Morgan: I've read several critics who think so, and I've sat up nights with scholars arguing about this book and about this issue, but I have to say that I disagree. You see, there's a part where Starbuck--

RP: Why are you talking about coffee, idiot? LOL

JM: Starbuck was the first mate on the Pequod

RP: I don't know or care what a Pequod is, but I know Melville was gay.

JM: Wait a second, have you even read the book? Why don't you go and read the book, and then maybe take a class on it and read some criticism, and then come back and talk with me about it.

RP: I know it's about gays.

JM: Are you just repeating shit you heard on a TV sit. com. or something?

RP: DON'T TALK DOWN TO ME. I HAVE A RIGHT TO MY OPINION.

JM: Yes, you are entitled to an opinion, but your opinion is invalidated by your ignorance on this particular topic.

RP: You're an asshole! You are DEROGATORY!

Then I get all bent out of shape and feel bad, and I lose friends.

This thing in Staunton about the noise ordinance is like this. I've talked with several business owners and venue owners; I've sat down with Julie Markowitz, the SDDA Director, and used her decibel gauge with her; I've talked with cops and council people about this; I've actually operated venues on two continents, and I've been harassed by cops for a 65db law in Staunton's New Town District. I didn't just hear some crap online and join a protest movement. I studied the topic, interviewed people, and deduced. Then I wrote a status on Facebook that said something like this: I wish people would get more involved in local politics so that we can start working on things that matter in this town rather than waste our time and energy on something that doesn't matter. A couple people got upset and said some things that weren't true or were uninformed. Then they said I was talking to them like children.

A child is someone who knows less than you do. You have to talk with them in a way that informs them. I'm not a parent, but I imagine it's a difficult task. It's difficult enough talking with uninformed adults.

But back to me and this being my fault.
I always feel like I'm stupid. I always ask a lot of questions. If I don't know something, I strive to find it out so that I don't feel dumb. It's a curse. I hate feeling stupid. My father called me stupid a lot when I was a kid, and I kind of blame him for my unhealthy intellectual curiosity. But then I meet people who want to argue with me about something I know a lot about, and they don't want to know about it, and they just want to argue. They don't want to ask questions or to find out what the deal is; they just want to oppose something. I'm unbelievably frustrated by this sort of thing. It pains me. And I shouldn't let it.

It's like, read a book on critical thinking, please. Write down your thoughts and try to organize them and surround an issue with them. Explore the issue. Ask questions about it.

And the answer is a shriek, or maybe it's a cry, or it could be only a wail.

A Cartoon Elephant for Darjeeling Café

I drew an elephant girl for the Darjeeling Café. I wanted it to look very non-digital—what the kids call analogue these days. I think it's funny.

Floor Plan of the New Darjeeling Café

The Darjeeling Café is moving, in case you haven't heard. It's going to be bigger, better, and cozier than ever before. You are going to love it more than you have ever loved anything. You need a café to call your own, after all.
These are the preliminary floor plans, how we're laying out the space. Get ready for a full kitchen, people. It's going to be the best food you've ever put past your lips!

I made these at floorplanner.com if you're interested. It's a really good tool.

Darjeeling QR for the Window Display

So it's CMYK, which might look lame on the monitor since I didn't convert properly. I just wanted to get it up before I got it printed and in the window of the new location of the Darjeeling Café. If only one person knows what the hell a QR code is, this will be worth it. I worked a long time on it.

We're Moving the Café

This weekend, I was unable to come to the benefit concert at the Blackfriars Playhouse because I was busy being manly, tearing the crap out of a bar so that we can put it in a big trailer hauled by Ford tough, good ol' Detroit muscle, and take it to a place where it will wait. It will wait until everything is finalized for the new space for our new bar.

It poured rain. Southern rainstorms are quite different from Western rainstorms, and I think about every rainstorm I've ever experienced every time there's another rainstorm. Maybe I'm romantic about that.

We found some tea pots that we loved in a small antique store, so look for those when the Darjeeling Café reopens in its new location.

We found new chairs. They are very pretty and have arms.

You are going to love the new Darjeeling Café. More on that later.

We drove our actor friend, Jamie, to the bus station so that he can go to DC for an audition. I hope he got the part. It was foggy and rainy on Afton mountain, and some people thought we shouldn't drive over it because people who live near mountains are afraid of fog and rain. We got him to the bus station at around 11:20pm, and his bus wouldn't leave until 4am. Life's hard like that sometimes.

It was a very full day.

Today was a very full day, too, but I can't say that I accomplished as much as I did yesterday, though working much harder. I just spent an hour, e.g., constructing a beautiful draft of an enewsletter in in-line CSS only to have it look shit on Outlook. KAAHHHHN!

Microsoft: still evil after all these years.

Tonight at the Darjeeling Café

There's a Mad Hatter's Tea Party going on at the Darjeeling Café tonight. The idea is that you come drink some tea and hang out a bit, then go to the Visulite, where they're showing a midnight matinee of the new ALICE IN WONDERLAND movie in 3D. MAD!