5 posts tagged “drinking”

Charles Bukowski

It's somewhat ironic that on the same night I read a new poem entitled "On the 89th Day, I Quit", I end up drinking way more than usual. The show ended rather early last night but a few of us ended up sticking around instead of going to Reservoir and Maureen's hand got a little bit heavier with each drink.

Ugh.

I'm too old for this shit!

The poem came from an interesting writing exercise Marty sent me yesterday, as I wanted to continue my streak of reading something new every time I go to 13 -- up to six times now -- but none of the ideas currently rattling around in my head were quite ready to blossom.

stanza 1: reject something.
stanza 2: invoke a god.
3: retract the rejection.
4: include a line from a song you haven't heard in years.*
5: talk about a time you were kissed or cursed.
6: write a curse.
7: apologize for the rejection.
8: retract the apology.
9: write a blessing for the rejected.

It's almost like a Mad Lib, and it was interesting the way the poem unfolded as I went stanza by stanza without any planned direction or ending, like a one-person exquisite corpse.  I generally don't like writing exercises because they're often too vague, but Marty and Oscar have both come up with some really interesting ones, and the last time around Oscar's Oulipo exercise indirectly resulted in "Bittersweet Reunion" which is the poem that was just published in The November 3rd Club.

So, to recap: writing = good; drinking = bad. Separating the two eventually before my liver falls out = priceless.

* 10 points if you can name the song.

Jason Carney

After reading Tony Brown's latest Zero Point Zero column, "Kicking an Addiction", a couple of things jumped out at me about my own writing that I've always known but kept buried in one of the more remote closets in my brain.

Much like the speaker in Buddy Wakefield's poem "Convenience Stores," I'm addicted to novelty. If I can't be unique, can't take a unique tack on a subject, I don't see it as worth tackling.

For me, that idea of "novelty" always manifested itself in my tendency to write from my own perspective, distilling my own experiences into literal narratives or thinly veiled allegories. In the old "fiction in the first person" debate, I used to come down on the side of "absolute truth" -- if you say "I" then it should be true -- as opposed to "relative truth", despite the fact that some of my own poetry arguably falls somewhere in between.

One of the main reasons I've never been interested in pursuing journalism full-time is that the idea of writing about things I have no personal interest in bores me to tears. The couple of handfuls of articles I've written for publication, paid or not, were either about poetry slam or comics. 

Sometime in late 2000, I think, my writing started to become increasingly sporadic, partly because I was more and more focused on running a little bit louder, but partly because I was running out of things I wanted to say. Or, more honestly, things I was willing to say publicly. The problem with the "absolute truth" approach is that it requires complete honesty and that means potentially hurting people's feelings and/or exposing ugly truths or, the option I often chose, simply not writing about certain things.

I've always admired those whom I've perceived as being completely honest in their poetry, willing to expose raw emotion and unveil unflattering truths about themselves, like Bassey, Rachel, Peter of the Earth and Jason Carney. As my own poetry steadily moved towards a more personal narrative style, the deeper I dug into my own memories and experiences, the more I tapped into my feelings about different things, the more I started to avoid writing certain poems because I realized I wasn't interested in being that honest.

The day Batman went from being a metaphor to the subject of a straightforward poem about why he fights crime I realized I had backed myself into a corner from which there were only two escape routes. I chose the "easier" one, and simply stopped writing poetry, convincing myself that I'd said all that I wanted to say in the form and was ready to move on -- ironically, I ended up writing about comics for a couple of years to keep the creative juices flowing.

"Honesty is the best policy" may be cliché, but it's absolutely true when referring to one's self.

Tony's column triggered something in my brain, opening another of the many doors that I've been unlocking over the past couple of months, and as I commented over there, my recently renewed focus on poetry includes casting my net wider and writing about other people's experiences. "I" am still going to be in many of the poems I write, but it's becoming more of a fictional relative "I", freed from the constraints of literal "absolute truth" and indulging in the wide open spaces of metaphorical "relative truths".

Seeing as old habits die hard, and I've found myself wandering into bars to do some free writing whenever I get a chance, instead of keeping my head down and in my notebook, I'm now actively taking in my surroundings and turning them into character sketches, or short scenes, or even entire poems, as I did last week with Old New York Love Story, practically a "found poem" as the meat of it was written in the very moment it was happening, me writing as fast as I could to transcribe it as closely as possible. (Mariah @ the Dive Bar was written in and inspired by that same bar, so it's probably time to find a new one.)

On a semi-related note, in my quest to find an open mic where I could read without the "safety net" of familiarity 13 offers, I checked out Rev. Jen's Anti-Slam on Wednesday night and realized why I started a little bit louder in the first place. The less said about that night, the better -- though the venue, Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction serves an amazing Cuban Reuben that I will definitely return for and highly recommend! -- but it was a nice reminder about the importance of making a space as comfortable and welcoming as possible, while serving as an object lesson that you simply can't be all things to all people, and you shouldn't try to be. Kudos to Jen for her 11 year run, and wow, can you believe a little bit louder/louderARTS will celebrate its 10th anniversary next Spring?!?

Marble Cover Notebook

I hit Botanica last night -- one of my all-time-favorite dives, and the bar where I did most of my writing and drinking back in '97 and '98 -- with a head full of vague ideas that I needed to let loose onto the pages of my marble cover notebook. I've gotten so used to writing on the computer over the years I'd forgotten how liberating it can be to do a little old-fashioned pen-and-paper, stream of conciousness writing, especially sitting in a bar, beer close at hand, and potential stories all around you. Last time out was an unexpected fluke, but this time, though I didn't have anything solid in mind, I was ready to write.

The writing part of my brain has seemingly reawakened over the past month or two, perhaps recovering from the self-induced coma necessitated by the mind-numbing experiences at my old job. Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's coming back to me because I've realized how far away I am from getting to where Salomé is and while I'm comfortable with the compromise for now, I don't want to get so comfortable with it that I either forget what I'd much rather be doing, or resign myself to its never happening.

On my way down, a hook for a poem that had been rattling around in my head decided it couldn't wait until I got to Botanica, so I ended up writing the first half of it on the train, trying to get as much of it down as possible before it faded. Once I settled in with a pint of Rogue Ale (not sure which one it was, but I imagined it was their Dead Guy Ale to humor myself) I added to it and ended up with a solid first draft that I'll probably read next time I'm at 13.

I believe in truth, lies
and avoiding the videotape
which never lies
unless it's been edited

I will edit this poem
at least three times
before I move on to the next one.

I believe in telling the truth to your friends
and lying to your enemies
as long as you know
who's who

until then
lie
to everybody
flagrantly, extravagantly, often
call them poems
and they will love you for it.

I also ended up writing 5 character sketches; brief snapshots of an imagined moment, 4 of which were inspired by my first impressions of random people in the bar. That's something I've always done in my head, imagining the stories of random strangers, but have never written down, and it was a great exercise to wring as much as I could out of a quick scan of a person and turning it into a brief scene.

With one of them, I tried to work on a specific descriptive voice, without overthinking the moment, and came up with a weird, soft-boiled bit of prose that ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

As dames went, she wasn't remarkable, but you wouldn't kick her out of bed, either. Her dark, curly hair was cut short into a white girl afro, and her face, all smooth angles and soft features, was the kind you kissed for a long time before taking it any further. She had dark eyes, probably brown, that hid beneath manicured eyebrows, and her smile was as innocent as a babyfaced killer's. She had a slight involuntary smirk that suggested she'd happily put a bullet in your head when was done with you, to put you out of the misery your life would be without her.

She was the perfect woman disguised as ordinary, and he knew it with every fiber of his being.

The guy she was with, though, had no clue.

Now that it's warm out, I think I'm going to sit outside a couple of times a week for lunch and do some more of these because it's a great exercise and will be a perfect warm-up for my tackling NaNoWriMo this year. I also need to not fall back into the habit of only being able to write with a beer handy...

Me, Self-Portrait

Back in my early poetry days, at the very beginning in the summer of '97, I wrote the majority of my poems sitting at the shadowy bar in Botanica, a pint of Brooklyn Brown always at hand as my pen scribbled furiously in my notebook.

Tonight, a series of unexpected events set in motion by Roger's bailing on the Mets game and me unable to find a taker for the extra ticket, found me watching the game at Coppersmith's, a pint of Magic Hat #9 always at hand as my pen scribbled furiously in my notebook. It's been a long time since I've written anything by hand, and it was an incredible feeling as the words flowed, so much so even the bartender took notice: "He's on a roll now!"

I cranked out 14 pages of prologue to a story that had popped into my head a couple of days ago and stuck with me, about a homeless guy dealing with a variation on Groundhog Day, but with end-of-the-world implications.

It was a day like any other.

The same day, in fact. Again.

Harold Jacobs blinked back the sleep in his eyes and twisted his torso to the right, stretching, the fabric of his vinyl windbreaker scuffling against the cardboard box that had been his bed last night. Or for the last six months, depending on how you kept count.

Harold had stopped keeping count a while back, when he'd run out of forearm to cut on his left arm, and refused to start on the right.

"Damned useless," he'd realized.

"First draft" disclaimer and all that, but I like how the germ of an idea flowed onto the page and took on a life of its own. I've never been one for outlining a story ahead of time, preferring to be taken by surprise as it unspools from my brain onto the page. Of course, the problem there is that my brain is usually unspooling the story faster than I can transcribe it, and usually after a couple of nights of rather lucid dreaming, the story finishes and I lose interest in finishing writing it.

This time, though, I am going to do everything I can to hang onto the idea and finish it, even if I have to put together an outline that I'll undoubtedly stray from several times as characters take on lives of their own and the story goes places I hadn't expected.  Figure you can never be lost as long as you have a map, even if you decide to ignore its directions.

So missing the game (in person, at least) turned out to be a blessing as I unexpectedly jumpstarted my writing process.  All it took was Roger bailing on me at the last-minute; no one else being able to make it to the game; my deciding to walk up to 59th Street as I took care of a couple of errands, one of those errands being picking up Isaac a new notebook, which led to my getting a new one for myself; getting a flashback when I walked into Coppersmith's of writing at Botanica; and pulling out the new notebook and starting to write.

While I'm not quite ready to say I'm back on track, it does certainly feel like I might be and that's a good feeling.

John Barleycorn

In an effort to streamline the "Hey, let's go have a drink tonight!" process, I've created the Spontaneous Drinking Network(TM), a group of friends' cell phone numbers in my address book to whom I can send a text message whenever I'm in the mood for a drink with others who have demonstrated the ability to handle their liquor with aplomb, with the time and location where I intend to do battle with Mr. John Barleycorn and would like them to accompany me.

ie: SDN: Trailer Park Lounge, 271 W 23rd St @ 6pm

Like the Bat Signal, this alert could come at anytime, but unlike the Bat Signal, it is relatively non-binding. If they can make it, cool, I'll see them there; if not, I'll see them next time. Either way, I'm getting my drink on, because some days are just like that.

All of my best drinking friends are spread out across the City, especially since several of us have changed jobs recently, and I'd like to desegregate my "work" friends and my "poetry" friends as I don't see the latter nearly often enough these days, and I don't want my usual "out of sight, out of mind" thing to happen with the former now that they're technically no longer "work" friends, just friends I happened to meet at past jobs. Text messaging is a much simpler method than the usual 57 emails back and forth to see who can hang out and where everyone wants to go and next thing you know, you're at the default place with the lousy beer selection and no jukebox!

In fact, now that I think about it, some liquor company totally needs to give me an endorsement deal, a la the "Wazzup?!" guys for this.