by Lura Manfred on First of all, I cant even believe I am awake right now.... and at work! OOH El Rio, I knew that moving to the mission would be a great, yet bad idea. I mean the drink specials alone will do it to keep me going out each and every night! So, it was a Monday, and I wanted to go somewhere cheap! But I had no idea how cheap it really would be! On Mondays, $1 PBR and $2 well drinks... oooh well drinks, I can feel the gin and pineapple sloshing in my belly as I type=( I wish I was still asleep... but there is no time for that now, I must complete my review so I can go home and sleep on my lunch break!!!!! So they have a great big outdoor patio with plenty of seating and wonderful heating lamps.... Don't remember much... one of those nights I guess. I will be back for all of the drink specials!!!
by Veronica V. on I wake up Sunday in a weird daze that has absolutely nothing to do with a hangover. For the first two minutes I attempt to piece together a dream that's seems bizarre to me not because of its abstract qualities but because of the unreal reality it illustrated. I am walking with a friend/roommate Claire Danes. We're talking about a poem, the best poem ever, the one that explains everything, only I cant recall the author or the date all I know it's a few words and if I can remember them I will find the time to write and therefore in general have less complaints about everything. It's four stanzas, short 20 word paragraphs. We end up at a caf I think we are in the east village but I swear all the landmarks are SF. Now that I think of it I realize it is a combination of both a slower New York. Maybe it's another country. This is Claire Danes in that movie Igby Goes Down staring Macaulay Caulkin's younger brother. We are talking about literary theory Deconstruction to be exact and in the next few moments my entire life will be deconstructed by the single hope I have had for my life, writing. There is an older man onstage, it is no longer day. The room is smoky this is some sort of open mic but with fewer words, cutting to the chase, to the core. Maybe it's the late 50's and this man is a beat poet without the pretense, all the best observational qualities in one person, best word choice, smallest ego. He's seeing right through me and this is uncomfortable. When I attempt to speak no one can hear me. My words do not exist and because of the absolute truth in this I am stunned. I am standing in the back of the crowd so why should this even matter? What sets me apart from a standard listener? Could after all this I just be a watcher? Claire doesn't give me any good advice, its like shes using what I confide in her against me listening to the way I evangelize all I believe to know about writing contrasted against all I don't do. My enemy myself. Am I Claire Danes? I see no movie cameras. This is not scripted. The man onstage is Derrida and he has no patience for people like me. The understanding I get from this is that I can write to exist and the only way I can join in the debate is to be active. I once went to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to watch a group of slam poets back when that stuff was popular. I was mesmerized by where I was thought I caught a glimpse into a place I would someday be. Thought I heard my views on politics in the words that were spoken. I wanted to scream, but inside knew that the plane ride home would land me back into reality where no matter how much importance I tried to attach to words and expression. I would take off my wig in the hotel room that night and it was like taking off some other person. I could never be a writer in my everyday life. I could not combine the practical with the soul. My heart and my interest in material possessions. I fell asleep reading about sheep herding, the slow food revolution and a different way off life. I kept reading the word transhumance because it sounded good like transformation, transcending. I've never dreamt I was in a movie let alone a movie that so resembled something directed by Woody Allen but I guess in some odd way it makes sense. The wordiness.
