A million years ago, when I was living in Philadelphia, I attended the weekly meetings of a group that called themselves the Philadelphia Poetry Society, but which was better termed the Philadelphia Poetry Mafia. They were a nutty bunch, sort of an extended mutual admiration society: I'll love all of your crappy, derivative poetry if you love my crappy, derivative poetry. You definitely got the impression that each of the members had written much more poetry than they had ever read. They had no time for me. My readings (it was open mike every other week) were greeted with polite applause and yawns from behind fanned fingers.
So I let them have it. I wrote a poem especially for them. It was a narrative, basically a poetic approach to the Rod Stewart song, Maggie May, describing a young boy who drops out of college to get involved with an older woman and ends up heart broken. (Boo hoo.) Derivative and crappy as they come. The word 'fuck' appeared about three times in the poem. it went on and on and on. They loved it. Some rose to their feet when I was done. It was mentioned to me that I had had a "breakthrough."
Get the picture?
Oh. And one more interesting tidbit. They met in the upstairs bar of Jimmy Tayoun's Middle Eastern Restaurant. It was a wednesday night, so the upstairs wasn't being used. Jimmy Tayoun was a homophobic member of the Philadelphia City Council. At an ACT UP/Philadelphia demonstration (one of a series of endless, pointless, ill-conceived actions in Council chambers that I made a point of not attending), one of the members of ACT UP yelled something to Councilman Tayoun about problems he was having with the Internal Revenue Service. One day, I came home to find a message on my answering machine letting me know that 'Jimmy Tayoun knows where you live, faggot.' *sigh* It's was no fun being the often public face of ACT UP/Philadelphia, which left you answerable to the actions of any one of the loopy members of the group. Nothing ever came of Jimmy Tayoun knowing where I lived. Anyway, I digress. This was a few years after I was attending Philadelphia Poetry Mafia meetings at Jimmy Tayoun's Middle Eastern Restaurant. I mention it only because throughout the meetings of the Mafia, you could hear the sounds of the belly-dancing music downstairs, and the belly dancers would use the space where we were meeting to change and smoke cigarets in between dances, talking loudly and ignoring us as they did so.
I'm recollecting the Philadelphia Poetry Mafia because at about the last time that I went, a mousy librarian looking woman--reminiscent of a Carol Burnett character, perhaps--tentatively approached the mike to read one of her poems. After a few 'ahem's' and fussing with papers, she launched in:
"The night was hot and still, like a woman fighting an orgasm," her poem began. That struck me as incredibly funny. I got the giggles, couldn't stop, and had to leave.
So. Tonight is hot and still. Like a woman fighting an orgasm. After today's thunderstorms, the humidity must be about 685%.
And what a day it's been. First order of business was to head down to Linden, New Jersey, there to visit the General Technical Institute, a welding school.
It was well worth the trip. The cost at GTI is roughly half of what it would be at Apex. I want to talk to some welder guys tomorrow and see if the courses are comparable. And ask them about this whole welding thing in general.
During my tour of GTI, the instructor who was showing me around demonstrated some of the equipment. I blurted out "Wow! That is so cool!" when he cut through a piece of steel plate using a plasma torch. I mean, it was like, "zip!" and one strip of quarter inch steel became two strips of quarter inch steel.
And another neat thing. I asked if equipment was included in the cost of the course. "Yeah," he said, "You get your basic tools, your shield, your goggles, and your leathers."
Your leathers. Welders refer to the tunics they wear as their 'leathers.'
Second order of business of the day was to drive up to Patterson, New Jersey and drop off with Brawler the mat and the gloves he lent to me for GMSMA's aborted punching program. Good to see Brawler. Too bad he's taken.
Then it was into NYC to buy more cigars and hit the gym. I was starving at this point, so I stopped into a new place on 8th Avenue in Chelsea called Better Burger. Poor choice of names, I think. Surely everyone will be calling it 'Bitter Buggers.' The burger I had was good, although sort of petite. A Wendy's Single gives you more meat. But I had to admit it was grilled to perfection. While I ate my burger, my hands-down favorite Eagle bartender strolled in. He recognized me and said hi, thus giving me reason to live. That man is so damn hot. At least he knows I'm alive
The workout was good. It's time to up my weights. The poundage I struggled with not so long ago I now lift with relative ease. Alas. I'm only tipping the scales at 186.
Oh. Tomorrow, I give PunchPig a call and set a date. I'm ready for my black eyes and fat lip.
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