Tuesday january 10, 2006 - 9:53AM

yeah yeah yeah. i haven't had anything to say since last year, but there's been way too much to think about. peter's death stumped all of us. we're still finding out in every moment all those things that peter gave us. this past sunday we did a memorial celebration for him and i'm glad that some of us who showed up were folks who didn't know him at all or that well, because so much that the louderARTS project is in spirit is born of peter's making us toss pine cones into the ocean and giving away his valuables to folks who are barely acquaintances, to his dancing in the middle of the street/bar/club/van/taxi/central park - music notwithstanding.

so we remembered him and ate and drank etc and it was a good time. last night we had our first show of the year, which was the slam to determine who would represent us at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Charlotte. Rives won. I came in second (lost on time penalties - cuz that's just how i roll! what muthafuckas!! what!), but by far the excitement of the evening was the drunk people who came in later on and wouldn't be quiet and then tried to curse us out for asking them to be quiet while folks read poems. dude - all 5 foot 6 ins and 140 lbs of him chooses to grab my hand when i tell him to keep it down. when i tell him not to touch me, he gets his coat comes back and (only a white male in america thinks he can get away with this...) grabs my arm and says "don't ever fucking touch me again!". so of course i slap him as hard as i possibly can across his face and all hell breaks loose - well not all hell, really just a few demons and harpies - but of course the poetry stops, he's falling backward (who gets knocked out with a slap?) and his boys for a moment THINK they're going to stand up and talk shit. i'm of course hoping to get to hit somebody else at this point, so i ask his friend (who is trying to puff up his chest) if he would like to also be knocked out (he did not). so his drunk girlfriend is screaming. they're shouting about pressing charges. bar 13's bouncer, Fish and others usher them out the door and so begins the louderARTS project 2006. it should move along splendidly from here. congratulations to rives on the win. i have a bunch of opinions on folks and "whiteness" that i've gleaned over the holidays; not white people mind you, but "whiteness", so i promise there'll be more posts more often in the next few weeks...

i'm reading mark doty's 'sweet machine" again. it's so so good, so utterly brilliant it bears looking at again and again...