July 28: Flatline Poetry's Guillermo Caballero at Stone Soup

It's great to continue our focus on Flatline Poetry at Stone Soup.  The second of our four monthly Flatline features (before the final feature with all four members in October) will be Guillermo Caballero featuring this Monday.  Expect cameos from future features and hopefully some returning poets that we haven't seen for a while.  Hope to see you there.  Summer will be over before you know it, and we hope to bring it to an exciting close at Stone Soup.

July 14: Motorcycle Poets Invade Stone Soup (with our blessings)

Peddlar K. Bridges, Lisa Golda-Shields and a host of potential surprise readers stop at Stone Soup tonight as part of the Roadpoet Fortnight event taking place this month. It's going to be a potentially rowdy night, and I for one welcome it.

 

 

How Word Travels in Southie

A few weeks ago, I found this sign hanging on the corner of East Eighth and Dorchester on the way to Bell's Market.

I guess this is what South Boston residents do in place of trees to carve on.

Still, with all of today's technology in our hands, sometimes we forget that in older, not-so-instant days of messaging, a key component of trying to get your word to another person was faith.

Today at Oddball Magazine

Muriel Soule poetry with art by TJ Edson (who just finished Janet Cormier's new banner).

Michael Grover poetry with art by Allison Goldin (paired this up months ago, been looking forward to it).

Jason Wright Contines His Story

"Art, the City and The Elevator Dream" by Jason Wright continues this week with Part 3 over at his Jagged thoughts column at Oddball Magazine.  The page also has links to Parts One and Two.

The Last(ish) Word Is Back

I'm over at Oddball Magazine again with my humor column, collaborating with George Panagopoulos on two pieces.  They were published Monday.  I'm a bit disgusted with the irregularity of the column (we can't seem to settle on a schedule or a regular day), but I'm glad with the work we did.  Check out:

Our eulogy on Casey Kasem.

Some commentary on the Hobby Lobby travesty. 

Carmelo J Rizzo today in Oddball Magazine

With some lovely photography by Allison Goldin.

Late 3TV Entry in Oddball Magazine

Starring David Miller!

July 4th Weekend Fireworks

I spent the night of the fourth on the 50th floor of the Prudential, with most pics subpar and shot behind a window (though I may post those later).  The shots below were taken at my hometown of Bellingham's annual July 4th celebration on the grounds of my old high school.  Aside from spending time with family, firends, my girlfriend, and her daughter, I also got to play with my iPhone's camera.  I especially like the first one.

 

Seen but Not Believed

I know your family name is important, but I wouldn't want anything associated with the word "Roach."  Only in the poetry biz do names like "Rat" work out for you.  And that's because you're not making money anyway.

Scarfaced 2: Electric Boogaloo (or How I Looked on My Summer Vacation)

So many people commented one way or another on my previous blog post on my injury last month, so I figured I should follow up with good news.

I got the stitches out last Tuesday. Any longer, the nurse in the emergency department said, and I was even more likely to have a scar.  So I went to my primary care as early as I could and finally got the uncomfortable things pulled (they weren't painful, but they brushed against my eye lashes whenever I blinked to the point of driving me crazy). I took the picture below just after the last thread was pulled out.

Less than five days later, the cut seemed to heal quickly.

Though my face still looks beaten up in this pic.

 

And the picture below shows the way my eye looks as of this morning.

To me, it looks like I could end up with a permanent "bag" under my eye, which seems a little too poetically appropriate given the last few years of late nights, early mornings and multiple projects.  No telling yet whether this mark will eventually fade or not, though people who have had stitches before have told me--a first timer--that the nurse did a better job than the look of the stitches first implied.

In the mean time, I have plenty of vitamin E.

The Mo' Joe Anthology: Lest I Forget

In addition to everything I wrote yesterday, there's also a Facebook page you can join for news on any future readings.  I hope I'm part of at least one this year.