A Celebration for Mick Cusimano

 

From Richard Cambridge:

 

We will be celebrating the life and art of poet, artist, and filmmaker Mick Cusimano this Friday, November 11 at Somerville's Arts at the Armory.

Bil Lewis' Tribute to Mick Cusimano

Video courtesy of  Mirena Chavdarova.

Where Are the Young Ones?

There was a tribute to the late poet, cartoonist and filmmaker Mick Cusimano earlier this September.  One of the people posting about the event asked where the young poets were. 

I wouldn't have been able to go even if I knew about it. I'm an old man now, so even if I had gone, I would have been to help with the "youth shortage." Still, I know the reason why there weren't young poets there.

RIP Mick Cusimano

Mick Cusimano passed away last weekend, and the first thing I felt was regret.

Among my on-hold Stone Soup history projects, I wanted to reach out to recording artist Tracy Chapman. Why? Because of this written account from Mick on his website on the early days of Fire of Prometheus: 

Happy Birthday, Lo Galluccio

 

Thirty Days of Stone Soup Stuff

 

Above is a video of the Fire of Prometheus reunion held at Stone Soup held on October 5, 2009. Hopefully, this video will be taken down someday. 

Fellow FoP member Mic Cusimano owns this footage. I've never asked him to take it down. It's probably karmic justice for all the photos and videos I've taken over the years that footage of me introducing R.U. Outavit and company is still up on YouTube.

All my videos and photos recorded from this performance were accidentally deleted. It was an unusual but legitimate screw up  that I later came to see as divine intervention.

Happy Birthday Lo Galluccio

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 8-5-20: You Suicide Poets

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked from Stone Soup's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

Came back with an all-open mic this week. It felt good. So happy to see a lot of people stop by. Some people came on due to news of the loss of John "Buddah" Pirolli. Though I didn't know him very well, my research on his life led me to this poem. While looking up Fire of Prometheus, I came across this old article by Mick Cusimano, which contained this haunting phrase:

I didn't believe it until I saw it up close, but for some poets the driving ambition in their life is to lose at all costs. Heaven help the person who stands in the way of their failure.

I thought about that statement a lot. For all the fun we had Wednesday, this is what led to the poem I wrote for today.

I know nothing about the life of John Pirolli (who apparently lived peacefully in Acton for years with family after his time in the scene), but a lot of stories about poets in Boston during the 70's and 80's allude to a mostly forgotten time when self-sabotage and a collision course for disaster seemed to be the sole qualifying character traits of the Boston poet. There have been train wrecks on the poetry scene since (I was probably one of them for a while), and there will continue to be. I just hope we don't see an era quite like this ever again.

I like it when poets succeed. A lot of poets I come into contact with on the open mic seem to be doing well, despite the crazy times. I hope that continues to be a trend in life. Thanks for reading.


You Suicide Poets 

Don't need to start a party
for it to turn disaster. but it helps.

Go drop a Enola Gay while others
fall silent dreaming of Hiroshima.

Chase most inappropriate phrase
like it’s a rabbit in the desert.

John Pirolli aka Buddah (1950-2020)

On Thursday July 30, we lost John Pirolli. I never knew him by that name (on Facebook, he called himself Daemon Magus). He was better known as the intentionally misspelled Buddah, a poet  and would-be manager of Fire of Prometheus, whose numbers included local legend Bill Barnum.

The Scheduling Continues

 Mick Cusimano asked if his musical act could perform at Stone Soup.



This will definitely be interesting.

Old Bill Barnum Interview Found!

Squawk was a literature zine put out by Mick Cusimano and a host of others. When I've seen an old issue, I usually see some good stuff. A while back, someone handed me issue #48 of Squawk with a pretty lengthy Bill Barnum interview by Jessa Piaia. In the interest of not wanting to lose this to time, I've prepared a PDF file of the interview. If you are interested in reading the interview, you can find it by clicking here.

William J. Barnum, 1925-2019

News was shared that on Sunday, July 21, we lost William J. Barnum, better known to poets as simply Bill Barnum. As a descendant of the PT Barnum legacy, he was a clown, a mime, a ballet dancer, an actor, a poet and possibly many other things well before he made Boston his home.

Drawn from Surreal Life

A random drawing from Mick Cusimano drawn at one Out of the Blue weekend event that he just cast aside.  Stone Soup regulars, can you identify a face or two?