The First of the Year New Years Eve isnt a big deal for me. Ken and I havent actually gone out anywhere to mark the last night of the year in a decade or so. I think that the first day of the new year is far more important and sets the tone for the rest of the year. Ive spent New Years Day in many different ways. Some have been fabulous, and some not so much. One particularly notable, ok Im not gonna lie, freakin awesome first day of the year was spent at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand with me riding an elephant bareback during the day. My evening activities involved a night in Pattaya singing karaoke with Asians and Europeans, and mistaking a hookah pipe for something else. A most horrifying January 1, happened in 2008. I woke up to find that my work issued BlackBerry blew up with emails. One of my colleagues long time boyfriend had a fatal heart attack and died in front of family and friends a few minutes before the stroke of midnight. I truly hope that you never have to read such an email, and even more I hope that you will never have to experience anything like my former colleague did. I spent several New Years Days volunteering at an animal shelter cleaning, feeding, walking and petting cats and dogs. I went on the belief that if I perform a selfless act on the first day of the year that good things will happen throughout the year. Ok granted looking for that payback may have made my act slightly less than selfless, but the animals still benefitted. So theres that. I enjoyed the first day of 2015 getting my East Village cool on. My friend Theary invited for a late Asian brunch of sushi and sake followed by backstage access to St. Marks on the Bowery annual poetry reading marathon. The New Years Day poetry readings at St. Marks are a long standing East Village tradition as well as a celebration of poetry, music and all things avant garde. Patti Smith did her first reading there in the 70s, and she still comes back to read. Simply being there boosted my cool cred by a million or so points. I gave myself a gold star for not geeking out in front of the artists. I didnt get to meet Patti or hear her read, or I may have gotten embarrassingly star struck. The readings go from 2 pm to 2am, and I only stayed a few hours. I was lucky enough to meet John S. Hall, sans King Missile, and actually managed to sound intelligent when we spoke. (I think) Theary suggested that I read some of my stuff at next yearss reading. The idea is somewhat appealing, but Im not sure that I will. To be honest after I write what I am about to write and post this Im not sure I would be welcome back to St. Marks in any capacity. Much as Im intrigued by the avant garde artistic scene, I find that nearly everyone conforms to the same brand of different. There is a certain sameness in trying to be unique rather than everyone actually being who they are. Like I said theres a distinct possibility I could be banned for like from St. Marks. One thing I dont understand is why so many avant garde feminists poets feel the need to constantly use the word vagina. They dont use any of the slang words we all grew up with. Nope. They love to drop the big V-Bomb. Ive asked about this, and apparently its empowering to talk or shout about ones lady parts. I could maybe see this being the case more than a decade ago when Eve Ensler was first touting her monologues, but ladies, its been done to death at this point. I think its much more empowering for woman to talk about their achievements, goals, beliefs and plans instead of their anatomy. Im far more impressed when a woman tells me shes a doctor, electrician, banker, business owner, etc., than if she tells me she has a vagina. Thats normally a given, and it would honestly be more notable to learn that someone who was introduced as a woman does not have one. Seriously! Theres also a great love for the F-Bomb in artistic circles. Im hardly a linguistical prude. I used to use the classic F-bomb in all its forms often in my writing. I stopped because the censors at Facebook dont care for that word, but in using it less I can see that its lost its shock value. More can be said by using it less. There was one poem with at least 36 instances of our friend the F-bomb. I was certainly not offended, but after awhile I was thinking, Dude, youre obviously intelligent; try expanding your vocabulary. Yeah I think I just made myself the enemy of the entire East Village artistic community. That almost happened in college once, but thats a story for another day. So there are my musings about the first day of the year. 2015 is going to be an exciting year full of changes and new opportunities, assuming the artists dont get me.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 15:00:31 +0000
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