Anunciado! New dirtyverbs.com coming…. al ratito…

I'm currently working on a complete redesign & reorganization of this website. Expect more content in an easier-to-read format, more visual art, ink scans, pdfs, podcast, etc. Gonna be good. Gonna take some time. At the moment, I'm working on organizing the archives. Take a look... writing & media from the last five years. Time flies frequently. I request the window seat. Hasta soon,

logan

Governor Brewer: Veto SB1070

SB1070 is a bill that is sitting on Gov. Brewer's desk right now awaiting her signature or veto. If she signs it, or if she chooses to do nothing, the bill will become law, and police all over the state of Arizona will be mandated to check the migration status of anyone they come into contact with.

So our position is a little like hers: we do nothing, and this thing becomes law. If we make our voices heard, maybe, just maybe, we can stop this.

In my travels I have the blessing and curse of telling people I meet that I am from Arizona. If they know the state, they usually smile and we talk about its natural beauty. If they've never been, they usually say something to the effect of, "Oh, you're from the state that wouldn't recognize Martin Luther King Day until the NFL threatened to boycott." If SB1070 becomes law, we will once again affirm the reputation as being one of the most backwards states in the nation.

We do not want cops enforcing immigration policy. We want cops enforcing criminal law.

Mrs. Brewer,

being born and raised in Cochise County, I was privileged with a childhood surrounded by people with many different backgrounds. In part because of my many Mexican-American friends while I was an adolescent, I have gone on to learn Spanish and lead an artistic career very much connected to Mexico.

Yes, Mrs. Brewer, our state and country is badly in need of immigration reform and a comprehensive response to our border issues. SB1070 is not either of those things, rather, the bill further cements Arizona's image as a racist and backward state. Like being 50th in the nation in per-capita education funding, racist legislation is NOT something to be proud of. This isn't "tough on immigration," this is unconstitutional.

I should mention that I come from a family of Irish-Slavic decent. It is unlikely that police would stop me and ask me to prove my citizenship. However, throughout my life I have been taught not to defend only my rights, but those of others as well. Mexican-Americans are integral members of our communities, and this bill, if signed into law, will open up the door to more systemic discrimination.

Mrs. Brewer, history is not on the side of the hysteric anti-immigrant lawmakers, sheriffs and other demagogues. Though you will face initial criticism for vetoing the bill, it is the only sensible and human action to take.

Thank you for your time,

Logan T Phillips

Intimate Performance & Discussion in Tucson

Hello world. I'm going to be participating in an interesting event tomorrow night in Tucson... it's not exactly a public performance, but if you're reading this website in time, consider yourself invited! Casa Libre is an amazing place, and the Salon helps keep it that way! I'm looking forward to it very much.

Dear artist,

Our next Wednesday Night Salon at Casa Libre is one week away! Join us on January 27, from 5:00 to 7:00, as poet Logan Phillips leads off the evening discussing performance as ink: how does a performer choose, in the creative moment, from the wealth of languages available to him? What if a poem is better written in video? Why does one poem come out in Spanish and another in English?

A committed spoken-word artist, collaborator, teacher, and mixer of sound from the border, Logan approaches these questions time and again through his performance practice. He has learned to trust uncertainty and embrace the realm of total possibility, where a poem might require voice, ink, paint, gesture, or dance in the context of a given moment. Logan is author of the chapbook Arroyo Ink, cofounder of multimedia performance collective Verbobala, and was cohost of the first national Mexican poetry slam in 2007. Find out more at his Web site: http://www.dirtyverbs.com/.

As always, our Wednesday Night Salon will be potluck. We have a lot to celebrate in our first Salon of the new year. 2010 marks Casa Libre's seventh year providing creative space and inspiration for writers and artists, local and national. Hats off to Casa Libre and all the hard-working, dedicated people who have kept it going! Let's raise a glass next Wednesday in thanks for this amazing oasis.

Flagstaff blizzard.

And then the big winds camearound midnight, the radio station was tracking their arrival to the city. This just in to the West Side first.

Went walking beforehand, foot after foot, to the knee, deep snow. Deeper-than-dog snow. Dog bounding through snow and disappearing between bounds. I did a fall I call the inverse snow angel. (Video available upon request). falling thick.

And then the big winds did come, rearranging the powder as they saw fit. I saw it until the windows iced over. Then came the flashes of lighting unheard of in a blizzard, light bouncing between snow and low clouds, the whole world crackling purple white.

Woke up on the couch at dawn, the sun had come to breakfast. I was surprised and went back to sleep. The sun stayed anyway. Brilliant day. Sky without a trace of adjectives. I walked to Macy's. The coffee provisions had run out in our orange bunker.

Drank and thought about how the only way to live a desert is stories. Silko, Ortiz, first Australians, Bowden, Jews they all know this. Voices that shape the sand like big winds the snow. Stories that shape the ear. But how to explain that silence? The space after this stanza, the long horizon where words are born.

The stillness of staying home. Stillness rare like snow lightning. Stillness of cars stuck in the street.

And then the snow plow came and it didn't matter much, chaos is still chaos no matter who tries to own it. The City plows the rich neighborhoods first. Of course.

Resurrected my sister's car at sunset with a borrowed snow shovel. More is forecast, and what's here will freeze good tonight. Good to think we can leave when we want. But it's that silence we're after.

• • • L

for alison diciembre 2009

merry haunzakwanzamas & solstice, everybody

• •

Avie is surprised to see the sun come over without calling first.

Buen día.

Orange Bunker.

Snow turns the neighborhood back into forest.

Flag is very white, but tries to be colorful as well.

The space between things.

Always good to have arms for work. I spent an hour moving pounds of snow that won't exist if the sun sticks around. Like all work.

Verbobala on Facebook

I wouldn't be nearly as interested in Facebook if it weren't such a great tool for helping me do what I do... manage both my own shows and Verbobala's as well. But of course just about everyone who complains about "La Face" secretly loves it. So maybe I should just keep quiet like. In the meantime, be our "fan" for the latest info, including a bunch of fotos that just came out:

Verbobala

Deconstructing Borders with a Cello Bow and a Smile

Here's an excellent project proposal by a friend and collaborator of mine, sound sculptor Glenn Weyant of Tucson, Arizona. Glenn is using an interesting and trustworthy website called Kickstarter to raise $3,000 for the production of a new double-disc edition of his most famous work, the Anta Project. For the Anta Project, Glenn plays the US-Mexico border wall as a instrument to make experimental drone / ambient music. Political, aesthetically interesting and cool. Profits from the sales of the new edition will donated in their entirety to No Más Muertes / No More Deaths, a human rights organization based in Southern Arizona that has saved the lives of countless migrants over the years by leaving water in the desert. This is solid humanitarian work that hardly anyone else is doing.

I'll leave the details to Glenn's description, but I want to throw my support behind this thing as much as possible. And since I'm short on cash and can't pledge more than $20, my support means spreading the word far and wide.

This is well thought-out and worth your support. Please join me in making art make change.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106560155/deconstructing-borders-with-a-cello-bow-and-a-smil

MC Ewor

Ewor es entre mis favoritos poetas de la Cd. de México, y además es de los mejores freestyleros que he visto jamás. Y si eso fuera poco, sus hablidades con el beatbox mejoran constantamente. Él es el MC principal de nuestro Sonidero Verbobala, aunque hasta ahora sólo nos ha podido acompañar en nuestras tocadas chilangas. Acabo de salir esta entrevista que hizo el con una radio cultural del DF, que lo disfrutes. Ewor is among my favorite poets from Mexico City, and also happens to be one of the best freestyle rappers I have ever seen in any language. And if that wasn't enough, his beatbox skills are always on the increase. He is the principal MC of our group Sonidero Verbobala, although as of the moment he's only been able to play with us at our Mexico City shows. Here's a new interview that he did for an arts & culture radio program, I hope you like it.

Into Venezuela: words have a hard time keeping up

Life is so busy being lived, words have a hard time keeping up. Divine how that happens sometimes. A week ago I was set to enter Venezuela, which seems about a lifetime ago. The bus from Bogotá took 17 hours to the border. It was the longest buss-butt I have ever endured, and over the course of the trip I laughed, cried, and ran through just about every other travel cliché there is. In the end, I made friends with the three guys who took turns driving the buss, throwing it down mountain roads and through pueblitos. A good thing I endeared myself to them, they ended up offering to make me a reservation at the hotel they always stay at in Cucutá, the Colombian border town that was the final destination. At midnight I checked in to a cement square with a TV, toilet, sink, shower (PVC pipe), bed, AND AC for five American dollars.

Up early, showered & out the room. Traditional breakfast of eggs, beans and rice (can never go wrong), walked down the rutted dirt road to the highway, taxi to the Terminal de Pasajeros. Bad rumors had been getting thicker as we had approached the border the day before. Chávez is riled up again and Colombo-Venezuelan relations have once again deteriorated. This time Chávez has a pretty legitimate complaint: last month it was leaked that Colombia has agreed to allow the establishment of five US military bases within its borders. It was a pretty direct flouting of the 1994 Colombian constitution (given that the agreement was made without public scrutiny) and is seen by Colombia’s neighbors as a legitimate threat to their security. You have to understand people have a pretty cynical view of the US military here. History has not left our country in a good light.

So, Chávez is rattling sabers and generally being a pain in my ass this morning. He had previously closed the border to all cargo trucks carrying everything except food, causing a kilometers-long backup on the border highway and chaos in Cucutá. I had received some advice that I would be better off to cross into Venezuela at a much smaller crossing an hour north. So off I went, feeling pretty good about myself, timing and Life in General as I walked through the craziness that accompanies every international border, even at 8:30am.

There’s a single Colombian soldier posted at the bridge. I ask him about an exit stamp from Colombia, and he tells me that the only migration office is back in Cucutá, an hour away. Or, he says, cross and see what they tell you over there, maybe you don’t need one. So off I went, among the motorcycles and women crossing the dull metal of the bridge shoved between the two shores of a lazy tropical river of wide mud. Entering Venezuela I offer myself up to the soldiers on the other side, asking about passport stamps. They are sweaty and look at me only as if I only intend to make them sweat more. They do not want to sweat. But they like to make others sweat more than them, so they themselves feel less sweaty. This is as much as I understand them. They ask  me to unpack my bag, laying out everything on a small table for them. Particular interest in the unopened jar of chunky Jif peanut butter I’m carrying (reaction: disgust). Particular interest in my blackbook, leafing through the pages slowly (reaction: mutual sweatyness).

Moments like this one are something that few writers in the US have experience with. When a soldier is leafing through your notebook, what you have written or are thought to have written can suddenly get you into a lot of trouble. I have the habit of taking travel notes more in English than Spanish for this reason, and usually switch out the names of dictators for less impressive, Anglo equivalents. Fidel is Frank and so on. Words can be as dangerous as bullets (verbo = bala) or, as was pointed out to me later in VZ, as calming as arrows of peace. In the end, a lot of nothing happens. Information about the border stamp? Just continue on, I’m told. So off I go, to wait 40 minutes for the next transport to the next town for the next bus.

Venezuela is the most militarized country I have ever traveled in. Whereas Cuba is an elderly revolution, mostly concerned with reliving its past, both real and imagined, Venezuela is a militant youth with strong ideas and eyes on the future. There are checkpoints about every 300 meters, it seems. As soon as the soldiers see me (and they always see me), we are stopped and everyone is asked for ID. The first two checkpoints are military, and I’m cleared through without and trouble other than sweat on my part. Then, we hit the National Guard checkpoint.

Lots of flipping through my passport. Looking for something. Looking for something that isn’t there. And then my passport isn’t there at all, it’s walking across the highway to the head honcho. Here we go. Could come here plees? I’m asked. Speak Spanish? And now the question: fake ignorance, or talk my way out of it. I of course go for the verbo. Turns out that my passport doesn’t have an entry stamp (!), and I am in Venezuela illegally. But qué pasó with the soldiers telling me to continue on? “Mah, those are just soldiers,” he says, “just like any soldiers in the world, the only thing they know about is war.”

In addition to being militarized, I now learn that VZ is also very corrupt. We dance the classic 1-2 of good cop / sweaty cop, meanwhile the van and all its other passengers wait on the other side of the highway. If I pay a bribe now, I’ll be paying bribes for the rest of my time in this country. No go. The van driver seems reluctant to leave me with the cops, but I reassure him, and off he goes. Eventually the good cop tells me there’s a migration office just down the street from the village we’re in. Back I go.

Same thing in the migra office. Stamp? “We have no stamps here. But please, sir, let us give you the run around while we practice our Englitch upon you. You attend college? Batchelor? Me too.” Fantastic. We’re overeducated with nowhere to go, all of us at once. I invite you to high-five with our respective deplomas, sir.

The batchelor eventually sticks out an arm and stops a car passing by the office. He tells the guy driving to give me a ride back to the border bridge. Back I go.

Six hours from when I was last there, I find myself sitting at la Terminal in Cucutá. It is now 3:30pm and the heat is like Venezuelan diesel fuel: cheap, everywhere, and the locals seem to live on it. Also like the heat are the rumors, which have gotten thicker as the day has gone on. I’m told Chávez has closed the border completely. Or maybe he hasn’t. Or he will. Or there’s a two hour line. Or that diplomas and passports are being smoked like cigars by the Venezuelans. At least that I know not to be true.

In the end, lucky break, I met the right group of guys with the right car for the right price. The right price being five American dollars for what will turn out to be a four hour trip and two stops for migration. The right car is, during this particular day in my life, a maroon Chevy Caprisse that looks like it has dealt with this heat and these rumors everyday since 1985. Off I go, five other men and me, roaring through the swarms of motorcycles and carhorns.

Only a 20 minute wait to get the exit stamp. A brief moments of international limbo, then the entry stamp into VZ is almost instant. I sink lower in my seat with every checkpoint, lots of trunk popping, but we get through OK. Conversation in the Caprisse is interesting. I can tell the driver is a armchair (or driver’s seat) philosopher and political analyst, the kind that holds a diploma from university of Constant Conversation. At one point he says “en este país uno trabaja como negro por intentar vivir como gringo.” In this country one works like a black to try to live like a gringo. He’s a Chavista (pro-Chávez), he says, but only because he’s also an oportunista.

I daze in and out of coherence. We arrive at San Cristóbal as dusk is folding down the hills. I pay the driver his 10,000 pesos, he’s all smiles and solid advice. Just in time: the last buss for Mérida, my destination, leaves in 30. Hand shaking with the men. Off I go. Toilet, call ahead to my friend in Mérida, eat some fried bananas, take another Dramamine, the bus leaves. Six hours of intense air conditioning and a soundtrack dominated by karaoke versions of modern pop hits, as interpreted by keyboards set to sound like Andean pan pipes. Torture by excessive comfort and suave.

Midnight. Mérida. Taxi to the address of my contact, Nestor. En route I realize that I copied his address but not his apartment number. My cellphone died in the Caprisse. The taxi driver plays the young punk at first, then gives in and calls Nestor for me. Nestor does not answer. We try again. Nope. I give the taxista his money and he advises me not to wander too much in this neighborhood.

I convince the doorman at the gate of the apartments to let me charge my cell in his guardshack. I have good reason to believe he is drunk. And! Turns out my Colombian SIM card won’t work here. So I make friends with another, younger, less-drunk guard who calls Nestor again. Nada de Nestor. There are hundreds of apartments here. I have visions of curling up next to the landscaping to sleep.

Then! Phone call! Nestor! Drunk in a bar in the centro! On his way home! “Voy pa’lla!” And there it is, my people. 2am, stretched out on a deflating air mattress in apartment 2-B, Mérida, Venezuela. My first night in the country.

That was just one day, over a week ago.

Words are having a hard time keeping up.

Art exhibition in Tucson

I'm a little late in posting about this, but I wanted to get it out there anyway. For the very first time I am showing work in a juried art exhibition! The gallery is a great space called Raices Taller 222 run by a well-organized group of artists in Tucson's warehouse district. The name of the exhibition is "¡Chubasco!," an annual event they do on the monsoons. I'm showing some of the prints from Arroyo Ink (still for sale online!), many of which have to do with the cosmic grit of mi tierra:

The exhibition opening was last weekend, but the work will be up through September 12th, and there is another reception this coming weekend for the 1st Saturday Artwalk. I saw a bit of the other artists' work before I left Arizona, if you're in town it is very worth stopping by to see this! Check below for an email from the gallery.

Hello Monsoon Artists,

We want to thank you for participating in our monsoon exhibition "¡Chubasco!", which opened last night. Opening night was awesome, our unscientific manual head count at our most crowded was just about 200 visitors! We recieved lots of positive feedback from our regular patrons as well as from our new visitors. Lots of comments on the beautiful artwork and the great atmosphere they encountered at the gallery.

Contributing to the great atmosphere was the exciting drumming by local musicians Ashatari, Carlos, Donato, Bubba, Vitas & Darius, who treated us to drumming from Brazil, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Earlier in the day, we had contacted a couple of the drummers to see if a they were available to perform at the opening. They totally pulled it together by showing up with all 6 drummers! Thank you guys for a great performance!

If you missed the opening, you have another chance to attend another big event at the gallery next Saturday. Saturday August 1, 2009, is 1ST SATURDAY. This very well attended monthly event sponsored by CTGA (Central Tucson Gallery Association), of which we are founding members, gives us another chance to open our doors to the community, along with other galleries on 6th street and the surrounding downtown Tucson art district. Visit CTGA at www.ctgatucson.org for all the info. Bring friends & family and enjoy another great evening on Saturday, we will be open from 7 - 10 PM.

Once again, thank you all and we hope to see you on Saturday!

1st Saturday Sat. August 1, 2009 7:00 - 10:00 PM

"¡Chubasco!" exhibition dates: July 25 - September 12, 2009

Regular gallery hours: Friday and Saturday 1:00 - 5:00 PM or by appointment

Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop 218 E. 6th Street (1/2 block east of 6th St. & 6th Ave.) Tucson, AZ 85705 (520) 881-5335

http://www.RaicesTaller222.org

Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop is Tucson's only Latino based nonprofit cooperative contemporary art gallery located in the Downtown Historic Warehouse District

¡Off to Colombia!

Well, here it is, compañeros. Opportunity and wanderlust have collided again, and I'm off to Colombia for five weeks. After spending the last three months in the US (the most in over three years), it feels strangely right to be heading somewhere where nobody knows my name and living in the moment is the only way to go. I'm sitting in Phoenix Sky Harbor right now, using the last few minutes of free internet access before my flight leaves.

I woke a dawn this morning in Sierra Vista after having stayed up most of the night packing. It was a hazy, pastel, slow burn. Then to Tucson to drop of artwork at the wonderful Raices Taller, where I'll be showing prints from Arroyo Ink as part of a larger exhibition starting this weekend. My first art show... never expected that to happen. Then the shuttle to Phoenix, which today happened to be populated with large, tattooed and decidedly chatty men of every ethnicity. Now they're boarding to LAX, then to Houston, then overnight to Bogotá. I'll arrive to an unknown city at 5am Thursday.

I'll be traveling Colombia for a few weeks, then attending the NYU Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics' Encuentro at the end of August.

Time for the unknown. Hasta pronto.

ARROYO INK now for sale online!

Ok, this is it! After a couple years of poetry, a few months of preparations and a few weeks of pulling things together, my new book Arroyo Ink is now for sale online!

I'm excited about this one, I think this is the best work I've put into print so far. It's the fifth in the series of chapbooks that I have released since 2002, and like the rest of them, this is a hand-crafted, independently-produced piece of work. It also has strange illustrations in it drawn by myself and Adam Cooper-Terán. The illustrations are all based on remixed letterforms and will keep your eyes oh-so entertained.

I'm selling the books for $10, plus a couple bux for shipping. All purchases are handled by PayPal, which is a secure online payment company owned by eBay. 100% secure, not to worry. I know times are lean for everybody, but if you are able to plop down some virtual dollars, I'd love to put a book in the mail to you. I appreciate it.

The US book release performance was a couple weeks back in Bisbee, AZ, and it was more than I could have hoped for. Video art showcase, introduction by Adam Cooper-Terán, an hour-long performance of new poems and a reception featuring a showing of the fine art prints from the book. For all those who couldn't be there, here's the goods! Hopefully I'll be touring a lot in the coming year, but until then:

    Now available:

  • Arroyo Ink book
  • Illustrated postcards
  • Fine art prints (limited editions!)

arroyo ink oaxaca agave

Arroyo Ink: book release!

This just in! I'll be releasing my fifth chapbook next month! ARROYO INK, poems by Logan Phillips, illustrations by Logan Phillips & Adam Cooper-Terán. Two years have passed since my last book was released, it's time for fresh! I'm excited for ARROYO INK to meet the world. ARROYO INK will be on sale online June 6th, 2009. Get your PayPal ready!

Central School Project presents

LOGAN PHILLIPS

releasing his new book ARROYO INK with a spoken word performance & video art showcase. Bilingual poems from Mexico City, Cochise County, Central America and points beyond. One night only.

FRIDAY 05 JUNE 2009 Central School Project 43 Howell Ave. Bisbee, Arizona 7:30pm • all ages • uncensored donations requested • que vengan

Book signing and reception to follow performance.

¡LIMITED EDITION BOOKS ON SALE FOR FIRST TIME! Arroyo Ink available for purchase online June 6th

http://www.dirtyverbs.com/2009/05/release

Logan Phillips: http://www.dirtyverbs.com Verbobala Spoken Video: http://www.verbobala.com Central School Project: http://www.centralschoolproject.org

Event on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=98148759921

Online poster: http://dirtyverbs.com/content/images/2009.05_phillips-bisbee-WEB.jpg

Poster for print: http://dirtyverbs.com/content/images/2009.05_phillips-bisbee-PRINT.jpg

ltp

Arizona… May.

Hello friends, qué tal, I wanted to let everyone know that I'm safe and sound in Arizona, flu-free according to me. I was on tour for the last 20 days across the state, and was set to fly home tomorrow but changed my plans due to the craziness in el D.F. I don't mind being in my home state, but it isn't easy being away from so many people I care about in Mexico while this is going on. The panic is as problematic as the virus at this point. Thanks for your emails and concern, but there are others much more deserving. Please keep an open mind and be on the look out.

Les veo,

logan

-----

Hola mis amigos, qué tal,

quería decirles que estoy bien acá en Arizona, sin influenza segun. He estado de gira durante los últimos 20 dias aquí, y iba a volver a casa mañana pero cambié de plan por la locura en el D.F. No me molesta estar aquí en mis tierras, pero no es nada fácil estar tan lejos de tanta gente querida en México ahorita. El pánico es tan problemático como el virus mismo. Gracias por sus correos y preocupación, pero neta hay otro que la merecen mucho más en este momento. Espero que mantengan una mente abierta y atenta.

Espero verles pronto,

logan

Arizona April!

I'll be back in Arizona in April for another string of eclectic shows, I hope you can make it out! Video, DJ and poetry galore! New poems, new songs, revelry in general. All dates and details subject to change, please check back as the events approach.

  • Mon. 4/13, evening, Buena High School, Sierra Vista. Hosting and spoken word feature with Jasmine Cuffee and Carlos Contreras at the student poetry slam at BHS.
     
  • Tues. 4/14, morning, Buena High School, Sierra Vista. Workshopping with students. Closed to public, sorry!
     
  • Wed. 4/15, morning, Southside Community School, Tucson. Bilingual storytelling & workshopping with elementary kids! Closed to public, sorry!
     
  • Thurs. 4/16, evening, Bisbee. Solo spoken word and videoart showcase! More info coming soon.
     
  • Sat. 4/18, 9pm, Monte Vista Hotel Lounge, Flagstaff DJing with Emtron: Sonidero Verbobala, all the best dance music you may've never heard! More info here.

    sonidero verbobala in flagstaff, arizona

  • Mon. 4/20, Flagstaff Performing vocal samples with the loops & drums duo CLOUDPEOPLE.
     
  • Thurs. 4/23, 4pm, Rocket Gallery Tucson Solo spoken word feature at the "ARTivison" art reception as part of Tucson Youth Week. Rocket Gallery (270 E. Congress). Free.

    ARTivism with logan phillips

     

  • Thurs. 4/24, 10pm, Green Room Flagstaff DJing with Emtron: Sonidero Verbobala with Sambátuque.
     

Here is what has been happening in Mexico City lately: sonideros, the original Mexican street DJ's:

immeasurable house of being

Fine and dandy: but, so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality. If poetry were anything––like dropping an atombomb––which anyone did, anyone could become a poet merely by doing the neccessary anything; whatever that anything might or might not entale. But (as it happens) poetry is being, not doing. If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet’s calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view) you’ve got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being. I am quite aware that, wherever our socalled civilization has slithered, there’s every reward and no punishment for unbeing. But if poetry is your goal, you’ve got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities etcetera ad infinitum and remember one thing only: that it’s you––nobody else––who determine your destiny and decide your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else. Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can ever be you. There’s the artist’s responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you take it, take it––and be. If you can’t, cheer up and go about other people’s business; and do (or undo) till you drop. ––ee cummings, “six nonlectures.” 24

Prensa // Recent press

Ey internet astronauts, I've just come off tour with Verbobala after two months in Mexico, it was a mind-blowing time. A bunch of press came out of it, which we're grateful for. Most is in Spanish of course, but there's a bit in English later in the list. More soon!

Plus, below is some footage from a show that Sonidero Verbobala rocked in Coyoacán, Mexico City.

Click for PDF // haz click para leer el PDF:
Emeequis Verbobala

End of Tour // Off to Honduras

From now until July 18th, 2008 I will be mostly out of contact as I travel through Central America. I will periodically be checking email, but will only have a chance to respond to urgent messages. For Verbobala booking, please use this contact form on the Verbobala site. Gracias, ¡nos vemos después!

The problem with writing about tour is that there is rarely chance to do so. From mid-March until the end of May, Verbobala toured from Tucson to Portland, Boston to San Antonio, New York to Austin. It was our first time on tour in the US, and it was, in short, a blast.

Though Moisés (1/3 of the group) was unable to get a US visa, we were able to re-work our entire set and incorporate him through video projection. He wrote a different poem for just about every stop on the tour, recorded each one, and passed them to us the day of each show. It was incredible watching the audience react to the "mojado digital." I don't think I've ever seen an audience jump to its feet and cheer for a video projection... obviously he was able to transmit more than just his image.

In Worcester we were shown hidden speakeasies, mostly unchanged from the day that Prohibition was repealed. Adam called to the ghosts. In San Antonio we were shown an amazing time and got to meet Grupo Fantasma, a group I have loved for years. We went to Vancouver for a day and I featured at a poetry slam, which makes me feel like I've completed some crazy NAFTA-of-slam. In Tucson we debuted a brand-new full-length piece called Nobody Speaks with our sister group Flam Chen... it feels like the coolest performance I've ever been a part of. We sold t-shirts. I nearly sold out of books again. We played the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City with Patricia Smith and Jamie Caroline. Adam made his poetry open mic debut and offended everyone. We projected video onto the 60-ton, 3 story Cathedral of Junk in Austin with Show Me Tiger. We were on the radio, we scared coeds. We were called weird. We said thank you.

There is video of a lot of this, but it will be a little while before any of it goes online. Stay tuned. There is so much that could be said, so many names to mention.

I've been back in Mexico for about 10 days, catching up with Moi and other close friends. Verbobala has allowed all three of us to make a living with our art, and it feels incredible. I'm in love with this project. We'll be renting a house in Hermosillo in August to work on new material for a Mexican tour that will be September-October. Later in the fall we'd like to do some Canadian dates. There's some ideas for Argentina as well. Hopefully we can work with some people to get Moi's US visa worked out, it would be nice to tour the States again sometime. But we're not sitting around waiting for it.

Here's to hoping for Obama in November.

One thing about tour: it is definitely not vacation. It is a privilege to travel, but it's not relaxing, that's for sure. As of Wednesday, I'm gone traveling. It is time to disappear for awhile again with a blackbook and a pen. I'm headed to Honduras to meet up with a friend, then moving through Nicaragua to Costa Rica. We'll be mostly off the beaten path. As of July 18th I'll be back full-time.

Hasta entonces, amigos. Que les vaya chido.