| Influences | Hi. I’m The Bitter Poet. This is supposed to be my bio. None of it is true.
Here are the facts as they appear to me:
I perform guitar-driven poetry for poetry lovers. But everyday I learn: some people don’t like poets. Or poetry.
There's been some heckling: A group of women in Portland would rather see strippers (more on that later); my parent's law professor neighbor got drunk on his trip to New York; ...the list goes on.
I wear pointy red shoes because an English dude rushed up to me after a show and screamed (in a cockney accent), “You’ve got to ‘ave pointy red shoes!” I figured he was right because he was a performer in “Stomp."
I start out as an eager commercial bank branch manager in Columbia, SC. I know it may sound odd, but I lose my interest in commercial banking rather quickly.
I audition for a play. I get cast. One of the actresses in the play is a former Miss South Carolina. I start dating her and realize that I love acting in plays.
Her paranoia becomes too intense and we break up.
I get cast in a Rick Schroeder made for TV movie about World War II heroics on a battleship. I don’t date Rick Schroeder, but I discover I like acting in made for TV movies.
The movie airs and I move to New York City. I become a New York actor.
I drift for several years as an office temp and barbeque restaurant waiter. One New Year’s Eve an alcoholic roommate insists I come to a party in a warehouse located in an unused westside district of Manhattan, below Canal street. It is a party thrown by a theatre company called Cucuaracha Warehouse Theatre. I can only describe it as a seedy wonderland. I think, “This is it.” I ask the guy opening beers, "how do I get involved?" He says, “come down and hang out.” And I do.
The Cucaracha Warehouse Theatre is a creative cauldron, filled with artists. There is no distinction between the parties and the plays. It exists in a New York City that now seems like a dream. Nobody in real estate has any use for the warehouse we perform in. I bartend during shows. I watch everybody a lot. When the beer runs out at the theater we drink at Ear Inn. They say Madonna owns the bar up the street. I never want to go home…
I am inspired by the Cucaracha artists. In a desperate attempt to be just like them, I start writing. In August. On a Saturday morning. At my desk in a mid-town ad agency where I had a job as an office clerk.
With freshly printed poems in hand, I start out doing open mics. At The Ludlow St. Café, during my set the audience starts yelling, “Release the pain!” After the set, the guy running the open mic says, “You could be a headliner!” He has a wandering eye, he smells bad and I believe him.
I follow the Lollapalooza ’94 tour for 3 weeks, from Vegas to Chicago, hitching rides between venues, reading in the spoken word tent. Nick Cave is on the main stage and The Flaming Lips are on the second stage. I come back to New York and say, “I want a band.”
The Bitter Poet & The Sound of Angst first gig is upstairs at Surf Reality (on Allen and Stanton) in January of ’95.
We get a monthly mid-night gig at Cucaracha Warehouse Theatre and add a trapeze artist, opera singer and modern dance group to the show. Later a belly dancer, contortionist and bed-of-nails act join the show. The belly dancer’s best friend is dating Harvey Keitel. He comes to a show. It’s great.
Cucaracha loses their space in late ’96 and we start doing a mobile version of the show in rock clubs: Arlene Grocery, Fez Under Time Café, Sidewalk Café and others.
In 2000, I move to L.A. The common mistake made by young bohemians looking for love and stardom.
The best thing to happen to me in L.A. are the dancers. They are mesmerizing. Miss Money Penny is one. After a rehearsal, I watch Miss Money Penny comfort the child of a woman just hit by a bus. It is obvious the girl’s mother is gravely injured. Money Penny is a rock for the girl. When we leave the scene, Miss Money Penny sobs. The whole thing is heartbreaking.
Eventually, I want to go home.
In 2002, I return to New York City. Home for good and forever.
In 2003, I release my first CD, “Rocket Red Fingernails.” Me, and the guys in The Sound of Angst (Rich Feridun, Chris Nappi, Matt Gruenberg), record it live during rehearsals in Hoboken. The CD cover is a photo of Miss Money Penny. She’s dancing. Everybody asks, “Who is she?”
I am very excited by the album and ready to hit the road promoting it, but the guys in the band are pros. They want money. I am shocked to realize it is impossible to tour with no money.
I try to contact Miss Money Penny to thank her for gracing the cover of my first CD. None of her phone numbers or email addresses work. I can’t find her.
I learn that life is full of disappointments and broken dreams.
I go solo again, this time with a guitar. I can’t play it. I don’t care.
In 2004, I meet twin strippers from Portland at a mid-town strip club. They love the CD and promise to get me a gig in Portland. I heed their call and get two gigs in Portland and also in Seattle, Olympia and Eugene. I hire New York burlesque star, Miss Saturn, and we go.
It’s a life changing week. In Seattle I bore them. Miss Saturn kills. In Olympia, we play a concrete and cinder block punk club. They listen to me. Miss Saturn kills. In Eugene they love me. Miss Saturn is pissed at me but she still kills. In Portland, one gig is in a sad strip club called Devil’s Point. At the 4pm sound check, only one dancer is working. She is nude, and cries on stage as she dances for one guy in the audience (her boyfriend). That night, with the house full, the same stripper cries in the dressing room as the manager tells her she’ll never dance a night shift. Miss Saturn kills and vows never to return to Devil’s Point. The final night of the tour, at Dante’s, Miss Saturn kills again and I am heckled by those 5 angry women (“you suck!”). After the show, I come off-stage and don’t want to go home…
But I do go home to New York and the next four years are a whirlwind of broken relationships, lost love, good sex, breakups in favorite restaurants and tears at local Starbucks.
In 2006, I team up with burlesque performance artist, Howling Vic, and perform “Angst & Burlesque” trading off bitter poems and provocative burlesque. We perform everywhere: P.S. 122 Schoolhouse Rocks, Mo’ Pitkins, Public Assembly, Bowery Poetry Club, The P.I.T., Theatre For The New City, The Brick, Lucky Cheng’s, Zipper Theater, Freddy’s Back Room, Under St. Mark’s Theatre, KGB Bar, culminating in a wild 3 week run at downtown avant-garde theatre Dixon Place, in April 2008.
The summer of 2008 I create a new show: “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Cafes, Strip Clubs and Black Box Performance Spaces” for the Collective:Unconscious undergroundzero Festival. I share the evening with clowns. It’s a show about my last four years in New York. It features Sestina X, a burlesque dancer direct from my mind.
Spring of 2009:
I have a new CD: Live! At The Duplex featuring 6 tracks recorded live on Valentine's Day 2009.
A solo version of "Looking For Love..." is being presented in the Emerging Artists Theatre's "One Man Talking" Festival in New York on May 14. www.eatheatre.org
In Charleston, SC on May 22 & 23, "Looking For Love..." is being presented by the Piccolo Spoleto "Piccolo Fringe" Festival. www.piccolospoleto.com
And a red-head in L.A. doesn't know how she feels about me anymore.
The legend rolls on. Release The Pain. |
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