Well the radio reading last night was interesting to say the least. Arrived all the hell the way out at Northeastern Univ. after a ridiculously long bus and train ride only to be told by a neo-nazi rent-a-cop at the security building that since the station manager or whoever was in charge had neglected to submit the proper paperwork, all the guests wouldn't be allowed in to the building where the station was located.
Thus, we wound up at some scary resaurant on the corner of Kimball and Bryn Mawr reading into a tape recorder for a segment that aired later. A segment, which actually didn't sound all too bad, despite the clanking of plates and ringing of phones, plus various ambient noise from the Zombie-like crowd at the back feeding money into the slot machines which I'm pretty sure were likely illegal. Ahh...all very Chicago. I read entirely newish work, though I don't think the hostess (who wasn't even supposed to be hosting except she had knew how to run the tape recorder) really understood or knew anything about my work at all and kept saying things like "uh...nice imagery..." repeatedly, to me, and the other three poets. Still, I did manage to find an old mix tape cassete to record what I read for further listening later when I'm not so weary. It was all supposed to be a sneak peak of Friday's DVA Gallery show line-up, which looks like its' going to be pretty cool.
I still can't figure out what's up with the stringent security on the Northeastern Campus--it's not a particularly exclusive, or even reputable, school, nor one in a bad neighborhood. I think it's like one step above community college around here. Hell, at Columbia, you can pretty much just walk into any building as long as you don't look like a homeless person or like some sort of security threat, and we're in the the South Loop for god's sake. I think it was basically some jack-ass deciding he was going to make an example over proper procedure to scare the radio station folks into compliance. Don't let the hooligan poets in, they might go all Bukowski and break shit.
