RAMBLING ON A HANGOVER

You never start face down in the gutter--it takes a journey to get there. Maybe it begins on a clear night, just crisp enough to show your breath. You're alone, walking down a bare stretch of East Colfax, traffic whizzing by in dangerous waves and sirens flashing over a scene of a sedate arrest three intersections up (woman sitting handcuffed, back to a liquor store wall, cops all around taking notes). You realize that if all the people disappeared like dinosaurs--suddenly, without explanation, leaving only bones six feet deep in the earth--a city would b e no more than brick buildings, hollow like eggshells, lined up in a pattern that makes no discernable sense. Skyscrapers always look empty from the outside. Sewers echo any footsteps that pass over their grates. Traffic lights blink and wink in red, yellow, green, as if staring in disbelief at the desolation in front, in back, on either side. It's the solitude you feel inside leaking out, wiping out humanity like a plague.

Two more blocks, and you reach the bar. People reassert themselves, perched on stools and in booths like blackbirds on telephone wires. They chatter to each other; men raise their eyebrows and lean in; women tilt their heads back and to the side and smile when they talk. A jukebox blares a soundtrack and blurs everyone's words--communication becomes a mish-mash of noise, each brilliantly artistic and philosophical point becoming absorbed by the unthinking, unintelligent din. It's a womb of sound, and your spirits are fed by its nutrients.

Take a seat at the bar. Order something cheap from a bottle. Pay in cash. Start a tip pile next to your coaster. Smoke if you got 'em. Look down, stare at the wood of the bar, and remain that way until someone emerges to speak to you.

Maybe this time it's an off-duty bartender sipping brandy next to you. He opens his mouth, and something comes out, just enough to create a trickling conversation that starts gushing after beer four. Here's where time detaches itself from your life and starts twisting like a computer screen saver. Stories are exchanged, but out of order. Jokes are told, but most of the laughing takes place before the punch line. Your brain rushes ahead of the conversation and sometimes detours altogether. Somehow, in the middle of a diatribe on the nature of class struggle in America, you find yourself saying, "Have you seen Titan A.E.?" And the other guy rolls with it. You have officially merged with the din.

Being in the din is akin to wading in the ocean. You're warm, but there are pockets of cool that goose you and make you shiver without warning. You're light as a balloon and completely relaxed, but undercurrents of sexual desire keep distracting you--watch her ass as it heads for the bathroom; check out his teeth as he laughs at another girl. Details are both sharp and overwhelming. That big picture--the empty post-apocalypse city--fades and you're trapped in the smog of the moment, wondering what size shoes he's wearing and where you can find belts on sale tomorrow morning (as if morning will ever come for you at this point).

Your bartender buddy is talking to someone else. You're stuck smiling to yourself. As this realization sinks in, you return to staring at the wood of the bar. Beer eleven. Out of cash, you start a tab. The tip pile got swiped by the bartender a while ago. You want, desperately, to write everything (everything) down.

And that's it, the turn in the path that leads to being face down in a gutter. Groups leave, the juke mutes, and suddenly it's just the six or seven of you in the joint, pondering the means for a graceful but solitary exit. Last call was twenty minutes ago. Good thing you walked.

Now, the gutter doesn't always claim you literally. In fact, most of the time a few pukes in back by the dumpster will be the worst of it. The gutter is more of a fantasy place, a useful image to describe how you'll feel all night-- dreaming of pain and dry deserts, searching for a good body position while you sleep. Mostly, you still just want to talk, to share, to meld with the din again and find someone who finds you interesting, but now it's the void of your pillow, and you lie face down drooling into it. The journey won't matter tomorrow, because the destination just plain sucks.

What is it, exactly, that makes this so fun? Because it is. Well, maybe not fun, but necessary suffering, a matter of connecting to something that might be inside, might be outside, might be just an idea like so many others ... electricity in the brain.

SLAMMING POETS

In a recent issue [Volume 3, Issue 1] you discussed the Denver poetry slam with Andrea Moore, a member of the 2000 Denver slam team. While we appreciate the attention, the article heralded that Ms. Moore is the "unofficial 2000 slam champion." How interesting. I wonder, did the author of this article invent the title, or did Ms. Moore? Either way, it is inaccurate and an insult to the people who have been supporting and running the slam for the last two years. I suggest you get your facts straight and give credit where credit is due before publishing your next issue. --A fellow slam poet

I had the facts straight all along, but regrettably didn't explain myself clearly enough. The "unofficial 2000 slam champion" title is a reference to Ms. Moore's winning of the slam on Denver Poet's Day at the Civic Center last fall, for which she received a rather large and dangerously pointy trophy inscribed "Slam Champ 2000." It is this magazine's policy, for the safety of the staff, to mention any award backed up by a trophy which can be described as 'lethal'. However, as Ms. Moore was quick to point out in my conversations with her, she was only a member of the Rhode Island delegation, not its captain or leader in any sense, and in fact didn't even place highest at the competition itself. She also pointed out that she was the only member of the team who competed at the Denver Poet's Day event. I assume full responsibility for any misinterpretation. I had not guessed the Mercury CafŽ crowd would be so caught up in titles.

SUICIDE BY MOVIES

This weekend I had the distinct privilege of attending my second annual B-Fest at Northwestern University in Chicago. For those who don't know, B-Fest is a 24-hour movie marathon of the worst pieces of cinema ever committed to celluloid. I'm compelled to thank my gracious host, Ken Begg of Jabootu.com, and my fellow sufferers from StompTokyo.com, who kept me quite sane with their unending cynicism and bits of historical knowledge. One needs comraderie to survive an entire rotation of the Earth in a dark theater with ditch digging reform school girls. It's excruciating, mind-numbing, torturous ... you're not quite sure if you'll ever be able to face reality when you stumble out of the place sleep-deprived and mind-bended. I hope they someday bring it to Denver so everyone can enjoy it.

CORRECTION

In last issue's gallery review (Volume 3, Issue 2, "Whispers of Beauty"), poor dead Vladimir Nabokov was misquoted. His poem "Pale Fire" actually reads:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By false azure in the window pane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

Furthermore, these are the poem's opening lines, not the closing ones. We regret the error.

--Chris J. Magyar