Phoenix & Mesa, AZ

...being in the desert reminded me that i haven't taken a naked trip since my girl sienna and i rode through joshua tree, disguised as sand nymphs, the summer before she was hired and i was fired (for showing up every day on "poet time" aka CP time) from the san francisco branch of anderson consulting, the accounting firm who shredded documentation of it's audits of ENRON.

i spent the first two days in AZ performing at corbet deans' venue in phoenix (which was probably the most integrated venue i've performed at in the south), and i also featured at the mesa slam, where mister crazy motherfucker, who had seen my show the night before at zoe's kitchen, got on the mic during the slam and ranted about how mentally deranged my "fans and groupies" were and something else about me (my work) being wack because i focus so much on women...i had scary houston flashbacks (you remember, the group of men who got up, turned their backs on me, and made an enormous show out of leaving the venue in the middle of my set, as the women screamed and cried and cheered) but actually ended up defending his right to rant on the mic about his experience of my work as a free speech issue. i think it was noam chomsky who said something like, either you believe in free speech for everyone, or you don't. you can't only believe in free speech for people who have the same opinions as you.

big of me, i know, but i was also a judge for the slam and scored his rant 0.0, which apparently wasn't low enough to keep him from advancing to the second round.

the organizers of the mesa slam were completely embarrassed (which i didn't think they needed to be)and apologetic but how boring would i be if no one ever objected to my work?...more later...cbell