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The Long, Lost Steve-O Trading Card!

Hey, everyone! When we commissioned Dale Karls to produce the totally awesome SuperPoet trading cards for the Fabulous Grand Slam, we forgot to have him make one for our spectacular CTV camera guy, Steve-O. In a heroic effort to right this wrong, Dale has created a limited edition,* downloadable Seve-O card! From Dale...

The Steve-O cards are designed so you can cut along the dotted line and fold down the middle.

Well, there you have it. You can get the card as a PDF (click here) or an image file (click here). Enjoy!

*By “limited edition,” we mean "you can print as many as you’d like." So it’s really not limited at all.

Tonight: Higher Grounds Poetry Slam

Just a quick note: Chippewa Falls coffee shop Higher Grounds is starting up their enemy poetry slam once again, like it's some sort of real, live, actual place to read poetry. As if. Anyway, head on over there tonight and read some poems, why don't ya? It's at 7:30 PM.

P.S. The Slam Crew won't mind. Really.

National Slam: Minneapolis Makes Semi-Finals!

Just a quick note, here. The National Poetry Slam in underway down in New Mexico, and yesterday, Team Minneapolis made it to semi-finals, ranking 19th over all! Congratulations, SlamMN!

You can check out the current ranks right here.

TONIGHT: Minnesota's Wild-n-Wooly Super Slam

Hey guys, sorry for the short notice on this one. If you're in Minneapolis tonight, maybe you can check out SlamMN's "Anything Goes Slam." Sounds like a hoot and a half, yo!

Anything Goes Slam
Monday, August 8, 2005
@ Kieran's Irish Pub
330 2nd Avenue
South Minneapolis, MN
7:30 sign up, 8:00 slam
Free to compete, $5 to watch
All ages

The rules are different—but simple. It's one round. You get 5 minutes to do whatever you want in the name of poetry. We will have 5 judges to score you, drop the high and low, and the top performance at the end of the night wins. No elimination, no second chances (unless there's a tie). The slam team will be featuring somewhere in the middle and selling their CDs and chapbooks. It's their last chance to raise the remaining $450 or so they need to make it to the National Poetry Slam! Come support the team and take a risk on stage. More info here.

And here.

Between our marathon decoupage sessions, the Slam Crew has talked about trying something similar to the "anything goes" format. If you think it'd be cool, let us know.

National Slam Roster Posted (Mostly)

If you check out the website for the 2005 National Poetry Slam, you can see a partial list of competing poets and teams. If you've followed the National Slam in years past, you'll notice the normal cast of regulars. But there's a very good chance most of you won't recognize a single name on the roster. That's OK. It's worth it just to peep the amazing amount of whacky poet pseudonyms.

MN Slam Gets Kee-ray-zee!

Next week, the big honkin' slam over in Minnesota will be going gonzo with a theme slam. They're trying to raise some last minute money so their slam team can more easily afford the trip to Nationals down in New Mexico.

Poetry Slam Idol
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
@ Kieran's Irish Pub
330 2nd Avenue
South Minneapolis, MN
7:30 sign up, 8:00 slam
Free to compete, $5 to watch
All ages

From the organizers: Thanks to your Grand Slam Champion, Matthew Rucker, SlamMN! is bringing you something new this summer: Poetry Slam Idol! Where poetry slam meets everyone's favorite televised talent show, Poetry Slam Idol incorporates bits and pieces of each. Here's how it works:

We'll still have 5 judges armed with score boards in the audience that will give the poets scores for each performance but before they give their scores...

We'll have a panel of celebrity judges to give their comments on the performances:

• Hip Hop artist and lead singer of DoomTree, P.O.S.
• Local artist and poet Tom Cassidy
• Your favorite female personality from 89.3, the Current, Jill Riley

Ok... so then what do the poets do? It's a bit whacky, so pay attention:

Round 1: The Audition Tape Round. Poets perform their worst poem as badly as they can. Think William Hung.

Round 2: Cover Round. Idols almost never get to perform original material, and neither should Idol Poets...this is your chance to do a cover of one of your favorite poems. Wardrobe changes are encouraged.

Round 3: Grand Finale. It all comes down to this. The finalists get a chance to really shine. Bring your best poem and conquer the stage.

More info at SlamMN website.

Going to New Mexico?

Just a quick note that the National Poetry Slam is about to bus' loose all over the great state of New Mexico. So if you're in Albuquerque... check it out or something. It starts on August 10th.

You can keep up to date over at the NPS website. They're usually pretty good at posting bout results right away, so you can follow along and root for your favorite teams all by yourself in front of your computer in your bedroom while your friends are having a beer party without you. Weirdo.

Y'all Need Nicknames

Ahh, summer—the time of reflection. Some people say that winter is the time of reflection because that's when you're locked indoors. Screw those people. Summer is the time of reflections... the reflections of happy kids in the water of the ol' swimmin' hole... the reflections of drop-jawed teenage boys in the lenses of dime store sunglasses resting upon the sun-browned faces of teenage girls... the reflections of a man and a woman embracing for a beer-soaked kiss in the polished hood of a screaming blue Chevrolet Camaro—the only tangible thing left from a happy husband's long gone bachelor days... reflections.

Enough of that crap.

The slam crew was sitting around the other day (reflecting) when we started talking about the national slam scene. We all keep abreast of national slam happenings (or 'slappenings') by listening to our top secret slam transistor radio, secretly given to poetry slam crews across the country, allowing us to stick our finger into the pulsing ooze that is American poetry slam. And what did we learn?

You all need nicknames. Pronto.

Every major slam scene across the country is peppered with colorful poets who've made a name for themselves by making a name for themselves. Names like "Wordsmyth," and "Essenze," and "Poetik," and "Poetick," and "Poetech" and "Morris Stegosaurus," and "Chad the Almighty." Some people just use letters, like "L.O.G.I.C." or "I.D.E.A." How easy is that?

Nothing provides you with more dramatic flair (and credibility) than a cleverly crafted pseudonym. And it's high time the poets of the Chippewa Valley tapped into this important trend.

Seriously, just take any quasi-poetic word and mix it up a little. Your new slam-name could be "Stan Zah," or "Dramatik" or "Meta4" or "Mr. T." You could even make reference to local stuff. You could be "2Rivaaz" or "Chippeword" or "Oakwood." The possibilities are endless!

Use your imagination, people—we challenge you to sign up with a clever nickname at the next slam.

We Got Spirit, Yes We Do

Question: How do you have tons of fun on a Friday afternoon?

Answer: If you're a member of the slam crew, you go back to high school!

Last Friday, a small delegation of the crew loaded up the Slammobile and drove out to Chippewa Falls High School where we dazzled the student body with one of our trademark "porta-slams"—which roughly translates into "portable poetry slam." They rock.

Tell you what: those kids at Chi High can write. First place went to charismatic Senior Eric Rykal, who read a poem about things that make him angry. Whenever we go to Chippewa, they've got a jazz band on stage pounding out segue jams as each poet walks to the mic. It's like being on the Tonight Show, only it's much cooler and not televised and a bell goes off every 40 minutes.

This was the third high school slam we've done in 2005. The first was a small but lively affair in the Memorial High School Library Media Centre as part of their Snow Week. Or Snow Carnival. Or Snow Ball Parade of Lights or something. The second was at North High School, where slam crewman Eric Rasmussen took over as slam master. Eric is currently interning at North as a Physical Education instructor. The kids call him "Mr. E-Rizzy."

Anyway, it always leaves a warm, fuzzy, strawberry shortcake feeling in our hearts when we do these things. The kids at Chi High were enthusiastic about slamming, and they were very respectful of their poet-classmates. It was more fun than last autumn's Tupperware party.

We usually get some local people to help us out—so a big 'thank you' goes out to our sacrificial poets: Aryn Widule and Ian Jacoby.

Attention Dork Poets!

If you're a nerdy poet who used to watch a lot of Star Trek and play a lot of Atari—we have found your role model. Ernie Cline (who's all grown up now) is a comic book-loving uber-dork trapped in the body of a married adult man. His spoken word is funny stuff and you can listen to it here.