Dance, Monkeys, Dance

Every Friday night the Paducah Writers Group meets at Etcetera Coffeehouse and they have an open mic night where people read poetry, do some spoken word and play music. As I said one time to my friend Teri, "That's not the way I roll." It is not my thing. But for other reasons (that I'm not going to publish to the whole wide web), I started to go. Then that reason stop being a reason but I kept going. I was enjoying myself. Plus there isn't that much else to do in little old Paducah on a Friday night.

Then I was feeling a little guilty for just sitting there and listening and not contributing so I decided to read a poem. I wasn't planning to ever do it again. This was a one-time thing. I didn't read poem that I wrote, because that is not the way I roll. Really. I read the only poem I have ever memorized and I only memorized it because I had to for some school thing. It is called Majestad Negra by Luis Pales Matos. It went well, I think, even thought most of the people there couldn't understand a word of what I said. Which was a good thing because if I messed up, which I did a few times, nobody noticed.

But after that, I got a taste of it and like my music god, Colin Meloy said once "I was meant for stage" and I couldn't sit there in the corner and not be the center of attention anymore. I had to get up and read every week. So that very same night when I got home I searched the Internet (what would I do without the Internet) for some spoken word piece that was funny because that is more my style and decided to read it this week.

It wasn't easy to find spoken word in the Internet but I found Ernest Cline's web site and there I found the piece Dance, Monkeys, Dance and that is what I read. So if you didn't get to see it, which you probably didn't, here is a flash animation of Dance, Monkeys, Dance read by Ernest Cline that is probably 100 times better than my interpretation. Even thought I got a standing ovation... Ok, almost everybody did.