A VERY LONG and NOT VERY TRUE story about a night that in many purely metaphorical ways never happened (you've been warned)…

Sorry if either of my posts offend anyone, I mean no harm in their creation I was just trying to have fun with an assignment that had no real rules if you know what I mean. Hope they work. Just wanted to say thank you to the facilitators for taking the time to start a decal about art and being enthusiastic through the entire experience, you were all great!

As I stepped out the backdoor, descending down into a concrete corridor where we keep the jankiest cleaning supplies of them all (and by janky I mean some serious industrial-strength degreasers and some inexplicably sticky hoses), I suddenly remembered there was somewhere, many “wheres” actually, I’d much rather be in the present. Earlier in the week, as I wandered aimlessly through Sproul with a look of earnest concentration on my cursedly amiable face, a flyer caught my uncontrollably sparkling eye’s attention. Lacking a countenance that could crush such cursory curiosity, like the kind of stern “flyer” swatter snarls that many avid Sprouler’s sprawl across their face as they head to off to “class” (Doe library to check facebook), I had no choice but to take what my damned baby face seemed to crave like gerber grapplesauce (open up for the AIRplane wooovroomyummy). Meanwhile the lucky ones unscrew their snarls and store them in their trendy bag of tricks (somewhere between a half-finished, two-day old Daily Cal crossword, a never-been-opened book they’ve been “reading for fun” since freshman year, and an embarrassingly sentimental, graduation-gift keychain with initials like BF4E or the worst palindrome of them all, MOM) and scurry off to go smile at a screen. I, on the other hand, begrudgingly opened my slightly soiled palm to this stranger like Jesus to his followers (even the annoying ones). After I so graciously accepted the flyer and read (aloud for no particular reason): SOLOMON SPARROW’S ELECTRIC WHALE REVIVAL. A closer reading revealed a more relevant revelation, this live marine mammal benefit I was stoked to see after reading the headline was in fact similar but not entirely the very same “Free Willy-Fi” type of charity event I was overly excited to be part of. It was in fact a show that was touted in much smaller print (more suitable for whispering really) as “a spoken-word theater experience like no other” by the lovelily overstressed and underburdened overachievers at Superb. Bless their little resumes. Based on their word, which is solid gold in my freshly unopened, uhhum… “pleasure reading” book, I decided I would be there for the poor soul who had spared a one-ply square of crisp paper for a stranger like me when he gently shoved his four inches of bold text two inches from my unfurling face. Obviously doing so just in case I had forgot my prescriptions at home and illustrating just one more way campus folk always make sure everyone’s needs are considered, that is of course, before they litter all over them with their own, more pressing ones. Not bitter, I am not bitter, not even a little bit bitter. Just better. Just kidding. Anywho, I had this acid-induced flashback to that moment on Sproul as I was bending over in preparation for my own embarking upon a wood-floor mopping experience like no other when something struck me like 9 furious octipussy tentacles (I don’t even want to think about what the hell that ninth thing was) and I suddenly realized I had to get the fuck outta there. I dropped the cesspole of human drudgery from my hands like a used condom and bolted out across the unlubricated dining room floor until I was out of the oversized front door like a U.S. ally out of Iraq. One lost shoe, two broken old-people walkers, and three broken old-people plastic hips later I arrived at MLK’s Pauley Pavilion in record time. I had covered the busy block that separates campus from my house in record time, despite the fact that Barry Manilow was playing his final show at the Greek and a Senior-friendly Condo’s Governing Board had flown in from Florida, coincidentally, on the very same day. After I busted through the parade of saggy skin and replaced knees, scalped my own treasured ticket to one of the senile suckers (I am a big Fanilow myself), and convinced a geezer whom I am pretty sure was my second uncle that my shoe was worth at least one of his social security checks, I had enough money to buy the $8 ticket to see the spoken word show. As I sat down in the audience to enjoy the show I thought nothing could top the excitement of the journey it had taken to get there but boy was I mistaken. The performances did not disappoint for one second! Mike McGee confessed his undying love for pudding, Derrick Brown described his inspired date in hell, and three other past and present (intern)national champion slam poets by the names of Anis Mojgani, Buddy Wakefield, and Dan Leamen discussed everything from douches to Dogma. October 18, 2007 was a night to remember and one I wont soon forget, unlike my Uncle Don who keeps calling me to see if I left a shoe behind the last time I visited his place in the “Adooring Acres” retirement condos in Daytona. I just keep telling him I wont come back to get it unless he swears to not try to give me a noogie every single time I see him. And every time tell him to make that promise he just laughs until his asthma starts acting up again and chokes “we bof know that’s jusht naganna happen shonny boo!”