pink wapping

 

in the undergound tube on the way to cabaret poetical’s open mic last night, kathy says we have to change from the orange line to the pink line at whitechapel. i don’t do no pinks lines, i reply. pink lines are for feminists. pink lines are for commies. pink lines are for girly men. i’m a manly man, i say. i don’t do pink – unless it’s pussy … i do do pink pussy.

she stares at me. then says we have to get off at whitechapel. so i start singing “going to the chapel and we’re gonna get ma-a-ar-ied, going to the chapel of love.” she stares some more. so i explain it’s ‘chapel of love‘ by the dixie cups – then say that’s wrong, it can’t be the dixie cups, cuz they’re black, and this is whitechapel, so it must be elvis’s version, cuz he’s white. she looks at me some more.

then we come to the wapping stop and i say you know what stop this is? she says what. i say wapping, and lightly wap her back and forth across her cheeks. she’s laughing too hard by now to stare. on the way back, i ask her, do you know the next stop. she says no. i say wapping, and wap her some more. she says i’m way too far past my bedtime. we wake up this morning and she waps me back. ah, that’s the way to start the day – with a good wapping.

last night’s reading was great. had 10 minutes – had all their attention, all the time. it helps reading from memory because i can watch their faces, their eyes. after i read, the m.c. said well, what can i say.

i find good stuff works wherever. start with something funny and short, then intersperse pure punch poetry with more humorous stuff, and you have them on your side every time. and my damaged voicebox tom waits voice helps too. so far we’ve read at the poetry cafe, the foundry, cabaret poetical. three totally different venues with folk who know us not. part of this journey is to see if i have the power i think i do – and i do. it would be false humility to say otherwise… and no one has ever accused me of false humility – or real.