It is a chilly, rainy night in Venice Beach. A crowd gathers at Beyond Baroque to see Buddy Wakefield perform his well-known selection of spoken word poetry. The crowd is informed that they are sitting in what was once a courtroom within the old Venice Beach City Hall. An energy fills the room, it is not nervous, but it is an energy. The space feels like an experimental black-box theater.
At this time of year the temperature in Southern California can be difficult to gauge, especially when it rains. We enter the space wearing jackets and sweatshirts. We remove them, huddle them in our laps, try to find comfort.
It should be mentioned, with a hint of irony, that this event occurs just days after the Washington Post responded to the poem read by Richard Blanco at the Presidential Inauguration with an article titled, "Is poetry dead?" And it should thusly be mentioned that on the same day as this event is occurring the Washington Post published a secondary article titled, "‘Poetry is not dead,’ says poetry".
Yet here we are, poetically gathered against all odds in one of the many mouths of the poetry-beast, also known as the Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center.
Given that he wrote a little poem called "My Town", I doubt Buddy Wakefield would ever be asked to read at a Presidential Inauguration. I'm pretty sure that amount of honesty can't exist in the presence of such pageantry. He is gay though, so that counts for something.
Surely spoken word isn't for everybody. I have plenty of friends who don't 'get' it. I have been writing poetry since I was eleven and I think I've compiled exactly eleven friends who speak the same language. But for those of us who do get it, when a poet as prolific as Buddy Wakefield expresses an opinion, a belief, or an emotion that you once thought you were alone in thinking, believing, or feeling, it changes you. As corny as that sounds.
What excites crowds like this about events like this is that a man like Buddy Wakefield has unabashedly written some awesome truths, he wrote them with passion, he put words in an order we had yet to discover for ourselves. He then delivered those words to us. What excites a crowd like this, gathered in an old courtroom, on a Friday night, is that that man is about to take the stage and express himself, honestly. And we as a crowd are willing to accept that honesty, to hear it, to embrace it, and to face it with him.
Before Buddy Wakefield takes to the stage we are met with our host Matt Sockolov who, with the assistance of girlfriend Elizabeth Key-Comis, put this event together. He in turn introduces the evening's first poet, Mr. Uncomfortable. A stage-name, I presume. Mr. Uncomfortable waltzes through two poems. He's obviously nervous, but he conquers his nerves amidst two lengthy pieces that contain some near-brilliant observations.
(Everything before this was just a setup. I should clarify, that this is not my attempt to critique the night or to report it in all accuracy. My want was to write some poetic wash of the evening to try and summarize the experience, instead I've suddenly found myself meandering and trying to incorporate some journalistic integrity.)
Buddy Wakefield takes to the stage. His presence alone is enough. I don't think he's learned this yet. But for the majority of people attending this event, and any event like it, his presence is enough.
He begins by glancing to stage left, standing back away from the mic, he sees an audience member on their cell phone and quietly asks, "You texting?" It's an honest moment, the exchange is ernest and quite humorous. It's enough to warrant a callback later in the evening.
It is obvious in the first few moments of the performance that Buddy is having difficulty being in the moment. He is even somewhat open about how nervous he is, how he feels as though he owes us something new. How he hasn't really been writing that intensely and how he doesn't want to just give us the same old pieces that he's known for.
He has a few new pieces he wrote in preparation for the evening. There's a piece directed to anyone who has ever worked for TSA or any form of airport security. There's a piece directed at those who claim to be defenders of family values. There's a piece about how much he hates Derrick Brown, which goes unread. And there's a new piece about the summer of 1984 that is funny and bold and full of cultural references. Somewhere in there is a brilliant reference to a human-Switzerland.
What strikes me about this night is that as soon as Buddy says he feels he owes us something new and doesn't want to regurgitate a bunch of old pieces, I can feel a room full of unique experiences quietly asking themselves, why? We'd be perfectly happy with Convenience Stores, My Town, Guitar Repair Woman, Flockprinter, Human the Death Dance, Pretend, Information Man, Crowbirds and Mockingbars, et al. Granted, we'd love some new metaphors to stick into our Facebook statuses, but we're also an audience with pockets full of chime shells waiting for him to chuck quarters at us.
There is a man a few feet away from me who can not contain himself. Who literally gets so excited during some parts of Buddy's performance that he can't help but turn to his friends and mouth along with the words. It reminds me of that footage from the Sage Francis concert when Buddy performs 'Human the Death Dance' and an entire audience of hip-hop enthusiasts can't help but recite the words with him.
In his introduction to 'Pretend' Wakefield strays from known variances and comments on how when he originally wrote the piece there were 6 billion people on the planet, how now there are 7 billion. He then makes my favorite observation of the night in which he correlates the incidences of homosexuality in a species with the rise of population in that species.
There are several moments where Buddy fidgets, gets nervous, tries to explain himself, or feels that he needs to explain himself. He says that Beau Sia may or may not be in the house, dressed as a woman, and that every time Beau Sia comes to a show, Buddy explains that it throws his energy off. An audience member reminds Buddy of vipassana. I can't help but think of shavasana. That's besides the point. The thing is, this nervous energy, the fidgeting, and the resulting stream of consciousness that comes from it, this is what excites this room full of people.
It comes honest.
In the middle of performing 'Convenience Stores' a distant fire alarm goes off in some adjacent building. Buddy stops. The audience laughs. "Your laughter tells me that you can hear it too." He continues the poem, even if he's a bit flustered, and as he gets to the line, "I feel like everything just got computerized," he repeats the last syllable -ized- over and over in succession with the beep of the fire alarm. It's an honest moment that nearly breathes new life into the piece. In some way the beep of the alarm encourages Buddy to escalate the projection of his voice. As the poem naturally builds, this serendipitous alarm sets a metaphoric fire in Wakefield, driving his energy and pushing the poem to its climax. By the time the poem is finished, the alarm is gone.
This is the reason we like Buddy Wakefield. This is the thing we come to see. The thing we want to feel. On a daily basis we are encompassed in a society that does not know how to be honest. Honesty does not come naturally. So, in the darkness of this former courtroom on a rainy Friday night, we have gathered here to share an honest moment. This is what we appreciate about him and thusly the moments that exist before, during, and after his poems. When he thinks he's not giving enough, he's forgotten what his presence alone does for these fans of his work.