More Memory Lane/Posts I Should have Written Months Ago

Well now folks, it's been one hell of a year for us Ruthless Hippies. The Poetry Ruckus has grown fast at it's loving home Ducky Waddle's Emporium. We have found more of our kind all over the North County San Diego area and beyond.

As a preamble to the announcement of our next Ducky Waddle's Poetry Ruckus (march 24th) and newest night E-Street Cafe Freak for All (March 29th)...oh yeah and our booth at San Diego IndieFest (March 27th)...as a preamble to all of those official announcements, let's take a walk down memory lane:

RUCKUS #1





Shop owner Jerry Waddle had this to say about the evening:

The Poetry Ruckus premiered to an SRO crowd at The Duck, on a cold and windy late October night in Leucadia. Your host welcomed MC Michael who presented us with a full performance card of twenty poets reading and reciting their work along with snippets of Kerouac. Memorable forays were plentiful. Belinda Rachman's dissertation on penis envy and her treatise on the short comings of divorce lawyers were particularly striking. Wabidoux Rob Bell brought it early with a full chapbook of verse spanning decades and a reminiscence of Alan Watts. Bruce Stephens closed the set with a convincing argument for getting close to the real God while riding on a surf board. After a brief intermission the guest of honor for the evening, Edwin Decker entertained with recent poems, self deprecating and bold, extended and minimalist, a few memorable columns, some personal insights and readings from his book Barzilla. It was a memorable evening.

and Citybeat said this:



RUCKUS #2



It was another SRO crowd and the night was filled with high voltage. Wayne Acciacca got up and brought the the audience so close to the action with his vision of Burning Man Festival you could taste the desert sand. UCSD students had a large contingency with Alec Venida mashing up words and meanings, Jesus Castillo delivering impassioned verse and Jared Muscat reading a poem about running down stairs and then dropping the Freudian slip of the century. Ted Washington stopped by with some fresh new nhilistic stylings and Melinda Ferrer read about the beautiful boy from some sort of toy megaphone contraption. So many awesome poets that night, I wish I had the time and memory to name them all. But guest Belinda Rachman brought the ruckus in a big way, reading some memoir style musings on her delightfully colorful family life and teaching days. Finally, she capped a highly entertaining and varied set with some crowd pleasers on the topics of penis envy and divorce lawyers.



RUCKUS #3



On this dark and stormy evening, the gods spared us from those power outages that had become frequent in Leucadia over the past month. And despite the weather, a solid crew of 30 plus came out to enjoy a fine evening of poetry. Mauricio Flores brought politics straight to the floor in his short fiery poems. Young poets and new poets were a theme of the night, with Haley Jensen and Tori Anderson exorcising the demons of their diaries and a brave middle school aged boy reading sweet lines about his mother. Rai White, Tracy Yudichack and Chris Fantozzi were all newcomers to the Ruckus and they all rocked the house. John Wesick was the surprise treat of the evening, twisting our imaginations with his hilarious Drug-Ads written by Jungians. And the night was capped by a high energy, highly interactive and highly entertaining session with Ted Washingon. He brought the crowd to the edge of its seat with his shorts on war and his love for love making. These things keep getting better and better!