Wayman Barnes 5.6.01

My San Diego Diary

~Ahmad calls me and asks if we would like to go to San Diego for the annual Love Jone's Poetry Night. I tell him that San Diego is a long way to drive for a poetry reading. He tells me that it is being sponsored by the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority. I tell him that I will be there.

~I find out that Frankie doesn't share my fascination with sororities. In fact, she doesn't seem to like them at all.

~So I go alone. San Diego is a long trip! Especially in this traffic. And I have brought the worst mix tape ever recorded. I must have been high when I made this. It is a strange combination of the Chemical Brothers and Paul McCartney.

~I am early. UCSD is a very strange place. It is too Sci-Fi for my tastes. I am going to check out the beaches.

~Wow! This is the California I always dreamed of growing up - all bikinis and bushy blond hairdos. I really need a convertible. ~I am eating something called a rolled-up taco. I am going to call it a taco-in-a-straw, because that is what it looks like. They give you a bunch of these (since they are so skinny) and then top them with guacamole and lettuce. The whole thing is very tasty. And the lettuce (no joke) is the best I ever tasted.

~The reading is at the Cross Cultural Center. It is in a very wooded area of the campus. It reminds me of summer camp.

~There is a big turnout!

~Ahmad and Damon are doing a great job of getting the UCSD students to get up and read their poetry (I was afraid it was going to be just the Green people). It is always great to see someone share their poetry in front of an audience for the first time.

~Damon is being very funny.

~The second half of the show is a slam competition. The students give it the " Old college try " (sorry), but King Lyric G takes the Grand Prize anyway. With Jasmine coming in a very close second.

~We are now eating at Denny's (a Green tradition, apparently). It seems like we have brought a big chunk of the audience with us.

~I am sooo tired. I don't even want to think about the long drive home.

~Gaknew needs a ride home. Ahmad (his ride down here) is a streetracing fanatic and wants to show all the streetracers in San Diego who is boss before he leaves.

~I don't think Gaknew likes my Chemical Brothers/Paul McCartney mix tape.

~I try to keep the conversation going to keep myself awake. Gaknew falls asleep in the middle of his sentence.

~He wakes up an hour later and finishes the sentence.

~Zzzzz.