Ramona Mooney and Steve Tills at Johnny Otis Cabaret

 

Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Spencer Selby, Kit Robinson, Lyn Hejinian at Johnny Otis Cabaret (no date, flyer)

when I tried to fix a typo for this post on Ron Silliman’s Facebook page, I got thrown in Facebook jail. I would love to know when these poets read because I don’t have a flyer for them. I do remember Kit’s reading.
 

Letter to Johnny Otis, re: RRWG Scheduling SNAFUs

Dear Johnny,

First, let me say CONGRATULATIONS on your well-deserved awards! Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. YES! I hope you enjoyed the African Poetry & Mother Earth issues I left you. I left some for Nick too at the café, but I don’t know if he got them. I didn’t put them in his box.

About the Russian River Writers’ Guild poetry series—we’re facing some restructuring because David Bromige is quitting out of shee frustration due to conflicting communiques. Problems include finding another MC for Tuesday night, or switching to Monday, door percentage, and communication—the chain of command at the club. I have two people who can participate on Monday nights (they teach classes on Tuesdays) and I can’t carry the burden of the series alone (see P.S.). If we can quickly find MC’s for alternate Tuesdays, then the problem is temporarily alleviated. I realize Jim Kohn’s a key link for your weekly scheduling—maybe it’s merely a case of too many fish (or chains) in the stewpot but we are having a communication problem. Hence this letter.

Ironically, the idea of booking poetry on Monday vs. Tuesday night came up when Jim was thinking of moving us to Monday nights. He said the music nights were so financially successful (& overbooked) he wanted to expand the music programming.

Faced with the prospect of being bumped from the club, of course we agreed to switch to Monday nights, and booked readers on Mondays beginning in Feb.; we already had Jan. schedule in place by Oct. 

Then in Dec., I guess Jim either forgot, or changed his mind, telling David, “What am I going to do with Tuesday nights? Go dark?” To accommodate Jim we changed back to Tuesdays. To make a long story short, just like in the game, “telephone,” the story kept changing each time we talked to Jim (or his machine), which led to David’s quitting. Jim told David that I’d requested Mondays when I said “Monday were always our first choice and yes, I’ll ask the other coordinators about switching.” They agreed to it, and I told Jim, “OK, we’ll switch.”

We were asked to give the club $1 per head (1/2 the pot) in Jan. by Jim, but you said we could begin paying our $1 tithe in Feb., not Jan. We’d already promised the Jan. door to scheduled readers, and publicity (including admission $) was out Oct. (At the last minute Jim told us we had to charge $4 starting in Jan.; the Jan. calendar was late; it was impossible to reach him in Dec. so we couldn’t deliver mailing list to him, etc.—were other bones of contention.) In retrospect, it would’ve made more sense to meet with both you and Jim in Nov. to work out the details together. (A note: if the club is losing money, may I suggest using only one counter person on poetry nites?)

Each item is very minor and is certainly workable—but it’s stressful when the changes affects so many of us; we’re already donating countless unpaid hours of our time, and coordinating so many people. As an organization, we’ve been in existence for nearly 25 years; it’s always been a labor of love. 

Working too long with a shoestring budget means the string eventually breaks. Something as minor as raising the door to $4 could be our swan song, the death of the series—if the aurdience won’t come. Even at $3 we’re running on nervous! (We’re still adjusting to the fact that we need to give 1/3 of our pot to the door—at the Senior Center our rent was $5 per night.) 

And because we pull in so little, we’re not eligible to make use of some matching grants to pay poets. Since you do need door money from us, we’d like to try to find a way to eventually underwrite the series—someone to pay the “rent”—like the Sonoma County Community Foundation as we are a non-profit arts organization. But we won’t see any funding until summer when the awards are announced.

We’re grateful that you’ve allowed us the opportunity to use the space. Because of your generosity, poetry in Sonoma County has been seriously revitalized, and we’re just now developing a strong poetry audience after years of benign neglect. It would be a shame to quit. We love the space, the ambiance—and the fact the your counter people also like poetry—we even booked Rose Halliday for Feb. I hope we can work out the details but at this point, if I can’t replace David, I may have to drop out too. I’d like to see the series continue. I hope you’ll bear with us until we can work out the logistics.

Sincerely,
Maureen Hurley


P.S. On a more personal note, since I work in the schools as an artist in residence, (and schools are really broke this year), I have to generate jobs—my situation is critical. My father’s death in Dec. has tapped all my reserves—his assets were signed over to a co-worker (it looks like fraud, but I can’t afford legal advice)—leaving me with the burden and no recourse. I can’t absorb the time/cost of running the series.

Arthur and Kit Knight with Maureen Hurley at the Johnny Otis Cabaret

 

Joe Pahls, Leo Agnew, Steve Tils, Arthur & Kit Knight, Gere diGiorno, Judy Stedman, Rose Halady, KayAnn Pickins, Maureen Hurley, Ramona Mooney at Johnny Otis Cabaret