1994, Part 2.

One of the books I recently grabbed off my bookshelf to finally read was a book I bought in the 1996 (the receipt was still in it) and I never read - not even sure I opened it. The reason I made the purchase was because one of the authors was one of my professors in college, a professor that I thought was the coolest teacher I ever had... but that is a story for another time.

What was this literary purchase?  Revival: Spoken Word From Lollapalooza 1994.  Yep.  What a relic from a time gone by.  What a piece of crap.  If you do not remember 1994's Lollapalooza - well it was easy to forget, but it had this spoken word stage where almost anyone could sign up and spew out some random words (with tons of potty language) and call it poetry (or art?).  It was so 1994.  Maggie Estep and Jennifer Finch have entries in the book which right there makes it very 1994.  I think I ate up the spoken word stage at the time, but cannot recall... I mean it's not like I was an avid poetry slam attender (I've never been a fan of poetry), but I was way into being "cool" back then.  The kind of cool that gets attention.  What better way to grab attention than a mediocre poetry slam.  

So this book is full of "highlights" from the open microphone sessions that summer.  And it is so bad that I cannot seem to put it back on the shelf.  I must finish it.  Ug.  

Just in case you wanted to refresh your memory... Lollapalooza 1994 was:
Main Stage: The Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, The Breeders, A Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, L7, Boredoms, Green Day.
Side Stage: The Flaming Lips, The Verve, The Boo Radleys, The Frogs (first six dates only), Guided by Voices, Lambchop, Girls Against Boys, Rollerskate Skinny, Palace Songs, Stereolab, Fu-Schnickens, The Pharcyde, Shudder to Think, Luscious Jackson, God Lives Underwater, King Kong, Charlie Hunter Trio, Shonen Knife, Blast Off Country Style, Souls of Mischief, Cypress Hill, The Black Crowes.