mother tongue media . tales of ordinary madness

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS READING SERIES 1998-2003

It’s spoken
word
madness.
It’s wholesale lip-dribbling dub/sonnet/hiphop mania.
It’s back - to - bacchanalia.
It’s a
rib-sticking
wake.

GEORGIA STRAIGHT
2001

Tales of Ordinary Madness was one of Vancouver, BC's longest running weekly spoken word series from 1998 to 2003, second only to the Black Sheep Books series. It took place every Tuesday night from 9:30pm to 12am in the heart of East Vancouver at Bukowski's on Commercial Drive. It was yelled, spilled, broken, spoken word in an open mic format with frequent special guests coming in from across the city, across the country and across the continent in the spirit of free expression.

The series was founded by poet Susan Mullen in August of 1998. She did an excellent job running it for two years before passing it on to me (Mother Tongue Media) in July of 2000. After running the series for a year and half, I passed it on to poet Andrea Papineau in early 2002 for six months and the torch was passed to poet The Svelte Ms. Spelt until summer 2003 when it gracefully faded into Canadian spoken word history.

Tales was the subject of several radio commentaries, community television documentaries and at the end of my run as host and producer, film students from Vancouver Film School made a documentary about the series called Speak Up (2002) which featured poets The Svelte Ms. Spelt, Salmon Avalanche and Zeechillah the Great (RIP).

Bukowski's was a regular gathering place for scores of independent local and international poets, writers, musicians, performers and artists of all genres on the cusp of the new century. I'd like to give a big thankful shout out to all the artist barflies - you are all blessed: Susan Mullen, Andrea Papineau, The Svelte Ms. Spelt, Ted Joans, Jim Christie, C.R. Avery, Shane Koyczan, Kagan Goh, Fernando Raguero, S.R. Duncan, Laurie Bricker, Susan Cormier, Conrad Sarsnick, Rocco de Giacomo, Salmon Avalanche, R.C. Weslowski, Abby Wener, Angelo Renai, Al Mader, Anna Martin, Mark Berube, Shayne Koyzan, Jim Christie, George Scaba Koller, Diane Laloge, Gary Carlson, Katrin Bowen, Laurent Fough, Marc Callender, Mahatma Slim, Noelle Pion, Vic Licorish, Vincy Kamberk, Reese McBeth, Roger Blenheim, Rachel Flood, Robert Waltz, John from the Bukowski kitchen, Zeechilla the Great (RIP) and T.Paul Ste.Marie (RIP); forgive me if you are not listed here... contact me if you think you should be.