Chris Imperial, the imposing host of spoken-word events at Delray Beach restaurant Dada, invited New Times writer Amy Guthrie to judge venue's Durty Werdz poetry slam last week, and, she asserts, she was fuckin' down for that shit.
Guthrie was joined by Deerfield-based sex therapist Lori Sarvis, Boca Raton rapper Epitaph, and 2 Live Crew's DJ Mr. Mixx on a blue-ribbon panel. In honor of 2 Live Crew's old-skool dirty rhymes, the chant of the night was: "If you believe in having sex, say hell-fuck-yeah." Not a no in the house.
Durty Werdz has been loosely described as an erotic poetry slam, and indeed, the monthly event is a raunchy affair. Entrants moan, groan, slurp, and gyrate. They wax poetic about threesomes and oral sex and getting reach-arounds from trannies. Holy Mother of Perversion!
Guthrie's favorite contestant was a pregnant young woman named Pioneer. She started out one rhyme by singing the theme to Three's Company, followed by lines like these:
"Just the night before she had crossed that path, made beautiful music in triple time — with two notes, on one staff line." Deep.
Then this:
"He dared, she told the truth, and they played seven minutes in heaven. Only they divided three into a square root and got 11, 'cause there was orgasm after orgasm." Deeper, with subtle references to the 'Pipe's favorite 24/7 convenience store. (Uh, he did get that right, didn't he?)
Alas, the high-toned Guthrie was outvoted, and Pioneer took second place.
Imperial, the host with the most, takes a more direct route to the erotic side, at one point launching into gospel-inspired song. Guthrie had just taken a gulp of water when the dreamy crooner, in a heartbreakingly beautiful voice, murmured: "I was wondering... [long, pregnant pause] if I could eat your pussy for an hour." Guthrie was caught so off-guard that she almost shot water out of her nose.
Imperial will lead a team of South Florida spoken-word all-stars to a national competition in Wisconsin this week. Mazel tov, bon voyage, and forgive the 'Pipe if he skips the goodbye kiss.
A Little Less Conversation
What's it all about, Mary? It's about breaking free, says Broward's very own porn diva, Mary Carey, hostess of a Swingfest gathering at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood last weekend, bubbling with the kind of liberating information that would-be swingers need to get over the hump.
Tailpipe stuck around for a couple of eye-opening seminars. At "Swinging 101," Georgia couple Bren and Dean offered a newbie's guide to swinging and some techniques for identifying like-minded souls. They have devised a color wristband system to help strangers figure out just what type of couple they're zeroing in on (a yellow bracelet means that couple will do only a "soft swap," as in touching and fondling but no intercourse). Dean says most couples reach for the green band, which signals they're down for a "full swap," penetration and all. It's a kinky twist on the LIVESTRONG bracelets popularized by Lance Armstrong.
Then comes "It's On! Now What?" with a couple named John and Allie.
A lot of swingers say that they're shy, our instructors note. True enough. Couple after couple attest to awkward moments and impulse-killing conversation standing in the way of successful trysts. A few audience members are goaded into volunteering to demonstrate some ice-breaking techniques. John blindfolds one husband and informs him that he'll be guessing which breast belongs to his wife. The wife and someone else's wife lift their bras, and tits spill out. The crowd giggles. The husband guesses correctly.
The audience is warming up, though. Several couples raise their hands to share tips for "sealing the deal." One technique: Start talking preferences (No, my hubby doesn't want a finger up his bum). Bring along your bag of sex toys. Or just get naked. John, the moderator, finds inspiration in these last two. "So," he summarizes, "toys... take your clothes off... Everything I needed to learn about swinging, I learned in kindergarten!"
The 'Pipe pops into "UnLEARN," with construction-worker-turned-lifestyle-author Richard Wood, but the battered cylinder is by now vibrating with sensory overload. Wood describes himself as a Jersey boy with a mediocre-sized member. In a series of fuhgeddaboudit zingers, Wood insists that the swinging lifestyle can work for monogamous drones.
"Imagine eating your favorite dish — every... single... night for the rest of your life," he says. "That's a recipe for misery."
By the time Wood rolls into his finale, he's sounding like the Nathan Hale of free lovers. "If you love someone, you want them to have their muffins. Do vanilla couples get married to cock-block each other? Do they look at somebody and say, I want that person to NEVER have sex with anyone else again, so I'm going to marry them?" Actually, not.
Tailpipe exits the hotel past the beachfront pool packed with bathers bobbing in the water like nubby little carrot sticks in a soupy crudités dip. Back on A1A, the 'Pipe pokes clumsily into the traffic, and a woman in a sports car swerves around him. "Idiot!" she shouts.
Ah, that's a little more like it.
Stabbed in the HART
The Hollywood Arts District, or HART, has been promising residents a bounty of art and culture since at least 2004, when the city gave a green light to developers Gary Posner and Patricia Peretz. Tailpipe remembers how the well-connected pair came into town like the Music Man, promising a condo, a theater, a charter school, and, gosh knows, a Hollywood arts scene to rival 16th-century Florence. As a mark of their arts-loving munificence, they bought the old Hollywood Playhouse on Washington Street, promising a lively program of theater and entertainment, all of which would soon be relocated to new facilities on Young Circle.
Shortly after they sealed a $7 million deal with the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, though, it was like "Ehh, maybe not..." Posner and Peretz shut the playhouse down (in the midst of rehearsals for a new production, no less) and downsized their commitment. Before their firm went belly up in 2006, it had delivered a charter school in four stories of an existing building but not much else.
This left the city facing a big financial loss. Key components of the development, like the parking garage for the Hollywood Bread Building at Federal Highway and Young Circle, could be seized by a bank for disposal at public auction. In that scenario, a private developer could gobble up the property, then either sell it to the city at a marked-up price or develop it in a way that defied the city's vision for an architecturally elegant downtown.
In a panic to avoid that kind of gouging — and desperate not to lose $3.5 million it had loaned to HART — the city hatched a deal with a new developer, WSG Development Group. The idea was to buy out Posner and Peretz's interest and pay back the $3.5 million. Cool? Got your back, WSG told the city. WSG was ready to go with a $120-million apartment tower, the 22-story ArtsPark Village at Young Circle. It just wanted a few minor plan alterations. Among these, WSG didn't want to supply parking for those who owned space in the adjoining Home building, an 18-story tower on Young Circle. And, oh yeah. The company wasn't going to pay off its predecessors' loan.
In April, Commissioner Beam Furr feistily vowed that he'd vote against the project if WSG failed to accommodate the agreed-upon parking spots for owners in the Home building. Minus Furr's vote, the new plan didn't have a shot.
Of course, WSG wasn't paying big bucks to superlobbyist Alan Koslow just to get pushed around by Commissioner Blowhard. The developer returned to the commission last week, unveiling an architectural monster that only its mama could love. The commission consensus: WSG's proposed sky-blocking condo tower is way too high and, by most accounts, way too ugly.
The developers ignored Furr's demand for more parking — and why not? They still got his vote. You think Koslow will remember Furr's magnanimity when it's time to make campaign contributions in the next election cycle?
