June 6, 2009

Server Glitch, Other Issues, Other News

Apologies to anyone who had trouble accessing PoetsHaven.com, neopoets.org, or any of the other sites I host last night.  There was a glitch on the server that caused errors whenever a PHP script tried to run.  (Almost everything here runs through PHP.)  The glitch was fixed late Friday night / early Saturday morning, and everything is now back to normal.  Nothing was lost during this time, the pages were simply unable to load.

Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven episode 23 should have been released by now.  Here's what's going on there.  After a stressful day last Sunday, I woke up Monday morning to discover that I'd bitten down on my tongue in my sleep again.  While it wasn't as bad as when this happened in February, I am once again having trouble speaking clearly.  Episodes 23 and 24 will be released soon, but will feature a guest emcee.  As for how to stop this from happening again, once my tongue is healed, I'm going to get to the dentist and see about getting some kind of mouth guard to wear at night.  I know this has to be stress related, but I don't foresee any reduction in my stress level anytime soon.  I do know that I cannot allow this to happen again.  I heal slow as is, and I need to be able to speak and perform at shows.  Especially this month's show. ;-)

June 20th's Saturday Night With The Poet's Haven event is coming together quite nicely.  While the show I had originally been planning did not work out (that would be the above mentioned stress from last Sunday), I have changed the direction of the show a bit, targeting a different section of the NE Ohio poetry scene.  As much as I often lament how many small factions make up the poetry scene around here, all of these groups share respect for the others.  Most of the poets I've come to know belong to at least two of these groups.  One advantage a show like The Poet's Haven has amid all this is that if a "competing event" is announced, we can simply target a different audience than the other show.  We still want to draw as many poets and performers as possible, but we don't have to be in direct competition with another poetry event.  In the end, this motivates me to put together some very unique shows rather than following the trends and featuring the same poets as everyone else.  The shows are better for it.

I don't want to say too much, but I'm planning something for this show that you have to be there for.  Something that will NOT be used in the podcast.  Something involving me on the microphone.  This is your chance to see me embarrass myself in front of an audience.  It will NOT be repeated.  And, yes, I will be hitting the big three-zero right before this show.