![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/jeremy-and-daniel.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Lightbulb-Mouth Radio Hour began as a beautiful dream where Write Bloody Publishing magnate Derrick Brown would play host to a cavalcade of talented and interesting people that would entertain, engage, and inform a stylishly appointed, attentive, and respectful audience. Of course, behind all this there was a secret agenda: To expand the audience for poetry. <\/p>\n
After a very successful run of weekly events, they called it quits. People missed it, though, and a few months ago the Hour was reborn, but with some significant changes<\/a>. The biggest change, though, was that Derrick was leaving<\/a> to save some money and hang with his father in Austin. <\/p>\n Now, it takes place every last Sunday of the month at Harvelle’s<\/a> in downtown Long Beach, from 6:30 until 9 PM. Also, there’s a team that puts the shows together. Jeremy Radin now hosts. Daniel Lisi and Adrian Wyatt help to put the shows together. <\/p>\n I asked Daniel what his role is. <\/p>\n “I work with creator of the show, Derrick Brown, at Write Bloody Publishing,” Daniel explained. “My job at the press is primarily booking and management oriented, so when the show kicked off again in February 2012, I was there to help bring together some of the talent for the show. At this point there isn’t really a specific roll for anyone. We all just assist in what needs to get done.” <\/p>\n I asked Jeremy how he got involved. <\/p>\n “When Lightbulb Mouth first started,” said Jeremy, “I had just started to get really excited about poetry. I found myself at a parking lot show in Long Beach, where I saw Derrick Brown and Mindy Nettifee read. I knew immediately I wanted to perform with them. A few weeks later, I sent Derrick an email and he asked me to come down and be the informationist at the next Lightbulb Show. I did, we hit it off, and he asked me to come back and be a fill in co-host. When we revamped it, since Mindy had moved, he signed me on as co-host with an eye on becoming primary host once he moved, and here we are.” <\/p>\n I asked Jeremy to explain the new format. <\/p>\n “Instead of three performers (musician, informationist, author), we do what is called a “Found Object Battle”, which consists of 5-7 writers (poets, comedians, journalists, fiction writers, etc) performing pieces they’ve written about an object we’ve sent them. The audience then votes on their favorite piece, and that author gets a cash prize, all the objects, and a 10 minute feature. <\/p>\n “So far,” said Jeremy, “it’s been working out great. It adds a bit of excitement and incentive for the performers to bring out the big guns. The audience has a blast. We still do the joke news at the beginning, commercials, and have a musical guest, so a lot of the original Lightbulb Mouth is alive in this one. <\/p>\n “We’ve found that one of the better ways to deliver the literary arts to a bar packed with eighty people is in short segments,” Jeremy explained. “This new format is a much more fast paced, engaging, audience-interactive experience that will get people really amped up about poetry without even realizing it.” <\/p>\n I asked about the kinds of found objects they’ve used. <\/p>\n “We’ve had a burnt golf ball, a set of walkie talkies, and Amber Tamblyn got a mannequin head that looked weirdly similar to her, which, even more weirdly, I just happened to have at my house. <\/p>\n “Every month we select six different writers, and six different objects from thrift stores, dumpster diving, art thieving, etc. We’ll then assign those objects to the writers depending on what we think will be most entertaining. Then, it’s rinse and repeat. We won’t recycle objects. Once it’s used, it’s used.” <\/p>\n I asked if some objects were better than others, giving an author some advantage over another. <\/p>\n “The authors are so creative,” said Jeremy, “that they are able to find one thing about the object to grab onto and then they go from there. We’ve seen pieces directly about the object, and pieces where the object is a springboard into a larger, almost unrelated idea. It’s all about where you choose to go with it.” <\/p>\n “Each of the six authors has 3-5 minutes to perform their piece about the object,” Daniel explained. “During this time, all we ask is that their performance \/ writing pertains to their object in some way.” <\/p>\n “As far as getting participants for the show,” said Daniel, “I just read a quote by Richard Nash of Soft Skull, who basically states that for the writer’s sake, the writer needs to break the cliche of being the isolated introvert. <\/p>\n “We’re looking for engaging individuals who share their beliefs and lives through writing, people that can grip an audience and cause a subtle change in the way they feel. Writers who don’t think getting on a stage and performing their work, really putting some emotional feel into it, is taboo. So we’ll often seek out people we feel meet this criteria, but we also accept people who approach us via email (writebloodydaniel@gmail.com<\/a>) with inquiries about participating in the show.” <\/p>\n “Also,” said Jeremy, “when we see people doing shows elsewhere that excite us, we approach them. Sometimes it works out that a performer is touring through town at the right time, and we nail them down to do the show.” <\/p>\n I asked if audience members, who might have lacked enthusiasm about poetry, leave as converts. <\/p>\n “Absolutely,” said Jeremy. “The poets we’ve had at the show are exciting, funny, instantly visceral. I think those audience members leave having had the revelation that live poetry can affect them just as much as live music; it can be that moving in the moment. That it doesn’t have to be thought about or analyzed in order to be understood. It hits them right there in the gut. I think that can be a big epiphany for a lot of folks, and the poets we get are the poets who we feel are the most adept at effecting that change in people.” <\/p>\n “There’s a massive misconception on poetry and the literary arts,” continued Daniel. “I feel there’s a sort of renaissance happening with shows like Lightbulb Mouth springing up across the nation. People are learning that poetry is a global, accessible, necessary thing.” <\/p>\n The rebooted series takes place on the last Sunday of every month at Harvelle’s in downtown Long Beach. I asked about the venue. <\/p>\n “It’s been phenomenal,” Daniel said. “Harvelle’s has been extremely accommodating, providing us with a great sound system, stage lights, and overall beautiful space to do the show. That, and the speak-easy vibe of the place is perfect for the kind of show LBM is.” <\/p>\n Those who dress in cocktail attire get $3 off the $8 admission. I asked why. <\/p>\n “I feel any chance to get dapper and go drinking is incentive enough to go to a show,” said Daniel, “but that’s just me. I think it’s simply a fun vibe to have a bunch of folks down in a basement bar dressed in their best suits and dresses.” <\/p>\n “I just love getting fancy,” Jeremy confessed. “I think it’s a throwback to the days when people would put on a tie to go to the theatre. Notice I did the “re” theatre cause we’re talking about fancy stuff.” <\/p>\n I asked Daniel what’s in the works for this Sunday’s Hour. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/jeremy-and-daniel.jpg\")
<\/p>\n