She laughs in her sleep. He transcends poetry

A couple of weeks ago a conversation about a film about slam poetry came up on Scott Woods' Facebook page. It did not sound like a good film, but I went to Amazon to check on its availability. Turns out, the DVD cost six bucks and change, which included shipping, so I bought it and thought we could invite a few people to the house, have a few beverages and razz the shit out of the movie. MST3K style.

It got a bit bigger than that, Scott booked a room for us, and a dozen people showed up for a screening of the film Street Poet.



Now, you may be confused by the title Fighting Words. That is because the film was originally released in 2007 with that title, then, for some unknown reason, perhaps to squeeze a few more pennies out of the turd, it was re-released with the new title.

I was intrigued because Fred Willard appeared as Longfellow, the host of the poetry slam. It also had Fred "The Hammer" Williamson as some sort of Mr. Miyagi type character. One of the stars is C. Thomas "Pony Boy" Howell, with an abusive soul patch. Plus, a character named Benny the Heckler. How can you not want to see a film that has a character named Benny the Heckler?

The poets gathered. There was pizza, Twizzlers and Swedish Fish. Minutes into the film, a poet mentioned the term "Third Eye." The DVD was paused so Slam Bingo Cards could be made.



There were so many poetry cliches mentioned, "The best poet always loses."Tomorrow, the days will talk backwards." "A heart the size of the ocean." But the poetry was not the worst part of the film. It was not very well acted, and the script and direction were poor. It was far from the worst film ever, but really, there's a reason few have heard of this nonsense.

Our young poet lived in a garage, was behind on his rent and read his landlord sexy poetry to get a delay in payment. This also implied that it was done before, successfully. Kind of creepy.

Our poet was trying to be success at his local scene, to poor results. Then, he was discovered by a woman at a publishing company. They were adversarial at first, but then they were about to have sex in his garage/home.

At a crucial moment, she revealed she was HI-V Positive. Poet goes to the store, presumably for condoms, but ends up adding a bottle of Jaegermeister to his order and roams around the neighborhood, drinking while watching a children's soccer match, leaving our hottie in bed with just a bra and panties on.

Somewhere in there the line, "Barebacking is only for horses."

Our hottie was in a relationship with a successful poet, played by Pony Boy, who sees the young poet as competition.

Soon, there will be a big slam. The Poetron Slam, with first prize as $25,000.

Before this though, is one of the most excruciating sex scenes ever committed to film; complete with the longest donning of the condom. Ever. This is the scene that inspired my poem Condom Kabuki.

Fred Willard is the host of the slam. He's no Marc Smith. Not even close. The slam goes down. The word "invomitation" is invented. Alexis won Slam Bingo. There is a comeuppance, but remember. The best poet always loses.

I've probably forgotten a few key points of the film, but its for the best. The condom scene though, cannot be unseen.

After the film, Scott had a thread going on Facebook that ripped it apart, then a person who actually worked on the movie had some comments - which steered the conversation back to the respectable. A film is like any job project, you go in with some positive expectation, then stuff goes horribly wrong, egos clash and the project bombs. So, I learned a little from the thread. The film still sucks though!