Speakeasy Holiday Toast-Off

Drinking? Sure, it's OK. But this, oh my children, is America (fuck yeah). And there is nothing that can't be improved on with a little healthy competition. So it is that Speakeasy presents it's perennial holiday favorite: The Toast-Off. On Tuesday, Dec. 21 at 9:30 p.m., eight of the funniest patsies your host could find will engage in a competitive toasting match. No, not the toast you eat with eggs. The kind you do with a drink in your hand.

This ingeniously stupid idea was first thunk up by touring poet Christian Drake, and it involves a little improv, a little poetry and a lot of hangover. Competitors will face off head-to-head, composing on-the-spot toasts to a variety of subjects pulled out of a hat. The funniest/cleverest/poignant-est toast wins, as decreed by our panel of celebrity judges. Best of three goes on to the next round. Do the math, and this adds up to a lot of drinking, both for our competitors and for the crowd that happens to be toasting along. We'd tell you how much fun this was when we did it at the Fringe Festival last May, but we don't remember a goddamn thing.

Tuesday. Dec. 21. 9:30 p.m. Free. No excuses. There may well be the usual open mike later, pending consciousness.

Team-Up week!

The advantages of attending the National Poetry Slam are manifold. A whole week of rad poetry. Radder poets. Booze. Honor. Glory. Booze. There's just one downside: It's expensive as a motherfucker.

Your host is a three year veteran of this little circus, and he hasn't forgotten about that part. So it is that he'll be inviting his teammates in the Orlando Slam Poetry Team to knock y'all out with their best poems next Tuesday. And they'll have copies of the exclusive 2010 team chapbook available for sale, so you can in turn knock us out with kindness. Come see Kendra Corrie, Curtis Meyer, Ronin, Shannon Kortbek and yours truly pull out the stops. Yes, there'll be a sign-up for the open mike as well. Admission free as always, but bring a little extra scratch if you'd like a chapbook. It's quality stuff, and helps a broke-ass team represent your burg.

9:30 pm! Tuesday July 20! Will's Pub!

And! If you've got any steam left that week, hop across the street to the Peacock Room on Thursday, July 22 at 9:30 pm for a Masquerade Ball benefit for Emotions Dance Company. Their next show in October is a "Poetry in Motion" collaboration with J. Bradley, Curtis Meyer and Tod Caviness. Screw suffering for art - give us purty gals dancing to our poetry! Get a preview of that sort of thing at the benefit show, featuring drinks, costumes, and spoken word by the aforementioned cool people.

Joining Aunt Flo

Change! Anticipation! The Speakeasy embraces those things. So it is that we're going monthly as of May. Mark your calendar for the all-new date on the 3rd Tuesday of every month at Will's Pub. Next one up is Tuesday, May 18.

The new casual schedule not only gives your host's liver the time it needs to recover, but also affords the opportunity to make every month the big to-do it oughta be. To wit: This coming Speakeasy coincides with the coming of the Orlando Fringe Festival and therefore the Poetry Vending Machine. So! We're doing a practice run. Poets will challenge each other in the leadup to the Speakeasy, providing each other with a title and 3 words to use in their poems. See what they come up with or join in! Comment below and we'll backchannel you with all the details.

Feature time

Oh, Speakeasy. You don't call, you don't write, you don't blog. Well, step off, buddy. This is a house of LITERATURE! We're busy writing world-changing shit over here. Got better things to do than catalog the contents of our navel on some blog.

OK, you got us. We've been lazy.

However! Now's as good a time as any to let you know about our feature for March 23. (Yes, that's today. Like I said, lazy.) Drop by Will's Pub at 9 p.m. and say howdy to David Keali'i Mackenzie, who'll be bringing a truckload of Polynesian-flavored poetry all the way down from Worcester, Mass. Turn your computer 90 degrees and check him out.

After that? Back again on on the 30th for two weeks in a row of open mike goodness. After that? Stay tuned. We've got news about Speakeasy-related shenanigans at the 2010 Fringe Festival, including the first ever Toast-Off on the outdoor stage.

Thor brings the lightnin'

We're immortal! Speakeasy's (and Orlando's) favorite daily sketch artist Thomas Thorspecken has a dandy rendering of our humble open mike posted up on his Analog Artist Digital World blog. If memory serves, he was at Will's back in October for a night featuring the touring poets of Code Octopus. Nice work, Thor! You've captured our seedy little gathering perfectly and exposed Trevor Fraser's sordid porn addiction in the bargain.

Our poetry sucks

We just recently had this knowledge dropped on us. Luckily, we've come to terms with it just in time for next week's special guest Darren Ohl! If you remember that name from Speakeasys of old, you'll want to drop by and welcome him back on his short vacation from the wilds of Oregon. If you don't remember that name, you'll just have to chew on this: Darren will be doing a special charity tribute to Glenn Beck. I'm trying to keep my expression really, really straight for that statement. If you'd like to see my poker face break down, drop by next Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 9 pm and say hi to Darren. Regular open mike takes place as usual.

And hey! In the meantime, you'll still want to hit up the Artists and Writers Pub Crawl on Saturday, Dec. 12. Your hangover should be just about settled by Tuesday so you can come and tell us all about it.

Speakeasy Holiday Toast-Off: The Rules

It has rules?

Anybody who remembers the last one might forgiven for thinking not. Despite the rampant heckling, the drunken blasphemy and the general chaos, we're doing it again. The next Speakeasy Toast-Off will throw down at Will's Pub on Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 10 p.m. Interested in competing? Curious about boring minutae? Here's what you need to know. The rules that follow, with a few house exceptions, are the brainchild of competitive toasting's founder (as far as we know), Christian Drake:

GRAND PRIZE: Ornate beer stein, a $20 gift certificate to Total Wine, and goodies from behind the bar at dear old Will's Pub. The top two competitors will have their bar tab taken care of for the duration of the match. There's your hook.

- Sign-ups begin at 7 p.m. - see the bald guy sitting behind the Poetry Vending Machine table at the Arte Faire, taking place prior to the Toast-Off from 6-9 p.m. We'll take first come, first served up to a max of 8 competitors. Format will be head-to-head elimination.

- Rounds will consist of three toasts on a random subject drawn from a hat. The first toaster in each round (selected at random) will have 40 seconds to come up with a toast. After he/she has delivered the toast, his opponent has an additional 20 seconds to come up with his/her own. Competitors must take a healthy swig at the end of each toast (both theirs AND their opponent's). Winner is decided by majority rule of a panel of celebrity judges; best 2 out of 3. Final round will be best 3 out of 5. The winner must finish his/her beer by the end of each round.

- Toasts must be traditional, which is to say they should begin with "May ..." or "Here's to ..." There is no time limit on the duration of toasts, but trust us on this: Brevity will work in your favor.

- No, really. Not kidding on that last one.

Anyone interested in signing up early can comment on this post - I'll save you a spot provided you show up at the venue before 9 pm. Start stocking up on hangover remedies now, true believers. See you there.