Speakeasy Toast-Off: The Boring Details

It's getting mighty close, kids. Tuesday, July 28 marks the first ever toasting competition at Will's Pub. Maybe the first in the entire history of the planet! Go ahead, google it, nerd. Prove me wrong.

Anyway, the hook alone ought to be enough for you spectators. Interested in signing up to compete? Allow me to dangle these shiny prizes before you:

GRAND PRIZE: Ornate beer stein and a $20 gift certificate to Total Wine. The top two competitors will have their bar tab taken care of for the duration of the match.

There's your hook. Here's the rules:

- Sign-ups begin at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 28. We'll take first come, first served up to a max of 8 competitors. Format will be head-to-head elimination.

- Preliminary rounds will consist of three toasts on a random subject. Toasts must begin traditionally, with either the words "May .." or "here's to ..." They may not necessarily be toasts TO the subject, but must incorporate it in some way. The first toaster (selected at random) will have 30 seconds to come up with a toast. His opponent has an additional 15 seconds to come up with his/her own. Competitors take a healthy swig at the end of each toast (either theirs OR their opponent's). Winner is decided by the judges; best 2 out of 3. The winner must finish his/her beer by the end of the round.

- The final round will consist of four toasts, none of which will be judged individually - judges will rule on a winner at the end of the round.

Simple enough, yes? Speakeasy open mike will follow these shenanigans. Looking forward to this one like you wouldn't believe, folks. Someone make sure to stay sober enough to remember it ...

It's alive!

Thanks to all the cool kids who've been coming out lately! It's always nice when your host feels like he's earned his free beers.

Many, many cool things happening this month, both inside and out of Will's. As of this post, we're running Speakeasy uninterrupted through July, and there's a couple tangent events that I won't be too proud to plug here. Especially keep July 28 free, and you may want to eat a big dinner. We're gonna dry up some kegs; that's about all I can tell you at this point. There will even be some sort of literary excuse for doing so.

If you want to keep apprised of Speakeasy-related hoopla, your best bet is to look up your host Tod Caviness on Facebook. Please message me in the friend request, though - I'm picky about the invite stuff, my memory is awful bad on Wednesday mornings and them Facebook thumbnails of your face are awful small. You can also drop me an email at valis_jr at yahoo. Either way, I promise to pester you no more than once a week with event invites.

Oh, you want actual content? Sorry; I get carried away. How 'bout this snazzy flier Step Aside Butch made for us? Look for it on your finer Orlando coffee shelves and bathroom floors:

Speakeasy continues to return

Orlando's booziest, kewlest and humblest spoken word night keeps on keepin' on at Will's Pub this Tuesday June 30 at 9 p.m. with their special pre-July 4 edition. Come celebrate our independence with some flagrant abuse of the First Amendment! There won't be fireworks, but there will be fire-WORDS!* Hosted by Tod Caviness.

*Tod didn't write that "fire-words" thing. He would never do that.

Hiatus, but the next best thing is better

Poetry people! Stay your plans! A mere two weeks after kickoff, Speakeasy is taking a break. No poets at Will's Pub this Tuesday June 23, just sweet indie music of some sort. We will be back up in it the following week.

But check out this substitute gig: Tod Caviness will be the happy guest host at his old stomping grounds for Real Open Mike at Urban Think Books on Wednesday June 24, starting promptly at 8:30 p.m. Feature poet that night? Sarah Q. Morgan, Philly slammer and flagship poet at the esteemed and unstoppable Write Bloody press. Check her out, won't you? Not because she's single, 'cause she will eat you alive, little groupie. Do it because you need to hear this stuff.

If it's online, it must be true

We're back, kids. We were already here, to be exact. It's just the Tod Caviness-hosted version of open mike at Will's these days. This'll be a nice little placeholder until The Management gets something 'zazzier up, but for now: all three of you can get your Speakeasy news right up in here.