Would you like a food?
Yes.
Have you ever been old?
Once, when I was 34.
Do you have sex with me?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes.
What questions do you have?
What’s your angle?
I want to ask about your favorites. May I ask about your favorites?
A lot of things are 100% to my mindbrain. 100% is my favorite.
Examples?
Vipassana meditation, large organic markets, Where the Wild Things Are, cooled quilts, naps, Greenlake (Seattle), Muppets, when babies/puppies laugh, The Shawshank Redemption, waterslides, go-karts, harvesting, mixed martial arts, trading jokes, recliners, restraint, moderation, cultivating joy, absorbing grounding, lifting up.
Which is more fun: practicing or knowing?
When I want tragedy, I know. When I want joy, I practice.
How do you feel about…
You mean like if it’s dark in the room?
No, I wasn’t finished with the question. How do you feel about your fashionable unoriginality?
You don’t like my hat.
You’re not wearing a hat…?
Exactly.
May I have word with your roommate?
Sure… SETH!
Why don’t you girl salvation?
(Seth): I’m afraid of shaving.
May I stop speaking to you?
(Seth): BUDDY!
Wakefield isn’t the name you were born with. What was it?
Kenneth Zane Beasley III.
That’s not the name you had before Buddy Wakefield. What was that name?
Buddy Marshall Stevens.
Where do you love to be?
On a porch stoop in Oakland with my producer and Joe.
Tell me something I don’t remember sometimes.
I accept you for who you are.
TAGS: Buddy Wakefield, poets
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BUDDY WAKEFIELD is the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and most recently signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then successfully defended that [arbitrary] title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands against the national champions of seven European countries with works translated into Dutch.
In 2005 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship again and has gone on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in hundreds of venues internationally from The Fillmore in San Francisco and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and CBGB’s.
In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, WA, sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic and set out to live for a living, touring North American poetry venues through 2003. He still tours full time and considers annual Revival tours with Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani, as well as separate tours with Ani DiFranco and Sage Francis, to be the highlight of his career thus far. Oh, and the first time he performed with Saul Williams… that was freaking AWESOME in the FACE!
Born in Shreveport, LA, mostly raised in Baytown, TX, now claiming Seattle, WA as home, Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a lumberjack in Norway, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, manager of a CD store, a bull rider and a booking agent. Wakefield is a growth junkie, elated son of a guitar repair woman, wingman of Giant Saint Everything, and remembers Kirkwood, NY.
Buddy, a Board of Directors member with Youth Speaks Seattle, is honored that his work is published internationally in several books and has been used to win national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. An author of Write Bloody Publishing, Wakefield is known for delivering raw, rounded, high vibration performances of humor and heart.
THERE IS NO ACCLAMATION FOR THIS ARTIST…
…except for the time one of Buddy’s hero’s, Benjamin Morse, called him “Monster of Energy, Keeper of Hope, Friend of My Soul…” That was a good one.
MORE ACCURATE BIO:
In the Fall of 1984 Anchor Bay Entertainment released a movie called Children of the Corn while Buddy lived in front of the corn fields near Niagara Falls, NY. This traumatic event (coupled with extensive exposure to Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie) may or may not have led to Buddy becoming a sensitive poet puss who plays marbles in the trees, listens by talking and keeps fingers on pulse. HI MOM! |
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on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 12:37 am
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It’s a pleasure to have you here at TNB, Buddy. Onward and upward, my friend.
Buddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!