My last poem tonight.
It's about the Holy of Holies.
To complete the Holy Trinity of canned meats.
Applause for the canned meats, please.
[APPLAUSE]
OK, raise your hand if you love spam.
As I said, I'm going to the reservation.
They'll appreciate my poems more.
[LAUGHTER]
So, I love spam.
I just performed a spam event in Hawaii last month.
It was a series called The Decolonial Diet.
And every month, they get together
and they eat kale and watch 3D movies.
And so I got to be on the night, where they actually
made home-made spam.
And I was like, how are they going to decolonize our diets.
We can't beat spam, so we're going to make it hard to sink.
We're going to make it so complicated
that we'll never want to make it because it takes so long.
But it was delicious.
And I'm so appreciative of the Poetry Center.
They made these awesome buttons.
If you come up after and buy my book and have me sign it,
you can look at it closely.
Basically says, "no spam," which is awesome.
I'm going to wear this around Oahu, and I'll get beat up,
I'm sure.
But I think it's super cool.
Anyways, this will be my last poem tonight.
I do need some block volunteers again.
Everyone's looking down.
Yeah, oh, my old friend over here.
All right, come over here.
Oh, just me?
[LAUGHTER]
It's a duet.
Actually, I need three more volunteers.
Three more volunteers, please.
Oh, yeah, come up.
Come on.
Two more, please.
All right, one more.
One more.
OK, I want you two to go over there.
Go with them there.
We're going to play a game with each other.
That's good.
Face each other.
Close, close, close.
You got to go like this, spoke, spoke, spam.
You can play this game.
Good.
It's a little childhood game we played in the island.
[CLAPPING]
OK, go ahead and stop for a second.
So when I say drop a beat, then you'll start it up again.
Our soundtrack for this poem is also by Bob Marley,
a song called, "Guava Jelly."
You know that delicious stuff, the liquid
that comes out of spam?
We refer to it as spam jelly.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Here I am.
Come rub upon my belly like a spam jelly.
Oh, baby.
Here I am.
Come rub upon my belly like spam jelly.
Spam, spam jelly.
It's the Poetry Center remix.
Drop a beat.
[CLAPPING]
"Guam is considered the Spam capital of the world.
On average, each child consumes 16 cans of spam each year,
which is more per capita than any other country.
Totally by coincidence, spam is also
popular in Hawaii, the Philippines, Okinawa,
South Korea, and all places with a history
of US military presence.
How strange?
Some historians argue that spam may have been responsible
for Hitler's defeat.
The Allies wouldn't have started without spam.
Plus it's processed, so, I guess,
we can save it for the coming war between the US and China
and/or Russia and/or North Korea and /or ISIS and/or Ferguson.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Wow, I haven't seen this much spam since I lived in Guam.
And the car dealership there started
offering a 5-pound bag of imported white rice
and a case of spam with every car purchase.
The end result can be found in our newspaper's obituary pages.
You can rub the entire block of spam
along with the accompanying, delicious jelly
onto your wooden furniture.
The oils from the jelly moisturize the wood
and give it a nice luster.
Plus you'll have enough left over
to use as your own personal lubricant.
Use protection kids.
Despite rumors, spam is not made of such odds and ends,
the hooves, ears, native people.
The name itself stands for--
Specially Processed Army Meal.
Salted Poke And More.
Super Pink Artificial Meat.
Or Some Poets Are Mediocre.
My uncle Ben is the reigning Guam Spam King.
He won the last spam cook off with his spicy spam meatballs.
I'll never forget the 2-pound spam bust of George Washington
he made for Thanksgiving.
Toasted crispy on the outside with raw egg
yolk in the hollow center.
And the kids loved them.
Only a fool would start a company on Guam
that provided spam protection.
All I Want for Christmas is a spam snow globe,
with a can of spam sitting on an island, turn it over
and a typhoon swirls madly unable to unseat spam
from its place of honor.
I bought a souvenir can of spam after seeing Monty Python's
Spamalot, on Broadway in New York City.
It cost me $10.
And is the most expensive can of spam I've ever bought.
I will never eat it."
Thank you so much.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much.