Literaryswag BBQ (Update)

In the past few weeks I've learned a lot about managing expectations, remembering where and what I came from, and most of all trusting in God. When I first set out to do this BBQ, the original idea had been simple. Something chill and lowkey for people to pull up to, get a plate, chop it up and celebrate the winners of the Literaryswag Competition. Then, as I am one to do, I started to go overboard with shit: "There needs to be bouncy houses, and sumo wrestling suits, and inflatable Olympic courses and--" all this other shit that was besides the point and had nothing to do with the original vision. I forgot about what it meant to just pull up to the scene and make the best of what we had. We had a grill, a sufficient boom box, a cooler full of quarter water juices (remember those, the ones that looked like grenades?), a football, some double Dutch rope, a deck of cards, dominoes, or both, but mainly each other. The people made the BBQ. Sometimes all we had was $50 worth of food and we built as the day went on. Juice ran out? Send so-and-so up the block to grab some more. Need more hot dogs? Go catch the supermarket before it closes and bring me back my change. As y'all can see I'm getting a bit nostalgic but that's what the purpose of the BBQ was: to revisit the moments in our lives when things were relatively simple. With all my clicks and whistles I complicated shit--park permits, sound permits, $7,500, blah, blah, blah (wtf was I thinking?). But God works in mysterious ways because the way we used to do it then is the way we gonna do it now. We just gonna pull up, set up and have fun. And what's dope: the BBQ is right next to the Brooklyn Book Festival so you can cop you some books over there and then come through and grab you a plate. If you hungry, we feeding you. Simple as that. I've cut the budget to a way more realistic number ($2,500) and am already more than half way there ($1,750) so if you can put $5 on it cool. If you can't, cool too. We gonna make the best of whatever we got and send someone to the store for whatever we don't.