My Abu Gharib Was A Bad Open Mic On The Jersey Shore
A Reflection On Debauchery, Dumb Bullshit, and Cringe
Some housekeeping: My new chapbook And Even If I Did So What from Two Key Customs sold out quick, more copies should be available soon. In the meantime, I’m taking preorders for a special Christmas chapbook My Dealer Went On Vacation and Took My Christmas Spirit With Him. Only 25 will be made and they will be sent to you by the 23rd. You can order here. There are only 16 left. If you want to support me and the NJ Poetry Renaissance you can buy me a beer.
Anyway
I love me an open mic. Goes without saying really, I’ve hosted damn near a thousand open mic events over the last year from dive bars to televised specials to pool halls in rural Missouri. I think there is something beautiful and holy about opening up a mic to the room. See the way I look at it, the features are the show. You get tried performers to entertain the audience. The first half of the show where the performers on the bill carry the room, you can almost guess how it’s going to go if you’re a host worth his salt. They come to your show to do their work. Whether it’s poems from their new book, songs, or comedy. They are up there to build fan-base or peddle their merch. After the performers, I have a ten minute break to let people approach the features, support the venue, smoke cigarettes, and to leave. Some people leave at the break and you have to let them go. An audience that isn’t attentive and doesn’t want to be there is not an audience at all, it’s just people corrupting the energy.
The open mic isn’t the show. The open mic isn’t for pageantry or egos but for doing the work The open mic is for trying out new work, to hone your skills at performing in front of people, to swing in front of the host to try and get booked or to just fuck around and have a good time. I love it. I’ve watched open mikers kill the room better than any feature, I’ve watched people find their voice, to find confidence and respect. I’ve seen open mikers become legends after one Monday night of swinging at the bar crowd at Nip n Tuck in Long Branch and watched shy newcomers fight to be heard and watch them find confidence in their own skin.
But like all things based on attention, personalities, and energy it has the potential to also very rapidly go off the rails. I’ve seen nights become tortured sequences of horrible uncomfortable moments and seen the energy turn sinister bordering on insurrection and chaos.
So here’s a list of some of the craziest shit I’ve seen
That time when the dark magician comedian went off script and began to claim that he was the reason a beloved venue was torn down. Claiming his spell hit the wrong place. Then he turned to the comedians and began to list what shows he was going after next, followed by charging in to the audience and yelling “anyone have any grievances with me?”
Or when the singer known among the open mic hosts as Yikes, who had a history of psychotic episodes came to the show, threw the PA, growled about children and kicked the glass out of the front door.
Who could forget the poet and dancer who stormed in barefoot and went ten minutes over her time airing my dirty laundry and threatening to kill other women on the scene? That was cute.
Or when the same person crashed the televised open mic for PBS and the room was cleared out and she began to destroy the equipment while screaming something about my love being like fascism.
How about the drunk heckler woman who tried slow dancing with the comedians during their sets? Her justification was that she was from the “hard streets” of Deal, NJ.
You can’t forget the toothless saint who wore a safety vest and smelled like a urinal cake on a hot summer day would write love poems and would go on long rants about how Mel Gibson was his friend and was a big fan of what we were doing.
That same patron saint of piss and incoherent monologues was challenged to a ghost pepper eating challenge. He showed up drinking a bottle of Tabasco to “warm up” and ate the pepper like he was destined for it but ended up writhing on the ground screaming for milk.
Or in the summer where the one poet chased the other poet through the venue after Poemocalypse Now with a mic-stand like a Greek Hoplite soldier. The old Sicilian smoking a cigarette who owned the joint screaming “leave the equipment, chase the women!
The first day PBS was filming, the poetry host took LSD and it hit him wrong. Opening the show he froze up and then had to proclaim to the audience “I’m sorry, I’m peaking!” Who the hell was that guy?
Or when the bar staff at the one venue was at a Thanksgiving party and came in during the open mic black out drunk and debauchery ensued. Yes, that was our favorite bartender deep-throating the microphone. JIMMY!
We can’t forget the woman who came to one open mic, read a five minute poem where she admitted to a sex crime and then spiked the microphone into the floor running out the door never to be seen again.
This was just a fun little post as I haven’t updated my Poets Like Us in a month and I’m returning to it. It’s just been a busy period of time juggling a lot of shows and trying to carve out space. I’ll be posting more.
For my NJ people, there are shows almost every night this week check my instagram but this is tonight in Long Branch: