A Furry Geezer’s Lurid Recounting of Downtown Raleigh’s Open Mikes
This was the first piece written under the persona of The Furry Geezer, produced for 23Hours, the magazine associated with the documentary/retrospective show of the same name held at Bickett Gallery in 2003. It is astoundingly in date, since Stammer is going strong at Artspace, so the Administrator was kind enough to allow me to run it in celebration of one year with this fine blog. For the most current literary trends, check out Storyspark, the literary festival being produced by Raleigh Quarterly as part of the upcoming Sparkcon.
Summer 1983. Doonesbury’s “armpit of a decade” is in full swing. Raleigh’s civic leaders contemplate strategies and boondoggles toward rejuvenating the central district. The Art museum has closed and moved away. Sylvia’s Helping Hand Mission is going strong on Hargett Street in a large space deemed “under-utilized” by City Planners. Somewhere in the country, a group of people are working on the premier publication of a new national newspaper. It will be called USA Today. In the basement of a tiny luncheonette on Salisbury Street, a group of people gather on a Thursday evening. Drawn together by the funky used bookstore across the street, they are a truly diverse group. Initiated by a teenage drop-out and a former San Francisco open-mic emcee, the reading has attracted a few university types, but includes; the local H.P. Lovecraft junkies, Libertarian advocates for a nudist club, and a huge smelly man recognizable from his long naps at Olivia Raney Library (unless you happened to catch him heading into the blood bank, or see him rolling out of the signal shack by the Boylan Avenue Bridge). The reading starts, with nervous reminders from the bookstore owner about a strict ten minute limit. The huge man proceeds to unfold wads of paper from his many pockets and to borrow props (such as a full soda can) from his neighbors. When his turn arrives, he carries his small table and chair right up to the mike and delivers a 25-minute rant to the city that has the emcee sweating (8 more readers to go – my god) and has the audience in awe. Most of them hadn’t met a street bum with high culture before. But Ralph, and the Thursday Night reading, turned out to be special.
Continue reading A Furry Geezer’s Lurid Recounting of Downtown Raleigh’s Open Mikes
Raleigh’s Thursday Night Open Reading had several venues, but the basement of Glory’s diner was pretty special itself. The owners were never present, they simply provided the key and trusted the participants to put one dollar bills in a jar when they get a beer out of the cooler. It was a kind of practice for when they got a beer license and their own events. After they closed, the reading moved two floors up to the vintage clothing store. This phase resembled a round table discussion group (though Liz and Donna through a memorable party in this space), an atmosphere redeemed by a midsummer stint of readings on Fayetteville Street Mall. Here, for the first time, Kurt F. brought his guitar along and transformed our ideas about what an open reading could be. Kurt’s music became a central part of Thursday Night at the Berkeley Café, and John B. will admit that the poetry readings began the process of that space’s evening music venue. Ralph, who had transformed himself from library bum to Taxi-cab Poet (though he still smelled and continued to devote many hours working out digits of pi in an ink-stained spiral notebook), got us into the Berkeley. He was living upstairs, haring a tiny rickety hall with the hollow-eyed prostitutes whoa t that time headquartered above the Berkeley. Thursday Nights there were loud and well-attended. Every week there were first time readers. Every week here were surprises. Schizophrenics would wander in, listen a little, then break in with their rant about whatever. But after about ten minutes, they would wind down and relinquish the stage, usually to friendly applause. But after about ten minutes, they would wind down and relinquish the state, usually to friendly applause. One night, a wizened couple right out of a Woody Guthrie song (and literally right about the bus) got up when it was their turn and simply unfurled for display a huge quilted mural of newspaper headlines and music posters they had pieced together over their years of travel. It was laminated with masses of clear packing tape and must have weighed a few pounds. They said nothing – just held it up for a few minutes and then carefully folded it back into their bag.
It was at the Berkeley that comedy, confessional rants and performance pieces began to emerge from the poetry. MP would get up and simply spew out ten minutes of the history of her screwed up childhood and the various sexual misadventures it generated. Later this led to a sensationalist write-up in The Independent. Billy O. began the short story series that had women hissing and booing from the audience – pornography from the Twilight Zone, interspersed with wildly hilarious Teas electrocutions and deep-fried monkeys. People began showing up from Durham and Chapel Hill on Thursday Night, though several established writers who enjoyed listening found the atmosphere too raucous and “unmanaged” to read themselves.
After a year the Berkeley was getting so busy with music bookings they didn’t have room for a poetry reading. The Thursday night series moved down the block to The Paper Plant, whose new location had plenty of room for the readings I had sponsored all along. The cavernous industrial space had artist studios, papermaking and letterpress operations in the back, and lots of couches and corners crammed in around the books. There the readings took full flight as a part of a general art scene that included monthly art shows, workshops, installations and small press publishing. The leading Thursday night readers had their works published in chapbooks with handmade paper covers. Special events in this phase included visits from Steven G. from The Farm and Jack H. from San Francisco. But it was the local performance art that really took off, led by the Joan Crawford Fan Club. Sheri Lifesaver and Jason M. wowed the audiences each night they performed, handing out commemorative wire clothes hangers wrapped in color Xeroxes of Joan Crawford, reminder lists for their strategies to drive The Cookie Store out of business with a firestorm of inane questions, and then putting everyone literally in the aisles laughing with their wicked satire, accompanied by Jason’s synthesizer. Animal rights, ecology and the homeless were addressed by various other performers. Clyde S. methodically stripped layer after layer of clothes as images of downtown “nesting sites” projected on a screen. John J. stabbed names in a phonebook with a pin. Cindy F. mesmerized the audiences with no-script recitations of her onerous love poetry. The feminist contingent was strong enough to generate a special “Hag’s Delight” feature. When anarchists from Madison, Wisconsin hit town we expected a pretty wild rant, but even the Thursday night crowd was a bit taken aback watching a naked man run around the room shouting and smoking a joint rolled with wild lettuce in a page of the Holy Bible. Now that’s lurid!
The Paper Plant closed in December of 1990. A beloved regular, Jeff E., started a new series at the Five-O on Hillsborough Street. It was fun but became dominated by amateur music and/or the sounds from the pool table. Sheri Lifesaver ran a fairly long lasting series at Cup-of-Joe’s that provided an important venue for the old crowd and some new-comers. As the new century approached a new group of performers shared their energies at Poetry Slams at the Vertigo Diner and Forum+Function. Currently the Stammer at Artspace offers an excellent open mike. Raleigh continues to try and find itself as a city and a good open mike is essential for that. Prove it to yourself by starting a series and being amazed at who shows up!
Being an old, old friend of John J., I was at that very first open mike night at “Glory’s” in the basement of the diner on Salisbury Street.
Actually, I want to say that before that there were a few of us that used to read at the old location of The Paper Plany across the street from Glory’s, PP being located literally in a covered alley way between a jewelry store on one side and something else on the other, can’t remember what that was.
Before PP oepned there, Jeff E. (mentioned above) and Mary K.and I had a business in that location, I want to say it was at 123 S. Salisbury Street but I could be wrong about the specific number of the street address. That business was called “The Cosmic Toy Company” and it grew out of the three of us, Jeff, Mary and myself, being friends from the old Raleigh Artists’ Community at 908 W. Morgan Street which was Raleigh and Wake County’s first professional artists’ organization, predating Wake Visual Arts and all the rest that came after. After the business folded, John started/moved The Paper Plant into that location and began doing his thing there. I distinctly remember huge, floor-to-ceiling parts bins and old machinery like lathes and buffers and grinders left there by the jewelry company next door that used to have that space.
While at Glory’s, I remember Gary Cardin doing his very eloquent readings, one of which was good enough to get his own half-hour UNC-TV special “When The Tannery Whistle Blows” or something to that effect.
My involvement slacked off at it went to Berkeley and my life took new courses though I did try to go to readings when I could. When June, pardon me, Ralph, died that pretty much took the wind out of the sails of the regulars it seemed like.
I’ve been to ArtSpace’s “Stammer!” three or four times now and while it’s a good venue and has some really great poets and such do their bits there, nothing will ever have quite the same energy or uniqueness of the old original group readings.