My friend Robin is a go-getter. The type you have to run to keep up with even at her slowest pace. She's great to have around because she's always off doing things and she of course always extends the invitation. 

Normally I just go along. Why bother questioning? And so I did this night too. My phone service was broken and grumpy and crumbling, the only information I pieced from our conversation was that I was to meet her on 4th and second for some sort of open mic and she would cover my ticket if I would bring her food. I brought her leftover steak and orzo with a handful of cookies. It was in tupperware and still warm. Though I'd forgotten the silverware, she seemed pretty happy. I think all she'd eaten that day was an orange. I told her that's unhealthy. She shrugged and threw her hair back in a way I took to mean "it shan't happen again andy" and she gave me my ticket. 

The space of the open mic was in an old converted tenement building and up an elevator. The kind of elevator where there are two doors and you're never sure which one is going to open, is it the one you came in by or another one? Anyway, this was before Halloween and we were discussing what we were going to be and she said she was thinking about being Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill but she didn't know if she'd be able to afford/find the yellow jump suit in time. A lot of girls might say they were going to be Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill for Halloween and I would say cool and not really mean it because I doubt they'd be able to really pull it off, but in this case I was a bit disappointed that Robin probably wouldn't end up getting the jumpsuit because she would have looked the part no doubt. I told her I didn't know what I was going to be yet and I was worried about it because Halloween is my favorite holiday and I don't want to have some last minute costume no one even compliments. All of this was happening on the elevator and I guess the gentleman in the elevator with us was listening because he said something like Halloween is every weekend night in East Village then he kind of looked down at himself. I sort of smiled in that way you do when you know adults are speaking to you like you are young and it's like they want to be young too but I don't really get it and then I look down at himself too and see he is in some sort of full-on purple velvet zebra patterned outfit. Then I get it and probably make some joke that goes over well because I was in a good mood that night and then the elevator opens to the space. (It's the door we didn't come in by)

It's a small space I guess. Seating was arranged around the perimeter so the stage was in the round. Maybe it could seat 40 normally? But it was arranged to sit 65 or something, with pillows on the ground and seats all squished together. I think it was mutual that Robin and I would want seats. I mean we are young yeah, but I get real fidgety on the ground (and in seats too) and my back starts to ache and I really can't sit still so it was ideal that we should find chairs. So we kind of just stand awkwardly in the stage and look for two seats next to each other and the show isn't supposed to start for like a few minutes but it's already hard to find a seat. And then we see this big old guy who kind of looks like Ignatious O'Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. Like he is wearing a trench coat and his big and with a thick moustache and a bellow going over his belt. But he seems really well-put together. Like his hair is all neatly combed and maybe he even combed his moustache too. Do people do that? Anyways, he is sitting in a row of four chairs and he is all by himself sitting on the second from the aisle so if we wanted to get to the seats past him we'd have to ask him to move because he's so big. So he makes eye contact with us and says "Look, I'm not going to be a Nazi about it, you can have these two seats." And I'm kind of like cool dude even though that's a weird thing to say! And he just pushes over towards the wall one and we sit down.

This is when Robin tells me a little bit about the show. That it is going to be an erotic themed open mic and her friend from the coop she volunteers at is putting it on and is going to do a piece. It turns out Robin invited me along because she didn't want to be alone and she was trying to befriend this girl she worked with on a level outside of the workplace and she needed the support which sort of surprised me because Robin is so outgoing. But I was happy to be there because nothing was really going on otherwise.

So the show still hadn't started and I kind of noticed that the Ignatious O'Reilly fellow to our left was definitely by himself and I figured we should talk to him because he'd been so nice in giving us these seats. Though really it wasn't that nice, I mean there were three seats open there, he just kind of made this inflated gesture about it like he was doing us such a great big service and that I wasn't two seconds away from saying excuse me and then just pushing past him. 

Admittedly my small talk was off in this moment and my opening line was sort of dumb and I realized it right away. "So hey man, if you're uh, not a nazi about seats, what are you a nazi about?" I know, bad. But it was out there and I realized it fell super flat right off the bat but I also realized this guy is socially inept. So I tried to let him know I didn't mean anything bad by it so I tried to backpeddle but even as I was doing it he was looking at me all horrified and I inevitably make it worse by making the kind of joke you really only ever make to your friends. "Like you know, nazi, like pet peeves, do you have any pet peeves? Like I hate when people use ironic. Do you hate anything like that? Like grammar... or pronunciation or jews?" Yeah. I know, bad. But kind of funny right? Anyways, he stands up and moves a seat away from us without saying a word. 

Alright. The show starts. And the first performance is Robin's friend. I don't remember her name. We never met. I still really wasn't sure what kind of open mic this was going to be. 

Robin's friend is really pretty in an androgynous kind of way. Like a really innocent looking face. Extraordinarily tall. Maybe 6'5? Very thin and her muscular pattern was really pronounced. With very wide shoulders like it made me sort of jealous how tuned she was. And she must know she has this androgynous look because her hair cut is a boy's on one half and a girls on the other. By that I mean short down one side to the middle, and shoulder length on the other. 

She enters the stage like she is coming home from work and slams a door behind her before going into the middle of the room and sitting on a chair and putting down a suitcase and opening it on the ground. Out of it she pulls a rose and she kind of considers it for a moment. She is a slender black dress that conforms to her body which is also slender, and toned, as I said before. She stands up and puts the rose on the chair and looks at it for a second more and then slowly releases a zipper that goes down the side of her dress and she steps out of the black dress revealing matching black lingerie. And I'm still not really sure what's happening but she kicks the chair away and grabs the rose and sits on the ground with it. She kicks off her black heels and then starts sensually rubbing the rose all over her body. At first the flower part and the petal but then the thorn and she draws blood in a couple places as she moves it all over. And everything gets kind of heated and she is sort of thrusting herself around. And then she takes off her bra and her chest is barely present, like hardly any shape at all and I guess I'm not really surprised because the dress was very form fitting and gave a good impression of what her body was going to look like naked and then I kind of start to anticipate what's coming next and she reaches down and takes off the black thong and I guess I was still expecting to see a vagina but where that should have been was a nub of a penis and the reason she was so androgynous looking is because she is a hermaphrodite and she has both parts down there. And her performance is really all about this abstracted intercourse of herself with himself and she sorts of keeps going and I'm not sure if she gets off or anything but I look around and the crowd is really into it and then there is a moment of release and she lies all still on the floor. And then puts her panties on and stands up and bows and invites everyone to the show. She seems more way relaxed then when I'd seen her prepping before. 

Well. That's not something you see every day and to be honest I had my fist in my mouth the whole time stifling laughter. Not at her or anything, only I thought it was hilarious that I found myself in this particular situation on this particular friday evening. It's funny. And I was sort of looking around at the rest of the audience who were all wide-eyed and obviously inspired and I only then was starting to figure out what scene I had stumbled in on. The audience was 98% white and over 50 and also unwieldily. Apparently they do these performances every month so it's a tight-knit group where everyone knows each other. I couldn't help but thinking how much weird sex was going to happen after this.

So now that the stage had been set I figured I was in it for the longhaul. But for the most part everyone who got on the mic after that first mic was tame. What was most obscene was the audience members who had their hands in their neighbors pants. At one point these two zombies came in (it was the annual zombie parade in NY that day) and sat down in front of me. I think they must have been on some sort of drugs because they got very graphic right on the ground at me feet and for awhile they were kind of leaning up on my bookbag and I didn't want to be a square or anything but I didn't like that. And then this woman sitting next to them who was probably in her 60s kind of got in on their reindeer games and hands and body parts were going all over the place and I don't think she knew them, but that's the kind of environment this place was in, a place where a lady resembling my grandmother might jackoff a zombie while leaning on my bookbag. 

For the next two hours I sat and watched and did my very best to not laugh as performer after performer got into the middle and did their erotic bit. Poems and spoken word, skits and songs. All about sexual identity but also for some reason a lot of them were about their jewish identity. This one guy told the story about himself as a young boy in hebrew school and his early predilection for voyeurism. He told us that his first arousal was in his grandmother's arms and maybe this is normal but my fist was back in my mouth and I couldn't look at Robin for fear that I would just break down and erupt in loud guffawing so I instead looked at all the people in the audience who were very visibly turned on and all the others who were in the midst of getting off. And the end just would not come. Another lady read the label on a jar of honey, but she did it with that type of sensual voice so you're supposed to not think about the words as they're written but what they could mean. Like she is saying honey, but she doesn't really mean honey. And I just want to scream at all of these performers I GET IT. YOU'RE USING INNUENDO. It was to the point where innuendo didn't even qualify as innuendo because it was just so obvious. Another dude got up and started talking about this sex group he started with members of his synagogue and he invited everyone there to come and afterwards I saw him taking names and numbers down but I wonder if this was open to non-jews and jews alike? I kind of wanted it to be jewish exclusive because that's funnier for me. 

So the whole time these people were performing that Weirdo next to us was kind of audibly commenting. They weren't heckles or anything, but kind of like running encouragement. To women performers you might hear him say "Hubba hubba" or else he is grunting happily, like "mmhmmm" and lots of "oh babies" and I kind of just take this as continued proof that he is most definitely weird so I don't feel so bad for causing him to react the way he did earlier. 

It finally ends and I put on my bag and then I actually hear that it is only intermission and I look at Robin with the kind of face that says "look I can't stay or I might erupt" and so we kind of both nod and agree we're out of here because another two hours seems impossible. As we're on our way out one dude who had just performed a sensual skit with some woman about love and sex and their relationship kind of happily greets us and I congratulate him on his performance which wasn't that great or anything but it's the thing you do in such situations. And he sees that I have my jacket on and my bookbag which I want to get home right away and clean and he is quick to make a judgement. Like where he had before been nice and friendly it's now as if he is saying "well if you can't handle the reallness here then fine, leave early." Like he is visibly offended that we should want to leave at only the half way point and he takes it like we have a problem with our sexual identity. Like these two must not be comfortable enough to be around all these people who are so open with themselves and their parts. And if I could speak to that dude today I would just want to say Look man, that's fine how you identify yourself sexually and that you love being so public about it but I genuinely value the privacy of sex and I can handle your realness and your public libido if you can respect my own wishes to keep mine between me and my partners. But I don't say that because he never voiced his distaste only kind of projected it.

We push past him and are our the door where we see the weirdo Ignatious O'Reilly and I just can't help it especially after all those performances by sexified Jews so I go up to him and say "Well, if I wasn't a Nazi before..." And I think it's the funniest thing I ever say but I don't want to erupt in laughter right in front of him so I finally make it to the sidewalk and I combust. I was close to vomiting. I've never laughed so hard I thought I was going to crash on my bike ride home. 

I don't think there is a moral to this story.