I’m in the audience of a little open mic thing on the Lower East side and amidst a few bits that simply don’t work, I hear these nuggets of wisdom from the mouth’s of the varying performers who take the stage for their eight minutes of communion time.
A woman named Mo?, who occasionally stumbles good-naturedly over the words in her notebook while a beautiful bald one makes with the abstract dance and dons a mask, tells us she’s writing “The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need”, a “self-help book for people who read self-help books.”
She says, if we’re all unique individuals, then there’s no possible way anybody’s self-help book can tell you the way because there is no way.
A man with a thick Eastern European accent named Ivan Lenin and looks like a friendlier, hipper, teddy bear version of the dead founder of the Soviet Union announces he’s running for president. He tells us that in his time in the U.S. he’s figured out that there are two kinds of people, “those who love Jesus and those who love anal sex. And the leaders get them to fight each other. They try to convince you that if you love Jesus, you can’t love someone who loves anal sex; and if you love anal sex, you can’t love someone who loves Jesus.”
A very commanding older guy in a suit and sunglasses tells us that we are in the most dire times we’ve ever been in this country. He says Americans need to go back to the classic texts, to throw out Milton Friedman and read the works of Marx, Ludwig von Mises, and Benjamin Franklin (a very interesting combination) “if you want to understand what’s really going on.” He ends by shouting for the impeachment of W. and stating that he is the grandson of Aleister Crowley. I just can’t help thinking that I’m glad he’s not a Florida college student and no famous so-called politicians are in attendance…
A wicca girl (as a yoruba girl I know would affectionately call her) does a Q & A, setting the ground rules thusly: “You can ask me about Sex, Witchcraft or Astrology.”
Surprisingly, no one asks her about sex. I guess it’s just not that kind of crowd.
She does get asked about the other two topics, though.
A Scorpio asks her what the next week will be like. The emcee of the night, who’s a Taurus asks if he should “let someone have it” who’s been pissing him off. She tells him to wait until he’s cornered so he doesn’t incur any bad karma. He tells her he’s probably not going to be cornered. “So then don’t worry about it. Let it go,” she says.
Then she gets asked when the U.S. is going to invade Iran. She says, “I don’t fucking know! But it’s probably going to happen and it will be the beginning of World War III. That’s not magick, that’s just called reading the newspaper.”
And I’m glad again, she’s not a college student at some “important” campus speech by a national figure (head).
The greatest little wisdom of the night comes via the open mics host, a bald Lower East side fixture named Faceboy. After Ivan Lenin leads the audience in the charming country sing-along “CommunistRedneckHip-Hop Orchestra”, he talks about how he likes Jesus and relates his take on the famous story of the loaves of bread.
“It’s like when you’re at a party and you’re looking for weed and everyone says they don’t have any. Then, suddenly, one person pulls out a tiny, tiny bud and a stem. Then another person pulls out a tiny bud. Then another. And so on. All of a sudden, somehow, the whole room and everyone in it has pot when just minutes before it looked like no one had any. What Jesus did wasn’t any sort of magick. I think what Jesus did was to teach us how to share. And that in itself is miraculous.”
Amen to that.
I think this deserves a comment. But all I can keep thinking of is a joke from the last stand-up I went to. They don’t often tell jokes as such, relying more on ‘observational humour’. But this Australian girl introduced this as:
- The Wooden Eye Joke -
(If any of this offends, please censor!)
Consider poor old Ned, always to be found propping up his end of the bar at the Dog & Duck. He’s led a real hard life, and he’s become bit of a grumpy old soul, something of a loner. Through no fault of his own, y’see, a terrible accident, Ned’s got this /wooden eye/, in place of his real one, and he’s a bit touchy about it.
So anyway, there’s Ned one night, sitting at his usual spot nursing a pint, and his attention is drawn by a young lady across the room.
Their eyes meet and Ned notices she has a /wooden leg/.
Anyway they get to talking and Ned slowly finds his habitual reserve melting away, and he buys her a drink. To everyone’s surprise they get on really well, and the night passes swiftly, and suddenly it’s last orders. So Ned, quite out of character, offers,
‘Say, would you like to go back to my place?’
And the young lady, all overcome with excitement, says
‘Wouldn’t I?!’
And Ned goes,
‘F*** off you one-legged c***’…
Ha! I love that, s’bird!
I gotta tell you, I don’t know or hear a lot of classic old-school jokes. Stand ups don’t even usually do them anymore, but I love to go visit my friend back home because he knows so many jokes like this. Their the jokes people used to tell to each other all the time. Off color, wierd, blue. Real people shit.
This is one of those.
Thanks for that!