Last night was the last open mike (for some reason the spelling mic disturbs, I think because I am rhyme and print minded, and mic looks like spic or nervous tic, and mike rhymes with bike, trike, like, hike and, of course, the name Mike. But that’s irrelevant. I can see I’m in the minority opinion on this and will eventually, probably, have to yield ground but I don’t like it) poetry reading at the Globe.
They’d billed it as the last open mike before a summer break, but then they announced there that it would resume in the fall at a different location. I’m happy. The globe is not a bad space for it-you do get some noise from people talking upstairs because they didn’t come there for the poetry reading and they are more or less oblivious to it- but the staff is friendly and those who are female tend to be really good looking.
However, they are just too damned expensive. I never order food there and I would at a more reasonably priced establishment. Also, change is good. Although the Alchemy series of poetry readings has had many homes over the years, it’s been at the globe a long time, it’s at least 2 years now, maybe 3. Time to move.
Before that, they were at the Tulip, which was my favorite place. It was in a long, narrow downstairs space with long tables. If you were there, you were there to see the poets and the long tables assured that people talked to each other. That’s where Taylor Mali performed, and Jim Freeman calmly but forcefully schooled the drunken English heckler who’d been the featured poet and was seriously pompous and had it coming “I’ve listened to that stupid poem about the pig farmer on the airplane 3 times and never said a word…”
The wait staff was frequently absent, however, so you would have to go upstairs for a drink and plenty of people never made it back down. Nobody was surprised when they went bankrupt because the owner was doing too much coke.
Before that, it was the Hostel by Holesovice, which was probably the worst place for conflict between poetry types and jeez, I just want to drink my beer and talk with my friends, leave me the fuck alone, will ya types. Poetry readings and youth hostels don’t really mix. Before that, it was at that little hole in the wall (seriously –you had to duck when you walked in) between Jiriho z Podebrad and the Clown and Bard, I don’t even remember the name Café Shlechta?
I liked the Bethany rule about no prose. But I take it back about the hostel being the worst place for crowd interference, that place was the worst.
I may have got some of these out of order, but then there was the place in Letna Park, which was godawful cold in the winter, it was indoors, but the place was just built to be in out of the sun or the rain in the summer. They did have cheap Czech food, though, and I remember one night, I’d just smoked a joint with Ryan as he was going back to the States and walked across the park and it was covered in fresh snow and that is a moment that is frozen in time.
Before that, of course, it started at Shakespeare and Sons. I don’t know why we left there, I heard they weren’t making any money off a bunch of cheapskate poets. That’s entirely believable.
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