Open Miking in Toledo

Last night I made my Toledo, Ohio open-mic debut at the First Base Lounge downtown.

I had brought my whiteboard and a dry-erase marker, and when I signed up I was the fourth name on the list, so as the first performer was singing and guitaring I calligraphed the acrostic poem I intended to do, and then I drew the guy in the upper left-hand corner. I hadn’t noticed his name so I labeled him “1st guy.”

Next was Alex, another guitar musician, and he had a nice set of family-themed original songs, of his wife and daughter. One song likened his home life to a ship and his wife as the captain.

Then came Taylor and her ukulele, starting her set with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” Her other songs were melodic and sophisticated, I could tell, but the tricky acoustics and her delicate voice and my quasi-deafness only allowed me to understand random phrases here and there.

I thought I would be called next, but guitar musician Steve came up instead. He must’ve signed in the gap above my name. One of his songs was a cover of that catchy tune about a time well before Steve was born–the summer of ’69.

“Gary Bowers will be with us in just a couple of minutes,” said the announcer. I went up to him and told him I was a poet, not a musician. He said the open mic was for musicians, poets, comedians, and any other performers, and that I could use the mic Steve had used to sing, and detach it from the mic stand if I wanted. Isaid it was fine as is and asked for and got ausic stand for my whiteboard.

“Next up…is Gary.”

I told the dozen-or-so that I was open-miking for the first time in Toledo, having moved here in early July, and that yesterday was my seventy-second birthday [applause] and my first poem would be what I wrote for the occasion, an acrostic poem called “7ty Two” of only ten words, and I held up my whiteboard to show them as I read the poem, which even with pauses and the after-applause took less than thirty seconds.

I then realized that I had more performance time on my hands than anticipated, and I had better do more than “ope,” so I dragged from memory Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” an 1820 poem I’ve known by heart for more than 40 years. It occurred to me as I intoned “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings!” that it might be a better, more eye-opening performance if I imitated Donald Trump’s voice as I quoted the words on the pedestal. Next time I might, but it will need work.

I finished my set with “ope,” ostensibly about the young Ronny Howard’s role on The Andy Griffith Show but ending up being a bouquet of riffs on Ope the Syllable.

Before I got offstage I told the audience that I had drawn the performers who’d preceded me, and anyone who cared to could take a photo of my whiteboard before I left. And I did leave not long after, because the paid parking time I’d bought with my coins had lapsed.

As I drove home in the light rain I felt not exactly exhilaration but a pleasant well-it-coulda-been-worse satisfaction.

I look forward to the next one.