7:30pm
I park my truck on Purdy Ave (instead of valet parking) and walk across the Venetian Causeway carrying my bag of “tricks” for tonight’s inaugural comedy and spoken word at The Standard Hotel with members of the Miami Writers Association (MWA), and whomever else saw the post on Facebook.

It has been a while since I have set foot in The Standard Hotel. I was a member when it was a cult classic…but now that the original founders have moved on to their next project, it’s not quite the same…or maybe it is just me who has changed over the last three years. Now that I am aware of economic cycles, it’s probably safe to say we’ve both changed. Inevitable.

Nevertheless, it’s still a cool place, and they have rearranged the front area next to the lobby into a cozy lounge. It seems a good intimate setting for our small group of creative friends.

Angello & Tatiana, Miami’s newest royal couple (I knew they were an item cuz of Facebook), are already waiting for the rest of the kidz on Miami T-I-M-E to show up. Turns out Tatiana is an accountant with a ballerina background. What a match!

Angello is my favorite local spoken W-O-R-D artist. He showed up last year at one of MWA’s open mic nights at Uva69 on Biscayne Boulevard, and I was bewitched. His rhythmic style of laying down thoughts was different from the self-absorbed, underdeveloped stream of consciousness of many of our amateur members (myself especially), and I felt we had finally attracted a real-deal writer, not someone who just likes to say he is a writer, you know, in that Miami way that people like to talk more than they actually do-do…ahem.

Angello’s roots go back to Brooklyn, where legendary Beat poets battled each other with guns of spitfire in smoky bars and cheap beer. It was good training for the real war he would go off to fight – Operation Desert Storm (gotta give the Bush’s credit for their brilliant marketing titles, right?) – which provided Angello with the substance and experience a writer needs. You gotta have war stories to tell, otherwise it’s just flowers and a series of uninformed observations no one really gives a shit about…because really, we all want to be regaled about  transformation of the spirit, its many paths, and perhaps leave the experience a little smarter than when we arrived. Angello does this…his attempts at comedy were so-so, to be totally and brutally honest, but comedy is NOT easy, and Angello’s forte is spiritual spoken word…so keep down that path, dude, and we look forward to seeing your name on a theater marquee someday…

Gil Pettigrew shows up next wearing his regular costume – Native American shirt with a single dangling turquoise colored earring that looks like the clipped wings of a beetle. Cool.

Gil speaks in comedic spurts, and I can’t help but hear, “ba dum ching” after each spurt.

“You’re one of the few who gets me,” he says. “It’s like teaching – the ones in the back who are not laughing, I just have to ignore after a while.”

“It’s the ‘high fidelity bird call,’” I say. “Focus on the ones who hear it and you will soar.”

Audiences. None are ever the same, and none will ever be pleased simultaneously. I keep this in mind as I head over to the bar where drinks are only $7 tonight for us financially challenged writers. Bartender Camilo – I think that’s his name! – says they don’t have any djs coming thru on Thursday nights, so I order a Chardonnay to make it worth his time. Interesting that gratuity is automatically added – I thought that was a choice, not an obligation? And how does he know that I wouldn’t have given him a bigger tip?

I meet Mike and Beverly, a good looking, friendly couple who “came to spectate,” although, “I may get up and get some things off my chest,” says Mike.

Yesss!! A brave soul. It is starting to look promising! Woo hoo!

Alejandra Fernandez, VP of MWA shows up with her other half Carlos, and they regale me with tales of their recent trip to vampire land New Orleans.

“I was wearing a blond rocker wig on Canal Street,” says Carlos, who agrees with me that a romance story about a witch and a vampire sounds like it could fit well in the context of Miamiland.

8:30pm
A few other South Beach locals show up, so it’s T-I-M-E to stop BS-ing and get the show started. So nerve wracking, and yet…not. I am wearing my Chakra Girl costume, for crying out loud, so ego has already been checked out. I look ridiculous in this thing, so if I sound ridiculous too, at least I’m being consistent!

I do my lame little piece so that whoever goes after me has no choice to sound like a rock star comedian…and sure enough, big cojones Mike gets up and puts us in stitches over a few stories he tells about the size of his pants at the “cusp age of 34,” which means he talks frequently about refinancing mortgages while reminiscing the much funnier days of his 19th year as a camp counselor selling massage oils to 11-year-old boys.

Sounds kinkier and weirder when I write it here, believe me, his presentation was much better…I’m just the reviewer, dammit.

Angello performs a few pieces about boobs, which quickly become the theme of the night – hey, it’s Miami, boobs are always the theme – and Gil says when it comes to relationships, he is among them, but rarely in one, similar to Jane Goodall observing apes.

The night wraps up with late comer singer Jesse Jackson, who I ran into earlier at The North Miami Panera (one of my roving offices). He sings a couple of folk tunes, and after each one, the group collectively interviews him as if it’s a “meet-and-greet” on 1950s TV. Hmmm.

Turns out he was born in Italy and moved to Wyoming at 8 years old. Certainly NOT your typical migration!

He sings us a Spanish tune, which somehow leads us into a political debate about Obama: an inspiration or another cog in the well-oiled machinery?

“It’s all Bush’s fault,” becomes the refrain, and I wonder to myself if we could all put our big writer brains together and come up with a song of freedom right then and there…

Ugh. I’m such a hippy dippy.

The South Beach “fans” I mention earlier speak up – Jeremy is from Ohio , taking a writing class at Miami-Dade College and used to write hip hop songs; Julian is a painter with strong and informed opinions, and their friend, silent Jay, remains…silent. JJJs in the house!!!

11pm
Thanks, everyone for showing your literary love! Stay tuned for the next open mic…we’ve got our little hearts set on the Wallflower Gallery downtown where the parking is easier and the setting more…hippy dippy?

This is Melanie Feliciano, signing off.
Special thanks to Gil Pettigrew for providing the above photo.