1. At the Open Mic

Open mic night at Cafe Lena was the closest thing I had to a scene in high school. It was a social event and a weekly outlet; both an excuse and an obligation, at a time when I needed a bit of both to help me grow out of my childhood wallflowerism.

I've always liked the open mic ethos—creating a safe venue to get up in front of the microphone and do the thing you want to do—and I owe a lot, as a musician, to the experiences I had at various open mics over the years, from my first rushed, blushing performances in the high school library on through emcee duties at the college coffeeshop nights.

This song is a brief and fuzzy snapshot of the Lena days, when I'd drink coffee and cocoa with my friends as we listened to poetry, good and bad, booming swallowed-mic style through the crappy shop PA system; wander in and out the always-squeaky front door of the place as things lulled inside or the rain picked up out on the street; shy, awkward interjections into the cool conversational rhythm of the hippie girls and the goth girls and the occasional singularly attractive hybrid.

And I'd have my turn at the mic, playing my battered acoustic and wearing a flannel shirt, untucked, and singing whatever I'd written lately while beat-up old blue-collar poets nodded along and Crazy Alice sat in the corner mumbling obscene come-ons or kiss-offs to whoever was on her radar at the moment.

But the song is also an idealization, a sort of manifesto of tolerance and creative permissiveness. You don't go to an open mic for a critique or an audition; you go to an open mic to do what you need to do for yourself, to test yourself and push yourself where you know you can get away with it. Where you're simply alllowed, and the worst thing you can expect is a polite smile. It's not the big time; it's not even the small time. But it's a good time, and for some people at some point in life it's the perfect place to be: the perfect place to just be.