Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Open Mic Night...Macon Style

So the other evening after work I stopped at a coffeehouse. Oddly I don't like this place's drinks, but I do love the chocolate cheesecake brownies; and it's a relaxing place to read and write. Well usually it is. I curled up in a corner of a velvet couch with my Bible, a notebook, and an ipod. There was a newspaper on the table in front of the sofa so that became a conversation starter for some not-cute-way-too-old guy. Since the Mr. Regular situation is still fresh in my mind I wasn't my usual friendly self, so I only removed my ear piece to say "You can have the whole paper; it's not mine" and then ignored whatever he said next. (Side note: Mr. Regular left a message with my secretary today; whatever.).

So another guy comes in, placing a guitar behind the couch, and takes residence next to me, trying to start a conversation despite the ipod and my obvious focus on writing. Are people that lonely and desperate for conversation? I imagine some people are and that's sad.

Then the coffeehouse staff starts moving all of the furniture, and it turns out that it's Open Mic Night. I never would have guessed that there were such events in Macon simply because there just doesn't seem to be many of the kind of people living here who would participate in such. At this point, I figure I should move to the other room of the coffeehouse, but it has now been closed off and is reserved...for two old couples who are dancing. Weird.

So as soon as the mic is set up, a guy in his late teens/early 20s comes in and throws his backpack down and hops on the stool. Then he pulls a PDA out of one of his many velcro pockets and proceeds to read a super sappy poem from his PDA, pausing every few words to scroll down. It was hilarious. He finishes the poem and grabs his backpack, clearly planning to read his poem and leave without so much as listening to anyone else or buying a coffee. The guitar guy then engages him in conversation, and the young guy decides to read another poem from his PDA. The he leaves.

So the guitar guy plays a really long and loud song complete with some moaning. By his second ten minutes song, he was so loud that my ipod's volume was threatening to blow out my ear drums. So I gave up and headed home. Despite the less than stellar performances, I'm glad that Macon has a few surprises up its sleeves.

And I can't believe it's already Wednesday:)

p.s. Lately I've been thinking it'd be nice to have an annonymous blog like greenline boy does. I'm generally very open, but lately I've found myself struggling with something I can't blast over the blogosphere. Oh well, it's probably a good exercise in restraint for me.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anonymous blogging has been great. I have a few close friends that know it's me. It's been really therapeutic to post my inner verbal diarrhea out on the world wide web.

Anonymous said...

Agreed. It helps me a lot. I can say those stupid things that I would be embarrassed to say and get honest feedback on them.

But unless you have friends who really know about your blog you are probably safe. And it's nice that you are able to put up pictures of yourself. It adds a face to the blog.

Anonymous said...

Looks like I lost my bet.

Oh, and I believe I'll be moving my blog to Blogger soon. I have a lot of 'banked' material, but I'm just too lazy to complete and post it.

Anonymous said...

Another vote for anonymity from me. Well, at least as anonymous as possible.

cdp said...

I've been thinking the same thing lately. My biggest problem with lack of anonymity is my freaking dad. Apparently he does not understand that when I post something that pretty much screams, "Hey this is personal and please don't come asking me about it" that he is not supposed to come ask me about it. And this is not something he does in a charming, doting, caring dad kind of way. It irritates the hell out of me.

Funny story about the PDA poem guy. I do love the cheesecake brownies there, and that velvet couch is quite comfy.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to do that... but I'll keep this one too. I didn't know when I made the blog about pseudonyms and anonymity.. (back in feb)....

Ally said...

Jordan: That's not a bad idea, but I really don't think I should spend anymore time on the Internet than I already do:)

Cindy: My dad reads my blog too, but he rarely asks me questions about it. He does, however, write some really quirky comments. It actually took me a while before I figured out that he was writing them.

Accidentally Me: I think I'd get confused with all of the made-up names, places, etc. I guess with you living in Boston though, it's a lot easier.

Aaron: Join the "real" blogosphere, and yes, you lost!

Greenlineboy: I love pics, and to me, any post is better with them. Macon is so small especially the legal community that you'd be crazy to write anything too personal (or that you didn't want repeated) on anything like this. Just the fact that I'm a young, female attorney in the area would narrow it down to a few people. You do a great job of being annoymous though.

Ella: I think therapeutic is a great word for it. It helps me process things, and since I love getting others' feedback.