Sunday night we got to go out and be someone ELSE’S featured artist – and whereas with MOST open mic situations I’m pretty judgy and I’ve got a whole lot of “that’s not how I’D do it” going on, last night was kind of wonderful. I had a great time, we renewed some old friendships, made some new ones and generally made some good noise.
The host – Dan Magnolia – was particularly good at his job. He was marvelously encouraging, charming, personable – and had an energy level comparable to my own and
Maybe I NEED a kind of blacklist to fall back on when some asshole shows up – so I can be forewarned. I can only think of two or three instances where someone had passed a name through the community and when said person showed up I knew to expect trouble.
Apparently THIS individual had shown up early, kept bugging Dan about when the list’s going to go out (yeah, you get to ask ONCE, now go sit down), kept complaining that he needed to go first because he wanted to leave and do other stuff… and Dan’s like me – he thinks of open mics as something you learn from, a community – I watched you now you watched me – etc. Well, this guy didn’t see any value in that and eventually left before the night started. Then he saw fit to text Dan explaining that he was leaving cause he didn’t want to hang out and watch “amateurs caterwaul” – I mean, points for good wording, but what a dick! Then he decided he needed to cement our opinion of him by calling Dan a “gook” – so add racial epithet to being an asshole AND a dick…
And I HATE the fact that maybe this would be a different interaction for me, because if this player comes to ME he’s going to be thinking “well, at least the host’s WHITE” right from the get-go.
Sigh.
Anywho. Dan Magnolia. Go to his open mics. He’s great. And though he’ll be patient with you, don’t be a dick. Cause open mic hosts talk to each other!
