The crowd's the thing that makes Poetry and a Beverage perk along

By Jack Saunders

Saturday night's "Poetry and a Beverage" showcased the good, the bad, the bad, the bad, the bad, the bad, and the worse -- but somehow managed to be entertaining.

The open-mic, amateur performances were like a bad Twilight Zone, an endless exhibit of mediocre Natalie Merchant and Jack Johnson wannabes. The only thing worth watching, aside from a few performances (maybe one), was the overcrowded audience's interactions with itself.

One guitarist after another entered the spotlight with self-written songs, sung happily away with eyes closed tight; seeming to be swept-away by how good they thought they were; almost appearing to be trapped in some strange land where off-pitch notes sound golden.

The Arts and Lectures Committee (which hosted the event), apparently aware of the lack of talent on campus, covered the tables with large sheets of yellow paper, crayons and various board games, in an attempt to console its audience members for their soon-to-be painful eyes and ears and provide them with options to ease their boredom.

And it worked. Rarely did a performer receive a whistle, a holler or even applause. Most of the audience seemed equally emerged in their own world of enlightenment, busied with old-school games, such as Chutes and Ladders, Jenga and Life.

One group of happy-company, smile-friendly students formed a tight circle (in the middle of hallway making it impossible for anyone to get by) and shamelessly played the popular 5-year-old birthday party game, "Duck, Duck, Goose."

Other groups creatively folded newspaper pages, making black and white pirate and Pope Hats. Others built pyramids out of empty Coca-Cola cups.

One group stacked multiple white-bottomed cups high and circular around a posed human statuette. Nearing the unmoving person's neck, a tossed a cup hit the base and destroyed, in domino fashion, the highly anticipated structure. (More people showed emotion for the falling cup tower than for all the singing performances combined.)

At times, the audience, combined with the performers, made for some strange moments.

Spiky-haired guitarist Andrew Powers sang a self-written song called Last September, and just in case the audience couldn't tell what it was about, Powers made it clear.

"It's about last September."

Falling short on a few notes during his performance, Powers later apologized for his inconsistencies.

"Sorry about all the flat notes."

Sitting to the table next to me was an artist named Jonathon Ribera. Thanks to the table-sized pieces of paper and assortment of crayons distributed by the Arts and Lectures crew, Ribera sketched several performers in a cartoonish fashion throughout the night.

A caricature of an overly exaggerated Powers singing with eyes closed and mouth stretched-open (remarkably similar to the real Powers) filled a corner of Ribera's yellow canvas.

"Hey that's pretty good," said a passer-by twentysomething girl. "Are you an artist?"

Ribera chatted for about a minute with her, and then, she suddenly disappeared amid the crowd.

A short while later she returned with Powers and gleefully pointed to his comical counterpart, etched in forest-green crayon on the paper table cloth.

Already notorious for his one-line wit and knowing the picture was of him (thanks to his friend's excitement) Powers turned to Ribera and asked -- "Is that really me?"

Obviously satisfied with the answer, Powers, with Ribera's permission, ripped off the corner containing his portrait and left.

Ribera kept drawing others and told me why he was there.

"I like to draw people who don't know I'm watching them, especially those entranced in their own world."

I was more entertained watching Ribera's skillful craft than trying to hear the performers above the loud, obnoxious crowd. The frenzied, out-of-control audience often concocted noise high above the decibel level of the performers.

One performer, an unknown poet, (not listed on the sign up sheet) held a fork in front of his face with a clenched fist and warned the audience to quiet down or they wouldn't hear his poetic tribute to forks.

Incredibly, almost like someone pushing a mute button, the audience complied with his demands.

He spoke slowly and softly to his fork, romantically serenading it like a lover.

But, his poem quickly turned into a cheesy sexual innuendo.

"I want to thrust you down and stab you in my meat," he said. "I always feel bad when I'm done with you and make you feel dirty when I put you back with all the rest."

Sparse laughter trickled among the audience and the unhappy crowd immersed themselves with conversation and games while more performers bombed on stage.

Finally, after multiple hopeless amateur guitarists and the weird "fork" guy, Phil Lefler stood in front of the mic.

Running in place with high energy like David Byrne at a Talking Heads concert, Lefler began to rouse the distracted, bored crowd. His songs, bleached with independent flare, combined multiple genres, from skittish skat to lyrically smooth folk.

Sweat dripped from his brow, as the polyester-tie-sporting singer flew through three groovy, face-paced songs.

After Lefler's diamond-in-the-rough performance the crowd again slipped back into their own worlds, ignoring the rest of the yawn-worthy acts.

And the rest of the performances were definitely yawn-worthy.

At the end of the show (around midnight), scattered Coke cups and board-game-pieces blanketed the floor. The once yellow, table-sized coloring sheets were plastered with zigzagging crayons marks, appearing like messy graffiti on a wall.

The place was left in chaos. It was a visual manifestation of a disordered, muddled night.

And I -- well, I ripped off my portrait and went home.

MS
MS