Day 6: Hollywood Open Mic are nuts.

Last night I played the open mic at Cantors. It's a famous deli in Hollywood. When I arrived there was only one person sitting at the end of the bar. We introduced ourselves. His name was . He was originally from St. Louis. We talked about music, Stanley Kubrick, and baseball. At one point an elderly man in a suit sat down and started talking to me. He was dressed pretty sharp. I thought he was going to offer to buy me a drink. Instead a few minutes later he asked for a $1 to play a few tunes on the jukebox. I said ok. It was only a dollar after all. It's funny you can never tell the phonies from the real deal in LA, at least not at first, but that's a whole different topic. It turns out he is a regular at Cantors and enjoyed his booze just a little too much. They bartender told me after he left that the night before he had actually shat his pants literally. I actually felt bad for the guy. He obviously needs help. While waiting for other people to arrive I talked a bit more with Zac and checked my Facebook notifications like 26.7 more times. As if every 3 minutes there would be a crazy amount of new action happening on FB. I met a guy there from Lake Placid. He just got divorced and was rediscovering life and music all over again. The host finally arrived at around 9. He played a song and then it was Zac's turn and then mine. I performed alright. I just came from work and I hadn't warmed up so my voice could have been better but ultimately I did it and that's what matters. I stayed around for another hour or so. The highlight or lowlight depending on how you look at it was a performer named Sr Jewish Rapper. She is a freestyle Rapper who says "oy vey" about every 30 seconds or so. It was humorous. I finished the night by chatting with Shane from Lake Placid. We talked about upstate NY and sports. It was an eventful evening as most open are in Hollywood are. At this point nothing would surprise me. Probably the greatest thing I get out of going to open mics is learning to be comfortable in any environment, with any PA, good, bad, or terrible. That's what there is to learn. The fact that they are nuts just makes it interesting.