We had a fine show last night at the Tank. There were comedians, a burlesque striptease, a magician, performance artists, bands, and poets. We strolled in, cleared a big space for ourselves, passed around a bottle of "Yukon Jack" until we were all sufficiently enraged and high-spirited, and then we did our thing.



There were a lot of kids in the crowd and our lawyer asked us "Have you considered the ethics of reading your stories in this all-ages gathering?"

"Of course," we said. "That's why we brought our lawyer."

The night's theme was "Silent Night." The show was a benefit for The Tank so that The Tank will be able to afford soundproofing for future, louder shows.

With the accompaniment and electric frenzy of DJ Goodman Carter, I started off our set with a sex story about Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan called "Always Rape the Last Coke Machine:"

LISTEN TO THE .MP3!

Then Dr. Future got up and read "Satan in Love." Man, I love that story:

LISTEN TO THE .MP3!

Xerxes Verdammt appropriated the Tank's whiteboard and illustrated our stories for the greedy crowd. For my story, Verdammt created a titillating bit of tentacle porn. For Dr. Future, Verdammt drew a malevolent figure in a shark shirt proclaiming to be the Devil.

The rest of the acts were also a hell of a lot of fun. First, there was a magician who did card and rope tricks and then pulled an eight foot long rod from his crotch. Then there was this teenaged piano player with whom we were very impressed, this elfin fellow named Nathan Campbell.

(Dr. Future: "There's an 80% chance that the world will crush his spirit into oblivion. But if not, he will be amazing someday.")

There was a polite striptease to John Cage's "4'33," and there was a sketch comedy troupe named "City Hall" who made us all laugh with a joke about the "Yahtzee Party." There was this guy "Old Table" who did an "ironic" hour long "bad music" set on acoustic guitar who cleared the place out, but he won over our hearts later when he came back in a fat suit and did slam poetry that was so rotten and cold-hearted that somebody ironically threw a chair at him.

We stole his poems after the show. Here's one called "Cantelope Ditch":

"Cantelope Squander,
The mainstay stays main-ly
In the positron of a clairvoyant drip,
A slip n' slide made of shit,
Dangling on the edge of sanitary phobias.
Flank!"

There was more music by Steve Yankou, and then The SHAPES ended the night, playing a cult-like electric "Cure" sing-a-long. They rocked pretty fucking hard.

All in all, a fine show, and we hope to go back to The Tank soon.

Posted by miracle on Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:13:40 -0400 -- permanent link