An Icon

There's this place here in Regina that does an open mic night every Monday. I've been to a few; it's a very nice time. 

I have to be in the right headspace for them, because they can be a little heavy on the second-hand embarrassment, for which I have a very low threshold. Like, that moment when a person is up there doing stand-up and they deliver this joke you can tell they're really proud of, and the room just collectively stares at them, unblinking...? I can't handle it. 

Even worse is when they wait a beat, like they think, oh, any moment now this joke is going to land; it's just taking a second. They know that if a joke takes a second and then lands, the payoff is sometimes even better, so they look out into the dark room, hopeful, searching so hard for that laugh. But there is no laugh and that pause only serves to amplify the fact that the joke was not something that was ever going to land—and maybe it's just this audience, this night, these vibes, but also: maybe the joke wasn't that good. And you can see these thoughts on their face; it's awful, watching someone recognize their own failure in front of an audience.

And it can get even worse! Because when people are embarrassed they get defensive and angry, and they might say something like, "Well people usually love that joke," or, "Whoa, tough audience." And you know they know, deep down, that it's not the audience's fault. You imagine them going home, walking into their apartment, sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. You imagine their sadness. And then you feel sad, when what you came for in the first place was the exact opposite of sadness. And that seems a little unfair! 

ANYWAY. 

All I really meant to say here was that I went to an open mic night on Monday with my friend Sarah, and it was lovely, and there was cheesecake and a little bit of secondhand sadness, but there was also a lot of secondhand triumph, and genuine laughter, and it was all very beautiful because it was all so human. And! A pleasant little surprise was that I ran into this guy again. I haven't seen him in years, but apparently he's a regular at open mic night now. He did two Bon Jovi songs; he danced, he got the audience to join in, he ran around the room during the instrumentals. 

And when he spotted me in the crowd afterward, he came over. 

He looked at me curiously; I wondered if he recognized me, and maybe he did but maybe he didn't. He said, "Hey, what did you think of my songs?"

I said, "You did great. It was so good. The audience loved you."

He said, "Yes, I know. I'm an icon."