Comments (0) Best Open-Mic Monopoly - 2001
Faceboyz Open Mic, Reverend Jen's Anti-Slam
By opening themselves up to anything—a man exploding a science project out of his Speedo; another lamenting his stroke-victim father\'s emasculation while a XXX movie plays on the TV behind him—two grown-up show-and-tells (i.e., open mics) escape the pedantry, hostility, or atonality (of the poetry, comedy, or music) that haunts many of their single-genre counterparts. Sundays at FACEBOYZ OPEN MIC (Surf Reality, 172 Allen Street, 673-4182) and Wednesdays at the REVEREND JEN\'S ANTI-SLAM (Collective Unconscious, 145 Ludlow Street, 254-5277), where everyone scores a 10, the poets have to impress the comics, and the musicians want respect from the poets, which means, wayward sexual expression aside, that instead of the best and worst you get the very best and the not-too-shabby. Lower East Side entertainment oddities filter through these closely associated stages; for newcomers to alternative theater, it\'s a chance to preview what the neighborhood has to offer.
