Some highlights of the evening…
– Sitting at a table on the deck with Johnny Rotten on my left and Stan Lee on my right, and listening to them have-at one another. Always a gentle joker, Stan was saying “I can’t understand a word this guy’s saying,” about Johnny, and Johnny was hissing “Listen, Dad – you don’t know who you’re dealing with. I’m Rotten.”
– Jeffrey Tambor wrapping up his set with a dryly delivered “I’ll read one more piece, because I’ve got two more poetry events to hit before the night’s over.”
– Finesse Mitchell, doing a pair of impromptu poems entitled “Mapquest Don’t Know Where This House Is” and “Goddamn, This is a Nice House.” As funny as he was, he wrapped his set up with a really moving poem entitled “There Was Ugly in the Church Today”. That guy’s totally cool in my book.
– Stan Lee, working without a microphone, reciting three not-short poems from memory, and then humorously editorializing at the end of each. He was all prepared to do “The Raven” from memory as well, but decided to hold onto it ’til next year’s event. The man, mind you, is 84 fucking years old – and yet, he owned that room. The crowd loved him.
– Kathy Bates, riffing on my intro, saying “Now I wish I’d brought the other poem I wrote with me: Big, Luscious Dicks.”
– Carrie Fisher sweating the event once she heard the intro and some of the other readers, insisting she only came prepared with one short poem. Then, when it was her turn, she took the mic and said “Sherlock Holmes used to say that the mind can only house so much information. And when new things are learned, old things get pushed out. But this is something that I’ve been able to hold onto for a long time.” She paused, and then began “General Kenobi – years ago, you served my Father in the Clone Wars…” Yes – she did the entire “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi” speech from memory. Brought the cheering house to its fucking feet, she did.
– Mary Lynn Rajskub doing not just a really funny excerpt from her forthcoming, one-woman show, but also an extended hysterical intro about being “24” famous and not knowing shit about computers.
– Steve Valentine rocking some Shel Silverstein, then following it up with reading some morbidly funny epitaphs he’d found online. And if that wasn’t enough, he capped his presentation off with a pretty wicked card trick, reciting patter from a 1930’s magician, set to a rap beat. He killed.
– Eva Longoria, post-introduction, saying “You mention liking vibrators in one interview, and it haunts you forever.”
– John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon launching into what seemed like a blistering, anti-abortion screed (”Bodies”) at a room full of terrified parents, calling one of the audience members out when she uncomfortably chuckled by saying “Is this fucking funny to you?! Are you an animal?”, blaming all of us for electing George Bush and then dismissing petrol-centric politics with “This is what you need oil for,” while rubbing his asshole over his pants and then patting a balding dude in the front row’s head, Benny Hill style, adding “Or this,” and then finishing up with an a capella version of “God Save the Queen” with the audience singing along. Fucking amazing.
