I think I might start doing a weekly recap of the night before at Bohemian Caverns. I think I might start today. Well I suppose I won’t be thinking of starting today since I’m already something like *hold on*…

…37 words into this post and the clear intention was to write about what happened the night before.

And yes I really did count the number of words.

I’m sexxy like that.

Now mind you, I have a deal with the promoter who sponsors (I suppose that’s the word) the Stock13 Open Mic, as well as his monthly Stockholm 180 Charity parties, to do a write up for everybody to read. But the site is not up and running yet so I figured, what the hell, last night was interesting so I figured I’d write it up here.

I’m going to tell you how last night went by telling you some things I learned. In fact, that might become the running theme. What did Panama learn?

10 Things I Learned Whilst Sipping on One Too Many Long Island Iced Teas

1. Sometimes, it’s possible to forget that an open mic means anybody with aspirations of grandeur can show up and show their ass.

Before the joint got off and kicking, a Latino fellow approached me telling me that he wanted to sign up for the list. No problem, its an open mic, that’s what people do. I ask him what he wants to do and he informs me that he wants to rap. Check. I put him down. I proceed to talk to him further and he tells me, in a roundabout way, that he does lots of open mics. Cool. Even hands me a flyer of his with all of his contact information. This cool laid-back dude volunteers to go first, which if you’ve ever hosted an event you know is like pulling teeth. For some reason, every muhfucka thinks that they’re too good to go first. Like that’s proof that they haven’t made it.

Umm…Bohemian Caverns is a cave. If you’re ass is performing in a cave on Wednesdays…you haven’t made it yet. Just take my word for it.

Anyway, El Toro (yes that was fucked up for me to call the Latino fellow El Toro but fuck you anyway), gets up on the mic and it goes a little something like this:

El Toro: W’sup to all my Latinos. I’m touring on the East coast and heading to the Southwest and I’m doing this for all the fucking’ shit that muhfuckas talk about muhfuckin’ Latinos and that fuckin’ reggateon bullshit fuckin’ fuckin’ fuckin’ fuckin’ (add like 10 more of those) shit. Fuck all the folks that think us fuckin’ Latinos is on some fuckin’ shit. Fuck fuck fuck. Yo, DJ drop it…

Now, I’m no fan of reggaeton and for some reason its become the Latino identifying music. All of a sudden every Latino in America has determined that the ass melange that is reggaeton is really a force to be reckoned with. I happen to disagree so for about a split second, and despite the profanity-laced opening statement, I was at least glad there was one Latino who doesn’t fuck with reggaeton. However…

…if you’re gonna talk shit about something, at least be good enough to make me agree with you. What happened was kind of like the combination of too many drinks, too much energy, that Latino whistle, a Chevy, a shootout in East LA, and a black Primitive Baptist Church in Mississippi. You have no idea what that combines to create do you?

Neither did anybody else there. Nobody could understand shit he said except one word: FUCK!!!! Must be his favorite word. Either way, the point is that its easy to forget that open mic means open mic. And El Toro just might show up.

Or a white girl singing Beyonce songs and actually doing a good job with it despite technical difficulties. Understand…it’s going down at the Stock 13 Open Mic!!

(Wow that was long.)

2. This one is kind of common sense, but if you put enough grown ass folks in a room together and they start talking, not trying to holler, but actually talking, relationships and why men and women don’t understand eachother will inevitably become the soup du jour.

So yeah, as the host I tend to walk around and talk to any and everybody in the venue before the show starts up. Well I happened upon a group of three lovely young ladies and was told that one of them was going to perform. She said her name was Sexual Chocolate. Well, clearly, anybody who loves Coming to America enough to name themselves after Randy Watson’s band is alright with me. I don’t know how it happened, but a full fledge discourse on relationships, Black men in DC, Erykah Badu, and Southern living occurred. We must have conversated (since we’re black we are allowed to conversate, irregardless of whether or not its a real word) for a good half hour. Good times, I hope they come back. Especially Sexual Chocolate since I didn’t get a chance to drop the microphone while stomping my feet a few times then exiting stage left only to hear somebody in the audience say, “that boy good!”

3. I love the fact that at any majority-Black venue if you start doing HBCU shoutouts, folks will get hype at least for a second at the chance to rep their alma mater.

One of the dudes that performed a song goes to Alabama A&M University, which is in Huntsville. Well I went to high school in Madison, Alabama, which is a suburb of Huntsville. So of course we got to talking for a little while about the ‘Ville and shit. When it came time for me to introduce him, I decided to do a quick roll call since I know quite a few folks in there went to Hampton and Howard. That was cool. And of course you KNOW I had to let everybody know that Morehouse and Spelman were clearly the directions they should have gone, but they all probably could have done worse. You can tell a Morehouse Man, but you can’t tell him much.

Bitches.

EXTRA: So as SOON as I said I went to Morehouse you know what happened. I walked off of the stage to about 5 different folks asking me if I knew such and such that went to the ‘House. Which just proves the point that Morehouse Men run shit. Non-sequiter. Surely. I went to Morehouse, I’m sexxy, and I’m Panama.

Kiss my ass.

4. Some people just aren’t smart.

PSA: To all of my idiots out there, the two people you DO NOT want to heckle to a point where you’re pissing them off are: 1) Panama Jackson aka me aka The Host because I control the mic the whole night and will ALWAYS have the last word AND get you kicked out; and 2) FUCKIN’ COMEDIANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can’t stress that enough. Why would you heckle Red Grant, the fuckin’ headliner, and most popular comedian in the joint as well as one that drew a crowd? Do you really think that you’re going to win that battle? Of course, somebody had to test their gangsta last night. Sometimes I think folks pride gets the best of them and they don’t know how to stop themselves once they start talking. In the famous words of whoever sang the damn song, “that’s what friends are fooooooooooooooooor…” If your friends let you get into a pissing contest with the two niggas in the place that are hands down going to clown you and make you look especially stupid, they aren’t your friends. Word life.

5. If its a majority-Black venue, and there are white people in attendance and there are comedians present, every comedian will talk about the white people.

Shit must be some kind of default. “My jokes are bombing, but I always have the white people to fall back on.” Though last night, none of the comedians really sucked or anything, but each and every one got on the white people at some point. Luckily there were a GANG of white folks there so they took in stride.

Though they were the LOUDEST fuckin’ unruly group of white folks ever until Red Grant quite seriously told them to shut the fuck up. Like seriously.

Total sonnage.

6. Comedians with no jokes who headline will go for a very long time if they don’t have a structured routine ready.

Annnnnnnnnnd such was the case with Red Grant. Funny cat, but to me he wasn’t even the funniest cat we had last night. He didn’t have any jokes for real. He just got up there and started talking for like 40 minutes. This dude named Marion Kendrick was way funnier to me. Which is even funnier since before he went on I set his ass up for trying to debo me on his spot in the lineup. I told the crowd that this nigga specifically told me he was going to shut the shit down.

Word to the wise: Do not fuck with the nigga who is running the event. It’s not a good look. Did you see The Five Heartbeats when the Host told the crowd that The Heartbeats said they were better than Bird and the Midnight Falcons and The Temptations all put together in one? Yeah…don’t fuck with me fool. He was cool though and he did shut shit down.

7. I really like women poets at open mics.

Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Women tend to be more easy natured than men at these events. We’ll call it the Pride factor. This means that when a women goes up to perform and discusses something I have an opinion on, they usually take it in stride when I totally deconstruct whatever the fuck it is that they wrote. Men…not so much. Men need hugs. Or need to stop hugging so much since apparently, and according to Sexual Chocolate and Co., sensitive men are really getting a little carried away with their pussyness lately. Bottom line, women poets are a good lot. They’re a lot more interactive than dudes.

8. It’s always funny to see a man taking his friendship with a chick a little too far on the dance floor.

Let’s call it borederline harassment. Dancing with your friends is always a risky proposition. Say you get a little bit too touchy feely. Like say you just put your face in their breasts. I mean, isn’t that a bit much? Well once they back up that first time and remove your face from their breasts and then you proceed to place your hands on their buttocks in a rubbing manner and they remove them…shouldn’t the message be clear? Of course not. Which is why I believe women are better than men sometimes. There was good cause to slap the monkey shine shit out of this cat but it never happened. She just perseverently kept removing his hands, face, toenails, and credit cards from going places they shouldn’t have gone.

I love the 80s.

And no that doesn’t have shit to do with shit.

9. If you have enough liquor and enough folks who are old enough to remember and love BBD’s “Poison”, you will get a danceoff in the club.

It never fails. Trust me. And I swear the DJ must have been reading my blog because he played Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and followed it up with Guy’s “Teddy’s Jam”. It’s like he was testing to see which got the better reaction. Of course I had to break out the Bobby Brown dance. Then a few of us started doing the Kid ‘N Play. Good times. Dancing can become quite the spectator sport when you got folks doing old dances that folks used to love. Oh yes, and I don’t like reggae very much. At all. If you want me to sit down at your party, play reggae for 30 minutes straight. I’ll sit.

10. It must suck to be the unattractive one in a group of fine women.

Not that this was so much the case last night, but let’s just say, the thought did dawn on me at one point. Oh yeah, I might as well mention this here. The whitest man in America was on the dance floor chopping it up something serious. And you know what? I wished I could have as much fun as he was having. He did the same dance all night. I even counted it off with a young lady next to me because he did all the moves in the same order. He reminded me of Kevin James in Hitch.

Well those are the things I learned last night. Either show up next Wednesday if you’re in DC or tune in next week to read about what goes down at the Open Mic where fun is had by all.

Until then…