Keep the fire burning. It worked for Strummer, it's worked here for years. Sometimes you stumble across something that stokes the flames higher, that 'lets the inside out', that creates community. Last Sunday, there was a full house for the last stand of such a stumbled find: the finale of Open Mic at Little Joy. Keith Niles has put on a wonderful event in this divey Echo Park bar for four years. It's end might prove more a beginning than we now know. These forty-odd Sundays have resulted in CD's, books and videos. They have bolstered careers for some, confidence for all. We've posted about the lil' j before, a smattering of photos to give a glimpse into this wonderful world. For the regulars, 3, 4 years of Sundays amount to more than a creative catharsis. For them, for us, it is a community. For the 'last night' many brought tributes in their comments, others through their poems. As ever, song, music and even comedy had their seat at the bar. Normally, it'd just be four or six or twelve of us sitting at the bar listening to each other, with a few wayward souls drifted in from the ball game or the tap up the street.
A story remembered from those years - A rainy night, maybe summer of 06, a stranger with two well dressed ladies on his arm enters. A few readers in, he asks 'd'yall write your own stuff?' He's intrigued that we do. We encourage him to get up if he feels so inclined. He responds that he's a comic, and we encourage him further. Understand, it's a welcoming place, but these three seem waaaay off the reservation. They ain't from these parts. The man tells us he is a journeyman from out of town, hitting some bars with his dates. He gets up, and brings it. There's only seven or eight of us in the joint. The roof is raised. The roof is on fire. We're laughing like it's the end of the world. Never seen him again. That's Little Joy; welcoming, emboldening, inspired, fleeting.
On this past Sunday night, to say good bye, or good night, or hello, it was wall-to-wall packed with respectful listeners and more than 30 participants. Chapeau Keith, and all who have performed their art at Little Joy over the years. Keep the fire burning.
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