Submitted by TCGardstein on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 10:21pm.
It was a dark and stormy night, and it was barely the middle of Saturday afternoon.
Damn, was I depressed. The 13th is usually my favorite day of the month, but this mid-March monsoon that had begun in NY the previous day was growing worse by the hour. Trees were falling all over the city, killing half a dozen hapless people, and I was performing erotic poetry for the first time since last August. I envisioned a venue empty except for the hostess and the other bedraggled performers.
Was I ever wrong, and am I ever grateful to the people who filled the cozy, rosy-hued, bordello-like upstairs room of Madame X in support of all stripes of erotica performers. There were two other poets (my personal favorites, especially the one who already is my personal favorite in other respects), some essayists, storytellers, letter-readers, even a rapper. The hostess, Monica Day, changed from a slinky little outfit into an oversize white button-down shirt in the name of moving to the next level of intimacy with the audience. Door prizes in the form of bottles of champagne were given out to lucky audience members who rose to the "what was your most sensual moment" challenge, scribbling down those moments on little pink note cards, which were then carried up on stage in the mouth of a guy with a silver ponytail who was Monica's "pet" for the evening. (Yes, he also crawled on all fours.)
