Emerson Dameron

"When your lover is still inside you," says a curly-haired woman with an air of placid self-importance, "after he has ejaculated. That's when you do it." Her audience of two darts its eyes toward the bathroom. This is the last Sunday night open mic at Fred Burkhart's long-embattled coffeehouse at 2845 North Halsted. Poets and musicians entertain a packed basement. Underage goths mingle with other bar-scene rejects. To get up for a mug of the complimentary joe is to abdicate your seat. As poet Eric Lab Rat sings a stream-of-consciousness ramble, dapper balladeer Mark Bose struggles through the onlookers, a keyboard under one arm. Upstairs, overdressed hipsters rummage through Burkhart's work and possessions, gratuitously introducing themselves and seeming nonplussed by their lack of recognition.

As Burkhart gladhands his patrons, his eyes and beard bristle with claustrophobia. At one point, he loses it, chewing out "Muslim-Catholic" poet Reverend Shahbaz on stage over a scheduling miscommunication. "People are trying to do their thing," barks the host, "and then some other people over here are trying to do their own fucking thing." The rock band Evil Beaver was supposed to perform directly after midnight, but as they remain outside, Shahbaz and company reignite the mic and continue their round of eulogies. Lab Rat reads from his living will. Hannah Huston, barely audible from the back of the room, spends about twenty seconds on the mic and steps off to booming applause. A baldheaded, goateed ranter takes a verbal swipe at an absent enemy. "I'm a Satanist," he says. "I was going to put a curse on him, but I got home too late." Smokers weave their way toward the door and hold court on the lawn, oblivious to the outflux from Crush, a neighboring club bathing Burkhart's doomed abode in its glow.

For years, Burkhart has hosted these unpredictable events. He expects a five-dollar donation, though he's quick to mention that "you can always give more." In its heyday, the scene produced a compilation CD, which Burkhart describes as "seventy-five minutes of pure... orange juice." For the next week or so, he will continue to live here, among his eerie artwork and artifacts. Eventually, the house will be demolished to make way for condos. Burkhart, like his entire cache, must go. Everything, from the Lego crucifix to the homemade bondage photography to the stained carafe, has its price.

"For forty years," says Burkhart, "I didn't have a job. Then I decided to get one, but the only job I could get was as a traveling salesman. So I sold sex toys." He displays his suitcase full of wares. "And you'll get a good deal. Because these sex toys aren't new. They're used."

(2005-05-03)

Also by Emerson Dameron

Getting Personal
"First off, I want to thank you for having me," says University of Berkeley professor and rhetorician Marianne Constable, her British accent finely tempered by decades on campus. "Were it not for the second person, all of you here today, there would be no first person, me."
(2005-04-19)

Soul Vegetarian
This South Side cult favorite evokes a dingy dive bar, in that you can watch a wall-mounted TV while you wait for seating, and, well... that's it
(2005-03-15)

Moto
Homaro Cantu, the executive chef at the minimalist Asian eatery Moto, dishes food with the cerebral abandon of James Joyce and the creepy technological obsession of William Burroughs
(2005-03-01)

Chick unlit
What went wrong with the plan to top off "Jesus Saves" with inflated mockups of Jack T. Chick tracts
(2003-12-16)

Subterranean sport
(2003-04-15)

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