Not the America I Know

"If you don't like it, there's the f**king door!"

So said the M.C. of a comedy open mic last night at my favorite cafe. This after one of his comics had shouted at a couple of paying customers . .

"Will you shut the f**k up!"

The patron, thus addressed, ducked so quickly for the door it was hard for the eye to follow—the last straw for me, one of the only regulars at the cafe who continued to show up for what some of us had dubbed "Tragedy Night". The M.C. had regularly shushed us during performances.

Quieting paying customers because they're not paying attention to your terrible show? So I shouted at the comic from the back of the room that he couldn't tell us to shut up, that this was our place. An exchange ensued, which resulted in heckling on my part.

Some of his comments, after screaming primally into the mic for several seconds—making the point that he could drown me out, he had the power—including a threat to do me physical violence with the microphone apparatus. I invited him down off stage.

A spew of expletives on the vile nature of my personage including the delightful . .

"I wish your mother had aborted you!"

After this had gone on for some time, a barista came to my table and informed me that if I "disrupted again" I would have to leave.

After the show I asked the M.C. if I heard him right, that his attitude was essentially "there's the f**king door". "Damn right," he replied. More heated discussion ensued whereupon I received another warning. When I kept it up I was asked to leave, and the barista made a show of calling the police. An M.C. who forces you to be quiet through his bad show, and a policeman who tosses you out if you complain.

That's not the America I know.