It isn’t pretty at Weeds, not at all.
Sitting there in the shadows of the Homemakers home furnishings bunker and just steps from a desolate Cabrini-Green, it’s not pretty on weekends when rock ‘n’ roll is king, or on so-called “comfort” nights, or — least of all — on Mondays, when the wretched and the geniuses gather to read their poetry at the open mike.
To be sure, on this particular Monday evening, the geniuses were hiding. But they’ve been known to come through — that’s the thing about Weeds. Sometimes only four or five poets will show up; other times, there’s a line out the door.
On occasion, someone will stroll up to the stage and make all the hecklers shut up just by force of will, whispering into the microphone something sublime. Other times, what passes as poetry here is better described by a word that starts with B, ends with T, and is lingua franca at Weeds.
The evening is officially hosted by Gregorio Gomez, but he’s really in concert with Sergio Mayora, the bar’s owner and bartender. If Gomez is the event’s superego, making sure it all rolls along, Mayora is its id, impulsively commenting in his sonorous baritone from behind and under the bar.
Gomez is the real thing: a street poet, a shaman. His banter is machine-gun fast, blue and salty, but none of it is an act. As the poets roll in for the show, they shake his hand, pat him on the back. These are his people, weird Mr. Milwaukee Joe with his awful hand puppets, the Reader’s hip guy du jour, Neal Pollack, in for a slum night, and a strait-laced visiting writer from Vancouver who thinks he’s cool just because he’s there. Gomez, however, is the perfect host: He treats them all the same, respectfully but never fawning. He jabs, but not too much: He sees through the posturing and, unlike Clinton, really feels their pain.
Under a scaffolding from which hang hundreds, perhaps thousands, of brassieres, there’s a Roy Akers sculpture of Mayora, with luscious lips and a surprisingly beatific expression — a complete contrast to the flesh-and-blood man who stalks behind the bar, playing the inscrutable Indian in shades.
When the poets get going, Mayora takes a seat behind the bar to listen. “What’s that last word?” he yells out after Gomez has finished a piece. “That’s f— beautiful,” he says to another guy. Finally, he takes the stage himself, a giant of a man, hands in his pockets like a bored but nervous young boy.
“I’ve been married to white women, got a couple of half-white kids running around in the world,” he says by way of introduction. Then he spills his verse, all flat notes, while the crowd repeats the last word of every line back at him as if they were part of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cult.
Tonight, most of the poets are forgettable, except for Pollack, whose satiric lyrics lose their punch only when he apologizes about them. The evening ends like they have every Monday during the 11 years Gomez has been hosting: with his own rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer,” a half-sung, half-spoken incantation about urban evils — a dizzying bit of genius offered up for free each week.
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Speaking of Latino Chicago Theater, where Gregorio Gomez toils when he’s not at Weeds: The Uptown-headquartered Neo-Futurists are extending a helping hand.
Last December, Latino Chicago’s theater space, a former firehouse, caught fire. Damage has been estimated at more than $400,000.
In a bit of fellowship, the Neo-Futurists are donating every last dime that comes in the door for the Sunday performance of “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” to their theatrical brethren across town.
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So, help them out.
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We goofed. Maybe we were just overexcited, or perhaps we just misunderstood, but Sonia Rutstein, the lavender half of the disappear fear sister act, wasn’t at Schubas last week after all. It’s tomorrow, April 4, when she’ll fill the back music hall with her self-composed songs about love and politics. We beg forgiveness.
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the facts
Saturday, 8 p.m., Sonia Rutstein, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport Ave., $7. Call 773-525-2508 for additional information.
Sunday, “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” a benefit for Latino Chicago Theater by the Neo-Futurists, The Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland Ave., $5-$10. Call 773-275-5255.
Mondays, any time after 9 p.m., Weeds Poetry Night, 1555 N. Dayton St. Call 312-943-7815.