The Vortex Cabaret

I hardly ever get out of the house, but when I do I try to do something special. In my never ending quest to be a renaissance man, I attended what I would call a fringe variety show entitled The Vortex Cabaret at The Boiler Room in Asheville, North Carolina. This show is managed by the Reverend Johnny Lemuria. Aside from his myspace presence, I think he runs the website http://pleasuresaucer.com.

I’m not a very social person, I’m not much for striking up conversations with strangers so I would’ve liked to have gone there with a friend but ended up going alone. As usual, I gave myself way too much time to get there fearing getting lost and showed up way way too early. I ended up walking around town and showing up at The Boiler Room long before the show started. It was a little awkward knowing no one and being older than just about everybody else there. The most awkward moment for me occurred when I attempted to merge into a conversation between who I later found out was Sister Discordia and some guy. She is actually one of my myspace friends although, like most myspace friends, I’ve never communicated with her other than sending the initial friend request. I ambled over to them and definitely got within earshot of their conversation. I waited for a break in the conversation prepared to butt in nicely with some disarmingly humorous remark. It never came. I continued standing there saying nothing. At some point I’m sure it became rude of me but I figured the only way out was to wait for a pause and talk. It never came and they both walked away. My life is made up of these awkward moments, sometimes multiple overlapping awkward moments. I’m used to it. People usually remember the happiest or saddest moments of events in their lives. I, for some reason, always remember the most awkward moments like that time I walked into a woman’s restroom on a business trip to Baltimore 20 years ago. I am The King of Awkwardness. Awkwardus Rex.

When this Vortex Cabaret finally started pulling out of the station. It consisted of 5 acts: 2 musical, 1 standup, 1 puppetry (yes, puppetry) and 1 burlesque. 'Forrest' was up first. This was the first of 2 musical acts. It consisted of 4 or 5 young men playing with some electronic gadgets and singing incoherently while shaking, rolling around or just laying on the floor. I like to think I know something about experimental electronic music. I used to listen to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk when I was in high school. I couldn’t quite appreciate this first act though but I’ll consider this my failure, not theirs.

Next up was the aforementioned Sister Discordia. She was up for just a few minutes and gave a quick drug and sex related rant that the audience seemed to relate to. This is where I realized that only geographically was I a local. She’s apparently a stranger to subtlety and nuance but was entertaining. I liked her. Sister Discordia was a short plump woman who wore a short hound’s tooth patterned dress. During the evening I kept noticing her and finally realized I was somewhat attracted to her. I wanted to squeeze her. Like a zit. A juicy wonderfully plump little foul mouthed sexy zit.

After her ranting was 'Madison.' He was a puppeteer and this honestly was the best part of the show. Obviously this guy put a lot of time into his craft. He had I guess what I'd call 'goth' styled puppets and mingled with the audience.

After Madison was another music act, Elisa Faires and some guy-the act was billed as 'Elisa Faires & Co.' at http://pleasuresaucer.com. I don’t really know what you’d call this. 'Performance art' is too much of an umbrella term but that'll have to do. This is a video of Elisa Faires. They were singing/making incoherent noises and playing some conventional musical instruments unconventionally. Their hearts were into it. I really hate saying something was 'interesting' but it was interesting. I was sitting there during their performance, taking it in and it made me wonder, do you have to have a certain defined appreciation to, well, appreciate this? If you don't/can't appreciate it, should you, just to be polite if nothing else, sit there and stare thoughtfully? No, that's dishonest. Was it symbolic and was I just not getting it? After a few minutes I was really trying hard to 'get it' and then she put on a horned mask and started tap dancing while singing and yelling. I finally laughed-almost orgasmically. I say 'orgasmically' because to my shame, I’d gotten tickled early on and the urge to laugh had been building. I had finally noticed someone else laughing and their domino hit my domino...

After some laughing I had a fun-sized-epiphany. Maybe I was approaching this all wrong. I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings but perhaps laughter was ok and even expected. Why hold back my emotions when they definitely were not holding back their guttural feelings. Seriously. Appropriate or inappropriate, maybe the audience’s reaction isn’t outside the scope of the performance. Perhaps the performance never ended and this write up part is part of it. Maybe I’m still thinking about it way too much. If nothing else you can tell it messed with my head and sometimes it's fun to have your head messed with.

Lastly was burlesque from 'Theatre de Fetiche.' It was funny because this was when I noticed people starting to come back in from outside. It was cute, a little amateurish but classy, no exposed nipples or genitals and no donkeys.

Two or three times during the show the Reverend Johnny Lemuria, read from a good book I don’t pretend to know anything about. The audio wasn't the best so I caught bits and pieces. Evidently a captain of local industry, he's proposing establishing a local currency. I'd love to see those metal drink can tabs become currency because I have a whole bag of them. According to The Reverend's website 'The Vortex Cabaret' is an ongoing bi-weekly event at the Boiler Room in Asheville. The next show is July 29th I believe. Although some of it was a bit amateurish and hit and miss, the performers I saw honestly put a lot of effort into it. I'd recommend attending if for absolutely no other reason than it's different, really really really [ad infinitum] different.