Arkansas Democrat Gazette
ESCAPING REALITY TV
by Jennifer Christman
Monday -- Big Brother.
Tuesday -- Big Brother and The Real World.
Wednesday -- Survivor and Big Brother.
Thursday -- Big Brother.
Friday -- Big Brother and Making the Band.
Saturday -- Big Brother.
Sunday -- Shake frenziedly from "reality" television withdrawal and pray for Monday to come quickly.
When the social calendar starts to look like this, it's time to break out. Get off the couch, stop looking to the lives of Gervase and Jordan for amusement and entertain yourself for a change.
Visit a place that offers an open mike night and take the microphone into your own hands.
You might not have a national audience or win a phat cash prize. But it has got to be better than suffering through Tribal Council with Jeff Probst or an exit interview with Julie Chen. And you might find yourself entertaining some other people, too.
Besides, you can always set the VCR and watch your shows later.
VINO'S SEVEN MINUTES MAX
West Seventh and Chester streets, 8 p.m. every third Thursday. Sign up begins at 7:30 p.m. Admission: $3. (501) 375-8466.
How often do you get to hear someone sing Bette Midler, recite poems about, um, gas, and dress in drag all in one night?
Well, once a month. Every third Thursday to be exact.
That's when Vino's back room belongs to Seven Minutes Max -- a forum for people to perform anything, anything at all, for guess how long.
It's a perfect amount of time any way you look at it. If you're performing and riddled with stage fright, the agony can last only 420 seconds before the lights flicker and signal your time is up. If you're watching and something isn't your pint of microbrew, visit the restroom. By the time you're finished checking out the graffiti, someone else will be on stage.
And that someone could be a performer singing Radiohead. Or someone giving a dramatic reading. Or a belly dancer. Or the Red Octopus gang practicing a comedy skit. Or a girl concerned about a newspaper article. Or a dude from the Arkansas chapter of National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, waving his marijuana leaf flag before dedicating a song to Woody Harrelson.
Jenifer Hamel, who goes by Lily Slack on performance nights, says Seven Minutes Max is a replica of an open mike night she ran in Los Angeles.
"When I got here, it seemed the open mike nights were, I want to say, restrictive. They've got them for poets and singers," she says. But there wasn't a venue for the other acts she wanted to share and watch.
"I make up all kinds of silly little things all the time ... Everyone has a few minutes of something they want to perform or talk about."
She also wanted to create a laid-back environment.
"I didn't want it to be competitive -- that puts a different edge on things," she says. "I like to think of Seven Minutes Max as experimental ground. You go in and you can fail if you want to. It's about trying and doing and figuring things out as a performer. Here the audiences have been supportive.
"There is an air of fun."
Be advised that there also is an air of smoke. This is Vino's, after all.
This article was published in full on Friday, August 4, 2000
Copyright © 2000, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
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