I am not a musician. I am no comedian. I don’t particularly like public speaking, what the heck am I doing up here?

I don’t know, whispers the mic, I know what I’m doing here, open as I am, but you, you’re beginning to look foolish.

The first time I was here I really felt inspired by the folks that were performing, inspired enough to grab a pen and put it to paper. Inspired by this mic here…this open mic, which really got me to thinking…
…of the world from the point of view of a microphone, of this very microphone…all evening, the whole of its coil-wound existence even, spent looking up into wide mouths and teeth dentine white, cavities and…nasal…cavities, how’m I looking up there mic? Any bats in my cave?

All voices and vibrato, timbre, does this thing know when we nail the note or croon a bit off key? Is it a critic? Does it offer advice? Whisper to us? Can it sense the nervousness of a public performance, taste the stress? Does it know who’s been brushing, who’s been diligent with the floss, can it smell the coffee breath and metabolized alcohol from this evening’s indulgences? I hear it now, so soft a whisper, you know you could spare me some pain here, perhaps you have a tic-tac? Hum?

The Plan: The pen to the paper, something tailor made for not just an open mic, but for this open mic, right here, right now – full of artists, climbers, musicians, and a contagious, infectious enthusiasm. I mean, if there wasn’t some contagion in the air why would I even be up here, right?

Here, this black sheep, full of coffee (the best coffee), a beautiful new patio and beers on tap to satisfy our thirst and loosen our tongues. Musicians young and old, poets, writers, disciples and iconoclasts, comedians…young and old.

Young and old. What for god’s sake does it mean to be young? To be youthful? Is a newborn babe young? Is eighteen years old, young? How about an eighteen year old bottle of single malt scotch? Or my forty years? Young? ‘Tis but half of eighty right? All relative I guess, it’s all relative.

Can a place then, a town, keep you young? I mean, such verve, such a youthful zest, such a passion for life that this small town Bishop seems to embody, seems to attract, the risk prone – baited here by epically mountainous bike rides, backcountry rips down snow covered ridgelines, the backcountry itself, boulders, ropes and rock faces, a distant mountaintop stabbing at the baby blue horizon, trout the size of salmon – so simple these pleasures. These pleasures, so simple. If I could just bottle this town-full of enthusiasm, right here, right now, sprinkle it on sugar cubes then bag it up for distribution it would be on the DEA scheduled list. A drug. Schedule I. Illegal.

Oh but the irony of such a thing. The ease of access would in time confine us to our couches. Just pop the pill. Just pop the pill and then bam! Couch potatoes every one, content with the feeling and not the means. Content with the feeling and not the means. The long bike ride without the sore ass, the highball boulder problem without the risk, the mountain top without the cold thin air. Oh what a mistake that would be to concoct such a thing, such a drug, such a poison – humph – and there you are – you son-of-a, DAMMIT! – I knew you’d come, I knew you’d come as you so often do, my dear, dear friend – dearest Tangent.

I was talking about youth and Bishop and the magic this Eastside seems to engender and you veered me off to some spiel about what? Imaginary drugs? Whenever I’m headed toward something good you always detour me, entice me onto your curvy, nameless, roads getting lost again and again in the mind’s wandering what-ifs.

Wandering what-ifs? Ooh, now there’s a tangent. Dare I say Bishop is full of wandering what-ifs! I for one and there’s more than a few more right here tonight! But are we lost? No! Come on, you know as well as I do that not all those who wander are lost! If we’re lost it’s by choice, willingly, by our own volition. Right? Or is Bishop and the east side just another bit of our dear Tangent’s trickery on a grand and life-sized scale, detouring us up the 395 when we really should have kept our car tires firmly planted on the 15? Blasphemer! This place is special! Yes this place is special, but it takes a certain special someone to stay here, to stick with it through the years. You’ve heard of rural brain drain…haven’t you?

Strong words tic-tac, whispers the mic, watch yourself or you’ll lose them, they will turn on you and turn a deaf ear.

It’s hard to stay here, I won’t lie. Nobody but nobody came to Bishop, or more importantly chooses to stay here without some internal fight, some battle within, without some real soul searching. You came here for something; not wealth, something intangible, despite perhaps your better judgment, letting a youthful ideal (be it climbing, biking, the outdoors) win out over a more mature rationality. You might say a black sheep of an ideal loosed into being, an outlier, ahh, but it’s your outlier isn’t it, the black sheep on your left shoulder whispering in your ear…do it, just do it. You liked what you heard didn’t you?

All-the-while mature rationality’s whispers went unnoticed: Bishop with all its fineries and nightlife is a bit undesirable, isn’t it? Such a black sheep of a town, the middle of nowhere.

Time past by and yet it’s whispers only grew louder: you should be closer to your family. You should have a better job and make more money. It’s such a small town, there’s nothing to do, nowhere to buy good…trousers. Where’s the diversity? Where’s the culture?

It seems sound logic stands little chance when at odds with such passion. Yet time and age brings about with it some temperance doesn’t it? Decisions that seemed a sure bet years ago in the hindsight of today seem impetuous, the desire now not so crushing, not so…irresistible.

Seduced by it, these youthful passions we were, this desire to climb, to ride, to be free from the likes of Wal-Mart and the Home Depot, powerless. And how could we resist? I mean, call anything a black sheep, be it a town, a lifestyle, or a coffee shop, and there’ll be that certain sort on the fringe who are naturally drawn to it. An enigmatic magnetism. I do say, well played Peter Schultz, well played. Would a rose smell as sweet if by any other name? Absolutely, yes. Ah, but would we all be here tonight if this place was called Starbucks? Oh, now that I’m not so sure.

And you Mr. Chinchen, an open mic, in this place, we wandering what-ifs speaking our minds, expressing our art, ourselves, singing! within a black sheep! How scandalous! How genius, I feel so…revolutionary. So Thomas Jefferson circa 1776, get me the quill Mr. Hancock these 13 colonies are about to cut loose from this heavy crown!

I say, in a town full of wanderers it’s the grounded ones that seem a tad misplaced now don’t they? Oh how time and age has grounded you some hasn’t it? Yes, wanderers the lot of us in this black sheep of a town, yet here we are, right here, right now, and you know what?…I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And the mic whispers softly once again…perhaps you should have your head examined there tic-tac? No?