The Paper Machete at The Green Mill

Mitchell and I went to a variety show (or a “Live Magazine”) called The Paper Machete, which started out small and then blossomed into a THING, with a devoted crowd who show up every week. The organizer puts this thing together every single week. It’s free to get in. Bands play a couple of songs. People get up and read essays or comment on current events. There are guests, who happen to be in Chicago at the time, and show up to do a set, of comedy, or songs. Mitchell has been a bunch of times, and he was asked to do a “bit” at the latest one. Paper Machete takes place on Saturday afternoons at the famed Green Mill. The day was so freezing and it was so good to be inside and warm with all of these amazingly talented people. Great mix of acts. A live band who punctuated the event with songs. I fell deeply in love with the bass player, absolutely fine that I was a total cliche. If you could create a plaster mold with every physical attribute I respond to with automatic pheromones, it would look like this guy. I glanced at Mitchell when the guy first got onstage, Mitchell looked at me, and all he said was “Sheila’s wheelhouse.” I nodded. Yes. A standup comic named Tone Bell who lives in LA but was back in Chicago for a week showed up and did a hilarious set and now Mitchell and I are total fans. He stopped by our table to say hello to Mitchell and Lauren, fellow Paper Machete bit-doers. We loved what he did. Not mean or sarcastic humor. Just observational humor that had an underlying kindness and honesty to it. (Mitchell says that anyone who describes themselves as having a “sarcastic sense of humor” is A. not as funny as they think they are. And probably they are the least funny person in any given room. And B. Suspicious of beautiful things like enthusiasm and kindness and feel uncomfortable with regular emotions. In other words: No thanks. Mitchell and I both discovered that we scroll on by anyone who describes themselves as “sarcastic” on any given dating site. Not worth it.)

The vibe at Paper Machete is inclusive, hilarious, and attentive. NOBODY SPEAKS while people perform. I mean, they laugh, and participate, but it’s not the kind of event where people chatter and order drinks loudly and the performers have to compete with background noise. You listen. There are two stages, directly opposite each other, and the acts alternate. So you watch one act facing forward, and then you have to turn around in your seat to watch the next one. Or the people who are standing are constantly turning around. It’s strangely endearing.

I highly recommend going to this event if you’re in Chicago. It’s a glorified variety show, with a great mix of energy (music and comedy and written-word stuff – one girl got up and did a hilarious well-researched piece on the history of Valentine’s Day) and humans. Who are all there for one thing. Also, they let you bring in food since the Green Mill doesn’t serve food.

Another memory-lane thing was going to the Green Mill. The last time I was at the Green Mill was with my friend Ted 20 years ago (thereabouts) to see this new up-and-coming singer named Jeff Buckley. He had come out with a record – or his record was on the verge of coming out. It hadn’t hit yet. Ted had heard Jeff Buckley singing “Corpus Christi Carol” on NPR or something and was blown away by it. On the strength of that, we bought tickets to go check him out. It was a rainy night. Little did we both know that that Jeff Buckley show would be one of the most memorable live performances either of us would see in our lives. We still talk about it.

I walked into the bar to meet up with Mitchell and was bombarded by those memories. That curve of the bar is where I did a shot with the freaked-out Jeff Buckley, on his way to getting drunk, and feeling insecure about the tour bus outside and the fact that he had just done an interview with Rolling Stone. He was scared. He was about to become a star, like, next week, and he was scared. “Did you see that fucking BUS outside?” he slurred at us.

Drunkenness aside, that performance is a high water-mark in terms of being honest ONSTAGE, in front of people, AS a show is unfolding. In that respect, even outside his beautiful voice, his achingly gorgeous face, and his unforgettable songs, Buckley was the “one to beat”, and I’m not sure that that is fully evident if you just listen to his album. Anyway, if you’re interested the story of that performance is at the link above.

But the bar is exactly the same. Un-updataed. Un-cleaned-up. Gritty and romantic and dark with beautiful walls and murals (or, if not beautiful, evocative and strange), the same rockabilly-looking waitresses, the green neon sign behind the stage.

It was good to be back, especially for such an interesting and invigorating event with such a cool group of people.

And a final truly bizarre and coincidental coda:

Mitchell is now appearing in a hit show called Le Switch. During the intermission of Paper Machete, a woman approached our table from the table nearest us. She went straight to Mitchell, and said, “Hi, I’m sorry to butt in but …” And I assumed, and I’m sure Mitchell assumed, that she would say, “I saw you in Le Switch” (or Santaland Diaries or any other number of shows), but instead she said, and it was almost unbelievable since I was sitting right there: “I read Sheila O’Malley’s blog …” And Mitchell barely understood what she was saying for a split second, because it was so incongruous, and so WEIRD that I happened to be sitting right there. 1. I don’t live in Chicago. 2. I haven’t been to the Green Mill in 20 years. 3. I happened to be there, randomly: Mitchell was asked to do his bit the day before, so this was a last-minute addition to our schedule. 4. I happened to be in town – at the Green Mill – when this woman approached Mitchell. Mitchell said, in response to her introduction, “Oh my God …” wordlessly gesturing over at me, and I said, “I’m Sheila O’Malley.” And it was like that scene in Woody Allen in line at the movie theatre when the professor/philospher suddenly appears as though in response to the conversation about him. None of us could believe it. Like: Mitchell is in a well-known show but her comment was on his friend’s blog, and I happened to be sitting right there. I know, I know, everyone ‘gets it” but it was still truly weird, and so then I got to say hello to her, and we gave each other a huge hug as though we are lifelong friends (anyone who says the Internet keeps us disconnected from one another is DOING IT WRONG), and it was so nice to talk to her! I think it was Alex Billings who brought this woman to my site, and anyway, it was all so bizarre because Mitchell is the famous local, I’m the visitor. I won’t say her name because I don’t want to embarrass her, but it was so nice to meet you and thank you for saying something to Mitchell in the first place.

None of us could even begin to get over how weird it all was. That was pretty much all we said as we talked to each other. “Okay, how weird is this that you would come up to Mitchell …” “I can’t believe this.”

The Green Mill: Where special memorable things happen.