The Captain America’s Wednesday Night Extravaganza

Beginning in January, Captain America’s on Grafton Street held student open mics every Wednesday night, offering a free meal to all performers, be they singers, musicians, guitarists, poets, or even self-proclaimed comedians. Last week, it took the decision to end Wednesday night open mics, to the dismay of about four loyal regulars. Buster Whaley recounts the excitement and allure of Captain America’s open mic nights at their once glorious height.

By 7pm on Wednesday, my compatriots and I are nearly faint with hunger. The pained demands of an empty stomach can be tolerated no longer; we drag our weary bodies through town, across College Green, in front of speeding busses, and finally, up Grafton Street, stumbling slightly as we shuffle forwards towards the beautiful blue and red neon emblem of justice and salvation that beckons to us through the rain and the darkness. But our struggles have not ended, for a shivering mob – those huddled masses, yearning to eat for free – stands between us and our reward.

Word has spread of Captain America’s Wednesday night affair, and human beings from all walks of life – and even some women, too – have put their differences aside to gather for an evening of free food, cheap drinks, and poor displays of “talent”. In a typical display of American culture, the “free” meal at Captain America’s comes with a price: your creative energy, and your time. As all Americans are taught from birth, and as the rest of the world by now is well aware, nothing in the Land of the Free comes without a cost; there is a price for everything. For your health, you must pay the bills; for an education, you must pay tuition; for a pension, you must wait till youth has fled and death has broached the horizon. And at Captain America’s, if you want a free meal on Wednesday night from 8-10pm, you gotta pull up the ol’ boot straps, take to the stage, and earn your keep.

Out on Grafton Street the mob presses forward, with my compatriots and I somewhere on the growing outskirts. For now, the hunger has abated, replaced instead by a surge of adrenaline. The crush at the door, for those in the centre, can be deadly; the prospect of a warm plate of food has driven the crowd to a point of animalistic barbaricism. By now my friends and I have found ourselves closer to the middle of the crowd, driven forward by the arrival of fresh droves of the starving and the talentless. At the door, blocking our collective progress, stand the “bouncers,” faceless mercenaries dressed in black uniforms, bearing the seal of Captain America’s– the red and blue striped armband, a lone white star blazing from the centre. They wield batons and riot shields, occasionally clubbing down those desperate enough to try and force their way in. Sometimes, on evenings of exceptional violence, the blood trickles between the cobblestones like rain…

Finally, at five minutes to eight – when the tension has nearly snapped, and the hunger can wait no longer – the bouncers get word from upstairs that the first group can be let through. The shouting crescendos as the mass of bodies swells forward, every man (and the women, too) trying his best to get through before the doors are closed again. Though my friends are left behind, I am one of the lucky few allowed to pass through; as I follow the rest upstairs, I cast one last glance over my shoulder. The guards have resorted to further beatings, driving back the screaming mass. I try not to think of my friends, turning my thoughts instead to the chicken and cheese enchilada that awaits me at the top of the stairs. The atmosphere upstairs is exuberant: men (and even the women!) laughing, cheering, shouting exclamations of dis belief at their good fortune. Drinks are purchased. In a city where a pint typi cally costs between six and seven euro, the prices are reasonable (or at least ex pected and tolerated). Out of the rain, with drinks in hand, we take our seats. Those who could not find a seat are content to stand, for the moment, while they wait for their turn to earn a plate. The first of us to take the stage is a twenty-yearold student from Trinity College Dublin. Long wool coat draped over his shoulders and well-worn boots laced haphazardly beneath baggy trousers, this first performer is nearly indistinguishable from the majority of the young men of his demographic; but he, too, has dreams, and he, too, remembers the wild and beautiful hopes of childhood, perhaps outgrown but never, never forgotten.

He holds in one hand the neck of a small guitar, and in the other, a bottle of Sol (on these, Captain America’s runs a three-for-ten deal; they even give you a free wedge of lime for each, if you can believe it). Placing the bottle gently down on the floor, he brings the guitar to his chest and begins to strum a few chords. D, A, G, the standard fare. The words come with some difficulty and his voice, shaky and out of key, stumbles along for a few minutes until the song, mercifully, ends. He retrieves his bottle and sits down, and the waiter – overworked, undoubtedly as hungry and tired as those he serves – takes his order.

Next up is a young woman. She studies computer science at UCD and has travelled across the city for a morsel of food. Lacking any musical ability, she stands timidly before the microphone to read a poem. It is an original, she claims; the audience, relentless in their hunger, boos and jeers until her voice, faltering, finally ceases to enunciate the useless syllables of poorly written prose, and she flees the stage, seeking anonymity once again. Her search is not in vain, and soon she is just another member of

I love, the people I almost love,” as John Darnielle so simply puts it – and I watch with mild, drunken disinterest the displays of talent, some earnest, some ironic, some veiled in irony, so as to avoid humiliation… eventually, my food arrives, the waiter straining above the crowd, calling out, “Chicken