{"id":675,"date":"2016-12-13T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=675"},"modified":"2016-12-13T09:00:37","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T14:00:37","slug":"open-mike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=675","title":{"rendered":"Open Mike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-676\" src=\"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63-232x300.jpg\" alt=\"open-mike-63\" width=\"700\" height=\"905\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63-232x300.jpg 232w, http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63-768x994.jpg 768w, http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63-791x1024.jpg 791w, http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Open-Mike-63.jpg 1649w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a>\u00a0Mike stood on stage in the spotlight&#8230;..terrified. Something about it seemed to be working for him.\u00a0 They probably found his trembling voice charming as he spoke sincerely about his life&#8230;his completely bizarre, absolutely strange, totally unlikely life&#8230;and the cynical way it came across.\u00a0 The crowd laughed at the tragic death of his wife in a mundane laundry incident.\u00a0 They howled at how the wind blew her ashes into everybody&#8217;s mouth at the funeral.\u00a0\u00a0 And the five-day-old lasagna in a broken fridge, causing a vivid conversation with Lucifer, left them in stitches.\u00a0 Every word he spoke, every glib anecdote, felt like a hole being ripped open in his soul, allowing his demons to spill out &#8211; only to be consumed and obliterated in the laughter of the audience&#8230;and when it was over&#8230;Mike stood open and bloody and spent and&#8230;..completely relieved.\u00a0 It was better than therapy, better than liquor or sex or CHOCOLATE.\u00a0 And he walked off stage to a standing ovation feeling light as a feather.<\/p>\n<p><em>***This post is another excerpt from our &#8216;Body-Oddies&#8217; book project and the art will be available as an original art\u00a0print soon.\u00a0 I am rewriting &#8216;Bludgeon the Clown&#8217; and John is reworking the layout so it will be published and ready for sale in the spring of 2017.\u00a0 Find our 2 books at www.sallemander.com or search &#8216;EEW Books&#8217; at Etsy.com and Amazon.com.\u00a0 They make a great gift.\u00a0 -Marsha\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Mike stood on stage in the spotlight&#8230;..terrified. Something about it seemed to be working for him.\u00a0 They probably found his trembling voice charming as he spoke sincerely about his life&#8230;his completely bizarre, absolutely strange, totally unlikely life&#8230;and the cynical way it came across.\u00a0 The crowd laughed at the tragic death of his wife in a &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=675\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Open Mike<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118,150],"tags":[210,105,128,176,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}