Best Spectacle

The beauty of all open mikes, whether it be for poetry, comedy or music, is that they're open to anyone with the nerve or lack of ego to take a shot at five minutes of fame. You get the professionals, the diamonds in the rough or, if you're lucky, the people who seem to exist in their own time and space. Larry Simon is one such performer. His most frequent sightings are at the open mike at the Laff Stop on West Gray. People are usually struck mute when asked to describe his act. Many agree that a classic Larry joke will not make sense until it soaks in -- usually about three months later. It'll hit you while you're driving or in the shower. "Oh! That's why the vacuum cleaner sucked up the rat, a dog, a tomcat and two winos." Whether he's talking about chocolate-covered ants (a legendary Ed Wood cult classic of a joke) or about being robbed by a hooker (which somehow connects to pygmies throwing spears at leprechauns on an airplane), the best classification for this comic enigma is "accidental surrealist."