Hi Earthlings. It’s been a while. My name is Multiverse Johnson. I used to be the Brochure Writer for the Baobob Tree Press/Illiterate Magazine weekly open mics at the Burnt Toast on The Hill back in the earlier 2000’s.

I remember it like it was 17 years ago. Bush was everywhere. In the White House. On the radio. In the beer.

My job was to crank out 1 brochure a week for the Open Mic. The brochures were placed in a cardboard suitcase. They were free for anyone to take. All you had to do was walk through the door.

I was young and idealistic back then. Almost un-demolished. I took my position as a professional brochure writer seriously.

It was the early months of 2008 and the world was hurting people. (The world is always hurting people.) I decided to do something about it. I’d convinced myself that 1 brochure could make a difference. I would use that brochure to shine a light on the bullies.

Mel Gibson wasn’t ‘Mel Gibson’ back then, so you could still quote him publicly without getting side-eyed on the internet, so in the immortal words of Braveheart ‘I (was) going to pick a fight.’

I started with Swine Flu. That pig disease needed taking down a peg. After solving that problem I decided to annihilate Salmonella. There’d been several outbreaks in the area. People’s stomachs were hurting. I would unhurt them. By exposing Salmonella for whatever the hell it is. With the power of the weekly brochure.

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t defeat Salmonella. I got distracted by Jessica Simpson’s new dog, Malipu Daisy. I couldn’t stop writing about the damn thing. It stole attention away from Nick and peed on their immaculate floors. I focused almost exclusively on that poor bastard for maybe a week or two. And then John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and nothing was the same after that.

Sarah Palin made Salmonella look like beef bourguignon. I immediately changed course. For the rest of the campaign season all brochure guns were fired towards the Alaskan. Long story short, you’re welcome. Obama won.

I know what you’re thinking. Great story Multiverse Johnson (as opposed to Hansel), but what does this have to do with Firehouse?

Almost everything.

I’ve been around a long time and covered the Brochure Beat at a lot of readings, and The Burnt Toast was as damn near a perfect reading series as this town is going to get. I won’t go into the reasons why, because this isn’t a brochure about The Burnt Toast. It’s about Firehouse. Even though it doesn’t really feel like that yet.

Damnit. Wait. Let me think about this for a minute. Maybe I do have to go into the Burnt Toast reasons a bit, if I’m going to have and/or prove a point, which is important. The top 2 things they taught us in Brochure School was 1. Don’t forget to compare things, and 2. Prove your point.

Brochure School was a long time ago, and being that we live in these times where we live where proving a point has become almost impossible, or if not impossible then pointless, being that things of the past like ‘Shared Pointing’ went away when the asteroid that is social media hit the planet, where it sits where it’s sitting now, and the now being everywhere, doing its best to knock us back into The Stone Age, resulting in almost everyone having their own goddamn Point Page, where their truth outdoes what used to be plain ol’ truth, i.e. Welcome to the age of The Self Proclaimed Experts. Because of this, I’m not even going to try to prove a point tonight. Fuck it. Sorry Brochure School.

It’s still possible, crucial actually, to focus on similarities these days. So let’s do that for what’s left of this brochure. Focusing on the similarities:

Similarity #1

The Burnt Toast had 2 hosts, one performed the duties of the Inspirational Optimist, and the other balanced this out by being the Moody Prick. Firehouse has two hosts too. Christy Felton and Anthony Sulwer. They do a gourmet job of creating an entertaining-type atmosphere. I’m extremely fond of them. I swear I’m gonna take them both out to dinner at Mike O’Shay’s one of these days (after I get the ol’ treadmill paid off). Besides excelling at hosting, they’re both damn good writers too. They’re friendly without taking it too far and sounding like every fucking budtender that’s ever asked me “SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE REST OF YOUR DAY!” Christy & Anthony’s smiles are sincere. They both seem reasonably optimistic. Neither one of them comes off like a moody prick.

Similarity #2

The Burnt Toast had one hell of a crowd. Firehouse has one hell of a crowd too. The regulars who show up every last Friday of the month are genuinely fun and entertaining. Most of them, anyway. If we’re going to be honest here we must sidestep the trap of absolutes and admit that in the world of open mic poetry readings, there exists a not-insignificant amount of narcissists and assholes. One of the things I loved about The Burnt Toast and also love about Firehouse is that both had/have the lowest ratio of assholes to non-assholes on the sign-up sheet than any other reading in town.

Similarity #3

Both reading series took/take place in a building. Firehouse is located at 667 4th Ave. Longmont, Colorado. (Enter your own zipcode here).

Similarity #4, aka The Five Minute Slot

The Burnt Toast had time limits. Firehouse also has limits too. All you have to do is put your name on the sign-up sheet, and in exchange you get 5 WHOLE MINUTES to share your words with a real-life crowd on a real art gallery stage. I’d say that’s a hell of a deal, wouldn’t you? 5 minutes is the perfect amount of time for someone to get their point across. It’s long enough to give the writer some pacing room and not long enough to bore the shit out of everyone else in the room.

Christy & Anthony do a great job of making it clear to anyone sitting in the generously-provided-at-no-cost chairs before the reading begins that there’s a 5 minute time limit. What people do with this information after it’s provided is completely up to them.

Some people behave like civilized human beings and recognize that clocks exist for a multitude of reasons and the art gallery can’t stay open forever. They understand that they’re participating in something that’s bigger than just them. The reading is for everyone, and if they read for 10 minutes instead of 5 they may be putting somebody else’s chance to also get on stage and read something they’ve worked really hard on in jeopardy. This sort of person also recognizes that it doesn’t matter how EPIC! the thing the person who chooses to read 3 things that are 4 minutes each instead of something that fits within the suggested time limit is, the sheer self-involvement involved negates the thing they may be reading. The time-limit-ignorer could be reading something on par with Caroline Moore’s ‘Shambleau’ or Hunter Thompson’s ‘Wave Speech’, and it wouldn’t matter. The crowd tuned out long ago. Their faith in humanity re-dented. They look at the watches they no longer wear, thinking ‘Ok Shakespeare. Wrap it up’.

Other people choose to say ‘Fuck Your 5 Minutes And The Sundial You Rode In On! Everything I Write Is Too Good To Be Timed!’ and they go on for as long as they fucking want.

Fun Fact: Don’t be that person.

In Conclusion

Fuck conclusions. What it all folds down to is The Burnt Toast felt like home. And I was homeless for a little while without it. (F Bomb was home, but that was all the way in Denver and mortal which means that had to die too.) But Firehouse is alive, and only a few blocks down the street from my science fiction fortified bunker, and fuck my pessimistic/fly paper bones for not believing in happy endings, but Firehouse feels like home too.

In Conclusion Part 2

I’ve set aside this last brochure flap to remind people that there’s a big thing going down at the Firehouse this Saturday. If you want to know what it is you can visit their Facebook Page for fuck’s sake. You’re all adults, people. I’m not going to do all the work for you.

Sincerely,

Multiverse Johnson

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Multiverse Johnson is CEO/Founder of Recipes For The Apocalypse. His ‘professional background’ looks impressive only when laid out in resume format. He’s ‘fast-paced’, respects cleanliness, and is ‘adept at GPS’ and ‘delivering things in a timely manner’. He’s been employed as a professional brochure writer and at one point in the later 90’s contemplated applying for a position at Speedway Gas Station.