Somewhere in Chicago there is a squeaky microphone set up in the poorly lit back room of a bar.

And you can bet your ass there will be stand-ups and poets fighting over it.

I recently attended another zine reading. Zines, to review, are homemade, usually photocopied magazines in which people put their own art and writing. They're amazing or horrible, but always one of the purest forms of self-expression out there.

It was arranged by the same people who put together the last zine reading I attended. On the El ride there, I even ran into the guy with the razor blade tattoo on his neck. We talked about the cupcakes from before.

As I have already covered this topic, I didn't go to the reading intending to write about this. I had a friend reading and I dropped by for a bit.

The event was at the Holiday Club, a swank bar covered head-to-toe (or whatever the bar equivalents of heads and toes are) with 1950s Rat Pack memorabilia. The reading was in the back room, where they host karaoke once a week.

I'm going to talk about the reading and about the strange social phenomenon that happened that night. But before I do, I have to talk about Sept. 3, my birthday, when I decided to treat myself by reading a bit of my own work at the literary open mic at Chinaski's in Bucktown.

I sucked.

It wasn't that the crowd was distracted or the mood was off. What I wrote wasn't very good. It was my own damn fault for reading it to a roomful of strangers, expecting them to like it.

So when I criticize some of the people who read at the Holiday Club, bear in mind this comes from a person who also knows the agony of polite golf claps and "OK, our next reader is ..."

Back to the Holiday Club, the zine reading started well. For the first few readers, the prose was taut and good. Then the fissures - social and literary - started.

A reader was introduced as a stand-up comic. The audience tensed. Someone grumbled. The emcee quickly added that the comic wasn't going to do his act and the tension dissipated.

My subculture sense tingling, I realized something was going on. Zinesters don't like stand-ups, but some stand-ups do zines? A schism in the spoken word community. How odd.

The stand-up's reading was great, by the way. It was a touching, honest, hilarious account of the disturbing circumstances under which he lost his virginity. Fantastic.

After a few readers, though, a sad change occurred. The zinesters, poets and spoken worders started to - from my completely personal and flawed perspective - suck donkey ass.

One of the first examples was an elegant Asian woman with a swooping, backless dress and the poise and grace of a Lipizzaner. She strode regally to the microphone and gave the brief disclaimer that all her stories were fiction.

"So don't take it too seriously," she said with a charming and deliberately sexy smile.

I liked this woman. I was ready to hear what she had to say. I was in.

Then she read a story written from the point of view of a girl getting raped. In the last line, it was revealed that the rapist was the girl's father.

Wow.

Now, I must tread carefully here. Incest is rightfully a touchy, horrific subject. Although this blog takes a comedic tone, I must clarify that my next few lines do not imply any frivolity at the expense of those untold millions who have been abused in one of the the deepest, most destructive ways imaginable.

The woman's story was an utter piece of crap

It was pulling out incest for cheap shock value, the way "Family Guy," "South Park" and "American Dad" have all used cannibalism for a "Whoa, did they really do that?" punch line. Except she wasn't trying for a silly gag. She was trying to use something horrible to let us all know that she was deep, dark and oh-so-literary. Classy.

I'm not saying writers should avoid taboo topics. I'm saying that when "Janie's Got a Gun" gets the point across better than your story, don't muck about in topics beyond your writing ability.

The woman read a few more pieces of crap, then a couple more bad readers came up. Some good ones too, but a lot of bad ones all in a row. I vaguely recall a metalhead guy reading about metalhead things.

Then people started to leave. And I mean people scheduled to read.

There was a brief intermission, during which we were told the night would be a little shorter. We in the audience chatted, drank and quietly made fun of the readings we didn't like. I'm sure someone there hated all the ones I loved.

Once the intermission ended, the emcee announced that there had been some additions to the line-up.

The stand-ups had come to save the day.

I suppose having a stand-up act is like being a doctor, superhero or that guy the Rolling Stones pulled up on stage to play the drums when Keith Moon couldn't perform. You never know when you'll be needed.

"Help! I need to be told how men and women think differently!"

"For the love of God, someone ask how everybody's doing tonight!"

Always on call. Always at the ready, willing to jump in front of a microphone to talk about ex-girlfriends and inform people to tip the bartender. A comic's life is a lonely one. Where's their parade? Where are their medals?

OK, I'm being flip. And the comics did sort of save the night. A few acts were inspired, others very good.

I'm just stuck on the weird literary vs. comedic split among people who want to hop on a mic in front of a room full of drunken strangers. Even among that very small spoken word subculture, there is a divide. The divide was shown when people grumbled at the comic who wrote. The divide was exacerbated by the superhero comedians who saw a chance both to save the day and do their act.

If there is a microphone, someone wants to step in front of it to either bare their soul or make a few chuckle chuckles happen.

And don't forget that the Holiday Club also uses that microphone for karaoke once a week.

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