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 It has been confirmed. The unimaginable has happened. After 23 years of co-hosting and bartending the Monday night poetry open mic, Sergio Mayora is no longer at Weeds.
Cabini Green may be getting razed and the nightclubs may be moving in, but for the last two decades the inside of Weeds Tavern at 1555 N. Dayton, near North and Halsted, has remained like a time capsule. My first experience at Weeds was when I stumbled into the dive, perhaps in 1989, to use the bathroom. I was freaked out by Gregorio Gomez, dressed up like the Pope, performing his poem "The City" on stage, so I stuck around for a few beers to hear Sergio Mayora, the bartender, recite the two poems he wrote in his life: "My People" and "Shivering Through". Some twenty years later, I walked into the bar again for the hundredth time, and Gregorio was still there reciting his parody of The Lord's Prayer, amongst the bras hanging from the ceiling and the tequila being splashed into shot glasses; by then, everyone knew Sergio's two poems by heart. But over the last few years the seedy decor began to vanish and it seemed the "yuppie beer garden" was no longer a joke.
Now I've learned that Sergio Mayora, who once ran for Mayor of Chicago, has had some type of falling out with his relative who owns the bar and that he has "moved on." Sergio "moving on" from Weeds is like Marc Smith moving on from the Slam. It's unthinkable. The question now stands, is Weeds still Weeds without Sergio Mayora? You can find out on Monday, May 31, when Gregorio will host the 11th Off The Wall Poetry Contest, or any Monday night for that matter, as the open mic continues--without Sergio Mayora.
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ChicagoPoetry.com
