STAGE NAME: Sid Yiddish AGE: 46 OCCUPATION: Chicago coordinator of the Bathroom Poetry Project (www.bathroompoet.net) / performance artist BACKGROUND: Evanston resident
"My middle name is Sid. And I'm Jewish, so Yiddish. It was an accident. It's not because of Sid Vicious. I've been going by that name for about three years.
"What attracted me to (the Bathroom Poetry Project) was (that) I'm sort of weird anyway. I saw it last summer on Craigslist and thought, 'Wow, well this fits right into what I'm doing.'
"What do you do in the bathroom anyway? When you're spending a bit of time in there, you're reading. You're reading the walls. You're looking at the floor to count how many dots are on the tiles. You're reading. Why not (a poem)?
"The bathroom is actually a good place where ideas come. I get a lot of ideas in the shower. I actually do have a waterproof notepad where I can write this stuff down.
"I have put other things up at Northwestern, but what they are, I'm not saying. But they do get results. Actually, that's not a bad idea. Maybe I will (put up poems at Northwestern). I do have my favorite bathrooms: the ones in the basement of Norris, because no one ever goes to them.
"The one at Café Express at Dempster is probably the most notorious, because over there, they tend to rip poems up, they've written on them. My favorite is in the women's bathroom, somebody must've taken a knife and put a huge 'X' through the plastic and through the poem. When people damage or destroy or even take the poems, that's a compliment. That means they like it.
"I do try and check on stuff pretty frequently. Everybody recognizes me. Or they ask what I'm coming to do, and I just tell them, 'I'm the bathroom poet.' And then they say, 'Oh yeah, you're really cool,' or something like that.
"The funniest (interaction) I had was in the women's bathroom at Café Express. I was putting up a poem, and there was a knock on the door. I said, 'I'll be right out.' I walk out and she said, 'What are you doing in there?' 'I'm putting up a poem.' 'A poem? Are you a woman?' 'No.' And then she started berating me. I said, 'If you have a problem with it, talk to the owner.' Maybe she was the one who knifed it.
"If I could put a poem in any bathroom … If I could put one in the House of Parliament, if I could put one in the White House, and if I could put one near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Or even the bathroom in Big Ben. I'm sure Big Ben has a bathroom. I've taken people on bathroom tours. The bathrooms at Unicorn Café are kind of unventilated, they're kind of hot when you go in there. These (in Kafein) are okay. The ones at Café Express are your basic water closets: They're so tight, they're claustrophobic. It's basically a phone-booth bathroom. The ones at Gallery Cabaret are a bit more spacious.
"I like Kerouac, mostly. His haikus. 'In my medicine cabinet, / the winter fly / has died of old age.'
"Throat singing is part of my repertoire. I do performance art. I do an act with Furbies. My basic idea is to try to get them to move through various waves of sound. I use my shofar. It's really cool - you can make all kinds of monkey sounds with it.
"I hope to God they get it. Most of the time, some people don't get what I'm going after. I did (an act) yesterday at my old high school, Niles West. I don't know how well-received it was because they were so quiet, but I did this poem called 'Papa's Got a Brand New Body Bag.'
"Yes, I'm definitely a bad Jew. I'm a terrible Jew. I'm an awful Jew."
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