Remembering the Mercury as a Hotbed of Political Activism

The article on the Mercury Cafe saddened me and brought back a flood of old memories about the Denver I miss so damn much. Because of sky-high rising rent and COVID, I ended up having to move from Colorado in April 2020. Before then, a part of me and my heart was at the Merc.

A licensed electrician, I first met Marilyn Megenity at Fatz City on East 13th Avenue. I loved the food and atmosphere there so much that I offered Marilyn my trade for her food — and that relationship continued for four decades. I did some electrical work for her at Fatz City, then her other places. The old Merc on Pearl Street sort of changed my life, as it became a communal place for me. Sunday breakfasts there were a tradition, and several times we would show up in our bathrobes for breakfast.

For me, it was the start of the punk scene; I was there the first time X and the Dead Kennedys played the Merc. Jello Biafra is from Boulder, and when the DKs played, Jello’s mother was there for the show. Back then, there was a balcony above the kitchen and behind the stage; Jello’s mom and her friends watched the show from the balcony. While the DKs were playing their political punk and we were moshing in the pit, the balcony collapsed, and Jello’s mother and others ended up in the kitchen. The band kept playing and we kept moshing, and Jello did not know about the balcony until the end of the set, when he turned around and saw the mess! The X show was a crazy all-ages show, and for all the minors, a green “X” was drawn on their heads with a Magic Marker.

By the 1990s I was living in Florida, but my work involved me traveling all over the nation, and when I could, I would hang in Denver for weeks at a time. Marilyn bought the place on California Street, and I was there to help with the remodeling. A friend and an employee and I rewired the entire upstairs while the first floor was open as a restaurant and meeting place.
When the upstairs finally got its occupation certificate, the Merc held its first concert there in celebration with the Beat Farmers. I had never seen them before, and so I did not understand why there were so many cases of cheap bottles of beer near the stage. The Beat Farmers liked to take bottles of beer, shake them up and spray the audience! At the end of the show, Marilyn’s manager at the time, Earl, saw I was dry and sprayed me down. This was the beginning of the joy, fun, music and political activities of the new Merc.

The Merc became known as the place for political activists and free thinkers to plot and plan. The Merc was the Green Party’s meeting place, and Marilyn arranged for Ralph Nader to come for a political rally. The place was packed — upstairs, downstairs and outside around the building. That was the beginning of my political activism, thanks to Marilyn and the Merc.

Over the next couple of decades, the Merc became more and more a political hotbed. In June 2015, Bernie did his first campaign stop in Denver at the University of Denver; I was one of the volunteers to work that event and decided that night to get very involved in the local campaign. July 29, 2015, was the very first Bernie Sanders internet rally. A couple of weeks earlier, as a regular at the Skylark Lounge, I challenged the then-owner to allow me to start having Bernie campaign events there. We held two that day and I was hooked, and we decided that we needed to start having weekly caucus meetings. Back then, Colorado voters had to use a caucus to vote in the primary race in March. Having a caucus primary was an odd way to go about things, and in order to beat the damned establishment dem$, we progressives needed to be more prepared than they were.

A few weeks after that, I met with Scott LaBarbera, the owner of the Oriental Theater, to ask him to let us use his venue for a Bernie caucus training. Scott laughed and then said that we could never get enough people to come and it would cost too much to make happen. When he asked me how much we would be able to pay for the event, I asked him how much money he charged. Of course, he said the bands do not pay. I replied that neither should we. We will fill your venue and you will make money on the concessions. He said the same thing the Skylark had, that the dem$ never seem to drink enough to make an event worth the money. I said, 'We are NOT the damned dem$, we are Progressives, and we will be sure the concessions are bought.' Scott decided to give us a chance, and on September 2, 2015, we filled the Oriental with just over 500 people! The national Bernie campaign could not believe it, as it was unheard of so early at the start.

Our weekly meetings at the Skylark were becoming very successful; that is when Marilyn called me and asked when I was going to start holding Bernie caucus training there, too. And that was the start of the weekly Bernie caucus trainings, which ended up morphing into weekly meetings of the progressive movement. The Merc became known to the local establishment dem$, and they realized that we had political power in Denver. I was filming all the meetings, and the videos were used throughout Colorado at the local Bernie campaign places and for the Bernie gangs to watch at home.
We held a big benefit for Bernie at the Merc on January 9, 2016, and a Bernie Barnstorming event at the Merc on February 3, 2016. (You can see all the Bernie videos here.)
Our caucus training seemed to have really worked out for all of Colorado, as record numbers turned out for the caucus primary in March 2016. Bernie overwhelmingly won all of Colorado’s districts! And this is where all twelve of the Super Delegates turned out to be traitors. None of the twelve voted for Bernie, and Bernie pointed out nationally that Colorado’s Super Delegates all should have voted with their constituents.

After the election of 2016 and into 2020, the Merc was still holding political meetings on Wednesdays in the Jungle Room. So for decades the Merc was the hotbed of progressive political activism in Denver, and that is sorely missed.

I am now living in North Carolina, and I think back a lot to all the fun times at the Merc. The recent Westword article brought back many more memories for me, and I am sure my words will flash back old memories for many Denverites.

Westword publishes essays, commentaries and recollections every weekend on westword.com. Have one you'd like to share? Send it to [email protected], where you can also comment on this piece.