Open-mic maestro a well-traveled artist

EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY Murray McConkey Murray McConkey stood in the drizzle of the neon bars signs, thoughtfully dressed in shorts, a big-collared shirt and a cowboy hat with blond curls poking out from underneath. And when he spoke of his life, he cooked up a tale with a mix of soft-spoken candor and oddball joking.

"I was born on the banks of the muddy Mississippi," he said rather grandly, before clarifying that he grew up in Collinsville, a suburb in East St. Louis.

"I was completely freaked out by the world," he said. "I couldn't understand anything that was happening around me. I was completely insane."

Mr. McConkey, 48, became a comedian sometime in the last decade. Since then he's developed the ability to make a joke or two even about his long-time struggle with Avoidant Personality Disorder. The condition is recognized by psychiatrists but is not widely known, and has kept him from forming close relationships.

"(Avoidant Personality Disorder) is the worst," he said. "It'll make you jealous of Jesus, man. Three days up on the cross isn't so bad. It's like a vacation compared to my life."

Hypnosis helps control his disorder. He describes it as "a real advanced listening state when you can understand things more deeply than you normally would."

But in Mr. McConkey's case, what he misses in personal relationships doesn't apply to crowds. Since July, he has hosted an open-mic night every Wednesday at Café Matisse in downtown Fort Myers. It recaptures a time when that place used to be The Liquid Café. Mr. McConkey hosted open mic-nights there, too.

The Liquid closed about five years ago but Mr. McConkey kept good memories of the musicians and poets of different stripes who played or listened there. Café Matisse, which is a similar place under different ownership, opened recently and he jumped at the chance to get that started again.

"That was a good time in my life, when I had the open mic at the Liquid and downtown was a really cool place," he said. "And I just wanted to do what I could to bring downtown back to the way it was, a happier place."

That's what he's been searching for most of his life. After escaping Collinsville, he went to the University of Montana, where he spent two years before applying to the Art Institute of Chicago. To his surprise, he was accepted to the prestigious institute and discovered a talent for sculpture.

"It was like I'd walk into the room and everybody fell silent because I was so good," he said. "One time I was doing a sculpture in a room full of people and I farted and nobody said a word. I was like 'Wow. You can't possibly take me that seriously.'"

He added, "I have the hands of a great sculptor. I'm as good as anybody's ever been at it."

But he finds no solace in his talent, aside from a brief commercial success making fiberglass alligators in the 1990s.

"It was a trap," he said. "No sculptor is gonna change the world."

At the time, though, he thought he could change the world with sculpture. So one summer, between semesters, Mr. McConkey sold his car and used up the rest of the money his parents had given him to create a life-size bronze male figure in the style of Michelangelo's "David." It cost $7,500 to make and became one of the greatest disappointments of his life when its unveiling was met with apathy from the Chicago art community.

"I had given no thought to whether anybody would buy it or touch it," he said. "It was just an achievement that I did. So I quit being a sculptor."

He dropped out of school and moved in with a college friend in "a hippie neighborhood" in Chicago, earning income by driving a horse and carriage for tourists or couples in downtown.

He tried writing novels, but found it didn't come easily like sculpting.

"I was a terrible writer," Mr. McConkey said. "It took me many years to figure that out."

After living briefly in Los Angeles, Mr. McConkey ran out of money and moved to Fort Myers near where his mother and sister now live. His bronze sculpture had ended up in his parents' garage in Collinsville and they sold it for $3,000 before moving to Sanibel Island.

He's been around town, more or less, ever since then.

On recent Wednesday nights, Mr. McConkey has been packing Café Matisse with performers and the buzz of jangly nerves that possess people before they head up to the microphone. The show starts about 7 p.m.