The Moth Slam, NY, NY

went to a fantastic storytelling slam last night with a super-secret-famous-in-his-world friend who's name i will not mention because he's regularly and intensely stalked by crazy female fans of his love poems. as a matter of fact, i've been stalking him myself for months under the pretense of just "getting to know" him because his work is "so charming, so natural, so utterly without pretense..." a little flattery goes a long way with the famous-in-their-own-world types...but i'm a little nervous that somehow i'll slip and he'll recognize me for the crazed fan that i am. but hopefully by then it'll be too late and he'll already have eaten his daughters boiled bunny.

but back to the slam: i came in dead last, booed the hell out of the judges and was a very sore loser in general but had the best time! i'm not nervous anymore when i'm reading or otherwise performing on stage but last night was about unpracticed storytelling. no notes, no memorization and no one knew me. there were a total of ten contenders, pulled out of a hat and everyone told a first person story. for some reason i couldn't think of a first person story that wasn't already a poem and so i retold a fairy tale.

the theme was, "busted" and so i told the story of rumplestiltskin. remember the little elf (i made him a dred elf with a trinidadian accent which would've been hilarious if i hadn't been so nervous), who spun all the straw into gold so the farmers daughter wouldn't be killed by the king? well she eventually promised him her first born son but didn't want to give up her child when it came time to pay the piper. the dred elf decides to let her keep her child if she can guess his name, which she does by catching him in the forest singing (and i made this shit up on the spot!):

(to the tune of no woman no cry)
no woman no win
no woman no win
lil darlin gon shed much tear
my name is rumplestiltskin

BUSTED!

i went WAY over time (the story slam has a five minute time limit as opposed to the three minute/ten second slam time limit), i probably went on for ten minutes (there's this freaky little whistle thing that they blow when you've used your time and it totally made me lose my concentration). all the story tellers were fantastic! there were first person stories about going on an internet date and ending up in jail because the date lunged at a police officer, accidentally mooning parents through a van window, not defending a senile relative who swore she heard the story teller sneaking out of the house to smoke a cigarette, and getting caught shoplifting in the store of a client and then being rescued by the store manager!

the host, who's name i'm very sorry i don't remember, was absolutely hilarious once he got warmed up, but i think he'd be even better if the crowd gave him more energy to work with. for the most part they laughed and clapped politely, but my secret friend and i were the only ones in the audience crackin' jokes (when i booed the judges for my low scores, secret squirrel was like, "i'll cut you! do you know who I AM?") and generally being silly. and jennifer, the vannah white/ed mcmahon-ish co-host was a great sidekick, very sweet and wrote me an email asking me to come again.

good times and a round of drinks for everyone! more later...cbell