Da Art Of Storytellin'

I waited in line for an hour today to go to a storytelling event called The Moth just to see what sort of stories people think are awesome enough to tell to a room of complete strangers. I've always had this arrogant mindset that my friends are the true storytellers in most social situations. They are the ones that people huddle around at different parties while they share their wisdom and bits and pieces of their ridiculous lives. So I've often wondered, "Are they really that good? Or am I just a biased little kinda Asian man who really likes his friends stories? Do all people think their own friends are the coolest?" I assume so. But I'd take my team over yours any day of the week. Unless your team has Cedric the Entertainer or Shaq on it, then you win (and let's hang out).

Most of the stories were pretty entertaining. Every week there is a theme and this week's was Disaster. So of course I expected there to be a lot of diarrhea or puke stories (there were) or marriage/divorce/date stories (there were) and maybe a heartfelt emotional story (there was). The story-telling varied but for the most part people were a lot better than I thought they were going to be. I think the first step to winning over an audience is learning who your audience is and then catering to their interests. Since there were a lot of boring looking white people (I mean a lot, think Wilco concert audience members) you should first figure out what these people like. I just so happen to be an expert on boring white people. So here are a few quick topics that will automatically win most of the crowd over.

1) Anything that involves saving something from disaster, usually a colored (everything browner than white) person's life. Whether it's voting Democrat or volunteering your time at the homeless shelter, it'll win you some Good ol' White American points.

2) Anything that involves smoking weed (with other white people). C'mon. Boring white people either really like smoking weed or at least really liked smoking weed that one time in college. Either way, they love hearing and talking about it.

3) Anything that references old cheesy stereotypical white people movies. Think Audrey Hepburn. Talking about how you broke your VHS tape that had your copy of Friday on it which resulted in spending the rest of your summer listening to 2 Live Crew songs is going to fall on deaf ears. (This would be my story of choice.)

4) Anything Don Jovi. Trust me. They ate that shit up like it was a locally grown organic butternut squash. (Do you think a brown person in the whole wide world even knows such a thing exists? Well, if they do I'm sure they're buttering and mayonnaise-ing and cheesing that shit up so it's delicious!)

5) Use the word "fiancé."

Just think about all of the movies these people like. Start with The Blind Side.

The girl who won told a story I had no interest in. Here were her first two sentences: 1) I like to smoke weed. 2) And I love to ride bicycles.

She won before she even started.

- Marty

I typed in "fiancé" and this picture came up. This picture should be the theme for next week's storytelling event. My story: "Why we got sued when we had to use the girl from the catering company as a model because the actual model we were going to use in the photo shoot couldn't make it."