During the time that I was in Royal Quiet Deluxe (chicken band), I was invited to a large dinner with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Everyone had to go around the table and describe who they were and what they did. I was neither an accomplished member of the community in Norfolk, nor was I African-American. Everyone else at the table was both. I just kinda ran with a description of the band.
It did not go well. At all. In fact, the evening rippled throughout my life for about ten years, causing tremendous embarassment in a comic book store this summer.
Here’s a video of me telling the story on stage at The Moth:
I think I’ve just about milked this chicken band thing for all it’s worth now …
My friend Jim O’Grady is a Moth GrandSLAM contest winner — a great storyteller and a great guy. He’s been a reporter for the New York Times, and works for some mysterious think tank that he says is “physically located on Wall Street, but in no way associated with finance.”
The thing about these story shows is that they let anybody onstage, which gives the show its spirit and beauty. It keeps it from being the province of writers and actors and “who do you know” and lets the voice of the people come through. It also allows people to weep onstage and do some lame standup comedy from time to time. It’s always a crap shoot, and the surprises are the best part.
Jim’s reliably awesome — he has his nights when he kills, sure. But even when he’s not at his best, he’s still really really good, and whenever he gets picked to come to the stage the audience is in for a treat.
Here he is at a Moth StorySLAM this summer, on the theme of “Respect.”
You can see a story by The Moth’s Juliet Wayne here:
A disgruntled Vietnam Vet with a foul mouth and a serious anger management problem is not the kind of guy I’d like to have running the country. Hell, I wouldn’t even want him on my bowling team.
John McCain and Walter Sobchak — John Goodman’s character in ‘The Big Lebowski’ — seem like they have a lot in common, once you think about it. David pointed this out to me the other day, and we got pretty obsessed. So we partnered up with Chad Williams of PBC Productions to mash together one of John Goodman’s titanic tantrums in “The Big Lebowski” with some images of John McCain’s face … hope it’s as fun for you as it is for us.
If so you should join San Diego’s only herd known as the MAJESTIC CENTURION JUSTICE ALLIANCE.
With the Renaissance Fair only a few months away, the M.C.J.A. is trying to recruit as many local Centaurs as possible to show the fair that San Diego has a mighty herd.
If interested, we meet every Wednesday at the Alpha Horse’s stable in La Mesa at 8:00 P.M.
Grab your judge’s clipboard and head down to the gym to check out these blue-ribbon science fair Photoshops from Flickr user Dr. Monster (a.k.a. illustrator / designer Travis Pitts):
After the jump: testing the feline semiconductor, the prohibitive cost of white cardboard, and a sadlarious bribery attempt.
Sometimes a piece of poetry, prose, visual art or music manages to transcend the perceived boundaries that separate us. On those rare occasions, disparities of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and political affiliation are stripped away, and we stand bare-assed and grinning, basking in the blinding light of our common ridiculousness. Click away, and soak it in:
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