 Welcome to McCannis Institute, everyone. My name is Alyssa Stone, the Senior Director of Program and Community Engagement here, and I'm very excited to welcome you. I'm excited to have all of you for our February storytelling showcase, hosted by Corey Rosen, the host of our house. Teller lineup of storytellers this evening, who Corey is going to introduce each one. Before we get started, I want to tell you just a little bit about McCannis Institute. We were founded in 1854, so a very old non-profit. We're 107 years old this year. So this is your first time visiting McCannis Institute. What took you so long? I love this crowd. You're the best. Come back, everyone. We are a cultural center, historical landmark, gorgeous multi-story general interest library, world renowned chess program and event center. We do upwards of 15 events per week here at McCannis Institute. So we have many, many things going on for you to check out. We have writers' rooms, book rooms, classes, storytelling showcases, author talks, a film series, concerts, lectures, chess tournaments and classes, library activities, all sorts of things that you can check out. The first place to get information about everything we have coming up is on our website, milibrary.org, and we of course have flyers on the tables. Please grab something on your way out. Who are our members here in the room tonight? Awesome. Thank you, members. We are membership institutes. Being a member helps us to continue to offer these programs and services to our community. If you're not yet a member, please consider joining us so that you can have no cost, access to all of our offerings, including our full service library and chess room. And with that, I'm very excited to introduce Corey Rosen. Corey is a writer, actor, visual effects producer and storytelling teacher based in San Francisco. He hosts The Moth, Story Slams, and Grant Slams, and has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, Alice Radio's The Sarah and Vinny Show, and Kay Fogg's The Finch Files podcast. Corey is a performer at Bats and Prom, one of the world's foremost centers for improvisational theater, and is the author of your story, Well Told, Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow! and Audience, which we have on sale as well as Duel's books on sale in the back. Please grab a book. For more information about Corey, visit www.CoreyRosen.com. Our next showcase here with Corey is the final Wednesday of March on March 27th, with a special announcement. Starting this Friday, March 1st, Corey will be at Bats and Prom's The Saba Tour, so definitely check out Corey and all of his incredible work. And with that, please give a warm welcome to Corey Rosen! Thank you, Alice! Have you guys heard of the song? Yes! Great to see everybody. First question, do you guys want to keep the house lights on or make it more like theater-y and dim them back? Can we do that? I don't know. Sunday school. Now we're going to show. How's everybody doing this Wednesday night? Thank you for coming out. I've been doing this kind of series. I call it residency because it sounds more fancy. The last Wednesday of every month is starting in August of last year, so all I know is that time has passed. I've seen some familiar faces and some famous faces. In the crowd here, I know that I got up on colder, but I actually also got a year older. It was my birthday this past Sunday. So I know that. Turn 51. I'd like to kind of bunch him and button it. Once he turns 50, I think he can start counting back. I'm 49. 50 minus 1. I'm just going to keep counting that way. I'm a little baby, 100-year-old. It was a good 50th year. I had a colonoscopy. I swear to you, I've been looking forward to it because I've heard horrible things about colonoscopies. But it turns out it's not the procedure itself. It's what? The prep. This is definitely the right crowd. I have founded my crowd for my colonoscopy. We're going to go into the stories I was in the back if you want me to do it, colonoscopy. It's the prep because what you do is you have to fill yourself up so you can just clean it out. I was not dreading it because I was looking forward to being clean on the inside. It really does. It cleans you out. I knew that I was clean because as the procedure started, I was kind of in that twilight phase of the drugs, the wine on my side, and they wheeled giant, like, like a hurricane TV. And it never close up my butt. And I see the inside of me. And I might be a little vain, but I remember thinking, hi, I look good. Good. I look good on all sides. Well, happy to have you guys here. We have a great show for you tonight. For those of you who are new to this, it's a storytelling series that I'm really delighted to have put together with Mechanics Institute. It's a monthly series, as I mentioned. We do it once a month on the last Wednesday of every month. It's generally storytelling focused, but not exclusively. As you've seen from those of you who have been here before, we've had magicians, we've had singers. Tonight, we have a poet. We have a lot of different kinds of performers and different kind of action here, which is great. All of the storytellers and performers tonight are people that I know or I've met recently, and I'm just delighted to share this platform, this stage, and this audience, you, with each other. And it's fun. The theme tonight is Entrances and Exits. Entrances and Exits. So I was going to say all of the stories. Most of the stories, let's say, because I like to leave a little room for the mystery, for the one who's like, oh, shit, now I'm going to make my story sound like it's about. So they may not all be there, but that's generally kind of a foray theme away in. And so I'll tell you a little Entrances and Exits story of my own, one of my personal experiences. That begins with the slam of a door. I'm in the Holiday Inn, Waikiki. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And the slam of the door was what woke me up. You see I'm a sleepwalker. And I've had this condition for a long time in my life. I've found myself in various places, various times in my life that I didn't expect to be. I've woken up on couches. I've woken up in other people's beds. True, true. That was college when I sleepwalked out of my hotel room, my door room, down the hallway on the door of my RA. And then found the next available door that I opened up and fell asleep in somebody else's bed, yes. So on this particular night I was in a little bit, this different situation. I made Hawaii for a wedding, a joyous occasion, and my friend was getting married the next day. And it's the night before the wedding. And so I've gone out, I've gone out to Hawaii, you know, I had some dinner, had some drinks, and I found myself back in my hotel room and I'm settling in for the night all by myself. When I have to make a decision, you see this is not just a vacation that I'm going on, but the beginning of a longer trip. This is kind of like the trip of my life. I'm 22 years old. And I have kind of saved up some resources and some time off from work. And I'm on my way to Southeast Asia for a month. So I am backpacking my way across Cambodia and Vietnam and all sort of the Southeast Thailand, that whole region for a month. And it's my very first night away from home, at the beginning of this journey. So I'm in my hotel room and I'm there. I'm like, I don't know what to do. If I sleep in like my clothes and my boxer shorts, am I soiling one of my precious outfits that I would be carrying around with me? And I do not like to sleep naked. Let me just start with that. I am not a naked sleeper. I like to feel something on me. I don't know, I feel kind of exposed. There was nobody to be exposed to. I was all by myself. And I decide to take all of my clothes off and I fall asleep. You all know what's going to happen next. As the door slams behind me, it's a hotel, people. You can't open a slam hotel room door. So I am butt naked in the 14th floor hallway of the Waikiki Holiday Inn. Thank you. And I'm looking around and there's just, there's nowhere to hide. There's nothing to do and I don't know what to do. Luckily for me, it was late enough at night that they had already delivered the Honolulu Star Bulletin newspaper. So like a picture from a New Yorker cartoon, I picked up one section. I think I had the lifestyle section in the front because that's my lifestyle right there. And I had the sports section in the back. And I make my way down to the front desk. I go to the elevator to the front desk and I walk up to the front desk, clad in nothing but a newspaper. And I say to the gentleman working there, I go, I seem to have locked myself out of my room. In room 1402, he says, may I cease my identification? And I go, no. So ever since that day, truly, I have not slept another new night in my life. Thank you very much. Okay, we have a great show for you and I'm going to welcome up to the stage your first storyteller. This is a dear friend of mine, someone that I have shared many a stage with over the years and I'm proud to be called my friend. Welcome to the stage to the one and only Abdul Kedyah! You know who you're going to call me first. We had talked that part out. Now I was like, Abdul Kedyah! That's me. Let me just read his email. How are you folks doing? Good. You know this is African History Month. I mean, I think some people call it Black History Month. I call it African History Month because I'm African. You can tell if I got brown skin. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about what goes on in the society that we live in. And the society that we live in is a society where people because of the color of their skin can be guilty or innocent just purely based on the color of their skin. And that's just not right. And that's what we call bigotry. And we have to get rid of bigotry and we have to get rid of discrimination. I would like to share with you a trip that I took into the Twilight Zone. See, I'm walking with five of the guys down the street. And all of a sudden, police officers jump out and they yell, Get your hands off! Get your hands off! Get your hands off! I understand. I'm trying to touch the sky. You know. Get your hands off! Turn around, put your hands behind your back. Okay, so we get handcuffed and they take us to the police station. And we get to the police station. They separate the five dudes with me in one room. Did I mention that the five guys with me were European Caucasians? Okay, so they were in one room and I was in another room. About 45 minutes later, the police detective walks into the room and he looks at me and he says, We know that you're not guilty. Just tell us which of those white guys are. Did I mention the fact that this is in the grave and the police officer looked like me? He said just tell us who did it. I don't know, I don't have any idea who did it. Actually, it was my idea. What happened was, and we walked down this alleyway and there was this very expensive restaurant and it looked like the door was open. And we went there and there was just this little latch there. And so I said, I could take that latch and I flipped the latch and we went in and we stole all the hamburgers and we stole all the steaks because we'd have the biggest pizza party that you ever saw. With hamburgers and steaks there we stole all the cheese. You know, we were ready. And then we had another guy that was driving so we put that stuff in the back of the pickup truck. And one guy who was with us for some reason he kept going back to the trunk. And the rest of us were at the nightclub. We were at the nightclub where each of our friends was shooting pool and he had said to this guy, he was us man, he was going to make some money. Meanwhile, I'm in there and I see this lady and she's looking at me. I probably wouldn't have noticed that she was looking at me if I wasn't looking at her so hard. But we were looking at each other, you know. And we know we had some kind of connect thing going on. But anyhow, so we left it and we left the club and that nightclub from the police jumped out the rest of us. So I'm like, oh, I'm in jail now. I don't know what to do. I don't know anybody. I can't get bailed out. Somehow the lady that I met at the club found out that I was in jail and she bailed me out. Now the five European dudes they bailed out and they got all about me. They didn't say anything to me. Turns out that each one of these guys had a Brooks Brothers lawyer. So we went to trial. They all said that they got their Brooks Brothers lawyers with them and I have a court appointed attorney. And my attorney was like five minutes late and I remember them saying something about five to 20 years in prison for this charge and my attorney was like 10 minutes late. Okay, so you know, I got my suit on and everything but I'm kind of sweating the bullets. Finally my attorney walks in. My attorney walks in when he walks in the door said, Joe says to him, good morning, Joe Christian. How are you? My court appointed attorney is a judge. He was that same way. Not only that, he looked like he just stepped out of every magazine. You know, he had on a night sports jacket and he was just like my grandpa in the way, you know. And he smoothed out that man. He talked to the judge. He said, oh yeah, I was on vacation. They talked about his vacation in his bag for his kids and stuff like that. And my attorney says to him, you're on a vacation, you're on a private. I need to tell you why I was late coming to court. On my way into the courthouse, the police officers stopped me and they said they want to reduce they want to release all the charges without criminalization from my client. So, judge, okay, you can go. Cool. So, now, we leave him and as we're leaving, my attorney says to me, so, I didn't say the fact that all those guys were school teachers and we had just started teaching school that week when we got busted so we all got suspended from our job, school teacher. So my lawyer says, so they've been paying me for all this time that you've been out of work. I said, no, they haven't been paying me, bro. He said, look, you have not been you've been charged for the crime. If you have committed no crime, you've been found innocent so they have to pay you for the crime that you want to have. He said, oh, for the commission of the Education Office, until then, man, I said, they must pay you for the commissioners of the article that you still haven't known. Got my suit on one night and I get in there, and the secretary, I mean, I must have been 21 but the secretary looked like she was about 19 and she was a pretty. She was a little short afro thing going on and wasn't an athlete. Yeah. You know, but I'm here for business. You know, I'm strictly here for business. So I said to the commissioner, Judge said, I must be paid. He said, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, he got real nervous. He said, I can give you a couple hundred dollars to pay the cash, but we can't pay them. We can't hire you. The only way you could be hired is to just have a petition signed by the governor. You gotta have a petition signed by the governor. Are you serious? You know, and then the lady, the cute 19-year-old of the city, she said, well, you know, I know Clarice and Clarice, she worked down in the governor's office. So we called down and find out if she, if she could hear, if she could hear. No. So she called down and, you know, you wasn't living. So I go down to the governor's mansion. I go to the governor's mansion. Everybody already knows my name. I'm cold, you know, I go in. She takes me directly to the governor's office. You know, he sits at the seat. So I sit down. He says, where are you from? I said, I'm from Harlem. He said, I'm from Harlem, man. You know, back in the 1820s, I used to be in Harlem all the time. Going to the clubs and stuff. I said, you ever heard the jungle room club? He said, a jungle room? I said, yeah. I said, you know, my grandfather used to, I mean, Mr. P. is your grandfather, grandfather. But yeah, that's my grandfather, you know. He said, you tell your grandfather he just called down and visited me. I'm the governor, he'll look into anything you do. If you have anything proper, look into anything that anybody, you just let me know. And I'll take care of it. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? I've got to tell y'all what happened to the Europeans. Okay, the Europeans, each of them was given a $5,000 fine. Okay, and they signed a piece of paper to say they would never return to the island again. And if they return, they have to suffer the consequences of the charges against them. That's rough. But that's discrimination. And that's bigotry. And that's my story. I'm from New York. I'm from New York. Fantastic. I'll take another, by the way, I'll also teach a story to them. So if anybody is interested, if he's a workshop officer, amazing, you got one coming up? No, no, no. No? Okay. I can't tell a table. Okay. You know, I spend my life with my girl. Oh, yeah. He's got his paper version. Yeah, no. Okay. Next up, we have, we have Lynn Patterson. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to show you. And I'm going to show you what she got a while ago. She's been published in, it's called Pop.magazine, right? And tell me the other one. Alligori. The Berkeley Review, the Berkeley Poetry Review, and KKB. KKB, the Berkeley Review, the Berkeley Poetry Review, and we're bringing some poetry to the Mechanics Institute. So please, make some noise for Lynn Patterson. Hi, everyone. I'm so elated to be here with you tonight. I'm going to share one of my poems. It's so nice to meet you as well, your beautiful storytellers. I want to also just give some shine to all the other storytellers that are coming up on stage. My story is about many different entrances and exits. And before I share my poem, I'd like to tell you a little bit just about where it came from and how it came to be. But in 2017, I sold all of my belongings and decided to travel around the world for 11 months. And while I was on this journey, there was a lot of different things going on. I was feeling really lost and trying to find myself. I was also trying to solve a bunch of family mysteries and doing ancestry research. And a big reason for that is because my father never knew his biological father. And a lot of the discord in our relationship that I experienced as a young person, once I started doing my inner child healing and really understanding how my parents grew up, I understood how much that impacted my father and how much that played into the way that he chose to parent me. And so when I started this ancestry journey, I did Ancestry.com, I did 23andMe, I was searching archives, searching census records, looking for addresses of grandparents, and I was just on the hunt to track him down. Unfortunately, the story does not end with me finding his biological father and that's something that my father and I have both had to grapple with. But as a result of doing all of this ancestry research, I was able to understand better who I am and where I come from and who I come from. I also wasn't able to track down parts of my family past 1852 because my family was enslaved in the United States and there are ancestors' names that I will never know. I'll never know their stories but the knowingness that I have inside of me I know also comes from that and that's a deep place that I like to write from. But the story that I want to tell is actually about my grandfather too. It's interesting that you said your grandfather and I was talking about my grandmother too but my grandfather, when he died he had dementia and he started to call me Cora and every time he would see me he would be like Cora, Cora and I never understood why and when I was on this ancestry journey I ended up in Alzheimer, Arkansas which is a town that has 2,000 people in it even to this day and we were going through a box a shoe box of photographs and we found a picture of his great aunt whose name was Cora and she looked just like me. And so I know that though there are ancestors names that I may not know though there are faces I may not know doing that ancestry research has given me just a power of understanding myself in space and time and so this poem is called Am I to America? and it's after Langston uses I too of America and it's just about tracking my family through the census records and that journey with my father and my grandfather I am transatlantic cargo American and Irish Catholic famine American I am seeking reparations caravan along the Mississippi we will sponsor you first and second great migration American I am wave in the water even if the patient proclamation I have a dream crash epidemic hip hop raised me zero tolerance black lives matter and say her name American I am South Carolina probably but most definitely Hendersonville North Carolina American I am Alzheimer, Arkansas Iowa, Montana, Chicago, Philadelphia Seattle, Sacramento, Baltimore New York City, Oakland, California American I am military but oh beautiful for spacious skies and from every mountainside American I am slave, negro, colored, afram black and proud American I am shepherd, rancher, cowboy caretaker, secretary, cotton picker sharecropper, taxi driver mid-level manager, Air Force veteran unemployed professor becoming a doctor American I am pull yourself up by your bootstraps and also gentrification is violence American I am immigrants I am immigrants I am immigrants much love to my first nations people but not one native bone in my body immigrant, American by force and by famine I am American somewhere between I too am America and am I I have a book coming out that is about this ancestry journey and about that 11 months being on the road and my name is spelled L.Y. look me up it's a popup this is a letter and T-I-N-G-S things with its all right next up we have we have a Detroit boy Boy, anybody here from the Midwest? Yeah, right, yes. Just you, yeah. Anybody else? Anybody here from the West Coast? Who's like, yes. Anybody here from Harlem? Alright, thank you. How about Queens? I know we got at least one. Oh, okay. I'm a girl person now. Exactly. Okay, so next up we've got Detroit, by the way of Oakland. I like it in his bio, he said. I'm an educator. And tell stories in all kinds of different ways. And I am delighted to share my stage with him. So please welcome Thomas Liddell! I was trying to dig around last night when I was going to talk about it today. So in 2015, I apologize for the phone, I just wanted to make sure I didn't get in all the details. In 2015, I was living in Chicago at the time. And my dad was living out here in the back. He's been out here for about seven, eight years. And I try to come out every, you know, every enough time to show that I'm a good son. Right? And nine years ago, I came out here to visit one of my friends in college. She was performing in a show called Mighty Reel, which is a bio tape from this guy performing on the stage so best. Does anyone heard the song? Yeah. It's like this. You make me feel Mighty Reel. I see you. Yup. I ain't here to sing. And my friend Ian, she was in a small part of the show and a really small part of the security. She's a phenomenal voice who's been performing ever since then. And after the show, she hits me and was like, hey, I want to go out. You know what you want to do. Because I'm not from here. But I did hit up my tour guide or my travel guide, my dad, and said, hey, like, you know, we want to get into some things tonight. We had a good show. And what are you going to play? And so he texted me back and said, hey, you know, I'm at this spot. Come through, hang out for a little bit. And if you don't like it or you want to go someplace after, I'll have a visit to the place. And I said, oh, splendid. So my friend, she gives a thumbs up, you hop to the Uber and go on over to the place. So you get out of the Uber and the line to the spot was around the corner. Now, there was one important piece of instruction in the message that my dad gave me. And it was, when you get to the spot, go up to security and tell them that you are Joe's son and his plus one. So I knew he wasn't at church. I don't think he was at a park. He wasn't at a library. It was probably a party or a club or a lounge or something like that. And so we get out of the Uber and I wasn't sure if I was in the right place. And so I look around and try to see maybe if his car was parked by a club. And you know what song establishments they like to park nicer cars in the front? He's trying to see what kind of crowd he is. And so I'm looking around and you see like, there's a Mercedes over there and there's an Audi and there's a BMW and some motorcycles and all that. And sandwiched right in between about a million and a half dollars worth of cars. 2012 Ford Fusion. I said, yeah, we in the right place. And so I followed the instructions. Skip the line. Don't make friends doing that. Going to security, who made me feel like a gold feller and said, what's going on, sir? Uh, I am Joe's son. And this is my plus one. And I hope that means something to me. That's all I got. And as Joe's into the mic and started speaking security, he was just like, that's all I'm saying. He's like, you get inside. Go ahead, skip the line. You get inside, go to the desk, go up the stairs, and you shouldn't be waiting there for it. I didn't like the should, but whatever. Be on the attention line. So I followed the instructions, go inside, get to the desk, say hello, walk up the stairs, and as soon as I got inside, I recognized the music, kind of, and I recognized the aromatics of the space. And I get to the top of the stairs and my dad was there waiting for us. He was like, son, I give him a hug. This is my friend, Ian. He gives her a hug, reaches in one pocket, puts out 50 singles. So we all know. Reaches in another pocket, puts out 50 more singles and gives it to my friend. So we were at a gold club. In case you wanted to know who in this audience has been the most fearful, and was everybody who just laughed when I said I don't know who was that information that she knew. Exactly. Basically, we all are in a business circle. Good time. And so, gives the top, immediately goes to the bar, brown and gray, spent about $40 for half a shot. My dad said, when you want more money, come to me. Don't go to the ATM. I was like, cool. This is going to be a good night. Circulate the establishment, make some donations. And I'll squat. My friend, she's having a good time, too. And while we were sitting, an employee of the establishment and I'm starting to have a small talk. And I'm small talk back. And she asks us some really good questions. So I wanted to return to the favor of really good questions, also. I learned that she was a business management undergrad at the University of the Dominican Republic. That is not a real school. And what I learned after a series of a few questions is that her story got real thin. But it was like pulled on the heart strings. It was almost as if this story was designed to give you to spend more money. And so while I'm interviewing her, she interviewed me. I feel a tap on my leg and I'm here, hey, hey, hey. You ever been interviewed as a job? I say, no. I'm like, okay, cool. She's here to work. I'm here to answer your questions. So either work or let her go. And I said, that was advice from a savvy vet. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. So of course, we went to the room, got a dance, came out and circulated one more time. Had an extremely fun night. I didn't black out. So that was good. And at the end of the night we leave the establishment by getting hands and keys to the valet and says, go get my car, please. More polite than that. But to the key file sees that it's a Ford and somehow doing that for a car to go to. And I'm like literally on the floor laughing. I don't know why it was so funny to see the Ford Fusion just sandwiched between a vet and a Mercedes, but it was great. Get the car, get in it and drive off. And that's how the night ended. And nine years ago today I remembered three things from that night. And I wrote them down just to make sure I don't forget. I've been so close of falling off this stage. I was like, what was that about? That's crazy. First thing, is that money isn't everything. It can buy you the spot but it can't buy clout. Clout is a Ford Fusion part in the van. That's number one. That's number two. That's number two. Always respect people's time and don't interview drivers when they're on the class. And the third one that I really kept and why I'm really excited to tell this story and I'm going to read a little bit of this was relationships change over time. And I think that's this moment I was 24 at the time. That was when I first realized that relationships change. Prior to that moment relationship was very much father-son. We go get haircuts on a weekend when I was a kid. He claims he would talk me how to shoot a basketball. He used to go to the Detroit Lions and Detroit Business Games growing up spending time like that. And at that moment, a shift happened. And he became not just my dad but he also became Joe. He was a human. He has dislikes and likes and his opinions. He's never wrong but he's also never right. He has hobbies and interests. And you know when you look at your dad and it's like, yeah, it's like the horrible thing that's kind of what comes with being a father. But he was just as human as the rest of us and I saw that that night. And the fun that I had with him was like a really good time. And the evolution of that that father-son relationship to father and homie or whatever we got like because I don't know what the other side of it is. It's really special. And that moment I realized that like, yo homie could part. Thank y'all so much. That's my time. Thank y'all so much. Thank y'all so much. Thank y'all so much. I'm going to turn around and look behind you. The dude in the black. That's my dad right there. Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That was great to do. Good. Fantastic. Our next storyteller is someone who has shared the stage here with me before so you if you've been here before you may remember her. She is a Bay Area storyteller educator and has recently kind of fallen deep, deep in love with this whole craft so much so actually in a bio of credit to me. This is true. And my book, we're just for sale of the pack on your way out. We have a book showing that love and helping it to flourish and I'm so excited we'll talk about it after her story but she's got her own show that she has started. It's starting in April, April 13th is the first show. We'll tell you more about that after. Please welcome a big warm welcome for Theresa Latye. Fashionably late drives my husband crazy because he is on time for everything thinking on trunks. So this story is about four pop exits after we made this on trunks. It was in 1996, I remember specifically because this we were on our way to a concert at a very small venue, me and my best friend, and this artist had not come out yet. Actually his first album came out on my birthday, April 2nd, 1996. So he was virtually unknown but I heard Maxwell. Anybody know who Maxwell was? All right. Well nobody knew who he was back then because it cost ten dollars. It was here in the city in the Tenderloin, in a room that was just a little bigger than this. So it was just a small, and so we parked the car, we made our on trunks, and even though we were fashionably late, we still made our way to the front of the stage. I could touch him, right? We were right there. And Nikki, she didn't know nothing about Maxwell but by the end of the night, she was mesmerized. She swore he was singing to her. But we had a great time, great time. We stayed till the lights came on. We were talking to people mingling. Now mind you, I think the kids call it pre-gaming now before the show. You know, you might have hit a little something and drank a little something and had a little drink at the show, had a great time. So when we left, we were walking out with the people, and we were walking around and looking, looking. Looney Bale. Now, Looney Bale was my car. I got her in the 10th grade. Her name is Looney Bale, that's his name. Everybody knew Looney Bale, but my name was on the license plate. He drinks her, nice and clear. And I'm already inspired because did somebody steal Looney Bale? Where is Looney Bale? And we just walking and walking. Now mind you, it's after midnight in the 10th of the morning. It's 1996, so we can have no cell phones. I got on heels because I always wear heels. Nikki always comfortable and practical. I just love her. She was fine walking. I've been walking and walking and I'm just like, oh my goodness, somebody stole Looney Bale. I don't know what we're going to do. I'm grateful. Always walked in the middle of the night and nobody asked if we was working. So just a couple times, you know, we're getting on guard like, okay, we're not about to get taken tonight. But this man, he pulls up and he says, are you guys lost? Do you need some help? We're like, yeah, we already made up our minds. We're not getting that tow truck. We are not getting that tow truck. I don't care. We have to walk another hour. But we sat there talking to him and we're telling him, yeah, we were over there. This concert, we told him where it was. He said, he knew where that was. And if we just hit this corner over here, so he was kind of like going along with us as we were walking. And as we're talking and walking, we see this big empty parking lot with Looney Bale sitting all by herself in the parking lot. And we're like, oh, there she is. But instead of rejoicing, we had to sit there like, what the hell? How did we miss that it's parked right in the Safeway parking lot? With a big ass Safeway sign. We had to be like, how do you miss that? So we get into the car like, I'm like, what if we had only when we exited, if we hadn't mingled and talked and walked with the people, if when we exited, we'd have just made a left. We were two minutes away from the front door. But we spent over an hour walking through the tenderloin. So the moral of this lesson, because Nikki and I, to this day, we both, we don't play when it comes to where we parked. We are looking at all the marks around this check, double check. Sometimes I even take a picture because I'm just so nervous about losing the car. So the moral of the story is, no matter whether you're entering or exiting, pay attention to where the hell you are. Idrisa's Purple Stories will be on April 13th. It will be featuring dinner and a story if you like to order dinner. It is on a Saturday in Richmond on the borderline of El Sobrante Hilltop. If you're interested in being on the email list, see me in the back and I'll get your information and we'll send it up to you. Hope you can come. Amazing, amazing. All right, we're going to shift gears a little bit to a, you know, I've been doing this since August and there's been a number of people saying, how come there's not members of Mechanics Institute up on this stage? So ladies and gentlemen, it is a first for the series. A member, one of your very own, is going to show the stage, and not only a member, a chess instructor right here. Yes, yes. So I don't know if he's up for a game after the show, maybe you can ask him, but very funny man. He has done sketch fest, performed all over San Francisco, and I'm so psyched to have him here. So welcome, Zorba, Jabon, you! So, let's get the obvious out of the way right now. C-Lo had a yard sale and I'll write it down. I've been best dressed since kindergarten. I had a pinkie ring in the incubator, you understand what I'm saying? With silk dampers. I have been, yes, the best dressed. And I, when we see me, you know, when I walk down the street, sometimes they seem like, oh, I want you to be my sugar daddy. I'm like, sugar daddy, baby, I got diabetes. I'm actually a free uncle. And he don't die of cousin, you know? Pay your papa. Anybody ever try to die of paleo? Didn't they die of? You showed me a healthy hand that thought walking around around the city. I understand. I realize one thing. I am the youngest elderly person in here. I turned 52 in March, like March 4th, coming up. And I got one question. How the hell did A.A.A. do the child support know how to find children? It just don't matter. They give their papa stuff out of all the one things and I have. I don't want to give that thought I can use like for a strip club, you know? I'm not really acclimated, but I don't feel like I'm in my kids, you know? When my parents, when they think they were in their kids, they've lived stuff, you know? I ain't saying I ain't lived stuff, but you know what I mean? I don't feel, and I feel weird when young kids call me OG. OG knows. When I was a kid, an OG did something to be an OG. I know some of y'all listen to me like, what's the big deal about thinking too, believe me, when you're black and you make it to 52, you're old. You've made it, you've made life. Yes, indeed. I come from Kentucky. Yeah, what for? That's what I'm from. He'll go straight next to me. This is what they look like when they don't agree. Every group is doing that type. We don't mind our cousins, right? I've been dating my uncle for a while. I think I should know. I come from a place where the pigeons shoot tobacco. You understand what I'm saying? They put gun racks on bicycles to give you an idea what I'm for. I got a crazy family too. Anyone else? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got a uncle named Tom, but we can't call him that. My dad walked out on me and my mom in 1979. Went to get a pack of cigarettes, never returned. That's messed up and he kept me from smoking. Got crazy. My grandfather had 16 kids. Very prolific man. He didn't even have a pull-out couch. I got a friend who's high class white trash. That means he got a chandelier hand from his trailer. He didn't even have a hand. I had two aunts. I got two aunts from my only child that are 8, 12 years older than me. They're like my older sisters. My grandma used to make them take me with them on their dates. Because they needed a lot of access to them. My brother was like, I don't know these people. They might have moved. I don't know. So first they'll say, that's, you want to take my, I don't want to take this one. You want to take all the dates. You go into the movies. You got to be my way in your way and her way and I had to sit in the middle. Now what's the best way to get some of that? Get to know me. So they would try to bribe me with money. They'd be like, there's a little man here that's a 20. You go get us some popcorn. I'm like, you make me 40. I sit in the lobby. You make it 80. I catch the bus home. Then you got to do with my grandmother. My grandmother did not play true story. When I was five years old, I witnessed my 60-year-old grandmother whooped my 35-year-old dad. He owed him money. He didn't want to pay anymore. He's like, he didn't want to pay anymore. Yeah, we don't know. I got eight-year-old people. I got you. No, no, no. My two-story, five years ago, I witnessed the woman because he owed him money. He didn't want to pay. He got spoiled. But he's like, hold on, mom, your trip with you to the police. This boy right here, this is my son. He's this woman right here. This is my wife. They're getting the hell out of my face. Yeah. You see how quiet I try to talk to people. We're like, even a doll pissed on itself. My grandmother takes his arms behind his back like they own cops. Turns him over, her laps go up, beating his butt. He gets loose running under the bed, assuming he's going to stay. My grandmother chased him under the bed and walked him under the bed. And went off on him like a brimstone preacher. She was like, They just came over and they formed a gospel choir. They was like, And we see it that good. It looked like you didn't have to stay for them anymore. I stayed up late to watch TV. Like, did I tell you to go to bed? I got wrong. Okay, you win. You win. I live here in San Francisco now. I live in a tent alone. You gotta be talking about it. It's the only place I've been when you see an empty wheelchair. I'll be concerned about where the person is. I've seen a guy tie his head off, shooting up. I walked past him. I told her to say, I'm under and so the custodian's bad for my life. She got with a lady. She got butt teeth in a week. She said, I'll make pretty babies. That's the tent alone. The racist homeless guy. He called me to work 30 minutes late. I asked him for change. I'm like, change. You just come to the ill world. I said, yeah. I saw a rat be dragged. There's a little person she's a prostitute. Goes by the name of half price. That's the tent alone. She's a blind cell phone. The guy who's had an argument is blind. On this cell phone, say these words. But I see you all messing you up on site. Y'all see the high in the tent? It's what I prefer to at the homeless blue market. Why? They set it up and try to sell it to you. One day I walked to the homeless guy trying to sell me one shoe. What am I doing with one shoe? He said, take a one step at a time. I said, yeah. I have an interesting place. I live in a studio apartment. I have a new idea. One record in this drawer. One track in Chicago. It's a bathroom with a closet. It's got a bed and a couch. It's got an old 1980 microwave. You know the kind you got put on the land. They've been going all over the place. Why are you so organized to mess up your reproductive work? When they come home and see my place, they're like, well, your place is small. I'm like, God, I can move it in. I got time at 6 a.m. The number for the drunken tax is on the wall about a microwave. Where do you April? I broke up with my girlfriend a couple months ago. I'm out dating again. I went out to this girl. She said, don't treat me like a date. Treat me like you were two too long. So I ain't gonna call you for six months. What are you trying to discuss there? What are you saying? I understand what you're saying. Oh, am I talking to you? You sound like you're with a girl out there. I like you. But that's why I'm trying to be a hoot. I just have this big, beautiful smile there. Oh, man. Here's what I'm trying to figure out about these holidays. This month is filled with too many holidays. Black Beauty Month, Presenting Day, Valentine's Day, Washington Ballroom Lutheran Kings Day. Here's what I'm trying to figure out. MLK day. How do we celebrate? We treated it like 4th of July, right? Here's how I think people should treat Martin Lutheran Kings holiday. I think random white people, she come up to random black people, and hug them, and land them. And then take them home. You'll make a new friend and you'll get robbed. What is it you want? I saw this in a paper recently, it's about the original bus that Rosa Parks was on, and they're going to put it in a museum in Detroit where she's from. I think that's so cool, but here's the question that I asked. Are you going to put it in the front of the museum? I have so bad, it's been three years since the pandemic, I'm so bad to see people. Because I'm trying to have conversations with my cat. Because she started to make sense. It's a valid point, you know. She went with me to go see the movie Black Panther. Now, I don't purpose. She snuck in my bag, you know how you do it. I didn't think about it, I sent it up, I did some movie theater. My bastard, I'm moving like punk trash. I'm like, what the hell? If you ever try to hold a capture, two and a half hours in a movie, I think $15. We're going to see this day. So now we get home, she's spilling herself, because she just saw a cousin on the screen. She want me to know, she put her front legs on the corner of the sign. She want me to beat out of her by bringing them balls, striking the dog in the back of the head. You live on a windowsill in the Tenderloin, be cool. Be cool, man. My cat's very bougie too. She won't catch her mouth unless she comes from a rep double family. Very bougie. She'll only drink almond milk, you know. She's bougie, yeah. I got a Chihuahua. She was a very handsome dog. Tuesday you beat, he beat out thousands. Sounds like the best dog in the internet. First one. And I should cry like I had something to do with it. Run like your dog's really handsome. I'm like, I know. Get as visible as mommy. And because I'm a big guy, people see me as something I should have. Like a pit bull, I rock while I go. You know why I like my dog? I don't like getting no dog in better shape than me. It's rude, man. I don't get no dog in the bitch boy, man. I'm looking at his back, feeling bad about myself. This joke I'm going to have, this next joke I'm going to have to retire because today he's resigned. When I was going to say, I think it's time for Mitch McConnell to get out of office. But it's not for his policies. It's because he don't have a freaking chin. You can't make decisions that affect the record. You don't know how to bow and break it. Let's get him to put a file in under your neck. You understand what I'm saying? They always talk about separation in Turkey State. How about separation of chin and neck? That's how I like my politicians. And now I got to retire that since he's here right now. I don't know if you could be indicted or still be a president. Apparently we're about to find that out, you know. I don't know if I won't like fighting in there, but somebody else needs to run, you know? You should run. And you better have a chance to trouble. We need somebody. You should run. I know you. I know you will. You should run. I don't want to go to lunch with you. Would you? No, no, you don't have to answer that question. You ain't got to do that. That ain't my thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It ain't Trump's thing either. He just told it for the look. You got all these people hanging out with you? All right. I won't play. I love that. People that go on me out. Hey, what's up, people in the back? I ain't know it. Is it great going in? What's going on? You got the Amigos in the back. I ain't know it. It's nice to see people with worse vision than Amigos in the area. Nice. Nice. Nice. I have had a beard since I was 14 years old. Yes, beauty hit me early. I had a mustache and an ultrasound, you know. Beauty hit me very early. You know what it's like to be able to sign your own permission since you're going to field trips. And people older than you ask them, you would buy them a beard, you know. Yeah, man. I don't know who's doing those prom circles, but I want them to be my barber. Since you can make an image of the Virgin Mary in a week, though, I know you can take her like a crazy. How many more? How much time I got up, boo? You're done. Oh, God. I was going to leave you on something funny. You can wrap it. You do one more. Do one more. One more. Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Please, yeah. Yeah, the person's on it. I shouldn't say anything else. You can be on it. I'll be on it. Just get off stage. I've got other people that want to get off. Yeah, it's been wonderful. Thank you. All right. You know what you think about that? You want to put more into this? Oh. Yeah. What do you got? More study. I am going to be at Golden Gate. I'm going to get to our Golden Gate Park. I'm going to be at the chess tournament. What is it? It's the Glotting Chess Championship. There you go. The last six? Like the pickle on people? Yeah. The last chess championship. Nice. All right. And what is that? March 30th. March 30th. That's one month away. All right. Give it up one more time. Roll it. Good on you. And now we have a second place on the chess. He's got some up to sleep. So he will be a very entertaining chess partner. All right. We are up to our last storyteller for the night. Glad to meet you. Glad to meet you. He was running a little late when he was here. And he's a new friend of mine. That is some just amazing energy. And I'm just proud to welcome you to the stage. Welcome. He goes by Play Ball Rockstar. Give it up for Play Ball. Play Ball Rockstar. I'm a rock artist. I'm afraid about Play Ball Rockstar. This is a story about Del Mar Mosley Davis. Del Mar Mosley Davis was born on August 24th, 1994. He was born to a mother named Denise Mosley. She was very beautiful. She is very beautiful and loved me. She has a drug addiction. Denise Mosley had 10 kids. We all went to foster care when we were young. I was a younger, always one of her family. I never could find one. Music as a way of depression was filled with stress. It changed my life. It screwed my life over. I was 15. I went when I was 19. I didn't come home until I was 29. I just came home seven months ago. I went though during my incarceration. And I was a change. I wanted to change everything about myself. I wanted to change all of the things about myself. And I wanted to adopt a different personality, a different belief system. And I wanted to be able to help. I knew that I was the problem. And I didn't want to be a problem anymore. I wanted to be. I could do that through a new idea. I got really better at music. I graduated from college. I have a college degree. I graduated from a state college. My college degree in fitness administration. I really got good at threatening my crime. I came home from prison. I ended up doing 10 years instead of doing 30. I write back the word. From the studio. He's my photographer. And I'm a videographer. And I'm just doing really good now. But I mean, this is a story about Trump. Because a lot of kids out there that went through. Or it's going through now. A lot of kids who are in foster care right now. There are a lot of kids who felt the way I felt. Felt depressed. Felt like they didn't have nobody. Felt like they needed somebody. And nobody wouldn't get it. Maybe because I wasn't nice enough. Or maybe wonder why I was so mad. If your mom was a little crack. And your brother was a broken apart. When you'd be angry, too. If you were to be abandoned. When you'd be abandoned. A week of doubt was because I didn't understand myself. I'm going to be the best photographer. I'm going to win a brand. That's Michael. Thank you guys for your time. I thank you for everything. If y'all want to look up my music. You go to Playball Rock Star. And you can look up my new song, Real. It's popular right now. Yeah. I'm still trying to get up and to put myself on camera. I'm not really used to this. Everything is new to me. It's a journey. I'm here for the ride. Thank you guys for your time. This is Michael. I'm here for the ride. I'm here for the ride. People who love the EP. It's called Small Circles. I should be dropped next month. I actually got a song done. A couple days ago it was called Noni featuring Nokia O tense. If you want to, for instance, all you have to do is go to my Instagram or my Facebook or my YouTube. Playball Rockstar. Not Playboy. Not Playboy, Courtney. I'm not Playball Rockstar. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Cool. So as they are coming out, just a reminder, we do this every month. So I'm so delighted to have you guys all coming and supporting Live Storytelling in the Bay Area. So give it up for yourselves. Thank you for coming out. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you to the people. I know I've just got a book in the back here. It's $20. Another book in the back here. It's $15. And anybody else that wants to talk to me?