 Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Mechanics Institute. My name is Alyssa Stone. I am the Senior Director of Programs and Community Engagement here at Mechanics Institute. And it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our monthly storytelling showcase. In June we were founded in 1854, so we are very old non-profits. Who has been here to Mechanics Institute before? Awesome. And where are my members at? Where are my members at? Yes, thank you for your membership. Who is here for the very first time? Fabulous. Welcome. I hope it is the first of many, many visits to our fair institution. We are a membership library. Gorgeous, multi-story, acceptable library. We have checked out the library. It is truly stunning. Come back for a tour every Wednesday at noon. And we have monthly evening tours coming up on Fridays. We are also a world-renowned chess center. We do tournaments, classes, and school programs all throughout San Francisco. And we are an events space like what we are doing this evening. We have anywhere from 5 to 15 events per week here at Mechanics Institute. Writers groups, book groups, classes, storytelling showcases, author events, movies, our weekly cinema series on Fridays, our stellar, and everything else in between. We hope that you'll join us for an upcoming program. Check out mi-library.org to learn more about all the amazing offers and things that we have here to offer at Mechanics Institute. For example, we have our Lunar New Year, Year of the Dragon, What Will the New Year Hold, Tomorrow Night, with world-renowned author Maxine Honkasten and David and Linda Lye. That's going to be a very fabulous event. And then this Friday kicks off our cinema-lit theme of Black Civil Rights on film. Our first film this Friday is Loving. And then we move into Judas and the Black Messiah, The Landlord, and Black Cleanson, all throughout February. We have some fantastic films coming up with our curator, Matt Kennedy. So again, please check out mi-library.org to learn more about everything that we have and to learn about the benefits of membership here at Mechanics Institute. It truly is a fantastic community and we hope that you'll join us for an upcoming event and program. I am going to introduce the incredible host with the most, Corey Rosen, who is the real reason we're all here tonight is for Corey and his incredible set of storytellers this evening. Corey Rosen is a writer, actor, visual effects producer, and storytelling teacher based in San Francisco. He hosts The Moth, Story Slams, and Grand Slams, and has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, Alice Radio's Mestera and Vinny Show, and K-Bots, The Finch Files, High Pass. Corey is a performer at Fats Improv, one of the world's foremost centers for improvisational theater, and is the author of Your Story, Well Told, Creative Strategy, C-Bell, and Performed Stories, Deaf, Wow, and Audience. For more information about Corey, definitely visit CoreyRosen.com and please give a warm welcome to Corey Rosen. Thank you. Welcome everybody. Wow, what a night to come out. Thank you all for coming out on this crazy night. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting storytelling and thank you for supporting Mechanics Institute. Give it up one more time for Mechanics Institute. I'm going to be your host in the seats tonight. I'm going to tell you what we're all in for and what's going to happen. Then I'm going to introduce the storytellers tonight. Whoa, I'm not going to fall off the stage. I might fall off the stage. It's been a very long day for me. I got up this morning at 2.30. I've been trying to go movie or TV commercial. I've been in a luma all day. So if I fall off the stage, that's why. And just leave me alone. Let me nap it out and then I'll stand back on the floor. So here's what we're doing. I call this, Your Story Well Told. Also happens to be the name of the book that I wrote. But really the purpose and sort of the nature of this format and the showcase is to feature your stories. It's a feature of different voices to listen to the members of our community talking, sharing their lives and their perspectives in every way. And so month to month, I invite different friends of mine or colleagues of mine or students of mine or people that I have had the good fortune to connect with or overlap with. And a plug, by the way, if you've been here before, to find a particular show. Welcome back. So as you may recall, for those of you who have been here, we've done collabs before. Like we did something called back fence lex where we spun a wheel and the storyteller didn't know what story they were going to tell. They got their themes on the plot. Or in December we did, I also work in like the film and TV and visual effects world. So we had behind the scenes horror stories. Terrible things that have happened or magical things that have happened behind the scenes. Tonight is, I want to just mix it up for the new year. We have a range of, I say some of the most delightful people, but I probably say that every month. Just individuals that I've either shared stages with at the moth or other places around the Bay Area to share their perspectives. The theme that I gave them tonight was pets. And not just because it's raining cats and dogs. I know that in advance. But pets are animals. And I also told the storytellers, or don't. So if there is nothing to do with pets or animals, I told you so. And if there is, I told you so. So that's something to keep in mind. And throughout just sort of what's coming around the rest of the spring is going to be just different kinds of programming. So some more collaborations with different groups, different storytellers, different organizations. And I've been asked to do one, and I'm looking forward to my first story slam year. So a story slam means that you can put your own name in and the story show will be made up of this community. Including members of Mechanics Institute and others that come. So that sounds pretty good, right? Sounds like fun. Cool. Another just quick in terms of what the show is. So this is going to be about an hour, maybe a little bit longer than an hour. No intermission. So if you need to do something, like get another drink or snack or go to the bathroom or place some chess. If you don't, do take care of you. So don't worry about that. We will still be here. We won't wait for you. I promise that. Any questions before we get started? Good. People are still filing in. I love it. There are plenty of seats also in front if you want to come up in the front. We even have one storyteller who is quite hearing. So we may have a surprise storyteller. It's not you, J.K., but don't worry. I think I'm J.K. All right. I'm going to tell you a little animal story of my own because I was inspired by both the topic. And then even more recently the work that I've been doing today, because I've been on a movie set, so I have a lot of lives. For those of you who know me or have heard my stories, I dabble in different things throughout. I like to keep things going, but I did go to film school and I did originally aspire to go more directly into the directing end and then sort of found my way into other aspects of production. So my first real jobs out of college or while I was in college were places like Jim Henson Productions and Comedy Central working with Muppets, which are animals. But my real kind of career in the industry started at Lucasfilm in San Rafael and Industrial Light and Magic. So while I was working for this kind of hallowed center of visual effects and animation, I was doing very un-glorious and un-glamorous work of cleaning dirt off of film. That was my initial job. It was my welcome to the film industry. It was my cleaning dirt. Some of you may have heard my story about accidentally erasing Han Solo's ear. Yeah, that's a true story. You don't know that one. I can tell you to you later. But while I was working in ILM, I still had the bug in me because I wanted to make my own movie. So I had this kind of purview that's something that's kind of a trait that's kept me going through a lot of my life, which is really what I do with these shows as well, which is looking around at my, I would say, more interesting or more talented friends around me and how might we work together, how might we collaborate together. And in the desire to make a movie of my own, a short film of my own, I looked at the resources that I had now working at this place, Lucasfilm, and one of the resources that I had, because this is in a time when things were still shot on film, is that we were making everything on film. We were shooting film. We were recording things back to film. And when you do that, when you do a movie production, you use the film in the school of film, the reels of film, until there's like, only about this much left, which isn't really enough to get the next shot, so they call it short ends. So these are like these little, maybe like 30 seconds to one minute rolls of film. And there's just hands of those all over in this circle. So I asked someone, I was like, can I have those? And someone was like, ah, sure, we're not going to use those, because they were like these very little and very inefficient to use rolls of film. And then I was like, well, can I also use one of those 35 millimeter cameras that make, you know, return of the Jedi? And they're like, yeah, yeah, you can use those. And then I asked people that I worked with to be the crew on it. And the next thing I know, I have the aforementioned last story note. Anyway, I put together this kind of cobble together this crew of my fellow employees to make a film that I call Keep Clear. Keep Clear, so a silent film that was completely made on favors. Everything was borrowed, including the car that I drove, a teal blue 57 Chevy that I drove on the back roads of a farm in West Marin County owned by somebody else that I worked with. Every single thing that happened on this film shoot was a favor that I kind of called in. I also decided I needed to have a celebrity in this movie. And so I was like, how can I find a celebrity? I'm 21 years old. So I'll call the local celebrities. So I somehow got like a letter out to Sean Penn and Robin Williams. And who else was the celebrity in San Francisco? I think Nicholas H. still in there. None of them responded to me. So I sent a letter to Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco whose office will be back to schedule a time for the film shoot, right? Willie Brown never can be shy. Willie Brown would be very, very willing. And so I actually got Willie Brown to show up on a set in front of a blue screen and be abducted by aliens. So that is a true cameo that Willie Brown plays in my phone. But the real test of my directorial prowess came in the fact that in this sort of sci-fi comedy short film, Keep Clear, the story is that a man played by me is in his 57 Chevy. And he stops at a Keep Clear zone. You know the Keep Clear zone to see them, right? And instead of, you know, just driving through it, he stops and his glasses are very dirty. So he can't see the signs. He takes off his glasses. And while he is cleaning his glasses, a parade of hilarious things passes in front of his vehicle, right? A mime comes in front of his car, some ninjas, the mayor of San Francisco, various things. Ultimately they're all abducted by aliens. But one of those things, I don't know why. I wanted a flock of ducks. Ducks is where the animal part of the story comes from. So I have this vision that I'm going to have ducks. So I put out a message board for my company. Does anybody have any ducks? Sure enough, somebody has some fucking ducks. There was a duck. So I was like, well, I don't have the ducks, but I live like in the canal area of San Rafael. And there are these, maybe it's like the Belmarinquis somewhere in that area. There's ducks there. And you're welcome to find, I don't know. So I go out. I drive out to the Belmarinquis in West Brick County. I park my car. And I take out a loaf of bread. And sure enough, I see some ducks. And I stand on one side of the road. And I go, action. And the ducks walked across the road. Got my thing. So next thing I know, I come back with my 35 millimeter camera, a little blue screen material. And there are ducks in the movie as well. So in the end, how do I kind of put all of this together is that I look at the life that I've weirdly cobbled together. And how does it connect back to directing ducks across the road? And I think I look at the wisdom that I've made accruing through my life since then to now is that I don't think I've changed a bit. I feel like even today, I was doing the equivalent of throwing a loaf of bread down and saying, action. And watching a bunch of ducks go across the road. Because not kidding, the action that I have today involved a dryer. There was a dryer in a laundromat in Petaluma. And I just jokingly said to the dryer, I go, and stop. Just as it stopped. So I have the power. Thank you. All right. Well, we have a wonderful show ahead for you tonight. These are all wonderful storytellers or comedians or both. And the next first storyteller that we have coming up is a very dear friend of mine who has had the good fortune of performing with me on many a stage including the Moth Grave Slam stage. What you want? And it is my great honor and privilege to introduce Brandon Sparce. Sounding good? Yeah. Good. Right on. When I was 21 years old, just after graduating from college, I became a volunteer English teacher at a university in Bali, Indonesia. And it was there that I fell in love with one of the Indonesian college students, Irmawati. Now as a pretense to get to spend more time with her outside of class, I concocted a plan. I decided the school would hold a play, Romeo and Juliet, and she would play the part of Juliet and I would be her director. Now this was going to be an enormous undertaking. So I decided it would be best if I went to her parents and asked for their permission for her to spend all this time outside of school. And in so doing, maybe worked my way into their favor a bit. And so I visited them at their house. There I was underneath a mango tree in the family garden sitting right next to the father. And I had just stumbled my way in my bad Indonesian through these prepared remarks I had made about how the play would be good for her English. If she spoke good English, she stood a promising chance as a professional. And I would be instrumental in helping her with all of this. Now I had prepared these remarks in advance. What I wasn't prepared for was the diffusion of formal, complex Indonesian that came flooding out of the father's mouth. Well it didn't seem to be about the play or his daughter at all. It was something about the mango tree, the newspaper he had been reading, then the neighbor in a motorcycle helmet. I became totally lost and eventually I gave up and simply waited for the man to stop. The family cat arrived. This one has a theme to it. There was a skinny thing with a crooked tail. And when I had just arrived at this house it had been there and I had been down to pet it. And the entire family shouting, Kotor, dirty and viciously shoot the animal away. Well now it was back. It was drawn by the aroma of these fried fishy snacks the father had been eating. It knew the snacks were forbidden. So it planted its haunches a respectable meter or so away from the snacks. It looked at the plate. Now just beyond the cat I could see the lovely Irmawanti sitting alone in the front room in the house. And while the father raged on in Indonesian this helplessness I was feeling developed into a deep hopelessness why in this moment I began to realize it could be very unlikely that I, like this cat would ever win the favor of this family. Poor Irmawanti. Why, she would be much better off with someone from her own culture who could sit with her, speak to her in her language, make her laugh. Someone who could understand her father who now appeared to be asking me something. He was writing at the newspaper saying, sattupua apatika, sattupua apatika and I was about to reveal I hadn't understood a word the man had said but I didn't have to. The cat saved me. It took this moment to aim its paw right at the plate of snacks and like a fuzzy striped large amoeba it poured itself through its arm and was just about to get a claw on one of those nuggets of prime fishy goodness when the ground shook. Now the father is a powerful man and when he moves about the house the whole floor vibrates while his calf muscles pump up and down his legs like two dribbling basketballs that poor cat didn't stand a chance. The man covered the distance in a fraction of a second and then whoosh was the sound of the swoop of his mighty leg and pop! He punted the cat straight up into the mango tree his foot finishing right alongside his dobes on the follow-through there was the sound of tearing leaves and a blue mafoliant shot past the upper canopy of the tree as the cat flew through the tree and out of the garden he kicked that thing out of the garden well I took this as a chance to simply excuse myself and the next thing I knew I was pushing my bicycle down that dirt road that led to their house I hadn't said goodbye to Irmawati I hadn't even retrieved my copy of Romeo and Juliet which still lay on their coffee table but I didn't think it mattered I doubted that play was happening and I was pretty sure I was not going back to that house and I stopped there in the middle of the dirt road with a little grey lump it was the cat I set the bicycle down and dealt next to the cat I put my hand on it there was a bit of blood coming from its nose and I felt it shiver I didn't know if it was alive or dead but lest it had survived getting kicked out of the garden only to be run over by a car I scooped it up and looked for a safe place to set it and finding done I crept back to the family's house the gate was closed the garden was empty but I was able to slide the cat through a chunk of the metal bars and once again I placed my hand on it and felt it shiver the poor thing we had been comrades in the quest to win the love of this family and we had both failed just before turning to leave I looked up and there framed in the front window in all of her terrifying beauty was Irma Wati I waved the next morning that hopelessness had turned to heartache and despair I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep the hour of my English class came and went and I didn't even go but then there was the roar of motorcycles it was my students about 12 of them were arriving in my garden had they come to see why I hadn't gone to class my heart skipped a beat when I noticed Irma Wati among them why Romeo and Juliet was the play happening? would the show go on? yes there was a meeting photocopies had been made the parts were allocated a practice schedule was drawn up the meeting went by when the students left but Irma Wati was the last one to leave she was sitting on my front stoop holding her backpack I sat next to her I'm so glad you want to do the play I said she didn't say anything I was beginning to think you didn't like me I said huh was all she said and then to my surprise she handed me her backpack and skipped over to her motorcycle and started it up and I was just about to ask why are you giving me your it moved the backpack moved and when I unzipped it out sprouted the cat and it lived it didn't survive didn't get out of the garden she stopped long enough to say you two belong together and belong together we did for the next six years we'll live together and I fed it all the fried fishy snacks it wanted it grew very fat and sleek and happy ah but Irma Wati and I belong together too she began to stay later and later at her practices and then once under the pretense of coming to check on her cat she visited me we were bent over petting the cat and our hands touched and when we stood up facing one another with the cat brushing between our legs ah I'm not kissed and we've been kissing happily for the past 32 years and there she is keep it going, Irma Wati speaker in Moth Grand Slam two-time winner and a teacher at Sonoma Academy in Mern County thank you, Irma Wati and beautiful Eidrisa, did I see you were going next? yes you want to go? ok, alright so next up is a wonderful person wonderful friend of mine and somebody that I got to know through story slam, Oakland which is another community of storytellers in East Bay, did anybody hear from East Bay? yes, a lot of you, awesome Eidrisa is also president of bright future and Cedric in Oakland, where you guys are great. Enrichment, fantastic. So, please make a warm welcome for our next storyteller, Idrisa Latie. Thank you. Can you hear me now? Are we doing that? Thank you all for coming out tonight. Are you kidding me? It's just you enjoying yourself like Romance, congratulations. Did you hear me? Thank you. Can you hear me? Hear me. For over a few years, I'd like to tell a story about moving because sometimes you don't get to choose the endings, but endings are necessary in order to give me gifts, right? So, the year was 2011 and all the rage were people were sending out these new letters. Do you remember instead of Christmas cards and sending out these letters saying, oh, this is what we did this year? And I said, well, the 20th year was a hell of a year. I'm sending out a newsletter. And I'm sending it to everybody in my context. I mean, family, friends, co-workers, all the new neighbors. If I ever had your email address, you got my newsletter. So, the newsletter started off talking about my daughter to just turn the scan. We went to Disney World. It's been a week. It was wonderful. She had just got her third degree brown belt and was working on her black belt. And I was so proud. She was beautiful, brilliant, and you keep your ass. She was mom. Now my son, he was 71, I'm eight. He was playing football, but he didn't really like football. He didn't like getting hit, which is understandable. So, Lutron, baseball, football, and basketball. My husband, he had been off work all year long. Workers' comp, he got hurt at work. And so he had a lot of time on his, too much time on his handkerchief. He joined the water circuit club. So, fast forward, busy year, dealing with the kids, running around, everything. It's December 30th. We're having a holiday party at work. I took my daughter with me. My son was with his friend mother. We had a great time at work. But then I decided I'm gonna go home with a girl. I go home, and when I walk through the door, I go back to the door, because it looks like anything's broken, no windows, nothing. So I go back in, it's rain sets. Place is empty. I'm looking, well, it's even 205 inch for projector TV. The couches, they had a U-Haul. My brand new washer and dryer, my bed. They took my bitch's Jack Daniel's collection. That makes no sense. My jewelry, everything. I have been wiped out by my husband. Everything from our house. He was bagged out of there because he was making their room. He don't fit in there. The rest of the house was gone. And she wore a white thingy was with this woman. And this is her name. I put her name, her house name. You need it. And I'm always gonna be good. God has me, I'm gonna be good. And God has a sense of humor. Because a few days later, someone has to go away to the military. And they said they had a bed for me. I go to get the bed because, of course, I have never used it every day. I go get the bed and I just fell off like this. To the point that I was crying, these people looking at me like, what is wrong with this lady? The bed would be the exact same bed that he had. That he'd see in his life. Oh, it looks like it. We're all gonna be good. Don't worry about us. I just didn't want the story to be skewed. I didn't want people asking me what happened. So this is what happened. This is not somebody I just met. I was 12 years old. And we had been married 14 years together for 16. I never would have thought you would have done something like this. You're gorgeous, you're beautiful, you're beautiful. Right? We're 21st, just a few weeks later, I meet the man who is now my husband. My soulmate, the love of my life. And he is my new beginning, my new and my new. We're all gonna be introducing our... I just don't want to set you calibrated. That is your opportunity for the rest of the show. That every single story, but that was awesome and delightful. And I think I know when I'll do it next Christmas. I'm gonna write a newsletter. I'll let you write that. Wonderful team. Okay, all right, let's keep it going. Our next storyteller and I met... I think we first met at AAU, yes. She was my student. She was studying stop-motion animation, which she has now gone on to just thrive in as a multimedia artist and a creator in every sense of the word, including a performance artist and a delightful person. So I am thrilled to welcome to the stage for maybe the first time since forever, maybe since an online show we did during COVID. Since the Zoom, Andy Wong, everybody! Thank you. Cat people, we're a dog people. I am a hermit crab person. I love hermit crabs. Because hermit crabs taught me how to love my hermit mother. 20 years ago, my partner Michael and I were beginning and we're building our new relationship and we decided to adopt a pet together and we decided on hermit crabs. I've never had hermit crabs before, but when I saw their super cute black eyes and funny like snail shells that they carried with them, I thought they were super quirky, they were cute. And they were advertised as a very low-maintenance pet. However, that is not true. Hermit crabs are peri-sensitive creatures that require daily care and really specific environmental conditions to thrive. There was not always a difference between them. I remember once upon a time, she was full of volatility and she loved singing and music and she had this explosive laughter. But she also required very good-natured to bring them what those issues were. And so, she grew into a version of herself that was very mean. Because all of that vitality with nowhere to channel it turned into aggression. I remember plates being thrown against the kitchen wall. I remember hearing her stomping around at the house, angrily talking to herself because she had no one to them to. And I wrote in my Mickey Mouse diary that she must have been like not actually my mom, but it said like if he holds that mother. Because that was the only explanation that my child, Rain, could come up with to explain why she was so mean about that about hermit crabs. When they're being attacked, they have the ability to contract their muscles in such a way where they can break out their own limb and leave it behind and it helps them to escape from their fighter. I moved away from home when I was 19. I do think that I had cut off a part of myself when I did that. And I kind of like broke off part of my part. Because that's what I needed to do to build up the strength that we have. So another fun fact about hermit crabs, they have the ability to regrow a lost limb. And they do this through a process called molting. When a hermit crab is ready to molt, they crawl out of the shell that is protecting their soft belly. And they dig deep underground in the sand and then they sit there and they wait until they are ready to open like a crack in the back of their exoskeleton. And then they very slowly and carefully proceed themselves out of every nook in their former process. And they're very raw and moist. And they do, they come out of their old exoskeleton and then they're left there just kind of facing their old self. I had a really hard time facing my old self after I went to play. And that is because I thought, well if my own mother couldn't be like, it saved home for me, maybe that was because there's something wrong with us. Or maybe there's something wrong with me. I learned about the final step of a hermit crab molting process which blew my mind and kind of changed the way that I thought about it. So the soft skin of the new hermit crab is very insensitive and it's not fully hardened yet. And what they will do, they'll crawl over to their old exoskeleton and they'll eat it. Because that exoskeleton is full of calcium and nutrient which helps to fortify the new exoskeleton of the hermit crab. So over time, I eventually learned how to look at my past experiences, appreciate them and look at the good parts of them and integrate them into the current version of me. And that I could nourish them in ways that they didn't have growing up and they could continue to nourish people. So when the hermit crab is done with the molting and the strawmina to the surface, a new shell to fit their new life, a new shell, since I've regrown, this is the last one that I've done. Despite the name, hermit crabs are actually really social creatures. They thrive in colonies. They eat together, they travel in packs to protect each other from predators and they trade shells, they twist them around. So that each crab can find just the perfect fitting shell. And whatever colony or community that my mom had growing up, she had to be by necessity. She never talked about that at that time and she never acknowledged that version of the right fitting shell. So it's really isolated since she never did. So on the rare occasion that I didn't get to visit her now, I don't bring any expectations for a relationship. I just try to be there in her life and I just try to be present in whatever small capacity that antithenum is the main and she'll feel like. Through the thing about training shells, they actually line up inside the order and then they all walk out of their shells and go into the next bigger shell. It's like they trade it crazy and super true. And thank you for educational and part filling story. Thank you, those were really great. Okay, the next storyteller, performer, I don't know what to call him because he's so many things. He's a poet, he's a clown. Not like a comic-con, but just a human model. Like a comedian, writer, he's a kiteboarder, painter. He's always, I don't know which version we're gonna see. Some version of him and he has all of my heart. So please welcome to the stage the one and only, Inach Karachilek. Hello. That's amazing, some tips, right? How are you? Is it? Do we have dog people here? We do. Do we have dog people? I wanted to tell a story, but again, I have, you know, earlier when I talked to my friend, I'm a little bit of too much ADHD. Good thing. So, Jacob says if it's like a, what is the word? Like, eskimo-ni, or like a, or like a, what do you call it, a humong? Or a, please? Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. Serb. So, I, this is about how much of an influence and grace my beautiful best friend in the world but hopefully hereafter a little kismet, my dog, to me. I'm gonna tell you about it here. So, he is, first of all, those of you who met him, he's just such an amazing, handsome, smart, like intellectual, we, we, this line say things, you know? We have, we have, we, this line seem type of people, the same type of dogs, you know? We have similar, I don't want to say, yeah, we have similar dislikes, more than likes, also. And I grew up in Turkey, which is the place where cats are the holiest, right? We love cats. I grew up spending a lot of time around dogs and cats and I had to go out of rabies shots and I broke a lot of cat fights in Turkey, which we have, it is totally up, it's all, ah, yeah. And also dog fights. But I always thought, like, the dream, the idea of having a dog in your life, as you know, is one of the greatest things, right? And I was raised with a lot of beautiful street dogs back home, then I was fortunate enough to be raised by this amazing, Congress Spaniel named Lilo. And I spent the first few years of my life in Turkey with him then at 16 I had to come to the US. So I was away from him. And after he passed away in 2010, like my world is shattered, even though he was reconciled away. And then fast forward to 2010, sorry, yeah, 2019. I was in Mexico working, I teach kind of for you, right, to rich people. And these people were not so appreciating of what I do. They thought I would just keep them on the fly in a second and it doesn't work that way. Especially Mama, you know, big way. And then I, at that time, I met this beautiful woman, Jessica, and she said, there's a dog. He's a little dog, he is so beautiful, he looks like a dog, he's a Mexican street dog. What are you used to do? I told her, I said, I can't do it. I'm not, I don't have really a job. I'll be done just at that time I was 37 or something, 30, 30, I can't do it, it's just annoying. And then I came back from Mexico and things weren't going well. And then one day she came home with this grease-folding, just amazing, you know, 12 pound, they call it juaxi, but he said it's a street dog, right. He came and then I looked at him and I said, I'm a dog. I love this guy, you know. And I don't know, the more I got to look at him, the more I fell in love with him and he just started like changing my life and inspiring. And then, you know, he dislikes similar type of people that are too bubbly and pushy, you know, right. And I don't know if you know this, I would like you to take this out. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. This is the sound of a little dog saying, fuck you. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I don't want to generalize, I used to call it a dog. There's a little Caucasian dog next door. And he just needs to change. And I was also like, he uses words like, I'll have my gun and do it, but that wasn't my job. And the corner was just not my type of guy. And ever since, when they were at yoga, it was hard. And it makes me so happy that I see him show like some kind of a dislike and even more. And for the first two, three months of having him, I just realized, like, I would be more like his thing. I study journalism and theology and I did my master's in, you know, marketing, and I can't even put two words together. And this guy is so amazing. And everything he does is so beautiful. And one day, about three months after, I was holding him, and you know, we have, most of you probably have a student, where you have the time where you compliment your dog, right? You don't have to do it for a comment, actually. Oh, I love you, you're so great, I have to, right? And also, most of us who have dogs and cats, as you know, it's impossible to kiss a dog one time. Right? It's better not to kiss a dog. Right? Check me if I'm wrong. So I was doing one of those, right? And I looked inside his beautiful eyes, right? And it's gonna sound like, this is gonna sound a little bit pushy one of the days, like, it's like, man, I so God. I so, oh, look, right? And I looked at him and I said, this is so beautiful. I mean, you can translate it to whatever you want here. John 316, I don't know, whatever you want to be. Cosmos. I so God in this beautiful being. And this was about four and a half years ago. And I looked at him and I said, I love you. And he kind of, this is gonna sound weird because a lot of bad things have been done with dog messages. But not one of those. He didn't like, he said, he didn't say, he looked and I thought I'm gonna inspire him. There was a, there was a canvas out of the garbage, right where I live in Alameda. And there was a picture of a holo, a Hawaiian turtle, which I also love ocean animals so much. But I saw this and I said to kids, what would you like me to do? And I believe he said, it is amazing how he said, you should start painting. That's not what it's all about. That's not what it's all about. By the way, they also speak Serbian, she was like, what up? How do you raise a kid's name? I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. All your dogs are bilingual, I don't know, everybody knows it. I was just joking last month. No, last month I was in Mexico, speaking Spanish with dogs. Earlier, I was in Turkey, speaking Turkish, but I could do both languages and I love you, partner. Except German dogs, as you know, they have all these pictures of them. Because in the house, they're like, yeah, man. So I looked at kiss men and I said, I love you so much, you know? I love my girlfriend, but I love you, partner. But there's nothing wrong with neither, right? And I looked at him and there was some leftover paint from my twin sister that, she's an amazing, world class painter, by the way. And I started, I didn't want to waste any paint, but there was a couple of them, and he started using my finger, you know? And I didn't think of painting, you know, kissing. Like with my left finger, right? I said, is this enough to say I love you? He was like, uh-uh. So I painted a picture, painting of kiss men. And this was October 12th of 2019. And each time I looked at him, I was so inspired. Now, I take my life, in many, many good ways because of him, but I haven't stopped painting since like earlier today. I've made about 2,050 big giant abstract paintings and kiss mo, kiss me, kiss mo, he loves me. He's majesty, but he's not. Salted, you know, the world, you can't see me in the house, you can't see me, they're saying. He inspired me so much. And my life has changed. And I feel like things have gotten better. And I wanted to also remind you, if your dog dislikes someone who likely has a dog, right? I don't know, predominantly Caucasian crowd, I mean, some of you voted for George Bush. I don't like it. I never did. I like both of them, the first and the second. But George Bush has, he loves dogs now. And I'm like, I hate it, but I know. But you know what I mean? So, if your dog, by the way, if your Trump doesn't, I should know it. But if your comes, he's not gonna dog yet. So, what I'm trying to say is dogs and cats and turtles and mice and whales, they're just so great. And there's nothing else. Thank you, sir. Thank you. By the way, I'm gonna talk for a minute. We met earlier and you said your name was? Craig. You said Craig Jesus, right? He introduced me and said, I'm Craig Jesus. So, the forces of us that are Christian here, not 360, right? Are so special. In Islam, more special, they have such love and they're so capable of inspiring us to do things that we never thought we could. I had an art critic, my twin sister, who was an amazing artist, like, hey, you can't draw, you can't even draw when you see it. I'm like, yeah, because I'm able to draw when I can't see. And the things that he reminds me of when I look at him, and I'm sure you can all relate to this, most of you, predominantly Caucasian crowd. When you go home to your golden retrievers, those who are eating anything, your ex's dog, you'll see. God's grace with that. Thank you. I know where the time's on. Are you guys having a good time? We do this once a month. It's always the last, usually, the last Wednesday of the month. Next month will be Black History Month. It will be a Black History Month special program. And our last act tonight is the one and only, Sue Alfieri, everybody. I'm gonna take it out. So my name is Sue Alfieri, and you might be able to tell by my last name that I'm Italian. And, you know, all good Italians seem to know where they're from. And I'm no different. I am from the most Italian part, New Jersey. Right. My family hails from a little Italian village called Hoboken. Today in Jersey, only the strong survive. So I left. I went to where the strong, you know, have offside eagles and go hiking. And then, you know, they say that in Hollywood only the beautiful survive. So I moved to San Francisco. Yep. I lived in San Francisco for about nine years or so. And my friends back in Jersey said that I had really changed. And I don't know. I don't know about that, guys. In fact, I asked my mindfulness coach. I was like, something. What do you think? I said, you know, my, um, I'm vegan. My son goes to private school. My husband wears a vest of, you know, a Patagonian vest with a button down. And so she said, moved to Marin, Carolina, which is Spanish, for land of people who have credit scores, of 800 of course. Very different from Jersey where I grew up. I mean, there were a lot of differences when I moved here that were sort of hard to get used to. You guys in California love cycling, riding bikes. Are there cyclists here? Oh, nice. You guys will spend $30,000 on a bike and it has parts from the space shuttle. Then you're wearing a spandex and you shave your leg. It's like a 1980s aerobics video. But where I grew up, it was like, if I was on a bike, or if anyone was on a bike, they had a DUI. They're riding a bike. It's like a children's bike. That's how we roll. And also, you guys in California love being in nature. And you'll spend like a million dollars on a house just so that you can go camping and sleep in the dirt. I mean, the only time that I was ever in nature was with my uncle Dito and we would be hiking to see if our evidence was still hidden. Yeah, he taught me about the Leave No Trace Principles. So moving to Marin was just quite a difference. And people were walking by my house smiling and waving. When I grew up, that was a sign that like, I'm being abducted. So, you know, if people were leaving welcome cookies on my front porch, I mean, I love a snicker-doodle as much as the next person, but I'm not trying one until my mother-in-law does. So we got an alarm system. Like a real one, not just my uncle, you know, on the room somewhere. But, I mean, my son was looking out the window at all the people. And I said, guys, don't look them right in the eye. And my son said, why not? I said, they might try to recruit you. And he's like, for what? A cult? And I was like, no, worse. Water polo. It's not easy. My husband's also from New Jersey. So raising kids in Marin is like Tony Soprano raising Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. His kids are soft. The only second grader with a mustache was like the only Mario brother. I mean, he was proud of his mustache. Still is. My daughter hates her. She's a 13-year-old and having a 13-year-old daughter, if you don't know, is like, like having a cat with an obsession for Sephora. I mean, having a tween, like my son, and if you don't know what a tween is, I'll tell you, it's a kid between the ages of like 10 and a Satan. For parents, it's like between drinking too much and like doing this to get away from them. They can't find me in here. But, I mean, it's tough. Even though we have this alarm system, the rain camera, I mean, I still didn't totally feel at ease in our neighborhood, you know. So I got a Tijuana street dog. Yes. His name is Pacovo, which is Jacob in Spanish, and he has a teardrop tattoo. He's always tried to sell me fireworks, I don't know. But, I mean, I feel like he was a good boy. You know, 2000 homicides a year in Tijuana. I felt like he was ready for the mean streets of Terralinda. I did. But sadly, a few days on the job and this guy has become Marinized. He wants to only be called Jake. He's wearing Tiva sandals. And he made us get one of those signs for the front yard. The ones that say like, love and love, science is real, everyone is welcome. I don't think you understand why we put you here. When people come to the door, we wanted him to go, he'll get really kind of angry. And instead, you just give him a vegan or a gluten-free treat, he'll go home with you. It's ridiculous. But I felt like he was the right guy. I saw, I Google Earthed the neighborhood where he was from in Tijuana and I saw like a pit bull with an eye patch smoking a joint. I was the one. But as a mother of two kids, I have never felt this kind of unconditional love before for Jake. I mean, he is a picture of him on the side of my bed. I sing to him, I make up songs about him. I don't do that for anyone else in my family. I'm certainly not doing that for my husband. And then people that have dogs, I'm assuming you talk nicer to your dog than your own family. My dog will be sitting there licking himself incessantly. And I'm like, why do you stop? But my husband does it. And I'm like, that's disgusting. You know, in Marin, like everybody has people to do things for them. So, you know, like gardeners and, um, lovers. So, I don't know. A couple stairs. But, um, so I know a dog walker because I can't always walk Jake and my dog walker brought my dog to me. And he said, Jake is really behind. In piano lessons. Who are you? Behind. So, I got him a private tutor. And the other day, my son came up to me, though, and he's like, Mommy, I feel like you love the dog more than you love me. And I was like, what gave it away? And he's like, I don't know. What gave it away? He thinks about it. I said, buddy, like, he's happy to see me unlike my queen and teen. He does whatever I ask him to do. And he doesn't try to hug my leg like your dad. Thank you, guys. So, from media for Mechanics Institute, also CoriRosen.com. My Instagram is StoryRosen. If you want to follow me and if you want to talk to any of these amazing people, you'll be up here before they run away. So, thanks one more time.