 I am the Senior Director of Programs and Community Engagement and it is my tremendous pleasure to welcome you on for our monthly storytelling showcase hosted by the one the only is ready to go. Who has been here to Mechanics Institute before? For the very first time. Wonderful. Welcome everyone. We hope it is the first of many visits here to Mechanics Institute. For those who are less familiar with our organization, Mechanics Institute was founded in 1854. So we are celebrating our 170th anniversary this year. It's a very special place. We are a membership institution. So I would love for you all to consider joining us as a member by visiting milibrary.org. We also have of course public access to our many, many programs. Mechanics Institute is a cultural center, historical landmark, gorgeous multi-story accessible library. If you have not checked out the library, please make sure you do so. It's truly stunning. A world-renowned chess hub. We are the oldest chess club in the United States. Center like what we're doing this evening. We have anywhere from 5 to 15 events per week here at Mechanics Institute. We are a hub for writers, readers, cinephiles, chess players, and lifelong learners. So please make sure you visit milibrary.org to learn more. If you are interested in learning about membership, please come and check in with me or my colleague, Andy, who has been doing check-in alongside me, and we are most happy to answer any questions you might have. Or get you all signed up for membership this very evening. And if you haven't seen the whole building, OK, it's right! Yes, OK! Explored our entire building. We have a free public tour every Wednesday at noon. I hope to see you there. And we have evening tours once a month on Fridays at 5. We have a couple other events that I'd love to welcome you to. Next Thursday, April 4, we are celebrating National Poetry Month at 6.30 in the library with three incredible poets. We have California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick, San Francisco's Poet Laureate, Pongo Esen Martin, and Oakland's inaugural Poet Laureate, Dr. Aya Del Finsinga, all here to celebrate National Poetry Month with us. That's next Thursday, April 4th at 6.30 in the library. And the week after that, on Thursday, April 11th, we have our Music and Mechanics series, and we will be featuring Rebecca Rust and Friedrich Edelman in concert together here in this space. So we have many, many incredible events for you to check out. And now to get our storytelling showcase started, I would love to introduce Cory Rosen. I know you all know him. We all know him. We all love him, but he deserves his flowers. Cory Rosen is a writer, actor, and visual effects producer and storytelling teacher based in San Francisco. He hosts the Mock Story Slams and Grand Slams and has been featured on the Mock Radio Hour, Alice Radius, the Sarah Infini Show, and K-Bogs the Binge Files podcast. Cory 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 strategies to develop and perform stories that wow an audience. Please make sure you check out more about Cory by visiting CoryRosen.com and I also want to make sure I mention that Fats Improv has a show that started this month called The Summit Tour. So definitely check out more at Fats Improv. And with that, please give it a warm and joyful Mechanics Institute welcome to Cory Rosen. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Welcome to showroom. Hello! How are you, San Francisco? How are you tonight? My name is Cory. What's your name? It's so nice to meet you. I'll see you again. I'm so happy to have so many beautiful people here tonight. Welcome for those of you who have never been to Mechanics Institute. I love it here. I've been doing a show here every month starting in about August of last year. So it's a monthly, I like to call it a residency. It's like this is our sphere, right? I'm here too. This is going to be our residency. Living here one day a month. And it's just been delightful. So what I do and what you're kind of in for tonight, for those of you who are like, what the hell is happening here tonight? So is that this is an amazing place Mechanics Institute. And it really centers around two things as far as I'm concerned, which is literacy, right? Like it's a library and community. And that's really what I lean into with these shows is these are places for people to be themselves, to share stories, to share a little bit of themselves in whatever format that comes out. So we've had poets, we've had magicians, we've had storytellers, we've had singers, we've had all kinds of expressions in different ways. We have a mix of five acts, six different stories or six different performers. One of them is a duo. And they're all the sort of the topic that I asked them to explore tonight for this evening is connection. Connection. So I figure what better way to start this and actually create some connection right in here. So what I'm going to have you all do is the following. You're going to have a little activity that I'm going to have you guys do. You're going to find somebody near you that ideally somebody you don't know, but this works just as well as somebody that you do know. And what you're going to do is I'm going to give you one minute each to tell your life story. But you only have one minute. So you have to click. You have to express your life, but you have one minute and I'm going to tell you when it's one minute and you'll switch the other person will tell you their life story in a minute, okay? So look around, be bold, find somebody, try and really talk about your favorite stuff and really tell them. Okay, ready? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. age, when this all started to go down for them, is literally the age when you just want to pull away. You want to not be home, but yet we're like, no, you cannot leave home. This is where you're going to stay, you know? And we have this extra, you know, like, level of, like, service in my house, because it's like, oh wait, but cancer at the time, she is healthy now, thank you. But this extra, this is like the flavor of, like, really don't leave the house, because it won't kill your mother. You know? It's a good thing to put on your kids. It's all guilt-tripping. So here we are at the end of the road, so to speak, or the beginning of the next road, but the end of this road. And there's this, you know, this balance that we're always seeing as parents between controlling our children and letting go of control, right? It's this balance between, like, steering them and watching where the leaf goes when you put it in the stream. See, I'm like, is it going to just drown? Carry itself, or is it going to float on and take off and fly? Whatever, we don't know. So I got the other day, my son sent me a request, a meeting request. Something that I didn't know he was aware of how to do. But it was a meeting request to go to his friend Zach's parent's house to have a meeting about the upcoming road trip. Road trip. So my wife and I were interested, intrigued, do we accept the invitation and plan on our schedule to go to the meeting. And we figured between Jenny and I that this was a meeting where the parents were going to get together and say, hell no, they're not going on this road trip. But yet it was, it came from Henry. It came from my son, the invitation. So we set up some time on our schedules and we planned to go, and when we were planning to go, Henry says, well, I'll go with you. I'm going to go, you're coming to the meeting with your parents or we're going to decide not to let you go on the road and say, no, this is, there's going to be a presentation. A powerpoint presentation. And indeed these children are so well trained in this day and age that they have an entire presentation informed about their goals, their objectives, their desires, and the requested budget that they wanted us to somehow front for their trip, which half the room was like, okay, half the room was like, I can think of a lot of ways for you to pay for this trip. So in the conversation ensued between the kids and their objectives and their goals and the parents here, it was confronting this divide, this divide between holding on and controlling and letting completely go and letting them go their way. And I remember all of the horribly awful decisions that I made as an 18-year-old, especially involving driving and road trips and telling nobody of what I was doing. So the fact, the very fact that they had a powerpoint presentation and a meeting invite was going to take for me to say yes. So yeah, thank you all. I'm so excited to say hello. All right, we have a great show for you tonight. I'm really excited to introduce your storytellers. The first storyteller tonight is a very dear friend of mine, a former student of mine, and just a lovely, wonderful human being. I am pleased as hell for you to be here. I know that a lot of you are here to see him. So please welcome Craig and Ben! Okay, is this on? All right. Craig and Ben! Look closer, look closer. How is this? Wow! You guys are all here. Which is so awesome. What a great crowd. First of all, if you're not aware of this real quick, Cory, Alyssa, my friend Mitchell, who I just met last week's skiing, these people make this thing happen and a bunch of other people. So I'm so grateful. Now I'm going to tell you guys the stories. Thank you. I am in the dressing room in Arenda, California at this sports and limited store trying on a black Speedo bathing suit because my Speedo is old and ragged and I'm on a swim team and I don't like the way I look. So I'm looking in the mirror and I see this red-headed kid who's about 12 years old. I am 12. And that kid realizes that his dad is waiting outside. This suit costs a lot of money. My dad's going to be pissed. He's going to yell at my mom again about money because I've got this suit that costs too much money that I'm going to put on. But I need it. So I look in the mirror one more time and I make a decision. I put the suit on and I pull up my pants. And I walk outside and I casually see my dad and I say, Well dad, the suit didn't fit. Let's get out of here. That's about the time my dad pulled me the sign and looks at me. What the hell are you doing? You went in there with a suit. You came out without a suit. You got to go back in there, take off your suit. And otherwise you're going to go to jail. Okay. I'm getting this. So I go in and, well, behold, we leave this store. I don't have a suit. I don't have a suit. I left, but no suit still. Still got that raggedy suit. I'm going to lose the swim team. I'm going to look crappy. So I go home and I'm a little bummed. But I glance at the horrendous son newspaper. And what do I see? I see that they're going to have a hot dog eating contest in Rome in about a week. And the winner gets $50. That's incredible. Oh my God. I love hot dogs. You know, this is speaking to me. So I just convinced my mom, mom, we got to get there. We got to get to the starting line because I can do this. So my mom was real gentle. She goes along, pays the $200 entry fee for her son. Which is kind of like, I'm a money boy, I'm sure. But it was okay. When we show up, they arrive. And I get the logistics of this hot dog eating contest. All the contestants were all gathered. The deal is, this is not going to be a joy chestnut type of event. No. This is not where you have the dog in front of you and you gobble the bun and the dog at the same time. You're going to run 25 yards and you're going to pick a dog off your table and you're going to run back 25 yards and try to eat the dog. So this speaks to me. I like hot dogs and I'm fast. So I look around, but I look around and there's like trees. There's all big people. I mean, these are people with valleys and beards. I'm a little kid. I'm like 12 years old. But I believe, I believe I have, I have something that they don't. So before I know it, these 12, 14 other Goliaths are like at the starting line with me and I hear a gump. And I am like a gazelle. And before I know it, I'm ahead of these like overweight men and I'm grabbing my hot dog and it's going back to the starting and I'm eating it and it just goes in so smoothly. I barely chew it. It goes down like oh, it's so good. And I'm ahead right now. Everything's going well and I'm on to the next dog. I'm running 25 yards and I'm picking up that dog. And you know, this dog is sort of going in. It's one bite, swallow. It's still going okay. I still got these, you know, I still got to distance on all these overweight guys. They don't know what they're dealing with here. I'm feeling good. So I get that dog down. And I'm on to dog number three, okay? This dog looks bigger to me though. The dog looks bigger to me. I don't know. I grab it and it's going back to the starting line and I'm chewing on it. And all of a sudden I realize that rubbly, my air flavor doesn't taste so well in here. It's really not going down like the others. But you know, I'm getting it down. I don't know how I got that down. It's just, you know, I've got tears in my eyes and I'm moving though. I'm moving. I'm still moving. And I'm looking and somehow these guys are now kind of catching up to me. But that's okay. I have my hands on dog number four. And this dog somehow, when I get back to the start again, doesn't want to go in. It just doesn't go in. But you know, it has to go in. So I put it in my mouth and I chew. And all of a sudden I just notice like parts are coming out. And like breadcrumbs and part, you know, I guess of all these so many big guys, I don't think the judges are noticing that my dog is mostly on the paper. So my god, this is the last dog. I got one more dog. And it seems farther away, 25 yards. But in motion, you know, I get the dog. And now all these big men of lumberjacks are like right with me. They're pressing. I grab the dog. And I still have the speed. And by God, I get back. And this dog, this dog, just gotta go in. Somehow. I'm nauseated. I'm not feeling well. And with force of will and God, because all these men, they're chewing. And it's like, it's all of a sudden like Mike Mulligan in this game, there's dust and parts and everything's flying in the air. And I'm chewing. And I don't know what's gonna happen. And this is it. The last minute, the last chew. And I'm looking up and I don't think I won. And I hear Craig won. Oh my god, I won! I won! Even the big guys are patting me on the back. This is a special moment of my life. I won the $50 hot dog contest. Woo! Okay. I just want to tell you that when in the contest and my parents ended up splitting up and then keep them together when in the contest. But let me tell you, I bought a really nice black speedo baking suit. And I'm swimming to this day. I love it. As far as hot dogs? Craig is a nurse. And there's a story teller that I have just loved watching him tell stories all over the Bay Area. He was at Alameda's story slam last week. And Craig, do you have anything coming up that you are looking forward to? Yeah. Yeah, what do you got? So just a shout out. There's a great place to, a venue called the Monkey House. And it's in Berkeley. April 7th. A wonderful woman puts it on. And so if you want to see more, April 7th. In Berkeley. Yeah. Okay. April 7th, two o'clock. Berkeley Monkey House. So my story is that. Really. All right. Next up, we have a singer, songwriter, poet, performer from, originally from St. Louis by way of Oakland, who is here tonight. So please welcome to the McKay's Institute. Love me. Love everybody. Thank you. This is my first time doing something like this. Like where is it? I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. I've been out in the Bay for about, oh my God, thank you. So I came to the Bay, like right before COVID. And that was interesting. I literally came to pursue music and like everything that was outside was inside. So I was doing open mics on Zoom. Very strange and viral. Anyway, so I, I have just been having a really good time out here so far. And I'm just super excited to be here because my debut as a comedian happened literally on like New Year's Eve, like this past New Year's Eve. I was in an audience of a comedy show and the guy was like, hey, anybody in the audience is like on their bucket list to do like a comedy set. And I don't know why, but I felt this pressure well up in me like it has to be me. So my, like after like three seconds of like awkward silence, my hand just shot up. And I was just like, I volunteer to distribute. And I started my career as a part-time comedian. So yeah. So I'm here to tell you a little story about how I became a cat mom. So first off, I am what you would call, what I like to call sexually ambiguous. Now, what that means to me is that you can't look at me and tell what I am into as far as like my sexual preference. And that's fine. I like it that way, right? You can guess it. But the issue for me is that, you know, when I like somebody, they're not sure I'm a friend or if I'm a fan of that sort. So it's just a little hard for me on the dating scene. So I took to the dating apps as most people of my age do these days, right? So I go on this lesbian dating app called Herb. And I meet this beautiful person and her name is Zen. And we have been together for about a year now. Thank you. And when I say been together, that means we met a year ago and instantly fell in love like a lot of lesbians do. And there's this phenomenon in the lesbian community that happens. And they refer to it as you all lesbians. I'm not sure if anybody knows what that means. But this thing that happens when two women fall in love within two seconds of meeting and then they move in together within a week. That's usually what happens, right? That's the thing. So I'm proud to say that that is not what I did. But I think I probably did the second gayest thing that you could do as a lesbian. And we got two cats. We decided to be co-parents because we could not irresponsibly get pregnant. So this was the closest thing to an unplanned pregnancy that we could get. And that's what we did. We didn't initially plan to get two cats, but we went to the shelter and they were like, usually, if you don't have a cat already, if you have a companion, they can learn from each other and entertain each other and things like that. So we go to the shelter and we see these cats. There's this one sleeping orange tabby and they're like, yeah, nobody. He doesn't let anybody touch them. I was like, really? I was just bedding them over there. And I was just like, that's weird. I'm like, you know what? That must be the cat. And they're like, well, he's bonded with this other cat. And I'm like, well, we'll take them both. So we went home with two cats that day and it was weird. Honestly, it's just been a lot. It's been a lot. This is back in January, okay? And I'm still kind of recovering from post-partum depression. I mean, like, nobody told me all the long nights and the glitter being everywhere and the smell of poop in the middle of the night. It's just, it's crazy. And they're two boys. They got to the shelter. Now, they say bonded, but the way I see them interact, they look like two gay boys to me. I don't know if cats have sexualities, but I mean, they're both neutered. So at that point, it's like, they're queer. Like, I don't know. I mean, I see them kiss each other. So you can't tell me anything else. And they're really interesting. They both have really different personalities. One, his name is Rain. He's a brown, have you? And then the other one is Now Rain is the sweetest little boy, but he's just a little dizzy, right? And so we have to kind of train him a lot more than we do Kai. And so one thing that really was, we were struggling with when we first got him, he would do this thing where we're in bed and he would like think that our feet moving under the covers is like some sort of gang, right? And so like, I'm sleeping soundly it's 3 a.m. and all of a sudden my feet are getting attacked and just clawed and like just completely just like disrespect. Disrespect me out of my sleep, right? And there was this one particular night it happened and I just lost it. And like, I got scratched and tried to kind of like bat him away and you like really got my finger and it was a deep cut. And like my girl just started laughing and she like chuckled a little bit and I was just like, that wasn't funny. So I go in the bathroom and she comes in and uses it and she's like I am like, it's too funny. I feel like a teen mom, okay? Like literally like the cat's not scratching me in the middle of my sleep like I just don't know and like I started reinforcing the bed putting towels and like extra layers at the end of my feet so like he does scratch you won't be hurtful at least. So that was a thing. It was just very difficult. Now Kai, Kai is a little what can I say he's not dizzy but he is a little standoffish almost. He's super sweet but he's very like what are you doing because I don't want to be over there with you. And like he has this like don't touch me kind of like mood like I don't know if you guys remember like pushing boobs from Shred. Like if Kai had a voice he would sound like that. He would have this like super deep like accents and just like super bougie like you know I am a cat and you have to take care of me. That's it. Like that's just completely it. So it's just very entitled energy and it was very difficult to bond with him at first. Like Rain he was just he loved this first night right we brought him home, let him out of the cage and within five minutes he was like cuddling up and doing this all the cute stuff that you want a cat to do right. Kai was just like I don't know what this is but like I'm here because my bro's here like honestly I don't know I'm just trying to make sure that Rain is good so he hit out of the bed for the first week he was good. It was very interesting because when we had them in the room for a full week because that was the advice that the shelter gave us kind of let them transition, get used to where we at and our roommate she also had the cat so we had to be like a little intro situation but that was difficult because her cat is evil I'm sorry. I don't like that cat okay like that is a mean cat that cat is not like anyone it doesn't matter like we've had people come over and be like oh all cats love me okay I mean try it to everybody right and so like our cats are like the sweetest boys and like CC which is the my roommate's cat is just so mean to them and this is like very like it's hard to watch luckily they haven't fought and she's all about all bark nobody completely so by the time we let them out of the out of the room and we have the three story house their personality just completely took off and it was like super cool to watch so Kai especially surprised us because as he was hiding under the bed most of the time once we let him out it was just like oh the world is like oyster and he never wanted to go back in and it was just amazing to see him kind of running up and down the stairs chasing rain and they were just all having a good time and he does this thing now where usually he doesn't like to be touched every morning and sometimes late at night he'll come up on the bed and want to get pet but he doesn't really know how to be pet it's very weird so he'll like come you kind of like walk around like he'll be right here and he's kind of like I want you to love me but I just don't know how to accept the love and so come real close and you kind of have to like you know not move too quickly and just let him sniff you for a second and then he'll like rub up against you a little bit and then he'll be scratching his face and then he'll kind of be like wait and then he'll be like no okay that was weird and then he'll kind of like move exactly where he wants you to pet him and it's like very much like be still like I want you to be still so I can just pet you like a normal cat he doesn't like that he needs to move around and be in control like no in my back he's like every side of me wait a second I don't know you moved too quickly come back like it's very specific you know this is fun it literally happens in a short window of time he's not he's not having it like it's so crazy like this this earlier today right he was just casually sitting on the chair and I'm like let me just see let me just test the theory because it's taking him a while to warm up so maybe you know maybe I can go in for a pet now so I'm moving slowly and he like kind of freezes like he wants to leave he wants to leave but I got him too quickly and I'm just petting him and he's just like goooood it's like alright three seconds up and he's like he took off he took off and I love him but it's kind of a little heartbreaking that you know he can't cuddle as much and like show him as much love and you know I don't want to have favoritism but it's just like come on my grain knows how to be a cat like I'm just saying I'm just saying like I know you like your independence or whatever and that's beautiful but it's just like if you want to get love you got to accept this I mean my name is Lovey I love love right this is a real thing this is not a gimmick so it's a little hurtful you know it's kind of like having kids literally and just one it's like super standoffish and just wants to be in the room all the time and like fuck you mom and the other one is just the sweetest perfect little angel and it's just like you know what I love both of you equally and I want y'all to know okay and um it's especially difficult because like I said me and my partner got the cats but we do not live together so we are co-parenting and that is that is really difficult because we had co-parenting issues like she would come over and just start cuddling and playing with them playing with their little toys and stuff and I'm like oh did you did you clean their litter box I got about that it's like the equivalent of like not changing a diaper it's just like come on like I clean this litter box every day like where are you at you come over for five minutes and all you do is cuddle with them that ain't fair okay one of the other the other day I noticed their food bowls a little dry and like seven o'clock you didn't take the feed on me nope okay whoa what are we doing here are you really just here for the cuddling we got it's a whole more argument because if we really birthed kids it's just the craziest thing to me and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way I'm having a really good time I got battle scars from cats you know and the cat fur is in this do you have any cat parents in the house yeah yeah so you guys know the cats are really sweet and I love them I'm really having a good time and I'm excited to kind of see them continue to expand and I guess my moral of the story is that you can have safe sex and still have kids yes um so I have a few things I just got booked for a show April 26 so as you guys know I'm also a mainly a singer songwriter poet as well so I have some QR codes I'll pass around if you guys want to follow my journey I do have a show on the 26th I'm also hosting an open mic in Oakland on the 26th so so who do you love and what do you want because you just really love me I was like give her a hug and I also have ass hole cats so I really related to that I have one cat who really wants to be fed and just sits right in the right position and the other who's like just beyond where you are you know I feel like like yeah I mean you're fucking too far away that's just there's a logic to it alright are you ready to play our next storyteller the next storyteller also is a friend of mine and a storyteller and just a small moment just that will always remain in my imagination and memory is that he and I he took a class that I was teaching and it was in this big a friend of mine had a warehouse in Patero Hill and it had no heat and it was a very very cold night and there was a heater though but it was like this odd situation where you had to take a stick and you had to lift the stick up and flick a switch and then it would blow out but it was a giant cavernous space you guys know the kind of space and so what we realized is there was like an area where the vent was just blowing right in this one space and so the next storyteller and also Craig and me and our other person we basically huddled in this little like in chairs beneath the fan and told the story and phrasing but we just went a little like so I'll never not remember that please welcome to the stage Tom Tursy oh ok all hi can you see somebody wow great hello in the back yeah it was kind it was cold in that room it was good cozy yet I think the listeners got to be in the blast and the teller had to be outside the blast thanks for coming let's hear a story where where does time go is a question for this one let's go back 18 years which isn't that long and it's also very long 18 years ago I'm 40 years old I'm a dad and I've got a baby on my back and a backpack and our 5 year old and our 7 year old they're here and they're wearing the cutest little hiking boots and their shorts and we are sliding around on this huge snow patch and having the best time in summertime it's and this year is we're outdoors we're on a backpacking trip as far as I'm concerned this is like peak parenting like this is we're doing it man I didn't do anything like this is a kid but here we are we got our kids up in the mountains we're sleeping all five of us and the dog in this tiny tent that shaped like a witch's hat and um and the kids I mean they think that like logs and rocks are toys and and then they like going on the woods and pooping with their friends they're like oh yeah and when we're here with friends we're not just alone we have two other families who are basically as smug as we are while this parent came outdoors and stuff so it's a good bad fit and we're kind of new friends alright so we're kind of showing off for each other a little but I think so we're on this snow we're sliding around and then I'm like hey where's Kirk where are my friend is missing uh oh he's way he's like left us he's way over there without any wall without any climbing gear wow he is so cool I'm standing here I've just got my baby on the back and I'm on the snow but I am kind of I'm checking out ahead of me there's a there's okay there's all this snow it's flat but then the snow runs up the hill like a whole ski slope it's amazing it's the biggest snow field I've ever seen in summertime and uh and I'm just kind of checking out looking at it and she goes are you going to slide down that uh maybe and then she goes well if you're stupid enough to do that I'll hold your baby for you and I don't know what you hear when you hear that but I hear oh Tommy boy yeah we all know you're never going to slide down that hill are you a big man no you're not and you're going to blame it on your baby she's right so what could I do next moment I find myself hitting over my precious baby to her thank you you might ask where was my wife to stop me from making this stupid decision where were you where were you I'm sorry I didn't hear him me? she left as soon as I could hear I'm here I'm the response over the kids right now right so I'm like find kids daddy's going to go do a little thing I'll be right back and I go off my male ego my friend Kirk's halfway up the wall our other friend he didn't even come on the trip because on another trip he heard his back jumping off a cliff so we guys we really got this and I get to the base of the hill and Jesus is so stupid so ominous up close far away it looked nice but it's a little scary but I gotta do this and if I had like an ounce of sense what I would have done is go up the hill 20 yards and try sliding down but I don't have any sense I also run in time got my friends holding my kid and you know it's gotta go so I got a plan I'm gonna climb up the hill to the left of all the snow like on the rocks and dirt and then I'll slide down like a big ski run it'll be awesome just I mean in my boots I don't have skis but that's cool so I'm going up hoping it up there I'm walking on all the boulders and the dirt and right next to the snow it's high it's over my head high really thick and gross underneath it's all running with water and dirt okay I'm looking at the surface and 15 minutes later I'm at the top get to the top flat on the top snow on the top I get on the snow again great and so now I'm like sliding around and making you know reassure myself I'm a good slider so good and then I split myself around taking me oh my god it's so beautiful I'm so high it's amazing the mountains the blue sky oh there's Kirk he's almost like whoa what a guy dammit oh look at me I'm here hey everybody hey woohoo right and I can check out the hill holy shit it's really steep it's really I can't do this you can do it do it I can do it and let me tell you walking down the way it came up I would just be too embarrassed there's no way I can do that so I can do this but the important thing I noticed about the hill is it does not go straight down it actually slants to the right quite a bit which is concerning to me but well I'll make it work so I set up no time to waste and I get I go all the way to the left so I have the most room to travel and I get my stance it looks like this there it is it's like telling our stance in my boots because this right foot is gonna keep me from sliding right it's gonna be awesome just gonna dig it in and um here we go away we go I jump off the edge onto this slope gonna go and I tell you the truth I thought I was gonna have to like scooch myself along in the summer the snow is always slow this is so sunny and everything but it's not it's a crank slide and I'm just zooming and it's really good for like 500 milliseconds my feet go flying off of my knee and I become a human um bobsled basically and I'm just rocketing down or all like rocketing to the right I'm just zooming this is not good and time like freezing so I timed out some thoughts and I think oh wow there's nothing stopping me from flying off that edge taking some chance I'm gonna break my neck or my head or my femur or something there's no help in the mountains these thoughts all go through my mind I remember them and then I go flying off the edge next thing I know I smash into a rock and it's like bam and the experience I have is of bouncing I bounce from rock to rock from rock to rock and I don't even feel any pain which is weird it's just like I'm a rag doll and then I'm done and I'm just lying there I'm down with my eyes closed and I think am I dead I just had a thought so that means I'm not dead right I'm not so sure maybe I should try to stand up and I can stand up which is amazing and what's more amazing is there's no blood gushing there's no bones poking out I cannot believe this look and so I stick my arm up and I'm like hey I'm okay woo and I go back down and I kind of take stock my hands numb I'm shaking like crazy but basically I've come out of this okay so I'm here today so I can tell you walking back down there to see my kids nothing feels worse than letting your kids down and there's the shame it's just like welling up as I get closer to them I look into their face like yeah daddy almost just died and you got to see it cool there's no way around it because that's what just happened and unfortunately it wasn't the last time I let them down I really hadn't really anticipated that I mean I was such an intentional parent we were doing it but there's times you fuck up and you just have to be like I fucked up and it happens again and again somehow they still hopefully not too often and they still seem to like me and I really like each other and they still like backpacking and just a couple months they're going on a trip themselves or a week in Canada backpacking with us that's cool for me I'm just happy I got to live to see it all thank you what else do you got coming up I know there's the monkey house thing yeah Craig can I do that monkey house Able 7 says to me what you fun that's a fun thing and then I'll be at your mouth next Wednesday and you'll pick me right yeah I'll pick you yes all right top guys here everybody our next we have two more acts and I just want to thank you again for coming out on a Wednesday night it's a random 6.15 early show I love it but thank you give it up for yourselves I am very excited about their next act because it's a particular point of pride to bring them out of retirement would we call it retirement I don't know if it was ever a career doing this but many years ago I was impelled compelled I don't know to teach a bunch of what would we call it? amateurs how to do stand-up comedy and the thing that they didn't know is that I never taught anybody how to do stand-up comedy and they trusted me and we put on a show in Marin and it was amazing it was amazing so that was pre-pandemic and now I have just my dream, my goal is to get them back together and they are so please welcome to the stage your next act Paige Rodgers and Bill Rodgers I don't know who's responsible should we meet to hear who but we're amazing that it's because we're geniuses that's it so tonight is about connection right and that's fitting because our friendship and connection has been long and deep that's what she said I'm just nervous I'm getting proud this is what you're in for so yeah we've known each other for like 15 years yeah what's the deal with our kids and some friends and strangers saying that we're basically the same person your son the other day actually said those very words in a really judgy tone it was like you guys are basically the same person it was so judgy and I mean I do get it right like we are both strong independent badass women I was going to say tall and full orange well we do like a lot of the same stuff like traveling and live music and drinking wine true oh my god what if we could only pick one of those things to have for the rest of our lives what do you do? one, two, three wow wine really okay well we do also have daughters who are the same age and mine's a lesbian and yours is like vicarious yeah so we do like some of the same clothes like tonight was super awkward but what normally happens is I go out and get something that I think is super cute and once it goes on me and then you ask me where I got it and you go out and get the same thing sometimes we both had a career in communications and we both actually work at the same company as directors that's cool right that is weird except I was there first here we go and you also work on a team of mainly women trying to save the world and I'm on a team of mainly obnoxious men trying not to get reported to HR this is true we are both women in our fifties dealing with menopausal issues like what is it forgetfulness and irritability right, fuck you I'm not irritable there's also that whole facial hair oh I know girl there's like I get that checked out because I do not have that oh my god look we're different we're totally different I guess another one of our differences might be our marriages yes true your husband didn't dump you after 25 years and moved to Bali they ended but well yeah it's big differences you go home to a great husband every night and I'm back to dating in my fifties okay wow yeah I think we both agree that there are challenges to being married for 25 years I mean we all remember in the beginning how we just wanted to be our best selves like we wanted to be smart and sexy and perky and you know we just like in those days we just thought maybe we could show up in that way and you know being smart and sexy is not always that easy I have to sit there and think when is this guy gonna realize it's all a farce like there were some giveaways okay so the time I came home and we had just been at a party and he says so when you were telling everybody that you thought that there might be a changing astigmatism to mental health he's like the word was stigma and I was like tomato tomato and then and then when I came home really excited and I was like hey babe did you know that there is a place there's a camp right around the corner and it's for kindergarteners and ninth graders like how cool is that for a kid it's like you know the one with the sign has the dog like jumping for the frisbee and it's like camp case is nine and it's like they camped canine for dogs the place that you bring the dog okay Stanford grad was like hey you know I think I might try to be a driver for Volkswagen you know I was like I feel like it could be kind of fun and easy and they clearly need a lot of help I mean there are flyers everywhere that say drivers wanted and he was like babe that's their ad camping for people to buy the cars and I was like wow way to squash my dream you know but in those days I was actually really good at redirection so I would just make it about him like anyway so tell me again the rules of baseball but while I sit it really slow in detail it's so hot and then did you say that you were an industrial engineering major from Stanford like I want to hear more about that that is so fascinating okay but the thing is after 25 years of marriage I cannot be bothered I am like forget trying to be smart or sexy I am hormonal and weeping and lazy and kind of guffing and for me foreplay is like him plucking my neck hair so before we go to bed I'm like okay yeah my contribution to our sex life is staying awake and I'm not going to brag but like I'm actually really good at it so you know after 25 years of being friends and best friends and roommates you know there's a lot to be said as roommates I sometimes feel like we're living parallel lives high fiving in the hallway like oh hey yeah the other night he came to say goodnight to me and he gave me a kiss and I was like oh babe you shaped your goatee I really loved that when did that happen and he was like true story true story so as best friends I feel like you know we need to be able to share everything but as best friends my husband is sitting right here I mean I will say as both best friends and roommates like after 25 years I was sick of my roommates for like 25 days and you know my best friends I don't want to live with them except you me hey Gary and Airsten and Audrey and while I was over there I want to live with all my friends but I will say you know I feel like as best friends I just want him to be to be able to ask any question and he should just know the answer the other night I was like hey babe does my butt look big in these jeans and he's like I feel like that's a trick question because for 20 years I was pretty sure the answer to that question was not us tight it's small mm-mm no but then after like the Kardashians and Beyoncé I feel like you want me to say aha they sound bad and then I'm pissed because he hasn't actually answered the question and you know I want him to want me even when I'm not my best self like in the morning my iPhone face recognition doesn't work anymore but I want him to still want to have sex with me morning sex so it's just getting more confusing yeah but while you have that going on I am back in the dating world and I'm starting to think about things that I haven't had to think about in a long time like what my boobs look like naked somebody who hasn't seen them more over 25 years from something supple and sexual into what are basically the sad curiosities as they are today I have this thought the other day that my boobs look actually like runty jellyfish heads but I've washed upon the shore like shriveling up and dying like maybe I should extra maybe I should put that in my dating profile I am in my 50s and I might as well just be really honest and authentic in my dating profile I mean I know who I am I know what I want so let's just play that out in the body type section I could put 5 foot 10 and runty jellyfish in the style section I could put equally comfortable in high heels and tennis shoes and I have no idea what to do with my cubic hair are we going full 1970s bush after COVID or are we like waxing our assholes like we did in the 90s in the pet section I have a spastic terrier that I will always love more than any man and that's mostly because he's absolutely terrible at gas like me so and let's see getting intimate with me will mean having to stare down a massive hormone replacement therapy patch and I was married for so long that I haven't willingly sucked a dick in 23 years who's that it used to be a lot easier right when I was dating my ex husband it was like oh you like to travel I like to travel you hate blues traveller I hate blues traveller let's get married and have a bunch of blues traveller hating kids but now it's a lot more complicated right I mean people want to know what your attachment style is what your what your love language is oh and by the way guys like you don't have to tell us that your love language is physical touch okay you're dudes alright we know you know what my love language is stop telling me that your love language is physical touch and that's all these different lifestyles now like when I first started dating again I came across this acronym B N M does anyone know what that is yeah I had to look it up too it means ethical non monogamy which is basically code for I fuck as many people as I want at the same time and be totally righteous about it and so early on I was dating this guy and I found out he was sleeping with me and like three other women and I was like what the hell and he's like babe I like put it in my profile yeah I'm like right in between the picture of me a burning man and a fur coat and then I like yarrock I know yarrock should have been the deal breaker so like right I told people Thursdays last month but you can't have them in your profile so you're all good anyway it's you know dating has been difficult and I don't have a lot of time to date I'm busy and so I try to ferret out the red flags really quickly when I'm dating so what I do to do this is I slip certain questions really slimy and yeah it goes something like this oh so what kind of music do you like and are you able to apologize without saying you're so sensitive you know I never would he'll say I'm from Santa Cruz and I'll be like oh do you serve and you have deep seated bombing issues and my favorite one I think is um so where do you see yourself in five years like still working full time or hating me for everything I live without myself I'm just getting to know you I'm in a love compatible I know I think it all comes back to connection and you know being married or not and we have each other and our jellyfish and boobies maybe we are the same person hey everyone welcome to uh Braga Braga, thanks I think you guys want to promote or plug or anything you're not gonna see anything you're gonna get my new role to see out of retirement again alright we have one more act tonight this is a wonderful dear friend of mine and a great story teller please welcome bro Ryder Davis how are we all doing I just gave a great hand for all the story tellers that went out before I came on stage I tried to lean up on that thing that I thought was solid and it almost fell if any of you saw that that was for you there's a little comedy before this show I'm gonna start this story by saying something that's very believable but I would like you all to act very shocked if you don't mind the admission of this okay everyone on the same page so I wasn't getting laid a lot in high school what what what that was good you were really good you were here you were like oh my god yeah it was not going great it came up because I was talking to my little cousin because now I'm old enough to be a mentor to people which is terrifying to me and he is from everything he's told me equally as hopeless in high school as I was and he was like was it this tough for you to get a girl from was it tough to talk to girls you know for you and I said let me tell you the story kid when I was a junior there was a scandal in my high school where the president of the fellowship of Christian athletes was found to be having sex with the vice president of the fellowship of Christian athletes I know again, shock face front page news in our shitty town of hazard Kentucky front page news next year they tried to remedy this issue by electing me president of the fellowship of Christian athletes I was not a Christian or an athlete but they knew I wasn't going to fuck sorry hey hey if there's a scandal it will be a holy news scandal we will not have the same scandal sometimes in a year so that's where it was for me my dad always believed in me my dad looked at my chubby blonde Ron Weasley exterior and was like somewhere there's a Casanova inside this boy so when I got old enough to go to college he said I've got a person for me and he brought out what I can only describe he had the two hands the most comically large box of condoms you have ever seen it didn't look like my condoms it looked like our condoms it looked like it looked like I was competing with Planned Parenthood it looked like if they ran out they would call me I would be like there about that was how many and I was shocked at the size of the box oh and I guess he missed oh these are for sex which I was like yeah yeah he was afraid I didn't know he was afraid I would get there in a month and call and be like yeah those slippery balloons you gave it was sure fun all sorts of animals with those so I get to college I take my big box I put it under my bed it's so big it props the bed up a little and then I type it out into trying to find some of the used condoms which was the hard part but initially I found someone who was like you know open to perhaps using the condoms and I think it's about to happen once wherever my place I'm like ready to go with box of condoms I'm like ready to get it doesn't happen second time same thing I'm ready for it doesn't happen third time it's happening it's at her place I don't have my big box of condoms and she said you're gonna have to go buy condoms which of course I would but she probably would guess from this I was a special strand of socially awkward in my life I know I'm up here right now telling you about my teenage sex life this is a new development then this is not this is not who I have been okay without doing this then would cause me to like fold somehow into a small dense ball in a random way but you know it also condoms it's kind of a weird purchase it's the only thing you purchase that lets someone know like I intend to have sex you know what I'm saying so that isn't like the kind of purchase I wanted to make but it's kind of happened so I go down to the little corner store at my college it was called the cat mart because we were the wild cats and I walk in and I'm not sure who I want to be the cashier for this transaction but I look over and it's a minute night which they have in Kentucky and it's not that like I look at her name with that she only had sex to glorify God so it's not the person I want to buy for it's worse because they're behind her this is a college campus kids steal condoms you have to ask her for the condoms so I walk around for like 10 minutes trying to figure out how I'm going to go about this and I realize I'll buy a bunch of other stuff and then you look like I'm here for that and I buy the condoms it's like an impulse buy you know what I'm saying like I'm here for the Fritos and Coca-Cola but then I'm like you know Mike might as well have a condom for the road you know it's like I might get laid on the way home you can never be too safe you know what I'm saying so I select all these bags and I like waddle them and I just dump them out and then I go like oh well I'm feeling crazy throw in a condom and she doesn't look up she's just scanning and she says what kind you get it I at this point just had my big box of condoms I had normal I didn't know condoms made with genres so I look up and I just see a wall of decisions I feel prepared to make there's like ultra thin and I'm like that doesn't sound like me they should either all be ultra thin or none should be ultra thin and then I I see ripped condoms and I'm like ripped condoms I've been using the bumless condoms what does that even mean and then I saw a magnum so it was like not for me so I know and I know this sounds silly it's a stupid transaction but again socially awkward I start freaking out like I start having a panic attack my pulse is going and I'm starting to sweat and I'm just going uh like that and she says sir what kind of condoms do you want and it's racing in my head and she says get out of this conversation the next condom you see buy that one just say something get out, get out, get out so she said which condom would you like drop the flavors my little brother is calling me right now we're in a big part of the story I have a bottle of flavors and she stops scanning and she looks up and she says really no one's ever bought that one this is my own personal Vietnam like this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me I feel myself imploding like a neutron star becoming a black hole and my brain again goes we're shutting down just say something say a stock phrase and I said you know me so I leave the corner store with my condoms in case I come for it and I think at least I'm out of that I'm still working is this story there I'm out of that and not only is Scott dad embarrassed I'm going to have to go back oh no that's how good I know don't worry about it we're back first Jack calls me now this I have to walk out with my condoms to taste like kumquat and I go not only am I good in Paris like that I've got to take these back to my girlfriend I have to like I have to bring these back to her place just pacing for 10 minutes trying to think of a way out of this and then I go up I obviously look like shit I'm sweaty I've had a panic attack at a corner store that's what I look like and I'm explaining how I got these condoms and I stop and I just I'm really sorry and she looks at me and she smiles and she starts laughing but not in the mean way and I'm laughing too and then she goes it's okay no we fucking would and now we're both laughing for like 10 minutes and then she looks at me and she says would you like to go back to your place and use the big box of condoms I smiled and I said yes I would like that very much so the moral of the story I told this to all of my cousins and you're going to go through a lot of weird shit trying to find a connection to someone but remember if you keep going and you keep trying and you keep pushing eventually you'll find someone and it will work just maybe consider by your condoms online the first time you're doing it thank you tomorrow night I'll be in Fairfax and we're storytelling under the stars with J.P. who I see in the corner with another star story great show is awesome please go and also I know we're at the end of the show it would be so funny if I called my brother back and they just had better one say hi Jack could we do that so I'll start on this but then when that comes up that's happening keep it up for all the story killers let's bring them all back okay high back up for a final picture and all that one, two, three let's do that for you thank you so much for coming out with my brother show thank you all right so we do this once a month the national will be 24th of April right here the format will be a little different it is a story slam if you want to tell a story you can put your name in we're going to pick the story you know there will be a couple of feature story killers but the rest will be up to you so if this looks like fun do that one other thing one other thing is that I'm doing an event it's actually a story telling class in Berkeley on April 10 so it's a one night thing it's 90 minutes as one of my books and you get the book too so you pay $60 for the class and you'll leave with my book so that is April 10 Mrs. Dalloway in Berkeley all the information is on my website www.rohrows.com thank you so much for getting this through thank you so much thank you