 Welcome, welcome, welcome, hi everyone, good evening, good evening, welcome to Mechanics Institute for our very special storytelling showcase this month with Cory Rosen and I'm very excited to welcome you all to Mechanics Institute. Who is here for the very first time? Wow! Welcome! For those of you who are here for the first time we're very excited to have you come and for those who are returners welcome back. Mechanics Institute was founded in 1854 so it's a very old non-profit here in San Francisco. We are a cultural center historical landmark, multi-storied, gorgeous, general interest library, world-renowned chess program for the oldest chess club in the United States. And we are kind of a 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, creators, and everything in between. There's something for everyone here at Mechanics Institute and I hope you'll come back and join us for another event. Learn more about everything that we have to offer at miLibrary.org. For example, we have the fantastic author Obi Kaufman coming tomorrow with his new publication, The Deserts of California. That's tomorrow back in the States at 6 p.m. We have our fantastic members meeting coming up on December 7th and our holiday gatherings on December 14th. We have a brand new program on Friday December 8th called Writers Read. It is our own writers here at Mechanics Institute reading their own works and that's our very first time doing this kind of program and we welcome everyone to come and support. He's an incredible, vibrant, up-and-coming writer. With that, I'm very excited to welcome Cory Rosen. You know him, we love him, we all love him. Who doesn't love Cory Rosen? He's the best. The host with the most, the Mocos, Branslam, Shull, Usina, in every which way possible. I'm very excited to welcome Cory back for this wonderful partnership and with that, please give a warm welcome to Cory Rosen. Thank you so much for coming out on a Wednesday night. There's apparently some bark traffic, some bark problems so we may have some late arrivals to the show but we will just welcome them when they come. I'm so happy to have you back. For those of you who are here for the first time, welcome. My name is Cory Rosen and this is a monthly, I'm very, very honored to have been writing to this monthly residency here at Mechanics Institute where I put on particularly today, the last Wednesday of every month storytelling program that features storytelling, sometimes standard comedy, different forms and variations of storytelling and tonight is truly an exciting night for me because I have the great privilege and honor of having kind of invited some friends who are like-minded storytelling colleagues in the world of what we do in the world of storytelling to, as I said at the beginning when we were kind of setting up we were here to blow the roof off of this place and I was told this is a very old building, please do not blow the roof off because it's definitely in need of replacing anyway so we're going to not blow the roof off but give it over to Casey Plam, our president, he changed the idea of music and more excited, yes. And more exciting is that we have a very, very unique and special format so I'm very privileged and proud to introduce my good friend, Frane Masters. Give it up for Frane Masters I'm so excited to be here. Hi, hi, hi. Thank you Cory so much for inviting me down to San Francisco to do this show, very, very excited to be here. What I hope is that you all sort of introduce the show, tell us what we're in for and all that. What do you hope? That's what I was hoping. Right, I will do it then. And just for a listen's introduction I'm really excited to learn more about what's between chess club and writing. I didn't even think of those two things, I want to know all of them. There's so many things in between, chess club and writing about chess. Chess writing, chess related writing. And chess jokes. Chess jokes, that's a thing, there's a chess joke club. Is there a chess joke club? A book club happening right in there. And I went in there and I was like maybe the book club just wants to come to the show tonight. And then I turned to my left and I saw that there was also 30 people on Zoom. So I'm like maybe not. That's the one I just also have them come on Zoom. Right, but thank you for inviting them. It's good to invite everyone to this space. This is like, I feel like I'm in a technical agency. So here's the deal back in CDX was like, this is a team in my mind. So how it works is we have curled four story tellers here tonight. And they don't know what story they're going to tell tonight. And that's where this wheel comes in. Because it looks like just eight innocent numbers on a wheel. Yes it does. Thank you. Looks like a chess club. I know, I love it. Please, please, that is amazing. I love it. What's behind the numbers on the wheel? Mystery and intrigue. And excitement is what's behind the numbers on his wheel. So each of these numbers represents a prompt. And the story tellers don't know what these numbers are. So they literally really don't know what story they're going to tell tonight. And so they're just going to take a slice of your life about five to seven minutes. And they're just going to spill it on stage for your entertainment. Yes, Quinn. Give it up for the story teller. Quinn is part of the chess club here and also a writing crew. Yes. Are you going to be participating in the event that Alyssa just talked about? The reading writer's reading thing? Yes you are. Quinn's going to participate. I'm making you join, Quinn. I'm sorry. But I met you and I made you do it. I decided to be our bell ranger for this evening. And we're just going to... She was on it. I mean, you're getting whatever service you need plus a good story from Quinn tonight. We're going to move right to that. So the story tellers, because they don't know what story they're telling, they get a bell at five minutes it's just a gentle five minute thing. That was pretty. That's a pretty five minute. It's really gorgeous, I feel like. Very light. But when we get a little further on, maybe six and a half minutes we'll hear this. Four more turns. You can hear the subtlety in that. I appreciate your subtlety. Eight minutes, so I have eight minutes to remind her. Yes, I think it's not that much, but that was good. That sounds like a shut up bell to me. But that sounds like it. There's a lot of urgency in that. Absolutely. The story tellers maybe ended that point when we wrap up their story. Yes, absolutely. So one of the things is that the story teller's names are drawn at random. They also don't know what order they're going in this evening. They'll be picked from the deck of cards. Once the story teller is picked they have five minutes to go backstage and ruminate on their true five minute story and then come out and tell it. So the risk rises in the evening. Don't know what the prompt is and then have to come backstage and then figure out what the story is. Yes, Quinn has a question. Yes, well the prompt is being my number one. If the story teller lands, let's say one story teller lands on one and then another story teller lands on one, we'll have to spin again. We'll try to keep it to one story per prompt. That's what he said. One story per prompt. With that, because they need five minutes to get prepared for that story, in the middle of our astounding introduction right now we need to get the first story teller response. We should do that. So Corey, will you do the honors of displaying those cards? Three, two, one, and then call out a card. Here you go. Three, two, one, ace. I heard ace. It's loud and clear. The ace is Beth Lissick. That's why Corey and I are not using it so best. You can spin the wheel and come up with our first prompt, please. All right, here we go. Here we go. That is a seven. Number seven. Before I read number seven, I just need to ask, what if the story teller doesn't want the prompt? Beth, you have a chance to play or pass this prompt. As does every story teller, if you pass this prompt, another story teller can steal it. And how do they do that? They just yell and raise their hands and then they can steal it. Now if you pass and no one steals the prompt, you're going to send that spin round. Where the next prompt you spin, you have to take. So that feels like if somebody steals it right now, the next time you come up, the next prompt you spin, you have to take it. Does that make sense? Does that make sense everyone? All right, excellent. So now let us reveal prompt number seven quarry. All right, prompt number seven is gut wrenching. Gut wrenching. Now audience, well, Beth thinks about that. Gut wrenching. Gut wrenching. Count down with me five, four, three, two, one. Well, Beth thinks about her prompt. Here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. Beth, will you play or pass gut wrenching? I'll play. I'll pick it up her story while we continue on with this. So what happens is at the end of the night you all will have an opportunity to vote on your favorite story teller and voting is really anything you want tonight. Maybe you're in the mood for a story that has a lot of scary elements to it or even a sad story or even a story that's really funny or gross. I don't know what you need tonight, but you're going to vote for your favorite story and the story teller wins a gift. Yeah, there will be a gift for the storygoer that wins the most votes as well as an audience member will win a prize. It is the holiday season. It is enough. Who doesn't like to get prizes? One of you will also win a prize. There will be two prizes and you should have a voting sheets given out. They were not. Should we give those up? Let's do that. Okay, so here are the voting sheets. The voting sheets don't actually have a name on them. They just have a name, a place for your name to sign in your name and then when... I had to get for Elissa who was amazing. And so I think that the way it works is that when you do the voting of a basket per story teller, we'll kind of select a basket for Beth, a basket for David, a basket for Matt, and a basket for Harriet. We'll have one basket each. And we'll line it up in the order that they told stories. And the forms conveniently have a place to put your name and email if you wanted to in our mailing list. Just in case you wanted to. There's also a place to do that. So we just one stop shopping at that speed. That's right. So just remember to put your name on the voting slip and not that name that the person you're voting for because otherwise you won't win with the glorious prize. So that is your ballot. Yes. And this is a very secure dominion that's going to be counting the ballot. That's right. There's a suitcase man standing outside right now that will be announcing that. Yes. And so you'll do that. And then until then throughout the night, we're going to pretty soon, I'm just going to reintroduce Quinn. And she's already done all the bell ringing stuff. So she'll do that part of it. And then we also need to get the second story on that. So you might say, wait a minute, we haven't even heard a story yet, but remember there's this five minute gap that we're building. So what we're going to do right now is we're actually going to bring a second story teller up to get their top back and then that will come out right. Exactly. So you understand that mode and then it'll be a lot smoother. So we're going to get the second story teller so they are going to now go backstage when we bring out that. That's pretty smooth. Are there any questions? Was this clear? Every good was going on. There's a question. One question in the second row. Exactly. Both of those. We'll have a prompt. Because we have the audience support and fill it out. This show tonight is largely audience based prompts from filling out this slip. So on the slip it has your name, your email, a suggestion for a prompt for a future show not for tonight. They can use here or I can upload things. So we're going to display those last three cards. We're going to pick a second card. And I'll count to three somebody yell out a card. Very clear and concise thank you. Playing with the queen of hearts. Queen. Harry and Jernigan. Harry and Jernigan. Solid spin. Here we go. Keep clapping for Harry as she spins. We're getting it tonight. Here we go. The prompt is revealed. Your prompt is a sign from above. Here we go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. As Harriet makes her way backstage for our first storyteller to make their way to the stage. Please give a big, glorious, sweater huggy round of applause. Hungry. Round of applause for our first storyteller of the evening. Beth. This happened many times and I'm getting used to it on his eyes. He opens the door to his apartment. I've never been inside the apartment. My boss is a surgeon at Mount Sinai in New York City who's been diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia at age 56. So there are a lot of things that he's not supposed to do. It affects your frontal and temporal lobes. All your decision making, all your impulse control is totally out the window. The reason that I am hired to work with him mostly is just to keep him from stealing things, pushing people on the street when he gets accidentally touched. He's already been arrested for kicking a child and sleighing up the ramp at the Guggenheim Museum where he was tackled by the police. And so now he has a person like me, a minder, because he loves to go out and walk in New York City. He's from the city. He feels really good when he's out there walking wearing an incredible outfit, maybe a salmon colored sweater and yellow pants and he has a great wardrobe. But now he's starting to break down a lot of barriers with me. So he opens the door and he's in his underwear and I look and he holds out his wrists and he has cut his wrists. He doesn't do much that he's leaving profusely. He hasn't done a great job. They're very scratched up, but he's not an eminent danger. So I call my supervisor and she says if he's okay why don't you try to get him dressed, you can get him calm. But the thing with him, he loves his apartment. If you're familiar with New York City he's right in your Lincoln Center. It's a gorgeous modern building and I peeked into the door, but he usually comes out to greet me and I have to come inside and he doesn't like anybody to touch him or touch his things and he looks so distraught as if he hasn't been sleeping and he steps back and for the first time he lets me into his apartment. I sit down on the couch and he says no! I put a roll of paper towels and he lays paper towels across the whole sofa and he says you may sit down. So I'm sitting across from him and waiting to hear from his brother and sister. He doesn't have any. He's not married. He doesn't have any children. His brother takes care of all of his financial stuff but there's been a risk in the family and some things that I don't know have happened and they're not on very good terms. His brother doesn't answer his phone. I call his sister. His sister doesn't answer her phone and so my supervisor is sending a nurse and she's on her way and I say why don't we get dressed? Why don't we go out and get a hamburger? He loves hamburgers. All he eats is egg muffins and hamburgers and I'm not joking. I was with him for a year and a half and that is all he eats. So I said let's go get a hamburger and he's trying to put his clothes on and the nurse comes and he's very upset at seeing her and I say we can just get him on the street and walking. Maybe he'll be feeling better and so she and I convinced him to walk down the street and he walks right into Mount Sinai. There's one on the Upper East Side. There's another branch on the Upper West Side. He walks right in and goes into the emergency room and just shows him his rest, shows him his rest and so they take him away and for the next two weeks my job is to visit him in the psychiatric ward at Mount Sinai, the very hospital where he worked. He has colleagues that will come and visit him and it's so heartbreaking to see this and while there his brother decides that he needs 24-7 care now so he needs to move from a one bedroom apartment to a two bedroom apartment and there's a company in New York City that works with people who have dementia to try to recreate their exact physical space in a different space. These people are very welcome. They have a lot of money built family and so they put all this money to this company who I work with to try to move the apartment that he was in down the hall to a two bedroom apartment and amazingly they found an apartment on the same floor. So on my days I'm visiting him and I'm going to the apartment building and we're taking pictures and trying to move everything and we move something we move everything down to the other apartment so that when he comes home he can go to that apartment and we can stay with him and he comes up the elevator on that first day back and he starts going to his other apartment and he knows all these places I wrote memory now and he doesn't have a lot of language and I have to tell him oh no this isn't your apartment your apartment's over here and there's a lot of mind tricks you do when you're working with people with dementia but there are some that don't feel so great so for weeks those are the other apartment he's banging on the other apartment door and it's hard to keep him in his own apartment and finally he gets acclimated and he never comes into the bedroom where I sleep at night or where all the caregivers stay and one day he opens up the door and he walks in and it's like those dreams you have where there's an extra part of your house that you didn't know you had or something you know and he looks around and he's thinking this is crazy why does my apartment have another room to it but he also has dementia so he's thinking maybe it was always there and he didn't know and it was horrifying to have to lie to him and pretend that this room was always there because he didn't like change and so I had to for the first time lie to him in a way that felt devious and I had to be adamant and say no the room has always been I've always been in this room we're here with you we're here taking care of you and this room is in your apartment and it's not a different apartment at all which was incredible and just Beth hosts the Storytelling show it's been in San Francisco for a long how long now 21 years it's called porch light storytelling and you're doing a show at the sketch bus right yeah end of January end of January Beth will be hosting with her partner Arlene porch light storytelling show at the end of January so we'll check that out where's the best place to find out at the sketch bus or at the sketch bus or at our basic page so let's give it up again for Beth things I really like about the show is you don't know what the stories are going to be like deep and challenging they're going to be straight up funny they'll be scary they'll be all kinds of things and I love it this is amazing so amazing okay before we bring out our we should pick the third story we've got to get the third story we've got to do for it we're a king and a jack we're a solid jack from the audience also I had many of those dreams with the extra rooms in the apartment that's trucking forward with me and I was very alright so our third storyteller David Rodriguez David Rodriguez David Rodriguez David Rodriguez he has some style, he's amazing is that a five? it's a five now David's talking about super you're lucky number together that's good, I like it by the way David Rodriguez will be in the month grand slam tomorrow night at the Castro Theater so thank you any of you who did not or could not get tickets to that talk about show good because this is better he's going to give the better you get intimacy tonight number five number five so audience get ready to count down with me while David speaks about the number five prompt is slippery slope slippery slope five four three two one I'll take it this is Matt she my friend from Portland, Oregon I would like to feel so grateful I like it amazing so Matt will make his way into the secretive hallway to come up with this story the secretive special hallway for the show that appears only for the show it's the hallway of secrets let's give it up for Matt as he goes back to the show yeah we're treating it as a way for our sign from above yes stories we have a sign from above story coming to you from Harriet Jermigan everybody Jermigan we have a song called Zollingen in Germany and I'm in a bathroom texting with a friend in Davis, California and I'm like dude I do not know how I am supposed to get out of this situation and the situation is I am sitting with the parents of the man that I am currently in love with and it turns out that the man that I'm currently in love with is absolutely fucking bonkers one of the things that I like about him he's a radiologist he used to be a surgeon he's sort of like rocket science smart and we've had this sort of up and down relationship going on for three years and we are at this point now where it's sort of a do or die kind of situation and he has the week off while I'm visiting and he says well what do you want to do and I said well I'd like to go see some knives and some swords and Zollingen because it has a huge museum there and he was like oh by the way my parents live there so we should go visit them and I'm like I have heard about your parents this is not an exciting prospect and I'm like okay fine if I'm going to be with the man you've got to be with the family and we go to Zollingen he is sweating the entire time that we are driving to Zollingen like sweating buckets right he's also wearing the suit that he usually wears to work and I'm like why aren't you wearing a suit when you have time off when a real doctor looks like and I'm like oh my god and his mother is a former pestess so she is like this hardcore baker and I am actually also a professional baker so I like put these cookies together like perfect like roll them out same weight everything make them perfectly circular put them into a tin take them and I'm like this will be my peace offering to this insane family they're all types of corners future prodigies have not passed they are sort of like expecting something I don't know what they're expecting he's already sort of like boosted me in sort of a social media kind of way and so we get to the house and the father is there the mother is not there the mother is there and she's just had a hip surgery and Andy the guy he's like yeah I had to tip all the nurses in the hospital she said thank him for putting up with the mother and she's come out she's on a walker and she's got all the stuff going on and then this is literally what happens and she opens the door and she says oh it's so good to see you your father is at the grocery store and I know he's going to mess it up because he never goes to the grocery and she starts into this litany of complaints about the father and I'm like wow this is getting on to a really good start so then he shows up and he's got like a huge cart of shopping and everything and she's like oh we got this wrong we got that wrong and I sort of put the tin down and they're like oh my god and she opens and she's like oh these are beautiful and I'm like yes this is going to work and then the father, the mother Andy and I sit down at a table and it's the father Andy across and then it's me and the mother across and what you start to see is sort of this a war of intellect happening where the father sort of has like this cannon of a question and he lobs it over the table and basically it's sort of like I went to the market and I saw strawberries, what do you think of strawberries and like throws it over to Andy and Andy's like well I have a complete and total dissertation about strawberries that was started in 1780 and I'm like oh my god what's happening and the father is like so there's this whole weird war going on at this table and I'm like I don't know and so I get up I go to the bathroom and I start texting this friend who knows about Andy and I'm just like what do I do and he's like what's the tenor of the conversation and they're talking about things that are so obscure that even with my education I cannot keep up and he's like just be agreeable and just be chill about it and like you cannot be chill about it because this woman is literally sniping at the husband the entire time and I'm sort of L-sad L-L-L-C-A-T questions to the son and then every once in a while they come back and they're like so what do you think and I'm like I hate nothing I'm just going to sit here and try to be a pretty face and think nothing and so but you know I'm taking this break in the bathroom and it turns out I'm gone for five minutes and I'm like okay they're going to start thinking that I'm destroying their bathroom so I go back and we are sitting there a little bit longer and then Andy is still wearing a jacket he's already gone for like two liters of water he's still sweating buckets and I'm like this is not a good scene and at some point the mother says well we really need to sit down and talk to the insurance company because they obviously screwed up my surgery I'm not healing quickly enough and you know there's obviously a problem and the doctor Andy he's like no everything's fine I've looked at your chart I've looked at everything it's totally fine and she says no I know there's obviously a problem and he slams his fist on the table and he says I have told you there is not a problem and then she looks at him and says well obviously you're wrong there's obviously a problem we'll have to our insurance company I want to know you back and the father is sort of like sitting there and by the way did I mention that the father's deepest show of affection to his son was to shake his hand when they showed up this is a family that does not have feelings they have degrees and there is such a lack of like true authentic emotion going on that it's just sort of like really uncomfortable to be there and he has this discussion and says no we're not talking to the insurance company and she's like no we'll talk about it and I'm like this is I cannot be a part of this family but I'm thinking like I really love Andy and I really think that he can use the support with the family and everything before we leave the father gives Andy a hug and I'm like well maybe I have a bridge to something good here and then the mother looks at me and she says it's so nice to have fresh blood in the house and I was like ooh that is ooh so I've got this sign this is not going to work right but do I pay attention to sign no I like keep going and then we actually have a conversation and he says while you were in the bathroom my parents said that you are the one and that I should just go ahead and marry you and I was like well this relationship is over there is no dude who's ever going to be your father's that go ahead and marry this one right but I have to say even though I got this sign from above that this is never going to work we actually sort of kept going for another year and a half and then he broke up with me at that bookstore in New York I can't remember what it's called I lost my product shades and then like walked home from Wall Street it was just a terrible time but I will say that I'm glad that I at least had that exposure to his family to go you know what the loss is okay very good thank you amazing so we've got Harriet by the way she's writing a rhetoric she's using the standard storytelling project and she just heard her own storytelling series called First Person which goes live in January amazing people that are listening are watching perfect talk to Harriet about her own storytelling series we'll play the slideshow again we'll have your instagram on it and you can follow that as well that was incredible so good so great two stories to go we have a mystery fourth person we don't have any idea should we pick the king now it's like yeah so remember this is the sudden death spin so David whatever you spin next next oh too late but here you go give it a spin I'm sorry I'm gonna have to say that this is the sudden death I don't have any idea it's uh number six right on the line number six yes your must take so there's no countdown there's no countdown this is just it best intentions best intentions alright we have David and he's a wonderful marvelous Matt she so there he was standing in front of the McDonald's in my hometown Bob Saget I'm 16 years old we're in Juneau Alaska the town that I grew up in one of the most exciting things that can happen when you grow up in a remote place like Juneau Alaska to have the famous person come to town and you know there's Bob Saget and it's not just Bob Saget it's Candace Cameron the two of them are filming a what do they call like a way episode of Full House on a cruise ship that just stopped in Juneau so both Bob Saget and Candace Cameron are standing there now you know it was like whoa famous person whoa I was with my friends I was with this little you know group of like angry punk rock kids we were like these punk rock punk rock Alaskan kids we're in like parkas and spike bracelets and stuff my parents were getting the divorce I was really mad at that slide my favorite artist of all time was Ian Mackay the singer of Minor Threat he was like a peer artist he had a record label he was like peer artists there's Bob Saget and you're like we're all talking about he's so dumb we've seen America's Funnest Home video it says jokes are so stupid and I was like somebody should tell him that jokes are so stupid and my friend was like yeah you should go tell him that jokes are so stupid I was like you know what so I walked up to Bob Saget on the corner in Juneau Alaska and I said hey are you are you Bob Saget and I said do you write your own jokes for America's Funnest Home videos and he goes oh I don't even want to know what you're going to say and I said because they suck yeah I said that this angry 16 year old teenage boy said that to Bob Saget all my friends laughed huge reactions I had one you know my parents made fast forward probably 10 years I started doing a little bit of acting kind of accidentally for having a film put me in it I thought it was really fun I did another one you know I was just sort of word of mouth thing and then somebody was like hey my friends at the age and I got introduced to them maybe you could like do some as I did a commercial I like just sort of how to win and I like got paid to do an acting and I was like whoa $1,500 was a ton of money to do that and I was like what if I could just keep acting so I talked to this agent and he was like oh yeah get a head shot maybe think about from this and I was like okay so I got these head shots and then he like started sending them out and I got like I remember I had a Dunkin' Donuts ad that I went on audition for and I was like I just felt that's such an idiot that's a whole other story but it was absolutely humiliating just like standing there feeling like a naked person with people throwing guards at me you know and so I remember like later that day I'm like talking to my girlfriend at this time her name was Aliyah and I was like this is like I can see how like you really want to do some part and then you also want to get paid and then you're like tempted to do this stuff that makes you look like an idiot I'm just thinking like what if I do this Dunkin' Donuts ad like people are going to see that and think that I'm an idiot or just whatever you know like not that I'm an idiot but it's just like oh that's just another one of those idiots on tv like doing the dumb thing or you know I'm still kind of you know I'm still my team in Genix at this point and then I ended up telling her the Bob Sackett story and Aliyah was like you realize that your karma is just like that's what's going on and I was like my karma's she's like yes it's fucked and I was like what do I do about my karma being fucked and she's like you gotta write a book so I put pen and paper and I I write Bob Sackett an apology letter where I explain everything you know cause I'm like Bob Sackett's probably you know some kid walk up to him and tell him that he sucks like he's carrying that around with him of course I gotta fix this so like I'm like you're Bob Sackett and my parents are getting the boards and then you know I'm sorry put it in a letter send it off and I'm like okay well hopefully my karma is clean so a month later an envelope arrives a mail and I'm like there's an envelope here and it says Bob Sackett in the return address she's like oh my god it's like eight and a half by eleven and I'm in the envelope and I pull out a eight and a half by eleven glossy headshot of Bob Sackett and I'm like oh my gosh and then down the bottom he's written something oh my god he's read my letter and he wrote me back and says hey man Bob that's it you know I think there was a lot of subtext in that letter there was a lot of subtext in that it just said hey man Bob what do you think it really said underneath that I think that you know Bob Sackett was known for having kind of a filthy mouth he was and he was also known for being very generous in lots of things but I think it was a little fuck you definitely hey man hey man was coded that was definitely a fuck you but I feel like both of your carvers were actually clearly clear he said fuck you to him he said fuck you to you now there's no fussing and you've never done anything cooler since yeah let's give it up for all three stories yeah there's a little quote from the people what do you think it should cost for you for anything happening with your band and your your solo show and everything that's definitely a point too that there will be a new record next year awesome all right an average of beautiful records all right back out of Boston and your band yeah absolutely and just a reminder we will do a little we will do a little recap now four stories before you come up with both our fabulous DJ Casey Clem while your body will play music please give him a hand we'll play music while you're voting what story did I need tonight that I need to vote on and win a fabulous prize possibly all right great so it's time for our best intentions our fourth out of four stories yeah here we go I'm a musician in New Mexico and my wife and I were living it up in one room and my dad and my stepmom had like a different room and at about six in the morning I heard this big banging on the door and I was naked so my wife opened the door with my dad and you know I knew because you know if you spend decades with somebody I'd never had a moment like this before but I knew that someone had died and I was just thinking please don't let it be my brother and the irony is that I was in New Mexico because I was worried my dad was going to die he was getting old and aged and this family from New Mexico it was like this trip and I was consciously on this trip because I was like dad's probably going to die let's get out there we can still move you know when someone you love dies you become like a professional griever and everyone like you can see them preparing before they come talk to you you can see them like get ready I'm going to say the perfect thing I'm going to nail it and you can see it's like they're going to sign the autograph getting the autograph from their favorite baseball player and you have to give what litter energy you have like comforting them about the advice they just gave you even though you don't have any energy and the most common advice I got was to look for signs look for signs you know my mother's butterfly my grandparents a gust of wind this that but I'm like a very cynical person I don't believe in that stuff but I started to feel like but I started to really want to I was walking down the street one day and this bird landed right in front of me this big giant bird and it just stood there we were in this like 12 o'clock high noon stand up and I started thinking is that bird my brother and I called my friend Jen who was like big sign believer and she's like I got the bird find her out send me a picture of that bird so I sent a picture of the bird and I was just kind of in my mind I was like if it's a rare bird it's my brother you know I'm not a big bird and I was like is it like a really uncommon bird she's like as soon as I heard that I was like I'm down with this common ass bird I cannot believe like God is dead like there's no signs or even for a second believe into this stupid bird with my brother but the next time I kind of thought that I got a sign I was sitting in my apartment and I was talking to the corner and he was about to tell me there was also the toxicology toxicology report and I spent like a month trying to convince myself that there was also the support did not matter did not matter how he died I was preparing myself for it to not matter but then when I found out that he died sober I was so proud of and I found out that it did actually matter to me and right at that moment Google Home chose to shuffle in Alive by Sia notwithstanding the fact that she sings I'm alive over and over again in the chorus but that was my brother's sobriety anthem because he would have told you within five seconds of meeting you that Sia was a recovered alcoholic and he died based on his tabs listening to her greatest hits and that was a song I had actively been avoiding listening to and I started to feel myself believe that signs were real but then a bigger part of me pushed back and was like this is bullshit if my brother could leave a sign the kind of sign he would leave is like an actual sign like I would be walking down the street and I would see what I thought was a homeless person's sign but then I would see his handwriting and it would say hey Dave guess what we can send signs from heaven the way it works is every day an angel comes to visit you and asks you what kind of sign you live most people say behavior of cat or cloud but I was like an actual sign and they're like sure what do you want to say I guess there's a word limit bye because even if signs are real and what is like a butterfly or like a song compared to the life of my brother like who cares about a sign he was a beautiful man he had these like genetically improbable gray blue eyes even though he's Mexican like me and he would use them to listen with such intensity to people and he had no time for small time and he had dropped out of his program PHD program at Berkeley because of his addiction but he had put his hat in hand and gone back and re-rolled and he was slated to begin in the fall and he deserved to walk on that stage and he deserved to see that he'd become an inspiration to other addicts as he was actually in his longest period of sobriety ever and this is the state of mind I was in the morning of his funeral I was angry and I was supposed to get the eulogy and I was supposed to be this big storyteller or whatever and people were like you're gonna go last day if I don't want to go after you but I had no ideas and I had 30 minutes I was in my suit running around my apartment looking for a notebook and I was so mad at myself because I had so many but I couldn't find one and then I saw this composition book underneath the stack of books and I picked it up and I opened it up and I saw my brother, Tandrick he must have written it when he was crashing on my couch after a relapse for like a year and a half ago and it was a poem and it was called A Cold Fall Night and it thread I'm Late my second ever open water swim at Aquatic Park he crossed out the words I'm nervous I replaced it with you'll never be alone buoyant even when nobody's around the boat I guess I like decided to just stay neutral on signs I don't believe them or not believe in them but I go to his grave often and sometimes I talk to him I don't make small talk I just talk to him about my life in the present but then other times I close my eyes and I listen to the birds and I feel the sun and my thoughts fade away until I'm buoyant even though nobody else is around thank you bye let's give a go for all of our storytellers this evening we're going to talk tonight they all look amazing what a great deep variety of stories we had this evening so we're going to put four baskets up here I'm going to put the picture of the storyteller in the basket that is very smart I get a hand for Alyssa and I'm going to give it up again for Quinn our Bell Rear this evening we have a crazy club great and a bar that they told so we have first of all Beth Lissick who they go up here right here so our first storyteller was Beth Lissick and Beth told the story being a dementia caregiver as you remember the first doctor story of the evening yes and yeah creating the room oh my god and having to lie about the second room second story Harriet Jernigan about Germany and her German boyfriend and his crazy family crazy brilliance all of her phrases beautiful crazy so there's Harriet with his Alaska story and Bob Saget Bob Saget adventure which we all like to hear about and then we have David that's a hilarious story see you want to be so lots of science from above everywhere David Rodriguez at the end so we're going to just take like a few minutes you have your voting slips and then we'll call all the storytellers back on stage if we'll announce the winning storyteller the winning audience members and then we're going to wrap up this night but here we go in case it's going to play some music while you vote remember no pushing, no shoving just a very cordial vote put your slip in the basket with the storyteller that you want to vote for so okay Casey so let's get all of our storytellers kind of in front of the stage ready for the stage for David Matt Harriet but there was a winner this evening and say it with me Cori you have your microphone ready 1, 2, 3, 4 before you leave should we give David his prize no we'll give him both audience winner oh please that's right, oh I like how everyone did that we all know that many treats but everyone's favorite is the quick he's Clem December 20th so not this exact format it is a different show but a story calling December 20th so tickets are currently available so do not delay and spread the word we have a pack house for the holidays thank you all so much good night