#354 The Moth StorySLAM Attempt #2 and The Party

Ok, I’m now officially pissed off. I prepared another story for The Moth StorySLAM this week. If you recall, I went last week but didn’t get picked by their retarded method of pulling names randomly from a bag. Why is it retarded? Because everyone has the same chance. Whether you’ve told a story thirty times or none, like me. So as you might have guessed, I went again tonight. The subject was bosses. I prepped another story, rehearsed it and rehearsed it. Then I went tonight.

The producer said there were “only” 11 entries for tonight so if anybody wanted to tell a story, please put their name. What the fuck? What’s wrong with having “only” 11 people? She wants more people to not get fucking picked? I mean, jesus christ. So a few more people went up.

Then I had to sit through the entire show, my adrenaline pumping, waiting for them not to pick my name. I didn’t even stay for the idiotic consolation prize of saying the first line from your story like last time.

I’m sorry if I sound pissed but I am. I don’t even want to tell a story there any more. And that’s what this lame-ass method of picking storytellers does. It turns away new storytellers. There are a lot of people who may work up the courage to only attempt to tell a story once. If they don’t get picked, they retreat and never go again. That wasn’t me, but I want some sort of guarantee that if I go again, if I devote hours out of my week, gas from my car, $8, that I’ll get to tell a fucking story. But I won’t, so I don’t even know if I go again.

Maybe I will, after I calm the fuck down. I get it. This is the way it’s been done but that doesn’t make it right. How about they devote 5 spots to newcomers and the other 5 purely to chance? Or maybe even just 3 spots to newbies. Would that be so hard?

But of course the biggest reason I’m pissed is I won’t be able to get a StorySLAM in before the end of the blog. That’s what hurts the most and maybe that’s where all of this anger is coming from.

Anyway, I’m done venting.

In happier news, I want to tell all my readers that I’m having a party to celebrate the end of Scare Yourself Every Day on Saturday, March 3rd at 8pm at The Alibi Room in Culver City. I’m extended this invitation to anyone who wants to go! Seriously. Just show up. I would love to meet you. If you do want to go, simply RSVP to this Facebook event http://www.facebook.com/events/156659747785715/. It’s public so even if we’re not friends you should be able to RSVP. Hope to see you there!

#353 Take a Trampoline Class

I wrote about participating in the reddit Secret Santa in December. I didn’t write about the awesome gift I got from my Secret Santa. When you sign up for the exchange, you can put some personal information in so your Secret Santa has a better idea of what to get you. Of course I put my blog down. Well, eventually I got this in the mail:

Which was awesome for several reasons. First, my Santa had taken the time to look through the blog and think of this great idea. And second, given the cost of the gift certificate, it was a very generous present.

Then I found out I sort of knew who my Santa was because she had started following me on Twitter. Her name is Leslie and she has her own blog called 27 and Frugal. All and all, it turned out to be an awesome Secret Santa experience.

Now, I had already taken the trapeze class before, but the school offers several other kinds of classes that I was really interested in taking. Since it was a holiday today, I decided at the last minute to see if there were any trampoline classes happening. That always seemed like such a fun thing to try. There was one in a few hours so I signed up online and headed out to Santa Monica.

I got to the familiar spot on the pier where the NY Trapeze School is set up. I saw a trapeze class getting ready and the trampoline off to the side. I signed in and met my teacher, Jones. There was only one other student and it was a 12 year old kid.

The first thing that sort of freaked me out was how small the trampoline was. The second was we weren’t strapped into a harness or anything. What if I bounced off and flew into the Pacific Ocean? That’s probably happened before right?

We started out with simply jumping straight up. You start with your feet shoulder length apart and when you jump up, you press your feet together and lift your arms. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. Turns out it is fucking scary to jump in the air on a smallish trampoline with nothing securing you. It was also difficult to remain centered and in control. I found myself drifting to the sides or not being able to stay straight in the air.

I was worried that the 12 year old kid was going to show me up since most kids have that natural ability to do everything. Fortunately, this kid could have been me at 12 years old. He had less coordination than I did. Not that it made me me feel better to watch a kid flail helplessly about on a trampoline. Maybe a little.

We practiced some sit down drops, dog drops (hitting the trampoline with your hands and knees), some rolls (which were the hardest) and turns. Then we did some combinations. The most fun for me was the knee tuck to split legs to pike all in a row.

We didn’t get to do any flips which kind of pissed me off. Jones promised “next time” we would. Didn’t he realize my blog was ending and there wouldn’t be a next time??

As class was finishing, I was just starting to get a feel for the trampoline and being more in control.

Jones was an ok teacher. He was really nice but he didn’t really explain the moves that well. He only showed them once until I started asking him to show it again.

I found the trampoline to be ten times harder than the trapeze. I mean, once you get past the height thing on the trapeze, it’s kind of easy. Here you have to control your body in the air and the moves required a lot more coordination and timing. Also, I was pretty exhausted afterwards and my abs were sore.

Learning all of these new physical activities over the past year, has really taught me how to not get discouraged and remember that everybody started out looking like an idiot on a trampoline. So to speak.

#352 Train at a Shaolin Temple

There’s this little place on Ventura Boulevard that says “Shaolin Temple” that I’ve always been interested in. It’s wedged between a pet store and a beauty salon. Naturally where you would think a Shaolin Temple would be.

As I said in my post about taking a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, I’ve always been interested in martial arts with a philosophy component. Shaolin Kung-Fu definitely fits that bill since it’s a fighting style developed by Buddhist monks.

I looked up the temple online and it said they offer a free introductory class. I thought that sounded like a great scary thing to do so I signed up for a Qi Gong Tai Chi class this morning.

Qi Gong is about aligning breath and movement. This is what yoga also teaches us. Each movement is initiated and linked to breath. Tai Chi is actually a martial art but is usually used more as exercise these days. The movements are slow and deliberate, almost like a slow-motion kung fu. But the slow movements promote balance and coordination.

The class was at 9am and I got there about 10 minutes early. But the door was locked and it said there was a meditation in progress. I waited in my car until the door opened then I went inside. But they were still meditating. Whoops! A few minutes later they opened the door, all the way and it was at that point I was allowed to go in. Don’t ask me why the opened the door part way before.

The class had 5 people. There was a white guy, white girl, older Chinese guy, a young Aremnian guy and me. The teacher was a white guy. Class started out by walking in a circle around the room which is supposed to calm the mind down and release tension. Kind of like a mild moving meditation.

Class began with some breathing and  simple movements. I just followed along with the teacher. And that was basically how the whole class was. Just the teacher going through movements but explaining very little and me trying to mimic him even though I didn’t know what anything meant. As the class progressed, I got lost with some of the more complicated movements but did my best to follow along. Periodically we’d walk around the room a few times to release tension.

When class was over, I felt very peaceful. The entire class was very quiet and of course the slow movements and breathing had a calming effect over me.

One of the women who worked there, asked if I wanted to stay for tea. I said sure. So the four of us including the teacher (two of the students had to leave) sat by this tea table that looked like a log. The woman, Cindy, prepared the tea for us. It was very relaxing to watch her pour the hot water over the tea leaves in a little tea pot. Then she poured hot water in the cups to warm them up and clean them out. And finally she filled the tea cups. We each had to tap our finger three times against the table as she filled our cups though I’m not sure why. I always get worried about not knowing process like this. Like I’ll offend somebody by making the wrong gesture or something. But everyone was patient throughout the day and showed me the right things to do.

Then we had an open discussion about the philosophy of Shaolin. The Tai Chi teacher talked about how he had been training for a year and now was beginning to find his meditative state and also starting to control his body temperature. I guess the training for that means taking cold showers every day. Your body should be able to warm itself agains the cold. I don’t know if I could ever do that. I love me my hot showers!

I just loved the process of making the tea and just being able to sit and have conversation. I don’t think we do that too often. We go out for coffee, but the cafe is bustling and we’re on our phones half the time.

Cindy then asked if I wanted to stay for some Shaolin conditioning. I thought that sounded great. It was just me, the Armenian guy and the Tai Chi teacher who’s name was Chris.

It was at this point that the Shifu or Master showed up. Apparently he is one of the few white Shifu’s that are “endorsed” by the Shaolin temple in China. And as such, he’s a controversial figure. But he was training two kids this morning so Chris took me and the other guy through our conditioning.

We jogged around the block to warm up and then we did our exercises in the parking garage. The temple only had one room and I guess Shifu didn’t want us there. I’m not sure if that’s how it always is or maybe because I was only trying out classes.

So there we were in a parking garage doing pushups, stretches and eventually some basic movements like kicks and punches. If I felt uncoordinated dancing a couple of days before, I felt like a complete idiot today trying to do some of the moves Chris showed us. And those were pretty basic. After awhile, I even felt like giving up because I felt like a moron but I kept trying. Chris was encouraging so that helped.

When class was over, we had to clean the temple. This included sweeping up and scrubbing the floors. The idea being that in order for your mind to be clean, the space you live in has to as well. Even this was calming to me. It also made me want to clean my apartment immediately.

I was supposed to talk with Shifu when it was over but he got caught up in a meeting with the other two women who worked there so I said goodbye to Chris.

I really enjoyed my time at the temple. It made me feel at peace, like yoga does. But financially, I just can’t swing a monthly payment of $120 and $5 per class on top of that. I’ve already chosen yoga as the thing I’m doing. I don’t have the time or money to take on another thing, especially now that I’m quitting my full-time job. I wish I could just take yoga, train at the Shaolin Temple and take dance lessons all the time but unfortunately I can’t.

But of all the things I’ve tried, this is one of the ones I definitely want to go back for more.

#351 Go to an Oasis Church Service

I got a flier the other day in the mail for something called the Oasis Church. It’s one of these non-denominational Christian church aimed specifically at 20-30 year olds. The thing I noticed about the flier was that it didn’t look like a regular church flier:

Not that it was some great work of art, but most church fliers look like they were designed by a 60 year old housewife using a clipart CD from 1998.

It’s clear how much they’re targeting the younger generation. It’s smart because churches are traditionally stuffy and boring. Even the crazy ones like the Pentecostal Church service I attended.

The flier mentioned jobs and relationships, the two most important things on most young people’s minds, I guess. They were pushing this Saturday service that started at 6pm at their main location on Wilshire, near the Miracle Mile area.

I did a quick google search and of course found some stuff about the church being a cult. I think that happens with any new non-denominational church which I can understand. But then, all religions to me seem somewhat cult like.

Since I hadn’t done a religion-based scary thing in a really long time (observing Ramadan), I thought this would be a good thing to check out.

I got to the Church a little late because Highland was jam packed full of slow moving tourists in rental cars probably wondering if they wandered into a Mad Max movie. I could already hear the music from the sidewalk. When I walked in I was greeted with this:

The “church” was actually a pretty nice venue. It looked like it could easily hold 1000 people. It was currently about half-full when I walked in. There were some empty seats all the way in the back. That’s where I sat before when I attended different church services. But that wasn’t going to cut it anymore so I found a seat much closer to the front, right in the middle of the main group of people.

I immediately felt uncomfortable. I forgot what it was like to be in a room full of religious people. A lot of them were holding their hands up and swaying back and forth as the carefully grungy but not too grungy singer belted out Christian tunes and strummed his acoustic guitar. There was a female singer as well who was pretty hot. I found myself wondering if the Oasis Church advocated premarital sex.

I stood up with everybody. Again, I normally wouldn’t have done anything but this time I held my arms up and swayed back and forth like everyone else. I think I was the tallest person there. I felt like an idiot. I wonder if anyone thought I was Jeremy Lin?

When the song was over, everyone sat down. Some guy who looked like he was 20 came out and introduced the main speaker. I noticed the young guy tried to crack a lot of jokes. More of that young skewing stuff I suppose. Before the main speaker came out, we had to introduce ourselves to the people sitting next to us. I always used to hate shit like this. Now I don’t really care. Whatever. You shake someone’s hand and say hi. It’s not like you’re giving them a prostate exam.

Then the main speaker began. He gave a sermon about family and giving children love and attention. It definitely wasn’t like any other church sermon I’ve heard. There was very little scripture quoting and a lot more personal experience. He also tried to crack a lot of jokes. A lot of people laughed. A little too hard if you know what I mean.

Not like I didn’t know before, but having experienced a handful of different religions, I now know with 100% certainty that I will never, ever subscribe to any organized religion. First of all, I can’t get past the cliquish mentality of religion. It’s always about gaining followers and making the church grow. And they wonder why they get slapped with the cult label.

Second, I just can’t take anything in the bible seriously. Why is there a need for a bible at all? I’m all for teaching values and ways to be better people. Why do we have to attribute that to a higher power? Don’t humans have enough in them to do it themselves?

Third, is the money. I know these churches need to make money to pay for stuff but in reality, someone is getting rich off of it. Religion is big business. Especially if you start a new one. Look at Scientology. They have BILLIONS floating around. Easily. Money corrupts. It’s that simple.

So when the speaker started talking about reaching into our pockets, I headed for the door.

Well, this is likely to be the last scary thing about religion for the blog. Feels like only yesterday that I was wandering into the Scientology building down the street from me, scared out of my mind. I have learned a lot, I think. And I definitely encourage people to try out different religions for themselves. Even if you know you don’t believe in it, it’s good to get some perspective on the different things people believe in.

#350 Take a Ballroom Dancing Class

I’ve been pretty blunt about my dancing ability or lack thereof. You’ve seen it here, here and here. Do I need to give you more evidence?

Maybe that’s why dancing is a common theme in this blog. It’s pretty scary to me because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Which would be fine if I had any rhythm or any physical coordination to compensate but I don’t. So the only real choice I have is to take lessons.

I took a line dancing class once and seemed to do ok probably due to my flash mob experience. When I saw Living Social was offering ballroom dance lessons, I went for it. Why? Because I’m sick and tired of not knowing how to dance. I’m sick of sitting on the sidelines when I should be out in the field dazzling ladies with my Fred Astaire-like grace. I want to be known for being light in the loafers damn it!

The lessons were for a place in Pasadena called The Fred Astaire Dance Studio (coincidentally enough). It’s a chain of dance studios with locations all over the country.

The studio space was actually much bigger than I thought. When I got there, I saw a large dance floor with high ceilings. Off to the side there were some smaller dance floors. There was a reception area where I signed in and met my teacher. The way the deal works is you get a private lesson, a group lesson and then a practice session which mimics a real social dance situation.

My teacher’s name was Katie and she was energetic and nice. She showed me around the studio and then we headed to the dance floor to start. Since I had taken the line dancing lessons before and in a way the flash mob experience was another lesson, I wasn’t feeling that scared. But when we started, I realized that this being a private lesson meant my teacher was going to see all the horrible mistakes I was making. I couldn’t hide in the back and try to go unnoticed.

Also, since we were dancing, I was going to have to get physical with a stranger. Not that we were going to be doing the Lambada to start, but there would be hold handing and close quarters. I have this thing when I hold hands with a girl, my palms sweat. But my palms never sweat any other time so it’s completely mental. I could control this. Mind over matter. Think about baseball. Wait…

We started with a box step. Then progressed to the most basic fox trot, swing, salsa and tango steps. It was actually kind of difficult. It’s frustrating that I sometimes I can’t get my feet to do what my mind wants them to do. Katie stressed that it was muscle memory and that makes sense. Still, I just wish I had some natural ability for once.

I was scared to step on Katie’s toes which she assured me I wouldn’t. I also had a tendency to take these huge steps when it would be a lot easier and better to take smaller ones. My palms? Relatively sweat free.

There was another couple using the dance floor with us. They obviously knew what they were doing. The guy was like 5’5″ and 100 pounds but was gliding around the dance floor like fucking Patrick Swayze. At a certain point, I thought for sure he was mocking me. Show off.

Katie was a great teacher and I think I learned a lot in the short time we had together. I felt like there was a glimmer of hope. Katie said that I had some “good stuff.” She thought I had good instincts as a dance leader because I lead with my body and not my hands. And also I had good posture. Chalk that one up to yoga because I used to slouch like a wet sack of flour.

I learned I get another longer private lesson in my deal since most of this class was taken up with introducing me to the studio and how things work. I’m actually looking forward to it.

#349 You’re My Jeremy Lin

My Dad sent me an email yesterday in which he talked about Jeremy Lin. My sister suggested I write an essay about it and submit it to an Asian blog site, 8Asians.com. It sounded like a great scary thing to do so here’s the essay I sent in:

You’re My Jeremy Lin

My Dad sent me this email a few days ago:

You must have heard of this kid, Jeremy Lin, a Knick basketball player. His rise to stardom just a week ago really drives all my friends here crazy. I’m excited too, though not as crazy.  I guess it’s because he is a California kid with parents from Taiwan like me and all our friends. When I see and/or hear about him I’m always thinking about you and I feel like I was looking at my son. In my mind you’re my Jeremy Lin

I knew that shit had just gotten real. Jeremy Lin wasn’t just teetering on the cusp of pop iconography. If he had reached my parents, isolated from anything relevant in a house buried in the farmlands of New Jersey, then he was a full-fledge rip roaring pop God.

By now, all of you have heard of Jeremy Lin. Even if you’ve never seen a basketball game in your life. I’ll still give a quick summary. Jeremy Lin is an American-born Taiwanese basketball player who was undrafted after playing for Harvard (did you expect anything less from a Chinese basketball player?). He was cut from two teams and played in the NBA D-League (D stands for “developmental,” it’s not a grade… as if Lin was capable of getting anything lower than an A-). He was picked up by the Knicks with an unguaranteed contract which meant he could be cut at any time and not receive any more money.

He was inserted into a game against the Nets and had a break out game. Since then the team has won 7 in a row, climbed out of the basement of the standings and Lin is now a global superstar.

But what is it about Lin that fascinates us Chinese so much?

There’s the obvious fact that Lin is Chinese. You can count on one hand how many Chinese players there have been in the NBA. Yao Ming is the most famous. But Yao wasn’t born in America. Lin was. That makes him so much more relatable to the Chinese living in the US.

Speaking of Yao, it’s not a stretch of the imagination by any means that he was a star in the NBA. The guy is seven and half feet tall! How could he not play in the NBA? Sure he has the skill to back it up but his height was such a huge factor. It’s hard to think he’s even the same species as us.

Lin at six feet three inches is barely an adequate height for the NBA. While he would be considered tall for regular people, he’s not unrelatable tall. Most people will never know someone who is seven and half feet tall let alone a Chinese someone. But you might know a Chinese guy close to Lin’s height. In fact, I do. Me.

I’m six foot three inches also. I’m Chinese. I was born in America. If I had the talent, ambition, drive, physical skills and work ethic, I could’ve been Jeremy Lin. Right?

Maybe not, but that’s how he hits us American Born Chinese. Perhaps a small part of us believes that we could be him. Or at least we could know somebody like him. He could be a friend’s brother, a cousin, a classmate from school.

Or in my Dad’s case, someone’s son.

I know what my Dad meant in the email and it was very sweet. But it makes me laugh in the way that it came out. That is so often the case with 2nd generation kids and their 1st generation parents. The language barrier creates more often than not, unpredictably hilarious comments. But I’ve learned to look past that and see what they really mean.

But my Dad’s backhanded compliment does bring up a sobering fact. Scores of Chinese parents will be comparing their kids to Jeremy Lin. Whereas before we simply had to worry about being compared to our successful doctor and lawyer friends, now add NBA superstar to that list.

“Why can’t you run the pick and roll like Jeremy Lin??” coming to a Chinese dinner table near you.

#348 Pitch My Virginity Story to RISK! and Some Catch Up

Still smarting from the pain of not being picked to tell my story at The Moth StorySLAM, I wiped away my tears and set fingers to keyboard. Unofficial SYED Consultant, Sherry, told me about another show that might want me to tell my story. It’s called RISK! and it seems to be a raunchier version of The Moth. While Sherry suggested I tell my tale of the hole in the pocket beat off, I decided to submit my virginity story AGAIN. This story needs to be told and maybe RISK! will finally give me a chance to do that.

Besides, I want to tell my hole in the pocket story at next week’s StorySLAM. The theme is “Bosses” so I figure I can just beef up the relationship with me and my boss at LACMA.

So I also started preparing my story for next week. I liked how the story turned out the way I developed it last time so I did the same thing. I practiced my story a couple of times without any notes. I’ll go back later and check out my post and then combine the two.

Since this is a pretty short post, I thought I’d play some catch up.

The blog is ending soon. Crazy, I know. It’s been extremely difficult. I haven’t had time to do the things I wanted to this month because of work. Work has been crazy busy again. It’s good because it reminds me every day why I wanted to quit. Part of me wishes I quit earlier so I could have a couple of free weeks to finish up all the things I wanted to. But then the practical part of me knows that extra money will come in handy.

These last couple of weeks will be a whirlwind of scary things hopefully. I have a lot of it planned out and there are some doozies in there so please stay tuned. I’ve been stressed out beyond belief. I’m in a horrid mood most of the time and very agitated. My body is not happy with the changes coming up. If not for yoga, I don’t know where I’d be. Probably sucking down Jack Daniels and main lining NyQuil.

My readers have been quiet lately. I’m curious if there’s anything you’re wondering about or want me to try before the blog is over. Most of my days are booked but I might start doubling up so don’t be shy. Hit the contact link at the top of the page or right here.

There are a lot of things that might not come to fruition before the end. I can’t find any gay couples to marry at Chick-Fil-A although Prop 8 was repealed so that’s awesome. I still want to do it. The pick up artist teacher hasn’t called me back but we did touch base last month. I’m still holding out hope for that. There are other little things I hope to wrap up soon.

Anyway, I feel a bit better now that I’ve written all this out. 17 more days. I can’t believe it.

#347 The Moth StorySLAM Attempt #1

Awhile back I attended something called StorySLAM. It’s a storytelling competition put on by The Moth, a radio program dedicated to the art of storytelling. Well, I finally decided I wanted to tell a story at one. There was a show for Valentine’s Day with the theme “Love Hurts.” I knew that the story of how I lost my virginity would be perfect.

While I had done something similar with my Mortified shows, the big difference with The Moth is you can’t have notes. You have to memorize the story. But at the same time, they want it to be natural.

I’m obviously pretty familiar with my story as I’ve written about it a few times. So I began by simply telling my story out loud, without even looking at my post, alone in my apartment using a camera tripod for a microphone. I told it the way I remembered it. Then I did it again and timed myself. It was about 5 minutes on the nose, which is the max length of each story.

I started this last weekend. Since then, I continued to practice the story a few more times, refining it as I went. It was only a few days ago that I looked at my post to see what was different. I started to pull the best parts from both together into one cohesive story. There were little details I forgot that were in the post. A couple of order of event changes. Jokes here and there I missed. I continued to tinker with it as I practiced for tonight. All in all, I would say I told the story ten times before today.

This morning I practiced it in the shower and reviewed my post at work. In the car ride over I practiced it twice. When I was waiting for the doors to open at the venue, I looked over my post again to really dial things in. While for Mortified, the producers warned me about over-rehearsing, I felt like for The Moth I couldn’t over-rehearse since I wouldn’t have any notes in front of me.

It was at this point that I started to get those familiar butterflies. I had done Mortified three times so I sort of knew how to manage it. I was going to be nervous no matter what, but I couldn’t let it affect my performance. I did a lot of deep breathing and stretches. I convinced myself that the scariest part, the memorization, was a nonfactor. I had practiced a bunch. My story was pretty linear and straight forward. Each detail lead to the next. The only things I might leave out were some jokes here and there.

As I said before, The Moth likes things to be organic. I was basically working with a skeleton structure. I knew there were certain events I had to describe in order to get through the story. But the details, descriptions and jokes, I left loose so I could adlib. I had a few options in my pocket for those parts but I was just going to say whatever popped into my head. In that way I hoped the story sounded more natural.

Another way I psyched myself up was to keep telling myself my story was good. That people would want to hear it. And that I should be excited to tell it. It was working. I was getting really psyched up.

The problem with StorySLAM is that it’s completely random as to who gets to tell a story. You put your name into a hat, 10 are pulled out and those are who get to read. There is guarantee. But I really felt like I was going to get picked because it was for the blog and because I had such a great story to tell. It had to work out somehow.

My friend Tim showed up as the doors opened. He was already planning on coming with another friend which was good fortune because he could take a video of my performance if I got picked. I had a hard time talking to him and his friend beforehand. I wanted to be by myself and relax. That was the cool part about Mortified. I could be by myself in the green room or backstage. Here, I was stuck in the audience with everyone else.

My heart was racing as they chose the first person which wasn’t me. Then the second. Then the third. When the fourth person wasn’t me, I got this feeling I wouldn’t get chosen. I just knew it. More than the feeling I had before that I would be picked.

I still held onto a glimmer of hope but for the most part gave up. The worst part was, the people weren’t that great. It was the same deal. Some were good story tellers with crappy stories. Others were crappy story tellers with good stories. I felt I could deliver both and at the end, I really wanted to show everyone. I really want to win. Oh yes, this was a competition. There were three groups of judges and the winner would go on to the finals of StorySLAM.

Unfortunately, the last person called, of course, wasn’t me. Earlier in the day, I thought I might be relieved if I didn’t get picked. But now that it was actually happening, I was bummed. Really, really bummed. Much more than I thought I ever would be.

At the end of the show, the host called everyone who wasn’t picked to come up on stage and give the first line of their story. The first line of my story was, “I was a late bloomer growing up.” That’s a shitty first line. There was no way I was going to say that. So when it was my time to go up to the mic, I stepped forward and said, “This is the story of how I lost my virginity to a girl with a three-week old tampon inside of her.” The audience gasped/laughed/sighed, you name it. It was the biggest reaction of the night, I’m not just tooting my own horn.

When I was walking back to my seat, some girl pointed to me and said, “You should’ve won with that one line alone!” A few other people said similar things. Some even asked me to tell them the story now but I wanted to save it in case I could use again. That made me feel like the night wasn’t a total waste.

What’s funny was a year ago, just me getting on stage and saying that one line would’ve been HUGE. Now it was a tiny consolation prize in an otherwise failed evening. But it did show how much progress I’ve made.

I’m going back to StorySLAM next week. And I’m going to tell my story damnit. Even if I have to staple a twenty dollar bill to my submission sheet.

#346 Be Nice on My Bike

I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic but every day I ride my bike to work is another chess match with cars where my life and death hang in the balance!

Ok. Maybe not. But look, it can be bad out there and yes it’s possible I could die.

I can’t express how bad it is to bicycle in LA. And I live in the Valley which is easier than LA proper. Still, it is a battle every time I go to work. At least, that’s how I look at it.

I yell at people. Curse them out. The curses I throw out, I don’t even know where I come up with them. I’m not a curser at all in regular life. But when I get pissed off, some sort of primal cursing gene kicks in and I let loose the strangest combinations of curse words you have ever seen. I don’t even remember half of the shit I say because it goes straight out of my head.

I’ve slapped car doors, flipped rearview mirrors (not broken them, flipped them, so there’s no damage). Spit on cars. Gave the finger and more. But it’s all been “necessary” in my mind. I’ve got to teach these drivers a lesson. Stop texting and pay attention.

Last week a woman pulled off suddenly to get a parking spot when I was right next to her. I screamed and yelled but she didn’t stop until she was parked and I was wedged between her car and the curb. I went around to the driver’s side and smacked her mirror. It scared the shit out of her since she obviously wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what she was doing. Then I let out a torrent of curses. But her look of surprise and hurt kind of made me feel like an asshole.

So I decided today to try and be nice on my bike ride to and from work. I wouldn’t call this scary necessarily. It was more difficult and going against what every fiber in my being wants to do.

Tried I did. When a car pulled out in front of me from a driveway, I didn’t yell, I waved. When someone opened their car door right when I was passing by, I didn’t tell them to, “fuck their children,” I said, “Excuse me!”

When a woman made a right turn in front of me from the middle lane, I didn’t call her a “fuck cunt.” I said, “Please watch where you’re going” as I rode by.

It was one of the hardest things to do. I’m so used to reacting on my bike. Just pure emotion. But today I had to think, check my emotions and try to be reasonable. I guess I felt good. Not good because I was being nice to these assholes. Good because I thought I was doing the right thing.

But when I was almost home and this woman pulled in front of me and slammed her brakes when she realized she couldn’t squeeze through to make her turn, I couldn’t help calling her a “dirty fucking fuck.”

And it felt good. Really good.

I guess you can’t win them all.

#345 Start a Web Series

I had an idea for a Web Series called “Death and Me” where I was roommates with Death. That’s the whole reason why I borrowed the infamous wizard costume robe almost a year ago. I went back on forth on various details about the series. How should Death talk? Should he talk at all? Was I going to talk? What kind of tone would it be?

I kept putting it off because of it. Today I realized that I had only about 3 weeks left to make this happen. So I went ahead and put something together today. I think it’s fine. Not great and nothing like the elaborate ideas I had before. But it was done and at the very least it’s gotten the ball rolling.