Story Slam: My People

My latest Story Slam piece relating the tale of how I ended up leading a trip of the Society of Black Engineers to NASA and then finding my way into a bad movie group.



The picture in question:

Story Slam: Battle Scars

A new Story Slam piece, this time about my first reporting gig for Rustbelt Radio in Pittsburgh. I was covering the protest of the third anniversary of the Iraq War, an event that was, maybe unsurprisingly, framed by the specter of state violence.

Story Slam: I Dare You

After seven months, I finally return to the Story Slam stage with a variation on a story I told nearly five years ago. Since my 20 year high school reunion is next year, it only seems fitting to return to the capstone story of my high school experience and talk about being the lookout as my friend hung a banner off the school roof.

Story Slam: DIY

A new Story Slam piece just over 4 months later! I really want to get back on that wagon. This is me talking about Dungeons & Dragons as entrancement, escape, and an alternative to small-town life. Also the KKK. An alternative to the KKK. But that's a really small part of the story.

Story Slam: Missed Connections

I finally return to the Story Slam stage, not fully sure how to do it anymore. A story about my worst roommate situation ever. Not included: them stealing from me, selling my things, and dealing drugs out of the house. They were left out because they were not the worst things that happened!

Story Slam: Scary

The story of one of the scariest things to happen to me on one of my previous jobs, and one of the moments that was supposed to scare me from my current job.

Story Slam: Evolution

My latest Story Slam piece, this time about being fat, forever fat. I tied for first and lost in a sudden-death one-minute story-off about broccoli. That almost seems like a story in and of itself.

Story Slam: Second Opinion

My first Story Slam piece since December of last year! I had some rough months there, y'all.

To make that sound less dramatic, competition to have your name pulled from the bucket to tell a story skyrocketed after First Person Arts started giving $100 to the night's winner (side note: I have not told a winning story since they announced the cash prize). Naturally, that affects the math of telling a story. So, on the nights when I felt like I had a story for the theme AND time to get out to the event AND actually made it out there, I didn't have my name pulled.

Anyway, here's the story relating some of my experience of being sent to the emergency room four years ago and the strange historical context that it's tied up in. This is a story I need to write up as an essay so I can actually explore the motif of fathers and sons that naturally recurs as well as the idea that President Obama and all the Republican candidates are moral voids.

Story Slam: Family Matters

Here's my story from the Family Matters Story Slam. I was the host and just passed along an anecdote about my grandfather's hobo days.

Story Slam: Mischief

Happy Halloween Boogins! Here's my latest story, just in time for the last minute of the holiday. Go ahead, imagine me naked. Terrifying.

For extra Halloween weekend fun, here are all the posts I did in my Public Domain (PD) Project. Lots of free horror and sci-fi films. That work may finally be coming to something, but for right now, enjoy yourselves!

Story Slam: Animal

My latest piece, slightly delayed. I told this story as the host of the evening, which was a lot of fun and a real honor. The piece itself is about my dog kicking me in the balls. I don't know why the thumbnail looks like I'm giving a Nazi salute.

Story Slam: Lost in Translation & Wild Things

Two pieces. First, "Lost in Translation." A piece I'd originally intended to tell for the theme "Awkward," the reasons for which will become obvious upon listening. Re: being naked on the Internet, that's a story I haven't told yet.

Second, "Wild Things." This piece relates a moment I've been chewing on for a bit and something that I think will be part of a longer fiction piece although, as is the case in most of my fiction (but not non-fiction), in the end no one returns and no one is saved.

Story Slam: Sundry Pieces

I realized I haven't posted the various Story Slam pieces I've done over the past few months, so here they are.

First, The Great Outdoors where, for me, stepping out into the wild unfamiliar means going to New York with friends from Indiana.


Next, my piece from the Grand Slam whose theme was Dilemma. This is the story of my first two trips to the Indiana Academy.


Third, Liar Liar, where I try to tell a story about how we all ultimately lie about ourselves to ourselves in mixtape form. I hadn't rehearsed, hadn't sorted it out on paper the way I wanted, and, just reviewing the video to try to remember what the story was, I notice I mumbled a lot, making the story even more unintelligible.


Finally, Busted, the story of the job that broke me.


As a bonus, First Person Arts asked me to write a piece for their blog. Help Me Bro is one of the stories from my time working at a gas station in Houston. Other stories include selling beer-by-the-can at rush hour in little "DUI bags," finding myself the subject of a sting operation, and an itinerant carpenter walking the 45 miles to downtown.

Story Slam: Close Quarters

Story Slam piece about dancing at a gay bar with an ex-girlfriend. Video here. Possibly NSFW so not embedded. Plus the thumbnail gives away the big surprise of the piece.

Story Slam: Power Trips

I won with this story and so will be competing in the next Grand Slam. Honestly, though, not one of my favorite pieces.

Story Slam: Overnight

And back to the regular Story Slams with virtually no break. A story about my most memorable phone call while a DJ at WYEP. This piece was selected as audience favorite.

Story Slam: Power

This is my performance for the Grand Slam competition where I talk about a teacher who tried to have me expelled over a paperwork error. The entire night was full of amazing stories and you can see all of them here.

Story Slam: Free

The story of how I left Houston. This piece won me not only best story for the evening, but audience favorite as well. I was so stoked. I've been trying for a year.

Story Slam: Gifts and Giving

I was dubbed "the hipster Cinderella" after this story. I'll take that. Might even make it my OKCupid username.

I will not, for a variety of reasons, be posting this story to Facebook.

Story Slam: Family Ties

A brief tale of my hobo grandfather: