Category: Random

I don’t know where to file these posts.

This Is My Serious Face

Went to The Monti StorySLAM Tuesday night, as is often my wont, and put my name in the hat. The theme was Fear, and you know, there are a million types of fear, but the straight-up scariest thing that’s happened to me in a while was on August 7 of this year. So if I got drawn, I was going to tell that story.

Speaking of fear, you’d think since I hosted the goddamn thing last month my nerves wouldn’t get all jangled just thinking about telling one little story, but you’d be wrong. I sat there listening to the tambourine in my head, sweating sweaty sweats. More than eight people had filled in storyteller slips, so there was no way to know whether I’d be going up on stage anyway, which is worse than knowing. When there are eight names in the hat, you steel yourself in a different way: I will be going; I just don’t know when. This way, I was dealing with either nerves or nerves plus disappointment.

First and second stories were just OK. Third story, woman got up and told a riveting tale about her fear of cancer, its origins (mom’s lymphoma) and coagulation (boyfriend’s lymphoma). Boyfriend’s ended up metastasizing all up in his shit, grapefruit in the chest, tumors on the brain, so when she said a year ago he had a bone marrow transplant and today was in remission, I squealed. Squealed in my chair. And I turned to my friend and said, “She just won the night.”

The next story was awesome too though, a woman came out to her mother, who was perplexed and perturbed by this information, and then adopted a child from Africa. It was funny and poignant and well-constructed. She scored slightly lower than the previous storyteller.

Then there was intermission. Right before the show started up again, Jeff reached into the pitcher and plucked out a piece of paper. “It’s you,” he said. Another word about fear: I’ve always been funny at The Monti. The story I was prepared to tell was not funny. That made me twitchy. So I got to sit there for the next three minutes and concentrate on not being incontinent.

Sure enough, people laughed at a few moments in the beginning of the story, ones that I didn’t intend to be funny, but about forty seconds in, the audience seemed to get that this wasn’t my usual deal. I told the story, and my nervousness morphed into terror because every time I tell that story, I get fucking petrified all over again.

The judges tabulated, and I tied with the lesbian adoptive mom.

Often the scores creep up over the course of the evening, but despite a story about being left on-stage when the lead actor knocked himself out cold, another about a fear of clowns, and a slow-yet-engaging story about a traffic jam in Italy (it’s possible I didn’t hear that whole story, as I was in my chair having a five-minute crush on the storyteller), the placement remained, and I tied for second place. My best finish ever! Maybe I should put my serious face on all the time.

Peeve-iful

Know what I hate? When people try to combine words that don’t go together to promote something.

For example, nail salons called Nailsations. Or Raleigh’s Buzztival, which celebrates local NC honey. I can deal with Scent-sations for your fragrance business, or even Festifall, for your fête to all things autumn. Eat your egg-cellent eggs.

But Subway, right now, is promoting ANYtober, a month during which you can get any foot-long sandwich for $5. That’s some bullshit. Rocktober, yes. ANYtober? Seriously?

Anything with the suffix -tastic that doesn’t rhyme with fan: off limits. Move-tastic, Heel-tastic, Frog-tastic, you’re all out. The only exception is my friend’s weight-lifting shoes, which she had embroidered to say Snatchtastic. That’s hilarious.

Set Rat Thur in That Rockin Cheer

I’m reading aloud Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick to my students. The narrator, a 12-year-old boy named Max, bears a striking resemblance to his convict father (WHO TOTALLY KILLED MAX’S MOTHER IN FRONT OF HIM WHEN HE WAS LITTLE, BUT SHH, THAT’S FOR LATER). Another character comments that he’s the spitting image of his dad, so I was explaining to the kids where the expression “spitting image” came from: originally, people said “spirit and image”, but folks from coastal South Carolina don’t really pronounce their Rs. Voilà. Spittin’ image.

I like to think about the differences in southern dialects. In fact, I hate it when people say, “He has a southern accent.” What is that? Drive from Charleston to the opposite corner of the better Carolina, and you’d NEVER have gotten “spittin’ image”. For your enlightenment, in the Blue Ridge, the Rs are as hard as Sarah Palin’s, fortunately without the flat vowels (shudder), but, yes, Rs are very ARRRRy up yonderrrr.

Also, many monosyllabic words with short vowels get an extra syllable, so ran becomes rayun, pin is peeyun. Actually, both pin and pen are peeyun but if it’s the writing utensil, you say ink peeyun.

I’ll just keep going here. If it’s the first word in a sentence, the word it is pronounced with an H on the front, and since it fits the previous rule, it sounds like heeyut.

Regarding verbiage, you don’t push a button; you mash it, but it’s pronounced with almost a long a: maish. You also don’t turn the light off; you cut it off. And you better lift a fanger when somebody passes you on the road.

And if you ride bus 27 home from Cove Creek School, your bus driver will bang a spelling book against the metal ceiling and yell, Y’all better quieten down. Yep, quieten down, not quiet down. And for a long time, I thought quieten was a word. Years later we’d laugh at her redneck expression. But just now, since spellcheck didn’t pick it up, I looked it up and quieten is totally a word. Go on, Pat Shore, Driver of Bus 27 and Quietener of Children!

Now, one of these days, I’ll have to make a vlog of myself saying these things—ooh! and reenact my phone interview with a principal from Rocky Mount, and you could hear the difference a couple hundred miles make. I won’t right now because I haven’t showered, and I think you could probably smell me through the internet.

My point is: there’s no such thing as a southern accent. There are eleventy-five different southern dialects. (I had to stop watching True Blood because every character had a different southern accent, and only two of them were any good. Would it have been so hard for HBO to hire a dialect coach?)

Y’all wanna sheer (that’s share to you) what people say and how they pronounce thangs in yer neck o’ the woods?

Here’s Your Host

So, last night, I emceed The Monti StorySLAM at Motorco. (See my bio here.)

I’ve spoken about the StorySLAM on the blog before because I’ve told stories at these events four or five times. About two months ago, Jeff, the director of The Monti, said he wanted to talk to me about a guest-hosting opportunity. Up to that point, Jeff had hosted all of the events. For three and a half years! Can you imagine? Coming up with material to fill probably sixty shows? (The host tells stories in between the storytellers.) Jesus H.

Anyway, I thought about it for a while—NO I  DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT—of course I was like, HELL YES.

And then I crapped my pants.

Terrified.

I had never done anything like this before!

That’s a lie. Twelve years ago, I was the Master of Ceremonies for the “musical evening” at my grandparents’ church. With all that experience, why was I so nervous?

Perhaps it was the audience.

And the venue.

And the material.

Cuttyhunk Union Church seated about 75 octogenarian Methodists, who would delight when I said things like, “Up next, playing ‘Begin the Beguine’ on the piano, is Jim Lovell, or as I like to call him, Grandpa!” Motorco holds over 200 people—the vast majority of whom I would not know—and I was planning to mime fellatio during one of my stories.

Anyway, the theme was Good Date/Bad Date, and we all know I have some experience with the latter, so I wrote up a few things and practiced them out loud a couple times to work out the kinks. (Even though I write like I talk for the most part, there are just some turns of phrase that look good on the screen but don’t roll off the tongue.)

Then I put on some eyeshadow, which I am not qualified to do, headed to Motorco, and conjured some enthusiasm to mask my quaking nerves.

My friends showed up. Like a boss. I had probably 20 friends there. Also my sister. And my dad. Who got to watch me mime fellatio so that was fun.

And, you know, I stumbled a time or two, and forgot to get the scores at one point, and had a verbal tic that a loved one, when I prompted her at intermission, pointed out to me so I could attempt to rein it in during the second half.

But overall, it went GREAT. When I left there, I seriously thought, “I don’t know if I will ever fall asleep. Ever again. In my lifetime.” I was so jazzed.

And then I went home and passed the fuck out.

The 521 Slim Taper

I’m a terrible market-ee. Sometimes people will post about the ads that are popping up on their Facebook page or whatever, and every time, I’m like, “There are ads on Facebook?” Swear to god, I never look at the sidebars. It’s like I have a special talent for blocking out advertising.

And yet. In the last week, I’ve noticed

this photo has popped up for me on a number of sites.

Now, why am I noticing this one?

Could be because they’re dudes’ jeans, and I’m wondering why they’re advertising men’s clothing to me?

Could be. But it’s probably because THEY’RE THE UGLIEST THINGS I’VE EVER SEEN.

I’m no fashion plate, clearly, but does anyone not think these are heinous?

Very Superstitious-UPDATED

A bird shat on my head at lunch today. Twice. One bird, twice, or two birds, once each. Either way, I got shat on two times.

Then, on our walk just now, Redford came this close to getting bitten by a snake.

After that, an owl started out of a tree ten feet from us and flew away.

A little while later, Violet nearly tore my arm off because a cat streaked across our path. It was dark so I couldn’t see it very well, but I’m 1,000% it was a black cat.

If anybody needs me, I’ll be under my bed.

UPDATED: At 11:00pm, my car’s panic alarm started going off intermittently and wouldn’t stop when I pressed the button on the fob. Until it did, and then after a random interval (three seconds to four minutes), it would start again. I finally got in and started the car. That made it stop. Except that it would start again when I turned the engine off. I finally drove down to the pawn shop on the corner—I figured my neighbors might be a little perturbed by it—and called Durham PD. Four officers showed up, witnessed the poltergeist, and removed the horn fuse. If it starts up again, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

(I came home, not having locked the dogs up in the spare bedroom like I usually do because I went running out of here so fast. Violet had clearly collected a bunch of my shoes and cuddled with them at different spots around the house. I think she was nervous. Me too, mama.)

The Movie Recap You’ve All Been Wayting For

My friend Matt does hilarious recaps and reviews of terrible movies over at head_of_fema. (My favorite: Sharktopus. And yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.) He invited me over to watch a terrible movie and do a little dueling blog action, and I decided to give it a shot.

We debated between Barbarella and Bloodrayne 3: Third Reich, and ended up choosing the latter because I felt like there might be another time in my life that I would have the opportunity to see Barbarella, but I couldn’t imagine any other circumstances under which I would see the third installment in the Bloodrayne series.

I let Matt know that I had not seen the first two movies, but he said that didn’t matter because turns out, the setting, character arc, and rules of vampirism are all completely different in each movie.

[UPDATE: After several reader complaints, I must amend this post to make you aware that it contains spoilers. A lot of ’em. All of ’em.]

We begin. In a gauzy opening sequence, Rayne’s voice-over explains her origin mythology: vampire dad raped mom who then gave birth to half-vampire baby Rayne. Didn’t know that could happen, but it totally can. Meanwhile, another monster—besides herself, I guess—is on the rise: HITLER. Yes.

Lots of scenes of Jews walking into warehouses, working, standing in boxcars when suddenly—

Head Nazi: “Why isn’t this fucking train moving?” You want to know why the train isn’t moving? Because a pair of giant tits with swords is ready to take issue with your treatment of those Jews. Rayne and her breasts pull some whirling, kicking Cuisinart action on those Nazis.

Slice!

Dice!

And machine guns!

Wait, what? Here’s what: Just when Rayne had decided to whoop some ass, a rebel group had the same idea. That’s where the machine guns came from. Serendipitous teamwork high-five!

Rayne impales an officer and bites the shit out of his neck. He will henceforth be referred to as NVC (Nazi Vampire Commandant), which is kind of a misnomer because I guess he doesn’t become a full-on vampire, more sort of a vamp-mestizo. Like, he can go out during the day as long as he’s wearing a leather hoodie.

Cut to a different officer who enters an operating room to find Ron Howard’s brother (Dr. RHB from now on) poking and prodding a tethered vampire and speaking in an accent that can only be described as half-The Brain/half-Cheech.

The officer and Dr. RHB go to see NVC, who beats the crap out of them both. Dr. RHB is spared only when he shouts, “I can help you with your transition!” (“Like a tranny,” Matt says.)

Rayne meanwhile is getting a sexy massage in a whorehouse. She takes a break to give a john who is beating up his lady of the night a taste of his own medicine. Then she goes back to her room and gets Appreciation Cunnilingus from another of the hookers.

An enterprising whore goes to ask NVC for help ousting the madame, whose position she’d like to usurp, in exchange offering information on Rayne’s whereabouts. NVC is looking for Rayne because he wants to inject her blood into Hitler to make him even more powerful. It’s unclear how the whore would know that, but that’s what’s up. NVC snacks on the prostitute’s neck, and Dr. RHB puts her in a cage and tells her, “Times, they are a-changing.” Oh yes he does.

This sentiment is echoed in the next scene when Rayne tells Nathaniel, leader of the insurgent group, “I’ve been hunting down the undead for a long time. It’s about to get seriously fucking complicated.”

Word. I got mad confused after that. I don’t know, a blond codebreaker kills an officer; NVC bites a different one and sends him to track Rayne; the codebreaker gets kidnapped; NVC makes a speech about tricking the gods.

Rayne says, “In war, emotions run high, and it should.” The high emotions must’ve caused the parallel structure problems in that line of dialogue.

Nathaniel and Rayne are captured and put in the back of a truck. So they have sex. Then when the truck crashes, they jump out, ’cause the door wasn’t locked. The rebel group comes down, guns a-blazin’. Rayne gets her swords back(?), and—slash—a Nazi’s guts come out like sausage links. Dr. RHB gets shot. NVC shouts, “I AM THE PRODIGAL SON OF THE THIRD REICH. I HAVE POWER INCARNATE,” so Rayne throws him to the ground and smashes his head with a big rock. I would have too because what did that even mean?

The rebels and Rayne go off in search of more Nazis. And when they find some, Rayne jumps out of the truck with a hearty “Guten tag, motherfuckers!”

The end.

I know I have a lot to learn from the head_of_fema, but for my first try, how’d I do?

Hail to the Brightest Star of All

I made my entrance to this bright world in a little hospital in Blowing Rock and grew up listening to Cove Creek gurgle by.

I rode Old Highway 421 to Boone to take ballet, tap, and jazz weekly at the Dancer’s Corner and made out with Robbie in his Volvo in Foscoe every chance I could get.

I attended the University of National Champions in Chapel Hill, camping out on the hard sidewalk outside the Dean Dome for basketball tickets, ordering Greek grilled cheese at Hector’s at 2:00am, and sweating my way through eight shows in the Lab! Theatre.

I flew away to Italy, Mexico, and New York Fuckin City, but I kept finding my way back to the Tar Heel State.

For five years, I taught fourth graders how to lose at tetherball on Seawell School Road, then wended my way out to my little mill house in Hillsborough and ran my dogs all over Occoneechee Mountain.

These days, I work out, go out, and tell stories in Bull City. I drive up Roxboro, down Mangum, and across Club Boulevard.

I’ve been to Asheville and Kure Beach and a lot of places in between, and I love. This. State.

I love North Carolina.

But today my state government voted to put hate on the ballot and bigotry on the map on May 8, 2012, and I just couldn’t be more ashamed.