It’s a simple truth: storytellers tell stories. However, storytellers sometimes forget that they’re not supposed to tell some of the stories they’ve been told. Other times they may or may not have had an adult beverage then completely lose sight of the fact that they need to change (or omit) some names they’ve been told, to protect the infamous. Insolent. I mean, innocent. [Or, maybe all of the above.]
I am a Storyteller. And I will not, for one second, apologize for it. I have, and always will, listened intently, observed and often eavesdropped, all in the name of a good story. You see, for years there has been a small paper sign
taped to my computer that reads “I cannot make this crap up” and I don’t. I don’t have to. Crap just keeps happening all around me. And because I am a storyteller, I am going to tell those tales. I have lots of ‘em, too. One of the beautiful things about being seriously seasoned (and by that, I mean pretty old) is that I have decades of accumulated crap. I mean, stories.
Little by little over the course of my life, I’ve gathered some very large and seriously mucked stalls worth of story material. While it is true that I am a natural born talker, I’ve often kept quiet at dinner tables, in corners and at grand functions taking notes. Copious and extremely detailed notes, I might add. I have also watched the body language of folks who have claimed undying ardor and loyalty of a person, only to have their limbic brains reveal the truth in how they positioned themselves in front of the object of their love (or actual loathing), as their bodies defied the words coming out of their mouth. You cannot believe the amounts of intel I’ve gathered from the internet, intelligentsia and innocent bystanders about characters that walk one walk and talk another talk, often from terribly public platforms. The details and the data of the dossiers of my days are delicious. All of it… quite fascinating stuff, really.
There are days I have asked “Why, oh why?” do these incredibly interesting stories unfold around me – only to hear the sound of my own voice answering such a silly question: Storytellers tell stories and the stories are there for the telling, you storyteller, you.
What’s lovely about the tales I tell — is that I don’t need to resort to any kind of stretching or padding to make them tall or tantalizing. My pal Mark Twain said it best, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Honestly, I could take to the stage before an audience this very weekend and spend at least 90 minutes spooling out the stories housed in my brain, because they’re the gosh-honest truth of events I’ve been witness to and, I’m not gonna lie, I have seen some doozies.
However, the filing system is a bit wonky for these stories and I’m still sorting them out for the telling:
- Charming family fare, appropriate for all ages.
- PG-13 anecdotes that work well in a mixed crowd.
- The ridiculously raucous I-never-write/type/text-expletives / But-I’m-not-always-capable-of-filtering-what-comes-out-of-my-mouth stories that leave listeners gahsnorfling at the raw honesty of the tales told.
- Salacious sagas whispered in secret (or in hair salons) because my own emotions are still a little bit too mixed up to share these stories elsewhere.
Yes, like the guy behind the horse in the parade, I’m still working on the details of everything: compiling, sorting, sifting and editing all of these stories I could not make up (even if I tried) of the famous, the infamous, the insolent and the innocent. Richard Brinsley Sheridan once said, “Fertilizer does no good in a heap, but a little spread around works miracles all over.” So, while I cannot make this crap up – eventually, I can spread it around to see what grows.
xo – t.
“My stories run up and bite me on the leg. I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.” – Ray Bradbury
“Be amusing, never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“Stories are like fairy gold, the more you give away the more you have.” – Unknown