words & music : telling stories

I’m jealous of people who can make music. Anyone who can sling an instrument over their shoulder or carry it in their back pocket, to pull out and entertain with whenever they want, that’s a gift.

Singer-songwriters get the gift of language and the gift of music and while it doesn’t seem fair to someone like me who cannot hum a tune, stay on beat or even follow a melody well enough so’s anyone else would recognize it – not even your old standards like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star fer chrissakes – while it doesn’t seem fair, I’m happy to roll around in the sheer cloverbeds of their voices and words.

Sitting in small cafes around town listening to this one or that one I want what they have, but all I have are the words.

I have words.

I tried the comedy open mic night, you may remember that because I wrote about it. No one who was actually there remembers however, because I’m funny, but not ha ha funny. I’m Joe Pesci funny, Charles Grodin or David Sedaris funny. I aspire to Spaulding Gray-ness.  I want to be the love child of Damon Runyon and Garrison Keillor and tell stories about tassles and gangsters.

I have stories.

I was raised by a man who saw no good reason to stick to the truth if it didn’t make a good story or help him win an argument. He referred to himself as the Impossible Possible and told stories about carny side shows and side show freaks, ill-fated affairs, motorcycles, pin-up girls, burlesque houses & gypsy tea rooms. To hear my mother tell it all my wrong turns, and there were a lot of them, can be traced back to his wild and woollies. She has a point, he set the bar high. Or low, depending on your viewpoint.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the father. Last night I got the chance to tell a story, which is different than doing a reading. I’m a good writer and will struggle for hours over the turn of a phrase or the placement of a single word. I’m working on the craft of public storytelling, which means giving up the focus on individual words for the impact of images and flow. I got to do it with a few strangers, a few people who love me and some who fell somewhere in between those two extremes. I’ll do it again, hopefully better the next time.

Last night was my father’s Yahrzeit. From where I stand, he set the storytelling bar high. But, I get to tell my stories in a safe place; he told them to make a safe place. I lit a candle for him and his stories.