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Welcome to the liveblog for the First Person Arts October StorySlam, live from L’Etage in South Philly. Refresh Early, Refresh Often…

7:41 p.m. - Doors opened at 7:30pm and this place is already full. It’s a chatty crowd, which is probably a good thing since ten of them are going to tell stories tonight.

7:51 p.m. - Relatively dodgy interweb connection means that adding links, like the ones I just added to the top of the page, isn’t going to happen very often tonight.

7:53 p.m. - Audience at-a-glance. 20’s - 30’s. Pretty even split male/female (a little more female). Mostly white. Gregarious. Dan, one of the organizers sez there’s plenty of new faces tonight.

8:00 p.m. - Thirty minutes to go. Just met Susan, who’s been to a bunch of these before but has never told a story but hopes to tonight. She’s the subject of one of the five minute docs that has been submitted for the First Person Festival in November. Will link to that contest, which is pretty cool, when I get a chance. Her friend Linda, sitting next to her, has a workshop in that festival called “Portrait of a Thing” about creating memorials to lost items. Plenty of cool people here.

8:11 p.m. - Seriously considering stealing tuna from plate behind me. There’s no way that lady’d notice, right? Had a big dinner, but that food smells good.

8:17 p.m. - A couple of words about the space. We’re in a cafe on the second floor of a creperie. There’s a beautiful red curtain (Dr. Wife would love this - big fan of red) opening onto a wide, deep stage with enough room for extra seating - about twenty folks will be looking at the speaker from behind. The room is very warm (atmosphere-wise, not temperature). If I ever have an upstairs cafe, it’s totally looking like this.

8:20 p.m. - Dan is announcing that there’ll be a battle of the winners of all the previous storyslams at the first person festival in november. They’re selling tix now. It’s called what it has to be called…the Grand Slam.

8:23 p.m. - Someone just yelled out above the din, “Feed me, mommy penguin!” For some reason, I refuse to turn around to see who.

8:30 p.m. - Standing room only. And not a whole lot of that.

8:37 p.m. - The theme tonight is horror stories. If I were telling a horror story, it would probably be the one about being stopped by security at Toronto airport. Or maybe that time I stepped on glass and didn’t realize it until I looked down and my sock was red. That was unpleasant.

8:39 p.m. - Game on. Dan is explaining what First Person Arts is. “FPA in the house!” yells somebody. He’s also announcing that StorySlam will stay at L’Etage next year. This is the last slam of ‘07. More on the First Person Festival. Sounds cool. And they just announced me.

8:44 p.m. - Brendan Jones, storyteller, tells us the rules of the game. names picked from hat. five minutes to tell a true story. at four minutes, you get the cowbell. can’t use any notes. have to go with the halloweeny horror theme.

the judging: 1. performance 2. craft 3. how close to theme 4. time limit - these are the criteria.

Now he’s picking the judges from a bucket. They each get little trays with the words “We are judging you” written on big cards on them.

This is like a poetry slam. You are encouraged to respond to the stories.

8:48 p.m. - first person picked - Rob Murray

Horrors of Illiteracy; got sunburned in Florida; his Dad didn’t realize that instead of Noxema, had rubbed white shoe polish on his son’s back; had to be scraped (gulp) off; gets a casper ghost toy from host to complement his complexion.

Gets a 6, 6.5 and 6.5 from judges.

8:53 p.m. - Susan got picked!

Describing being in a tunnel with a cold butt; she’s not sure what’s going on; hears voices; sees a shaggy guy wearing a members only jacket; it’s John Belushi; pointing at a cupcake, then pointing at her; now he’s talking about “other tests, other opinions”; he says there’s not enough time (and the bell rings just then, perfect!); “I’m telling you, I’m your surgeon, you have breast cancer”

(Kind of hard to liveblog that story, but essentially it’s a very subjective description about her finding out she was diagnosed with breast cancer)

Scores: 7,8,5.5 (the audience doesn’t like the 5.5)

9:00 p.m. - Julie O’Dell (sp?)

Grad school in Mississippi; finds a great deal apt; cat likes to hide under the house; Julie gets fleas trying to get him out; finds out by having sheets stick to ankles because of the - wait for it - dried blood; decides to bomb fleas, roaches in kitchen;comes back - ground is wall to wall cockroaches, all kinds; the eerie quiet she heard when she came back was the fact that they weren’t moving in the walls anymore; (over time now); her cat unplugs the fridge; everything has rotted; calls her boyfriend; boyfriend has no olfactory sense; cleans fridge

Scores: 8, a fish and a 9.69, and an 8

9:08 p.m. - Lou

Ghost stories; His mom did laundry for tenants; in laundry room - sees a glowing cobweb that moves up the stairs past her when she arrives; finds out someone related (grandmother) just died; goes to her brother’s room; he’s just had a dream about that person moving to him; knew the call was about her; next day woman sees grandmother lying on bed in mirror behind her.

Scores: 5.5, 7, 6.pineapple (they’re getting creative with the scores - or drunk)

9:14 p.m. - Brendan holds up some of the prizes they’re giving out and has the audience make appropriate noises (will explain later)

Michael’s turn

The theme from Jaws - he starts out by singing it; talks about Jaws for a bit; watched it when he was “way too fucking young” to be watching it; talks about witch and monsterproofing his mattress and sheets as a boy; dads are not as powerful as Jaws; became scared of baths after Jaws; (he’s very good at this); tries to explain to dad; “there’s no such thing as baby sharks, now get your head under the water” is the response; then his dad yells at him “Baby sharks! Baby sharks!” and freaks him out; dad laughs his ass off; audience lurves it.

Scores: 7-ish; 9.5 and picture of Jaws; 9 and picture of Jaws

And now we take a break.

9:24 p.m. - Okay, so to explain the prizes thing. Everyone who speaks gets a little halloweeny tchochke like straws with pumpkins on them or a fuzzy bat (mammal, not sports equipment).

9:31 p.m. - One thing I’m learning as I do this, it is extremely hard to sum up a story as you listen to it, so if these synopses are a little less than coherent, I apologize.

9:34 p.m. - Someone is holding up a sign giving the judges a 0.0. Update; Jill (an organizer and the one who invited me here) points out that actually says 10.0. (slight difference)

9:43 p.m. - And we’re back. They announce me again and some guy yells out DDT! Host asks us for Halloween costumes. Fish stick. Land Shark. Exit strategy. this spurs some latex jokes.

9:45 p.m. - Someone put the host’s name in the bucket. Hee.

Henry goes up. This guy asked me to look up horror on wikipedia earlier but the internet was broken. Points out that horror begins with “ho”. A ’saddlebag ho’ takes his seat at a fiction slam; mentions as an aside that he’s not having kids due to rage issues; now he’s talking about liking clown and midget porn; the saddlebag ho was apparently very rude and grinding into him; (this is kind of rambling); now he’s on about Ben and Jerry’s and sellout hippies.

Scores: 5 with a question mark, 7.5, 6.5 with an incomprehensible drawing

9:51 p.m. - Ingrid

A horror story in three acts; act one: getting driven home from her job at Azteca at 18 by some cute asshole busboy; she was a runaway; could tell he could be suicidal; tries to empathize with the busboy, frank, but he’s being a dick; act two - he invites her over; says yes to kiss his ass cos he’s the head busboy; stench upon arrival; his cat died in radiator; refuses to go in; sees cops at work later; smell was actually frank’s dead mom on whom he’d been shitting for about a week. I think that was the third act. wow.

Scores: 9, 8.5, 10

9:58 p.m. - Brendan, the host, is telling a story now about a halloween party; he’s with some friends in leather miniskirts and spandex but some random guy in a kimono was the life of the party.

Next storyteller is Andy. Spring; Goes up to parents’ cabin; wearing flannels; yelling at people “hey, you like flannels?”; he’s doing some great imitations of the animals in the woods; shooting cans and chopping wood; goes for a walk with friends at night; steals flashlight for a lark and runs off - freaks out friends; shits himself; his friends smell it and throw up three times;

Scores: 6, 6 in clock form; 4.0

10:05 p.m. - Ben

12 years old in Milwaukee; Fun uncle; Hospital manager; Visited uncle dan with sister; looked like Magnum PI; house he’d rented was recently vacated by eccentric old lady; she died in the house; her stuff still there; painting of Jesus with JFK (got to see that); had lots of wigs; uncle dan and girlfriend adrian there; ben in guest bedroom; old lady died in guest bedroom; probably same bed; no closet - just dwarf door to hideaway; hears knock on bedroom door; opens it and nobody there; hears tapping on door - from dwarf door; (this is freakin’ creepy); squeaking coming from dan’s room - dan ain’t knocking; didn’t have courage to open dwarf door; stayed awake with lights on all night long; next morning - opens door; screams; it was hundreds of wigs; house he lives in now - has dwarf doors with crawlspaces behind them - never goes there after dark.

Scores: 9, 7, 8.5

That was the first really scary halloween story

10:14 p.m. - Stephanie

Talks to mom recently; decides to tell horror story; mom’s second marriage; stepfather started out nice; got mean; racist; stepsister erica referred to as “erotica” (creepy); started watching stephanie sleep; started sleeping with door closed; mom didn’t ask; stepdad would crack door back open; stephanie didn’t tell anyone; scared; at 15, wakes up, he’s standing next to bed with one hand in his pajamas and another on her - he doesn’t know she’s awake; tells her mom; she says “you must have dreamed it”; everything’s cool now - just came from therapy, actually; but that’s her horror story - (but that’s why, clearly, talking to her mom inspired a horror story)
Scores: 10, 9.0, 8

10:19 - Raffle. Roberta wins a gummi spider and “Honeymoon with my brother” (a book), and what appears to be a pumpkin candle kind of thing.

28.166 points for the winner - Ingrid - the chopped up mom story. Yeah, that’s a good call. She’s given a golden ticket that will get her into the grand slam.

That’s it. Tip your waitresses. G’night!