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Previously on Me…
Hi there, welcome to my first post on the history of me – not a complete history, just a background of who I was and where I was at before I left on my travels. I’ll continue with these posts, through my travels, falling in love, getting home, breaking up and trying to put myself back together again, all the way to where we are today. You can get an idea behind my motivation of why I’m doing this, and why I want to leave Australia, teach English, and continue indefinite adventuring.
You can’t unexperience something, good or bad. I don’t know which you learn more from, or which causes more trauma; to live through a really horrific, violent and hateful situation and to be finally set free, to rehabilitate and learn to live with the physical and mental scars, or having experienced true joy, true happiness, even true love – and losing it. The latter seems to cause a deeper and more insidious pain, but I’m still learning from the experience and so incredibly grateful for it, even for the pain.
It’s a little difficult to describe the person I was before my experiences on my travels and everything that’s happened since then; while some things remain the same, it’s my mind,
As seen on Grindr
Experience is not like theory or abstract concepts or the news that can be ignored, I could ignore that México even existed before I went there; it was just romantic images on a screen or words in a book, cartoons, films and legends. Maybe it’s an Australian
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 2016.
Some not so pleasant experiences that happened to me – I spent several years in an abusive relationship, physically, verbally and mentally. I won’t go in to the details of what that fucker did to me, but it left me pretty broken for a long time, diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar type 2, PTSD, all treated intermittently with too much alcohol or too heavy medication, both of which I was happy to take because it meant I felt nothing, no love no hate no fear no anger – which is probably what kept me in that comfortable hell for so many years. Not to mention, with all that emotional numbness I either never learned or forgot proper coping mechanisms that most adults have to deal with emotional issues, memories, pain and stress – we will come back to that later.
In 2014, I got out, I had to, or I was going to die, one way or another. We remained quasi friends I don’t know why for the next two years till I cut him out altogether during my travels, but finally, I was single, and I loved every minute of it! I got in to shape, and I was banging, or getting banged by, every pretty young thing in Sydney! Well a lot of them weren’t that pretty. And most were older than me. But still, lots of banging, and I was happy. I had a kind of nihilistic confidence, a ‘Yeah I’ll do that, doesn’t look too high, I’ll jump off that, I’ll strip naked on a stage, I’ll fuck what ever ‘cos fuck it we’re all slowly dying anyway!’ kind of confidence. That’s something that’s definitely changed actually, more of an internal change, now the internal monologue reads ‘Every day is a gift, and so are the beautiful wonderful people of the world, I want to get to know them all and explore this amazing place! And who cares if other people don’t like me, it’s time to dance and be happy because I deserve to be happy! So come on, let’s fuck!’. An example of one of the mental shifts that may not be apparent from the outside.
So, what brought me to go adventuring?
I was working as a Research Assistant, my first job I ever had as a result of my degree and starting to make some money, which I feared. I didn’t like the idea of having money, the job was a one year contract and I didn’t want to get to the end of it with some considerable savings only to have it whittled down on bills and food and nonsense. Ever since I was a child I wanted to travel, to live in other countries, and up to this point, aside from a few jaunts in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, my inner child’s been missing out. Thinking of my inner child, I actually had known for some years my first travel destination – The Burning Man Festival in Nevada, U.S.A. – The best place in the world for adults to play! To discover themselves and each other, to appreciate the universe and – wait I’m getting ahead of myself, I didn’t know that and so much more then, that’s for a later post. I don’t know, it was the art, the environment, the music and the philosophy that drew me to the festival, but it was after watching some YouTube videos of people at the festival or having just come back, there was just something, something in their eyes, they knew. And I wanted to know too.
I decided to book my flights, for better or worse, through a travel agent. It was useful actually, having someone to bounce ideas off who was familiar with my trip, especially after it became increasingly complex and expensive (although that was largely after her suggestions). What started off as a week at Burning Man and two weeks split between San Francisco and Vegas ended up as that plus a month and a half in Mexico, a week in Cuba, then back to the States for Halloween in New Orleans before heading home.
I didn’t know what to expect out of my two and a half month holiday to the US, Mexico and Cuba. I was starting my trip, (wink), at Burning Man, heading to Cuba because I like socialism in theory and communist chic in practice, but Mexico was – I can’t say exactly what it was, but I have had this recurrent desire to visit Mexico ever since I can remember, watching the cartoon Mysterious Cities of Gold, as well as the Zorro movies with, ahh… Antonio Banderas, one of my first man-crushes. But in reality, I had no idea what to expect from Mexico, even though I was spending the majority of my holiday there. All I had planned was a week in Mexico City, followed by a tour winding through the south and over into the Mayan Riviera, ending up on the island of Cozumel for two weeks, before heading to Cancun for a few nights. The planning for Burning Man was intensive, which is probably why I was so unprepared for Mexico, which turned out to be a good thing, surprises are what life’s about, more about Burning Man, and surprises, in my next post.
It seemed for a long time, to be such a long time till my holiday, until it was stressfully imminent, and then it was upon me. My parents dropped me off at the airport, I checked in and did all the super fun airport stuff, that would become oh just so much more fun with each and every leg (SYD – LA, LA – Los Vegas, Vegas – Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City – Reno – Thanks Delta!). I had no idea what to expect, I knew it would be amazing, and I knew I would have crazy, wild experiences, but honestly, I could not have dreamed, hoped, and sometimes not even wanted the experiences that happened to me. After you have seen how good it can be, that’s all you want, and that is painful.
The moment I set foot on that plane, nothing would be the same again.
LIVE – Part Two, NOW HEAR THIS, 31 July 2013.
LIVE
Mel Tait, ‘Now Hear This’ Promo
By Jacob Harrison
Part Two – Now Hear This, 31 July 2013.
It had been a long day. Ugg wiped the sweat off his protruding, Neanderthal brow as he entered his cave, carrying the carcass of a Sabre-tooth tiger over his broad, hairy shoulders. He and the lads had been fighting the mighty cat since the early morning, and Ugg was relieved to be home with his kin. Cousin Err was visiting from a cave in a neighbouring valley, and once their bellies were full with tiger meat, Err regaled the cave with stories of high adventure. Ugg would be taken on a journey without leaving the cave, a journey across time and space that would sooth his sore feet, calm his nerves and lull him to sleep….
Skip ahead, sometime after the Epic of Gilgamesh. I climbed the final flight of stairs leading to The Attic of the Arthouse Hotel in Pitt Street, Sydney. It had been a long day, first week back at university after the mid-year break and I wasn’t used to the early 10AM starts. I wiped the sweat off my protruding, Neanderthal brow as I entered The Attic, then after taking my overcoat off my broad, hairy shoulders I accepted the piece of paper offered to me by Amanda, the friendly young woman on the door to Now Hear This. I made my way to the bar for a scandalously expensive but luckily delicious lemon, lime and bitters.
After waiting for the change that never came, I turned around and was met by a familiar face. We glared at each other for a few moments until it clicked where we knew each other from.
‘Hi, Belinda?’ I stated/asked.
‘Hi! We met at the Writer’s Centre last week didn’t we….?’
‘Jacob’
‘That’s right. Are you going to tell a story tonight?’
I thought about it, but no I said. I used this blog as an excuse – I wanted to get an idea of the range of different story telling experiences Sydney has to offer, and then commit to telling a story.
Belinda made her way back to her peeps as I surveyed the room for a seat. It was a full house, warm and cosy as only a pub can be in the wintertime. The Attic was a nice space for a storytelling night; about the size of a small-medium sized pub, with high lead-lined ceilings and soft light that illuminated the broad mix of characters that made up the audience. Hipsters and arty types mixed with suits and preppies of all ages, everyone very relaxed, very friendly. I could see myself telling a story to these gentle folk.
The Attic Bar
I found a seat and sipped my LLB, getting my pen and pad ready for notes. I had a look at the paper Amanda had given me. In between story tellers, the host reads out short, anonymous stories written on slips of paper that asked a question on the nights theme. Tonight’s question: “When were you completely, utterly, absolutely busted?” Jesus Christ where do I begin!? Busted doing what? How much detail do I give? And what is actually meant by busted? It could mean a million things! Is there a word limit? Luckily at that moment I got a tap on the shoulder – It was Sheila, another panelists from the talking writing event and a producer of Now Hear This.
‘So what do you do? Are you a writer? Are you telling a story tonight?’
‘Well I’m studying again, I try to write when I have the chance – I started up a blog recently…’
I told Sheila about this project, she introduced me to Mel Tait, producer and Host of Now Hear This and asked if I could use the photos of the night for my blog
‘Sure, Hi, I’m Mel, do you want to tell a story tonight?’
This was an ongoing theme of the night – who are you, what do you do, are you telling a story. It was good, I got to hone my bio with each introduction.
‘No not tonight, this is my first time.’
‘Next time?’ Mel Asked.
‘Next time.’ I replied.
‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling’ the noise of a pen in a wine glass cut through the soft pub banter. The Show was about to begin.
Mel introduced the night, and explained how it works, ‘Each story teller gets five minutes to tell a true story that happened to them relating to tonight’s theme which is?
‘Busted!’ the audience answered collectively.
Mel Tait show casing one of the prizes.
Photos by Ross Waldron
‘Very good! Our esteemed judges will score our story tellers, then at the end of the night Sheila will add up the scores, first, second and third place get a prize!’ Mel introduced the three teams of judges, ‘The Passionfruits’, ‘The Fudges’ and ‘The Totes Lol’s’
Mel Called out the first story teller, ‘Christian Remo. Christian Remo?’ But there was no Christian Remo in the house. Mel moved on to the next name – Tiger Webb.
‘Metal handcuffs on cold skin.’ Tiger began.
Tiger told the story of being 18, shirtless and shitfaced in Vancouver, 2008. Tiger was representing Australia at the World Ultimate Frisbee Championships, which he described as ‘something rich, white people did before the GFC hit’. Being the last night before returning home it was time to party, but there was a problem. Although of legal age in Australia, in Vancouver the legal drinking age is 19 – such an odd number – Tiger found himself separated from his team mates and being arrested for underage drinking, but things soon got worse. Another interesting legal fact about Canada – Did you know that urinating in public is considered a sex crime in Canada? Well, neither did Tiger.
Tiger Webb. Photos by Ross Waldron
Tiger managed to get back to his hotel the next morning to find his team mates and his belongings had already checked out. Thankfully his team mates had got word of Tiger’s predicament, packed his bag, booked him a later flight and let the world know via Facebook that Tiger had been ‘BUSTED!’ by the Canadian Mounties.
A pretty great story to start on, and Tiger was met applause and three scores of 8.5 – what are the odds of that?
The next story came from Tom Hadley, a lad with a red beret and Welsh accent.
‘The swinging sixties never came to the Welsh valleys, because we were already promiscuous.’ Tom told us about the time his parents had gone away for the weekend when he was 17, leaving him home alone – well not quite alone. He and his girlfriend were upstairs in his parents’ bedroom when they heard a knock on the door. Tom thought, ‘Shit, I’m (with the crowd) Busted!’ It must have been his girlfriend’s Dad – who else could it be? Being an engineer, Tom had a cunning plan. His girlfriend slid down the wall outside the bedroom window, however this managed to rip her stocking and cut her leg quite badly. Tom made his way downstairs, let her in the back door so it didn’t look like they were coming down from upstairs together and answered the front door. It wasn’t his girlfriend’s Father at the door, but his Sister, in tears after leaving her husband. The couple showed her in, and consoled her over a cup of tea, everyone ignoring the elephant in the room – his girlfriends ripped stocking and cut leg, now bleeding profusely. Years Later, When Tom found himself consoling his sister again after leaving her second husband, he asked if she remembered it.
Tom Hadley. Photos by Ross Waldron
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘it was quite obvious you two were busted!’ Tom returned to his seat, making his way through the applause. Mel announced, ‘Tom gets the Best Accent Award’, to which Tom yelled out ‘I put it on!’
During the first two stories, Christian Remo had been discovered and it was now his turn to take the mic. ‘This is a story about race relations in America.’ Christian told the story of being a young, white college kid in Connecticut. Christian’s roommate was an über stoner, but that was ok because his Dad was an über lawyer. One day Christian and his roommate were buying pot from two dealers in the street, they happened to be African-American. Suddenly the police show up, the boys move back and the police start questioning, and then arresting the dealers. The police finally turn to the boys, who knew Christian’s flatmate and they knew who his Father was. They accepted that the boys were ‘just passing by’, no further questions. Christian ended the story with ‘When you’re a white kid who’s friends with a stoner who’s dads a big time lawyer, you can get away with a lot.’, receiving a respectable 8, 8.5,and 8.25 from the judges.
The next story was from Kathrine McClellan, recounting a childhood visit to Sydney. After the journey from Bowral.
Kathrine McLellan. Photos by Ross Waldron
Kathrine’s family finally arrived at the hotel. The first thing Kathrine and her Mum did was change in to their swimmers and jump in the pool – a perfect way to relax after a long day. After her swim, Kathrine went looking for her Mum’s hair dryer, she started looking through her Mum’s bag when she found a little green box. Inside the little green box there was a collection of little, white, bullet looking things, with tiny little strings attached. On the outside of the box was a warning ‘use at own risk’. Straight away Kathrine knew what they were. ‘Mum’s on drugs! She exclaimed aloud; Kathrine’s Mum worked as a lab technician, so she was thinking it was a Breaking Bad situation. Kathrine gave her Mum the cold shoulder for the rest of the afternoon.
The next morning, Kathrine had a moment alone with her Brother, she told him the big secret, ‘Mum takes drugs!’ Kathrine proceeded to show her 11-year-old brother what she had discovered.
‘No, those are tampons!’
‘What are tampons?’
Kathrine’s eleven year old Brother with one sex education class under his belt realised at this point he was going to have to explain to his little Sister what tampons were.
After he explained what he knew about the menstrual cycle and what she had to look forward to, Kathrine wished they were drugs!
The crowd cheered, and Kathrine received the highest scores so far:
The Passionfruits – 9.5.
He Fudges – 9.25.
The Totes Lols – 9.
It was time for the intermission, the crowd was friendly and booze had made people all the more hospitable. I was newly single, I was sober, in a pub amongst smart people with similar tastes – I was intimidated. No, intimidated is the wrong word, but tonight I didn’t have the crutch that a partner or alcohol provides. I just didn’t know what to do, what people do, or what happens. Last time I was single in a pub I was a shit-faced ever-ready bunny and everything was so much easier. I guess I told stories back then, but they were one-on-one, highly exaggerated and no one clapped when I finished.
Courtesy of Now Hear This
Me and my Beanie, taking notes. Photos by Ross Waldron
Anyway, I got talking to people. I talked to a guy, Roger (or Rashad, I’m not sure, it was a pub), a civil servant from Canberra who studied microbiology or molecular biology at uni. I talked to a few of Mel’s friends, including Kathrine McLellan, and congratulated her on a great story. It really was a warm, happy crowd, and everyone was eager to talk. It seemed split pretty evenly down the middle between people who had been to plenty of live, storytelling events before and people who had never been. Live story telling is trending, strange, that when people have access to more and more content on a variety of rectangles that perhaps the oldest form of content delivery is having a renaissance. But this wasn’t exactly like Ugg listening to stories in a cave, more like kids telling stories in a tree house. Up in the attic telling stories, it was adults at play.
Marie McMillan. Photos by Ross Waldron
The first story teller after the break was Marie McMillan, a bescarfed lady with a slight English accent, she reminded me of a very camp, theatrical Sir Ian McKellan – like when he plays himself on Extras. Marie recounted several occasions when her approach to parenting got her ‘Busted!’ For example, she thought that ‘heads, shoulders knees and toes’ was a little simple for her children, deciding to teach them the parts of the body in Latin instead, so when her Daughter fell over at school, and the teacher asked her why she was crying she was able to say precisely ‘I fell on my rectum!’ She was so entertaining, telling her story with such animation and delivery, it’s hard to do justice with just a picture.
Marie received some great scores from the judges, and as the night proceeded the scores became all the more unyielding,
‘9.25’ The Passionfuits called out.
’11!’ from The Fudges, much to Shelia’s anger.
’Nope, I’m making that a ten!’ Shiela snapped back.
‘7’ from the Totes Lols.
The next story teller was Peter Grzic, with a story that could have been out of a nightmare.
Peter Grzic. Photo by Ross Waldron
‘Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to sky dive.’ Not Only did Peter want to skydive, he wanted to do it solo. For his eighteenth birthday his family got him a skydiving course, and after learning the correct way to fall out of a plane, the big day of his first solo jump arrived. The instructor explained to Peter that when you pull the rip cord, you pull it all the way out of the harness, but make sure to hold on to the handle – not a safety issue, but they charge you for the rip cord if you loose it. Peter being an eighteen year old uni student was determined not to fork out money for a rip cord.
Peter jumped out of the back of the plane, and his instructor jumped right after. Peter was having the time of his life, floating around, making sure to keep his eye on the horizon, and then the time came to pull the cord. Peter Pulls the cord and waits for the parachute to deploy. And he waits. Little did Peter know, a small spring had become jammed in the parachute. At this point his instructor jumped on to Peter’s back, put his knee down on it and ripped open his parachute – Peter at this point completely unawares.
It wasn’t till Peter and the instructor got back to the centre that the instructor explained that his parachute was ‘busted’. Strangely enough Peter’s first reaction was ‘Cool!’. It wasn’t until he had packed up his gear and returned it to the counter and the lady asked, ‘Where’s your rip cord?’ He remembered having it at 3000 ft. after he had pulled it out, but he didn’t know what happened to it, so he begrudgingly handed over the fifty dollars for it. Later when he got home he replayed the incident in his head, trying to figure out what happened to his rip cord – he had dropped it when the instructor had shaken him!
Peter told a great story, and told it well earning him an outstanding 9.5, 9.5 and a 9.5.
Next, Helen Townsend told us a heartfelt story from her past. Helen was always called the fat kid in school. The cute uniform never fit properly, and from the age of thirteen she became a connoisseur of diets. By the age of 20 she had begun the ‘Ice-cream diet’ – essentially all she could eat during the day was apples or ice-cream.
Helen Townsend. photo by Ross Waldron
It was 1967; one half of Helen’s mind was obsessed with sex and radical politics, the other half with food and dieting. She worked across the road from Woolworths, and outside Woolworths was an old jockey scale operated by a creepy man, a man that knew her well – she had herself weighed a few times a week there, ‘it was a special kind of public humiliation.’
On Thursdays, Hellen would creep past the jockey scale guy to get in to Woolworths to see the “Liquorice Lady”. ‘She was sex, with immaculate red lipstick and black beehive hairdo’. The Liquorice Lady extolled the virtues of her special organic, exotic liquorice, it would take the waste products from your system and improve your complexion. ‘The samples were free, it must have been partly my neurosis and partly my Scottish heritage, but I couldn’t walk away from that. ‘
One day though, as she took a piece of liquorice from the tray, the Liquorice Lady grabbed her arm and hissed ‘I KNOW you! You take, take, take, but you never buy!’
Helen quickly pulled away and made for the door, ‘As I made my way through the aisles of Woolworths all I could hear in my head was Fat Girl! Fat Girl! Fat Girl! I’ve never told that story to anyone. Not till tonight, forty-five years later.’
There was resounding applause, and the scores reflected the audience’s engagement, with 9.5 from The Passionfruits, a typically complicated 9.357 from The Fudges, and 8.75 from the Totes Lols
Tim Dennis told the penultimate story, about a road trip through country NSW. He was driving through a tiny town with his mates in the back of his ute. They passed some kids in the street, who started yelling and flipping the lads the finger, generally being brats. The lads laughed, turned around and went for another drag down the main street, more kids are there doing the same thing, and the lads were revving them up. They turn around again, and even more kids doing the same thing.
Tim Dennis. Photo by Ross Waldron.
They drive on to the motel, but need to go out for grog. They jump back in the ute and find a drive through bottlo. After they enter the drive through, another ute enters the opposite end so he can’t drive on. Tim looks in his rear view mirror and sees legs kicking out of his ute as some guy tries to get in, another guy approaches Tim, leans through the window and CRACK, lands a punch on Tim’s jaw. This was the first time Tim has ever been really punched.
They managed to get back to the motel, but still needed to get some more supplies. They head back out, Tim’s driving and the lads are in the back. As they’re driving, a siren goes off, and Tim is pulled over by cops. It probably would have been fine, but Tim’s mates jumped out of the ute and ran off, leaving Tim ‘BUSTED!’
Tim was fine, he was taken to the station but he wasn’t over the limit or anything, still he had to walk back to the ute – 6 km or something. He got back to the motel, asked how many drinks his mates had, they said around nine or ten. Tim lined up eight shots – he remembers the first five. Next thing he remembered, he was being held by his pony tail vomiting on the toilet.
Tim received a 9, a 7.75, and a 8.25.
The final story of the night came from CJ. CJ approached the mic and spoke.
‘I can barely speak, but I can…. I like feet. Did you know there are 26 bones in the foot?. Breasts are boring!’ He made his pro feet, anti breast agenda very clear over the next minute or two, when he received a suggestion from the audience.
‘How about a story?’ someone asked.
I won’t get in to the fine details, but he essentially had a naughty dream about feet while he was on a plane. Then he walked off, receiving a 7, 7.25, 7.25.
‘That’s one of the great things about Now Hear this, we don’t know what kind of stories we’ll get – that’s also why we don’t go out live!’ Mel laughed as she returned to the microphone. Sheila tallied the scores and came up with the final verdict.
Host Melanie Tait.
photo by Ross Waldron
‘In third place, we have Helen Townsend (Liquorice Lady Story).
‘In Second place – Kathrine McLellan (Tampons Story)
‘And finally, in first place we have Peter Grzic!’ (Parachute Story, Listen to it here: ‘Busted’ PETER GRZIC (Slam Winner))
Mel thanked the story tellers, congratulated the winners and wished Sheila a fond farewell – it was her last Now Hear This before heading overseas. The audience, now exhausted after maintaining a state of perpetual applause, began to slowly clear the room. It was a school day tomorrow after all.
I did the rounds as The Attic cleared out. Again and again that night I was asked ‘What do you do?’ With each introduction the idea became more cemented into my head. ‘I’m a Writer and Screen Editor. Mostly creative non-fiction at the moment. At the moment? No, I’m studying again, full-time. When I finish? Well I’d like to get in to documentary film making. Yeah, I had a great night, next month? Yep I’ll be here, fingers crossed I’ll be telling a story…’
I saw Belinda on the way out and told her more about my blog idea, she recommended The Yarn, another story telling event in Gleebe. I’ll have to check that out too, but my next stop on this story telling adventure is The Story Club on the 7th of August. It should be a good night; it’s going to be part of the Storyology Festival, with a collection of international guest invited to tell a story. Until next time, Stay Tuned!
LIVE – Part One – Talking Writing and Story Telling, 25 July 2013.
LIVE – By Jacob Harrison
Part One – Talking Writing and Story Telling, 25 July 2013.
I crossed Victoria Road in Rozelle on a particularly cold July evening. After making my way from the City and its barrage of unpleasant smells, noises and people, Victoria Road seemed idyllically quiet in comparison. I made my way up the road passing inviting restaurants and cosy pubs, until I had to left the well-lit street and entered the darkness of Callan Park.
‘It was a psychiatric hospital,’ I learned later from a tall, scarf laden man, ‘The grounds are huge, there’s even a swimming pool further along, and you probably passed the tennis courts on the way in.’
I really hadn’t been paying attention to the facilities. All I could make out was the looming silhouettes of sandstone buildings, tiny isolated cottages, enormous old fig trees – it must be beautiful during lunch hour – but not right now. Now it was dead creepy. I heard the cackling of fruit batts above me and scurrying of possums in the trees that would kick the old flight or fight response in to action. Occasionally a dog-walker or jogger emerged from the darkness, I held on to my copy of Palahunik’s Damned tight just in case I needed to go upside anyone’s head. I still had no Idea where I was going, I just followed the occasional dimly lit green sign pointing the way to the NSW Writer’s Centre.
Copyright: Gibson Nolte
mail@gibsonnolte.com
I entered the building through the kitchen – I really was lost – it wasn’t until I made my way to the foyer of the historic Garry Owen House that I got an idea of the grandeur of the place. A restored Georgian Mansion, once an administrative building and school for nurses in the old Callan Park Mental Hospital, it now serves as the NSW Writer’s Centre. As the foyer began to fill up I realised that I was amongst the youngest there – which is always nice, but I thought there would have been a younger demographic attending a discussion on live story-telling events. At first I felt a little out of place and a little bit dumb in this company; a tweed jacket with leather elbows, maybe even a smoking pipe would have made feel a little more comfortable, but I needn’t have worried. The crowd was open and chatty, the atmosphere made all the more hospitable by the surprising warmth of the building and the fragrant odour of mulled wine.
I am a major fan of Live Story telling – even though I have only experienced it through my ear phones so far. I want to experience the Sydney story telling scene, and this was a great opportunity to get a lay of the land; a discussion on live storytelling events, made popular through podcasts like The Moth, This American Life and RISK!, usually held at bohemian style pubs and bars in Brooklyn and other hip and faraway places. I expected more twenty-thirty somethings, but the fifty-sixty somethings were representing tonight.
Copyright: Gibson Nolte
mail@gibsonnolte.com
The Audience made its way into an adjacent room where we were joined by the nights panellists. The panel consisted of Sheila Pham, her articles and personal essays have appeared in Kill Your Darlings and The Big Issue Australia, she is also a producer of Now Hear This story-slam held at the Arthouse Hotel on Pitt Street. Also on the panel was Ben Jenkins, writer and comedian; along with his own blog abafflingordeal.com, Ben is a contributor to The Vine and The Daily Life, as well as co-creator of the live storytelling event, The Story Club at The Raval in Surry Hills. Finally Belinda Lopez, Executive Producer for ‘All the Best‘ on FBi Radio, Belinda has worked extensively in documentary radio and journalism at home and abroad, she can be seen telling stories at live events all around Sydney.
Sheila asked, ‘Has anyone been to a live story telling event before?’ There was a resounding silence as the panel waited for a response and the audience surveyed each other. No one looked really sure if they had or hadn’t.
‘I once went to a story telling event in when I was in Brittain,’ the voice came from the other side of the grey head in front of me, ‘it was held in a castle.’ She continued to explain, but I’m not entirely sure what it was she went to, but it didn’t sound like a live story telling event – at least I don’t think so.
There was some time spent sorting out what is meant by ‘Live story telling event. A live story telling event is not a poetry-slam, or a book reading. It doesn’t stick to a strict script necessarily, and it isn’t fiction.
Sheila began by explaining the event she produces for ABC Radio National, Now Hear This. The event is held at the Arthouse Hotel in central Sydney from 7pm on the last Wednesday of every month, drawing a broad audience from RN listeners, business people winding down after work, hipsters, artists, writers – anyone after a good yarn. Each night has a broad theme, the potential story teller’s put their name in to a hat and if their name is drawn they have five minutes to tell their story. The winner is picked by teams of judges chosen from the audience with first, second and third place get a prize.
Sometimes stories work, sometimes there are flops. Some stories will make you laugh, some will make you cry, often both. They may not be able to air some stories on RN due to legal reasons, but the only censorship on the night is the story teller’s, usually to protect the innocent – story tellers, especially Australian story tellers are particularly self-deprecating.
‘What’s the ratio of happy stories to sad stories?’ A lady asked Sheila.
‘It really depends on the night, the theme and the audience. That’s part of the attraction of live story telling events; the spontaneity and the interaction between the story teller and the audience.’
‘Yes, but could you give me a rough estimate? Like sixty-forty, fifty-fifty?’
The panel exchanged raised eyebrows, no one could really answer that – but she really wanted to know.
No matter if the story is happy or sad or what the story teller is like, audiences are almost always supportive and engaged – unless they smell something funny.
‘People have an in-built bullshit detector.’ Ben piped in. ‘At The Story Club evenings there’s a somewhat more formal structure. They’re all true stories, but there’s a selection process and the stories are workshopped before the night between the story teller and myself and co-producer, but things can still go awry on the night.’
Ben spoke about one story teller he had workshopped with. Everything was prepared, and although digression and spontaneity can be exciting and embellishment expected, this one story teller just went over the top. No one was rude, but people stopped engaging with the story teller; out and out lies really stink the place up.
Belinda contested that this was not always the case; she recalled an experience she had at a live story telling event. A young Irish girl told a harrowing story, from her arrival in Australia to being tricked in to working at a property in outback NSW, so far out and paying so little that it was essentially indentured servitude, and she was eventually forced in to prostitution. The audience was utterly shocked and moved by the young girl’s story, as was the audience on this night.
‘Turns out she made it up!’ Belinda quipped, met by the audiences’ sounds of disbelief.
It was discovered during post-show drinks that the girl made it up; the revelation spread through the pub like chicken pox and people were equally as irritated. Although the story was false, she never said it actually happened to her.
Semantics. I would have been so pissed. It’s the empathy, the exposure of wounds, the compatriotism, the raw emotional connection between an audience and a story teller that initiates a kind of catharsis – that’s what’s drawn me to the live story telling scene. Or at least at this stage, story telling podcasts. It was interesting what Ben had said earlier, that there were plans to make The Story Club in to a TV show. They filmed some performances that on the night were exciting, punchy, and entertaining, but watching them back they were ‘boring as bat shit. It’s so hard to translate the energy of the night.’ I was looking forward to experiencing that energy myself.
Ben expanded on Belinda’s point, ‘What draws people to these events is a need for self-authenticity. That’s probably why a large portion of the audiences are often artists and writers, in their late twenties to early thirties – pre-midlife crisis types.’ Ben looked at the audience tonight, and continued, making reference to this audience, ‘We need more older people to come to these events – not old – but older than us. After all, we’re in our twenties, we haven’t done anything yet!’
The night came to a close and people began to leave, I said a quick thankyou and goodbye, and made my way back to Victoria Road through the darkness of Callan Park. As I walked, I slowly digested the evening. I had to decide what to do with this new information. Being an avid fan of story telling podcasts, I got used to feeling sorry for myself that I couldn’t get to a Moth live show in the States. Now I find there is indeed a thriving story telling scene here in Sydney, so what do I do now?
After years of passive learning, writing much but publishing little thanks to my own lack of effort mixed with fear, its time to take action. It’s time to put myself out there, get networking, try on new things and see how they fit. Sooner than later I would like to be able to sustain myself through my various media wares.
The first step has already be taken – this blog. I am going to slip up from time to time (before you comment I am well aware my grammar sucks), but doing so in public will give me the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, fast. My next step is to attend three story telling events in Sydney, culminating in telling my own story, live in front of an audience. I’ll start by going to the next Now Hear This, followed by The Story Club a week later. My third stop will be the following weekend, Tell Me A Story, then I’ll bring it back to Now Hear This at the end of August where I will hopefully tell my own story. I’ll report back on what the evenings are like – the stories, the story tellers, the atmosphere, the audience, and how little old me fits in to the nights happenings. Cross your various bits, wish me luck and Stay Tuned!
Jacob Harrison.org --- 