Raconteur
I tell the stories here that I know won’t hurt anyone, or cause anyone grief. I have a lot of stories that I tell- to people i person only- because they are personal, and about friends, or at least people I’d rather not discuss in a place as public as this.
But I love the title, storyteller, raconteur, because I love a good story. And I love to pass them on, when I hear a good one. No, not jokes- but good, personal stories. Like the time my friend John’s dog shot his truck, or when his neighbor maced himself accidentally. Or dad stories, or mom stories… Stories of old friends and acquaintences. Stories of people’s pain and suffering and their brightness in the face of their pain.
I love to hear and share them. And here, at least, some of them may outlive me.
Spalding Gray was a raconteur, too…and we all know what happened to him.
But as long as you throw in the occasional “I burnt my nutsack with a cigarette” post (oh, wait – that was Dax Montana) or the odd Crapblog, you’ll be OK.
I did a series of Dad stories on my own blog (which I don’t update NEARLY often enough). Dad was a great storyteller, and (with apologies to Winston Churchill) all his stories were absolutely true, or at least they ought to have been.
I worked in Saudi Arabia for a while and had this Lebanese friend named Rafiq, he had this great story about the time his brother Merwin first visited the US. He had a big baggie of green tea leaves in his carry on, and he hardly spoke a word of English. Well, of course customs in NYC finds the green baggie, and the agent looks at it and looks at the guy and says incredulously “marijuana??” and Merwin thinks the guy is saying his name in some kind of welcome and so he nods enthusiastically saying “yes, yes!” and you can guess the rest. True story, at least according to Rafiq who I have no reason to doubt as he was a salt of the earth kind of guy. This was 25 years ago, long before the Bin Laden crap started.
I suspect that some of the ones you’ve told in private might be sanitized — file off the serial numbers, so to speak.
And, of course, those are the best ones.
M
I’ll be sure to send you two stories that are blogable.