I went into Story Story Night’s Slammer of the Year competition already knowing there was no way I could win without Jay Leno showing up and bringing a whole bunch of friends to vote for me. And why should he, when he probably doesn’t even remember the time he called me at Andy’s design studio to talk about a motorcycle, and I ended up deleting the entire CLIENTS folder as a result?
Let’s just say that all those other storytellers who did have friends, and brought them, hadn’t done so, and only relied on their native storytelling abilities. Would I have won?
No.
Almost all the storytellers were exceptional. Even I was pretty good. But I doubt that even with Jay Leno and all his pals voting for me, I would have won. Because Moon crushed it with her story about becoming a Paralympic archery champion and accidentally shooting out the scoreboard in Brazil. Accidentally shooting out a scoreboard in Brazil is so vastly superior to accidentally deleting the CLIENTS folder at Andy E*n*l Design that I’m left without words to describe it. Let’s just say I’m proud to have lost to Moon.
I also would have been proud to lose to Critter, who used to be homeless, on drugs, and thinking his friends were about to bomb the Travelers Motel. Same for the woman whose dad borrowed money from the mob to start a sewing factory that burned down, leaving him unable to pay back the loan, therefore causing him to very quickly pull his eleven year old daughter out of school, pack up the rest of the family, and hightail it out of Newark on a moment’s notice. I would have been proud to lose to the Special Operator who brought up ranger panties at least ten too many times. Honestly, I would have felt good losing to most of those goddamn talented tale tellers.
Like others who are creative or human, I’m my own worst critic. I rehearsed the hell out of my piece, somewhat nervous that even though I got it down to four and a half minutes, it was too close to the five minute limit for comfort. Sure enough, Jodi, the Director of Story Story Night, was about to shoot his “you’ve rattled on too long” bow and arrow at me, and I had to clip the final line, “because everybody needs a backup,” that could have dragged me over the finish had the competition not been so fierce.
My mind went blank at the beginning, which lost me five to ten precious seconds right out of the gate. It took me a while to get into a groove, and even then, some of the parts I questioned while rehearsing, though seemingly good lines, didn’t land. I should have listened to my fears on those. “What am I supposed to do, tell Andy I’m not going to play Horatio to Glenn’s Hamlet,” made sense since our section of the evening had us playing the nominees for Hamlet. But it didn’t work. Not even my saying “huh” afterwards could diffuse the audience’s “huh” for including it.
There were other moments like that, lines and phrases that sounded good in my head but had me questioning if they might just be a wee bit obtuse. They were more than just a wee bit obtuse.
I’m grateful not to know how many votes I did receive, if any. I find myself curiously at peace with my trouncing.
The next day, I received a group email from Amanda, my Theater 105 Story Analysis teacher. She wanted to let our class know of an opportunity to pitch a ten-minute play to the TMA (Theater Maker’s Association) for possible inclusion in their Fall Showcase. I’ve never written a play before, but I’m reading one for class. It can’t be that hard to write one when you’ve got A Raisin in the Sun as a template.
Rather than start right away, I made an Instagram reel about losing Slammer of the Year, and then I watched a funny video my pal Jimmy sent me about procrastination. Then I finished a job application, picked up my wife at school, and went out for Japanese food because neither of us wanted to cook, even though I bought chicken to grill, not that Penny would eat it, because she’s a vegetarian (who eats fish, by the way, so technically NOT a vegetarian). We were going to make fancy spaghetti we bought several months ago, but I don’t see why we can’t wait another few months, or years. Spaghetti keeps a long time.
Penny had chores to do after dinner, so that’s when I sat down to write my masterpiece. A ten-minute play is not that long, and neither was my script. I thought it was pretty good for not having ever written a play before. I decided to run it through ChatGPT to format my work into proper script format, in case the way I did it was wrong.
ChatGPT misunderstood the scope of the project, and proceeded to pump up the dialog and make the thing way better than I did. I was impressed and annoyed at the same time. The jokes were good. It sounded like a version of me could have written it, had I written a play before.
But I took the risky path and submitted my own version, instead. Because while I’m proud to lose Storyteller of the Year to a one-handed Archery Paralympian named Moon who’s a helluva storyteller, there’s no way I’m going to lose a playwriting showcase opportunity to ChatGPT.