Stories at the Shore

[Update: You can make reservations or buy tickets from the Belmar Chamber of Commerce.]

I’m producing and hosting my very first show.  You should come.

It’s Monday, July 11 at Brandl. The show starts at 7:00 pm.  It’s ten dollars to get in and it’s BYOB.

Check out this amazing line up.

Luke Davin loves food, stories and games. His stories tend to come from the classroom, his time overseas in Japan, and his heart. His cooking mostly comes from his grandmother. Luke is a frequent Moth StorySLAM competitor and his stories have been featured on Story Collider and The Standard Issues.

C. Joseph Jordan is an award-winning poet and short story writer, a veteran of the New York storytelling scene, and a Moth StorySLAM winner, all of which, he assures you, is well-deserved. He has a long history of wanderlust, which has led him to seven cities in the last ten years, and now finds him in Minneapolis, where he is an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Minnesota.

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who By Fire (Harper Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011). She has written for The New York Times, GQ, O Magazine, Esquire, Self, Details, The Wall Street Journal online, and elsewhere.

An aging yuppie from the Midwest, Steve Zimmer began attending storytelling events in 2004 and telling stories in 2006. He has won 14 Moth StorySLAMs  and 2 GrandSLAMs.

Plus special guest Ken Pringle, who served as Belmar’s mayor for twenty years.

Driving in Jersey from Steven Berkowitz on Vimeo.

This was a great night. I had so much fun up there at the Bitter End. People really seemed connected to the story and had all kinds of kind words. Host Sara Barron was particularly encouraging and she ran with that Eiffel Tower story for the rest of the night. Too bad we can’t get video of that. Or can we?

Poor, poor me. The fates, in the form of Dan Kennedy’s delicate paw pulling my name from the hat, decreed that I had to go first, had to be the one to dive into the cold room. The moment he called my name, I knew my performance no longer mattered. You go first, you don’t win. It’s that simple. But as I stepped to the mic, I realized that it really did matter, just in a different way. I had to win the audience over, not just for me but for the nine super talented people stacked up behind me, each and every one grateful that that was my job and not theirs. For the rest of the night, they all treated me like a hero, as though I volunteered to jump on that grenade for them.

Let me tell you, that room was cold, which is no reflection on Dan at all. There’s an awful lot of mass in a big crowd like at the Highline and, as with supertankers and central banks, it takes a while to get a cold audience up to speed.

This is probably a good place to apologize to the other storytellers for not being as engaged in their stories as I could have been. I checked out a little after my performance. I was out of the competition before I even got my scores and the only way my reptile brain was going to handle that was if I put a serious chemical haze between it and the world. I stood apart for the rest of the evening, watching my friends run a race I was no longer in.

Still, it was an awesome night. I told a great story and I’m quite happy with, even proud of, my performance. So come ride the ferry with me and see how far Hope and Faith can take you.

Hope Floats from Steven Berkowitz on Vimeo.

The Wedding Story from Steven Berkowitz on Vimeo.

So here I am, dropping some hard truths about my family at a Moth StorySLAM. It was December 23, 2010 at Housing Works and the theme was Homecoming.

What I like best about this video is that is shows how far I’ve come as a storyteller and as a performer since I started this stuff in the summer of 2009. I’m calm, in command of myself and completely connected with the audience. I really am quite proud of this performance.

Beyond that, it was one of the best Moth nights ever, with a stage full of really solid stories and an audience full of great friends and friendly strangers.

I was on the Story Collider podcast last week with this very NSFW story about dirty sex, crazy chicks and statistics.

Have a listen.

I also told a version of this story at Housing Works in October 2009.  It was only my second time on stage.  Kind of a different performance, huh?

The Gun Story from Steven Berkowitz on Vimeo.

With the GrandSLAM coming up in a bit over a week, I thought I’d post the story that got me there. This is an updated version of a story I told in November 2009.

You can also listen to a studio version of the story about the journey home right here, where it is still one of the highest rated stories at Snap Judgment.

I live in a four-unit apartment building and one of my neighbors recently put up a lawn sign for this guy. I’m not crazy about it but I don’t own the place and other people live here so I just grimace and bear it. I’d certainly never take the sign down. When I got back from chores this morning, I noticed it was missing, didn’t mourn its loss and didn’t really think anything about it until my doorbell rang.

Through the dissipating haze of my nap, I told him that I didn’t touch his sign and quickly shooed him away.

Then the post-nap caffeine hit and I realized that I should be offended by his accusation. Why me? Why didn’t he ring anybody else’s bell? Seriously, what information did he have that made him think I was the kind of person who would do that?

Here’s the thing. Though planning to vote in the congressional race and on statewide initiatives, I had already decided not to vote for either mayoral candidate. It would take effort for me to care less about whose buddies get no-bid municipal contracts; I am utterly indifferent as to which set of pockets gets lined in the corruption that is local Jersey politics. My son graduates from high school in the spring and unless something goes majorly wrong with my plans, I will not be living in this town when whichever of theses clowns is up for reelection.

Now, somebody is definitely getting a vote against. And I just might get a lawn sign for his opponent.

I told the lovely and talented Nisse Greenberg that he didn’t want to put me on first and the wise lad listened.

Some stories, you just need to tell. This is one of those. There is intense happiness in it but it is not a happy story.

Recored, poorly, by me at Storytelling at the Perch on September 20, 2010.