Friday night was the 6-year Anniversary show of Porchlight, a local storytelling series created by Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick. Every month, they choose a different theme, such as "Sleeping With the Enemy: the Sex Show" and "All I Got Was this Stupid T-Shirt: the Souveneir Show", and then local people submit their stories and are given 10 minutes to tell them. It makes for a wonderfully real, always entertaining, unique evening. There are no better stories than those that come from real life, and it's a reminder of how gut-wrenching and hilarious life can be.
I was introduced to Porchlight by my friend and culture-maven Beth. It was the night of our 2nd Yelp Book Club (quickly defunct), and since hardly anyone was going to show and the remainder of us disliked the book, she suggested that we go to Porchlight at the Swedish American Hall, a really cool historical building in the Castro. The theme that night was "Busted" and before we knew it, we were rolling in the aisles. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed that hard. My friend Suzanne even joined in by submitting her name for an impromptu 2-minute story on stage.
Just like in life, some stories are better than others, and some storytellers are better than others. My favorite ones are the ones that minimally rehearsed, but well constructed, with the speaker so full of passion about the subject that they crack themselves up. And there are so many interesting people that get up there - one night, a guy whose parents own the Wax Museum in Fisherman's Wharf got up to tell his story, using the head of Frankenstein as his "prop", which he later passed around the audience. He told about how his dad used to administer an unusual punishment to his children - if they were bad, he would drop them off in front of the museum late at night and they would have to walk through the Chamber of Horrors by themselves. It worked, like a kids version of "Scared Straight". Why not let the Mummy and Jack the Ripper do your job? Other parents should be so lucky.
The theme this past Friday night was "The Seven Deadly Sins", and since it was an anniversary show, it was comprised of some favorite speakers from past shows. The theme was broad enough to give each speaker enough leeway to be themselves, but as you may imagine, sex and drugs and humiliation (and sometimes all three) were common threads. They also had performances by some local bands, one of which was the Ian Fays, who I enjoyed very much.
During their introduction, Beth and Arlene talked about the fact that they have been approached by tv programmers, and have been asked to do Podcasts of their shows, but that they don't believe in recording them for two reasons: 1/ they don't want to affect the speakers' performances, knowing that they are being filmed or recorded and 2/ they really want to keep it local, a singular experience to the night, venue and city and time. I thought that was so great - and it's not as if these two women do not understand commercial success - Beth has published several books and Arlene works in real estate - but they do understand what it means to stay true to the nature of their creation. And there you have Reason #2789 that I love living in San Francisco.
I was lucky enough to run into my friend Beth and her fiance at Porchlight (and by "ran into", I mean that I heard her calling my name from across the room), and I sat with them in the balcony, which offered a comfortable and unobstructed view. With my $5 cup of plastic wine in hand, and hearing the laughter of friends beside me, it was one of those nights that makes you appreciate how the details of life are all so brilliant and colorful, and how, by sharing our experiences, we become part of a community in a very age-old, yet timely way.
