What a great show we had Thursday! Even the rabbi got up and told a story. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for a rabbinical student to be arrested in Russia by the KGB, now you know. Well, you’d know if you were at the show. To be honest, I don’t remember if it was the KGB or the regular GB. Either way, it’s no fun getting thrown in jail in Russia. Aren’t you sad you missed that story?

We also had our first near-death experience story. I’ve always been on the fence about near-death experiences, but the way Todd told his story made me want to know more. One of my favorite things about FGS is that I meet so many people I want to talk to after the show. Many of those people have become good friends of mine. One more reason to come hang out with us on third Thursdays. 

We had three first-timers that night and you know that I always love to see new people discover storytelling. One of the sweetest moments of the evening was when Mark, a first-timer, walked up to the mic and suddenly couldn’t remember how to start his story. After a few seconds, he apologized and went to sit back down. But the audience wouldn’t let him. People started yelling, “You can do it!” and “Just start anywhere!” It was one of the best moments of mass kindness I’ve ever been a part of. Mark turned around, began his story, and did a great job. I just found out today that the next night Mark went onstage at The Moth and won. Congratulations Mark! I’m always happy when I see people practice stories for The Moth at FGS.

Two of the tellers from that night are performing in The Moth grandslam on March 23 at Town Hall. I hope some of you can get tickets and support them. Good luck Melissa, Gretchen, and Kent (who wasn’t able to make it to our show that night). 

Normally, I do a short write-up of each story letting you know how they affected me but I’m not able to do that this time because both of my recorders died on me. I was very upset to find them both dead when I went to hit stop at the end of the show. So not only can I not review them for this thank you email, I also can’t send copies to the tellers. That part hurts the most. Hopefully, I’ve figured out what the issue is and after nine batteries and a new cable, we’ll be back to recording again. Forgive me for not writing in detail about some of the stories we heard that night.

What I can tell you is that in addition to the stories above, we also heard stories about walking through Spain, America, and Thailand. Are all storytellers seekers? Maybe. Stories are how I make sense of my life. I think stories are an important part of whatever journey you’re on. After all, how do we make sense of what we’ve seen if not through the story we tell afterward? 

Rich, one of our first-timers, told a very funny story about crashing his car on the way to a first date. I’ve had some first dates that felt like a car crash but never had one on the way to a date. I’m happy to say that he now has a sweetheart and probably really good insurance. 

Special thanks to Chris and Gretchen who always say yes when I ask them to go first. They’re both wonderful tellers and they always start the evening off right. I’m going to start asking other folks to open our shows because they deserve a break.

One teller I want to thank specifically, though, is Bill B. Bill has been telling with us for about a decade now and that night he closed the show with a funny, touching, heartbreaking-and-then-heartmending story that none of us will ever forget. Bill is moving to the UK in a couple weeks so we won’t see him for a while. He’s been a big part of Seattle storytelling for a long time and is one of the best tellers I’ve ever seen. I’m going to miss him. 

Our next show is April 20. The theme is “Surprising yourself.” I’ll get the invite out as soon as I can. 

Remember to support all the other great storytelling shows in the area.

7Stories needs more tellers for their show this Friday in Burien. The theme is “Advice to my younger self / Rearview mirrors”

https://burienculturehub.org/7stories

North Seattle Storytelling

https://meetu.ps/c/490f1/1JtDX/d

Our free monthly online workshop (the next one is April 2)

https://meetu.ps/c/2Cxg9/1JtDX/d

Moth Grandslam March 23 at Town Hall

https://themoth.secure.force.com/ticket/?_ga=2.223635356.644586415.1679431826-602737786.1679431826&_gac=1.195627486.1679431880.CjwKCAjwq-WgBhBMEiwAzKSH6DhOM5xKLIfRgKIa0ZfPCVY7W6RCwA83s8QRKE3Oc79jnwOq1_LKTxoCbRcQAvD_BwE#/events/a0S7V00000cacb3UAA

Thanks to everyone who came out last Thursday and supported all the folks who walked up to the mic that night. FGS will always be free for anyone to attend or tell a story. If you’d like to help pay for the room rental you can donate a couple of bucks here:

https://buy.stripe.com/aEUaHabzZcib0x26oo

Also, if anyone knows where to get a kosher scone, let me know. We can only bring kosher food into the venue and I always give away a Scone of Courage to the first first-timer of the night. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a scone with a K inside a circle on the package. I can’t bake one because it would have to come from a kosher kitchen. So let me know if you find a good Jewish deli.

See you on the 20th!

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com

This month we have two themes for the show. You can choose whichever one you want to tell a story on. 

Best Laid Plans 
or
Breaking the Rules 

You can interpret the themes any way you want. If you want to tell a story about breaking the rules it doesn’t have to be an official rule. It could be a story of ignoring a bunch of red flags that you promised yourself you wouldn’t ignore again. Best laid plans could be about how you thought you were going to grow up to be a doctor and ended up making a living selling black market beanie babies. Most stories can relate to any theme if you frame it right. So think back to a moment in your life when you broke a rule or something in your life went sideways and see if you build a story around it.

Remember to practice your story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email at freshgroundstories@gmail.com if you have any questions about that.

The rest of the rules and guidelines are below: 

Storytelling Rules and Guidelines

Workshops are a great way to get feedback on a story you’re working on. Here’s one I highly recommend. It’s run by two people who have told many times at FGS and other shows in the area:  https://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/ 

I’m also happy to help anyone on their story over the phone. Send me an email and we can set up a phone call. 

See you on March 16th at 7 pm at the Chabad of Queene Anne – Magnolia

Paul

Freshgroundstories at Gmail dot com

What a great show we had Thursday! The room was packed, the stories were wonderful, and the energy was perfect. Every seat was taken so I’m going to keep looking for more folding chairs to bring with me. Feel free to bring your own next time if you can. The only thing that didn’t work that night was the recorder which stopped working after five minutes. I don’t know what happened but I’m going to be investigating it over the next three weeks so it doesn’t happen again. I hate not being able to give tellers a copy of their story. 

Since I can’t relisten to the show I might get some of the details wrong in this wrap-up. I also hope I don’t forget anyone who told a story. My notes are scattered across multiple pieces of paper so I’m praying I don’t miss anyone. I found three slips of paper with tellers’ names on them in my shoe in case you’re wondering how organized I am.

I do know that our first teller of the night was Mike. I asked him a few minutes before showtime if he’d mind going first and if his story was something that would be a good opener. He said, “Oh absolutely. It’s about my mom dying, but it’s funny!” That’s exactly the answer I was looking for. He told a sweet and funny story about his mom deciding to end her life with dignity and all the absurd things you have to talk about when that happens. Mike reminded me of how important storytelling is when we find ourselves in painful moments. Stories help put things in perspective and give us a little control over how we deal with those things. Thank you Mike for showing us how to do that.

Sybil was our only first-timer of the night and she did a great job. She told us about finding her passion for dancing in Juneau, AK, and how she went around the state as a roving terpsichorean (yes, I had to Google that). I wish I’d been around to see her teach dance in the logging and fishing camps of southeast Alaska. I remember what it was like to do comedy in those places and I didn’t have to do it in tights. 

Deborah was next with a sweet story of all the love she encountered in Seattle one day. Not long ago, she met a Japanese tourist on the light rail with a three-hour layover in Seattle who wanted to go downtown to see the first Starbucks. Deborah offered to help get him there and along the way met a handful of strangers who went out of their way to help. It was just the kind of story I needed to hear. A few years ago we did a show on the theme of the kindness of strangers. We might have to do that one again. Thank you, Deborah, for all the work I know you put into that story and for reminding us that night that there is still kindness in the world.

If you’re looking for more true, personal storytelling, Sybil and Deborah run a great new show called 7 Stories in Burien. They have a good group of new tellers down there but they’re always looking for new folks to share the stage with. Their next show is Friday the 24th. Send them an email if you’d like to tell a story or just show up if you’d like to hang out and listen. 

https://burienculturehub.org/7stories

February 24th · 7:00-8:30 pm

Fed Up / Tipping Point / Enough is Enough

7stories@burienculturehub.org

Ashley was our next teller with a touching story about coming to terms with who she really is and what it’s been like to finally accept it after hiding for so many years. It’s something I think a lot of us need to hear at some point in our lives. I’m glad Ashley had the love and support of her wife and kids to help her get to where she is today.  

Dave was up next with a story of revenge in Newfoundland. It turns out that even Canada has bad bosses and that even Canadians can be pushed over the line. For the record, I fully support Dave’s reaction to his boss’s greed which included a few hundred gallons of aviation fuel, a catholic priest, and a bull moose.

Brian shared a story with us about what it’s like to grow up in a time and place where every boy had to learn how to fight and what happens when that boy grows up and can’t hit people anymore. I struggle with that feeling all the time. Even now as an old man, I beat myself up (ironically) for not cracking someone on the nose who I think deserves it. It’s a feeling that’s never gone away. I’ve just gotten better at defusing it. Thank you, Brian, for letting me know I’m not the only one. Brian last told with us a few years ago when we were at the Olive Way Starbucks. I’m glad he found us again.

Zac was next with the story of going to Cambodia partly to film a story on landmine removal and partly to escape from the grief of his mother dying a few weeks earlier. I remember all the things I did to escape the grief of my mother dying when I was young. It makes perfect sense to me that Zac went to the other side of the world to wander through minefields to escape his. Zac’s was the kind of story that makes me forgive myself for all the crazy stuff I’ve done to avoid doing what I needed to do. Patience isn’t something we can only give others. We often have to extend it to ourselves. This was Zac’s second story with us and the first live, onstage. I’m so excited the folks who met us during the Zoom years are now coming to our in-person shows. 

Nick was next with a story about meeting his professional wrestling heroes when he was a kid. I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear someone talk about George “The Animal” Steele and Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. I never hear those names anymore and it was so nice to be carried away on a wave of nostalgia for eight minutes. Nick put a lovely twist on the old adage about never meeting your heroes and I’m so happy he came out to FGS to tell it. 

Emily was our final teller with a story about spending the last three months in Thailand at a muay Thai camp. For those of you who don’t follow combat sports, muay Thai is a martial art that originated in Thailand and is also known as the art of eight limbs. That means you get to hit people with your fists, elbows, knees, and feet. Perfect for a Seattle middle school teacher on a year-long sabbatical. I knew Emily had been traveling around the world for the last few months but I didn’t know she was getting beaten up by 13-year-old kickboxers in Southeast Asia. Was it a genuine curiosity of Thailand’s culture and sport that brought her to Phuket or was it undiagnosed rage after teaching middle schoolers for the last seven years? You’d know the answer to that if you’d been at the show. How could you have missed this night of all nights?? Emily will probably be flying off to another country by the time you read this so you’ll have to wait another six months to hear about limping back to her room after battling children in a ring.

Our next show is on March 16 and we’ll have two themes that night. At the end of last week’s show, I said our next theme was, “Breaking the Rules.” Now I realize that it could be a little problematic to talk in public about breaking certain rules. So I’m adding a second theme to our March show. If you don’t want to tell us about the time you broke out of jail or set fire to your cousin’s Volkswagen. I totally understand! I have no idea what the statute of limitations is for that stuff. 

So here’s the second theme for March, “Best Laid Plans – Stories of things going sideways.” I hope this jogs a memory and makes you want the share the story.

Before I let you go, I want to let you know that I’ve started a donation page for the show to help pay for the monthly venue fee. Fresh Ground Stories will always be free to attend and tell stories at but I’ve had to give up on my dream of finding a free place for the show. We started in 2010 and we’ve always been lucky enough to find a Starbucks that gave us their space in exchange for bringing in lots of people to buy coffee. The space we’re at now, the Chabad at Queen Anne – Magnolia, doesn’t sell anything so we can’t really ask for that kind of deal. Happily, they’re letting us use their space because they believe in what we do. All they’ve asked from us is a cleaning fee so that the space will be ready the next day for services.

Unfortunately, I can’t afford to pay the monthly fee on my own so if you’d like to help us keep this space click on the link below and send us a couple bucks. Extra special thanks to all the people who put cash in Mr. Coffee after the show Thursday. That was completely unexpected. I’m incredibly grateful for the love everyone showed me and FGS that night. (Thank you, David, for the suggestion.)

https://buy.stripe.com/aEUaHabzZcib0x26oo

Don’t forget, our monthly workshop is also free and so is one-on-one story coaching from me over the phone.

https://www.meetup.com/fresh-ground-stories-storytelling-workshop/

freshgroundstories at Gmail dot com to set up a phone call

See you all next month on the 16th!

Email me directly if you have any questions (Meetup doesn’t usually send me replies to these emails.)

Paul

freshgroundstories at Gmail dot com 

Hi Everyone,

I’m looking forward to seeing you this Thursday at the show. I hope some of you are working on stories. We had a great time last month with our first in-person show in a long time. Our new venue has good parking and a nice, intimate feel. Perfect for the kind of stories we tell.

Here’s a quick story I just found from The Moth to get you inspired. 

Email me if you have any questions. Remember, we can’t bring any non-kosher food inside the building. You’ll be reminded of that when you walk past the giant 10-foot menora outside the front door 🙂

Here’s the invite if you need details for the show or the venue

https://www.meetup.com/fresh-ground-stories/events/291259806/

See you Thursday!

Paul

freshgroundstories@gmail.com

February’s theme is, “ Starting Over – Stories of moving forward.” There are so many ways I could describe how we’re starting over with our in-person shows. It’s a new year, in a new venue, with new tellers, and no Zoom links. Usually, I dread starting over in any part of life but I’m excited about this because of all the new people we’ll meet and the new stories we’ll hear.

Since we’re all trying to figure out how to move forward after the pandemic, I think it’ll be good to hear stories of how we’ve moved forward from other big things. Have you had to regroup and move forward after the end of a relationship? Getting fired from a job? The death of someone you couldn’t live without but had to? Maybe your kids moved out or you found yourself alone with no purpose. Did you ever end up in a new city and had to make new friends as an adult? What was the moment when you realized you had to suck it up and get going? Come tell a story about a time when you had to start over and what you learned about yourself in the process.

Remember to practice your story out loud on as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. All stories have to be under 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.

The rest of the rules and guidelines are below: https://freshgroundstories.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/

Workshops are a great way to get feedback on a story you’re working on. Here is one I highly recommend. It’s run by two people who have told many times at FGS and other shows in the area:  https://www.meetup.com/Fresh-Ground-Stories-Storytelling-Workshop/

I’m also happy to help anyone with a story they’re working on. Send me an email and we can set up a phone call.

See you on Thursday, February 16th at 7 pm at the Chabad of Queen Anne – Magnolia! 1825 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 (Remember, no non-kosher food in the building)

Paul Freshgroundstories at gmail dot com