When I think of the “good old days,” I sometimes struggle to think what was so good about them! So, I figured I would ask the creative storytellers of our upcoming storytelling show, “Back in My Day: Stories of the Good Old Days,” what they think.
You can hear emcee Carol Moore and storytellers Jane Dorfman, Ty Fance, Johanne Pelletier, Antonio Sacre, Jack Scheer, and Sarah Snyder’s stories on the theme live online at 8:00pm Eastern on October 23rd, or watch the recording after. Either way, get your Tickets Here.
In the meantime here are some of the storytellers’ thoughts about then, and now.
These days, Jane Dorfman has 2 Storytelling World Award Winning CDs.
But back in the good old days…
“My Uncle Jerry came home from Korea the night I was being born. My grandmother said she didn’t know who to be more excited about–her first grandchild or her son back in mostly one piece.
(I am sure she chose her son.)”
Well, we’re happy Jane was born and will be performing with us on the 23rd! Even if she didn’t have to return from a war to get some stories.
With the help of some great actors, a producer, and family and friends – Ty Fance recently made a short film entitled “Chump City“. The story is loosely based on one of his short stories call “Bank Shot”.
Back in his Jackson 5 days, Ty’s interests were a little different. “With the advent of the “Pill” and the efforts of Hugh Hefner (PlayBoy), the Sexual Revolution kicked off. I didn’t participate. I hadn’t completed puberty and found riding my bike, playing football and shooting my b-b gun more interesting than girls.” But he’s happy about some of the improvements we’ve seen since then, even if the results aren’t always pretty. “The picture quality on Television. Back then there was no depth of field and the picture was all grainy. Now you can see the hairs in a person’s nose.”
Johanne Pelletier was one of the volunteers that decoded the Anne Lister diaries – the diaries of an 19th century woman in England who wrote about her life, including her sexual affairs, in code – its the basis of the HBO-BBC series Gentleman Jack. That was waaaaay back in the day.
When Johanne was a youngster in the 20th century, the US started using the ZIPCODE and the Internet was technically invented (actually 1969)! As amazing as all that was, some things have gotten better. Like – “Medicine, health care, and hair products….lol.”
Antonio Sacre once told stories in between rounds of a Lucha Libre pro wrestling match at an outdoor stadium of 15,000 drunk screaming fans in Birmingham, Alabama. The year he was born, Mister Rogers debuted on NET (now PBS). Hard to imagine anything getting better than that but the decades since have seen some improvement. “In the 1970s, our car was always breaking down on the side of the road, and people would empty out the car ash trays full of cigarette butts in parking lots in front of the supermarket. My car today has nearly 200,000 miles on it and has never broken down once (knock on wood!).” And I’m going to assume, when it does, there won’t be an ashtray to empty!
Jack Scheer has been telling for a little over six years now, so a full quarter of his storytelling career has been via Zoom. And as if those #s aren’t impressive enough, here’s some more.
“I was born at the end of March 1970. Within the first two weeks of my life three of the most important events of the ’70s happened: the Beatles broke up, Apollo 13 happened, and the AMC Gremlin was introduced.” As to what has gotten better in the meantime – “Television shows. I don’t think the ratio of good to bad shows has changed, but because of the sheer number of things being produced we get a lot more high quality programming.”
Sarah Snyder is the author of 4 books, the most recent one published this summer, “DIY Solo Retreats: A Handbook for Creating Your Space, Setting an Intention, and Getting the Self-Care You Deserve” (and we all deserve lots of self-care these days)! The year Sarah was born: Bell Telephone introduced the first touch-tone phone; Five digit ZIP codes were introduced nationwide; and Cap’n Crunch cereal, cassette tapes and decks, Chips Ahoy!, Crispy Critters cereal, freeze-dried instant coffee, Instamatic cameras, McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, Speed Stick, Sunny Delight, Tab, and the Veg-O-Matic food processor were all introduced. And as wonderful (and healthy!) as all that sounds, Sarah is excited that these days information is available at our fingertips, literally.
Now that you’ve learned a bit about our storytellers’ sordid pasts, make sure to come hear their sordid – or not so – stories about the long – or not so – long ago! Our show kicks off at 8:00 P.M. EDT. As ever, it’s a “pay what you’d like” show – with a suggested contribution of $15 and a minimum of $5. Get your ticket now!
