There are only seven stories in the world. And the storytelling community continues to think we’re not bored with all of them.

I hated when my mother would talk about me to her friends when I was a kid. Hated it. Even the most bland of stories, like, say, that I was playing little league again that spring would infuriate me. And I know she shared way more about me than my pre-teen baseball career to her friends and family. Hated it. As if she knew anything about me whatsoever. As if my challenges and wins and all-inclusive experiences—as if my life—were her story to tell.

When I watched Vincent Truman and David Himmel’s Enter the Mollusk, I laughed… hard. It’s both very funny and very on point as all good parody should be. The characters are all very recognizable for someone with my personal connection and yet are universal to someone unfamiliar. Sending up all the pretense and pompous posturing of the entire Chicago storytelling community with a laser-like focus on The Moth in specific.

The format [curated open mic storytelling] is a rich canvas for the different shows to create new improvements on the skeleton and flesh it out in their specific artistic way. The format wasn’t stolen or plagiarized in these cases so much as stripped of specificity and re-clothed in improvements, making wholly unique live experiences for a completely different audience.

Those who make their birthday a month-long celebration are greedy, self-centered, and obnoxious.

If Lady Gaga can sing Baby, It’s Cold Outside with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tony Bennett, it can’t be that bad. Unless she likes being raped or whatever.

This Thanksgiving, let’s remember that this year’s holiday falls on the 65th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. So let’s be thankful that most of us won’t experience having our spouse’s skull and brains splattered all over our designer outfit while riding in a convertible. I bet Jackie even got some brain matter in her mouth. Gross. Pumpkin pie is so much better, I’m sure.

Did it matter that toilet water is exactly the same water that we get from the tap and drink and that urine has no germs and that the urinal cake definitely had destroyed any nastiness pee'd on it due to the extreme nature of a cake of ammonia in water? Not even a little. I had stolen a urinal cake from a theme park in Missouri and stuffed it in my pocket.

Insert your own metaphor HERE.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Do, please insert your own metaphor in the comments section of this piece. —DH)

Show me a storyteller who only strives to teach the audience a lesson, to show the audience her pain and victim status, who takes his shit so seriously that every story told has a moral or a sense of condescension, and you have a Shaman. Show me a storyteller who only wants the attention for the laugh, who only tells stories of her "most embarrassing moments" with the sole purpose of being liked, and you have a Village Idiot.

Many in the storytelling scene tout the fact that the stories are true personal narratives. Some talk an awful lot about telling their Truth as if that is somehow more authentic or truish than truth. The fact is, they're all (mostly) lying.