A year later, his mom took me and him and a date to see the Ramones at the Boathouse in Norfolk, VA and nothing was ever the same again. My glasses got knocked off and ground back into sand during the first 5 minutes of the show, and I took a boot to the face by the second set. The next day, I was half-deaf and limping around the house, clutching the walls to feel my way to my bedroom and all I wanted to do was get up on a stage and be Joey Ramone.

A week after that I quit the rec league soccer team by throwing my shirt in the coach’s face. During a game.

Something didn’t add up, though. Me and Frank were scoring acid from drag queens at the Rocky Horror Picture Show and had a direct line to all the best music this new burning world had to offer. With all this newfound punk rock swagger and the confidence of finally being down with the coolest guys in school, we figured girls would finally start paying attention.

As it turns out, it took a little while. We had no idea why.

Frank Benson has hit his stride by now, and I guess I’m okay, too.

Anyone who tells a teenager that “these are the best years of your life” is only telling half of the truth. In my experience, we got to taste the potential that the world had — but actually feeling it fall into place day by day and year by year is even better. Frank and I hang out now. We both live in Brooklyn, but we’re both busting ass on our own art careers.

We don’t see each other as often as people who live three miles away from each other might. But every time we do hang out, one of is getting the other one really excited about some cool new stuff. We’re still kicking each others’ doors wide open.

Hope you guys dig it:

And like, every million years a giant hand yanks the ship away and rips the planet apart, shaking everyone off to drift into their deaths in the cold wilds of the outer atmosphere.

In case you were wondering, I was, in fact, late to my destination. And yes, I do find psychedelic drugs to be redundant. Enjoy the pics:

I hand-inked the type with brayers rather than inking the press rollers, so I could print two colors simultaneously and easily change colors later. After some trial and error with ink amounts and pressure, I pulled the first decent test print:

And a while later, I had a small edition of posters in four different color schemes:

It was a really fun exercise. For those of you unfamiliar with the process of letterpress printing, check out the sweet little video below. And if you’re near Brooklyn, be sure to check out The Arm for letterpress classes, or to book press time if you already have letterpress experience and just want to make some things.

Here’s a little flyer:

Here are the details:

• Show’s at L’etage, (6th St and Bainbridge St.)
• Doors at 7:30, show starts at 8PM prompt.
• It’s $12 at the door.

You’ll see:

• Storytelling from me (Jeff Simmermon), Brad Lawrence and Cyndi Freeman – and Philadelphia storytelling wizard ******
• Comedy by Doogie Horner
• Burlesque by Runaround Sue and Cyndi Freeman.

Brad, Cyndi, ****** and I all met as regulars at story slams with The Moth in New York. Brad and ****** have won their share of Grand Slams, and Brad, ****** and I have all appeared on the Moth’s podcast. I was on This American Life a while back, and was featured on The Moth’s Radio Hour recently, too. Cyndi’s an accomplished storyteller fresh off her show “Wonder Woman: A How-To Guide for Little Jewish Girls.”

And just last week, we added Philadelphia comedian Doogie Horner to the bill, too.

I’m pretty stoked to meet him – the guy is really funny! In addition to performing on America’s Got Talent (I know), he’s a graphic designer by day — and actually designed the cover to “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

Philadelphia Magazine called him the “Most Hilarious Guy in Philly,” and they may be right:

Hope you can make it.

All I know is that we’re bringing the And I Am Not Lying experience out to Philadelphia and Washington, DC next week and I’m both thrilled and terrified. What I’m terrified of, exactly, I have no idea. Maybe that nobody will come, or that EVERYBODY will come and my brain will restart onstage. It’s happened before.

But honestly, I don’t think it’s going to happen again. I’m so excited to be doing a mini-tour (or at least two out-of-town gigs) that it’s going to go fine as long as I only have two drinks ahead of time. Three drinks and my accent comes out so hard that grits fly out of my mouth while I immolate in a blinding white flame of AWESOME.

The show in Philadelphia is at L’etage on Sunday, November the 6th. Doors are at 7:30, show’s at 8. It’s $12 at the door.

Here’s a pretty cool trailer for the Philadelphia show:

I wrote about the DC show earlier this week. Follow the link in the previous sentence for more info, but essentially it’s:

At the Black Cat on Wednesday, November 2nd. Doors at 8, show at 9. Tickets are $12, available here.

If you’re new here, the show is this: storytelling by Brad Lawrence, Jeff Simmermon, Cyndi Freeman and in Philadelphia, the tiny legend that is ******. We’ll also have a few burlesque acts by Cyndi Freeman and Runaround Sue — and a comedy set by Philadelphia’s own Doogie Horner.

Brad, Cyndi, ****** and I all met through regular Moth appearances up here in New York. Brad’s won a few Grand Slams and appeared on the Moth Podcast. He’s got this bleak Midwestern absurdity to him and he tells stories with both feet on the gas pedal.

Cyndi’s a story coach with the Moth and fresh off her one-woman show, “Wonder Woman: A How-To Guide for Little Jewish Girls.” She’s got a lot of geeky feminist goofing and well-founded shock at the health care system — and she’s also doing burlesque as her alter ego Cherry Pitz.

Runaround Sue reminds me of a throwback to a Russ Meyer movie with a Pollyanna smile. Her burlesque will put a boot on your throat right there in the middle of a racetrack, but you’ll want to grin about it. You’ll smile and think up brand new cusswords to express your delight at the top of your lungs.

****** stories all wear a dingy satin boxer’s robe embroidered with the phrase “South Philly Hurricane.” She’s appeared on the Moth podcast as well as the Moth Radio Hour and she always wrecks it whenever she’s onstage up here. She makes her bad decisions and worse luck into stories that roll and loop like a Mexican roller-coaster: exhilarating, terrifying, and absolutely not subject to any kind of American safety standards.

Doogie Horner’s comedy is dry, wry, and cerebral. He appeared on America’s Got Talent, but don’t hold that against him – he’s actually really funny.

As for me: I’ve been in more Moth storyslams than I can remember, appeared on their podcast and also on This American Life. I had a small piece in a book called The Post-It Note Diaries that came out back in October, and I’m working (loosely) on a highly fictionalized memoir. It’s based on a bunch of stuff that’s true enough, anyway. As for my style – watch a few of my videos and then you tell me.

I just want this thing to be fun, for real. It’s easy to trigger your brain to squirt junk food chemicals by hunching in front of a computer screen and half-interacting with a bunch of strangers. But we’re all shooting for the real stuff, man – we want to get a lot of great people and excited strangers in a room together and then really go through some stuff: laugh, cry, get scared, yell and throw things. It makes your heart grow, for real. Hope you can make it.

At least you’re allowed to punch a bully right in the face.

When my family lived in the DC suburbs in the early ’80s, it was pretty bad. I got beat up a lot and I was pretty scared to leave my house. My family was tremendously loving, and I had a dog that was my best friend in the world. But once I left the yard it was like a movie about Vietnam directed by Todd Solondz.

Nobody ever talks about this, though: a lot of times, the kids that are getting bullied get pretty mean, too. Being and underdog and a good guy are not the same thing.

I told this story at the And I Am Not Lying live show at Union Hall back on October 5th. It goes long, but I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I tried to compress it to a tight 5 minutes for a Moth Grand Slam last week and it was a stunning failure. I got more nervous than I’ve ever been in my life, skipped parts and just blacked out completely on my feet. It wasn’t booze-related, just flop-terror. I came to a few seconds later, literally standing in front of several hundred people who were looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something intelligible into a microphone.

A lot of people have that experience as a nightmare.

I hope you guys enjoy my telling of this story more than I did teliing it the other night, anyway.

I’m also obliged to mention that I’m coming to DC on November 2nd and Philadelphia on November 6th with Brad Lawrence, Cyndi Freeman, and Runaround Sue. You can get tickets for the DC show here: And I Am Not Lying: A Night of Storytelling, Comedy, & Burlesque.