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.

But this video yanked me out of my regular routine and deep into the wild currents of the human experience. I don’t know whether to cheer or weep, to hug somebody or go be alone. My eyes swelled and leaked a little, and I could actually feel my heart expand in my chest.

It’s by a disabled woman who carefully, methodically explains why it’s so upsetting to be called “retarded.”

These are her words:

I made this video after seeing a number of things: Other disabled people rushing to prove that they were not some thing called “retarded,” being referred to here as a “mong” and other such words myself (on and off YouTube) as well as seeing lots of pointless ridicule directed at people with developmental disabilities, and being asked questions about what it’s like to be considered “retarded” in casual contacts with people, or to “look retarded”, whatever that means. I explore these questions, and the prejudice and dehumanization that surrounds cognitive disability of all sorts, in my video.

My grandfather used to say the words “nigger” and “colored” very comfortably. He wasn’t a mean, racist guy. He even fought to integrate public schools in Virginia. He was just a guy a high-school education with an outdated understanding of how the world worked. He was a welder until he retired, and I don’t think he really noticed the world changing around him because he was so busy working. And so he used these incredibly hateful words really casually, and was genuinely taken aback when the rest of the family got upset about it.

The thing is, we’re all doing something right now that is going to disgust and appall our grandkids. In the end of this century someone will be able to make some new kind of Mad Men about our normal workplace behavior and it’s going to show us using some 21st-century version of the N-word in a way that we don’t really get right now.

I think it’s going to be the way we use the word “retarded.” I didn’t really think about it until I saw this video, but now I hear myself using it, and other people using it, and it makes me kind of sick. I’m going to try really hard to never, ever, use that word again.

See if you can’t do the same.

It’s a shame I can’t ask the author of the little document below. If he doesn’t have any leads now, I bet he will in a couple years. A good friend of mine teaches GED school. He found this on a desk in his classroom last month:

It appears to be the ABCs of profanity in six letters or more. As an artifact, it’s kind of impressive in the same family as the epic Type of Bitches. But the kid seems to have failed his own assignment. A lot of these are phrases containing profanity instead of words. And in the case of Q for quagmire — that’s just a noun.

I’d love to hear your proposals for improvements here, though. There’s something about the etymology of profanity that just gets me all excited. It’s what I like to call the subtle romance of the cuss-word.

I’ve typed this out below for the benefit of Google and the visually impaired:

More Than 6 Letters

A – Asshole
B – Bitchass
C – Crapton
D – Dickfacec
E – Ejaculation
F – Fucker
G – German Nazi Assfucker
H – Hellhole
I – Idiot
J – Jackass
K – King King’s dingdong
L – Lick it you hoe
M – Motherfucker
N – I can’t do this one ’cause I’m white
O – Oddballz
P – Pussy
Q – Quagmire
R – Retard
S – Shitload
T – Tranny
U – Underwear
V – Vagina
W – What the fuck
X – XXX porn
Y – You’re a whore
Z – Zat’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!

Dear Kara,
There’s no rain
there’s no me
I’m tellin ya man
sure as shit.

Tate

Previously: SPAMtastic: Prejudice, Conspiracy Theory, Has-Been Boxing, and the Tragic Loss of Britney Spears

I first read the following poem on the New York subway a few weeks ago. It was part of some ad promoting mabe a book store or something. I just read it over and over again, stunned at how the author could sum up aging, life, disappointment, idiocy and change so perfectly. That last line has reverbed in my head ever since.

Rather than crap on and on about it, here it is:

A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,

and four, and five, then she wants some meat

directly from the bone. It’s all

over: she’ll learn some words, she’ll fall

in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet

talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue

nothing. You did, you loved, your feet

are sore. It’s dusk. Your daughter’s tall.