Conversation between storytellers

Storytellers sometimes comment on earlier stories. And sometimes storytellers change the stories they tell because of stories that were told earlier in the evening. Benjamin has taken his name out of the hat in reaction to earlier stories:

I took my name out of the hat.

Her story was so good.

Because I was thematically along the same lines

but lighter –

and I’m like no, no, no, no, no.

I don’t want to follow that.

Benjamin also talked about changing just a part of his story in response to earlier stories:

There was one night where

I was telling a story about

zip lining.

Like I’d just

the week before been on a zip lining trip.

And I wanted to talk about it.

And in order to talk about it,

I needed to talk about like being

the only gay person

on this entire family vacation. Except

that night, Dave Hayward had told,

and Will Young had told,

and Will Johnston had told,

and everything that they had said

had been about being gay,

and I was like,

Oh my God!

What am I going to do?

People are going to think that there’s something in the water

at like Manuel’s,

or that we’ve all been taken over by queens.  

So I had to find a way to come out during my story

but not have it overwhelm my story

and also not alienate the audience.

And so I’m like,

well during my family vacation,

there are like

all of my cousins

and their forty children,

and I don’t have children

because I’m that cousin,

and then I just kept going,

and I wouldn’t have been able to do that

if there hadn’t been fifteen other gay people ahead of me.

And also I wouldn’t have been able to do that

if people hadn’t known me from other contexts.

It affected my story,

just the order,

like my story changed based upon the order in which I told it.