Live From LA Storytelling Fest

Hey folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and every Thursday we release these special episodes where we look back at content from our earlier years. Keep in mind that some announcements in older episodes might be outdated, as well as some of what's said in the stories. We always say that the name of the series itself is a bit of a content warning. This week, an episode that premiered in October of 2013. It's an episode we call Live from L.A. Storytelling Fest. Hello, kids. This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and this is Ben Goldberg. Behind me now, thanks to Glenn Newbery for introducing this track to me. Today's episode was recorded live at the L.A. Storytelling Festival, put on by L.A. Storyworks. The show was hosted by Beowulf Jones, who is the producer of the monthly Risk Shows in Los Angeles, and Billy Scafuri, who is on the new Fusion show called Sports Talkers. Now, this live show that we did at the L.A. Storytelling Festival begins with one of the best-loved storytellers in that scene there in L.A. He is a writer and an actor, brilliant guy, Mr. Brian Finkelstein. So without further ado, let's get right to him. Mr. Brian Finkelstein with a story we call She and I. Hello. So the day I had my first panic attack, it started like every other day. My wife, Jean, woke up before me. And my wife, Jean, wakes up every day, the happiest person who's ever been alive, ever, in the history of people. You remember the video a while ago, the guy, the double rainbows? Did you guys see that? Like, where it's like, oh my God, it's two rainbows. Like, double rainbow, what does it mean? Like, that's my wife. That's her. Like, I think we all passed that video around because we were making fun of the person's joy and wonder at life, right? That's why that video is funny, is because we're like laughing, because he's finding magic in life. And we're like, what a fucking idiot. I'm not saying my wife's an idiot, but that is a little bit like my wife. And so the day I had the panic attack, my wife woke up first and she went over to the windows and opened them up and looked outside and was like, oh my God, it's a beautiful, like every day it's a beautiful, it's like, yeah, we live in LA, it's always nice outside, but she's always amazed by it. And I woke up different. I woke up the way I wake up every day since I was about eight. And I say the expression, it's better to never have been born. Which is kind of my mantra. It's better to never been born, which it's not even my mantra. It's my fat friend John. And he stole it from Sartre, which is really pretentious because he's a fucking existential fucking philosopher. But I feel like I'd rather be a blue-collar thief than a pretentious one. So I feel like it's okay to steal from him. But what's not okay is to have a mantra. I think so many people I know, probably like you guys, move here from L.A., from other places, from New York or Portland or wherever. And we come here, and we make fun of L.A. From wherever we are, we look at L.A., and we're like, ah, look at those fucking idiots. And it's not. It's a beautiful, wonderful place. But then we come here and then we become those fucking idiots. And I think people I know who ride bikes. You ride bikes in New York or Portland and it's wonderful. It's great. You're saving the environment. It's wonderful. But then you move here and all of a sudden people start like, you don't have to wear a costume to ride a bike. You don't have to fucking wear bright. You're not Italian Joe. You know what I mean? You don't sweat that much. You're just going to fucking Costco. Don't dress like a fucking Italian. Or another thing that people do when they move here is all of a sudden they rescue pets. And that's great. Wonderful. You step over a home. It's fine. Whatever. But if you're going to rescue a pet, that's fine. But if you take your pet to a spa, you've jumped over the moon. Look in the mirror because you've gone fucking crazy. If anyone here has taken, I'm talking specifically, if anyone has taken their dog or cat to a spa of any kind, you're fucking idiots. I'm sorry. It's true. No offense. Offense. and then the third LA thing and this goes to the mantra is is is transcendental meditation I have all these friends who are doing transcendental I don't know anything I've never read anything about transcendental meditation but it doesn't stop me from having opinions about it and my opinion about it is that you pay a bunch of money a lot of money to some guru to give you a mantra so my feeling is I would rather steal it from my fat friend John who stole it from Sartre and so that's why I say it's better to never been born but on the day that I had my first panic attack and I said it's better to never been born And my wife, Jean, who's over at the window, reacted by going, which that the sigh to my wife, it's like aloha or shalom. You know what I mean? To the Jews or the Hawaiians. It means many different things. And in this way, it means that she's disappointed in me for saying it's better. She's like, how could you say that you wish you were dead? Well, I didn't say that. I didn't say I wish I was. I do wish I was dead. But I'm not saying that to you. What I'm saying is that maybe if I was never born, it would have been a lot easier for a lot of people along the way. In which case, she smiles, which means I won the conversation. And then she kisses me and she leaves the house. So I woke up and then I was around the house and I did like two hours of Facebook jealousy hating. And then two hours of work and then two hours of just sort of staring at the walls trying to figure it out. And then I got hungry and I decided I wanted a chicken sandwich. and so I was going to go to Gelson's which Gelson's is a supermarket if you go to Gelson's is the worst that's the worst like the caste system of Los Angeles you have your Whole Foods which is like your kings or whatever and then you have like Gelson's is probably like your priests and then Rouse are your warriors and then you have like Trader Joe's and Vons are like your like you know sort of plebes and then you have like the untouchables which is like John's and you know what I mean I'm not untouchable I like Vons I don't go to Trader Joe's because I feel like Trader Joe's is like a young man's game. I feel like I'm too old for Trader Joe's. You know what I mean? It's like a hoodie. At a certain age, you just have to stop. Because it's got all that sad single people food. You know what I mean? Where everyone tries to act happy as they're buying their cheap wine and their margarita pizza. It's like, you're sad. You're sad. It's a sad little store. But I go to Gelson's because Jean likes Netflix, likes to watch horrible movies before she goes to sleep, and then wonders why she has nightmares. and one of them is about the food industry because that's all Netflix is, is bad documentaries. And so chicken, no fucking bad chicken, so we gotta go to Gelson's. And on my way to Gelson's, you drive, I live in Los Filos, so it's like, fucking guy on a bicycle, fucking asshole on a bus, and hipster walking so slow, it looks like he took a shit in his pants. You know what I mean? And so literally as I pulled into Gelson's, there was a woman my age on a skateboard texting. You know what I mean? I'm literally going to Gelson's and I'm in the Simpsons opening, and it's like da-da-da-da-da. It's like fucking... And so I go into Gelson's. I go over to the deli. I want to get some horseradish cheddar because I like the heat and then some chicken and then some rosemary bread to smooth it off. So I go over to the deli and the deli's empty. It's a day. And 56 is the number. And I pull and I have number 40 and there's no one there. And now I'm like, what the fuck? Where did these 16 people go? What happened? And no one's helping me. They're not turning around to help me. And I'm like, what is, is there a deli game? Is everything in LA have to be politics? I don't know the deli game. I don't have any family members in the deli. I don't know how it works. No one sat me down and told me. And so now my head starts racing because I see this guy, Dave, in the store. And I see Dave, and Dave's the guy I know and I like. But for some reason, my first instinct when I see him is to hide. You know that? Where you're like, oh, look, there's Dave. I like that guy. I'm going to hide. I don't know what that instinct is in public places. And I think I could use the small talk because it would spare Gene. sometimes Jean comes home from work and I'm home all day working and she's like how was your day and sometimes that's a rhetorical question and she says how was your day and I'm like it's great I went to Burbank to get some Gino I like that the Daphne stick and I like the tabbouleh there and then I came home and there's those cars parked in Los Feliz and I feel myself start to race and I'm driving up the road and there's some guy in a fucking BMW and he cuts you off and it's like I know he knows that I'm fucking coming but he thinks his time is more important than mine and his time is probably more important but you know what he drives a fucking BMW fuck everyone who drives my dad drives and sometimes when I'm doing that I look over at Jean and I could see just a little bit of the love leave her eyes. And so I screw it back on, the latch that lets all the shit out, and I ask her how her day was. And sometimes she's like, you know, sometimes when I ask you, it is a rhetorical question, Brian. There are such things, and I'm like, oh yeah, I forget that sometimes. So I see Dave, I don't say hi to him, and then I go to the register, and because it's a neighborhood, and you see everyone you know, I see this girl, Andrea, and Andrea I used to date, and I fucking hide from her because, you know what I mean? And Andrea reminds me of my problems with Jean, which is that our relationship, like when I first met her, six months, great, right? Four months actually was like my, I do good in four months. Drunk, happy times, good sex, everything's fine. And then at the end of six months, things get weird. I get weird. And not to freak everybody out, I'm going to talk a little bit about sex. And I know when guys do it, it's not cool, but hold on. And so it would get weird, and all of a sudden I didn't want to have sex with her. I'd get weird, like my penis would stop working. And not like I couldn't get boners, although sometimes, but I mean, like I couldn't make baby juice, so I didn't want to, which is weird, because a lot of times when I watch porn, no problems. You know what I mean? But I think my penis is like me, where it's like, don't tell me what to do. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, ugh. And so, and then, and then that would get weird for me. And instead of trying to figure it out, I would leave and I would go home and I would take Vicodin because life hurts. And I would watch House because life hurts. And then I would go watch porn. And this established a relationship of time where I'd go four months, then five months watching porn and taking Vicodin. Four months, six months. And it would get longer and longer until eventually I think I stopped liking human interaction because of the porn and the TV, sort of like a sociopath, like Dexter, without the bloodlust, so I don't kill, but the same thing. And this happened, and then I met Jean, and I didn't want it to keep going. And so she's like, we have to see a psychiatrist. We have to go get therapy. I'm like, I'm not crazy. She's like, look, I think something's weird. The sex stuff is weird. I think maybe you were molested or you're gay. And I was like, oh, and she's like, you know, because Oprah says everyone was molested. And then just when I said weird, I don't mean being gay. I'm not saying that, I'm not homophobic. I am scared of all gay people. But no more or differently than I'm scared of anybody else. It's equally feared. So I just meant it would be weird to not be able to be who you are and be out. And that would be horrible. And so she's worried that maybe there's something bad. And I think maybe I was molested. I don't know. So we go to a therapist. So she decides we're going to go to a therapist. And we call this woman Florence. And we get her number online at the site. And we call up and they give us the address. And we report at 4 o'clock on a Tuesday. And we get there. And Florence is not there No one answering the door So we ring a little heart And I call her up And I like hey Florence We out therapy appointment and we here and like uh no you not I like yeah we here we outside your fucking house Florence what are you doing and she like I looking out my window and I don see you and she like no you and I gave her the address and she goes no you are outside my house that's not my office they gave you the wrong address you and now she's freaked out because you don't want the crazy people at your house and I totally understand that so we work it out and we go to Florence and we go to therapy and while we're in therapy um it turns out that I am weird and I have some problems and you know the first therapy session goes well I think I won you know what I mean like I think I came in first, Gene probably came in second Florence came in third but after about six of them were tied up at about two apiece and things are going well and I noticed that Florence keeps giving Gene advice really helpful advice like you know you should not internalize things you should not go to the past you should be in the present, like really good advice but with me no matter what I say she's just like you need to relax you just need to fucking relax and I'm like well I don't understand sometimes that people cut me off on the streets and I think fucking LA's crazy and people are douchebags especially fucking people who drive BMWs everyone who drives a BMW total douchebag relax, it's like my father drives when I fight relax, sometimes my penis doesn't work okay relax and this starts to happen back to Gelson's, now I got the chicken I got the bread, I go to the register I see Tim and Steve the people at the register or Tim and Lisa And Lisa is like a small Korean woman who doesn't look like her name should be Lisa, but I decided to let that go. I'm confused by that. And she rings me up, and she tells me how much it costs, and I go to grab my wallet, and I forgot my wallet. And now the lid comes off, and I'm starting to melt down, and I'm like, fuck, I just came in for chicken. And I feel myself starting to race, and I feel my head racing, and I'm just like, I forgot my wallet. She's like, what? And I let out a full-on Clive Davis wire, like, shit, like that. and she looks and she looks a little scared I'm like no no sorry I'll tell you what I'm just gonna run home hold on to my meat I laugh when I say that because I'm 12 and she's like no no I can't hold on to it let me get permission I'm like you gotta get permission she's like I gotta get the manager to get permission it's like what is this the fucking Marines I'm like it's not a code red I don't fucking and then she calls over Steve and the managers at supermarkets for some reason have all decided that they don't get offices they just get like little like they're preachers or like they're on the bridge of fucking the starship enter like i don't know what that is like give these fucking people off so steve comes over he's like what seems to be the problem i'm like that's a loaded question steve let me tell you when i started going to florence uh because my penis didn't work i want to take my relationship to the next level steve and it didn't seem to work and steve looks at me like i just conversation raped him which i i kind of did and i go but then it started working and i realized that like i just needed to relax and that i just needed to find the right person that maybe i'm not so fucking crazy and you know maybe things are a little bit weird for me, but it's okay. I go, because at first I thought it was like, I wanted to be like a desperado. I was like, I don't, you know, I like to fucking crazy girls. And I do well with Steve, crazy girls, Steve. I don't have game with women, but you know what I mean? But if I see a woman like in a bar who's got that broken look in her eyes, that's where I'm like, give me the ball. Like I can, I have a little bit of game. That's where I have a little bit of game. And so I did that for you. And now I meet Jean and I want to get better and I don't know. And then Florence says relax and then things start getting better. And I just don't really understand, Steve. I don't understand what's going to fucking happen in my life because then we got out of therapy and then we got married and I was like oh my god I like being alone a lot Steve like a lot like I like the movie Castaway I think that's the best movie uh and then like uh Lisa's like me too well it's a volleyball it's like shut up Lisa about me and so I said uh yeah I like that movie the first two thirds where he's alone on the island and it's great and then it turns to shit when he gets off the island you know what I mean like that's the good part he learns how to fish grows a beard like he gets healthy it's I think I would do well in the hole Steve like in prison I think it'd be an ineffectual threat to say I'm gonna put I would love the hole. Put me in the hole. You don't have to wear pants. There's no sunlight. You can't see what other people are doing on Facebook. They bring you food. I fucking welcome the hole. Put me in the hole. Now I'm getting married, and I'm like, okay, so it's okay. Everything's going to be okay. I'm relaxing. It helps. Florence tells us that we're okay, that we don't have to come anymore. She breaks up with us. Imagine somebody saying that to me, that you don't have to come to therapy. And then Steve says, well, in all honesty, she didn't say you didn't. She said you as a couple. I was like, fuck you, Steve. And then, like, what seems to be the problem? and I said, well, and this is like where I start to lose it and my heart starts racing and I said, well, because now we're married and we try to have a kid and we want to have a kid and we're thinking about trying to have kids and I don't want to be, like LA, I don't want one of those fucking kids where people are like, I don't say no and I don't say can't so we're only saying no or can't if we have a kid I'm only saying no, can't no, can't, and we're not going to spank we're going to beat, we're going to fucking beat our kid I'm not going to beat our kid, but I'm going to fucking beat, I don't know I just don't want one of those idiot kids, those LA kids I fucking hate them, I like little Kurt Cobains get the fuck out of here and so I'm like but then I'm like oh we probably can't anyway maybe my dick doesn't work maybe we don't have enough money I don't know what's if we do have a kid and then we're like oh let's just try and like I want to travel maybe if we don't have a kid we can just travel I want to go to Dubai I want to go on safari I don't know why and so it won't work we'll try once we're old our parts are probably broken Jean one of our parts and we do and Jean gets pregnant the very first time we try and then I start fucking having a meltdown and I just found out the night before I went to Gelson's that Jean and the first two people I told that Jean was pregnant were Steve and Lisa at Gelson's. Before my mom, before any of my friends, I told these fucking people in Gelson's, and I'm losing it, and I start to say, like, I don't know if, and I'm scared shitless. You know how much money a kid, what's if my kid's Republican? I don't want a fucking little Republican. What's if my kid's a monster? What's if I have triplets? Do you know how expensive schools are, Steve? I don't want to care about the world. I want to die and be done with it. I don't want to have to worry about fracking. I don't want to have to worry about fracking, Steve. What is that? And so I started saying that, and I was like, and then I say, you know what, maybe something good will happen. Maybe, like, I don't, maybe she'll have a miscarriage, Steve. Maybe she'll fucking have a miscarriage. And Steve looks at me when I say that, like, okay. And he sort of walks away. Lisa looks at me like she could give a shit. And she turns back and goes to help somebody. I was like, alright. I'm going to go home. I went home. I was freaking out. And three months later, we went to New York. We told our whole family. We did what you're supposed to do Told everyone that we were pregnant My whole family was there It was an Italian restaurant in New York 17 of us We split the check individually I know my brother and fucking Megan didn't put any money in Me and Gene split an entree But fuck it And everyone's happy for us I fucking, I hate splitting entrees Because you're just going to pay for it anyway You might as well get one, just throw it out Anyway, so We tell everyone they're all happy for us We come home and that night that we fly home on the as we enter the second trimester and i say we but it's her i hate when guys say we're pregnant you're not fucking pregnant she's pregnant um and uh and she has a miscarriage and it's horrible it's absolutely horrible and much i know a lot of people have gone through it and i've heard bad stories about it but at the hospital it's the doctor it's it's evil the doctor at this hospital is evil and uh but gene is super, super strong throughout all of it. She's amazing. She's a rock star. And I realized in that moment that I have problems with everything, but she and I can get through anything. But I learned that three months before when I came home from Gelson's. I was freaking out. I passed out at the Gelson's. I thought I was having a heart attack. I was having an anxiety attack. I was freaking out. And I came home. All I wanted was that chicken sandwich. And she had gone to the store and bought a chicken sandwich materials and I made a chicken sandwich and we sat down and she said, how was your day? And I was like, it was fine. Thanks. Brian Finkelstein. We'll be right back. This episode of Risk is sponsored by BetterHelp. We're taking a moment to celebrate women and all that they carry at work, in relationships, in families. March includes International Women's Day. And between caring for others and managing unseen responsibilities, women's emotional well-being can easily be overlooked. Take a moment to celebrate a woman in your life who's had a lasting and memorable impact on you. And let's all reflect on the roles we play, the expectations we place on them, the pressures they feel. Therapy can help create balance, set healthy boundaries, and support overall well-being for everyone. Now, at BetterHelp, their therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work so you can focus on your therapy goals and find someone who's good for you. And if you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Your emotional well-being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash risk. That's betterhelp.com slash risk. we're back I am so excited for our next performer we're throwing her in the deep end she has never performed for an audience before she is one of my students I teach storytelling workshops but she just came in and she just knocked everyone's socks off and we thought to ask her to come out here ladies and gentlemen please put your hands together the premiere performance of Carrie Wade hello so I have cerebral palsy the theme of the night is weirdo and now you know why they asked me to be here obviously it's very mild and I actually like to call myself disabled enough as in enough for the perks, but not for the bullshit. And there is one piece of bullshit that even I have to deal with, which is that when you have a disability, it's really hard to get anybody to take you seriously. They will often tell you how inspirational and so brave you are. You're a hero. But they'll never ask you to deal with pain or criticism because the underlying assumption is that you're a child that needs to be protected. I don't think any of this comes from a bad place, but having somebody manicure your life like that does make it pretty difficult to grow up because a lot of adulthood can really hurt and sometimes in ways that you completely don't expect. The other difficult thing to do when you have a disability is get somebody to fuck you. And I knew this when I had made it all the way through college to 21 without ever getting anywhere near that happening I'd reached this point. I was always a great student So I was like, I'm gonna make it my first post-collegiate project to get laid And so I go where everyone goes when they looking for sex and where lesbians go when they looking for sex with a meaningful connection which is the internet And that is how Alex came into my life I was intrigued by her from her first message when she admitted that she was nervous to write to me. She said that she was in the bathtub and was drinking a glass of wine to, as she said, keep her courage up. And I probably should have realized that somebody that uses their computer in the bathtub probably doesn't have it all the way together. I also probably should have taken note of the fact that she admitted she was naked, but what impressed me instead was that she was so honest about being nervous, and that made me feel safe like I could be too, and that's exactly what I needed. So we met up for dinner, and I remember looking across the table at her, and she had this long, curly, blonde hair, which I definitely have a thing for. I think it's because I'm a brunette and the danger of looking like each other in lesbian relationships is so high that I just want to cut it off right away. I'm like, you're blonde. We're never going to look like twins. It's fine. I can have sex with you and it won't be weird. So she also had great boobs which I'm not going to pretend wasn't part of it. And I'd known her maybe five minutes in real life at this point but I knew it's you and not you're the one for me but I'm definitely gonna fuck you later. So once I had decided this, it was like sex was following me everywhere in the world, like taunting me. And our second date was to see Black Swan, which is a bold choice if you're a lesbian virgin on a date. Because for those of you who don't know, the most talked about two minutes in that movie are a very graphic and surreal sex scene between Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman. and these are two of the world's hottest women. And it gets pretty up in there. You know, there's like a shocking amount of slurping noises in that scene. And the music is like, dun, dun, dun. It's pretty intense. So I'm sitting there watching this with the girl that I'm hoping to sleep with eventually right there. And I was like, is this how it is? Like, is this what you're expecting from me? Because I don't know if I can do all that stuff. So they set the bar pretty high. and of course when we got there was nothing like that it was no black swan I thought I was going to be fine because I'd certainly masturbated a lot how else could I have survived to this age but I can tell you now that even when you have the same equipment masturbation and sex are not the same thing you're in a completely different angle and I'm like I didn't even know that could fit in there like there was all sorts of stuff going on it was not what I thought it was but But after I fumbled my way through that first time, things picked up pretty quickly after that. And so this is maybe two months later. We're lying in bed. We've just finished having sex. And everything is out. Naked bodies and the sheets are all tangled. And there's that smell, the sex smell in the air. And if you've smelled it, you know that's what it is, right? Anybody that walks into that room is like, I know what just went down in here. So she turns to me and she says in this moment, so how do you feel about bondage-y things? She didn't say bondage. She said bondage-y things, which is that girl thing, right, where you're like, I'm not going to say the real word because that's dirty. It's like when you're growing up and your mom is like, call it your flower. You know, it was that same kind of thing. But I got the idea. And my first instinct was I have no idea how I feel about that because I literally just got comfortable with having sex, period. And now you want to take it to this whole other level. But beneath that initial bewilderment, there was also this glimmer of, yes, I want to try this. Because I'm a nice young lady, and I never admit it without someone asking, but I always thought that stuff was kind of hot. And I figured, how many more chances are you going to get to explore this? So I said, let's do it. and I prepared myself. I was like, it's on. This is going to happen. And then it didn't. It took a really long time to get there, which I suppose in retrospect could be viewed as this larger meta delayed gratification thing. But at the time it was just really annoying. And so one night I finally said, look, you brought this up and I want to go there with you and I'm totally ready. And I just don't understand why it hasn't happened yet. What can I do? And in her greatest moment of candor in the entire year that we were together, she said, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt you. And what that said to me was, this woman still thinks I'm a little girl. It hit me right in the place I hate the most because my entire life I had worked so hard to be nice and accommodating and kind, mostly to keep people from being afraid of me. Because when you are disabled, you're nobody's usual friend. You're nobody's usual sex partner. Definitely not. It's not like somebody takes off my clothes and is like, yeah, I was prepared for that. Like, that's what I was expecting to see under here. That's not ever going to happen. And I had compensated for that for my entire life by nicing my way into acceptance and creating space for people's anxieties around me and never calling them out on it. I'd done that in this relationship too. I'd done all the right things. I'd followed the good formula and I'd been patient and I'd said yes. And it hit me right then that it hadn't worked. And that effort had been for nothing. And despite all that stuff I did, she still saw me as more vulnerable than anything else. And not the kind of vulnerable that brings you closer to people, but the kind that makes them afraid to touch you. And so I wanted to scream in her face, but I knew that she was just trying to be honest. So I pulled back and instead turned it on her and asked, who's better at pain than me? Because when you have a disability, pain is just part of your life. It's like a second character in all your affairs. There's old pain. I know its source. I don't have to have done anything for it to show up. Sometimes it just decides to make an entrance. But for better or worse, I've swallowed it and I've learned to deal with it and it's just there. The new pain is what's scary because you wonder if this is going to be the time that your body will finally reach critical mass and your life is going to spin out. That's the stuff that freaks you out. The upside of that though, this layered relationship, is that in general I can handle pain better than anybody Because it's been with me since I was born So I explained this to Alex and she was shocked, you could see it on her face Because I hadn't been kind, I hadn't been deferential I had challenged her and I'd shown her that she was wrong in assuming that I was innocent And assuming that I couldn't take it because I could and so the next time we had sex she says close your eyes I want to try something and her voice was coming from a completely different place than I'd ever heard it before it was right from the gut so this is on I know that this is the moment so I close my eyes she goes off the bed gets a blindfold and comes back and ties it around so even if I had opened my eyes at that point I wouldn't have gotten to see her she gets off the bed again goes over brings something back and put my hands up behind my head and I hear click click and I realize that I'm in handcuffs now and so then she gets right up in my ear and says I want you to tell me if this is okay and I feel a pinch right on my right boob like right on the nipple and then another one on the other side and then another and she says is this okay and I said do it again and I never asked her to stop, which is sort of a shame because our safe word was dinosaur, which I still think is amazing. And I'm really hoping to bring that back in a future relationship. But anyway, so we're going and going. There's no dinosaur. And she takes the blindfold off to show me what she's done. And my chest is covered in clothespins. There's probably eight to 10, maybe 12 clothespins there. And the skin is purple and blue and all these amazing colors that I didn't know you could make skin that color. And I was looking down and I'm like, wow, I am going to have to wear some crewnecks this week because I'm going to be bruised tomorrow. And I had never seen my body look like that before. She's looking with a similar wonder and she says, wow, I've never been able to do that many. Nobody's ever been able to take that many. It's not very often that I get told I'm good at a physical activity, like almost never. And there's nothing more physical than sex, nothing, both in terms of what you're doing and how vulnerable you are when you're doing it. And in that moment, I realized that what I'd hoped about myself was true, that my pain tolerance and the things my body does well were assets rather than things to be run from or avoided just because they're not normal. And when you kind of age as a woman, you're going to internalize a lot of body shame, no matter who you are. That's just part of the experience. When you have a disability, it just compounds things. And the same thing happened to me. No matter how many times you tell yourself, I'm not sick and there's nothing wrong with me, you never see anyone looking beautiful who looks like you. And you certainly never see anyone owning her body and being powerful in it who looks like you. But in that moment, my body, which had spent so many years letting me down and fighting with me and arbitrarily deciding to do things that I had no interest in doing, it had gone and done something so right. And it had done things that other people's bodies hadn't been able to do. And I realized that what had been perceived by everyone, especially me, as so defective about my body was actually the thing that made me desirable and made me sexy and powerful for the first time in my life. And that moment was beautiful. Thank you. All right, guys, we're going to keep the show moving right along. Awesome. This next performer is hysterical. You know him from Ugly Americans and also Onion Sports Dome. Please welcome the one and only Matt Oberg. Hey, buddy. Hey everybody, how you doing? Give it up for Adam. Yeah. It's difficult to ask people to give it up when you are wearing khakis. But that is Jermaine, my story. Guys don worry it was Jermaine So when I heard that the topic for this evening was weirdo it gave me pause because I consider myself to be a very normal person. There are a lot of graphs that I am squarely in the middle of. What I am wearing tonight is intentional. I, for much of my 20s, this is how I dress. It's a nice flat front khaki and a solid tuck. And not because I had a job that required me to, I was not an assistant manager at a blockbuster or I looked in the mirror and I'm like I look like I could lease you a slip at the marina. I didn't have those jobs. It was just how I felt comfortable. And still do. I don't wear this as much anymore because it's a bit too much. But if I'm not wearing this, I'm wearing a costume because this is who I really am. I'm normal. The other day, true, my wife and I went to the Cheesecake Factory. We had an amazing time. It was great. But I will tell you this. For much of my life, I had a very difficult time talking to girls. Which, in and of itself, is a very normal problem to have. Even my issues are right down the middle. But I just had a very boyish upbringing. I didn't have any sisters. My mother's sort of tomboyish. I was in the Boy Scouts. I went to an all-boys camp. I went to a fraternity. I was not really exposed to femininity all that much. And I knew it was something I wanted to access, but I had no idea how. I didn't know. It's one of those things where it's a problem that gets bigger and bigger as you can't figure out where to start. It was like another language to me that I was very scared of. It's like if you meet a Swedish person and you've never taken a lesson or read a book, but you're going to try to speak to them in Swedish. It's going to be confusing for the other person that first time it happens. But I knew I wanted to start and try. So the second semester of my fifth year of college, a little bit of a victory lap. I went abroad. I went to the British American Drama Academy in London. Bada. Yes, it's claimed to fame that it is the school that rhymes with Radha, but is not. It is run by Sarah Lawrence, which used to be all girls. I get there. There's 35 girls and four guys, one of whom is a gay American male. was not, so far as I know, that was not me. And I realized, like, okay, this is going to be an immersion for me. I'm going to sink or swim here. And it kind of goes well. These girls sort of like me. I'm forced to interact with them, and it goes okay. They have a nickname. They start calling me Obes. My last name is Ober, and they're like, Obes. I'm like, all right, okay. You know, they laugh at my gags. Every once in a while, they invite me to their parties. They invited me to their V-Day party, which is a real thing that happens on Valentine's Day. This was in the 90s, but you read the vagina monologues at a V-Day party. And I went and I sat there. And there's one vagina monologue that says something to do about, like, what a vagina tastes like. And they're like, oh, what do you think a vagina tastes like? and I have to lie and be like, no, it's like strawberries. That's what I said. I didn't know. I didn't know. I'm a 21-year-old male who has yet to be fully loved by a woman, if you know what I mean. And eventually one girl in this pack sort of emerges. I remember we're on the tube and all of a sudden we're holding hands. with me and this girl holding hands. And let's say her name is Tina. It's not. I wish it was, but it's not. And it's great. And I realized like, well, it's not being with a girl. It's not like another, it's not like Swedish. It's like jazz. And I am bebopping it. I am in the groove, taking the bass line for a walk. And Tina's holding it down. and it's going good. And this is also a somewhat adult time in my life. We're on the subway. It's a huge global capital that we're in. And we're in flats. We're not in dorms. We're in this Middle Eastern section of London called Edgware. And we're all in these flats that were rumored to be, like, they used to be bordellos. There's, like, mirrors everywhere. It's a somewhat erotic and sensual time in my life. Yeah. Um, and so it's going well with me and Tina. And at one point we're in our flat alone. It's just the two of us, which is rare. There's always lots of people around. I'm like, okay, well now I need to sort of escalate our relationship. That is the normal thing to do. So I say, would you like to come with me to my bedroom? And she's like, okay. And I'm like, all right, great, great, great. And she follows me. I'm like, this is great. This is how it happens. You know, you see people like holding hands and you hear about people doing this. And now I'm doing it. It's a normal thing. This is good. We're in my bedroom. She sits down on my bed and I say, I would like to show you something. This is true. I go to my sock drawer. I pull out a hand towel that is folded up and wrapped in a rubber band. I take the rubber band off and I unfold the hand towel. And I show her a collection of my own fingernail clippings. That's something that's true and that I did. And she is horrified. And like immediately, like the vibe changed. She's like concerned for her own safety. And I realized all of a sudden, I'm like, what am I doing? What is this? What? I thought about, I had been collecting them for almost a year. Okay. It started out where I clipped them into the towel and I was too lazy to throw it out. And then I don't know at what point in it, but I was like, I'm onto something, and I'm just, I just want to see where this goes. I showed it to some other guy friends of mine. They were like, that's awesome. They clipped their fingernails into it. I took it on a plane over the ocean with me to London because, you know, I might need it. Immediately, I realized, like, this is crazy. I throw it, I take it, I throw it out outside on the garbage can on the sidewalk so it can't be like traced back to me. And it was not the end of relationship with me and Tina, but I will say it was a bit of a momentum changer. And I moved to New York after I was done with college. I moved to New York and I started talking to girls more. And I realized women don't necessarily really want a normal guy. They want someone who's honest. And I am married now happily to a woman who knows me fully and loves me fully. And I have every confidence that if I showed her a collection of my fingernail clippings now, she would be horrified because that is something disgusting and shameful and gross. The end. Hey Hey Hey Hey You're going to the party on a Saturday She asked, I said, I didn't know I didn't know. See, ever since I saw you on the back of some guy's bicycle, well, I've been feeling kind of so, so good on, so surprised, got that look in your light blue eyes. You can't stop pretending. Yeah, I've been watching the movie all along, wondering if there was going to be a ending. To the story, to the story, to the story. I guess I'll never know. See, I was running as fast as I could saying the things I thought I should, but it was just a little too slow. Oh, Elizabeth, don't keep me guessing. I opened up the door and saw you were just in the words came out one after another. You should have been my high school lover. Oh, you should have been mine Oh, oh, oh, you should have been mine Oh, oh, oh, you should have been mine Oh, oh, oh, you should have been mine Well, that about wraps it up this week, folks. This is Cayucas behind me now. And thanks to the L.A. Storytelling Festival for having us. That was a great time. Keep up with us and join the conversation. On Twitter and Facebook, we're at risk show. On Twitter, I'm at the Kevin Allison. Pitch us your stories at the submissions page on our site. Folks, today's the day. Take a risk. High school lover High school lover High school lover High school lover Folks, today's the day. Folks, today... Folks, today's the day. Folks, today's the day. Pull your head out of your ass.