Okay, so I have been running this show for a while now but perhaps there is still a question of why do a storytelling show. Isn’t it just like stand-up? Are the stories really true? What the hell is it all about anyway? You may be asking yourself one or more of these questions (depending on your aggression levels).

Here is my quick-o rundown. Stand-up is awesome don’t get me wrong. So is writing. So is improv. So is theater. So is puppetry. It’s all awesome in its own right but storytelling offers the opportunity to get back to why you started doing this all in the first place. Because of deep-seated insecurity. And ALSO because telling a good story is a great talent and people who have that talent often end up on stage doing one thing or another. This storytelling show lets people get back to doing the thing they were originally so good at. No props, no punchlines, nothing but relating to the audience. Done.

Hello everyone. Maria Ciampa reporting.

Jess Sutich has requested a story from other Ciampas. I sent that request along to 6 of them and got two responses: One from my sister Evi that went like this:

yeah, like wearing cast-off cotton men’s boxer briefs. Once.  Big deal.

you little stinker.

This was a reference to a show I wrote, produced and performed 3 years ago.  Part of it was about how my sister Evi enjoyed wearing my sister Elena’s husband’s boxer shorts to bed “every time she went to visit”, according to Elena.   Elena disliked the idea of her sister’s junk being in any way near that of her husband’s.  Needless to day, Evi hated this show.  When I did the show in New York at the PIT, Evi attended and openly heckled me from the audience, saying things like, “That’s not true!”, so the audience would know her side of the story, even though she had not written, produced or directed and rehearsed her side for 6 months.  So that’s Evi’s story.

And another from my sister Sarah that was not nearly as passively angry:

P.S. Its a Girl!!

I like this story.  I think I remember Mandrew. If I remember correctly, his job was to shake the fried chicken thingy at a fast food place. Sarah would tell me his job was to shake chicken. I was happy for her. Also I like how my sisters are not afraid to clog a toilet.

Hi everyone. Maria Ciampa here. Jess Sutich invited me to post a story and I took that invitation seriously.

I’ve talked some homeless people in my life, some good conversations, some not.

Here’s the story of the best conversation with a hobo ever.

One night after the bars closed my sister and I were walking to the car.  This really skinny Asian homeless guy with an Asian accent asked us for food. I was delighted at this chance encounter with an outlier in the homeless population.   He was such a unique home-challenged in so many ways: his race, his thick accent, and most of all his puzzling request for food (and not money for booze).

We did not have any food on us, but this was when my sister was way into the Slim Fast craze, and she had a shake in her huge purse. She pulled it out and was like, “I don’t have any food, but I have a Slim Fast, guy, and they’re like TOTALLY filling, ok?”

And Skinny Asian Hobo, with full warrior accent, was like, “Slim Fast? SLIM FAST? Look at me! I don’t need slim fast? I need FAT QUICK!”

And we were like, “Holy fuck, Asian Hobo, that was hilarious.”

And that was the night my sister and I had a pizza party with a very thin Asian homeless man that should have been a writer for Leno.

Love,
Maria

PS. Want to hear more stories about my fascinating life?  Give me a topic in the comments section, and I’ll share away.

Okay, next week we will have some sound up on the site and you will be able to listen to other people’s stories. For right now here is a story to hold you over:

When I was in college I bought a Saturn. This was right at the time that Saturns were first introduced on the market and they were selling themselves on their customer service. When you bought a car you got invited down to an annual barbecue and your car was sent a birthday card when it turned one. Much like cabbage patch kids, a cabbage patch kid that you can go 75 mph with on the highway. So I was awkward back then, not like now. Nothing like now. One of the things that Saturns offered was that when you bought it, they put your car in the show room and all of the salespeople on the floor would clap for you and come over and shake your hand. They would then take a picture of you and make you drive it out of the show room. About a week later they would send you a coffee mug with that picture on it.

I might be awkward but I have always been awkward so I have the fine-tuned sensibilities to understand which things in life will draw ridicule and which are safe. A mug of yourself=ridicule. A mug of yourself with a bunch of salespeople clapping for you while you look like you might die=ridicule. I did the logical thing and I hid the mug deep in a closet. To have hidden it less well would’ve risked one of my parents finding it and deciding to bring it to work to use there as a mug. Ridicule that I wouldn’t even be able to defend against.

As time passed, I became more distant from the awkward teenager in me and more familiar with the awkward adult in me. I rediscovered the mug. What had once been mortifying was now comic gold. I realized as I stood in work at the water cooler drinking coffee out of a mug with my face on it how humorless your adult years must be if you truly succeed in getting rid of the evidence of your embarrassing past. I wouldn’t have that New Kids on the Block CD and t-shirt, any pictures of me at 13 years old at Disneyworld wearing a giant Donald Duck hat, or in high-school dressed for marching band. And I wouldn’t have anything good to drink coffee out of.