First Slam Doyle’s 9/11 "emergency”

Robin Maxfield (at mic, right,in camo) had the idea for the theme and the fabulous guest and she emceed too!

Posting by massmouth member,  Jeffrey Dell.  Guest blogger Jeff was a contestant at massmouth's Haley House  "wysiwyg" slam, March 2011.

Sheila Leavitt, massmouth supporter, extraordinaire

As I walked into the bar a familiar voice struck my eardrums.

"Are you going to tell tonight?" The voice was that of Laura Cannon, one of the judges for tonight's Story Slam.

"No," I replied "I'm just here to listen." This was a question I was asked repeatedly as I settled into the backroom at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain for what had promised to be an invigorating night of story telling.

As a story slam veteran, I was excited for the season to begin and I was not disappointed. Last season’s story slams at the Bella Luna Cafe in JP had proved to be wildly successful, and the slams I had attended turned into standing room events. I had found the massmouth story slams after finding NPRs The Moth radio program in which storytellers share personal stories from their own lives.

Mia won Audience Choice in a close tie

Doyle's Cafe was the site of the first story slam of the fall 2011/2012 season. Modeled after a poetry slam, a story slam is an event where the names of storytellers are drawn from a hat and those selected have 5 minutes to recount their personal experiences about a theme. Judges score the stories based on a myriad of factors including relevance to theme and flow of the story and prizes are given to the winners along with an opportunity to compete in the semi-finals in the spring.

Josh and his nunchucks* to the rescue.

The nights theme was "Emergency" and a small crowd of approximately 50 people had crammed into the back room of Doyle’s, a neighborhood bar squirreled away on Washington Street in Jamaica Plain on a Sunday night to listen to and share their own stories. As a way of honoring the memories of the horrors of 9/11, special guest Shawn Donovan, a firefighter for the city of Boston, shared his own personal experiences both from his childhood in a Midwest town of 30 people and his experience as a first-responder for the city of Boston, in one instance responding to a call from a retirement home to install a resident’s cable.

Special guest, and one fabulous storyteller, Shawn Donavon

Allie McGovern, 2nd place winner

The stories were focused, intense, and funny.  Storytellers shared openly and honestly about their experience. From tales of the 9/11 attacks to fighting the spread of communism in school and nuclear proliferation through "duck and cover" tactics to someone losing their cell phone in a cowboy boot, the stories were truly unique and I found myself hanging on each and every word as I got lost in the individual stories. As I listened, my own personal emergency story came to mind, working for a German phone company and flooding E911 dispatchers with automated phone calls in an effort to test an upgrade to their system, nearly crippling the entire dispatch system in several communities -- but that's another story all together." Josh Whiton,was the Ist place winner. Jonathan Morgan,Ralph Chadis,  Hal Miller Jacobs, Katherine David Briola, Mia Avramescu, captured the audience.   Greg Hather, Aleah Starr, all told great stories. Allie McGovern, was our  2nd place winner . 
* Nunchucks or Nunchaku (ヌンチャク Nunchaku?) is a traditional Okinawan weapon consisting of two sticks connected at their ends with a short chain or rope.