L.J. Williamson“I can't tell a story without the word 'fuck' in it. I can't tell a story without saying 'ass rape,'” says Dixie De La Tour, hostess of Bawdy Storytelling, a monthly San Francisco show that had its first L.A. outing at the downtown Brewery arts complex Saturday night.
Fortunately, De La Tour is in good company. She brought down a crack team of fellow perverts to initiate the show's Los Angeles incarnation and regale the audience with ribald tales of one-nighters, group sex, tantra, porn stars and sex changes.
“It's kinda hard in San Francisco to find performers sometimes,” De La Tour said. “It's a city full of people who have crazy adventures, but they don't want to get on the stage.” In L.A., by contrast, De La Tour can't believe the number of submissions she's received and the caliber of performing talent anxious to participate in the show. “In San Francisco, I do six each show, and it's really hard. It's always last minute, let me talk you into it, let me coach you, you'll be great.”
“Down here there's actually people you've heard of, and you want to know more about their private lives…When you watch somebody talk for ten minutes, you can learn so much about the way their brain works.”
De La Tour plans to make an L.A. version of the show a regular monthly event.
Saturday's show opened with the musical stylings of dirty ukelele duo Tacos On Prom Night, who led the audience in a sing-along of their charming ditty, “Pussy Titty,” which managed to be adorable and obscene at the same time. A second mid-show musical interlude featured competing dirty ukelele act Alicyn Packard. Who knew the dirty ukelele circuit was so rocking?
The stories were compelling — hey, it's tough to make sex boring — but in addition to the titillation factor, De La Tour managed to assemble a roster of high-caliber storytellers, including the evening opener, seven-time Moth Storytelling Slam winner and former elevator music station KJOI DJ Bill Ratner, who described on-air sex with a listener during his New Year's Eve broadcast.
Barbie Davenporte; Credit: Miles Actually
Performance artist and tantra teacher Kamala Devi described an evening spent with the spirit of the goddess inhabiting her being — she opted to masturbate rather than wake her sleeping husband when she felt a powerful, unparalleled surge of sexual energy jolt through her body, because the goddess told her, “no mortal can satisfy me.”
Morgan; Credit: Miles Actually
LA Weekly's own Barbie Davenporte of AfterDarkLA.com told the first of the evening's two very L.A. stories of wild sex involving famous or famous-proximal individuals.
Then a “transgendered superhero, performer and union iron worker” named Morgan described how an physically and psychically destructive steel mill accident left her determined to transition into a female body, and the unexpected oddity of being forced to switch from a ten-inch authentic penis to a clumsy and awkward strap-on to please her lover.
Actor and sex educator Reid Mihalko told the evenings second sex-soaked brush-with-fame story, underscoring the advantage of bringing storytelling shows to L.A. — you get talented actors who really know how to tell a funny story.
Storytelling virgin Nina Hartley; Credit: Miles Actually
Sexologist Dr. Carol Queen, author of Exhibitionism For The Shy, told her own tale of exhibitionist splendor, and wrapping up the evening was headliner Nina Hartley, a pornographer/educator with a long and storied history of a personal perversion who gave the audience two options to choose from: “Do you want to hear a story about fisting, or about a drive-by blow job?” The audience screamed its unequivocal reply: “FISTING!”
So Hartley, in her breezy, matter-of-fact style, delivered the goods, making manual penetration sound like a walk in the park, little more than something old friends or new acquaintances might decide to do on a whim — as easy as calling up and ordering a pizza pie. With a side of lube.
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