Once A Year Talk

I went to Rhea’s Cafe and I did my tranny talk.

I pulled out the old stories, rehashed the old chestnuts, did the old bits.

It was fun, both for the two who had heard them before and for one or two to whom they were new and revelatory.  A couple more didn’t really get them, since they were in their own “should-be” world.

Twenty years of memories, I have some good stories.

But I did them.  And I really don’t need to do them for another year or so.

I know that some are still doing the pieces that they did the first time I saw them.

I admire them for that.  This is real missionary work that needs to be done, telling the same story over and over again.  There are always new audiences who need to hear it, or hear it in a new way, and old audiences who find comfort and delight in reinforcing the stories they find powerful.  The oral tradition demands repetition and perfection, demands storytellers who perform the classics, even their own classics.  It is so important.

I just have never felt that is me, which is a problem.   I much prefer applying the basic premises to today, to new situations, which ends up with new invocations of old revelations.  I’m best not in polished pieces, I’m best in questions and in questioning, taking the zietgiest and connecting it up.

This is, of course, why I loved television.  Regis is always Regis, but his walking in the world creates fresh stories that illuminate Regis, that illuminate our shared world.  He doesn’t do the same bit everyday while also doing the same bit everyday.   Old stories may come up, but only once a year or so.

It’s just who I am and the way I approach life, with fresh eyes and old lessons.

But it means that I’m not very good at missionary work.