IDL Ballroom hosted Ok, So for another True Story Slam Oct. 13, 2017. True story slams are competitions where each competitor tells a true story fitting with the theme; this time, it was nemesis.
The first story-teller brought her hatred of children that walk across her lawn after school.
“I developed dark fantasies on how to deal with them.” She started off innocent and relatable, but quickly moved into Indiana Jones-level traps with spikes and tripwires. Her technique worked well with the story , and she gave a decent ending about using her sprinkler system to drench her trespassers.
High School English teacher Jordan delivered the next story about a lifelong rival. Everyone knows that one perfect kid that the guys all hate and the girls all crush on. Jordan’s version of this man came in a neatly packaged “Tommy Appel-Shumaker,” who had a six-pack in the 5th grade. Jordan said he was at a party talking to a girl in his twenties when he found out they went to the same school.
She said, “I don’t remember you, but there was this one kid that everyone I knew loved.”
Jordan gave out a tragic “Curse you Tommy Appel-Shumaker!” for shutting him down across “space and time.” Jordan continued staying energetic, but his ending lacked the same gusto. Despite this, it was a hilarious story.
Next up was a couple, I did not get their name because they left right after their story was finished. They had an interesting dynamic in playing off each other’s side of the story, but it became sort of tedious. The premise was the most unique of the evening, starting out like a campus-crime report. When on a routine stroll around a beach, they came across a very strange happening.
They had stumbled across an all-male nude beach. Their nemesis was a man “trippin’ on something” who ran around drawing large scandalous things in the sand. While truly the most creative nemesis, it seemed the story focused on more on the strange encounter than the person, which was the theme.
The next story teller, former TU student Sara, recounted the story of one of TU’s most impressive and least successful embezzling operations. Sarah centered the story around a man named Ricky. Sarah stayed animated and agile on stage as she explained that TU had a debate team for one semester, but they got shut down when people found out Ricky going on “debate trips” to places like Disney World, sending the bill to the school, and then getting reimbursed for his “expenses.” Her technique was engaging, and I loved her story.
Jenna came next. She had less of a story and more of a rant. Her nemesis was essentially all the ex-boyfriends she’d ever had, especially one who stripped out a house and then decided not to complete the remodeling. She was fun, telling the stories with purpose and vigor, but the episode lacked an overall point, or a clear nemesis.
The next man came with talent and a prop chair. His nemesis is, if you excuse the expression, a fart where more than gas comes out. It was his wedding weekend, and he and his family were at a hotel.
After a night of fun, he had one too many and woke up “feeling like a million bucks.” However, on his way back to his hotel his upset stomach from the previous night overtook him, causing him to soil his pants on the drive over. In a beautiful string of bad luck, he reached his hotel to find four people and his mother occupying the shower. He ended the story with trying to explain how he, a grown man about to be married, literally pooped himself.
Gary, noticeably older than the millennial-dominated crowd, closed out the evening with a repulsive story involving half digested Whataburger and an escaping criminal. Gary introduced himself as a retired police officer, then bringing us back to a time in which he was pursuing a suspect on foot. At a stakeout, the suspect fled the apartment building on-foot. After a long chase, the man ran to climb a tree with Gary in close pursuit. Upon reaching the tree they got into a scuffle, and Gary realized a way he could get an edge. He vomited his dinner, a mass of pink strawberry shake and greasy burger, all over his nemesis’s face. That is how to gain an enemy.
Last came Taylor, a former RA at OU, claiming she “isn’t really the type to go on power trips” but had one night involving quite a bit of alcohol. A posse of young girls walked by her carrying red solo cups. Angered even more by their foolishness than their noise, she asked to smell the cup. She found it filled with vodka and then decided to have some fun. She confiscated every bottle of the girls she could. Then proceeded to do so with her entire assigned dorm. She had a couple dozen bottles of liquor by the end of the night.
“I never felt so powerful before.” Taylor said. Good story, but not quite fitting the theme.
Gary took home the gold in the end. True story slams are amongst the most fun things to do in Tulsa, and I highly recommend it to anyone. Ok, So hosts them on the second Thursday of every month.
