Mortified: sometimes you can't make this stuff up

remember when our mothers or our naughty aunts gave us our first blank journal? they told us to write our deepest feelings and thoughts and we did. boy, did we. and remember when you found your old diary and read through them and shuddered in absolute mortification?

well, now you can wallow in other people's shame.

i've been to the Mortified show twice and, each time, i laugh until i nearly pee in my pants. writers/performers get up and read from selections of their childhood/youthful/teenage diaries and journals and it's the most embarrassing night of spoken word performance EVER.

but it's also the most familiar. no matter what your background, your class, color or religion, there is something pretty universal about the act of writing down your myopic adolescent angst. i hear these stories and i recognize myself in all of them.

my favorite story has been from a guy who's now a youth pastor or something; he went to a pretty strict lutheran college and his piece is all about being 18, horny and sanctimonious. it's written in the voice of a regular, churchy guy who wants to be godly (desperately) but likes the girls, too, and it's basically the funniest, truest thing i've heard someone read about what it's like to be a young fundamentalist christian and a young horny bastard, all at the same time.

my favorite line went something like: "Daily masturbation does not lead to cascading joy."

it gets me every time.

Mortified: coming to Chicago

i'm so there and so should you be.