Synopsis: Kevin tells a story about his first trip to San
Francisco, Amy Allen tells a story about purchasing her first vibrator, Ray
Christian relates about the dangerous games he played as a child and Bianca
Casusol tells a story about a her first doomed romance after getting
preternaturally divorced.
Upshot: A good series of stories, though by far the best one
is Ray Christian’s tale of unsupervised mayhem.
Full review after the jump:
This week’s episode offers us four stories, two of which depend
on our own sexual squeamishness to be effective. Luckily for me, the two worked.
First we hear from Kevin who is both so fearlessly gay and
sexual that his attitude often makes me reevaluate the choices I’ve made. His and
his friend’s quest (at the ripe age of 22 years old) to find “twinks” in San
Francisco is both hilarious and an example of an adventure I’d never have the
guts to do.
When I first started listening to the Risk podcast I
imagined Kevin Allison, for some reason, as a burly bear of a gay. I didn’t
imagine him as a fellow member of the pale skin red-haired tribe, a group to which I
also very much belong. And listening to the way he conducted himself so early
in his life with such sexual confidence fills me with equal parts envy and self-loathing.
The whole premise of the podcast (a recording on a live
touring show) is by having people tell true stories devoid of shame. And that’s
what it sounds like. I sometimes imagine submitting for the podcast but I realize
that my own personal shame is so intense that it would never let me so honest
in front of a large group of people. Kevin’s story about his first myopic trip
to San Francisco is equal parts relatable and equal part horrific, as any good
Risk story is.
The next story is told by Amy Allen. This story is an
excellent example of style over substance. The story she relates is condensable
into one sentence: “Woman goes to target and purchases an unsatisfactory
vibrator”. But the context and incremental steps that Allen uses to take us on
her journey shows how rich, funny, and indicative of the human condition such a
story can be.
After years of Christian dogma and an early marriage, Amy
finds herself in her late twenties with a very naïve understanding of female
masturbation. So she elects to go to Target to buy her first vibrator, a place
she explicitly cycles through the aisles before knocking off her “weapon of
choice” into her cart. Convinced she’s going to be exposed as a pervert to her
community, for some reason the cashier refuses to ring her up and she exits
with her contraband electronic dildo.
The story isn’t much when compressed down to the basics, but
the risk demonstrates that the attention is in the details. It’s no wonder so
many of the guests of Risk have a strong background in comedy as Amy shows that
even a small and minor story can be milked for great moments and lines.
The best story of the night is a tale told by Ray Christian.
He details the insane but perfectly understandable adventures he had growing up
in the city. As his mother babysat for white children, he was left to roam free
throughout the alley ways with his friends, stacking car batteries on top one
another and throwing spark plugs at each other. Their curiosity extended to them
treating used condoms as deflated balloons. Yeah, it’s all pretty gross.
Eventually one of the clubs along the alley way is transformed into a medical clinic,
the refuse of which becomes a goldmine for the children. Aside from using the
bloody bandages for mummy wrappings, they discover that if you fill used
syringes with sand or water, they make perfect darts and begin throwing them at
each other as they wield wooden boards as targets. As in retrospect Christian
admits that none of them understood the nuances of germ theory or the dangers
of AIDS until a comrade is almost blinded during a light hearted game. This story is a perfect time capsule of a time before helicopter
parents demanded that children be monitored 24/7.
The last story is by Bianca Casusol and it's about an ill-fated romance
after getting back in the dating pool after a very young divorce. This one rang
a little true to me, as I was once informed of my dad’s second marriage
indirectly, just like Bianca in her dressing room. Back when I was in middle school
my dad and his very new girlfriend took me out. I thought it was odd that her sisters
were joining us, and I thought it was odder still that we wound up dining at a
wedding reception place where we were clearly trying out food. Then it hit me:
Oh! One of her sisters must be getting married, until one of them asked my dad
and his then girlfriend, “Where are you going on your honeymoon?”
So when this guy that Bianca has been sort of seeing and who
gave her the UCB handbook for Valentine’s Day invites her for a party on the
anniversary of her previously doomed marriage, she makes a big deal of it.
Which makes it all the more awkward when she slowly but surely realizes that he’s
already proposed marriage to his long term crush, and that long term crush isn’t
her.
It’s a well told story and filled with themes that I
definitely connect with, but it didn’t grip me in the same way the previous
story had me clutching my eyeballs. The best detail though is the fact that when
she finally confronts her ex-boyfriend years later she verbally berates him all
while dressed as a garden gnome. Now that’s a visual I can keep in my “happy
place”.
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