Cousin Matt backstage, running through one of our songs we would be doing, I think the Coldplay one. “Every part of this song ….” said Matt, searching for the words, “…. goes on for way too long.”
My sister is a producer of the “Mortified” shows (now a worldwide phenomenon, with a documentary about it on Netflix). “Mortified” features people getting up and reading excerpts from their high school diaries, or reading their short stories they wrote when they were 10, or love-lorn letters they wrote in high school. (I was way ahead of the curve with my Diary Friday feature!) It’s an amazing show (I’ve been a couple of times). It’s cathartic. The person onstage offers their awkward teenage self up for an audience, and the audience literally ROARS in sympathy and recognition. It’s strangely moving. A lot of fun. Makes you feel like, You know what? We’re all dorks out here, trying to do our best.
My sister, as producer, has put together a band to sing songs in between each reading (songs that reflect or comment on the different readings). The band is called The O’Malley Family Band. Because … duh … it’s made up of all O’Malleys. So we all gathered in Brooklyn last night for our Family Band gig. My cousin Ian on drums. My cousin Matt on electric guitar. My cousin Joshua, who commutes down from West Point, on horns. My cousin Liam on guitar. My sister Siobhan on lead vocals and guitar. I joined last night as a back-up singer and tambourine player. To say it was fun doesn’t even cover it. I love my family. And singing with them means we are now the Partridge Family and it couldn’t feel more right.
But what I wanted to share, for my fellow SPN fans, is the sign on the wall of the “dressing room” backstage.
I think you’ll all understand why I had to take a picture.
‘Mortified’ sounds a blast. There’s a radio show here that does a similar thing though I highly doubt it can match the live, uncensored, O’Malleyfied sensorial experience. What could?
But – pie … FORBIDDEN??? That’s fightin’ talk.
The songs we sang last night:
Bastards of Young, The Replacements
Shout, Tears for Fears
Cruel Summer, Bananarama
These Words, Natasha whats-her-name
Clocks, Coldplay (we played this one because a guy stood up and shared about how he collected cuckoo clocks, starting at the age of 12. He now has 472 cuckoo clocks. Uproarious.)
Uptown Girl, Billy Joel
Ooh La La, Faces
There was a girl who lived an entire fantasy life at the age of 9 that she was the CEO of Chanel. She made stationary and wrote letters to her “clients” and “models.” She read those letters out loud. I was in tears of laughter. 9 years old. “Dear Client: My new cosmetics line is a SMASH. I think our companies could merge. Maybe we could meet for dinner at the chateau to discuss.”
The laughter … it lifted the performance space up off its foundations.
Great night!!
And yes – Pie is FORBIDDEN???
I laughed out loud. It was the first thing I saw when I walked backstage. It was just too perfect.
Oh, and Uptown Girl was sung to go along with the Chanel executive.
So much fun! We have another show tonight.
WAT
Mortified sounds fun! I bet Sam and Dean could use the catharsis…
Again, with the gifs. Too much!!
It really is so much fun. You get up there and humiliate yourself and the laughter that comes back is so warm, laughter of recognition … It’s a very sympathetic audience. Beautiful human type of experience.
This one girl got up and read excerpts from her diary in high school – she was (she told us) a very submissive person outwardly and she was a total RAGE-BALL in her diary. “My sister stole my pen. She is a FUCKING PIG.” That was her diary. She was awesome. When she was a teenager, she got into country and western music and wrote a country-western song when she was 15, 16 years old – the song was called “I’m Not” – because everyone kept asking her if she was gay. (She said, before singing the song for us, “This is the most mortifying thing I have ever written – not only to myself, but to my current girlfriend.”) She then proceeded to sing the song – and people were ROARING. “I love Ellen Degeneres, I have a rainbow sticker, I only wear pants, boys call me ‘mate’ … but to answer your question: No, I’m Not.”
It went on and on and on … this hilarious and revealing teenage-angst poured into a country and wester tune.
People were literally falling out of their chairs laughing.
I lovethat playlist. Bananarama AND Tears for Fears – that kind of dates a lot of the audience! Ooh La La, one of my favourites.
I’m sure the tambourine and backing vocals were just awesome.
And everyone of course sang along with gusto.
//“This is the most mortifying thing I have ever written – not only to myself, but to my current girlfriend.”//
This is just hilarious. And I love the 9 year old Chanel executive – that’s so grown up.
and – she is now an executive with Converse. She clearly knew who she wanted to be at 9 years old!!
She was so into her role at Chanel that she would have board meetings with her stuffed animals.
I just love the idea, and I love that the people are there to own/disown it and put it in context — that it’s not just a coffee table book. Sounds hilarious, I’ll have to keep an eye out for local versions!
They have a big website with gigs all over the country – if you Google Mortified it should come up!
//She was so into her role at Chanel that she would have board meetings with her stuffed animals.//
Giant teddy: Why am I here?
Audrey: For TEAPARTIES
Sorry I’m at work so can’t do a gif.
hahaha Ka-pow, shot gun blast to the head. One of the funniest stupidest moments I’ve ever seen in my life.
No PIE! Blasphemy!
‘Mortified’ = gorgeous.
I wish I could wrap up all of my teenagers and show them how universal these feelings and humiliations are… but I don’t think they would get it, being in the eye of the storm and all. I don’t think I would have responded well to someone telling 15 year old me that one day I would laugh at the shit I wrote in my journal. I’d probably have stabbed someone. The show sounds like a beautiful and affirming experience.
It really is. It’s not mean-spirited at all – it’s this public acknowledgement of eccentricity and freakishness – Last night a girl read excerpts from her “fan fic” (which was a 391 page novel, really) about her fictional experiences being a Mousekateer. She wanted so badly to be on the Mickey Mouse Club (1990s version), and her mother wouldn’t let her audition, so she basically wrote a 391 page book about her “life” on the Mickey Mouse Club. She was 12 years old. There were dance rehearsals where she “made up a new move” that then swept the nation. “I started a trend today! I’m so proud!” she wrote. She also had all of these sexual experiences with her cast members – making out with another Mouseketeer on his “silver bed” – (she had never kissed anyone in her real life, she informed us – but boy, she got a lot of action in her fantasy life, in between dance rehearsals) it was sooooo funny and sweet and awful … the audience was ROARING.
It’s somehow redemptive. The laughter is never mean. It’s cathartic. It’s kind of a beautiful acknowledgement of the fact that we’re all weird, we all get obsessions, we all were awkward 12 year old humans, and here we all are now, we made it out.
And I imagine that a teenager, in the middle of that whole experience, might not “get” that. You know … someday I will LAUGH at the intensity of my experiences right now? What?? Incomprehensible!
Oh, and to go along with the Mickey Mouse Club girl, we sang a bluesy-slow-jam version of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song – which I wish I had on tape. It was hilarious.
Sheila, the Mickey Mouse Club story is making me kind of wish I still had some of my old Joey Lawrence fanfiction. I wonder if any of it is mixed in with the boxes of my old books that are now in an inaccessible part of my parents’ basement.
You should check!! And then see if Mortified is playing in your area! If you go to the website, there’s a Participate button. You put in your information and they get in touch. :)
Also: Joey Lawrence fanfiction. I LOVE THAT.
I wish Mortified would come to my neck of the woods! It is funny, my daughter mentioned this stage show a few weeks ago, she has tons of journals from when she was younger (she is 20 now) and she said how she is “mortified” when she reads them, and then mentioned the show.
I bought both seasons on ITunes, since I don’t have the Sundance Channel. I watched them all in a couple days-I got such kick out of them. I want to check out the Netflix documentary for sure. They are so sweet and poignant-I laughed and I cried with most of them. What I loved about them is it seems so fresh and heartfelt. David, the host- is a great interviewer-you see how he listens to people, and I think it is really special what people share with him.
I’ve always LOVED reading your old diary entries-you were so ahead of the curve on that! A trendsetter!