Stories Pitched by Our Parents (and one by me)
Before I started listening to this, I was nervous, because it’s essentially an hour of fundamentally bad stories. The first one immediately caught my attention, though (partially because I was literally just up to a character’s funeral in the book I was reading). And it was pretty relevant, as the main character had written up a funny eulogy, and then opted for a more generic and serious one. According to this book, funerals are no place for humor. In the radio show, a funeral director comments, “In the funeral business, humor can be a touchy subject.” It’s rare that something happens at a funeral that makes people laugh out loud without feeling like awful, heartless monsters. The Ukranian church story really got me, though, because I have been there. The first time I ever attended a funeral I was probably twelve years old, and the rabbi accidentally fell in. The grave. He tripped and fell in the grave and it was so ridiculous that when we got him out, he started laughing. And then everyone was laughing. It wasn’t in a disrespectful way, but I think we were all so taken aback and uncomfortable that there was really no other option. These things happen. I can especially relate to the “Barbara Drobish was a GOOD LADY” because I would probably start laughing too. Ridiculous Ukrainian (okay, substitute Russian) men screaming ridiculous things in your face? Welcome to every family gathering I’ve ever been to.
Not to say that this story would be any less interesting if I hadn’t related to it, but I think it helps. I think the best kind of stories are the ones that lead to more stories. I also liked how much of it was recorded. By allowing the couple to retell their Ukrainian church tale themselves, she gets more out of the story. It’s almost like she’s saying, “See? They thought it was funny too!” She also records random things like the funeral home’s recorded message to take the listener with her as she searches for these crazy stories.
To be honest, many of the others bored me after a while. Listening to the Erie Canal story, I thought, “Awesome, they’re singing!” but then it just started to feel like a middle school history lesson. I also liked the story about the cars at first, and I thought the dramatic music had a funny effect, but I also lost interest halfway through. I think there was too much technical talk about cars, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care. Needless to say, I didn’t get as much out of these stories as I did the first one.
One response so far
I liked the idea behind the funny funerals segment, but there’s only so much you can do with it. Like if perhaps you were narrating the segment with the story about the rabbi falling into the grave, I probably would have enjoyed it more. I also agree with you about the Erie Canal segment — the subject matter was so boring that Nancy was forced to interpret it through music, but even the song got annoying after awhile.