I recently had the chance to talk story with Jeff Gere, the founder of the Talk Story Festival which runs from October 10-12 at The McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Park.  Here's what I learned:

Jeff, you are the hardest working storyteller in the business—The James Brown of fables, ghost stories and tall tales.  When did you realize you had the gift of gab?

Well, ‘the gift’ is a developed skill.  Everybody has stories and everybody tells them.  But to grip a group with a narrative usually means you’ve spent a good bit of time learning the tale so you can guide the gift of attention down a well-considered path leading to an  emotional peak, a feeling or lesson that will well up in the listener.  It seems spontaneous, but it’s a honed and crafted skill.

I moved to Hawaii in 1982 from Italy to continue my love of mask and mime theater.  I wanted to study Japanese Noh Theater at UH. My first semester, after a class with a sensei who spoke no English, I sat in my car, completely broke, out of gas, as my wife waited with the two small girls for me to return with sauce for the spaghetti.  What to do?

I went up to Manoa Gardens, sat down at the first table of stunned students and said, “25 cents for a story, give me 50 cents and it’ll be a really good story.”  Several tables later, driving home with a tank of gas and jar of spaghetti sauce at my side, smiling with a little buzz on from the beer garden ‘tips’ I’d earned, I thought “This storytelling is really something.  I think I might take it a little bit more seriously sometime”.

Either you have a storytelling gene or someone inspired you.  Are there people who deserve a mention?

Well, too much rock ‘n roll, a drama teaching mom, and an over-active imagination contributed.  Locally, I must mention Kohala’s departed kupuna Marie Solomon and Kalaupapa’s Makia Malo as inspirations.  Lopaka Kapanui inspires and challenges me to do good work.  There isn’t anyone on that TALK STORY Stage that hasn’t moved me. … but I don’t tell stories like any of them.  Since storytelling is at essence the ability to put an audience under a spell, to guide their inner vision to ‘see’ your story, anything goes.

I tend to joke a lot, move lots, use lots of faces and voices, but others don’t do that and are just as effective (or more).  I admire people who can transfix people in their own way.  It is an awesome feeling to have 500 people breathe together, absolutely carried away by a storyteller.

I've watched you at bookstores, theaters, art galleries and outdoor pavilions.  Is there a perfect setting for a story?

No.  They’re all horrible and wonderful.  Malls and bookstores are really tough because nobody is committed to listening.  You have to work hard to convince them to give you ten minutes.  It’s a matter of getting the crowd to focus in and get carried away.  Sometimes the best thing to do is not try to command the space, but shrink, go yin, be focused and draw them into you.  It’s alchemy, it’s surfing.  It’s live!

You did a wonderful portrayal of Vincent van Gogh.  Anyone else you'd like to create a story around?

Thanks.  Van Gogh had a lot to say to that audience.  He was a pretty unhappy man.  I have a BA in painting and art history, so I was really into that enactment.  None comes to mind- that’s a question for an actor, Richard, like yourself. I DO see YOU as an Abe Lincoln waiting for a script.  Or Dick Nixon the thinner (on our Talk Story stage Sunday night doing “Tricky Dick’s Christmas Carol”.  What a show!)

I was reading Carl Sandburg's poem, " I Should Like to Be Hanged on a Summer Afternoon".  When it comes to the part about having any last words, I thought that would be a good opening for a long story.  How would you craft it?

Well, one never knows- I just went to the celebration of Sergio Goes’ life and photography.  LIFE!  Run while you can- I’ve got lots left to do.  I suppose the tale would be a series of flash-backs,or the young bounding self talking to the worn and waning old self about what he did & didn’t, could/couldn’t do.  That haunts me, actually.  I know I’ll be dirt soon enough.  If I can think of something I’d like to do, I’ll try to do it.  I don’t want to end my story lying down sighing, “If I’d only tried that.”  Better to drown swimming for another shore than slowly suffocate sitting on the beach watching.  But that’s my nature.

This is the 20th year of the Talk Story Festival.  Quite frankly a major accomplishment.  Do you have any special memories from all that talking?

I’m amazed!  I just spent an afternoon crafting a response to that question: deaf teller Ed Chevy and Big Islander Sandra MacLees have been in each of the past ten festivals, Makia Malo and Nyla Ching-Fujii have been in seven… there have been so many profound evenings- far beyond entertainment.  Deep human sharings… Every year at some point I stand in the audience totally moved by something being told on stage and I feel so lucky to be able to bring so much talent before so many people in such a great setting.

I am very proud that we now have dramatic lighting on the tellers and the sign interpreters; that we have four cameras recording the tells; and, we throw the video on the wall beside the stage.  I love having my Maui piano wizard pal Les Adam add a soundscape to some tells… it really is a production!  I don’t know of one like it in America.  And the video goes into homes on Olelo all year.  Yeah.  I’m proud of all that.

What does the future hold for Jeff Gere?

Well, after TALK STORY (10/10-12) Cathy Spagnoli (from Seattle), Lopaka Kapanui (ghostlore, and ‘Tita’ Kathy Collins (from Maui) tour to Maui, Kauai, and on 10/26 do OBAKE at the Japanese Culture Center (they turned away crowds last year).  I’m at the LA Storytelling Festival in November.  I also plan to create a national story radio show in the next year.  And I’m putting in a proposal to host a National Storytelling Conference here in late summer/early fall 2009.  And I’ll talk lots, squeeze my love, and laugh more.

Good luck Jeff!
Richard "Tricky" MacPherson

Jeff Gere, Remarkable Storyteller