An Evening with David Sedaris...in Greensboro

Row F, orchestra center, on the aisle...sweet seats for yet another of my groupie-esque arrivals at a David Sedaris reading. Yes. It's true. I am willing to spend gobs of money to listen, as he says, "to a middle-aged man read out loud."

David was in a particularly good mood tonight. Not sure if it was because he was back home to native North Carolina with family in the audience or what. But I've seen him in Raleigh, in Winston-Salem, in Charlotte, and those time he wasn't nearly as giggly and jovial as he was tonight. It was a treat to see him so happy.

A few short stories, a few diary entries, a bit of Q&A, it was your usual Sedaris evening. The first story was a new one concerning health care and demanding to "take my country back" with the wit of a right-leaning teabagger who is blindly convinced by her left-leaning son to wear not a sombrero with teabags dangling (that would be a tacit acceptance of illegals) but rather a conical hat with the term A.S.S.H.O.L.E. upon it. You know, A.S.S.H.O.L.E. "A Savvy Senior Hoping Obama Loses Everything". Started off the evening juuuuust right. And this time all the stories and essays and commentary stretched out to about two hours. I LOVED IT.

Here's a classic essay "Jesus Shaves" just to give you a taste of what I heard for two hours tonight, smiling every minute:

David Sedaris in Winston-Salem

Tuesday night saw my favorite storyteller descend upon his home state of North Carolina and give a reading at the Barnes & Noble over in Winston-Salem. After work and attending to the dogs, it was a quick drive over for some coffee and (shocker) book purchases, making my "to read" queue swell to almost inconceivable volumes.

It was difficult to physically "see" him, as 9:00am that morning saw the wristband giveaway begin. Work beckoned or else I would have stood in line for one. But regardless of the enormous crowd for the 7:00pm start, a standing spot on the periphery and a well-placed speaker system allowed me to still enjoy the reading and giggle appropriately (and sometimes inappropriately) at his sardonic humor. I love him.

Six to Eight Black Men

Pure and simple, David Sedaris is a genius. We are unabashed groupies.

In the spirit of the holidays, here's another David Sedaris reading. Back on December 20th, we posted his radio recording of "The Santaland Diaries" and hope you enjoyed it. Below is a three-part video of his reading of the Christmas essay "Six to Eight Black Men", 15 minutes or so of holiday frivolity. We love it, and hope you will too.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Santaland Diaries

Christmas is a mere 5 days away, and to get you into the "holiday spirit", there is nothing more sarcastically entertaining than humorist David Sedaris and his "Santaland Diaries". It's a litany of his experiences as Crumpet the Elf at Macy's in New York. Truly classic.

We're Sedaris groupies. We have all of his books. We have the audio verions on tape. We've seen David do readings live over in Raleigh a few times. We've gone to see Greensboro's Triad Stage and Preston Lane's one-man performance of "Santaland Diaries". And don't EVEN get us started on our adoration of his sister Amy Sedaris and HER crazy adventures!

Spend just 7 minutes and 18 seconds during this holiday season and take a listen to this radio snippet.

You'll never listen to Billie Holiday quite the same....