Hosts: Pegi Vail & Melvin Estrella
Pegi Vail: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Pegi Vail, anthropologist at NYU, a filmmaker and one of the founding board members of The Moth.
Melvin Estrella: [00:00:11] And I'm Melvin Estrella, a filmmaker. And just like Pegi, one of The Moth's founding board members.
Pegi Vail: [00:00:17] Throughout 2022, we've been commemorating our 25th anniversary by taking a look at our history, counting down year by year. In this episode, we finally arrived at the very beginning of The Moth, 1997.
Melvin Estrella: [00:00:30] That's when this whole thing started with our very first show in our founder, George Dawes Green’s living room. Here's a short clip of that.
George: [00:00:39] And the woman kept saying, “All I need is a doctor.” Wanda's father kept saying, “I know who you are. [audience laughter] You can't fool me.” And the little girls were transfixed by this story.
Pegi Vail: [00:00:53] We've grown a lot since that first show. We put out four books, won a Peabody Award and told over 50,000 stories on six continents. In fact, there was even a Moth tribute show done in a bar in Antarctica. And I wish I had been there. I missed that one.
Melvin Estrella: [00:01:08] It must have been so different from our first show. We were setting up chairs in the middle of George's living room, an area for water and wine. That evening, the atmosphere was perfect for storytelling. But it was the worst show ever. The stories were good, but they were 25 minutes long. The wine ran out halfway.
Pegi Vail: [00:01:28] Yeah, I definitely remember. We realized, I think we're going to have to set a time limit for these stories. But nevertheless, I still felt like and I know everybody else did, that something special had happened. We got a bunch of New Yorkers in a room to just stop and listen to stories.
Melvin Estrella: [00:01:45] That's right. The core of The Moth has always been the stories.
Pegi Vail: [00:01:49] So, here's George Dawes Green, 25 years from that first Moth show, telling a story at the Seattle Mainstage in 2022. The theme of that night was Lost and Found. And a funny little coincidence, the theme of the first Moth show was finding a place.
Melvin Estrella: [00:02:034 Here's George, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
George: [00:02:14] There's a town called Surrency in the backwoods of Georgia, about an hour inland from Brunswick, where I grew up. Surrency is just a Baptist church, and a holiness church and a gas station. But it was famous in South Georgia, because Surrency had two flashing lights about two blocks apart. So, if you were driving at night on Route 341 about 10 miles out of Surrency, you'd start to see this blinking. Blink, blink, blink.
You don't know it's two lights, because from here, it looks like one light. But you go a mile, and it seems to stretch and it starts going bubbling, bubbling, bubbling. You just don't know what the hell you're looking at. Is that aliens? [audience laughter] Is that an alien spacecraft? Am I about to get probed here? [audience laughter]
After about seven or eight miles of this, you begin to get completely hypnotized. And if you don't snap out of it, you'll drive off the road into a pine tree and you'll be just another victim of the famous Surrency lights. [audience laughter]
When I was 19, I got summoned to Surrency. I had dropped out of high school and gone hitchhiking around the country for some years. But now, I was back in Brunswick and I found a job at the local crisis hotline. Now, those were all the rage back in the early 1970s, because there was a nationwide war on drugs. Our crisis hotline was in this big Victorian house with live oak trees and Spanish moss.
I trained there for a few weeks, so that I could man the telephones. And if anybody was having a bad trip on LSD, I could be their friend. And my bosses were Don and Calvin. They were lovely guys, very mild, but they warned me that I might get some prank calls but I should never hang up, because sometimes a call will start as a prank. But if you wait, then the caller will start to trust you and might open up about some real problems. So, I had this old-fashioned black telephone with a long cord that I could take out onto the veranda and wait for crises. [audience laughter] But crises didn't come, and I just waited.
I read novels. I read Robert Penn Warren and Flannery O'Connor. I wanted to be a writer, but I felt no inspiration. These were books about fascinating, tormented southerners. All of the people that I knew were mild, like Don and Calvin. So, I just waited. And then, finally, the phone rang and it was a teenage girl. And she said, “I'm having a bad trip.” I was trained to reflect, so I said, “You're having a bad trip?” And she said, “Oh, because there's elves in here.” I could hear people in the background going [onomatopoeia]
And I said, “There's elves?” And she said, “Yeah, and they're laughing at my shoes.” And I said, “They're laughing at your shoes?” And she said, “Uh-huh, because I got them at JCPenney's in the mall and they're ugly,” and she hung up. But about three nights later, she called again. I'll call her Tara. Tara was 17, and she was a high school dropout, like I was. She lived with her grandmother. She called night after night. No crisis. She'd just say, “Hello, my therapist,” mocking the whole therapy thing, and then she talked.
She complained about boredom, she complained about her grandmother, she'd complain about my accent. She'd say, “Well, how come you don't sound like you're from around here?” And I said, “Well, I hadn't moved to Brunswick until I was 12.” She said, “Are you really going to be a therapist?” I said, “I hope not.” [audience laughter] I said I wanted to be a writer. She said she never read books herself, but she loved stories. And so, I told her the story of this Walker Percy novel that I was reading, The Moviegoer. And she seemed to like that.
She even came by the big Victorian house one night. The doorbell rang, and I opened and there she was with these long, red ringlets and an angular face. And she said, “Hello, my therapist.” I had to tell her that we weren't allowed to have in person visits. She sniffed and floated away. And I told my bosses, Don and Calvin, that Tara made me uncomfortable, because it didn't feel like therapy. But they said I should hang in there, because maybe she was hiding some real pain and she'd open up. So, I hung in there, because I really wanted to do well at this job.
And then, real people started to call with real problems. There was a woman in her 50s named Betty. And she'd just call and weep for hours. But once I asked her, “What she loved?” I can't do her voice, but I will try, because this beautiful, smoky voice, she'd say, “Well, I love my Valium [audience laughter] and I love my Librium and I love my little dog, Willie, because he fights for me.” Willie was her incontinent old poodle. And I said, “How does he fight for you?” And she said, “Well, today, at the rectory, he came in and made a doo-doo on Lynette Taylor's purse. [audience laughter] And that dog just brightens my day.”
[audience laughter]
There was a guy named Albert, in his 60s, very lonesome. He had this high-country voice, and he'd say, “George, my wife almost never speaks to me.” Albert was always full of surprises. Like, often he and his buddies would go quail hunting. But Albert confessed to me once that he was a terrible shot. He said, “But you know, when you're on a quail hunt, everybody shoots at once. So, nobody ever knows who hits the quail.” [audience laughter] He said, “My friends, they all say, ‘Albert, you shot that bird. You're a good shot.’ But I think I have never shot a quail.” [audience laughter]
One time, Albert told me that as a young man, he had some intimate moments with his best friend. And even now, sometimes he'd put on a jacket and a tie, and drive to Savannah, and go cruising, looking for some connection. But he said, “I never do nothing. I just drive.” But then, one night, Albert called. He seemed particularly sad. I happened to ask the question, “Was it hard to be a gay man in rural Georgia?” And he bristled. And he said, “I never said I was gay. I'm married. I'm a Christian.” I felt devastated to have used that word so casually.
After about an hour after we hung up, he called back and he said, “George, could you come out here? I just feel like I need to talk to somebody, face to face.” Well, he said, he lived way out past Surrency. I was terrified to go, but I called my boss, Don, and he said I should. So, I drove out there. I made it past the Surrency lights. I came to this cinder block house, Albert's world, and I could see through the window there was this old woman watching TV, Albert's silent wife. And I knocked.
For all these hours of talking to Albert, I had created some picture of him in my mind. But the door opened, and instead was a girl in long red ringlets. She saw the look of astonishment on my face, and she said, “Hello, my therapist.” She said, “I thought you knew. You didn't know?” I said, “You were Albert?” And she said, “Yeah. George, I hunt quail every day, but I've never hit one.” She said, “You really didn't know?” and she turned and called her grandmother and said, “Grandma, my therapist and I are going to go sit out on the porch.” And so, we did. We sat in these wicker chairs, and this old dog came up and she said, “That's Willie. Don't let him jump up. He'll make a doo-doo.” [audience laughter]
So, Tara was also Betty. She was Betty and Albert. And I said, “Tara, why did you invent these people?” And she said, “I don't know, I'm bored. I live in Surrency.” [audience laughter] She said, “You want a Jack and Coke?” I was humiliated partly, but I was also partly dazzled. But I didn't stay for a drink. I went home.
The next morning, I told Don and Calvin, and they were over the moon. They said, “This is clearly a case of multiple personality,” [audience laughter] which was the holy grail for psychologists in those days. They couldn't wait for Tara to call back. But she didn't. I waited on the veranda, but Tara never called. Nobody ever called, and the nights grew very long and I quit.
I got an equivalency diploma and went to the University of Georgia, which meant I often drove through Surrency on my way back home to Brunswick. I'd always slow down when I was in front of Tara's house, but I never saw her. But once, years later, I was approaching the Surrency lights, and there was this weird glow on the right side of the road, and somebody had an accident, driven off the road into a pine tree. There were other cars pulled over. The police were on their way.
But as I drove past, I could glimpse the driver. He had a jacket and a tie, and he was a small, elderly man. I had a flash of, “Is this Albert?” But of course, it wasn't Albert. Albert was Tara's creation. She was such a powerful storyteller. And even now, when I write, I hear your voices, your character, something you did that freed me to create. And I hope that you got out of Surrency, and I hope you're not bored anymore and I hope you don't hate me for calling you Tara. I know you'd have come up with something much better, you'd have found something perfect.
[cheers and applause]
Pegi Vail: [00:17:31] That was George Dawes Green. George is our friend and the founder of The Moth and a New York Times best-selling author. His first novel, The Caveman's Valentine, won the Edgar Award and became a motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson. The Kingdoms of Savannah, Georgia's latest novel, was published this July to widespread acclaim. The New York Times says that it's layered like a parfait goes down sweet, chilled and easy. Greene shows how you can love a place's stink, find it splendid even as you despise its sediment. Green grew up in Georgia and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Melvin Estrella: [00:18:04] We wanted to hear what George thought about how The Moth has grown and changed over the years, ever since the first show in his living room.
Pegi Vail: [00:18:13] Here's The Moth's Jenifer Hixson, who directed his story, talking with George.
Jenifer: [00:18:18] Well, George, we just listened to your beautiful story from Seattle. You told it just a few months ago. You had an unconventional ending to this story. You're the founder of The Moth, so you get to do that. You reached out to Tara directly in it. You had a message for her.
George: [00:18:37] Yes. Her real name isn't Tara. I haven't seen that girl for 50 years. But I always hope that I'll run into her. And so, I think, well, if this is now going on podcast, somebody will know Tara or she'll be listening to this. And if you're out there, Tara, again, I'm sorry I call you Tara, but you know who you are and I would love to see you again.
Jenifer: [00:19:09] And Tara's especially important because in your book, The Kingdoms of Savannah, she's fictionalized part of her.
George: [00:19:18] I kept imagining over the years what would Tara have become. And so, a few years ago, it came to me that Tara might well have gone to Savannah and she could do any accent in the world. So, she could easily persuade Savannians that she was an 8th generation Savannian.
And in my book, she becomes the doyen of Savannah society. Her name is Morgana Musgrove and she has a detective agency. She inveigles all of her dysfunctional family, her adult children to come in and help her with the detective agency. And it's a thriller, it's a contemporary thriller, but it's about stories and Savannah stories and how the stories of Savannah and Georgia really shape that area of the world.
Jenifer: [00:20:17] Tara, look what you inspired. I really hope you'll reach out to us.
George: [00:20:22] Tara, also, to be honest, those stories in some way inspired the founding of The Moth, because I remember the night that it was revealed to me that Tara had made up all of those characters. I can just remember that sense of the power of these Savannah stories.
There was something about Georgia, I guess, because there was nothing to do. So, I guess that's why we were able to gather on porches and just listen to full stories. But absolutely, there's that and there are other elements to living in the south. There's that southern gothic strain which comes into the most casual, personal stories. So, I do think that the stories of Savannah were so vivid that years later I was living in New York and missing those slow drawled stories and going to cocktail parties.
There's always these vultures who will interrupt every conversation after 10 seconds. Not because they are particularly rude or interruptive. It's just the way of life in New York. And so, I think one of the keys to The Moth was my thought that we needed to just shut everybody up and let people tell full 10, 12 minutes stories.
Jenifer: [00:22:00] And here we are 25 years later.
George: [00:22:03] 25 years later.
Jenifer: [00:22:05] So, zooming way forward today, George, what do you find most gratifying knowing that this organization you started is still churning along?
George: [00:22:20] It's still full of surprises. We just went to The Moth member show in New York, and it was one great story after another. Particularly, there were a couple of stories. They were stories, I think, that you directed, actually, Jen.
Jenifer: [00:22:35] Oh, thank you.
George: [00:22:37] That was magical. There were several magical stories. Just that sense that you're with the community, the one thing that gratifies me the most about The Moth is when we set it up, because we knew this was a tremendous amount of sacrifice for all of us. We were pouring, first of all, incredible amounts of money, and hours and hours for years and years.
Jenifer: [00:23:00] Sleepless nights. [laughs]
George: [00:23:01] Yeah.
Jenifer: [00:23:02] For real.
George: [00:23:05] Sometimes it seems easy. It was a big success from the very beginning, so you'd think, oh, well, this will be easy. But no, it involves constant negotiations, and different creative minds and balancing the wishes of one group versus another and one approach versus another. But what I always found was the sense of deep community and the sense that we were all in a community. It's great to me that so many members of that original Moth community are still working on stories and creating stories and working with The Moth. That I think that sense of lifelong bonding, is what, to me.
The Moth was all about. The art is so important to me, the art of the Raconteur. But almost equally important is the sense of a community of people who like this. That is to say, there are so many people now who just want to spend their time on the internet or they want to go to these movies, these big Hollywood movies or Marvel movies or whatever. And then, there are lots of people all over the world who would rather go into a room and listen to stories. And that every time I go to a new Moth, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, it just moves me so much.
Melvin Estrella: [00:24:31] Man, 25 years of The Moth.
Pegi Vail: [00:24:34] Since we're revisiting some of the early Moth days, I remember actually all of our early venues, places like the Lansky Lounge, which gave that feeling, I think, that George had always wanted, which was an atmosphere of community where people were just listening to each other's stories, and having drinks and food in the lounge. It was really great atmosphere.
But as we grew, we, of course, were making more cultural, institutional connections. So, we partnered with the Museum of Natural History, and we partnered with the Margaret Mead Film Festival, a documentary film festival that was in the museum, had a night, actually, that we did with documentary storytellers on stories that got away that they never actually filmed. But we also did another night at the Museum of Natural History, which was at the planetarium, and there were about 400 people.
I felt very fortunate to tell the story that night, but I was the most excited to hear the astronaut. He was Captain Frederick Hauck. He was the first pilot astronaut into space after the Challenger crash in 1986. So, the story he painted though first was what's it like to feel and look at the earth from this unbelievable vantage point of space. Everybody was in on it. Everybody felt everything that he was saying that the 16 sunrises and sunsets every day, the blues in the oceans, the tans of the deserts and the greens of the forests. It was feeling very palpable, and I felt like we were experiencing with him and I felt everybody else around the room had the same feeling.
Melvin Estrella: [00:26:02] One of my favorite stories happened early on, the theme that night was Travel Stories. You curated that, Pegi. It was the first Moth story to be picked up by NPR. Playwrights Cándido Tirado and Carmen Rivera told the stories of traveling to Italy to be at a friend's wedding which sounds amazing, because you're imagining Tuscany, you imagine all these fascinating locations, but it wasn't. It was a very remote place that he says look like Kansas.
Carmen and Cándido were having problems with the bride and the groom. Carmen and Cándido were having problems of their own in their own marriage, which made it for a very interesting wedding, something out of Dolce Vita or something like that, where this craziness going on. But what got my attention the most is that Cándido and Carmen end up repairing their marriage and feeling so good about the experience.
Pegi Vail: [00:27:09] We'd like to end with a thank you to everyone who was a part of the moth's 25-year journey.
Melvin Estrella: [00:27:14] Whether you told a story, donated to help keep The Moth going or just listen to a podcast, we truly appreciate it.
Pegi Vail: [00:27:22] Here's to 25 more years of The Moth.
Marc Sollinger: [00:27:27] We mentioned a lot of stories this episode. If you'd like to listen to any of them for yourself, check out themoth.org/extras, or take a look at this podcast's show notes.
Pegi Vail was a founding board member and curator for The Moth. She's anthropologist and filmmaker at NYU's center for Media, Culture and History, teaches documentary production in the Culture and Media program and collaborates with arts and cultural institutions on public programs in New York City and internationally.
Melvin Estrella was also a founding board member for The Moth. He has worked within the independent film arena, as well as on commercial television and nonprofit media production and is currently writing his first young adult novel, Earthquake Alley. He serves on the board of Prospect Street Writers House.
As documentary filmmakers, Pegi and Melvin produced the award-winning film, Gringo Trails about the effects of global tourism, and are currently in production on two films, Shadow of Nanook, directed by Jim Compton, Peadar King and they measured our heads following a precedent setting case to repatriate human remains stolen by British anthropologist, Alfred Cort Haddon in the 19th century from Vail's ancestral island in Ashbourne, Ireland.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth’s leadership team include Sarah Haberman, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Lee Ann Gullie, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
All Moth stories are true as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the public radio exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.