Host: Jay Allison
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. In this hour, stories of culture shock crossing the boundaries between people, communities, and even species. Sometimes we adapt, sometimes not so much.
Our first story is told by Jason Kordelos. He told this with us at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. Here's Jason, live from the Wheeler Opera House.
[applause]
Jason: [00:00:47] In December of 2001, I went on my very first cruise. I had always dreamed of going one of those all-gay RSVP cruises, [audience laughter] you know the ones that you read about to sunny Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta or Puerto Rico, all that sun, all those banana coladas, and all those boys. This, however, was not that cruise.
On September 11th, my best girlfriend, Marian, lost her firefighter husband, Dave Fontana, and she was left alone to raise their five-year-old son Aiden. The date also happens to be their wedding anniversary. So, I quit my job and I've been by her side pretty much ever since. Now, she says I don't have to do that, and I say, “Well, it's what anyone would do.” And she says, “Well, no it's not.” And I say, “Well, then it's what Susan Sarandon would do.” [audience laughter]
Prior to the 11th, I was really just the gay best friend, but since then I have been promoted. Marian has come to refer to me to all the people in her life, the firefighters and the widows and the neighbors and cousins. She refers to me as her new gay husband. I joke and I say like, “Liza and David Gest.” And Marian laughs. But most of the others ask me, “Liza who?” You see what I'm dealing with. [audience laughter]
Then came this cruise. Now, Royal Caribbean had generously offered this cruise to all the 343 firefighter families who had lost. When Marian asked me if I was interested in going with her and Aiden, I envisioned this gay family vacation, sort of Will and Grace meets love boat meets six feet under. [audience laughter] And so, absolutely, I said I would even make all the arrangements.
So, I call Royal Caribbean, and I speak to this Ms. Shapiro, a very surly woman. But I'm very excited about the tan that I know I'm going to have. I want to know where the ship is going to be going. “Where's the ship going?” I ask. She says, “Nowhere.” I say, “Well, what do you mean?” She says, “I mean nowhere.” I say, “Well, the ship has to have a destination. It must go to Puerto Rico or Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta.” She says, “No, it goes nowhere.” I say, “What, does the ship just stay in port?” She says, “No, it goes out to sea.” I say, “To where?” She says, “Nowhere.” This woman sounds as though she's reciting lines from an Ionesco play, poorly.
I say, “I'm sorry, I'm not getting this. So, the ship has got to have a destination.” She says, “Well, yeah, it leaves New York harbor, it floats out to sea, then it floats back. We're calling this a cruise to nowhere.” [audience chuckles] I pause and I wait for Rod Serling to begin his voiceover. [audience laughter] And then, I continue and I say, “Let me get this right. You're sending a boat full of widows and their grief stricken, terrorized families onto something called a cruise to nowhere?” She says, “Yeah.” I say, “Okay.”
And then, later in the conversation, when I inquire as to why we have to provide passport numbers if we're really not going to go anywhere, she says, “Well, you're going somewhere, but the somewhere is nowhere, and therefore everyone needs a valid US Passport number.” I should have known then that this cruise had the potential of sinking me.
Comes cruise day, and we arrive at Pier 58. Me, the gay husband, Marian, little Aiden. We see the ship, which is-- It's got to be eight blocks long and 14 stories tall, and it boasts its very own ice-skating rink. In line, there are 5,000 people, because apparently the trip was offered to the entire fire department and they all seem to have accepted. So, I, the gay husband, wait in line three hours, low blood sugar, after which I am dragging all of our luggage up a very steep ramp, at which point the all-male Ice Capades dance team tramples me.
I get my bearings and out of my pockets fall Aiden's Star Wars action figures out of my brand-new Dolce & Gabbana puffy white ski jacket. He runs up screaming at me and sprays me with his very berry juice box all over the brand-new Dolce & Gabbana puffy white ski jacket. So, I'm trying desperately just to keep it all together. My hair, my emotions, my outfit. He hits me, because Queen Amidala's got all messed up. I'm thinking, not the only queen. We get on board the ship. And the ship, glorious ship, the interior of this ship looks to me as if it is perhaps exploded out from the bowels of Siegfried & Roy. [audience laughter]
There are American flags everywhere and metallic everything. And there are kids screaming and widows crying and firefighters guzzling free beer. My very tasteful gay male aesthetic begins to have a panic attack. Because like the Barney's warehouse sale on a Saturday, I can handle, but this husband vacation stuff, not so much. I just chant the mantra that I have since the beginning of all this, which is, “It's about Marian and not me. This is about Marian and not me.” I take a deep, calm breath, and then we set sail to nowhere. [audience chuckles]
If you're wondering just how long it takes to get to nowhere, the answer is about 18 hours, which is a bit distressing, because it's taken me 34 years. [audience laughter] I rally for Marian as best as I can, and I'm introduced to the firefighters as her gay husband and I curtsy politely, but no one gets me. No one gets it. No one gets it. I have not been around another gay man for three months, because I'm cooking and cleaning for Marian. I'm putting Aiden to bed, and I'm giving her foot massages like her husband did, and providing her with sympathy and Valium.
I look around, and I see that I'm the only gay husband on board, the only gay anything. I begin to see that for some reason, surprisingly, there isn't a high demand for the gay man in the world of a wife of a firefighter, which is surprising, because with all due respect to the wives of firefighters, they could really benefit from us, really. That first night, I gave my services to this woman. We were sitting and chatting, and I said to her, “You know, you're much too pretty to be wearing that much lip liner. Just soften it,” and she didn't like that. Back in Brooklyn, I made sense of Marian's life, but here, not so much.
And so, the second night, we put Aiden with a babysitter, thank God. We go to dinner, and at the dinner, the orchestra plays Marian's wedding song. So, we leave, and we take a stroll on board. It's chilly, and it's moonlight. It's very romantic. We pause to gaze at the moon, and I can see that Marian's about to start crying. I been able to now gauge her emotional moods, like a seismologist reads a Richter scale. I want to say something funny, so I joke and I say, “It's like our gay honeymoon.” She laughs, and then it's quiet. And for the first time, I start to miss my own life. Clearly, we should be here and having this moment, but I think with different people. Her with her husband. And me with, I don't know, the Ice Capades dance team, maybe.
I start to wonder and maybe it's wrong, but I was like, “God, is this really all that my life has become now. I'm just going to be a gay man married to this wonderful but high maintenance woman.” Is this what happened Tom Cruise? I don't know. [audience laughter] And then, like a gift from the gods, I swear to God, Marian hears this beat. She hears a disco beat, because above us there's a discotheque. It sounds so queer. Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer’s, Enough is Enough starts playing, and Marian is infected and she wants to dance, and I'm like, “Yeah.” She says, “Do it for me.” I say, “Fine,” because it's Donna Summer, so, we dance.
We go up to the discotheque Jesters. Jesters has got dry ice and gargoyles and all this and that. She's dancing and I'm on the sideline pouting, because I'm supposed to be on a gay cruise, not a widow cruise, until I hear Patti LaBelle's Lady Marmalade. Because this is my song. This is the song I came out to 20 years ago to my best friend. So, I'm in this disco trans. All of a sudden, those widows from Staten Island look like drag queens to me. I take to the dance floor and I, like months of despair and sadness are just dripping off of me in the middle of this dance floor, in the middle of this cruise, in the middle of fucking nowhere.
It doesn't matter where we are or what kind of cruise it is, because my friend Marian and I were dancing, we're having a good time and we're laughing and she's smiling and sweating, and we're mouthing those immortal lyrics, “Getcha, Getcha, Ya, Ya, Da Da.” And for just a moment, it feels like nothing's changed. Not that nothing has changed, but that at least, as Gloria Gaynor would say, “I will survive, or she will survive or whatever. You get the point. We'll survive.” And then, who should spill onto the dance floor? But thank you, the entire all male Ice Capades dance team. I am stunned, because I have not seen another homosexual up close for three months.
I look at them, I'm so intrigued by their movement and their pageantry. I want to dance with the Ice Capades dancers, but I'm dancing with Marian. “Ice Capades, Marian.” She sees me looking longingly and she motions with her hands to me as if to say, “Go, Jason. Go, be with your people. [audience laughter] I will be all right.” And so, I do, and I talk to them and I introduce myself as gay husband. They laugh. One of them wearing a headdress says-- And we all laugh and I feel great. And then, I look over and Marian is alone at the bar and she's sipping a cocktail and she's crying.
I go to walk over to her, but then this captain, this very handsome captain, approaches her with a cocktail, and she blushes. I think, of course, of course. I mean, eventually, I'm going to be replaced. It's natural, but it kind of-- Yeah. So, then, there's a little squeal over here, because a Cher song has come on and the Ice Capade's dancers want to dance. And the one with the headdress asks me if I want to dance. I look at him and I look at Marian, I look at him, I look at the headdress. He's wearing a headdress. I say, “Yeah, I want to dance.” And so, I do. That's it.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:11:00] That was Jason Kordelos. Jason left New York in 2007 to write for MADtv LA for a few seasons. Since then, he moved back to his hometown of San Francisco and is writing a book about his pioneering ancestors’ history. They were one of the families in the infamous Donner Party in 1846.
Jay: [00:11:29] In a moment, cultural icon Cheech Marin discovers a new world just a few towns away, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[Lady Marmalade by Patti LaBelle]
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm your host, Jay Allison. And in this episode, stories of getting your bearings after your world shifts.
Next up is actor, comedian, and activist Cheech Marin. He told this story at a Mainstage event we produced in partnership with the Mesa Arts Center in Arizona. Here's Cheech Marin, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Cheech: [00:12:53] Bam, bam, bam. I was only eight years old, but I knew exactly what that sound was. I think that every eight-year-old in South Central LA knew exactly what that sound was. There were gunshots, and they were being fired three feet outside my bedroom window. Bam, bam. Another two shots, and I just slid out of the bed and crawled as fast as I could into the living room where my mom and dad slept in a Murphy bed that pulled out of the wall.
“Mom. Mom, they're shooting back there.” “I know, mijo. Stay down.” She grabbed me and threw herself on top of me. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my feet, man. She stayed on me for a long time, and then finally she got up, went to the window, pulled back the shade, and then red and blue swirling police lights filled the whole room. “Mom, where's dad?” “He's out there.” “What's happening?” There was a burglary. And indeed there was a burglary happening in the barbershop next door.
And over the years, I asked my dad what happened that night. And this is what he told me, “About 3 o’clock in the morning, he heard this faint tinkle of a low rent burglar alarm going off.” Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. He said it sounded just low rent. At this time, he was an eight-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. So, he got up, pulled back the shade, and he looked over there, and there was a guy in the barbershop walking around with a little flashlight. Without thinking, he got on his khaki pants, put on his white T-shirt, and got his gun. He told my mother, “Call the police, give them the address, tell them I'm LAPD and I'm going out to investigate. And be sure to tell him I'm wearing a white T-shirt.”
So, he went down the alley, got to the place where the door had been jimmied open, saw the guy in there, shone his flashlight and his gun at him and said, “I'm a LAPD. Come out with your hands up.” And the guy complied, and he walked out of the place. He stood there in the alley while my dad turned him around, put his hands up against the wall and started frisking him. In one pocket, he pulled out three straight razors. In the other pocket was a very long screwdriver, which I guess he used to jimmy open the door, and he held him there. The guy said, “What are you going to do with me?” My dad said, “I'm just going to hold you here until the cops come. They're on their way.”
It had been raining that night. He laid his umbrella up against the wall, and all of a sudden, you could hear a siren coming down the street. He looked at my dad and said, “I'm not going back to prison.” He made a lunge for his gun and knocked it out of his hand. The gun was on the ground, on the wet ground. They both went for it. And whoever got there first was going to live. He wrestled with a guy, and he was trying to keep him away from the gun as much as he could, and he was trying to get a hold of him. The guy broke free, grabbed the umbrella that was lying there and started to whack him over the head with it.
Just at that same time, the cops came out of their car at the head of the alley. My mom opened the window. “My husband's a policeman. He's the one in the white T-shirt. The white T-shirt. He's the cop.” By this time, my dad had found the gun on the wet ground, turned on his back and fired. He hit the guy in the shoulder. At the same time, the other cops let go, bam, bam, bam, bam. The guy staggered, almost made it to the end of the alley, and then collapsed. He was dead.
In every police involved shooting, there's an inquest. Everybody that's participated or had something to do with it gives testimony. All the cops, my dad, even my mother. The man's parents who lived in the area, they came and they testified that they had tried their best to do it, to raise their son, but he had a significant criminal record and had just spent four years in the state penitentiary for armed robbery. But they concluded that it was a justifiable homicide and the act of an armed robbery case closed.
Everything went back to normal, but it never went back to normal for me. I had nightmares every single night. Anything woke me up, and I was out in the window looking around, and my heart was always beating, and I was on the juvenile track to a fast heart attack. [chuckles]
So about six months go by, and my dad announces, one day “We're going to go take a trip out to the San Fernando Valley to see my police buddy Ernie.” “Okay.” Well, I'd never been to the San Fernando Valley. Sounded like an exciting adventure. I'd never been to the country, what country there was. So, we all piled in the Plymouth and headed out for Granada Hills.
I remember getting on the freeway-- The freeway in those days stopped at Van Nuys, and we had to go through five or six towns before we got to Granada Hills and all the orange groves. It was in the middle of orange grove. It was boring. It was a long ride, and I started looking out the window. What I noticed, that shocked me. People had swimming pools in their backyards. Their own private swimming pools. How could--? Wow. And so, I started counting them as we got along. I searched for them. I looked through fences and behind stuff, and where I could see a flash of blue, there was a swimming pool. How can there be so many?
By the time we got to the Dickens house, that was the name of the family were going to visit, I had gotten up to 50. Wow. So, we got to the Dickens house. Ernie, Virginia, and their son Mike. They were very nice, and they made us lunch. My dad and Ernie fell into this easy camaraderie that all cops have, and then they announced, “Ernie and I are going for a ride and we'll be right back.” Okay. So, we continued to chat with Virginia and Mike and tell stories, and they became our lifelong friends. After a couple hours, my dad and Ernie came back and chatted a little more, then my dad announced, “Well, we're going home now.” “Okay, see you later.” We all climbed back into the Plymouth and headed back for South Central.
My dad was very silent on the way back home. He didn't say a word till we were almost home and then he said, “I bought a house today.” My mother's jaw dropped, “What?” “Yeah, I just made a down payment on the house a block over from Ernie's. We're going to move in a week.” My mother at the time was eight and a half months pregnant with my twin sisters. She started breathing really heavy. [audience laughter] I thought she was going to deliver right there.
So, a week later, I find myself in the cab of a moving truck with my dad on the way to our new home in Granada Hills. I was scared. I was excited, but I was scared. I wasn't scared about leaving South Central. That was a scary place for me. I had seen two homicides by the time I was seven. I was missing a couple friends, but not much. But I would miss my extended family who lived all over the South Central, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my grandmother, my grandfather, but we were going to this new place, Granada Hills.
So, as soon as we got off the freeway, I started counting swimming pools again. And by the time we got to our new house, I was up to 75. So, there we were in front of our brand-new house, glistening in the middle of this dirt lot. I looked up and down the block and there were similar houses. Brand new house, dirt lot. I was like, “Wow, this is amazing.” We got out of the car and walked in. I walked up to the house and opened the door, and that smell, that smell of a brand-new house, if you could take the smell of a new car and multiply it by 100,000 times, that's what that smell was. That fresh paint and that parquet floor that never been stepped on. We were the first people to ever live in this house, and it was like were in dreamland.
So, we walked in and looked around, and it was four bedrooms where we had been living in this tiny, tiny duplex in South Central. It was four bedrooms, two baths, and a huge lot. I would learn all my basic gardening skills in that lot. [audience chuckles] And that night, we went to sleep. We only had two pieces of furniture in the whole house. Two beds. The one I slept in and the one the parents slept in. I went to sleep. And in the middle of the night, I woke up. I heard a sound. It's happening again. I looked out the window. We didn't have any shades on the windows at this time. We had just moved in.
Looked out the window and could see nothing but it sounded like our house was getting electrocuted. The sound got louder. I opened the window the whole way, and it's really loud now. It took me a minute to figure out what exactly that sound was. It was crickets. [audience laughter] A million crickets. A million crickets had replaced screaming sirens, which I heard 10 times a day in South Central.
The next day, my dad had to get up and go to work all the way in downtown LA. He took the only car. We were there at the house. My poor mother would just wander around trying to find some shady spot, sit there and pant like a German shepherd. [audience laughter] She was going to deliver any day, so I would walk her around. I got up and I would walk, she would waddle, and we would go into every room and just sit there in the room, and feel the ambiance of the room. There was no furniture. We sit on the floor. Even at that age, it was hard to pick her up after we had to get out of there.
I picked up my room, “Okay, that's going to be. That's great. Look at parquet floor. It's just like at the Boston Gardens. This is amazing.” And then, we picked out the room that my twin sisters, Margie and Monica, would occupy. We would look out the window of every room, and then we would go and sit in the living room and look out those windows and imagine a big lawn in front and gardens in back. We didn't have a swimming pool, and we would never have a swimming pool. And it was okay. I didn't really care. It was just a status symbol. Besides, I didn't even know how to swim at that point. [audience chuckles]
So, summer went on, and it was always hot. It was just 100 degrees every day. My grandmother came out to help with the care of the twins. They were born Margie and Monica. We’re having a great time settling into our new house. I remember the first day, my mother walked in the kitchen, turned on the taps, and mud came out. That's how new that house was. So, summer was over, and I was ready to start my new school, Granada Hills Elementary.
So, my grandmother had come, and she was watching over my twin sisters. And my mother walked me through the orange grove till we arrived at Granada Hills Elementary. We got up to the playground, and there was kids yelling and screaming. It looked just like South Central, only everybody was a little more polite, but it was loud. We walked in and found my classroom. Teacher was very nice. She greeted me, showed me to a desk, and I was trying to be on my best behavior. I was actually trying not to wrinkle my clothes. I walked like a starched robot, and I sat down.
I don't even remember what she said. She was just going on about, “This is here, this is there, and these are the rules,” and blah, blah, blah. Recess bell rang. All the kids headed out the door. So, I got out there and looked around at the playground, and I noticed that everybody was white. Not all. There was a few Mexicans, but no Asians and certainly no Blacks. I said, “Well, this is weird, but okay.” One day, everybody in my neighborhood is black, and then the next day everybody was white. It was like going from Nigeria to Knott's Berry Farm, you know? [audience laughter] “What is going on here?”
So, I looked around for something familiar, something I could relate to. And in the distance, I saw a tetherball, and kids were playing tetherball. “Hey, they had tetherball in my old school. I'll go try that.” I walked over and sat down on the bench to be the next one to play. They were playing tetherball just like they played tetherball in South Central. “Okay, I know these rules.” And in the near distance, I saw these two kids walking towards me, and they were laughing to each other, and they were pointing at me. And then, they would laugh again and then point again. And finally, they got up to the bench where I was sitting, and the bigger of the ones shoved me right off the bench, and he said, “Hey, get to the end, blackie.”
I didn't know the procedure here in Granada Hills. I only knew what I knew from South Central. So, I swung as hard as I could and hit this guy right in the mouth. [audience laughter] I guess that was the first time his sense of entitlement ever got challenged, [audience laughter] because he lit up like a thermometer and he didn't stop crying for a half hour. Nearby teacher heard little Johnny crying. He came, got the both of us, and marched us off to the principal's office. And on the way there, I thought of the beating that I was absolutely going to get from my father for misbehaving, but it paled in the comparison to the thought of at least one little A-hole was never going to bother me again. [audience laughter]
Nice first day. So, I was thinking, South Central was undeniably a violent place. Sirens every day. But the violence was general. It was all around. It was happening to other people. This is the first time it was personal. This is the first time I had ever been in a fight. I didn't fight with my friends. They weren’t my friends. And so, I wondered, I was the same kid in this situation. So, what was different about that world and the new world? What was that dividing line? What was that boundary that separated those two worlds? And I came to the conclusion that it was a line of 75 swimming pools. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:29:19] That was Cheech Marin. In addition to his fame and notoriety as half of Cheech & Chong, he's directed Broadway shows, been honored by the Smithsonian, written children's books, and a memoir called Cheech Is Not My Real Name: ...But Don't Call Me Chong. Cheech is of Mexican descent and holds one of the most significant private collections of Chicano art in the world. I caught up with Cheech recently on an Internet call.
Obviously, you're a comedian, you're also a memoirist. How does telling a story at The Moth differ from the other ways you talk about your life?
Cheech: [00:29:58] More frightening. [chuckles] Really, because these are untested things. The first reaction you get is when you put it in front of an audience, so you don't know how's it going to go or you don't know where the spots are, and you just go and do it. So, it's tightrope walking. For me, I'm used to rehearsal and know exactly what I'm doing, although there's a lot of improv in it, but this was frightening. This particular one was a subject that was very fragile to my psyche.
Jay: [00:30:36] Because of the traumatic events that you went through as a kid?
Cheech: [00:30:41] Yeah, exactly. The neighborhood, and then my father was a policeman in the middle of it all. When you're growing up as a kid, everything seems normal, because that's all you know. Gunshots in the middle and 3 o'clock in the morning is normal, and every kid in that neighborhood knew what that was. Getting shot or hit or-- I mean, it's like, “Oh, that's normal. That happens every day.” Well, it doesn't happen every day in most neighborhoods, but it did in mine.
Jay: [00:31:11] Mm-hmm. Until you got to the swimming pool neighborhood.
Cheech: [00:31:15] Into the swimming pool, guys. [laughs] That line. For me, what it brought back was a lot of-- Those memories sitting in the back of the car, in the backseat of the car when I'm all alone.
Jay: [00:31:29] I like in your stories, the way you talk about childhood, it seems like it's really vivid for you. You bring it back really easily, like you transport yourself and us there.
Cheech: [00:31:42] Yeah, I was coming into consciousness basically. I'm just passing the age of reason and starting to figure a little few things out. And then, when you had something to contrast it with. South Central to Granada Hills is as much contrast as you could get. [laughs] Like, “Okay, how do I fit in here? How do I do this?” So, those memories are very, very vivid.
Jay: [00:32:07] Are you going to tell any more Moth stories, do you think?
Cheech: [00:32:09] I don't know. That was very scary for me. It really is a high wire deal. You're tilting over here and you've got to tilt back, but you're listening to the audience reaction for the very first time, and it’s like [onomatopoeia]
Jay: [00:32:26] But you know, Moth story, audience reactions-- As a comedian, what you said is true. If they don't laugh, it's not funny. But with The Moth, you might just change their rate of breathing or you might-- [crosstalk]
Cheech: [00:32:37] That's exactly it. That's exactly it. When they're quiet, that's much more fearful, because you never heard it before. And in that silence, there is great depth and great meaning.
Jay: [00:32:52] It's mentioned that you have the largest collection of Chicano art or something like it. Can you tell me a little about that?
Cheech: [00:33:01] Yeah, I don't claim to have the largest. There're other large collections out there. I just claim to have the best.
[laughter]
I mean, you can argue with that, but show me your museum. [laughs]
Jay: [00:33:18] Cheech Marin. His recently opened museum in Riverside, California, is the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture. He says, it will probably be referred to as The Cheech.
[triumphant music]
In a moment, two stories about crossing the boundary between the human and the animal kingdoms, when this hour about culture shock continues.
[triumphant music]
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison, producer of this show. We are hearing about relating to new worlds, and our next stories are both about ways we relate to the world of animals. The first comes from our Houston StorySLAM, where we partner with Houston Public Media. Storyteller Prachi Mehta grew up afraid of animals. So, when she arrived in Texas from her native India, the ubiquity of pets was surprising and even profoundly uncomfortable. Here's Prachi at Warehouse Live in Houston.
[cheers and applause]
Prachi: [00:35:03] Have you all ever watched those movies where they portray animals as extraterrestrial beings with different senses from us, capable of talking in their own little language and having special powers? I was one of those people who believed that to be true. [audience chuckles]
I grew up India, where animals live a very different life from us humans. Let me explain. Growing up, I watched cats and dogs walking down the street having a ball. They had no rules. They would chase each other, scavenge for food, hunt, do whatever they pleased. I rarely saw pets, and for me, animals were someone to be afraid of, someone to be feared and respected.
Now, this perception was greatly challenged when I moved to the United States six years back. When I moved here, my first stop was Austin. For those of you who have been to Austin, it's a beautiful city with beautiful people, and you hardly see animals walking down the street. Animals were people's friends here, best friends. They were companions. They were confidants of the American people. I was not used to that idea. It was very strange to me.
Sometimes I would walk into conversations where I thought they were talking about their kids. [audience laughter] For instance, they would be talking about how education and development and learning and daycare and sickness. And at some point, I realized they're talking about their pets. [audience laughter] It was amazing. I would always feel like I had nothing to contribute at this point. [audience laughter] So, I would just nod my head and say, “Yeah.”
So, not just the fact that I was there in America and living a new life, I was so excited, trying to make new friends and just live it up. It's the American dream. But my American dream came to a full stop, and I had to understand that I had to deal with pets everywhere. Everywhere I went, my friends, my friends’ siblings, my professors, everyone had at least one pet. I walk into their house, very excited, trying to make friends. And as soon as I entered their house and saw a pet, I would jump on the couch or jump on the bed, because I wanted to be as far as possible from these pets.
My friends, they were tolerant. They were very nice to me, and they would actually make sure that they locked their pets and kept them as far as possible. At some point, I felt that if this continues, I can definitely see myself staying in the US. But as things went on, two years down the line, I was almost done with graduate school at UT Austin and-- I was still keeping my arm's distance from any pet possible.
Now, as it happens-- Life has its own course. So, the last month that I was in Austin, I had to stay with my cousin. I used to visit this cousin often. She lived in Round Rock, and she did not have pets, so I was fine. I go there, very excited to spend my last month in Austin with them. I walk in and I see this little puppy walk up to me. She has three kids, my cousin, and they're like, “Prachi masi, look, we have a pet. Dad gifted one to my mom last week.” And I was just like, “Oh my God, I can't do this.” I just ran. The kids running towards me, and I was running towards the couch. Again, it was a little puppy, a sweet little puppy, a Labrador. And in retrospect, it was just so cute. But at that time, I just felt like it would claw-- [audience laughter] It would come and bite me. I thought that was all they wanted to do, was to come and bite you. It was just like a deception. They're so sweet and cute and those little cats and little dogs, and you go close to them, and as soon as you go close to them, you're gone.
So, the next month, I spent very carefully in my cousin's house. I was on the top-most surfaces as possible, on the first floor, on beds, on couches. I would not try to put my feet down, because the puppy was roaming everywhere. And it was tough. My niece and nephew, they would take the dog and come to me close, brandishing it as a sword when they wanted something from me. [audience laughter]
So, at some point, my cousin sat me down. She had enough. She took me close to the dog, and she was like, “You are touching this dog right now.” I closed my eyes, and with trembling hands, I touched the dog. And sensing that it was not going to bite me anytime soon, I actually stroked it, and I stroked it once more, and it was fine. It actually did not bite me. So, I felt that my fear had gone away at that point, but no, it took a couple more months. I had to meet with more pets, more cats and dogs. I made it a point to go and say hi to all of my friends, friends’ pets.
And at some point, I got rid of the fear and that has set me free. Let me tell you something, letting go of fear is empowering. And from that point onwards, I'm okay with any pet. I have just one rule, don't lick me. [audience laughter] Otherwise, bring it on. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:41:07] Prachi Mehta has been living in the United States for almost eight years now, working in the energy sector. She tells us she's proud to finally be able to occupy the same room as someone's pet. She now adores Jimmy, the pup in the story. When she visits him, Jimmy still knows to lay down calmly, to be patted and not to lick. To see a photo of Prachi unafraid despite having a cat in her lap, you can go to our website, themoth.org.
How we regard other creatures can range from reverence to food? Our next storyteller, Marne Litfin, tries to bridge that divide. They told this at a StorySLAM in New York City, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Marne, live from the Bell House in Brooklyn.
[cheers and applause]
Marne: [00:42:07] I did a little bit of farm work in college and a little bit of farm work after college. When I'm 24, I get this summer job at a Quaker farm camp in Vermont, and I'm going to work in the garden, and I'm going to teach teenagers how to work in a garden, and I'm going to have a very relaxed summer, and I'm going to learn all about Quaker values, and it's going to be real chill. [audience laughter]
In my second week of training before the kids arrive, the head farmer is teaching us about the values of nonviolence, and simplicity, and interdependence, and valuing the light in all of us, and I'm dozing off. [audience laughter] And then, I hear her say, “And that is why we do chicken harvest.” And I'm like, “Excuse me? [audience chuckles] That is not the right verb.” [audience laughter] But it turns out that at this camp-- This camp where we have kids working on a working farm all summer, doing construction projects, volunteering at a day camp, this is a real service-oriented camp.
One of the things that we have the kids do, is raise chickens and then kill them [audience chuckles] and eat them. And because I'm part of the garden staff, I get to run it. I'm a vegetarian. [audience laughter] Been a vegetarian for 20 years. [audience laughter] I worked on farms with vegetables. [audience laughter] I do vegetables. [audience laughter] And I'm like, “Okay, this is what we're going to do.” All summer long, we get these chickens. They're called broiler hens. They're like Franken chickens, and they grow super-fast. They're the kind of chickens that are used in meat processing. They're not cute. They grow these giant breasts within six weeks and their little legs can't even support them.
And so, for the whole summer, every kid has to help take care of the chickens. We feed them every day, we water them, we talk to them, we love them. And then, at the end of the summer, it's time for chicken harvest. I don't know how I'm going to get through it, because I've never slaughtered animal. I've never killed anything. Never wanted to, but I'm like, “Okay, we're doing this.” So, the way that I go about it is that I make sure that everything is perfect. I set up all the stations that the kids are going to go through with their chickens. I lead a training beforehand on how it's okay to cry, it's okay to laugh on accident, it's okay to hit your friend. [audience laughter]
We don't know how we're going to react. At least of all me and every you know we all have to respect each other. And the kids are like, “Okay, okay, okay.” They're looking at me and I'm like, “It's totally fine, right?” And they're like, “You tell us.” [audience laughter] And so, the day of chicken harvest, I wake up in the morning, I assemble all the kids, and I tell them, “Okay, the first part of chicken harvest is to give your chicken the best last day ever.” [audience laughter] I pair the kids up. Each kid gets chicken, and they spend the day cuddling the chicken, [audience laughter] taking the chicken to the lake, doing arts and crafts with their chicken. And then, it's the afternoon and it's time to harvest.
I'm so focused on the preparations for it that it starts happening and it happens so fast. And before you know it, first, there's a field of chickens and kids, and then there's just a field. [audience laughter] Within an hour, it feels like it happens in seconds, everyone has killed their chicken and processed their chicken. At the end of it, we're all covered in blood and feathers. I go down to the lake to collect my thoughts, and I want to cry and I can't, because it was so easy. [audience chuckles] I'm looking at my reflection in the water and I'm like, “You are a person who can kill things.” I didn't know that about myself, and I thought, “I can't wait to eat this chicken.” [audience laughter] And most of us don't have the opportunity to know what it's like to kill something, but I know that when the revolution comes, I'm going to love it. [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jay: [00:48:08] That was Marne Litfin. Marne is a writer and comic living in Ann Arbor. They are a student in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. To see a photo of Marne as well as a link to their website where you can hear and read more of their stories, visit our website themoth.org.
While you're there, you can pitch us your own story. Do you have one about animals or crossing a cultural divide? You can pitch us by recording two minutes about your story right on our site, or call 877-799-MOTH. The best pitches are developed for Moth shows all around the world.
You can share any of these stories or others from the Moth Archive and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area, all through our website themoth.org. There are moth events year-round, find a show near you, and come out and tell a story. You can find us on social media, too. We're on Facebook and Twitter, @themoth.
That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles. Coproducer is Viki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Sarah Austin Jenness and Leah Thau.
The rest of The Moth’s leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true is remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers.
Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Patti LaBelle, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Ry Cooder, and the funkiest band you've never heard. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.