Host: Jenifer Hixson
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jenifer: [00:00:12] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jenifer Hixson. The Moth is true stories told live. Stories of human interactions. Some that have been pulled from the pages of a supermarket tabloid, or others that could have been pulled from the pages of your own life. In this hour, we have some of both.
Our first story comes from Sara Barron. For years, Sara hosted one of our monthly Moth StorySLAMs at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in New York City. Between other people's stories, she'd be on stage sharing the most terrible and hilarious tales of the single life. Pretty much eight years of bad dates. And then, one night, she brought this bearded guy to the show, and he sat right up front, enjoyed the evening immensely and the rest is history.
[cheers and applause]
He's the guy in the story you're about to hear. Here's Sara Barron, live at The Moth.
Sara: [00:01:02] Six months ago, I married a man named Jeff. And my marriage to Jeff made me a stepmother to a dog. [audience laughter] What I mean when I say that is not just that Jeff had a dog. And now that we're married, we kind of have the dog together. Although that is true. What I mean more specifically, is that Jeff shares custody of a dog with his ex-girlfriend. [audience laughter] As I am now his wife, I also share custody of a dog with his ex-girlfriend. [audience chuckles]
found out about this dog share situation very early in the relationship. The first time I went over to his apartment, there was a dog there, and she's like, “Woof, woof.” And I'm like, “Oh my God. Hi. Are you a cutie? Are you a little cutie?” I'm not really a dog person. [audience laughter] I'm not not a dog person. It's just that prior to owning one myself, I was unfamiliar with the unconditional love of an animal. And so, to me, it always seemed like a lot of poop, not a lot of conversation, and I just wasn't very interested.
However, if I was interested in a man who owned a dog, I would do a full song and dance about the dog to lock the business down, because I always felt it was this very weird like surreal audition for my maternal instinct. [audience laughter] So, I'm like, “Uh-huh, Jeff, your dog.” And then, one week later, I'm back at the apartment. But this time, no dog. I'm like, "Jeff, where's the dog?" And Jeff says, "Oh, funny thing actually is I share custody of the dog with my ex." And I'm like, "That is super funny." And then, he said, "Okay," but in a non-sarcastic way, I ask, "How do you feel about the dog share?" And I said, "Well, I don't know, really, because I didn't." There was part of me that was like, “Okay, great.” Like, “This is what the modern people are doing.” [audience laughter] So, that. But then, the other part of me was like, “This shit sounds dysfunctional. What?” [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
It really was both those things that I was like, “Smitten with Jeff #earlydays.” [audience laughter] And so, I did what you do when you're smart smitten, which is you just act agreeable. Like, you're not actually even acting agreeable, because you're so smitten, you feel so agreeable. And then, it's like, roll of the dice as to whether or not I'm going to resent you for this later on. [audience laughter]
Few quick words on the dog. She's a Miniature Schnauzer, and she is pretty cute, actually. [audience chuckles] Her name is Laika. A few quick words on the ex. She is a human woman. [audience laughter] She's also pretty cute, actually. [audience laughter] And her name is Gina. Jeff and Gina were together for 10 years, which is a long time. Never married, no kids. Jeff was the one to end it. And two months after Jeff ended it, which is not a long time, Jeff met me. And one month after Jeff met me, which is also not a long time, Gina found out about us. She found out that we were dating, which was horrible, and which happened because Jeff and I had gone to dinner with this good friend of mine, and she loved him, and he loved her, and she loved us together. It was like one of these good social evenings out. And because those kinds of things don't actually exist, if you don't take a photo and then put them up on Facebook. [audience laughter]
I awoke the following morning to discover, to my profound dismay, that my friend had put a photograph of Jeff and me together up on Facebook. And not only that, she'd tagged us. And not only that, she'd used the caption "lovebirds." [audience chuckles] Few quick words on me. [audience laughter] Prior to meeting Jeff, I was single, which I know is a given, but the reason that I want to make a point of saying that is it's not just that I was single, I self-identified as single. I'd been single a lot. I'd been on so many dates. I'd been on so many dates with so many men who were like, "Sara, I think you're great. But the thing is, et cetera." [audience laughter]
And so, when suddenly I was the one with the guy, and a fellow member of my sisterhood was in pain, in part because of me, I made a promise not dissimilar from the Girl Scout Promise. “On my honor, I will try to serve the sisterhood of single women by being kind and understanding to this one woman who just went through a breakup and to live by the Girl Scout law.” Should have been effortless, [audience chuckles] but it wasn't effortless. And the reason why, at least in part, was because I had not prepared-- That was on me. But I had not prepared for the amount of involvement that Gina seemed to want in Jeff's current life.
I'm talking in addition to any and all dog-related things, right? So, there's a lot of calling, there's a lot of texting, there is a lot of activity on the old Facebook page, a lot of like, "We really need to catch up over coffee. We really need to catch up over dinner." [audience chuckles] And the best part of me understood that all that stuff, every single inch of it, was about a woman who was in pain. She's going through a breakup. These things take time and she had no time. But the worst part of me, which is basically me,- [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] -I really wanted her to go away. [audience laughter] And that made me feel really bad about myself. Around the one-year mark, something seemingly insignificant, but actually quite significant happened, and that is that Jeff had a mole removed, stay with me, [audience laughter] from his upper, upper, upper inner thigh. He had done this, because I'd asked him to, because he comes from a long line of people who are like, "If you don't go to the doctor, then the problem isn't there." Whereas I come from a long line of people who are like, "If you don't go to the doctor, you're going to die." [audience chuckles] I had my eye on this mole, okay? It was dangerously textural, and I was like, "No, it needs to go."
And the day following the mole removal, he does this very tiny little intentionally funny post about it on Facebook. And Gina, as is her way, leaves a comment. This comment in particular read as follows. [audience laughter] "What? No. You are at least 1% less yourself without that mole. I shall mourn its passing." [audience laughter] And I read that particular comment, and I thought about it for a second-- I don't know what the technical medical term is for what happened next. But speaking as a layperson, I can tell you that I went apeshit. [audience laughter] It was as though, like every little, "Oh, are you kidding me?" that I'd been suppressing down for a year expressed into the big great, "Are you fucking kidding me?" of my life.
I lost my mind. I screamed. I pounded my fist against the wall. I was saying things out loud to myself like, "You know what, Gina? Just go ahead and write, 'Jeff and I are so close on Facebook. I know what he looks like naked on Facebook.' [audience laughter] Seriously, just do it, because it would at least be more honest and direct if you did." I was so angry for a multitude of reasons. Number one, because I'd been repressing my natural feelings for a year, and that's going to do it to you. [audience chuckles]
Number two, because Gina wasn't going because of Laika. She was around and she was staying around, and I felt so powerless as a result of this. Number three, because I'd been reminded, as I so often was, of the length and intimacy of Jeff and Gina's relationship. It was like, “Oh, right, yes, of course.” Of course, she knows that mole, because they shared a bed together for 10 years. It's like such an overwhelming length of time. And number four, because that mole was some pre-cancerous shit. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
It was the mole, but it was everything. [audience chuckles] And so, because if you cannot run away from the wave, you must then dive into the wave. I did the only thing I knew how to do. I went back to the computer, I went back onto Facebook, I went back to Gina's comment. I clicked on Gina's profile, I clicked on the message button on Gina's profile. [audience chuckles] And then, I wrote the following. "Gina, Gina, in light of our particular relationship, let me get straight to the point. I was thinking maybe we should meet up for a drink. I think it might be helpful for the both of us. Let me know what you think. All best, Sara."
Two hours later, Gina wrote back. "Sara, I read your message and had two prevailing thoughts. The first was thank you. The second was fuck off. But the thing is, the part of me that thinks thank you is the part I like the best. So, yeah, let's do it. Let's go for a drink." Three nights later, Gina and I, just the two of us, met up for a drink. Personally, I prepared for what I now call the X Games of emotions with a manicure. And because I was so nervous about the whole thing from the get-go, and then what made it worse is that the subway broke down on the way there, and so I had to literally run the last 15 minutes.
So, I just remember walking into this bar and being like, “My face is on fire. My face is on fire.” [audience laughter] And then, Gina walked in and she looked perfect. And that made me more nervous. And so, then as my conversational entree, I said, "Hi, you look like all the photos of you that I've stalked on Facebook." But it was hashtag too soon and she didn't laugh. Not that she should have, it was just totally a mess. [audience chuckles] But eventually I stopped sweating. Thank you, guys, very much. And then, we had a drink, and then we had a couple of drinks.
Gina talked about how so many of her actions toward Jeff just felt to her like this fight for a friendship with Jeff. I talked about how I'd made the promise of the sisterhood of single girls to her, but it didn't go great. [audience chuckles] And we talked together about what it was that we both represented to the other person, which of course, is that you can build a life with someone and that person can choose to leave.
That all took one hour, but we wound up out together for another five. It was like once all that baggage was off me and, on the table, I could start to realize that I actually liked her. I thought she was much more self-aware in person than I thought she seemed online. I thought she was funny, I thought she was warm. I really appreciated that she was open to talking all this stuff out in the attempt of diffusing it. I walked in the front door at 03:00 in the morning and Jeff was like, "Oh my God, I was worried she killed you." [audience laughter] And I was like, "What, my girl? Gee, no way. [audience laughter] We diffused it. I liked her and she liked me. And I understand why you were with her, and it's possible that I'm drunk and I just feel so good."
That feeling was not sustainable, because even if you like a person in person, if you're mostly not in person and if they do tend to text your husband a bit more often than you'd like, you can still get the tiniest bit annoyed. [audience chuckles] One afternoon several months later, I took Laika out for a walk all by myself. And on the way, we met this other Miniature Schnauzer. I got to talking with the owner like you do, and she was like, "Oh, your dog's so cute." And I was like, "Oh, thank you. Your dog's so cute." And she's like, "How old is she?" And I was like, "Oh, she's five. How old is he?" And she's like, "Oh, he's 18." "Ma'am, are you okay?" [audience laughter] And I am. I'm great. I have 13 years to work out all my problems. Thank you, guys.
Jenifer: [00:14:43] That was Sara Barron. She's the author of People Are Unappealing and The Harm in Asking. She, her husband, and their part-time dog are all in good health. To see a picture of Sara and the dog looking cozy, visit our radio extras page at themoth.org.
When we come back, a story about one of those guided walking tours, and what happens when a random and very vocal guy decides to just join the group? What do you do? That's coming up next on The Moth Radio Hour.
[Electroshock by Chandler Travis & Steve Shock]
Jay: [00:15:44] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Jenifer: [00:15:55] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jenifer Hixson. This next story is from our first ever Moth show in Canada. The story is set in Toronto. And our storyteller, Falen Johnson, starts with an anecdote she heard a famous actor tell at a lecture series.
[cheers and applause]
Here's Falen Johnson, live in Toronto.
Falen: [00:16:20] So, a few years ago, I heard this story that Graham Greene told. Now, I should specify that I mean Graham Greene, the First Nations actor, not Graham Greene, the English novelist. [audience chuckles] If you don't know who Graham Greene is, he was in a bunch of 1990s blockbusters, movies. He was in Dances with Wolves. He was in Die Hard 3 and my personal favorite, Thunder Heart. [audience applause]
So, Graham has this story about one of his first acting gigs, and it was here in Toronto. And so, he's cast in this play. And in this play, Graham has to enter from outside the theater. He has to enter from the alleyway. And so, one night, he's getting ready to make his entrance. He's listening for his cue line, when a cop cruiser goes by, sees him standing there.
Now, the cops assume that he's just some First Nations guy loitering in the alley, and they say, "Hey, what are you doing?" And he says, "Well, I'm in this play and I'm waiting for my cue." [audience laughter] And the cops say, "Yeah, right, buddy, don't go anywhere." But at that moment, Graham hears his cue line, and he runs on the stage, pursued by the two policemen, [audience laughter] who at that moment realized that he was in fact in a play, [audience laughter] and so were they. [audience laughter]
So, I've always really liked this story because I think it says something about the visibility of First Nations people and Indigenous people in the city. There is this idea that they are unseen unless they're presumed guilty. So, I'm First Nations. I am Mohawk and Tuscarora from Six Nations Reserve, which is about an hour and a half outside the city. And to look at me, a lot of people would not guess that I am. And that can be hard, because when I walk through the city, I'm just some white chick. And when I'm on the reserve, it's "Who the hell is that white chick?" [audience laughter]
It hurts, because I'm really proud of who I am and where I come from and my family. And so, I work in theatre. And a few years ago, I was approached by SummerWorks Theatre Festival, which is a festival here in town. And they asked me, they said, "Hey, do you want to create a walking tour?" And I was like, "What does that mean exactly?" And they were like, "Well, we want to do walking tours for the festival this year, and we want you to make one. So, it's got to be about an hour long, and it has to be around our festival hub, which is the main venue for the festival. It can be about whatever you want." And so, I thought about it.
The thing is, the festival hub was really close to the intersection of Queen and Spadina. If you're not familiar with that area, it can be kind of rough. There's a large homeless population there, and a lot of the people who live there are First Nations. So, I thought about myself, my pink self, walking through that area, giving a tour, and it made me a little bit uncomfortable. But then, I thought, you know what, maybe this is a good opportunity for me to really address my white complex to get over some stuff and deal with it. And also, the Graham Greene story had happened near that intersection. So, I thought, okay, well, at least I have that. Can I always rely on that? So, I said yes.
So, I put the tour together and I decided to call it Invisible Toronto. I talk about sort of racism in the city, I talk about wooden Indians and Halloween costumes and sports team mascots and how racism has become so embedded in our culture that we don't see it anymore, I talk about the history of the city pre-paper, the Indigenous history of the city. I talk about a drop-in center that's in the area where they offer services for some of the homeless population, things like internet and telephone and a fridge to store food. I talk about colonization and genocide in a really entertaining way. [audience laughter] And then, I get to tell my Graham Greene story.
So, I do the tour. It's going well, people seem to like it. I'm on my second to last tour of the series, and I get ready to go out, and I look at the group of people that I'm going to be guiding that day. I see there's a couple of artistic directors in the audience. I'm like, “That's good.” And there's the usual suspects, these older women who look like young grandmothers who are wearing floral dresses and sun hats and lots of sunscreen and tote bags with cats on it. [audience laughter] And there's the artistic types, theater types, those kinds of folks. There's also always one older white man who fancies himself a historian. He's there to make sure that I am not screwing this up. [audience laughter]
And so, we set out on the tour, and I'm talking about it, and everyone seems to like it, and it seems to be going really, really well. And I'm like, “Good, good, this is going good.” Until about the midpoint of the tour, where a really drunk, really rowdy, really bloody guy decides to join us. And so, I'm struggling here, because I can see it's making people uncomfortable that this guy is standing there, but also this whole thesis. My thesis of this tour is to make the invisible seen, to make people have to see this kind of thing. So, I'm like, “Okay, what do I do here?”
And so, I hand him a little flyer that explains what the tour is and what we're doing. [audience laughter] He takes it and he reads it and seems to like it. And so, he comes along. We get to the Graham Greene stop. He loves the story. Like, he is laughing harder and longer than anyone else. [audience laughter] It is the funniest thing that he has ever heard in his entire life. But people on the tour are getting really uncomfortable here. They look afraid. And to be honest, I'm a little bit afraid of him. He is covered in blood. [audience chuckles] So, I tell him, I'm like, "Okay, listen, you can come, but you have to be quiet, all right?" And he goes, "Okay, okay." And so, we continue on.
We get to the stop where I talk about the drop-in center and the services they offer. And I say, "Phone and internet." And he screams, "Lockers, lockers, lockers." And I say, "Yes, they have lockers," which is a really important thing If you're living without a place, without a home, having a safe spot to keep your stuff is really, really valuable. So, I know that this guy probably has a locker here, and I know that he probably has his stuff in there. And so, we continue on, and we get to the question-and-answer stop.
And I say, "Does anyone have questions?" He immediately shoots his hand up in the air and he says, "Hey, so, my people are Spanish, and we did a lot of terrible things to your people. What do I do about that?" [audience laughter] I am rendered speechless, [audience laughter] because it is exactly the kind of thing that I wanted people to take away from this experience. [audience laughter] This is the question that I wanted people to ask me. I just didn't think it was going to come from someone like him.
And I'm also a little bit speechless, because the entire time that this guy was on the tour, I thought he was First Nations. And that's a little uncomfortable for me. And so, once I get my words back, I say, "Well, by doing things like this, by coming on tours like this, and by questioning history, and by asking beautiful, simple questions like the one that you just asked me." He nods his head, and he's satisfied with my answer. And so, we start to walk back to the Festival Hub for the end of the tour.
We're walking down the street, and I see someone coming towards us. He's coming pretty quickly. He is buff, and he is shirtless, and he is First Nations. I am sure of it this time. [audience chuckles] He walks directly up to our bloody Spanish friend, and he says, "You. Hey, you. You touch my hair again, I will kick your ass like I did yesterday. I will kick your ass." And the Spanish man shrinks. He becomes so tiny, and it is heartbreaking to witness. And so, I know I've got to do something, because, number one, I'm in charge here. [audience chuckles] And number two, I owe this guy. I owe him something now.
So, I slide in between the two men, and I look up at the really buff, shirtless First Nations guy, and I say, "Hey, man, you don't want to do this," and then I brace myself, and then the craziest thing happens. I hear, "Leave him alone, and get out of here, and don't you touch him." I look over, and I see the tour group of young grandmothers with cat tote bags [audience chuckles] and skeptical white guys. They're all yelling at this young First Nations guy to leave our bloody Spanish friend alone. [audience laughter] I am shocked. And the Spanish guy is shocked. [audience chuckles] But by far the most shocked person is the shirtless First Nations guy. [audience laughter]
Because somehow, in 24 hours, this Spanish man that he kicked the snot out of a night ago has somehow gathered a crew. [audience laughter] We love theater, [audience laughter] and we will take him out. [audience laughter] And so, the First Nations guy takes a step back, refocuses on our bloody Spanish friend, he says, "All right, man, I'm going to leave you alone. You want to know why? Because you're an elder." And again, I'm like, “What?” [audience laughter] In my cultures, elders are really revered. People, they're the pillars of our communities, and so for this young First Nations guy to give that honor to someone that he had just beaten up the night before was really complex. [audience laughter] And the First Nations guy with that just takes off.
So, we get back to the Festival Hub, and we're all feeling pretty tough. [audience laughter] It's been a really good tour. [audience laughter] People come up to me and they shake my hand and they say how great it was. It's good. And the last person to come up to me is my bloody Spanish friend. He shakes my hand and he says, “Thank you, I learned a lot,” and he turns and walks away. And so, when I walk through the city now, I definitely still feel pretty invisible as a First Nations person. But when I walk by Queen and Bathurst, I don't feel as scared as I used to. I've never seen my bloody Spanish friend again, but I do hope wherever he is, that he has a locker and that his stuff is safe. Thanks.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:28:11] That was Falen Johnson in Toronto. Falen is a writer, and her play Salt Baby has toured all over Canada. As you heard, she's Mohawk and Tuscarora, and grew up in Six Nations. While working on this story with her, I realized I had a lot of questions about heritage, her history, about the right language to use when talking about native people. She laughed and said, she was used to it and that she encourages people to ask questions. She said questions mean you're listening and it means a lot to be heard.
To see a picture of Falen while she was doing research for her walking tour, visit the Radio extras page at themoth.org. She said she really wishes she had a picture of herself with the bloody man. She'd probably have that one framed.
[Blame It On the Rain by Milli Vanilli]
Next up, from a Pittsburgh StorySLAM at a club called the Rex, Catherine Palmer. The theme of that open-mic night was Vices. Here's Catherine.
[cheers and applause]
Catherine: [00:29:14] My husband stays home with our two boys. And this wasn't an accident of circumstance. This was a conscious decision on his part. It's a lot like his parenting, really thoughtful and purposeful. You're probably thinking this is kind of a recipe for an idyllic childhood when there's an adult who looks out for you, and you're the most important thing to them. And you're right. You probably also don't think this is a recipe for a vice-filled childhood or a vice-filled story. But you'd be wrong, because my kids have two parents and I'm the other one. [audience chuckles]
I don't stay home with my boys. I actually work a lot. And as part of my work, I travel quite a bit. I've always been worried that the boys, when they're older, will look back and feel like I was the parent that wasn't around. So, my solution to that is whenever I travel for work, I just bring everybody with me. So, we've really given a new meaning to No Child Left Behind. [audience chuckles]
When I had a meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is the home of the Grand Tetons, it wasn't a surprise that everybody packed up to come along. So, this was a meeting of really close colleagues. These are people who work really hard, but they play even harder. So, after the first day of intense presentations, they had a big outdoor barbecue and they roasted an entire bison. And for two little boys, it doesn't really get better than that.
So, we're about an hour into this party, and I look around and I realize people are pretty intoxicated. There's a lot of Wild Turkey being consumed. I don't drink actually, when I'm on the road with my boys, and you probably think I'm being a good role model, but I actually have this plan to make up for the fact that I'm not a thoughtful parent. I kind of parent at random and often not with great results. [audience laughter] So, I have this plan that if either of my boys ever needs a kidney when we're traveling, I will be sober and able to donate. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
Now, I don't know how often people need emergency kidneys, but I take great pride in knowing that I'm going to finally be that go-to person for my boys. [audience chuckles] So, we're an hour into this party, it's getting dark, I'm definitely the last person left sober, and I realize I have not seen my five-year-old or eight-year-old in about 30 minutes. So, I start to look. And in the distance, I see the boys. I'm looking and I realize it looks like they both have shot glasses in their hands. [audience laughter]
So, I start to move a little faster. I must have looked concerned, because the bartender yelled out, "Ma'am, don't worry, that's not Wild Turkey. They're drinking the Red Death." [audience chuckles] Not sure how that was meant to make me feel better. [audience laughter] But as I continued on, he said, "That's a Shirley Temple in a shot glass." I get to the boys, and they're with two of my colleagues who definitely have Wild Turkey in their shot glasses. They've raised their glasses and suddenly, I hear my sweet little five-year-old say, "Let's drink to long legged women." [audience laughter]
Needless to say, it's time to call it a night. Much to my boys' dismay, we say our goodbyes and we head back to the cabin. This is clearly a parenting moment. There are lessons to be learned about respecting alcohol, respecting women, respecting ourselves. But I'm not that parent. I'm from New England. When we are confronted with uncomfortable situations, we really like to ignore them. [audience laughter] And honestly, when is this ever going to come up again? [audience laughter]
So, fast forward a month, we're back home. It's the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We're headed to church. I teach in my older boys' classroom. And church is important to us. And like most churches, we're focused on Thanksgiving holiday that Sunday before. I think most churches are focused on that teamwork between Native Americans, and pilgrims, and all the things we have to be thankful for. But not our church. We're Unitarians. If you don't know what that is,- [audience cheers and applause] -that's a questioning religion that provides no answers and precious little comfort in times of need. [audience laughter] So, in the older boys' classroom, we're really focused on the sham that is Thanksgiving that really set up the Native Americans to be screwed by their new friends. [audience chuckles] But the little ones where my younger son is, they're focused on being thankful, which is nice.
So, about 15 minutes left of church, and it's my job to get the sacrifice for the older kids. So, I go to the snack table. When you're standing there, you can see into the little kids' classroom without being seen. It's a great way to check on my little man each day, each Sunday. So, as I'm gathering together the vegan, gluten, and peanut-free snack for the older kids, [audience laughter] I take a look in, and I see they've set a Thanksgiving table complete with cornucopia and cute little Thanksgiving plates. I'm kind of captivated, so I watch for a couple minutes and I see the teachers pouring everybody a cup of juice, and I hear her say, "We should have a toast. What should we drink to?" [audience laughter]
That phrase is oddly familiar, right as I hear my little one yell, "To long legged women." [audience laughter] So, I freeze. You can't unhear things, and this can't be fixed. So, in true New England style, I back away, reconciled to the fact that we're going to have to change religions. [audience laughter] I'm thinking Methodist, they're pretty liberal and I think that'll work.
So, church ends. And my only goal is to get out of this building without talking to Grant's teacher. I'm pretty sure she's thinking of cornering me, or calling Child and Youth Services. And honestly, I'm cheering for Child and Youth Services [audience laughter] as I feel her hand on my arm saying, "Do you have a minute?" I don't have a minute. I have to find the Methodist church. I have to get the kids enrolled. But I say, "Of course."
As she tells me a story I already know, I'm racking my brain for an explanation that doesn't sound something like, "Oh, it's something he picked up when he was doing shots with my friends." [audience laughter] There's no upside in that explanation. It cements in the fact that I'm not a responsible parent. So, when she pauses, I don't say anything. And she pats my hand and she says, "I know the boys are home all day alone with your husband." [audience awe]
Now, do I defend the man who has literally dedicated his life to these children and would never say anything disrespectful about women? I do not. [audience laughter] I pat her hand, and look into her eyes, and I say, "I've had some concerns." [audience laughter] And in this moment in time, I am finally the responsible parent when the perfect dad is cast as the degenerate. And on the way home, as I bask in my new role as responsible parent, I realize I didn't even have to give up a kidney. [audience laughter]
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:35:46] Catherine Palmer is a college professor and audiologist. Catherine reports that the family is still Unitarian. She still has both her kidneys. And if her sons are still toasting long legged women, they're now too old for her to do much about it. To see a picture of her boys in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on the night they learned the infamous toast, visit our website, themoth.org.
When we come back, our final story from Fab Morvan, who was one half of a duo from the 1980s called Milli Vanilli. Remember them? [sings] Girl, you know it's true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you."
[Girl You Know It's True by Milli Vanilli]
Jay: [00:36:42] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Jenifer: [00:36:53] You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jenifer Hixson.
[Girl You Know It's True by Milli Vanilli]
Our final story involves a scandal or a controversy you might be familiar with from the headlines. If you were reading headlines back in 1990, Milli Vanilli. They were a pop duo. They had some very big hits and a very distinct look, matching hair. And they got very busted. It turns out the voices on the hit songs were not their voices. They were lip syncing. And the story broke and Milli Vanilli was vilified. They became the butt of a thousand jokes. Public shaming.
[Girl You Know It's True by Milli Vanilli]
A few years ago at The Moth, we were working on a casting for a show. The theme was Between Worlds: Stories of Passing. We needed one more storyteller. I said, “What happened to Milli Vanilli?” Well, Meg Bowles, The Moth's resident Sherlock, got on it. And the next day, she put me in touch with Fab Morvan, the surviving member of the duo, Milli Vanilli.
[Girl You Know It's True by Milli Vanilli]
Later that day, I was talking to Fab, a very gentle soul who seemed nothing like the guy I saw in the MTV videos. He said he would love the opportunity to tell his side of the story. So, here's the story as remembered by Fab. It begins at the Grammys at the Shrine Theater in Los Angeles. Imagine being up for a Grammy and secretly thinking, please don't let us be the winners. Here's Fab Morvan.
[cheers and applause]
Fab: [00:38:33] So, picture this. We are at the Shrine in Los Angeles, California. It's 1990. We are at the biggest party in music industry. It's the Grammys. We just finished performing [sings] Girl, you know it's true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you. [audience chuckles] We're now backstage holding our breath, listening to the emcee to call out the nominees for our categories. Best new artist. We are Milli Vanilli, and let it be Tone Lōc, Soul II Soul, Indigo Girls, but not us. Please don't do this. “And the winner is Milli Vanilli.” The crowd goes crazy. We froze, but we have to get out there with big smile on our faces as well.
So, we get in there, and we hold the award high, and dedicate it to all the artists out there with a dream. We're living a fairy tale. But there was a but. We had a secret, underlying all the good times. So, now, I met Rob when I was 19 years old in Munich, Germany, and he was 22. He was raised by a family in Germany. They were white and he was black. And because he was black in school, he got teased a lot. So, when he became of age and could defend himself and retaliate, he adopted the motto, “It's better to be feared.” I was born in Paris. My motto was, “It was better to be loved.”
We were opposite in personalities. He was loud and had a healthy appetite for life and very spontaneous. I was quiet, shy, and always thought twice before doing anything. But we connected. We did what young men do. We love music, dancing, girls, going out, having fun. We had a name in the club scene. We were part of it was because we looked different and we had worked really carefully on this. One night, we were watching TV, and we had seen this program on pop icons and we noticed one thing, “Hmm, they have good hair. [audience laughter] Hmm, okay. Good hair. All right. Okay.”
After thinking about it a little bit, we decided, this is it. Braid. The girls are going to love it, it's going to be sexy. Let's go for that's one. Through the grapevine, one of the biggest producers at the time, Frank Farian, heard these little kids, they could dance, they could sing, and they had great hair. [audience laughter] So, we were invited to the studio. And there, right away, we were seduced by the music factory and the state-of-the-art equipment, the gold records on the wall.
So, we're at the mercy of the big producer. We were eager to please him. When it was time to sign a recording contract, hell yeah, where do we sign? And the only thing that rang true to our mind was, in our mind was advance money. We need to get some food, get some clothes, and refresh the trademark, the hair. [audience laughter] Even though there was no attorney, no manager's presence, we signed this paper. But later, we found out that it was not just for one single, it was for three albums.
Now, we're in Studio A with Frank Farian. He's about to press play, and we're about to listen to Girl You Know It's True for the first time, instrumental. The music starts and we're like, “Wow, the music is rocking.” For the next four minutes, Rob and I fantasize about being on television. When it stops, first question is, when are we going to record? And he mumbles, “Yeah, we need to talk about that.” But then, something happened, something weird, because we're all smiles, we're all positive. And then, the room got cold and felt like it was getting darker and they were fighting. The voice was getting louder, louder and louder until the producer, Frank Farian, walked away.
Rob turns to me and says, "They don't want us to sing on the record." I'm like, “But we signed a recording contract not long ago.” [audience chuckles] And then, he's hesitating to tell me like, "Look, they want us to lip sync." I'm like, “Lip sync?” Like, "No way. Let's get out of here." But here came the punchline. All the money that they had given us, they said, “Okay, you can walk away. Just go on, move on with your life,” but pay this back.
We were broken, so we were against the wall.
All the money had been given us. We used it to live, to eat. So, now the trap that they are carefully prepared is closing slowly but surely. The only thing for us to do is to join them, because we can't fight them. And the only way to get out was to get deeper in. So, now we're promoting the record. And it's exciting, because people are responding to the song, they're responding to us. And this is like, “Wow, we are rock stars.” When I say ho, you say hey. Ho.
Unison: [00:44:08] Hey.
Fab: [00:44:09] Ho.
Unison: [00:44:09] Hey.
Fab: [00:44:10] Ho.
Unison: [00:44:10] Hey.
Fab: [00:44:11] Just like that. Imagine a young man [audience chuckles] feeling that. Now, we got girls galore. It's everywhere. We have so much choices. Oh, God. [audience laughter] We don't know what to do with ourselves. We turn our hotel room into party central. You need food, room service. You need alcohol, room service. We go to the club, no problem. Bring your friends. Everyone knows who we are. So, now, we're working and working harder and harder. We hate the idea of lip syncing, but we love performing and making people happy.
Now, we're working. We're working, but then every night, every night, it's me, myself and I faced with reality. I didn't sing on the record, Rob didn't sing on the record, we didn't. And that was a secret that we were holding at the Grammys. Now, Frank Farian, the great businessman that he was, already was working on the second album. We sold by now 30 million singles and over 7 million albums. But we're done. We decided, “This is it. We're going to pull the plug.” We said, “It's over. We're done. Do whatever you want. Take us to court, do whatever.”
And he sent a very clear message. He said, "I took you in, I'll take you out." [audience chuckles] “Whatever, dude. We're out.” A few weeks later, our assistant came running while we were finishing our morning run. "The cat is out the bag. The cat is out the bag." We understood. Frank Farian flew to New York and told the world they didn't sing on the record. We know the backlash is coming. Before we could even get back to the house, the trucks are there outside parked, camera, microphone, salivating at us. Arriving, we walk through the gauntlet. "Fab, Rob, Rob, Fab, you have anything to say?"
We walk through, we turn the TV on, bam, it's everywhere. It's media frenzy, Milli Vanilli lip syncing, as if we were the mastermind behind it. Being punched. Boom, boom, boom, every day by public humiliation. And it's hard to take. It's very difficult. We're alone. Everybody left us there by ourselves. So, we call out a press conference when we give back the Grammy that we didn't want in the first place. We go home and this is it. Like, what are we going to do now? I get a chance to talk to my family, to my mom, and she tells me, "Make it right, so that you can walk with your head up high, no matter how long it takes."
So, I thought about it. After some soul searching, I realized that music was part of my life and I couldn't live without it. So, I worked on myself, my skills as a songwriter, producer, musician, and I felt better. I felt hope. Rob, on the other hand, took it a lot harder. And he went in a spiral down. Hanging out with the old friends, doing drugs to remove this pain that he had, because everything was taken away. It was from famous to infamous, just like that and it hurt. The press said Rob died of an overdose, and I said, “No, he died of a broken heart.”
When the news came, my ears just-- they rang. And suddenly, I realized that he's not coming back from this one. It's over. I guess he got his wish. Immortality. He'll be young forever. So, I looked at the horizon and I said to myself, I'm going to channel this pain into music, which I love. I worked on an album called Love Revolution, and I dedicated a song to Rob Pilatus called It's Your Life. And there's no bitterness. I have none. I've learned a lot, made me a better man, and I feel like I lived the life of a hundred men. But before I leave, I'd like to sing a few lines that I wrote for Rob Pilatus. [sings] Oh no, don't take that alley. You will see, it's the wrong place to be for your soul. But who am I to tell you what to do? But it's your life. But it's your life. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Jenifer: [00:48:47] That was Fab Morvan, with his side of the story live at The Moth in New York City. These days, Fab is recording music in Paris.
[Blame it on the Rain by Milli Vanilli]
One of the real voices behind Milli Vanilli, John Davis, passed away in May of 2021 due to COVID-19. In the years after the Grammy controversy, Fab and John met and even performed together on the project, Face Meets Voice. You can find a photo of Fab and John singing side by side, along with other photos and videos of Fab through our website, themoth.org.
That's all for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from The Moth.
[Uncanny Valley theme music by The Drift]
Jay: [00:49:41] Your host this hour was Jenifer Hixson. Jenifer also directed the stories in the show.
The rest of The Moth directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Whitney Jones.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Moth events are recorded by Argot Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest.
Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Chandler Travis & Steve Shook, Ratatat, The West Side Horns, and Milli Vanilli. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
This hour was produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.