Host: Meg Bowles
[overture music]
Meg: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles. And in this show, stories of persevering, persisting and going the distance. The challenges we face from perilous mountains to epic battles and crushing fears. Sometimes we make it through with grace and other times, well, not so much.
Our first story comes from Sara Jonsson, who took the stage at one of our open-mic StorySLAMs, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. From the Bell House in Brooklyn, here's Sara.
[cheers and applause]
Sara: [00:00:50] Thanks. When I was eight years old, I had a nano puppy. You guys know what that is? [audience cheers]
It's like a Tamagotchi. It's a little plastic egg toy with a screen and three buttons and it's like an electronic pet. It's like a dog or an alien or whatever. And you have to feed it, and bathe it, and play with it, and put it to sleep and basically keep alive this little pixelated dog shaped blob. It was super fun, man, I got to tell you. [audience laughter] I was eight years old, and me and nano puppy are just having a blast, okay? [audience laughter] And we go everywhere together. He's my best friend. I hook him onto my little belt loop on my jeans, and I walk around and he like bounces. I love him. [audience laughter]
But I started to notice after two weeks, every time I need to do something like human eight-year-old related, like sleep or go to school, nano puppy dies of neglect. [audience laughter] The guilt and the devastation and the humiliation that I feel as an eight-year-old is frankly inappropriate. [audience laughter] It's like anxiety through the roof. So, I make it my life's mission to keep this generation of nano puppy alive. It turns out that is a 24-hour day job, because every time it gets hungry or sleepy, it beeps. So, it's like all night all whatever, it's just beeping at me.
My parents are starting to notice that I am not sleeping well. I'm telling my friends that I'm sick, so I don't have to like go outside and play with them, so I can take care of nano puppy. I'm lying to my teacher. I'm basically telling my teacher, “I got to go pee every 30 minutes, because I can hear nano puppy in my locker beeping.” [audience laughter] I go out to take care of him. But God, I love him. It's just heart strength. [audience laughter] And so, time passes, and nano puppy's getting stronger and healthier and happier and I'm just getting weaker and sicker and sadder. [audience laughter] We're just like one thing. He's sucking my soul out. My energy becomes his energy, and we're just like-- We're getting really close. I'm realizing that if nano puppy lives, I die. [audience laughter]
So, along with all the life lessons that nano puppy teaches your children, it's a good toy, teaches them time management, responsibility, motherhood, basically. I am now firsthand experiencing the concept of infanticide, [audience laughter] which is another thing I should not have to know about forever. Even as an eight-year-old, it's just not a thing, but like the seed's been planted. I can't tell anybody about this. Most of all, I need to hide this from nano puppy, [audience laughter] because I've started to distance myself from nano puppy, just maybe leave it for a little bit longer.
Oh, no. He notices. He gets hungry, or he gets sick, he gets loud. Everybody's noticing. So, I'm having to hide the fact. I obviously cannot let him starve to death. Everybody notices, because all my friends have them too, but they seem fine. I don't know what it was about this, whatever. [audience laughter]
So, one day, I hook nano puppy to the belt loop of my jeans like I do, and I put those jeans in a laundry basket, [audience laughter] and I take that laundry basket to my mother, who is loading the washing machine. She doesn't say a word [audience laughter] and I don't say a word. [audience laughter] And 28 minutes later, when we pulled sopping wet nano puppy out of the washing machine, he was still alive. [audience laughter] So, we're pretending, we're like, “Oh, it's fine. Ha-ha, that's funny. Oh, God.” [audience laughter]
My mom goes, like she lowers her voice because I don't know nano puppy can hear, she goes, “Why don't you dry it off by putting it in the freezer?” [audience laughter] I'm like, “Yeah.” So, the next morning, I go to check on nano puppy sadist, and he is still alive. [audience laughter] Except now, he is super angry. [audience laughter] And so, now the guilt is just crushing. Like, I can't function. I now copy. I now have to take care of my brain dead, angry spawn of Satan because of the karma. Anyway, so, I just continued to take care of it.
We went camping a couple days later. He woke up in the middle of the night and was like, “I'm hungry.” [audience laughter] And my dad, just took it, ripped open the tent, threw that thing as far as he could. It landed in our campfire from whence it came. [audience laughter] So, I left it there. It's okay with me. I don't know, I guess the moral, the thing that I learned from this is don't lie about when you don't want something in your life anymore. Don't keep it going if it's not healthy and it's not good, and don't try and pretend it is and just throw that thing off a damn bridge. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:07:10] That was Sara Jonsson. Sara grew up in Montana and lived in Brooklyn for 13 years, where she hosted an all-female variety show called Camp Sunshine, and frequently put her name in the hat at our open-mic StorySLAMS. During the pandemic, she moved to Atlanta to be closer to family and is now working on becoming an historical preservationist. She says that, after the demise of nano puppy, she felt major relief and a lot of guilt. But that was quickly replaced by her new obsession, the Spice Girls. You can see a picture of Sara and her now infamous nano puppy at our website, themoth.org.
[upbeat music]
Next up, we have a story of engineering marvels that come with their own set of challenges. Mike Maloch took the stage at a StorySLAM we produced in Pittsburgh, where we're supported by public radio station WESA. Here's Mike, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Mike: [00:08:15] Hey, y'all. So, six years ago, my company asked me to spend a month on the road performing tall bridge inspections. These are bridges that are too tall for us to inspect with a ladder, and so we use an under-bridge truck. You may have seen this before, it's a truck that sits on top of the bridge. It has a bucket lift on the back. But instead of this bucket lift going straight in the air, it can go out, down and beneath the bridge. The bridges that we were going to inspect were anywhere from 50ft to 150ft in the air. So, as a scary comparison, this is like being a window washer on an eight-story building.
This was a big problem for me, because not only am I afraid of heights, but I'm afraid of most marginally extreme activities someone can do. [audience laughter] I've been this way my whole life. And so, you growing up, little kid birthday parties were a problem for me. I wouldn't ride roller coasters. So, when my friends were riding roller coasters, I would be on the ground at a bench just watching their bags. [audience laughter] You know those little kid obstacle courses where you climb up a rope net and then crawl through a plastic tube and then climb up another rope net?
At some point, I'd be high enough off the ground where I'd become paralyzed and my mom would have to crawl in and come carry me out. [audience laughter] which Is hysterical because this being afraid of everything. Things are hereditary. And she was probably more afraid of that rope course than I was. [audience laughter] But the worst party by far were the laser tag parties. And because you can't skip them and there's no moms to carry me out, [audience laughter] and I would get locked in a dark room with confined spaces, and tripping hazards and then lasers flying past my head. [audience laughter] I hope you all can appreciate that by me agreeing to go on this inspection trip. It was a big deal.
My first day, I showed up, and there are three people who make this trip go. There's me, the bridge inspector, who's afraid of everything. [audience laughter] There's my coworker, Bernie, who's a grizzled bridge inspection veteran who fears nothing. And then there's the guy in the truck. I forget his name, but I'll call him Gary. His job is just to stay in the truck. And if something goes wrong, he's got our back. He's there for us.
On my first day, Gary told me that it was his first day on the job. [audience laughter] And so, I had a little panic attack before I could even conquer any fear of heights. But the first week went pretty well. I got better with the heights. I also got better with the rocking motion on the bucket. I never was quite able to take both hands off the railing while I was inspecting, but I could get one hand off.
Usually, I have one panic attack a day, something small, be it the wind or if the truck was making noises. But Bernie would calm me down and things were going well. There was one day, and we were at the best part of the day. This is the part of the day where we're done inspecting the bridge, and we are able to now maneuver the bucket out from underneath the bridge, back on top of the bridge going from where I'm hanging off the side of a bridge to where I'm safe on top of the bridge. I look forward to this every day, because it means I've survived the day, I'm alive. [audience laughter]
Bernie, he's operating the bucket. We are getting closer and closer to that point where I know I've made it. We're maybe one to two feet from the bridge and the bucket stops. I look at Bernie, because he's my pillar of strength during these times. I implore him to keep on going, because we're almost there. [audience laughter] And Bernie is pressing the lever that makes this bucket move and it's not going anywhere. So, y'all, this is where Gary comes in the picture. He's got our back. [audience laughter] I can see him. And Gary yells to us, “I don't know what's wrong.” [audience laughter]
And besides falling out of this bucket to my death, this is my biggest fear. We are stuck on the bucket. I go in full meltdown mode. I am just holding onto the side of the bucket. I don't hear anything. I'm just staring off on the horizon. We are about 90ft in the air, mind you. I can look down. I can see like a picturesque stream. I can see trees, but they're really far down. [audience laughter] During this time where I was not with it, I guess Bernie and Gary decided that the best course of action. Now, mind you, we are one, two feet away from the bridge. So, we're just going to open up the door in the bucket and we're going to step from the bucket to the bridge. [audience laughter] It's a small step, really small. But y'all, it is so far down. [audience laughter]
It took a while to convince me that this was a good idea. [audience laughter] I made Bernie go first, because he would reach out his hand to me, I'd grab his hand. I didn't look down. It was far. [audience laughter] I looked at Bernie, took a deep breath, and I took my pretty small step, but still a big step onto the bridge and I was safe. And as soon as I stepped off that bucket, I vowed I would never go back in there again.
Next morning at 08:00 AM, I got right back into that bucket. [audience laughter] This story continued for the rest of that month and I survived. When I look back on this experience, I try and think of what lessons I could learn about either the experience or myself. And the answer is, I learned absolutely nothing. [audience laughter] I already knew that I belong in one place, and that's with my feet on the ground. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:14:39] Mike Maloch spent that entire month inspecting high level bridges in state parks across Western Pennsylvania, and he hated every minute of it. He said he would end every day just grateful to be alive. The job solidified his fear of heights and also instilled in him a healthy fear of bugs, poison ivy and livestock. Apparently, he once inspected a bridge right next to a very angry bull.
These days, Mike is the city of Pittsburgh's lead traffic signal engineer. He's passionate about making urban infrastructure accessible and friendly to all, but especially pedestrians and cyclists. His feet stay firmly on the ground, and the only wildlife he encounters now is the occasional mouse living in a signal pole. He says, he hopes to never inspect a bridge again, ever. To see pictures of Mike on the job then and now, you can visit our website, themoth.org.
Coming up, an evening out ends in broken bones, damaged friendships and moral judgments, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[whimsical music]
Jay: [00:16:21] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Meg: [00:16:30] Sometimes we take on challenges. And other times, we end up creating them for ourselves. Samira Sahebi shared this story at one of our open-mic StorySLAMS in Portland, Oregon, where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Here's Samira, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Samira: [00:16:52] So, when I was 14, I was sent away to the west by myself. My family gave me a parting gift. It was a very fancy gold ring. So, five years later, when I lived in Los Angeles as a pretty well assimilated Westerner, I lived with two roommates. At that time, the only thing Persian about me was my accent and the ring. So, one night, the roommates wanted to go party and I declined. Laura decided to entice me by holding out her acid washed brown leather jacket and she said, “If you come, you get to wear this.” I had this super skimpy tube top that I could never wear on its own. And this just became my motivation to go. I was like, “Okay, I'll go.”
And so, I went to get the jacket, and she pulled it back. She's like, “Wait, you need to really take care of this.” I'm like, “Oh, sure. Of course.” And she's like, “No, no, I mean it. No stains, no forgetting it.” And I said, “I give you, my word.” And so, we all got very 1980s chic and went to 40 miles south to Hermosa beach to some guy's house and we got really drunk. And then, we headed to the strip where we would go from bar to bar. While we were dancing, the ring had come off.
So, as the group got smaller and smaller, people would go back to the house to sleep. There were three people left, and I was desperately looking for the ring and these three people are like, “Yeah, we'll wait for you.” And so, I came out of the last bar and they could just tell that I had not found the ring. I was like on the verge of tears. This guy with an Eddie Van Halen haircut, he's like, “Don't be sad. It's going to be okay. Jump up. I'm going to give you a piggyback ride.” And I was like, “Oh, no.” And he's like, “Come on, come on” and then he backed into me and he just assumed a posture for me to mount him. [audience laughter]
It was so forward that I just felt bad declining. So, I jumped up. [audience laughter] He had been drinking. So, as soon as maybe I was heavier than I looked, he just lost his balance. [audience laughter] I had been drinking also. And so, I just watched the whole thing unfold as the asphalt got closer to my face and then further and closer and I was like, “Fascinating.” And so, what did happen is that he flipped me over his shoulder onto the cold asphalt. This was winner. I know it was LA, but it was still winter for us.
And so, then he lost his own balance and fell and shattered my collarbone. There was this exploding glass sound and I passed out. I woke up in the ER, and Eddie Van Halen had driven, following the ambulance, which I was grateful for because I didn't know anybody. So, the very first thing they want to do in the ER, like the whole staff has gathered behind me, and they're like, “Go, get the shears, the extra-large ones from upstairs. We're going to cut the jacket.” And I was like, “No, not the jacket.” And she's like, “Trust me, sweetie, you want me to cut the jacket.” And I was like, “No, please don't cut the jacket.”
So, then Eddie is standing next to me holding my hand, putting it on his chest, like this devoted husband who's coaching his wife through childbirth. He's like, “You can do this. You can do this.” He's almost crying, he feels so guilty, I'm sobbing. There's makeup everywhere. So, they take this thing off. I felt this cold that was to the bone. I could not stop shaking. So, they're piling warm blanket after me. There's this hierarchy in ER.
First of all, I didn't get any drugs and I didn't know why. So, I'm in pain, and they're like, “Yeah, you're low priority.” Like, “People with heart attack get to cut in front of you. And then we also had gunshot wounds tonight, so you just need to be patient.” So, finally at 04:00 in the morning, I see this shadow of a man emerging from the hallway. He's got a limp, he's got an accent, he's like, “I'm going to take your X-ray.” He's walking way too fast for that time of day. He just goes [makes a wooshing sound] down the hallway, gets me to X-ray, closes the door, and he's like, “Are you Persian? I'm Persian.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Yes.”
And he's like, “I know someone with your last name” and then he recites the name of my father. And I am mortified. And so, I tell him because I was too honest. And then, the mood shifted. He just got very, very quiet. Like, he just went from interested to, “Oh, shit.” And then, he looked at me up and down, and I could see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes, I reeked of vodka, I looked so trashy and he just said, “What happened, child?” And that cut like a knife and then I started shivering again.
And so, he took the X-ray without looking at me. He pushed me down the hallway. And this time, he was not so preppy. He was just pushing me very slowly, weighted down by the tragedy that was me. [audience laughter] The hallway seemed eternal. And in that eternity, I got to feel the weight of the expectation of what a good girl should do, especially a good Muslim girl. He dropped me in the room, he said goodbye without looking at me and he left. I never saw the X-ray man ever again.
But that night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated world collapsed. They just collided. And although I lost a physical representation of my origin, I tapped into a journey of integration where my two polarities started to come together, which has been a journey ever since. And a part of me wants to find that man. I want to thank him for actually genuinely caring, and a part of me wants to look at him and be like, “I turned out okay.” [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:23:05] Samira Sahebi is a writer and performer based in Portland, Oregon. And she's a Moth GrandSLAM champion. Samira was so determined to save her friend's jacket that she insisted they not cut it off her. She said removing it was incredibly painful, as the nurse assured her it would be. But the jacket made it out unscathed. She managed to successfully return it and vowed never to borrow another piece of expensive clothing.
As it turns out, her father did indeed know the radiology technician. But with her father living in Iran and the technician in the US, their paths never crossed. And she managed to keep the embarrassing details of her injury a secret from her family for many years. You can find out more about Samira and share any of the stories featured in this hour by visiting our website, themoth.org.
[whimsical music]
Our next story comes from Beth Bradley, who takes us to the mountains of Colorado. She shared this at a GrandSLAM we produced in Denver with support from public radio station KUNC. Here's Beth.
[cheers and applause]
Beth: [00:24:30] I really wanted to cry and I really wanted to give up, but I really didn't want to do both, and I was running out of time to make up my mind. It was 11:45 AM, and I was sitting on a huge pile of rocks located about 13,700ft above sea level. I was trying to get to the 14,000-foot summit of the mountain that these rocks belong to, but I only had about 15 minutes left. And that's because when you're at that type of elevation, it gets really dangerous to be on the summit anytime, after 12:00 PM in Colorado, because there's lightning that rolls in pretty much every afternoon in the mountains in the summer.
So, I've been climbing straight up, up, up this mountain for the past five or six hours with two of my best friends, Katie and Dawn. I only had about a quarter mile left to go, but it might as well have been 500 miles. Katie and dawn have both done a climb like this before, but not me. Basically, my whole life, the world's been telling me, I'm too fat to try stuff like this. So, I pretty much believe that too. And even though Katie and Dawn and I have been friends for 20 years, I was still nervous to be climbing with them, because I knew they'd be able to do it no problem and I'd be the slow one.
So, I had been training and doing research for months. I remember one article that I came across suggested that you bring Kleenex with you, because when you're up at that elevation, the wind blows like crazy, so your nose is probably going to be running. So, I had not only heeded that advice, I had actually bought the name brand Kleenex for an extra dollar, because they happen to have motivational messages printed on them [audience laughter] like, “Believe in yourself and seize this moment.” [audience laughter] But nothing, not even the Kleenexes, had prepared me for how I was feeling at 11:45, which was just completely depleted and essentially catatonic.
So, Dawn and Katie had gone up ahead to scope out the rest of the trail and I was just alone with my thoughts, which had been pretty positive up till then. I felt like all that preparation was paying off, but now the disappointment was just seeping in. And the worst part about that was how familiar it tasted.
Three years before that, I had moved all the way out to Seattle. And even though I had approached that move with the same exhaustive preparation as this climb, I felt like I just couldn't get my life to work out there. Like, it was just one failure after another. Like, the job I got turned out to be a bad fit, I couldn't get acclimated and then the relationship that I was in fell apart in a really excruciating and heartbreaking way. So, I had managed to get myself home. I'd managed to move back to Colorado. But I felt like I had gone on this 2,000-mile detour just to end up exactly where I started. So, I wanted it to mean something. I wanted being home to mean something and I wanted all that time to count.
The mountains have been there all along. But for the first time, I found myself wanting to know what it would feel like to be on top of one. But the higher I got, the heavier all of that felt. And the later it got, the more the pressure was bearing down. At this point, I noticed that everyone else I could see was very thin and lithe, and they were just scampering up the rocks like the world's most annoying pack of gazelles. [audience laughter] No one else was struggling like I was. So, I was scared and I was overwhelmed. I was hating my body for being too fat and my mind for being too weak. I just kept thinking to myself, who do I think I am to even attempt this? Like, who do I think I am to even try?
So, at this point, I could see that Katie was headed back down to where I was. I could tell from her eyes that she was going to say that it was too late and we needed to turn around and that it would be too dangerous to keep going at the pace that I was going were too slow. So, she came and sat down on the rock next door. I was just letting that defeat settle in. But then, totally calm, Katie said, “We should keep going. I know you can do it.” So, then a weird thing happened, which is that I realized I believed her. Even though Katie and I have been friends forever and she said stuff like that to me before, this time, I finally heard it.
And so, when I had been asking myself, who do I think I am, the answer had been this person who's too fat to keep trying, who kept failing over and over. But Katie was seeing someone else. She was seeing someone she loved who'd been through all of that and kept going. So, she was seeing someone strong. So, when Katie said that I could do it, it sounded different than the Kleenex. [audience laughter] It sounded like the truth. So, I decided not to give up. Wanting to cry became my only motivation. And the next 10 minutes, we were just like a blur of pain and exhaustion. But basically, right at noon, I heaved myself over the last stupid rock. [audience laughter] I was surprised to find myself on the flat, solid ground at the summit.
All of those gazelle people were hanging out, and smiling and taking pictures. I was the only person who was smiling and openly weeping. [audience laughter] I was also hugging Katie and Dawn like crazy. I was petting dogs, [audience laughter] and I was looking out at the view, which was as incredible as anything I've ever seen. I realized I would also advise being Kleenex if you do a climb like this, because crying on top of a mountain is a wonderful feeling and I'd recommend it to anyone. So, it's good to be prepared. [audience laughter] I keep chasing that feeling. I keep trying to climb more mountains. Sometimes I get to the top and sometimes I don't, but what I've noticed is that one question isn't coming into my head anymore, that question of who do I think I am? Now, I know who I am.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:31:11] Beth Bradley is a two-time Moth StorySLAM winner and also tells stories professionally as a content marketer. Growing up, Beth says she never saw anyone of her size represented in the outdoors, and spent most of her life never even considering that she would one day carry herself to the top of a mountain, let alone a mountain over 14,000ft. She says, it was one of the most profound feelings she's ever had and it doesn't get old.
Since that climb back in 2018, Beth has continued hiking nearly every week. She's up to somewhere around 175 hikes and counting. You can see pictures of Beth and find out more about her adventures in hiking on our website, themoth.org.
[whimsical music]
Coming up, rudos, técnicos and the magical world of Mexican Wrestling, when The Moth Radio Hour continues.
[whimsical music]
Jay: [00:32:36] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
Meg: [00:32:49] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our final story in this hour comes from Shaun Leonardo, who we met after he called The Moth pitch line. He shared his story at the first event we produced in front of a live audience after the reopening of theaters that had been shuttered due to the pandemic. Live from the Wilbur Theater in Boston in partnership with WGBH, here's Shaun Leonardo.
[cheers and applause]
Shaun Leonardo: [00:33:19] In 2010, I'm standing in this grimy little gym in Oaxaca, Mexico, finally watching La Lucha Libre. And now, for those of you that don't know what that is, La Lucha is the arts of Mexican wrestling. The pageantry and acrobatics are second to none. While the storylines and narratives of good versus evil would feel familiar to you, there's a special magic to La Lucha, because in Mexican culture, it is sacred.
Now, I've always had a fascination with La Lucha ever since watching it on the TV with my dad. It's always been so spectacular. But those warriors were so foreign to me in their mask and regalia, flipping every which way. But I would learn later that those same warriors were your everyday teachers, taxi drivers, office workers. But in the ring, when that mask came on, they were gods.
As a scrawny kid from some insignificant neighborhood in Queens, New York City, I wanted to feel that. I wanted to know what it meant to be a hero. And so, now, standing there, I was in complete awe, so much so that I wait for hours after the event just to approach a promoter and ask if I might start training with the local luchadores. [audience laughter]
Now, two important things to know. I'm not Mexican. [audience laughter] Yes, I'm Latino, but I'm from Queens. [audience laughter] Maybe more importantly, at the time, I had zero wrestling experience. [audience laughter] But I may have fibbed just a little bit and told the promoter that I was a wrestler back home in the United States.
Whatever it was, he goes backstage, comes back with a little piece of paper with an address scribbled all over it, says, “Show up here Friday.” He didn't say when. [audience laughter] “Just show up here Friday.” So, I did, but five hours too early. [audience laughter] But I waited and I waited. Then, after a while, in comes the trainer, and it is the legendary Rigo Cisneros from Nacho Libre fame. I lose it. [audience laughter] He comes up to me, silently, sizes me up and in the quietest voice, goes, “Hop in the ring.”
And the ring, the ring is an iron frame with plywood on top, some sprinklings of rubber and an old vinyl billboard securing it down. Not the bouncy thing y'all are imagining. [audience laughter] The wrestlers were amateurs, twice my size. Everything I did was clumsy and tense. And so, they saw that and decided to deliver the punishment just to see if I would come back the next day. And so, the slaps to the chest started stinging that much more, the body slams a little more vicious, and the blows, the falls or bumps, as we call it in wrestling, that much more aggressive for me than anyone else in the ring. But I came back and I kept coming back, because where I'm from, giving up is not in the cards.
After three months of training, I'm finally granted my first match. And because of my hard work and likely the novelty of an American luchador, I am slated in as the sub main event. Now, to be clear, that is not the main event. I'm still the warm up act. And the night comes, and it's the same rickety ring in some makeshift arena with folding chairs. But the lights and the mariachi music is blaring. And it feels glorious. They call out my name and all the blood rushes right out of my body. [audience laughter] It all becomes a blur.
But I pull myself together, I get pumped, and I step out in all white and gold. The knight in shining armor with a 14-foot velvet cape. [audience laughter] I hit that ring and I'm looking good and then I get my ass kicked. [audience laughter] I lose that match bad. [audience laughter] And so, I go backstage, beaten, battered, but at least it's all over. And Rico Cisneros, the trainer, comes over and says, “Go back in the ring. Get the crowd pumping and go save the good guys.” I said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
But I panic. I run out there. I do what I'm told, only to get annihilated again. [audience laughter] By the end of the event, there are three bad guys, rudos, as we call them, one pinning my shoulders down onto the mat, the other kicking me repeatedly and the third unmasks me, the ultimate embarrassment in Mexican wrestling. And so, I leave with a mixture of emotions. I'm embarrassed. I'm defeated. But despite the beating, I feel like I achieved something amazing. I had become a Mexican wrestler, for Christ's sake. [audience laughter]
I had lived out a childhood fantasy. But I decided, enough fun, the adventure was over, time to go home. So, I'm back in my little ass apartment in Queens, when I get a phone call a month later from a promoter asking me if I would consider wrestling the welterweight champion of the world. [audience laughter] So, it seems this American luchador had caused quite a stir and audiences were still talking about this guy. So, it was meant to be set as a special event for the 75th anniversary of the largest Mexican wrestling promotion in the world and staged at the National Museum of Mexico City, which is literally a palace. How could I say no? [audience laughter] I'm terrified. But I had to see how far I could take this thing. So, I accept.
My opponent, the welterweight champion of the world, his name was Sangre Azteca, Aztecan Blood. [audience laughter] I failed to mention that my wrestling name was El Conquistador [audience laughter] the Conqueror. Now, for anyone here that recalls their colonial history, the Conquerors didn't do such nice things in Mexico. [audience laughter] It was a match made in heaven. The storyline was set. But upon touching ground in Mexico, I'm explicitly told there is no way I'm winning this match. And then, I'm told that Sangre Azteca refuses to choreograph the match.
Now, if you know anything about wrestling, you know that the outcomes, yes, are predetermined, but that also the matches are more or less scripted. So, now not only am I being forced to lose the match, I could get really hurt. This has gone too far. Ironically, I'm billed as the good guy or técnico, as we call it in Mexican wrestling. But when the announcer finally calls out “El Conquistador de Nueva York,” the entire audience turns on me. [audience laughter]
Now, Mexican wrestling is a familial affair. So, the abuelas, the grandmothers, everyone down to the kids start cursing at me. [audience laughter] I feel like the entire arena wants to see me massacred. And in front of over a thousand audience members, Sangre Azteca and I go mano a mano, one on one, two out of three falls for more than 45 minutes. And we go at it. We're going blow for blow, putting each other's submission moves. We're fighting on the outside of the ring. We're kicking and we're going hard. At one point in the match, revved up by the insult of the audience, I look down on my opponent, who I just body slammed and I smack him. [audience laughter] This was a terrible mistake. [audience laughter]
All of a sudden, the chop started stinging that much more, the punches and kicks a little heavier and things are going a little too far. But we go at it and I stay in there. And for the climax of the match, I climbed up to the top rope to finish him off with a high-flying maneuver. And it's just like I imagined as a kid, it's magical. I'm soaring through the air, [audience laughter] only to get caught off midair with a drop kick to the chest. [audience laughter] And he pins me for the one, two, three. I lose again.
I'm leaving the ring confused, beaten, and a swarm of kids surround me, asking me for autographs, embracing me, taking photos. It's bizarre. I bend down to greet a few kids and I feel this little pat on my shoulder, and a little boy says in my ear, “Si se puede.” Yes, you can. And I'm beaten and this kid wants to believe, wants to believe that this character should keep fighting. And so, I do. I take that childhood fantasy and turn it into an eight-year career as El Conquistador. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
Now, it's been almost 10 years since the last time I stepped in the ring. But of course, I think about my adventures as a luchador all the time. But more than anything, I think about that little boy's words. Because when times get most difficult for me, and these last two years have been some of the most challenging, tragic years of my life, of so many of our lives, El Conquistador reminds me that it's not always about winning. It's not about being the hero all the time. It's about moving through the failures and getting up after the losses. Because as that little kid said, that kid that just wanted to believe, “Si se puede. Yes, you can. Yes, we can. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:46:42] Shaun Leonardo is a Brooklyn based artist and his work has been profiled in the New York Times and CNN, and featured in museums like the Guggenheim, MASS MoCA and the Bronx Museum to name a few. His first major public art commission is now on view at FDR for Freedom State Park.
Shaun entered into the world of wrestling as research for his art, which explores the hyper masculine figures he was fascinated with as a child. It had never been his intention to actually pursue a pro career. These days, he says he misses the catharsis of the fight and the thrill of the crowd, or pop as they call it in industry. To see pictures of Shaun and his wrestling regalia, including that 14-foot velvet cape and some amazing action shots from the ring, visit our website, themoth.org.
While you're there, maybe consider pitching us your story like Shaun did. You don't have to go toe-to-toe with a Mexican wrestler to have a good one. Stories come in all shapes and sizes. So, if you have a story you're itching to tell, just look for tell a story on our website and you find all the info for how to pitch us.
Zack: [00:47:47] A man goes through his midlife crisis when he experiences the mortality of his father. That rang true to me and it also helped me explain why in a sudden burst of inspiration, I bought a 20-year-old motorcycle while my father was dying of cancer. I bought this beautiful machine without even knowing how to ride a motorcycle, not even having my license. I didn't tell anyone, especially not in my family, about my purchase, because I'm from a traditional Jewish family and it would have killed my mother to know I was out there on the open road.
My father's prolonged battle with cancer would come to a head in May 2017 when he was taken to the emergency room, because he had trouble breathing. While he was in the ER, his oncologist came down and gave us all the bad news that the experimental treatment that was supposed to save his life hadn't been working, and this was the end of the road. My sister and I rushed to be by his side, and the three of us cried and cried. But for just a moment, we came up for air and I turned to them and I said, “Well, now that you've got your bad news, I may as well tell you, I bought a motorcycle.”
The tears of sadness started to mix with laughter and love, and we started to plan our road trips together, because that's what you do with dying people. You plan for your future. He made me promise right then and there to always wear boots when I ride, and I still do every time.
Meg: [00:49:03] You can pitch us your story at themoth.org or you can call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684.
That's it for this show. We hope you'll join us next time for The Moth Radio Hour.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:49:30] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Coproducer is Viki Merrick. Associate producer Emily Couch. Additional GrandSLAM coaching by Larry Rosen.
The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza.
Our pitch came from Zack Lipton in London, England. Moth stories are true is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Stephen Jacobs, Blue Dot Sessions, Tommy Guerrero, Jason Beals and the El Mariachi Band. We received 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, the moth.org.