Host: Dame Wilburn
Dame: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host this week, Dame Wilburn.
Look, the world is strange right now. Now, we don't all get along and we don't all have the same perspective on things, but I think we can pretty much all agree that this is a strange time we're living in. And with so much of this out of our control, the decisions we do get to make for ourselves become all the more important.
So, in this week's episode, we have two stories about getting your life together and taking matters into your own hands. First up is Ashley Johnson. Ashley told this story at a Washington D.C. StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Awards. Here's Ashley, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Ashley: [00:01:00] I am originally from Maryland. I knew at a young age that I wanted to be a professional actress. I was one of those weird kids who would lock myself in the bathroom, and look in the mirror and make myself cry, because I was getting prepared for all the dramatic roles [audience laughter] that I was going to play. So, I decided that after I graduated from college that I was going to move to Los Angeles.
So, three months after graduating, I moved to L.A., the place where dreams come true. Well, let's just say that things didn't quite work out how I thought they would when I got there. So, I ended up getting a corporate America job. But it's okay, because I figured I could work in Corporate America while pursuing my acting career and I wouldn't have to be a starving artist.
So, year one rolls by, I'm working in Corporate America, not really doing anything acting related, but it's okay because I just got to L.A., still trying to find my groove. Year two rolls by, got a promotion. Not really doing anything acting related because I'm making money, more money than I've ever seen straight out of college. Year three rolls by, year four rolls by, year five rolls by and I am miserable. I did not move to L.A. to work in corporate America. I'm tired of sitting at that cubicle. So, I quit.
I knew that there were three things that I needed in order to pursue a career in acting. I needed a good headshot, I needed training and I needed an agent. Had the headshot, was taking classes, doing the training, but I didn't have an agent. So, I started sending my resume out to different agencies, my headshot and resume out to different agencies all over L.A. And one day, I got an email from an agency asking me to come in to audition.
So, the big day for the audition arrives. I get to the office building where the agency is and I'm greeted by the receptionist. She gives me two different scripts. One is a commercial script and one is a dramatic script, and she tells me that I have five minutes to prepare and that she'll come back and get me and take me to see the agents. So, I prepare. I'm ready. I go in the room. I go through the commercial part of the audition, did a great job on that. I go through the dramatic part of the audition, did a great job on that. I'm thinking, I'm done.
I look over to my right-- Well, let me tell you how the room was set up. It was three agents, one on my right, one on my left and one in the middle. So, I look over on my right, and I notice that the agent has my resume in his hand. He's staring at it a little longer than he should be. His eyes stop at the bottom of my resume. He says, "You sing?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I sing," because I put it on my resume. And he's like, "Let's hear something. Okay, pause right there.” [audience laughter]
Three days earlier, I was having dental work done. I've had a chipped tooth since I was a little girl. So, I decided that if I'm going to take my acting career seriously, I need to get my tooth fixed. So, I decided to get a veneer. If you're not familiar with that, they pretty much shave your tooth down to nothing to put the permanent tooth on there. Well, at least that was my experience. So, they did that. They weren't able to give me the permanent tooth that day, so they gave me a temporary one. They also gave me a plastic covering to keep the tooth in place, just in case.
Back to the audition. [audience laughter] "You sing?" “Yeah, I sing.” "Let's hear something." So, I walk over to the agent's desk. I take a tissue off his desk without asking, mind you. I spit the plastic covering [audience laughter] in the tissue, and then I sit it on his desk. I don't know why I did that. My nerves must have got the best of me. I go back to the center of the room and I proceed to sing, and boom, the tooth falls out on the floor. [audience laughter] [sighs] I was so embarrassed. It was so silent in there, you could hear a pin drop. Well, in this case, you could hear a tooth drop. [audience laughter]
In that moment, I had to make a decision. A decision. Am I going to finish this audition, or am I going to run out of here from sheer [chuckles] embarrassment? Y’all want to know what I did? I picked the tooth up off the ground, popped it in my mouth and sang my heart out. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
So, I'm happy to report to you all that I did end up getting signed by that agency. I was awarded a contract. They really didn't care about my missing front tooth after all, because as the saying goes in show business, the show must go on. [chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
Dame: [00:05:56] That was Ashley Johnson. Since sharing this story at The Moth, Ashley has published two books and wrote, directed and produced a short film called Where Is Mother? Ashley continues to write and act, and she says she's looking forward to sharing more stories for many years to come. For more information on Ashley's work, head to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
Up next, Peter Laughter. Peter told this story at a New York City StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Names. Here's Peter, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Peter: [00:06:42] My wife came out of the hospital room, and her eyes were ringed with red and I took her into my arms and we just both cried. She was saying goodbye to my brother and we were taking him off life support that night after about three weeks of him being in a coma. We broke our embrace, and she looked up at me and she said, "I promised that I would name our first child either Edward or Edwina." And I looked at her and I said, "Oh, you better hope he lives through the night, because you got to take that shit back." [audience laughter]
I said that for two reasons, because one, I just didn't want to say the name Edwina for the rest of my life. [audience laughter] I knew with my karma as a shitty teenage boy that I was definitely having a daughter first. There was no question about that. But the second reason is that names have power, right? I think I know this more than most people. The day I realized it, I was in a bank in Mexico and I passed the teller a traveler's check. It was 1991. [audience laughter] She looked at the traveler's check and she looked at my passport and then she disappeared.
I leaned over, and I looked around and she was on the floor laughing. [audience laughter] And this was not a surprise. The name I was born with was Fracaso. And in Italian, fracaso means explosion or natural disaster, which is kind of fitting for my life. But in Spanish, fracaso means complete and utter failure. [audience laughter] And in certain countries, which was new to me, but apparently Mexico is one of them, fracaso is synonymous with the word, fuck-up. [audience aww and chuckle]
So, I could completely understand that if someone handed me a piece of paper that said, "Peter, fuck up," I would laugh hysterically too. [audience laughter] But it was that moment where I realized this is my father's name, a man who left when I was two, that I have not seen since I was eight. He never paid child support, lied about his address, so we couldn't find the fucker to actually contribute to my life. And here I am, carrying this name, which is a horrible legacy.
So, in that moment, I decided to take on my mother's name, which was an upgrade, not a big one. My mom's last name was Slaughter. [audience laughter] But after witnessing people's reaction to my name, and that by laughing so hard they had to fall off their chair at their place of employment, no doubt, I realized it was time. It was time for me to really choose the woman’s name who had raised me, who had contributed the most to my existence and my adulthood.
And so, when I came home from that six-month period in Mexico, I saw my mom and I explained, "Hey, I made this decision. I want to take on your name." And she said, "Funny you should mention that. I've been thinking about dropping the S." [audience laughter] I thought that was awesome. [audience laughter] So, together, I took on her name and we dropped the S. I spent a lot of time thinking. At that time, I was 20 years old and I wanted to get my PhD in sociology and teach, I thought that Dr. Laughter sounded a little bit too much like a pimp. [audience laughter] So, I went with the pronunciation, lotter.
Peter lotter sounded much better than Peter Fuck up. [audience laughter] So, life went on and then I got married. My wife, who took on my name, thought I was completely psychotic for using the pronunciation, lotter, when it was spelled laughter. She thought it was absolutely absurd. So, she went by Laughter and I went by Lotter. [audience laughter] It was totally confusing until much to my surprise, I found myself one day introducing myself as Peter Laughter.
When you introduce yourself as Peter Laughter, people react to you in a very, very specific and positive way like, "What a great name. You must be so happy." [audience laughter] When 50 people say that to you in a month, you actually start to believe it, right? You start to take that on. So, when my wife said that she was going to name our daughter Edwina, [audience laughter] I knew that was a mistake. We talked about it and decided we were going to name our child Eddy, either way.
I knew I was going to have a girl. I worried about the reaction, "Oh, it's a boy's name." We spelled it Eddy, like a current moving in the opposite direction, because I wanted the magic of my brother and the magic of moving against the current to be part of her life. I remember when she was about four years old, we were at a birthday party and there was a magician who asked for volunteers. And she volunteered. The magician said those words, "Isn't that a boy's name?" I remember standing up. I was angry and I had been waiting for this moment. I knew it would come. My daughter, at four, just looked at him like he was a stupid idiot [audience laughter] and said, "No, that's my name." And I knew that the magic worked. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Dame: [00:12:47] That was Peter Laughter. Peter told us that he and Ed were matched by the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America program, when Peter was just nine years old. He said, “Ed was the best man I knew and it wasn't long after we met that we realized we had become brothers in every sense of the word.” Peter sat down with his daughter, Eddy, to talk about how she feels about her name. Here's Peter and Eddy.
Peter: [00:13:14] So, Eddy, you were named after your uncle Ed, my brother, who you have never met. I've been wondering what the fact that you're named after a man and you are a young woman, and how you think that impacts you?
Eddy: [00:13:35] I know it's something that's really special to me, and I think it's really fitting for who I am. I think if people didn't bring up the fact that it's "a boy's name," I would have never thought about it. But I even think the ambiguity of it is really important to me and it just feels very me. I don't know.
Peter: [00:14:05] It does feel very you. It's one of the things that has surprised me ever since you were three. And up until now, fourteen years later, the name suits you. I know I read into this, because I loved your uncle so much, but I see so much of you in him. Clearly, it's not genetic, because we were not genetically related, Ed and I. But your intense curiosity was something I saw in him. When you latch onto something, you really latch on. Your desire to learn everything about some very, very obscure thing was something that he really shared. He had this wonder and intellectual discovery, which I grew into. But I think that's something you've always had, which is fascinating to me.
Eddy: [00:15:09] That makes me really happy to hear. That makes me really happy. I remember when I was younger, and you describing that I was named after him and just deciding that because of that, I was like, he was like a part of me from there. I feel very connected to him, even though I know about him but in the only very abstract senses.
Peter: [00:15:35] Well, the other thing that I think about with your name, it's this constant reminder of what family is or was for me and now is for us and our family. And because Ed adopted me as a little brother when I was nine, I realized that family is what you choose, not with what you end up with. And that's been really powerful.
Eddy: [00:16:05] Definitely.
Peter: [00:16:06] Yeah. So, yeah. And your name is a constant reminder of that for me.
[laughter]
Peter: [00:16:15] Love you, kiddo.
Eddy: [00:16:15] [chuckles] Love you.
Dame: [00:16:19] That was Peter and Eddy Laughter. To see some photos of Peter and his family, go to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
My middle name is Scheherazade. Yes, 12 letters. She was the storyteller in "One Thousand and One, Arabian Nights. We are in no way related. And no, Scheherazade is not a family name. I didn't know I was a storyteller when I was an infant. My mother possibly didn't know I'd grow up to be one, but I totally get where Eddy's coming from.
Sometimes your name isn't just what they call you, sometimes it's who you are. And from this Damien, I understand exactly what it means to be an Eddy. Before we go, we'd like to give a special shoutout to all the Edwinas out there. We think your name is lovely. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Julia: [00:17:31] Dame Wilburn is a longtime host and storyteller at The Moth. She's also the host of the podcast, Dame’s Eclectic Brain.
Dame: [00:17:39] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.