Host: Dan Kennedy

Dan: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Kennedy. 

For a lot of us, discovering the music you love is one of the greatest moments you have as a teenager. The first time you hear your favorite band, you feel kind of a little more you. I was a nine-year-old listening to a band that I would later realize was Steely Dan on the radio that I used to sneak into my bed at night, and put under my pillow and listen to. And I heard these very produced songs, very jazz influenced, not as simple as the other rock that was on the radio. They told these stories of really just shadowy desperado characters driving west on sunset to the sea. 

I was a very prim and proper nine-year-old boy, really identifying with these characters and this jazz influenced rock songs. And I really, I would lie there at night hoping, “Please God, let adulthood be this interesting.” We have two stories this week about the music that shapes our young lives. 

Up first, we have Ty Mahany. Ty told this story at a Houston StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Altered. Here's Ty, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause] 

Ty: [00:01:24] Thank you. When I was 11 years old, my aunt came to stay with us for a little while. And while she did, she stayed in my room, which was super annoying. But it happened a lot, because we have a large, extensive family in a very small house, so it was kind of a transitory thing. She was there for about three weeks. 

My aunt was a lesbian. She probably still is. I haven't talked to her for a couple weeks, but [audience laughter] pretty sure that sticks. When she left and I got back into my room, I noticed that she had left a box in my closet. I was a very curious boy and apparently had no regard for privacy or personal property. So, I locked my door and went through the box. To say that this box altered my life would be an understatement. [audience laughter] It completely changed the course of my life and who I am as a human being to this day. [audience laughter] 

I went through the box slowly, studying every item, and it was all great. There was one particular thing, I don't know why it stood out, if it was the leather or the hot pink lettering, but it was the object that I chose. And for the first time in my life, I put on the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia. [audience cheers and applause] 

Oh, my God. That was followed by the Sex Pistols and the Dead Boys and The Damned. And everything was, “Oh, my God.” My mind was blown. It just resonated with the tiny little angry idiot inside of me so much. [audience laughter] I started compiling them on tapes in case my aunt came back to get her records. I was so excited that the next day I could go to school and tell all of my friends what I had discovered. It was around 1 o’clock in the morning where I woke up suddenly and thought, oh, my God, I can't tell them this, because I had just become the number one fan in the world of lesbian music. [audience laughter] And at 11 years old, I was not prepared to come out. [audience laughter] 

Now, to give you a little frame of reference, how my mind worked at that time as an 11-year-old in the late 1970s, my aunt who was a lesbian, I also had a gay uncle. And in our family, no one cared. But I knew that in society in general, this is something that had to be hidden, that had to be kept secret. So, I knew that they moved in their own secret little worlds too, and they had to have their own music, right? It was awesome. [audience laughter] 

What I failed to recognize at the time, is that the most popular music in the homosexual community was also the most popular music everywhere. It was just disco, [audience laughter] which made the next part funny, because I was disguising all these tapes. So, The Damned became the Bee Gees. [audience laughter] And the Sex Pistols became Diana Ross. [audience laughter] And most ironically, The Ramones became the Village People. [audience laughter]

And so, for the next few months, I would listen on my Walkman to these tapes in my own tiny little lesbian world [audience laughter] until I slowly came to the realization, which you probably came to very quickly, that I was the world's dumbest boy. [audience laughter] Not only were there very few women in any of these bands, but most of the songs were pretty much celebrations of heterosexual sex. [audience chuckles] And so, I decided I would share the music with my friends. Most of them did not like any of it at all. 98% of them hated it. But every once in a while, someone would come over and they would listen to the music with me. 

I could see the light in their eyes and the joy of this newfound discovery of this great important thing. We could share something, and we would dance around, and we would play air guitar and try to learn the words secretly, so our parents didn't hear. And then, at the end of the night, I would make them a tape that they could take home. As they left, I would shake their hands and secretly, in my head, I would go, “Yay, we're lesbians.” [audience laughter] Thank you. 

[cheers and applause] 

Dan: [00:06:06] That was Ty Mahany. Ty is an Air Force veteran and anime voiceover actor living in Houston, Texas, with his son Torrin. Ty's committed to his fellow veterans, the LGBTQ community. And he says, even at 50 years old, “To punk music.” 

Up next is Ernesto Quiñonez. Ernesto told this story with us at a Mainstage show that was part of the San Antonio Book Festival. That night, we were celebrating the release of our latest book, Occasional Magic. Here's Ernesto, live at The Moth. 

[cheers and applause] 

Ernesto: [00:06:51] One day, I'm doing the dishes, listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album, when the lyrics, My traveling companion is nine years old. He is the child of my first marriage, speak to me. These lyrics speak to me in this subliminal manner that I could not describe, only feel. And my daughter Scarlet, at the time, was nine years old. She was a child of a union that dissolved. I connect with people I love through song lyrics. It just made perfect poetry to go out and live that line, I had to go to Graceland. [audience chuckles] 

So, I left the dishes and I excitedly knocked at her door. She said, “Come in.” And her room was full of posters of kittens, and puppies and plants. She was sitting in the bed with her iPad and she was building something on Minecraft. And I said, “Scarlet, let's go to Graceland.” And Scarlet said, “What's that?” And I said, “Well, it's where Elvis lived.” Now, she knows who Elvis was, because I played her everything. I played her Fania All-Stars, I played her country, I played her jazz, classical, reggae. I played her everything. 

And in fact, when she turned five, I didn't give her a Barbie doll. I gave her an Elvis doll. [audience laughter] She took that doll and she destroyed it, took it apart and then threw it out the window. And something like that was happening with this idea of going to Graceland. So, I went and damaged control, and I said, “Scarlet, in Graceland, there's this room, it's got all these stuffed animals and Elvis used to play music there. It's called the Jungle Room.” And she goes, “Wow, a jungle room. Why don't we just go to the Bronx, Dad? They have a whole zoo.” [audience chuckles] 

So, I closed the door and let it be and I plotted. I decided that when she was with me-- Because I share custody of her. When she was with me, I was just going to play the Graceland album. That's it. It was going to be the Graceland album. When we will wake up to have pizza for breakfast, it was going to be the Graceland album. When we came back from Central Park or the museum and we were going to have pizza for lunch, it was going to be the Graceland album. [audience laughter] When we had pizza for dinner in the background, it was going to be the Graceland album. The Graceland album was going to seep into her DNA, and that's what I did. 

And then, one day, she's opening her laptop to watch this YouTube video of this Minecraft wizard called Stampy that she was really into. As she's doing this, I hear her sing to herself. She's a rich girl. She don't try to hide it. It's not Graceland, but that's from the Graceland album. So, it's working. And I say, “Scarlet, let's go to Graceland.” And she goes, “Why do you want to go to Graceland so bad?” I said, “I think there's something there that's going to speak to me in some spiritual way. And I want to go, and I want to go with you.” 

She's not really into it. I can see how her shoulders drop. And for some reason, I said, “You know what, Scarlet? It's very American.” [audience laughter] I think she put two and two together, she goes, “Is this a road trip, Dad? Because you don't drive.” I said, “Yes, Scarlet, we're New Yorkers. We take cabs. But we can take a cab from the hotel to Graceland. Nowhere in the sauna says that they're driving. They could be on a train.” She goes, “No, they're on a highway. The song says, they're on a highway.” [audience laughter] And I said, “No, Scarlet, they're trains that go parallel to the highway.” And then, all of a sudden, I realized, you don't want to go to Graceland and she doesn't want to say no. So, she just cowers a little and smiles a little. I said, “Fine.” 

What happened with that day when I was doing the dishes and the song lyrics, my travel companion is nine years old, was that it took me back to the past. It took me back to when I was a teenager. These musicians and these songs would speak to me in more powerful ways than my parents or any teacher could. I remember when I first heard Springsteen sing, “You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re all right.” This gave me hope, [audience laughter] because if the boss can get away with such a terrible pickup line, I can do better then. [audience laughter] It took me back to listening to Héctor Lavoe saying, “Yo soy la fama, y si tú quieres aprender, la manta te da la cama.” If you want something, you go to work, man. You got to get out of bed, man. You got to chase it.  

It took me back to listening to Roy Orbison in the dark, when you're 16 and full of self-pity and excitement all at the same time. In fact, my daughter is connected to this kind of music that I love. In better days, in better times, her mother and I would play Scrabble listening to Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. But it wasn't so much Dylan that captured us, but the fiddle player. Oh, the fiddle player. Her mother and I looked up who it was in the liner notes, and there it was, Scarlet Rivera Latina. That's the baby's name.

I think my daughter understood this, because when I would play Dylan, she didn't exactly like it. You can see how Scarlet would cringe at this terrible voice. [audience laughter] But she somehow knew that her name was tied to this guy, so she always put up with him. But Graceland, she wanted none of it. [audience chuckles] Nine came and went. Blink of an eye. 10, 11. By 12, Scarlet was listening to her own music. She always had her EarPods on, iPhone. Whatever she's doing, she was listening to music. So, I would basically play whatever I wanted. 

Sometimes she actually would make fun of my music. For example, when I first played Neil Young, she laid on the couch and she had her head dangling, she goes, “Helpless, helpless, helpless.” [audience chuckles] She said that Neil Young sounded like he was singing from his deathbed. [audience laughter] Only once did she ask, “Who's this, Dad? Who's this?” I got really excited, because I said, “Earth, Wind & Fire. You like them?” And she went, “Nah. So, so, so.” So, I pretty much gave it up. 

And then, one day, something magical happened. I do not know why, because I wasn't listening to Paul Simon. I was actually listening to George Harrison, and I realized that Scarlet was 12, but that the meter, the syllables of those lyrics were still intact. My traveling companion is 12 years old. That still works. The syllables are correct. And not only that, but Scarlet's now 12, and music is speaking to her the way that it spoke to me back then and continues to. So, maybe she'll understand. 

So, I knocked at her door. She said, “Come in.” Her room is now full of posters of Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande. She was doing a watercolor. And I said, “Scarlet, let's go to Graceland.” And her face just dropped like this again. I thought this had died with the Disney Channel that I no longer watch. [audience laughter] I think she saw my expression, my panic or my disappointment, my sadness, whatever it was that she saw, because then her expression changed, and it became very gentle. And she said, “Dad, all things must pass. All things must pass away.” [audience laughter] 

And I got really happy, because that's a George Harrison line. [audience laughter] I don't know if that was playing, but she had always been listening. And more importantly, she was speaking my language. So, I closed the door, because there was hope. Scarlet is now 14, going on 15. We also live in Ithaca, New York, because I teach at Cornell University. You have to take a bus to go from the campus to the downtown where our apartment is. 

And one day, about a month or so, two months ago, I'm on the bus and I saw my daughter in the street. She was with two other friends. They were laughing up a storm, and they were giggling and talking, being girls, being teenagers, as it should be. It was freezing. There was smoke coming out of their mouths like dragons, but they didn't care. And I felt very happy for her. But at the same time, I couldn't help but to feel this painful nostalgia of when it was just me and her.

I realized that the Graceland thing was also telling me that, as soon as they are born, we start losing them. First the onesies go, then the diapers go, then preschool's over, then they lose their teeth. You try to save the teeth and know for what they decompose, they just become stains. [audience laughter] And then, grammar school's over, middle school's over. By high school, the child is gone. And Graceland was me wanting to live out this rock lyric that meant a lot to me before I completely lost her. All my friends say, “Don't worry, don’t worry, kids come back. She'll come back, she'll come back. You guys will be pals again. She'll come back.” 

I know this, I know this. I know this. I'm hoping that some years down the road that maybe these lyrics will speak to her the way they speak to me, and maybe one day in the future, the phone will ring and it will be scarlet. She'll say, “Dad, I have reason to believe we will both be received in Graceland.” [audience laughter] And you know what? Even though the lyric will be completely ruined, the syllables, “My Traveling Companion is 34 years old. I mean, it doesn't work.” I'll say, “Yeah, let's go. Why not? Let's go.” I'll go to Graceland with my daughter. Good night.

[cheers and applause] 

Dan: [00:17:34] That was Ernesto Quiñonez. Raised in Spanish Harlem, Ernesto is a writer and a professor at Cornell University, where he teaches creative writing and magical realism. His latest novel, Taina, about an immaculate conception in the housing projects of New York City, will be published by Random House September 3rd of this year. So, keep your eye out for that. That's Taina by Ernesto Quiñonez, available September 3rd wherever you buy your books. 

That's it for us this week on The Moth Podcast. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a story-worthy week. 

Julia: [00:18:12] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth. 

Dan: [00:18:20] 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.