Host: Dan Kennedy
Dan: [00:00:01] Cool. Ready?
Dame: [00:00:02] Yes.
Dan: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Kennedy.
Dame: [00:00:07] And I'm also your host, Dame Wilburn.
Dan: [00:00:09] Welcome to the podcast, Dame.
Dame: [00:00:11] Thank you so much for having me.
Dan: [00:00:13] This is very cool. This year, Dame is going to be joining me as a cohost of The Moth Podcast. She'll host a few episodes solo, and I'll host some solo and then we'll host some together as a duo, like we're doing today. So, the band will be together, but we'll also be doing solo projects.
Dame: [00:00:31] I consider myself the 17th Beatle. [Dan chuckles] This is one of those shows where we're going to be working together, and it's all about our open-mic SLAM series with one story from Detroit, where I've hosted and told stories, and with one story from New York.
Dan: [00:00:47] Right. Where I've hosted and told stories, I see what they've done here. We're both [Dame chuckles] qualified to host this episode, I see.
Dame: [00:00:54] I like to believe, so I want to handle my end as best as I can and possibly some of yours.
Dan: [00:01:00] [laughs] I love the just wild livewire nature of our StorySLAM series. At the top of the show, we always say some of the dos and don'ts of telling a story. One of the dos is make sure it's a story. I remember someone getting up at the Nuyorican, who simply had a harmonica. They stared out at the crowd for what seemed like a solid two minutes, then turned to me and said, “What is it again?” And I said, “Storytelling,” at which point to an entirely packed house, they just started playing harmonica. And then, they would stop playing the harmonica intermittently, and say three just non sequitur words and then go back to playing harmonica.
Dame: [00:01:45] I'm digging it. I mean, it's not a story.
Dan: [00:01:47] It's not a story.
Dame: [00:01:48] If you're going to do a thing, I like it. If you're going to not tell a story, that's the most not story I've ever heard-- [crosstalk]
Dan: [00:01:55] That's actually the new Dos and Don'ts document.
Dame: [00:01:58] Right. [crosstalk]
Dan: [00:01:59] It's going to say, if you can't tell the story, simply play harmonica and then say a few words.
Dame: [00:02:03] Right. It'll work. I had a guy in Detroit. He talked for a little over three minutes, and none of us to this day really know what he said. I think he'd imbibed a couple of beverages and thrown his name in the hat as a little bit of a joke. And then, when he got called up, he was completely unprepared. His last statement before he stepped off the stage was, “I knew I shouldn't have done this,”- [audience laughter] -which I think is a pretty substantial don't.
Dan: [00:02:29] Right.
Dame: [00:02:29] [laughs] At least try to act like it was a story. We know it's not, but you could pretend it was, and maybe we'd go along with you.
Dan: [00:02:35] Right. So, do show up, do put your name in the hat and do tell a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Those are really the dos.
Dame: [00:02:42] Yeah. And the don'ts are don't do any of the things that aren't there.
[laughter]
Dan: [00:02:48] First up today, we have Isabelle Raphael. Isabelle told this story here in New York. The theme of the night was Summer. Here's Isabelle, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Isabelle: [00:03:02] Thanks. So, I just moved to New York, 2011, summer. I didn't have a job, I didn't have any friends, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was-- I had a lot of laundry. [audience laughter] So, I spent the days going up and down the elevator to the laundry department downstairs. One of these days, I was going back up in the elevator, swinging my keys around my fingers.
And the keys, as if by magic, dropped down the shaft between the doors and the elevators. So, I heard them kind of clank, clank, clank, clank, clank down the shaft to the bottom. I just stood there and was like, “My God.” I have no wallet, no phone, no keys. I don't know anyone. I had met a very nice girl on the plane, but I didn't know her number by heart.” [audience laughter] I did not know my neighbors. I had no bra on [audience laughter] and I had no shoes and I was so hungry. [audience laughter] I basically was dead in New York. [audience laughter] I had no idea what to do.
So, as I sat there just thinking about my death, [audience laughter] I remembered that my sister building had a doorman. If I knew anything about doorman, that they had keys to every single apartment. So, I was like, “Okay.” All I have to do is walk 13 blocks without shoes. I can totally do this. It's summer, I'm Australian, I love no shoes. [audience laughter] So, I started the walk. And the minute I started the walk, I was like, “A, 13 blocks is actually a really long way. [audience chuckles] B, people in New York love to yell out feedback on the street.” [audience laughter] [audience cheers]
A total of four cars, I think, yelled out, “You don't have any shoes on.” [audience laughter] I know. I was twirling my keys around me. They fell down the elevator. [audience laughter] And at one point, a homeless man shuffled along next to me and whispered in my ear, “You're going to regret this.” [audience laughter] “Oh, God.” [audience cheers and applause]
So, eventually, I get to the door, and the guy shrieked about lack of shoes. I was like, “Yeah, swinging around.” [audience laughter] And he's like, “Well, actually, I do have the keys, so I can take you back. But I need to piggyback you, because I don't think you can walk without shoes.” I'm like, “Oh, my God. I'm not like a get on your shoulders at the band kind of girl. [audience laughter] I don't jump over fences.” So, it's like, how do you get on someone's back? [audience laughter] So, I started really far away and ran [audience laughter] and slopped myself onto his back to his back. [audience laughter] To his horror, I'm not sure. [audience laughter]
So, we started the long way back. I don't like to piggyback in awkward silence. [audience laughter] So, I was chatting away about how not very good about getting on people's backs. [audience laughter] “I was really lonely in the city and I just moved here. I met this really nice girl on the plane.” [audience laughter] But all the way, I'm slipping lower and lower [audience laughter] on his back until my feet were just dragging [audience laughter] along the ground.
So, eventually, I got back to the house and he let me in. And then, a few days later, I come home and there's a little bag on my door with my keys, which he fished out and a pair of pink bespangled child slippers, I guess he totally got my style, and a little note that said, “For next time.” [unintelligible 00:07:08]
[cheers and applause]
Moderator: [00:08:11] Isabelle.
Dan: [00:08:19] That was Isabelle Raphael.
Dame: [00:08:22] Originally from Australia, Isabelle is a New York based creative director, which means she likes bossily art directing Instagram photos. After realizing her friends had heard all of her stories, Isabelle decided to try her hand at telling them to a new audience in front of a microphone.
Dan: [00:08:37] You know what I love about Isabelle's story? I love the moment when the homeless man shuffles along with her and whispers, “You're going to regret this.” I like that she calls it feedback that New Yorkers yell at you when you're walking down the street.
Dame: [00:08:53] It is a New York moment. I have been in the city wearing a skirt with a train and have had 30 people stop and say, “Your skirts on the ground.” I'm like, “It's a train. I know.” “It's going to get dirty.” “I know. But thank you for crossing the street to tell me.”
Dan: [00:09:08] They're very forward and they will tell you what they think. But this city has so much heart too. Crowds at New York City SLAMs will be so with the storyteller that if they get nervous or if they freeze up, you would think they would just get slaughtered by a New York crowd. And New York Moth crowds will just wait patiently or even better, start applauding. They'll start yelling stuff like, “You've got this.” It's just an amazing love that I feel like they have. You know, by the way, same people who will yell at you on the street that you don't have any shoes on.
Dame: [00:09:42] I think it's a New York thing. I think it's a New York way. I love you in the way that I choose, which seems very New York to me.
Up next, we have Michelle Robertson. Michelle told this story at a Detroit StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Competition. Here's Michelle.
[cheers and applause]
Michelle: [00:10:08] Well, I'm the oldest of four girls in my family. My first sister was born just before my second birthday, and then my other two sisters are 10 and 14 years younger. So, the majority of my childhood, most of my memories are just me and my dad and Rebecca and my mom.
My mom and dad were two totally different people. My mom's just super shy and very strait-laced, like never did anything wrong. She didn't smoke or drink or swear or gamble or anything like that. And my dad grew up on the rodeo, and loved drinking beer and smoking some weed, and whatever else he could get his hands on. So, they had nothing in common, except for as parents, they had this one thing, and that was that neither one of them really had any issues with playing favorites.
So, Rebecca was my mom's favorite [audience laughter] and I was my dad's favorite. If my mom went anywhere, Rebecca was going to be with her and my dad took me with him. So, Rebecca got to go to the grocery store in the bank, and I got to go to the party store to buy beer and to my aunt and uncle's houses every single weekend, where my dad would hang out with his brothers and sisters, and they would drink beer and smoke whatever and play cards. And me and all my cousins, this huge extended family, we'd ride horses or do whatever we wanted, because nobody was watching us. [audience laughter]
We both individually had these really great childhoods, Rebecca and I. But my parents, in creating this division of a family, created this huge animosity. So, it wasn't like normal sibling rivalry. There were no moments of tenderness. We didn't do each other's hair or makeup or talk about boys, like we did not. We hated each other. Hated. Legit. Hated each other. [audience laughter] When I think about competition, she was my fiercest opponent for all of my life, because we were constantly trying to outdo one another and prove that we were loved. It continued that way, once we moved out-- We both moved out, got married, had our own families.
Now, to me, I had grown up with this big extended family, and so it was important to me that my kids knew their cousins. It just was like an unfortunate circumstance that they were Becca's kids. [audience laughter] It really was. You don't know her. [audience laughter] So, it was fine, because my dad would call me every weekend and ask me to come over for dinner, and I'd say, “Yeah, can you have mom call Becca and ask her Becca to bring the kids over?” And she would. So, we all spent time. Well, Becca would hang out with my mom in the house, and me and my dad would do the fun-- light off fireworks for no reason or ride four wheelers. And so, all the kids would hang out with us.
And then, my two younger sisters grew up and moved out, and my parents were just left with each other and they realized, I think, what everybody else knew, they didn't have anything in common. Well, my mom probably got tired of my dad drinking all the time, and my dad probably just got tired of listening to my mom bitch about him drinking all the time. [audience laughter] So, my mom moved out, but she still came over on weekends. And then, she moved back in, so that was fine and then, she moved back out and then she didn't come over on weekends anymore and then Rebecca didn't come over on weekends anymore. Within this really quick couple of months, my entire dysfunctional family started to fall apart.
It was really a short time. Like a couple months later, I will never forget, I was at home. I was working from home that day. I'm sitting on my bed, and my laptop's out and these papers, and my phone rings and I pick it up and it says, “Karen/Mom.” That's my mom. She never, ever called me. And so, I panicked because I thought something must have happened to my dad for my mom to call me. So, I answer the phone. I'm a little panicked, but she was totally fine. And she's like, “Well, that's over. That's final.” And I was like, “What it's final?” And she said, “The divorce.” And I said, “What divorce?” And she said, “Between me and your dad.” And I was like, “No, there's no divorce between you and dad.” And she's like, “Well, no, there was. It's final. I'm leaving the court right now.”
So, I wanted to ask questions, but I couldn't because I felt my eyes get hot and a lump in my throat. And so, I was just like, “Okay, thanks for letting me know. I'm working. I'm really busy. I got to go.” And so, I hung up the phone. I cried so hard and so ugly for such a long time. I wanted to call a friend, like I wanted to talk to someone, but I couldn't, because they would ask what was wrong and I would say, my parents’ divorce is final, and they would say, I didn't know your parents were getting divorced and I'd say, yeah, me neither and that was going to be super weird. I was really mad at myself, because really the only person in the world that I wanted to talk to was Rebecca, but I couldn't--
I actually didn't even know if I had her phone number, but I did. After a long time, I looked and I did and I eventually worked up the courage to call her. I thought it was going to be weird. I made it a little bit weird, because she said, “Hey.” And I said, “This is Michelle. I'm your sister.” [audience laughter] And she was like, “I know who you are.” [audience laughter] And so, I made it a little weird. But then, I just said, “Oh, okay. Hey, have you talked to mom?” And she said in her really Rebecca like way, “Have I talked to mom? I talk to mom all the time. Mom calls me every day.”
And I was like, “Oh, okay. Okay. I didn't know. So, you know that I didn't know.” And she said, “You don't know what?” And I was like, “That it's final.” And she said “That what's final?” And I said, “The divorce.” And she said, “What divorce?” And I said, “Between mom and dad.” She didn't say anything, and then I heard her crying, and then I started crying all over again and then we just cried together for this really, really long time. We stayed on the phone for hours, just talking and crying and talking bad about our parents and figuring out how we were going to tell our sisters, and how we were going to tell our kids and how important it was to both of us that our kids stayed in contact.
We talked and we cried until there was just nothing left. And then, we just sat there forever on the phone in silence until she said, in her really Rebecca like way, like, “Why would mom call you instead of me? Mom always calls me.” [audience laughter] And for the first time in 35 years, I was able to just laugh, because I just didn't care anymore, because I realized that there didn't have to be a competition and that she wasn't my opponent. And for the first time, I was just talking to my sister.
[cheers and applause]
Dame: [00:16:27] That was Michelle Robertson.
Dan: [00:16:30] Michelle plays many roles. Some of her favorites include wife, sister, mom, foster parent. She's a leader at a nonprofit in Detroit, and currently keeps busy by living out the many stories she plans to tell someday. If you, the listeners, out there would like to see some photos of Michelle and her family in the extras for this episode, just hit our site, themoth.org.
Dame: [00:16:53] What I love about Michelle's story, is that she doesn't shy away from the idea of the parents saying this. This kid's going to go better with how I live my life. [Dan laughs] Like, I like to do rodeo stuff and beer. I'm going to take this one and you like to go shopping and this one might be the right one for you. I love that they just admit that my parents, I was an only child, but I had a dual personality for my parents, so I understand it. And I love the fact that her dad liked rodeo stuff, but she's still in our area, like rodeo.
Dan: [00:17:27] I mean, how bummed would you be though? The dad is literally like, “Hey, all right, so I like beer, smokes and four wheelers. Who's with me?”
Dame: [00:17:36] Right. That's going to be a lot of numbers. [laughs] There's a high number of kids that are going to go with you when you throw those activities out.
Dan: [00:17:45] That's right. It seems a little more fun on the face of it than running errands.
Dame: [00:17:49] Yes.
Dan: [00:17:50] But that probably also says a lot about why that marriage may not have worked out.
Dame: [00:17:54] Well, my dad was an auto mechanic. And if I went somewhere with him, he's like, “Hey, let's go to Pep Boys and look at brake pads.” But my mother would say, “Hey, let's go to the mall, and have dinner and buy ourselves several outfits.” I'm like, “It's a hard choice.” [Dan laughs] But I think I'm going to hang with mom today since it's brake pad day.
Dan: [00:18:16] That's going to do it this time around. But we'll be back again soon with some more news stories here on The Moth Podcast. Until then, from all of us here myself and from Dame--
Dame: [00:18:27] Have a story-worthy week.
Dan: [00:18:29] Thanks, Dame. That was awesome. [laughs]
Dame: [00:18:32] That's so cool.
Julia: [00:18:35] Dame Wilburn is a longtime storyteller and host at The Moth. She's also the chief marketing director for Twisted Willow Soap Company and host of the podcast Dame's Eclectic Brain.
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: [00:18:52] Podcast, production by Julia Purcell and Paul Ruest. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.