Host: Meg Bowles
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Meg: [00:00:13] From PRX, this is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles from The Moth's artistic team, and I'll be your host this time.
At The Moth, we provide a microphone and invite people to take the stage to share their stories. We produce Moth shows all over the country. And today, we bring you four stories from those stages. We have a story about a woman who kept an unimaginable secret from friends and family for 32 years, one man's true Hollywood rags-to-riches story, and a girl's plot to sabotage the wedding of the man she loved.
And our first story from Simon Doonan. Simon told this story at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union in New York at an evening we called Heart of Darkness: Stories of Love and War. Here's Simon, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Simon: [00:00:57] Let's get this down to Gary Coleman height. [audience laughter] My parents were both runaways. Yes, both of them ran away from home. My mother was born in rural Northern Ireland, and her dad was a raving drunk and her mother was a religious maniac. I'm not trying to stereotype the Irish or anything. [audience laughter] And her brother was in and out of prison. You get the picture.
When she was 13, she left school because that's when everybody left school. She got a fabulous job at a pork butcher. So, there she is, 13 years old, cutting the giblets and genitals and ears off pigs, and standing in animal feces and thinking, “There has to be something better than this.” [audience laughter]
So, war broke out. She threw some nylons and a lipstick in her little purse and she ran away from home and joined the Royal Air Force. So, then there's my dad, who actually, his circumstances were more dire than my mother's. His father was an astrologer. One day, he got up, found a gun, and shot himself. So, that plunged the family into poverty. And my grandmother started to hear voices. She started to display all the signs of terrible mental illness. And his brother started to go crazy, too.
So, age 15, my father, he ran away from home. So, he also ran away from home and he joined the Royal Air Force. So, there's my mom in the Royal Air Force, like Rosie the Riveter, and there's my dad. But they don't meet. They don't meet until the end of the war. And at the end of the war, there were these weird, terrible homes and soup kitchens for displaced military people who had nowhere to go.
I think the end of the war, my parents weren't sure, like, “Okay, we ran away from home. Should we go back, or what's the deal?” So, they were trying to figure it out. And my dad was hanging out in this soup kitchen called Sandy's Home. And one day, this chick walks in tomato-red suede platform shoes. She had fabulous legs, which I've inherited. [audience laughter] She walked in, and my dad thought, “Okay, that's the one.”
Two months later, my mom and dad went to the registry office, where you could get married. You get a little marriage certificate, two months after meeting. They go to the registry office, get their little certificate, and then they go next door to the pub for a celebration, and they got thoroughly smashed. [chuckles] So, they got thoroughly smashed and they lost their marriage certificate. [audience laughter]
So, my entire childhood, for the rest of their married lives, which was until they died, they never had a wedding anniversary. They thought this was terribly amusing. "We don't celebrate wedding anniversaries. You can't remember when, because we were so drunk." [audience laughter] So, as a little child, I didn't think it was so amusing. I wanted that white-bound album of wedding pictures with a coach, and horses with white plumes on, and zhush. I wanted a sense of occasion. [audience laughter] So, I was already watching Busby Berkeley movies and Shirley Temple movies, and I was so jealous of her tap dancing with like ringlets. I already was a gay aspirant, like dying for zhush, for theatricality, for a sense of occasion. [audience laughter]
So, my expectations had nothing to do with the reality in our house, especially because for some reason, my parents decided that once they were settled, they would move in all the relatives into our house that they'd escaped when they were younger. So, in comes my grandmother, who by this time had a lobotomy. Yes, few chuckles there, not sure why, but-- [audience laughter]
So, grandma moves in post-lobotomy. My poor Uncle Ken, who was also paranoid schizophrenic, moved in. My blind Auntie Phyllis moved in. They were creating what they were creating. I wanted The Partridge Family. Around me was The Addams Family, The Munsters. [audience laughter] So, it just was not going in the direction that I had in mind. [audience laughter]
And so, things reached a breaking point when one day, my Uncle Ken, he was such a lovely person, but crazy, completely schizophrenic, he said he was going to get himself a girlfriend. So, he got up from the dinner table, walked down the street to the biscuit factory, which was down the street. And every Thursday night, they had a glee club. And at this glee club on that night, he met this benevolent divorcee, this pink-cheeked, benevolent lady, and he married her. So, I thought, great, finally a wedding, some zhush, a sense of occasion. [audience laughter]
So, let me describe this wedding. [audience laughter] The guests arrived on town buses. And not because it was chic or avant-garde or very reverse chic or anything like that, [audience laughter] just because they arrived on town buses. [audience laughter] There were Ritz crackers on paper plates and apple juice, because she was teetotal. Every expense was spared. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
So, I vowed that when I got married, when I grew up, there would be dry ice and white elephants and zhush and carriages, and it would be like Siegfried and Roy meets Liberace. I vowed that when I got married, there would be a sense of occasion. [audience laughter] Cut to 1994. I'm living in New York City, and a friend sets me up on a blind date. And at this blind date, I meet the love of my life, Jonathan Adler. [audience cheers and applause]
He wasn't wearing red suede platform shoes, but he did have really cute eyes and eyebrows. I looked at him and I thought, “He's the one.” And if we could have gotten married two months after meeting, we would have done, except back then in 1994, no one really talked about marriage. Gay people didn't talk about marriage. It wasn't the mot du jour the way it is now. [audience laughter]
There was no shortage of marriages going on around us, because Johnny had been to Brown University with all these highly strung, hotsy-totsy fancy New York girls. They were having these weddings that you just can't believe. Like, hollowing out Rockefeller Center and having the wedding in the ice rink. [audience laughter] These unbelievable fancy weddings. So, every weekend, we were going to another one. Of course, I was in a rage, in a jealous snit the whole time going to these weddings, which had such a pronounced sense of occasion.
So, then, 2008, suddenly gay marriage is legal in California. Jonathan and I are both scheduled to be there in September. So, we thought, “Oh my God, let's get married. Why not? “So, when people heard we were getting married, of course, not without justification, they thought, “Well, they'll have the blowout of all time.” You know, the fashion icon, [audience laughter] stretching it a bit, but Mary's design czar, what's this going to be like? It's going to be just the most incredible wedding. So, here's how it went down.
On a sunny September morning, we went to City Hall in San Francisco. There was a long line of lesbians [audience laughter] coming out of City Hall. One or two of them were wearing softball uniforms. [audience laughter] One thing I noticed, several had like large butterflies tattooed on their calves. That was a leitmotif. [audience laughter] It was a very jolly joyous group of people. Not so many gay men, mostly, as I say, a long line of lesbians. We were joined by my future mother-in-law, Cynthia, and my future sister-in-law, Amy. And they were on line with us. The lesbians ahead of us, of course, mistook them for a May-December romance [audience laughter] and thought that they were going to get married, which caused many chuckles, as you can imagine.
So, we went in, got our little piece of paper, got our marriage certificate, and then we went to Jonathan's store. Of course. And I started re-merchandising, and Johnny was rearranging the furniture, and we were plumping pillows, and chatting to the salespeople who were profoundly shocked that this is what we'd elected to do on our wedding day. We were re-merchandising his store. So, they said, "You have to go for lunch. Just go and have a nice lunch."
They sent us to this very esoteric San Francisco eatery down the street where of course, they were serving pig's ears and giblets and a pancreas or two with some kidneys. It was that kind of locavore, locally harvested, demented San Francisco food. [audience laughter] I couldn't help thinking how amused my mother would have been to see us, because she's long since passed away, but to see us sitting there eating couture giblets, [audience laughter] all the things she'd longed to escape when she was dreaming of becoming Lana Turner and getting away from the pig abattoir.
So, after this tasty lunch, we went back to our hotel where the locally harvested rabbi was waiting for us. [audience laughter] Yeah, my assistant, through a gay nun that he knew in San Francisco, had located a gay-friendly rabbi. So, this very nice rabbi was waiting for us in the hotel room to perform the actual ceremony. He was a very genial guy. We had a short, very nice ceremony, quite poetic. There was one slightly jarring moment when Johnny took it in his head to ask the rabbi if he could wrap me in a napkin and stamp on me. [audience laughter] The rabbi found this rather alarming. [audience laughter]
So, we had a lovely ceremony with Johnny's mother and sister present, my new relatives, my new in-laws. And then, there's a knock at the door. In comes room service with this gorgeous little cake which Jonathan's mother had ordered. And on the top of the cake were these tiny two little figurines. You know, the kind, they look like Rock Hudson or Mitt Romney, [audience laughter] they look like little televangelists in tuxedos. [audience laughter]
So, I look at these poignant little plastic figurines in their spiffy little 1950s outfits and things. And then, I looked at me and Johnny and what we were wearing, what we were wearing. We had pretty much replicated my parents' wedding, and we were wearing what we had on. I had some old sport coat on, he had a Lacoste shirt, I had jeans on. We wore what we had on. I thought about my parents. They'd stayed married for 60 years and slept in this tiny little bed. I thought about my dear Uncle Ken and his incredibly difficult life. He had stayed with his wife for all that time.
And then, I thought about all the girls from Brown who we knew who were now filing for divorce. [audience laughter] Seriously. And I thought, “You know, if it's the right person, you really don't need the zhush. Why be formal when you can be fabulously feral? [audience laughter] Why be conventional when you can be happy?” Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:15:23] That was Simon Doonan. Simon is a writer and bon vivant, as well as the creative ambassador of Barneys New York. He recently sat down with The Moth's artistic director, Catherine Burns, to talk more about love, life, and marriage.
Catherine: [00:15:35] Is life different now that you're married? Do you think being married really feels different?
Simon: [00:15:39] I'm very pro-marriage. I'm not sure about weddings, but I think marriage is great. People are like socks. They're meant to be the two pair. They're meant to find another pair. Socks don't do well when they're on their own. [Catherine chuckles] Marriage is great. It's good for people. I think it's what we're programmed to do. But then, weddings, I'm not sure about. I am definitely, I hate to say, to be out-and-out negative about them because some people enjoy them, and I know it means a lot, particularly to girls, but I don't know. And for me, the jury's out on weddings.
Meg: [00:16:20] You can hear more of Catherine's interview with Simon on our website, themoth.org. You can also see pictures of Simon's family, and some really great shots of Simon and Jonathan's wedding day.
In a moment, we’ll hear a story from a suburban housewife and mother, whose dark and secret past finally catches up to her.
Jay: [00:16:43] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
[Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Wedding Song]
Meg: [00:17:55] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our next story is from Marie Walsh. When Marie took the stage at the Players in New York, she looked like a modern-day June Cleaver, a classic housewife straight from central casting. She was incredibly nervous, having never done something like this before, so she clutched the mic-stand so tightly and didn't let go until the story was over. Here's Marie Walsh, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Marie: [00:18:29] I was home one day when I received a call from a man who was trimming the trees in the neighbor's yard next door. And he asked me to come out in front to see if there was any damage from a branch that had fallen in my yard. So, I went outside. As I approached him, he pulled out a badge and said, "Are you Susan LaFevre?" And I said, "No, I'm Marie Walsh." I was Alan's wife, Katie, Maureen, and Alan Jr.'s mother. But I hadn't been Susan LaFever in 33 years. But then, he pulled out a mugshot of me when I was 19, and I knew at that point that the two worlds that I had been living had finally collided.
As a teenager growing up in Michigan, I had listened to Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, worn paisley print dresses and fringe suede jackets, all choices that drove my parents crazy. I also went to a community college and folded clothes at a department store. By most accounts, I was a pretty average teenager.
And until one night when I went with a friend to a pizza place, was a guy that I'd only met a couple times, a friend of my ex-boyfriend. And suddenly, we were surrounded by police and arrested. When they interrogated me later, they said that it wasn't me that they wanted. This was the early day of the war on drugs, and they said, "We just want some names." But I didn't have any names to give them. My parents were very angry. I'd been raised in a very strict Catholic home, and had always been told that it was better to die than embarrass your parents, and we're supposed to make them proud, not bring the family down.
My uncle was a prominent attorney in town, and he said that I should take a plea deal that I'd been offered to plead guilty and I would get probation for one year. So, I was very reluctant to do this. I hadn't done anything wrong. But my father also said that. My mother was quite ill and that an embarrassing public trial would make her feel worse, so I finally gave in, I decided to just do what I was told for once.
So, I pled guilty. And then I went back to the court and stood before the judge expecting probation. He looked down at me and said that he wanted to send a message to the public, and he sentenced me to 10 to 20 years in prison. So, I was shocked more than anything, more than sad, that would come later. At the time, I was just stunned. I couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. I'd done what they told me and I thought there must be a mistake.
Nonetheless, the next day, I was sent to a prison in Detroit. And I thought, “I can't survive this.” But then, part of me didn't want to survive it. I didn't want to survive. I didn't want to live. My uncle now said that since I'd pled guilty, I couldn't appeal my sentence. I was devastated, depressed, I guess I was just for months. And eight months later, I received my first visit, and it was my grandfather. And he said, "Your only option is to escape this prison."
When I got up off my chair, this is my grandfather, who was a very respected man from a very prominent family in Detroit for many generations and he'd never broken the law in his life, and here he was telling me to escape from a prison, and he would help me. [audience laughter] So, I was stunned again. And he said, "If you make it over the fence, I'll be there waiting for you." So, I was terrified of the idea of escape, but I'd heard stories about people getting caught on the fence, and caught in the barbed wire or shot while they're trying to get over it. But I was more terrified of staying in this prison, this place, for 10 to 20 years.
So, early one morning, I was on my way to a prison job. It was still dark. Under the cover of darkness, I bolted for the fence. I ran, started climbing up the fence. I threw some clothing the best I could over the barbed wire and jumped to the other side, my feet hitting the frozen ground. My hands were all were bleeding, I noticed, but I knew I just had to keep running. It didn't matter. I just had to start running and keep running. I ran and ran until I felt like my heart was going to burst through my chest, but I just had to keep going. I heard a helicopter overhead after a little while and all I could think of was, "I hope they shoot me, I don't want to go back."
And I kept running. Finally, the day started getting a little brighter, and I could see my grandfather's car at the edge of the woods, just like he'd said. It was a welcome sight. I jumped in the backseat and he took off. My heart was pounding at every intersection, every moment away, getting further from the prison, just felt elated. He drove about 30 miles to his house.
It looked strange. Every other time I'd been to his home was-- Growing up, almost every holiday we'd spent at my grandfather’s, and the big house had been filled with many cousins, my brothers, and sisters. But today, it was eerily quiet. A little while later my parents arrived. I was shocked to see my mother was in a wheelchair now. We hugged, thinking we might never see each other again, and she slipped $200 in my hand.
Two weeks later, I arrived in San Diego in the middle of the night. When I woke up, it was to a glistening pastel-colored world. I decided I was now Marie Day. I'd left Susan behind in a cold, wintry Michigan. I started immediately to build a new life, and I got a job, and roommates, and made new relationships. Sometimes I'd get so comfortable with people that I would reveal my experience and instantly regret it that they when it came out that they now knew this. So, I feel like I knew I had to distance myself from whoever I had told.
So, years later when I met Alan, I knew that I couldn't tell him. I didn't ever want to have to leave him. So, Alan and I got married. We’re married and had three children and started to build a new life together. I had lived a life that I had dreamed of, that my grandfather would have been proud of. I knew the fear never left me, knowing that even the slightest mistake, a minor traffic ticket, and I might be pulled back into this terrible world, terrible place. So, I just was very careful.
But then, one day, a relative called and said that the police were calling around and looking for me, asking if I was still alive and if they had heard from me, if I was alive. And everybody said that I wasn't, because almost no one that I had gotten in touch with knew my address. We'd hoped that this was a formality that the detective would go away and quit looking for me, but he kept on. And month after month, and about a year later, so I got another call, and five police cars were at my brother's house in Arizona. They're banging on the door, yelling for him to answer the door. I knew that I had a decision to make. Do I tell my husband about my past and uproot the family?
My son was 15 and in high school, just started, and I said, “I don't want to do that to him. I said that I felt like I'd be running like a wild animal.” I thought, I can't do this to my family. It was nothing that they had done. And so, I just stayed put and decided to prepare my family the best I could as far as having the kids cook and do their laundry. I even planted succulents, a plant that my husband couldn't kill if I happened to, [audience laughter] the worst case happened.
And then, here I was, finding myself looking at my mugshot in my front yard. Aat that point, I knew that my long run from the law was over. The detective asked me to go in the house to leave my valuables. I took off my wedding ring for the first time in 23 years. My daughter was there, Katie, she was 19, the same age that this all happened to me, when everything started. She ran over and was crying, knowing something was very wrong. I tried to comfort her. Then I had to call my husband. He was at work. The words "prison escape" and "10 to 20 years, fugitive," [audience laughter] took him a moment, but [audience laughter] he's an accountant, of course. [audience laughter] When he recovered a few minutes later, he did go into a protective mode and said, "We'll get through this together."
So, I was transported back to Michigan in a cage in the back of a truck. My hands and ankles were chained tightly to my waist for 24 hours a day for almost two weeks. Yeah. When I got there, there was a media frenzy about my case. Not only my family was embarrassed, but the Michigan legal system was also embarrassed about the details of my case. The guards seemed to be incited. Some of them felt a little incited by the media attention and singled me out, not letting me-- First thing was not letting me use the telephone like other inmates. So, I wasn't able to call home or call an attorney for many weeks. My husband didn't know where I was for more than a month. He had no idea.
I stayed there for a year, waiting for a hearing. It was a year that I didn't able to touch my children, able to hug them. Holidays went by, came, and went. My oldest daughter graduated from college, birthdays. Finally, I did get my hearing. It was made clear that there was no evidence to convict me in the first place, and I was given a release date soon after that.
My husband and friends met me on my release day, met me at the gate. There was a helicopter overhead. This time, it was to shoot news footage, not bullets. So, as I walked out, my husband leaned over and said, "It's over. It's finally over." As a fugitive, I'd always looked forward, always planning my next step. It wasn't until I stopped running and was able to look back that I realized how much my grandfather had risked, what an amazing impact that he'd had on my life. I only wish that he were around at that day to see that it all had turned out all right. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:32:38] That was Marie Walsh. At first, Marie was afraid of how her friends in the close-knit community where she lived would react once they found out about her past, especially when they found out on the evening news. But she says she was surprised by the overwhelming support many of her friends showed and how they rallied around her and her family.
To see pictures of Marie, her family, and photos from the trial that finally ended her run from the law, you can visit our website, themoth.org.
[Here Comes The Sun by Richie Havens]
[00:33:31] The Moth hosts StorySLAMs around the country, where we invite people to throw their name in a hat for a chance to tell a five-minute story on whatever theme for that evening is. Carlos Kotkin is a regular at the StorySLAMs in Los Angeles. And he told this next story at an evening we called Golden Opportunity. Here's Carlos Kotkin, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Carlos: [00:33:56] Hello. When I was 20 years old, I got a job working as an assistant for an old-school Hollywood producer named Edgar Scherick. I dropped out of school, which terrified my mom. I told her I was an artist, I didn't need college. If anyone ever expressed concern, I would let them know I was valedictorian in my high school.
So, I was working for Edgar. My main responsibility working for Edgar was to drive him around town to his various meetings. I had to drive his huge whale of a BMW. At the time, I owned a tiny Toyota Tercel. So, this is exciting for me.
And Edgar, the first day I went to work for him, said, "If you're going to work for me, if you're going to drive me around, you can't dress like you're in junior high school," which was pretty spot on, because this shirt that I'm wearing right now, I've owned since the seventh grade. [audience laughter] Don't tell anyone. So, Edgar brought me to Macy's, and he bought me five suits. My first suits. He was like Richard Gere and I was Julia Roberts trying on. [audience laughter] Kind of like that, but not at all. So, I've never looked better driving Edgar around town.
He had a project, a script, that he was developing at 20th Century Fox, and I would drive him over there, and then Edgar would take me into the meetings. And beforehand he would say, "If you have anything to contribute, speak up. Don't be a sissy." [audience laughter] So, I'd go in the meeting, and he would introduce me as his associate. I wasn't his assistant, I wasn't his driver, I was his associate. I would participate. I would speak up. I would say things like, "I think when she has a dream, she should dream about an eagle." [audience laughter] I would say things like that. [audience laughter]
So, I worked for Edgar for two years, and then I was ready to move on. And with Edgar's blessing, I wrote to the executive that I got to know through those script meetings at 20th Century Fox, I told him that I was looking for something new. He brought me in for an interview. I didn't know what for. I didn't know what I was interviewing for. I figured maybe he needs another assistant. I go in there and I sit down. It was the strangest interview I ever had. He asked me, "What kind of movies do you like? What books have you read?" Basically, we were speed dating. [audience laughter]
At the end of the interview, he looked at me and he said, "You're well within the ballpark of studio executive. [audience laughter] I'm going to talk to the president of the studio in an hour, and I'm going to tell him that he should sit down with you." And I thought, “Oh my God, that's what I'm here for?” That's what I thought. But I said, "Okay, that sounds cool. [audience laughter] Well, I'll meet with the president." [audience laughter] I realized that he saw me in a different light. To him, I wasn't Edgar's driver. I was the guy in the expensive suit who spoke up at the script meetings. I didn't correct him. That's what I was. I did do that. [audience laughter]
So, a week later, I'm sitting in the office of the president of 20th Century Fox. It's just like you would imagine. It was a huge office. He had a booming voice, and he would yell things like, "Get Tom Cruise on the phone." [audience laughter] He sat down with me. He's holding my resume. At the bottom of my resume, I put "Education: USC." I didn't put any dates. [audience laughter] The first thing that he asked me was, "What kind of degree does a person get when a person graduates from USC?" And I said, "Well, when a person graduates from USC, a person gets a bachelor's degree." [audience laughter]
He sat up really straight and he said, "Are you telling me that you dropped out of college?" And I said, "Yes, but I was valedictorian in my high school. [audience laughter] I can totally do this job." We actually got into a debate about the importance of having a degree. It got so animated that at one point, I told the president of 20th Century Fox, "You sound like my mother." [audience laughter] And he hired me. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
So, I went from being Edgar Scherick's driver to studio executive at 20th Century Fox. I was given my own office. I was given an assistant, a British man who made me very uncomfortable. [audience laughter] I tried never to ask him for anything, ever. I was going to premieres all the time. It was a lot easier to get dates. Agents and producers were taking me out for drinks, and I would show up in my Toyota Tercel. [audience laughter] They would look at it like dogs that you're hearing a funny noise. [audience laughter] I eventually upgraded to a Corolla. But even so, I get all the time, people would say, "You're not like the others."
I remember one time I was walking back to the executive building, to my office, and I ran into this casting director that I knew from when I was a production assistant on a movie, and she saw me in my suit, and she started laughing. She said, "Are you an extra in something?" [audience laughter] And I said, "No, I'm an executive." I gave her my business card as proof, as evidence. She looked at it, she laughed, and she gave me a big hug. She said, "Don't worry, Carlos. I won't tell anyone." [audience laughter]
So, I did a good job. I was there for two years, and I got the hang of it, and I would say things like, "This script, There's Something About Mary. I think it would be a funny movie." And that worked out. But ultimately, it was a good experience. It was a learning experience. It was clearly an opportunity, but it wasn't me. I felt like my spirit, my soul was being stifled. I hated my shoes. [audience laughter] So, after two years, I told the president of the studio I was moving on. I did move on to more creative endeavors. I made a lot less money. But this opportunity to share with you guys and to express myself more creatively and to hopefully connect and relate, this to me is much more of a fulfilling, golden opportunity. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:40:20] That was Carlos Kotkin. Carlos traded in his suit and executive life and is now a successful author and screenwriter in Hollywood.
[I Love The Life I Live by Mose Allison]
When we come back, we'll hear a story of one woman's attempt to sabotage the wedding of the man she loved.
[I Love The Life I Live by Mose Allison]
Jay: [00:40:59] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by the Public Radio Exchange, prx.org.
[I Love The Life I Live by Mose Allison]
Meg: [00:42:13] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles from The Moth.
Our last story is also from the LA SLAM stage. It comes from Jill Donnelly, who told this at Busby's East. Here's Jill, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Jill: [00:42:29] Hi. Okay. This is a story about sabotaging your favorite person. So, you know how we all have our favorite people. Like, there are a lot of people you love and like and see on a regular basis. But then, there's this super category of like your favorites. My dad has always been way up there, way up in the favorite category. The moment I was born, I was like, "Who's that guy? He seems like a keeper. Keep him around.” He's great. He's great. He's the best. He's like a great combination of like upstanding and really goofy, which I think is a great combo. He's a little history. He's like a computer guy, lives in Upstate New York, real shy. He drove a minivan until he got a Prius. He's kind of that guy. And he's my favorite person.
When I was four years old, my parents got a good divorce and they had joint-joint custody, So, one week, one week, one week. And the weeks at my dad's were fun. They involved a ton of Star Trek and Danger Bay. I don't know if anyone remembers that show. Really exciting show. A lot of peanut butter and fluffernutter sandwiches. The best part was like a ton of Motown. So, that was a favorite activity. My dad, my brother, and I would put on like the Big Chill album and do a lot of dancing and singing.
We had a song that was our song, which was the song My Girl, you know like dun dun dun. I promise I won't sing too long. “I got sunshine.” And when it got to My girl. My girl, my dad would always put our names in a weird way like, "Jill-o, Mikey.” Like, goofy. It was really great, guys. It was a really great life. [audience laughter]
But then, my dad met someone, Jean. Okay, well, right from the get-go, not a big fan. I was not a big fan. She had never ears pierced. [audience laughter] She was more of a dog person than a cat person. Although, truth be told, she's also a cat person, so I can't, you know-- But at the time, I was like, “This is bad.” She always could tell when I was lying, even about little things. I'd be like, "I ate my yogurt," and she'd be like, "You're lying," and I was. She could always tell the lies, so we didn't hit it off. But I thought she was a passing fad. My dad, however, did not. My dad was really into her. They had all the same politics, and they really had so many great inside jokes, and they just really fell in love.
So, two years into dating, Jean moves in, and my war of sabotage began. So, Jean and my father are both Catholic, I am Jewish, that's a different story. And so, I decided to wait until the spring that year, and I sat my dad down and I said, "You know, Dad, you say for Lent you should really give up something-- You know, means something to you. I think this year, it might have to be Jean. [audience laughter] I really think that's the right Catholic thing to do. I don't know, I'm Jewish, but do it, okay?" And he was like, "No, I'm not doing that." [audience laughter]
So, then they got engaged, and I was like, "Okay, we got to amp-up the resistance a little more." So, I sat them both down and I said, "Listen, guys, I really don't think you should get married. I'm having these really terrible dreams about ruining your wedding. [audience laughter] In the dreams, the priest is like, 'Speak now or forever hold your peace.' And I scream and I ruin it. Don't do it. Just hold off until I'm a little older.’" And Jean was like, "Are you lying?" And I was like, "Yes." [audience laughter]
So, the day the wedding comes. I'm nine years old, I'm dressed in pink. It was the day of the wedding, the only thing left to do was to ruin their photos. So, every time I felt like-- [chuckles] I really do feel terrible about this. But every time the camera was on me, every time I felt like the photographer was nearby, I would like look real mean or fake cry or something just so there would be documentation of how much I disliked what was happening. [audience laughter]
But the wedding happened despite my best efforts. We went to the reception. And as I watched them dance their first dance, I had to put up the white flag. I realized I had lost. It's not that I thought my parents would ever get back together. I knew that that was a no-go. But I had lost this great wacky bachelor whose only thing in life was his kids, whose favorite thing in life was his kids.
And this time, I cried for real. Watching them dance, I couldn't stand it, so I started to walk back to the kids' table when suddenly I heard, Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun , dun, dun. I got sunshine. My brother grabbed my hand and we ran out onto the floor. My shy Trekkie dad danced his heart out with his kids in front of all of our family and friends. That was 21 years ago. They are still married. In fact, this morning, they sent me a little video, my dad and Jean of them-- It was my birthday. It's my birthday, guys. [chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
Thank you. Oh, thank you. Don't let that influence your score, okay? [audience laughter] I didn't want to tell you. So, they sent me a video this morning of both of them singing Happy Birthday in old-timey voices. Like, they're doing great. What I've realized is I didn't lose my dad. He's always been there. He just got happier. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Meg: [00:48:40] That was Jill Donnelly.
Jill is an improviser and instructor at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and a graduate student in public health policy. If you go to The Moth's website, you can see those now-infamous pictures of Jill at her father's wedding.
[My Girl by The Temptations]
You can find out if we have a StorySLAM in your area by visiting themoth.org. You can also pitch a story to us directly on our website. Go to themoth.org, click on "Tell a Story," and it'll take you on a step-by-step how-to, so you can leave us your pitch. Here's a pitch we liked.
Francisco: [00:49:32] Hello, my name is Francisco Martin-Rayo. I was 24 years old when I quit my job as a faceless financial analyst in New York City, and decided instead to go study foreign policy. About a year later, I found myself studying terrorist recruitment in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp and a fertile recruiting ground for the terrorist group Al-Shabaab, which in February joined Al-Qaeda.
I was studying counter-radicalization. Think of it as a fancy way of asking, "Why did you decide to become a terrorist?" Even though I'd been in the camp for a few weeks interviewing hundreds of refugee children, I still couldn't figure out what the difference was between those who joined a terrorist group and those who didn't. Yet, at first, I thought it was an Islamic education, but that didn't make any sense, because everybody had an Islamic education. And then, I thought it was the lack of economic opportunity as most silly academics tend to argue, but that made no difference in the camp. Even those who had jobs sometimes would join Al-Shabaab.
And then finally, I met Sahal, a young boy who had dropped out of school a few years ago, who taught me everything I needed to know about terrorist recruitment. This is the story of how one uneducated refugee proved everyone at Harvard wrong and along the way taught me how to finally beat extremism.
Meg: [00:50:48] We get a lot of pitches, and it takes a while to listen to every story. But I assure you, we are listening. You can find all the stories you heard in this hour at the iTunes store, or on our website, themoth.org, where you can also find pictures and learn more about all of our storytellers. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope you'll join us again next time for The Moth Radio Hour.
[Uncanny Valley by The Drift]
Jay: [00:51:19] Your host this week was Meg Bowles. Meg also directed the stories in the hour along with Catherine Burns. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, and Jenifer Hixson, with production support from Jenna Weiss-Berman and Brandon Echter.
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, The Wedding Song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Here Comes the Sun by Richie Havens, I Love the Life I Live by Mose Allison, and My Girl by The Temptations.
The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with help from Viki Merrick. 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 links to the music in our hours, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.