Host: Dan Kennedy
Danny: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This week we have two stories about the jobs we have, the jobs we want, and also really the jobs we think we want. So we all have to find some kind of career, right? Or some kind of career has to find us, one way or the other. The path is rarely straightforward and it's not always without its back bumps in the road. For instance, I seem to remember somehow landing a job as a wedding DJ. Probably the worst wedding DJ. Number one, I don't think I believed in love. I was 23. I was really cynical. I never used the mic. I would just play music and sort of sit behind the equipment and just stare at people dancing and scowl. I did this for like a year.
If you got married in Northern California, in the 90s, and any of this is ringing a bell, reach out to me because I feel like I owe you an amends of some sort. First up this week is Tim Lopez. Tim told this story in Brooklyn at a Moth StorySLAM where theme of the night was Ambition. Here's Tim live at the Moth.
[applause]
Tim: [00:01:17] All right, so when I was 14, I read a book that changed my life. That book was The Pelican Brief by John Grisham. For those of you that don't know, The Pelican Brief is a mass market legal thriller in which not just one, but two sitting Supreme Court Justices are assassinated. And the mystery as to who done it falls upon the shoulders of a plucky law student named Darby Shaw, who spends roughly half the book conducting painstaking research in the library and the other half on the run from this shadowy corporation that's behind everything. And she kind of outsmarts them at every turn and eventually exposes them and brings them down in the end using the titular brief. Now, this book was in my 14-year-old wheelhouse, all right? I read it in like three hours.
And then I proceeded to tackle the entire Grisham oeuvre. And when I was done, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a hotshot lawyer. Now, I went to school in Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles we have something called magnet schools. And magnet school is basically a high school with a theme. And these themes kind of range from the general, like the math and science magnet or the performing arts magnet, to the oddly specific, such as the North Hollywood zoology magnet. But for me, there was really only one choice, and that was the James Monroe Law and Government Magnet. Now, Monroe had a specialized curriculum that included classes on constitutional law and criminal procedure and forensic science.
For me, what was most important was it had a full scale courtroom on campus where they conducted mock trials. So I was all in on the Monroe Law and Government Magnet. Now, the thing about me at the time is I was not exactly a good student. And in fact, throughout junior high school, I was known as something of an enfant terrible. I was almost not allowed to graduate on stage due to poor performance. Not academic, but more it was like an attitude thing. [audience laughter]
But I kind of barely turned it around at the end. And I was coming into high school with a whole new approach. And on the first day of high school, I showed up ready to make my mark on American jurisprudence. I showed up wearing a Chris Polo shirt tucked into jeans, argyle socks, and a brand new attaché case that I purchased for the moment just to let everybody know that I was serious. And for the first time in my academic career, I came out swinging. I had done all the reading in advance, and in the first week of class, my English teacher asked if anybody could name the nine Justices on the current Supreme Court. And I raised my hand and I named them all in reverse order of appointment. I was not fucking around. [audience laughter]
So as much as I was focused in the classroom, where I really shined was in the courtroom. I was a really good fake lawyer. [audience laughter] I developed a reputation as a brash and fearsome prosecutor. I made the Varsity mock trial team as a sophomore, which was an unheard of feat in those days. And in my three years at Monroe, I compiled an undefeated record as a prosecutor. And look, I don't know if you know how hard it is to successfully prosecute a mock trial case, but you need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And there's reasonable doubt built into every mock trial case or else you couldn't have a mock trial case. That's why it's a mock trial. And yet, I achieved. [audience laughter] And on the other hand, furthermore, I also developed a reputation as this kind of like renegade prosecutor that would do whatever it took to win. And at the end of high school, I was voted two things. One, was most likely to become Attorney General. And two, was most likely to be held in contempt of court. [audience laughter]
After high school, my plan was pretty much set. I was going to go to UCLA. I was going to be pre-law, and then I was going to go to law school, probably Harvard. And everything was pretty good to go, but I thought to myself, you know what? I'm going to get a job at a law firm. I'm going to in the summer between high school and college, I'm going to see what this is all about. This will be a good chance to see the law up close, maybe meet a mentor or someone who can kind of bring me up. And I got a job working for this white-shoe firm in Century City, which is like a really nice douchey neighborhood of LA. And I showed up on my first day of work ready to go. And it was pretty apparent early on that my idea of what the law was and what actually being a lawyer was were vastly disparate things. Nobody really had time to talk to me or mentor me or help me along or even care about me in any way, shape or form. And I pretty quickly came to understand that people really weren't very happy in this environment. And several people actually literally told me this. [audience laughter]
And in my mind, all the skills that I had, everything I was good at, like the drama and the performative elements and all the trial stuff, like, didn't matter at all. In fact, what I came to learn was that this particular firm, the actual skill was preventing things from going to trial. And people seem to be that were good at it, were good at arguing, either on the phone or over email. And I thought to myself, “I like arguing, but like, for fun, I don't really want to do this for a living.” And by the end of the summer, I kind of became sort of disenchanted with the legal profession and I started school and I was pre-law, but it was kind of a soft pre-law.
And after that year, I instead of getting a job at a law firm, I got a job at a restaurant. And at that point my life path basically completely changed. And I look back now and I realize I didn't really want to be a lawyer. Like I wanted to be a lawyer on TV. And that dream is still very much alive. Thank you very much.
[laughter, applause, and cheers]
Danny: [00:07:06] That was Tim Lopez. Tim is a storyteller and teaching artist from Los Angeles, currently based in Brooklyn. Tim's also a multiple time Moth StorySLAM winner and he's an instructor in the Moth community and EDU programs. Our second story today comes from Kelley Craig. And we met Kelley in one of our community storytelling workshops when we partnered with Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness. After the workshop, Kelley developed her story for a Moth event on the theme of Home, Lost and Found. Here is Kelley, live at The Moth.
Kelley Craig: [00:07:47] I have spent a lot of time in public places with people who are drinking out of paper bags. Nineteen years ago, I got a job as a case manager with people who were living outside and struggling with addiction. I had worked in drug and alcohol treatment for 10 years, but this job was different. Instead of people coming in to see me, I went to them, and they didn’t have to stop drinking or using to get services. This meant, I spent a lot of hours trying to convince people who were intoxicated to go to appointments with me. I carried a cell phone and a backpack full of paperwork, and I walked a route where I knew each of my clients sat each day in the same spot drinking. I would find one and they would say, "How did you find me?" I would say, "I am here to take you to your appointment at the Social Security office." They would say, "Not today. I will go tomorrow."
I got into this work because I wanted to help people, and it seemed like the harder I tried, the more resistance I experienced. It was like a personal tug of war with 20 individual clients. Each night I went home to a warm house and felt guilty about the people I knew who were sleeping out in the cold. One particular client, I was very attached to and really concerned about was named Russell. Russell was 60 years old. He was Irish, Cherokee, a little guy about my height but rail thin. He had a grizzled beard, wore an army-green trench coat, and a cap with bold letters that said "Korean War Vet," because he was.
Russell sat on the same bench in Steinbrueck Park every day, drinking wine and telling stories. I would find Russell and tell him about some appointment and he would launch into a story. I would say, "Russell, let’s go to the clinic today," and he would say, "Did you know I wrote a letter to John John and Caroline when President Kennedy was killed?" I would say, "Russell, your cough is getting worse. Let’s go into the clinic," and he would say, "Did I tell you about the time I worked for that movie star on a ranch in California, and how I rode the rails up to Seattle?"
One day everything came together and there was an apartment ready for Russell. All he had to do was meet with the landlord. I went to his bench and let him know his apartment was ready. Russell would not budge. In my exasperation, I said, "Russell, I am worried about you." He said, "We worry about you, too, Kel." I walked away, but his words rang in my head. And it took me back 15 years, because people had said that to me. I was in college, drinking heavily, acting recklessly, writing suicidal letters to a friend back home who, in her desperation to try to help, went to our high school soccer coach. A few months later, I was back in Seattle, and that coach put an AA pamphlet under my door with a note that said, "I care."
People had tried to get me to stop drinking before, but something about the way she did that left me room to make that decision on my own terms. When I was ready, I went to her for help. I thought about Russell and I thought about me, and I realized that in my darkest times, when I was most in need, what made the difference was another human being making a connection, spending time with me as is, without telling me what they thought I should do.
The next time I found Russell on his bench, it went like this, "Hey, Russell, I am so glad to see you today. There are some things we could do together when you are ready, but first I am hoping you can tell me about going fishing under that blue, blue, blue bridge."
[applause]
Danny: [00:13:59] That was Kelley Craig. Kelley grew up listening to her grandparents’ stories. She started working with people experiencing addiction in 1985, and her life has been deeply affected by the people she has met through this work. Kelley says she is grateful for each connection made through sharing life stories. That is all for us this week here at The Moth. Hey, it is not too late to set a New Year’s resolution, and I hope that one of yours will be to come out and join us at a Moth live show. Whether you are putting your name in the hat for a chance to get on stage and tell a story or just showing up to enjoy the night from the audience, The Moth produces over 600 shows a year, so come out and see us.
Danny: [00:14:42] You can find our event schedule on our website, themoth.org. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a story-worthy week.
Credits: [00:14:54] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On, and American Spirit. He is also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.
Danny: [00:15:00] 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.