The Moth - 25 Years of Stories: Searching for Direction

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

On this episode, we get in the holiday spirit with a tale about a very special Xmas. Then, we discuss how directors can shape Moth stories. This episode is hosted by Kate Tellers. Storyteller: Peter Aguero

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's the moth.org forward slash Houston. Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Kate Tellers, your host for this episode. Throughout 2022, the Moth has been celebrating its 25th anniversary by revisiting our history,

counting down year by year. In this episode, we're bringing you back to 1998, the year that the Moth celebrated its first birthday. As we learned to walk, metaphorically, we started to refine the role of a Moth story director. Very often, people would come to us with the seed of an idea, or even more often in the early days, we would seek out potential storytellers

who we thought might thrive on our stages. Some people had stage fright, some thought they had no good ideas, some thought they had so many good ideas, so a director worked with each of the tellers to help prepare them for the stage. Here's how the directing process works. Through a series of conversations, the teller shares their story, a draft and idea, whatever the start, and the director listens, asks questions and helps to guide the Teller to the

best version of the story. They will then share on our stage. The conversations are intimate. We challenge Moth Storytellers to be vulnerable, to share their emotional connection to the events of their lives. So during the directing process, Storytellers often discover truths about their own experiences that they hadn't realized before. These conversations take place in person a few recently on Zoom, but mostly over the phone.

So often the teller and director meet for the first time in our in-person rehearsal just before the show. In these cases, they'll sometimes recognize each other by voice alone, catch eyes and leap into each other's arms. I always say working on a story with someone is one of my favorite ways to fall in love at the Moth. After today's story, we'll feature a conversation with two beloved members of our Moth community who have been through this process more than once.

Peter Aguero and Samuel James, but first a story from Peter. He told this at a Moth main stage in Charleston, South Carolina, where the theme of the night was between worlds. Here's Peter. He told this at a math main stage in Charleston, South Carolina, where the theme of the night was between the halls. Here's Peter. So, I just finished my first semester of college and I have a big bag of laundry and I come through the door of the house and things aren't looking too good for me and my mom. The first thing I noticed is that the piano is gone. She had that ever since.

She was a little girl. I took piano lessons. We always put the nativity on top of it around Christmas time. I took piano lessons for two weeks, but I still took piano lessons on that piano and that's gone. I go through the living room and the only thing that's left is just one couch that's with broken springs that can out of it.

There are two televisions, one on top of the other, one has picture of that works, and one has sound that works. Over in the corner are the impressions still from my dad's lazy boy that has been gone for four years now. That's the only furniture in the room. I go upstairs, the dining room's empty. There used to be this big, beautiful dining room set with carved chairs and a glass break front, a buffet table.

And that's gone. In the kitchen, there's the kitchen set. There's two chairs. There used to be four, but I broke one of them. And the other chair, I also broke. And there's only two left. And I go upstairs to the bedrooms. And in my mom's room, there's nothing left,

but her mattress on the floor. And there's nothing quite as damning as a bedroom without furniture, because you see all the dings and the scratches in the wallpaper, like all the mistakes that can usually be covered up. But you see them all now. My sister's room is exactly the way it looked when she moved out to go live with my dad.

It's Pepto Bismalpink walls and a canopy bed and this big toy box in the shape of a rubber straw berry as if she was going to move back in and be the little girl that she was before she moved out. My room looks exactly the way it was when I left. There's just posters all over the walls, and it's ridiculous, like me.

So I start to do my laundry, and my mom comes home from work, and she immediately takes over. It doesn't let me do it myself, and I end up helping her with it, and she's happy to see me, she's happy that I'm home. When we're done that, we go out to have dinner, and my mom makes tomato casserole. It was one of my favorite things.

It was canned tomatoes, with cubes of wonder bread and American cheese baked in the oven. If you put enough shaky cheese on it, it's delicious. So we're sitting there in the two kitchen chairs and we're telling her all about my first semester of college and how it finished up. And she's so proud of me. And she's telling me about work.

My mom's a nurse and she's been taking all of the shifts that she can, but she had warned me that she was starting to have to sell stuff in the house to be able to catch up on the bills because the house was too big for the two of us. Now that I was away at school, it was just her. So she was doing everything she could and she warned me, but it was still shocking, you know. She had just taken a second job, a part-time seasonal job at the mall behind the perfume counter My mom didn't like people telling her what to do. So I knew that wasn't gonna last very long And while we're sitting there at dinner, she tells me that she says people

We're not gonna have a lot of money this year for Christmas So I don't think we're gonna be able to give each other presents and I said that's okay, mom And I'm being completely honest. I'm just happy to be home with her. I don't need anything're going to be able to give each other presents. And I said, that's OK, mom. And I'm being completely honest. I'm just happy to be home with her. I don't need anything. And that's the truth. And we sit there eating quietly for a minute. And then she says, you know what,

be funny, what if we cut out pictures of things from magazines that we would give to each other if we could? And we laughed about it. And then we cried about it. Because it's really sad. It's a really sad thing. But then we laughed about it. And then we cried about it. Because it's really sad. It's a really sad thing. But then we laughed again. Because no matter how hard things are,

you just have to laugh. The next day, I decided I'm going to make the House Look as Christmassy as possible. And I go up to the attic and I get the boxes down with the lights. And I hang the lights and the bushes out front and around the gutters. I want to go get a Christmas tree.

I grew up in a small town in New Jersey called Delanco. It was a little small town of 2,500 people mostly farms. It was at that time there wasn't Walmart or big stores or anything. So I went over to the local Christmas tree farm to get a Christmas tree. I figured they'd give me a deal because I used to date their daughter. But it turns out they didn't give me a deal because I used to date their daughter. but it turns out they didn't give me a deal because I used to date their daughter and Christmas tree was like 40 bucks man. I couldn't afford that so I went back home and I got an old saw out of the garage And I cut out a tree from the side yard and I brought it in it wasn't even like a pine tree

It was like a stunted maple tree and I put it in the tree holder had like five branches I put 20 ornaments on each branch and just kind of put the lights on it and called it a day. And that's, you know, my mom came over for work and she just laughed about it, you know. When I was visiting my friends who were also home from college, I would steal their mom's fancy catalogs and bring them home and cut out pictures of stuff. Like, you know, my mom always wanted a green Jaguar convertible. I found a picture of one of those. It was a cut out pictures of gold and diamonds and jewelry and island.

Like all these things that I would love to be able to give my mom for Christmas. And like, as I was doing it, I knew it was sad. It was like a sad thing to do, but I kept collecting them and folding them up and tying them up with ribbons and hiding them in my my room and I was waiting to put them under the tree. And like I said, it was a sad thing, but I knew it was something that would bring us together. I knew it was something that we would always be able to hold on to, is something that we would be able to hold on to together, you know. There was one night in mid to the end of December, close to Christmas when we were sitting there

in the living room watching the TVs and the Charlie Brown Christmas special is on. One of the TVs hooked up the cable and the other one gets the antennas so the sound doesn't quite jive up, you know. And we're sitting there just right next to each other on the couch where worlds apart, my mom's exhausted. I've been trying to get her to sell the house for years because I knew it was just too big for her to be in by herself It was too big for the two of us to be there from being honest

It was too big when all four of us were living there. I don't know why they got it in the first place, but Four years before that My parents who had been separated on and off the whole time that they were married They were giving it one last try and the plan was that they were married. They were giving it one last try. And the plan was that they were going to sell the house and take the money and we were going to move to Georgia from Jersey and have a fresh start. And that was the big plan. And it went along okay for a couple of weeks and then somebody just came in and poured the eggshells all over the floor again and they started the fight and things were back to normal. And that fresh start

never really happened. And it culminated with us, the four of us, and the third Pughat at St. Casamers Church in Riverside, New Jersey, for a Christmas Eve midnight mass. And right before the priest started the mass and then packed church, my dad stood up and he walked out of the church. And the only sound you could hear in the sound of church was the hydraulic door.

It just goes, shoo. And the three of us left stood up and we went outside, passed the priest and everyone we knew him went outside and we walked the two blocks away. The car was parked and my dad was nowhere to be found but he left the keys of the car on the hood. And that year my parents were done.

That was it. I got what I wanted for Christmas that year. My parents never got back together. But so here we are now today. The two of us sitting on this couch and trying to watch this thing and let us be happy of something. And she's a million miles away. It's all killing her.

Trying to pay the bills, trying to keep it together. She's everything she could to try to keep the house. So there will be some semblance of normalcy to the outside world. I know that she took a big hit on her pride. She's very pride for woman and I knew that when everyone that she knew in her life saw our family disintegrate that midnight mass, I knew that it was just ripping her apart but she was trying to keep the house together. And she was a million miles away. My mom was my best friend. It was a two of us, man. She was my partner. She was like, she was like my road dog, you know, it was like me and her against the world. And like, being there with her and having her

being a million miles away was killing me. Just like I knew this house was killing her, too. Well, you know, it got to be Christmas Eve and my buddy, Brian, came over and picked me up and we went to a different church for midnight mass When you're under 21 you can't go to a bar so you can see your friends at mass and We split a jug of wine in the parking lot and we went and the mass was awesome. It was pretty great and Afterwards I come home and the next morning I wake up and it's Christmas morning. So I go and I gather up all the little pictures of the gifts that I want to give my mother and I all wrapped up and tied and ribbon and I put them under the tree.

And I hear my mom stirring upstairs and she comes downstairs and her hairs and corkscrews and she's got this big flannel house coat on and her big red plastic salad Jesse Raphael morning glasses with a broken ear thing on the side taped up, you know. And I say, Merry Christmas, mom, and she goes, oh, honey, oh, hold on, and she goes upstairs, and she's upstairs for a minute, and then she comes back down, and she has a few. And I give her her first, and there's, you know, there's the jaguar and the jewelry and the island and a picture of a baby grand piano and a picture of a new dining room set

and a picture of a new Mahogany bedroom set. And all these things I wish I could replace for her. And she's smiling and laughing the whole time. And then when it's all done, she gives me mine. And there's three of them. There's a picture of Bag of Reese's peanut butter cups. There's a picture of a pair of Homer Simpson slippers. And there's a picture of a karaoke machine.

And they were all from the same right-aid catalog. There was up in her bathroom. Because she had completely forgotten about this thing that I thought was going to bring us together. Because she was working so hard. So we're stuck in the middle of this Oh Henry story that he never should have written. And I thank her so much for the gifts.

And we go upstairs and my mom makes the best pancakes in the world. You might think your mom does, but I'm so sorry, you're wrong. My mom made the pancakes, but this morning she burned them a little bit. And I'm sitting in the kitchen eating these pancakes, cutting around the burnt pieces, and I'm looking out through a backyard at everybody else's houses.

And all the light in their houses looks like orange and colorful and friendly with all these people. And our house just feels empty and stark and white and the fluorescent light eating these pancakes and silenced together, the two of us. white and the fluorescent light, you and these pancakes and silence together, the two of us. A couple months later, she finally did send me my present. I was back in college. I had been taken out all the tuition and loans and we couldn't afford it otherwise, but it was important to her that I'd go. I had just finished a day of classes and I was heading

to the dining hall and I stopped over to check my mail. Remember mail? When people used to send mail? And I opened up the mailbox and there's an envelope with my mother's postmark on it. And I take it up and I fill up my, the dining hall and I fill up my tray with too much food because that's what you do. And I go over to a table and I sit down and before I start eating I open up that envelope. And inside there's no note there's just one photograph it's of her standing in front of the house with a for sale sign and the house sold pretty quickly and if she got

it she offloaded it and she took a little bit of a hit financially and she took a bigger hit on her pride and she moved into a much smaller place that she could afford and you know it hurt her I know it hurt her and it took a bigger hit on her pride and she moved into a much smaller place that she could afford And you know it hurt her. I know it hurt her and it took a big hit But the most important thing to me was right then we're looking at that picture. I got my girl back Thank you That was Peter Aguero. For many storytellers, their relationship with the Moth doesn't end when they walk off

of the stage. Many catch the storytelling bug at the Moth, they catch a bug, and many relationships develop well after the stage lights have dimmed. As promised, here are two Moth storytellers and friends, Peter, Guarro, and Samuel James. We're friends and I love you dearly. And if you, so what is your, how do you remember how we met? I remember, I remember, so it's at the state theater,

it's in Portland, Maine. You were the host of the show, and I remember like being a little self-conscious about being the biggest bearded man in the room. And then in you what? And I felt the stress just come off my shoulders right onto yours. But what I remember in that moment is I walked in and I walked in and it was like oh good the same thing like I'm not the big I'm not I'm not the monster in the room we get to be two masters together I was like oh good and then you I thought you stood up and you were the same exact height as me and then I was wearing a Batman t-shirt and then you pulled out a Batman wallet and you were like, hello Batman and I said, hello Batman and then we fell in love right then.

And that was, I mean, it was your Batman in my phone. That's what you are in my phone. How did you get your start with the moth? I got my start with the moth from when the moth came to town, I think it must have been I want to say like 2013-2014 something in there. And they were looking for a local to tell a story and I got a call from Meg Boles. And we started going through stories, I started telling her, so I'm a musician by trade. And so I have a lot of stories about being on the road

and ending up in odd circumstances. Yeah. And so, you know, those stories always work well for me on stage or like meeting people. And so I just started hitting her with all these stories. But Meg's, you know, one of the OGs of the Moss. So Meg has heard every possible version of every story. So in my life, my stories are unique.

And I think in her life they weren't. And so we just started digging through stories. I don't know how many stories I told her, but it had to been upwards of 20. And I think she must have got some sense that I knew how to tell a story. So she just kept digging. Like what, that's a familiar thing.

The way the math directors will tend to work is you'll get in there thinking you're going to talk about one thing. And then they catch something. And then without you knowing, they sneak in the side door. And they're like, ah, here's the story. And they can then they try to end up convincing you that it was a story you wanted to tell all along. And I mean, like most things, like we were not always such great judges of like what is interesting about our lives.

Right. I'm very aware of that. My own, my own, my own tendency to kind of be precious maybe about something that I've made, you know, or something that I've said. A little sentence that I think is funny. There were definitely moments in the second story, the Little Pink General Lee. There was one moment in particular where I had this joke that I thought was so funny, and I still think it's very funny. But it didn't work in the moment.

Like it killed the momentum and it killed the drama that was being built. And it was almost like a pressure valve for myself in telling the story that it was like I knew I could feel the tension I was building for the audience myself and so I wanted to release it by putting this little joke in there but it did the whole story into service and like you know Meg was the one who was like don't put this joke in here. Meg has this great little kind of smirks mile she does. It does know what's where she's telling you that the thing you're doing is not a great idea.

It's just like, and you're just like, I know. You know she's right. To me, the best direction comes where they're just telling you to trust, of course you're trusting them, but as a monster, you're trusting the director, but they're a proxy for yourself. You really have to trust that it's enough, that the facts of what happened and how you felt are enough. And you can watch somebody in a rehearsal, you know, the night before the show, perhaps like still have too many jokes or too many deflections or too many things that are keeping us away from the honesty and the

like the emotional core of the story. And it's like you can see the director almost heartbroken just like, oh man, I wish they could have, you know, a man, if only. Yeah. The story is not that direct their story. It's it's always yours. And the best directors make sure that they're invisible in it. Yeah. I would say that that process, some of that kind of surprised me in some of the same ways that it did with you where you you think that something doesn't matter. And then you realize it did, you where you think that something doesn't matter and then you realize it did. You know, like you think a moment in the experience might not be as big a deal

that it really is because I, you know, a lot of times like these stories that we tell are about a time that was about like a change or some pain or a failure. But like when you work on this with a director and they help you kind of identify this stuff, you know, makes you realize that thing you did to survive is the thing that is, you know, it's not just yours. It's those are those moments of being afraid and being vulnerable and being real

and working on these stories over the years of like that always surprised me when you go back and how in a way, kind of accidentally dishonest we are with ourselves with what we've been through because it's too hard. Mm-hmm. And it takes a good guide to get you through to the other side and the directors here at the Moth are they will very much respect the pain you've been through and want to help you honor it and want to help you present it in a way that honors those feelings and is like, and there's also, you know, safe for you. You got to make sure you, it's still, you know, like, I remember the first, the first story I ever told on a main stage was originally a story I told at a slam and I had no ending.

It was, it was a Christmas story and it was about me and my mom, a Christmas we didn't have any money, but it didn't have an ending. I think my ending of that story originally was. And then after we had breakfast, I realized that I learned nothing from this experience. Thank you so much. Because I didn't know how to do it. So I just walked us these. And I remember. So that story, the director, that story was Catherine Burns.

And I remember Catherine calling me into the office to work on that story with me. And she said, Peter, we need to have an ending to this story. You did learn something from this. You did, you did survive it. You did, you know. And so that was the first time that I just like,

I trust him and gave into it. And it was really beautiful to kind of flesh it out and make it bigger and make it smaller. I have the story expanded and contract. And again, it was really surprising. Because again, it's like this is just my experience, right? Like the most, it's something I went through it was the part that I thought were the most important,

might have been the most uninteresting, and the things that I skipped over with the parts that were like the juiciest bits. And then I never really doubted that I wanted to tell it because it felt good to tell it. And it was an amazing experience. That was really grateful to Catherine for selecting the story and like helping me work on it.

That first main stage was in the Metropolitan Museum of Life. What a debut. And like I didn't feel real. And then I told the story and like because Catherine helped me like you know trust in what was there and trust in myself, I was able to tell the story. My mother was there and she was in the audience and it took this thing that was really painful for the two of us and it made it into something beautiful. After the story, I took this cathartic exhale breath,

and Jonathan Ames was the host, and he was like, I want my hair for Peter, and then I hear him say, he goes, and Peter's mother, and she stands up and starts waving in the audience. Like she was a duchess. And like, my mother is now getting an ovation from a crowd in New York City around Christmas at the Metropolitan Museum of Life.

It's still like, I think that's my mother's favorite part of any of my career has been A, that she got to do that and B, when it was on the radio, that's the reason the radio later, it went on the record that my mother's pancakes were the best pancakes ever cooked in the world. At the moment that clicked, it was really about that we had gotten through it, man, that we had survived that. That we had gotten far enough away from it, that it was something we could tell the world about. Samuel, it's been great to talk to you, man.

I love you so much. I can't wait to see you down the road. Oh, I love you right back. I can't believe I'm looking at your face after talking to you on the phone for three years and not seeing you. Here you are. I'm sure somewhere mega's listening to this with that little smile Look what I did. I hope she is. I hope she is That was Peter Aguero in Samuel James

Peter was born and raised in the wilds of South Jersey He's been working with the Moths since 2007 as a storyteller, instructor, and host. His solo show Daddy Issues has played the far reaches and middle grounds of North America, mostly to acclaim. Except for one guy in Fresno, California, that guy hated it. He spends most of his time listening to the Almond Brothers while making profane ceramics and queens. Samuel is a journalist living in Portland, Maine.

He primarily covers local and national issues as they relate to race. James is also an internationally touring musician and storyteller. We hope this episode inspires you to call someone and ask them to tell you a story. You never know what might happen next. That's all for this episode. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week. Kate Tellers is a storyteller, host, senior director at The Moth, and co-author of their fourth book, Had a Teller Story. Her story, but also brings cheese, is featured in the Moths all these wonders, true stories

about facing the unknown, and her writing has appeared on Mixwinne's and The New Yorker. This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Geness, Sarah Jane Johnson,winies and The New Yorker. This episode of the Mouth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Geness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger. The story in this episode was directed by Catherine Burns. The rest of the Mouth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bulls, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klucche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Leanne Gully, Ingeochladowski, and Aldi Kaza. All Maus stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else,

go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by Pierre X, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at PierreX.org. helping make public radio more public at purex.org.