The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Pole Vaulting, Comedy, and the Congo

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

A mother struggles with her son's choice to have a religious wedding, a high schooler with a funny name becomes a pole vaulter, a social scientist commutes to war torn countries for work, and a comedian confronts a heckler. Hosted by The Moth's Producing Director, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Sarah Austin Jenness Storytellers: Annie Korzen, Richard Matthew, Matthew Dicks, Hari Kondabolu

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 theMoth.org forward slash Houston. From Purex, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness from the Moth and if you're new to this show, welcome. At the Moth, we produce events where all kinds of people

tell true personal stories for audiences all over the world. And we share a few of them here each week with you. We have four stories for you in this hour. A father worries about the dangers of commuting to the Congo. A misfit becomes a pole-volter, and comedian Hari Kahnabolu tells us about the first time he confronted a heckler. First up is Annie Corzin. Annie told the story at a moth night in Berkeley, California. Here she is, live at the moth. I'm glad that they're off. So when my son Jonathan was little, he asked why he didn't have any brothers or sisters.

And I said, we didn't need any more kids because we got the one we wanted. And it was true. Every time John O'Leaf was school, for camp, for college, I felt this heartbreaking sense of loss because your main instinct as a mother is to hold your child as close to you as possible. The problem is that your main job as a mother is to prepare your kids to separate. It's the cruel catch 22 of parenthood. Now, we brought Jonathan up as a secular Jew. After the Holocaust, my parents had turned away

from the old beliefs. My immigrant mother used to say, if there is a God, I don't like him. And Yom Kippur, while the rest of our Bronx neighborhood was all dressed up and going to temple, my mother and I would sneak downtown to see a Broadway musical. Because, and I say this with Jewish pride, Yom Kippur is the easiest day of the year to get theater tickets. So we were outsiders, okay? No Passover, saters, no porn parties, no Hanukkah, Menorahs, no nothing. And I brought my son up the same way. But when he turned 13, we thought he should have some kind of coming of age party. So we sent him for some lessons in Jewish culture, and we invited a bunch of friends over for lunch,

and Jonathan read a paper called, Jewish Values in the Modern World. And then I had this great idea. I got each guest to give Jonathan a list of their 10 favorite books and their 10 favorite movies so that he could grow up with his own personal liberal arts guide. And you have to understand this is the way we do things in my craft. When we get together for a party, we get creative. We do funny skits and original songs and, you know, satirical speeches.

So this alternative bar mitzvah was just another offbeat party and everybody loved it. Everybody except Jonathan. He hated it. And he accused us of being hippy, dippy, cheapos. Why didn't I have a real bar, Mitzvah, with a big party in a fancy restaurant? I would have gotten a lot of checks instead of those stupid lists. And I explained that we don't necessarily do everything

that other people do. We make our own choices. Okay, so Jonathan grew into manhood do everything that other people do, we make our own choices. Okay, so Jonathan grew into manhood and we did become good friends. We have a lot in common. We both like comedy and ethnic food and Texas hold him and we talk about books and movies, many from those stupid bar mitzvah lists.

So I've got a good thing going here and I don't want to mess it up. So when it comes to his personal life, I try to keep my opinions to myself, which I can assure you, is a real challenge. Like he announces that he's going to go and work in London for a year, and I pretend that this is good news. Oh, sweetheart, that sounds wonderful. And what I'm really thinking is, he's going to be looking the wrong way in traffic at hit by a bus.

He's going to get chronic bronchitis from that miserable climate. And he's going to learn to think of toast as a meal. The only good thing about working in England is that the Brits know Jack about Jewish culture. So whenever John O'Feele's like coming to LA for a visit, he just makes up a holiday. He just makes up a holiday. LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Guys, I'm going to be out next week. I have to be with my parents for the first five nights of Kisca. LAUGHTER

Oh, yes, of course, Jonathan. Please accept our very best wishes for a wonderful Kisca. LAUGHTER Now, when Jonathan comes home, he announces that he and his New York girlfriend, Alisa, have gotten engaged. And once again, I have to pretend that this is good news. Oh, sweetheart, how wonderful. This is a big fat lie. I'm going to tell you something.

The fact is, I would be perfectly happy if my son stayed single forever. That way, I would remain the leading lady in his life. I wouldn't have to share him on holidays, and I wouldn't have to share him on holidays, and I wouldn't have to watch him making Google eyes at some trollop. But there is this nasty rumor going around that I might die one day, and I don't want my child to be alone,

so okay, I'm fine with this stupid marriage. Until the following week, when Jonathan calls and tells us the wedding plans, it is going to be a huge, traditional, black tie affair in New York when he moves back from London. And here we go again. Oh, sweetheart, that sounds wonderful. Oi! I take a valium and get on the phone with the Yentupurgade. Are they out of their minds? It's too big, it's too formal, and it's too Jewish.

I mean, for starters, what is this black tino sense? We are not the kind of people who hang out in tuxes and evening gals, and why is this such a huge guest list? People are not going to fly to Manhattan from all over the world for glass of champagne as some chopped liver. And then one of my girlfriends says to me, now Annie, try and remember, this is not your wedding. And this is absolutely true.

My wedding was a totally different story. No engagement ring, no bridal shower, no gift registry. My husband Benny comes from Denmark. We met on a blind date in February, and we got married in April, so he could get his green card. A lot of my friends were worried and they said to me that it was insane to marry a total stranger. Well, that was 49 years ago. And there are still days when I believe

my friends were right. Anyway, for a teeny tiny wedding, Benny and I managed to find a laid-back rabbi, rabbi Lenny, who agreed not to mention God during the ceremony, because as I told you, I'm not a believer. Religion has too much blood on its hands. For me, being Jewish means simply honoring the time-honored practices of eating out, bargain-shopping, and climate control.

It's too hot, it's too cold. Where's that draft coming from? So the worst element for me in Jonathan's insane wedding plants is all this traditional stuff that his fiance grew up with, a rabbi chanting prayers, a Hebrew marriage contract, and 100 baby blue Yamakas purchased from underthehoppa.com. Meanwhile, things start to get frantic and expensive. I have to buy a gown. We have to fly to New York. Benny's huge Danish Jewish Gentile family is flying in

from Copenhagen. We're going to have to take them for dinner. I figure we'll do Chinese as an introduction to Jewish American culture. And then things go from frantic to insane. Now, I want you to hear this carefully. Betty's brother is coming in with his two ex-wives, and they are all staying in the same room with one king-sized bag. And now you know why the Danes are the happiest people

in the world. I went to a wardrobe sale at a TV studio. I found a beaded gown that still had a $1,200 price tag on it. I got it for $20 and saved the price tag in case I want to resell it on eBay. Benny dug up his old tux from 1967 which still fit perfectly as long as he didn't try to button it. Much to my amazement, people actually did fly in from all over the world. Plus, I have to admit, everyone looked so beautiful in their fabulous evening clothes. And then this really strange and surprising thing happened.

Rational, cynical, me got a little shiver when Benny's very assimilated family put on Yamakas for the first time in their lives. The ceremony began with four young men carrying the hook of the wedding canopy down to the front of the room. This canopy was very simply draped with Alisa's late father's prayer saw. And again, I got this little shiver. Then the music changed and Alisa the bride entered. She was wearing her great-grandmother's lace wedding veil.

And when my son looked at her, I felt that same heartbreaking feeling of loss that I used to feel when he went off to school, to camp, to college. Only this time, he wasn't coming back. time he wasn't coming back. He was marrying her and divorcing me. I had taught him to make his own choices and he was choosing her traditions over mine. He was separating and I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. Then, just like in Fiddler, Jonathan broke the glass. Everybody yelled, muzzle tough, and we old dance back up the aisle, and we kept dancing and singing and laughing

and drinking and eating the whole night long, and all the things I worried about, the formal attire, the huge crowd, the Jewish stuff, turned out to be all the things I love most about the wedding. I am so glad that I did a mother's job and kept my big mouth shut. Thank you. That was Annie Corzinn. Annie is a woman after my own heart. She's a bargain shopper, and she's written a book called

Bargain Junkie, living the good life on the cheap. I talked with Annie after she told this story. Annie, what was crafting this story like for you? Well, actually, the story originally was developed for a theater group that I'm a member of. Jewish Women's Theater for Sanzilist, and we were doing a show with a theme of old mother. And so that's where we started. But then when I brought it to you, you had a different take on a lot of it. So we actually reshaped the story for the moth And then wasn't there a point Annie when you said you hated me

Yes, Sarah I hated you because as a writer, you know, I consider myself a humorist I like getting laughs and I and I thought you kept taking out my laughs. And so yes, I kept telling all this horrible woman of the boss, she's taking out everything funny. And then I said, well, Annie, the story is seeming very performancy. It just seems very big. And we have to talk about that and what happened.

You kept saying, you know, it shouldn't sound acted and it shouldn't sound written. And I said, well, but the thing is, I'm an actor and a writer. So what you're really saying is, I'm going to have to pretend to be a real person. And that's what we decided on. That's what we did. We just, we made believe I was a human. And thank you for that. Thank you for going there, Annie. And thank you for going there, Annie.

To see a photo of Annie Corison and her family, go to themalf.org. While you're there, you can find extras related to any of the stories you hear on the Malf radio hour. Coming up next, a high school pole vaulting team with three members, their names, Jack Daniels,, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Malthrad Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. Our stories in this hour

take place in New York, Edinburgh, the Congo, and our next story, a pole vault pit. Matthew Dix told the story at an open mic Moth Story slam with the theme Ego. The early part of this story is about the difficulties of growing up with his last name. If that would bother you, tune in again in a few minutes. Here's Matthew Dicks, live at the mall. Alright, so it's the spring of 1986 and Coach Cronin has decided we need two more pole valtors for our high school track team. We have Jimmy Dean, he's our one pole water,

and Jimmy is a senior, and he's a stoner, but he's the best pole water in all of Massachusetts in 1986. He can vault 17 feet in win every meet. But some meets are called relays, and in those meets you need to have three competitors, and all of those competitors in the pole vault need to score opening height or nothing counts. Opening height is seven feet six inches. And so every one of those competitors in the pole vault need to score opening height or nothing counts.

Opening height is seven feet six inches. And so every one of those meats throughout Jimmy's entire career we've never scored any points. So Coach Cronin decides he's gonna fix it, he's gonna find two new pole waters. And so he takes all the mediocre sprinters and all the mediocre long jumpers, and I qualify both times.

And he brings us all down to the pole vault pit to have us pole vault. Now pole vaulting is an interesting sport. It requires strength and speed and precision, but mostly you just have to be crazy. You take a pole about 12 feet long. You hold one end of it at the end of a runway. You run as fast as you possibly can for 18 steps. During the last three steps you raise the pole over your head. You jam the other end of the pole into a metal box set into the ground.

You throw your feet directly into the air. You throw your head directly to the ground. You pull back on the pole and theoretically, it throws you over the bar. I did not vault that first day. I went left, wrenched my knee, and literally ended up in a gully. But the pole was still in my hand. I had not let it go. And therefore I became a polevolta.

Two of us didn't let it go. And so that day, the polevolting team, probably the best name polevolting team ever, of Jimmy Dean, Jack Daniels, and Matthew Dex was born. And so fast forward to the first relay, I've been practicing for about six weeks with Jack and I'm occasionally reaching opening height. And I know all the pressures on me, Jack is a year older than me.

And I wanna be good, because the real secret to team sports is you want to be your opponent, but what you really want is your teammates to like you. And the only way you can get them to like you is to either perform at a very high level or to perform higher than the mediocre people on your team. I cannot perform at a high level, so my goal is to beat Jack and hope that he is mediocre. And I don't like Jack to begin with. He's better looking than me. He's faster than me. And his name is Jack Daniels and my name is Matthew

Dix. And people look at me and go, oh, do I X? And I go, no, it's like more than one penis. And I'd like to complain about my name, but my father, Hanter God, is named Leslie, and he goes by Leastix, and I have two, I have two Uncle Harold's, and they both go by Herrigan. So I don't complain about my name very often. However, and pole vaulting is a lot of weighting. You wait to vault, and so they need to let you know, because there's donors like Jimmy

who aren't paying attention. And so the way they let you know is the official one out, Smith up Jones on deck, Peterson in the hole. And so for me, I would hear, Dix on deck, Dix in the hole. Brakes your concentration when you're getting ready to halt. So I had a lot going against me that day.

So, dicks was up, he was at the end of the runway, and by some miracle, miracles, I made opening height on my first fault. And at that moment, I realized I was going to be Mr. Dependable. I was going to be better than Jack, no matter what. And when Jack missed his first fault, I can't tell you how good I felt. And then Jack missed his second vault. And for a moment, I thought the sun had come out and shined upon me. And then I realized that if Jack makes his third vault, he becomes Mr. Clutch. And Mr. Clutch is damn well better than Mr. Dependable. This son of a bitch, I believed at that moment,

had set it up so that all the drama and all the attention would be on him. And on his third and final attempt, he would achieve opening high, stealing my win, not allowing me to be better than Mio. And so Jack ran down that runway, stealing my win, not allowing me to be better than Mio. And so Jack ran down that runway and I begged, I pleaded with all my mental energy, I just hoped that Jack would lose. I didn't hope that the pole would break because then he would have an excuse, I wanted

a bad plant, I wanted something bad to happen, and it did. On his way up, Jack's foot kicked the bar and he failed and I was happy. And then something terrible happened. My team won the meet and they won by like 50 points. And Jack missing the pole, missing the bar, it didn't matter anymore. Nobody cared because we beat the team by 50 points. What I wanted was for us to lose by one point

I wanted to step on to that bus being the guy who cleared opening height and everyone staring at Jack and knowing that I was better than Jack but because we had crushed the team so badly Nobody paid any attention to me and so I learned three very important lessons that day Number one, although the world does revolve around me, not everyone notices. I'm sort of trapped like, I'm like the sun in this pre-caparnic in world where everyone refuses to acknowledge that it revolves around me, and I'm just going to have to accept that. Number two, I learned that while I've got on my little mind games going, trying to become better than Miriokor, everybody else has a mind game too.

And some of them actually have noble mind games like I want to win and I want our team to do well and I want to support our teammates. And while they're doing all that crap, nobody pays attention to the rest of the mind games. So while you're thinking that the world is revolving around you, it really is only revolving around me and everybody else is paying attention. And the third and really the most important lesson is you don't get attention in life by being the best of the rest. You really need to be the best of the best. And that day, and for many, many subsequent days, I was not. Thank you. That was Matthew Dicks.

This story marked his first time at one of our story slam open my competitions in New York, where he partnered with Public Radio Station WNYC, and he won. He told us he was absolutely terrified, but once he took the stage, he said, all of my fear disappeared. And as of this recording, he's told over 40 stories at our open mic nights, and he's won 15 of them. Next up, a story from Richard Matthew, a social scientist who commutes to the Congo and other war-torn areas. Richard was introduced to us by the World Science Festival, and that's where his story was

recorded. Here's Richard, live at the mall. I was in a hotel in Goma, which is in the Congo with a couple of Swiss friends of mine. People who have spent a lot of time working in that area. We're sitting having coffee and all the sudden the door bursts open and six people come into the room and they're wearing bandanas over their face and they're carrying weapons. And they come up to us and they say, what are you doing in our country? Why are you here? We don't want you here.

Now Gomez is a pretty tough place. It's full of rebels and uprooted people and soldiers and humanitarian workers and so on. And there's a lot of anger and frustration in that city and things can spiral out of control very quickly. And so I was trying to figure out who these guys were and what they were doing. The thought came to me, if this goes badly,

if things don't work out and I don't get home, this is going to crush my family. I have three young children, I say, they're not ready to have their father die thousands of miles away in another country. I'm a social scientist and I work on environment in war zones. I look at whether things like drought can lead to conflict, I look at things like how diamonds get embroiled in conflict, I look at what happens to the environment during a war, and how when the country is coming out of war,

what we can help it gain the capacity to manage its resources so it can deal with new stresses like climate change. And I work in the field, so I spend a lot of my time in war-torn countries in South Asia and Africa. I usually work with conservation organizations or I work with UN agencies. I've worked on a lot of UN missions in sub-Saharan African countries over the years. So when the opportunity came up for me to join a team that was going to do some work in

the Congo, I was really excited about that. I thought this is a really interesting place to be able to go and see and observe. And I felt I knew it was risky. There was a war going on and it was a risky place. But I experienced a lot of risks in my life. The normal ones that you meet in war zones, tropical diseases, sort of crazy, unregulated traffic, very, very young soldiers waving their weapons around,

those sorts of things. And I felt I was pretty prepared for that. But I had never in my life experienced a group of people angry at me, so angry at me. And these people became more and more agitated. Their voices got louder and louder. And when you have a group of people angry at you, it's a very unnerving experience.

Luckily, in that case, some of our Congolese friends came in to explain what was happening. Things calmed down. We were able to finish our work. And a few days later, I was back on a plane heading home. But as I was going home, I was thinking to myself, these guys raised some interesting questions and some familiar questions, important questions. How much do I really know about their country and what am I doing there?

And can I really be sure that I'm doing things that are important and valuable, that I'm not really just meddling and making things worse? How can I be sure about that? But they'd also triggered a different sort of question, one that I had never thought of before. And that was, am I taking on risks that might impose huge costs on my family? Am I doing it irresponsibly?

I'm so attracted by the sort of work I was doing, was I putting my own family in a position that was simply not responsible. So I was thinking to this, I got home. I'm sort of recount a little bit about my experiences in the Congo, and I tend not to talk a lot about these things. But a few days later, I'm putting my son to bed, he was five at the time. He looks at me and he says, Dad, he says, when you're in one of your trips, when you're

really far away, Dad, could you ever die? And that really took me by surprise. I had never imagined that he was having this sort of thought. I'd always thought I'd kept these two worlds really nicely separated, you know, so that what went on and on wasn't affecting the other one. I thought it was sort of a master at that at keeping things balanced and separated. And there'd been a little turbulence in my work world, but I was completely unprepared for a little turbulence at home.

I'm a social scientist, so very quickly I shared a few statistics that put risk into perspective for him and showed that actually it wasn't as bad as he might think. Now he looked at me and he sort of reframed the question. He said, Dad, sometimes when I go to bed I have this dream, I have this dream that you go to Africa and something horrible happens and you never come home. He says, that I don't want that to happen. Now when I heard that, my first instinct was to say to him, you're right, I'm not even sure what I'm doing is that valuable.

So of course I'm going to stay with you. But the fact is I already had tickets for my next trip and it was back to the same region so I knew I wasn't going to be able to reassure him right then and there. Anyways, a few weeks later I'm back on a plane, I'm heading back to the Great Lakes region of Africa. I'm still thinking this through on my mind. Is it really worth it? Am I being irresponsible?

This time I'm part of a UN mission. And my role in that mission was to assess the circumstances in refugee camps. So I went from one refugee camp to the next. I remember going to one camp and I was going to interview a young woman. So I go into her, she's in this very, very small dwelling. And I go inside, it's very hot, it's very tight. She's sitting on the floor in a blanket, she has three children sort of crowded beside her, and the place is completely empty.

There's a couple of milk jugs lined up against one wall that hand made milk jugs, otherwise it's empty. And the woman shares her story with me. She says, she said a few years ago, she and her husband, they were farmers, learned that the rebels were approaching their village. So her husband said to her, it's time you've got to take the children and cross the border, get to a camp. And that's a very difficult situation.

If you stay too long, you can be horrifying. But if you leave too early, you can lose everything unnecessarily. So he said, you go, he said, I'm going to stay here and find out what happens. And in a little while, I'll come after you. He said, I'll find you. I'll get you. We'll be back together. We'll start a new if we have to. So she went, she took her kids, she crossed the border, she got into a transit camp, she got shuttle to a permanent camp and the years passed. And she said to me, someday I know my husband is going to show up here and he's going to come and he's going to say to me, it's safe to go home now.

And she said, we're going to have cattle again, we're going to be farming again, my kids are going to drink milk from these jugs again. And she said, I know that's going to happen. So anyways, a thank you for the interview and I left and I was being escorted around the camp by a young refugee woman who was on the administrative council for the camp. As we were leaving, she said to me, that woman's husband has remarried and resettled in another country. She doesn't know it, but he's never going to come back. And she said, it's not unusual. Things happen in warmen. Don't always come back, they send them as they make promises, but things happen. And she said,

that woman is going to be alone forever. Nobody's ever going to remarry her. When I heard that, that sort of settle that for me, I knew I would come back. People who are uprooted by war and disaster, who have lost everything. Those are the people whose needs are the most real and the most acute, and they're the people who need other people to rally around and help them. I have a friend, James Rubinsky, and he calls humanitarian work an imperfect offering, and I don't know anybody in the world who's done more humanitarian work than he has. And he means that there's never enough resources to help.

And sometimes you do the wrong thing, and sometimes you don't understand things fully. But you still have to do something. Now, I'm not a relief worker. But I know that I have a role to play, that I can try to bridge places that have lots of resources to places that have very real and acute needs. And that's something I can do, and I decided then that I had to continue doing it.

So a few weeks later, I left to Rwanda, and I'm flying back home, and I felt sort of comfortable that I decided, okay, this was imperfect but important. But I now also figured that I had to say something to my son to reassure him. And my son, he was very sensitive when he was young. And words matter to great deal, and he would remember things forever. So I had to choose the right words for this kid. I didn't want to screw it up and say the wrong thing and have the kid get sort of more anxious. I didn't want to be the cause of a series of nightmares.

So I get home and I haven't figured out what to say to him so I don't say anything. In a few days past, a few weeks past, I think to be honest with you. And I still haven't approached the subject with him. Maybe he's forgotten it. One day he comes back from school and he's got a project. He says, Dad, we did an interesting project at school today.

And he said, we had to write about somebody who we thought of as a hero. And he said, I chose Thomas Edison. Because I think Thomas Edison has helped people all over the world. And then I thought, actually, it should be Abraham Lincoln, because Abraham Lincoln was the most important American. I said, that's a good choice. And he said, he ended me the folder, and I opened it up.

And it said, my idea of a hero is my dad, because he takes really good care of the family, and he helps people in wars. And I thought to myself that woman in the Congo who I'd met, she had clarified my thinking, convinced me that I needed to continue it, but my son put the seal of approval on it. I still do that work. I still go there. I truly believe it's imperfect, but it's important. I know there's risk involved, and I know the statistics are in my favor.

I think that the risk can be managed. That's what I tell myself. Thank you. That was Richard Matthew. Richard still works as a social scientist, and he now brings his family to Africa with him from time to time. To see a photo of him and his wife and kids in Rwanda, go to the Moth.org. After our break, a comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival reaches his limit and lashes out.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. I'm Sarah Austin-Junez and you're listening to The Moth Radio Hour. Our next storyteller joined us at a Moth Night produced with the annual Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. When our directors are developing Moth Stories, we ask people to identify a moment of change in their lives. And comedian Harry Kanda Bolu made a bold choice in deciding to tell this story.

He'd never told it before. Here he is, live at the mall. So I grew up in Queens, New York, which is the most diverse place in the world. And I went to college in Maine, which is less so. I remember the admissions office telling me, don't worry, Harry, there'll be a surge of diversity when you get to campus this year. I didn't know I was the surge they were talking about.

It's very strange. And I spent four years in Maine, and there was some tension at times regarding race. And I spent four years in Maine, and there was some tension at times regarding race, and I felt awkward, but generally it was fine. But I did have this one terrible incident my senior year when I was walking home and off campus. And it was raining, and it was dark. And all of a sudden, three white dudes

I'd never seen before chased me down a street and cornered me. And the one guy put his arms around my throat, and they asked me what I was doing there. What are you doing here? Why are you here? What are you doing here over and over for like 10 minutes, and they finally let me go, and they started laughing.

And it was awful. And I think what was as terrible as that was what happened the next day, when I told my friends in the dining hall, people I'd known for three years at that point, and who were white. as terrible as that was what happened the next day when I told my friends in the dining hall people I'd known for three years at that point and were white. I saw a lot of people trying to overt their gaze and trying to change the topic and feeling really awkward

about it. And I remember telling one friend, I can't believe this happened to me after all this time in this town. I was a victim of a hate crime. And I remember my friend saying, well, you don't actually know if it was a hate crime. I mean, friend saying, well, you don't actually know if it was a hate crime. I mean, did he use slurs? Did they use slurs?

I'm like, no, they didn't actually use any slurs. Well, then it's not actually a hate crime. I don't think it's fair that you're accusing them of a hate crime. And I was shocked because I didn't know he was their defense attorney. It's very strange. And then I realized, no, he felt guilty for being white.

It had nothing to do with me. And Ray's really colored a lot of my experiences going to college and definitely impacted who I am today and definitely impacts my work as a stand-up comedian, which I do for a living which might be surprising to some of you at this point. Right. point, right? But I talk about race a lot in my act, like both big R-racism, like colonialism, slavery, right? And then little R-racism, like when people come up to me and say, where are you from? Which I hate.

Where are you from? I'm from Queens, New York. No, I mean, where are you really from? Which is code for, no, I mean, why aren't you white? I noticed your skin was a different color than mine. Why? Why this? I noticed it with my eyes. You have pigment. Yes, you have pigment. Look, I'll reason with you. I'm a race detective.

And I'm here to solve the case of what the fuck are you? I say white a lot in my act. Like whenever I talk about people in my act, I try to name them if they're white. Like, oh, so I was hanging up with this white guy. Oh, I'm friends with this white woman and this white dude showed up. And I always say their race of the way. I try to be because I think white people generally don't have their race name. They just get to be American or people. You know, people have called it, we get named all the time in story.

So I try to be intentional in that way and poke and be political during my set and that comes with consequences, because I'll be on stage and I get heckles that allow maybe my white comic friends don't get, right? People say things like, oh, I didn't know who did stand up. Right?

Or like, oh, guy, oh, did anyone else smell curry in here? And the worst things are the stuff that people say in the front row, because people in the front row are always terrible, no offense. But like, they're, when you're at the front row in a comedy show, it's like, why do you want to be in the front row?

You want to be terrible and talk to me. And when people don't like my act and because of the racial elements of it, I'll hear people whisper things at me, like loud enough where I can hear it, but not loud enough where everyone else can hear, because they're cowards, right? And they'll, like, yeah, this sucks, you suck.

What are you doing here? What are you doing here, Muslim? What are you doing here, Muslim? And, you know, I'm actually Hindu, but I don't think they're worried about the nuance. I'm actually Hindu, but I don't think they're worried about the nuance. I'm actually Hindu, but I don't think they're worried

about the nuance. I'm actually Hindu choose whether I want to address these jerks in the front row or whether I should just do the show that people paid to see. People paid for babysitters. They paid ticket prices. They paid for two drinks to see me do an hour of stand-up comedy. And why should I do rail it for some idiots?

So I eat it. I just eat it every time. And I don't say anything. Because there's bigger things to discuss, right? Now, I know I'm talking about my art firm in this negative way, but I've actually had a great career. I've traveled all over the world to do stand-up comedy. I was in Denmark a few years ago at the Arahus comedy festival and I got heckled in a way. I'd never been heckled before. A man got up in the middle of my show and actually yelled,

go back to America. Which is incredible. Because I've been told to go back to so many countries. Never to America. I've been told to go back to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, whatever country our nation is bombing. I'm told to go back to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, whatever country our nation is bombing. I'm told to go back there. At like the least opportune time to go back. So it was nice to finally hear America.

A privilege to travel all over the world to do comedy. In 2011, August of 2011, I was asked to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at Edinburgh Scotland. And I was excited about this, the big international festival. And at the same time, I was nervous, right? Because it's a month of doing stand-up. It's very intense. And most of the audiences are white, made up of mostly white people. And I was nervous, because it'll be OK.

Most of the audience is white. I'm brown. The sky is always gray, right? And that's what Edinburgh Scotland's like. It's always overcast. And it's just white brown gray, white brown gray, white brown gray, every day for a month. It's like groundhog dates, the strangest thing.

And the shows went OK. There were a lot of up and downs. I never really crushed it. I was fine. It was awkward. And you could tell there was audience members that didn't understand that what I was doing was comedy, right? Why do I talk about race so much? It's confusing, right?

And there was definitely a lot of that. And one night I was hanging out with my friend who was a black comic who was also at the festival and was having similar frustrations with his audiences and they're not understanding what he was doing and we were hanging out and all of a sudden this white man walks up to him and says, what's going on my brother? And tries to give my high five. Like, I'm talking in that jivy way. And my friend just ignores him and we walk away.

And then 20 minutes later, a white woman walks up to him and pulls his beard. Just touches his hair. Think, thinks it's okay to just touch him. That she has ownership over him, it's disgusting. And 20 minutes after that at a party, when we're just trying to drink and just forget this all happened, another white woman comes up to him and says, Kevin! Kevin!

And his name isn't Kevin. And he tells her that, and then she says, okay, because you look just like my friend, Kevin. And it's fair to assume at this point that Kevin is black. and he tells her that and then she says, okay, because you look just like my friend, Kevin. And it's fair to assume at this point that Kevin is black. I think it's also fair to assume Kevin does not look like him. And my friend is frustrated and walks away and I'm furious. I'm furious that he's dealing with it.

I'm furious, the show has been terrible and I'm confused why I'm here. A few days later in the middle of the fourth week, right towards the end, everyone's losing their minds a little bit. I'm on stage. 10 minutes in to a 20 minute set. There's four comics on the bill. I'm in the middle.

And it's actually going well. 10 minutes in. I'm actually crushed. I'm killing every joke is hitting the way it is supposed to hit. It is amazing. I'm feeling great. And obviously, when I started setting up this joke about the fact we've never had a female president

in America, and a lot of that has to do with sexism. I'm in the middle of setting up that joke. I'm about to get to the punchline when I hear a voice in the back of the room yell, Palestinian power. And I'm confused. And then I start thinking, oh, it's because I'm confused. And then I start thinking, oh, it's because I'm brown, and it's another ridiculous stupid, ironic, racist thing.

And somebody decided to interrupt me, and I'm so angry. And I say, Palestinian power, why don't you come up here so I can kick your teeth in?" And it is the most, the angriest and harshest thing I've ever said to another human being on stage or in real life and it's weird honestly for me to say it right now in front of all of you. It is so weird that I said that and I meant it in that moment. I was so angry like why do I have to be targeted just because I'm brown. Why do they have to say the why do they have to interrupt my show? Why do they have to make me feel bad? And I said why did you say that? Why did you have to say that?

It's because I'm brown. Why did you say that? There's always something I hear someone in the audience say that's not what she said. What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? I felt horrible, and I tried to stand my ground. I said, no, I heard what they said. And then the audience in unison says, no, she didn't. And then someone said, she said, men are in power.

Which is not a necessary thing to say. It is kind of relevant, but definitely does not deserve a kick in the tee. And I felt terrible because I was wrong. And I've never been wrong before about this. I have never been wrong. About race, I have never been wrong. I've been on stage so many times and have ate so many terrible things

and friends have come up to me after the show and said, do you hear what that woman said to you? Do you hear what that man said to you? Do you hear, like, yeah, of course I heard it. Of course I heard it and I ate it because there was a show to do and I ignored it. And this time someone said something but they didn't actually say it.

It was awful. So I started apologizing, which audiences never want to hear. Like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I said that I like, I, you don't know what it's been like. I misheard it. And people say all these racist things to me. And I just thought it was another one of those things. And my friend had these terrible racist things happen to him the other day. And I just, and I heard that and I didn't hear it. And I'm so, I'm so sorry. And then all of a sudden, someone in the audience yelled out, it's okay. Keep going.

So the show turned into an intervention at this point. So I start going, again, I start the next joke. And then a guy in the audience yells out, two sensitive. And I say, no, not two sensitive, just sensitive. And then someone else yells, it's okay, just keep going. Either because they care about me or they just want this to be over with. So I finish the set, it goes fine and people clap maybe politely. And I get off stage and the host goes up and does a few jokes to stall for time and

to cleanse the collective palate. And I'm anxious about what the other comics are going to say to me. Like what are the white people backstage going to say when they seem like they've had enough experiences, right? And the next comic who was about to go on stage, it was a man from Northern Ireland named Paul Curry, his last name very ironic at this point. and Paul gives me a hug and he says, you did well up there. I'm like, no I didn't. We both saw what happened.

It was terrible, Paul. It was terrible up there. You don't need to say that. And Paul says, no, you were great up there. That was an honest moment. You gave them an honest moment and people never get honest moments. And look, yeah, what you said was wrong and it was awkward. But it was real, right?

It was honest. That's how you felt. And you explained to them why you said was wrong and it was awkward, but it was real, right? It was honest. That's how you felt. And you explained to them why you felt that way and what you went through. And they would never have heard that otherwise. They don't know what it's like for you to be a brown person in this country doing your act and what you do and what you do. They don't know that and you let them know that. And it was important that you did it. It was honest and you should be proud of that.

You did good up there. And I thought a lot about that, and I still think a lot about what Paul said, because it was an honest moment. It was raw, and it was real, and it was genuine. And it's the strength that I drew from that set. It's that strength, which allows me to tell the story to you now,

an audience full of mostly white people. Thank you very much. That was Harry Connobolo. Harry, as you now know, is a stand-up comedian. He's been on Comedy Central and Letterman, and we've posted a link at the mall.org to his set from John Oliver's New York stand-up show from a few years back, which has three of the jokes

he told in Edinburgh. He says, the only unfortunate part of this set is his mustache. And a pitch to you are listeners. We want to hear your story. Tell us a short version of a big change in your own life by calling 877-799-Moth. That's 877-799-6684. Or go to the mall.org and record it right on our site.

That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. Your host, this hour was Sarah Austin Geness. Sarah also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moths directorial staff includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bulls, production support from Whitney Jones. Thanks to Tracy Day and Brian Green at the World Science Festival and Kitty Boone and Trisha Johnson at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Small Stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Malthe Vance are recorded by Argos Studios and New York City, Supervised by Paul Rewest. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Kroka, Aramus, Ibrahim Hamadiko, and Felix Leban. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Malthe is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Vicki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media, and Hole, Massachusetts. 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 PRX for more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, TheMoth.org.