The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: The Call

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

In this hour, stories of ringtones, rekindled connections, and revolution. Revealing phone calls, missed messages, and finding one's calling. This hour is hosted by The Moth's Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Susan Fee gets a surprise when she calls her daughter. A series of missed calls gets scientist Moran Cerf in hot water. Nancy Mahl gets a call from her mom on 9/11. Cheech Marin finds his calling after dodging the draft.

From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginness. This episode is all about calls. Literal telephone calls and one story about a man's true calling. I must say I don't love talking on the phone. I'm a much stronger in-person kind of friend, but I've been practicing phone conversations more. So when I do call my best friend, well after she picks up the phone and says, wow, I say we're doing our favorite thing. We're talking on the phone. So we're doing this hour because when the phone rings, it's like a great mystery. And remember before caller ID,

we didn't even know who was on the other line. Phone calls can change the direction of a story in an instant. They reveal things, like in this first story from Susan Fee. Susan told it at one of our open-mic story slams in Seattle, where we partner with public radio station KUOW. Her little appetizer of a story really sets the tone for this hour. You'll see what I mean. Here's Susan Fee, live at the mall in Seattle. So I'm a mental health counselor, I work with families and teens and one of the biggest questions you get is, how do you know what your teenager is really thinking about you? And I'm here

to tell you I have the answer. You don't have to go through their room, it's not about reading texts or going on the computer. I found out the hard way. So I'm out buying a car with my 17 year old daughter, a counselor. So I had what I call the counselor car for many years. They don't make it anymore. A Honda inside it. It's a pretend Prius. So, strip down. There's nothing in this car. And I'm kind of used to that clunk and a wrong, long, just, you know, gas mileage and all. But we're going to, we're going gonna bump it up a little bit. And I'm gonna buy this new car,

and my daughter's with me, we're gonna learn how to buy a car. This is gonna be cool, and who do I get? It's the sales guy, it's Chris, the college kid. Chris, the college kid's showing us around, showing me the new things that you can get in a car. So I'm learning, I'm liking this car. My daughter's next to me, Chris is in the back. He's showing me how all these things work in a car. So I'm learning, I'm liking this car. My daughter's next to me, Chris is

in the back. He's showing me how all these things work in the car and it's got Bluetooth. Well, I've never had Bluetooth. I honestly didn't know how it worked. People can hear things in their car. This is amazing. Chris, show me, Chris College kid, how do you use Bluetooth? He says, I can do this. So he says to my daughter, you got your phone, yeah. He says, okay, you got your phone. I see, yeah, I got it. He was, okay, right now, call your daughter on the Bluetooth. Okay, call my daughter. All the sudden, all the sudden, like surround, like I don't even know what's happening. Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, what is happening?

Now if you don't know the song, Carmena Burrana, you do know it because any movie that involves Satan has this song. I do not understand what is happening right now, but Chris the college kid in the backseat does understand. He and my daughter understand that this is her ringtone for me. I see him in the back room here. He's like, he's trying to tell her, you're going down. I'm trying to get in this car.

So I catch my breath. I try to understand. He's like, yeah, yep, you called your daughter, you could have a conversation now, okay? So I follow up with what really only a counselor would ask. I mean, this takes training. I say Gabrielle, what is your father's ringtone? And she comes back with the Imperial March. So bottom line, you want to find out what your teenage or thinks of you? Ringtones, baby. It's all about the ringtones. Thank you. That was Susan Fee. Susan and her husband live in Seattle, Washington, where she still works as a counselor. Her daughter Gabrielle was in the audience the night Susan told this story.

Gabrielle says she remembers the incident in the same way, but says that she was totally embarrassed and scrambled to turn down the volume when her phone rang. But now she and her mom laugh about it and they go to mouth shows together whenever they can. Our next story is told by Moran's surf. Moran is a neuroscientist and probably the fastest talker ever to appear at the mouth. He speaks so fast that the transcript of this story is also at the.org if you miss anything and you want to read it later. This story is about a series of crossed wires and missed phone calls. Moran told it in the Adirondex at a moth main stage produced with North Country Public

Radio. Here's Moran's surf live at the moth. So I'm a neuroscientist. And I do research on people. We don't get a lot of fame doing that. But I actually, I can tell you a story about how I did somehow end up being famous for that. So in my research, I'm working with patients undergoing brain surgery.

And we tried to do all kinds of things to help them, but we also do research with these patients. And one of the things I did in the last couple of years was a study where we took patients who were undergoing brain surgery and we put electrodes deep inside their brain during surgery to help them with clinical reasons. But we also did something where we told them, we're going to show you pictures and see how your brain looks when you see those pictures and we can have a map of your brain when you see those pictures. And then we can basically know how your brain looks when you see those pictures and we can have a map of your brain when you see those pictures.

And then we can basically know how your brain looks when you think of those things. So the patient could sit in bed and think about the Eiffel Tower. We would see a pattern that we organized from before and we would project a picture of the Eiffel Tower in front of their eyes. So patients would basically sit in bed, think about things and we would project their thoughts

on a screen in front of their eyes And this was a remarkable project that took us five years to accomplish and when we finished We were very excited and wanted to tell the world about it And the way scientists tell the world about things is by publishing it in a paper So we write a paper describing everything you did and we said we could have people sitting bed think about things and Project their thoughts on a screen. And then you send this paper to a bunch of journals. Journals with all kinds of ranking.

And the journals basically take your work. They try to find flaws in it. And if they can't find any flaws, they publish it. And that's basically what you do as a scientist. This is your career. Now, journals get all kind of rankings. And the highest ranking journal in science, the one that is the hardest to get in is called the nature. Nature is where you put your work if you

really are going to change the world. To give you an example, this is where the discovery of DNA was published in the 1950s. When they cloned the ship dolly, it was published there. When they discover a new galaxy, they publish it there. It's really the place where you put your work if you're going to change the world. So we submitted our work there and it took six months where people tried to find flaws in our work. And eventually, on October 1st, I got the email saying, congratulations, your work is going to be published in nature in three weeks. And I was excited. This is something that doesn't happen regularly to scientists. It happens usually zero to one times the science is career.

So I was really happy that my work is gonna be there. I was still like graduate student at the time. I was ecstatic. And then they tell you that they're gonna come up to your work within three weeks. So you have three weeks to kind of prepare things. And then they have a press release where they announce to the world your work.

And usually those press release don't go well, people don't get it right. So I had this idea. I contacted nature and I said, why don't we create a YouTube video explaining the work. We're going to make a nice video where I can interview myself, my colleagues. We're going to show like videos of the patients thinking about thinking, projecting their thoughts. And this video is going to explain to people how it's done.

And they were very happy with it. And I said, I'm going to make it. I'm going to edit and make this movie. So I spent the next few weeks working and making this movie. And I actually worked day and night and I said I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna edit and make this movie. So I spent the next few weeks working and making this movie and I actually worked day and night and I learned stuff and I did a lot of cool things in the movie and ended up working until the very last day until the day the personalist was about to happen.

And I worked all night and at 8 a.m. that morning I actually put this video out there on nature's website and I just waited. Now the personalist was scheduled for 1PM, so I had five hours to sleep, and I said I'm gonna go to sleep now, rest before my glorious day comes out. And I put my phone on vibrate,

and I went to sleep to relax, I looked it, and I was planning to wake up at 1PM to see how things kind of come out, but I actually ended up waking up an hour before, because my phone kept vibrating the entire time. It woke me up, and I picked up my phone, phone and I looked at it and I had 50 missed calls and my answering machine was full of messages and I didn't know what's going on and then my phone was ringing right away.

So I picked up a phone and on the phone, who was the senior producer from BBC Nightling News. And he says, I saw your work, I saw your video. And I'm going to, I'm going to gonna wanna open our nightly news with this video. Now here's the thing about the video. In the video, I asked one of my colleagues and you're a surgeon in our team to explain what this work can be in the future.

What could happen in this future with this work? And he says, well, in the future, you can use this thing to have machines work by, by using just thoughts, using memories, using dreams, and then the movie kind of ends gloriously with the future and it fades out. And the guy on BBC calls me and says, I saw your video, and I want to know

about this democoding thing that you're doing. Just to be clear, democoding is not what we did. We'd never recorded a dream, we'd never did anything with dreams. We only had patients think about things and projectile thoughts, and just the movie ends with the final two words, recording dreams. So we asked him about it, and I say, I don't know what you're talking about. What is this dreamy coding? And he says, well, some of you, one of your colleagues in the team said about something about dreamy coding,

and I say, well, I don't think it's too, maybe it's a mistake. He says, I don't understand. Is it possible or impossible? And I say, well, until it's possible, it's like, thank you too. And so the last thing that I said to the BBC senior producer was that the dreamy coding is possible. And I say, well, that's not a big deal. Maybe it's one thing, one little mistake. It's not going to be a big deal. Probably one little fluke, but it doesn't matter.

And now it's 1 p.m. And I look at the refresh my browser to see what comes out. And the first thing is nature, having this personalist describing the ability to have people think about things and see their thoughts. And the second thing is BBC, having the specialists describing the ability to have people think about things and see their thoughts. And the second thing is BBC with a headline. Scientists say that limit coding is possible.

And I say, well, one mistake, not a big deal. No one's going to notice that. And I hear first the buzzer again. Turn in later. MSNBC. Scientists have been recording dreams. Refresh the buzzer. Fox News.

Scientists have been recording dreams and keeping them in storage. Refresh the browser, Fox News. Scientists have been recording dreams and keeping them in storage. Refresh the browser, worst of the journal. Scientists are coding dream, keeping them database. They have 100 of years of, and the story gets bigger and bigger. Everyone talks about the dream recording. No one even mentions the ability to think of things and show them on the screen.

No one even mentions that. And as I refresh the browser again and again, more and more news outlets are talking about the scientists at Caltech who can record your dreams. And I'm really frustrated, I don't know what to do. And people call me and I answer and I try to explain to one by one each portal calls me that it's not the case, but no one really cares. They keep talking about the coding dream. They have a name for it now, the DRM, the DLM coding machine. And it has a price, and people buy it, and there's like you can buy ten for eight dollars. And people talk about this thing, and they march march I comment about it, no one really cares.

And I'm really frustrated because this is my career, he hinges on this project and no one cares. So I call my dad, who's a journalist. And I said, dad, here's what's happening, how can I kill this story because it won't die by itself? And my dad say, look, son, no one cares about science. Just turn off your phone for two days, don't answer anything and the store is going to die by itself because no one cares about it. And so I

do just that. Two days later, the store is number one, they have like this ranking, it's number one, BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Walser Journal, Roiter's, everyone keeps talking about this dream recording machine. And because I didn't pick up my phone for two days now, people email me. So I get emails from people sending me their dreams, people asking me to go to hearings with the CII, I explain how they can be, the dreams are being recorded for years now. And I get more and more of those emails, all of that, of course, not two. And I get this chef, famous British chef sends me, he says his dreams have been about this particular SAP and he can't get ingredients and he wants me to put the actors in his brain and give

him the ingredients. And Apple calls me and they say they wanna have this little machine in their next operating system and I say it doesn't exist, sir. I don't know, and say, fine, you wanna play it far. Okay, we can option this thing. So when you actually release this thing, then you're gonna buy it. I say it doesn't exist, I say,

oh, you're really playing it half. Okay, good enough. And so people call me and ask about it. And the story won't die. There's like something that the queen said and still might not, my nice story trumps this thing. And I don't know what to do, I'm really frustrated. And my friends who've seen me upset for two days now,

the contact minister, you know it's Halloween now, October 30th. It's like a fun night. Why don't you go out with us? Have a night out, forget about this thing, and just go out. And I say, find it's a good idea. I'm gonna go out with you guys.

And I do that, we go out. And I dress up and is kind a good idea. I'm going to go out with you guys. And I do that. We go out. And I dress up. And it's kind of a set of depackettings of humor. I dress up like foyd. I put a little beard and a pipe and I cut my hair to the side. And I have these little glasses and I go out. And now we all have a great night out in New York. And they take pictures of me. And the night after they're putting it on Facebook and on places. And now if we look for my name, not only do they see my work but they also see a picture of me looking like Freud with a title, Moan Serf can I call Drembs. So the story gets even bigger because everyone now knows about this thing with actually the new Freud. That's me. And I say, oh my god, this story is never gonna die. I don't know what to do. And I like

try to find all kinds of tricks to kill the story by going on live shows and explaining it. It's not a case, but now nothing happens. And now people say, you know what? It's now October 30, but in four days, they're going to have the meeting in the US in November 4. Surely this story is going to trump your story. Four days later, the house changes hands, but still, the story number two now is about the scientists who can record the dreams.

Nothing will kill the story, and I'm waiting it's been a week now, and nothing ends. And I think that, wow, this is never going to happen, my scientificity is over. And at the same time, there are other scientists who have been trying to record dreams, who have been commenting my work saying that it's impossible that I've been doing it because they've been trying for years now, and other scientists have been competing with them, say that of course they can do it because I'm better than them. And there's like a battle between scientists all about my work, where I'm nothing involved in. And I think to myself, wow, this is not going to end.

And I just have to wait and give up my scientific career. Well, and suddenly, I get the phone call. I was sitting in my office and the phone rang. It was 6 p.m. And I answered the phone. And on the line was this woman. She says, I'm going to put Chris up with you in.m. and I answered the phone and on the line was the woman she says I'm going to put Chris up with you in a second and I wait for a second and on the line is a person who misses himself as Christopher Nolan. A famous filmmaker who just released a movie called Inception about the same time, about people who get to

do stuff with dreams. And he calls me and says look I've been looking at your work now for a few days, it's great. We're going to have a DVD release of the inception in a few days. And I want you to be the face of this thing. I wanted to go on a wall tour with me and explain how you've been doing it for a while. So my work is going to be getting the scientific authority, the scientific stamp. And I say, well, sir, I don't know what to say. It's really great, it's the movie. But we know, we never did it.

We never called dreams. And I don't think it's possible in the sense that you think it is. And he says, well, send me the paper. I want to read it. In fact, he was the first and only guy out of all the reporters, all of the world. Actually, I asked me to give him the paper. So I sent him the paper. And he read it and he called him back and he says, look, I look at your work.

Yes, there's nothing about dreams there. But it doesn't matter. I still want you to go on a tour with me because you're now the face of the recording. Everyone thinks you are. Just go on a tour with me and explain how it can't matter. I still want you to go on a tour with me because you're now the face of the recording. Everyone thinks you are. Just go on a tour with me and explain how it can be done. No one really cares about details. Just go on a tour with me and explain how it's done. And I say, well, let me think about it. Because on the one hand lies fame and fortune. On the other hand, my integrity and science. And I need 24 hours to think

about which or the two I'm going to choose. So I spend 24 hours to think about which or the two I'm gonna choose. So I spend 24 hours thinking about it. And after 24 hours, the phone rings again and I pick up. And I say, as much as I would have loved to help you in this, I don't think I can go on this world too with you and explain how dreamy coding is possible, given that it's not. And he says, well, I understand. If you ever change your mind, we have, we're working on Inception 2. And I say, I'll remember and I call you back. And so all I was left was with a scientific project that gradually

went right where and people actually now know the truth about it and a story. Thank you. APPLAUSE That was Moran Sir. Moran is a professor of neuroscience at the Kellogg Business School and a professor at the American Film Institute. Prior to his career in opening and studying brains, he worked as a hacker, a radio host, and a furniture designer. Moran told the story a while back, and I asked him if people can record dreams now. And he said numerous labs are pursuing it, his lab is exploring it daily,

and they're getting closer and closer. He says the only difference between science, fiction, and science is timing. And by the way, Moran said about his story, I don't worry about time limits. If it's running too long, I'll just talk faster. After our break, an elevator mechanic gets an unexpected call from her mother, and then another, and then another. When the mradio Hour continues. The Mothradio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. We're exploring calls in this hour. Our next story is about a good kind of phone call. It's the kind that changes your life in a positive way. Nancy Mall was originally part of a Moth community workshop we taught with Congregation Beth Haktiva, a reconstructionist synagogue, and Fountain Baptist Church in New Jersey. It was a Moth workshop that brought together two different faiths to connect across traditions.

Nancy then told her story at a community showcase in Brooklyn, New York. Here's Nancy Mall, live at the mall. Thank you. Thank you. It was a regular Tuesday at work. It was a beautiful day. And I was standing on the roof of the New York Times, building in Times Square. I was on the roof because I'm an elevator mechanic and that's where the elevator machine

rooms are. I was drinking a cup of coffee and watching the traffic below and I heard the phone ring in the motor room. That usually is a bad thing. It means somebody is stuck in an elevator or somebody is complaining about something. So I went in to answer the phone and it was my mother. Now, I hadn't spoken to my mother in maybe two years, so it was strange on so many levels. It was strange that she would call me, that she would call me on the roof of the New York

Times, that she would know that I was on the roof of the New York Times. And she said, are you okay? I said, I'm fine. Sorry, I haven't called. And she's like, no, really, are you okay? And I said, I'm okay. Are you okay? She said, I'm okay.

I said, okay, that's great. She said, a plane hit the World Trade Center and I was worried about you. I said, well, that's sad. And she said, no, really, it's serious. And I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And I said, okay, I'm okay. And we hung up and I, you know how the rest of the day went.

The next day I was back at work and the phone rang in the motorroom and it was my mother. And she said, how are you doing? Are your friends okay? Where do you live? Is your house okay? And I said, most of my friends are counted four, and the house is okay, and I'm back in Times Square. I'm safe, and she said, well, how's my city? And I'm a prefaceist by saying my mother was a New Yorker.

She lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, and then in Murray Hill, and in 1937, she was Miss Largemont. She'd have you know. And we didn't get along. We didn't agree on really much of anything. She was a Republican, as a Democrat sliding toward Communist. And she's a devout, like Catholic person and I'm very much not.

And she was straight and I'm gay. And she didn't, she had a really hard time with that. And so any time we tried to talk about anything, food, movies, politics, religion, we'd end up in opposite corners of the room, hissing at each other, and we just sort of gave up, because there wasn't much in the relationship that fed either of us, and every time we got together, it ended in a terrible fight, and we just sort of let it go.

So here she was calling me a second time and I was really touched. It seemed like she actually cared which I did not think she did. And she said, you know, during the war when your father was overseas, all us ladies had to go out and keep everything open. We had to go to concerts and sports events and museums.

And you're going to have to do that. You're going to have to keep my city alive for me. My mother had left New York and gone out to take care of a sick relative in South Dakota and was foolish enough to marry a cowboy. So she was calling me from the west and she hadn't been back to New York in decades. But she still thought New York was her city and she wanted to know how it was. So we developed a kind of a rhythm every morning

I'd get a little five minute phone call from my mother to see how her city was. And she'd asked me what I was doing. And so I said, well, I got tickets to Joe's pub, and I saw Justin Vivian Bond. And they sang Benny Goodman songs to kind of keep everyone's spirits up. And she told me about going to the Waldorf

Astoria and dancing to Benny Goodman. And she said, what are about going to the Waldoar Fistoria and dancing to Benny Goodman and she said, you know, what are you going to do tomorrow? So every day I had to come up with like a little what did I do and how was I keeping her city alive and I was going to theater and I was going to sportsmen's which I hate and I was, one night I was on emergency callback walking through Times Square going up 6th Avenue and my little flip phone rang and it was my mother because at this point she'd gotten my phone number so she could call me whenever she wanted to. And she said, how's my city doing?

Tell me about it. Hold up your phone and let me hear. So I walked along 6th Avenue and she could hear the horses clapping around Central Park and and she could hear the taxis honking and she said, what's it look like? And I said, well, every taxis got this little plastic flag hanging out of the window. Every business has a flag on it, even the gay bars have flags on them. It looks like Kansas. And my mother found that touching and she's like, well, I'm glad you finally got some patriotism. And she said, I'm thinking about visiting you. So just put that in your mind. This was a scary thought.

So I thought, I'll just keep her at bay with a few more stories. And I got tickets to the opera. So the opera was something I never wanted to go to. And I spent four hours listening to this Mozart thing that went on and on and on. And everybody was dressed like my mother and it was very stuffy and it was very boring. And then at the end, this red-haired lady came out and she sang this aria and it was gorgeous. And I knew nothing about opera, but I discovered that night that they sing without microphones. They're just freaks of nature and they can fill this huge auditorium with just what God gave them.

And at the end of this aria, all these stiff-looking people stood up and they started pounding on the boxes and screaming and throwing flowers and shrieking and stomping. And it was like Yankee Stadium in the cheap seats. And I was like, this is really raw. This is really visceral. I get opera. So when I told my mother about that, she said, we're going together. I'm coming. I'm coming to JFK.

Come and pick me up. So I drive out to the airport, and I'm terrified. Because we've been having this beautiful little relationship where I make the city come alive for her, and she makes the city come alive for me. And everything's great in five minute increments. But now we're going to be stuck together for a week. And I don't know how smart this is, because it's a beautiful thing, and I think it's all gonna go,

pfft. Um. So I pick her up, I get her gigantic suitcases, I put her in the car, and we're driving in semi-silence, because I think she's also scared. And she says,

have you been going to mass? And I just let that sit there for a minute. And I was like, no. And then there was silence. And then she said, well, I have some things of the people who were working downtown were out, and we appreciated that. And she said, and I've got something else for you. So we got back to Jersey City to my little skinny 12-foot wide house, and we went upstairs to the guest room, and she unzipped this bag, and inside it was the flag

from my father's coffin. I think I mentioned he was a B-17 pilot in World War II. And those coffin flags are big, and my house is small. And she said, do you mind if we hang it on the house, I know you're not patriotic, but I say, yeah, I would love it. So we opened the two windows and we dropped it down the front of the house and it basically covered the whole house. And so if anybody doubted my patriotism, they doubted it no longer. And the rest of the week went really well.

We had like one little fight and we worked it out. And we stayed away from religion and we stayed away from politics, and we stayed on culture. We went to things together, and we loved each other, and we enjoyed each other, and we had those five-minute phone calls for the next nine years of her life, and I miss every one of them,

and I have tickets to the opera for next Saturday. That was Nancy Maul. Nancy still loves opera. In fact, she just saw Blue Beards castle at the Met, which coincidentally featured an elevator shaft as a principal visual element. Nancy's mom came to New York one more time after this story took place. She went to the New York Times more time after this story took place. She went to the New York Times to see her daughter and meet editors and reporters in the

president of the Times. Nancy said her mom wasn't willing to ride on the top of an elevator, but she did peek down the shaft and squeal. To see a photo of Nancy and her mom, plus the newspaper clipping of Miss Larchmont at the World's Fair in Flushing in 1939, go to the Moth.org. So here at the Moth we talk a lot about how to find a story of yours. And the start of the story, or the hook, if you will, is always something that breaks a pattern. So unexpected phone calls are a great way to look for stories.

Did you get a surprising phone call, or or an email or a knock at the door? If there's a story about that, you can pitch us by recording a one-minute version of your story right on our site. Or call 877-799-MOF. That's 877-799-6684. We listen to all the pitches we get and the best are developed from mouth shows all around the world. When we come back, a story from comedian and actor,

Cheech Mudin of the comedy duo, Cheech and Chang, when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. In this hour, all about calls, our last story is about a calling.

It's from Cheech Mudding. Some of you may know Cheech as an actor. He's one half of the hilarious duo Cheech and Chang. And they've made eight films together. This is basically Cheech's origin story. It's how Cheech became Cheech. And it takes place at the time of the Vietnam War. He told this at a moth night in Los Angeles

that was produced in partnership with public radio station KCR-Bubbley. Here's Cheech Mud-MODIN LIVE AT THE MIND. APPLAUSE I used to be a Cub Scout. I was a Boy Scout. I was an Alter Boy. I sang in the church choir. I was a straight-age student all through school.

When I graduated from high school, I won the Religion Award. I was the product of a Catholic education, and I was prepared for anything that happened here in the Navy, saw combat in the Philippines, and he never talked about it except once he talked about it and then understood why he never talked about it it was horrific and he only had one rule Oscar and that rule was my way or the highway we didn't get long really great but it wasn't just because of that it's because it worked me the death.

I'd wake up in the morning, all right, make your bed. All right, make your bed again. Those corners aren't right. Go out there and cut the lawn. Now edge the lawn. Now come in and vacuum. Now watch the car. That's a dead.

Come on, man. Hey, listen. You're a Chicano. And you're always going to have to have three jobs. So get used to it. So when I went off to college, man, I was ready for anything. Get me out of here. So I worked. When I came home from work, and my roommates had a little party going on.

And there was music, and there was laughter, and the lights were low, and it was really smokey in there for some reason. And out of the blue, somebody handed me this little hand-rolled cigarette. And well, I'm here to try anything. So I took a hit, and I heard my dad's voice. If you ever smoke marijuana, you're gonna turn into a heroin addict, and you're gonna steal out of your dad's voice. If you ever smoke marijuana, you're going to turn into a heronatic and you're going to steal out of your mother's purse.

So I took another hit. Looked around and what else have they been lying about? For those of you who didn't go to college in the mid 60s, boy, you missed it. Because it was happening. There was a revolution going on. It was very unpopular, unjust, immoral war going on. And there were sending thousands of young men over there to die in the jungles of Vietnam.

And they lied to us every step of the way. And my college was a hotbed of radical activities, was string of speakers that came in and riled us up. There was Floyd McKissick from SNCC. There was Reyes T. Arena from the Chicano land movement. There was Timothy Liri and his LSD, became a good friend of mine. Turn on, tune in, drop out.

Two weeks before he was assassinated. Robert Kennedy spoke at our university. Martin Luther had been killed just before that. Now Robert Kennedy, and they were murdering our leaders, but there was one person that came to school, and he made the most impact on me. He wasn't the most fiery, he wasn't the most bombastic. He was actually the quietest. His name was David Harris and he was the leader of the draft resistance movement. And he had a very simple message. If you're not registered for the draft, don't register.

If you're registered and they call you off for physical, don't go to the physical. If you've gone to the physical, ask you to step forward to be inducted in the army, don't go to the physical. If you've gone to the physical, and asked me to step forward to be inducted in the army, don't step forward. Refuse to be a part of this machine. And there's only thing that made sense to me during this whole period. So that's what I'm gonna do. So I handed in my draft card, I gave it to David Harris himself.

And then he put it on a collage that accompanied him and his new wife, Joan Baez, on a speaking tour throughout the United States. And it was on the cover of Time Magazine. And if you looked real closely in the corner, you could see my name. And I was a revolutionary. I was going to make a change. I was fearless until about two weeks later, General Hershey, who was the director of the

draft, the time issue, this proclamation, that anybody who burnt their draft card or turned it in or demonstrated in front of the draft board, would be immediately reclassified, drafted, and sent to the front lines of Vietnam. And that was his fix. And I thought it doesn't seem like it's quite so legal, but anyways, that's what he did.

So I went from revolutionary to a little scared revolutionary, but another miracle happened at that time. I discovered that I was an artist. I couldn't draw, and I couldn't paint, I couldn't sculpt. But I took a pottery class my last semester in school. And my Mexican jeans came trotting out. I said, hey Holmes, were you being come on, man, let's get on the wheel, we're back ordered, let's go.

And I made pottery from the time I woke up, till the time I went to bed, I was a pottery making fool. And that became my life, and I found my calling. I was gonna be went to bed, I was a pottery making fool. And that became my life. And that's, I found my calling. I was going to be a potter. I was going to go out and I was going to make, dig in the ground and make clay and that make pots for the rest of my life. And then I got another notice

that I had been reclassified, 1A. Ready or two? I was in school. I had a 2S deferment, but they reclassified me because of my political activities. I'm like, ready to go. I was in school, I had a 2S deferment, but they reclassified me because of my political activities. I'm like, oh, Jesus, what am I going to do now? So my pottery teacher who was kind of hip to what I was going through, said, you know what?

I have this ex-student of mine who's a Canadian and he's very successful. Maybe you could be his assistant. Well, that's all it took, man. I gathered all the money I could, which was 80 bucks, bought a bus ticket, got ready to leave, and before I left I wanted to say goodbye to my mother, and my father happened to be there at the house they were getting divorced at the time. He learned about my plans, and he said, you know what? I don't believe in what they're doing over there, but if they call me, I would go.

Well, that's the difference between us, isn't it? I have the strength of my convictions. Didn't set well with him. So we didn't part on really good terms, but I was on the dog north. The last stop we had before we crossed over the border into Canada was Great Falls, Montana. We pulled in the Great Falls late at night.

I got off the bus bone, weary, went to check in those hotels. In the corner there was a bar with a bunch of cowboys having a good time getting drunk and one of the cowboys looked up, hey that looks like a draft dodger. You draft dodger? You're going to go to Canada? Well, you better not because we're going to be here in the morning. We'll take care of your ass. So I didn't spend quite so rest for the night, and I came downstairs quietly, early in the morning, looked around the corner, and there was no cowboys there. I guess hangover trumped aoticism. So I got back on the dog and entered Canada.

Now I had a picture of what I thought Canada was going to be. Like it was going to be Sergeant Preston of the Yukon with a team of dogs and a igloo's and Nanooka of the North, man. Went into Alberta, look like Bakersfield. It's a really cold. I met the guy, Edra Hanchuck. He had one of the bicentennial exhibition awards that year I got there, it was a famous potter, and I became his assistant, and I went to work right the day I met him. He said, okay, go start cleaning those bricks.

I worked my half-south cleaning those bricks, and I worked my house off clean those bricks and I worked my house off every day. And I did everything a potter should do. I dug clay, I wedged clay, I poked clay, I wrapped clay. I just never threw clay because that was his job. And I had to work my way up to it. And eventually I found a little cabin to live in by the river. And it had electricity. It had a pot-billy stove,

it didn't have any gas, it didn't have any running water, so every day I had to go down to the river for my water and I had a chop wood every single day, chop wood, chop wood, chop wood. One night after work I was out there chopping, when it was already dark and I was like, oh man, this is bow and wearing out of nowhere. The northern lights appeared and the Aurora Bore house, they surrounded me and I was standing in the middle of a cathedral of light with red, blue, yellow, green, orange, violet and my God, my God. I thought, my God, I'll never be closer to nature than at this moment. And I went back to chopping wood because that's what I did every day.

It was the coldest winter in Alberta in 80 years. I'm there I was, 20 below a chopping wood. And I realized at that point that I can survive anything. But I can always support myself because I know how to work. I know how to work because I was taught how to work. So I went back to chopping wood. So I made a couple guys in town and they said, hey, you ever been skiing? Oh yeah, we used to ski all the time, it's so central, they had some of the best hills around. Okay, well, we're gonna take you to Bap from a teacher how to ski.

Do we rent it some skis we went up on the hill, pointing me in a snow plow and says, okay, this is how you turn. This way for left, this way for right, and push me. Right, and I'm picking up a speed of, hey, this is cool, man, I look like the brown blur, you know. And this, the only thing they didn't teach me how to do was stop. And I'm going and I hit a bag, came down and broke my leg in half, in half, just like that. A compound fracture, and I was in the hospital for a month. I was

in a full-length cast with crutches for six months. So when I got out of the hospital, my same friends said, hey, why don't you come to Vancouver with us? It's really cool there. That's where we're from. So what the fuck? They had such good advice in the first place. So I went to Vancouver and he was like San Francisco of the time except without the drumbeats of war and the protest. And it was just peace and love and sex and girls and flowers and butterflies and Stanley Park

and I had a ball. And sooner or later I met this other guy that I had gone to school with and he was in Vancouver for the same reason. And he says, you know, there's this guy in Vancouver. And he's running this weird thing as an improv company in the topless bar. In Chinatown, Skid Row. You guys would have a lot in common. So that's how I met Tommy Chong. He had come out the road with his band and he had seen him proffed theater and that's what he wanted to do. But he wanted to keep the topless girls at the same time, you know, because we needed customers and so we started doing topless improv.

And what it was was hippie burlesque. That's what we were doing and we owned the club so we could do anything. And we did four hours of naked improv every single night. And so at the end of nine months, the troop dissolved because all the members wanted to go to the hills to get their head together. My head was together. My pocketbook went together. So I said, well, we got to make a living doing this. So why don't we just compact what we're doing in this troupe and into two guys and we'll go be a comedy team

and we'll conquer the world. Yeah, sounds good. We could go to LA where it was warm. I knew everybody and it would be fun. Only one problem. I was wanted by the FBI at the time. And they were always coming around my mother's house according to her seeing if I was there. So, God, how are we going to go back into

the country? I was like, hey, I got a billion ideals. Barrow of phony ID. You didn't imagine that doing that today, but so I did. I borrowed my friend Bill Norris driver's license with a picture of Bill Nor on it. So I went up to the immigration guy at the airport and I held it up. I said, hi, I'm Bill Norris. I'm going down to the LA to do some interviews. He looked at the picture and looked at me. We were both kind of dark. He says, well, welcome to the US.

And I was in. Wow. But still, I was still wanted. And they were still coming around. So I said, what am I going to do? And every time I go on stage, Tommy would say, hey, he's won it by the FBI shit, though. No, no, no.

He's just kidding. That's not funny. And then another miracle happened. It was announcement in the paper that my case, along with 600 others, went to the Supreme Court. It was a class action about that illegal drafting. And the case got thrown out. And so now we were not we were not felons so the government tried to redraft me the next

day. Three years later and they sent me a notice for physical. So I sent a band for my X-rays and went down to the induction center to stand in my underwear with my X-rays, along with a bunch of other guys. Dr. comes out smoking a cigarette, says, looks at me. Hey you with a leg, come over here. Takes me into his office. These are your X-rays?

Oh, yeah. Well, you have about a 13 degree distortion in your leg. That's gonna come as bad news, but you're not fit to be in the army. I know it probably breaks your heart, but you're for-eft. Lucky break. That's what the doctor said. Lucky break. And yes, sir, it was a lucky break. So now I was free. I could free you to do anything I wanted to do is once on my mom, how you doing everything, but had one last short. Attical see my dad. So I took my buddy along with me for moral support and we drove her to his house where he was

living with his new wife. And I walked upon the porch and before I knocked on the door I could see him in the kitchen. He was in there and he was cooking towel over his shoulder. And I stood there for as long as I couldn't tell, he saw me outside. Come in. He hadn't seen me for three years or we talked. As long as I couldn't tell, he saw me outside. Come in. He hadn't seen me for three years or we talked. Not one word, not a letter, nothing. So I walked in there and he looked me up and down

for a long time. So, you hungry? Yeah? Hmm, sit down. So he sat down. I didn't even say another word for a long time. Look at me, he said, so what have you been up to? Well, you know, just working.

Yeah, well, you know how to do that. I said, yeah, I do. Thanks. Thank you. That was Cheech Madin in Los Angeles. Cheech is a third generation Mexican-American, and in addition to his notoriety for Cheach and Chong, he's directed Broadway shows,

been honored by the Smithsonian, and he writes children's books. His memoir, Cheach is not my real name, but don't call me Chong, is out now. Cheach also holds one of the largest private collections of Chicano art in the world. So that's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour, all about calls and callings. And if you want to contact us, all of our information is at themoth.org. We hope you'll

join us next time. Your host this hour with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin-Gines. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin Genes. Sarah also directed the stories in the show along with Katherine Burns and Michelle Jolowski. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bull's

production support from Emily Couch. Most stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift of the music in this hour from Todd Sikafus, Carl Orf, Ludoz Sessions, Wolfgang Amadea's Mozart and Carlos Santana. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay. Allison, with Vicki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, special thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Charitable

Trust for supporting our Los Angeles main stage. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast for information on pitching us your own story and everything else go to our website TheMoth.org