The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: The Moth's 20th Anniversary Special

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

This episode, we revisit our 20th anniversary special, playing some of our favorite stories from The Moth’s history. This episode is hosted by 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: Richie DiSalvo Jessi Klein Sisonke Msimang

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. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was originally produced for The Moth's 20th anniversary in 2017. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

I'm Sarah Austin-Jones and in this hour a celebration of 20 years of the Moth. That's right. The Moth produced storytelling nights long before the start of the Moth Radio Hour. For some, 20 years means China or Platinum. We've marked 20 years with over 20,000 stories told on Moth stages all around the world, with events that were stitched into our collective personal history. From Y2K to the Spice Girls, Fukushima, Bernie Madoff, the Royal Wedding, Wild Elections, discrimination and wars all over the world.

The last 20 years have been full. It was 1997 and AOL was a thing. And she said, all of Martha's emails were just subpoenaed. So you're either voting yes to Saddam Hussein or no, there's no other candidate. And I realized in that moment, for the first time in my life as an out gay man, I feel like an equal American. So as me and my wife and my mother-in-law were watching it, the second plane came in and we noticed the big explosion.

And that's a momentous period because that's when Hurricane Katrina hit. That was the year that the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. Oh, me! Nauvelless George Dawes' Greens started them off in New York City in 1997, so people could connect through personal stories. The Moth Community program started shortly after that, where we run storytelling workshops with underrepresented communities. The Moth is dedicated to presenting stories from everyone. And with that, our first storyteller is Richie DeSalvo. It's a story from our archives. Richie is a tried and true all-star storyteller from the Moff community program. And this story is called Anthony the Hat.

Here's Richie live at the Moff. One of the regulars in his piece, Ria, that I used to manage, was Anthony the Hat. Every time Anthony would come in for lunch, he would tell me, Richie, you're in a great operation here. Places always clean, foods great, take care of the people nice. He'd say, someday, you have to get your own place. You need to have your own pizza real one day. In the back of my mind, I'd be agreeing with him

because that was my dream to one day open my own Pizzeria. I'd been in the business for like 15 years. And like every boss that I work for was the same old crap. Richie, you have good work. We'll give you a piece to the action, we'll take care of you, but like after a while, you know, so many years, it was just like they were stringing me along

and I was kind of getting fed up at the whole thing. So one particular afternoon, Anthony comes in for his usual lunch, two slices, with anchovies, five garlic, not some cow's own, and a diet coke. I can never understand that. And he says, Richie, I got this proposition for you. I want you to come and work for me.

I'll take you under my wing and I'll let you make some real money. And you know, it happened to be a bad day at the shop that night. So, you know, I was kind of, let me take a shot with Anthony so he tells me I'm setting up this operation downtown I'm gonna have my friends in the back taking some illegal bets on sports and a few numbers in the back and your job would be to stay up front, run the operation up front. Or you need to do richy, as you look out for the police. You know, take care of the buzzer, let it in the clients,

press the code if you see the police. And in the morning, when my work has come in, make sure everybody has that little metal plastic waste paper basket filled with lighter fluid and make sure everybody has matches. That was my job, piece of cake. That says no problem Anthony. But for three times the amount that I was making, it sounded pretty good.

So I started working for Anthony. I mean, you know, it was great. I mean, not only working at the job, it was just like every night after work, we'd all go down to Eddie DeBlanc's social club down on Sullivan Street, start off with a little cappuccino. We go to Nick and Eddie's on Sullivan Street.

We go to the little Dolce Vita. Every time we walked in the restaurant, the Seas would part. The waiters would trip over themselves to take care of us because Anthony the Hat was there, Andy the Blonde was there, Frankie California was there. From working behind and oven all these years, this was kind of a nice thing. I mean, people would stop at the table, give the respect to Anthony, buy some bottle of wine, and just move on.

And it was kind of nice. It was, I started feeling like King Kong after a while. And the money was great. I'm spending it as fast as I'm making it. And I think things look good now. This is going on for about seven months. And as fate would have it, and it usually does, I look out of the corner of my eye one afternoon and I see cops coming with hammers.

And they're pretty close, so I was just able to get the code in and warn the guys. And so I knew they would get this work in the waste paper basket, no evidence, and everything would be cool. So now, they must have known the operation. They must have had somebody come in the back because they just both had passed me, and they broke down the door, and they wanted the guys in the back to try to get the papers and stuff like that.

So with that, I was able to walk out of the place. You know, I just kind of scooted out of there, ran down a block, got down in the subway, and I'm going like this, man, why did nice day sweating behind the speech of it rather than come aboard with Anthony? And, but I didn't, and I was running down the train station with no job. So, now, I didn't know what to do at first, so I just laid low for about three days. Then Anthony called me up, and I said Anthony, you know, you took me away from this job. Now what am I going to do?

I'm out of a job. This last set of hot and night months, Anthony, you know, I know, you know, I liked it in the beginning, but what am I going to do now? I'm out of a job. This last set of hot and night months, I said, you know, I know, you, I liked it in the beginning, but what am I going to do now? I'm out of a job. Since we let you take it easy, don't worry about it. You meet me at the Woolworth building tomorrow morning. I didn't really want to meet this guy anywhere or any of his friends at that point.

But when Anthony said to meet him somewhere, he usually went and you met him. So I did what I was told. And I went after the war with Bill and met Anthony. We go up to the ninth floor and meet his lawyer. And he hands me a brown bag. I said, what is this lunch?

He goes, no, what do you wise guy? I said, he says, open the bags, I opened it back and it's 38,000,000 there. And I said, what is this for? He says, you see the man over there? He goes next to my lawyer, he goes, that's the owner of the Peace Area. Okay. So, and that's the only only the piece of rear that's going to be your piece of your in a couple of minutes. So I This is pretty good. This is this is nice you Anthony, you know, I'm sorry I yelled at you before you know I started Sorry I got a little excited. This is, go sit down, put the lawyer, put everything in your name,

and you're the owner of the Pete Seria. I said, I can't believe, I'm saying this is unbelievable, Anthony. This is just about too much for me to, you know, this is beautiful thing. This is my dream. This is my dream, working many, many years. So, lo and behold, I get the Pete Seria, I go down to Brooklyn, I set it up, I clean up the store, I name it DeSalle Rose Pizza Home of the Baby Calzone.

That was, I was the only one in Brooklyn or New York to make a little baby calzone. So, then, and now, I've never even seen it anywhere. But then, and now, I've never even seen it anywhere. But here I am. It's my dream. It's my dream. I buy neon. The business is going good. I mean, this was like in October, October, November. My accountant can't believe it because I'm tripling the business. I mean, the business is like quiterupling within about five months. I mean, it's like five times the amount that the guys previously were doing. So, you know, if the things are looking good, I mean, like I said, I put neon in the window, I framed it with green,

I put Coca-Cola in red, and put pizza in white like the Italian flag. It was real nice. I mean, and the young kids in the area could see you from blocks away. It's the richie. It looks really cool, man. We could see you five blocks away. And it was a nice sign. And I really liked it.

I spent money on these antique co-piles. I put them on the table. My heart was really into it. This is my dream, man. And now I put fresh flowers on the antique co-piles every day, good and nice, homey, look for the ladies and the kids. And it was nice. And I was painting it up.

I was putting tile, pouring that conditioner. OK, so October, November, December, January, February, March, I'm doing really good. Fix this place up nice. And I was making some good money. My dream was there. Now, what happened is it was my first time in business, and I really didn't plan things. Well, I was so excited that Anthony had set me up.

I didn't plan on the fact that the summer was coming along in the school that I was selling a lot of pizza to, to was going to close, and it was a residential area. A lot of people go on vacations so my business started to take a downturn. And it went down half, it went down a little bit more than that. And then July came and everybody was out of town. And you know the business was down now. And the meantime, Bobbi Cash was coming in for Anthony's payments every

week and I was paying him off and there was no problem. I paid him off, I had money for supplies, I was paying the store off, I paid my work as everything was great. So, now, first, this one week, I told Bobby Cash, Bobby, I don't have the $500,000 this week, could you come next week? He goes to me, yeah, but don't let this happen too often. So he says, all right, we'll double up next week. I says, fine, I'll pick up the business. I told him what was going on. So the third week comes by, he comes back, he comes down,

and he comes in the store, he kind of gets a little irritated, and I said, can I speak to Anthony? And at this point in time, he says, no, Anthony's not in a picture right now, I'm collecting the money for Anthony. So, you know, my dreams become in a nightmare already. So now, a Bobby comes down the last time and he kind of like throws me up against the wall, and I'm saying, and I'm thinking of all the stories that he used to tell me when we're having a good time about how he shake people upside down off a 15-story construction site to get money for Anthony, and this is not a good thing. So he leaves the store because I'm going to come back tomorrow and you

need to have the money. I said, all right, I'll get it up somehow. Anyway, with that, I knew there was no way I was going to get the money, so I just shut the store down. I moved out of Brooklyn. I went out to Long Island to my sister's house and I was trying to figure out a plan how I'm going to get these guys their money. Anyway, I'm out there two weeks in I was trying to figure out a plan how I'm going to get these guys their money. Anyway, I'm out there two weeks in Long Island trying to hide, trying to calm down, trying to lay low when I'm sick. You know, it's not, anyway, one particular night, I get a knock at the door.

I peer out the window and who's there? It's Eddie LeBlanc, it's Frankie, California, and it's Bobby Cash. So I look around, turn around, about my sister, and I would already say, maybe I tell her I lean to tell them I'm not here, but I can't really bring this to my sister's house. I did this myself, I have to take care of this myself. So I'm in all the courage I can get up. I open the door, I says, what's up?

They say, there's's in the car. He wants to speak to you. I says, OK, let me get my jacket. Took off all my jewelry. I told Eileen I'll be back in a little while. And we go down the driveway into the car. He says, get in the back. And Anthony's in the back.

And Eddie DeBlanc is scary individuals. So it's right next to me. Okay, but Anthony says take off. So it take off down the road. Nobody's saying a word. Get on a long express. We have a writing for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and nobody's saying a word. The silence is deafening. And you would drive in my head is down. I try to speak to Anthony. I tell him, you know, the store, this summer, and he's just, you don't want to hear about it. So, so at this point, I don't really know what's going on.

We're just driving and nobody's saying a word. So finally Anthony Species goes, Richie, you remember the IOU that we signed in my lawyer's office? And I says, yes. And again, I try to tell him about this and the summer came in the air condition. And he tells me to shut up. So we're driving along.

And you know, out of the corner of my eye, I see Anthony going like this. And my stomach is flipping. My heart is racing. My head goes down even further. And it comes out with the IOU. And he goes, remember this IOU that you signed in my life office?

And I said, yeah, Anthony, but the stomach. And he just everybody starts laughing. He rips it off. He goes, Richie, you a stand up guy. When you get the summit, and he just, everybody starts laughing, he rips it off, he goes, Richie, you a stand up guy. When you get the money, you take care of it. If you don't get it, don't worry about it. You look a little sick, you all right? I said, yes, I'm fine, but I have a date tonight, Anthony,

could you get me home immediately? You know, and with that, I was thinking, the next time I went out to eat, it was in a dine-up, and I didn't care who took care of me. I was, I ate by myself, I paid with my own money, and it was one of the best things I had had in a long time. And I was just stripped of my guns, how I was brought up, if I want to make money, I'll do it how I was raised to, and that's where a card to it yourself, don't count on anybody,

hard work in America will do the trick. That's my story. That was Richie DeSalvo at a moth night called New York Stories. Richie passed away a few years ago, but he'll always be remembered through his stories. It's important to note the moth is a place that was built and grown by an army, a wide-ranging community of dedicated staff, board members, storytellers, volunteers, and listeners like you. Sprinkle through this 20th anniversary episode, we also have shout-outs from listeners,

like this one from Mariela in Los Angeles. I just wanted to wish you guys a happy anniversary and let you guys know, doesn't matter what This one from Mariela in Los Angeles. of the people who are telling this story in Happy Anniversary, guys. After our break, a story from the dawn of time, when Google was invented, when the Moth Radio 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, and I'm your host. We're celebrating 20 years of Moth Nights in this episode,

and we asked our listeners to call in and tell us their Moth moment, their favorite story or how they found them off. Here's one from Maya in San Mateo, California, and hey, it's honest. I actually just covered the moth through hardcore stocking my therapist. When I first began to see her, I wanted to know more about her, so actually I took to the internet to help me out with that. And there was this one video on her husband's Instagram, I believe, of them driving by a volcano and her husband was jokingly rubbing in her face that he had spotted the volcano

first and she responded back that she was busy crying, which is why she missed it. And it's definitely weird how much detail I'm in the road to the video. And if she's listening, I am in for a very awkward next session. But in the caption of the video, there was a shout out to the mock, because that was what they had been listening to, which was why they were crying. And I was intrigued.

So I looked you guys up, fell in love, and it had been a huge fan of her soon. Now, we hear that mall stories make people cry a lot, and okay, okay, it's true. Some do make people tear up, but come on, some are just very funny. Like our next story from Jesse Klein. The story is about the dawn of Google, with a shout out to Craig's list. And a heads up, Jesse's story does contain references

to human sexuality. Here's Jesse, live at a Moth Main Stage at the New York Public Library. Okay, Poke. So here it is. In August of 2001, me and my boyfriend of six years, my first love in my life, went through one of the worst breakups in the history of recorded man.

And I know that may sound naive or self-absorbed, and that's because it is. But I swear, I was really, really bad. We worked together at the same company, but that's not where we met. We'd met in college when we were both like 18, 19 years old. And when we met, I was this super, super nerdy virgin. And it was hard to imagine, but I was really a nerd, and I was really a virgin. And he was sort of this chubby, like nerdy virgin. And it was hard to imagine, but I was really a nerd

and I was really a virgin. And he was sort of this chubby, like, almost virgin. You know what I mean? Like, he had a really fat face. And he had slept with someone, but for all intents and purposes, anyway, so we both had really low self-esteem. And that was sort of part of what brought us together.

You know, it was like, I feel crappy about myself, so do do you want to come over him? Have sex? So, that was like part of the thing. But then the magical thing with that habit was we got in this relationship, we loved each other, and we shower each other with affection and sex and love. And over time, we started to feel better about ourselves. You know, so like, at the end of the six years, we were both feeling okay, and we were both sort of secretly, independently wondering, what would be the most important thing to do? started to feel better about ourselves. So at the end of the six years, we were both feeling okay, and we were both secretly, independently wondering,

what would be like to give having sex with someone else to go? You know what I mean? And that's when the relationship began to crumble. And even though we still loved each other, we ended up breaking up and he asked me to move out of our shared house. And I was devastated.

But it was a sort of devastated where you think you feel bad, but something's going to happen, it's going to make you feel worse. And for me, that was finding out that like three weeks after I moved out, he started sleeping with this 22-year-old blonde assistant at the same company we worked at, she sat like five feet away from me. Yeah, right? She, I was, I have a normally a level head human being. I went for a zirker. I didn't know how to handle this.

It was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. Like, it was a month, part of six years was the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life, like, it was a month, part of six years, it was the worst thing, and the, well, many even worse, she was, she was absolutely like a Jewish girl's like, worst, shickson nightmare. Do you know what I mean?

She was like blonde, she was petite, she was way featured at a pert nose and like, no visible body hair. It was just like, the worst thing, so I said, Jew, I hated her for being everything that I wasn't. But then someone who was in the know told me that she was also a Jew.

And I was like, oh my god. I was like, how could I remember my own tribe? But try me this way. And the worst thing was that now, there was the potential for her to actually be neurotic and interesting. You know what I mean? And I couldn't just imagine her as a sort of like emotionless wasp, which is what I've

been thinking to make myself feel better. And I know that it's wrong to ethnically stereotype people, but I feel if you already hate them for really valid reasons already, it's okay. It's all right, right? So I just, I was having a break, a break down, just a total breakdown. But I was like, okay, I'm a normal human being. I will take the routes people can take to recover from this in the normal amount of time. So I tried to go into therapy to talk it out, didn't work. I tried going to the gym to work it out. That didn't work. Instead, I fell into this depressive spiral where I couldn't think about anything.

I was just ruled by these two horrible urges. One was the urge to sort of massacistically think about how much prettier she was than me. And everything about her that was, I don't know, just so much more perfect and sexier and better, the other urge was that I needed to find out anything, something about her, something about her personality that would allow me to hate her. They were allowing to feel superior to her, like some like bit of dirt on her

that would prove she was actually shitty. That wasn't what I planned to say, but it's really what was here. So one day, I'm winding on the phone to my friend Wendy. That wasn't what I plan to say, but it's really what was here. So one day, I'm winding on the phone to my friend Wendy. God bless Wendy. I'm like, hey, I want to hang in there. And I want to hate her. I want to hate her.

What can I find out to make her hateable? And she was like, wow, have you tried googling her? Now I was a nerd, but I was not a geek. So I didn't know what Google was. I didn't know. And I'm sure, right, you all know what it is. If there's one or two people here, I'll explain it. Google is the most powerful thing ever

invented on the planet. It is this insane search engine that allows you to be crazy and stalk someone from the comfort of your own home. Right? It is a more important invention than fire or the wheel, as far as I am concerned. So she was like, why don't you Google her? And I was like, yeah. I am going to Google the crap out of this curl, because I knew her name.

So I went to the little search window and I entered name. And I didn't understand the power of Google. So I wasn't really expecting anything to happen. But within three seconds, this link comes up. And it takes me to this article that had been an interview with her from her college newspaper, Freshman Year. And it was like this thing where she was like the canvas celebrity of the day.

Listen to this. So, the thing comes up, there's a photo of her, and it's the most adorable photo of a human being ever taken. She couldn't look blonder or more wasp Jewish. She's like wearing low-riders sweatpants before anyone even knew about those. And like a thing with a cow on it. And she's just in the three quarters. Great. Oh, and that drove me nuts.

And I was scared to move on to the article, but I did. It was an interview. And in the interview, she revealed that her greatest desire, goal in life was to become a stand-up comic. A famous stand-up comic. And I was like, fuck me. Because that was my secret goal. That was my goal. And I'd always wanted to do that since I was a kid,

but I'd never had the guts. I'd never had the moxie to do it. And here it was. I was reading. She was already in a sketch group. Oh my god. I was like, so, OK. So she looks wasp-y, but she's Jewish. She she's banging my boyfriend and she's already like apparently on her way to achieving my dream

This cannot stand and I decided If we were both like aiming for the moon, right? We both at the same goal. I was like I'm getting there first, right? So I start to perform so I run a thing I've never been more miserable in my life. And I start trying to write jokes and go perform. I'm going to open mics and it's depressing. And I hate it. But over time, it's like slowly improving. I get to do book shows. So it goes to my two or three depressing open mics. A four or five like, okay, show's a week. But all along, I'm still just like, manically depressed, right? And I'm like, Googling her endlessly,

and looking at the picture, and that picture became the focal point, not only of my loathing for her, but my loathing for myself. And I literally, like, five or six times a day, I would just stare at the photo, and I felt terrible in myself. And my therapist was like, if you don't stop Googling her, I'm going to call your doctor and put you on Prozac.

And I didn't want to go on Prozac, because I was scared when the side effects of Prozac would be that I would become less witty. And being witty was sort of the only side effect of being depressed that was working for me. You know what I mean? So, you really should not clap.

But so, I decided to keep performing, and I'm not gonna go on Prozac yet. So I'm performing. So one day, I'm doing this show. It's like a slightly better place than I usually do it. And I'm watching the audience stream and filling in as before the show starts. And who walks in but her?

She comes in. The show had been advertised and time out in New York. My name, it was very clear. She must have known I was going to be there. I was like, what kind of weird drive-by shit is this? Because she sat in the front row. It was clear. And I was like, oh my God, I felt so terrible. I was looking at her. She was pretty, I barely could go on. It just so upset me. I managed to do it. And I ran out as soon as I was done. I ran home. Because I needed to have my nightly loath fest with the photo. Right? And I'm sitting. I was done, I ran home because I needed to have my nightly load fast with the photo, right?

And I'm sitting, I was just like, how could she do it? I'm about to Google her and all of a sudden it occurs to me. Maybe the reason she came there is because she's also obsessed with me. Like, I am the girl before. She's dating this guy. I was in for six years. So she must be curious.

She must be driving her crazy. And I was like, what if she's Googling me? And I don't know why it had never occurred to me to try Googling myself. I think I thought there was a rule against it or something, or that the computer would like implode. Like, the self-absorption wouldn't be handled. But I was like, I'm gonna do it.

I tied my name in, I Googled myself. And to my shock and amazement, there's like shit there. On the computer about me, I didn't put it there. And it's all stuff about performing. It's all like links to advertising for shows I had done, stuff that was still there. One or two, like kind of just really brief, like nice mentions about things,

and it just sort of briefly made me feel better. And like, I realized that it was the only antidote to like the feelings of having I would Google her was to Google myself. And that's I realized that it was the only antidote to like the feelings I have when I would Google her was to Google myself. And that's how I became obsessed with Googling myself. And here's the thing about Googling yourself. It's as dirty as it sounds. You know what I mean? You have this urge to do it, but you don't want anyone to know you're doing it. But the thing is, people deny it, but everyone does it. You know what I mean? But I would Google myself. I would look at things. I would see if anything new was coming up.

Blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I couldn't stop. I was Googling her and Googling myself. Googling her and Googling myself. Feeling bad, feeling good. OK. So one day I do a show at Irving Plaza. I was like this big thing.

Do the show. Next day, normal stuff. Come home, Google myself. Want to check in. Want to check in. And something new pops up and it's this thing, the heading, it's this link, it's this funny girl. I'm like, what's this? And I click on it and it takes me to Craigslist. Yes? Do we know what Craigslist is? If anyone here doesn't know, it's like hippie-dippy bulletin board. People renting apartments and giving each other bikes. But there's this thing on, it's called misconnections. And that's what funny girl was from. And misconnections

is like that, you know, on the back of the voice, like when people see each other on the street and you're walking down the street, you see someone cuter or whatever, and you don't have to get to talk to them. And then the next day you write someone and it's like hey I saw you on Sixth Avenue in A Street, you were wearing a metallic a t-shirt, I like Metallica, please call me, you know, like that and it's like billions of them and that's what funny girl was, someone wrote, they'd seen me at the living pleasure, I was like funny girl, like hey Jesse Kine, I saw you at the show and I thought you're

really adorable. I wanted to talk to you afterwards, but I didn't have the guts, you can email me. This is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. I've never had someone just sort of like me without putting a lot of work into it. When I used to want to hook up with guys, it was like a huge exertion of personality, which was exhausting. It's exhausting to have a personality. So, okay, so, anyway, so there was like,

take a couple of days to think about it, right? In the space of those few days, I continued to go to myself, more shit started popping up on Craigslist about me. The second thing was from a totally different guy, and he's like, I saw you performing, but this one was kind of creepy. It wasn't as brief and adorable. It was like ooh. And that's when I was like yeah maybe the people on Craigslist's misconceptions are not dating material but it could sort of be funny material

for the stage because it's really the greatest website ever. So I started doing this bit all around town about Craigslist and misconceptions and I found out that when I did it by saying it, I was like inviting every like delinquent loon to my little app, because they would, people would email me, because they knew I looked at it. And stuff kept popping up and popping up. What I didn't immediately know was that a lot of it

was from my friends, because once I told them at the first two, they were like, ha ha, wouldn't it be funny to like, fake her out? So it was like these decoys, but I didn't care. Because if you looked on Craigslist, it looked like I was hot shit for like a week. I was like, awesome. But one day, I come, it's like within this like,

special two weeks, I get back to my office from lunch and I have a voicemail on my phone from a man who identifies himself as a writer for the fucking New Yorker. And he says, hello, he's like, I've seen all this stuff about you on Craigslist. I would like to write a talk of the town piece about you and like this crazy trend. Please call me. Oh my God. What better revenge on the

ex-boyfriend than for them to read an article in the New Yorker about the fact that I am hot and I am funny and I have groupies. Oh my God. And I was like I did it. I called them. It was done to you. I was like how's it feel down there, bitch? With no one writing about you in the New Yorker, the most legitimate publication ever, right? I've won. I've won.

If I'm on the moon. But then something happened, which was that the article didn't happen. She loves the pity. No, it didn't happen. Two days later, I don't even remember why it didn't happen. He was very nice on the phone. He called me and pitched it to his editor for some reason he couldn't get it through. I was really nice on the phone back. I was like, that's okay. I don't worry. Okay, fine. Hang up. I was okay, I don't worry, okay, fine, hang up. I was more disappointed than I'd ever been in my life and I started bawling, bawling, having a breakdown, bawling, crying.

And during that ball test, I had this like a piphany where I left my body, it's like my soul suddenly was like I can't take it, I left my body, I floated up to the top of the office, I looked down, I was like let's take the lay of the land here. I'm in my office where I've not done any work for my employer in about six months, because I've been dittling myself

on the internet constantly. And I'm crying, I'm crying, and I'm disappointed, but why? Not because I didn't get the article in the New Yorker, but because the ex-boyfriend wouldn't read it. And it was sort of like at that second, worker, but because the ex-boyfriend wouldn't read it. And it was sort of like at that second, it all just sort of like dawned on me that in the years since the breakup, I'd become so obsessed with being in this race to make other

people laugh that I'd lost my ability to laugh at myself. And I was like, if I could just regain the ability to step back and look at all the crazy things I've been doing since this thing happened, I would be a better comic. Like this would be material. This is much funnier than anything I've been trying to write. And moreover, I would be a happier person. So that's what I did. And I've become a better comic.

And I've become a happier person. And I've been dating this guy that I really like. And I don't look at that girl's picture anymore, but he and I Google each other constantly. Thank you very much. That was Jesse Klein. Jesse's well known for her role as head writer and executive producer on the Emmy award winning show Inside

Amy Schumer. She's also the author of the memoir You'll Grow Out of It. Over the years, the Mawk has connected lots of people, including Jesse and her husband, actually. After hearing one of Jesse's stories on the Mawk radio every year's ago, a young man thought, hmm, she sounds super. And yes, her now husband Googled her and asked her out on a date. The rest is history. After the break, a story set in South Africa that was told at a moth night to coincide with the 71st UN General Assembly. It's a contemporary story about things that are happening right in front of us right

now. Coming up next on the moth radio hour. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness and you're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. We're up to our final story as part of this celebration to mark 20 years of Moth Nights. Over that time, we've heard about the milestones in many people's lives and in the world. The story coming up reminds us of the importance of bearing witness. It's from our global community program, which has now expanded to the global south,

elevating stories on world issues. Sasanke Missimong told this at a moth night at Lincoln Center during the 71st UN General Assembly. The night celebrated with women and girls from around the world. Here Sasanke live at the moth. So I am the product of a freedom fighter and an accountant, which I guess would make me a pragmatic idealist. My father left South Africa when he was 21 years old to join the armed wing of the liberation struggle. And a few years later, he met my mother, who was, well, she wasn't my mother at the time, but he met an accounting student, a young accounting student, who was charming and beautiful, and the rest, as they say,

is history. So when we were growing up, my parents used to say things like, when we are free, one day when freedom comes, when liberation is here, and our favorite would be, when Nelson Mandela is released from jail, and my sisters and I would look at each other and be like, yeah, right, like that's ever going to happen, right? Nelson Mandela is going to get out of jail. And of course, he did.

And not only did he get out of jail, but actually he was the first president of a free and democratic South Africa. And so fast forward, it's the mid 1990s, my family is back, I'm back from university, and I've landed my first job, and it's actually my dream job. I'm working for the United Nations on a program on young people in HIV and AIDS. And so of course, it's a pragmatic, idealist dream come true,

right? On the one hand, it's the UN. So it's like, love, peace, and happiness. And on the other hand, let's face it, the UN is like the world's biggest bureaucracy, right? So it's like rules and systems and procedures. I'm like, I'm in heaven, right? Both.

At the same time. In one place. So it's great. So it's great. So I'm very happy. I'm also really excited because I get to throw myself into my new country and this new job all at the same time because by this time it's clear to me that while my parents

generation, for them the struggle was one to end white minority rule. For my generation, the struggle is going to be slightly different, right? For us, it's going to be the tangibles, it's going to be health and education and water and sanitation, the things that you kind of need to know stuff about, right? So, I throw myself into reading and research and trying to figure out as much as I can because I'm the pragmatic idealist, right? So I've got to figure out how to do this stuff. And so I can tell you everything about HIV and AIDS and young people, because that's what my new job is about.

I can tell you about the key elements of a plan for the syndromic management of STIs. I can tell you how many young women living in the Northern Quasulin-Ital district of Lluwe, age 15 to 19, are living with HIV. I can tell you the likelihood of HIV transmission and a single sex act, like I am on it. And then, of course, I meet prudence. So I'm sitting in my office one morning, no doubt with my head buried in some or other research report.

And this whirling dervish of a mad dreadlocked teeth and joy and laughter person plunks herself in front of me. And she introduces herself. And like me, she's a young woman who's working for the UN. And while I was working on a program on young people in AIDS, Peru was working, she was one of the first people living openly with HIV and AIDS in South Africa. And so she was working for the UN to help to reduce stigma in the workplace. So she was hired to kind of demonstrate to employers that people living with HIV aren't going

to bite, right? And that you can actually hire people living with HIV. And there's going to be no negative consequences for you or your bottom line. And so we had a lot in common. And so we hung out, not just in the office, but on weekends. You know, there were concerts and there were plays. And South Africa was just like amazing new, blossoming place with this fantastic new constitution. And everybody had rights and prune her sort of mad group of friends were a lesbians, which was like fantastic for me,

because like my cool points shot up like a thousand percent. So it was wonderful. It was great. It was a wonderful, wonderful time. But of course, it wasn't as simple as things seemed on the surface. After some time, it became clear to me that prudence was in a very violent and abusive relationship. And so I pulled her aside.

And I was like, prude, what's going on, man? You're the most confident, amazing woman I know. What's happening? And she's like, oh, no, no's happening and she's like, it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter because what's going to happen is you need to get out of this relationship and the way you're going to get out of that is you're going to move in with us, right? There's plenty of space in our house, come and live with us. And so before you knew it, prue was living with us and of course there wasn't a lot of space. So she was living in my room, and actually she was not just staying in my room.

She was staying in my bed. So we were like, chatter, chatter, chatter, lay it into every night. And we would get up in the morning and go to the office, exhausted, because we were talking so much. And twice a week, because Prudence had managed to wangle her way into this experimental drug treatment program

because these were the days before anti-retroviles were widely available. Twice a week we would get on the highway from Pretoria where we lived and drive to Johannesburg to the doctor's office where she would, you know, have the meds. And I remember the first time we got to the doctor's office, I parked and I took the key out of the ignition, ready to get out and prove it's like, you stay here. And I'm like, oh, but we do everything together. Okay, okay, okay, stay in the car. And so prove went in and the drive back was in silence,

there was no talking. And so this happened twice a week, every week for a few weeks. And after a couple of weeks, the meds were clearly, starting to have their effects on her. And we got to the doctor's office one morning and she needed help. There were two stairs to sort of go two steps

to walk up to get into the doctor's practice. And so she needed some help. And so I got out to help her. And like, inside, circuitily, I'm like, you know, I'm feeling really bad that she's not feeling well. But thank God I can get to go inside because now I see what's going on in there, right? So we go inside.

And it's the small, the little room. And it's about 12 to 15 people who are sitting in that room. And it's this deathly silence. And contrary to what all the headlines were telling us at that time about what AIDS looked like, right? AIDS is a black disease. AIDS is a gay disease. AIDS is a disease of poverty.

Actually, this room didn't look like that at all, right? It was a fairly affluent middle-class room. But it was clear that nobody in that room wanted to be there. So it was like this deadly silence. And so we kind of crept in and we sat down and people would be called one by one. And the receptionist called this name, and it was first names only, and she called Alice, and Proust stands up, and she goes inside inside and I'm like, huh? And she comes back out after about you know 30 minutes or so and we go back into the car and we start making the long silent trek you know back to Pretoria. And so I'm driving and I look at

her and I say, what's he like? And Proust says, what's who like? And I said, the doctor, what's he like? And she looked at me for a long moment, and she said, he won't touch me without gloves on. And I realized that my friend, my brave, courageous, amazing friend, who is openly living with HIV in a time when people are getting killed for that, right? Who is an out lesbian at a time when women were getting killed for that, still are actually, right?

That she's also petrified and vulnerable and ashamed of herself, right? And that's not a contradiction, that's all of us, that's life, right? It's all happening at the same time. And so in that moment, Peru taught me a really powerful and important lesson, a lesson that I have carried with me in 20 years as an activist and as an ally with people living with HIV and AIDS. And it was a lesson that was basically that, you know, it was fine to be a pragmatic idealist, right? The pragmatism is good, and idealism is good, but that what I was missing was empathy, and that if I was going to make any kind of difference, if I wasn't actually listening to what Prusa was saying, I was kind of listening, but I wasn't listening enough, right?

And that if I was going to make any kind of impact, and if I was going to be the kind of advocate that I wanted to be, that what I was going to have to do was listen not just to the words of people like prudence, but much more importantly, I needed to listen to the silences. That was Sasaki Misimang, live at Lincoln Center. Sasaki Misimong live at Lincoln Center. Sasaki writes a column in South Africa's daily Maverick newspaper, and she's working on a book about belonging and identity. And with that, we've reached the end of our anniversary hour.

Boy, that went fast, fast this episode and 20 years. Before we go, one more listener's tribute, art from Santa Ana, California. To me, the math reaffirms at the most primal level, the human experience, all of the highs and all of the lows, have a good friend, he's a family physician, and he says the best diagnostic tool he's ever come across is out of a book called the Exquisite Risk, which says some Native American tribes would ask four questions. When was the last time you danced? When was the last time you sang? When was the last time you told your story? And when was the last time you listened to story and one was the last time you listened to

the story of another. I just want to say thank you for covering at least half of that. And thank you for telling and listening with the mall for the last 20 years. And remember to sing and dance too for good measure. That's it for the Moth radio hour. We hope you'll all join us next time. Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess. Katherine Burns, Larry Rosen and Leah Tao directed the stories in the show. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson and Meg

Bowles, production support from Timothy Lue Lee. Special thanks to Lawrence Ferelli, Deelia Bloom and Casey Donahue. The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of the Moth Community program, along with Andrew Quinn and Rachel Stretcher from the Aspen Institute. The Moth would also like to thank everyone who has ever worked in interned, or volunteered with us from our board members to our talented and tireless staff to people who have manned the theater doors and handed out programs. And we thank our storytellers and all those who threw their name in the hat and haven't

yet been picked at one of our story slams around the world. Thanks to our talented musicians, our incomparable Moth hosts, our collaborators and friends, the hundreds of public radio stations who air their show and all of our national partners and crews for the main stage in the StorySlam series. So, Moth Stories are true, is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Evan Christopher, Nightmares on Wax, Tom McDermott, and The Batteries Duo. You can find links to all the music we use at our website.

The Moth is produced for radio 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. 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.