The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: To Thine Own Self Be True

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

In this hour, stories about and by people who are unapologetically themselves. Knowing where you belong on the ballfield, writing as the ultimate means of self-expression, and the pub that serves as a home for a band of experimental musicians. This hour is hosted by Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. Storytellers: Eric Thomas, Renita Walls, Haley Dunning, Heidi stuber, Joe Jackson

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's the moth.org forward slash Houston. From BRX, this is the Mothth Radio Hour with more true stories told live. I'm Jay Allison.

We're taking our theme this time from Act One of Hamlet, where Polonius famously offers his son some advice. This above all, to the unknown self-betrue, in this hour, five storytellers who stand up for their beliefs and accept themselves as they are. Our first story is from our Eric Thomas. Eric is one of the most beloved hosts you may have heard him introducing storytellers at a main stage in Philly or a DC Story slam. He told this story at a main stage in Seattle where we partnered with Seattle Arts and Lectures. Here's our Eric Thomas telling his story on a night

when he was the host, Live from Beneroyah Hall. APPLAUSE Tonight's theme is High Anxiety. And I was very excited when they asked me to host a show because I have nothing but anxiety stories. And I'm skipping therapy to be here. So we have a lot to talk about. I'm just kidding, but I do want to share

just this one couple of minute long story about a time. I guess probably about 10 years ago now. No, yeah, 10 years ago. I'm almost 30 at that point I know you can't tell it don't crack but So this one I'm almost 30 and As you are want to do as you can tell you're late 20, you start to take stock of where you are in life,

where I was, or was in great place. But I was starting to feel more confident about who I was and I was starting to ask for what I wanted more. I've always been the kind of person, even when I was little, even when I was like a little kid, where when I would walk down the street, some people would just turn to me, point at me, and say, gay, which is a strange thing when you're like seven years old, and you're like, I don't know what that word means, but does it mean they like my shorter roles?

Because, okay. By the time I got to 28, when this story takes place, I was a little tired of it because I like recognition. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, I don't feel like I should be accepting this in the spirit that it's intended. This isn't an insult, in my opinion, but people are intending it as an insult. And I said to myself, how do I become the person who is not always pointed at and yell,

and people yell gay at him? And I decided it was a problem with my masculinity. I just wasn't masculine enough. I had to be more covert about being gay. I could be gay, but just sort of not like gay. Whatever that means. As I said, I was not quite where I needed to be yet as a person, but I was getting there. So I decided to do, I was like, what a masculine person. What would the rock do?

What would the indies will do? And I decided to do the most masculine thing I could think of. I signed up to join the gay softball league in Philadelphia. I was like, this seems great. I was looking for wrestling, but they didn't have it. I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna be so masculine. I'm gonna go play this game.

And then I was like, I don't know how to play softball. So I wicked pitiate it. And I found out two things that you throw underhand. And the balls are bigger. That's what he said. And I was like, well, we're all set. I have to say, I was a little nervous about this whole thing. It didn't seem like a great plan, but I didn't have a lot of options.

And my roommate was a really big sportsman. He was also a gay guy, but he was like very muscular and he would scream through the house when the feelings won. And I was like, okay, well, he's a part of the softball league. And he seems to be well adjusted. So the only difference between me and him are Pecs and the South Valley. And so I chose the latter. And so I joined it.

I get assigned to this team. And they have a little uniform shirt. And you could wear baseball pants or whatever. But I brought these really cute shorts from American Apparel. They were like super adorable. Because my legs are really great. And I showed up to the team. And they were very welcoming.

And they were very nice to me. And they're like, we did some drills to test everybody's skills. And they're like, we're going to put you in far right field. But if you really put right field. Um, but if you, if you like, if you, you know, really put your, your back into it and you like, you work hard, you can like, advance to other positions. And I was like, oh, I don't care about this at all. Um, far right field seems, okay to me, Queens. Um, because I wanted to be, you know, I was like,

if I'm on the team, that's masculinity. It's like Biblity Bobbity Boone, you know? Or Biblity Bobbity Bro, I should say. Like, that's, I didn't know that I was gonna have to participate in this. Um, and I had a secondary objective, which was just to meet a boyfriend. So I was like, well far right feels seems like a great place to just sort of strut around in my little shorts.

And I was very happy out there, because inside the actual playing area, they were very serious about softball. Which was offensive to me? I thought it was going to be a whole bunch of queens quoting Aliga their own. Some of them had never even seen Aliga their own. I'm going around, there's no crying on baseball, and they're like, this is softballed, nobody's crying. And I'm like, I did get to be a little bit concerning

as we continued through our season. And we didn't have a great record. And I was not helping anybody. When the ball would come my way,'d be like no thank you and I was making plenty of jokes from out there just sort of yelling into them like that's what he said what I started to realize I was like maybe I'm too gay for the gay softball league and I was like this isn't what you came here to do. You didn't come here to crack jokes and look really good.

You came here to be more masculine. And so the game started to be where as before, they had been this source of joy and flibency and camp for me. They became this place of huge anxiety. And I tried to get better, but I was not practicing, and I don't have any skills. So it was just bad.

Midway through the season, the whole league had to do a skills assessment. And if you were given a score, and if you got below a 7, you had to go to a skills day. And the implication was like if you didn't really get it at the skills day, maybe this wasn't your spiritual journey. I was about to be kicked out of the gay softball league. So I was like, I'm gonna go to this game or whatever and I'm gonna play or whatever. So, you know, I watched a League of the Rounds and I was like, I'm going to...

Channel Gina Davis. We are the late, date of the of American League. We say, t, nip and far. Show up. I got my glove unused. I got my little shorts. They're doing a batting drill or clinic when I get there. And there's a woman behind home plate and she's coaching you through.

And so I'm watching people. They're like hitting or not hitting. And then it's my turn. And I'm like, OK, let's do this. You're the man, man. You're the man. You can hit this underhanded large bald softball. And so the ball comes to me.

It's a good pitch, I guess. I don't know. And I swing hard, and I miss hard. I miss so hard that my foot pops up like when they kiss in the movies. And the coach, this beautiful soul, turns to me me and she said, okay, that was a fine attempt, but it was a little gay. Um. Um.

Um. Maybe you want to think about like, butching it up a little bit. And for all the times that strangers with amazing gay dar have turned to me on the street in Yelp gay, it never landed like that. When this lesbian woman turned to me and told me that my swing was too gay,

I realized that I was on the inside of something and that she could say it and I could say it and it didn't have to be an insult that I threw back at myself because that's what I was doing. This performance was really just me working off all the nervous energy, all the anxiety that I threw back at myself because that's what I was doing. This performance was really just me working off of the nervous energy, oh the anxiety that I had about being perceived as not enough, as not masculine enough,

as not good enough at this game. If she was gay and I was gay and my swing was gay, we were all gay. And that was a point of this whole thing. And so all I had to do was hit a damn ball. So she was like, here's what you gotta do. You gotta stick your butt out, and you gotta wave a little bit longer before you hit it.

And I was like, that's what he said. I'm not eligible. But I did what she said. I cracked fewer jokes and the pitch came. I swung and I hit it. And it went sailing out over the field. Thank you. Yes. I hit one ball.

Please. I will sign autographs afterwards. I thought everything was going to change for me after that. I thought I'd be good. I watched Angels of the L field. I was like, well, you know, the kid knows how to play baseball at the end of the movie. So that's me or whatever. I'm the natural, whatever happens in that movie, I don't know. But the fact of the matter is, I had not come to this game

with the right intentions. And I had not come to this game being true about myself or my intentions. And so when the season was over, I quit the team. The next year, I went back as a cheerleader. Uh... ...and I found a boyfriend. So, that's all I really needed to do. ...or Eric Thomas is a writer based in Baltimore. In 2020, he released his best-selling humorous memoir, Here For It, or How to Save Your Soul

in America, which includes a chapter on more of his exploits on the softball team. After his attempted softball, Eric says, quote, I did not learn my lesson vis-a-vis my own sports abilities. I enthusiastically joined a gay kickball league last winter. Unfortunately, the pandemic forced the league to cancel before we could play, but I look forward to failing upwards once it's safe again to do so. Next up, storytellers from our open Mike's Story Slams tell us about standing up for themselves at work in their relationships and in their poetry, when the Mothradio Hour continues. [♪ Music playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jay Allison. The next three stories come from our Story Slams, which are open mic storytelling competitions that we hold in cities around the U. the US and even across the globe. At Mall Story Slams, anyone can throw their name into an actual hat to tell a tale. That means you can go from the audience to the stage. If the theme of the night fits some story where the event in your life, or you might learn the surprising backstory of the stranger sitting right next to you when their name is drawn. Slams are fun.

So next up, three slammers from cities around the world sharing stories of doing what they know is right, even when it's not that easy. First, Renita Walls. She told this story at an Atlanta slam where we are presented by Georgia Public Broadcasting. Here's Renita Live at the Maw. So when I was like way younger and way more open with my art,

I was a slam poet. You know, I was allowing people to critique my art. And so I was probably about 24 or so, and I decided to enter this slam. So if you don't know the slam poetry thing is, you perform a poem, you get some prize. So this prize was for $500. And then it went on to like $2,500

because it was a promotional thing for this movie, Soul Plane. Have y'all seen this movie? Okay, so if you have not seen this movie, imagine every stereotypical thing you have ever heard or seen or said or thought about a black person and put it together and thinking about it for like an hour and a half and that's the whole movie. So I'm like, okay.

So the thing was, the thing was to write a poem about soul, right? Okay, so Atlanta is really known for poetry. If you don't know that, Atlanta is big on the scene, so I'm sure the promoters were thinking, Atlanta's gonna have some hot ass poems. This is gonna be fantastic, right? So I joined the slam and it's some big hitters. And I'm like really young in the game. I'm like so nervous, but I make it through to the finals.

Okay, here we go. It's going well. Night before the slam, sitting at home, I'm looking at the promo for the finals. Okay, here we go. It's going well. Night before the slam, sitting at home, I'm looking at the promo for the movie. I'm like, this is some bullshit. Like, if I'm really about to write a poem or listen to people do poems about soul and their spirit and black history,

but this shit, no, I can't do it. So my friend calls me, he's like, yeah, I need to get ready for the slam. I said, I'm about to rewrite my poem. He said, hold on, the poem slam is tomorrow. That is a bad idea. No, it's not a bad idea. I'm gonna rewrite the poem.

And I'm gonna do an anti-so plain poem tomorrow. He's like, this is a bad idea, Neeta. Okay, bye, hang up the phone. Right upon, memorized upon, do the poem all night, don't sleep, go to work, do the poem all day in the bathroom, in the mirror, I'm going to poem all the way there, I get there, I feel like I'm going to pass. I'm so nervous. So a friend of mine sees me, she's like, yeah, you got your poem ready, I'm like, yep, I wrote it yesterday. She a friend of mine sees me, she's like, yeah, you got your poem ready. I'm like, yep, I wrote it yesterday.

She said, what? This is gonna be bad. Let me hear it. Did it for her? She said, let's run it. Okay, let's do it. So I said, okay. So now I'm feeling a little hyped up.

I stand up there. All my friends go, they are great. Everything is going well. It's my turn. I'm like, oh, this is going to be bad. But I'm going to do it, because I didn't grow it. I will stand on my moral high horse. I will not let this damn slam go.

All right, I'm here to represent the black people. So I get up there. And the first line is, is clear there is no soul and soul plain. Only soul, souls for very low payment. And I look and I see my friend who is the promoter's face and it just says, oh shit. And I don't let that stop me.

I just keep running, head on. I'm like, I'm gonna say what I gotta say. We've been bamboozled, let it stray, run them up. I really actually said these things. I was quoting Malcolm X. I was on the high horse, the biggest soapbox you have ever seen. I was on it and everybody started cheering.

It was like I was representing the people. Everybody felt the sway, but nobody said it. They were all thinking about this $500. I put people's names in the poem that were in the slam. It was so relevant. People were loosening everybody's on top of their chair. And I got hyped. I felt like a poetry rock star.

I wanted this crowd surping. I'm like, it's like 50 people in here. But I was going to be an epic fail. Don't do it to crazy. So I just did my poem. Everything was great. I got off the stage, everybody shaking my hand. People are like, I don't even want to go up next behind her.

People on this stage right now won't miss you, no name. But they did not want to go up behind me, because it was so epic. It was fantastic. Until they sent the footage to LA, and they saw nothing but my angry black ass going off about this movie, and they were like, we are not cutting the track. And I'm like, are you serious?

So my friend who was the promoter was like, look, she might can't go on for the big prize, I get it. You know what, her represent in the movie, but she didn't break the rules. She wrote a poem about soul, about how she won't sell her soul, but it's trash movie. And you got a banner.

And they found bad movein', letter straight, run a mug, but the check clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Renita Walls is a poet, storyteller and nurse originally from Baltimore, Maryland. She tells us she enjoys sharing her truth through performance art. Renita said her poem was not aired at the movie opening, which she, quote, can understand.

Our next story is from Haley Dunning, who told it at a story slam at Rich Mix in London. Here is Haley. Here is Hayley. APPLAUSE Hello, so I had been single for four years when Andrew joined her office. I checked out all the new guys who joined the department naturally, but it was slim pickings. And I would say he was slim pickings, he was kind of scrawny, a bit skinny, and not that much taller than me, so not

my normal type, because they make me feel a little bit indelicate. But his soft Scottish accent and twinkling blue eyes were a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gwaithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio'r ymwch i'n gweithio' to look close enough to notice. And so it hurt, but obviously I realized that my feelings had to change.

I wanted us to still be friends, and this stupid fantasy of mine would get in the way of that. And obviously I wanted to find my own love, but still I thought he was magnificent, and I wondered if perhaps he should know that. Not long after that, one of my cats died. He was a little kitten that I'd had since he was a kitten, and he'd grown into this big soft cat

who was warm and soft, and he'd been comforted self to me. And then he and comfort were gone. And I said to Andrew, I felt like I'd lost some of the love in my life, some that I'd given, and some that I've received. He said that it was still there, even though I couldn't feel it. And I thought, everyone should know when they're loved.

It should be a compliment. I wanted to tell him, but I didn't know how. At that time, I was doing a short story right in class. We had this assignment to write a story that was like a physical and an emotional journey. So I wrote a version of this story. I wrote kind of my Nananjou's story set against a physical journey where I was going to an office Christmas party and he would be there during the stories that I would tell him.

But I get there and he's outside the pub and I go to tell him that we're interrupted by a colleague and the moment is gone and that's where that story ended and my teacher loved it and my, you know, the other students loved it and that was great. I still hadn't told him. And then, so New Year's Day came around and I was like, I've got to start this year off, right. And so I decided to send him the story I'd written in the short story class.

I sent it as a word doc attachment over WhatsApp so I could see those two blue ticks when he'd read it. So we read it and I waited. And then little dots to show that he was typing. And finally he said, I love you too, buddy. And that was enough. Thank you. APPLAUSE

That was Haley Dunning. Haley is a science writer covering cutting-edge research into everything from artificial cells to black holes. She's currently editing her first sci-fi novel. She lives in London with two cats and zero humans. She and Andrew are still colleagues and close friends. Haley says they have helped each other through the process of writing their first novels. The last of these three slam stories comes from Heidi Stuber. She told this at a grand slam, the ultimate storytelling showdown, in which the winners of ten story slams compete

for the title of storytelling champion, here town Hall in Seattle where we partner with Public Radio Station KUOW Heidi Steber So it had just been a week since my son got out of the hospital when my husband moved out. My son was only eight years old, and he'd been recently diagnosed with autism, and he had to go to the hospital because of some pretty challenging behaviors related to his disability.

And my husband was actually my second husband, so my son's stepdad, and he'd been a really good stepdad. He taught my son to read, and he taught my son to ride a bike bike and he really loved him and he was all in. On the day of our wedding he put him a dally in around my son's neck and he promised to love him like his own son. But something about the hospital just broke him and he bailed. He moved out when we weren't even there, and he didn't tell us where he was, and I was only allowed to call him one time a week for 20 minutes. And for months, we lived

like this, and my son was a mess because he just got out of the hospital, and the special head, Nanny, had quit, and I had this new job at a startup that I knew I couldn't keep if this man didn't stay in my life. And for the entire time he was gone, I just kept telling him, no matter what you need, I'll do it. I am all in. I love you so much. I am here to give you whatever you need.

And so after a couple of months, he asked us to sit down and have lunch, he said, I'm finally ready to share with you what I need. And I was so excited because I knew I was ready to give it. And so when I showed up at this really mediocre Mexican restaurant and sat down with him, he slid this piece of paper across the table at me. And in big letters at the top, it was like, husband's needs. He has a name, I'm just not gonna use it.

And underneath that, he had listed out very clearly all the most difficult symptoms of my son's disability. And next to each one, he said, the most difficult symptoms of my son's disability. And next to each one, he said, I will no longer tolerate this in my home. And I looked at this list and I said, this is impossible. How could you ever expect this? No eight-year-old can agree to never have a behavioral challenge.

Let alone a disabled one who just got out of the hospital. And he said, I don't know if it's possible or not, but it's just what I need. And I said, what are you possibly expecting from me? Like, what do you want? Do you want me to like send him away? And he sort of perked up. And he said, well, if that's what it takes. And I said, where do you think he's gonna go? And he said, that's not my problem.

And then he said the most incredible thing. He said, I love you so much. And I love your son and I miss you and I want to come home and be a family again. And in that moment, it wasn't so much a decision as this chasm opened inside my chest. And on one side was this dream of a life we were going to have together as a blended family. And on the other side was the life I was now going to lead. And I pushed the paper back across the table and I said, you promised me you would never make me choose. And I got up and I left the restaurant and he

wrote up the divorce paper work that night. And I'd love to tell you that like things got better, like I got rid of that loser, but the truth is everything got worse. The divorce was nasty and he was nasty and he got the house and he never even said goodbye to my son who he had been raising half his life with me and I was so mad for so long. I mean, I was furious. And all these people, like I go to yoga and I try to be spiritual. And they're like, oh, you need to forgive him.

It's not for him, it's for you. And I was like, fuck if I forgive that guy. I'm like, fuck if I forgive that guy. I'm like, fuck if I forgive that guy. And it's been years now. And if I haven't found my way to forgiveness, I've found my way to some sort of peace, because I have had to go to the mat for my son again and again and again, and the gift that man gave me is there was never going to be a cost worse than the one I had already paid, which means there

was never going to be a barrier to advocating for him that I couldn't do. And that day in the Mexican restaurant, when I made that decision, that was, my son, who is a beautiful and bright and curious, delightful soul, he deserves nothing less than complete belief in him and unwavering support. And anything less than that will no longer be tolerated in my home. Thank you. Heidi Stuber is a writer and business woman who lives with her red-headed son in Seattle. When her son was four, a pediatrician predicted he would end up in jail. She spent 12 years proving that man wrong. She's currently working on her first book,

when your heart won't budge. Heidi says that after three stays at Seattle Children's Hospital from the ages of eight to nine, her son hasn't had to be admitted again in six years. To see a photo of Heidi at the Story Slam that she won, which qualified her for this grand slam, go to our website, thomalth.org. If any of these stories have inspired you to tell your own check out Slams Near You at our website. After the break, the origin story of a famous musician in an unlikely place. 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 Jay Allison. This song may sound familiar to a fair chunk of our listeners. It's by Joe Jackson, who

is also our last storyteller in this hour. He told this story for us two decades ago. Here's Joe Jackson, live at the Players Club in New York City. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Hello. My story this evening is about the Admiral Drake, which is not a person but a pub, in my hometown, which is Port Smith, which is a rather rough,

naval port town on the south coast of England. And this was the scene of one of my early musical triumphs when I was 17. But just before we get to the Admiral Drake, just to give you a little bit of context, I did my very first gig when I was only 16. And this was also playing piano in a pub. It's always a pub, you know, but it was a great success

and it was almost too easy as it happened. And this went to my head a bit. I was rather pleased with myself. And I thought that I was launched on a glittering career as a gigging musician. It didn't work out quite like that because the next few gigs I did were pretty disastrous. I'll give you an example.

I was recruited by two much older guys. I was 17 by now. A bass player and a drummer who wanted to form a jazz trio. And after a couple of rehearsals, the drummer announced that he got us a gig at the Portsmouth Irish Club. What? And I said, the Irish Club, we're a bloody jazz trio. What are we doing at the Irish Club?

He said, no, no, don't worry. It's not, they use it for all kinds of music. And all kinds of people go there. It'll be fine. Well, we showed up at the Irish Club, and the drummer was quite right about one thing. The audience was not Irish at all. It consisted of about 100 skinheads.

Now, skinheads in Portsmouth at this time were not really known for their appreciation of acoustic jazz trios. For a while, they just stood and kind of stared blankly at us, and then they started to throw things. Nothing too dangerous. The purpose was really humiliation. So they threw pennies, you know, peanuts,

faggins, or cigarette butts to your Americans, fag packets, more pennies, you know, and after a while of course we were duly humiliated and scared shirtless. So what this did is inspired in me a sort of defiant determination, I thought, God, you know, there's got to be one decent gig in this God-for-sake in town. And I started to do a strange sort of pub crawl where I walked into just about every pub in town just to see if they had a piano and usually walked straight out again. But I eventually found myself in the Admiral Drake, which was a shabby pub. And the landlord, his name was Charlie, was from Birmingham. I don't know if you know what a Birmingham accent sounds like, but a Birmingham accent,

it's sort of rather nasal and you know, one of the most unpleasant accent in the UK. It's like that. So this is how Charlie taught. And he said said not only did he have a piano he had a 19 out of two bextine. So I tried the piano and it actually was a bit beat up but it wasn't bad, it was playable. And Charlie was interested in having some live music in his pub a couple of nights a week. So I said great, great, great. Can I bring some mates in as guest musicians? And he said, well, I can't pay anymore. I said, what else all right? Slipping into my 17-year-old gysmullion. Mae'r gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith I'm a romantic, a roller-like hero. Well, I immediately called my friend Martin. Martin Keel, who was one of the first musicians I ever worked with, he was a saxophone player.

But to call him that doesn't do him justice, because he played every wind instrument. You could imagine he had a huge array of instruments. Anything you could blow, you know, Martin could play. And not content with this, he would try to invent new instruments by taking them apart and sticking bits of different instruments together. He was a sort of musical Frankenstein.

I always found this vaguely disturbing, I wasn't quite sure why, but he invented things like the Clareo Saxa Trombophone and this is things that just saddened, absolutely bizarre. Anyway, I called him and he said, yeah, great, Admiral Drake, let's go. And he called his friend Phil the mouse, Mousely, who played drums, and that was the band. And we soon rehearsed a very large and eclectic repertoire that was everything from jazz

standards to beat all songs to these sort of dreadful, old, sing-along pub songs that they have in England. You know, I'm beneath the archies. I dream, my dreams are white. You know, this sort of dreadful old songs. However, right from the moment we first started playing, we were a hit. And the main reason for this is that the Admiral Drake, as it turned out, was the watering hole of a team of local Marines. They were the Royal Marines field gun crew and these guys were tough. I mean they were like made of iron, you know, they were bullet-headed tattoos all over them. One of them, I'll never forget, had his name which was jock tattooed across his throat.

These guys made the skinheads at the Irish club look like nuns. Anyway, they liked us. So, you know, we were golden. The marines liked us. They sang along, they bought us drinks, they steered dangerous drunks away from us. And it was just fantastic. We realized after a short while that we could do anything we like, no matter how silly it was. It was fine with them.

Martin used to play wearing an 18th-century naval officer's coat with a dummy parrot stuck to the shoulder. And meanwhile, there was a real parrot. The pub had a resident parrot behind the bar. And the only thing it could say was, you bloody bastard. It was more like, you bloody bastard, you bloody bastard. Over and over again. And, you know, so things just got sillier and sillier.

Martin, Martin's Frankenstein tendencies came out and he played things like a tea pot with a trumpet mouthpiece attached to him, as I was saying. And some of the other characters that the Admiral Drake included, the land lady, was a great character. And I think largely because of her, the place always seems to have a sort of vaguely seedy red light kind of bordello feel to it.

For instance, in the ladies room, there was a poster on the wall, a sort of kitsch poster of Adam in the Garden of Eden wearing just a fig leaf. And the fig leaf was actually a little flap that was crying out to be lifted up. And when it was lifted up, there was a tiny notice underneath it that said, a bell has just rung in the bar. Which in fact, it had. And locals would line up outside the ladies room and cheer whoever came out.

This was considered great sport. Anyway, things got sillier and sillier and one particular night that I remember vividly, and by the reins I remember it so well, is because my brother was there and he was only 15 at the time and Not yet the connoisseur of pubs that he would later become But he ventured into the Admiral Drake and we both vividly remember We were requested to play the stripper So fill the mouse started On the TomTom's and we went into the stripper and one of the Royal Marines field gun crew got up onto a table behind me and proceeded to strip.

I couldn't really see what was going on but there were more and more choruses were demanded and the noise grew and grew to like hysteria practically until I looked around and I saw a pair of naked hairy Royal Marine buttocks just a few inches from my face. This was followed by a deafening roar of approval, which was then followed by a deafening crash as the table collapsed. And you just made him bodies piling on top of each other, beer spraying everywhere, and the Marines

mates struggling to get to his clothes before he could, just like I'd been. And then the bell was rang. Time, gentlemen, please. And the evening ended with a rousing chorus of, will, meet again. Don't know where, don't know when. My brother came up to me looking slightly shaken and white and said, is he always like this?

And I know that I don't remember exactly how it came to an end, but I know it's sort of soured in various small ways. I, for instance, the crowd sometimes was so noisy that we could barely hear ourselves. I mean, we didn't have any amplification. And I was pounding the piano so hard. At one point, I looked up and I actually saw a hammer come flying out of the top of the piano,

something I would not have thought possible. At the end of the evening I said to Charlie, look, you know, maybe the time has come to invest in a new instrument. Well, this was the wrong thing to say. I mean, Charlie was mortally offended by this. That piano, he said, is a 19 out of Bix tonight. And I said, yeah, I know, but you know, it was a good piano once, but now it's just knackered. And he said, well, if you was born in 1992, you'd be bloody knackered too. He's stormed off. Anyway, things went downhill with one reason or another. And we eventually lost the gig.

But not before, I realized that it was possible to actually have fun playing music. The Aberdeen Drake has a special place in my heart because it was then that I realized that it was possible to actually have fun playing music. The Aberal Drake has a special place in my heart because it was then that I realized that I didn't really want to do anything else other than make music. And it's still there, by the way, the Aberal Drake is still there. It's still a dump. But if you ever go to Portsmouth, there's just a little brief post script of this story, which is that after we stopped

playing there, my brother ventured into the pub again, and he didn't know. I hadn't told him that we weren't playing there anymore. And the Marines grabbed him and said, oh, he was your brother. And of course, he said, I don't know. And they said, well, no, mind you can play. And he said, no, I can't. And they dragged into the piano. And he was forced to play about a dozen choruses of the only tuning you, for which he was rewarded with louder applause and free drinks for the rest of the evening. That's my story. Thanks for having me.

Cheers. That was Joe Jackson, and this is one of his most popular songs. Now, the mist across the window hides the light, But nothing hithe caught her off the lines that shine. Electricity is so fine, look and dry your eyes. Joe grew up in Portsmouth, England, where he played his first gigs to drunken sailors and skinheads before studying at the Royal Academy of Music. 2019 saw the release of his latest album, Fool, and a successful six-month tour, and his eclectic career is very much ongoing while his pop hits from the 80s endure. Do you have a story to tell us you can pitch it to us right Get into a car and drive to the other side.

Do you have a story to tell us? You can pitch it to us right on our site, or you can call 877-799-MOF. That's 877-799-6684. The best pitches are developed for Moth Shows all around the world. Again, you can pitch us at themoth.org. Growing up, my mother was an accountant. She worked for a big law firm in Providence, Rhode Island. My older brother went off to college, became a sound engineer,

and my father designed nuclear submarines for the Navy. So naturally, I went off to college. It was the family way. Very quickly, I realized school was not for me, but I needed a backup plan. Can't just tell dad you're quitting school, so I had one. I came back and said, Dad, I figured out what I want to do with my life. He said, oh, that's great because we're spending all this money. I said, hold on. Have a seat. I've decided that I want to be a professional magician. What do you think? And he said, oh, you're serious. No, Tim,

see, that was fine as a hobby when you were 10, but this is the real world. You're going to have bills that you're going to have to pay. And he brought me over to the kitchen table where all the bills were spread out. And he grabbed his calculator and Mr. Science Logicman tried to logic my dream out of me. He calculated right then and there was going to cost me $800 a month to live at his house. So new policy instituted $800 a month in rent. Do you think I went back to school? The answer is no. I looked at those numbers and said, this is going to be hard.

I'm going to have to work hard and make it happen. Ultimately, I did, and the two moments that I realized that I was a success wasn't the touring the United States or doing 350 shows per year. It was the fact that there was one internal and one external. The internal one was when I looked at my taxes one year and I'm like, oh my god, I made more money than my dad did. Basically, a nuclear physicist that I did as a magician. And the second moment was when my dad came to look at my dad did. Basically, a nuclear physicist that I did as a magician. And the second moment was when my dad came to look at my first place,

when I first moved out into my own, and he looked around and handed me an envelope. And inside the envelope was all the rent money that I had ever paid to him in cash. He knew all along what he was going to do with it. And it was a father-chang thing to his son. I on proud of you. You did it. A few years ago, my sister asked me to enter a popular TV family quiz show. I was a bit reluctant to do it because it's pretty uncool. But I am a single mum, so I had just that week told my daughter that if she practiced swimming really hard and swam to the other side of the pool that I would take her snorkeling on the great barrier

reef. And incredibly, she did it, so I thought I need to get some money, so I said to my sister that I would go on the TV show only if we won. So I had really bad attitude about it, and I told my family that I would ask the sausages to every question. So we got through the audition process and the day came to film the show. So when it was my turn to go up to meet the host in the middle and a member from the other family, the question was, what is the top food that people eat when they go camping. Anyway, the woman from the other family hit the buzzer first

and she answered baked beans. And when it came to me, I said sausages and we won $10,000 and I was able to take my daughter swimming on the Great Barrier Reef. Remember, you can pitch us at eat777-799-Moth or online at themoth.org. You can share these stories or others from the Moth Archive or buy tickets to Moth Storytelling events all through our website. We have Moth events year round, you can find a show near you and come out and tell a story.

You can also find us on social media, we're on Facebook and Twitter at The Moth. That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth. ["The Moth"] This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was hosted by me, Jay Allison. I also produced the show along with Katherine Burns and Meg Bulls, co-producer Vicki Merrick, and associate producer Emily Couch. Story Direction by Leah Tao with additional grand slam coaching by Chloe Salmon. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hixon,

Meg Bulls, Kate Teller's Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Most stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our pitches came from Tim David and Linda Kent. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Lionel Hampton, R.J.D.2, Oscar Schuster, Bruce Coburn, and Joe Jackson.

The hour was supported with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The author radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else go to our website thumb off dot org. you