Freedom

Summary

RISK! Podcast — “Freedom” (July 30, 2026)

Episode Overview

This “Freedom” episode, recorded live at the People’s Improv Theater in March 2014 and released in 2026, is classic RISK!: a blend of humor, vulnerability, and jaw-dropping honesty. Hosted by Kevin Allison, RISK! gives storytellers a stage to share true tales they "never thought they'd dare to share," each exploring the many dimensions of freedom—from liberation from relationships and medical trials to revolutionizing one’s identity, body, or mind.

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Introduction & Host’s Reflection

Main Theme:

• The episode’s guiding theme is “Freedom”—interpreted loosely, as Kevin admits—with each story tackling highly personal moments of release, rebellion, or transformation.

Kevin Allison’s Story ([03:56]):

• “Arriving in New York was my first real freedom moment. I could talk to myself in public, be gay out loud, and finally chase the career I thought I'd lost.” (Kevin, 05:04)
• Kevin reflects on moving from Cincinnati to NYC—his first taste of true freedom—as well as founding the RISK! show, which reignited his sense of professional purpose.

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Story 1: Sean Crespo — Medical Trials & (Literal) Release

Timestamp: [06:35]–[17:26]

Key Points:

• Sean shares two dramatic turning points: enduring a miserable job as an emcee on a Boston Harbor “booze cruise” for elderly tourists, then signing up for a sleep deprivation study he thought would be easy money.
• The trial, in reality, involved near-total confinement, extreme physical and emotional discomfort, and intense boredom—only interrupted by blood draws and awkward encounters with a flirtatious med student.
• Without privacy or recreational outlets, Sean hatches a desperate plan for personal relief during lights-out… only to forget about the omnipresent cameras and biometric monitors.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you look over on your right, you’ll see the remains of George Washington Memorial High School, where George himself went to school. Lettered in horses, twigs. Must've been tough for George, going to a school named after himself. Constantly reminded of his own mortality.” (Sean, 07:37)
• “Doing it was a lot worse than thinking about it was horrible.” (Sean, 09:12)
• “Here's my plan: I'm gonna wait for the lights to go down for the hour of sleep I get and jerk off.” (Sean, 14:12)
• “There are cameras everywhere, and the doctors told me they were all infrared equipped. It’s bad enough… Predator would have been disgusted with me.” (Sean, 15:37)
• “I guilted them into paying me. I didn't have to go back to that fucking boat. And I was free for the summer.” (Sean, 17:23)

Memorable Moment:

• Sean’s escalating attempts to masturbate in a monitored medical room—busted by staff every time—serve as both a cringeworthy comedic set-piece and a metaphor for fighting for stolen moments of freedom under surveillance.

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Brief Host Interlude — Embarrassing Adolescent Freedom ([17:32]–[19:54])

Kevin shares a quick, comical interlude about awkward sexual experimentation and being caught by his mother:

• “The day I got the idea to see if I could give myself a blowjob... my mom walks in, not a word exchanged. Bed collapsed. Never spoke of it since.” (Kevin, 18:04)

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Story 2: Jeff Zimmerman — Cancer, Alienation, and Empathy

Timestamp: [19:54]–[31:07]

Key Points:

• Jeff’s “freedom” story is about confronting cancer in his 30s: the sudden diagnosis, surgery, and a surreal, rapid medical experience.
• He details post-surgery depression, alienation, and the omnipresent “black bird” of his fears, whispering horrible outcomes in the dark.
• Frustration grows as well-meaning acquaintances offer useless or insulting advice (wheatgrass juice, yoga), deepening his sense of isolation.
• An unexpected moment of schadenfreude—watching a dramatically wealthy couple have a public breakup in a cancer ward—snaps Jeff out of his despair and reminds him of the real meaning of support.

Notable Quotes:

• “If they’d let me put an actual Civil War musket ball in there as a prosthetic, I could literally drag around a tragic reminder of our sad history.” (Jeff, 20:38)
• “This big black bird... would hop forward and put its dark little beak in my ear and whisper horrible stuff.” (Jeff, 21:24)
• “The best you can hope for is that you’ll get used to the loneliness, but you’ll never… you’ll never stop feeling it.” (21:55)
• “Zero people came up to me and said, have you tried getting super fucking high and watching Pooty Tang over and over again? I did that like it would cure cancer—and I’m here to tell you, it’s real good for you spiritually.” (Jeff, 25:02)
• “Supporting a person that is sick… isn’t a text about wheatgrass juice. It’s going to their house and pretending you’ve never seen Pooty Tang before, even though you just saw it the other day.” (Jeff, 30:10)

Memorable Moment:

• Jeff’s realization, after sharing a laugh about the cancer-ward breakup with his girlfriend, brings momentary relief: “Just right then for a little bit, that black bird flew away.” (Jeff, 31:05)

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Story 3: Kate Greathead — Crying on the Subway, Owning Sadness

Timestamp: [35:55]–[45:25]

Key Points:

• After a breakup that upended her life, Kate loses love, housing, and a vision of domestic bliss. She finds herself crying uncontrollably on the subway—a sadness equal parts personal and collective.
• What starts as an involuntary breakdown becomes a deliberate, almost ritualistic catharsis; she crafts a playlist titled “Crying on the Subway” and leans into her grief each commute.
• An unexpected compliment from a homeless man shifts everything: it disrupts her crying, makes her smile, and lights a spark of unexpected joy. Kate realizes feeling good trumps feeling bad—and her daily tearful rides lose their addictive appeal.

Notable Quotes:

• “All the sudden the words [‘stand clear of the closing doors’] struck me as kind of personal and poetic… I realized, oh my God, I’m about to cry.” (Kate, 36:38)
• “As the weeks became months, I started to have this problem, though. I had trouble getting emotionally aroused… So I created a playlist on my phone. It was called Crying on the Subway.” (Kate, 38:10)
• “He was pointing at me… the compliment just like caught me off guard. I stopped crying and I started smiling… But smiling on the subway is not a sign of mental health.” (Kate, 42:30)
• “As good as it feels to feel bad, it feels even better to feel good.” (Kate, 45:20)

Memorable Moment:

• The transformation in Kate’s subway ritual following the homeless man’s candid admiration and her reflection on the limits—and eventual freedom from—her self-pity.

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Story 4: John F. O’Donnell — Mania, Paranoia, and Recovery

Timestamp: [45:55]–[59:43]

Key Points:

• John details a harrowing period of undiagnosed (or unacknowledged) mania in 2008: erratic behaviors, substance abuse, and belief in vast political conspiracies fueled by conspiracy-laden YouTube rabbit holes.
• In the grip of delusion, he becomes convinced that he must "save the Internet" by "hacking" it (by making up URLs and emailing them to himself), and flees NYC for his grandmother’s house to avoid government assassination.
• His mental health crisis escalates until he is involuntarily hospitalized; recovery is slow—a long depressive stretch—but he ultimately reclaims his life, career, and identity through honesty and performance.

Notable Quotes:

• “I was truly, truly, truly convinced that the Republicans and the neoconservatives… were evil, like satanic lizard God overlords who would stand in circles around pentagrams and like fuck demonic goats from behind while conjuring up evil machinations to fuck with humanity.” (John, 47:44)
• “Try to just think and imagine for a moment really believing that… that level of evil actually exists, and you’re the one who knows it and needs to be on some sort of quest from God.” (John, 48:43)
• “www.YouTube.com livefromouterspace backslash whitestkids, you know, backslash O’Donnell Kennedy, Vespolie Pieta, backslash intc.llc backslash UNICEF. Email it to myself. Irrefutable evidence that I own the Internet.” (John, 52:28)
• “The only way to describe that overwhelming amount of pain and humiliation is as though I was a lion who’d been reduced to a worm, but was tortured by the memory of what it was like to be that lion.” (John, 58:10)
• “Within one year of getting out of the hospital, my name was up on the marquee performing at Webster Hall, the oldest, longest running entertainment venue in New York City. So I don’t know if a lot of people can really say that.” (John, 59:37)

Memorable Moment:

• John’s mix of dark humor and candid self-appraisal—punctuated by “what was that trophy about? Who won what? We’ll never know. We’ll never know…”—offers a vivid portrait of creative resilience after mental illness.

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Story 5: Jean Lebeck — From Lost Marriage to Women’s Liberation

Timestamp: [61:12]–[73:28]

Key Points:

• Jean recounts her 1966 marriage—“This is the kiss I’ve been waiting for. I turn to kiss Fred, and he turns and kisses his mother. It was a sign.”—and how, after becoming a mother and feeling stuck, she seized the opportunity provided by the City University’s new open admissions program.
• Together with a cohort of single mothers and feminists, she found community and political agency fighting for on-campus daycare, staging protests, and engaging in consciousness-raising groups.
• Jean describes her growing friendship with Mona—how their closeness becomes romantic and, in a burst of discovery, sexual—“She found her way past my pussy snatched vagina to this whole other place. And I came. I really came for the very first time in my entire life.”
• Masturbation, previously taboo, becomes a symbol of revolutionary freedom—for her and, eventually, for her co-workers.
• Though Mona and Jean part ways, their love and liberation resonate decades later, rekindled in laughter over a phone call found through Facebook.

Notable Quotes:

• “We’d be sitting in classes and women would be nursing babies and taking notes at the same time.” (Jean, 62:24)
• “We brought in cots and cribs and toys and stories, and in between classes we would run to the center and give a hug, wipe a tear, make lunch.” (Jean, 63:13)
• “If you enter this group with a man, you will leave without that man, unless he’s your son.” (Jean, 64:37)
• “One evening Mona looked at me and she said, ‘Boy, you know, I really feel like kissing you.’ So I said, ‘So kiss me.’ And she kissed me. And oh my God, it was like butterflies in my mouth. And it was like trumpets, ta da and sunsets. And this was the kiss I was waiting for.” (Jean, 67:56)
• “She found her way past my pussy snatched vagina to this whole other place. And I came. I really came for the very first time in my entire life. Yes, yes.” (Jean, 69:50)
• “Now every time you go to the bathroom and you spend a little extra time in there, they're going to be like, oh, you know what you’re doing in there.” (Jean, reporting Mona, 71:28)
• “In that second, I was once more that very young, young woman who slid down my kitchen wall holding a butterfly kiss, and she was wearing embroidered overalls.” (Jean, 73:25)

Memorable Moment:

• Jean’s transformation—from a woman abandoned under the chuppah, to a protester, lover, and openly sexual being—captures the radical, deeply personal meaning of “freedom,” both for herself and her community.

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Closing Notes

• [74:24]–[75:59]: Kevin closes with gratitude, highlighting Story Studio’s storytelling workshops and the show's power to transform personal pain or embarrassment into liberating performances.
• Callback Song: “Let’s do it again” (Mona) plays as a final note of cyclical release and possibility.

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Episode Highlights & Takeaways

• Each story presents a different angle on “freedom”: the necessity and humor in breaking taboos (masturbation, emotional display), liberation from illness and despair, and the radical joy of self-actualization.
• Many stories weave together themes of embarrassment and joy, loneliness and connection, and the hard-won freedom that comes from facing reality and sharing it with others.
• Most memorable quote, encapsulating the episode’s ethos:
  “As good as it feels to feel bad, it feels even better to feel good.” (Kate Greathead, 45:20)

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Timestamps Overview

• 03:56 – Kevin’s introduction and theme reflection
• 06:35 – Sean Crespo: Sleep study gone awry
• 17:32 – Kevin: Adolescent sexual misadventure
• 19:54 – Jeff Zimmerman: Cancer, grief, and empathy
• 35:55 – Kate Greathead: Subway crying ritual
• 45:55 – John F. O’Donnell: Mania, paranoia, recovery
• 61:12 – Jean Lebeck: Feminism, love, and masturbation revolution

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Tone and Atmosphere

• Hilarious and confessional, raw and poignant—classic RISK! style.
• Storytellers' voices are authentically rendered—vivid, self-deprecating, and honest, even when discussing the most taboo or existential topics.
• The episode’s emotional journey is as wild and unpredictable as the notion of “freedom” itself.

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For longtime RISK! fans and newcomers alike, "Freedom" is emblematic of what makes the show unique—honest stories, emotional vulnerability, and the communal euphoria that comes with confession and laughter.

Transcript

[Benjamin Boster]

Evening.

[Sean Crespo]

Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.

[Kate Greathead]

Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Benjamin Boster]

You what?

[Kate Greathead]

Yeah.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Great price.

[Kate Greathead]

I even have seven days to love it or return it.

[Sean Crespo]

So there's no.

[Kate Greathead]

No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.

[Sean Crespo]

I guess I'll let myself out.

[Kevin]

Congratulations. I mean it.

[Kate Greathead]

Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana.

[Sean Crespo]

Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return [e-mail].

[Benjamin Boster]

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast with Benjamin Boster.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast.

[Benjamin Boster]

I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to

[Jeff Zimmerman]

bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

[Benjamin Boster]

Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster.

[Benjamin Boster]

Hey, do you have trouble sleeping?

[Jean Lebeck]

Who, me?

[Benjamin Boster]

Yes, you. Trouble sleeping? Oh, yeah, sometimes I just have a lot of stuff on my mind. You should try the Sleepy Podcast.

[Kate Greathead]

The what?

[Benjamin Boster]

The Sleepy Podcast. It's where host Otis Gray reads old books in a low, rhythmic voice to help you get to sleep. Classic books like Pride and Prejudice, Winnie the Pooh, Sherlock Holmes. Just softly read bedtime stories for grown ups. Okay, I mean, I need to run some errands. I was into an episode in the car.

[John F. O'Donnell]

I think you're really, really good.

[Benjamin Boster]

No, dude, you shouldn't operate heavy machinery

[Kevin]

when you're listening to Sleepy.

[Benjamin Boster]

Oh, dear. Well, let's just hope he gets home alive. But the bigger point I was trying to make, folks, is that for years, Sleepy has helped millions of people catch some much needed Z's and start their day off fresh and discover old books they didn't know they'd love. Whether you're having trouble sleeping or just like a good bedtime story, fluff up the cool side of your pillow and tune into Sleepy. Unless you're driving. I nodded off there. Yes, sir. But listen, folks, you can listen to Sleepy on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New bedtime stories every week.

[Kevin]

Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this episode, you'll hear Jeff Zimmerman

[Jeff Zimmerman]

on the way into the or, though the nurse wheeled me into this room and she said, would you like a prosthetic? And I said, well, would I ever. Can I get two?

[Kevin]

And now, because our last live show in New York City was so good, we're just Going to give it to you in full without interruption. It's the Risk live show of March 2014 at the People's Improv Theater in New York. Now, here's the show.

[Benjamin Boster]

Hey, folks, this is Kevin in 2026

[Kevin]

here to let you know that this

[Benjamin Boster]

episode you're about to hear was first released in April of 2014.

[Kevin]

Enjoy risk.

[Jean Lebeck]

Hello, everyone.

[Kevin]

Welcome to Risk. How's everyone doing tonight? Ah, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. If you don't know, Risk is the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. How many people know the podcast? Tonight we have the theme, Freedom. Freedom is the theme we're tackling tonight. So every story will be about George Michael's 1992.

[Jean Lebeck]

No,

[John F. O'Donnell]

no.

[Kevin]

As you know, we're super loose with themes here. It would be interesting if one night we were just complete and total Nazis about.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

No, no, no, no.

[Kevin]

This. Every story has to be about George Michael. No, for me, I was thinking, well, what does freedom. What are the two biggest freedom moments for me would probably be stuff that's very related to the podcast. Because the first big freedom moment for me would be leaving Cincinnati, Ohio, and coming to New York. Because the day I stepped foot, two things happened the day I stepped foot in New York. For one, I was walking down the street talking to myself, as I always do, very loudly, with lots of gestures. And I looked around and noticed no one's looking at me strange. I was like, I am home. And the other thing was, because I had left Cincinnati and arrived in New York, I realized, oh, I can be gay, gay now. And you all know a lot about that. And the other big freedom moment for me was when I created this show. Because, you know, shortly after that happened, I realized, oh, I can have a career again. It was, you know, for about a decade there, it was kind of touch and go, but I made it through. And so here we are. The first person I want to bring up to share a story, he has a long running show at UCB east. And it is. Well, it actually happens on Thursday nights. I think it's every Thursday. I think it's happening right now. The hell is he doing here? Come to think of it,

[John F. O'Donnell]

it's called

[Kevin]

Lasers in the Jungle. Please welcome to the stage, Mr. Sean Crespo.

[Sean Crespo]

All right, all right, all right, all right.

[John F. O'Donnell]

Stop. What if McConaughey just did that for like 12 in a row? All right, all right, all right, all

[Kevin]

right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

[John F. O'Donnell]

Shut up, man.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

All right.

[John F. O'Donnell]

When I was 19 and I won't forget you while I'm talking. When I was 19, I took what I thought would be the worst job in the world. I was wrong because my next job was the worst job in the world. I was an emcee on a booze cruise boat in Boston Harbor.

[Kate Greathead]

Thank you.

[John F. O'Donnell]

I practiced this with way fewer laughs in my head. So this is going to go great. My job was to give a tour over a PA system to hundreds and hundreds of of elderly people. And for some reason that summer, everybody on the boat, they were all elderly Dutch, elderly Japanese, and elderly Russian couples for no reason whatsoever. It was like one of those DC Comics special issues where they go to an alternative universe where, like, Superman was like Hitler's best friend and the Axis powers had won, but it was the Dutch and the Japanese. It was weird. So my job was to point things out in the harbor that were of note. But these guys, none of them spoke English. So when the company gave me a 300 page full with all the things to memorize, I didn't memorize any of it. I just made shit up because I'm an American. So every tour was basically just like, yeah. If you look over on your right, you'll see the remains of George Washington Memorial High School, where George himself went to school. Lettered in, horses, twigs. Must have been tough for George, going to a school named after himself. Constantly reminded of his own mortality. If you look over on your left, you'll see they're filming Cheers. The movie got the whole cast back together again.

[Kevin]

Will that Woody ever learn?

[John F. O'Donnell]

So that was my job, but they weren't there for me. They were there for something else. I was just filler. They were there for the service, they were there for the waiters, who were all musical theater students from local colleges. And their job was to sing and dance the food over to these people.

[Kevin]

How horrible is that?

[John F. O'Donnell]

And to make it worse, the company wouldn't refer to them as the waiters. They forced everybody to refer to them as the wait cast.

[Kevin]

The Wait cast.

[John F. O'Donnell]

Come on now. The wait cast had six songs, one of which was a medley of the other five. So one day when we got stuck out in the water because the engine broke down, it was, you know, brutal Boston summer day. It was like 110, 120 with the accents and everybody's suffering from like heat exhaustion. There was this 19 year old kid. This is when I decided to leave the boat. This 19 year old kid, musical theater suit. He's lying on top of a piano that's Nailed to the deck of a boat. And it's that part of the day where he's supposed to sing, like, a smoky, bluesy, like, fabulous Baker's boy sort of song. And he was gonna do the theme from Fame, but he had gone crazy from heat exhaustion. So he didn't do a smoky version of fame. He did a crazy fuck you version of fame that was on a piano that was like, fame.

[Kevin]

I wanna live forever do you wanna live forever?

[John F. O'Donnell]

I do I wanna fly so high, babe Just like. Oh, my God. So that was my last day on the boat. So I walk off, I walk a block in Boston, and I see a flyer on a telephone pole that's about to change my life. And that flyer said, would you like to be paid to sleep? But that is never a good flyer to respond to. 80 point font. I think the font was future mistakes. First of all, that's a rhetorical question. Everybody would like to be paid to sleep. Second of all, it was a lie. It was not accurate. Now, if the flyer had said, would you like to be paid to test the limits of your endurance physically and mentally, and have a rectal thermometer in you for two weeks? Totally accurate. I would have known what I was getting into. But I quit my job. I sign up for this thing. It takes a couple weeks. So now I have to do it. Here are the rules of this thing. At the end of it, if I make it, I get about $2,400. I can pay my rent for the summer. Now you're in a tiny hospital room. There are no windows. Everything's just off white. You have to lie in a bed. You're not allowed to move. No books, no tv, no music, because it's about your temperature, too. It's a sleep deprivation study. But yeah. Yeah, thank you. I know just thinking about it is horrible. Doing it was a lot worse. You're not allowed to move anywhere. You get about an hour of sleep every night. Sleep night, no time cues. Who knows? And then twice during the study, I had to stay up for 48 hours straight. Yeah, pretty bad. It was pretty awful. Now the only way they can keep you awake is by having interns come in and chat with you. And all the interns are like, they're Harvard students. They're really cute. They're almost all women because women are smarter and they become doctors. And men are like, I'm gonna be a bowler. Can you even still do that?

[Sean Crespo]

I don't know.

[John F. O'Donnell]

I'm gonna try. Never give up.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Never surrender.

[John F. O'Donnell]

So there's this one intern named Lana who I hit it off with and her job was to keep me up when I was falling asleep. But, you know, the thing is, when you're trapped in a room with somebody and you can't move after two days, you've, you've done all the topics. You know what I mean? Like, you've chatted about everything you're going to chat about. You're like, oh, you like ponies? I like ponies, too.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Great.

[John F. O'Donnell]

After three days, you're at the point where all you can talk about is what's happening in the room, which is nothing. Or horrific because it's every conversation. Like, if you're going to talk about what's happening in the room, it's going to be like, hey, remember that time I crapped into a bowl you were holding because you're collecting my solid waste as a part of this study? Call me afterwards. Call me later, Lana. The other thing was, and I forgot to mention this, they had to draw blood four times a day, twice from each arm. But they had these little cartridges that they just kept on you the whole time. And the doctor, all he had to do was come in and put a test tube in, hit a button, the needle would go in and it would draw blood. But a couple times he pulled it out too fast and snapped the needle. It didn't hurt, but there's blood spurting everywhere. And I, the doctor felt bad, so I thought I'd make him feel better by going, spider Man. Take that, Dr. Octopus. It's Dr. Feldman. I'm trying, Spider Man. Doctors don't have fun. So about seven days in, you're desperate to feel anything. You haven't felt anything in a week. You're just sitting there. You go, you're seeing things. Your brain is making things up to feel anything. It got to the point when he came in to draw the needle, I was reacting. Not like somebody getting blood taken, a needle pushed into him. I was reacting like somebody giving a cool iced tea in a hot Alabama summer day. Oh, thank you so much, doctor. Oh, refreshing. It's like an autumn wind in my veins. And that was the best part. That was when it was good. When it got worse, like three days later after all this lack of sleep. You know, I'm 19 years old. I'm not allowed to move from my bed.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

So I'm not allowed to take her

[John F. O'Donnell]

business, you know, like a 19 year old will. Four or five times a day, 10 days, it's backed up. It's just been in there for 10 days. Brewing like the Dianetics volcano, but somehow less creepy and more believable. So ten days go by. I resolve to myself I'm going to have release. I concoct a plan. I'm delirious. There's a room filled with doctors who are gonna outwit me in a second. Here's my plan. I'm gonna wait for the lights to go down for the hour of sleep I get and jerk off. So here's what I did. I got my lunch. I smuggled the packet of mayonnaise they gave me. Because I'm a forward thinker and lubrication is important. I didn't want to chafe. During my golden minute, the lights go down. They put all the measurement devices on me. Lana comes over, the Mic's like, Goodnight, Mr. Crespo. I'm like, Mr. Crespo's my dad. Shut up. I'm doofy with way too much confidence. And the lights go off. I go to town. Oh my God. I go to town right away. There's no stopping me. It was awesome. It might have been the best I've ever had. It was so great. I forgot a couple of things. One, there are cameras everywhere. And the doctors told me they were all infrared equipped. That's one. It's bad enough. Number two, they're monitoring my heart rate in all of my body systems. I'm pretty sure when my heart rate run from like 60 to 390, a little beep sounded. And they're like, what's going on on this monitor? And they saw a thermal image of me clearly jerking off. Like they saw me the way Predator would have seen me jerking off. But even Predator would have been disgusted with me. Predator would have been like, dude, come on, razor net dead fucking guy. So Lana comes over the microphone. She's like, hold on, Mr. Crespo. I'm like, Mr. Creswell's my dad. It's too late. The lights come on. She walks in just as the pool of shame is forming, spreading out in my, by the way, my very absorbent Brawny medical products cotton gown, thank you to them. It's too late. And by there was maybe like, I'm gonna. It's been 10 days, so I'm gonna guesstimate that maybe there was a quart

[Kevin]

of semen.

[John F. O'Donnell]

I don't know what that is in metric, so if you're from Europe, I'm sorry. So they cleaned me up. She's a little sad. She's disappointed in me. And I promise not to do it again, but you know, they kept me up for another day. I forgot I had done it. I jerked off again. I promised not to do it again. I jerked off again the next day, and they kicked me off the study. But here's the important point I got. I guilted them into paying me. I didn't have to go back to that fucking boat. And I was free for the summer. Drops, mic, walks away.

[Sean Crespo]

Sean Crespo, everyone.

[Kevin]

I think the worst time I was in a situation of being caught masturbating. I think I was in the seventh grade right around there. And I had a tiny little bedroom on the second floor floor of our house. I had a bed that had lots of problems. It was not a well constructed bed, but one day I got the idea to see if I could give myself a blowjob.

[Jean Lebeck]

You know, I mean, the thing that

[Kevin]

was so fun about masturbating back then was that you could very often think, oh, well, wait, let's try this. None of it worked. You know, you would always come up with new radical ways of, oh, what if we tried this? The blowjob thing never ended up working either. But this particular time, I was like, bending myself so that my legs were kind of like over my head and on the other by my pillow and everything. And, you know, now my mom is extremely, like a puritanical kind of person. She walked in my room and what happened was I just went bop, bop, bop, bop. You know, just made this, like, noise as if I might be like, you know, like suddenly an exorcism. And my legs flipped down and then my top kind of flipped up, and then my top flipped back down and my legs flipped back up. And then the bed just collapsed and mom said nothing and just closed the door. No words were exchanged, just. And we've never spoken of it since. Okay, our next storyteller is. He is a veteran, a cherished member of the storytelling community here in New York City. He's been on this American Life. He has a show called and I Am Not Lying. It is at UCB east on every second Friday. He is also a recent Moth Grand Slam winner. Please welcome to the stage, Mr. Jeff Zimmerman.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

Hey, friends. My buddy at work turns to me every afternoon. He's my friend, but he's also a dumbass. We have those friends at work. And he turned to me and he was like, no, dude, seriously, for real this time. Which is better? He asked me this every day. Having one testicle or having three? I was like, this is so stupid, man. Every day the answer is always going to be three. Because it's better to be creepy than a little sad. Well, then one day I was doing one of the self exams in the shower that are so important, and I discovered that my left testicle was the size and density of a Cadbury egg. But that ain't right. So I went to the doctor, and the doctor took a look at it and he said, oh, this is malignant as hell. He didn't say it like that, but that's. I went into shock immediately when he said, you have testicular cancer. And 24 hours later, me and Lance Armstrong are riding the same unicycle. On the way into the or, though, the nurse wheeled me into this room and she said, would you like a pressure? And I said, well, would I ever. Can I get two? Just to double down on the joke, really commit, you know, like, come back to work. Bang, bang, bang. How do you like me now? I have a complicated relationship with my Southern heritage, and nothing would better exemplify that than if they let me to put an actual Civil War musket ball in there as a prosthetic. Could literally drag around a heavy and tragic reminder of our sad history. Only talk to my black friends about it when I'm drunk. Nah, just. We got stuff to do. And after surgery, I mean, seriously, it was like, diagnosis, call your mom. Surgery the next day. Bang, bang, bang. Like that. And I just got whiplash from the whole thing. And I was lying there in bed after. It was outpatient, too. They can do this so good so quick now it's like with a power saw or something. And I was lying there in bed next to my girlfriend, and she's asleep, and I just lay there and look up at the night and all my fear and just terror. Like, what has happened? What's going on with me? Is my body. How quickly is my body going to kill me? It just flies out and it sort of swirls around with the darkness and it combines. And I personify this with, like a big black bird that just flew down out of the night, sit on my chest, and it would hop forward and put its dark little beak in my ear and whisper horrible stuff. It said, look, man, you have just gone through a doorway and it's weird on the other side. You're gonna find it real, real hard to relate to people. They're gonna come up to you and they're gonna try to talk, and it's just not gonna connect. You're gonna feel super alienated, super lonely, and it's never gonna go away. The best you can hope for is that you'll get used to the loneliness, but you'll never. You'll never stop feeling it. And I'll be damned if that bird wasn't right. My wife. Spoiler alert, guys. But my girlfriend at the time is. She's a cancer survivor, too. Although she had chemo and radiation and didn't lose any body parts real quick. And I didn't have any chemo and radiation, and I did. And so our suffering is the same size, but it's shaped real different. And she would try to relax when I would have a panic attack, she would try to relax me, and I was like, what if I die? What if I die? And she was like, listen, everybody's gonna die one day. It's just the cancer patients have much more reliable data. It's weird that I didn't find that comforting, you know? And then, like, also, when people hear that you've had cancer, it makes all the bullshit in their head, all the baggage that's just rattling around up there, just fall right out of their mouths. They walk like. Somebody came up to me on the street. Not somebody. Somebodies came up to me, a lot of people, and said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Listen, have you tried yoga? It can prevent all kinds of diseases, and it's really good for you spiritually, too. And I was just like, no, I'm not into that. And when people say stuff like that, it's like saying, if you didn't do their little weird health thing, that's why you got cancer. Somebody texted me, sent me a text message that said, sorry, you had cancer. Like, just the. You. Have you tried wheatgrass juice? No. And no. No. Zero. People came up to me and said, have you tried getting super fucking high and watching pooty Tang over and over again? I did that like, it would cure cancer. And I'm here to tell you it's real good for you spiritually. I'd lie there at night again, and that bird would come back, and I was just like. I felt like a little teeny. A man this big wearing a spacesuit made out of wet wool who was just screaming all the time. You know, I had no energy, couldn't really do stuff. And the black bird would come back and be like, you really lost a lot of verve. You're just not getting stuff done anymore. You don't have get up and go. I don't know what is wrong with you. It's like you've been half neutered or something. And I would just think, God, like, if this is what it's like to be dead. My girlfriend sleeps so hard, she smiles in her sleep. And she's lying next to me just smiling her ass off for eight hours. I gotta deal with this stupid bird. And I was just like, if this is what it's like to be dead, to just lie here in the black and just float. Nobody says anything stupid about yoga. You don't have to hear anything about this bird. I don't have to get out. I can't really can't think of a reason to get out of this bed ever again. So I might as well just kill myself and be done with it. That happened for a good while. And then one day I was waiting to get a CAT scan. I was in the waiting room. And they give you this liquid you gotta drink. It's like a radioactive dye. And they try to cover the taste with crystal light. And they're like, oh, it just tastes like crystal light. It tastes exactly like robot piss sweetened with antifreeze. And I'm sitting there just drinking my drink, marinating my body's tissues. And this couple comes into cancer ward. And the man, he just is like standing. He's like the prowl of a ship. And he just comes in and he has these silver, perfect silver temples, just like an asshole. And he's got this anus colored suntan. He looks perfectly responsible for the entire financial crisis. And the woman that he's with was gorgeous at one time. And her hair is just. You guys are gonna feel great about yourself in a second. Her hair was like a oak river and had these vivid, piercing blue eyes. But the cancer laughers. The cancer has ravaged her body. And she's like a pile of antlers in a bathrobe. And she sits down next to him to wait and she nestles into his body. And then he just falls asleep, like. Like, mouth open, back hard, not even trying not to snore. And she pokes him. And it was just like, you know, you wouldn't be quite so tired if you hadn't been out doing all those drugs again with God knows how many other women. And he says, he says this. He says, well, we discussed my habits before we entered into this relationship, so I don't think I should have to explain that at all. I'm just here to support you right now, okay? And she was like, oh, okay. Well, here's another habit you have. You follow me around especially when I need my own alone time. When I go to the apartment in Italy, you know, that's what I need. When I need to think for myself, you know, I can't think for myself when you're around. But what happens? You show up with all your friends a day later, and then we're just doing blow and skiing all over again like nothing's wrong. I can't believe this. I can't believe you. And he's like, well, I don't. I don't apologize for any of this. That's my apartment. You just have a key. And then they just are fighting back and forth. And he's like, I don't think I should have to put up with this at all. And she's like, well, you don't. Cause we're done. Get out of my life. Goodbye. Breaks up with the guy in the cancer ward and stomps out and just boosh, slams the door. And there's like six extra nurses, like, pretending to look at a clipboard in there, like. And then another nurse ruins the best breakup in the world and says, no, no, no, no, honey, we're not ready for you yet. Go sit down with your boyfriend. We're getting the machine calibrated, and she sits down next to him. And they're just hating each other with their nostrils just like. Like that. And I felt amazing. I felt so. My heart soared because, like, I'm a ball short. I got a touch of cancer, but I'm quite accustomed to being depressed, all right? Like, I will adjust. These people have money poisoning, and that rots your soul from the inside out. And you gotta rub cocaine and helicopter rides and smoked salmon and shit all over yourself just to feel excited anymore. I don't have that. That feels real good. So, I mean, schadenfreude, or however the fuck you say that. But also, I go up and I just. The epiphany broadens, right? Like supporting somebody in walking up to them on the street and saying, do my favorite thing, and then never talking to them again. It's not sitting, but text message about wheatgrass juice. And it's not coming to the doctor with them, but being an asshole. Supporting a person that is sick and, like, really helping them. It's going to their house and pretending like you've never seen Pooty Tang before, even though you just saw it the other day. It's lying there next to them in a bed that is just way too small while they wrestle that black bird and then be in there for them when the sun comes up and the light comes back every day. So I called my girlfriend, who is the same woman I've been crying to all summer about how lonely I feel and how I can't connect with anybody else. She picks up the phone and I said baby, I just saw the the best fight in the cancer award. You are not going to believe this. And she goes like oh no, I have seen a fair few of those myself. Let me shut my office door. I want you to tell me all about it. And then just right then for a little bit, that black bird flew away. Thanks guys.

[Kevin]

Jeff zimmerman. I like anus colored suntans. Takes all kinds, I guess.

[Benjamin Boster]

Hey folks, this is Kevin in 2026 again. Listen, if you love Risk, one way you can support us for free is by writing us reviews and giving us five star ratings on Apple Pod. I know what you're thinking. You're wondering, has Kevin ever used shampoo or dishwashing liquid instead of laundry detergent? Wondering if that'd work. Or has Kevin ever ruined countless items of clothing by washing them incorrectly? Of course I have. I am not a master of laundry and the one thing that always gets me is how my clothes don't usually smell nice. But now things have changed. I have laundry sauce which makes my clothes look and feel and smell incredible. I got a compliment yesterday on how good my shirt I'd cleaned with laundry sauce Australian sandalwood scent in it. These highly concentrated pods are packed with the cleaning power of bioenzymes that obliterate stains. Laundry sauce also offers fabric conditioner, scent booster, dryer sheets, fabric fresher spray and a fresh full money back guarantee. If you don't get better smelling cleaner laundry, you get a full refund for an unlimited time only. Our listeners get 20% off your entire order when you use the code risk@laundry sauce.com that's 20% off your order@laundry sauce.com with the promo code risk after your purchase they'll ask you where you heard about the them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time to make laundry day the

[Kevin]

best day of the week.

[Benjamin Boster]

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[Kevin]

All right, our next storyteller first met her a couple years ago when she took one of our classes at the Story Studio. Such a charming young lady, a beauty and a wonderful storyteller. She's a four time Moth winner now and she's going to be on the Moth Radio hour very soon. So please welcome to the stage Miss Kate Greathead.

[Kate Greathead]

So I thought everything was perfect, that we were going to get married and have a baby and join the food co op and live park slopily ever after. And I was so excited for this life that I got a little impatient. And there was some fighting. And one night the words shit or get off the pot were spoken by me. And he chose the get off the pot option. And it was his pot which meant that I had to vacate. So on top of having my heart broken, I had to go on Craigslist and find a new apartment. And then I had to deal with the nightmare of the man in the van, should be called the criminal in the van. And I just, it was so hard. And I just, I never in my life felt so sorry for anyone as I did for myself in the days and weeks that followed. One evening I was getting on the subway to go home from work and it was really crowded. And I was standing by the door and that little man came on and said, stand clear of the closing doors, please. And I'd heard him say that, you know, like thousands of times, but all of a sudden the word struck me as like, kind of personal and poetic. And as the doors were sliding Shut. And the train started to move. I realized, oh my God, oh my God, I'm about to cry. And I was really scared and embarrassed because I'd never cried on public transportation before. But once it started happening, I got really into was on like any cry I'd ever had. It was like I tapped into a sadness that was bigger than my own. And like, my tears were part of the collective misery of everyone who has ever ridden through the bowels of the New York City subway system. And it was kind of beautiful and it just felt great. So the next night I got on the subway to go home from work and the same thing happened. I started crying, but this time on purpose. And so what began by accident as like an involuntary outburst became an emotionally cathartic routine, which became the part of the day I most look forward to. I couldn't wait to leave work so I could run to the 59th street station and get on a Brooklyn bound 4, 5, and start crying and cry and cry all the way home. Just to explain there wasn't really anywhere else I could cry because you're not allowed to cry at work and you're not supposed to. And in my new apartment, it came with all these millennial roommates and the walls are made out of cardboard and I just felt self conscious. And you can cry to friends, but only so many minutes per month. And I'd already used up my year supply of those. So the subway was all. And the subway is actually. I know it's weird to cry in public, but, you know, anyone who's ever ridden the New York City subway knows, like, pretty much as long as you keep your hands to yourself, pretty much anything goes down there. And so that's what I did. It became my thing. And as the weeks became months, I started to have this problem. Though I had trouble getting emotionally aroused, the whole staying clear of the closing door line just wasn't doing it for me anymore. So I created a playlist on my phone. It was called Crying on the Subway. And it had songs like Bob Dylan's Tangled up in Blue. And once I got sick of that, I got the Indigo Girls version of that song. And then I had Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, it's all right. And then I listened to that too many times and I found a no data version, which is really good. It had songs like that. And I'd listen to them while thinking emotionally charged thoughts like, what is he doing right now at this minute? And what are his plans for dinner tonight? And then I'd think of, like, emotionally charged memories. Like, we used to have this little post coital routine where we chug a bottle of seltzer. We both really like seltzer. And then when it was done, I throw the empty bottle across the room and it would hit the wall and then it would bounce on the floor and roll underneath the bed. This was funny. And we'd laugh. And then I think about the future that wouldn't happen. Like, I'd visualize us giving our baby its first bath in the kitchen sink. And then when it got a little older, taking it for a walk around the block, holding hands and doing that swing thing that kids like so much. We go like, 1, 2, 3, wheel. And then I think about this little hair growing out of his ear, which I actually didn't like. And I wished he would pluck because it was a reminder of his age. He was 15 years older than me, which meant it was really sad because it meant that he would get old and die first.

[Jean Lebeck]

Though, of course.

[Kate Greathead]

Now this was good. I mean, it would be great if he would get old and die tomorrow. Not as a punishment, but because it would be easier for me to think of him as dead than to imagine him going on living and possibly doing these things with another person who wasn't me. So one night I'm on the subway, riding home from work, thinking these thoughts, listening to my Crying on the Subway playlist. And I'm crying and all of a sudden my phone dies. So there's no more music. But that's okay because the seal has been broken. So, like, I'm good for the ride. But then all of a sudden, the train stops at the 14th at Union Square, and this homeless man gets on and he's all, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry to disturb you. And then he starts carrying on about his hard life. And I was, like, kind of annoyed because, you know, like, my life has been hard to. And it was kind of hard to, like, focus on my problems while he's, like, carrying on in this volume. I'm trying to tune him out and I'm half succeeding, but at a certain point, I hear him pause the middle of his narrative and say, there's a lot of beautiful women on board. And no disrespect to the others, but she's my favorite. And I looked up and he was pointing at me. And then I looked around and there were, like, a lot of attractive women. I didn't agree with him. Like, I don't even know if I'd make the top four, five or six. But he thought I was the most beautiful woman on the subway car. And the compliment just like caught me off guard. And I stopped crying and I started smiling. Smiling with the same abandoned that I'd been crying. And I was really embarrassed because crying on the subway is a sign of like a normal human response to life. But smiling on the subway is not a sign of mental health. And I didn't want the other passengers to look at me and think I was. So I tried to think sad thoughts, but I couldn't stop smiling. And then I started to think, oh my God, are they going to think I'm vain? Because I'm not vain. I'm just flattered. But you know what? Like all the flattering in the world couldn't make up for the hole in my heart. And I wanted to communicate this to the other passengers. But I was having trouble because the smile wasn't going away. It was just getting bigger. It was spreading like a big pink rash across my face until it was no longer a smile, but a full blown shit eating grin. At which point I got up and stood to face the window so no one could see me smiling like a lunatic all the way home. The next night I got on the subway to go home from work and it was business as usual. I made sure my phone was booted up and I was listening to crying on the Subway and thinking emotionally charged thoughts. Like I was imagining him doing the seltzer thing with another woman and then them having a baby and then that baby growing into a kid. And then the three of them scooting down 6th Avenue on the scooters on their way to the food Co op. And I was feeling bad feelings, but nothing that was like enough to make me cry. And I was like, okay, I have to do the whole thing over to a different song and concentrate a little harder. And so I was getting a little bit closer, a little bit closer to crying. I was like, maybe almost there, when all of a sudden the train stops with a violent jerk and the doors open and it's my stop and I have to get off. And that was, was the beginning of the end of crying on the subway for me. And it wasn't like I stopped feeling sorry for myself. It was like I could no longer get off on feeling sorry for myself. So I had to find other activities to pursue to make me feel good. Anyway, it's been a year and I've seen that same homeless guy a few times. And I always. He's walking through the car and I always give him a dollar. I don't think he remembers me, but I'll always remember him for helping remind me that as good as it feels to feel bad, it feels even better to feel good. Thank you,

[Jean Lebeck]

Kate.

[Kevin]

Brainhead. Okay, our next storyteller, he. He has an album that just came out called Live from Outer Space. You can find it at livefromaouterspace.com and he has a show that is every Friday at the Cobra Club in Bushwick, my neighborhood. In fact, I'm going to be at this show tomorrow night. It's also called Live From Outer space. Please welcome Mr. John F. O'.

[Sean Crespo]

Donnell. Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody.

[Jeff Zimmerman]

How are you?

[Sean Crespo]

Cool, man. All right, so I'm gonna tell you guys the story. I'm gonna try to tell it in a logical sort of way with the beginning, middle, and end, but it's gonna be really hard because when it was happening to me, I was not anywhere near having a logical frame of mind. I was, like, completely insane and stuff like that. So it's sort of hard to, like, retell and, like insane, but I'm gonna figure out how to do it. Also, I was, like, pretty hungover still from last night and stuff like that. And I don't usually go out and drink so much, but at somebody's birthday party, and I hadn't seen friends in a long time, we just, like. Things got crazy. We closed down to one place and we went to the other one. It was a gay bar. I'm not gay, but it's still really fun. And we were, like, playing pool and it was good. Okay, so it's 2008, all right. And I've already been in New York for a while. I'm a comedian. I'm a stand up comedian. And I've already been establishing myself. Things have been going well. But now in 2008, my entire new York City life is crumbling to the ground. Everything's terrible because I'm acting bizarre. I'm super agitated. I'm very aggressive with people. I'm just acting really, really weird. My friends are distancing themselves from me. I'm getting kicked out of all these places that I would perform at and things like that. All of my roommates have moved out because they can't handle what's going on with me anymore. I changed the locks at my apartment because I was gonna get evicted and things like that. Sure, it probably wasn't helping that I was just smoking copious amounts of marijuana. Just like, bong, rip, bong rip, bong rip. And then just like multiple Bottles of red wine as well. That probably wasn't helping anything. And then I was, like, dressed in a really bizarre way too. Sometimes I would wear like a sea captain's hat for some reason. And I had these big brown glasses, but one of the stems was missing, so just sort of hang on the side. And I'd wear a tie, but with just a T shirt underneath it. And I had a cane, but I didn't need a cane. It's just for affectation. And then my other hand, I would always carry a trophy. A trophy that I found on this street. A big one with nothing on top. The top had been knocked off. What was that trophy about? Who. Who won what? We'll never know. We'll never know. So, yeah, things were getting really gnarly and I was acting insane and people were freaked out and I was freaked out. I was having hallucinations. I thought I was interacting and convening with these really cool spirits of, like, I thought I was hanging out with, like, the spirit of Gandhi and Bill Hicks and John Lennon, you know, but I wasn't. And then you have to contextualize, like, what was going on in the world at this time. Like, now we're in, say It's September of 2008 is the lead up to the election, you know, the presidential election. And I really, really, really want Barack Obama to win, like, really, really bad. And it wasn't as much because of his policies as it was because I was truly, truly, truly convinced that the Republicans and the neoconservatives specifically were evil, like satanic lizard God overlords who would stand in circles around pentagrams and like fuck demonic goats from behind while conjuring up evil machinations to fuck with humanity, you know, like, those were their policies, you guys. I really. He wanted Barack Obama to win. And it was like a fucked up time. The financial collapse just happened and stuff like that. It came out that the bush administration with AT&T had been spying on whole swaths of American cell phones and stuff like that. So it was really, really bad. And yes, that thing I said about the Republicans being like, you know, the satanic goat fuckers is probably not true. It's probably not true. I know it's not true. I know it's not true. But I really believe that. Try to just think and imagine for a moment really believing that really deeply and passionately feeling that like that level of evil actually exists and you're the one who knows it and needs to be on some sort of quest from God to save the world. Like, I really felt that pressure, and I can't even describe the amount of pain that that is. It's something I would never wish on my worst enemy. I can't even come up with a metaphor because that is the fucking metaphor. It's like I was creating PTSD for myself. So basically, that is sort of where I was at. And how did I come to think like this? Have you guys heard of a website called YouTube.com There's a lot of videos on that website, you guys. And I would just get into these YouTube black holes. Just four hours of conspiracy video, conspiracy video, conspiracy video, conspiracy video, conspiracy video. And just believe everything, right? And then during this time, a story came out that the government was going to really try to, like, regulate and just sort of, like, censor what was on the Internet. So I extrapolated from that that the neoconservatives, before they left office, were going to crash the entire Internet because there was all of this evidence about their crimes against humanity on the Internet, and they needed to get rid of that so they wouldn't immediately get scooped up by tribunals and instantly executed, right? And I'd be goddamned if I was gonna let that happen, y'. All. So what am I gonna do? Perform the greatest hack of all time? Cause it's time for me to own the Internet for a while, for the forces of good. Granted, I don't even really know how to use HTML or anything like that. But don't worry, I wasn't gonna let that stop me. Right? So now I'll explain to you guys how I did the hack. I won't get too mired in the details because it's like, really a weird sort of thing, but I'll still kind of explain it. Basically, I would just sort of add words to URLs and then email them to myself and think that I owned everything. So it's not so technical, really. So it'd be like this. It'd be like YouTube.comlivefromouter space. That's my website. Okay, back to Whitest Kids. You know, they're my friends. They're more famous than I am. That legitimizes things. Okay, Backslash o' Donnell Kennedy, Vespoli Pieta. That's my father's law firm. Now it's legal. All right. Backslash intc, llc. Intc llc? What's that? It's a new type of corporation. I invented an intc, an internationally incorporated corporation.

[Kevin]

Huh? Huh?

[Sean Crespo]

It's not beholden to any particular country or nation states you don't have to pay nation state based taxes. Instead you pay taxes to the philanthropic endeavor of your choosing, like UNICEF. Okay, so what's that new unique URL now www.YouTube.com live from outer space backslash whitest kids, you know, backslash O' Donnell Kennedy, Vespolie Pieta, backslash intc.llc backslash UNICEF. Email it to myself. Irrefutable evidence that I own the Internet. So I did this with like a whole bunch of websites, you know, for the world. And then I was really paranoid, and this is true, I was really paranoid that I was instantly gonna just be blown up, that like some sort of drone was gonna explode my apartment building because I had the Internet and they knew that I was gonna let out all the secrets about the weather controlling machines and everything else and the lizard stuff, you know, so. So I had to get the fuck out of my place. I had to get the fuck out of my apartment. I did. But not before filling up my backpack with some books that I needed for the journey. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy. Tool that. Better get in that book in that backpack. I need that. The Gay Science by Frederick Nietzsche. I'm going to need that one too. People's History, United States by Howard Zinn. Better get a copy. Steve Martin's autobiography. Never know when you'll need that one. Never know when you'll need that one. Throw that in the bag, right? So then I take that in a really big umbrella for some reason and I leave. And I'm convinced I have to get out of New York City. I have to get to my grandmother and uncle's house in Bayonne, New Jersey immediately so I can go off the grid so I don't get assassinated by the CIA for stealing the Internet. So I leave. And at this time, actually, Barack Obama and John McCain were in New York for a debate, so it was really hard to get around the subway. So whatever reason, I end up taking the ferry, the ferry boat from like lower Manhattan to Staten island, right? Staten Island Ferry. And I remember when I'm waiting for the ferry, I'm so paranoid and out of my head that there's like another boat there. And I'd just gotten back from Ireland and I was like, okay, I have to be ready at any moment if the heat is too much to get on this other boat that'll take me to Ireland, right? But, you know, I didn't have to get on Ireland boat, you guys. It was okay. So I get on this other. I get on the boat. The Staten island ferry, and I get to Staten Island. Now, Staten island and Bayonne are connected by the Bayonne Bridge, right? And I'm sort of trying to figure out how to get to the Bayonne Bridge, how to get a bus to all the way to Bayonne. But I keep getting on the wrong bus. I'm getting really frustrated. I'm getting really confused. I'm really psychologically out of my gourd, right? And then somehow at some point, I was walking around and I end up at the Bayonne Bridge. And I start crossing over the Bayonne Bridge. But not on the people walking part. I was on the car driving part. And I'm just like walking there on the side, and there's cars whizzing back and forth. And I remember at one point I really almost fell over, and I really thought that I was gonna die. But then I steadied myself and I looked up and I saw a plane leaving. And I saw behind it some sort of weird kind of like, cloud. And I was totally convinced that in the plane was Barack Obama leaving New York. But behind him was Karl Rove, manifested as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, living inside his weather controlled machine cloud. And I remember saying, oh, my goodness, if I point this out, I'm probably instantly going to die. But for the sake of humanity, if you see evil in the present form, you must point that evil out. So with all of the courage I could muster in my entire mind, body and soul, I took my black umbrella and pointed up at that evil Karl Rove weather cloud. And then nothing happened. So I keep crossing the bridge, and then suddenly the cars just start blaring and going at me. And it's crazy, right? Oh, the cops just kind of like swarmed in. They drove in because I guess somebody who knows CB'd in the radio or something like that, I don't know. But basically they saw me there and they were like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm trying to get to my grandmother's house is what I said, right?

[Kevin]

It's true.

[Sean Crespo]

And they're like, what's in your bag? What's your bag? I'm like, books. And they. So they opened it and looked at all the books, and then they just drove me across the rest of the bridge, and we're like, all right, see you later. And then I walked to my grandmother's house and I showed up. My grandmother and my uncle were there, and they said, john, listen, it's happening again. It's happened Again. And I said, what's happened again? I said, you're having another manic episode. You're manic depressive. You have bipolar I disorder. You've been through this before. And I had. And I'd gotten through it and had then acknowledged the fact that I'd been manic. But one of the treacherous aspects of being manic is that when you're in the throes of it, you don't have the self knowledge that you are manic, even if people you know, love and trust are screaming in your face that you are. So I couldn't accept it. Instead, I thought I was living at a higher level of consciousness and everybody else was just trying to label me as mentally ill, so. So they can compartmentalize me and dismiss me instead of having to change the way they're living their life. So I'd like to say I just had a cup of tea, went to bed at my grandmother's house, woke up and everything was okay. But that's not how it went down. I basically maintained and continued to be crazy and manic in New York for another two months until cops showed up in my place. And I was involuntarily committed and put in Elmhurst State Hospital in Queens, which was a really, really just terrible place where I was roommates with a guy named Mr. Wu, who only communicated by spitting on the ground and eating oranges. It was very strange state of affairs. And I got my mind back when I was there. And I remember the moment that I got my mind back and realized that all of the things that I believed were total bullshit and I'd burned my entire life to the ground. The only way to describe that overwhelming amount of pain and humiliation is, though I was a lion who'd been reduced to a worm, but was tortured by the memory of what it was like to be that lion. Holy shit, that's poetic. I wrote that, you know, and then I got out of the hospital and then for as equally long as I was manic, which is about nine months, I was depressed for that long. But that's less sort of interesting to talk about. It's more boring. But I felt like I just, like, went home with my mom and I just ate ice cream every day for nine months and watched Burn Notice in USA because I felt like I didn't deserve to watch good television, you know what I mean? And I was really sad. But then, you know what? I picked myself up, I got back to New York, I started making amends with all of my friends. I started doing Comedy shows. Again, I immediately addressed everything that I've been through publicly and honestly on stage. And within one year of getting out of the hospital, my name was up on the marquee performing at Webster hall, the oldest, longest running entertainment venue in New York City. So I don't know if a lot of people can really say that. So I'm really proud of that. I'm John F. O'. Donnell. Thank you very much.

[John F. O'Donnell]

Jon f. O'.

[Mona]

Donnell.

[Kevin]

A lot of that was crazy, but I'm not sure we should write off the whole idea of, of Karl Rove possibly being one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse just yet. Okay. I should say before we get to our final storyteller that if you are interested in learning this storytelling stuff, we also have a school called the story studio. At thestorystudio.org we teach all kinds of workshops and one on one training over Skype or in person. In fact, two of our storytellers here may met in one of our workshops. A lot of people who do workshops together end up in the storytelling scene and friends. So check us [e-mail] and I should also say, hang out with us after the show. After the show, stick around in the bar, say hello, talk to the storytellers, talk to me. We love to hang out with everyone after the show. Okay, now our final storyteller. I love her so much. She is a wonderful, remarkable personality. She's been on Risk twice before doing radio style stories, but this is the first time she'll be doing a live story with us. She's done the moth many times and here she is now, Ms. Jean Lebeck.

[Jean Lebeck]

It's September 30, 1966 and I am marrying Fred Miller. We are standing under the chuppah. The ceremony is long and it's in Yiddish. We don't understand one word of it, but we are waiting for the words and finally we hear them. The rabbi says, I now pronounce you man and wife. You can kiss, Mrs. Miller. I close my eyes. This is the kiss I've been waiting for. That every bride waits for. And I turn to kiss Fred and he turns and kisses his mother. It was a sign. And now it's four years later, 1970. I'm 22 years old. I have a beautiful little girl, Amy, who's two years old. And I have a husband who acts like he's two. Two years old. Fred just takes naps all day and goes out on play dates with his friends at night. So we are living on food Stamps. And I am trapped by the fact that we have no money. Amy thinks that turning on the lights means you light candles. So on the morning that I hear the news that the city university system was starting a program called Open Admissions. With just a high school school degree, you could go back to college, any college. I dressed Amy, got on the 41 bus down Flatbush Avenue and enrolled in Brooklyn College as an education major along with hundreds of other women. We went back to school and our children came with us because we had no childcare. So we would be sitting in classes and women would be nursing their babies and taking notes at the same time. And there would be cranky toddlers climbing around chairs. I had Amy in this kind of baby backpack, and I would just kind of wiggle all day and keep feeding her pretzels, crackers, anything to keep her quiet so I could focus on the lecture. So we formed this committee and we went to the administration and we said, look, we need a room in a building on campus. And the administration reluctantly agreed. So we started a daycare center. We brought in cots and cribs and toys and stories, and we made up schedules. And in between classes we would run to the center and give a hug, wipe a tear, make lunch. And other women began to come to the center as well. It became like a place for women to gather. But by mid year, administration wanted the room back. And so early on a January morning, it was really cold. Ten of us stuffed pillows under our clothing and with signs, we went around chanting, we've been fucked by the administration. We've been fucked by the administration. And by noon there were a hundred of us, all these women stuffing pillows up their clothing. We've been fucked by the administration. They called the police. And the police began chanting at us, you know, go home, you know, feed your husbands, take care of your kids. And we would chant, we've been fucked by the administration. And the and students began leaving classes. It got really big, it was electric. And we got our room. My friend Sally organized a woman's consciousness raising group. And every Wednesday we would sit in her living room on this burnt orange shag rug. We all looked exactly the same. We were wearing overalls, beige work boots, a white T shirt. We actually looked like we were part of some kind of prison gang, you know, chain gang, you know. But we would sit cross legged and we would share a joint and we would cry, we would laugh. We confessed our sins and we gave advice, sometimes terrible advice a woman would share. Oh, my God, my husband, he wants me out of these overalls and into a dress and makeup and look a little sexy. And we'd be like, leave him. And, you know. Or it would be. Or it would be like, you know, he doesn't do the dishes, and I try talking to him. He doesn't understand me. Leave him. There should have been, like, some kind of warning label, you know, if you enter this group with a man, you will leave without that man, unless he's your son. So the book Our bodies, ourselves had just come out, and we would read it and pore over it like it was the American sex novel. We just had so much fun. We would say words like ovaries, fallopian tubes, how's your uterus?

[Mona]

It was.

[Jean Lebeck]

But it was at one of these meetings that I met Mona. And she had hair to her shoulders, red hair and big, gray, green eyes. I liked her right away. She had style because her overalls were embroidered with beautiful little flowers, Very intricate, beautiful little flowers hanging on these green zigzag vines. And she smoked Benson and Hedges. She had this way of kind of tapping. And she was. She would take a drag and she would exhale, and she would talk while she exhaled. So the smoke just kind of went around her words. I thought she was so sexy. But after six months in Sally's women's group, my marriage to Fred ended. And I think he was relieved. You know, I promised him he could have as many play dates with Amy as he wanted. And Mona's marriage also ended, and we became friends. Her daughter Ingrid was exactly the same age as my daughter Amy, and we lived very close to each other, so we began to rely on each other. If she couldn't pick up Ingrid, I did. And if I couldn't pick up Amy, she did. And we began to shop together and cook together, do laundry together. A natural rhythm kind of formed. And when I wasn't with her, there was always something I felt I had to tell her. But we had this major disagreement. Major. And that was what we called our vaginas, because I called my vagina a vagina, and Amy called her vagina a vagina. But Mona called her vagina a snatch, and Avery called her vagina a snatch, which drove me crazy. So we had to change the names of the vaginas. So we decided on. But now. Now the vaginas had two names because the girls couldn't make the transition. So Amy would say, my vagina pussy, and Ingrid would say, you know, my vagina snatch. Like, you know, John Doe or Jean Levesque. And one evening, we Got babysitters. And we went to see the movie Capture. And we were sitting in the car right outside my apartment building after the movie. And you know, we were sitting, we were singing Mundi makes the world Go around the world go around when Mona just looked at me and she said, boy, you know, I really feel like kissing you. So I said, so kiss me. And she kissed me. And oh my God, it was like butterflies in my mouth. And it was like trumpets, ta da and sunsets. And this was the kiss I was waiting for. And I ran out of the car and I ran into my apartment and I just paced the kitchen floor saying, call me, call me, please call me. And she did call me. And I grabbed the phone and I could. She was going, jean. And I'm going, mona. And she's laughing and I'm laughing. And I slid down the kitchen wall all the way to the hard linoleum, laughing, holding the phone, my knees to my chin, gripping the phone and laughing. And so we became lovers, but we really didn't know what to do without a penis. And so if you can imagine, like tiny little kittens kind of rolling and petting and you know, like all these little things. But that was kind of like what we were doing. And then. But one night, Mona lit candles and she put on Carole King and to this song, you've got a Friend. She found her way past my pussy snatched vagina to this whole other place. And I came. I really came for the very first time in my entire life. Yes, yes. Well, people, before going to sleep that night, she said, and you know, sweetie, you could do this to yourself anytime you want. Well, I woke up that morning with this unbelievable joy, this new sense of power. And I worked six blocks away in a daycare center. We had a 45 minute lunch. And so the moment it was lunchtime, I ran those six blocks and I prayed that elevator didn't get stuck on some godforsaken floor. And I masturbated on. I masturbated quickly and slowly, lying on my bed with my clothes on, with my clothes off, at my kitchen table in front of a mirror. But then one day, just as I was about to make my escape, I am surrounded by four of my co workers. And they're like, no, no, no, you are not going anywhere. And they kind of ushered me into this tiny little classroom and they were like little chairs in a semicircle. It was like a celebrity intervention. And we just all sat down and Pauline, who was the spokeswoman, said, where are you going? Every Day. You leave here as soon as it's lunchtime and you come back looking all weird, and, you know, you don't eat lunch with us anymore. You miss Neil's birthday. What the hell are you doing? And I looked at them all and. And I said, well, well, I'm masturbating. And Pauline said, you're masturbating? You're masturbating every day. And I was like, yes, I am masturbating every day. And she's like, you're masturbating every day? And I'm like, every day. And she's like, holy shit. And I said, but listen, you know, tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm eating lunch with you. Don't worry. Tomorrow I'm eating lunch with you. And she said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tomorrow I'm going home and I'm masturbating. And then that evening, when I told Mona that I think, you know, I might have said too much, that I think everybody might now know I masturbate. Everybody in the daycare center, she was like, ha, ha ha. Now every time you go to. To the bathroom and you spend a little extra time in there, they're going to be like, oh, you know what you're doing in there. Mona and I loved each other, and we never questioned it. We took it like a gift. We healed each other's wounds and we helped each other go forward. We gave each other courage. I wouldn't have gotten through school without Mona. And it broke my heart saying goodbye to her. But she wanted to go to Maine and live on the land and grow vegetables and poop in an outhouse and build a cabin and no running water. And that wasn't what I wanted to do. And so we said goodbye. And for the first two years, we wrote letters. We tried to stay in contact. We visited each other. She came to New York. I went to Maine. But life has a way. And we just kind of melted away from each other. And 40 years passed, and we never said one word. But I found her on Facebook and we made kind of a telephone date. I was so nervous calling her. And then I did call her, and the phone rang, and then she picked up the phone, and she was like, jean. And I was like, mona. And we laughed and we laughed. And in that second, I was once more that very young, young, young woman who slid down my kitchen wall holding a butterfly kiss, and she was wearing embroidered overalls.

[Mona]

Call my number. 26, and 3/4. Turn on the lights now. Let's do it again. You were Insatiable. I was more than keeping the room and you fall in my corner. Why would you do it again? You. You. See? One more time? Let's do it again. Yeah, let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again.

[Kevin]

That's it for this week, folks. This is Camera Obscura behind me now, guys, [e-mail] Holy Comoles. There is suddenly a lot of interest in our corporate workshops. The word is out. People are loving the workshops that we're doing for business staffs. So if you think that your staff might also benefit from a workshop in how to communicate in a more emotional, more personal, more experiential sort of way, the kind of communicating that people remember, the kind of communicating that persuades, get in touch with us because we can custom design a corporate workshop for you and your [e-mail] I think that's about all for now. So until next week, folks. Today's the day. Take a risk.

[Mona]

Let's do it again let's do it again Again, again Let's do it again let's do it again Again it.

[Kevin]

I want to live forever do you

[John F. O'Donnell]

want to live forever? I do I want to fly so high, babe.