Damian Wilburn (2:40)

Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. It's that wonderful time of year. It's dark all the time. No, I'm already taking this down a bad road. It's bright and sunny sometimes for up to four hours a day. All I'm trying to say is it's December and it's the time of the year when some folks tend to travel. So we thought why not have a couple of stories about traveling. And since we're talking about travel stories today on the podcast, we reached out to listeners on Facebook and Twitter. We asked about some of your most memorable homecomings. We got a bunch of responses. Mitzi says perhaps you never leave home. If you consider your body, mind and spirit as your home, it is always with you. Then it just says I made creativity my home. Mitzi has several homes. Very fortunate. MB commented on Facebook. She said, I didn't want to come back actually, but I had to common refrain with near death experiences and I hope that was not a near death experience that she was talking about. I hope it was just a pleasant trip that she didn't want to have to return from. Kathy writes to say there were seven kids in our family. Upon graduation from high school, our parents told us we had to leave our house for two years before we could move back in with them. We all went off to college and none of us ever moved back home. Those are strange terms. It almost seems like they're planning something. Seems strange. I would put if my parents told me that I would like call that in a suspicious behavior. If you see something, say something. I'd be like my folks have asked me to leave the house for two years and then move back in. I don't know what they're doing over here. Our first story this week comes from our Ann Arbor story Slam. The theme of the night was homecoming. Here's a story from Amir Bagdacci.

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I was flying into a London airport and although that's where I was living at the time, although I was actually flying home, the line I had to wait in when I landed was the immigration line for foreigners and the agent asked to inspect my passport. I think this is an anxious moment for everybody because you're just standing there praying please God let me look like myself. But I'm a savvy traveler and I had taken a precaution. When I got my passport photo taken, I tried to make the most non threatening face possible, something wide eyed and whimsical and in then I went with don't know why I made the sound. So the agent is inspecting my passport and I'm just standing there going, ha. But I'm also praying that she doesn't turn the page because my passport is not like your passport. It looks exactly the same. It's official, it's from the state department, but by accident, the pages got sewn in in the wrong order. So it goes 6, 19, 5, 23 and. Exactly. And when I realized this, I called the state department up and they're like, yeah, it happens, it's still official. And I was like, okay, but now I look like the most amazing counterfeiter who ironically is bad at counting. Like, if you're impressed with this passport, check out my sixth flawless. But she doesn't turn the page. And instead another agent pops up, baby faced. He couldn't have been more than 22. And he says, so, hi there, just come with me, I have a couple questions for you. And I follow him to this windowless room and he says to me, I swear to you, this is what he says to me. He says to me, so I see you have a beard. Are you Muslim? Exactly. I was speechless too. That was my reaction, right? I was shocked because A, that this kind of targeting goes on, and B, that airport security experts had not hit on a more nuanced technique for identifying terrorists than beards, right? Like they were going, hmm, we can't do racial profiling, but what about facial profiling? And on top of that, right, this guy couldn't have been more than 15. He couldn't even grow a beard. So clearly jealousy was at work. So I say, I am sorry, I'm not answering that question. Okay, Those are actually the words that I said, but actually it came out like, I am not answering that question. And he goes, sir, you seem a bit agitated. Is there a reason why you're a bit agitated? And I say, yeah, the reason I'm agitated is because I'm being detained for no reason. And he says, sir, I'm not detaining you, we're just having a chat. And I'm like, a chat? Yeah, a chat typically doesn't happen in a windowless room with a government agent. And he just smiles. And I can see him making a note to himself. Subject confesses open hostility to government agents. And I say, okay, look, look, I just need to get out of here because I have to catch this train, the 215 train. That is the only good train. I need to catch that train. And he goes, wow, that's interesting. You seem to have made an extensive study of our transport system. Why? And then he Bends over right at my eye level, and he says, and by the way, sir, we've been looking at your passport and it seems like the pages are in the wrong order. Is there something you'd like to tell us now? It is infuriating being treated like a terrorist. It is also infuriating being treated like a child. And currently I am being treated like both by someone who couldn't have been more than five. So I'm so indignant. And I decide right then and there that I am not going to stand for this violation of civil liberties. Even though, to be honest, up to that point, I had never really bothered with civil liberties. Right. In fact, if instead of me, I had watched the guy take an Amish lady away, I would have said, I don't know. I mean, sure, she looks innocent, but if she's got nothing to hide, what's with the bonnet? Or should I say terror head covering. But the guy goes. And when he comes back, he's like, okay, everything's fine now. All checked out. Have a lovely journey. Thank you very much. I'm like, wait, wait, wait. What? I can go? Well, that's good, because I was just going to go. And when I got home, I told everyone the news that I was now a martyr. And someone said, hey, but you know, don't you realize there are really two sides to that story? Because both you and that agent had a different understanding of each other's behavior. And I thought, oh, my God, that is so right. Because from my point of view, I was this noble, innocent victim of this vicious, tyrannical system. And that point of view is correct.

Amir Bagdadi (10:37)

Amir Baghdadi.

Damian Wilburn (10:40)

Amir Bagdhee says he's failed at nearly every job he's had, including paperboy, theater critic, oyster shucker, Uncle Sam impersonator, scholar of antiquity, short order cook, mutual fund salesman, rentable leprechaun. Well, don't be hard on yourself for failing at that one. Fine arts, translator, advertising copywriter, personal chef, resume fixer, barn painter and candidate for county office. Why did he fail at that? He had so much experience and everything else, you think he would have done great at that. Currently, he's somewhat successfully playing a failed professor in the series dunce. You can check that out@dunceseries.com for our second story, we're going to go to our story Slam in Detroit. The theme of the night was wanderlust, and this story is from Damian Wilburn.

Amir Bagdadi (11:38)

All right, no problem. So, good evening. This is supposed to be about wanderlust, and I don't really go anywhere But I went somewhere once, so I figured I'd tell this story. So my wife happens to be the love of my life and the bane of my existence, all wrapped up in one person. And we have been together for seven years or 70 years, depending upon what I'm drinking. And she was in a class, and the class professor said, hey, I need you to write out an itinerary for a trip. So price it out, ticket prices, airline, everything. Price it all out. And then bring it to class and we'll discuss it. Now, most people who do this end up going on the trip. So I'm downstairs watching Andy Griffith, paying no attention to what's going on. I don't even know what her degree is in. I'm moving on. So I hear this bounding down the stairs and she's like, guess what? I'm like, what? She's like, we can go to Paris for under three grand for like 10 days. And I can hear the moths, like, fluttering in my purse like, I got a nickel. So I'm like, yay, I'm glad we know that. Now that's a piece of information we can file away for later because we don't own anything. So she. So she's like, she looks all depressed. And I'm thinking, well, what would any woman man do when his wife is depressed? You lie. So I said, well, I tell you what, honey, the next time we get a big old chunk of money, we're going to go to Paris. We're going to fucking do it. So put your paper up and get your hopes up. Because money just falls out of the sky. That's normal. So just wait it out. So now this is a Sunday night, okay? Monday morning, I shit you not. It's 10 o'clock in the morning and my phone rings. First of all, I live in Detroit, so let's establish that the fact that my mail was delivered before midnight is a. Is a miracle, okay? So my wife says to me, are you sitting down? And I'm thinking, somebody died. Hopefully it's our dog. I hate that damn dog. Moving on, moving on, moving on. So she. So I'm preparing myself, like, get the fake tears going. Oh. And she's like, you got a check from the government? I'm like, which government? She was like, our government. I'm like, I owe them more money than God. So somebody fell asleep, it hit the wrong button. But whatever. She said, the check that you got is the exact amount that I put on the paper that we need to go to Paris. And I said, take the Check to the bank, Put the money in. I promised you. I promised you. Buy the tickets. So she's trying to talk me through it. Well, we have these bills and we owe people. I'm like, buy the tickets. So she's talking. Now I want to establish something. My wife is white, okay? And I want to tell you that because that makes. The conversation makes sense. Because I'm black, okay? So the way black works is they gave you money. Spend it. Spend it. In any fucking minute, they're gonna come back and tear that check up. I'm gonna spend that shit, and then we'll talk about how I'm gonna pay it back. But they can't get the tickets. So she's like, no, you know, we owe dte money, okay? If you live in Detroit, you're going to owe dte to your fucking debt. So dte is like a couch. That fucker's gonna always be there. You don't have to worry about dte. They will find your ass. It'll be fine. I've said this before. Like, I had student loans. I was like, if you give Osama bin Laden a Michigan guaranteed loan, we will find his ass. I've moved nine times and they found me. So trust me, that letter is gonna find his ass. You owe us some money, Boo. Moving on, Moving on. So I finally get the check from her. I tear it out of her hand because she's like, we could be paying bills. I'm like, fuck bills. So I go. I cash the check. So here's the thing about going to foreign countries. I didn't realize that you need, like, this thing. It's like a passport, whatever. So you can't actually just leave the United States. And just so we have these tickets. Things I didn't do. I didn't tell my boss I wanted to go to Paris. I needed time off. I figured Paris was the excuse. So she's like, well, we need you here. And I'm like, but I have these tickets to Paris, you know? So we get the tickets, then we get the passports. I'm shitting bricks. So the passports show up, and then we have to go on this trip. So we're in New York and we went to visit a friend, and she walked us to death. And that's not the part that's interesting. What's interesting is, as I mentioned before, I'm black. So when I had to go through customs, I don't know what it is about being black and seeing people with guns, but there's a part of me that Was like, did I bring weed? Like, I don't even smoke weed, you know, I'm like, am I. Did I bring weed? You know, it's like, you don't smoke. Smoke weed. I know, but I'm black, and that just seems to fucking happen. So is there, like, spontaneous weed happening? So we get through, and she's, you know, she just walks through with all her hair and her bags and. And they're all like, oh. They look at her passport, and I swear to God, the guy looked at me like, paris, for real? I was like, I'm going. I'm with her. I'm traveling with a white woman. What more do you want? So we get there, we get to Paris, and this is. This is the jacked up part of the story. So I took Detroit to Paris by mistake. So this. Okay, so in Paris, these guys will make you bracelets, right? So they make these bracelets and they tie it to your wrist and they say, it's 10 year olds, right? So I saw this on, like, Rick Steves. Because all I have is free tv, so I watch PBS like a religion. So Rick Steves is like, they're going to do this. Don't let them do it. So I'm in Paris. I know like, nine French words, okay? Nine. One of them is for the toilet, one of them is for the check. 9. And then I ask everybody, parlez anglais? And they look at me like, yeah, we're shocked that you're here, too. But moving on, moving on. So this guy tries to put the bracelet on me, and I'm like, no, no. And he's talking to me in English and French. I'm like, no, no, no. Now, mind you, she's walked me all over the. Is that. Am I dead? What happened? I got one minute. Oh. So I. I go on, right? So I'm walking, and the guy keeps going. The guy keeps going. And I swear to you, Detroit is a sickness. It rolled out of my face before I could stop it. All of a sudden, I turn and said, did not tell you. No. Did not. Damn it. Did not tell you.

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No.

Amir Bagdadi (17:44)

I've been here 10 days. I've been pleasant to every damn body. Get out my face. You tie that thing around my wrist, I'm gonna break your neck. Oh, you can speak English now, can't you? You can speak English now, can't you? Now the part that's funny. I had to bring Detroit all the way over here. What cracks me up is I look to my right and there's this whole group of People wearing U of M sweatshirts and they are laughing their asses off like, ah, you got Detroited. See, we told you to leave us alone. It was so. But this is. This is the best part of the story. So we come out of Paris. It's one day I'll come back and tell you the death march my wife took me on to look for her perfect perfume. But we'll move on. We come out of Paris, we fly into LaGuardia, and I'm going, like, now I'm thinking, did I buy weed in Paris? You know, I'm trying to figure out, you know, what did I do? And I get to the guy, and the guy in LaGuardia looks at my passport and he looks at me and he says, welcome home. And at that point, it dawned on me that I was a US citizen because I'd never left the country. No one had ever said welcome home to me because I'd never left home. So wanderlust took me to Paris and Wanderlust taught me where home was. So thank you.

Damian Wilburn (18:52)

Damian Wilson Gilburn is a community educator with Generation With Promise in Detroit, Michigan, and chief marketing director for Twisted Willow Soap company. She credits her storytelling abilities to attending the Detroit waldorf school for 10 years and spending summers on the front porch of her grandparents in Macon, Georgia. Damian spends her free time writing poetry, singing, and working on her first book. She says that she's married to the most beautiful, beautiful woman in the world. Okay, everyone, that is it. That's all for the Moth podcast this time you can find us on Facebook and on Twitter hemoth. We're also on Instagram mothstories if that's your thing. Check us out there. Thanks for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week.

Dan Kennedy (19:38)

Dan Kennedy is the author of the books Loser Goes First. Rock on and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and performer with the Moth.

Damian Wilburn (19:47)

The Moth podcast is produced by Whitney Jones. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by Paul Ruest. The Moth Podcast and the Moth Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.