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- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
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- [01:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. The Moth features true stories and by now you know that they're told live without notes. All of the stories on the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series here in New York, also in Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit, and from our tour shows across the country. Visit themoth.org this podcast is brought to you by squarespace.com, the Fast and easy way to create and manage a high quality website or blog. Create a website that's uniquely you to display your photos from Flickr or a blog you've been thinking about starting. Or maybe the tweets and RSS feedback feeds that you like most, all in the design and colors of your choice. Whatever you want to communicate, you can say it easily and with style with Squarespace. And they also have an iPhone app which makes it easy to update your site on the go. Try it out for free today by visiting squarespace.com and signing up, then choosing a design template to get started. No credit card is needed, just give it a try and if you decide to buy, you can enter the code MOTH and to receive 10% off for life. That's squarespace.com and the offer code is MOTH M O T H We thank Squarespace for their support. This week we have two winners from our Story Slam series, one from the east coast and also a winner from the West Coast Story Slam out in Los Angeles and the theme for both Slams, appropriately enough, was flight. Now, since the story slams are basically open mic nights where people put their name in the hat in hopes of being picked to come up on stage. When each storyteller comes up to the mic, nobody has any idea what they're going to say. So, with that in mind, let's hear from our first storyteller, Brookie Phipps Williams. He was our winner in New York.
- [03:04]
Brookie Phipps Williams
So I'm walking back from the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, and I'm with the director of the institute. And this is someone I know, but I'm not friendly with. We don't speak that often, and the conversation's a little forced. And so I'm talking to him, and out of the corner of my eye, this bird leaps off its perch. And I want to make it clear the bird gets nowhere near us, but it passes over. The shadow of the bird goes by my feet, and I literally dive to the ground, and I'm just laying there. So at this point in my life, I had been scared of birds for about two months. It started at physics camps. So if you don't know this, physicists have camp, and they're usually in these exotic locations. And this was in Corsica. And so I arrive, and one of my fellow campers was already there, and he had this huge, gaping gash on his forehead. And I asked him what had happened, and he tells me this very funny story about how he had been waiting for his ferry over to the island, and he was reading this sign, and it said in great detail about how beautiful, be careful of the birds because they will swoop off and then turn around and fly into you. And he's reading this, and he looks up and there's a bird like, three feet from it. It just bashes him in the forehead so much like you guys. I laughed at him. And then I didn't really think about it for the next few weeks. And then camp was over, and I'm traveling around the island with a couple of my friends, and we go out to this parking lot that kind of is on the edge of these cliffs, looking at the ocean, and it's totally beautiful. And we get out of the car, and I look off, and there's this meadow off to the side, and there's this house that's mostly fallen down, but there's still a foundation and a few walls kind of up against these cliffs. And I go through this field and I climb up on one of these walls, and I'm looking out at the ocean, and it's just gorgeous. And I'm sitting there and this giant, this huge bird flies. Flies over and lands nearby. And I look up at him and he looks at me and goes, wa. And so I look at the bird and I say, wa. And then the bird's like, wah, Wah. And I'm like, wa, Wa. And this continues. And I'm getting really, really excited because I've developed this rapport with the bird. And we're friends and I'm so, so happy. And then he swears, swoops away. And I immediately am like, oh. And I like, jump off the wall and I run and I'm scared. And I'm running through this grassy field, like, trying to get back to the parking lot where my friends are. And about halfway through this, I realize that I am a complete spaz. And I just like. So at this point, I'm still kind of running, but I'm laughing at myself. And I get to my friends and I'm trying to catch my breath and I'm laughing and I'm trying to tell them what's happening. And about that time, both my friends, their eyes just like went like this. And they dropped to the ground. And instinctively I dropped too. And as I'm dropping, I feel this gush of wind bash over the back of my head and I'm just like. And my friends, they pop up and they kind of scurry off to the side. I get up and the birds up there with friends, there's about five or six of them, they're swimming around and they start swooping down at me and I just start running. And I'm running through this parking lot and they're swooping and I'm dodging and I'm trying to run in a zigzag line because they're an alligator or something. And I'm going, and I'm going. And then poop starts, like, exploding at my feet. It felt like being in this war world, like this war movie. And there's just. And I'm running and I'm running and I run at the other end of the parking lot, it's this hotel. And I go into this hotel and I close the doors and I'm looking. There's these big glass doors and these birds circled over the doors for 20 minutes. And I'm just like. So I'm laying in the middle of the street with a Nobel prize winning physicist standing above me, and I'm trying to decide how to explain this to him. And then I remembered how awkward and uncomfortable the conversation had been. So I simply got up and I dusted myself off and we walked back to the physics building and we didn't speak anymore.
- [08:00]
Dan Kennedy
Brookie Phipps Williams grew up in Georgia, studied math and physics and became a physicist. He then decided it was a good idea to move to South America, where he worked in a kitchen in Chile and later worked in microfinance in Peru. Currently Brook resides in New York City where he designs web pages, programs and on occasion even tells a story. And just a six hour plane trip away, Moran Cerf told his flight story at our Los Angeles slam.
- [08:37]
Mehran Cerf
I'm always late to places by a few minutes, just five or six minutes late, which is enough to handle most friends and dates. But it's not good with airplanes and flights because they always leave right on time. And I have all kinds of records that I set with making it from the parking lot to the airplane. I actually divide them by pre 911 and post 9 11. Pre 911 I used to make it. My record was Boston Logan. I made it in seven minutes. So seven minutes before the plane, I'm parking my car. I see people boarding the plane from the other side of the fence. I somehow make it. I rush, I beg, I tell people, look, it's emergency, I have to get there. And I somehow make it on time to make it to the plane in boredom time, only to remember when I'm at the stairs that my car is not locked. So from the plane I clicked the time alarm and locked the car. Ding ding. And then I make it to the plane. This was my record in 2000. The post 911 record is I think 17 minutes. It's in Burbank and that's not really surprising. Everyone can make it in Burbank. But being late to planes is not really a bad thing. In the US they just put you in the next plane. It is trouble when you're in Israel and you fly international flights because they're really picky and if you missed this flight, there's only one the next day. And I missed a lot of them. The particular one that I'm talking about is the one where I was working for a high tech company and we had to submit a report on time. And I was working all night to submit this report and managed to do it and I was exhausted. I told my boss, I'm going to go home now to rest because I'm exhausted, don't call me. And she indeed not call me for 20 minutes. And then she called me and said I have an emergency, I have to send you tonight to fly to Rome, spend a day in Rome, and then fly from there back above Israel and to the other side of the world, to Hong Kong. There's an emergency. There's only one flight tomorrow from Rome because on Saturday there are no flights from Israel. You have to make it tonight. So somehow I run home, pack suitcase, rush to the airport, meet a courier who had me the ticket because they didn't have e tickets at the time. So I get a ticket and I get a reservation for Hotel Hilton Rome. And I make it to the plane. I sit on first row, business class, and I fly to Rome. And I fall asleep as soon as we get to the plane. I put my little carry on, that's the only thing I had above me and go to sleep. And I wake up when we land. I'm exhausted. It's 1am I take my suitcase and I leave the airplane and go outside and find a cab driver that speaks barely some English. I don't speak any Italian. And I tell him, take me to Hilton. He says, okay, okay. And we go and we drive for like 30 minutes to the Hilton Hotel in Rome. So we sit in the cab, and I'm starting to make conversation because I want to know Santa at Rome, where I've never been before. I want to ask him things about the city so I can know what to do tomorrow. So I start asking him, tell me what is the weather in Rome? And he says, the weather in Rome in a bare kind of broken English, with all kinds of gestures. The weather in rome is like 25 degrees. It's perfect. So I said, okay, tomorrow I'm going to get a T shirt and use that. And then I ask him, so tell me what is it to do in Rome? And he says, well, you should just go outside of your hotel and you'll see, you have the piazza and you have the Colosseum. And he gives me a lot of details about the city. And I ask him more questions about the city, and he gives me more answers. And it takes about 25 minutes drive. And we get to my hotel where I go to the receptionist and I say, I have a reservation under Moran for this place. And she looks on the computer and she says, no, sir, I don't see anything. And I say, no, this is impossible. I already made it to the flight. I already was able to kind of do everything in four hours, make everything. You have to have my name somewhere. The company never makes mistakes. My name is somewhere in there. So she looks again, she says, no, sir, I can't see your name. I say, look under my company name. And she does. And she says, no sir, I can't see. And then I say, well, I luckily have the confirmation number. I'm going to give it to you and you're going to find it, surely. So I give her the number and she types it and as she puts the last digit she turns pale and she says, sir, your reservation is for Hilton Rome. And I said, oh my God, this is not Hilton Rome. He said, it's not Hilton, it's not Rome. You're in Malta. The plane had a stop in Malta and I just took off, took my suitcase, took a cab and went to the hotel and you know everyone. And I traced back the conversation and I tell myself, I asked the cab driver what is the weather in Rome? And he says, In Rome it's 20 degrees. And I asked him, what is it in Rome? He says, in Rome we go to the piazza. The entire time he was giving me detailed information, information about home, where I was not at the time. So then I become kind of worried and I tell her, what should I do now? Says don't calm down, I'm gonna call the airport and we'll see. So she calls the airport, turns out that they went to code red DEFCON 5 because an Israeli 23 year old guy with only suitcase disappeared from the airplane. Took one suitcase and flew business guys. So they guarded the entire airplanes in Malta. No one moves. And they're looking for this guy who disappeared. And she calls and says, Well, I have Mr. Serp here with me, is in the. He went to Hilton indeed, but in the wrong country. I'm going to send him back. So I find a cab driver, I drive back and when I said I actually have records of seven minutes pre 9 11, my record was at that time, three minutes. I take out the cab, two security guards take me, pull me from where I am, bring me straight to the airplane. Three minutes, I make it and then, you know, walk back to my seat where they just waited, take back, put my suitcase back on, closing and everyone takes off. 30 minutes more to get to Italy. Thank you.
- [14:08]
Dan Kennedy
Mehran Cerf is a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology and at the departments of Neurosurgery at UCLA and nyu. Studying how consciousness works in our brain and where complex emotions such as happiness reside in our brains. Prior to his career in opening and studying people's brains, Mehran used to work as a hacker for various security companies, breaking into banks and financial institutions. And he apparently still has enough time to attend open mic storytelling events because Mehran is a multiple time Story Slam winner and he is the current Los Angeles Moth Grand Slam winner. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.com, the fast and easy way to publish a high quality website or blog. For a free trial and 10% off your new account for life, go to squarespace.com and use the offer code moth. That's squarespace.com and use the code Moth. The Moth is a non profit organization so consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast contribution page or by becoming a Moth member and you can do that@themoth.org also. By now hopefully you are ready for the first ever Detroit Moth Grand Slam. It's going to be September 23rd and it will be held at the Gem Theater, a lovely place there in Detroit and the theme is going to be When Worlds Collide. You can hit smart ticks.com for tickets that smartticks tix.com our podcast host Dan.
- [15:46]
Rosetta Stone Advertiser
Kennedy is the author of the book Rock An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [15:54]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast Audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange helping make public Radio more public@prx.org.