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- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone
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- [01:10]
Alfonso Lucayo
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. This is not Dan Kennedy. I repeat, this is not Dan Kennedy. I'm Alfonso Lucayo.
- [01:17]
D'Avione Walters
And I'm D'Avione Walters. And this is a Moth Education takeover.
- [01:22]
Alfonso Lucayo
We're taking over as co host of today's podcast to bring you two great stories from the Moth education program.
- [01:29]
D'Avione Walters
For those of you who don't know, the Moth has an education program here in New York City. High school students meet once a week to work on their stories, and at the end of six weeks, we perform our stories at a story Slam at our school.
- [01:43]
Alfonso Lucayo
So the first story we've got for you today is by Dante Jackson. Dante told this story at his school, School for Classics in 2013. The theme of the afternoon was Free. This, by the way, was Dante's first ever time getting up in front of a crowd to tell a story. Hey diamond, how was your first time telling a story?
- [02:04]
D'Avione Walters
My first time telling a story was completely and utterly nerve wracking. I was second to last and I'm sitting there just enjoying all the time. I had to like go over my story in my head and then I went a lot earlier than I thought that I would have. And so when I got up there, I was just like, oh, everything that I had prepared in my head just like went out my ear and like flew away. But I struggled. But after that everything went smoothly. Did you have similar experience?
- [02:35]
Alfonso Lucayo
Definitely. I definitely had a similar experience. The first Time ever getting on stage. You know, it was sophomore year, and I think I was last. So, you know, you got that time before going. You know, you're just thinking the whole time, gonna mess up. Am I gonna mess up? And when you get up there, you know, it's just to get the hang of it. And, you know, you got your friends and family there, and it just, like, it goes smoothly.
- [02:59]
D'Avione Walters
Nothing like support from people in the audience. All right, guys, are you ready? Here's Dante Jackson.
- [03:09]
Dante Jackson
Okay. Well, back in middle school, I wasn't really the type of kid to let myself have any fun. I was afraid that if I let myself have fun, I'd end up being judged. And I. I don't like being judged. So eighth grade comes around, prom is coming up. Everybody's talking about it. Hey, you going to prom? I'm going to proms. You know what you're wearing, you know who you going with? Oh, I know what I'm going with, but me, I. I wasn't planning on there. I didn't really want to go. I thought I'd just skip it. I thought I'd just end up being a kid in a corner, chicken in hand, just standing there. So after being constantly bugged by friends and family, I decided, you know what? What the heck, might as well go. Just hear what it's going to be about. So graduation and prom was on the same day. Graduation was early on in the day. We sang Celine Dion. I hated it. So I go home, I get dressed, I throw on my suit, have my little fedora on, you know, stunting. And I should mention that at first, we had no idea how I was gonna get there. We knew no buses that ran by, so we figured we were gonna take a cab. But my friend Shannon comes, she says, hey, my mom got a truck. You can swing by. My mom will drop you off. I'm like, oh, cool. So my mom was okay with it. They knew each other. They decided. We decided to go along with the plan. So I'm going to my friend Shannon's house. It's a block away from my house, not far. She lives next to this daycare I used to go to. There's a family of Trinidadians. I've known them since birth. They're like my second family. We're all outside chilling. My mom's taking a bajillion pictures. You know how to get around this kind of time. And. Yeah, so nor typically. Well, I should say first that Shannon. Shannon comes outside, and typically, she's a tomboy. She's Usually just here, shirt, jeans, sneakers, that's it. But she comes out, she got her hair down, she got her little white dress on, she got the real huge hoop earrings, you know. So now I'm standing here, I'm like, huh. Well, now, so we, we get in the truck. It's about a 15, 20 minute drive, not very long. I get there, all my friends stand outside. Hey, Dante. Hey. You decided to show up. I'm like, hey. So I go inside. The space is a little bit smaller than I thought it would be. Granted, it's not a lot of us, but it was pretty fancy looking. I thought it was a good place to be. Music starts playing. Everybody's on the dance floor. I'm in the corner, standing there, chicken in hand. I had a few people come up to me and try to pull me on the dance floor, but I wasn't moving. I was not moving. I wasn't moving for anything but chicken. So the DJ decides to put on this song and now he's saying, you know, everybody that's not dancing gotta grab them, grab them, pull them on that dance floor. Anybody, you see anybody standing on the wall, you gotta grab them, bring them on the floor. So immediately 20 heads come at me and try to drag me onto the dance floor. And at this point, I'm just done fighting it. I'm like, you know what, what the heck? I'm just gonna go on that dance floor. I'm gonna have a good time. I'm standing awkwardly in the middle of the dance floor, just looking around. So I try not to make myself look suspicious. So I start doing a little.
- [07:29]
D'Avione Walters
I.
- [07:29]
Dante Jackson
Start doing a little two steps. This is where it was at. So gradually, over time, I started getting more into it. The little, the two step turns into a little, turns a little to a shuffle. And I. That shuffle turns into a crisscross, and that crisscross turns into a God knows what. I don't even know what I was. I don't even know what I was doing anymore. I just know that I'm on fire and I'm busting moves I never thought was possible for me. And I wasn't aware of this until I took the time to look around. And I'm stuck in that little circle they make. Everybody's like, hey, go Dante. Go Dante.
- [08:24]
D'Avione Walters
Hey.
- [08:25]
Dante Jackson
So. And it turns out that was one of the best nights of my life. It's like my life up until that point, I was locked in a dark room, but then I decided to unlock the door and I took a step out and I learned how to dance.
- [08:43]
D'Avione Walters
That was the amazing Dante Jackson. Dante graduated from the school for Classics in East New York, where he participated in the Moth High School Story slam. He's an aspiring writer and actor who played Sebastian in his high school production of the Twelfth Night. His favorite color is black. That's great. And he loves to make people laugh. Black is a wonderful color. I agree.
- [09:09]
Alfonso Lucayo
All right, next up, we got a story from Bre Man Hernandez. She told this story in 2013 at her school, School of the Future in Manhattan. The theme for this one was Risk.
- [09:20]
D'Avione Walters
Ooh, Risk takers.
- [09:23]
Alfonso Lucayo
Here we go. Bre man Hernandez.
- [09:34]
Bre Man Hernandez
In third grade, Cinderella was one of my top 10 movies. And my least favorite character, as I'm pretty sure everyone's was, was the stepmother because she was mean. And so I started to associate the word step with being bad. Put step in front of something and it was automatically harmful. So when I was told I was going to be spending the summer with my step grandma, I thought I was being punished. I must have done something wrong. She is going to skim me alive. I don't know, do something. Lock me in a basement. On the plane right there with my sister, we were going alone, which was pretty cool. We were pretty awesome. And we were torn between being excited for California because, again, it's also pretty awesome for a third grader. You have to fly there by yourself. And being terrified of meeting our step grandma on the plane right there. We're sort of talking to each other saying how awful she's going to be, what she's going to do to us, how she's going to, I don't know, kill us and replace us or something like that. When we get off the plane, we wait by the information desk because we're unaccompanied minors. And we. We look around, and up walks this really sweet looking old lady. And she walks up and she's like, hi. And I'm like, hello. What do you want? And she goes and signs us out. And I was like, oh, God. And it turns out she is my step grandma. She says, hi, I'm Mila. And I'm like, oh. I remember because when I was younger, my mother told us stories about Mila, and she had us called her Mila because she's too young to be a grandma. One story she told us was Mila took her to get a haircut. And at the end of the haircut, Mila asked her, how do you like it? And my mom says, oh, it's a little short, but I actually really like It. Mila didn't like that. She goes off about how ungrateful my mom had to be, how she's disrespecting her. She paid for her to get her hair cut, which in itself was kind of weird, I guess. So when we get off the plane and we're walking, we're in the car driving to our grandparents house. I look over to my sister, and we are just having a conversation with eyes. And we're saying, oh, God, what do we do? How's this gonna work? And she was so nice on the drive there. She's pretending she's being fake. And we decide as soon as she gets out of the car, we decide we're gonna tear her Persona down. We're gonna prove that she's being fake. And so I spend the first three weeks of the vacation trying to make her break, trying to make her do something awful. She's gonna yell at me for something. And one particular moment that stood out is we come back from eating out and got like a little toy from the Happy Meals or something like that. It was a troll doll. I remember that they had just built a fire pit in their backyard. And we decide silently again that we're gonna pretend to be in a cult. This is gonna mess with her so bad. So we tell them, let's roast the marshmallows. We're gonna catch them off guard really badly. And so we go out to the fire pit. We've got our marshmallow sticks, and we set everything down. Me and my sister walk straight up to the fire pit, maybe a couple inches away from it. And the fire's blazing. And we look at each other, and we hold our little troll dolls out and throw them into the fire. We start ceremoniously dancing around the fire, like bowing to I don't know what. And we look around, and I'm feeling on top of the world. And she's gonna break. It's gonna happen, and I'm gonna be awesome. And so I look at my grandpa, and he's kind of sitting there like, kids, what are you gonna do with kids? And I look over at Mila, and she's frozen. And I'm like, it's working. She jumps in, she starts dancing, she starts making noises. She starts making noises, which is even weirder because we weren't making noises. So I'm getting a little weird out. And every time I circle the fire pit, I'm just getting angrier and angrier. My fists ball up, and I'm so upset. And finally, our troll Dolls burn to a little puddle. And she looks up, smiling, and I storm into my bedroom. I am so upset. She won. I've lost, and she's the evil stepmother, and she's tricking everybody. And later that night, I hear her on the phone with my mom, and I sneak out because I'm a ninja and I'm stealthy. And I hear her on the phone, and she's saying, oh, Brianna seems a little homesick. And I go, I've got her now. She thinks I'm not listening. She's gonna be awful. So she tells my mom, oh, Brianna seems a little homesick. Maybe you should send her home. I mean, I'd love to keep her for a little while, but she seems to really miss you. So we get sent home the next day, and I'm like, I did it. She broke. It doesn't matter that anybody else doesn't know. It was my doing. I won. Two. Two years. No, not two years later. Two years ago, I went to visit them for the summer. We all went as a family. We took a road trip. Yay, road trips. And in the car driving up their driveway, I'm going, oh, God, it's gonna happen again. She's gonna be evil. And I walk up to the door, and I'm trying to decide, do I just let it go? Because I'm more mature now. I started high school. That makes me mature. And I decide that I'm gonna let it go. I'm gonna see, Here's a new person. I open the door, and she rushes up to give me a huge hug. And I realize that she's both people. She's the st and she's the grandmother. And I also realized that in the end, I was the one being the evil stepchild. Thank you.
- [15:54]
D'Avione Walters
That was Bre Man Hernandez. Bree is a junior at Wesleyan University studying technical theater, film, and East Asian studies. She has absolutely no idea what she's going to do with her future. So relatable, which she has been assured, it's okay because she's young. She has time. Brie loves her grandparents, especially her grandma. It's cute. Grandma's a great.
- [16:18]
Alfonso Lucayo
I love hearing stories from people in my school because in high school, you know, it was a group of people who, you know, we didn't really all know each other, but we slowly started to grow with each other and started to learn more about each other, the more stories we told with each other. And it's. It's. It's a new experience, you know, because, you know, not every day you see these people walking through the hallway, you might.
- [16:43]
D'Avione Walters
The person you never notice in the background.
- [16:45]
Alfonso Lucayo
Yeah, you feel me. And they're sharing a part of them.
- [16:48]
D'Avione Walters
And you kind of, like, feel for them in a way. You can, like, relate to their experiences so you actually know how it feels. And when you see them tell the story, you kind of see them, like, reliving the moment, whether it be, like, sad or happy. You kind of like, you can almost see the movie flashing in their eyes, which I think is super cool because when we go onto the stage, we feel the same way.
- [17:12]
Alfonso Lucayo
And it's a great, it's just a great experience to know that, you know, everybody has their own, their own slice of life. Like, you know, things they went through in a group that you've been with for a whole semester. And that's, that's awesome.
- [17:29]
D'Avione Walters
The Moth should have a new motto. Walk in as strangers and walk out as friends. All right, that's it for this week of the Moth podcast.
- [17:37]
Alfonso Lucayo
It's been fun, but I guess we'll let Dan host next week's podcast.
- [17:42]
D'Avione Walters
Do we have to?
- [17:43]
Alfonso Lucayo
Can do we have to? We have to.
- [17:47]
D'Avione Walters
This is alfonso Lucayo and D'Avion Walters. Thank you all for listening and we.
- [17:53]
Alfonso Lucayo
Hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast production by Mouj Zaidie with help from Kathryn McCarthy, Michaela Bly and Kali Thuma. Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios.
- [18:05]
D'Avione Walters
In New York City, supervised by Paul Ruiz. The Moth podcast is presented by prx, the public Radio exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org Critical funding for the.
- [18:20]
Rosetta Stone
Moth'S education program is provided by members of the Moth. Please become a member or renew your membership today to help us continue bringing the magic of storytelling to high school students in New York City. Visit themoth.org student stories to learn more today.