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- [00:00]
TurboTax
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Apple
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Citrix
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Dan Kennedy
I'm Dan Kennedy and this week one of my favorite types of Moth podcasts, the one where we bring you a couple of recent favorites from our Moth Story Slam series. The first story is from our Seattle Slam, which you should check out. The theme of the night was Wanderlust and the storyteller is Ijeoma Ulua.
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Ijeoma Oluo
So I talk about my mom. My mom always wanted to be a wanderer. She grew up in a small town outside of Wichita, Kansas and would iron her hair on the mattress and dream about traveling the world with her acoustic guitar, singing about the magic of Jesus Christ. She went to a Quaker College to study music, to make sure that this dream would come true. But then she met a Nigerian man who, who was studying political science. He wore traditional garb every day and talked to her about the world and the wars he had fought. And she fell in love. He promised to take her back to Nigeria where he had tons of houses and cars and knew important people. And this was her dream come true. But when my dad went back to Nigeria, he didn't take her with. And she was stuck with a two year old and a one month old and no college degree. But my mom never gave up. She just changed the definition of adventure. And for my mom, adventure was everywhere. So if our electricity got cut off, then we were campers in the middle of the woods. And she would go to the closet and pull out these old kerosene lamps. I didn't realize how dangerous our house was during this time because in the 80s we were still kerosene everywhere. It was amazing. And we would pull all of our food out of the fridge really quick and put it into a cooler with ice so it wouldn't stink. And if we wanted to see a movie and she didn't have money and we were whining and moaning, she would grab all the change from the house and say, get in the car, kids, get in the car. And we would jump in the car and she'd drive around a little bit. She'd put whatever money she had into gas. And then she would say, oh, look at that bus sign. 120. What's bus route 120? Do you know? And my brother, a little younger than me, would always, no, what is it? Oh, what is bus 120? I don't know. And we would drive from all around the city Looking for more 120 signs to see where the bus would go. And so we would drive and be like, oh, that's a new store. I didn't know that store was there. Wow. And maybe there would be a park. And if there was a park, oh my God, my brother would be losing his mind just jumping in the backseat. I want to go to the park. And we would jump out and go to the park and it would always end, you know, at like the Linwood park and Ride. It was never an exciting place to end your trip. But she would always turn and be like, you guys, wow, didn't we find the best park today? Oh, wow, now we know. Now we know a new great park to go. And we would have forgotten whatever movie it was that we had wanted to see. And we didn't get to see. And that was our life for a long time. It was the three of us. We were adventurers. If we got lost, that was the best opportunity. Because who knows? Maybe we'd find a whole new city that we didn't even know existed before. But as I got older, I started to think that maybe my mom was a crazy person. And I would be walking around in our house with no lights and our food was stinking, and she'd be like, yay, we're camping. I'm like, what? We haven't had a phone for a year. You're ruining my social life. And I stopped playing along. You know, I didn't want to camp. I didn't want to keep warm with my brother and my mom. And I would hide in my room and shiver in my own blankets and whine about how I didn't have a warm shower when we were in the car. I would never look out the window. I would just yell at my brother and shove him across the seat because he was crossing the line there, you know? And he was way too close to touching me. And the final straw was, one day, one evening, my mom said, kids, kids, guess what? We're going to have a special dinner. And my brother's like, yay, food. Because, you know, he's nine. It's really easy. And I was about 11. And I'm like, whatever. With whatever preteen angst I could muster. And I get in the car, and we drive and we stop, and I don't recognize where we are. And I look, and I'm like, we're at a church. What? We haven't been in a church in seven years. And my. My mom's like, but there's spaghetti. And my brother runs out of the car. Spaghetti. And disappears into the church. And I get into the church, and it's when I get in the church that I understand what's happening. We're at a soup kitchen, and I just. I lose it. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not these people. We're not. There's homeless people here. Like, we don't eat at a soup kitchen in our hometown. Like, where people that I know live. I start crying and, like, no, Mom. No, no, don't. And she drags my hand. My brother's already, like, halfway down the line with his, like, tray, like, filled with spaghetti. And she's like, we're gonna go in. This is good food. And we go in, and she drags me through, and I get my food. And we sit down and I look at her crying and I want to say, like, I bucked up and ate, but no, I pouted like a giant baby the entire time. And she looked at me and she was like, what do you want from me? You have to eat. So we get back in the car and I'm pouting and I just want to go home and slam my door, you know, with, you know, triumph that I'm mad. And she's so slow and she's talking and then she goes, look, ajoma, look, look outside like, no. And my brother's like, oh, look. Oh my God, oh my God, look, it's a searchlight, which is the most magical thing in the world. And even at 11, I can't turn down a searchlight. And I look and I'm like, oh, what? Where? And she goes, over there, look. Where do you think it goes? I'm like, I don't know, maybe it's a party. And so we start to drive off and we look for the searchlight. And that's what we do. That's our family. We're explorers.
- [09:18]
Dan Kennedy
Ijeoma Aluo is a Seattle based writer, blogger and Internet yeller. Her work on race, feminism and parenthood has been featured in the Guardian, Medium, New York Magazine, the Stranger, Huffington Post, and more. You can find more of her work@ijeomaluo.com so at our slam shows between storytellers, we have these audience slips that we hand out and the deal is the slip has a question on it and you get it when you come through the door. We've read these on the podcast before. I always have. I find these things in my pockets and jackets in suitcases. They're all over my apartment. But here are a couple from a recent slam. Here's one where we asked the audience, tell us about an especially memorable wild experience. This person put, I was once yelled at by Sammy Hagar for partying, being too loud in Cabo while on spring break, and hanging out with some cute but basic frat boys. I like that they were careful to say cute but basic rat boys. Here's another one, the same question. Tell us about an especially memorable wild experience. And this person put, one time I rode a horse in the woods, and then I found out I was severely allergic to horses. Wow. Our second storyteller is April Salazar from a slam we had here in New York City. The theme of the night was silver lining. Here's April.
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April Salazar
Okay, so I'm standing in the dining room with my mom and my mom says, I'm going to have surgery in a few weeks. And I go, surgery? What's wrong? And she says, oh, nothing's wrong. I'm just getting breast implants. And my stepfather is actually a professor at a medical school, and he's listening from the kitchen, and so he yells, I'm using my teaching discount to pay for them. And I'm really shocked because my mom really likes to complain about the sagginess of her boobs, but never the size. In fact, a year before, she had bought me my first training bra. And as she was tightening the straps on me, she said, you must wear your bra at all times so that this. And she gestures at her chest. Doesn't happen to you. She said, in the 70s, we all wore halter tops, and now we all have saggy boobs. You think we would have Learned from the 60s when all of those women burned their bras? And my mom is like, my mom never wears underwear. She thinks that they're a symbol of man's oppression, but she always wears a bra. Always. So back in the dining room, I go, but, mom, your boobs are big. And she goes, oh, I know. And then she, like, goes to this bookshelf where we have these old National Geographics, and she pulls out this brochure from the plastic surgeon's office, and she shows me these diagrams to show me the two surgeries. And the lift procedure is super invasive, and it's going to leave scars. And the implant procedure looks pretty minor compared to that and a lot less scarring. And she says, it's going to have the same effect. My boobs are going to be pericky after I get that. So I get it. So all of this is sinking in when I remember that my mom is supposed to take me to a huge pro choice march in Washington a couple of weeks later. And I realized that the march is just a few days after her surgery. I go, mom, what about the march? You're supposed to take me. And she says, oh, don't worry. I think I'll be recovered enough in time to take you to the march. So, fast forward, my mom has the surgery, and she comes home and she vomits and goes straight to bed. And I spend the next few days checking in on her every day. And partly I want to see if she's feeling okay, but really I want to make sure that she's going to be okay enough to take me to the march. And so we kind of like settle into this routine where every day I say, mom, how are you feeling? And Then she tries to lift her arms above her head, and then, like, reaches some breaking point and goes like, oh, still hurts. So that's like. That's like our little gauge. And every day she can do a little bit more, but it's becoming really clear that she's not going to be able to take me to the march. So then finally, it's the day before. And I'm so disappointed because I'm sitting looking forward to this, partly because I feel like my mom is going to take me and we're going to have this wonderful bonding experience, and she's going to. It's going to be like my debutante ball, where she's, like, debuting me to the world as her little feminist. And so finally she kind of, like, sits me down on the bed next to her, and she says, I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to take you to the march, but I talk to your stepfather, and he's going to take you instead. So I'm let down, but I'm still relieved that I get to go to the march. And so my stepfather and I do go to the march, and we drive down to Washington, D.C. and we join this whole throng of protesters. And it's just. There are thousands and thousands of people, and the mood is just exuberant. There are families, there are aging hippies. Everyone's holding, like, a different sign, like, keep your laws off my body and no more wire hangers. And so marching with my stepfather, and we're just taking in all of these different signs. And my stepfather looks at the sign and points and, like, turns to me and goes, like, bush. Stay out of my bush. And it just, like, reinforces why I wanted to go with my mom. And we. We walk a little bit more, and at some point, there's this, like, total aging hippie, like, the ponytail and the whole thing. And he starts singing. All we are saying is give us a choice. I'm like, oh, God, that's so dorky. And I turn to my stepfather to roll my eyes, and he's singing along. So it's like, ah, Stephen. So anyway, we continue to watch or we continue to march, and I start to see different signs. I start to see these signs with a picture of a very pretty teenage girl. And the signs say, parental consent laws kill. And I keep seeing more and more of these signs. And as I'm looking at the signs, I start to get kind of the full story. And this girl is Becky Bell, and she was 16 or 17, and she had died just A few months before, she was in Indiana and she had gotten pregnant and was too afraid to tell her parents and had an illegal abortion that killed her. And, you know, I was 12, I was going on 13. And I could, like, I could. I was going through puberty and I was starting to have these feelings and I could barely acknowledge them to myself. They were just so mortifying and. And, you know, I just totally was relating to Becky there, and it was just. This is why I'm here. So eventually we make our way over to the Capitol steps and there's Bella Absug and Gloria Steinem and all of these amazing speakers. And my stepfather pulls out this old press card that he has from the 60s and he says, do you think we can get up there? And I say, try it. And he does. And we managed to get up there. And I see that these women are holding a sign in front of the speakers that says, keep abortion safe and legal. And I volunteer to hold the sign. And I end up holding the sign and I'm looking out over it, about 600,000 people. It's just absolutely amazing. I feel like I'm a part of history. And the thing is, if not for my mom's breast implants, I never would have had this amazing feminist experience. And there was an upside for my mom, too, because now that her boobs were so unnaturally perky, she finally felt like she could burn her bra.
- [17:42]
Dan Kennedy
April Salazar is a writer and storyteller who's written for the New York Times and shared stories on NPR's Latino USA. In her spare time, she works in technology at an educational nonprofit. She still thinks about Becky Bell. People often ask us what is the best way to get involved with the show? And if you have a story to tell, the Moth story slams are really the best way to become a part of the moth community. We're in 21 cities now, so you can just check online@the moth.org you can get dates of Moth story slams near you, and you can come down and tell a story of your own.
- [18:21]
Citrix
The Moth is supported by ZipRecruiter. Your company is only as good as the people you hire. But when you're short staffed, there's no time to deal with all the different job sites. Until now. Thanks to ZipRecruiter, you can post to 100 plus job sites with a single click and have the highest chance of finding that perfect candidate. Just post Once and within 24 hours, watch your candidates roll into ZipRecruiter's easy to use interface. Try Zip Recruiter free at ziprecruiter.com moth that's ziprecruiter.com moth the moth is supported by audible.com Audible has more than 180,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters and newspapers. Audio can be downloaded and played back right on your smartphone, portable device or PC. Audible is offering a free audiobook of your choice and a free 30 day trial membership. Moth Podcast listeners might enjoy Funny a novel by Nick Hornby, download a title free and start listening. It's that easy. Go to audible.com themoth and get started today.
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Dan Kennedy
And one more thing, the Moth main stage is returning to Portland, Maine. That show is going to be May 30th. For tickets and information on all of our upcoming tour stops, visit the Moth Maintenance.
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Citrix
Dan Kennedy is author of the books Loser Goes First Rock on and American Spirit. He's a regular host and performer with the Moth when he's not on Twitter.
- [19:51]
Dan Kennedy
Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City supervised by Paul Ruest. Podcast audio production by Whitney Jones. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@primary prx.org. thanks to all of you for listening. We hope you have a story worthy week.