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- [00:00]
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- [01:09]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. For the Moth listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is Blood, Bones and the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton. Narrated by the author, the book is described by food guru Anthony Bourdain as straight to the point and pretense free like Hamilton herself. That's Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, available from Audible. To try Audible Free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.comthemost that's audible.comthemost the first story you're about to hear by Jack Hannibal was recorded live at our first ever Grand Slam in Los Angeles. The theme of the night was When Worlds Collide. A little warning the the sound quality of this recording isn't great. We were just getting things worked out, but we think it's worth it and we hope you'll agree.
- [02:26]
Jack Hannibal
Okay, so I was new to Los Angeles from New York and a friend invited me to a party in Topanga Canyon. It was a reception for a Tibetan monk who had just given a teaching in Santa Monica. I'd never met a monk before and I had never been to Topanga Canyon. So I get to this house. There are all these fancy cars lined up out front, and there are all these people in robes, and they're running around and they're behaving like it's 1967. And I think, oh, God, no. The monk arrives with this huge entourage of translators and handlers, and the people at the party just start freaking out. They're smiling and bowing and nodding and everything. It's like this Barney birthday party for adults. The monk is completely unaffected by everything that's going on around him. Striking. It's like he literally looks like a hologram. Like he's not even there. It's like we're watching this image of a quiet monk that's being beamed into the room. I have these couple of cool exchanges with him, but cut to the end of the night. The whole party has moved outside. Everybody's packed in, sitting and standing around this fire pit. And I'm trying to get to Tim, the guy who's the host, to thank him and say goodnight, but he's sitting on the ground in the middle of this thing, and he's smoking a joint. He's telling this long rambling monologue about the preciousness of life and birth and death and karma. And I'm like, oh, fuck it, I'm out of here. I'll call the guy tomorrow. But I start to leave, and it's like somebody in the crowd stumbles. And I just instinctively grab them, and it's the monk, and he's looking right at me. And I look away from him, and my first thought is, oh, my God, he's gay. I'm like, these fucking monks are just like the priests. They're awful. So, like, I look at them like, you know, what's up? You know? And I'm like, waiting for him to, like, wake or, you know, Groucho, whatever. And he doesn't do anything. And then it hits me. He didn't do anything because he's not doing anything. He's just goofing around. He's saying hi, he's being friendly. And in my reaction to him, I get this portrait of this guy that I've become since I moved to Los Angeles. I am so judgmental. I am so suspicious, and I am so defended that I don't even recognize a simple guy fooling around. I just take it this completely wrong way and it hits me. And the monk says, oh, sad. He sounds like E.T. so I laugh and I go, I am sad. But, you know, it's okay. It's good sad. And he goes, good sad. And then he shoves me. So I shove him back and he goes, do you know computer? I said, yeah, a little bit. He goes, opc on Mac. So we go into the house and I help him read his emails. I'm saying medicine. Sogin's mother is very sick. They've smuggled medicine to her in Tibet, but even if she gets it, it doesn't look like she's going to live. Sogin gets very quiet. And I said, sogin, you must miss your mother very much. He says, oh, yes, very much. I said, when was the last time you saw her? 20 years ago. I said, so again. Why so long? It was out of my mouth before I thought it. And he goes, tibet. Not seifa monk. I said, oh, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't. It's okay. So we chat a little bit. And I asked him, how did you become a monk? The Dalai Lama had a dream. In this dream, he saw the reincarnation of Sogen. Rinpoche had been born and was living in this little village by the Yellow River. He sent these monks out to go find him. They did. Little boy named Pema. It was too dangerous to move him out of Tibet, so the monks disappeared into the woods. But they started educating him in secret. When he was 18, the monks came back and they smuggled him out to Dharmsala, India, to the Dalai Lama's palace. When he was 28, his teacher gave him the nature of mind. My understanding of the nature of mind is that when your teacher deems that you're ready, they have the ability to transmit to you a direct experience of divine nature. So that happened. And then so goes to a cave for three years by himself to contemplate this experience. When he returns, the Dalai Lama sends him to San Francisco to learn English and teach. He's been here four months. He tells me this story as simply and straightforward as I'm telling you now. But as he is speaking, I swear to God, the walls start to bend. And I got so lightheaded I had to sit down. He tells me that tomorrow Tim is going to drive him back to San Francisco. He's going to go up along the coast because Son has never seen it. I said, oh, that's great. I've always wanted to do that. He goes, oh, you come. Next day, we're in the car, we're driving up the coast of San Francisco. Tim is hilarious. He keeps hitting the monk, going, look, man, I don't want any gas money, but how about just a little bit of that? Nature of mine, just give me a little glimpse of it. Late in the afternoon, we get to Big Sur. We run down to the beach. The ocean is just wild. It's like smashing. These huge thunderclaps. The wind is howling. It's whipping all of the sand up into the atmosphere. The setting sun is blocked by these pastel bands of orange, red, purple, blue and black. We huddle under these blankets in this sort of makeshift fort. And it's like cacophonous around us. It's a perfect moment. And then Tim goes into one of his fucking monologues about how precious life is. And we have to wake up. And it's, like, embarrassing. I want him to shut the fuck up. And I look over at the Monk, just to, like, check in with him. And Sogin is looking right at me. And in the middle of Tim's speech, he goes, dream. And I can never do justice to the way this guy said that word. But when he said it, something went right through me. And in that moment, everything that I have ever thought, felt, my entire life story that gave everything, everything that I think is me disappeared. And I realized that what Sogen is, is he is, though he is physically right in front of me. He is inhabiting a world on the other side of that dream. His being is a lighthouse calling us all home to our true nature. And I think, no wonder the Chinese want these fucking guys dead. We can't have that going on. So I go. It lasts like an instant. I go, whoa. And Jim goes, what just happened? Did you give him nature mug? He goes, I drove the next day. I'm laying in the back seat. We have all the windows and the sunroof open. I'm watching Sogin's robes whipping out the car window. And I'm thinking to myself, why is this my life? I mean, of all the lives I could have been born into, why have my mind, why has it converged this moment right now? I mean, is it chance or is there meaning? And I say to Sogun, I said, sogun. Is this karma? Is our being here together Karma? And he turns around with his big fat round face and he goes, everything, Karma. And then he smiles this big smile and he goes, this very good karma. Thank you.
- [09:28]
Dan Kennedy
Jack Hannibal is an actor, writer and educator. He has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in numerous TV shows. Today, Jack teaches acting at UCLA Extension and privately as well in Culver City. The presentation Spills workshop he created has been taught at 20th Century Fox, selling Pictures and Parsons Corporation. This next story by Eve Letterman was Recorded live at one of our regular story slams here in New York City at the Bitter End.
- [10:01]
Eve Letterman
I decided to get a nose job on impulse, like the way most people grab a Juicy Fruit or a magazine at a checkout counter. I was working for a woman who did public relations and she represented a plastic surgeon in the city. I went by one day to drop off brochures for him and looked at his scheduled surgeries. Posted on the wall, it said, Monday, facelift Tuesday, lipo Wednesday, thunder thighs. I had no idea thunder thighs was an actual medical term. So he insisted on giving me a quickie 10 minute consultation. And after seeing these glorious before and after photos, I became convinced that a new nose and the new chin he talked me into would allow me a new beginning, a fresh start. A straighter nose would give me a clearer life direction. Smaller nostrils would open bigger doors. My new appendage would pave a new career path, start a new destiny, perhaps even solve the Palestinian conflict. Five days later, I was on the operating table. Last thing I remember was the anesthesiologist attempting to put in the iv. And I really don't like to see the needle as it goes in. So I'm looking away and looking away and thinking, this is taking an awfully long time. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see this blood spurting in a fountain from my arm. At which point he says, oh, no, don't look now. No need to look now. And then I start getting nauseous and dizzy and woozy, and the little heart monitor on my finger starts beeping like crazy. I'm sure I was going to wind up on the next edition of Botched Plastic Surgeries. I looked at the metal tray next to my head with all the surgical instruments, noticed a little hammer that was ready for my nose, and luckily passed out. I awoke to the sensation of about three rolls of toilet paper shoved into my new baby nostrils. My face was encased in bandages because I also had a little fat sucked out from under my chin too. And I was wearing what can only be described as a face girdle. It's kind of a headband that wrapped around my head and tucked underneath hair to keep my wattle intact. I got home to find that my doorman wouldn't let me in because they didn't recognize me as the tenant of 3B. The low point actually, though, was two days later when after being awake for two nights, I couldn't stand being in my apartment anymore and I. I decided I was going to go outside for a walk. It was snowing, blistering cold, had the bandage on my nose, the bloody gauze taped underneath, wearing the face girdle, and had my glasses duct taped to my forehead because I wasn't allowed to rest them on the bridge of my nose. I'm trudging through the snow, hunched over, and I feel someone tap me on my shoulder and say, excuse me, sir, do you need shelter? The next Monday, I went back for the unveiling and the bandages came off to reveal a smaller nose with a very distinctive nubbin. I swear I'm the only person who went in without a bump and actually came out with one. Went in without one and came out with one. I know doctors make mistakes all the time. They hack off the wrong limb and prescribe the wrong dose. But I know I didn't ask to have a pea put into my nose. So he prescribed a vigorous routine of nasal physical therapy in which I was supposed to rub my nose between the palms of my hands as hard as I could to try to break up the little pee. It didn't work, and a month later I was back for another round of surgery in which he also took out this long stitch that had been hanging out of my nose, which I thought was an uncontrollable nose hair, and I'd have to add another hair removal procedure to my regimen. A couple weeks after that, I went upstate to see my parents. And I was apprehensive to see my mother. I hadn't told her what I was doing. She'd never let me change anything about my body before. She wouldn't let me pierce my ears or shave my legs. It wasn't until I was 16 that I slunk into a pharmacy to buy a little Daisy pink razor, as much shame as if I was buying condoms. So my mother met me at the airport. My face was still swollen and distorted. And the strangest thing happened. She didn't notice, Not a flicker of recognition. But I realized, though, that she's never really seen me. She didn't see when I was afraid to leave the house as a child or when I cut my arms as a teen. As an adult, I paid $80 to have someone tweeze my eyebrows, just to have someone spend 15 minutes looking, really looking at my face. I realized I didn't so much want my mother to see my new face as much as recognize the old one. I swear, if I joined that Ethiopian tribe, the one that has the big plates in their lower lip here, if I came home with a 6 inch saucer hanging out of my mouth. My mother wouldn't even see it. She'd just dump a pile of pot roast on it. So seven years later, I swear, seven years, I was having dinner with my mother sitting across the table from her. She looked at me, cocked her head and said, did you get a nose job? So all in all, I'm happy with a new nose. Didn't find me a better career, a nicer boyfriend, or a more attentive mother. I haven't had any plastic surgery since, but I can imagine perhaps improving on things as I age. I've noticed that things in the front tend to not be quite as perky as they used to be in recent years, but I realize when I lift my hands up, everything kind of raises up a couple inches. So I've determined if I can just find God, I can walk around like this most of the time. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
- [15:55]
Dan Kennedy
Eve Letterman has performed at Bryant Park's Reading Room, the Players Club and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, where she was named one of New York's best emerging Jewish artists. Her memoir, Letters From My Sister on love, life and Hair Removal, is Seeking a publisher. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audible.com themoth Our podcast host, Dan.
- [16:37]
Eve Letterman
Kennedy, is the author of the book Rock on An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [16:45]
Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast Audio production by Paul Ruesta the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange Helping make public radio more public@prx.org.