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- [00:00]
Rosetta Stone Representative
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- [01:07]
Apple Representative
Today the Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist whether you're running, swimming or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations. IPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.
- [01:39]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by stamps.com with your busy schedule, we're sure making trips to the post office is is the last thing you have time for. Did you know with stamps.com you can buy and print official US postage right from your own computer and printer? It's easy and convenient. Plus, stamps.com will give you a digital scale. It automatically calculates the exact postage you need for any letter or package. You print the postage directly onto envelopes, labels, or even plain paper. Then just hand your mail to your mail carrier. There's no need for you to go to the post office again or even lease one of those expensive postage meters. Right now there's a special offer for listeners of the Moth podcast, a no risk trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes the digital scale and up to $55 free postage. Don't wait. Go to stamps.com and click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, then type in moth. That's stamps.com, enter moth. And if you live in Minnesota, join the moth at New Belgium Brewery's Tour de Fat in Minneapolis on Saturday, July 27th for your chance to tell a story at the show. Submit your one line pitch via email to tourdefatthemoth.org and check themoth.org for event details.
- [03:08]
Maurice Ashley
If dressing freaky and riding bikes and bands and beer are things you like the most fun fundraiser around the Tour de Fact, New bell jumps back in town.
- [03:23]
Dan Kennedy
The story you're about to hear by Maurice Ashley was told live in Martha's Vineyard last summer. And we're excited to say we're going to be back in Martha's Vineyard this summer on August 3rd. So for tickets and information about that show, just go to the site themoth.org but that's in August. Today we've got a great story to listen to. Here's Maurice Ashley.
- [03:54]
Maurice Ashley
In the summer of 1985, when I was 19 years old, I played one of the most important chess matches of my career. Now, this match is not found in any history books, nor are there any living witnesses to the events that transpired that day. But this match proved to be a defining moment in my life as a chess player, teacher and commentator. Now, I'm from Brooklyn, New York. That's what's up. More specifically, though, Brownsville, Brooklyn. Somebody from Brownsville.
- [04:32]
Apple Representative
Wow.
- [04:34]
Maurice Ashley
Now, Brownsville wasn't a fairytale place to grow up. I mean, we had our share of abandoned buildings and gaggle of prostitutes and brazen car thieves and our drug dealers who would play musical gunshots every single night to remind you who was in charge of the neighborhood. Kind of like here at Martha's Vineyard. Mike Tyson, the boxer, he grew up in Brownsville. Brownsville was so rough, Mike had to get out of Brownsville. But lucky for me, I had found and fallen in love with the game of chess. And I played it every single day. I studied chess books whenever I could and I played with my friends. It was my altar in Brownsville that I had this game. And one of my friends, I was beating on, I was just whipping him like a stepchild. And he was, he got upset and he said, well, I know a bunch of guys who could crush you. Now, I'm from Brownsville. Two strangers meet from Brownsville and one will say, you from Brownsville. The other will say, never ran, never will. So I said, brian, who are these guys? And he said, well, they're known as the Black Bear School. The Black Bear School. So it's like picturing some peace pipe smoking brothers watching too many cowboy movies. So, like, well, let's go, let's see it. So he takes me to Prospect park in Brooklyn, and I see one of the most intense scenes. It's like 30 African Americans, soul music blasting, and they're all around chessboards, either playing or watching. And I come up and it's these legends I hear off the park. William Morrison, the exterminator, who plays in the style of Bobby Fischer. I mean, you make one mistake and he finds a flaw in your game, and he'll inject venom in you that no medication can fix. Then you had Ronald Simpson, a master tactician. And Ronnie, despite his inability to really study the chess books, he had the ability to get out of any chaotic situation. As Mikhail Tal, the famous world champion, used to say, drag them into the jungle where two plus two equals five. And only he knows the math. But the most interesting guy that they pointed out to me was George golden, the fire breather. Now, George had a way about him. He was about 5, 7, 5, 8. He was in his mid-30s. He had a little reddish hair, freckles. But George, when you saw him play, you knew he was a player immediately. It was the way he moved his pieces. He'd move the piece and it end up exactly in the center of the square every single time. And George had this great skill that you had to have in Brooklyn, was he was a great trash talker. Because, you know, brothers, when we get together, we got a trash talk. But in chess, there's a code of silence. You're not supposed to speak during the game. You know, button up. Correct, no distracting your opponent. So the great trash talkers had to have a way of getting around that code of circumventing it. And the best people will tell you there are three ways to do that. Number one, start by talking to yourself. So you'll be sitting there, you'll be like, okay, I could play Bishop G5, and he could play Knight F6. And if I take on F6, takes back, what am I supposed to do? This is confusing, man. So now they think either you're slow or you're crazy. And then the second thing you do is you start complimenting them in these crazy rants. So you'll be like, okay, Bishop G5. And he plays Knight F6. And then I play Knight C3 plays Knight BD7. And if I take on D5, he can take back on D5. When I take his queen, he plays Bishop B4. Check oh, this guy is good. So now they're feeling good about themselves. And then the last point of the trap, you get them to talk. So you'll say something like, man, you're pretty good. Where you from? Which grandmaster taught you? And if they answer the question, it's over, the door is open and you can trash talk all night. Now different trash talkers have different styles. Some guys will quote Shakespeare, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Checkmate, bitch. Other guys will have some mantra that they say over and over. Like Ralph Malf, who used to always say, that's what she said. And you'll say, what does that mean? That's what she said. That doesn't make any sense. That's what she said. You're an idiot. That's what she said. But George was different. George wanted to make sure that you understood that there was a mental chasm between you and him. That on the chessboard there was a Grand Canyon in between you and him that you could not stand on. So George, we get super intellectual. He started quoting chess books, but not just any chess books, the encyclopedias of chess openings. A five volume set, 500 pages each. And they say things like, well, don't you know this is the middle of the game, that this is the carol. This is the Panavadvinnik variation of the Caro Khan. This is code B14. And in this position, you're supposed to play a three so you can keep your light squared bishop. I mean, that's basic. And you're like wondering if he's just jiving you. But when you checked, he never was. And then in the middle of that, he'd be singing James Brown, and then he'd be decrying the return of Reaganomics. And then he'd say something really crazy like, don't you like the way my rook is penetrating into the rear of your position through the hole created by your separated pawns? And now you're so flustered, right, that you, like, blunder. And he realizes, he's like, whoa. And then he does his signature move where he gets up on the park bench so that everybody can see him, and he has his queen in his hand and he jumps into the air like Michael Jordan and slam dunks his queen on the square and says, checkmate. I wanted to beat George. I wanted to be George. But it wasn't easy to beat these guys. The Black Bear schools, they studied chess like rabbinical students study the Torah. These guys, their quote, and I later found out, was the reason why it was called the Black Bear School was because when you saw a black bear in the forest, it wasn't enough to injure it, you had to kill it, because it would just keep on coming. And so I play these guys and they just beat me and whoop me this way and send me home. And I'd study and I'd come back and they'd beat me again. And I'd come back and I'd study some more, and I' come and I get crushed. And I started looking for a weakness. How am I going to beat these guys? And after a while, I started to understand it, I started to see it. And what I noticed was that they liked to beat each other and study for each other's games. So they became very provincial, playing the same openings over and over again. But they didn't like to go out into the chess clubs, the Manhattan Chess Club, the Marshall Chess Club, where everybody was in suits and ties and you saw the grandmasters come and international masters come and play.
- [12:32]
Dan Kennedy
They.
- [12:32]
Maurice Ashley
They just didn't like that vibe. But that's where the serious chess was, because they also just like to play blitz and blitz. The difference between blitz and classic chess, I don't know if you know, you've ever seen a chess clock. It has two faces on it, and you have a certain amount of time, and you press the clock and your time starts, the other person's time starts, and you keep on moving like this. Well, in classical chess, you'll have four hours to play for 40 moves. And in the old days, you'd play for four hours, and then you'd adjourn the game. You get to go home and look at the position, and then you'd come back and both of you already studied all these niceties. And you play for another four hours. So games could last a couple of days, easy. No, in blitz, you each have five minutes. And while in classical chess there's a premium on focus, concentration, and stamina, in blitz, it's all about instinct and skill and hand speed and hand speed, like Johnny Depp and Edward Scissorhands, where they're like throwing moves at you like this, and it's all choo, choo, choo, and they're cutting you up to pieces. So those guys played blitz. So I had to go to the other clubs and play with the grandmasters, the international masters, and toughen up my game and get that strength and precision. And then I came back and I started playing them and I started beating them, beating one at a time until One of them said, you're ready for George. And of course, when George heard that, it was all fire and brimstone. So the match was set. He invited me to his apartment. I go in, and he's just on fire. You can feel the tension in his shoulders. And he's like, he's got to take this young kid down. So we sit down and the clock is set, and we start to play, and the games are even. The first, we're going back and forth, hitting one each other, the game. But George is realizing this is not as easy as it was. And I'm realizing, wait a second. All that training has worked. And I'm starting to feel it. And we're going back and forth. I hit him in one particular game. We're going down to the wire, the only seconds on the clock. And I hit him with this combination, and I chase his king and I checkmate him. And he didn't like it. And we set up the pieces and we start to play again. And then it comes a moment in the game where George reaches for a piece and his hand is hovering over the piece, and it's trembling. And I know I got him. And I become like Neo in the Matrix. His bullets, I don't have to dodge them anymore. And the thoughts are coming from my head down to my body, into my hand, to my fingertips, to the chest, pieces to the clock in one delicious blur. And I'm just hit him with combination after combination. And I'm checkmating his king on the left, and I'm hitting his queen on the right. And George starts to realize that he's got nothing for me. And I'm inside his head. I'm anticipating all his moves. And finally he's breathless, on his knees, like out of it completely. And he says, we're done, and it's over. And I'm floating on air. I just defeated the fire breather. I killed a black bear. So I start walking out of the apartment, I look over my shoulder, and I see George is averting my eyes as the door closes behind me. And I realized in that moment that I've broken something inside of George. So a few years later, George got really sick and he passed away. And a friend of ours in the Black Bear School said to me, George told me something before he went away, and that is that I should take care of. Of Maurice, because he's going to be special. And so to the Black Bear School, who taught me the greatest lessons for the cutthroat world of competitive chess, who taught me that determination and fire get you far and that the will to win is greater than any material disadvantage. I want to say to them all, the Black Bear School and to George, thank you.
- [17:09]
Dan Kennedy
Maurice Ashley made history as the first African American International Chess Grandmaster. He's also a three time national championship coach, two time author, iPhone app producer, puzzle inventor, ESPN commentator, and of course motivational speaker. Because he's done all that. Maurice is a Fellow at Harvard's Berkman center and was recently appointed a Fellow of the media lab at MIT. The Moth podcast is sponsored by LegalZoom. It's time to create your own story when you start that business you've been dreaming about. LegalZoom can help you ensure your assets are legally protected with LLCs, incorporation and other businesses filings. They can also help you legally protect your family. LegalZoom has been helping Americans get personalized wills, powers of attorney and living Trusts for over 12 years. Their service was developed by a team of experienced attorneys and LegalZoom takes care of you from start to finish as an introduction to Moth listeners. Now you can get a special discount to thank you for listening to our podcast. If you're a parent or entrepreneur, call or visit legalzoom.com today and see how easy it is to protect your family or launch your business dream. LegalZoom can provide self help services at your specific direction or connect you with an attorney, but they're not a law firm. Go to legalzoom.com for wills starting at $69 or in corporations and LLCs for only $99 and get your special discount by entering Moth in the referral box at checkout. And here's a note for our listeners in Australia. The Moth is opening the Melbourne Writers Festival in Melbourne, Australia on August 22. For ticketing information and for a list of all of our upcoming tour stops, visit themoth.org Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is a writer and performer living in New York and author of the new novel American Spirit.
- [19:07]
Rosetta Stone Representative
Available now.
- [19:09]
Dan Kennedy
Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org.