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- [00:01]
Apple Representative
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- [00:30]
Rosetta Stone Representative
As we approach the end of the year. I'm thinking about the next Next year is the year I finally make my Spanish better than my 9 year old's. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language that you want to learn. I can't wait to use Rosetta Stone and finally speak better than my 9 year old who's been learning Spanish in his own way. Rosetta Stone is the trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean. I could go on fast language acquisition. Rosetta Stone immerses you in many ways. There are no English translations so you can really learn to speak, listen and think in that language. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. The Moth listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stones lifetime membership for 50% off visit rosettastone.com moth that's 50% off. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% off@RosettaStone.com moth today.
- [01:40]
Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Today we're celebrating Pride Month by bringing you two stories from our Open Mic Story Slam series. Now the first one that you're gonna hear is by Sean Sperling. I think it's hilarious about a very interesting Bar Mitzvah. It was told live at a Story Slam in Chicago last year. The theme of the night was Aftermath.
- [02:11]
Sean Sperling
I don't want to brag, but for the sake of the story I need to tell you right up front that you're all sitting in front of a Internet sensation. It's true. I am a viral. Or I was. Or I am, however you look at it, a Viral Superstar. On August 10th of this year I uploaded a video to YouTube. It was a video of my 1992 Bar Mitzvah. It was the portion where after I read from the Torah and became a man, I did a full on choreographed dance to Madonna's Vogue. You know it. I'm not dead yet because Naturally, my theme of my bar mitzvah was Madonna, right? I'm not a very easily embarrassed person. I say whatever on my mind. But I kept this video secret for 20 years. I mean, I talked about it, but I didn't tell anybody there was a video of it. But as time went on, I just felt like it was time. So I sent it to my friends. The link, just a few friends, and I asked them not to put it on their social media, Facebook, Twitter, because I just wasn't ready for that. But on August 15th, my friend Scott emails me while I'm at work and he says, I need to send this to Perez Hilton, the celebrity blogger. And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? What's that going to do? 9:35. Easy email to Perez Hilton. You must watch this video. 9:40 Response from the Perez Hilton. Two words. I'm dead. The next 10 minutes is a Facebook chat between my friend Scott and I that just consisted of OMG, holy shit. What the fuck is going on? At 10:02, I get the message. Scott says, Go to Perez Hilton.com right now with about a million exclamation points. I go to the side and in between, like, I don't know, Angelina Jolie and Beyonce, there I am. The video that I've been hiding for 20 years is there for the world to see. And Perez Hilton calls it the greatest video on the Internet. The next three hours are like a blur as cnn, msnbc, Huffington Post, I was delisted's hot st Slut of the day. Apparently that's a big deal. Gawker, Chicagoist, everything. It's everywhere. My social media is going out of control. I leave work that day and there's 25,000 hits on YouTube so far. And I'm laying in bed and I feel an energy through my veins, which turned out to be like over a million people watching it just on YouTube. In a matter of a couple days, I wake up to emails and texts and phone calls from friends and family who saw me on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and wgn. I'm driving to work and I get a call from the Today show. They want to fly me out that night to be on with Matt Lauer. The next day, I get in my office, I open my inbox, and I am reading hundreds of emails from people, strangers. And here's where it really hits me. It's kids saying that the video is inspiring them and parents, which is the best part. Saying that they only hope that they can instill upon their children the confidence that I had at 13. Well, I sat at my desk at my conservative law firm, mind you, and I cried. I was crying for a lot of reasons. I was crying because honestly, I was really fucking excited to go viral, I can't lie. But it was really more than that because I realized at that moment that this was something bigger. That I love my life. I loved it before this all happened in my day to day. But like many of us, I always knew there was something bigger, a bigger purpose for me and this was it. I know it's funny, but all of a sudden I had this purpose of inspiring people to be themselves, right, and to have confidence in their lives. And I knew was the moment. Well, the next three months I am all over the place and it is a whirlwind. I'm in New York and la, in and out on the Today show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Huffington Post live. I'm doing a million interviews. I'm trying to balance all of this. At one point, Jimmy Kimmel Live wanted to put me on Skype and I just told him, hey, actually Jimmy Fallon's on the other line and they want to fly me out. Big mistake because he wasn't really on the other line. I was just trying to play this Hollywood game. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but. But I was all over the place. I went to three Madonna concerts as guests of Madonna's manager. At one of them, Madonna and I sang like a prayer together. I mean, 13 year old dreams coming true, right? Finally I end up on the Ellen DeGeneres show where I meet and dance with my idol. It was all of my 13 year old dreams coming true. But I have to tell you, while all this was happening, nobody tells you what it's really like to go viral. I mean, I am very grateful. I was given an amazing gift and I know it's leading to much bigger things, but it's really hard. You go to these high highs and low lows and everybody's giving you these false hopes and you have these great expectations and you're trying to play this Hollywood game and you don't know what you're doing. I really wonder how honey Boo Boo does it. Actually, I would really like to talk to her. And I risked my partner, my job, I risked everything. And I don't regret it. I really don't. But it's hard. Nobody tells you what it's like after. And now I'm left cleaning up the aftermath of going viral. Thank you.
- [08:14]
Dan Kennedy
Although Sean officially came out of the closet a couple Years after his bar mitzvah, he admits that he actually came out about 3:30 seconds into his performance of Vogue by Madonna. Sean Sperling is a civil rights activist and attorney from Chicago. After telling his story at the Moth, Sean has become a professional speaker, traveling around the country to college campuses, corporations and high schools, doing keynote addresses and workshops on authenticity and the power of being yourself. For more information, check him out@sean spurling.com so this next story is by Tara Clancy, and it was told at a Grand Slam in New York last year. The theme of the night was the deep end.
- [09:01]
Tara Clancy
So I wake up and I have no idea where I am. This, sadly, isn't new. I'm a blackout drunk. And this is me at my worst. I'm starting to wake up in hallways and rooftops. Now, luckily, to help me figure things out in these situations, I had thought to put together like a mental checklist, you know? So, one, where am I? Two, where am I? Three, where the hell am I? Alright, so turns out I'm in a bed somewhere alone and I'm in some serious pain. Like, not just your typical hangover headache, but my side, my face. And so I'm pretty scared. But I see a mirror, so I go for it. The T shirt I'm wearing isn't mine, but the dried blood around the collar. Big like a baby's. Biblical. Definitely is. There's a huge gash in my chin and a bruise, kind of like a bumper sticker over my hip. And then just then, as I'm standing there pantsless, I hear somebody else in the apartment in the shower. And I freeze. And then the shower stops and I start to scramble. And then somehow, in a flash, it occurs to me whose apartment I'm in. In high school, she was such a knockout that the boys called her Boom Boom Shauna. Ten years later and still gorgeous, she came to work at my uncle's dive bar downtown where all of the regulars wanted to sleep with her. And by the time I was 16, so did I. Us both being lesbians, though, gave me a considerable advantage. And by the time I was 23 and she was 33, it finally happened. We even went on a couple of dates. And I remember thinking, you know, she was the nicest hot person I had ever met, but I was a train wreck. And so when she told me to clean up so that we could maybe have a real relationship, I said I wasn't sure and I asked her to give me a little bit more time. But, you know, Boom Boom waits for nobody, you know? She dumped me. So two months later, in a total blackout, apparently, I called her from my stool at the Mars Bar, which, if you don't know, was less a bar and more a giant urinal with a ladle in it. Anyway, when I. Even though we hadn't talked in all that time, when I said something about having my bicycle with me, she decided she'd come get me. And I'm told she did, wearing a 70s white terry cloth jumper and gold kitten heels, whatever that is, you know, I mean, sounds good, but it's her memory, not mine, you know, let's just say she stuck out. Anyway, it took a little work, but she did get me out. Only once she did, I jumped onto the bicycle and took off onto Houston street into oncoming traffic. And now, as the cars are swerving around me, I put my hands in the air and I'm screaming rock and roll. Until I hit a parked car. After her shower that next morning, she cleaned me up. And now Shawna is just normally one of these total sunshine and lollipops types of people, you know, and like, even when she's pissed off, she's just like a sunshine and a little less lollipops type of person. What I mean is that even though I could tell she was angry, she was still kind. And so what I do remember is looking up at her and thinking, you know, there are very few people in this world that are that beautiful and also that good. And probably even fewer who also want to spend more than five minutes with me. You know, we were a legit yin and yang. And right then, I really could have used a little more yang. So I worked on that. Because we are also legit lesbians, even though I was a jobless, homeless alcoholic. Not long afterwards we got married and had kids. And so now I am a stay at home mom. I officially went from being a blackout drunk to being Mary Poppins. I went from one deep end right into a whole other deep end. I still drink, but not like I used to. And I guess, you know, somewhere in me, I am still dark, but she is still light. And I think this just about sums us up now. We woke up one morning recently, now nine years later, but in that same bed. And she's like, what's the matter, babe? And I said, ah, nothing. I, you know, I just had a dream. And she goes, oh, me too. She goes, but yours probably wasn't good, huh? And I said, nah, you know.
- [14:19]
Sean Sperling
You.
- [14:19]
Tara Clancy
Know, it's my usual. It's a post apocalyptic world. I'm struggling to survive, you know, what about yours, honey? And she goes, oh, well, I dreamt I met the Muppets. And that's us. Thank you very much.
- [14:51]
Dan Kennedy
Tara Clancy has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review Daily, and the New York Times Townies series. A fifth generation native New Yorker, she's working on a memoir which she describes as the Last of the Mohicans, if the Mohicans were your bus driver. For more information, check out Tara Clancy.com and here's a reminder. The Moth main stage will be at the Southampton Writers Conference at Stony Brook University. That's going to be Friday, July 18th. For more information, visit the Moth Our.
- [15:24]
Tara Clancy
Podcast host, Dan Kennedy, is a writer and performer living in New York and author of the new novel American Spirit.
- [15:31]
Rosetta Stone Representative
Available now.
- [15:33]
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 at prx. Org.