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- [00:00]
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- [02:11]
Dan Kennedy
I'm Dan Kennedy to wish you a happy holiday season. We have two stories for you this week. Actually we also have two of these audience slips that I found in my pocket. The audience slips are these things that we pass out at our live Story Slam events and basically we ask the audience a question that fits with the theme of the night and people fill out the slips and hand them up to stage and we get to read them aloud. I usually read them aloud and am blown away by some of the things that audiences admit on this particular slip it says tell us about a time you felt like you were in over your head. And this person wrote, when I rode 62 miles on a mountain bike in the Adirondacks with one leg. Oh, my gosh. Okay, there's that. This next slip is the question we ask the audience is, tell us about a time you wound up somewhere unexpected. And this person says, I once came to in a basement in Kentucky as a man was feeding me beans. Okay, Well, I think if you put those two together, you get a heartwarming holiday tale. And to top that off, we have two great stories for you this week. The first one is from one of our amazing live moth hosts, Ophira Eisenberg, told live here in New York last year as she was introducing the show. And the night took place just before Christmas, which inspired her to tell this story about meeting Santa as a child. Here's Ophira.
- [03:43]
Ophira Eisenberg
I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I have to do it. Because I was obsessed. Some of you know this, but I was obsessed with Santa Claus as a child. I really. And I'm Jewish, Ophira Eisenberg, really? Are you not Japanese Jewish? Yeah. And I wanted to see Santa Claus so badly as a kid. I thought the one in the mall was the real thing. I fucking hated Hanukkah. Cause Hanukkah sucks only in comparison to Christmas. It only sucks when you are in a public school and you are the only Jew and everyone else is doing Christmas and you're the only one two weeks earlier, lighting a fucking candle. And maybe your parents, if you're Jewish, gave you eight presents. But that is a choice that is not in the Torah or the Talmud. And our parents didn't do that. You just got socks one of the days. And it was random. I wanted to go see Santa because I wanted to get presents. And I knew that was the way to do it. And my mother would be like, no, you can't go see Santa. We're Jewish. And I would be like, well, who brings us presents? Because the answer, as far as I was concerned, was nobody. But she would make shit up. She'd be like, Moses, like what? Oh, yeah. Moses comes down the mountain every Hanukkah with a sack of dreidels. And I knew that was bullshit. So we're at the mall one day, right close to Christmas. And that castle is amazing, right? The castle is amazing. All the characters are so happy, and the snow has sparkles in it. And I realized what I can do is I can throw a fit because my mother will be shamed. We don't look that Jewish. I mean, if I just throw a fit going, let me see Santa in the middle of a mall, she will look like the worst mother ever and have to let me go. And so I do that. And she goes, fine. Like, I'm just like, I want to go see Santa. Like, crying and screaming. She goes, fine, go see Santa. And I can't believe it. And I get in the line with all the other kids, but I don't say anything because now I'm an undercover Christian and I don't want to blow it. So I'm very quiet. I just focus on the gift I want. I'm like, barbie Dreamhouse. And I'm just repeating. That's all you have to say. Barbie Dreamhouse. That is all you have to say. That is all you have to say. And then I get into the castle. A little elf hand beckons me in. And then I sit on Santa's lap, which is creepy because he's just a guy. Like, he's just a man. He's just an old guy. Very creepy. And he leans down to me and he says, what would you like for Christmas, little girl? The best. Best question ever. And I looked up to him, and I just went, I'm Jewish. Like, I fell apart. I couldn't handle it. I totally went off script. And he was like, that's okay. So am I. And I didn't know what to do with that information, so I just came. Kept repeating it. Santa's Jewish. Santa's Jewish.
- [06:50]
Dan Kennedy
Sanchez Jew.
- [06:51]
Ophira Eisenberg
And these mean elves came out of nowhere and, like, pushed me out of the castle. And kids were crying. And I. I heard an elf in a walkie talkie going, code nine, chew in a lap. Code nine, chew in a lap. And I ran out. My mother's there. It's kind of chaos happening. And I'm running towards her, and my mother's like, what is going on? I'm like, mom, I just found out. So Santa is Jewish. And my mother, without skipping a beat, goes, well, of course he is. Who else do you think works on Christmas? There you go. That is my holiday tale.
- [07:32]
Dan Kennedy
Sierra Eisenberg is a comedian and host of NPR's Ask Me Another. She's appeared on the Late Late show with Craig Ferguson and Comedy Central and her debut memoir, Screw Everyone Sleeping, My Way to Monogamy, was optioned by Zucker Productions. She's also a regular host and storyteller with the Moth. Okay, that was Ophira Eisenberg. Now let's get to the next story. You're going to Hear this one is from Andy Christie. He is a moth favorite. Every time I see this guy stepping up to the mic, I know we're in for something good. He told this live here in New York in 2010. And the theme of the night was stories of fooling and being fooled. Here's Andy Christie.
- [08:21]
Andy Christie
Hi. So this one Christmas Eve when I was about 8, my brother Artie was about 12. We were at my father's place on 14th Street. And he has just given us are Christmas presents. And they are freakishly unequal. I, you know, I can tell I'm getting burned before we even open them. You know, the difference in sheer scale has me a little weepy. I am standing there with, you know, the kind of standard little red and green striped package, watching Artie, my brother, who has to literally walk around his present. It's one of those magical kind of formless, shapeless presents, you know, that just says no box could ever hold the wonder inside here. You know, it's like somebody threw a Santa Claus foil tarp over a pile of puppies or something. And when he tears it open, it is a like a 40 or 50 gallon aquarium fish tank with all the stuff with the rainbow gravel and plastic seaweed and little bubbling skin diver, you know, in the treasure chest and the pumps and the filters and everything. But the fish. I open mine, I get a book. It is a kind of a black plain covered, scuffed up. It looks like a textbook. But I open it anyway. And when I look inside, it is filled with the most. Just baroquely, ornately detailed illustrations of the most disturbing images I have ever seen in my eight years on the planet. There are devils with giant bat wings flying around swinging severed human heads by the hair. There are men and women on fire. There are people eating each other. And everybody's naked. It's not like the Hardy Boys, you know, it's not even in color. So when I tear my eyes away from the images to look at the words, I can't read them because they're Italian. Now, to give dad some credit, he knew I liked books, especially books with pictures, because he knew I liked to draw. So he put some thought into it. But really to give me a book that I, you know, pictures I couldn't bear to look at in words that I couldn't read. Still, his heart was in the right place. But like you, I judged my gifts based on like volume and mass alone. So I burst into tears. I knew where these things came from. They came from this old guy named Emil who was One of Dad's tenants who lived upstairs, or used to live upstairs. He died about a week earlier. I assume the fish died a couple of days after that. The book probably came from the pile he had under the short leg of his nightstand. Artie, My brother and I were used to these kind of odd, random gifts. Because a lot of them came to us indirectly from the tenants in the boarding house that dad ran on 14th street and 8th Avenue. He moved there after he was divorced. My parents married during the war. And I think what happened, once the Nazis were out of the picture, they had time to really take a good look at each other. So he moved to Manhattan. And Artie and I would go every weekend, spend weekends with him. And since it was a single men's boarding house and he was the super, we would help him every weekend, make the rounds and change the sheets and the pillowcases. And we would drop off fresh linens and towels and pillowcases and sheets and pick up the old stuff. These weren't sheets and pillowcases like from detergent commercials. They were kind of dappled with amber stains. It could have been beer or coffee. Dad wouldn't let me play ghost with them, put it that way. And then every once in a while, a couple times a year, we'd knock on the door and nobody would answer. And dad would pull out his master key and he would open the door, let us in, and we'd find somebody in there, dead. Not like, you know, shot in the head or hanging from his team. Just kind of like worn all the way down to nothing. And he would kind of stand back like a school crossing guard and put his arms out in front of us. And being one of those dads that was full of, like, aphorisms, you know, like, you know, watch the pennies and the pounds will take care of them. He's from Scotland, you know, fear. No, man, that kind of thing. He would say something comforting like, you know, well, yeah, it's sad, but he lives a full, rich life. And, you know, even at eight years old, I knew if he wound up in Dad's place, you have not lived a full life, rich life. And then he would cap it off sometimes with this other kind of cold comfort. I thought for an eight year old, he'd say, besides, nobody lived forever. And then he would tell us to go downstairs and wait in his apartment. And he would call the police to kind of report the new vacancy. And while he waited, while he waited for them to show up, he would poke around, do a little bargain Hunting. And he would wind up back downstairs in his apartment with a pillowcase full of stuff that wound up under our Christmas tree or next to a birthday cake. Now, these guys weren't the kind of guys who collected yo yos, you know? So a lot of the stuff wasn't particularly child friendly. So now I am looking at my book, and I am looking at Artie's Sea World over there. And I'm snot, you know, sobbing snots coming out of my nose. And Artie, he's got one of the tubes from the pump, he's blowing into one end, and he's got the other end, like, in his ear. He doesn't care about fish tanks. I care about fish tanks because I don't have one, mainly. So I look at dad and I say, how come he gets the fish tank? And dad kind of gets a sad look in his eyes, and I say, you don't like your present? And I feel like maybe I'm hurting his feelings, but I can see his. His wheel's spinning. So he looked at me, looks at Artie, and Artie looks at me. And then Artie picks up my book and starts flipping through the pages. And I guess sees all the pictures of the naked women. And being 12 and more mature than I am, he says, you want to trade? I'll trade. So I make the swap. I cannot pass it up. It's too good of a deal. And everybody's happy. Artie gets his book, I get my fish tank. Everybody except for the fish, maybe, that I eventually put in there, who wind up, like, belly up about a week later when I forget I even put living creatures in the thing. A couple of weeks later, the fish tank is green and slimy and sticking out of a garbage can in front of the building. And Artie still has his book under his mattress. Years later, after dad died, my brother and I went back to the old place on 14th street to kind of clean out our stuff. My room, and we left with a box each. Mine was basically filled with litter. Artie had a bunch of stuff in his. Bring him home. I got a call from him the next day, and he says, you ever hear of this artist, like 19th century artist named Gustave Dore? And I have, because I eventually did go to art school. And he says, you know, he was this famous guy. You ever hear of Dante's Inferno? And I have, and turns out the old book from the old place is an 1863 edition of Gustave Dore's illustrated masterpiece, Dante's Divine Comedy. It's what book people call a first impression with plates. And it is worth a lot more than a fish tank. I don't care if it's a vintage fish tank, it's worth a lot more. And I'm on the phone and I'm thinking, but that's my book. And suddenly I'm kind of back there and I'm eight years old again. I'm looking at dad and I'm looking at Artie and I'm looking at all this stuff and I start actually getting a little weepy again. But I'm not eight, you know, I'm a grown man by that time, and I know that crying is not going to get this thing back for me. But I also know that patience will because Artie is older than I am. And like dad says, nobody lives forever.
- [17:41]
Dan Kennedy
I love that story so much. Certainly gives us all a little perspective heading into holidays. Andy Christie is a Creative Director at Slim Films, which is an animation and illustration studio. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and in the Thomas Bellar anthology called Lost and Found, and his autobiographical stories have appeared in the Moth Anthology, our new book which is just out, as well as on our Radio Hour, the Moth Radio Hour, and on WFUVS Cityscape. That was Andy Christie.
- [18:14]
Ophira Eisenberg
Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is a writer and performer living in New York and author of the new novel American Spirit, available now.
- [18:23]
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 Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public@prx.org.