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- [00:01]
Moth Announcer
Truth or dare?
- [00:03]
Sponsor Voice
How about both?
- [00:05]
Moth Announcer
This fall, the Moth is challenging what it means to be daring. We're not just talking about jumping out of airplanes or quitting your job. We're talking about the quiet courage to be vulnerable, the bold decisions to reveal the secret that changed everything this fall, the Moth Main Stage season brings our most power powerful stories to live audiences in 16 cities across the globe. Every one of those evenings will explore the singular theme of daring, but the stories and their tellers will never be the same. So here's our dare to you experience the Moth Main stage live. Find a city near you@themost.org daring. Come on, we dare you.
- [00:55]
Sponsor Voice
The Moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called Hereditary Transthyroidin mediated Amyloidosis or hattr. This condition can cause polyneuropathy like nerve pain or numbness, heart failure, or irregular rhythm and gastrointestinal issues. HATTR is often underdiagnosed and can be passed down to loved ones. Many of us have stories about family legacies passed down through generations. When I was five, my mother sewed me a classic clown costume, red and yellow with a pointy hat. It's since been worn by my sister, three cousins and four of our children. I'm so happy this piece of my childhood lives on with no end in sight. Genetic conditions like HATTR shouldn't dominate our stories. Thanks to the efforts of AstraZeneca, there are treatment options so more patients can choose the legacies they share. This year, the Moth will partner with AstraZeneca to shine a light on the stories of Those living with Hattr. Learn more at www.myattrroadmap.com youm know what.
- [02:05]
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- [03:17]
Jay Allison
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay, producer of this radio show. And in this episode, we're bringing you stories from a live show at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights, New York City. It was produced with the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Partnership, and the theme was when youn're Home. This, by the way, was the first audience of any size to be at a moth performance since the beginning of the pandemic. Here's your host of the evening, comedy writer and performer C.J. hunt.
- [03:52]
C.J. Hunt
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the mall. You like that? I start real Hunger Gamesy. Welcome back to the mall. We are here at United palace and I say welcome back because it really does feel like that, right? Like I have not been able to see a moth audience like this. Even though this is just a fraction of that audience. It is beautiful to be able to be with you and see you and to know that there are thousands at home who are tuning in with us to experience this night. So the Moth is dedicated to true stories told before a live and partially digital audience. All of these stories are told, no notes, no net. What I love about the craft is it's just a storyteller, their own courage and you and your waiting ears and excited eyes. The theme. The theme is when you're home, you are home with us. And from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of the Moth, we just want to say welcome. So for each of these storytellers, instead of reading their illustrious bios, we like to introduce them by a question. And the question is, what are three things that make you feel at home? And this first storyteller, he said, my wife, my kid, and my other kid. We are excited to have him here. Please put all your hands together for Lin Manuel Miranda.
- [05:51]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Sometimes the truth just pops out. It is January 16, 1997, 8:00 o' clock Eastern Standard Time. And my girlfriend Meredith has surprised me with tickets to see rent for my 17th birthday. And we go up to the last row of this is like original cast, first year Rent. And we go up to the last row of the mezzanine of the Nederlander Theater, and my mind is blown. And there's a moment in the second act where the truth just pops out. Meredith and I are what you would call in high school theater kids. You Know our kind. You've heard us warming up. You've seen our silly games. Zip, zap, zap. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. You make fun of us, but we know something you don't know. We know that when we get to the auditorium, we are safe and we are making something that is bigger than all of us. We know while you are in your grades wondering who likes who and who hates who and whose life is over and who is thriving, we know life is bigger than our grade because we're making things with people of all other grades to try to make the best thing possible. Meredith and I met when I was cast as the Pirate King and she was the major general's daughter in Pirates of Penzance. And the romance is inevitable because the job of the pirates is to romance the major general's daughter. And we do show after show together. We did Godspell together. She directed A Chorus Line. I was her assistant on that. And that year she takes me to see Rent. And there's a moment in the second act of Rent where Mark and Roger Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal are having this heated moment. And Roger accuses Mark. He says, Mark has got his work. They say Mark lives for his work. And Mark's in love with his work. And I'm like, yeah, Mark. And he goes, mark hides in his work. From what? From facing your failure, Facing your loneliness? Facing the fact you live a lie. What? Yes, you live a lie. Tell you why you pretend to create and observe when you really detach from feeling alive. And that's when Jonathan Larson reached out and punched me straight in the heart. And the truth popped out. Because the moment that show started, I was like, oh, I'm Mark. Because I was the kid who carried the camcorder to school. I was the kid who, when I wasn't in the auditorium and was hanging out with my friends, I had a camera up instead of actually hanging out with my friends while everyone else was actually getting to know each other, I held everyone at a remove and recorded the whole thing. So when Jonathan Larson's Roger says that to Mark, it felt like he was talking to me. And I went from someone who likes musicals and if he saves enough money, buys TKTS tickets on his birthday, to thinking, oh, the truth can come out in a musical. You're allowed to write musicals. And that's when I went from being a fan of musicals, of being a theater kid, to trying to write my first musical. And I Wrote my first musical that year. It was called Nightmare in D Major. And I wrote it in a feverish weekend over a winter break. And we had a student written theater club at my high school. They would have five student directors. They would pick five plays from the submissions from all over school. And my musical got picked and it was the first musical ever done because they're usually just 20 minute one act plays. And so they did Nightmare in D Major. Fast forward to opening night, April 1997 Eastern Standard Time. And I should mention here that two things. One, my mother's a psychologist. Two, Nightmare in D Major is terrible. It concerns our young protagonist who falls asleep and has a nightmare in D Major. And all of this Freudian concerns come to haunt him. Chiefly among them, the main villain of the piece is a fetal pig. He dissected an AP bio who is back for revenge. Shakespeare ain't rotters and Hammerstein. It certainly ain't. And there's other characters that are all from the Freudian subconscious because like I said, my mother's a psychologist and there's an alcoholic Uncle Steve and a scary clown from a child's birthday party. And they're all coming back to haunt the protagonist in D Major. And I'm sitting there and the show is getting laughs and I'm sitting in the audience and I'm thrilled that the students who are watching and my parents who are watching are enjoying it. And there is a moment in the show where this little girl comes on stage and she was played by an eighth grader. She was played by Sarah Schweissky. And she sings, you probably do not remember me, but in fourth grade you were in love with me. You don't know my name but you know my face. Sometimes I get just a bit sad when I think that you have forgotten me. But I'll always be in your dreams. In your dreams. And I'll stay right here. In your dreams. In your dreams. And several things happen at once. One, there is nothing funny or silly or student like about this character. This character pops up. The main character tries to play with her and hang out with her. And he's cut off because he's told she passed away when he was young. And I suddenly remember that when I was four years old, my best friend died. She.
- [13:22]
Sponsor Voice
Was.
- [13:23]
Lin-Manuel Miranda
It's the nightmare scenario for any parent. Each of her parents thought she was with the other and she drowned behind their home. And this is what I. I remember my mother telling me in my room on a morning when I had nursery school. I remember crying I remember getting in the car that day. My nursery school teacher ran a carpool of her own students to take us to uptown Nursery on 179th Street. And I remember that teacher, Whispering Lynn's friend died. To every parent of the children she picked up along the way, I remember about a year of gray. Just the memories are gray. I remember that year more vividly than I remember her. And I realized if anyone laughs at this part of this student show, I'll die. Because the truth popped out, because I didn't remember her. But she showed up in my first musical. And I look over at my mother, who I'm sure has a lot to say about this, and they understand. And the show goes on, and it's a very silly ending, and the guy wakes up and the play is over. But I get addicted to that feeling of the truth popping out in the show and what are we all going to do when it's staring at us? I remember when I was writing Hamilton and the line, I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory popped up. That is not in Ron Chernow's book. That is not in any history book. That's something coming out of me that makes me understand this person and a lot of people, because I work a lot, sort of think, oh, well, he's. It's autobiographical. He's Hamilton. But I felt the exact same way when Aaron Burr said, if there's a reason I'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I'm willing to wait for it. That's not in any biography of Burr you're going to find. That's the moment where you write and you write until the truth pops out. There's a moment in Hamilton where the parents lose a child. And I have had countless parents come up to me and say, how do you know what this feels like? And how did you find the words? And one thing that is true is that it took me a day to write that song. It wrote pretty quick. And another thing that is true is that I have been writing that song since I was 4 years old, because I have imagined how that felt since I was 4 years old. And I remember poor Meredith, the girlfriend who got me tickets to Rent, coming home to six voicemail messages from me saying, call me when you get home. Call me when you get home. Call me when you get home. Because I have imagined 50 ways she has died on the way home, on the train from my house because of that year of gray. And I realized that when you choose your heroes, I chose Jonathan Larson, who tragically passed away the day before his show had its first public performance. And I wonder how he felt writing the second act of that show, watching Mark and Roger talk to each other as an artist in the midst of the plague of the AIDS crisis, as Jonathan watched friend after friend and a generation of artists die in this plague of this disease, and how he felt when he got to those lines and how sometimes as an artist, all you can do is hold up the camera and bear witness until the truth pops out. Thank you.
- [18:06]
C.J. Hunt
Lin Manuel Miranda.
- [18:13]
Jay Allison
Lin Manuel Manuel Miranda is a Pulitzer Prize, Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award winning songwriter, actor, director and producer. He's the creator and original star of Broadway's Hamilton and In the Heights. Miranda is the co writer of Warriors, a new concept album with Issa Davis based on the 1979 film. He's the recipient of the 2015 MacArthur Foundation Award and the 2019 Portrait of a Nation Prize. Select film and TV credits include Tick Tick Boom, Moana Encanto, Mary Poppins Returns and Mufasa the Lion King. He and the Miranda family are active supporters of initiatives that increase representation in the arts, ensure access to women's reproductive health, and promote resilience in Puerto Rico. He lives with his family in New York. Coming up, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Chiara Alegria Hudes tells us about her first love Music the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [19:34]
Kiara Alegria Hudes
Think about it.
- [19:35]
Sponsor Voice
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- [20:34]
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- [21:35]
Weather cools down and the days get shorter, I just want to make my home feel extra cozy. And Wayfair gets it. I recently picked up a great comfy armchair to read in, some soft new sheets, and a fluffy throw blanket so I'm ready for the fall. Wayfair is really the go to spot for everything you need to cozify your space this fall. They have a huge selection of furniture, decor, bedding, and even kitchen essentials. Everything's curated by style, with options for every budget. My delivery was quick free and totally hassle free, which made setting up my cozy corner a breeze. Whether you're looking to refresh your living room, stock your kitchen for fall cooking, or just add a few seasonal touches, Wayfair has you covered. Cozify your space with Wayfair's curated collection of easy, affordable fall updates. From comfy recliners to cozy bedding and autumn decor, find it all for way less@wayfair.com that's W a Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every Home.
- [22:37]
Jay Allison
This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison, and in this hour we're bringing you a special live show from the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights, New York City. Here's your host from the evening, C.J. hunt.
- [22:52]
C.J. Hunt
Our next storyteller is an incredible storyteller like all of these storytellers and when asked what are the three things that make them feel at Home, they said, my James Baldwin books, my Pierre Thomas books, and my Ntozake Shange books. Please put all of your hands together for Kiara Alegria Giudice.
- [23:22]
Kiara Alegria Hudes
Thank you. So as early back as I can remember, I was chasing the good notes the first time I remember this, I was four years old. I was visiting my Aunt Linda and Uncle Rick, who were professional musicians, and they showed me an album cover. Champion Jack Dupree. Well, I thought that was pretty cool because his name was, like, a little weird and wild Champion. And my name, Chiara Alegria Hudiz, is a little weird and wild. So they stacked two yellow pages on top of the piano bench for those unfamiliar. Yellow pages are books that contain phone numbers. And they sit me on top of the yellow pages so that I'm high enough that my hands can reach the piano keys and they drop the needle on the Champion Jack Dupri album and they say, play along, and they leave me alone. So the first thing I did was listen. I had never heard him before. It was New Orleans blues piano. And then I just tried putting my finger and pressing one key down. And it. It sounded really bad. So, you know, it's like I recoiled. Like I touched a hot stovetop. And I tried putting my finger on another key. And that note went with the record. And I spent the next half hour chasing the good notes, chasing the notes that went. It was kind of like an action adventure for my hearing. And as I did that for half an hour, the weight of the world outside disappeared. I was only four, but the world already started to weigh a little bit. My parents were already fighting a lot. By the time I was in middle school, the world had begun to weigh a lot more. By that time, my parents were separated, and the two parts of my life were split and torn in two. I had also been to more funerals than I knew was normal. It was HIV AIDS days. It was crack cocaine days. And a lot of those funerals were of, like, my big cousins who were, like, in their 20s. Now my mom is a priestess or a santera in a religious and spiritual path called lukumi. For those unfamiliar. Lukumi originated in Yoruba land, Nigeria, and was brought to and syncretized with Caribbean Catholicism. So the Bata drummers and the Bata themselves are an Orisha. They are the voice of a spirit or a God. My mom would introduce me to the players, and she would introduce me, tell me their given their birth names, but also their Ocha names, the names they carried from the time they were initiated in the religion. I really liked that they had chosen a path that added a new name to their life. And I would listen, and the drums had a physical vibrational effect on me. I could feel the density and the intensity of my heartbeat shift. I could feel it inside my blood. I would be in awe, but that kind of hushed kind of awe. And if she couldn't afford the bata players for a given ceremony, or if they weren't available, she'd pop in a Babatunde Olatunji tape. That's a master drummer from Nigeria. Or she'd pop in a Selena y Riotilio tape, which was Cuban folkloric music, also in the tradition now by high school. Bachata Rosa had come out, which was Juan Luis Guerra's seminal album. And my cousins at Abuela's house would pop in the tape and they'd press play. And we had all been to those funerals together, and we were reeling. But once those songs came on, they became so embodied. And they would take little timid me, little timid Kiki, and they drag me onto the linoleum floor of Abuela's living room from whatever corner I'd been hiding in, and they'd slap my ass until I kind of, like, loosened up. And I would join them. I would join the dance, and again, the weight of the world would just disappear. So when I got into Yale University to be a music composition major, I was pretty blown away. I was the first in my family to go to college. And I thought, okay, here we go. I'm going to chase these good notes to places I can't even imagine. I got into those handsomely wooden paneled seminar rooms, you know, and they start playing Bach, they start playing Brahms, they start playing Schubert. And I realized that the word music actually had a different definition at Yale than it had in my life previous. It meant Western classical without having to say so. So all of a sudden, this little oh, kind of planted itself in my gut. You know, it's meant white male and dead, oftentimes by more than a century. I tried to say, well, I want to do my project on Stevie Wonder. I remember the students, and the professor did actually laugh out loud at that one. I tried also to say, well, you know, I want to do my project on Selena y Realtilio. And I remember the professor saying to me, you know, that's folkloric stuff that doesn't really merit the level of attention that we're trying to look at in this classroom, you know, and even just dealing with Brahms And Bach and Beethoven. There was no dancing. Okay, you sit music. This is how you listen to music. You sit still and listen. That's it. Music is not about dancing. Music is not about the spirits. It's not about ancestry. It's not about body. I mean, there's definitely no ass slapping happening in the seminar rooms at Yale. So I was pretty bummed out. But I thought, okay, well, I love this Bach so much. I love this shit Chopin so much. I love this Mozart so much. That's enough to sustain me for four years of really meaty investigation and playing. But I was jonesing. I started jonesing for some Afro Caribbean stuff, and I went to the listening library. And the listening library, like most rooms at Yale, it wasn't the biggest one, but it's really architecturally gorgeous. Wooden paneling, stained glass windows, and these floor to ceiling wrap around shelves, meticulously ordered of boxed CDs and boxed vinyl sets, entire catalogs of Bach just by certain individual performers. And I said to the listening librarian, I said, do you have any West African stuff? Do you have any Afro Caribbean stuff? And she led me over to the ethnomusicology section. I was like, okay, here we go. And the first thing I had to do was get on my knees because the ethnomusicology section was basically kind of down on the floor. And unlike the wraparound collection, it was two shelves. It was about 48 inches wide, one shelf on top of another. So I was like, okay, well, this is still really cool. I'm excited to see what they got. But I noticed there weren't CDs and there weren't vinyl. They were dubbed tapes. And the dub tapes didn't have names on them. They only had place locations. So a tape might say Senegal, for instance. But there was no individual artistry acknowledged. I remembered something mom told me about the erasure of names that happened when West Africans were brought to the Caribbean. The erasure of names that happened when Taino and other native populations were decimated by smallpox and violence. I had always thought the erasure of names was something in the past, something historic, like centuries ago stuff. But it was present tense. And my heart sank seeing those unnamed tapes. And the thrill was gone. I kind of fell out of love with music. The thing that had used to remove me from the weight of the world just now had begun putting the weight of the world on my shoulders. So I dragged myself like a good student into senior year, and I heard Wynton Marsalis was coming to town. My aunt told me and she knew the trombonist in the band, and she was like, he's going to sneak you into rehearsals. So I had to cut class, but I went to Woolsey hall, and I sat in the very back row. Wynton was in town for 10 days to rehearse his new jazz oratorio that he was then going to go premiere at his new endeavor in New York called Jazz at Lincoln Center. Now, Woolsey hall is the crown jewel of Yale architecture. It is massive, like this space we're in. It is ornate, everything in gold leaf. The pipe organ alone looks like the Manhattan skyline. And I just disappeared in the back for about four days, cut class for four days straight and just listened to different genre of music, a different practice of music. And on day four, he was like, hey, you in the back row. All right, come on, come on. Yes. Mr. Marsalis, I hear you're a music composition major. So do you have good penmanship? Well, I did have good penmanship because my aunt had taught me musical calligraphy, how to be very meticulous and careful when writing a note. He said, well, Cassandra Wilson is coming in 10 minutes, and she's very unhappy with the state of her charts. So can you copy this chart for her quickly? So I did. I copied the chart quickly but carefully so that the calligraphy looked neat and pristine. I handed him back the corrected chart, and he gave me a $20 bill. I returned to my corner in the back, and Cassandra, this regal jazz vocalist, this woman is as centered and grounded and rooted as a tree. She gets on stage, and this is the first time they've run through this song because she hasn't arrived until today. And the song is God Don't Like Ugly. And it began, and it was a really nasty, ugly, conflicted, angry song. And her voice sank into that conflict and nastiness, like thorns, like barbs. The spirits in that song were angry. And my heart, the density and the intensity of my heartbeat shifted. The intensity of my pulse shifted. And I could feel that nastiness in me as music was restored to my body. Well, the day before the dress rehearsal, Wynton Marsalis asked a kid, so have you ever written a piece for trumpet? I lied and said, yes, Mr. Marsalis. And he said, great. Bring it tomorrow. Bring a tape recorder, and we'll play it at the end of rehearsal. So I stayed up all night. I pulled the all nighter of all nighters at college, and I came the next day with my new old trumpet piece and my tape recorder, and I gave him his Chart. And he put his chart on his stand and it was for piano and trumpet. So I brought my chart over to the piano. He adjusted his mouthpiece. My fingers were trembling. And it starts with a two bar piano intro. And I was just really just trying to breathe into my fingertips so that they would just steady themselves and play the notes. The tape recorder was going. I play and this note comes out of his trumpet. That's like molasses. It's so lugubrious. I had written a very, very sensual piece. Like, if you've ever run your fingers down velvet and seen the little tracks it leaves behind, or if you've ever had someone you love just smoothly run their fingers tenderly down your back, that's kind of what the piece was like. So at the end we finished. He said, you know, that was really beautiful. You got some talent, kid. What'd you guys think? Because this whole jazz orchestra had been watching this thing. And his alto saxophone player said, that girl's bad. So I didn't walk back to my dorm room. I floated back to my dorm room. That was the best compliment I had ever received. Received. And I wanted to hear the tape. What had happened. It was almost like an out of body experience. So I pressed rewind on the tape player and it didn't budge. It had run out of batteries, so I got some new batteries, put it in the tape player, rewound it. Though I noticed it hadn't made it very far. And I pressed play and I heard the first two bars of my piano intro with one or two note mistakes, but. But it was all right. And then the tape had stopped recording before he played his first note. And, you know, I feel like in any other moment in my life, my reaction would have been like, no, But I swear it was this exhale and a little laugh. And I felt the universe just pushing my shoulder blade a little bit. I didn't know why. It had something to do with ephemerality and how nothing lasts forever. Anyway, later that year, Wynton Marsalis premiered his jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields at Jazz at Lincoln center and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Not to worry. My aunt and uncle, the musicians, they ended up later that year recording my piano and trumpet piece. And I still have that recording to today. And gradually I stopped chasing the notes. I let go of music and I started chasing something different. I started chasing the stories I had been surrounded by all my life. And I started writing them down and putting names on them. When my plays went to Broadway and won fancy prizes and went to Hollywood, people would ask like, is that your dream come true? Oh my gosh. But the slightly embarrassing answer is like, no. It's actually cool. But it's not my dream come true. My dream was and still is to tell our stories, name our names, have them go on a library shelf that's eye level and that's wider than 48 inches and that I know and trust really deep in my heart long after I'm gone is going to get wider and wider and wider and full of more names. Thank you.
- [39:41]
C.J. Hunt
Kiara Alegria Cudizing Naming the Names Kiara.
- [39:48]
Jay Allison
Alegria Hudes is the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of Water by the Spoonful, the author of a memoir, My Broken Language, and she wrote the script for the Tony Award winning Broadway musical in the Heights. She's the co founder of Latinx Casting Manifesto and Emancipated Stories, a platform where people behind bars can share one page of their life story with the world. Hudes now lives with her family in Washington Heights. This music, by the way, is her composition from the story called Counting My Blessings and it's performed by her aunt Linda Hudes on piano and her uncle Rick Albani on trumpet. In a moment, our final storyteller from this live hour, Lead Black tells us about traditional masculinity when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
- [41:28]
Sponsor Voice
Today's show is sponsored by Alma. I know I'm not the only one who turns to the Internet when I'm struggling. It feels like there are so many answers from how to learn the ukulele to how to improve my mental health. But what I've come to realize is that while I can use the Internet to strum a stunted version of La Vie en Rose, when it comes to taking care of my mind, there's no replacement for real human relationships. But even finding a therapist can feel like an inevitable online black hole. That's why I'm so happy to share that Alma makes it easy to connect with an experienced therapist, a real person who can listen, understand and support you through your specific challenges. You don't have to be stuck with the first available person. Trust me, it's important to find someone you click with. They can be nice. They can be smart. They can let you bring your Chihuahua. True story. But they also have to be someone.
- [42:19]
Kiara Alegria Hudes
Who really gets you.
- [42:20]
Sponsor Voice
Uniquely. When you browse Alma's online directory, you can filter by the qualities that matter to you, then book free 15 minute consultations with the therapists you're interested in seeing. This way you can find someone you connect with on a personal level and see real improvements in your mental health with their support, better with people, better with Alma. Visit helloalma.commoth to get started and schedule a free consultation today. That's hello A l m a dot.
- [42:50]
Com Moth Autotrader is powered by Auto Intelligence. Their tools and data sync with your exact budget and preferences to tailor the entire car shopping experience to you. Want a Pink mid size SUV with 22 inch rims and a V8? How about a two door convertible with a premium sound system and heated cup holders? Nothing's too specific. AutoTrader powered by auto Intelligence helps you find your dream car at the right price in no time because they do all the hard work for you. Imagine going from no clue to new car in no time, learning that fully loaded fits the budget. Finding the car that gives you the feels as much as the deals. Want your car delivered the same way as your lunch order? Yeah, that's a thing. With Autotrader Powered by Auto Intelligence, you're in control from your first search to the moment you sign on the dotted line. It's the totally you way to buy a car. Visit autotrader.com to find your perfect ride.
- [43:47]
Jay Allison
You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison. We're wrapping up this live hour from Washington Heights in New York City with uptown native Led Black. But first, here's your host, CJ Hunt.
- [44:01]
C.J. Hunt
And with that, I will introduce our final storyteller of the night. When asked what makes this storyteller feel home, they said family food and laughs. Put all your hands together for Lead Black.
- [44:24]
Sponsor Voice
Thank you. I didn't know I was poor until my freshman year at Bronx Science. I was the only kid at PS143 in Washington Heights that year to make the cut to attend the prestigious Bronx High School of Science in Washington Heights. Everyone I knew was just like me. We were the children of the working poor that made NYC run. @ Bronx Science, I realized there was a whole world outside of Washington Heights and I felt profound culture shock. These kids weren't better than me, their parents weren't better than mine, but they were better off in this. It really bothered me. I did not know I was the Other until then. I hated the feeling of being less than. On top of that, I had to take three trains from the hood just to get there. I took the one from 191 to 168th, then the A to 145th and then the D to school, then reverse and repeat that in the afternoon. Latinos have a saying, no hay mal que polvien no venga. Which basically means something good always comes from something bad. What I started to notice on my way back home is there was always a group of girls at the 168th street station, seemingly waiting for me. For those that don't know, 168th is one of the deepest underground stations in the whole subway system. So it gets really hot. I mean, mad hot. You heard of Madhop ballroom? This was Madhop train station. And it would get crazy crowded because the elevators were ancient and they hovered between operational and out of order all the time. On a bad day, you could be down there for what seemed like an eternity. But somehow, every day, those girls were there. Then one day, one of the girls come up to me and says, my homegirl Alina is digging you. And you, you better talk to her. Cause we're tired of waiting for you every day at the hottest train station on earth. Eileen wasn't like a lot of the uptown girls I knew. She had this whole Dominican Goth thing going that I found super adorable. Her and I quickly became inseparable, spending all our free time together. If I wasn't in school or playing ball with my boys, I was with her. Our thing was taking long walks in Fort Triumph Park. Years later, I will propose to her at a spot overlooking the Hudson with a view of the GWB in that very same park. Eileen and I are both Dominican Yorks, children of Dominican parents born in nyc. But I am decidedly east of Broadway, growing up in the beating heart of Washington Heights in the 190s and Wadsworth. Eileen, on the other hand, live west of Broadway on Bennett Ave. Which is more like the Upper west side. Way more affluent than Wadsworth. No shade, but you can't claim Washington Heights if you're from Bennett. For the record, the area west of Broadway is sometimes referred to as Hudson Heights. But there's no such thing as Hudson Heights. It was a real estate term created to provide distance from the supposed stench of Washington Heights. So remember, Hudson Heights doesn't exist. It's Washington Heights forever. Yup. But I digress. Fast forward a bunch of years to the late 2000s, and Eileen and I happily married with three beautiful young daughters, Imani, Layla and Sariah. Growing up in my little apartment, Washington Heights, I always imagined that I would have the same benefits of Dominican manhood that my father, my brother and other Dominican men enjoyed. As a boy, I lived with my mother and my Grandmother. So I didn't have to do anything. When I sat down to eat at a table, a plate with awesome food would appear. When I finished, it would just as magically disappear. I didn't have to do dishes or chores for that matter. I was a Dominican boy and those things were for the women folk. My dad didn't even have to pick up the phone. The phone will ring right next to him and he would call out to my mom in the next room to pick it up. Nalda el telephono. And when he got home, it was like an event. Everything stopped and started simultaneously. Whatever you were watching in the one TV in the household was quickly changed to the Yankees game. The man of the house was home for work and needed to be fed and taken care of. That's what I thought I was getting into. I wanted that carefree Dominican man life. No worries being the undisputed boss. Just because having the women of the household waiting on me hand and foot, I could get used to that. Eileen was having none of it. She, on the other hand, lived with two younger brothers and a father that was a serial womanizer. Among other things, her mom stoically put up with all her dad's nonsense. Since Eileen was the only other woman in the household, she had to be a second mom and had to be at the beck and call of the men of the house. She would not repeat that in her marriage with me. She was the 2.0 version of the Dominican woman. So when she cooked, I did the dishes. On weekends, I did laundry and even cleaning. Can you imagine? My dad ain't had to do nothing. I tried my best to do as little housework as possible, but it was not to be. She would not shut up otherwise. After a while, I realized it was only fair, as we both have full time jobs and three kids. Or three kids. So we settled to a groove and we were happily parenting our three beautiful daughters. Then in September 2008, I received a call from Eileen and she was hysterical. She had found a mass in her right breast. And now the doctors confirmed the worst. She was diagnosed with a aggressive form of breast cancer called triple negative. We had entered what Juno Diaz called cancer planet. I could still recall shaving her long hair off in the kitchen as I'd already started falling off in clumps because of the chemo. With every swipe of the clippers, we both quietly acknowledged that we had crossed the Rubicon. Our lives would never be the same again. After the deed was done, we walked into the living room to avail the new look to our gathered family. Everyone stared, lost in their own grief. My then 2 year old broke the silence when she said, mom, you look like a monster. We laughed and then we cried hard as a unit. That first round of chemo was horrific. She seemed to be wasting away right before our eyes. She was emaciated and wasn't eating or sleeping much for that matter. At times she would cough the entire night away. As her poor body was ravaged by her treatment. Our future and her outcome looked bleak. The way I coped was by doing chores. I found refuge in doing the little things that kept the household going. Then MLK weekend 2009 we were collectively devastated as one of my wife's many doctors informed us they had found a blood clot her heart. The doctor insinuated that she was in grave danger of losing her life. That weekend for me was the toughest time of this whole nightmare. After everything we'd been through, I felt like it wasn't long before it was all over. That Monday, I was alone in a bedroom sweeping, listening to Heavy D's Vibes album when Queen Majesty came on. Queen Majesty is a beautifully worded ode to a woman that Heavy finds way out of his league. Over a lush classic reggae break, Heavy waxes poetic on her love and admiration for this woman, this Queen Majesty. That song hit me like a ton of bricks. I was on the verge of losing my Queen Majesty and the dam broke. I cried like I've never cried before. I ugly cried. I cried like I was taught a man was not supposed to cry. I realized right then and there that I was not strong enough to handle this alone. I pride myself in being able to take care of my family, but I was powerless with the problem before me. At that very moment when I was at my lowest listening to this magnificent record, I felt for the first and only time the feeling of grace. It's like that song put me in communion with something bigger than myself. While I've never been religious, I could feel the presence of God in the room. I immediately felt better and knew that we would somehow get through this. I still can't hear that song without crying. Before my wife's cancer diagnosis, I believed I was immortal. I fancied myself a writer, even though I didn't write that much. Her battle with cancer put a battery in my back as I now knew that death was a real concrete thing. If the love of my life could die, so could I say less. In 2009, Eileen finished her cancer treatment. By 2010, I became the editor in Chief of the Uptown Collective. The site was born out of the fierce urgency to get my story and the story of my neighborhood out of my head and into the world. The Uptown Collective began as an homage to our beloved Washington Heights, but is now the voice of Uptown Online. I realized that my upbringing, the poverty, the lack were not liabilities, but they were assets. I had something that those rich kids of Bronx Science might never have. I had grit, tenacity, street smarts. I learned the hard way that the journey is just as important as the destination. And out of the many trials and tribulations, a new man was born. One that took the best of his heritage and culture and discarded those things that no longer served us. Eileen's ordeal led her to starting a wellness program at Columbia University Medical center for the many poor women of color dealing with their own cancer diagnosis. These women absolutely adore and worship my wife. One day I was walking Arlene to work when we ran into one of these women. This woman literally drops everything and bows to Arlene like she's Prince Hakeem and coming to America. This woman kissed and hugged and fawned up with my wife like she was some type of savior. But in many ways, she is as bad and as brutal as cancer was. It propelled the both of us to a life of service to a community we love and cherish so much. Last September, Aline celebrated 12 years of being cancer free. And 10 days ago, we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. This Dominican boy is now the 2.0 version of the Dominican man. Remember folks, after the plague came the renaissance spread. Love is the Uptown way. Thank you.
- [55:38]
C.J. Hunt
Led Black of the Uptown Collective, Washington.
- [55:43]
Jay Allison
Heights own Led Black is a Dominican American writer, blogger, filmmaker, entrepreneur and social media strategist. Lead is the founder of UptownCollective.com, a voice for Uptown Manhattan Online. Led is the social media manager for the Manhattan Times, the Bronx Free Press, the New York Latino Film Festival and the West Harlem Development Corporation. He's also working on Nutcracker Inc. A documentary on the infamous street cocktail and a left of center film on the history of Washington Heights. To see photos of Lead and his family, you can Visit our website themoth.org.
- [56:29]
C.J. Hunt
Thank you so much. We hope you come talk to us online about what you love and about what is next for all of us. And from everyone here, we hope you have a great day, we hope you have a great week and we hope you remember to go chase those good notes. We'll see you soon. Take care of each other.
- [56:48]
Jay Allison
That's it for this live episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth. This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison and Katherine Burns, who also directed a story. Our live host was comedy writer and director C.J. hunt from New York City. He is also the director of the Neutral Ground, a documentary about breaking up with the Confederacy, and a field producer for the Daily show with Trevor Noah. Co producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Other stories in the show were directed by Sarah Austin, Janess and Jody Powell. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluce, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Caza. Special thanks to Mike Fiddleson and the team at United Palace, Neria Leyva Gutierrez, Michelle Orsi Gordon and the team at Noma luis A. Miranda Jr. Sarah Elisa Miller, Owen Panettieri, Carmen Rita Wong and Sharon Saltzberg Moss. Stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Bill Orcutt and Heavy D. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including Executive producer Leah Rhys Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.
- [58:55]
Sponsor Voice
Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to outdo your holiday, your hammocking and your pooling. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.