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The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Mets, McDonalds, and a White House Secret
00:57:09
An author writes a spoof “kids” book about going to sleep, a family’s obsessive love of a baseball team, a teenage girl discovers her crush is in a gang, and a presidential speech writer has a secret. Storytellers: Adam Mansbach, Marie Hershkowitz,
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- [00:00]
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- [01:02]
Apple Representative
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Sarah Austin Janess
Welcome to the Moth Radio hour from PRX I. Hi, I'm Sarah Austin Jeness. The first Moth night was in the summer of 1997 and we've been gathering for these events in bars and churches, community rooms and grand theater spaces ever since. At a Moth, people stand on stage one by one to tell true and personal stories in front of people they don't know. So in the same night you might have a grandma, a Nobel laureate, Moby, a voodoo priestess and a nurse. The nights are filled with bravery, heartbreak, belly laughs, and they're a lot of fun in this hour, kicking things off with a bang. Adam Mansbach. Adam has told versions of this story at Moth events all around the country with us. So this is Adam Mansbach live at the moth in Denver, Colorado.
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Apple Representative
It's November to 2011 and I am the most controversial parent in America by virtue of a short, obscene fake children's book by the name of Go the Fuck to sleep. It's 14 stanzas long. I wrote it in 39 minutes with no pants on. Now, I'm a literary novelist by trade, so the manner in which this particular creation of mine ascended into the Zeitgeist was perplexing to me, to say the least. All I was trying to do in this book is simply capture the interior monologue of a parent attempting to put a child to bed. My daughter Vivian, my lovely, beautiful, wonderful, amazing daughter. Vivian was two and a half at the time and sleeping was low on her list of priorities. I would sometimes be in her room for two, two and a half hours. This gets tedious after a while. And I just wanted to capture the paradox of the fact that on one hand you can love a kid to death, and on the other hand, be so desperate to get out of that room after the first hour that like, you know, like, if Don Corleone walked in the room and is like, I'll put the child to bed, but you'll have to do a service for me one day, and this day may never come. Whatever, Don Corleone, just take this baby, you know. So I read the book for the first time in public at a museum in Philadelphia six months before the book was supposed to be published. It was part of an evening of short performances, 10 minute performances, there were like 50 of them. And I went on last after a 94 year old tap dancer. And you really never want to follow a 94 year old, you know what I mean? Like not on the road, not on stage, just never. And I get on there and I read the book to maybe 200 people and the response is good, but I don't think much of it. I go home and I go to sleep and when I wake up the next morning, Go the Fuck to sleep is ranked 125th on Amazon. Now, as a literary writer, I didn't even know they made numbers that low. And by the end of the week, the book has shot up to number one. I don't want to get overly technical here, but the book does not exist and is not going to exist for some months. So we very quickly rush it toward production with the hope of getting it out into the world by Father's Day. I don't even know what's funny about that. Meanwhile, however, a PDF of the book that we have put together leaks and starts ricocheting around the Internet and lands in hundreds of thousands of people's mailboxes. We had put this together because we wanted to send it to booksellers. We thought it might be something of an uphill battle getting booksellers to stock, much less support, a book called Go the Fuck to Sleep. So hundreds of thousands of people are getting the book for free and we're panicking. We're thinking that we're not gonna sell a single book. Luckily for us, it's Bad for him to show up at a baby shower with a low resolution, printed out, you know, stapled together PDF and be like, here, it's such a wonderful time in your life, you know, But I mean, things are going crazy. A woman in Australia has posted the entire book as a Facebook album and all this trash is going to her Facebook page. So I write her an email. I'm like, you know, the book hasn't come out yet. Please take this down. We'd like to sell a couple books when the book is available. And she's like, I'll take it down if you want, but I want you to know that 500 people have contacted me since yesterday asking where they can buy the book. And I'm sending them to Amazon. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Forget I asked. So we weather the storm and the book comes out and it debuts at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. And Samuel Jackson reads the audiobook, probably his best work since Pulp Fiction. And you know, all of this craziness is just unending. There's a group in New Zealand that wants to censor the book and they put out a press release that says, while this book may be fine and even harmless in the hands of normal, well adjusted parents, it could pose a real danger to children. In the hands of irresponsible, maladjusted parents, I'm like, yeah, but in the hands of irresponsible, maladjusted parents, like a spoon is a danger to children. They didn't really catch much momentum on the boycott. But the weirdest thing of all for me is that I'm sort of thrown into a crisis because suddenly and inexplicably I'm being positioned as a parenting expert. I'm getting emails from people thanking me for saving their marriages, and also from people who are furious and irate and saying things like, I would never read this book to a child. It would take a very specific blend of literacy and illiteracy to mistakenly read this book to a child. But I feel like I've got to ride the gravy train. And if I'm going to be a fake parenting expert and feed my family, that's fine with me. I'll do it. But it's actually disturbing to me because all of the publicity and the rigmarole around this book is actually meaning that I'm not spending much time at all with my child. So not only do I feel like I'm not a parenting expert, I feel like I might not even be a decent parent. I'm on the road all the time. When I am home, I'm on the phone eight hours, 10 hours a day, answering the same five questions from media around the world. And all of this kind of came to a boil and gained a particular focus when I was asked to host a fundraiser for a Boston children's hospital in Los Angeles. People in Los Angeles have more money, I guess. So they offered to fly me and my family to Los Angeles for the weekend, put us up in a hotel where John Wayne had once kept a cow. They were going to give away copies of the book, and all I had to do was shake hands and sign books and imbibe alcoholic beverages. I can do those things. So I say, cool, and we go to la and I get to the fundraiser, at which point I find out that I am co hosting this fundraiser with another controversial luminary of parenting, Dr. Richard Ferber. Oh, you know Dr. Ferber. For those who don't, Dr. Ferber is a guy who wrote a book called the Ferber Method. It's a sleep training concept. In essence, Dr. Ferber's method stipulates that if your child is crying, you ignore that child, you let them cry it out, thus teaching them to self soothe. And also that the world is a cold, horrible place populated by people who only pretend to love them. The opposite of the fervor method, what we were practicing with Vivian is called attachment parenting. Attachment parenting dictates that when your child makes a peep, a whimper, the slightest sound, you rush into their room, grab them, cradle them in your arms, tell them that you love them, thus ensuring that they will sleep in your bed until they are ready to leave for college. So I wasn't really sure how this fundraiser was going to go, But I meet Dr. Ferber. He's a nice, avuncular Jewish man. Could have been my own uncle. We have a nice chat, and then the fundraiser commences and I begin to drink. Dr. Furber's role, however, was a little more involved. It turned out that he was there to give a slideshow. So as a heavy level of inebriation set in on the crowd. And also it should tell you something about my mind state at this point that a night hobnobbing with rich, decadent, drunken Los Angelenos sounded like a night off to me. You know what I mean? So at the moment when Everybody's had maybe three cocktails, Dr. Ferber pulls a screen down and begins to give a lengthy, highly detailed slideshow about how to put a baby to sleep. The problem is that he and I are probably the only people here who've ever put a baby to sleep because the rest of these people have nannies who do that, so nobody's really interested. The highlight of the slideshow comes when a picture of me from go the fuck to sleep flashes on the screen. It's me sneaking out of a child's room and Dr. Ferber's like, this right here, this is what you should never do. This is completely wrong. I'm like, Dr. Ferber just threw me under the sleep training bus. And everybody turns to look at me and I'm just. I keep drinking. I go back to my hotel room and I wake up the next morning and I find in my inbox an email from Dr. Richard Ferber. And the subject heading of the email is, why didn't you tell me that I know you? I'm like, Dr. Ferber has lost his mind. Then I open the email and my mind is blown because it turns out that unbeknownst to me, I went to summer camp with Dr. Ferber's son, the unforgettably named Thad Ferber. He and I were friends and camp mates until I got kicked out of the camp and he lived like two towns over from me, which at 13 means you only see that dude like once a year. But in 1990, the play date I had with Thad Ferber consisted of a trip to Tower Records on Newbury street in Boston to buy rap records. I was a DJ and an emcee and this is what I did. We get to Tower Records and find that the rap section is being guarded by a life sized cardboard cutout of MC Hammer, who was himself a very controversial figure in 1990, not considered to be the most authentic dude by hardcore hip hoppers like myself. So naturally, I rip the head off of the cardboard cutout and stuff it into my jacket. Not in an act of theft as much as decapitation. And I attempt to sneak out of Tower Records and Thad Ferber and I are accosted and captured by Tower Records security. And Thad Ferber, who's guilty only by association, and I are taken down into the dungeon deep in the bowels of Tower Records, where we are seated, informed that the cardboard cutout of MC Hammer is worth $5,000, which seems spurious in retrospect, and told that we will be released only into police or parental custody. Now, this is not my first rodeo. I got in trouble all the time. This was like a regular Tuesday for me. So I gave the Tower Records police a phone number That I had memorized for occasions such as this one that I knew through trial and error just right rang and rang and rang and nobody ever picked up. And there was no answering machine.
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Adam Mansbach
And.
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Apple Representative
We would have been fine. They would have tried it three times and let us go. Thad ferber, however, had never been to the rodeo. So he gave them his actual phone number. And in short order, Dr. Richard Ferber shows up at tower records, I am released into his custody, and he drives me home. And thad ferber and I are banned for life from tower records, which turned out to be their life, not mine, because they're defunct now. And all this came flooding back to me as I read the email, and it was a great weight off my shoulders because clearly even the great and powerful Dr. Richard Ferber is not so infallible as a parent in that he let his kid hang out with me. And I start to think that, you know, maybe all of the worrying I've been doing is unnecessary. Maybe I am as much of and as little of a parenting expert as anybody else who's ever had a child. Maybe I'm not actually faking this. Maybe we're all faking this equally. And maybe I do know a couple of things, like keep your sense of humor at all costs and embrace the absurdity of the situations in which you find yourself. And even realize that there are worse things than spending two hours trapped in a room with the person you love most in the world. I mean, you could be in the basement of a tower records or listening to a slideshow by Dr. Ferber. So with this sense of profound relief, I packed up my family and for what felt like the first time in a very, very long time, we went home. Thank you.
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Sarah Austin Janess
That was Adam mansbach. As you know now, Adam likes to write books with titles we aren't allowed to say on the radio, so we must bleep them. In addition to go the fuck to sleep, he's also the author of you need to fucking eat. Adam lives in berkeley. He wrote the feature film barry and yes, vivian sleeps and eats just fine. Now, Adam is thrilled. We'd love to see you at an upcoming moth event. Go to themoth.org and see the schedule and themes for our open mic story slams now in many cities in the US and around the world. After our break, two stories from the moth's community workshops. In these workshops, we craft stories with people who don't always think they have stories to tell. You'll hear one where a baseball fan meets the mets and another where a teenager's best friend either is or is not trying to recruit her into a gang when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
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Deborah Allen Carr
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange.
- [18:08]
Sarah Austin Janess
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- [19:37]
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Sarah Austin Janess
This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin. Janess. The next two stories take place in New York at Shea Stadium and at a McDonald's in the Bronx. Marie Hershkowitz, who you'll hear first developed the story about the New York Mets at a moth community workshop for older adults at Brooklyn Public Library. Here's Casey Donahue, who led the workshop. So the way a workshop usually starts is we have a brainstorming process where everyone comes up with what stories they.
- [21:14]
Marie Hershkowitz
Might want to craft and work on.
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Apple Representative
And Marie was really uneasy with that.
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Sarah Austin Janess
Part of the process. In fact, I think she was the.
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Apple Representative
Least enthusiastic person in the whole group.
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Sarah Austin Janess
She attempted to start crafting a story.
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Apple Representative
About losing a friend, but it didn't.
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Sarah Austin Janess
Sit right with her. She just wasn't into it.
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Apple Representative
So the following week, out of nowhere.
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Sarah Austin Janess
She comes up with this met story. And at first I remember, I remember she wasn't sure it was any good. I don't think she thought it was special enough as a story. But the rest of the group loved it because she just lit up when she talked about it. It was totally infectious.
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Apple Representative
So, yeah, when she was confident about.
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Sarah Austin Janess
It, she was unstoppable. So with that, here's Marie Hershkowitz live at the mall.
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Marie Hershkowitz
It's the summer of 1965, the one right before junior high school. My parents are hard workers. That's what they did. They worked. Vacation was not a word in our family dictionary. So here I am, bored to death, just wishing for school to start already so I'd have something to do. So then one day I turn on the television set and I find the New York Mets. Now, I don't know much about baseball at that point, but I decided I have nothing else better to do, so I might as well watch. So I watched the game and I realized that this is simple. I can follow this. There's nine players, nine innings. They come up in the same order all of the time. And with my Mets, it's three up, three down, very easy. I caught on quick. I caught on quick. And by the end of the game, I understood baseball. I knew all the players names and I was hooked. So now my sister and I start watching all the televised games. And my parents actually managed to take us to a couple of games over that summer of 65. By the summer of 66, my sister and I are taking the hour and a half long trek out to Shea Stadium on the trains by ourselves and we're going as many to as many games as my father could get tickets to. Not realizing that it's easy to get tickets because the Mets are so lousy, nobody else wants to watch them play. So in the meantime we don't care if they win or they lose. We don't care how good or bad they are. We don't even know that they're terrible. But we're Mets fans and we're happy. And then the season ends and we're sad. And it takes until 1967 when I'm there with my parents watching the World Series that I realize if my team was good, if they could actually get into first place, win the National League, my season wouldn't have to end because they could go to the World Series. So I asked my dad, when the Mets get into the World Series, will you take us? And he says, sure. Well then 68 comes, we go to lots more games, we're happy campers. And 68 World Series comes along and of course the Mets are not in it. And we ask our dad, when the Mets get into the World Series, will you take us? And he says, sure. And of course my father knows the Mets finished last in 1968 and no one in the baseball world, or in fact anybody in their right mind, would ever expect that he was going to have to make do on a promise like this anytime soon, if ever. Well now, if you're a Mets fan of a certain age, you know what happened in 1969. Straight from the cellar, in ninth place, last place nine out of nine, they shot right up to first place in 1969 and actually won the National League pennant and went into the World Series against the hard hitting Baltimore Orioles. So here we are, they're back from Baltimore having won and lost one. So they were even, even coming into New York to Shea stadium for Games 3, 4 and 5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday even. So Monday I don't see any Mets tickets. So I'm hearing on the radio that they're hard to get, they're costing hundreds of dollars. It's going to be record breaking crowd, standing room only. And I'm worried. So I asked dad, are we going to the World Series? And he says, don't worry about it. So Tuesday comes, Tuesday goes, we don't go to the game, but the Mets managed to win. So now they're going into Wednesday to game three, no to game four, leading two games to one. So of course that night we're asking dad, are we going to the World Series. He says, don't worry about it. Well, now I'm worried because, you know, there's only two games left here in New York. And even if they win, they're either going to win them both and they're going to win it here at home, or they're going to go back to Baltimore and play the last two. But either way, there's only two games for me to watch, for me to get a chance to go and share this with them. So anyway, Wednesday comes, we again watch them win on tv. They managed to win without us Wednesday night. There I am asking dad again, like a broken record, are we going to the World Series? And he says, don't worry about it. So here it is, Thursday afternoon, the day when they can win it all. And we're home, so we're getting ready. I'm resigned now to watch this game on tv. And all of a sudden my mother comes into the kitchen with two tickets in this hand and the car keys in the other. So now I am overjoyed and panic stricken because I look at the clock and I see there's no way, even if my mother drives us to the train, there's no way that we are going to make it to this game for the start of the game. So the next thing I know, we're in the car, and before I realize it, we're not going in the direction of the train. We're going the opposite way. And I'm understanding that my mother, this woman who has never driven out of the neighborhood, intends to take us to the ballpark. Well, I don't know how we got there, but it was in record time. And my very next memory is of my mother arguing with the parking lot attendant because they want her to pay the fee and she's refusing to pay. And this is going back and forth in the meantime, I'm getting more and more nervous, and all the cars behind me would be perfectly happy to pay their fee and get into this ballpark in time to watch this great game of the century. And this is getting the attention now of a police officer. So he comes on over and he wants to know what's the holdup. The attendant tells him this woman won't pay. So he says, lady, you better have a good reason. So she says, there's three of us, only two tickets. I'm not staying. I'm just dropping them off. Lady, you're crazy. What are you, nuts? I'd never let my kids go when I had the chance to go to a game. Like this. But he felt so sorry for her and so impressed that she was doing this for us that he waved her on in for free and even told her how to get back on the parkway. So she rushes us to the nearest gate. We run in, we have to stop for the national anthem, but we're this close. We're this close to our seats. And we actually managed to slip on in there as the first pitch is being thrown. Well, the rest is history. You all know what happened. The Mets won the World Series. They became world champs, and I was there. Best sports moment ever. For me, still to this day, all these years later, best moment ever. So now here I am at the end of the game. I'm on the 7 train coming home with all these jubilant Met fans screaming and yelling. I'm holding on, it's for dear life. And I'm clutching my souvenir right field grass close to my heart. And I'm thinking, how on earth did my father come up with these tickets? And what on earth did my mother think? And when did she get these tickets? And what was she thinking that she couldn't go? And what gave her the strength to think that she could drive us there? Right? So I'm sitting. Now, I'm a smart kid. I know what parents are all about. I know they're supposed to keep you safe, they're supposed to provide you the basics. They're supposed to teach you right from wrong and maybe give you a little encouragement now and then. But when I'm standing there, it occurs to me that parenting is more than that. It's about keeping promises and about self sacrifice. And I'm thinking to myself right then and there that if I'm ever blessed to have children of my own, that I want to be the kind of parent that my parents were that day. Yeah, I'm a Mets fan and I believe that. But that day was the first time that I actually believed that every child deserves at least one day of perfect parenting.
- [30:14]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Marie Hershkowitz. Marie was part of a Moth community workshop for Brooklyn Public Library's services for older adults. I talked to Marie after she found out her story would be on the Moth radio hour.
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Marie Hershkowitz
What did I think? I was absolutely thrilled, you know, and I said it would have been much happier had the Mets won the World Series. But I guess I can't have everything. Willing to answer anything you want me to answer on about my Mets. I love my Mets. Not too many other people would have their living rooms decorated in early late contemporary modern Mets and old Mets, but that's what I do. And when we got the seats, the Shea Stadium seats, people said, what are you going to do with them? I said, I'm going to sit in my living room and I'm going to watch the away games sitting in my seats. They happen to be very comfortable, by the way, once a Mets fan, always a Mets fan. You can't stop being a Mets fan just because they don't win the World Series. Because then people would have stopped being Mets fans a long, long time ago. Let's go, Mets.
- [31:22]
Sarah Austin Janess
To see photos of Marie and her family at Shea stadium during the 1973 World Series, go to themau.org Next up, Deborah Allen Carr. Deborah is another graduate of a Moth community workshop at Bronx Prep High School here in New York. One note to protect privacy, we're bleeping a name in this story. Deborah was a junior when she told this on stage at the Moth. The theme was New York Stories. And former New York Mayor Ed Koch was another one of the storytellers. Deborah lost her place once in the story. I was sitting in the audience next to Mayor Koch, and he said, you've got this. And she did. She found her way. Here's Deborah live at the mall.
- [32:21]
Jon Lovett
I'm standing in line at McDonald's, and I really want those chocolate chip cookies. I have like $2.39 in my pocket. And just as I'm about to order the cookies, I see the McFlurry's. So I'm like, oh, crap, now I want a McFlurry. I end up buying it. But I still wanted the cookies and I'm still online. So I call out to my friend sitting at a table near the cashier, guys, do you have a dollar? They say, no. Then about four people behind me, I hear, oh, I got a dollar. And I turn around and see this tall, dark, and handsome young man walk up to the front of the line. He gives me a dollar. I happily buy my cookies and sit with my friends. Now he and his boys are two tables away, and they're all telling jokes and me and my friends are all laughing at them. One of his boys decides to come over and talk to one of my girlfriends. And then he walks over to me, stuffing my face with chocolate chip cookies and says, I see you putting Mandala to good use. I laughed. And that was the day I began my friendship with Samuel. After that day in 2008, Samuel and I became really good friends. I liked hanging out with him because he's a good conversationalist and I'm a good listener. He's also extremely hilarious and I'm extremely sarcastic. So we have a lot of fun. He also never tried to flirt with me or hook me up with any of his boys. So that was a plus. That was a plus. And he was a very, very good friend to me. And I'm the type of person, you know, as a girl, I believe that a guy and a girl can be just friends. You know, no kissing, no flirting, no sexual activity. And Samuel was it for me. So I really enjoyed being around him. I really enjoyed being around Samuel. Sorry. One weird thing that I did notice about Samuel was how he dressed. And he'd wear these bold red and blue hoodies and sometimes green fitteds. And if some of you don't know these colors are associated with gangs, these colors are associated with gangs. And if you wore these colors and you weren't a member or associated, that meant trouble for you or that made you an easy target. Like the kids at my school who had been getting cut and robbed and jumped. And there was this day called blood initiation day where basically members of the Blood gang go around slicing girls faces. So I told Samuel about this and he opted in to pick me up after school and then take me home. I walk outside and I see him waiting for me. And he's wearing a red hoodie. And as I'm walking to him, I'm thinking, what is he wearing? So I go up to him, look him up and down, and tell him semi jokingly, boy, you better stop wearing these colors because I'm not trying to get shot with you. His response was, nah, we good. At that point, I questioned whether he was in a gang or not. But I shrugged it off because we got home safely. Until he finally asked me, yeah, cause you know I'm in the gang, right? There was a long moment of silence and I just stared at him. And I didn't want to believe him because he didn't know my serious near death experiences with multiple gang members. He didn't know that I hated gangs because I fear that they're pointless organizations created by people who victimize others and claim power because they put the fear into people. And that means respect. But there's a difference between being feared and being respected. You live longer when you're respected. So as his friend, I made it my job to keep him alive and persuade him out of this nonsense. Initially, I was upset with him and more disappointed, but we were already friends and I wasn't ready to cut him out of my life. So our fun conversations about past blind dates and stealing fruit from bodegas when we were younger changed it to him sharing his stories with me about how he got an adrenaline rush from firing his gun at a group of boys who messed with one of his fellow gang members, and how he robbed this kid for a zoom because he looked at him for I would argue with him about how ignorant he sounded and pleaded with him. Samuel, had I known from the beginning that you were in a gang, we would not be sitting here right now. I don't understand how someone as intelligent and generous as you can enjoy being in a gang. He just sat there with his head down and he only apologized for not telling me earlier, and I kind of felt sorry for him, so I changed the conversation. Summer of that year, 2009, we decided to go to the pool together. And as I'm waiting for him, we're laughing and reminiscing about how funny Dave Chappelle's skit on Tyrone Biggums crack intervention was. And out of nowhere he says, you know I was going to recruit you, right? I wasn't finished laughing, but I just stopped. I've never been so furious so fast in my life before. It was as if my heart was a volcano and it exploded and all the lava shot straight up to my head. And it was more of a physical anger, not an expressive one where I curse him out or punch him in the face. And he saw that I was at a loss of words, so he continued trying to cover it up, saying, but I didn't because I got mad respect for you. You're like a sister to me, and I don't really trust girls, but you're one of the three that I do trust. All I could think about was, I am so cutting this dude off. This friendship is over. And I wanted to leave, but we didn't. And I spent that whole day very upset and I hadn't spoken to him. A week after that day, I didn't even miss him. He texted me twice and I never replied. And then he called and I picked up with the intention of cursing him out, telling him to go to hell, and then hanging up the phone. But he kept apologizing over and over and kept talking about how I was like sister to him, like fam. Eventually I forgave him, but we hadn't called each other like we used to, and we hadn't hung out like we used to. And then we just stopped communicating with each other. I graduated and my friends decided to go to McDonald's McDonald's is basically the spot for us. It was our lives. And we were sitting there talking. Oh, I'm gonna miss you. This is gonna going to be our last year together. And one of my friends asked Dabora, what happened to that boy? I'm like, what boy? My other friend says, your boyfriend. I'm like, whoa, boyfriend? And then they both say, the boy that bought you the cookies. And I was just like, first of all, he's not my boyfriend. Second of all, he gave me a dollar. I bought the cookies. So after that, I couldn't stop thinking about him. So I was just thinking, well, it wouldn't hurt to text him. But then I realized that after you haven't spoken to someone in over a year and you text them, it's kind of like, who are you? So I decided to call him. And when I spoke to him, he sounded really good over the phone, really mature. And he told me that he left the city and he was in Pennsylvania working at a wood and bat factory. He told me, I gotta get out of the city. I'm tired of the city life. I need a break, so I'm gonna be here for a while. And when he told me that, I just thought, wow, I miss him a lot now. But I'm proud of his attempt to change his life, and I feel like I had something to do with that. And the feeling was mutual because he also changed me. And I'm more of an understanding person. It's easier to judge someone than understand them. And that was hard for me to do in the beginning. So instead of judging him as a gang member, I understood him as a friend and as someone who felt that he was born into a gang, and I felt the need to change that. So now with my friends, they're openly telling me their stories, and I'm saying, okay, I understand, but here's the better side of things. And that's what he taught me. That's what our friendship resulted in. Me, the change in me. And when he comes back, I hope he comes back. I plan on treating him to a day at McDonald's for some chocolate chip cookies.
- [41:49]
Sarah Austin Janess
This is Deborah Allen Carr. Deborah is studying hydrology at Lemoyne College in Syracuse. She hopes to go into wetland conservation and river purification when she graduates. I asked if she still talks to her friend in this story, and she said no, but she thinks about him every single day. After our break, a political speechwriter with a secret.
- [42:43]
Deborah Allen Carr
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by the Public Radio Exchange prx.org.
- [42:56]
Sarah Austin Janess
Welcome back to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin. Janess it's time for our last story. John Lovett told this with us at a Moth event we produced at the Aspen Ideas Vent Festival. The theme was Big Night, and John was the first person I cast in the show. What you're about to hear was a big night indeed. Here is Jon Lovett live at the Mall.
- [43:25]
Adam Mansbach
So I went into politics for the same reason most people do, ambition, self righteousness and a desire to help others. If you've spent any time in Washington, you know that the desire to help others is optional. And I had a pretty good run of it. I was a speechwriter for then Senator Hillary Clinton and then a speechwriter in the White House for President Obama. You can picture it. I was a gay liberal wearing a Charles Darwin T shirt, riding my electric scooter through the gates of the White House to write speeches on climate change and universal health care. So like a right wing worst case scenario. Now there's a question you're asked more than any other when you're a presidential speechwriter, and the question is, what happens when you disagree with the speeches? Now, the truth is, I'm incredibly proud of the work I got to do at the White House. Some of the proudest moments of my life are working in some small part on the campaign to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, pass the Affordable Care act, working on the technical pressing remarks on things like the financial crisis at a moment of real peril for the country. But the truth is, you don't always agree. And that is especially true when you are a gay speechwriter writing speeches for people who do not support gay marriage. I wrote speeches at a time in which the Democratic position was basically, love what you're saying. You're making a ton of sense. No, thank you. But please, please don't hesitate to check back in because this is so stupid. And the truth is, I liked working on these speeches, too. For the longest time, being a Democrat was defined by what we were for, not what we were against repealing don't ask, don't tell, ending employment discrimination. But the truth is, over time, as it became less politically necessary, it became more awkward to work on these speeches. Now, there were times where I sought out this awkwardness. I was working on a speech on gay rights for Senator Clinton and I stood up from my desk, walked into her office, knocked on the door. She was there minding her own business. And I said, I just want you to know that I'm gay. She looked at me confused and said, oh, Jonathan, I knew months ago. But the truth is I like the awkwardness. And by the way, there's a noise that people make when they tell a gay person that we're not going to support gay marriage. It's like a, well, look, obviously look, you know, that we wouldn't, but just right now. But I didn't just like the awkwardness because I'm smug though I am, I liked it because I really couldn't deny that I was part of this. That for all the ways in which I understood, for all the ways in which I even supported the decision, that I recognized the larger good writing those speeches meant I couldn't ignore doing this thing. And I especially couldn't ignore it when two of my best friends in the world, Steve and Justin, asked me to perform their wedding. Now I was incredibly touched when they asked me to be there to officiate because I love them. I love attention. So it's perfect. And they were going to have the ceremony in West Virginia. Now, West Virginia didn't turn out to be the last state to recognize same sex marriage. You can be pretty sure they weren't going to be the first. So it turned out that they were going to need a licensed officiant to do it in the District of Columbia. And I said, well, why have me just do the ceremony? Why don't I go through the process and become a minister in the District of Columbia? Which I did. So we went for West Virginia and I performed the ceremony. And standing there on this beautiful hill with these two people who were in love. And by the way, these two guys are Boy Scouts. They were literally Eagle Scouts. They recited the Scout's oath at their wedding. It was the most wholesome thing you could ever imagine. And not only that, in marriage becoming the thing they did with the love they felt for one another, they not only created a safe and stable place for themselves, but they created a place that welcomed all of those around them that were ricocheting across D.C. and, and I mean, that's why marriage exists. You know, for the longest time, I think that Democrats and those of us that supported Democrats, I think we all understood this compromise and I think that we also like to ignore it. We like to ignore the fact that we were making this moral sacrifice because we cared about so many things. We cared about health care, we cared about the environment, we cared about all these important issues. But there were moments where, especially for me in that position where you could just. You no longer could ignore that despite the best intentions, you were part of something you really didn't believe was right. And that for all the ways in which you understood, there was a part of you that knew that you weren't doing the right thing, that you were doing things to go along, to get along, that you were doing things because of your ambition, because you didn't want to rock the boat. And the truth is, for all the ways in which you understood didn't mean it wasn't just a bit embarrassing, a bit humiliating. Then, of course, I remembered that I worked at the White House and I can give tours anytime I want. So Steve and Justin and I walked through the double doors into the ground floor of the West Wing, past the Situation Room, down the hall, past the offices of the National Security Council, up the stairs by the Cabinet Room, the Oval Office, through the doors in the colonnade that connect the offices of the West Wing, through the stately rooms of the residents. We turned right down this stone path that jutted into the Rose Garden. And then I said, steve, do you take Justin to be your lawfully wedded husband? And Justin, do you take Steve? Now, we were very nervous. They were nervous because they were getting married. I was nervous because I snuck into my boss's house to perform a wedding against his wishes in his backyard. I mean, you can say what you will about the first same sex marriage to take place at the White House. At the very least, it was quite, quite rude. In fact, I was so nervous that in going through it, I said, I now pronounce you man and what? And catching myself. We laughed and I fixed it and said, husbands. They kissed modestly. It was very nice. And then I filed the paperwork. The only real evidence that this took place, because I had to list the address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You know, when I think about the question, do you always agree with the speeches? What I've come to realize is it's actually a bigger question than that. It's a question that really is about, do you believe in politics? I do. I ultimately think that those sacrifices are worth it. That being part of something noble and great, an enterprise of the magnitude of what you get to do in that building, is worth it, even when you don't always agree. But I will tell you that I will always be proud of a speech I do very much agree with. I now pronounce you husbands. Thank you.
- [52:03]
Sarah Austin Janess
That was Jon Lovett. The Supreme Court announced its ruling to recognize same sex marriage. The morning Jon and I had a rehearsal scheduled, we jumped for joy. John has hung up his hat as a speechwriter and he's gone into entertainment. He's a co creator of 1600 pen and a producer of HBO's the Newsroom. If these stories make you think of a particular story you would like to share, go to our website themoth.org or call 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799. These stories were all recorded at live Moth gatherings around the world. Check themoth.org for an event schedule to see when we'll be near you. We'd love to see you at a Moth night soon. That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth.
- [53:19]
Deborah Allen Carr
Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess Sarah directed the stories in the show along with Maggie Sino. Additional coaching in our community workshops by Casey Donahue and Larry Rosen. The rest of the Moth's directorial staff includes Kathryn Burns, Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Meg Bowles. Production support from Moos Zaidy. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Most Moth events are recorded by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruast. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Stellwagen's Symphonet and Boombox, also Brahms Lullaby and the New York Mets Fight Song. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlanta Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour is produced with funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by the public radio exchange prx.org to find out more about our podcast, get information on pitching your own story and everything else. Go to our website themoth.org.