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- [00:01]
Apple Representative
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- [00:30]
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- [01:42]
Kathryn Burns
I'm Kathryn Burns and this is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. The Moth is all about real people telling true stories on stage in front of a crowd. Today we're going to be talking about trouble. One minute things are swell and then boom. You get a call out of the blue or you hit a bump in the road and in an instant you're in a completely different place than the one you were in just two seconds before. Or maybe some seemingly tiny decision you made a few months back suddenly seems like the worst idea ever. This was the case for our first storyteller, Gordon Edelstein. Here's Gordon live at the Moth.
- [02:19]
Gordon Edelstein
I'm a theater director and I make something that resembles a living as a theater director. And I'm incredibly lucky. It's unbelievably fortunate that I'm able to have as my profession something that I love. But I suspect, like so many of you out there tonight, you would sell it all to be in a rock and roll band. I run a theater in New Haven, Connecticut. Many years before, I ran a theater in Seattle, Washington. And one of the great things about Seattle, Washington is, as rock and roll fans know, there are so many rockers in Seattle, right? Walking the streets with mere mortals like me. One Night there was a benefit for the theater that I was running. And I see one of my rock and roll heroes, the guitar player and Basic Tune Smith for the band REM One of my favorite bands, Peter Buck. And I say, this is my party. I'm gonna go over and say hello. So I walk across and I introduce myself. I'm Gord Ned. I said, oh, I know who you are. I said, well. And Peter and I start talking, and he's a great guy, warm and friendly and incredibly literate, and actually knew a lot about the theater. And we got to talking about Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams. And really, it was quite a surprisingly stimulating conversation about the theater with the rock and roll guitar player. And I said to him, you know, Peter, have you ever thought of writing music for a show? He said, no, but I'd love to. Would you be interested in writing a show music for a show of mine? He said, yes. Okay. Well, I was right. So he took out a piece of paper, gave me his phone number, his home phone number, and his cell phone number. Thank you very much. I took it and I waited a couple of days because that's what you're supposed to do. And then I called him up, and I called up Peter and he said, come on over my house and we can talk about the show. And I sent him a copy of the play. And I went over to his rock star mansion in Seattle, and we went up to his kind of home studio with 40 guitars around, and we got to talking about the play, and we started writing music. We didn't start writing music. That's a lot. This is supposed to be a truth. He started writing music. And I was salivating. After several visits to his house, you know, I came to know that he was, as well as being a guitar player, he's an avid reader and also an insomniac. A workaholic and an insomniac. And he stays up all night writing music and reading. And after we were going to the recording studio the next day to record the music for the show. Finally, he was going to be going to London to play for Nelson Mandela at Trafalgar Square. And then REM Was going to go on tour, and he said, I am exhausted. After we record, I'm getting on the night flight. I don't know what I'm going to do. I am just beat. I said, peter, have you ever heard of an Ambien? And he said, what's an Ambien? And I said, well, Peter, I live on it. I. At the Time was literally commuting between New York and Seattle and I was living on Ambien. I was jet lagged all the time and without catching the four or five hours of sleep that I could get on the plane, I would have been dead. So he said, would you bring a couple of. Couple of pills of Ambien to the studio the next day? And I, the next day brought a couple of, shall we call them, tabs of Ambien to him at the recording studio and gave it to him. Sure, Mr. Rock Star. I'll give you drugs if you'll be my friend. So we recorded. He recorded the music. Why do I keep saying we? He recorded the music and got on a plane that night and flew to London. A couple days later. The phone rang at 7:30 in the morning. It was my friend Dan on the phone. Gordon, what happened to your friend Peter? I said, what do you mean? He goes, he got arrested last night. He knocked over the food cart on the plane and he got arrested and now he's in British jail. Now, I am prone to guilt anyway. Naturally, it's the fuel in my tank. It keeps me going most days. And I'm thinking, this can't be. How could it can't be. But somehow I knew that the Ambien that I gave him played into this horrible event. So I called his wife Stephanie on the phone and I said, stephanie, what happened? And she paused, or there was a pause and she said, you know that Ambien you gave Peter? I said, yes. He goes, well, he took it. He took a couple of them actually. And he doesn't know what happened. He had a bad reaction and he went kind of nuts on the plane and he knocked over the food cart. And the next thing you knew, he was in British jail, handcuffed. He's facing three years in jail. What was in those pills you gave him? So I'm mortified. Peter, you know, is a regular guy, a nice guy, a father of two, and he is facing jail. So Peter comes back to Seattle after dealing with the courts in London and gives me a call and he says, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. You're sorry? I'm sorry I got you in so much trouble. He said, look, Peter, anything that I can do to help, I mean, if you need me to testify, if you need me to say something, I mean, I, you know, gave you those pills and that's what messed you up. He said, no, man, I don't do that kind of thing. I'm not going to bring you into it. Several weeks later, I got a call from his lawyer who had a different idea. And his lawyer interviewed me on the phone for around 45 minutes. And, you know, and I told the lawyer the story of me giving him these pills, which, you know, was illegal for me to do. It was illegal for me to pass on prescription, my prescription onto somebody else. But I said I would tell this story if it was, you know, facing three years in jail, of course I would tell the story. So would I come to London? Yes, I would. Several weeks later, a stretch limo arrives in front of my apartment in Seattle. I get in it, I get brought to the airport, and the limo would pick me up in London, bringing me to a suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. And there's wine and cheese and fruit and a welcome, not the kind of places I usually stay in. And there's an envelope on the table and I see on the envelope it says my name on it and I open and there is, you know, hundreds of pounds. I'm on REM's payroll, I'm getting a per diem from REM, I'm in London, I'm spending their money and I. A little while later, I get a call from Peter. Peter says, you alright? Okay? I said, yeah, I'm fine. How are you doing? He goes, well, it's a little rough, but I'm doing okay. Hey, you want to come out to dinner with the guys tonight?
- [09:47]
Audience Member
Sure.
- [09:49]
Gordon Edelstein
And so later on that night, I go downstairs in the lobby. There's paparazzi out there because it's a big deal. In this truck, we actually walk to a restaurant. Everywhere we go there is people taking our photograph. We go in and for three days I hang around with the band in London. That was fun. The day came of the trial, I put on my suit and I came downstairs. It was a different mood than the dinner. Over the course of the few days hanging out with the band, I came to realize how actually important my testimony was. Peter had been accused of being drunk and disorderly on a plane, but he wasn't drunk. He had responded badly to the Ambien that I had given him. He was having a reaction to drugs, not to drink. And if the court would believe that actually I gave him those pills. There was no evidence, but if they believed me, then he would get off. He'd be not guilty of being drunk and disorderly on the plane. So the weight of this testimony was beginning to weigh on me. We go to Old Bailey, the courthouse outside of London, and I'm put in this little austere Little tiny room, almost like a cell itself. And my name is called. And I walk out of my little waiting room, and I'm walking down the hallway at Old Bailey, and I turn around, and I see somebody that I recognize, someone walking, who's just coming out of the courtroom. Someone who's testified right before me. Oh, my God, it's Bono. Bono has testified right before. And you know what he does? He gives me the thumbs up. And you know what I do? I give him the thumbs up right back. Cause that's how I roll.
- [11:38]
Audience Member
He knows who.
- [11:41]
Gordon Edelstein
So I go into the courtroom, and it's not funny anymore. All these guys in white wigs, like in the movie 1776. It's completely surreal to me. And the judge, who's also wearing a white wig, ushers me to the witness stand. And I go to the witness stand, and the judge asked me if I have brought a bottle of Ambien with me as I had been instructed, and in fact, I had. And I take out my little bottle of Ambien, and on it are written the distinguished words Duane read, Broadway and 95th street, so entered into evidence and Peterborough air raid trial. It's a bottle of Ambien from the duane Reade on 95th Street. And the jury starts examining it, and they're looking at this bottle of Ambien like it's an Uzi with bullets in it. No idea what the hell they're looking at. And the prosecutor, a rather mean fellow, comes up to me and says, Mr. Adelstein, is it true that you have come here, flown first class, staying in a fancy hotel on the payroll of the band R.E.M. is it true that you are here on their payroll and that you're here to help your friend Peter Buck? Mr. Adelstein and I, for the first time, noticed Peter in the back of the courtroom. And he is a completely transformed man. He is wilted. I've never seen somebody so depressed and terrified in my life. He is. He just looks ashen because he's actually really, really, really. All joking aside, facing three years in jail, he's a father. At that time, his twin girls were seven. He was facing complete separation from his girls. By the time he'd get out of jail, they'd be 10. He'd be away from his wife. And those of you that know anything about the history of this band, this was in the early part of the 21st century. This was like 2003, this story, 2002. And the band had gone through some bad times. They'd lost their Drummer. They put two or three not such good albums out in a row. And there was a lot of tension inside the band. And three years in jail of their guitar player, Peter Buck might actually bring down the band. Would they recover from that? And so rock and roll history could be. Will be affected by how well I do in this program. And I'm just thinking about this, and I'm looking at Peter. Mr. Adelstein, is it true that you are lying that you never gave him these pills? Is it true that you are lying? And the guy really pissed me off. He was calling me a liar, and it just wasn't true because I was telling the truth. And I said, no, sir, I have come here to tell the truth. And I see Peter in the back of the courtroom sit up, and he reaches his fist in the air and I think, oh, my God, I've actually done okay. Because you get nervous in these situations. And I was done with my testimony. I leave the courtroom, all the guys are in the back high fiing me. You did great. You did great. You did great. I get back on the plane and I'm thinking, oh, God, I should have said this, I should have said that. I get back to Seattle, two weeks later, I'm in rehearsals for a play, and I get a call from their manager, Bertis Downs. Gordon, Peter got off. He's not guilty.
- [15:23]
Padma Lakshmi
He got off.
- [15:24]
Gordon Edelstein
He got off. And I feel so relieved and grateful and happy. Peter comes back to Seattle. He calls me. He said, oh, I owe you. I owe you so much. I owe you. Look, anytime you want tickets to the band, anywhere in the world, VIP passes, backstage passes, and we've taken advantage of it, let me tell you, my family, we go backstage and meet the band. We are set up by the band. And I will tell you the truth, that I would like to say that it's something of a wake up call, that I should keep my values and my excitement a little bit more in order. But it's not true. It hasn't at all. And about two years later, a big biography of the band came out. And I went to the bookstore to see if I was in it.
- [16:17]
Paul Binder
And.
- [16:17]
Gordon Edelstein
I looked at the back of the book and I was, and I bought the book.
- [16:29]
Kathryn Burns
That was Gordon Edelstein. Gordon is the artistic director of the Long in New Haven, Connecticut. He directs, plays around the country, but no longer supplies drugs to rock stars. This was kind of a light story, but we at the Moth want to mention for the record that mixing prescription drugs and alcohol can have fatal consequences. So don't do it. Coming up, Padma Laatschpi from the TV show Top Chef talks about how she got her famous scarlet when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
- [17:01]
Paul Binder
The Moth is supported by Organic Valley, a farmer owned organic co OP for over 25 years. Makers of Organic Fuel, a workout and Recovery Shake with 26 grams of protein made from pasture raised milk and zero artificial ingredients. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [17:26]
Great Courses Plus Representative
No matter where we are in life, there's always something new to learn. That's why Moth listeners love the Great Courses Plus. The Great Courses plus has hundreds of video lectures presented by award winning professors on so many topics like history, psychology, science or learn about new interests like cooking, yoga or writing creative nonfiction. You can get unlimited access to learn about anything you're interested in. Stream these engaging courses anytime, anywhere for your own pure enjoyment. If you haven't signed up for the Great Courses plus yet, do it today. As a Moth listener, you'll immediately get a free month of unlimited access to all their lectures. Start your free month today. Sign up@thegreatcoursesplus.com moth remember thegreatcoursesplus.com this is.
- [18:20]
Kathryn Burns
The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Kathryn Burns. Our next storyteller is Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi. I was introduced to Padma through a mutual friend. I was a little nervous because she was the first storyteller I'd be working with since giving birth to my son and I was a bit sleep deprived and perhaps not on my A game. But then the first time we spoke, I found out that Padma had a baby too. Her daughter had been born the day after my son Harry. So Padma wasn't getting any sleep either. We ended up working off the beats of her story over the phone with our babies sleeping in our arms, trying to get through the story without either the babies crying or us crying. Padma has obviously met some pretty fancy people over the course of her career, but she didn't want to talk about any of that. She wanted to tell a story about her mother. A caution this story includes a description of a pretty nasty accident. Here's Padma.
- [19:13]
Padma Lakshmi
People often ask me how I got the scar on my arm, and what happened was When I was 14 years old I got really sick and no one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was very ill and finally, after a week of not getting better, my mother took me to the hospital and I, after many tests, was finally days and days later diagnosed with a hyperallergy, something called Stevens Johnson syndrome. And once they finally found out what was wrong with me, they treated me for it. But not before I had spent weeks in the hospital, weeks blind and mute, as well as being fed by tubes and having to sleep sitting up so that I wouldn't choke on my own saliva. My mother, in her fashion, moved in to the hospital to be by my bedside and slept every night in the hospital to take care of me. And she wouldn't leave my side. And finally, when I was released on February 1, I remember it was a Friday. As we were riding home in our car, she said, I've made a promise to God that if God delivers you safely out of the hospital, that I would go and I would do a penance and I would go to the temple and make an offering to give thanks for delivering my child home safely. So I know you're really sick, but I'm going to see if your stepdad can. Can drive us on Sunday to the temple. And I just sort of nodded in my very ill way and I said, okay. And on that Sunday, February 3rd, my stepfather and my mother and I drove in our red Ford Mercury car with the black interior to the Hindu temple. And I was very ill. I was very, very weak and frail. And that was long enough ago. I was 14, a long time ago when they still had the front seat that was a couch seat. So my mother wedged me in between her and my stepdad because, you know, she wanted to take care of me. I was still really sick. I could barely hold my head up. I had lost a lot of weight. I was so weak that she said, you stay in the car. I'll do the offering. She went. She did the prayers, she did the flowers, she rang the bell, she got the food, and they came back in the car. And she handed me this squeaky round Styrofoam plate with a bunch of yellow rice on it and some vegetable curry or whatever it was. And off we went back down the highway. And I remember thinking would have Beautiful sunny Sunday it was. And I was trying desperately to concentrate on this plate of food. And my mother said, you know, just try and have a couple bites of it. Just, you know, it's blessed. It's from the puja we did. And as I was eating this rice, suddenly I heard a loud bang. And I looked up and I. I can remember the plate flying and yellow rice everywhere like confetti. And as the rice came down, all I could see was this beautiful blue sky, this crystal clear blue sky. No clouds, no cars, no road in Front of us, no trees, nothing. Just endless, miraculous blue sky and these kind of yellow grains flying all around. Then all of a sudden, I heard another thud. And then I kind of heard. And it was us. We were flying. And then we were airborne, I realized. And then what stopped our fall was this tree. And then we kind of went down further down this embankment. And then finally came to a last thud. And there was just stillness. I kind of strained my neck and I could see my mother to my right. And we were all pinned very closely together. And my mother had her eyes closed and her mouth open and blood was trickling out of the side of her mouth. And to my left, my stepfather was saying over and over again this mantra of, where are we, Vijay? What happened, Vijay? Weren't we driving? Vijay? We were at the temple. Vijay. Vijay, Vijay. My mother. And from my mother emanated this profound and nauseating silence. And I started to scream at my mother. I started saying, mom, are you awake? Are you awake? If you're awake, say something. Say something, please, if you're not awake, I love you, Mommy. I love you. If you are awake, I love you, but please, please say something. And in the back of me screaming was this chorus, this non stop loop of my stepfather. Almost like that cliche image or track that. You know, the cartoons, when a bird or a cartoon character is hit on the head and they say, where am I?
- [25:45]
Gordon Edelstein
What?
- [25:46]
Padma Lakshmi
You know, what's going on? That was exactly what he was doing. And he just kept repeating this. And it was. All of a sudden I started feeling things. I started feeling feeling hot and cold and wet and sticky and itchy and burning. And all I could feel from my mother was this silence emanating from her that kept getting louder and louder, this silence. Then I finally heard a man call down to us and say, are you okay? Are you okay? I said, yes, we're alive. We're alive. Please get help. Please, please get help. And then a bunch of firemen came. And I remember hearing the crunch of their boots down the leaves, down, you know, on the leaves, down the embankment. And they came and, you know, they kind of got. I heard chainsaws. I heard a helicopter in the distance approaching. I heard blowtorches. I would later learn that they had to use these famous things called the Jaws of Life to cut open the roof of this red Ford Mercury Zephyr. And so, you know, I got taken to the City of Angels and my parents got taken somewhere else. My arm, you know, because we were pinned so tight, my arm had flown across my mother's chest. And so my arm was just shattered in many pieces. And I lay there for hours and hours not knowing what happened to my parents, not knowing if my parents were okay, if my mother was alive. And I remember being incredibly uncomfortable in a cold hospital bed with glass everywhere, in every crevice of my body, under my nails, in my hair, in my ears, just shattered glass everywhere. And I remember, you know, in the emergency room, I remember vague bits and pieces of what people said, like, you know, well, I don't think it's worth doing, but, you know, I question the mobility of that arm or, well, let's leave it alone, whatever. And we were home. It took us a long time to heal. My stepfather broke his leg, his left leg in four places, his hip and two. My mother had to come home and still have a hospital bed at home for weeks and months. And we had one to one nursing 24 hours around the clock at home. Because of course, my mother this time could not care for me, could not be by my side. Indeed, she had her own hospital bed. But my mother was determined, they said that they weren't going to do any surgery on my arm because they thought it wasn't really worth it, that it would probably be dormant, be kind of semi lame at my side. And you know, I was so young I could learn to do everything with my left hand. And so my mother was determined not to let this happen. And so she, from her hospital bed at home, ordered me to go to another orthopedist whom she had found on the phone through colleagues. And he said, well, she's so young, we should do it. And he decided to do surgery on my arm. And I got this very beautiful thin scratch of a surgery incision and there was a cylindrical metal plate that was put on. And as my arm got better, the scar got worse. And you know, I was very awkward to begin with and I was feeling, you know, I was 14, I had all these hormones and feeling off about my body and I knew that the scar on my forearm was looking bad. And so I knew what was to come with this scar. And so anyway, years go by and I had to have multiple surgeries on the arm. Every time the arm got more and more better and every time the scar got longer and thicker and ropier and darker. And you know, I kind of found ways to look normal while hiding it, you know. And I would go on dates in college and I would have to really think about whether I was going to wear a short sleeve blouse or a long sleeve blouse. And then I was studying abroad, and I started modeling, of all things. And, you know, I wasn't a fancy model. I used it. I graduated from college, and then I really started modeling to pay off my college loans. It was a fit model, a workaday model. And then this weird thing happened. The agency called me, and they said, guess what? Helmut Newton wants to shoot you. And, you know, I was young, and I was like, who's Helmut Newton? I said, you know, Helmut Newton, the guy, he's great. He does these beautiful, sexy, dangerous, edgy pictures of women, and he wants to shoot you. So, you know, before my agency would, you know, they were calling around, and so they would get comments like, you know, she's. Yeah, she's kind of pretty, but that's scar. Those same people were calling, going, can we book the girl with the scar? It's amazing that somebody else thinking you're cool can make you think differently of yourself. And, you know, so all of a sudden, I was doing all these Runway shows. You know, I was, like, doing Alberta Ferretti and Hervey Leger and all these great. And so my salary went up, and, you know, all of a sudden, I was the girl with the scar. So, you know, maybe the scar was this mixed blessing in a way, right, because it paid off my college loans, you know, bought me an apartment, paid off my mom's mortgage, a lot of cool things. So I thought that was great. And I was thinking about all of this recently because I found myself on my back in another hospital bed staring at another white ceiling, and I was told that I would probably never have children naturally. And that was very upsetting, as many women can understand, and men, too. And then I got pregnant, which was a real surprise, but a happy one. And then I was told it would be a difficult pregnancy, and then it was a really difficult pregnancy. And I was ordered on complete bed rest the last trimester of my pregnancy, and my mother, in true fashion, moved in with me the next day. Yeah, it's true. And, you know, when your mother moves in with you at 39, it's a completely different experience. But there she was valiant in her nurturing. And, you know, it was a very scary last few weeks of the pregnancy. I wind up going to the hospital more than once before I had the baby, and one time for five days with a fetal heart monitor and tubes everywhere and staring at the ceiling and thinking to myself, God, please get me out of here. Please deliver me and my child intact and healthy out of this hospital. And I recently miraculously found myself again with my mother in another car, this time going to Flushing, Queens to another temple. But this time to give thanks for the safety and delivery of my daughter. Thank you.
- [34:09]
Kathryn Burns
Padme Lakshmi is the author of numerous best selling cookbooks as well as the memoir, Love, Loss and what We Ate. Coming up, the head of the Big Apple Circus is thrilled to host a troupe of Chinese acrobats. The problem? It's the height of the Cold War. What could possibly go wrong?
- [34:32]
Paul Binder
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by prx.
- [34:40]
Kathryn Burns
This is the Moth Radio Hour from prx. I'm Katherine Burns. Our last storyteller is Paul Binder, the founder of the Big Apple Circus. He's going to tell you a story about how he once convinced the Chinese government to let a group of acrobats living behind the Iron Curtain come to America to perform. But before that, I want you to hear how his personal history affected some of his decisions. In this story, I sat down to talk to him about it. I was really struck when you started talking about your grandparents. Your maternal grandmother fled Vienna. And then your paternal grandfather has quite a story about running for his life.
- [35:14]
Audience Member
Yes. He was 14 years old. He was in white Russia. And his story that he told about how and why he came to America was I suddenly realized I was going to be drafted into the army at that age and I'd be cannon fodder for the czar and decided I've got to get out of here. I got to get to America. And so how did he do that? He walked. He walked all the way to Rotterdam and there found a boat and got on a boat and came to America. It showed his desire for freedom.
- [35:46]
Kathryn Burns
And I can't help but think that when you yourself were faced with people in your troop who were in the situation your grandfather was in, that might have affected your choices.
- [35:56]
Audience Member
I think the belief that there was freedom to be had was something very important in their souls and in his. And that's a very important story for that reason.
- [36:06]
Kathryn Burns
So now that you have that background, here's Paul Binder live at the Moth.
- [36:11]
Audience Member
One of my dreams as founder and artistic director of the Big Apple Circus was to be the first circus in America to feature acts from China. And in 1986, I had the good fortune at the Paris Circus Festival to be introduced to Madame Zhu from the China Performing Arts Agency. My grandmother used to say, if good fortune knocks on the door, invite her in, give her a seat at the table. Well, the China Prince Performing Arts Agency represented Chinese artists around the world. And you have to remember this was during the Cold War. So relations between the US and the People's Republic of China was, how shall we say, a bit chilly. And the Chinese government didn't want its people traveling to the US for fear that they might get a taste of democracy. And the US government was happy to not have the Chinese travelers in the US because surely they would have a communist agenda. So if I wanted to get visas for Chinese artists to come to the Big Apple Circus, I would have to deal with some major government agencies, and the China Performing Arts Agency was one of those. I felt like I had the balance of power of the world in my hands. I could hear my grandmother's voice. Oi. Well, I didn't want just one act from China. I wanted an entire troupe. I had this idea for a show called the Big Apple Circus Meets the Monkey King. Who's the Monkey King? He's a classic character out of Chinese folklore. A mischievous, magical, acrobatic character, sort of a cross between the Cat in the Hat and Mary Lou Retton. And what surprised me was within six months, Madam Zhu invited me to come to China to visit four cities, Acrobatic troops in four cities. Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing. And believe me, I was not disappointed. Chinese acrobatics is 5,000 years old. And before I left China, in the offices of the Ministry of Culture, I signed a contract to bring the Nanjing acrobatic troupe to the Big Apple Circus. Well, In August of 1988, they arrived at JFK Airport. 21 acrobats, one monkey king, one troop leader, and a young interpreter about 30 years old, a woman from the China Performing Arts Agency. We counted heads one time, and then everybody got into vans and headed out of John F. Kennedy Airport. And I watched as their noses were pressed up against the windows of the vans because they could see the sparkling lights of Manhattan in the distance. And they couldn't wait to get there. But that's not where they were going. They were going instead to the land of my birth, deep Brooklyn, to an airfield, a disused airfield that was run by the National Park Service with cracked runways and leaky hangars. It was also our rehearsal and storage facility. And that's where they experienced their second round of culture shock. We introduced them to their housing that they would be in for the better part of the next nine months. RVs, recreational vehicles, travel trailers, think orange and gold terry cloth curtains. Well, amazingly, they adapted wonderfully. And the Big Apple Circus meets the Monkey King was an enormous success. That year at Lincoln center, both as a circus and as an international cooperation. And as the beginning of January rolled around, we celebrated the end of our season. We then were faced with the beginning of our spring and summer tour. And the acrobats were as spectacular as ever. But we sensed something strange. I remember feeling, what's going on here. They're very watchful. I think that's the word I used. But TV and the newspapers told us what they weren't telling us. There was trouble back home in China. Escalating democracy protests in April led to martial law being declared in Maine in early June. It all came to a head in a place called Tiananmen Square. As there was very little we could do about what was happening in China, we went on with a tour. And on the last day of the tour, in Shelburne, Vermont, after the last show, when the bleachers were coming out and the tent was coming down, four acrobats from the Nanjing acrobatic troupe disappeared into the night. Now, I have my suspicions, but to this day, I don't know how they got away or where they went to. Well, the troop leader, Lu Yi, frantically came up to me and said, we've got to stop this move and investigate what's happening here. I almost laughed. Nothing stops a circus move. Not rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, nor the frantic pleadings of a lifetime bureaucrat. I calmed him and reassured him that we would meet again in Brooklyn and we could discuss the matter. And I climbed into my pickup truck pulling a 42 foot recreational vehicle, and I headed down the road. Well, about an hour and a half later, I got on a payphone. You all remember payphones. And I called back to the circus lot to find out how things were going, expecting the usual, oh, everything's fine. Well, it wasn't. All hell had broken loose. The troop leader, Lu Yi and the monkey king, Yang Xiaodi, had grabbed the interpreter, taken her under arrest, and locked her in the Mini home, the Tioga Mini Home, accusing her of complicity in the disappearance of the acrobats. And they were on the road about a half an hour behind me. Well, I was headed for the service area on the New York State Thruway, which we used as a checkpoint. In those days, before cell phones, we had checkpoints so that we could keep track of the vehicles that were on the road. There was no way of texting, but I pulled into that service area and sure enough, within a half hour, in came the Tioga Mini Home, and out stepped Lu Yi. The troop leader, and Yang Zhaodi, the monkey king. And they were furious. Well, I tried calming them down and I escorted them into the restaurant and we sat down, four of us, the fourth person being the associate artistic director. Now, it was an odd the associate artistic director with his perfectly French accented English, me with my Brooklyn tinged patois, and two very angry Chinese men. But it was very evident what they were saying, that this woman had been in complicity with the escaped acrobats. And every time they said her name, they would point out the window toward the Tioga mini home. And finally, one last time, the monkey king, Yang Xiaodi, spat out her name and pointed toward the mini home and gasped. Right outside, no more than two feet away from the table that we were sitting at, there stood the interpreter, peering in, trying to figure out what was going on. Yang Zhao Di, the monkey king, jumped to his feet, ran out the door. We were close behind him, and as he got to her, he threw the interpreter to the ground. My associate artistic director said to me, monsieur Paul, if you ever believed in freedom, believe in it now. Well, I walked over, I helped the interpreter to her feet, and I held out my hand. There'd be no more intimidation of this woman. Talk to the hand. So I phoned ahead to alert the authorities. And then I took the three combatants and asked the interpreter to sit in the front seat of my truck alongside of me, and in the back seat, the troop leader, Lu Yi, and the monkey king, Yang Xiaodi, with my associate director sitting between them. Well, most of the very small amount of conversation that took place as we headed down the thruway was in Mandarin, but vitriol knows no language barriers. We got to the airfield, and for the first time in the six years that we had been going to this place, there was actually a guard in the guard booth. He was a National Park Service policeman with a smokey the bear hat. And he gestured that we bring the trailer up to the edge of one of the runways. I did it. And there, sitting on the Runway, was a black sedan with the words immigration and naturalization Service written on it. And out stepped a man with a badge attached to his lapel. And I went, oh, no. I said, oh, no. I'm the guy who signed for those visas. The circus is sure to be blamed. The world is coming to. I broke into a cold sweat. The blood drained from my head. He was going to surely grill me. He totally ignored me and walked right up to the interpreter and he said, ma'am, we're from the Immigration and naturalization Service. There are people from the Chinese consulate waiting at that hangar. Now, you're welcome to go there, but if you choose, you can go into that car. He had opened the back door of the car. You can go into that car and be under our protection. There was a long silence. I could only imagine what this woman was thinking, the gravity of the decision that she had to make in those few seconds. Finally, I whispered her name. Larang. She said, I go. And she jumped out of the truck, ran to the backseat of the car. They slammed the door and it zoomed off down the Runway. I might have felt sorry for the troupe. Lee Lou Yee and the Monkey King, Yang Xiaodi. I mean, after all, if it hadn't been for their intimidation of the interpreter. There were people from the Chinese consulate waiting for them at the hangar. They had a lot to answer for. So we drove there, and I stepped out of my truck, and sure enough, there were six members of the Chinese consulate, about an equal number of good old New York City cops, and someone from the consulate walked up to me, grabbed my arm and said that his boss wanted to talk to me. Heads off, I said, hey, this ain't Tiananmen Square. This is Brooklyn. With that, I walked over and hugged a New York City cop, not realizing that to me he represented life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He wasn't exactly thrilled by my gesture. And Lu Yi and Yang Zhao Di, the fierce defenders of Chinese communism. What happened to them? Well, today Lu Yi is a respected circus arts instructor in San Francisco, and Yang Zhaodi actually turned out to be a very sweet guy. He lives and works in New York City, sometimes for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit in pediatric hospitals. And his son is A graduate of St. John's University. Curious. No. Well, one more thing. Just one more thing. A few weeks later, a board member of the Big Apple Circus questioned my participation in this event. I thought for a moment and said, well, these people wanted their freedom. What was I supposed to do? And then I thought to myself, would I do it again? Well, I'm from deep Brooklyn, but I had a grandma who was from Vienna, and she escaped and found her freedom in America. You bet I would do it again.
- [50:02]
Kathryn Burns
That was Paul Binder. Paul has spent his life living and working with some of the finest circus artists in the world. He's been a regular on Sesame street, and he's the author of the memoir Never Quote the Weather to a Sea lion and Other Uncommon Tales. Paul has one more story that I've repeated so many times to friends that I asked him to tell it for all of you. So, Paul, you have so many stories about overcoming adversity against impossible odds. And one of my favorites took place, I think, about a week before the Big Apple Circus opened for the first time in 1978 in New York City. And it's a week to go with a sold out show. And you open up the tent to put it up for the first time. And what happened?
- [50:45]
Audience Member
Well, we rolled up the masts just as it had been laid out and it didn't fit. It just didn't fit. It wouldn't go up all the way. And we measured one way and we measured another, and we measured and we measured and we measured. We realized the tent had been made too small. And I went, oh my gosh, all the preparation and all the promises made and all the kids that are waiting to come. And I called my friend who was a master rigger and said, what do we do now? Well, his name was Philippe Petit.
- [51:17]
Kathryn Burns
Let me pause Paul's story here for a second. For those of you who don't know, Philippe Petit is the French high wire artist who's famous for having walked on a tightrope that he strung between the two towers of the World Trade center more than 1300ft off the ground.
- [51:31]
Audience Member
I had met him originally in Paris. We were both street performers in Paris. And I said, philippe, what in the world can we do? He said, I come down, I have a look, I figured out what to do. And sure enough, he climbed up a mast, he took some notes, he did some measurements and he said, give me maybe overnight, I will fix it. And he did. He made it work.
- [51:56]
Kathryn Burns
That was Paul Binder. And that's it for this edition of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.
- [52:11]
Paul Binder
Your host this hour was the Moth's artistic director, Katherine Burns. Kathryn also directed the stories in the show. The rest of the Moss directorial staff include Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janess, Jennifer Hickson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Wu Zadie and Michelle Jalowski. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers Recording services for the Moth by Argo Studios in New York City, supervised by Paul Ruest. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour from Rem Rudresh Mahantipa and Imogen Heap. The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was 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 prx. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website themoth.org.