The Moth Podcast: Live from LA
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There's an African proverb that says that until the lion learns to write, the hunter will be glorified in every story.

And in that moment, I had become the lion that could write. Hear stories like that and more from your local community at the Moth Grand Slam in D.C. on Monday, November 18th at Lincoln Theatre. Ten champions from our story open mics will share hilarious and high-stakes stories. The crowd will decide who becomes the D.C. storytelling champion.

Buy tickets now at themoth.org forward slash DC. That's themoth.org forward slash DC. We hope to see you there. Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Sarah Austin-Ginesse, the Moth's executive producer, and we have a special treat in store for you today. This is a live from episode of the Moth Podcast from a recent Moth Grand Slam in Los Angeles.

Grand Slams are Story Slam championships. They feature 10 stories, and we've chosen three from this LA Grand Slam to share with you today.

The theme of the night was Out on a Limb, and the show was held at the Aritani Theater in collaboration with public radio station KCRW. Longtime Moth host and storyteller Brian Finkelstein will lead us through the night. Eben Schletter and Alexander Burke are our musicians for these memorable Grand Slams in Los Angeles. They play the theremin, which is an electronic instrument controlled without physical contact.

So Eben and Alexander look like they're just waving their hands through the air. But really, they are masters of this creepy and wonderful instrument, which you are about to hear. We'll play two stories, then you'll hear Eben and Alexander on the incredible theremin, and then our last story, so stay with us for all. To see photos from this night and for details about live events near you, which we hope you'll attend, go to themoth.org.

And now, here's Brian Finkelstein, live at the Moth Grand Slam in Los Angeles. Welcome to the Grand Slam. What you're going to see are, there's a lot of different parts of the Moth. There's the podcast, there's the main stage shows, which are curated with longer stories and more rehearsed, and then there are the slams, where it's kind of an open mic. And tonight you're going to see a Grand Slam, which is the people who have won some slams. Slams are basically an open mic, 10 people go, they tell stories, there's judges, they judge them. Again, LA, so everyone judges them because they're

We're empty inside. But one of those ten people wins, and then those people compete tonight in the Grand Slam. So right now there are ten people backstage who are going to tell stories. They're all winners. They've all won. I mean, at the end of the night, nine of them will be losers. But it's okay. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. But they're all winners. So give them a round of applause. They're going to tell some great stories. Thank you.

And tonight's theme is Out on a Limb, is that right? Out on a Limb is the theme. So you're gonna hear stories about that. I was thinking a lot about that theme and how I would start the show and I was... For me, Out on a Limb means being vulnerable and trying to be vulnerable. And I was thinking a lot about that recently because I accidentally last week went to Las Vegas with my father.

Because I put in a long time ago for tickets to go see that U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas. So I was telling my father, like, I didn't know who to ask. I have some friends, a friend who lives in Vegas, a big U2 fan. I was trying to decide who to ask. And my father said, I'll go with you. And I was like, what? I didn't ask you. We don't really have that. Okay. But we've gone to... We've never spent time alone since I was 12, except for we went to go see Leonard Cohen together years ago, which was very...

But my father's not an emotional... Leonard Cohen's a very emotional singer, but my father is not emotional. I just remember him saying at the end of it, like, that was beautiful. Shucked my hand and said goodnight. And so I took my 83-year-old father to this thing where you have to walk six miles and then climb stairs to get to the top of the sphere in Vegas. And so we went, and we're watching the show, and halfway through it, I'm like, oh, do you... Because he said he doesn't know much, you two, and...

He didn't know one song. Like, I mean, you can't, that's like, I mean, you can't not know. He didn't know one song the whole show. Like, the big ones, the hits, they were, you know, doing the whole thing. And I thought he was having a terrible time. And we got halfway through the show, and they did With or Without You, which is like this heartbreaking, you know, like, song and slow song. And out of nowhere, my father has never said, I love you. His second wife, Susie, told me that he, that they were married for 16 years, and they got divorced, and that he had never said he loved her.

I've never heard him say "I love you." I don't think he's ever said it. But in the middle of "With or Without You," a song my father's never heard, my father just looked over at me and said, "I love you" to me. And it was like, what the... It was so unbelievably hard to process. Like, with or without... It's like, I don't know what to do.

And so I just kind of like sat in it for a minute and the song ended and people clapped and then he's like, "Did you hear me? I said I love you. I just want you to know I love you." And he said it like so sincerely and I'm gonna start crying now. I like started crying at this U2 concert. My father said I love you. And then the next day at the airport, he told me repeatedly that he was drunk and he had no memory of ever saying it. So that's my father. Vulnerable. That was his most vulnerable moment. All right. So...

This is from you, the audience. So these are the prompts. So we ask people to fill these out. So if you wanted to tell an anecdote instead of a story, you fill out two sentences. I will read them between the stories. Tell us a time that you put yourself out there. I wanted my life to get better, so I bought a good luck candle. After lighting it, I gave it a pep talk, and then it caught my hair on fire. In two sentences or fewer, tell us about a time you put yourself out there. The time I asked Ralph Lauren what he did for a living.

In two sentences or fewer, tell us about a time you put yourself out there. Tonight, in all caps, I came here to my first moth show with this really weird but also very handsome guy. Wish me luck. Luck! Alright, big round of applause for Jess Nurse. Come on for Jess Nurse.

I heard once that the initial pitch for the TV show Friends was, "It's about that time in your 20s when your friends are your family." And I had that. A group of us, two couples and me, their adopted child, we did everything together. Major holidays, apartment moves, a Triwizard tournament leading up to a Harry Potter film, all the things. One of the couples, Eddie and Katie, I actually introduced them,

Because I introduced Eddie to the guy whose girlfriend introduced them, and that's basically the same thing. I felt like I was there for their entire relationship. First date, first trip, when they got a dog, when they got engaged, we were in the bridal party for their wedding, then they got a house, and they had a kid. Then they stopped showing up. I got used to the pink flesh of embarrassment in my cheeks at reaching out to them for any important moment in my life, only to hear the words, we can't.

It's my birthday. We can't. My family is in town. You've never met my dad. We can't. My heart is shattered. We can't. So, like any oldest child, at the clear threat of being replaced, I threw a tantrum. I pulled away. If they weren't going to show up for me, I wasn't going to show up for them. And soon, to the surprise of everyone who knew us, almost a year had passed where we hadn't all been in the same room until a month ago.

Eddie once coined this term, "cousin friends." It's the friend of a friend that you see at birthdays and parties. You've never hung out one-on-one, but they're close with your friend. Cousin friends pass it along. Eddie had once introduced me to this lovely teddy bear of a cousin friend, a man named Lee. It's a strange thing when a cousin friend dies.

There's a sense of loss, of course, but when I heard Lee had passed, my first thought was obviously Eddie and Katie, how devastated they must be. And then I realized they had sent me an invitation to the funeral. We'll attend, we'll not attend. If it was five years ago, there wouldn't be any hesitation, but here I was, mid-tantrum, stubbornly absent from their lives, but aching for a time when a date would go straight in the calendar.

I reached out, said, "I'd like to support. What time will you be there?" They said, "Thank you. 6 o'clock." I show up, 5:50. I sit in a back pew, the closest view of the door. I know no one. 6 o'clock arrives, 6:10, 6:20, and at 6:30, the familiar pink flush of embarrassment. Am I being stood up at a funeral?

I'm sure that I am, that for some reason they couldn't come and forgot to tell me, not even like, "We can't this time." And all of the imbalances rushed to the surface. What was I doing there? I had shown up for them. I had made myself vulnerable. Was I once more an afterthought to their lives? I feel like an idiot. I should leave. And at that moment they walked in, already crying, numb to the reality of it all.

Our eyes meet and I see a sense of relief in theirs. I go up to them and we give each other these big, deep, long, meaningful, year-filled hugs. And then they make their way to the casket. This is when everything clicks into perspective. They were late because they have kids.

They make decisions now based on their family unit. They walk up to say goodbye to their friend hand in hand because they made beautiful vows to spend their lives doing the hard things together. I have been replaced. And that's not this horrible thing. It's not a lack of love. There's a reason NBC ended Friends when they did. That time in your 20s when your friends are your family, it is a beautiful time, but it can't last forever.

You have to grieve it. Let it take a new shape. We went to a bar afterwards. We laughed a lot. Caught up. A sting of regret at hearing how much I've missed. My tantrum has been melting. They sent me an invite recently to their kid's birthday. My nemesis. Will attend. Will not attend. It went straight in the calendar. Thank you. Come on for Jess Nurse. One more time. Let her hear it.

I don't know, as the person who's married with the kids, I'd like to think that maybe there's like a later stage where you get divorced and you get back together with your friends. That's my pitch. If anybody here is an exec, here's my pitch. It's like a bunch of people in their like mid-50s, late early 60s all get divorced and it's like Friends meets Golden Girls. I don't know, sells itself.

You'd find me after the show in the lobby just begging for a job. In two cents or fewer, tell us about a time that you put yourself out there. I have officiated the weddings of two friends. One was highly choreographed, the other off the cuff. Half are still married. Ooh. I have also officiated two friends' weddings. They're both still married, but one of them shouldn't be. Everybody knows it. It's just a matter of time. All right. In two cents or fewer, tell us about a time that you put yourself out there.

I volunteered to be captain of my lesbian kickball team, but I never played kickball. At least I am a lesbian. I would have bet money that someday, somewhere, I would get to say that last sentence. I'm glad it finally happened. Alright. In two sentences or fewer, tell us about a time that you put yourself out there. I asked out my dentist. Well done. This is not a joke, and this is true. I once had my dentist ask me out. And we went on a date. Her name was Peggy. I screwed that one up. She was perfect.

Alright, guys, please give a big round of applause for our next storyteller, David Ambrose. David Ambrose, come on. Come on for David Ambrose, let him hear it. She thought she was punishing me by keeping me in the basement. This was my 15th, 20th foster home, and she thought she was punishing me by keeping me in the basement.

It was a dark, dank basement. The windows were so filthy that no sunlight penetrated. Me and a bunch of other boys, we were kept down there and days would come and go and we would just be in the basement. But the thing about the dark is that you can dream in the dark. And I dreamt. I dreamt of a future outside where no one would hurt me. Where no one would touch me. Where I would be loved.

Where have you left to live my life? And I dreamt in that basement. When I went into foster care back in the before times, they diagnosed me as gay. Shock! Still gay. Somewhat single on our first date. And I remember... I have the time here, folks. So I remember so specifically that they began this process to make me less gay. And they call it reparative therapy. But I came across a Sports Illustrated

were known as softcore porn for young gay boys. So I came across, do you remember the magazines that used to fold out? So there was a poster of Michael Jordan and that's when I realized they would let me tack up posters of athletes on my wall. I dreamt in that basement. I dreamt so many dreams. But on one particular morning, I remember so specifically, you were not allowed to get out of bed without her permission.

She'd come down and release us, and we'd go upstairs. No bathroom, no food, do not leave this room, or you'd be punished. Sometimes at night we'd sneak out to use the bathroom, but you knew you risked punishment. This morning she let us out, I came up the stairs, I was the last boy up the stairs, and she stopped, and she turned to me and she said, "Go back downstairs!" And she yelled at me. And I immediately turned, and I started back down the stairs.

She knew that I had a test that day. I spent 12 years homeless and I never went to school. I was functionally illiterate. And I remember I struggled in math. Math is hard and it's so hard because it builds year upon year upon itself. And I was so determined this year to pass this dang class. I was going to take that test and pass. But she told me to go downstairs. And the punishments were really bad. So I turned.

and started back down the stairs. And I had this moment when the universe or God or whatever you believed in reached out and grabbed me and said, "No!" I had an epiphany. I touched that universe and I turned myself around and I walked back up the stairs. And I walked out, I walked into the foyer and I put on my clothes, my winter clothes, my boots, my shirt, and I was going to go to school to take that test.

I dreamt of a better future that required me to go to school. I knew it. And she was denying me that. She knew my vulnerable spot. That's what she did. I started towards the door, and as I opened the door, she was on me. She was slapping me and hitting me and screaming at me. And I refused to go back down to that basement. When I went into foster care, remember, I thought I was saved. And in this home, I learned that hell had a basement.

and my job was to survive it. I refused to go back down to that basement. I walked away from that house, and as I got to the end of the lawn, I heard her say, "I'm going to send you back." I spent years in delinquency because I was diagnosed as queer, and I remember thinking, "Fine, but I will never let someone hurt me again." I took off my boot and I threw it at her, and I didn't do it with much force.

Insert stereotype. And she went, ugh. And she stopped talking. I walked to school a couple miles away with one boot. I took off my jacket. And I was like Shawshank Redemption. I crawled through a tunnel of shit. And I just felt great. And I went to school and I said, I am not going back there. I did not take that test. I never went back to that school, my sixth or seventh high school. In fact, I didn't graduate. Don't tell Vassar. But I passed a different test that day.

that I didn't know I was sitting down to take. I passed the test that day, I put everything on the line, and I became a man. Thank you. Come on for David Ambrose! Holy crap, what a great first half. Give them all a round of applause. Wow. Alright, in two cents a viewer tells about a time that you put yourself out there. I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a pilot, and yet there I was in a tiny plane over Los Angeles at age 24. 24, that's too young.

I don't want 20 year olds flying anything. Sorry. Let's take a break. We'll come back and see you then.

Come on, holy crap! Guys, it's gonna be the best second half of our lives. Welcome to it.

In two sentences, it's about time that you put yourself out there. Taking a storytelling class at UCB, oh boy, as a corporate attorney in a land of talented artists. That's nice. I only growled at that because I used to teach storytelling classes at UCB. So when I read that, but I would always get mad when there was corporate attorneys in there who were better at storytelling than I was. I was like, so you're a corporate attorney and you can do what I do better than me? That's not fair. You've made all the right choices in life. Okay.

Two Sons of Fear tells about a time you put yourself out there. I wanted a third child and my husband did not. He was right. You ever seen those people with three kids? Holy smokes. We're down to our last storyteller of the night already. So give it up for our last storyteller. Big round of applause for Brian Kett. Brian Kett. Hi. Hi.

My name is Brian and I play frisbee golf or as the community calls it disc golf. The object is to throw frisbees or discs if you will at targets that are on courses in these public parks and I don't consider it a sport because you can play it while drinking a smoothie and this hobby is not one that I often even share with strangers it feels a bit embarrassing but here we are and so

I played it when I was a kid, and then I rediscovered it during the pandemic, when I was feeling really trapped, when I was looking for something distanced to do outdoors, and I loved it. It helped me to clear my head. So even when things started opening back up again, I kept playing, but there was only one problem. Everyone else who played, every time I'd drive up, I'd see all the regulars, who were also there by themselves. There was the guy with the big floppy hat, who played super slow because he was always walking his chihuahua.

There was the woman in athleisure who would constantly give all this unsolicited advice about the game. And there was this man with this gigantic beard who would blast classic rock from his Bluetooth speaker. And it's like no one ever really needs to hear Leonard Skinner. And they were just this group of misfits. And they made me feel so smothered. So I started playing early in the morning before anyone else got there. And it was great. It was just me and the pure rush of subculture.

But then one day, at the end of my round, I threw my frisbee and I couldn't find it and I was annoyed. And out of nowhere, the Chihuahua guy appeared and he said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I lost a frisbee." And he said, "Well, where is it?" And before I could explain what the term "lost" meant to this guy, he pointed upwards and he goes, "Is that it?" And sure enough, 50 feet up in this tree, out at the end of this scraggly limb was my frisbee. And being able to see it made it worse, like it was taunting me.

And Chihuahua Guy said, "Do you want it up there?" And it's like, why would I want that? Why would anyone want that? What I wanted was for him to leave me alone, but he said, "Let's knock it down." And he started throwing rocks up into the tree. So suddenly, I was stuck with this guy because if I left and he knocked my frisbee down, he would get to keep it. And I wasn't about to let the Chihuahua Guy have my frisbee, there's no way. So I started throwing rocks too. And neither of us were coming close because we're two frisbee golfers. There's no athleticism.

And that's when in the distance I heard the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd. And I turned to see the guy with the beard and the Bluetooth marching towards us, and I just, I tensed up. And he came up and he said, "Y'all get a frisbee stuck?" And the Chihuahua guy pointed to me and said, "Well, he got it stuck 'cause he's not very good." Which, it's fair, but not helping. But then Lynyrd Skynyrd, he took out this big metal tape measure and he said, "I carry this around with me to poke frisbees out of trees if I have to."

And he started extending this tape measure upwards. And it went up 12 feet, 40 feet short, zero depth perception. And I was just so agitated, I said, "You know what guys, that's it for me. Thanks for your help. I'm gonna go." And I turned to leave only to find that the woman in athleisure was just power walking towards us. She had seen everything. And she yelled out, "You can't knock it down with rocks, you gotta use sticks." Like that's the secret somehow.

And she began picking up these big branches and just hurling them like javelins up into the tree. It was chaos. It was chaos. There were rocks and sticks flying everywhere. Music was blasting. Once again, I was feeling so smothered and I thought, "This is why I come early." But then this voice rang out that said, "Stand back, y'all." And I looked to see that Lynyrd Skynyrd had somehow climbed this tree 50 feet up, like a lemur, instantly. It was amazing.

And he stepped out onto the branch that my frisbee was on and he started jumping up and down trying to knock it loose. And I thought, "If he falls, is this on me? Like, it's my frisbee!" But then, right when the guitar solo to "Free Bird" came on, my frisbee was knocked loose. And I just watched transfixed as it bounced from branch to branch. And I realized I was holding my breath in anticipation. And when my frisbee hit the ground, everyone began celebrating, myself included.

Suddenly, we had our arms around each other, we were hugging, and it felt wonderful. Because while each of us had shown up that day alone, for that brief moment right there, we were all alone together, like in this little, odd community. And so I thanked everyone, I grabbed my Frisbee, and I left. And as I was driving home, I felt better than I had in a long time.

Because for the first time since the pandemic, I really felt like I belonged somewhere. And that's what we need as humans. And I had forgotten that. I had become so socially rusty over those two years. And it dawned on me that while I had started playing this game again to be distanced, the people really are a central part of it. These kind, compassionate, eccentric people. And so now when I go play, I don't go early. I go when it's busy.

And I know the next time I drive up that all the regulars are going to be there. And I also know that I'm going to be so happy and so proud to go over and say hi to that group of misfits because it turns out I'm one too. A round of applause for Brian Kett, a true misfit. I will say if you notice Brian's shirt...

That red and black checkered thing. My kid, he has pajamas like that, that texture, and I have pajama pants like that, and this weekend he insisted that we go get my wife a pair of pajamas to match. And so we bought them on the weekend, and then we haven't had a chance to wear them because my wife had a show last night, I was here, and so tonight for dinner, before I came here, I had to put my pajamas on and sit at the table, and we all wore pajamas matching Brian's shirt. It was the best hour of my life.

In two cents a few, tell us about a time that you put yourself out there. I came out to my parents as a freelancer after I had already told them I was gay. More than they bargained for. Freelancer. In two cents a few, tell us about a time you put yourself out there. I met this guy in an L.A. club after eating a dank L.A. street dog. Was scared to kiss him with my dog breath, but seemed to like it. After months of long distance, we have now been dating for over a year. So there you go. All right, there's all our storytellers. Let's give them a big round of applause. Thank you.

And as Gary's about to bring us over the totals, I want to thank our volunteers, Alyssa, Morgan, Stuart, Hannah, Gary, the musicians, everybody. And the winner is Brian Kett. Brian Kett is our winner. Give them all a big round of applause. Thank you all very much. Have a good night. Don't forget to get validated parking.

That was a little bit of the L.A. Grand Slam out on a limb. If you're curious about our live storytelling events, you can find details on Moth Nights near you on our website, themoth.org. And while you're there, we also have photos from this beautiful night. You've heard from three storytellers, Jess Nurse, David Ambrose, and Brian Kett. Jess Nurse is an actress and writer based in Los Angeles.

David Ambrose lives in Los Angeles, and in addition to storytelling, he's a best-selling author, activist, an advocate on child poverty, and a dad. In his spare time, he loves to hike and camp, and he's also one of those pandemic sourdough bread-baking people.

Brian Kett is a writer in Los Angeles. When not telling stories, Brian's working on his passion project, Unfair Share, a chocolate bar that highlights inequity by fracturing into the shapes of real gerrymandered congressional districts. And when he's not doing that, he's disc golfing.

The host of the L.A. Grand Slam was Brian Finkelstein. Brian has performed eight successful solo shows, toured with the Moth, and published a story in the Moth's first book.

He's been nominated for two Emmys for his TV writing and developed multiple TV pilots. And right now he's finishing his first novel. Our musicians were Alexander Burke and Eben Schleder. Alexander Burke is an award-winning composer and musician who's scored numerous TV shows and films recorded with David Lynch, Fiona Apple, Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, and Billy Ray Cyrus.

He recently performed with Bob Dylan for his Apple TV concert film Shadow Kingdom. Eben Schleder is a composer-songwriter whose credits include SpongeBob SquarePants, Mr. Show with Bob and Dave, and Stan Against Evil. His album Cosmic Christmas, which also features Alex Burke, was voted one of the weirdest holiday records of the past 50 years.

And from all of us here at The Moth, we hope you have a grand slam of a week, and we hope to see you soon. The song that you heard was Eben Schlatter and Alexander Burke's Theremin cover of Shallow. We apologize in advance for getting that stuck in your head. Sarah Austin-Gines is a director, The Moth's executive producer, and a co-author of the best-selling How to Tell a Story, the essential guide to memorable storytelling from The Moth, which is available now wherever you get your books.

This episode of the Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Leigh-Anne Gulley, and Aldi Caza. The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org slash give back.

All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the public radio exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.