The Moth Radio Hour: Keep Calm and Carry On

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Speaker 2 The Moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

Speaker 2 This condition can cause polyneuropathy like nerve pain or numbness, heart failure or irregular rhythm, and gastrointestinal issues. HATTR is often underdiagnosed and can be passed down to loved ones.

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Speaker 2 Genetic conditions like HATTR shouldn't dominate our stories. Thanks to the efforts of AstraZeneca, there are treatment options so more patients can choose the legacies they share.

Speaker 2 This year, the Moth will partner with AstraZeneca to shine a light on the stories of those living with HATTR. Learn more at www.myattrroadmap.com.

Speaker 3 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and in this show, stories of persevering, persisting, and going the distance.

Speaker 3 The challenges we face from perilous mountains to epic battles and crushing fears. Sometimes we make it through with grace and other times, well, not so much.

Speaker 3 Our first story comes from Sarah Johnson, who took the stage at one of our open mic story slams where WNYC is a media partner of the moth. From the Bell House in Brooklyn, here's Sarah.

Speaker 3 You too.

Speaker 4 Thanks. When I was eight years old, I had a nano puppy.
You guys know what that is?

Speaker 4 It's like a Tamagotchi, it's a little plastic egg toy with a screen and three buttons, and you have to, it's like a

Speaker 4 electronic pet. It's like a dog or an alien or whatever.
And

Speaker 4 you have to feed it and bathe it and play with it and put it to sleep and basically keep alive this little pixelated dog-shaped blob, you know.

Speaker 4 And it was super fun, man, I gotta tell you.

Speaker 4 And I was eight years old, and me and Nano Puppy are just having a blast, okay?

Speaker 4 And I take, we go everywhere together. He's my best best friend.
I hook him on to my little belt loop on my jeans and I walk around and he like bounces, I love him.

Speaker 4 But I started to notice after like two weeks,

Speaker 4 every time I need to do something like human eight-year-old related, like sleep or go to school, Nano Puppy dies of neglect.

Speaker 4 And like the

Speaker 4 guilt and the

Speaker 4 devastation and the humiliation that I feel as an eight-year-old is frankly inappropriate.

Speaker 6 Like,

Speaker 4 it's like anxiety through the roof, right? So I make it my like life's mission to keep this generation of nanopuppy alive.

Speaker 4 And it turns out that is a 24-hour day job.

Speaker 4 Because every time it gets hungry or sleepy, it beeps. So it's like all night, all whatever, it's just beeping at me.
And my parents are starting to notice that I am not sleeping well. I am,

Speaker 4 I'm like telling my friends that I'm sick so I don't have to like go outside and play with them so I can like take care of Nano Puppy. And I'm lying to my teacher.

Speaker 4 I'm basically telling my teacher I gotta go pee every 30 minutes because I can hear Nano Puppy in my locker beeping and I go out to take care of him.

Speaker 4 But God, I love him, right? It's just like heartstrings.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 4 so like time passes and, you know,

Speaker 4 Nano Puppy's getting stronger and healthier and happier, and I'm just getting, like, weaker and sicker and sadder.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 just like, we're just like one thing, like, he's sucking my soul out, and my energy becomes his energy, and we're just like, we're getting really close. And I'm realizing that

Speaker 4 if Nano Puppy lives,

Speaker 4 I die.

Speaker 4 So along with all the life lessons that NaNoPuppy teaches your children, like it's a good toy, teaches them, you know, time management, responsibility, like motherhood, basically.

Speaker 4 I am now firsthand experiencing the concept of infanticide,

Speaker 4 which is

Speaker 7 another

Speaker 4 thing I should not have to know about forever.

Speaker 4 you know even as an eight-year-old, it's just like not a thing, but like the seeds been planted and I can't I can't tell anybody about this

Speaker 4 most of all. I need to hide this from Nano Puppy

Speaker 4 Because I've started to like distance myself from Nano Puppy just like maybe leave it for a little bit longer.

Speaker 4 Oh, no, he notices he he gets hungrier, he gets sick, he gets he gets loud, everybody's noticing. So I'm like having to hide the fact.
I obviously cannot let him starve to death. Everybody notices.

Speaker 4 Because all my friends have them too, but they seem fine.

Speaker 7 I don't know what it is about this, whatever.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 4 one day, I

Speaker 4 hook Nano Puppy to the belt loop of my jeans, like I do.

Speaker 4 And I put those jeans in a laundry basket.

Speaker 4 And I take that laundry basket to my mother, who is loading the washing machine.

Speaker 4 And she doesn't say a word.

Speaker 4 And I don't say a word.

Speaker 4 And 28 minutes later, when we pulled sopping wet Nano Puppy out of the washing machine, he was

Speaker 5 still alive.

Speaker 4 So we're like pretending we're like, oh, it's fine. Ha ha, that's funny.

Speaker 5 Oh, God.

Speaker 4 And my mom goes, my mom goes, like, she lowers her voice because I don't know Nano Puppy can hear she goes why don't you try it off by putting it in the freezer

Speaker 4 so the next morning I go to check on Nano Puppy status and

Speaker 4 he is still alive

Speaker 4 except now he is super angry

Speaker 4 and so now the guilt is just crushing. Like I can't function.

Speaker 4 I now, copy, I now have to take care of my

Speaker 4 brain-dead, angry spawn of Satan because of the karma. Anyway,

Speaker 4 so I just continued to take care of it. We went camping a couple days later.

Speaker 4 He woke up in the middle of the night and was like, I'm hungry. And my dad, my dad just took it, ripped open the tent, and threw that thing as far as he could.

Speaker 4 And it landed in our campfire from whence it came.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 4 I left it there.

Speaker 4 It's okay with me.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I guess the moral, the thing that I learned from this is just don't lie about when you don't want something in your life anymore. Don't keep it going

Speaker 4 if it's not healthy and it's not good. And don't try and pretend it is and just throw that thing off a damn bridge.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 That was Sarah Johnson.

Speaker 3 Sarah grew up in Montana and lived in Brooklyn for 13 years where she hosted an all-female variety show called Camp Sunshine and frequently put her name in the hat at our Open Mic Story Slams.

Speaker 3 During the pandemic, she moved to Atlanta to be closer to family and is now working on becoming an historical preservationist.

Speaker 3 She says that after the demise of Nano Puppy, she felt major relief and a lot of guilt. But that was quickly replaced by her new obsession, the Spice Girls.

Speaker 3 You can see a picture of Sarah and her now infamous Nano Puppy at our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 3 Next up, we have a story of engineering marvels that come with their own set of challenges.

Speaker 3 Mike Malick took the stage at a story slam we produced in Pittsburgh, where we're supported by public radio station WESA. Here's Mike, live at the moth.

Speaker 8 Hey, y'all.

Speaker 9 So six years ago, my company asked me to spend a month on the road performing tall bridge inspections. And so these are bridges that are too tall for us to inspect with a ladder.

Speaker 9 And so we use an underbridge truck. And you may have seen this before.
It's a truck that sits on top of the bridge.

Speaker 9 It has a bucket lift on the back, but instead of this bucket lift going straight in the air, it can go out, down, and beneath the bridge.

Speaker 9 And the bridges that we were going to inspect were anywhere from 50 to 150 feet in the air. So as a scary comparison, this is like being a window washer on like an eight-story building.

Speaker 9 This was a big problem for me because not only am I afraid of heights, but I'm afraid of most like marginally extreme activities someone can do

Speaker 9 and I've been this way my whole life and so you know growing up little kid birthday parties were a problem for me like I wouldn't ride roller coasters so when my friends were riding roller coasters I would be on the ground at a bench just watching their bags

Speaker 8 I

Speaker 9 you know those like little kid obstacle courses where you climb up a rope net and then crawl through a plastic tube and then climb up another rope net?

Speaker 9 At some point I'd be high enough off the ground where I'd become paralyzed and my mom would have to crawl in and come carry me out.

Speaker 9 Which is hysterical because this being afraid of everything, things are hereditary. And she was probably more afraid of that rope course than I was.

Speaker 9 But the worst party by far were the laser tag parties.

Speaker 9 And because there's no you can't skip them and you, there's no moms to carry me out,

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 I will get locked in a dark room with confined spaces and tripping hazards and then lasers flying past my head.

Speaker 9 And I hope you all can appreciate that by me agreeing to go on this inspection trip, it was a big deal.

Speaker 9 And my first day, I showed up and there are three people who make this trip go. There's me, the Bridge Inspector, who's afraid of everything.

Speaker 9 There's my coworker Bernie, who's a grizzled Brid Inspection veteran who fears nothing. And then there's the guy in the truck.
And I forget his name, but I'll call him Gary.

Speaker 9 And his job is just to stay in the truck. And if something goes wrong, he's got our back.

Speaker 9 He's there for us.

Speaker 9 On my first day, Gary told me that it was his first day on the job.

Speaker 9 And so I had a little panic attack before I could even conquer any fear of heights.

Speaker 9 But the first week went pretty well.

Speaker 9 I got better with the heights. I also got better with the rocking motion on the bucket.

Speaker 9 And I never was quite able to take both hands off the railing while I was inspecting, but I could get one hand off.

Speaker 9 And usually I had like one panic attack a day, something small,

Speaker 9 be it the wind

Speaker 9 or like if the truck was making noises but Bernie would calm me down and things were going well

Speaker 9 but there was one day

Speaker 9 and we were at the best part of the day this is the part of the day where we're done inspecting the bridge and we are able to now maneuver the bucket out from underneath the bridge back on top of the bridge i.e going from from where I'm hanging off the side of a bridge to where I'm safe on top of the bridge And I look forward to this every day because it means I've survived the day.

Speaker 9 I'm alive.

Speaker 9 And Bernie's, you know, he's operating the bucket.

Speaker 9 We are getting closer and closer to that point where I know I've made it. We're maybe one to two feet from the bridge, and the bucket stops.

Speaker 9 And I look at Bernie because he's my pillar of strength during these times. And I implore him to keep on going because we're almost there.

Speaker 9 And Bernie is pressing the lever that makes this bucket move and it's not going anywhere. So y'all, this is where Gary comes in the picture.
He's got our back.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I can see him and Gary yells to us, I don't know what's wrong.

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 9 besides falling out of this bucket to my death, like this is my biggest fear. We are stuck on the bucket.
I go in full meltdown mode and I am just holding on to the side of the bucket.

Speaker 9 I don't hear anything. I'm just staring off on the horizon.

Speaker 9 And we are about 90 feet in the air, mind you.

Speaker 9 I can look down, I can see like a picturesque stream, I can see trees, but they're really far down.

Speaker 9 And during this time where I was not with it, I guess Bernie and Gary decided that the best course of action, now, mind you, we are one to two feet away from the bridge.

Speaker 9 So we're just going to open up the door and the bucket, and we're going to step from the bucket to the bridge.

Speaker 9 It's a small step, really small, but y'all, it is so far down.

Speaker 9 And it took a while to convince me that this was a good idea.

Speaker 9 And I made Bernie go first because he would reach out his hand to me. I grabbed his hand.
I didn't look down, it was far.

Speaker 9 And I looked at Bernie. Took a deep breath and I took my pretty small step, but still a big step onto the bridge and I was safe

Speaker 9 And as soon as I stepped off that bucket, I vowed I would never go back in there again.

Speaker 9 The next morning at 8 a.m.,

Speaker 9 I got right back into that bucket.

Speaker 9 And this story continued for the rest of that month, and I survived. And when I look back on this experience, I try and think of what lessons I could learn.
about either the experience or myself.

Speaker 6 And the answer is, I learned absolutely nothing.

Speaker 9 I already knew that I belong in one place, and that's with my feet on the ground. Thank you.

Speaker 3 Mike Malick spent that entire month inspecting high-level bridges in state parks across western Pennsylvania, and he hated every minute of it.

Speaker 3 He said he would end every day just grateful to be alive. The job solidified his fear of heights and also instilled in him a healthy fear of bugs, poison ivy, and livestock.

Speaker 3 Apparently, he once inspected a bridge right next to a very angry bull.

Speaker 3 These days, Mike is the city of Pittsburgh's lead traffic signal engineer. He's passionate about making urban infrastructure accessible and friendly to all, but especially pedestrians and cyclists.

Speaker 3 His feet stay firmly on the ground, and the only wildlife he encounters now is the occasional mouse living in a signal pole. He says he hopes to never inspect a bridge again, ever.

Speaker 3 To see pictures of Mike on the job then and now, you can visit our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 3 Coming up, an evening out ends in broken bones, damaged friendships, and moral judgments when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 8 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 3 Sometimes we take on challenges and other times we end up creating them for ourselves.

Speaker 3 Samira Sehebi shared this story at one of our open mic story slams in Portland, Oregon, where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Here's Samira live at the moth.

Speaker 3 So when I was 14, I was sent away to the West by myself and my family gave me a partying gift. It was a very fancy gold ring.

Speaker 3 So five years later, when I lived in Los Angeles, as a pretty well-assimilated Westerner, I lived with two roommates, and at that time, the only thing Persian about me was my accent and the ring.

Speaker 3 So one night, the roommates wanted to go party, and I declined. And Laura decided to entice me by holding out her acid-washed brown leather jacket.
And she said, if you come, you get to wear this.

Speaker 3 And I had this super skimpy

Speaker 3 tube top that I could never wear on its own. And this just became my motivation to go.
I was like, Okay, I'll go. And so I went to get the jacket, and she pulled it back.

Speaker 3 She's like, Wait, you need to really take care of this. I'm like, Oh, sure, of course.
And she's like, No, no, I mean it.

Speaker 3 No stains, no forgetting it.

Speaker 3 And I said, I give you my word.

Speaker 3 And so we all got very 80s chic and went to 40 miles south to Hermosa Beach to some guy's house and we got really drunk and then we headed to the

Speaker 3 strip where we would go from bar to bar and while we were dancing the ring had come off. So as the group got smaller and smaller people would go back to the house to sleep.

Speaker 3 There were three people left and I was desperately looking for the ring and these three people are like, yeah, we'll wait for you.

Speaker 3 And so I came out of the last bar and they could just tell that I had not found the ring. I was like on the verge of tears.
And this guy with like an Eddie Van Halen haircut, he's like,

Speaker 3 don't be sad.

Speaker 9 It's going to be okay. Oh, jump up.
I'm going to give you a piggyback ride.

Speaker 2 And I was like,

Speaker 3 no.

Speaker 3 And he's like, come on, come on. And then he kind of backed into me and leaned.
You know, he just assumed a posture for me to mount him. And it was

Speaker 3 so forward that I just felt bad declining. So I jumped up.
And he had been drinking, so as soon as I, maybe I was heavier than I looked, he just kind kind of lost his balance.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 I had been drinking also, and so I just watched the whole thing unfold as the asphalt got closer to my face and then further and closer, and I was like, fascinating.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 so what did happen is that he flipped me over his shoulder. onto the cold asphalt.
This was winter. I know it was LA, but it was still winter for us.
And so

Speaker 3 then he lost his own balance and fell and shattered my my collarbone.

Speaker 3 There was this exploding glass sound and I passed out. And I woke up in the ER and Eddie Van Halen had driven

Speaker 3 following the ambulance, which I was grateful for because I didn't know anybody. And

Speaker 3 so the very first thing they want to do in the ER, like the whole staff has gathered behind me and they're like, go get the shears, the extra large ones from upstairs. We're going to cut the jacket.

Speaker 3 And I was like, no, not the jacket. And she's like, Trust me, sweetie, you want me to cut the jacket.
And I was like, No, please don't cut the jacket.

Speaker 3 So then Eddie is standing next to me, holding my hand, putting it on his chest, like this devoted husband who's coaching his wife through childbirth. He's like, You can do this, you can do this.

Speaker 3 He's almost crying.

Speaker 7 He feels so guilty.

Speaker 3 I'm sobbing. There's makeup everywhere.
So they take this thing off. I felt this cold that was to the bone.
I could not stop shaking.

Speaker 3 So they're piling warm blanket after me and there's this hierarchy in ER. First of all, I didn't get any drugs and I didn't know why.
But

Speaker 3 so I'm in pain and they're like, yeah, you're kind of low priority. Like people with heart attack get to cut in front of you.

Speaker 3 And then we also had gunshot wounds tonight, so you just need to be patient.

Speaker 3 So finally at four in the morning, I see this shadow of a man emerging from the hallway and he's got a limp, he's got an accent. He's like, I'm going to take your x-ray.

Speaker 3 And he's walking way too fast for that time of day. He just goes

Speaker 3 down the hallway, gets me to x-ray, closes the door and he's like, are you Peijian? I'm Peijian.

Speaker 3 And I was like,

Speaker 3 yes. And he's like, I know someone with your last name.
And then he recites the name of my father. And I am mortified.

Speaker 3 And so I tell him because I was too honest. And then the mood shifted.
He just got very, very quiet. Like he just went from interested to, oh shit.

Speaker 3 And then he like looked at me up and down and I could like see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes. I reeked a vodka.
I looked so trashy. And he

Speaker 3 just said,

Speaker 5 what happened, child?

Speaker 3 And that cut like a knife. And then I started shivering again.
And so he took the x-ray without looking at me. He pushed me down the hallway.
And this time he was not so preppy.

Speaker 3 He's just pushing me very, like very slowly, weighted down by the tragedy that was me.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 the hallway seemed eternal and in that eternity I got to feel the weight of the expectation of what a good girl should do, especially a good Muslim girl.

Speaker 3 And he dropped me in the room, he said goodbye without looking at me, and he left. And I never saw the X-ray man ever again.
But that night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated world collapsed.

Speaker 3 They just collided. And although I lost a physical representation of my origin,

Speaker 3 I tapped into a journey of integration where my two polarities started to come together, which has been a journey ever since. And a part of me wants to find that man.

Speaker 3 I want to kind of thank him for actually genuinely caring.

Speaker 3 And a part of me wants to kind of look at him and be like, I turned out okay.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Samira Sahebi is a writer and performer based in Portland, Oregon, and she's a moth Grand Slam champion. Samira was so determined to save her friend's jacket that she insisted they not cut it off her.

Speaker 3 She said removing it was incredibly painful, as the nurse assured her it would be. But the jacket made it out unscathed.

Speaker 3 She managed to successfully return it and vowed never to borrow another piece of expensive clothing.

Speaker 3 As it turns out, her father did indeed know the radiology technician, but with her father living in Iran and the technician in the U.S., their paths never crossed, and she managed to keep the embarrassing details of her injury a secret from her family for many years.

Speaker 3 You can find out more about Samira and share any of the stories featured in this hour by visiting our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 3 Our next story comes from Beth Bradley, who takes us to the mountains of Colorado. She shared this at a Grand Slam we produced in Denver with support from public radio station KUNC.
Here's Beth.

Speaker 3 I really wanted to cry.

Speaker 7 And I really wanted to give up, but I really didn't want to do both. And I was running out of time to make up my mind.
It was 11.45 a.m.

Speaker 7 And I was sitting on a huge pile of rocks located about 13,700 feet above sea level.

Speaker 7 And I was trying to get to the 14,000-foot summit of the mountain that these rocks belong to, but I only had about 15 minutes left.

Speaker 7 And that's because when you're at that type of elevation, it gets really dangerous to be on the summit any time after 12 p.m.

Speaker 7 in Colorado, because there's lightning that rolls in pretty much every afternoon in the mountains in the summer.

Speaker 7 So I've been climbing straight up, up, up this mountain for the past five or six hours with two of my best friends, Katie and Don.

Speaker 7 And I only had about a quarter mile left to go, but it might as well have been 500 miles. Katie and Don have both done a climb like this before, but not me.

Speaker 7 Basically, my whole life, the world's been telling me I'm too fat to try stuff like this. So I pretty much believe that too.

Speaker 7 And even though Katie Katie and Don and I have been friends for 20 years, I was still nervous to be climbing with them because I knew they'd be able to do it no problem and I'd be the slow one.

Speaker 7 So I had been training and doing research for months.

Speaker 7 I remember one article that I came across suggested that you bring Kleenex with you because when you're up at that elevation, the wind blows like crazy, so your nose is probably going to be running.

Speaker 7 So I had not only heeded that advice, I had actually bought the name brand Kleenexes for an extra dollar because they happened to have motivational messages printed on them, like believe in yourself and seize this moment.

Speaker 7 But nothing, not even the Kleenexes, had prepared me for how I was feeling at 1145,

Speaker 7 which was just completely depleted and essentially catatonic.

Speaker 7 So Don and Katie had kind of gone up ahead to sort of scope out the rest of the trail, and I was just alone with my thoughts, which had been pretty positive up till then like I felt like all that preparation was paying off but now the disappointment was just seeping in and the worst part about that was how familiar it tasted.

Speaker 7 Three years before that, I had moved all the way out to Seattle and even though I had approached that move with the same kind of exhaustive preparation as this climb, I felt like I just couldn't get my life to work out there.

Speaker 7 Like it was just one failure after another. Like the job I got turned out to be a bad fit.
I couldn't get acclimated.

Speaker 7 And then the relationship that I was in fell apart in a really excruciating and heartbreaking way. So I had managed to get myself home.
I'd managed to move back to Colorado.

Speaker 7 But I felt like I had gone on this like 2,000 mile detour just to end up exactly where I started. So I wanted it to mean something.
I wanted being home to mean something.

Speaker 7 And I wanted all that time to count.

Speaker 7 The mountains have been there all along, but for the first time, I found myself wanting to know what it would feel like to be on top of one.

Speaker 7 But the higher I got, the heavier all of that felt, and the later it got, the more the pressure was bearing down.

Speaker 7 At this point, I noticed that everyone else I could see was very thin and lithe, and they were just scampering up the rocks like the world's most annoying pack of gazelles.

Speaker 7 No one else was struggling like I was, so I I was scared and I was overwhelmed and I was hating my body for being too fat and my mind for being too weak. And I just kept thinking to myself,

Speaker 7 who do I think I am to even attempt this? Like, who do I think I am to even try?

Speaker 7 So at this point, I could see that Katie was headed back down to where I was.

Speaker 7 And I could tell from her eyes that she was going to say that it was too late and we needed to turn around and that it'd be too dangerous to keep going at the pace that I was going. We were too slow.

Speaker 7 So she came and sat down on the rock next door, and I was just letting that defeat settle in.

Speaker 7 But then, totally calm, Katie said, we should keep going. I know you can do it.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 then a weird thing happened, which is that I realized I believed her.

Speaker 7 Even though Katie and I have been friends forever, and she said stuff like that to me before, this time I finally heard it.

Speaker 7 And so when I had been asking myself, who do I think I am, the answer had been this person who's too fat to keep trying, who kept failing over and over. But Katie was seeing someone else.

Speaker 7 She was seeing someone she loved, who'd been through all of that and kept going. So she was seeing someone strong.

Speaker 7 So when Katie said that I could do it, it sounded different than the Kleenex.

Speaker 7 It sounded like the truth. So I decided not to give up and wanting to cry became my only motivation.

Speaker 7 And the next 10 minutes were just like a blur of pain and exhaustion. But basically, right at noon, I heaved myself over the last stupid rock and

Speaker 7 I was surprised to find myself on the flat solid ground of the summit. All of those gazelle people were hanging out and smiling and taking pictures.

Speaker 7 I was the only person who was smiling and openly weeping.

Speaker 7 I was also hugging Katie and Dawn like crazy. I was petting dogs and I was looking out at the view, which was as incredible as anything I've ever seen.

Speaker 7 I realized I would also advise bring Kleenex if you do a climb like this because crying on top of a mountain is a a wonderful feeling, and I'd recommend it to anyone, so it's good to be prepared.

Speaker 7 I keep chasing that feeling. I keep trying to climb more mountains.

Speaker 7 Sometimes I get to the top, and sometimes I don't, but what I've noticed is that that one question isn't coming into my head anymore. That question of who do I think I am? Now I know who I am.

Speaker 3 Beth Bradley is a two-time Moth Story Slam winner and also tells stories professionally as a content marketer.

Speaker 3 Growing up, Beth says she never saw anyone of her size represented in the outdoors and spent most of her life never even considering that she would one day carry herself to the top of a mountain, let alone a mountain over 14,000 feet.

Speaker 3 She says it was one of the most profound feelings she's ever had, and it doesn't get old.

Speaker 3 Since that climb back in 2018, Beth has continued hiking nearly every week. She's up to somewhere around 175 hikes and counting.

Speaker 3 You can see pictures of Beth and find out more about her adventures in hiking on our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 3 Coming up, Rudos, Technicos, and the magical world of Mexican wrestling when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 8 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 13 What's up, world? It's Von Miller, Super Bowl MVP, chicken farmer, and now host of Free Range. This is a show where I go off the field and off the script.

Speaker 13 We're talking what's hot in music, film, trending news, and everything blowing up your feed. If you love football, you'll feel at home.

Speaker 13 But if you're here for the vibes, the internet deep dives, the conversation, this is your podcast. Join me every Wednesday.

Speaker 13 Follow and listen to free range with me, Vaughn Miller, everywhere you get your podcast.

Speaker 3 This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles.
Our final story in this hour comes from Sean Leonardo, who we met after he called the Moth Pitchline.

Speaker 3 He shared his story at the first event we produced in front of a live audience after the reopening of theaters that have been shuttered due to the pandemic.

Speaker 3 Live from the Wilbur Theater in Boston in partnership with WGBH, here's Sean Leonardo.

Speaker 6 In 2010, I'm standing in this grimy little gym in Oaxaca, Mexico, finally watching La Lucha Libre.

Speaker 6 And now for those of you that don't know what that is, La Lucha is the arts of Mexican wrestling.

Speaker 6 The pageantry and acrobatics are second to none.

Speaker 6 And while the storylines and narratives of good versus evil would feel familiar to you, there's a special magic to La Lucha because in Mexican culture it is sacred.

Speaker 6 Now

Speaker 6 I've always had a fascination with La Lucha ever since watching it on the TV with my dad.

Speaker 6 And it's always been so spectacular, but those warriors were so foreign to me in their mask and regala flipping every which way.

Speaker 6 But I would learn later that those same warriors were your everyday teachers,

Speaker 6 taxi drivers, office workers.

Speaker 6 But in the ring,

Speaker 6 When that mask came on, they were gods.

Speaker 6 And as a scrawny kid from some insignificant neighborhood in Queens, New York City,

Speaker 6 I wanted to feel that.

Speaker 6 I wanted to know what it meant to be a hero.

Speaker 6 And so now standing there, I was in complete awe.

Speaker 6 So much so that I wait for hours after the event just to approach a promoter and ask if I might start training with the local luchadores.

Speaker 6 Now, two important things to note.

Speaker 6 I'm not Mexican.

Speaker 6 Yes, I'm Latino, but I'm from Queens.

Speaker 6 Maybe more importantly, at the time, I had zero wrestling experience.

Speaker 6 But I may have fibbed just a little bit and told the promoter that I was a wrestler back home in the United States.

Speaker 6 Whatever it was, he goes backstage, comes back with a little piece of paper with an address scribbled all over it, says, Show up here Friday.

Speaker 6 He didn't say when.

Speaker 6 Just show up here Friday. So I did, but only but five hours too early.

Speaker 6 But I waited and I waited.

Speaker 6 Then after a while, in comes the trainer, and it is

Speaker 6 the legendary Rigo Cisneros from Nacho Libre fame.

Speaker 6 I lose it.

Speaker 6 And he comes up to me silently, sizes me up, and in the quietest voice goes, hop in the ring.

Speaker 6 And the ring,

Speaker 6 the ring is an iron frame with plywood on top, some sprinklings of rubber, and an old vinyl billboard securing it down. Not the bouncy thing y'all are imagining.

Speaker 6 The wrestlers were amateurs twice my size and everything I did was clumsy and tense and so they saw that and decided to deliver the punishment just to see if I would come back the next day.

Speaker 6 And so the slaps to the chest started stinging that much more, the body slams a little more vicious, and the blows, the falls, or bumps, as we call it in wrestling, that much more aggressive for me than anyone else in the ring.

Speaker 6 But I came back

Speaker 6 and I kept coming back because where I'm from, giving up is not in the cards.

Speaker 6 And after three months of training, I'm finally granted my first match.

Speaker 6 And because of my hard work

Speaker 6 and likely the novelty of an American luchador,

Speaker 6 I am slated in as the sub-main event. Now, to be clear, that is not the main event.
I'm still the warm-up act.

Speaker 6 And the night comes, and it's the same rickety ring in some makeshift arena with folding chairs. But the lights and the mariachi music is blaring and it feels glorious

Speaker 6 and they call out my name

Speaker 6 and all the blood rushes right out of my body it all becomes a blur

Speaker 6 but I pull myself together I get pumped and I step out in all white and gold the knight in shining armor with a 14-foot velvet cape

Speaker 10 I hit that ring and I'm looking good.

Speaker 6 And then I get my ass kicked.

Speaker 6 I lose that match bad.

Speaker 6 And so I go backstage beaten, battered, but at least it's all over. And Rico Cisneros, the trainer, comes over and says, go back in the ring,

Speaker 6 get the crowd pumping, and go save the good guys.

Speaker 10 I said, what the hell are you talking about?

Speaker 6 But I panic, I run out there, I do what I'm told, only to get annihilated again.

Speaker 6 By the end of the event, there are three bad guys, rudos as we call them, one pinning my shoulders down onto the mat, the other kicking me repeatedly, and the third unmasks me.

Speaker 6 The ultimate embarrassment in Mexican wrestling.

Speaker 6 And so I leave with a mixture of emotions. I'm embarrassed, I'm defeated.

Speaker 6 But despite the beating, I feel like I achieved something amazing. I had become a Mexican wrestler, for Christ's sake.

Speaker 6 I had lived out a childhood fantasy.

Speaker 6 But I decided, enough fun, the adventure was over, time to go home.

Speaker 6 So I'm back in my little ass apartment in Queens

Speaker 6 when I get a phone call a month later from a promoter asking me if I would consider wrestling the welterweight champion of the world.

Speaker 6 So, it seems this American lucherd had caused quite a stir, and the audiences were still talking about this guy.

Speaker 6 So, it was meant to be set as a special event for the 75th anniversary of the largest Mexican wrestling promotion in the world

Speaker 6 and staged at the National Museum of Mexico City, which is literally a palace.

Speaker 6 How could I say no?

Speaker 6 I'm terrified, but I had to see how far I could take this thing, so I accept.

Speaker 6 My opponent, the Walter Way Champion of the World, his name was Sangre Azteca.

Speaker 6 Aztec in blood.

Speaker 6 I failed to mention that my wrestling name was El Conquistador,

Speaker 6 The Conqueror.

Speaker 6 Now for anyone here that recalls their colonial history, the Conquerors didn't do such nice things in Mexico.

Speaker 6 It was a match made in heaven.

Speaker 6 The storyline was set.

Speaker 6 But upon touching ground in Mexico, I'm explicitly told there is no way I'm winning this match.

Speaker 6 And then I'm told that Sangri Asteka refuses to choreograph the match.

Speaker 6 Now, if you know anything about wrestling, you know that the outcomes, yes, are predetermined, but that also the matches are more or less scripted.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 6 now,

Speaker 6 not only am I being forced to lose the match, I could get really hurt.

Speaker 6 This has gone too far.

Speaker 6 Ironically, I'm billed as the good guy,

Speaker 6 or technico as we call it in Mexican wrestling.

Speaker 6 But when the announcer finally calls out,

Speaker 11 El conquistador

Speaker 11 de nuevayo!

Speaker 6 The entire audience turns on me.

Speaker 6 Now Mexican wrestling is a familial affair so the Ahuelas, the grandmothers, everyone down to the kids start cursing at me. I feel like the entire arena wants to see me massacred.

Speaker 6 And in front of over a thousand audience members, Sangres Deca and I go mano amano one-on-one.

Speaker 6 Two out of three falls for more than 45 minutes.

Speaker 6 And we go at it.

Speaker 6 We're going blow for blow, putting each other submission moves. We're fighting on the outside of the ring.

Speaker 10 We're kicking and we're going hard.

Speaker 6 At one point in the match, revved up by the insults of the audience, I look down on my opponent who I just body slammed and I smack him.

Speaker 6 This was a terrible mistake.

Speaker 6 All of a sudden, the chops started stinging that much more, the punches and kicks a little heavier, and things are going a little too far.

Speaker 6 But we go at it, and I stay in there.

Speaker 6 And for the climax of the match, I climb up to the top rope to finish him off with a high-flying maneuver.

Speaker 6 And it's just like I imagined as a kid. It's magical.

Speaker 5 And I'm soaring through the air,

Speaker 6 only to get caught off midair with a dropkick to the chest.

Speaker 6 And he pins me for the one, two, three.

Speaker 6 I lose again.

Speaker 6 And I'm leaving the ring, confused, beaten.

Speaker 6 And a swarm of kids surround me.

Speaker 6 Asking me for autographs, embracing me, taking photos, and it's bizarre.

Speaker 6 And I bend down to greet a few kids, and I feel this little pat on my shoulder, and a little boy says in my ear, si se pueve.

Speaker 6 Yes, you can.

Speaker 6 And I'm beaten.

Speaker 6 And this kid wants to believe.

Speaker 6 Wants to believe that this character should keep fighting.

Speaker 6 And so I do.

Speaker 6 I take that childhood fantasy and I turn it into an eight-year career as El Conquisador.

Speaker 6 Now it's been

Speaker 6 almost 10 years since the last time I stepped in the ring.

Speaker 6 But of course I think about my adventures as a luchador all the time.

Speaker 6 But more than anything, I think about that little boy's words.

Speaker 6 Because when times get most difficult for me,

Speaker 6 and these last two years have been some of the most challenging and tragic years of my life, of so many of our lives,

Speaker 6 El Quinquisidor reminds me

Speaker 6 that it's not always about winning.

Speaker 6 It's not about being the hero all the time.

Speaker 6 It's about moving through the failures and getting up after the losses.

Speaker 6 Because, as that little kid said,

Speaker 6 that kid that just wanted to believe,

Speaker 6 si se puede,

Speaker 6 yes, you can,

Speaker 6 yes, we can.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 3 Sean Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist, and his work has been profiled in the New York Times and CNN and featured in museums like the Guggenheim, Mass Mocha, and the Bronx Museum, to name a few.

Speaker 3 His first major public art commission is now on view at FDR for Freedom State Park.

Speaker 3 Sean entered into the world of wrestling as research for his art, which explores the hyper-masculine figures he was fascinated with as a child.

Speaker 3 It had never been his intention to actually pursue a pro career. These days, he says, he misses the catharsis of the fight and the thrill of the crowd, or pop as they call it in the industry.

Speaker 3 To see pictures of Sean and his wrestling regalia, including that 14-foot velvet cape and some amazing action shots from the ring, visit our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 3 And while you're there, maybe consider pitching us your story like Sean did. You don't have to go toe-to-toe with a Mexican wrestler to have a good one.
Stories come in all shapes and sizes.

Speaker 3 So if you have a story you're itching to tell, just look for Tell a Story on our website and you'll find all the info for how to pitch us.

Speaker 14 A man goes through his midlife crisis when he experiences the mortality of his father. That rang true to me and it also helped me explain why.

Speaker 14 In a sudden burst of inspiration, I bought a 20-year-old motorcycle while my father was dying of cancer.

Speaker 14 I bought this beautiful machine without even knowing how to ride a motorcycle, not even having my license.

Speaker 14 I didn't tell anyone, especially not in my family, about my purchase because I'm from a traditional Jewish family and it would have killed my mother to know I was out there on the open road.

Speaker 14 My father's prolonged battle with cancer would come to a head in May 2017 when he was taken to the emergency room because he had trouble breathing.

Speaker 14 While he was in the ER, his oncologist came down and gave us all the bad news that the experimental treatment that was supposed to save his life hadn't been working and this was the end of the road.

Speaker 14 My sister and I rushed to be by his side, and the three of us cried and cried.

Speaker 14 But for just a moment, we came up for air, and I turned to them and I said, Well, now that you've got your bad news, I may as well tell you I bought a motorcycle.

Speaker 14 The tears of sadness started to mix with laughter and love, and we started to plan our road trips together because that's what you do with dying people. You plan for your future.

Speaker 14 And he made me promise right then and there to always wear boots when I ride, and I still do every time.

Speaker 3 You can pitch us your story at themoth.org, or you can call us at 877-799-Moth. That's 877-799-6684.

Speaker 3 That's it for this show. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour.

Speaker 8 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show.

Speaker 8 Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Additional Grand Slam coaching by Larry Rosen.

Speaker 8 The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Janess, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza.

Speaker 8 Our pitch came from Zach Lipton in London, England. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers.
Our theme music is by The Drift.

Speaker 8 Other music in this hour from Stephen Jacobs, Blue Dot Sessions, Tommy Guerro, Jason Beals, and the L. Mariachi Band.
We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Speaker 8 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys-Dennis.

Speaker 8 For more about our podcast, for information on pitching this your own story, and everything else, go to our website, dumbouth.org.

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