The Moth Radio Hour: Curtain Call

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Speaker 2 This is the moth radio hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.

Speaker 2 At this point in the moth's history, we've featured over 60,000 stories on stages around the world.

Speaker 2 Moth storytellers come from all reaches of society.

Speaker 2 Farmers, plumbers, astronauts, teachers, voodoo priestesses, firefighters, people who have never been on stage before the moth, and people who are famous for their work on stage.

Speaker 2 The three storytellers in this episode all have recognition for their artistry on stage.

Speaker 2 Our first teller, Tik Milan, is known for speaking all around the world, advocating for the most vulnerable of us, and his TED Talk has 3 million views and counting.

Speaker 2 He told this new story with us on the Walter Kerr stage in New York City when the moth had its first night on Broadway. Here's Tik Milan.

Speaker 4 I was my mother's fourth daughter.

Speaker 4 The first she had when she was 15 years old. Years later, one of my sisters had a baby at 15 years old.

Speaker 4 So when I was 15 and I sat my mother down at the kitchen table, I knew exactly what she thought I was going to tell her.

Speaker 4 I said, mommy, I got to tell you something. She said, oh, shit.

Speaker 4 I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm not pregnant.
I'm gay.

Speaker 4 She was shocked. She was shocked, but she got over it quickly and she became one of my fiercest allies.

Speaker 4 I remember seeing her when I'd be marching in the Pride Parade in my hometown of Buffalo, New York.

Speaker 4 She'd be on the sidelines, her and her younger sister Stella, waving their rainbow flags, drinking their wine coolers, having a good time.

Speaker 4 We grew really close, particularly when I moved here to New York City in my 20s to start my adult life. I really needed her so much.
I needed her for everything.

Speaker 4 I called her every day and twice on Saturdays. to help me make decisions about decorating my apartment, to help me make decisions about school, about my beginnings of my career.

Speaker 4 I would tell her all about the beautiful women that I was meeting and I was dating, but I didn't tell her that I was their boyfriend.

Speaker 4 My mother was a nurse for over 40 years, so I caught a case of the sniffles. I'm calling her to ask her what tablets to take.

Speaker 4 But I didn't call and tell her that I was taking a half CC of testosterone every two weeks. I didn't tell her I was transgender.

Speaker 4 But she knew something was up.

Speaker 4 So one day I'm at work and she calls me. She said, Tikaboo, that was her pet name for me.

Speaker 4 She said, Teekkabu, I hate to call you at work, but I just got to ask you this question. I just got to get this off my chest.
I said, mommy, what's up? She said, why you got to be so mannish?

Speaker 4 Why can't you be a soft butch like Ellen DeGeneres?

Speaker 4 I said, because I'm not Ellen, Ma, okay?

Speaker 4 She says, you know what? I should have never allowed this. I should have never accepted you.
I should have never accepted you. What would have happened if I had never accepted you?

Speaker 4 I said, well, ma, I still would have been me. I just would have been me without a mother.

Speaker 4 And she thought about it for a minute and she said, well, you ain't got enough good sense to do anything without me, so I guess I'll stick around.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 4 So we laughed and went on about our conversation, but I didn't take that opportunity to tell her because I was scared. My mother had a really, had high expectations of me.

Speaker 4 And she used to say, I'm raising you to be better than me. And I thought that me being trans meant that I was failing at that.

Speaker 4 And as a transgender person, one of the things we risk is we risk losing everybody in this life that we thought loved us in order for us to find ourselves. And I was not ready to lose my mother.

Speaker 4 I just needed her too much. And I just loved her too much.
So I kept it a secret. I didn't tell her for years.

Speaker 4 And our relationship definitely took a hit. It was a strain on our relationship because I'm from Buffalo.
So I would just go back and forth, just visit like four or five times a year.

Speaker 4 I stay for a week at a time. But during these years, I would only go home maybe once and stay for a couple of days.
And it wasn't sustainable.

Speaker 4 It wasn't sustainable, particularly because now my transition is progressing and now it's time for me to have surgery. And I still had no plans to tell her.

Speaker 4 And my girlfriend at the time looked at me and she said, you are crazy. You and your mother are best friends.
You talk to her every day. She's a nurse.

Speaker 4 She will never forgive you if you don't tell her that you are about to have major surgery. So I was like,

Speaker 4 all right, I'm going to tell her. So one day I call her.
I said, mommy, she said, what's up? I said, I got something to tell you. She said, what is it? And this is exactly how it came out to her.

Speaker 4 I said, Ma,

Speaker 4 I am having a double mastectomy, a chest reconstruction. I'm a man.

Speaker 4 She said, what the fuck?

Speaker 4 So she's like hyperventilating on the phone, right? So I said, listen, mommy, I'm having surgery and I'm having surgery in three days.

Speaker 4 And I would love for you to be here for me, but if you can't, I understand.

Speaker 4 and she said just get off my phone and let me think just get off my phone click and she hung up on me and she hung up and I didn't hear from her

Speaker 4 so the day of my surgery comes around and I'm all prepped and ready for surgery getting ready to get wheeled in the door opens up and guess who it is it's my mom miss Mary and here she comes and she has this plush Ralph Lorraine robe And she has a jar full of chocolates covered in blue foil.

Speaker 4 And she has a little blue plush little teddy bear for me.

Speaker 4 And she was there with me the entire time I was in surgery and during recovery. So I got discharged.
And we go back to her favorite hotel, which is the Marriott Marquee here in Times Square.

Speaker 4 And we're kind of just hanging out in the hotel room. And I look over and she's crying.
And I said, Ma, why are you crying? And she said, because it feels like my daughter died.

Speaker 4 And that was one of the hardest things I've ever heard. But I understood it because my transition wasn't just mine alone.
I went from being a daughter to a son.

Speaker 4 I went from being the little sister to the baby brother, from the favorite auntie to the favorite uncle.

Speaker 4 So I grabbed my mother's hand and I looked in her eyes and I said, mommy, I'm yours and you're still mine.

Speaker 4 And everything that you've taught me and all the memories that we have made as mother and daughter have informed me and fortified me as the man that I am today.

Speaker 4 And we laughed and we cried and we talked. And I think it was in that moment when she really started to understand me and accept me as her son.

Speaker 4 But it wasn't necessarily a smooth transition.

Speaker 4 She kept messing up my name. She kept messing up my pronouns.
And so one day I called and I said, mama, look, I'm not coming home anymore.

Speaker 4 I'm not coming home to visit if you can't get my pronouns right and you can't get my name right. Because not only is it humiliating, okay,

Speaker 4 it's unsafe. You could be putting me in a really unsafe position when you do this.
She said, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
I'll be better. I said, all right.
Get it together.

Speaker 4 So a few days later, she calls me and she said, oh, Teekaboom, you'd be so proud of your mother. You'd be so proud of me.
I said, why, mommy? What's going on? She said, because I've been practicing.

Speaker 4 Me and Stella have been role-playing, practicing your name and your pronouns. You'd be so proud of your mother.

Speaker 4 And I said, mama, I'm always so proud of you. And she said, oh, I just love you.

Speaker 3 And I said, I love you too.

Speaker 4 And we went on in conversation the way we had always done

Speaker 5 so june 2014

Speaker 4 i get a phone call from my mom

Speaker 4 and this time she is hysterical crying hysterical

Speaker 4 and i said mommy what's going on and she said baby you got to come home right now you got to come home right now And I said, mama, I'm coming home on the 19th.

Speaker 4 And she said, baby, I'm not going to be here on the 19th because the cancer has mushroomed throughout my entire body. The tumors in my lungs and in my backs are bigger.

Speaker 4 The initial tumor in my breast, you got to get home right now.

Speaker 4 Now we knew mommy had a cancer diagnosis, but I don't think we knew it was that bad.

Speaker 4 So I got on the first thing smoking back home.

Speaker 4 Now by the time I get home, my mother's in hospice, in and out of consciousness. And one of my sisters is there.
And she sees me and she says, Teek is here. Here she is.
Teek is here.

Speaker 4 She finally made it. Here she is.
Teek is here

Speaker 4 my mother slowly opened up her eyes and she whispered here

Speaker 4 and that was one of the last words she spoke

Speaker 4 so over the next couple of days

Speaker 4 the family we had it set up so that she was never alone right we all took a shift and I had the morning shift

Speaker 4 so One morning I come in, and it's pretty obvious that we're reaching the end now.

Speaker 4 Every breath she takes is so labored. Her whole body moves.

Speaker 4 And there's this loud gurgle with every breath that just fills the room.

Speaker 4 So I come up to her hospital bed and I take the guardrail down and I get in bed with her just like I used to when I was a little kid. And I put my head on her shoulder.
And I put my lips to her ear.

Speaker 4 And I said, Mama, you could go. I said, it is okay.

Speaker 4 I promise you, I'm going to be okay. You did such a good job raising me.

Speaker 3 You can go.

Speaker 4 And I fell asleep.

Speaker 3 Fell asleep right there.

Speaker 4 And when I woke up, the room was silent.

Speaker 4 And my champion had died right there in my arms.

Speaker 3 I tell you,

Speaker 4 there are no words to express how devastating that was for me.

Speaker 4 The sun still doesn't shine as bright anymore. And I was really lost.
Because my mother, she was my moral compass.

Speaker 4 She was my guiding light. She was the only person in this world who could check me.
So I'm like, who's going to check me now?

Speaker 4 And as I processed my grief over time and really self-reflected on this idea that she was raising me to be better than her, in actuality, it wasn't about me being better than her.

Speaker 4 She was raising me to live in this world without her. And not only am I living, but I am thriving because I am the man that she raised.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Teak Milan.

Speaker 2 Teak says he's a die-hard Buffalo Bills fan and a mama's boy. He told this story with us all over the world and it's also included in the Moth's best-selling anthology, A Point of Beauty.

Speaker 2 Teak is an advocate for equity and inclusion, and he credits them off for being an integral part of his development as an artist and a speaker.

Speaker 6 Every time I get off stage, people come to me in tears, with hugs in celebration, and in mourning of my dear sweet mother.

Speaker 6 I've been able to submit her legacy and give thousands of people an example of unconditional love. And I know she's shining down and is so proud of her baby boy.

Speaker 2 To see photos of Teak and his mother, Miss Miss Mary after they saw the Broadway show Fences and in Times Square hanging out with the naked cowgirl, go to our radio extras page at themoth.org.

Speaker 2 If this story makes you think of some of your own, tell us. You can find information on how to pitch us at themoth.org.

Speaker 2 After our break, a teenager on the coast of Oregon gets thrown into the world of mean girls when the moth radio hour continues.

Speaker 7 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 2 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin Janes, and this episode features three artists famous for their work on stage.
Our next storyteller is Amelia Zierin Brown. She goes by Rizzo.

Speaker 2 She's a world-renowned cabaret singer. The New York Times calls her shows, quote, a fierce but kind-hearted fusion of comedy, burlesque, performance art, and rock and roll.

Speaker 2 Rizzo told this story at a Moth main stage in Portland, Oregon, where we partner with literary arts and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Here's Rizzo.

Speaker 5 I'm five years old and we pull into Ona Beach State Park and I dust off the sesame seeds from my Halva snack off of my favorite brown corduroy romper. It had

Speaker 5 patches and kind of an Elizabethan flair to it. And I'm trying to get some knots out of my hair and I decide to just cover it up with my favorite raspberry beret, put it on a jaunty angle.

Speaker 5 And I go out into the clearing and the moment I see these other five-year-old girls, I realize that they're really different from me.

Speaker 5 They were clean, number one.

Speaker 5 And I guess their hair was like, what do you call it, brushed? And

Speaker 5 pulled back in these like tight ponytails with lots of plastic clips and and they were wearing shoes and

Speaker 5 I felt like I should turn around.

Speaker 5 I didn't have my A-team by my side, Amber Star and Aurora.

Speaker 5 I was all alone, but I soldiered through and got through the first day of the Brownies.

Speaker 5 I was raised by a group commonly referred to as hippies.

Speaker 5 But these weren't just any hippies. These were theater, dance, and art hippies who raised me, you know, with basically with trust falls and mime.

Speaker 5 And it's not a great idea to be caught in a trust fall by a mime, by the way.

Speaker 5 But it was a really great idea to be raised by these people. They taught me I could be whatever I wanted to be.
And my parents made, you know, Shakespeare in barns and chekhoff in basements. And

Speaker 5 my father made a life-size puppet of the elephant man that sat in our living room for too long.

Speaker 5 and still frightens me.

Speaker 5 And I had my sisters who were not my actual blood sisters, but my sisters, Amber Starr and Aurora, by my side. We were raised together, breastfed together.
We started modern dance when we were three.

Speaker 5 You know, it's important to do contractions at that age. And

Speaker 5 I had them by my side, but this summer they were off traveling. And my parents thought it would be a good idea to socialize me with kids.
outside the community.

Speaker 5 And so there I was with the thing underneath the Girl Scouts, which is called the brownies.

Speaker 5 And I clocked Christy and Mindy right away.

Speaker 5 They, yeah, they looked so shiny. And

Speaker 3 they,

Speaker 5 the differences really unfolded when lunchtime came.

Speaker 5 All the other girls opened these space age plastic cases with cartoon ponies and care bears on them and pulled out these sandwiches made from bread as white as clouds.

Speaker 5 Just spongy and uniform in shape. It looked like a drawn piece of bread and on it

Speaker 5 condiments that looked like primary paint colors, so bright and a luncheon meat of indiscriminate animal. It must have been a snake because it was so round.

Speaker 5 But the piece de resistance

Speaker 5 was the beverage. You see, they had this Mylar pouch

Speaker 5 with a picture of paradise on it.

Speaker 5 I watched as they peeled some sort of instrument of destruction off the back of the pouch.

Speaker 5 It must have been a spear of sorts because they stabbed the belly of that beast and they drank its blood in glory.

Speaker 5 I wanted nothing more than to taste whatever this rainbow was.

Speaker 5 I saw their lunches and I thought it looked so fun, like a vacation made for kids.

Speaker 5 And for the first time, I looked at my own own lunch with disappointment as I pulled out my sprouted flaxseed and millet bread

Speaker 5 out of, you know,

Speaker 5 a bag hand-sewned by my father,

Speaker 5 made from Guatemalan fabric, and the bread had chammes on it, chammes. You had to say that because

Speaker 5 it was so granular.

Speaker 5 It had been hand-pestiled, hand-pestuled by loud New York Jewish women.

Speaker 5 And I pulled out my beverage, which was a rusted mason jar

Speaker 5 filled with cloudy apple juice that had separated during the day, so it was interactive.

Speaker 5 At the end of lunch, Christy and Mindy,

Speaker 5 we had already decided wordlessly that they were the leaders of the group. They had came over to me with like the girls in the shining, only more frightening.

Speaker 5 Hands held.

Speaker 5 They said, dirty girl, they didn't know my name yet.

Speaker 5 Dirty girl, girl, we were just wondering if you wanted this capri-son, capri-son, caprice-son.

Speaker 5 It had a name.

Speaker 3 How did they know? They read my mind.

Speaker 5 I said, thank you so much. I bowed professionally.
I grabbed it from their hands. I took the straw in my mouth.

Speaker 5 I jutted it to the left and right.

Speaker 3 I couldn't...

Speaker 5 Deeper. I should have tried deeper.

Speaker 5 Nothing.

Speaker 5 Only Christie's expelled air. She had puffed it up to make it seem like there was a drink.
And then Christie laughed, and Mindy laughed, and then all the brownies laughed. And I laughed too.

Speaker 5 But when my mom picked me up, I cried.

Speaker 5 And I got through that week of brownies somehow with my head down and quieter than I'd ever been. And then...
I got through elementary school with breeze. I had Amber and Aurora by my side.

Speaker 5 You know, and still we had this wild life where we would make this art and our parents would have cast parties where all of a sudden they would disappear in the middle of the party to have a meeting in the laundry room about herbs.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 5 we had this life and but then we had each other and we had this kind of secret life but then I made it through elementary school and then middle school came and the first day of middle school I was at my locker and then down the hall who do I see but the Capri son son duo?

Speaker 5 Christy and Mindy for the first time since then. They were walking, it seemed as if in slow motion, with their flaxen hair blowing.

Speaker 5 They were wearing guest jeans with zippers at the ankles, heads, an esprit sweatshirt, a Benetton sweatshirt, and swatch watches on East Britz.

Speaker 5 I was bowled over by their cookie cutter glamour. And that week, also, a dare officer had come into our classroom,

Speaker 5 a police officer who said, you know, kids, it'd be a great idea if you told me if you knew anyone who did drugs.

Speaker 5 And I remember so distinctly my mom sitting me down and say, Amelia, she said, Amelia,

Speaker 5 we don't lie, but sometimes we omit or bend the truth.

Speaker 5 Like when we order you something off the children's menu and could you please stop correcting us and letting them know you're 12.

Speaker 5 When you're on an airplane, if you're ever on an airplane and someone asks you if you're Jewish, I want you to lie.

Speaker 5 And the third time is if an officer asks you if we or our friends smoke marijuana. By this time you know we do.

Speaker 5 We just don't agree with the rest of the country. They think it should be illegal and we use it to relax just like they do their whiskey.

Speaker 5 So I had already learned that I had to hide parts of myself to pick and choose what to expose to fit in to survive. And I was picking and choosing some things off of the wardrobe of Christy and Mindy.

Speaker 5 Please, mom, please, can I buy some guest jeans? Please, I begged, I begged for each little bit.

Speaker 5 And slowly, through the year, even though my Amber's mom, Nancy, suggested that perhaps we just buy one pair and cut off the little triangle and put a piece of Velcro and just share it.

Speaker 5 I collected all the pieces of clothing. And by seventh grade, I decided I was quitting dance and I was quitting theater because I was going to join the basketball team with Mindy and Christy.

Speaker 5 And midway through seventh grade, Mindy and Christie, at lunchtime, send one of their minions to me, Katie or Danny. You can see what kind of names you had to be a leader here.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 5 they said, they want you to sit at lunch with them. Oh my God, my moment had come.
I was them.

Speaker 5 I sat down

Speaker 5 and I realized really quickly the order of the day was to make fun of the other girls that were in seventh grade with us. And Christy said, ah, did you see what she's wearing? Oh my God.

Speaker 5 I mean, what is it? It has splatters of paint on it intentionally. I knew exactly who they were talking about.

Speaker 5 Aurora had been wearing this jacket made by a family friend named Becky whose art was to throw paint at vintage clothing.

Speaker 5 I loved that jacket. It had puffy sleeves, a snatched waist.

Speaker 5 Mindy said, yeah, she's so weird. Did you see her glasses? What do you think, Amelia?

Speaker 5 I took a sip of my milk.

Speaker 5 Yeah, she looks like she cuts her own bangs with craft scissors.

Speaker 5 They laughed, and I died inside.

Speaker 5 I had cut my own hair with her with craft scissors,

Speaker 5 and I was selling myself out so hard.

Speaker 5 At the end of lunch, Mindy and Christy and Danny and whatever her freaking name was, they started picking up speed. They were like

Speaker 5 running fast through the breezeway.

Speaker 5 We were running from some boys, but then they picked up some intentional speed, and then they took a quick right into the library and a quick left through the computer room.

Speaker 5 And then I was just trying to catch up. I wasn't as athletic as they were.
And I just saw out the window of the computer room that they had gone into the girl's bathroom.

Speaker 5 And I took a breath and I slowly, as quietly as I could, entered the bathroom. And I heard them, they were huddled in the disabled toilet.
And they were saying, Did we ditch her?

Speaker 5 Do you think we finally ditched her? They were talking about me.

Speaker 3 And oh my god, what a gift.

Speaker 5 What a gift to be given so clearly and so young that I had built this house on sand and I stood back I went and searched out Aurora I found her I hugged her as tight as I could I didn't tell her the story and I still haven't told her the story until now

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 3 and then I

Speaker 5 for the first time really felt the joy and the gift that all these adults that had raised me had given by modeling their genuine and expressive selves.

Speaker 5 And I walked into high school wearing combat boots and a goodwill dress with Aurora and Amber by my side. The A-team was back.

Speaker 5 And I carried on that joy.

Speaker 5 And seriously, this is what happens when you tell a child they can be whatever they want to be.

Speaker 5 I went into a life of a niche world of cabaret where I meld songs and stories through the portal of glamour with the greatest wish that somebody in the audience is going to be inspired to let their light shine through whatever normative cracks have held them back.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 2 That was Amelia Zirin Brown, aka Rizzo.

Speaker 2 She's a performance artist, comedian, singer, composer, and actor. She also has a Grammy for her collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma.

Speaker 2 She travels the world with her original pieces that fuse storytelling, audience experiments, and powerful vocals, and she lives in a bungalow of love and glitter with her partner Nicholas and son Tennyson.

Speaker 2 Rizzo is still friends with Aurora. She told her a version of this story before it went on stage and they both cried on the phone.

Speaker 2 Rizzo says, it's such a beautiful gift to have friends that you shared your early years with. It also lends a vulnerability that's a little frightening too.

Speaker 2 Our shared childhood was idyllic in so many ways, but it was definitely not perfect. It's amazing to have these women who I traveled through every stage of my life with still in my orbit.

Speaker 2 Rizzo was the last to tell her story at this moth main stage in Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 2 And as our host, John Goode, wrapped up the night, Rizzo stepped offstage, did a quick change into a sequined onesie, the stage lights dimmed and changed color, and she came back out and sang Leonard Cohen's How the Light Gets In, which was our show's theme for the night.

Speaker 2 It was perfect, and here's a little of that now.

Speaker 3 All the wars,

Speaker 5 they will be fought again.

Speaker 3 The holy dove,

Speaker 5 she will be caught again.

Speaker 3 She will be bought and sold and bought again.

Speaker 5 The dove is never free.

Speaker 3 So ring the bells that still

Speaker 3 can ring.

Speaker 3 Forget your perfect offerings.

Speaker 3 There is a crack, a crack, and everything

Speaker 5 is how the light gets in.

Speaker 5 We asked for signs,

Speaker 5 the signs were sent,

Speaker 5 the birth betrayed, the marriage spent.

Speaker 5 Oh, the widowhood of every government.

Speaker 5 A sign for all to see.

Speaker 3 I won't run no more

Speaker 5 with that fallen crowd. While the killers in places say their prayers out loud.
Oh, but they've summoned up, they've summoned up a thundercloud, and they're gonna hear from me.

Speaker 5 Ring the bells, the sun can ring.

Speaker 2 To see the video of this closing act and to find where Rizzo is performing next, go to themoth.org and look for the extras for this episode.

Speaker 2 After our break, a boy in Texas gets himself a famous television pen pal. When the moth radio hour continues.

Speaker 5 Forget your perfect offerings.

Speaker 3 There's a crack, a crack in everything

Speaker 5 is how the light gets in.

Speaker 7 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 10 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 10 We're talking what's hot in music, film, trending news, and everything blowing up your feet.

Speaker 3 If you love football, you'll feel at home.

Speaker 10 But if you're here for the vibes, the internet deep dives, the conversation, this is your podcast.

Speaker 10 Join me every Wednesday, follow and listen to free range with me, Von Miller, everywhere you get your podcast.

Speaker 2 You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Janess.

Speaker 2 Doug Wright, our final storyteller, won a Pulitzer Prize in Drama for writing, I am my own wife. I remember seeing this on Broadway in 2003, and it remains one of my favorite pieces of theater ever.

Speaker 2 The show also won the Tony for Best Play.

Speaker 2 Turns out Doug is a listener of the moth, and he's wanted to share a story with us for some time. How cool.

Speaker 2 I, though, found it a little daunting to give story notes to a famed story writer, but Doug loved the process. I talked with Doug in the green room before he took the stage in East Hampton.

Speaker 2 Doug, how do you feel before going on?

Speaker 3 Oh, a little anxious. It's always a little nerve-wracking.
Is it fun to tell?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's just a little piece of you.

Speaker 3 It's great fun to tell. And as someone who writes,

Speaker 3 as my profession,

Speaker 3 and it's such a solitary activity, you can get jealous of the actors on stage. And so it's my little 10 minutes when I get to do a tiny play.
And that's kind of thrilling for me. So it's a pleasure.

Speaker 1 Looking forward to hearing it.

Speaker 2 And with that, here's Doug Wright live at the Moth in East Hampton, New York, when we partnered with Guild Hall.

Speaker 3 So it's 1974,

Speaker 3 Dallas, Texas. I'm 11 years old, and I'm sitting on this mustard-colored couch, and my eyes are glued to a 19-inch Sony Trinitron.
Trinitron.

Speaker 3 Good night, Grandpa.

Speaker 3 Good night, Mary Ellen.

Speaker 3 Good night, Jim Bob.

Speaker 3 Good night, John Boy.

Speaker 3 My siblings and I are each allowed one hour of television per week because my staunch Presbyterian mother thinks that if we watch too much, we'll have brain rot or go sterile.

Speaker 3 My older brother has chosen Star Trek. My younger sister, Donnie and Marie.

Speaker 3 But Thursdays are my big night because I've chosen the Waltons,

Speaker 3 the tale of a Depression-era family eking it out in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Speaker 3 In truth, I'm a little obsessed with the Waltons' eldest child, John Boy.

Speaker 3 He's got this shock of blonde hair and this really sensitive face and this sexy mole on his cheek almost like a beauty mark.

Speaker 3 And he's not very good at farming.

Speaker 3 He

Speaker 3 does not like to hunt.

Speaker 3 He's a writer.

Speaker 3 In fact, the entire series, The Waltons, was based on a bunch of books by a man named Earl Hamner. And as a a kid, I tore through those books.

Speaker 3 And one of them even contained the recipe for John Boy's favorite cake. It was an applesauce spice cake with whiskey frosting.

Speaker 3 And for years, I insisted to my mother that that was my definitive birthday cake.

Speaker 3 I knew that I had to get in touch with John Boy,

Speaker 3 or at least the actor who played him. So I went to the dime store and I got one of those big chief writing pads like the one he had on the show and I sat down to write him a letter.

Speaker 3 And in it I told him everything.

Speaker 3 I told him about my theater classes and I told him that I wrote stories too, but they were secret for my eyes only

Speaker 3 because in them I wrote about all of my failings, that I was probably too sensitive for a boy, that the other kids at school called me sissy, and that most days ended getting beaten up at the bike racks or at the lockers.

Speaker 3 And I thought he might understand

Speaker 3 because he was sensitive too.

Speaker 3 Maybe he even wrote for the same reason.

Speaker 3 That letter was 22 pages long.

Speaker 3 I finally found a manila envelope large enough for it, but I still needed stamps.

Speaker 3 Now, my dad was a retired Marine, and I wasn't sure he'd be too thrilled if he knew his son was writing MASH notes to a male ingenue on television.

Speaker 3 So I snuck into his study, which was strictly off limits, and I went to his stamp dispenser, and I just start pulling roll after roll after roll.

Speaker 3 I plaster this manila envelope with them, and on the way to school I put it in the mailbox

Speaker 3 and then I wait

Speaker 3 and a week passes then two weeks a month I get during that time maybe a copy of Boy's Life a birthday invitation

Speaker 3 and then

Speaker 3 one day

Speaker 3 Curled up in the mailbox like a scroll,

Speaker 3 an envelope with the return address, Laura Marr Studios, Burbank.

Speaker 3 I tore it open.

Speaker 3 Dear Doug,

Speaker 3 thank you for your letter. I'm grateful you are a fan of the show.

Speaker 3 Please keep watching. Best, Richard Thomas.

Speaker 3 Terse, I know, but to me it was poetry.

Speaker 3 Best of all, he had included a photograph.

Speaker 3 He's wearing this sort of jaunty knit cap, and I can still see that blonde hair and that sensitive face and that signature mole. And I know I have to do something really special with this picture.

Speaker 3 So this time I sneak into my dad's dresser. And I pull open a drawer, and there are all his business shirts, crisp and white, lined up in perfect formation.

Speaker 3 And I reach in and I pull out the cardboard that the dry cleaner uses to keep them from wrinkling. And I take a bunch of that and I run back to my room and I cut it in the shape of a frame.

Speaker 3 And I build a little stand for the frame. And then with watercolors, I paint all these little Model T Fords all around the edge of the frame like the Waltons used to drive.

Speaker 3 And I put John Boy's picture right in it. And I put it on my nightstand.

Speaker 3 And the next morning at breakfast, my dad is like, What the hell is going on? Why are my shirts wrinkled? Where the fuck are my stamps?

Speaker 3 But I keep mum because John Boy and I are really, I figure, friends now. We're pen pals.

Speaker 3 And I keep writing him.

Speaker 3 And even more remarkably, he writes me back.

Speaker 3 Now, it's true, the letters become shorter, dear Doug, thanks, Richard.

Speaker 3 But he keeps enclosing a new and different photo. So more photos mean more cardboard frames.

Speaker 3 And pretty soon, my bedroom is becoming a shrine to John Boy Walton. He's on the windowsill, he's on the dresser, he's on my nightstand.

Speaker 3 Now, this doesn't thrill my older brother with whom I actually share the room.

Speaker 3 So he says to me one day, what's the matter with you? Are you in love with him or something? And I say, no.

Speaker 3 He's my hero. And a lot of people put their heroes on the wall.

Speaker 3 And my brother says, yeah, maybe Farah Fawcett or Joe Namath, but John Boy Walton.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, you don't understand.

Speaker 3 And pretty soon he starts waging passive-aggressive war. And he takes his model planes and he hangs them from the ceiling of our bedroom.

Speaker 3 So our room becomes this blizzard of Hellcats and B-52s all aiming right for John Boy like they want to take him out.

Speaker 3 So finally a couple years pass.

Speaker 3 And I'm no longer feeling quite so freakish.

Speaker 3 And I'm actually starting to make friends in the drama club and on the literary magazine and I decide I want to invite them over to my house like they invite me to theirs and a little voice in me says that this photo montage of mine might spell social suicide.

Speaker 3 More than anything, I think I worried that it revealed more about me than I had yet admitted to myself.

Speaker 3 So one day, impulsively, I tore down all the pictures of John Boy,

Speaker 3 I put them in a shoebox, and I shoved it far under my bed. It was a burial of sorts, a kind of denial, I think.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 four decades pass.

Speaker 3 And I actually become a writer, just like John Boy. And I'm a very fortunate one.
I've had plays on Broadway, and I've written some movies.

Speaker 3 So it's going pretty well. And I'm about as far out of the closet as you can be.

Speaker 3 I live in the ultimate gaborhood, Chelsea.

Speaker 3 And I have two cats and I have a husband.

Speaker 3 And my husband, David, and I got married in 2008 at the very height of the culture wars.

Speaker 3 And like a lot of people at the time, we got sucked into a wildly unproductive debate on Facebook with this anti-gay marriage zealot named Diane.

Speaker 3 Diane would write, do what you want, but please don't call it marriage. And whatever you do, it doesn't belong in the church.
And I'd hear that and I'd write in a fury, Diane, your opinion is

Speaker 3 mean-spirited and ill-informed. And she'd write, well, all my gay friends know that's how I feel, and they still love me.
And I'd write, well, that's because they're a bunch of self-hating assholes.

Speaker 3 So this went on and on. And my friend said, stop it.
It's not going anywhere useful. But I kept egging her on.

Speaker 3 So not long after that, this producer friend calls me and she says,

Speaker 3 so I'm commissioning gay playwrights to write short plays on the theme of gay marriage, and we're going to put them up commercially at the Manetta Lane Theater in the West Village.

Speaker 3 And would you be interested in contributing one?

Speaker 3 And I thought, well, this is perfect. I don't have to write a new play.

Speaker 3 I'm just going to adapt this Facebook thread.

Speaker 3 And the way I figure, the characters are going to be me,

Speaker 3 my husband David, and our nemesis, Diane.

Speaker 3 So I adapt the thread as a dialogue, and I send it to the producer, and she quite likes it. So it goes into the evening.
I'm delighted. The casting director calls me and says,

Speaker 3 you're going to be thrilled. For the role of Diane, we have this Broadway Tony winner, Beth Levels.
She's going to be simply amazing.

Speaker 3 And your boyfriend, your husband, he's going to be really thrilled because he's being played by a true hunk, Kelly Rippa's husband, Mark Consuelos?

Speaker 3 And in the role of Doug, how would you feel about Richard Thomas?

Speaker 3 You probably know him best as John Boy Walton.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 I say,

Speaker 3 I think he might be very good.

Speaker 3 So the first rehearsal is coming up. The night before, I cannot sleep at all.

Speaker 3 I'm planning it in my mind, how I'm going to walk in there so cool,

Speaker 3 so relaxed, every inch the professional playwright. I'm going to greet each and every actor and then take my seat and listen to the read-through.

Speaker 3 I walk in. It's a sort of blonde rehearsal room.
There's a circle of chairs for the cast. There's this craft services table in the middle with morning pastries and coffee.

Speaker 3 And there is

Speaker 3 Richard Thomas.

Speaker 3 He's older. His hair is gray now, but he still has that really sensitive face and that mole.

Speaker 3 And I walk up to him, and I have barely gotten my name out before the entire story pours out of me like an avalanche.

Speaker 3 So I'm standing there, beat red,

Speaker 3 waiting for his response. And he says,

Speaker 3 Doug,

Speaker 3 I really wish I could tell you that I remember that 22-page letter. But I don't.
And the reason I don't is a lot of young men wrote me asking for reassurance.

Speaker 3 Because it was the 70s, the era of Kojak and the Million Dollar Man.

Speaker 3 And I was the only male lead in a prime time TV show who didn't carry a gun.

Speaker 3 I held a pen and used it to express my feelings.

Speaker 3 And I had no notable love interests on the show.

Speaker 3 And people often accuse me of being sensitive.

Speaker 3 So, your voice was one of many reaching out to me at the time.

Speaker 3 And I want you to know why I chose to do your play.

Speaker 3 My son is gay,

Speaker 3 and I want him to grow up in a better world where he doesn't have to reach out to strangers on the television for approval.

Speaker 3 And I said, stop it, Richard, I'm going to fall in love with you all over again.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 it's been almost four decades now.

Speaker 3 And as a writer, I've sort of found a niche for myself writing about outsiders,

Speaker 3 those

Speaker 3 people who don't readily fit into society's confines. I wrote about a trans person in Germany, and I wrote about a comedian struggling with mental illness.

Speaker 3 And more often than not, I'm writing to kind of exercise my own perceived frailties.

Speaker 3 My insecurities, my self-doubts, my darkest fears, all those things that I think alienate me from the rest of the species.

Speaker 3 And ironically, I find by naming those, it's how I find community.

Speaker 3 In a lot of ways, I think I'm still that 11-year-old kid crying out in the dark, eager for approval and reassurance that he has a rightful place in the human sphere.

Speaker 3 So good night, John Boy.

Speaker 3 Thanks.

Speaker 2 That was Doug Wright. Doug is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter.

Speaker 2 He's a recovering Texan and currently lives in New York City with his husband, singer-songwriter David Clement, and their two felines, Glennis and Murray.

Speaker 2 Doug occasionally runs into Richard Thomas in New York theater circles. He says, I've visited him backstage post-show, and we've gossiped together in the aisle of our neighborhood Home Depot.

Speaker 2 To see photos of Doug and his husband David around the world and at the Moth Ball, our annual gala, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 2 These stories are all from artists, but moth stories come from everyone. Nurses, pilots, arborists, hot dog eating champions, scientists, dog walkers, introverts, dreamers, really everyone.

Speaker 2 Consider telling your story at the Moth. We want to hear from you.

Speaker 2 Find an open mic story slam through our website, themoth.org, and please share this episode with a friend you think would love the moth and these stories. You can find us on social media too.

Speaker 2 We're on Facebook at the Moth and on Instagram at MothStories.

Speaker 2 That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 7 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Sarah Austin Janez, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show.

Speaker 7 An extended interview with Sarah and Rizzo is available at themoth.org on the Radio Extras page. Our co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch.

Speaker 7 The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Kellers, Marina Cluche, Leanne Gulley, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenia.

Speaker 7 Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. For extras related to all of these stories, just go to themoth.org.
Our theme music is by The Drift.

Speaker 7 Other music in this hour from Tom McDermott and Evan Christopher, Yo-Yo Ma and Dave Brubeck, Erasmo Petringa, Jerry Goldsmith, and Geek Music.

Speaker 7 We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 7 Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys-Dennis.

Speaker 7 For more about our podcast, for information on pitching this roan story, and to learn more about the moth, go to our website, themoth.org.

Speaker 8 The moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Many of us have stories about family legacies passed down through generations. When I was five, my mother sewed me a classic clown costume, red and yellow with a pointy hat.

Speaker 8 It's since been worn by my sister, three cousins, and four of our children. I'm so happy this piece of my childhood lives on with no end in sight.

Speaker 8 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 8 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.