The Moth Podcast: A Blue Bonus

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I'm Mark Sollinger coming at you with a special bonus episode. We're feeling a little blue today because we learned the Blue Man Group just ended its New York run, and no, I do not apologize for the pun.
The Blue Man Group is still going with shows in Boston, Las Vegas, and Berlin, but its New York closing reminded us of one of our favorite stories from our archive, and we thought we'd share it with you. Oh, and if you're not familiar with the Blue Man Group, well, just listen to the story.
John Grady told this at a Moth main stage that we produced in collaboration with Blue

Man Group, with musical interludes performed by Blue Men, and held at Astor Place Theater,

the now former New York City home of Blue Man.

The theme of the night was, appropriately enough, Tangled Up in Blue.

Here's John, live at the Moth.

There we go. So, I spent eight years of my life here in New York City performing with Blue Man Group.
Now, thank you. Thank you.
I know. No, it's like, seriously, dream job.
I'm serious. I mean, where else do you get to learn, you know, to be a precision expert drummer, to learn to throw and catch with, you know, laser-like focus and, you know, and also to communicate non-verbally with two other blue men on stage and with the audience because that's what it is.
We don't speak. We don't talk.

But it was a great job to have.

I mean, it's my first time living in New York City,

my first off-Broadway show, and I'm like so excited.

The show is just addicting to do.

Once you do your first show, you're just like,

ah, I can't wait for the next one, and the next one,

and the next one, and the next one.

Then a week goes by, and then a month goes by,

and then a year goes by, and you celebrate your first anniversary.

And then you're like two years in, and a few more years,

and a few more years have gone by by and somehow it has become a job. I know it's like I'm just trying to keep it fresh and alive after show number 2473 or something whatever and you just I'm finding myself trying to fight complacency because you become so adept at doing all the skills that it's just not really a challenge and I find myself walking through the show thinking things like did I order food between shows? Did I remember the TiVo Sopranos?

And like that.

So now I'm trying to find and rediscover that thing, that original. Did I remember the TiVo Sopranos? And like that.

So now I'm trying to find and rediscover that thing,

that original thing that really connected me with the show,

and I find myself trying to recreate those early days.

For those of you who haven't seen the show,

it's primarily about the audience, about connectedness and community.

The audience has gathered for the evening for this happening, for this crazy, wild, you know, interactive piece of theater led by these three silent, bald and blue characters. One part of the show is we bring up a volunteer and we refer to her as our feast guest, which is not important for you to know, but just because we sit behind a table and we eventually get to dining with her.
But we also take her through a bunch of tasks and we're getting to know her and the audience as well by you know manipulating things and moving things around and opening them and she comes to represent uh the audience in a way um because we're going to be up there making not fun of her but making fun with her but i mean the audience empathizes with her because you know they're gonna be in on some of the jokes that she's not I mean they'll definitely they'll feel like oh my god I'm so glad that was you up there and not me you were amazing you were wonderful now when I go to choose a feast guest it's my job each night I look for someone who's sort of open and just a willing participant, someone who I think best represents the spirit of the show. Like if I was going to choose someone from the audience here to be a feast guest, it would be like this one right here, just very shiny, available.
Yes, it's just that we just make a quick connection, like, good. So I know we're good to go.
It's like that.

So I'm stepping out into the audience for the first time in the show to go pick out a feast guest.

In the first few rows, people are wearing ponchos because the show is just a mess.

It's just a playground for you, and it can be messy.

So we want to make sure the audience is covered and protected.

So I step out there, and I'm having, it's probably show number 2474, just a little less committed to and present than 2473, I don't know, when suddenly bing shong bong, I see the shiny happy person sitting over in the poncho section and she literally just pulls me in on her vortex, like I can't remember the last time that I saw someone who was so willing so available just so open and I was like okay fine you're the feast guest make my job easy great so now I'm going out to the audience to have a little more fun the other two blue men come up to me and they tell me it's time for us you know for you to let us know who is. And this is all nonverbal.
And I say, well, check it out. Shiny happy person right here.
They're like, great, shiny happy person. Bring her on up.
So these two guys run up onto the stage. The band kicks into their sort of theme that's going to start our procession up the aisle to the stage.
I reach down. I grab her hand.
And she's just beaming at me, and she just clings onto my arm, she leans into me, she's so excited, she has no idea what to expect, and I reach down, and I pull off her poncho, and she has one arm, which is not a big deal, right? I mean, even though in this piece we're going to be grabbing things and manipulating them and moving them and opening them, and oh God, we're going to be up there making fun with her, not of her. And now I'm beginning to panic, and I look up on stage, and the other two blue men are staring down at me in horror going, What did you do? I don't know! I don't know!

And now I'm running the entire piece frantically through my mind because I know it forwards and backwards and I am going to accommodate it for her.

I am going to make, so I could probably skip that part instead of her doing that.

Actually, we'll just leave that part out.

Actually, he probably doesn't have to do that for her.

You could probably just skip that part and leave that part out.

Actually, if we're going to skip that part and skip that part, why don't we just put it back down on the scene and just skip the whole thing? And at this point of the show, we're supposed to be sort of afraid, you know, that we're bringing someone, an audience member, into our space for the first time, and we are terrified. I mean, we are sitting behind the table in a row, and our knees are knocking together, you know, And there is this awkward silence coming from the audience that I have never experienced before.
But she is loving it. She is having the time of her life.
So I bring out the first object, which is this electric candle, and I put it on the table. And it has a little switch on it, and she leans over and switches it on.
That's okay. We're good.
Pretty good there. The next blue man next to me, pulls out a desk lamp and he puts it on and he stretches it out.
And she reaches over to click it. Click, click, click, click, click.
The switch doesn't go on. And what is about to unfold in my brain and I'm trying to communicate with him screaming going, No! Don't do that.

Because the joke of the piece is,

it's attached to a clapper light,

so he goes and pops the light on,

which usually elicits laughter from the audience,

but not this time.

Dead silence.

Because it was like he was saying,

well, if you had two hands, you could turn on the light oh dear god help us last blue man brings out a box of Twinkies for us to to dine on for those who've seen the show that'll make sense so he passes them out and and the Twinkie for the blue man is a it's a very curious object the way it's shaped and sculpted the way the the light hits it and the way it sort of reflects off its golden cakey shell. And if this is something that's meant to be consumed, why would you put it in this package? And if it's, is there an opening to this package? And I mean, how would you open it? And this is something that we play with and oh my God, how is she going to open this package? But I look over it without missing a beat.
She's already taken the Twinkie, taken the package, put it under her what's left of her arm right here and just goes, pops it open, puts it on her plate. With such speed and dexterity, I had to see it again.
So I hand her mine, she goes, pops it open, puts it on my plate. And I look at the other two guys who are still struggling with theirs, and I pick it up, and I'm like, check it out.
They are completely blown away. They reach out.
He gets his to hers, and she pops it open. He gets it, pops it over, and now we're good.
And that thing, that thing that is starting to happen that can only happen in a live performance where the event on stage is starting to mirror what's happening with the audience's experience and it exists somewhere in between and creates this biofeedback loop of event and experience and experience and event and event and experience and experience and event and now we are with the audience and they are with us and the two blue men beside me reach down and pick up their forks because they're going to dig into this twinkie and that's when I feel her shut down beside me. I literally feel her heart light go out.
And I look out of the corner of my eye and she's staring down at the knife and the fork. And I see panic in her eyes.
And I reach over and I just grab my fork and I just gesture to her, just the fork, right? And she just beams back at me and says, yeah, that's all we need. And the two other blue men follow suit.
Yeah, I'm exactly what, yeah, what he said. And we dig in and it's all good.
I'm feeding her, she's feeding me. We're all cross-feeding each other.
It's a big flirt fest. And the piece just crescendos and explodes in this huge celebration and the audience

bursts into this enormous applause for her really because she was beautiful, she was amazing and she was the catalyst for this whole thing to happen and she brought that element back that I had completely forgotten about. She brought this innocence, this childlike innocence, that ability to remain present and be honest and fearless and not try to manufacture anything again.
And we send her back into the audience and they've completely changed. And the space has completely changed.
Tiny Astor Place Theater has become as large and as opulent as the Bolshoi.

And we go back behind our PVC pipe instruments to play our first piece of music, and each tone that we're paddling out is just echoing into the darkness, like launching a flare into a cavernous cave. Fum, pa to cry.
And I look over the other two guys, and they are crying. Because we were just raw and exhausted, but even more so we were exhilarated that we made it through this experience together.
And afterwards, I went up and met up with her in the lobby, and I thanked her

for being such an amazing participant in the show and for making it such an incredible experience

for everyone involved and for making the show for me alive again. Thank you.
That was John Brady. John has performed on the Moth Mainstake and his stories have aired on the Moth Radio Hour, on CBC Radio's DNTO, and KCRW's The Business.
His multiple award-winning solo show, Fear Factor, Canine Edition, has played to sold-out audiences across the U.S. and Canada.
To see some fun blue man antics from that very blue night when John Grady told his story, just go to the extras page for this episode on themoth.org.

We've linked a clip where the blue men speak to the host of the night, and I hope you're hearing

the quotes around the word speak. That's it for this short and sweet bonus episode.
From all of

us here at The Moth, we are wishing the blue men well. If you'd like to pitch us your own story,

whether it's blue, red, or whatever color you'd like, remember you can always do that directly on themoth.org. We hope to hear from you.
And thanks for listening. Mark Sullinger is the podcast producer of The Moth, the co-creator of the audio drama Archive 81, and the science fiction concept album Generation Crossing.
He's a lover of museums, baking bread, and he's also someone who feels very strange reading his own bio. John Grady's story was directed by Catherine Burns.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Genest, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Leanne Gully, and Patricia Ureña.

The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey.

Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis.

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.