Bittersweet: The Moth Podcast

In fact, I'm hosting a Moth radio hour episode filled with feel-good stories that will drop in a few days, so definitely take a listen once it's out.

“But for this podcast episode, I want to do something a little different.”

Instead of feel-good stories, maybe something that leaves a crumb of bittersweet. Joy with some shadow in it. Don't worry, these stories aren't despairing. Their story is about the strange mess and petness and confusion of being human, and the dark humor to be found there. So, ready to find the good in feeling bad?

First up, this story from Austin, Butterfield, who told this at a Denver Storieslam where the theme was happy.

Here's Austin, live at the Moth. So, I walk into my office and all of my stuff has gone, and that seemed unusual. So, I texted my boss, who asked me one of my real good friends, and I said, "Hey, bud, did I get fired?" And he texted back, "No, then the next text said, "Why do you keep asking me that?" I do ask him that a lot.

I just took a picture of my office and sent it to him, and he goes, "Just since that one emoji, that's like the face with the teeth, that's just like... That was it, and then I said, "I sent the emoji that was just like the strongest shoulder, like huh?" And he goes, "Didn't we tell you that their hospital was deciding to give your office to someone else?" I was like, "No, no, you didn't." And so, I asked him, "Who's taking over my office?"

And he goes, "Just someone in the hospital made a new direction." I was like, "Okay, you can come live in the basement with us.

It's about a 10-minute walk from where you work, but it's fine."

And then I found out that gave my office to the therapy dogs. And that sounds funny, mostly because it is, but it's worse because I'm actually an emergency psychiatrist. And so, and they're not even real therapy dogs. They're just really cute and friendly golden retrievers. And I metaphorically am a really friendly and hopefully cute golden retriever.

“At least that's what the social worker is telling me.”

When I tried to tell them when they asked me what animal represents you and I was like, "I'm a bear." And they were like, "Really?" and they didn't get the gay joke. They're like, "No, you're like a really food driven, golden retriever." And I was like, "Oh, okay." So, I go to the basement and minutes away from the emergency room.

While I'm trying to help kids and crisis.

And even though the, you know, it wasn't helping those kids in crisis, the therapy dogs.

And so, I went home that night and I was a little bit salty. And which was not very golden retriever. And this was also the time when I left that. The other things weren't going really well. I was like right in the middle of like the worst breakup.

It was six and a half months in the pandemic. And my relationship of 12 years had just ended and I was like, "Oh, man. I need a treat." Which didn't help me not feeling like a golden retriever. Because, well, some people, their treats are cheesecake.

And some people, their treat is wine. My treat happens to be Kelly Clarkson videos on YouTube. Which is amazing. Kelly, okay. It's some, look it up, it's good. Because she's seeing things.

She's like, "Sing's witting Houston." And she's like, "She wants to dance at somebody." And I was like, "You could dance at me, Kelly." And so, I'm watching the videos.

“If you know YouTube, you know that sometimes you have to watch ads.”

And you get the five, four, three, two. And then you click in the right hand. You paint the paint tension in the out of all. And then you just get to watch more Kelly Clarkson. Well, YouTube in the middle of the pandemic decided they were going to start making watchful ads.

And they made me watch 15 seconds as I was like, "That is, I don't know if the cost has been information, but I want to watch Kelly." And so then, they made me watch a longer ad. It was like two and a half minutes.

I was like, "This is longer than Kelly's singing, and I want to watch that." And worse, it was advertising for a straight guy, so. And I was like, "Google, you have all my information for someone. Teemo figured out I was gay in 2004."

And I know that because they kept recommending every show on Bravo. And I was like, "You don't know me to, "Yeah, I do want to watch that." And so, I watched this ad and I'm like, "You're impressing me. "You don't even understand, like, you don't even know me."

And I didn't want to like this ad, but then there was this funny guy, and I respect comedy. And then I also had this really handsome guy, like, like, "Longerjack chic." And he was like, like, a masculine, like,

a fully masculine top like a button down planet. Right? And he goes, "Uh, he doesn't say anything, "which makes it even better."

And so I was like, "Uh, I'm mad,

“"but I kind of know that I'm not gonna be mad”

"because I'm still a cold and retriever." And so, like, then I watched my Kelly Cox interview. I forget about that, and then I keep going. And they make me watch it out again. And this time, I find myself being like,

"Actually, I'm kind of in this." And so, I ordered the straight guy, so. (audience laughing) And so, now, I have another treat, a Roma therapy, and I was like,

"And this isn't a CVT, but it feels great." And now, if this one, it smells like to be a straight guy, I don't know, like, kind of rocking it. (audience laughing)

It's kind of awesome, very nature.

It's almost too much nature for me, but like, I'm in to pine now. (audience laughing) It's time, and even though I was in the middle of breakup,

“and I lost my office to the therapy dogs,”

I realized my life is amazing, and I'm moving forward in a way where I can have all the treats that I want. Thank you. (audience cheering)

That was Austin Butterfield. Austin was born and raised in Colorado. Despite being a Colorado enthusiast, Austin prefers to appreciate nature in 4K, rather than being physically present in the great outdoors.

His love languages are caffeine, sugar, and stories. Every year I go to Jamaica for Christmas, and every year I come back to New York full of good food, sunshine,

and I always feel a little invincible.

About four years ago, my first day back, I float out of my apartment, train comes right on time, like it was waiting on me personally. That was a sign. We pull into the tunnel, and within seconds,

the few of us in the train realize we are not alone. There is a rat. Loose. Running free like weirdo-isit. What follows is what I could only describe as shameful.

A type of loss of dignity. The man, a few seats down the woman with her fancy lunch kit, the kid who is laid for school, all of us on our seats, squealing, praying out loud. Like, please don't let the rat jump up next to me.

We roll into the next station, or rat friend casualty boards, like it's going shopping, and that the next train operator comes on and the intercom, and gives us a proper cussing out about our behavior. How we should be more bold and somehow fight the rat, I guess.

Blah, blah, blah, we all ignore him. I cannot remember the last time I laughed as hard, and was as terrified with a complete set of strangers.

“And I think, it's good to be back in New York.”

After the break, a story about finding humor while grieving, back in a moment. Welcome back. Our next story is from Tori Shinemun, who told this at a New York City store Islam where the theme was vices.

Here's story, live up the mind. We were best friends. We were in love. We had an epic run. I took New York City by storm.

And one day, it's 4th of July weekend. He is visiting his parents. It says Dad's birthday, and out of nowhere, he dropped dead on a Tuesday afternoon. He was 41 years old.

And I did not take his death well. I struggled through a really long time. After the funeral, I went and I stayed with his family for a few days in New Jersey. And it was his mom and his dad and his sister Lauren and me. And he lived in New York. He had just moved into a new apartment.

Like just moved, all of his stuff was still in boxes. And Lauren and I, we drive back and forth from New York to New Jersey. And we moved out all of his stuff from his old apartment. And we unload everything into the garage at his parents' house. And there's so much stuff in this garage.

And we realized like somebody's going to have to go through all these boxes. All right, figure out what to keep and what to donate and what to throw away. And we don't want his parents to have to deal with this. And so Lauren and I agree, we're going to do this together. And so we team up and we post up in the garage at his parents' house.

And one box at a time we start sorting through all of these different pieces of his life. And every box is just it's full of memories. All of these old childhood keep sakes, old journals. I find concert tickets from shows that we'd seen together. I find every gift I'd ever given him.

I find every letter. I ever wrote to him. He saved them. And then we open this box. And it is full of porn. Like so much porn.

And it's weird shit. Like Jesus.

“And many and Lauren, like we are heartbroken.”

We have been crying for days.

And we open up this box of pornos and we both just burst out laughing. And we take a break from the job and we flip through the stack. And we're reading the titles out loud to each other. And we are laughing and we're crying. And it's just the most ridiculous thing.

And it's this moment of comic relief amidst all of this grief. And then we have to figure out what are we going to do with all these pornos. And it's not like I mean his parents obviously don't want them. And I don't want them and she doesn't want them. But I'm like the somebody out there would really want these.

Like I'm sure there is somebody who would really like and appreciate this giant box of DVDs. But it's not the kind of thing you bring to goodwill.

And I like we're debating this.

And I just can't figure out how do you find the person that wants your dead boyfriend's porn collection. I don't.

“I can't wrap my head around that at this moment in time.”

It's just too much for me to bear. And eventually we decide let's just throw them away. And we take this giant box of DVDs and we dump them into a big black trash bag. And it's done. And we kind of we shake it off, you know, head to our breath.

And we go back to like sorting through all of these boxes. As more boxes and there's more clothes and more love letters. And then we find more porn. Like there's another stack of DVDs and another box.

And we will start laughing.

And this goes on. Okay for two and a half days we go through these boxes. And every couple hours one of us will find another stack of pornos. Like they are everywhere. And it's like literally day is full of like sentimental nostalgic grief with intermittent bursts of laughter.

Every time we find a stack of pornos. And I feel bad, you know, I feel guilty. Like he would be so embarrassed. Like that his little sister and his girlfriend are like looking through his porn collection and just parents garage. But we didn't try to find them and there's nothing wrong with that.

Like we're not judging him. It's just the most ridiculous thing. And we keep going through these boxes. So home stretch, we're almost done. There's only a couple boxes left.

And sure enough, Lauren finds another stack of DVDs. She answered to me and I'm about to throw them in the garbage.

“And she says, well, you know, maybe you should keep one.”

You know, to remember him by. And I laugh like, yeah, right, like totally, I should do that. And I throw them away. I thought I should start thinking, oh my god, like this is almost over. You know, like in a couple hours, we're going to bring all the boxes to goodwill.

And we're going to bring all of these garbage bags to the dump. And I'm going to drive home and it's all going to be gone. And this is all going to be over and maybe like maybe I should keep one. Like just one. To remember him by.

And it's funny because it was Lauren's idea. But now I'm embarrassed about it because like I'd passed up that moment. And so I wait for her to be on the other side of the garage. Looking the other way. And I stick my hand into the garbage bag and I fish out one of these DVDs.

And I stuff it in my backpack. That was seven and a half years ago. I still have this DVD. I have not watched it yet. But who knows.

Maybe one day I'll be feeling just that right mix of emotion. Oh. Bust out, floods, virgins and twins, number six. Pop that sucker in and rub one out. That was Torishineman.

Tori is a behavioral scientist by training, educator by calling, and an artist at heart. Her creative work blends personal narrative and social commentary, inviting audiences to think, laugh and reflect. Torish recent solar show multifaceted explores living as both a scientist and artist.

I love the way Tori was able to find humor in a sub time and gave us the permission to laugh with her. That brings us to the end of our episode.

And maybe even laugh a little.

“Jodi Powell is a director and educator at the mouth who enjoys listening to and seeking stories from beyond the main corridors.”

Originally from Jamaica, she currently lives in Harlem.

This episode on the mouth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Genes, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Mark Salinger.

“The rest of the mouse leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Cluchai, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale,”

Caledonia Karen's, Kate Tellers, Susanne Rust, and Patricia Orenya.

The mouth podcast is presented by Odyssey, special thanks to their executive producer Leah Restennis.

“All mouth 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.