Culture Clash: The Moth Radio Hour

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All the. Who does filial? This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. In this hour, stories of culture shock,

crossing the boundaries between people, communities, and even species. Sometimes we adapt, sometimes not so much. Our first story is told by Jason Cordellis. You told this with us at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival

in Aspen, Colorado. Here's Jason, live from the Wheeler Opera House.

“In December of 2001, I went on my very first cruise.”

And I had always dreamed of going on one of those

all gay RSVB cruises. You know, the ones that you read about, to Sonny Al Capulco, or Port of Iard, or Port of Rico. All that son, all those banana collaudes, and all those boys.

This, however, was not that cruise. On September 11th, my best girlfriend, Mary, and lost her firefighter husband, Dave Fontana. And she was left alone to raise their five-year-old son, Aiden.

The date also happens to be their wedding anniversary. So I quit my job, and I've been by her side pretty much ever since. And she says, "I don't have to do that." And I say, "Well, it's what anyone would do."

And she says, "Well, no, it's not."

And I say, "Well, then it's what Susan Surandon would do."

And I mean, prior to the 11th, I was really just the gay, best friend, you know. But since then, I have kind of been promoted. And Mary and has come to refer to me to all the people in her life, the firefighters, and the widows,

and the neighbors, and cousins. She refers to me as her new gay husband. And I joke, and I say, like Liza and David Guest. And Mary and Laphs, but most of the others, ask me, "Liza, who?"

You see what I'm dealing with. Now, it then came this cruise. Now, Royal Caribbean had generously offered this cruise to all the 343 firefighter families who had lost. And when Mary and ask me, if I was interested in going

with her and Aiden, I kind of envisioned this gay family vacation, sort of a willing grace. I mean, it's love boat meets six feet under. And so absolutely, I said, "I would even make all the arrangements." So I call Royal Caribbean.

And I speak to this Ms. Shapiro, a very surly woman, but I'm very excited about the tan that I know I'm going to have. And I want to know where the ship is going to be going. Where's the ship going, I ask? She says, "No, where."

I say, "Well, what do you mean?" She says, "I mean nowhere." I say, "Well, the ship-- and it has to have a desk.

“You must go to Puerto Rico or a polka or a port of I order."”

She says, "No, it goes nowhere." I say, "What does the ship have to stay in port?" She says, "No, it goes out to sea." I say, "To where?" She says, "No, where?"

This woman sounds as though she's reciting lines from an ENESCO play poorly. I say, "I'm sorry. I'm not getting this." So the ship has got to have a destination.

She says, "Well, yeah, it leaves New York Harbor. Floats out to sea that have floats back. We're calling this a cruise to nowhere." And I pause. And I wait for Rod Sterling to begin his voice over.

And then I continue. And I say, "Let me get this right. You're sending a boat full of widows. And they're grief-stricken, terrorized families onto something called a cruise to nowhere." She says, "Yeah.

I say, "Okay." And then later in the conversation when I inquire as to why we have to provide passport numbers if we're really not going to go anywhere. She says, "Well, you're going somewhere, but the somewhere is nowhere. And therefore everyone needs a valid US passport number."

I should have known then that this cruise had the potential of sinking me. Comes Cruise Day. And we arrive at Pier 58, me, the gay husband, Marion, the laden. And we see the ship, which is, it's got to be eight blocks long and 14 stories tall and boasts its ferry on ice skating rink.

In line, there are 5,000 people, because apparently the trip was offered to the entire fire department, and they all seem to have accepted. So I, the gay husband, waitin' line, 3 hours, low blood sugar, after which I am dragging all of our luggage up a very steep ramp. At which point, the all male ice capates dance team tramples me.

out of my brand new, Dulting Abana Puffy, White's Keyjacket.

“And he runs up, screaming at me, and sprays me with his very, very juice box all over”

the brand new Dulting Abana Puffy, White's Keyjacket. So I'm trying desperately just to keep it all together, my hair, my emotions, my outfit. He hits me, because Queen Amidahl has got all messed up, and I'm thinking not the only queen. And we can onboard the ship, and the ship, the glorious ship, the interior of this ship,

looks to me as if it is perhaps exploded out from the bowels of St. Frieden Roy. I mean, there are American flags everywhere, and metallic everything. And they're kids screaming, and widows crying, and firefighters, guzzling, free beer. And my very tasteful gay male aesthetic begins to have kind of a panic attack. I mean, because like the Barney's Warehouse sale on a Saturday, I can handle, but this

husband, vacation, stuff, not so much. And I just chant the mantra that I have since the beginning of all this, which is, it's about marrying, not me. This is about marrying, not me, and I take a deep com breath, and then we set sail.

And if you're wondering just how long it takes to get to know where the answer is about

18 hours, which is a bit distressing, because it's taken me 34 years. And I, I, I, I, I, I rally from marrying as best as I can, and I'm introduced to the firefighters as our gay husband and I courtesy politely. But no one gets me, no one gets it, no one gets it, I have not been around under their gay man for three months, because I, I'm cooking and cleaning from marrying, I'm putting

it in bed, and I'm giving her foot massage, just like her husband did, and providing her with sympathy and volume. And I look around and I see that I am, I've only only gay, husband on board, I only gay anything. And I, I begin to, to see that for some reason, surprisingly, there isn't a high demand for

the gay man in the world of a wife of a firefighter, which is surprising, because with all due respect to the wives of firefighters, they could really benefit from us, really.

I mean, that first night, I kind of gave my services to this woman of, and we were sitting

in chatting, and I said to her, you know, Veronica, you're much too pretty to be wearing that much lip liner, I'm just softening, and she didn't like that. Back in Brooklyn, I made sense of marrying's life, but here, not so much, you know. And so the second night, we put Aiden with a babysitter thank God. And we got a dinner, and at the dinner, the orchestra plays Marianne's wedding song.

So we leave. And we take a stroll on board, and it's chilly, and it's moonlight, it's very romantic. And we pause to gaze at the moon, and I can see that Marianne's about to start crying. And I've been able to now kind of gauge her emotional moods, like a seismologist kind of reads a Richter scale, and I want to say something funny, so I joke, and I say, it's like

our gay honeymoon, and she kind of laughs, and then it's quiet. And for the first time,

I start to miss my own life. I mean, clearly we should be here, and having this moment,

“but I think with different people, her with her husband, and me, with I don't know,”

the ice capates dancing, maybe. And I start to wonder, and maybe it's wrong, but I was like, God, is this really all that my life has become now? You know, I'm just going to be a gay man married to this wonderful, but kind of hi-maintenance woman, and this is what happened to Tom Cruise, I don't know. And then like a gift from the gods, I swear to God, Marianne hears this speech. He hears a disco beat, because above us there's a disco tech, and it

sounds so queer, but I mean, Barbara Streisand and Donna Summers, enough as enough as enough as enough starts playing, and Marianne is infected, and she wants to dance, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know, and she says, do it for me, I say, I'm fine, because it's Donna Summers, so we dance. And we go up to the disco tech gestures, and gestures has got dry ice and gargoyles, and all this, and that. And she's dancing, and I'm on the sideline, powding,

because I'm supposed to be on a gay cruise, not a widow cruise. And until I hear Patty LeBelle's lady mama lot, because this is my song, right? This is the song I came out to 20 years ago to my best friend. So I'm in this disco trans, all of a sudden, those widows from Staten Island, kind of like drag queens to me, and I take to the dance floor, and I, like, months of despair and sadness are just dripping off of me, and the middle of this dance

floor, and the middle of this cruise, the middle fucking nowhere. And it doesn't matter where we are, what kind of cruise it is, because my friend, Marianne, and I were dancing. We're having a good time, we're laughing, and she's smiling, and sweating, and we're mowling those immortal lyrics. Getcha, getcha, ya, ya, da da, you know, and for just a moment, it feels like nothing's changed. No, not that, me, not that nothing is changed, but that,

at least as Gloria Gainer would say, I will survive, or she will survive, or would

“like you get the point, but survive. And then, who should spell on to the dance floor?”

But thank you, the entire All-Mail Ice Capades dance team. And I am stunned, because I have not seen another homosexual up close for three months. And I look at them, and I mean, so intrigued by their movement and their pageantry, you know, and, and I want to, I want

you know, and she sees me looking longingly, and she motions with her hands to miss,

to say, go, Jason, go, be with your people. I will be all right. And so I do, and I talk to them, and I introduce myself as a gay husband, and they laugh. And one of them, wearing a hat dress says, no shit, well, like lies in David Gess. And we all laugh, and I feel great. And, and then I look over, and Marianne is, is alone at the bar, and she's sipping in a cocktail when she's crying. And I, and I go to walk over to her, but then this capped

“in this very handsome captain approaches her with a cocktail, and she blushes. And I think,”

of course, of course. I mean, eventually I'm going to be replaced. I mean, it's natural, but it kind of. So, then there's a little squeal over here, because a share song has come on, and the ice capates dance, just want to dance. And the one with the head dress asks me, if I want to dance, and I look at him, look at Marianne, look at him, and look at the head dress. He's wearing head dress. And I say, yeah, I want to dance. And so I do. That's it.

That was Jason Cordellos. Jason left New York in 2007 to write for Mad TV and LA for a few seasons. Since then, he moved back to his hometown of San Francisco, and his writing a book about his pioneering ancestors history. They were one of the families in the infamous Donner Party in 1846. In a moment, cultural icon, Cheech Marine discovers a new world just a few towns away when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media and Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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This is the Moth Radio Hour, I'm Jay Allison, and in this episode, stories of getting your bearings after your world shifts. Next up is actor, comedian, and activist, Cheech Marine. He told this story at a main stage event we produced in partnership with the Mesa Art Center in Arizona. Here's Cheech Marine, live at the Moth. I was only eight years old, but I knew exactly what that sound was.

“I think that every eight-year-old in South Central LA knew exactly what that sound was.”

There were gunshots, and they were being fired three feet outside my bedroom window. Bam, bam! Another two shots, and I just slid out of the bed and crawled as fast as I could into the living room where my mom and dad slept in a murky bed that pulled out of the wall. Mom, the shooting back there, I know me who stayed down and grabbed me and threw herself on top of me. I must have been, my heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my feet, man.

She stayed on me for a long time, and then finally, she got up, went to the window, pulled back

to shade and then red and blue swirly police lights, filled the whole room. Where's dad? He's out there. What's happening? There was a burglary. And indeed, there was a burglary happening in the barber shop next door. And over the years, I asked my dad, "What happened that night?" And this is what he told me. About three o'clock in the morning, he heard this faint

tinkle of a low rent burglar alarm going off. Tinkle, tinkle, he said it sounded just low rent. And at this time, he was an eight-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. So he got up, pulled back to shade, and he looked over there and there was a guy in the barber shop

t-shirt, and got his gun. He told my mother, called the police, given the address,

“"Tell them, I'm LAPD, and I'm going out to investigate." And be sure to tell him I'm wearing a white”

t-shirt. So he went down the alley, got to the place where the door had been jimmyed open, saw the guy and there shone his flashlight and his gun at him and said, "I'm an LAPD, come out with your hands up, and the guy complied." And he walked out of the place, and he stood there in the alley when my dad turned him around, put his hands up against the wall and start frisking him. In one pocket, he pulled out three straight razors. In the other pocket, it was a very long screwdriver,

which I guess he used to jimmy open the door, and he held him there. The guy said, "What are you going to do with me?" My dad said, "I'm just going to help hold you here until the cops come. They're on their way." It had been raining that night, and he laid his umbrella up against the wall,

“and all of a sudden he could hear a siren coming down the street, and he looked at my dad and said,”

"I'm not going back to prison." And he made a lunge for his gun and knocked it out of his hand. The gun was on the ground, on the wet ground, and they both went for it, and whoever got their

first was going to live. And he rusted with a guy, and he was trying to keep him away from the gun,

as much as he could, and he was trying to get a hold of him. The guy broke free, grabbed the umbrella that was lying there and started to whack him over the head with it. Just at that same time, the cops came out of the their car at the head of the alley. My mom opened the window. My husband's a policeman. He's the one on the white T-shirt, the white T-shirt. He's the cop. By this time, my dad had found the gun on the wet ground, turned on his back and fired.

And he hit the guy in the shoulder at the same time, the other cops let go. Bam, bam, bam, bam. The guy staggered, almost made it to the end of the alley, and then collapsed. He was dead. And in every police involved shooting, there was an inquest. Everybody that's participated, or had something to do with it, gives testimony. All the cops, my dad, even my mother. The band's parents who lived in the area,

they came and they testified that they had tried the best to do it to raise their son, but he had a significant criminal record. And I just spent four years in the state pen and attention for armed robbery. But they said he didn't deserve to die for this bullsh*t burglary. They concluded that it was justifiable homicide in the act of armed robbery case closed.

Everything went back to normal, but it never went back to normal for me.

I had nightmares every single night. Anything woke me up and I was out in the window looking around. Heart was always beating. I was on the juvenile track to a fast heart attack. So about six months go by. And my dad announces one day. We're going to go take a trip out to the San Fernando Valley to see my police buddy, Ernie. I'd never been to the San Fernando Valley, sounded like an exciting adventure. I'd never been to the

country where country there was. So we all piled in the plymoth and headed out for Granada Hills. I remember getting on the freeway in the freeway in those days, stopped at Van Eyes. And we had to go through five or six towns before we got to Granada Hills and all the orange groves. It was the middle of orange grove. And it was kind of boring. It was a long ride. And I started looking out the window and what I noticed that shocked me. People had swimming pools

in their backyards. Their own private swimming pools. How could wow. And so I started counting them. As we got along by, I got in a search form. I looked through fences and behind stuff.

“And where I could see a flash of blue that was a swimming pool. How couldn't there be so many?”

And by the time we got to the Dickens house, that was the name of the family we were going to visit. I'd gotten up to 50. Wow. So we got to the Dickens house. I was earning Virginia in their son Mike and they were very nice. They made us lunch. And my dad and Ernie filming this easy camaraderie that all cops have. And then they asked Ernie and I are going for ride and we'll be right back. Okay. So he's continued to chat with Virginia and Mike and told stories and they

became our lifelong friends. After a couple of hours my dad and Ernie came back and chat a little

into the playmouth and headed back for South Central. My dad was very silent on the way back home.

“He didn't say word to where we were almost home. And then he said, I bought a house today.”

My mother's jaw dropped. What? Yeah, I just made it down payment on the house of Block Over from Murray's. We're going to move it in a week. My mother at the time was eight and a half months pregnant with my twin sisters. She started breathing really heavy. I thought she was going to deliver right there. So a week later, I find myself in the cab of a moving truck with my dad on the way to our new home and Granada Hills. And I was scared. I was excited but I was scared. I wasn't scared

about leaving South Central. That was a scary place for me. I had seen two homicides by the time I was

seven and there was always. I was kind of missing a couple friends but not much but I would miss my

extended family who lived all over the South Central. My cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my grandmother, my grandfather. But we were going to this new place, Granada Hills. So as soon as we got off the freeway, I started counting swimming pools again. And by the time we got to our new house, I was up to 75. So there we were in front of our brand new house, glistening in the middle of this dirt lot. And I looked up and down the block and there were similar houses on the brand new house, dirt

lot. Now this is amazing and we got out of the car and walked in and walked up to the house and opened the door and that smell. That smell of a brand new house. If you can take the car, the smell

“of a new car and multiply it by 100,000 times, that's what that smell was, that fresh paint and”

that park a floor that had never been stepped on. We were the first people ever going to be,

that we were the first people who ever lived in this house and it was like, I like we were in dreamland. So we walked in and looked around and it was four bedrooms where we had been living in this tiny, tiny duplex in South Central. And it was four bedrooms, two baths and a huge lot. I would learn all my basic gardening skills and that lot, connect, and that night we went to sleep. We only had two pieces of furniture in the whole house, two beds. The one I slept in,

the one I passed slept in. I went to sleep and in the middle of the night I woke up

“I heard a sound. It's happening again. I looked out the window, we didn't have any shades on the”

windows at this time, we just moved in. It looked out the window and could see nothing but this it sounded like our house was getting electrocuted. Open the window and the sound got louder and opened the window the whole way and it's really loud now and it took me a minute to figure out what exactly that sound was. It was crickets. A million crickets. A million crickets had replaced screaming sirens which I heard ten times a day in South Central.

The next day my dad had to get up and go to work and he all the way in downtown LA. He took took the only car we were there at the house. My poor mother would just wander around trying to find some shady spots that they're in pant like a German shepherd. It was going to deliver any day. So I would walk her around. I would walk she would water and we would go into every room and just kind of sit there in the room and feel the ambiance of the room and there was no furniture. We

sit on the floor. Even at that age it was hard to pick her up after we had to get out of there and we would go into I picked up my room. Okay that's going to be as great and it's looking to park a floor. It's just like at the Boston Gardens. This is amazing and then we picked out the room that my twin sisters Marge Monica would occupy and we would look out the window of every room and then we would go and sit in the living room and look out those windows and imagine a big long on in front

and gardens and back and we didn't have a swimming pool and we would never have a swimming pool.

And it was okay I didn't I didn't really care it was just a status symbol besides I didn't even know how to swim at that point. So summer went on and it was always hot. It was just a hundred degrees

Marge Monica and we didn't have any great time settling into our new house. I remember the first

“day my mother walked in the kitchen and turned on the taps and mud came out. That's how new that”

house was. So summer was over and I was ready to start my new school. Granada Hills elementary. So my grandmother had come and she was watching over my twin sisters and my mother walked me through the orange grove to we arrived at Granada Hills Elementary and we got up to the playground and it was kids yelling and screaming and it looked just like South Central. Only everybody was little more polite but it was loud and I and we walked in and found my classroom.

She was very nice. She greeted me, showed me to a desk and I was trying to be on on my best behavior you know and I was actually trying not to wrinkle my clothes and I walked like a starched robot and I sat down. I don't even remember what she said she was just going on about this is here, this is there and I had these are the rules and blah blah blah. The resale spell, resale spell rang all the kids headed out the door. So I got out there and looked around at

the playground and I noticed that everybody was white. Everybody not all all right there was a few Mexicans but no Asians and certainly no blacks. I said well this is weird but okay I mean one day everybody in my neighborhood is black and then the next day everybody was white

“it was like going from Nigeria to not very far you know. What is going on here?”

So I looked around for something familiar something I could relate to and in the distance I saw a tether ball and kids were playing tether ball. They had tether ball in my old school and I'll go try that. I walked over and sat down in the bench to be in the next one to play and they were playing tether ball just like they played tether ball in south central okay I know these rules and in the in the near distance I saw these two kids walk in towards me and they were laughing to each other

and they were pointing at me and then they would laugh again and then point again and finally

they got up to the bench where I was sitting and the bigger the one shoved me right off the bench

“and he said get to the end, blacky. I didn't know the procedure here in Granada Hills”

I only knew what I knew from south central so I swung as hard as I couldn't hit this guy right in a mouth and I guess that was the first time his sense of entitlement ever got challenged because he lit up like a thermometer and he didn't stop crying for a half hour and and a teacher nearby teachers heard little Johnny crying he came to got to both about some march march this off to the principal's office and on the way there I thought of the

beating that I was absolutely going to get from my father for misbehaving but appealed and the

comparison to the thought of at least one little a-hole was never going to bother me again

nice first day so I was thinking south central was undeniably a violent place sirens every day but the but the violence was generally was all around it was happening to other people this is the first time it was personal this is the first time I'd ever been in a fight I didn't fight with my friends there was my friends and so I wondered I was the same kid in the situation so what was different about that world and the new world what was that

dividing line what was that boundary that separated those two worlds and I came to the conclusion that it was a line of seventy five swimming pools thank you that was cheat marine in addition to his fame and notoriety is half of cheat chan he's directed Broadway shows been honored by the Smithsonian written children's books and a memoir called cheat is not my real name but don't call me chan cheat is of Mexican descent and holds

one of the most significant private collections of chicano art in the world I caught up with cheat recently on an internet call obviously you're comedian you're also memoirist how does

you know really because these are you know untested things and the only reaction the first reaction

“you get is when you put it in front of an audience so you don't know how they're I was a gonna go”

or you know you don't know where the spots are and you just just go and do it so it's it's tight rope walking for me you know I'm used to you know rehearsal I know exactly what I'm doing all there was a lot of improv in it but this was this was frightening and it was it was this particularly when it was a subject it was you know very fragile to my psyche because of the traumatic events that you went through as a kid yeah exactly and the neighborhood and then my father was a

policeman in the middle of it all you know it's it was you know when you're growing up as a kid used that everything seems normal you know because that's all you know you know gunshots in the

“middle and three o'clock in the morning is normal you know and every kid in that neighborhood knew what”

that was they getting shot or you know hit or I mean it's like it's all that's normal that happens every day and when it doesn't happen every day and both neighborhoods but it didn't mind until you got to the swimming pool neighborhood into the swimming pool guys that line you know I mean you know what for me would have brought back was a lot of I mean those memories hitting in the back of the car in the back seat of the car you know I'm going to be alone I like in your

stories the way you talk about childhood it seems like it's really vivid for you you bring it back really easily like you transport yourself and us there yeah you know it was coming into

“consciousness basically I'm just passing the age of reason and starting to figure a little”

few things out and then when you had something to contrast it with South Central to Granada Hills is as much contrast as you could get you know like okay how do I fit in here how do I do this so this so those memories are very very vivid are you going to tell anymore more stories you think I don't know I mean it's that was very scary for me it really is a higher wire deal you know you tilting over here you got to tilt back you know but but you're listening to the audience

for the reaction for the very first time and it's like flee but you know a more story audience reactions I mean it's a comedian what you said is true if they don't laugh it's not funny but with a mouth you might just change their rate of breathing or you might just exactly it that's exactly it

you when they're quiet when they're quiet that's much more fearful because you never heard

it before and in that silence there is great depth and great meaning it's mentioned that you have like the largest collection of chicano art or something like it can you tell me a little bit of that yeah I don't you know I don't claim to have the largest I'm there's other large collections out there I just claim to have the best you know you know are you with that but show me your Museum teach marine his recently open museum in Riverside California is the

Teach Marine Center for Chicano art and culture he says it will probably be referred to as the Teach in a moment two stories about crossing the boundary between the human and the animal kingdoms when this hour about culture shock continues the more 3D hours produced by a Atlantic public media in Woods Hole Massachusetts on my new podcast on par with Mari Povic we're getting down to the truth behind the name that you know and love unfiltered conversations

with legends like Leanne Morgan Kathy Griffin Ricky Lake find out when they feel the most on par we're breaking it down with Don Limit Aaron Parnas the money Jones laughing it up with Josh Johnson

Dan Soder many more you know the results are in great conversations are always on par so follow and

listen to on par wherever you get your podcasts this is the moth radio hour I'm J. Allison

the world of animals the first comes from our Houston story slam where we partner with Houston

“public media story teller Prachi meta grew up afraid of animals so when she arrived in Texas”

from her native India the ubiquity of pets was surprising and even profoundly uncomfortable here's Prachi at warehouse alive in Houston have you all ever watched those movies where they portray animals as extraterrestrial beings with different senses from us capable of talking in their own little language and having special powers I was one of those people who believed that to be true I grew up in India

where animals live a very different life from us humans let me explain growing up I watched cats and dogs walking down the street having a ball they had no rules they would chase each other scavenge

“for food hunt do whatever they pleased I rarely saw pets and for me animals were some someone”

to be afraid of someone to be feared and respected now this perception was greatly challenged

when I moved to the United States six years back and when I moved here my first stop was Austin

for those of you who went to Austin it's a beautiful city with beautiful people and you hardly see animals walking down the street animals were people's friends here best friends they were companions they were confidence of the American people and I was not used to that idea it was very strange to me sometimes I would walk into conversations where I thought they were talking about their kids for instance they would be talking about how education and development and learning and

“daycare and sickness and at some point I realized the talking about their pets it was amazing”

I would always feel like I had nothing to contribute at this point and so I would just you know

not my hand and say yeah so not just the fact that I was I was there in America and you know living a new life I was so excited trying to make new friends and just you know live it live it up you know it's the American dream but my American dream came to a full stop when I had to understand that I had to deal with pets everywhere everywhere I went my friends my friends siblings my professors everyone had at least one pet I walk into their house very excited trying to make friends

and as soon as I entered their house and saw a pet I would jump on the couch or jump on the bed because I wanted to be as far as possible from these pets my friends they were tolerant you know they were very nice to me and they would actually make sure that they log their pets and kept them as far as possible and at some point I felt that if this continues I can definitely see myself staying in the US but as things went on you know two years down the line I was almost done with graduate

school at UT Austin and I was still keeping my arms distance from any kind of pet possible now as it happens you know life life has its own course so the last month that I was in Austin I had to stay with my cousin and I used to visit this cousin often she lived in roundrock and she did not have pets so I was fine right and I go there very excited to spend my last month in Austin with them and I walk in and I see this little puppy walk up to me and she has three

kids my cousin and they are like Prachi Masi look we have a pet that gifted one to my mom last week and I was just like oh my god I can't do this I just ran the kids running towards me and I was running towards the couch and I again it was a little puppy a sweet little puppy a labrador and in retrospect it was just so cute but at that time I just felt like it would claw you know it would it would come and bite me and I thought that you know that was all they wanted to do was

to come and bite you you know it was just like a deception you know that they are so sweet and cute and those little cats and little dogs and you go close to them and as soon as you go close to them

most surfaces as possible on the first floor on beds on couches I would not try to put my feet down

“because the puppy was roaming everywhere and it was tough my knees and FU they would take the dog”

and come to me close, pandishing it as so it has a sport when they wanted something from me so at some point my cousin sat me down she had had enough she took me close to the dog and she was like you are touching this dog right now I close my eyes and with trembling hands I touch the dog and sensing that it was not going to bite me anytime soon I actually stroked it and I stroked it once more and it was fine you know it actually did not bite me

so I felt that my fear had gone away at that point but no it took a couple moments

“I had to meet with more pets more cats and dogs I made it a point to go and say hi to all of my friends”

pets and at some point I got rid of the fear and that has set me free let me tell you something letting go of fear is empowering and from that point onwards I'm okay with any pet I have just one rule don't lick me otherwise bring it on thank you Pachi Mata has been living in the United States for almost eight years now working in the

energy sector she tells us she's proud to finally be able to occupy the same room as someone's pet

she now adores Jimmy the pup in the story and when she visits him Jimmy still knows to lay down

“calmly to be padded and not to lick to see a photo of Pachi unafraid despite having a”

cat in their lap you can go to our website themoth.org how we regard other creatures can range from reverence to food our next storyteller marney litfin tries to bridge that divide she told us at a story slam in the York City where WNYC is a media partner of the mall here's marney live from the bellhouse in Brooklyn I did a little bit of farm working college and a little bit of farm work after college

and when I'm 24 I get this summer job at a quaker farm camp in Vermont and I'm going to work in the garden and I'm going to teach teenagers how to work in a garden and I'm going to have a very relaxed summer and I'm going to learn all about quaker values

I'm just going to be real chill and in my second week of training before the kids arrive

the head farmer is teaching us about the values of nonviolence and simplicity and interdependence and valuing the light in all of us and I'm dosing off and then I hear her say and that is why we do chicken harvest and I'm like excuse me that is not the right verb but it turns out that at this camp this camp where we have kids working on a working farm all summer doing construction projects

volunteering at a day camp this is a real service oriented camp one of the things that we have the kids do is raise chickens and then kill them and eat them and because I'm part of the garden staff I get to run it I'm a vegetarian been a vegetarian for 20 years and I worked on farms with vegetables vegetables I do vegetables and I'm like okay this is what we're going to do and all summer long we get these chickens they're called broiler hands they're like frank

and chickens and they grow super fast and they're the kind of chickens that are used in meat

weeks and like they're little legs like can't even support them and so for the whole summer

“every kid has to help take care of the chickens we feed them every day we water them we talk to them we”

love them and then at the end of the summer it's time for chicken harvest and I don't know how I'm

going to get through it because I've never I've never slaughtered an animal I've never killed anything

never wanted to but I'm like okay we're doing this so the way that I go about it is that I make sure that everything is perfect I set up all the stations that the kids are going to go through with their chickens I lead a training beforehand on how it's okay it cry it's okay to laugh on accident it's okay to it's okay to hit your friend you know we don't know how we're going to react

“you know I at least know all me and every kind of you know we all have to respect each other”

and the kids are like okay okay okay and they're looking at me and I'm like it's totally fine right and they're like you tell us and so the day of chicken harvest I wake up in the morning I assemble

all the kids and I tell them okay the first part of chicken harvest is to give your chicken the best

last day ever so the kids I pair the kids up each kid gets a chicken and they spend the day cuddling the chicken taking the chicken to the lake doing arts and crafts with their chicken and then it's the afternoon and it's time to harvest so I'm just like I'm so focused on the

“preparations for it that like it's just it starts happening and it happens so fast and before you”

know it first there's a field of chickens and kids and then there's just a field and

within it within an hour it feels like it happens in seconds everyone has killed their chicken

and processed their chicken and at the end of it we're all covered in blood and feathers and I go down to the lake to collect my thoughts and I want to cry and I can't because it was so easy I'm looking at my reflection the water and I'm like you are a person who can kill things I didn't know that about myself and I thought I can't wait to eat this chicken and most of us don't have the opportunity to know what it's like to kill something

but I know that when the revolution comes I'm going to love it thank you that was Marny Litfen Marny is a writer and comic living in Ann Arbor they are a student in the Helen Zell writers program at the University of Michigan to see a photo of Marny as well as a link to their website where you can hear and read more of their stories visit our website

themoth.org while you're there you can pitch us your own story do you have one about animals or crossing a cultural divide you can pitch us by recording two minutes about your story right on our site or call 877-799-Moth the best pitches are developed for most shows all around the world you can share any of these stories or others from the moth archive and by tickets

the moth storytelling events in your area all through our website themoth.org there are moth events year round find to show near you and come out and tell a story you can find us on social media too we're on Facebook and Twitter at the moth that's it for this episode we hope you'll join us next time and that's the story from the moth

Meg Bowles co-producer is Vicky Merrick a social producer Emily couch the stories were

“directed by Sarah Austin Genes and Leah town the rest of the moth's leadership team”

includes Sarah Heyberman Jennifer Hickson Kate Tellers Jennifer Birmingham Marina Kloochay

Suzanne Rust Brandon Grant Inga Gladowski Sarah Jane Johnson and Aldi Kaza

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drift of the music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound podcast music production support

from Davy Sumner we receive funding from the national endowment for the arts 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 Reese Dennis for more about our podcast for information on pitching us your own story and everything else good our website the moth dotter [BLANK_AUDIO]