This Should Be A Movie: The Moth Podcast

[speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] Faden, a recording studio in New York.

“It's small but cozy with sound dampening mats on the wall”

and two mics on either side of the table. One of the mics is unused, but in front of the other mics sits or protagonist. Close up, the face of Jodie Powell, younger, 30s. Our expression is one of excitement. She's ready to share stories.

Ready to welcome listeners to the Moth podcast. Welcome to the Moth, I'm Jodie Powell. There are moments in our lives that feel especially cinematic. Maybe it's not when you're recording a podcast,

but maybe it's your first kiss with a long-time crush.

Your belly and knots and you can almost hear the music swell. Or at a trap meet when you're in second place and you're right about to catch up to the front runner and you feel just like a rocky ball boa. Or maybe it's just a golden hour view of the Montana countryside that looks exactly like a moment from a Terrence Malik film

or Summer in Harlem painted by Spike Lee, Domino's, Fire hydrants and Al Greene's love and happiness on the score. On this episode to celebrate the Oscars, we've got two stories that feel especially cinematic. One that's more independent coming of age,

the other a bit Judd Apatau.

First up is Datesh Jaggi, who told this story at a Chicago Grandslam

where the theme was deal breakers. Here's Datesh live at the mall. I had made it to the last round of the interview when I almost got rejected. Do you have a driver's license there asked? We can't give you the job without one.

“They didn't mention if they were also offering to buy me a car?”

But I didn't say that. Instead I said, "I'm on it." And that is how I found myself among teenagers also taking the driving test. Learning driving as an adult was harder than I thought,

especially as an immigrant. I was used to seeing cars drive on the other side of the road. That's like learning how to write for the first time, but you can only grab the pen with your feet. So I get an instructor and we practice in the parking lot of jewels.

When more than one occasion, he had to use the passenger side brake to stop me from going inside the store. Somehow he convinced me that I was ready to take the test. So I go to the DMV. Now the DMV is a unique place.

In that neither of the people receiving the service nor the people providing the service won't be there. The person who was going to test me acted like I had dragged him out against his will and bound him to the passenger seat. He was pissed at me already and I'm like, "I haven't even started the car."

The result failed fail fail. No, literally. Throws. At that point I had to accept them. Maybe it's not just the DMV.

Maybe I'm a bad driver.

“How come you're 30 and still don't know how to drive?”

My instructor asked me and I give him every excuse. Over I come from in India, there's so much traffic and we have cheap rickshaws.

And then he asked your dad never taught you how to drive.

That gave me pause. As he steered me away from the store entrance again. I had still not gotten over the hurt from 10 years ago when I asked my dad. If you would please teach me how to drive and he said, "No, you don't need to learn how to drive." I was too stunned in that moment to say anything and then I never brought it up again.

He was a taxi driver.

“For 20 years, then a car mechanic for 20, his job was to make sure people can drive.”

And I can barely tell the gas pedal from the brakes.

So that night I called him my father and I never confronted him.

And I told him how hurt I was and look how laughable it is to be a cab driver son and not know how to drive. But he wasn't about the driving. I told him you infantilize me dad. You made me feel like a child and part of me still feels that way. Like I can't have a grown up job and drive to it myself like a grown man.

He listened and then he said, "What did your uncle do?" And I said he was a car mechanic. So what did your other uncle do? I said he was a car mechanic. So what did your grandpa do?

I said he was a cab driver.

“He said, "You see generations of our people have worked”

"menial manual jobs for cash tips." It felt like we were under a curse to work with our hands under the sun. And we just wanted somebody and eldest son at least to work in one of those air conditioned offices. I did not teach you because I was so afraid if you would start to consider driving for your work. I just simply couldn't bring myself to teach you what was following us like a curse

for generations. I wanted a better life for you than men before you. A week later, I go back to the DMV. And this time to my car, this and Fred, this loving embodiment of the Midwest. He's so sweet.

He's giving me tips on how to find parking when I will have my license. And I haven't even started the car yet. We take a lap and I drive us back to the DMV.

And he steps outside and he comes back with my first ever driver's license.

And I look at it and I say, "Thank you, Dad, Fred." Now, eventually, I did get that job and I did work in a lot of air conditioned offices, but these hands, they love labor. It's in my jeans and I drove myself here tonight. And I drove wonderfully.

That was Gitech Jaggi. Gitech is an immigrant writer and poet from India, currently living in Chicago. As an educator, Gitech loves teaching the joys of storytelling and giving keynotes on the power of the personal story. We'll have links to where to find him on our website, TheMoth.org.

He tells us that his diet is not retired and only drives full-ager. There's a few moments of my life that feel like a movie. It's the summer holidays in Jamaica and I'm making my way from my grandmother's house. Gute is tied up in a bag and a cool drink to keep my company. I stopped by my aunt's house and my aunt announces that she and her family are going to the big fair.

We have never been at this point in my family, we don't really have the extra money.

But I perk up when I ask my aunt, "Hey, do you think we could go?" And she says, "Yes." And I sprint uphill to my house. I go through tiny pathways and I don't stop to take a very necessary breath. And I burst into my house and I announced it to my mother and my sister.

And my sister and I, we squeal and we run laps around the house and we are just getting the lights and we're like, "Oh, we finally get to go and we quickly start to get dressed." And we put on our clothes, humble clothes, our matching jeans store and t-shirt with like cartoon characters on it.

“And my mother sits us down to make her here and she comes it and plats the end and put beads all over the best way we can.”

Put on our Sunday best. And we sit on the veranda and we are just jittery with anxiety. And we hear our aunt's car approaching. But instead of stopping my aunt rolls right by, she doesn't stop. She doesn't pick us up and my sister and I, I honestly think we may be cried for days.

And I have to tell you that I'm sure my aunt doesn't even remember this story.

“Honestly, I think she probably forgot she even told me that we could join.”

But every time I tell it, I cry a little. Even now, years later, because I go right back there. The wound is gone, but the taste of it still feels surreal. That moment became a scene in the movie of my life. One of the quiet ones, the kind that stays.

Sad, tender, a little humiliating, and somehow full of love. As a moth, we believe we all have those moments, the ones that mark us. Even if no one else remembers them happening. After the break, another story of a moment that feels like a movie, back in a bit.

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It took us from an idea to a real business. We got set up, I think, in less than a day. With very little effort, we could just focus on the supply chain to the product development. Shopify gives us the ability to customize without the complexity. We can change something without introducing fragility or having to pay a developer.

Well, there's the turtle and we level up our business with Shopify. Start your free trial at Shopify.com/AU. It's almost over the story. You can just get it back. And then you get it.

No, not at all. So, your story is like my taste base. Do you have anything to say about it? Yes, exactly. This story is a story of the story that you just understand.

A Gallup Studio, Job or Unzu...

Steuern Elite? Safe. With Viso Steuern. Welcome back. Our next story is from Nick Vega, who told this at a Seattle Storieslam

where the theme was business. Here's Nick. Live at the moment. If you're going to produce fake ideas for most of your senior class,

“you should probably anticipate someone doing something stupid to get you caught.”

And you shouldn't be all that surprised if that's someone ends up being you. You should only hope that the stupid thing that you do isn't locked the keys to your dad's car inside while you're at a nightclub in Seierville, New Jersey called Hunk of Bunker. That's what happened to me.

But first, the ideas. Up until a couple of years ago, New York State drivers licenses were not like most states are today, which are glossy and smooth. Ars were really flimsy and grainy and matted. So, if you had black white and red colored pencils,

a can of hairspray and a steady hand, you could alter your date of birth. I had all three of these things, so I had a small business on my hands. I started out by doing it for me and my friends. And it was really easy for me. We were all born in 1983, so all I had to do was change the 3 into a 0 and 83 became 80.

And on our 18th birthday, we were all 21. Same photo, good to go, go to bars, have fun. I could even change a 81 or 82 into a 78 or 79, but I charged more for that because it wasn't as easy.

“And so, we called this method Chocking and I called myself the Chocking.”

And I really, I really wish I made that part up, but I did. I charged 10 bucks if I had to change one digit and 20 bucks if I had to change two. And as words started spreading throughout the school, that these were working and we were going into bars, more and more people started handing me the ideas before long every single day.

I was going home with a pocket full of some people's driver's licenses. And it was really fun. I had no idea who I was talking, but I was making more money that I was working at the YMCA, so I was happy. My only real rule was don't take them into New Jersey.

It's a whole other beast. Getting into bars and starting out in Brooklyn was easy, mostly because it was kind of lenient. As long as you had something that looked like anything, they would really just kind of let you in.

But New Jersey, they really, they were looking for fake ideas. They had black lights, they had sandpaper, they had nail polish remover. And they also had a real disdain for New Yorkers. They hated us coming down to their bars, see Jersey shore for reasons why. Until, of course, one day, I broke my own rule

because girl I had a crush on said that her and her friends were going to go check out Hunkabunka in Seierville. And I said, "Oh, the idea will work." And I'll come with you. So I grabbed my two friends, Paul and Anthony.

I borrowed my dad's Ford tempo. And we drove to New Jersey. I was really excited to go see this girl. I even went to the store in the Staten Island Mall called Trends and bought a powder blue club shirt.

I had never been to a club before.

And I thought this was what you were supposed to wear. Of course, she didn't show up. Her and her friends decided to do something else that day. We tried to make the most of it. So we just went into the club anyway.

Until we realized that even though our ID said that we were 21 inside this nightclub, we really did just look and feel like stupid teenagers. And so we decided to just leave. And so it was about midnight when we walked out. And I realized that I had locked the keys that my dad's car inside.

We didn't have cell phones.

I didn't have enough money to call. Like a tow truck or a roadside assistance. And I certainly couldn't call my dad because I had broken his number one rule of don't drive into New Jersey, borrowing his car.

So I went inside and I talked to the balancer and I said, "Hey, do you have a slim gym or a coat hang or something to help me get my car to our open?" So he said, "You're going to have to wait until after the club closes." Now the club closes at two.

Balancer would be off work at three. My dad wakes up at work at 330 to go sanitation. This was not going to happen. This was not going to work out.

“So I did the only thing I thought to do,”

since this was a nightclub in Seierville, every 20 or 30 minutes, patrol car would roam around the parking lot, just making sure no one was up to any business. And so I flagged the cop down.

And I asked him, "Hey, we're locked out of my car.

Can you help us in?" And he said, "Sure." And he was eyeing us the whole time. And he popped the car to open in about 10 seconds. And then he just stood between me and this open door.

And he goes, "Are you just inside there?" He goes, "And I said, "No." And he goes, "Don't lie to me. I saw that powder blue shirt going in about an hour ago." (laughter)

And so he goes, "There's no way you boys are 21." He goes, "Let me see your license." And I reluctantly handed it to him. And he didn't say anything. He just reared back and hawk the luggie right on my license.

And then he used his glove hand and his uniform. And he rubbed it and rubbed it and rubbed it. And the next words out of his mouth were, "Oh, there you are." And so he goes, "You boys got those, too. Let me see him."

“So my friend Anthony and Paul hand him to him.”

And he goes, "These are really good. Who makes these?" I thought it would be obvious. Don't say anything, but impulsively, I guess, when you're asked a question that you know the answer to.

My friend Paul, just without hesitation, said, "He does." (laughter) He makes them. And so he goes, "All right." He goes, "Where do boys live?"

And I'm like, "You know, he looked at Daddy. We're like, "We live on Staten Island." And he goes, "Where do you go to high school?" Here I was about to say a different school than when we went to. But impulsively, when asked a question that he knew the answer to.

My friend Paul chimed in, "We go to Tottenville." (laughter) And I'm just standing there, you know, in disbelief. (laughter) So he gives us a huge girl.

And he's threatening to take us to a holding cell and make our parents going to pick us up. He's threatening to, you know, charge us with all these things.

I beg, and I plead, and finally, he lets me go.

And he says, "Don't ever come back here. Don't ever try this again."

“Go to school on Monday, and we're in our sixth period math class,”

and my teacher Mr. Asher, who's a big guy who's actually a bouncer himself on the side. He tells us all the take out our driver's licenses, which we all do. And he circles the room with his little hole puncher

and punching a hole into the corner of all of our licenses, that instead of 1983, so in 1980. And he gets to me, and he puts one right in the middle, my forehead, and he goes, "See me after school." (laughter)

The photo of the forehead, not my actual forehead. (laughter) So after class, I go and I talk to him, and he goes, "I heard you met my brother on Saturday." (laughter)

And I said, "Yeah," I said, "He was really nice to let me go." (laughter) And he said, "Yeah, don't pull that shit again." And he goes, "Oh." And he probably would have let you go,

but he said, "That powder blue shirt gave you away. There was no way." There was no way that someone that wore that shirt was in their 20s. (laughter)

Good to know. For all my friends that had holes punch in their licenses, the feet get a new license issued in New York with $6. So I did the noble thing. I kept my $4 profit and I paid for there.

I paid for all of their licenses to be replaced, and I reached off them all for free. (laughter) That was Nick Vega. Nick is a Seattle-based writer,

storyteller and quiz master from New York City. He is the co-founder of Bar Store's live on stage. His work blends sharp weight, hustle, and emotional honesty, usually learned the hard way. Wow, I can't believe the podcast is almost over.

You know, as I stand here in the recording studio, I have so many people I wanted to thank for this opportunity. I've dreamed about hosting a podcast since I was a little girl, and I've got to say thank you to all our moff listeners,

moff storytellers, or funders, my grandmother, my aunt, featured in the story, my sister, my dear, dear dear mother, and next door neighbor, my pastor, and my teenage teacher, for all of this.

(music) You know, it's an Oscar's episode. We had to do a little bit of an Oscar's speech. Generally though, thank you for listening. From all of us at the moff,

we hope your life feels cinematic, in the warm, beautiful, worth remembering, and sharing type of way. (music)

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