The Moth Radio Hour: Keep Calm and Carry On

In this hour, challenges that reveal one's truest self. The insatiable needs of an electronic pet, being forced to face one's fears, and the dogged pursuit of one's dreams. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Director Meg Bowles. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. 8-year-old Sara Jonsson realizes her new toy is more responsibility than she bargained for. Mike Maloch has to face his fears on the job. Samira Sahebi has an unexpected visit to the ER. Beth Bradley inches toward a breaking point near the end of a 14k hike up a mountain in Colorado. Shaun Leonardo pursues his dream of becoming a luchador. Podcast # 757

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:13Meg Bowles?

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and in this show, stories of persevering, persisting, and going the distance. The challenges we face from perilous mountains to epic battles and crushing fears. Sometimes we make it through with grace, and other times, well, not so much. Our first story comes from Sarah Johnson, who took the stage at one of our open-mic story slams, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. From the Bell House in Brooklyn, here's Sarah.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  You too. Thanks. When I was eight years old, I had a Nano Puppy. You guys know what that is? It's like a Tamagotchi. It's a little plastic egg toy with a screen and three buttons. It's like an electronic pet. It's like a dog, or an alien, or whatever. And you have to feed it, and bathe it, and play with it, and put it to sleep, and basically keep alive this little pixelated, dog-shaped blob. You know? And it was super fun, man, I gotta tell you. And I was eight years old, and me and Nano Puppy are just having a blast, okay? And we go everywhere together. He's my best friend. I hook him on to my little belt loop on my jeans, and I walk around, and he like bounces. I love him.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  But I started to notice, after like two weeks, every time I need to do something like human, eight-year-old-related, like sleep, or go to school, Nano Puppy dies of neglect. And like, the guilt, and the devastation, and the humiliation that I feel as an eight-year-old is frankly inappropriate. It's like anxiety through the roof, right? So I make it my life's mission to keep this generation of Nano Puppy alive.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  And it turns out that is a 24-hour day job. Because every time it gets hungry or sleepy, it beeps. So it's like all night, all whatever, it's just beeping at me. And my parents are starting to notice that I am not sleeping well. I am... I'm like telling my friends that I'm sick, so I don't have to like go outside and play with them. So I can like take care of NanoPuppy. And I'm lying to my teacher. I'm basically telling my teacher I gotta go pee every 30 minutes 'cause I can hear NanoPuppy in my locker beeping. And I go out to take care of him. But god, I love him, right? It's just like heartstrings. And, and...

• 2:54Speaker 01

  So like, time passes and, you know, NanoPuppy's getting stronger and healthier and happier, and I'm just getting like weaker and sicker and sadder. And, just like, we're just like one thing. Like he's sucking my soul out and my energy becomes his energy. And we're just like, we're getting really close. And I'm realizing that, um...

• 3:19Speaker 01

  I'm realizing that if NanoPuppy lives, I die.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  So, along with all the life lessons that NanoPuppy teaches your children, like it's a good toy, teaches them, you know, time management, responsibility, like motherhood, basically. I am now, I am now firsthand experiencing the concept of infanticide.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Which is another

• 3:53Speaker 01

  thing I should not have to know about forever. For, you know, even as an eight-year-old, it's just like not a thing. But like the seed's been planted. And I can't, I can't tell anybody about this. Um, most of all, I need to hide this from NanoPuppy.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Because I've started, I've started to like distance myself from NanoPuppy. Just like maybe leave it for a little bit longer. Oh no, he notices. He, he gets hungry or he gets sick, he gets, he gets loud, everybody's noticing. So I'm, I'm like having to hide the fact. I obviously cannot let him starve to death. Everybody notices.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Because all my friends have them too, but they seem fine. I don't know what it was about this, whatever.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  So, uh... One day, I hook NanoPuppy to the belt loop of my jeans, like I do. And I put those jeans in a laundry basket.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  And I take that laundry basket to my mother, who is loading the washing machine. And she doesn't say a word.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  And I don't say a word.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  And 28 minutes later, when we pulled sopping wet NanoPuppy out of the washing machine, he was... still alive.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  So we're like pretending, we're like, "Oh, it's fine. Ha, that's funny. Oh, God." And my mom goes, like, she lowers her voice because I don't know, NanoPuppy can hear. She goes, "Why don't you dry it off by putting it in the freezer?"

• 5:43Speaker 01

  So, the next morning, I go to check on NanoPuppy's status, and he is still alive. Um, except now, he is super angry. And so, now the guilt is just crushing, like, I can't function. I've, I now, copy, I now have to, uh, take care of my brain-dead, angry spawn of Satan because of the karma. Anyway, um, so I just continued to take care of it. Uh, we went camping a couple days later. Um, he woke up in the middle of the night and was like, "I'm hungry." And my dad, my dad just took it, ripped open the tent, threw that thing as far as he could.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And it landed in our campfire from whence it came.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  So, I left it there. I, it's, it's okay with me. I don't know, I guess, I guess the, uh, the moral, the thing that I learned from this is just don't lie about when you don't want something in your life anymore. Don't keep it going if it's not healthy and it's not good. And don't try and pretend it is and just throw that thing off a damn bridge. Thank you.

• 7:09Meg Bowles?

  That was Sarah Johnson. Sarah grew up in Montana and lived in Brooklyn for 13 years, where she hosted an all-female variety show called Camp Sunshine and frequently put her name in the hat at our open-mic story slams. During the pandemic, she moved to Atlanta to be closer to family and is now working on becoming an historical preservationist.

• 7:29Meg Bowles?

  She says that after the demise of Nanopuppy, she felt major relief and a lot of guilt. But that was quickly replaced by her new obsession: the Spice Girls. You can see a picture of Sarah and her now infamous Nanopuppy at our website, themoth.org.

• 7:57Meg Bowles?

  Next up, we have a story of engineering marvels that come with their own set of challenges. Mike Malick took the stage at a story slam we produced in Pittsburgh, where we're supported by public radio station WESA. Here's Mike, live at The Moth.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Hey, y'all.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  So, six years ago, my company asked me to spend a month on the road performing tall bridge inspections. And so, these are bridges that are too tall for us to inspect with a ladder. And so, we use an underbridge truck. And you may have seen this before. It's a truck that sits on top of the bridge. It has a bucket lift on the back, but instead of this bucket lift going straight in the air, it can go out, down, and beneath the bridge. And the bridges that we were going to inspect were anywhere from 50 to 150 feet in the air. So, as a scary comparison, this is like being a window washer on like an eight-story building. This was a big problem for me, because not only am I afraid of heights, but I'm afraid of most, like, marginally extreme activities

• 9:01Speaker 02

  someone can do.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And I've been this way my whole life. And so, you know, growing up, little kid birthday parties were a problem for me. Like, I wouldn't ride roller coasters, so when my friends were riding roller coasters, I would be on the ground, at a bench, just watching their bags.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  I... You know those like little kid obstacle courses where you climb up a rope net and then crawl through a plastic tube and then climb up another rope net? At some point, I'd be high enough off the ground where I'd become paralyzed, and my mom would have to crawl in and come carry me out.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Which is hysterical, because this, being afraid of everything, thing is hereditary. And she was probably more afraid of that rope course than I was. But the worst party by far were the laser tag parties. And, because there's no, you can't skip them, and you, there's no moms to carry me out. And, I would get locked in a dark room with confined spaces, and tripping hazards, and then lasers flying past my head.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  And, I hope you all can appreciate that by me agreeing to go on this inspection trip. It was a big deal. And, my first day, I showed up, and there were three people who make this trip go. There's me, the Brit inspector, who's afraid of everything.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  There's my coworker Bernie, who's a grizzled Brit inspection veteran, who fears nothing. And then there's the guy in the truck. And, I forget his name, but I'll call him Gary. And, his job is just to stay in the truck. And if something goes wrong, he's got our back. He's there for us. On my first day, Gary told me that it was his first day on the job.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  And so I had a little panic attack before I could even conquer any fear of heights.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  But the first week went pretty well. I got better with the heights. I also got better with the rocking motion on the bucket. And I never was quite able to take both hands off the railing while I was inspecting, but I could get one hand off. And usually I'd have like one panic attack a day, something small. Be it the wind, or if the truck was making noises, but Bernie would calm me down and things were going well. But there was one day, and we were at the best part of the day. This is the part of the day where we're done inspecting the bridge. And we are able to now maneuver the bucket out from underneath the bridge,

• 11:44Speaker 02

  back on top of the bridge, i.e. going from where I'm hanging off the side of a bridge to where I'm safe on top of the bridge. And I look forward to this every day because it means I've survived the day, I'm alive.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  And Bernie's, you know, he's operating the bucket. We are getting closer and closer to that point where I know I've made it. We're maybe one to two feet from the bridge, and the bucket stops.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  And I look at Bernie, because he's my pillar of strength during these times. And I implore him to keep on going, because we're almost there. And Bernie is pressing the lever that makes this bucket move and it's not going anywhere. So, y'all, this is where Gary comes in the picture. He's got our back. And I can see him, and Gary yells to us, "I don't know what's wrong."

• 12:42Speaker 02

  So, and besides falling out of this bucket to my death, like this is my biggest fear. We are stuck on the bucket. I go in full meltdown mode, and I'm just holding on to the side of the bucket. I don't hear anything, I'm just staring off on the horizon. And we are about 90 feet in the air, mind you. I can look down, I can see like a picturesque stream, I can see trees, but they're really far down.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  And during this time where I was not with it, I guess Bernie and Gary decided that the best course of action now, mind you, we are one to two feet away from the bridge. So we're just gonna open up the door in the bucket, and we're gonna step from the bucket to the bridge.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  It's a small step, really small, but y'all, it is so far down.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  And it took a while to convince me that this was a good idea. And I made Bernie go first because he would reach out his hand to me. I grabbed his hand. I didn't look down, it was far.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  And I looked at Bernie, took a deep breath, and I took my pretty small step, but still a big step, onto the bridge, and I was safe. And as soon as I stepped off that bucket, I vowed I would never go back in there again.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  The next morning at 8:00 a.m., I got right back into that bucket. And this story continued for the rest of that month, and I survived. And when I look back on this experience, I try and think of what lessons I could learn about either the experience or myself. And the answer is, I learned absolutely nothing.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  I already knew that I belonged in one place, and that's with my feet on the ground. Thank you.

• 14:38Meg Bowles?

  Mike Malick spent that entire month inspecting high-level bridges in state parks across western Pennsylvania, and he hated every minute of it. He said he would end every day just grateful to be alive. The job solidified his fear of heights and also instilled in him a healthy fear of bugs, poison ivy, and livestock. Apparently, he once inspected a bridge right next to a very angry bull. These days, Mike is the city of Pittsburgh's lead traffic signal engineer. He's passionate about making urban infrastructure accessible and friendly to all, but especially pedestrians and cyclists. His feet stay firmly on the ground, and the only wildlife he encounters now is the occasional mouse living in a signal pole.

• 15:21Meg Bowles?

  He says he hopes to never inspect a bridge again, ever.

• 15:26Meg Bowles?

  To see pictures of Mike on the job, then and now, you can visit our website, themoth.org.

• 15:40Meg Bowles?

  Coming up, an evening out, ins and broken bones, damaged friendships, and moral judgments. When the Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 15:56Speaker 03

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

• 16:04Speaker 04

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• 16:48Speaker 04

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• 17:58Speaker 05

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• 19:01Meg Bowles?

  Sometimes we take on challenges and other times we end up creating them for ourselves. Samira Sahabi shared this story at one of our open mic story slams in Portland, Oregon, where we partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Here's Samira, live at The Moth.

• 19:23Speaker 06

  So when I was 14, I was sent away to the West by myself and my family gave me a partying gift. It was a very fancy gold ring. So five years later, when I lived in Los Angeles, as a pretty well-assimilated Westerner, I lived with two roommates and at that time, the only thing Persian about me was my accent and the ring. So one night, the roommates wanted to go party and I declined. And Laura decided to entice me by holding out her acid-washed brown leather jacket. And she said, "If you come, you get to wear this." And I had this super skimpy tube top that I could never wear on its own. And this just became my motivation to go. I was like, "Okay, I'll go." And so I went to get the jacket and she pulled it back.

• 20:08Speaker 06

  She's like, "Wait, you need to really take care of this." I'm like, "Oh, sure, of course." And she's like, "No, no, I mean it." No stains, no forgetting it. And I said, "I give you my word." And so, we all got very eighties chic and went to forty miles south to Hermosa Beach, to some guy's house, and we got really drunk. And then, we headed to the strip, where we would go from bar to bar. And while we were dancing, the ring had come off. So as the group got smaller and smaller, people would go back to the house to sleep. There were three people left, and I was desperately looking for the ring. And these three people are like, "Yeah, we'll wait for you."

• 20:50Speaker 06

  And so, I came out the last bar, and they could just tell that I had not found the ring. I was like, on the verge of tears. And this guy with like, an Eddie Van Halen haircut, he's like, "Don't be sad, it's gonna be okay. Oh, jump up, I'm gonna give you a piggyback ride." And I was like, "Oh, no." And he's like, "Come on, come on." And then he kinda backed into me and leaned, you know, he just assumed the posture for me to mount him. And it was so forward, that I just felt bad declining, so I jumped up. And he had been drinking, so as soon as I, maybe I was heavier than I looked, he just kinda lost his balance. And I had been drinking also, and so I just watched the whole thing unfold,

• 21:35Speaker 06

  as the asphalt got closer to my face, and then further and closer. And I was like, "Fascinating." And so, what did happen is that he flipped me over his shoulder, onto the cold asphalt. This was winter, I know it was LA, but it was still winter for us. And so, then he lost his own balance and fell and shattered my collarbone. There was this exploding glass sound, and I passed out. And I woke up in the ER, and Eddie Van Halen had driven, following the ambulance, which I was grateful for, because I didn't know anybody. And so, the very first thing they wanna do in the ER, like, the whole staff has gathered behind me,

• 22:20Speaker 06

  and they're like, "Go get the shears, the extra-large ones from upstairs, we're gonna cut the jacket." And I was like, "No, not the jacket." And she's like, "Trust me, sweetie, you want me to cut the jacket." And I was like, "No, please don't cut the jacket." So then Eddie is standing next to me, holding my hand, putting it on his chest, like this devoted husband who is coaching his wife through childbirth. He's like, "You can do this, you can do this." He's almost crying, he feels so guilty. I'm sobbing, there's makeup everywhere. So they take this thing off. I felt this cold that was to the bone. I could not stop shaking, so they're piling warm blanket after me. And there's this hierarchy in ER.

• 23:03Speaker 06

  First of all, I didn't get any drugs and I didn't know why. But, um, so I'm in pain and they're like, "Yeah, you're kind of low priority, like people with heart attack get to cut in front of you." And then we also had gunshot wounds tonight, so you just need to be patient. So finally, at four in the morning, I see this shadow of a man emerging from the hallway. And he's got a limp, he's got an accent. He's like, "I'm gonna take you to x-ray." And he's walking way too fast for that time of day. He's just goes, "Poom," down the hallway, gets me to x-ray, closes the door. And he's like, "Are you Persian?" "I'm Persian." And I was like, "Yes." And he's like, "I know someone with your last name." And then he recites the name of my father. And I am mortified.

• 23:48Speaker 06

  And so I tell him, because I was too honest. And then the mood shifted. He just got very, very quiet. Like, he just went from interested to, "Oh, shit." And then he like looked at me up and down and I could like see myself through his eyes, through these Muslim eyes. I reeked of vodka, I looked so trashy. And he, he just said, "What happened, child?" And that cut like a knife. And then I started shivering again. And so he took the x-ray without looking at me. He pushed me down the hallway. And this time, he was not so creepy. He is just pushing me very, like, very slowly, weighted down by the tragedy that was me.

• 24:34Speaker 06

  The hallway seemed eternal. And in that eternity, I got to feel the weight of the expectation of what a good girl should do, especially a good Muslim girl. And he dropped me in the room. He said goodbye without looking at me. And he left, and I never saw the X-ray man ever again. But that night, my two fragmented, intentionally separated worlds collapsed. They just collided. And although I lost a physical representation of my origin, I tapped into a journey of integration where my two polarities started to come together, which has been a journey ever since. And a part of me wants to find that man.

• 25:17Speaker 06

  I want to kind of thank him for actually genuinely caring. And a part of me wants to kind of look at him and be like, I turned out OK. Thank you.

• 25:37Meg Bowles?

  Samira Sahabi is a writer and performer based in Portland, Oregon. And she's a Moth Grand Slam champion. Samira was so determined to save her friend's jacket that she insisted they not cut it off her. She said removing it was incredibly painful, as the nurse assured her it would be. But the jacket made it out unscathed. She managed to successfully return it and vowed never to borrow another piece of expensive clothing.

• 26:05Meg Bowles?

  As it turns out, her father did indeed know the radiology technician. But with her father living in Iran and the technician in the US, their paths never crossed. And she managed to keep the embarrassing details of her injury a secret from her family for many years.

• 26:23Meg Bowles?

  You can find out more about Samira and share any of the stories featured in this hour by visiting our website, themoth.org.

• 26:34Meg Bowles?

  Our next story comes from Beth Bradley, who takes us to the mountains of Colorado. She shared this at a Grand Slam we produced in Denver with support from public radio station KUNC. Here's Beth.

• 26:50Speaker 07

  I really wanted to cry and I really wanted to give up, but I really didn't want to do both and I was running out of time to make up my mind. It was 11:45 a.m. and I was sitting on a huge pile of rocks located about 13,700 feet above sea level and I was trying to get to the 14,000-foot summit of the mountain that these rocks belong to, but I only had about 15 minutes left. And that's because when you're at that type of elevation, it gets really dangerous to be on the summit anytime after 12 p.m. in Colorado because there's lightning that rolls in pretty much every afternoon in the mountains in the summer. So, I've been climbing straight up, up, up this mountain for the past five or six hours

• 27:35Speaker 07

  with two of my best friends, Katie and Dawn, and I only had about a quarter mile left to go, but it might as well have been 500 miles. Katie and Dawn have both done a climb like this before, but not me. Basically, my whole life, the world's been telling me I'm too fat to try stuff like this, so I pretty much believe that too. And even though Katie and Dawn and I have been friends for 20 years, I was still nervous to be climbing with them because I knew they'd be able to do it no problem and I'd be the slow one. So, I had been training and doing research for months. I remember one article that I came across suggested that you bring Kleenex with you because when you're up at that elevation, the wind blows like crazy, so your nose

• 28:19Speaker 07

  is probably going to be running. So, I had not only heeded that advice, I'd actually bought the name-brand Kleenexes for an extra dollar because they happen to have motivational messages printed on them, like, "Believe in yourself and seize this moment." But, nothing, not even the Kleenexes, had prepared me for how I was feeling at 11:45, which was just completely depleted and essentially catatonic. So, Dawn and Katie had kind of gone up ahead to sort of scope out the rest of the trail and I was just alone with my thoughts, which had been pretty Be positive up till then, like I felt like all that preparation was paying off.

• 29:02Speaker 07

  But now, the disappointment was just seeping in. And the worst part about that was how familiar it tasted. Three years before that, I had moved all the way out to Seattle. And even though I had approached that move with the same kind of exhaustive preparation as this climb, I felt like I just couldn't get my life to work out there. Like, it was just one failure after another. Like, the job I got turned out to be a bad fit. I couldn't get acclimated. And then the relationship that I was in fell apart in a really excruciating and heartbreaking way. So, I had managed to get myself home. I'd managed to move back to Colorado. But I felt like I had gone on this, like, 2,000-mile detour just to end up exactly where I started.

• 29:47Speaker 07

  So, I wanted it to mean something. I wanted being home to mean something. And I wanted all that time to count. The mountains have been there all along, but for the first time, I found myself wanting to know what it would feel like to be on top of one. But, the higher I got, the heavier all of that felt. And the later it got, the more the pressure was bearing down. At this point, I noticed that everyone else I could see was very thin and lithe, and they were just scampering up the rocks like the world's most annoying pack of gazelles.

• 30:24Speaker 07

  No one else was struggling like I was. So, I was scared, and I was overwhelmed. And I was hating my body for being too fat and my mind for being too weak. And I just kept thinking to myself, "Who do I think I am to even attempt this? Like, who do I think I am to even try?" So, at this point, I could see that Katie was headed back down to where I was. And I could tell from her eyes that she was gonna say that it was too late and we needed to turn around, and that I'd be too dangerous to keep going at the pace that I was going. We were too slow. So, she came and sat down on the rock next door. And I was just letting that defeat, like, settle in.

• 31:07Speaker 07

  But then, totally calm, Katie said, "We should keep going. I know you can do it." So...

• 31:17Speaker 07

  Then a weird thing happened, which is that I realized I believed her. Even though Katie and I have been friends forever, and she said stuff like that to me before, this time, I finally heard it.

• 31:33Speaker 07

  And so, when I had been asking myself, "Who do I think I am?", the answer had been, "This person who's too fat to keep trying, who kept failing over and over." But Katie was seeing someone else. She was seeing someone she loved, who'd been through all of that and kept going. So, she was seeing someone strong. So, when Katie said that I could do it, it sounded different than the Kleenex. It sounded... It sounded like the truth. So, I decided not to give up, and wanting to cry became my only motivation. And the next ten minutes were just like a blur of pain and exhaustion.

• 32:14Speaker 07

  But basically, right at noon, I heaved myself over the last stupid rock, and I was surprised to find myself on the flat, solid ground of the summit. All of those Gazelle people were hanging out and smiling, taking pictures. I was the only person who was smiling and openly weeping.

• 32:38Speaker 07

  I was also hugging Katie and Dawn like crazy. I was petting dogs. And I was looking out at the view, which was as incredible as anything I've ever seen. I realized, I would also advise me Kleenex if you do a climb like this, because crying on top of a mountain is a wonderful feeling, and I'd recommend it to anyone, so it's good to be prepared. I keep chasing that feeling. I keep trying to climb more mountains. Sometimes I get to the top, and sometimes I don't. But what I've noticed is that that one question isn't coming into my head anymore. That question of, "Who do I think I am?". Now, I know who I am.

• 33:31Meg Bowles?

  Beth Bradley is a two-time Moth Story Slam winner and also tells stories professionally as a content marketer. Growing up, Beth says she never saw anyone of her size represented in the outdoors and spent most of her life never even considering that she would one day carry herself to the top of a mountain, let alone a mountain over 14,000 feet. She says it was one of the most profound feelings she's ever had, and it doesn't get old. Since that climb back in 2018, Beth has continued hiking nearly every week. She's up to somewhere around 175 hikes and counting. You can see pictures of Beth and find out more about her adventures in hiking on our

• 34:15Meg Bowles?

  website, themoth.org. Coming up, rudos, technicos, and the magical world of Mexican wrestling when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 34:33Speaker 03

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

• 34:44Speaker 06

  With over 600 live events each year, plus the production of our storytelling workshops and The Moth Radio Hour and podcast, it takes a lot to keep The Moth moving. And the other day, I was browsing the Vistaprint site, and I thought, Vistaprint can be an incredible resource for us. We can use Vistaprint to customize banners for our stage backdrop. Walking into an event where your signage matches your merch instantly gives you that polished, established look that we love. Vistaprint gives you so much more than what you paid for, offering top-tier quality that makes your business look like a million bucks without blowing your budget. Plus, with Real people and intuitive tools ready to help you nail every design detail. You get complete assurance from start to finish.

• 35:26Speaker 06

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• 35:45Speaker 07

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• 36:32Meg Bowles?

  This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Meg Bowles. Our final story in this hour comes from Sean Leonardo, who we met after he called The Moth Pitch Line. He shared his story at the first event we produced in front of a live audience after the reopening of theaters that had been shuttered due to the pandemic. Live from the Wilbur Theater in Boston in partnership with WGBH, here's Sean Leonardo.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  In 2010, I'm standing in this grimy little gym in Oaxaca, Mexico, finally watching La Lucha Libre. And now, for those of you that don't know what that is, La Lucha is the arts of Mexican wrestling. The pageantry and acrobatics are second to none. And while the storylines and narratives of good versus evil would feel familiar to you, there's a special magic to La Lucha, because in Mexican culture, it is sacred.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Now, I've always had a fascination with La Lucha, ever since watching it on the TV with my dad.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  And it's always been so spectacular. But those warriors were so foreign to me in their mask and regalia flipping every which way. But I would learn later that those same warriors were your everyday teachers, taxi drivers, office workers.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  But in the ring, when that mask came on, they were gods.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  And as a scrawny kid from some insignificant neighborhood in Queens, New York City, I wanted to feel that. I wanted to know what it meant to be a hero.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  And so now standing there, I was in complete awe. So much so that I wait for hours after the event just to approach a promoter and ask if I might start training with the local luchadores.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  Now, two important things to note. I'm not Mexican.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm Latino, but I'm from Queens.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Maybe more importantly, at the time, I had zero wrestling experience.

• 39:09Speaker 03

  But I may have fibbed just a little bit and told the promoter that I was a wrestler back home in the United States. Whatever it was, he goes backstage, comes back with a little piece of paper with an address scribbled all over it says, "Show up here Friday."

• 39:26Speaker 03

  He didn't say when. Just show up here Friday. So I did, but oh, but five hours too early. But I waited and I waited. Then after a while, in comes the trainer. And it is the legendary Rigo Cisneros from Nacho Libre fame. I lose it. And he comes up to me silently, sizes me up, and in the quietest voice goes, "Hop in the ring." And the ring. The ring is an iron frame with plywood on top,

• 40:10Speaker 03

  some sprinklings of rubber, and an old vinyl billboard securing it down. Not the bouncy thing y'all are imagining.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  The wrestlers were amateurs twice my size. And everything I did was clumsy and tense. And so they saw that and decided to deliver the punishment just to see if I would come back the next day. And so the slaps to the chest started stinging that much more, the body slams a little more vicious, and the blows, the falls or bumps as we call it in wrestling, that much more aggressive for me than anyone else in the ring.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  But I came back. And I kept coming back because where I'm from giving up is not in the cards. And after three months of training, I'm finally granted my first match. And because of my hard work, and likely the novelty of an American luchador, I am slated in as the sub-main event. Now, to be clear, that is not the main event. I'm still the warm-up act. And the night comes, and it's the same rickety ring in some makeshift arena with folding chairs.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  But the lights and the mariachi music is blaring, and it feels glorious.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  And they call out my name. And all the blood rushes right out of my body. It all becomes a blur. But I pull myself together, I get pumped, and I step out in all white and gold, the knight in shining armor with a 14-foot velvet cape.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I hit that ring and I'm looking good. And then I get my ass kicked.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  I lose that match bad. And so I go backstage, beaten, battered, but at least it's all over. And Rico Cisneros, the trainer, comes over and says, "Go back in the ring, get the crowd pumping, and go save the good guys." And I said, "What the hell are you talking about?" But I panicked, I run out there, I do what I'm told, only to get annihilated again. By the end of the event, there are three bad guys, rudos as we call them, one pinning my shoulders down onto the mat, the other kicking me repeatedly, and the third unmasking me.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  The ultimate embarrassment in Mexican wrestling.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  And so, I leave with a mixture of emotions. I'm embarrassed, I'm defeated. But despite the beating, I feel like I achieved something amazing. I had become a Mexican wrestler, for Christ's sake.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  I had lived out a childhood fantasy. But I decided, enough fun, the adventure was over, time to go home.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  So I'm back in my little ass apartment in Queens, when I get a phone call a month later, from a promoter asking me if I would consider wrestling the welterweight champion of the world.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  So it seems this American luchador had caused quite a stir and the audiences were still talking about this guy. So it was meant to be set as a special event for the 75th anniversary of the largest Mexican wrestling promotion in the world. And staged at the National Museum of Mexico City, which is literally a palace.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  How could I say no?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  I'm terrified, but I had to see how far I could take this thing, so I accept.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  My opponent, the welterweight champion of the world, his name was Sangre Azteca. Aztekin blood.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  I failed to mention that my wrestling name was El Conquistador.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  The Conqueror. Now, for anyone here that recalls their colonial history, the conquerors didn't do such nice things in Mexico. It was a match made in heaven.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  The storyline was set.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  But upon touching ground in Mexico, I'm explicitly told there is no way I'm winning this match.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  And then I'm told that Sangria Steca refuses to choreograph the match. Now, if you know anything about wrestling, you know that the outcomes, yes, are predetermined, but that also the matches are more or less scripted. So now, not only am I being forced to lose the match, I could get really hurt. This has gone too far.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Ironically, I'm billed as the good guy. Or técnico, as we call it in Mexican wrestling.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  But when the announcer finally calls out, "El Conquistador de Nueva York", the entire audience turns on me.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Now, Mexican wrestling is a familial affair, so the abuelas, the grandmothers, everyone down to the kids, start cursing at me. I feel like the entire arena wants to see me massacred.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  And in front of over a thousand audience members, Sangria Steca and I go mano a mano, one on one. Two out of three falls for more than 45 minutes. And we go at it.

• 46:48Speaker 03

  We're going blow for blow, putting each other in submission moves. We're fighting on the outside of the ring. We're kicking and we're going hard. At one point in the match, revved up by the insults of the audience, I look down on my opponent, who I just body slammed, and I smack him.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  This was a terrible mistake.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  All of a sudden, the chop started stinging that much more, the punches and kicks a little heavier, and things are going a little too far. But we go at it, and I stay in there. And for the climax of the match, I climb up to the top rope to finish him off with a high-flying maneuver. And it's just like I imagined as a kid. It's magical.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  And I'm soaring through the air,

• 47:50Speaker 03

  only to get caught off mid-air with a dropkick to the chest.

• 47:56Speaker 03

  And he pins me for the 1-2-3. I lose again.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  And I'm leaving the ring, confused, beaten. And a swarm of kids surround me, asking me for autographs, embracing me, taking photos, and it's bizarre.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  And I bend down to greet a few kids, and I feel this little pat on my shoulder. And a little boy says in my ear, "Si se puede." "Yes, you can."

• 48:34Speaker 03

  And I'm beaten. And this kid wants to believe,

• 48:41Speaker 03

  wants to believe that this character should keep fighting.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  And so I do. I take that childhood fantasy and I turn it into an eight-year career as El Conquistador.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Now, it's been almost 10 years since the last time I stepped in the ring. But of course, I think about my adventures as a luchador all the time. But more than anything, I think about that little boy's words. Because when times get most difficult for me, and these last two years have been some of the most challenging, tragic years of my life, of so many of our lives, El Conquista Dor reminds me that it's not always about winning. It's not about being the hero all the time.

• 49:51Speaker 03

  It's about moving through the failures and getting up after the losses. Because as that little kid said, that kid that just wanted to believe, Si se puede. Yes, you can. Yes, we can. Thank you.

• 50:26Meg Bowles?

  Shawn Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist, and his work has been profiled in The New York Times and CNN, and featured in museums like the Guggenheim, Massmoca, and the Bronx Museum, to name a few. His first major public art commission is now on view at FDR for Freedom State Park. Shawn entered into the world of wrestling as research for his art, which explores the hyper-masculine figures he was fascinated with as a child. It had never been his intention to actually pursue a pro career. These days, he says, he misses the catharsis of the fight and the thrill of the crowd, or pop, as they call it in the industry. To see pictures of Shawn in his wrestling regalia, including that 14-foot velvet cape and some amazing action shots from the ring,

• 51:11Meg Bowles?

  visit our website, themoth.org. And while you're there, maybe consider pitching us your story like Shawn did. You don't have to go toe-to-toe with a Mexican wrestler to have a good one. Stories come in all shapes and sizes. So if you have a story you're itching to tell, just look for "Tell a Story" on our website and you'll find all the info for how to pitch us.

• 51:32Speaker 07

  A man goes through his midlife crisis when he experiences the mortality of his father. That rang true to me and it also helped me explain why, in a sudden burst of inspiration, I bought a 20-year-old motorcycle while my father was dying of cancer. I bought this beautiful machine without even knowing how to ride a motorcycle, not even having my license. I didn't tell anyone, especially not in my family, about my purchase because I'm from a traditional Jewish family and it would have killed my mother to know I was out there on the open road. My father's prolonged battle with cancer would come to a head in May 2017 when he was taken to the emergency room because he had trouble breathing. While he was in the ER, his oncologist came down and gave us all the bad news that the experimental treatment that was supposed to save his life hadn't been working and

• 52:18Speaker 07

  this was the end of the road. My sister and I rushed to be by his side and the three of us cried and cried. But for just a moment, we came up for air and I turned to them and I said, "Well, now that you've got your bad news, I may as well tell you I bought a motorcycle." The tears of sadness started to mix with laughter and love and we started to plan our road trips together because that's what you do with dying people, you plan for your future. And he made me promise right then and there to always wear boots when I ride and I still do every time.

• 52:48Meg Bowles?

  You can pitch us your story at themoth.org or you can call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. That's it for this show. We hope you'll join us next time for The Moth Radio Hour.

• 53:15Speaker 07

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. Additional grand slam coaching by Larry Rosen. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Our pitch came from Zach Lipton in London, England. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Stephen Jacobs,

• 53:59Speaker 07

  Blue Dot Sessions, Tommy Guero, Jason Beals, and the El Mariachi Band. We received 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, go to our website, themoth.org.