TV Dreams: The Moth Podcast

This episode originally aired on December 11th, 2020. In this episode, two stories about tv dreams and daytime nightmares. This episode is hosted by Moth producer and director, Michelle Jalowski. Storytellers: Jessica Lee Williamson, Wes Hazard

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:01Speaker 01

  Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host this week, Michelle Jalowski. It's hard to remember a time before Netflix and Hulu and on-demand TV. Even though I grew up without all those things, I'm one of those millennials on the cusp who had a pretty analog childhood. It's been a long time since I watched TV on an actual TV. In this episode, we have two stories about old-fashioned television magic. Our first story is a blast from the past and put me right back to childhood, on the couch in front of the TV. Jessica Lee Williamson told this story at an L.A. Story Slam where the theme of the night was "Respect." Here's Jessica live at The Moth.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  I think that's good. When I was 18, my little sister, for my birthday, she gave me this journal that she had written in the front cover. It said, "To Jessica, if you don't make it as a talk show host, maybe you'll make it as a writer instead. Happy birthday." And when I was 18, that's like the only thing I wanted to do with my life. I was obsessed with the idea of being a talk show host. I would just come home from school and just like sit on the sofa and go through Rosie O'Donnell, Maury Povich, Geraldo, just down the line. And it wasn't my personality that squashed those dreams.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  It was Geraldo Rivera and his live studio audience. I lived in Maryland, which was like three hours away from New York City, and they would always show on the talk show, they'd say, "If you want free tickets to send away," so I had to send away to all of them. I got tickets to all of them, including Geraldo, and I got four tickets, and I invited like the people who I thought were the coolest people I knew. And we had this plan to go up to New York City and go see the show live, and then everyone bailed on me. And I was devastated. And so my mom was like, "I'll drive you up there and go see Geraldo with you."

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Which was horrifying. And then when we got there, this producer came out and said, "Who wants to take part in today's show?" And I rose my hand, because I had this desperate need for attention. And I guess Geraldo's producers had a desperate need for people with a desperate need of attention. Because they picked me to be in their show, even though the theme was "Women Who Date the Wrong Men." I was only 18 years old, and I had only dated two guys in my life, but to be fair, I was

• 3:59Speaker 02

  technically a woman, and they were both technically really wrong for me. I guess it made for really boring television, because Geraldo was like really trying to pump up the drama by pouring on the pity. And, you know, after asking me about my dating experiences, he just kinda grabbed my hand and was massaging it, and it was really weird, because he had this, I think it's a Star of David tattoo in the web of, between his thumb and his index finger, and that's all I could stare at while the cameras are on me, and he just kept massaging my hand and saying, "You poor girl, how are you ever gonna find the right man?"

• 4:48Speaker 02

  And it made me really uncomfortable and I tried to diffuse it with a joke, a really bad joke, something along the lines of, "Well, I guess I'll just dye my hair blonde because every guy I've ever met always likes girls with blonde hair." But it didn't come out with a joke, as a joke, it just came out like a sad person.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  And then that was when the studio audience turned on me and gave me this group lecture on self-respect.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Most of it's foggy, but I remember one woman standing up and just shouting, "Girl, don't ever change yourself for a man."

• 5:37Speaker 02

  At this point, I didn't realize the level of humiliation I had made it to. You know, I still was like, "Oh, this is going all right, I think, this is going all right."

• 5:50Speaker 02

  My mom is a man-hater, um, I'll just put that out on the table right now. She's also Cuban and talks too much, and so I, she was like in the audience, like kinda talking to herself, and then Geraldo noticed. I don't even think he knew she was my mother. He just like saw this woman who had something to say. And he was like, "You look like you've got something to say to her. Why don't you stand up and say it?"

• 6:22Speaker 02

  And all I could think was like, "Oh my fucking god, my mother's gonna embarrass me so bad right now." Like, not realizing how badly I had embarrassed myself. And she stood up and she's, I mean, she's like a talker. It's like, she goes on and on and on, you're just always like, get to the point. And so she gave this really dramatic monologue on women and honoring themselves and having self-respect, and I was just dying the whole time. And then the audience stood up and gave her a standing ovation.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  And then, on our way out, they were all, they were still telling me like, "You can't, you know, you can't dye your hair blonde. You're pretty, just like you are." Giving me this pep talk and, you know, this many years later, I definitely did learn something from it in terms of self-respect of, you know, not changing myself for a man, but nothing in terms of getting up on a stage and humiliating myself in front of hundreds of people. Thank you.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  That was Jessica Lee Williamson. Jessica Lee Williamson is an artist and television writer living in Los Angeles. Her credits include "I'm Dying Up Here," "Medical Police," and "F is for Family." Jessica has also told a whopping 39 stories on Moth stages all around the country. If you want to tell a story at The Moth, remember you can go to our website, themoth.org, to pitch us your story and find information about upcoming slam dates.

• 8:10Speaker 03

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• 10:02Speaker 01

  Up next, Wes Hazard. Wes told this story at a Jersey City Story Slam where the theme of the night was exercise. Here's Wes live at the Moth.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  All right, hey. In October 2017, I got a really good email, maybe the best email I ever got in my life, or at least the most exciting. It told me that I had passed the online test and I was invited to go audition live for Jeopardy. I got to do that. I was very, very excited. Thank you. And sort of an email I've been waiting for for 20 years. I love that show. I really, really enjoy it. And on an average day, if I have the time, I will watch the daily episode of Jeopardy on TV and then like, you know, spend 90 minutes a day looking up random crap on Wikipedia. That's how I have fun. All right. I got that email. I'm like, oh, we're obviously going to orient our entire lives around this now. And so I started going hardcore, like every day watching it. I would watch old episodes on YouTube.

• 11:02Speaker 05

  I bought a student atlas, like minimum 90 minutes map studies every day. UK kings, line of succession. I'm like in the J Archive, like a database of all the online Jeopardy episodes, just every single day, hours. It's just like, you know, and I started like, I started watching it like behind a music stand, standing up with a ballpoint pen in my hand to get the timing down. Like I'm like really into it and. Throw some numbers at you. Every year Jeopardy says, "Yo, we're gonna have an online test." And about 300,000 people say, "I would like to take that test." And Jeopardy allows about 70,000 of those people to take the test. And of those 70,000, 2,500 get invited to go audition live. And of those 2,500, about 400 people per year get to be on Jeopardy. The odds are not in your favor, but I'm like, "Whatever."

• 11:45Speaker 05

  And backtrack, I take in the online test and it's 50 questions. And you know, it just, you know, you're watching them on a screen. A little box pops up, you type in your answer. It stays there for eight seconds and it goes away. And the next question, out of those 50, I know from research online that you gotta get at least 35 out of the 50 to even make the cut. And like, I was scoring like, as I go through, like, you know, I've been doing this, like, and I played high school bowl, college quiz bowl, lost my virginity at 21. Like, I play trivia, alright, like, so, I'm into it. And I think I only got like a 37 on that test, which is not great, but just over the line, alright, fine, great. And then you go in for the live audition and it's three parts. So, the first part is like a 50-question test, again,

• 12:29Speaker 05

  but this is a little bit different because it's recording of Alex Shebeck and he does the answers and they give you a blank sheet with 50 answer spots on here. And you kinda have an advantage with this one, because they don't get yanked away after each question. And if you're moving through these questions at the speed that an average Jeopardy person needs to be at, you're gonna bank some time. Some of them you're just gonna know immediately. Some of them, you might not get immediately, but you can like jot a little note down to yourself. And at the end of that, you know, you get like maybe a minute or so where you can go back and like nail the answers. And I gotta say, I'll stand before you here with humility and say that on that 50-question test, I, um...

• 13:06Speaker 05

  I friggin murdered that, like, 47, just destroyed it, like, "Yeah!" Feeling real strong, like, "Ah!" Woo, yeah. Cause like, three of them, like, alright, I didn't know them, that's life. I didn't know three, but like, at the very end, like, with like 17 seconds left to go, there were just three that were like, just at the top of the tongue, I was like, edge of the mind, I was just like... Basically, what's the capital of Croatia? What is the civil war internment camp where war crimes were committed? And what is the element within your body that helps break down proteins? And I couldn't get it, and I couldn't get it, and I couldn't get it. And then with like 17 seconds left, it was like, Zagreb, Andersonville, Enzine, hell yeah! Like, shit came from God, like, "Ah!" Feeling good, alright, nice. And then you go up and the second part of the interview is like a mock game.

• 13:48Speaker 05

  And they didn't even really care, like, you know, these are just softball questions. You know, there's no stakes, there's no Alex, there's no lights, there's no crowd. It's you and like 20 other people in a hotel room, uh, in whatever town you're in. And I was going there and, uh, they really, they don't care. They just wanna know some basic stuff. Do you know how to play Jeopardy? Do you answer in the form of a question? Do you keep it moving? Do you have good energy? Do you look crazy on TV? Like, you know, basic stuff like that. And I'm just whipping through, I'm like, a man's patient proclamation. Rosa Parks is hitting it, it's like, you know, like John McCain was one of them. That was weird, but I got it. It was nice. And like, so, cool, feeling good on that. And then the third part, uh, is just like a little mock interview. Like, you know, they ask everybody the same question. What would you do if you won a bunch of money?

• 14:30Speaker 05

  And everybody's like, oh, you know, I fixed up the house, pay off some debt, travel, help the grandkids. And I said that I wanted to reunite the cast of the 90's sitcom from Fox, "Living Single", for my 40th birthday party. Yeah, and, uh, they reacted thusly. And at the end of it, I'm like, I'm my own harshest critic. Like, when I fail, I tell myself in detail how I failed and how, you know, maybe we can correct it in the future. I got out of that audition, I was like, Wes, how do you feel you did? And I'm like, I do not think I have, could have conducted myself better. Let's continue to study as if we're gonna be on Jeopardy. And that's a big commitment, cause they tell you nothing. They don't tell you your scores. You don't know, I only know, again, I'm keeping track. Like, they, you get out of there and they're like, alright, everybody, thank you so much for coming. You should be proud you made it this far.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  Uh, if we'll, you know, if we get in touch, you'll be within the next 18 months and that's it. You just go home and wait 18 months for a phone call that may never come, alright? And I'm just like, just like, get out of there, I'm just like, do you? Do you know what pressure is? Like, my god, like, think about the scenarios of like going on Jeopardy. Like, what could happen? Like, best case scenario, you go on, you win like 10, 15, 20 games. You become a minor national celebrity. You go on Fallon, you're like, you know, like, you know, you get to retire and just like play trivia and write trivia books for the rest of your life. That's best case scenario. And I knew that probably wasn't gonna happen. But like, worst case scenario, I was watching a game, the answer was Harriet Tubman at home. And I, and I said, so generic truth. And I'm like, what if that happens, alright? What if I just go on national TV, embarrassing my whole family, getting black history questions wrong? Like, you know, just like that?

• 16:00Speaker 06

  It is insane. It's intense, all right? Just like, ugh. And, and, and like, the, the, all this stuff is going through my head. So like, I got to the point where like, four, five hours a day, easily, like, studying, just like, I got to the point where I wouldn't allow myself to go to bed if I didn't hit five Final Jeopardies in a row. Like, you get one wrong, you better believe you're getting up and looking that whole article up on Wikipedia, like, the whole thing, like, you know, intense. I had Broadway trivia books, Bible trivia, the whole bit. It was crazy. And then, uh, one day, I got, uh, an even better phone call, and then I got an email. And if you happened to watch Jeopardy this past July, you would see that I was a three-time Jeopardy champion. I was very excited. Thank you guys very much.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  That was Wes Hazard. Wes is a comic, storyteller, and actor, and he aims to bring wit, energy, and honesty to the stage, or the Zoom screen. His book, Questions for Terrible People, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016, and features questions like, "What's the biggest lie you've ever told to get a job?" We wanted to hear more from Wes about what it was actually like being on Jeopardy, and to talk a little bit more about the late, great Alex Trebek. Here's Wes.

• 17:15Speaker 06

  Leading up to my performance, or appearance, I should say, on Jeopardy, uh, I'd spent about five months of prep, getting really psyched for it. Uh, what that does not prepare you for is actually being on set and just the, the magic. Um, it's so weird. I had been a Jeopardy fan for 20 years, so I've seen that studio, that set, many, many, many times. So in a way, it felt familiar, uh, but at the same time, it was totally new. You got there, the thing that struck me was how big it was. It was just a massive expansive room, uh, much bigger than it looked on TV. As far as meeting Alex, there was no sort of starstruck quality, um, because he is so

• 17:56Speaker 06

  good at making people comfortable. Like, his job every single day is to take three people who are having the biggest moment of their entire lives, and make them comfortable, get them set to play, put them at ease, and he is so good at it. So, meeting him was just like, this is like an uncle or something, you know? Um, so that was really special, and it was just so great to, to be in his presence. It's hard to believe that, you know, he won't be on the show anymore. Um, and you'll miss him, but I think it just speaks to how good he was at his job. He is an American institution. Um, I will say that I was very sad by his passing, but it felt more like when you see a skyline that no longer has a, a building that you used to love. Uh, it felt like that.

• 18:39Speaker 07

  That was Wes Hazard. That's all for this week. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week.

• 18:48Speaker 07

  Michelle Jalowski is a producer and director at The Moth, where she helps people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world. Podcast production by Julia Purcell.

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