Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's me Maya. You might have heard
Speaker 1: me talk about The Moth before. It's the long standing,
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed podcast where storytellers stand alone under a spotlight
Speaker 1: and tell a true story to a room full of strangers.
Speaker 1: Moth stories are funny, heartbreaking, and enlightening, and sometimes all
Speaker 1: three at the same time, and they celebrate something we
Speaker 1: care a lot about. Here at a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: real people talking about their own lives in their own words.
Speaker 1: If you like the mix of curiosity, vulnerability, and human
Speaker 1: transformation that we explore on our show, we think you'll
Speaker 1: like the Moth too. The episode I'm sharing now, called Advice,
Speaker 1: is all all about wise counsel, listening to your gut
Speaker 1: and learning to practice what you preach. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Chloe Sammon, as an older sister. I love giving advice.
Speaker 1: My brothers might say I love telling them what to do,
Speaker 1: but I object your honor. I say, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of value in having someone pull up a chair, look
Speaker 1: you in your eyes, and give you their honest and
Speaker 1: objective take on whatever ails you Now, acting on that
Speaker 1: advice another thing entirely, and I think that's okay. If
Speaker 1: we always did the sensible thing, I expect there would
Speaker 1: be far fewer good stories in the world.
Speaker 2: And who wants that. So in this episode stories of advice,
Speaker 2: give it taken and not so taken, and a chance
Speaker 2: to ponder your own wisdom, giving chops. When I sit
Speaker 2: down with one of our storytellers who's also an advice columnist,
Speaker 2: who brought in some juicy questions to share with us,
Speaker 2: let's get going. First up is Stacy Nicholson. She told
Speaker 2: this story at a main stage in Fargo, North Dakota,
Speaker 2: where we partnered with Prairie Public Broadcasting. Here's Stacy live
Speaker 2: at them off.
Speaker 3: I don't have a single memory of ever having lunch
Speaker 3: in the lunch room during my entire four years of
Speaker 3: high school. I must have, but if I did, I
Speaker 3: likely ate my lunch as quickly as possible and then
Speaker 3: spent the rest of the lunch period roaming the hallways,
Speaker 3: because I do have a lot of memories of roaming
Speaker 3: the hallways. In my mind, the table's in the lunch
Speaker 3: room were reserved for the cool kids, the big groups
Speaker 3: of friends who sat around laughing and making plans for
Speaker 3: the weekend ahead, and I was definitely not one of
Speaker 3: the cool kids. I was a shy, weird, introvert, but
Speaker 3: I wished I could be the kind of person who
Speaker 3: could sit around a table, laughing and making plans with friends.
Speaker 3: Then in my twenties, I developed an almost crippling social anxiety,
Speaker 3: to the point where I might make myself physically ill
Speaker 3: if I had to go anywhere, especially if somewhere where
Speaker 3: I might not know anybody, because I had decided that
Speaker 3: the world was divided into two groups of people, the
Speaker 3: people who thought I was weird and the people who
Speaker 3: knew I was weird. And since I wasn't going to
Speaker 3: be welcome at any of the cool tables and I
Speaker 3: didn't want to spend my time roaming the halls, it
Speaker 3: was easier to just stay home. But eventually I realized
Speaker 3: that if I was ever going to have the life
Speaker 3: I wanted to have, I was going to have to
Speaker 3: make myself leaper the house, which is how I found
Speaker 3: myself being introduced to my now husband's Skip at Ralph's
Speaker 3: Corner Bar. Skip played bridge, and despite its reputation for
Speaker 3: being a difficult card game, I thought it might be
Speaker 3: something fun that we could do together. So I signed
Speaker 3: up for beginning bridge class three times because bridge is hard,
Speaker 3: but I was determined to learn. The last bridge class
Speaker 3: I took was held in one of the meeting rooms
Speaker 3: of the Bowler. There were four or five tables with
Speaker 3: four bridge players per table, and we would sit around
Speaker 3: practicing with whoever had ended up at our table, raising
Speaker 3: our hands frequently to ask the teacher questions about how
Speaker 3: to bid, or score or play a hand. I was
Speaker 3: twenty six and everyone else was at least sixty. It
Speaker 3: was mostly women, mostly widowed or divorced, and mostly retired,
Speaker 3: and I liked these women, but I was intimidated by them,
Speaker 3: so I would usually sit quietly and listen while they
Speaker 3: told stories between the hands. And these women told great stories,
Speaker 3: like when one was explaining how her husband had left
Speaker 3: him after his high school reunion for his high school sweetheart,
Speaker 3: and another one piped up, you're kidding The exact same
Speaker 3: thing happened to me, And I was finally feeling like
Speaker 3: I was getting the hangar bridge, and I probably could
Speaker 3: play socially, but the people in the class and Skip
Speaker 3: were the only people I knew who played bridge, and
Speaker 3: he worked nights and I worked days, so I was
Speaker 3: sad when the class was ending and I wasn't going
Speaker 3: to have anyone to play with anymore. But I completely
Speaker 3: shocked myself when at the end of that last class
Speaker 3: I looked around and blurted out, does anyone want to
Speaker 3: come to my house next week and just play bridge?
Speaker 3: And before I could even think to myself, what have
Speaker 3: I just done, seven of the ladies said they'd be
Speaker 3: happy to come to my house the next week and
Speaker 3: play bridge. And that's when the real terror set in.
Speaker 3: I was going to have to go home and tell
Speaker 3: my roommate, who was even younger than I was, that
Speaker 3: I had invited seven senior citizens over for a bridge
Speaker 3: party the following Monday night. Eight people means two tables
Speaker 3: at bridge, and all I had was my dining room
Speaker 3: table in four chairs. I had never thrown an adult
Speaker 3: party before, and I was going to be entertaining women
Speaker 3: who had been entertaining for longer than I had been live,
Speaker 3: so I was worried I was going to make a
Speaker 3: fool of myself. But I borrowed a beat up old
Speaker 3: card table and four folding chairs for my parents. I
Speaker 3: knew food was an important part of the success of
Speaker 3: any party. So I loaded up on everything I could
Speaker 3: think of, chips, nuts, candy, meat, cheese, crackers, veggies, fruit, coffee, soda, tea, dessert.
Speaker 3: I got the required four decks of bridge cards, tallies
Speaker 3: and scoresets, and I waited, and on Monday night, I
Speaker 3: was a nervous wreck and nauseous, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: call the whole thing off. But in my panic following
Speaker 3: my surprise invitation, I didn't get any of their phone numbers.
Speaker 3: So I was stuck waiting and worrying and hoping for
Speaker 3: the best. And they all showed up all together, right
Speaker 3: on time at seven o'clock. There wasge A selvishured take
Speaker 3: charged Lady Sally, a barely five foot tall sweetheart, Greta, Sheila, Gail, Helen,
Speaker 3: and Janet, whose husband had left her after his high
Speaker 3: school reunion. I invited them in and we all had
Speaker 3: to squeeze around the card table in the middle of
Speaker 3: my little living room in my little apartment. I showed
Speaker 3: them around, I invited them to help themselves to the refreshments.
Speaker 3: We divided between the two tables and we started to
Speaker 3: play bridge and get to know each other. We played
Speaker 3: twenty four hands a bridge, six hands with one partner,
Speaker 3: then rotate to another. We weren't very confident, and we
Speaker 3: weren't very good. We went back and forth between the tables,
Speaker 3: showing each other our hands and saying, what should I
Speaker 3: do with this hand? How should I bid this? And
Speaker 3: we gave each other a lot of questionable advice, but
Speaker 3: we laughed and we had fun, and they were eating
Speaker 3: my snacks, so I couldn't believe I had pulled it off.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the night, Sally stood up
Speaker 3: and said, does anyone want to come to my house
Speaker 3: next week and play bridge? And we did so. The
Speaker 3: next week we played at Sally's same routine, twenty four
Speaker 3: hands a bridge, lots of questions, lots of questionable advice,
Speaker 3: and lots of laughs. And at the end of that
Speaker 3: night somebody else asked if we wanted to come to
Speaker 3: their house the next week. So we played the week
Speaker 3: after that, and the week after that and the week
Speaker 3: after that, with someone volunteering at the end of each
Speaker 3: night to host the following week. Sometimes someone would have
Speaker 3: to miss, so our group expanded to include regulars and subs.
Speaker 3: I lived in constant fear that they would replace me
Speaker 3: as a regular. So any anytime I had to miss
Speaker 3: a week, I made sure to volunteer to host the
Speaker 3: next week so they couldn't exclude me. And at the
Speaker 3: end of every night, we had dessert. Sometimes we had
Speaker 3: dessert at ten thirty or eleven o'clock at night, but
Speaker 3: we always had dessert. And depending on where we were,
Speaker 3: we might be having dessert at two tables of four
Speaker 3: or one big table of eight. But I finally had
Speaker 3: a big group of friends sitting around a table, laughing
Speaker 3: and making plans. Maybe we weren't making plans about boys
Speaker 3: or parties, but we were at least making plans for
Speaker 3: next Monday night. And at some point, I don't know
Speaker 3: how or when, I looked around and realized I wasn't
Speaker 3: at the cool table. I was the cool table. Anytime
Speaker 3: anybody knew came into our group, I was introduced as
Speaker 3: this is Stacy, the young wanner. This is Stacy, she
Speaker 3: keeps us young. These women were I'm sitting with me
Speaker 3: because they had to, or because there was no room
Speaker 3: at another table. These women were sitting with me because
Speaker 3: they wanted to. Somehow I had become the life of
Speaker 3: the party, and I loved it we played Bridge on
Speaker 3: Monday nights for twenty one years. Who my ticket to
Speaker 3: the cool table has been a Bridge tally.
Speaker 4: But even more.
Speaker 3: Important than that, I've learned there's a third group of
Speaker 3: people out there. Besides the people who think I'm weird
Speaker 3: and the people who know I'm weird, there are the
Speaker 3: people who know I'm weird and love my weird And
Speaker 3: that has been the true gift of Bridge. Thank you.
Speaker 2: That was Stacy Nicholson. She spent seventeen years as a
Speaker 2: legal assistant, turning other people's lives into affidavits for the court.
Speaker 2: Stacy ventured into live storytelling, hoping to build the courage
Speaker 2: and skill to share stories at funerals and overcome her
Speaker 2: fear of public speaking. Most of the practical advice she
Speaker 2: got from her newfound friends was Bridge related, how to
Speaker 2: play bid, bridge etiquette and so on helpful. Even more
Speaker 2: helpful was the unspoken advice in her Bridge ladies. Stacey
Speaker 2: found a blueprint for how to get older without getting old,
Speaker 2: Keep learning, have fun, and laugh a lot. In a moment,
Speaker 2: a stranded teenager gets some words of wisdom from his mom.
Speaker 2: When the Moth Radio Hour continues.
Speaker 4: The Moth Radio hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media
Speaker 4: in Woodshole, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloe Salmon. In
Speaker 2: this episode stories of advice, both given and taken. Our
Speaker 2: next storyteller gets some guidance from that bottomless well of
Speaker 2: wisdom moms. Honestly, if I had started listening to my
Speaker 2: mom's advice fifteen years ago, I might be president now.
Speaker 2: Mike Falan told this at a story slam in Burlington, Vermont,
Speaker 2: where we partner with Vermont Public. Where's Mike.
Speaker 5: So this was a junior year of high school. I
Speaker 5: had just been dumped for the first time, and I decided.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, you know, I'll give myself a
Speaker 5: little vacation. So I went down to Florida to visit
Speaker 5: my grandparents and it was like February.
Speaker 4: Weather's great.
Speaker 5: I had a good time, and I'm coming back and
Speaker 5: I fly from like Florida to like Atlanta to La
Speaker 5: Guardia and then Burlington. I get to La Guardia at like,
Speaker 5: I think, like seven thirty or something, and I mean,
Speaker 5: I didn't know it at the time, but we were
Speaker 5: in the middle of the of the winter's biggest snowstorm
Speaker 5: that year. And so I'm I'm in the airport and
Speaker 5: it's snowing and flight from LaGuardia to Burlington and delayed
Speaker 5: like two hours or something. It's like nine thirty now
Speaker 5: and it gets delayed again. I'm like, okay, it's getting
Speaker 5: a little late. Call my mom and I was like, hey,
Speaker 5: like the flight's been delayed a little bit. It's snowing
Speaker 5: pretty hard. And she panics, and so she's like trying
Speaker 5: to find all these ways to get me home. And
Speaker 5: she's like, you know what, like just go get a
Speaker 5: hotel somewhere in New York. I'm like, She's like, go
Speaker 5: talk to the front desk, like they'll get you something.
Speaker 5: I go. I go up to the front desk and
Speaker 5: I'm I'm like, hey, you know, I can't get home.
Speaker 5: I'm sixteen.
Speaker 6: And they were like, I can't do anything. It's it's
Speaker 6: weather related.
Speaker 5: We can't get you a hotel. We wait some more
Speaker 5: and it's like eleven thirty eleven forty five and they
Speaker 5: just cancel the flight completely. And so I'm like, Mom, like.
Speaker 6: I I don't know what to do.
Speaker 5: I can just sleep on the on the floor, not
Speaker 5: even sleep, just like hang out here. And she's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: maybe like Wednesday night, next light go up again. I
Speaker 5: think it was a Monday, and they say our next
Speaker 5: light to Burlington's on Wednesday. And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: I can't do this, mom, I'll just get an hotel room.
Speaker 5: Like I'll figure it out. I had like three hundred
Speaker 5: dollars maybe to my bank in my bank account, like
Speaker 5: any other sixteen year old.
Speaker 6: But I'm on the phone with my mom and she says.
Speaker 5: She and she's like she's run out of option. She's like,
Speaker 5: just go find a mom. And I was like, I
Speaker 5: was like, what what do you mean. She's like, just
Speaker 5: look around, find a.
Speaker 6: Mom, like in your in your gate.
Speaker 4: And I was like okay.
Speaker 5: So so I walk around and I'm like like stort
Speaker 5: of looking at all these people and I see this,
Speaker 5: like I see this kind of young couple maybe like
Speaker 5: thirty some forty with her two young boys, and and
Speaker 5: so I was like, mom, like, I think I found
Speaker 5: another mom. And so so I go up and yeah,
Speaker 5: this lady's like on the floor with her two little
Speaker 5: kids and uh.
Speaker 4: And then I go up.
Speaker 5: I'm like hey, like my mom told me to find you,
Speaker 5: and she's like okay, and I hear my I have
Speaker 5: my mom on the punch and I'm like here, and
Speaker 5: I give her the phone and uh and she talking
Speaker 5: to this and she's like yep, yep. And I'm just
Speaker 5: like sitting there like really awkward, like I see the dad.
Speaker 5: I was like, how's it going, and and so she's
Speaker 5: like yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and and gives.
Speaker 6: The phone back.
Speaker 5: And I talked to my mom and she's like, all right,
Speaker 5: this lady's gonna give you a ride home. They're from Virgins.
Speaker 6: I live in Underhill.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, this is like it's now like midnight.
Speaker 5: And they rent a car and I get in the
Speaker 5: car with this family, as my mom instructed me to do,
Speaker 5: and and I drive five hours back. I tried, I
Speaker 5: remember like distinctly, like I try to. She put her
Speaker 5: two young kids in the back and I'm like climbing
Speaker 5: in the back.
Speaker 6: She's like, oh, you can go up front.
Speaker 4: I was like, that makes sense, that's fair.
Speaker 5: And so I sit up front and I'm talking to
Speaker 5: this guy who's like older obviously, and to put things
Speaker 5: into perspective, he seemed like the kind of guy who
Speaker 5: was into country music, where I was listening to a
Speaker 5: lot of Nirvana at the time, and so we weren't
Speaker 5: really relating much. We're just like, oh, like crazy storm.
Speaker 6: Huh and uh.
Speaker 5: So it's a really awkward, awkward drive five hours.
Speaker 4: It's it's a long time.
Speaker 5: We get home or we get to Virgin's at like
Speaker 5: five am. My mom meets us at this gas station
Speaker 5: and uh oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Blu blah driving me back. I get home at.
Speaker 5: Like six am or something, fall asleep. But all I
Speaker 5: can say is that Lady Luck must be a mother.
Speaker 2: Mike Falan is a twenty five year old special educator
Speaker 2: from Vermont who spends his non working time rock climbing, traveling,
Speaker 2: and exploring nature. Find a mom is honestly some all
Speaker 2: time advice. The second best advice he's ever been given.
Speaker 2: Never mop yourself into a corner. This from his boss
Speaker 2: at his first pizza joint job, after Mike cleaned the
Speaker 2: floor in the wrong direction at closing. Applicable in mopping
Speaker 2: and in life. Our next storyteller finds her love advice
Speaker 2: in the world of telenovelas For Better and for Worse.
Speaker 2: Jersey Garcia told this story at a Grand Slam in Miami,
Speaker 2: where we partner with public radio station WLRN. Here's Jersey
Speaker 2: live at the mop.
Speaker 5: Hello.
Speaker 7: So I am Dominican. My parents raise me in New
Speaker 7: York City. I'm from the Heights, Washington Heights. What that
Speaker 7: means is also that I was taught from an early
Speaker 7: age that you should never fall in love and if
Speaker 7: you have the unfortunate event, or that unfortunate event happens
Speaker 7: to you, you should never let anybody know about it,
Speaker 7: especially the person you fell in love with. How I
Speaker 7: learned this was because my mom told me and my cousins,
Speaker 7: and also because I used to watch the telenae last
Speaker 7: with her and there I was sitting next to her
Speaker 7: and she's seeing Susana Juaquing and Susana it's Juaquin just
Speaker 7: cheated on her. I don't know what he did, but
Speaker 7: she was there crying and.
Speaker 2: Pleading with him, don't leave me.
Speaker 7: I love you so much. And my mom is sitting
Speaker 7: there Kip and they had this girl is just like
Speaker 7: I can't don't you ever? Don't you ever? And I'm
Speaker 7: there seven years old with my little you know, bunitos happening,
Speaker 7: and just trying to learn from my mom and from
Speaker 7: telenovelas what not to do. And also you also learned
Speaker 7: from the telenovelas that if something happened, you had to
Speaker 7: make an exit. You had to cry out in this fashion, out,
Speaker 7: oh my god, I almost die, Come and follow me.
Speaker 7: Because the idea is that you had to play hard
Speaker 7: to get and they had to come and get you.
Speaker 7: So when I first fell in love, I was in
Speaker 7: my sophomore year in high school and I fell in
Speaker 7: love with Adrian Greeves. After dating him for a week,
Speaker 7: number day seven, he called me and broke up with me.
Speaker 7: So I went to my room and started crying, and
Speaker 7: my mom stands at the door of the room and
Speaker 7: she's like, Francco, come and see Come and see this tobacco.
Speaker 7: She's crying for a boy, the disgust in her voice.
Speaker 7: But I did not tell Adrian, although I was looking
Speaker 7: for him in the hallways of the school, looking for him,
Speaker 7: to just get a glimpse of him, because I spent
Speaker 7: two years afterwards really like hurting, and because I was
Speaker 7: in love with this kid. But I will never show
Speaker 7: him that I was in love or that I even
Speaker 7: missed him. The second time I fell in love, I
Speaker 7: was in college and I went to visit this young
Speaker 7: man who I was dating already for like a year
Speaker 7: or something, and I don't know what happened. I found
Speaker 7: a letter. It became a blur. I tried to remember
Speaker 7: what that deelenovelas told me to do, and that was
Speaker 7: to run out of the room in desperation, hoping that
Speaker 7: he will follow me and come and get me.
Speaker 2: No, don't leave, Jersey, don't leave, don't leave me.
Speaker 6: I love you so much.
Speaker 7: I went outside. He never came out to get me.
Speaker 7: I was it was cold, it was very cold. I
Speaker 7: came back to the room and he was sleeping. But
Speaker 7: that's fine, that's fine. And I did what years opposed
Speaker 7: to do, which is give back everything that he gave
Speaker 7: you and leave the room and don't talk to him
Speaker 7: anymore and never tell him that you were really in
Speaker 7: love and yet your heart was broken. So the third
Speaker 7: time that I fell in love was recently after as
Speaker 7: an adult and dating after divorce, I met a man
Speaker 7: who I fell in love with. And after like eleven
Speaker 7: months of dating, he came up to me and he
Speaker 7: said something about having cold feet and some song. Some song.
Speaker 7: So I'm like, okay, here, let's see what is the
Speaker 7: telenovela script that I'm going to do on this one.
Speaker 7: I got a sadana's back, took all his items that
Speaker 7: he had left in my house, put them in a
Speaker 7: sadana's back, handed to him, gave him a coupon for
Speaker 7: the special on socks they had in Walmart because God,
Speaker 7: and I gave him also the Christmas card that he
Speaker 7: gave me. And he will never see in me that
Speaker 7: I was suffering and that I was in love with
Speaker 7: him and that my heart was broken. The irony of
Speaker 7: my behavior is that I am a licensed marriage and
Speaker 7: family therapist. So what do I tell my clients that
Speaker 7: come to me and are heartbroken or in this type
Speaker 7: of situation. No, you need to go back out there
Speaker 7: and tell that person how you feel you besket for me,
Speaker 7: You're gonna go out. It's about vulnerability, it's about opening
Speaker 7: your heart, is about sharing. Not this girl right here,
Speaker 7: No way, I won't do that. And it's funny because
Speaker 7: that summer that this gentleman had broken up with me,
Speaker 7: I had like it was like the summer of heartbreaks,
Speaker 7: and everybody that was coming in my office was experiencing heartbreak.
Speaker 7: But the interesting thing too, is that this gentleman that
Speaker 7: broke up with me a year and so ago. He
Speaker 7: will always keep texting me just to say to check
Speaker 7: in and say hello. And every time he checked in
Speaker 7: my and said hello, Hi, Jersey, how you doing. I
Speaker 7: my heart just broke a little bit more and I
Speaker 7: just got so sad. I will just you know, respond
Speaker 7: with me. I'm totally fine. Everything is fine, kids are fine,
Speaker 7: life is fine. I yes, but recently, actually a couple
Speaker 7: of weeks ago, he text and he asked that question, Hey, Jersey,
Speaker 7: how you're doing? And I responded, I said, I haven't
Speaker 7: forgotten you. I think about you every day since the
Speaker 7: day we broke up. Every time you text me, my
Speaker 7: heart breaks just a little bit. And one thing that
Speaker 7: I regret not telling you when we were together was.
Speaker 1: That I love you.
Speaker 2: That was Jersey Garcia. She's a divorce mother of two
Speaker 2: who facilitates therapeutic healing for couples and individuals. She obsesses
Speaker 2: over astrology and the meaning of life while loving up
Speaker 2: on John, who she considers to finally be the one.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 2: Something I love about Jersey's story is her total honesty
Speaker 2: and the difference between giving advice as a therapist and
Speaker 2: actually taking said advice. Thank you for admitting that it's
Speaker 2: hard in that spirit, Jersey says she's found that what
Speaker 2: sometimes works best with clients isn't regurgitating academic knowledge, but
Speaker 2: sharing some of the ups and downs of her own experiences.
Speaker 2: In a moment, a young one man reckons with his
Speaker 2: love life on a hike in the Oklahoma wilderness, and
Speaker 2: I sit down with that storyteller, who's also an advice columnist,
Speaker 2: to hear some tricks at the trade and give some
Speaker 2: advice of our own when the Moth Radio Hour continues.
Speaker 4: The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media
Speaker 4: and Woodshole, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Chloe Sanmon, and
Speaker 2: in this episode we're hearing stories on the theme of advice.
Speaker 2: Our final story is told by John Paul Bramer, who
Speaker 2: shared it at a main stage at the Hanover Theater
Speaker 2: in Worcester, Massachusetts. Here's John Paul.
Speaker 8: People tend to pair up pretty early in Cash, the
Speaker 8: small town in Oklahoma where I'm from. My parents, for example,
Speaker 8: met as sophomores in high school, and I was around
Speaker 8: that age when I first met Corey. Blonde hair, blue eyes,
Speaker 8: big muscles, Christian fundamentalist, completely out of my league. Nevertheless,
Speaker 8: Corey took an interest in me, the shy, quiet kid
Speaker 8: in Oklahoma, those are synonymus for homosexual, but I was
Speaker 8: deeply in the closet being gay my neck of the
Speaker 8: woods really wasn't an option. I remember one kid got
Speaker 8: bullied for a solid week because he wore a Hollister
Speaker 8: logo shirt to school. This other kid was like, he's
Speaker 8: got a bird on his shirt like a girl. Still,
Speaker 8: when Corey sat down next to me in first period
Speaker 8: chemistry class, my heart fluttered. I'll never figured his first
Speaker 8: words to me, Yo, So what's your relationship with Christ?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 8: I knew that Corey was part of a weird Christian
Speaker 8: youth group, one of those hip non denominational churches that's
Speaker 8: down with skateboarding and skinny genes, but not women's suffrage. I, meanwhile,
Speaker 8: was very busy pursuing becoming a devout Catholic because it
Speaker 8: was something to do. I was actually in the expedited
Speaker 8: confirmation classes for the elderly and the dying for reasons
Speaker 8: they never revealed to me. But all this is to
Speaker 8: say that Corey and I we were at Starcross from
Speaker 8: the jump, and I was way too into my Catholic
Speaker 8: Sacraments to deal with his Protestant nonsense. But he was
Speaker 8: so cute, and I was so desperate from male attention
Speaker 8: of any kind that I was willing to engage theological
Speaker 8: debates to get it. So I compromised. I wouldn't go
Speaker 8: to his weird church, but I would meet Corey for lunch.
Speaker 8: And then we met for lunch again and again and again.
Speaker 8: We spent many a lunch hour in his parked car,
Speaker 8: fighting over the existence of God and debating the concept
Speaker 8: of sin, and exploring each other's bodies.
Speaker 6: Third thing really threw.
Speaker 8: Me for a loop, but I wasn't going to complain,
Speaker 8: and other than that, it was practically Bible study. Within
Speaker 8: the span of six months, I was confirmed John Paul,
Speaker 8: Saint Juan Diego Hernandez Bramer, Corey left his weird youth group,
Speaker 8: and I had fallen.
Speaker 6: Deeply in love.
Speaker 8: I got to know Corey like the back of my hand,
Speaker 8: and that he was deaf in his left ear from
Speaker 8: a fist fight he had too as a kid, so
Speaker 8: I always had to speak into his right. I knew
Speaker 8: that his dad was an out of work flooring guy
Speaker 8: who'd been hit hard by the recession, and that his mom,
Speaker 8: a segretary at the smoke meats company in town, was
Speaker 8: the breadwinner of the family. He got used to being
Speaker 8: at my place, I got used to being at his.
Speaker 8: We'd play call of duty, roam the aisles of Walmart,
Speaker 8: commit light theft, go on hikes in the witch Tal
Speaker 8: wildlife Refuge, and when we were certain we were alone
Speaker 8: and that we wouldn't get caught, we would fool around.
Speaker 6: And this was.
Speaker 8: Actually a perfect system for me, a person with no
Speaker 8: intention of ever coming out but who still.
Speaker 6: Kind of wanted to do hand stuff why not.
Speaker 8: But Corey, for his part, made it abundantly clear that
Speaker 8: he wanted to be normal. We could fool around, but
Speaker 8: only when he wanted to. We should do our best
Speaker 8: not to be seen together too often in public, and
Speaker 8: we should definitely never ever acknowledge that there was anything.
Speaker 6: Gay going on between us.
Speaker 8: These were good old fashioned heterosexual hand jobs between best bros.
Speaker 8: Those are Corey's rules, and you know what, I abided
Speaker 8: by them reluctantly at first, but then without even really
Speaker 8: questioning them. Before I knew it, Corey was completely in
Speaker 8: the driver's seat. Literally, even when we were in my car,
Speaker 8: he didn't let me drive.
Speaker 6: And I got used to it.
Speaker 8: I truly believed, in my heart of hearts, this was
Speaker 8: as good as a closet country kid was ever going
Speaker 8: to get and I shouldn't do anything to mess it up.
Speaker 6: I mean, this is someone.
Speaker 8: Who wanted to spend time with me, someone who talked
Speaker 8: to me, someone who even touched me sometimes. That was
Speaker 8: more than I was used to, and I guess that's.
Speaker 6: All I thought I deserved.
Speaker 8: I mean, where else was I going to find a
Speaker 8: relationship like this without having to come out? And yeah,
Speaker 8: I was pretty sure that my family wouldn't care if
Speaker 8: I came.
Speaker 6: Out as gay, but this was still rule Oklahoma.
Speaker 8: And to be honest with you, I kind of thought
Speaker 8: I had enough stuff going on as it was. I
Speaker 8: was Mexican American. I was left handed two things.
Speaker 6: I was and.
Speaker 8: Continue to be incredibly embarrassed to be alive. And I'm
Speaker 8: really just trying to make it to death without making
Speaker 8: too much of a fuss. And that's definitely how I
Speaker 8: approached my relationship to Corey. I never wanted to ask
Speaker 8: for too much, so my grand plan for us both
Speaker 8: was we would continue being best buds until one of
Speaker 8: us died. We would move to the city, where we
Speaker 8: would both get jobs and wives, of course, and we
Speaker 8: could be neighbors, and I could survive off the scraps
Speaker 8: of affection that he sometimes offered me behind closed doors.
Speaker 8: And now that to me was dreaming big. A miserable
Speaker 8: year like this went by. Then came the summer.
Speaker 6: After we graduated high school.
Speaker 8: I was going to owe You, about an hour and
Speaker 8: a half away, and Corey was going to the community
Speaker 8: college in town. I didn't know how to tell him
Speaker 8: how terrified I was at the idea of being apart
Speaker 8: from him. I mean, I didn't know what daily life
Speaker 8: looked like without this guy. I'd memorized all four of
Speaker 8: his orders at all four of the restaurants in town.
Speaker 8: We knew each other's deepest secrets. We worry each other's
Speaker 8: deepest secret, but we didn't have the language to talk
Speaker 8: about that, so we didn't. We just kept doing what
Speaker 8: we always did. We kept hanging out, we kept fooling around,
Speaker 8: and we kept going on hikes. One of these hikes
Speaker 8: was Elk Mountain, a two and a half miletrail that
Speaker 8: we'd done probably dozens of times before, but that day
Speaker 8: when we did it, we ran into something out of
Speaker 8: the ordinary, something really cute. First came the big wet nose,
Speaker 8: then two bulbous eyes, then the fuzzy reddish hair, A
Speaker 8: precious baby bison, to be clear, was a death sentence.
Speaker 8: Here's some Oki wisdom for you. Where there's a baby bison,
Speaker 8: there's a mama bison. Bro was the last thing I
Speaker 8: heard before that bison came charging at us through the brush.
Speaker 6: And so Corey and I.
Speaker 8: We throw ourselves off the untamed side of the mountain,
Speaker 8: rocks and branches scratching and scraping us the whole way down,
Speaker 8: and before we know it, we're far from the trail
Speaker 8: that we were just on. So we get up, we
Speaker 8: dust ourselves off, try to laugh at the situation, and
Speaker 8: then we go looking for the trail and we look,
Speaker 8: and we look, and we look. The thing about being
Speaker 8: lost in the woods is that it takes a good
Speaker 8: long while to accept. Your brain just kind of gloms
Speaker 8: onto this delusional belief that life as you know it
Speaker 8: is a couple steps that way, and you go a
Speaker 8: couple steps that way.
Speaker 6: It's not.
Speaker 8: But as we're carrying on like this and getting progressively
Speaker 8: more lost, it's dawning on me that people wouldn't even
Speaker 8: think to look for us until nighttime. The sky darkens,
Speaker 8: clouds gather starts to rain. But isn't until I hear
Speaker 8: a rattle by my feet that I realize we're in
Speaker 8: real trouble. And a lot of things went through my
Speaker 8: head as I stared down at that rattlesnake. Some of
Speaker 8: them made sense, like I wonder if my mom knows
Speaker 8: I love her. Others were kind of silly, like wow,
Speaker 8: my sister and I weren't done with burn notice yet.
Speaker 8: I back away slowly, And when I'm certain that I
Speaker 8: have somehow survived this close encounter with a rattlesnake, I
Speaker 8: say what I should have said hours ago. I say, Corey,
Speaker 8: we need to call the rangers. My phone's dead because
Speaker 8: I'm myself. So he pulls his out, but then he hesitates,
Speaker 8: can't do that, man, And I'm like why not? And
Speaker 8: he goes bro, if we call the rangers, they're gonna
Speaker 8: send a helicopter, and if they send a helicopter, it's
Speaker 8: gonna be on the news. And I'm sitting there like okay,
Speaker 8: And I just couldn't believe that this guy that I
Speaker 8: knew so well, this guy that I was in love
Speaker 8: with was acting like this right now, But it was
Speaker 8: because I knew him so well that actually I kind
Speaker 8: of knew exactly a what he was thinking. There were
Speaker 8: rumors in town about me and Corey. People wondered why
Speaker 8: we spent so much time together, and so, as crazy
Speaker 8: as it might sound to you and me, here today,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna walk you through life. According to Corey, in
Speaker 8: that moment, we would call the rangers, the Rangers would
Speaker 8: send a helicopter, and the Rangers sending a helicopter would
Speaker 8: inevitably lead to a local news headline like two gays
Speaker 8: rescued from Brokeback Mountain with our pictures right underneath. That's
Speaker 8: exactly what he was thinking. But just because I could
Speaker 8: read his mind does not mean I liked what I saw.
Speaker 8: To be honest with you, my heart was broken. I
Speaker 8: didn't know that his shame of us and of me
Speaker 8: went that deep. But maybe he'd literally rather die than
Speaker 8: be caught.
Speaker 6: Seen with me.
Speaker 8: That's why I decided to do something out of character.
Speaker 8: I snatched the phone right out of his hands, which
Speaker 8: for us is unprecedented shocking, And we're staring each other
Speaker 8: for a little bit in the silence that sometimes falls
Speaker 8: between two people who know each other a little too well.
Speaker 6: I think you knew exactly what I was saying.
Speaker 8: So I have the phone, and with it I call
Speaker 8: the rangers, and IT rings and IT rings.
Speaker 6: And IT rings, and.
Speaker 8: I do wonder if my little moment of triumph is
Speaker 8: going to be squandered and I am going to die
Speaker 8: on Situationship Mountain. But then the Heaven's part a voice
Speaker 8: on the other side, a ranger.
Speaker 6: Are you lost?
Speaker 8: A voice so tender and so passionate. I just want
Speaker 8: to break down right then and there and say more
Speaker 8: than you know.
Speaker 6: She really might as well have said.
Speaker 8: Oh baby, you're gay. So she directs us towards a
Speaker 8: valley which will lead to a clearing, which will then
Speaker 8: take us to the parking lot. And as we're making
Speaker 8: our way down the valley, Corey is practically moping behind
Speaker 8: me about being saved, I think because he realizes what
Speaker 8: I realize, which is that we never would have found
Speaker 8: this way out on our own. And maybe he's a
Speaker 8: little embarrassed that I'm walking ahead of him.
Speaker 6: So we make it to the clearing. Through the trees,
Speaker 6: I can see.
Speaker 8: The parking lot and I've never in my whole life.
Speaker 8: Been so happy to see a two thousand and nine
Speaker 8: Honda Civic make it to the car. I climb into
Speaker 8: the driver's seat. Thank you very much. And I am wet,
Speaker 8: i am scratched, I'm I'm bleeding, but I'm also proud.
Speaker 8: The world seemed new and bigger. Now I could had
Speaker 8: a little more room for me than I thought.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That was John Paul Bramer, an author and illustrator from
Speaker 2: Oklahoma who currently lives in New York and Surprise. In
Speaker 2: addition to being a stellar storyteller, John Paul is also
Speaker 2: an advice columnist. His column Ola Poppy has counseled hundreds
Speaker 2: of loyal readers for eight years. In honor of this episode,
Speaker 2: I asked if he'd come and chat with me about
Speaker 2: what it's like to give advice professionally, and as a
Speaker 2: special treat, we'll also hear a couple of the questions
Speaker 2: his readers have said and give them some advice. Hey,
Speaker 2: John Paul, it is so great to have you here today.
Speaker 6: Hey Chloe, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy you're here. All right. You're a very
Speaker 2: funny person. It shows up in your story. But something
Speaker 2: else that I really love about your story is its
Speaker 2: vulnerability and its tenderness. So how do you find yourself
Speaker 2: striking that balance when you give advice to your readers?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I'm very lucky in that Ola Poppy
Speaker 8: started at Grinder, and so I, you know, didn't take
Speaker 8: it as a very serious endeavor like I don't have
Speaker 8: to be dear Abby here. In fact, the whole project
Speaker 8: of Ola Poppy was me being like, what if I
Speaker 8: kind of made fun of Dear Abby, or like did
Speaker 8: a satire where like dear Abbey is a gay Latino
Speaker 8: man on Grinder.
Speaker 6: I thought that would be so funny.
Speaker 8: But then, but then, so here's the thing about running
Speaker 8: an advice column on Grinder, where it gets pushed to
Speaker 8: the app. A lot of people on Grinder are in
Speaker 8: the queer community. A lot of them are lonely, because
Speaker 8: if you're on Grinder, you're looking for something right, And
Speaker 8: they were like, I have a lot to get off
Speaker 8: my chest, and so a lot of these letters were
Speaker 8: very heartfelt, they were very poignant.
Speaker 6: They made me very emotional.
Speaker 8: So today, even still, the recipe for an Ola Poppy
Speaker 8: column still has that intention towards humor. It's baked into
Speaker 8: its DNA, but it's also little earnest, it's a little vulnerable.
Speaker 8: It's me sitting down at the bar with you being like, hey,
Speaker 8: I've been where you've been. But it does feel like
Speaker 8: I have this Poppy persona. There's a room in my
Speaker 8: brain that's dedicated to Poppy, and he's like this kind
Speaker 8: of separate person. He has his own quirks, he has
Speaker 8: his own way of doing things. And I really like
Speaker 8: it that way because I have people ask me, you know,
Speaker 8: do you feel like you.
Speaker 6: Are wise enough to give advice?
Speaker 8: Do you feel like you're the kind of person who
Speaker 8: can actually help someone? And I'm like, not me, but
Speaker 8: like this thing in my brain, or like this character
Speaker 8: up here kind of can Yeah. And I really enjoy
Speaker 8: that because it lets me be as messy as I
Speaker 8: want and need to be. So I go out and
Speaker 8: I collect the life experiences that Poppy needs to use
Speaker 8: to make advice.
Speaker 2: John Paul, you have very kindly brought in a couple
Speaker 2: of questions that have been sent to you. I will
Speaker 2: read the first one. Ola Poppy, my friend and I
Speaker 2: have known each other for over fifteen years, and I've
Speaker 2: always considered her one of my best friends. As well
Speaker 2: as one of my few friendships that's endured several moves, schools,
Speaker 2: and countries. My perception of our friendship was shaken last fall.
Speaker 2: She had gotten married in a small, pandemic wedding and
Speaker 2: had always said she'd put on a bigger wedding to
Speaker 2: invite all her friends once it was feasible. I heard
Speaker 2: from a mutual friend that the wedding was officially being planned,
Speaker 2: but no date had been set yet. I didn't think
Speaker 2: anything of it until a couple months later, when her
Speaker 2: sister messaged me and asked whether I was coming to
Speaker 2: the wedding. It was then I learned that not only
Speaker 2: had a date already been set, but it was hardly
Speaker 2: a month away. The day of the wedding passed and
Speaker 2: she posted all over social media about it. I liked
Speaker 2: the post, hoping she'd see the notification and reach out
Speaker 2: with an explanation. It's been half a year already and
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to stop obsessing over it. Even
Speaker 2: the funny post we would send one another have dried up.
Speaker 2: How do I make peace with the fact that my
Speaker 2: longest friendship is over and that, for whatever reason that
Speaker 2: I may never know, she chose not to say anything
Speaker 2: about it. Okay, layers, layers, layers, layers. My goodness, this
Speaker 2: is tough.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 8: Well, my favorite part of this letter is the part
Speaker 8: where she is like, I started liking the posts, be
Speaker 8: on social media and do something that just makes you
Speaker 8: feel like an absolute creature.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I know. And that's so tough too, because
Speaker 2: you're so emotional and friendship's ending. We don't talk enough
Speaker 2: about how devastating that can be. Like there's space to
Speaker 2: talk about a relationship ending, like a romantic relationship ending,
Speaker 2: and how horrible that is.
Speaker 8: Also, you know, in our culture, it's the norm to
Speaker 8: bring a really formal end to romantic relationships. We have
Speaker 8: a system where it's like, okay, we need to boat
Speaker 8: sit down and really declare this thing over with. But
Speaker 8: we don't have that for friendships, which can just sort
Speaker 8: of drift away or can just wordlessly stop. And often
Speaker 8: in advice column world, I have to do a lot
Speaker 8: of work to dress up the same three pieces of
Speaker 8: advice over over again, because most people are just one
Speaker 8: frank conversation away from the conclusion.
Speaker 2: To their issue.
Speaker 8: But luckily for us, they are now like half a
Speaker 8: year out from this wedding, Okay, And I mean my
Speaker 8: question for this person would be like, what is stopping
Speaker 8: you from just asking?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And those are the conversations that always feel often
Speaker 2: feel impossible to have, you know, because then you have
Speaker 2: your answer.
Speaker 6: Not wanting to know is so relatable.
Speaker 8: Sometimes it's just the idea of knowing is so scary
Speaker 8: and final, because my instinct says that, yeah, your friendship
Speaker 8: probably has changed quite a bit over time if they
Speaker 8: didn't even think to invite you, And that's not something
Speaker 8: that's very pleasant to confront on a random afternoon.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the advice is reach out, Yeah, ask Ola Poppy.
Speaker 2: I hit my artistic peak in college, when I was
Speaker 2: doing an art minor and consistently taking classes, learning new skills,
Speaker 2: and being challenged to get better. I don't pay as
Speaker 2: much anymore. I hastily sold my favorite college era painting,
Speaker 2: a huge watercolor on paper depicting stormy waves, right after
Speaker 2: graduation for way too cheap to an acquaintance when I
Speaker 2: was broke. I've always deeply regretted it, especially because I
Speaker 2: know I couldn't make another one like it now. A
Speaker 2: few years ago, I messaged him explaining my regret and
Speaker 2: asking if I could buy it back. He sheepishly admitted
Speaker 2: he'd given it to a friend as a wedding gift,
Speaker 2: and when I asked if I could have the friend's
Speaker 2: name to reach out to him, he didn't respond. Fastward
Speaker 2: to this month, the purchaser, who is also a musician,
Speaker 2: DMed me asking permission to use my name in a
Speaker 2: song about said friend. The line is, I gave you
Speaker 2: my name's painting. Okay, the idea of a song about
Speaker 2: friendship is nice and I don't mind from a privacy perspective,
Speaker 2: so I said yes. But what I really wanted to
Speaker 2: say was I want my painting back. I still think
Speaker 2: about it and get sad. I've considered doing some investigative
Speaker 2: work and reaching out to the friend now that I
Speaker 2: have his name. I don't know why I feel so
Speaker 2: much grief over this painting, but I really do. Oh
Speaker 2: this is a bummer.
Speaker 6: Oh it's so sad.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's like to me, this is one of those
Speaker 8: rare questions where I have different answers to address the
Speaker 8: two different aspects of it. Where So in the beginning,
Speaker 8: you know I also make visual art, I sell it,
Speaker 8: et cetera, And to me, like once I have sold it.
Speaker 8: It's unfortunate, but it's there, you know, Like I can't
Speaker 8: just be like, hey, I want that back.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But then if my buddy didn't answer my query as
Speaker 8: to who bought it, and then it's like, hey, I
Speaker 8: made art about the situation, I would be like, oh,
Speaker 8: so your art kind of matters, and so yeah, Like,
Speaker 8: first aspect of the whole thing to me is like, yeah, sucks,
Speaker 8: you sold it, it's theirs. Second aspect of it is
Speaker 8: just like this person needs to get some sasas.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I mean, see, this is why I
Speaker 2: can't be an advice calmnist, because I would write back
Speaker 2: and I would say, you know, I like, let's let's
Speaker 2: collab on a strongly letter, let's show up at his
Speaker 2: house and steal it, let's do a.
Speaker 5: Heist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I I guess. I guess the question they're
Speaker 2: asking is if they should try and reach out to
Speaker 2: the person who now has the painting.
Speaker 6: I would I would still ask.
Speaker 8: I would just be like, hey, here's the situation. Especially
Speaker 8: once this person made a song about it. I would
Speaker 8: be like, well, now I'm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. And if they say no,
Speaker 2: then that's it. We got to put it toad.
Speaker 6: You gotta move on.
Speaker 2: We got to put it to bad. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: I think that that wraps us here. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for coming in, John Paul. Is always a pleasure
Speaker 2: to talk to you, and I have loved being able
Speaker 2: to give advice alongside you.
Speaker 6: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 8: Anytime you want to join in on Ola Puppy, we
Speaker 8: have Ola Chloe.
Speaker 2: You're gonna regret saying that You're gonna have to all right,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming again. That was advice
Speaker 2: columnist and storyteller John Paul Bramer. You can find him
Speaker 2: on substack and also clearly in my heart, we gabbed
Speaker 2: for much longer than I was able to include in
Speaker 2: this episode. So if you'd like to hear the full interview,
Speaker 2: including a bonus advice right in, head over to the
Speaker 2: Moth dot org. That's it for this episode of the
Speaker 2: Moth Radio Hour. If this week brings you some good advice,
Speaker 2: I hope you're inspired to take it. Thank you to
Speaker 2: our storytellers for sharing with us, and to you for listening.
Speaker 2: We hope you'll join us next time.
Speaker 4: This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced by
Speaker 4: me Jay Allison and Chloe Salmon, who also hosted the
Speaker 4: show and directed the stories. Additional Grand Slam coaching by
Speaker 4: Larry Rosen. Whole producer is Vicky Merrick. Associate producer Emily Couch.
Speaker 4: The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman,
Speaker 4: Christina Norman, Sarah Austin, Jenness, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Teller's Marina Cluche,
Speaker 4: Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenya. Moth stories
Speaker 4: are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our
Speaker 4: theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this
Speaker 4: hour from the meters Tom McDermott and Evan Christopher Goult McDermott,
Speaker 4: Do Wally and Philippe bou Dot and Chicha Lee Bray.
Speaker 4: The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media
Speaker 4: in Woodshole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey,
Speaker 4: including executive producer Leah Rhyes Dennis. For more about our podcast,
Speaker 4: For information on pitching as your own story, and to
Speaker 4: learn all about the Moth, go to our website, The
Speaker 4: Moth dot org.
Speaker 1: That was advice from the Moth. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Moth at the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: And if there's a podcast you're really loving these days,
Speaker 1: be sure to email us. You can reach us at
Speaker 1: slight Change at pushkin dot fm. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a week with another episode of a slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: I'll see you soon.