- [Michelle] Please like and subscribe to our channel
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- Welcome to "The Moth" podcast.
I'm Michelle Jalowski,
your host for this episode.
I recently started a New Year's tradition
that I really like.
It goes something like this at the beginning of January.
I write a list of goals
and wishes for the whole upcoming year.
It's sort of like a to-do list
with little check boxes next to each one.
Some of the things I write down I know I can achieve
and some things are a bit more pie in the sky.
Like on the list might be practice piano regularly
and get a new pet insurance policy for my dog
but also buy a house in New York City
and work on a Moth story with Lizzo.
Still achievable, but a reach.
Then at the end of the year,
I go through the list and put a check mark
next to all the things I accomplished.
The ones I didn't, I'll rewrite
and then I'll put in some new ones.
Also, it's a helpful way to reflect on the things I did do
and see what I didn't quite manage and have to carry
over and who doesn't love checking something off a list.
In that spirit of reflection today, we've got two stories
from Moth hosts looking back on past New Year's hi jinks.
First up is Dan Kennedy.
To be absolutely clear
Dan might not be a trained professional
but you still shouldn't try this stunt at home.
Like seriously do not even think about it.
He told this while hosting a Boston main stage
the theme of the night was great expectations.
Here's Dan.
- [Dan] It was five minutes before midnight on New Year's
Eve quite some time ago.
My girlfriend and I, we had just turned 30
and we thought we're adults now so we'll stay in
for New Year's Eve and be sophisticated and mature.
And I was sitting on the couch in our apartment
on Wall Street on the 20th floor,
which I know that's a big missing piece.
The only explanation I owe you people is it was a period
I was going through and it didn't add up or go great.
So I was sitting there and I was like,
"This is great being mature and being an adult.
Well it's so nice."
And then I look and what I'm doing,
I'm sitting on the sofa putting software on our Mac laptops
at five to midnight on New Year's Eve
and I think you are really losing your edge.
So I go, how?
What am I going to do though?
You know what I mean?
Like how am I going to turn up the old volume
kind of get back to the old me?
So I'd remembered my friend Nick had worked
on an independent film down in Texas
and when he was there he was buying a bunch
of fireworks and he came back to New York City
with a box of fireworks and gave me a bunch
of them and I thought,
I have a great idea.
The fireworks are in that back bedroom that we use
as a home office because we're adults now.
And I will go back there, turn up the volume,
really get this thing started.
It's New Year's Eve.
So Maria loves to cook.
She's cooking some awesome thing in the kitchen
totally occupied with her culinary talent
which enables me to sort of just sneak by.
Like I just walk slowly sort of by so she doesn't know
you know, the old me is here.
And I go to the back bedroom.
I choose this firework out of one of those boxes.
It's this thing, it's about, I don't know
it's like this long.
It's way bigger than anything needs to be to
celebrate any kind of 4th of July situation.
It's got plastic wings on top of it.
It is just weirdly aggressive.
And the idea is you put it on the ground
and you light the fuse and it spins
and the plastic wings take it super high up
in the air and it explodes in this giant fiery display.
So I go, "How cool is this going to be?"
I'm thinking to myself, I will toss it out the window.
Yeah, exactly.
This is going to be awesome.
And it'll have a 20 story head start.
It'll go 20 stories higher than it was ever designed to go.
It will then do its giant fiery display and people all
over Manhattan will be like,
"Wait, is there a professional grade firework show
happening down there too?"
And I'll be like, "Eh, it's just me doing something.
No big deal."
So I open the window, I light the fuse and it's totally one
of those like road runner cartoon fuses.
It's like this long and it starts sparkling
and I'm holding it, the window's right there, it's open.
And Maria, as is often the case,
if she looks over and doesn't see me,
will start going, what's he doing?
And just then had walked into the back room
and I'm holding this giant firework
with a fuse that's getting shorter
and she says a phrase I've come to know over the years,
which is, "What are you doing?"
And I said, for the first time in my life I said
something that I thought was so cool
and badass to my girlfriend.
Like for just a second I felt like the loser character
who's like kind of barely untraditional handsome
but such a loose cannon that Katherine Keener falls
in love with him in an independent movie.
And I go, "Happy New Year."
(audience laughing)
Fling this firework out the window
and that's when stuff starts going wrong.
It took a turn.
It's not balanced well.
'Cause they didn't plan on this and it flips.
It's now drilling earthward 60 miles an hour
give or take from the 20th floor.
And I run over and I look down and it's just going, going
going down, down, down like 13, 12, 11, 10, nine.
It gets down to like the second story
and it does this thing I still cannot believe
I saw with my own eyes.
It just bangs a left, goes up our alley.
(audience laughing)
It's like CNN footage from like the very first war
you ever saw on TV.
I was like, "What the, how did he even know to do that?"
It's headed for the dumpster.
New Year is literally already shaping
up to be a dumpster fire.
So this thing is like the
but dumpster is like the size of an 18 wheeler trailer.
It's giant.
There's 400 apartments in this building or something.
So it's New Year's Eve, it's filled
with dried Christmas trees, wrapping paper,
I don't know like probably bales of hay.
What the fuck?
There's like you know?
Sure, put 'em in there.
It goes right for it.
Almost like it's trying to impress me
and burrows in down through this, you know
seven layer dip of light flashy fuels
and it's going down, going down, going down.
I'm like, "Oh my God.
Oh my God, oh my god."
And then it's just, I'm looking, seems cool.
I'm like, "I think this is cool.
I think nothing's going to have to happen."
And then all of a sudden it starts its fiery display
because it thinks it's up in the sky.
And I'm like, "You're not in the sky,
you're fucking, you're on the dude.
Don't do the thing."
And it's like, "Check this out though."
It's doing all of its little tricks.
I turn from the bad seed instantly
into this scared nine year old boy
and I look at Maria and I go,
"Oh my God, it's so many.
It went into the dumpster.
Now what are we supposed to do?"
And she does this thing where I will never
forget this moment.
She takes two steps backwards
puts her hands up and goes,
"This is all you."
(audience laughing)
I'm like, "That is not what a true partnership is.
Relationships are supposed to be happy."
And then I'm like, all right, just deal with it.
You have to deal with it.
So I'm looking down and I'm like,
it seems kind of calm
but I'm like, yeah, but you're also 20 floors up.
I'm like, maybe I don't know what's really happening.
Then I see it an orange spot and the orange spot starts to
grow and it starts to grow a little bigger
and a little bigger and suddenly
it's taking up the whole dumpster
and the flames are probably like one or two stories high.
And I'm like, oh, this is feeling totally bad.
Like, thank God nobody gets hurt because suddenly,
there are five huge New York City firetrucks
and they're like hooking cables up to it,
pulling it out into the middle of the street,
shooting it with foam.
And I'm instantly this weird like Paul Giamati character
20 floors up with the lights out going,
"Oh my god
there's so many firetrucks down there.
It's like really huge.
And
I'm completely freaking out.
It's taking, even after the fireman put this out
my adrenaline is just peeking.
Like, there's no way I'm getting to sleep.
It's now like four in the morning.
Maria went to bed, I think at five minutes after midnight
which is like Happy New Year.
Boom goes to sleep.
I finally settled down enough to go into the bedroom.
I don't want to wake her up.
So I just lie down on top of the covers.
Very still, I'm staring at the ceiling.
I'm trying to get my heart to stop finally racing.
I'm calming down when she whispers this line
that will haunt me for the rest of my years
"They're going to find you."
(audience laughing) Yeah.
- [Michelle] That was Dan Kennedy.
Dan is one of the original developers of "The Moth" podcast
and a longtime host and performer at "The Moth".
He's the author of three books, "Loser Goes First",
"Rock on" and "American Spirit" and co-creator
of the new Comedy fiction podcast.
"KPODD 101.3" with Maximum Fun Networks.
Benjamin R. Harrison, KPODD is available wherever
you get your podcasts.
Also, if you're wondering,
yes, Dan and his girlfriend are still together
and they now live in upstate New York.
Our next story is from Ophira Eisenberg.
Since her story doesn't involve setting off fireworks
feel free to recreate it at home.
She told this while hosting a Moth main stage
in Terrytown New York where the theme
of the night was, there's a place for us,
Here's Ophira.
(audience applauding and cheering)
- Growing up in Calgary Alberta, Canada.
Yeah, a woo?
Interesting I couldn't wait to leave you either actually
if you're here.
I just didn't feel like if Calgary, Alberta
it's Cowboys and it's the prairies,
a lot of oil money.
I did not feel like I fit in.
I kept fantasizing and another place to go.
And honestly, I didn't know exactly what it was.
I was of course as a child obsessed with Sesame Street.
So I suppose it was Queens.
Eventually I was very scared.
I was very scared to move to New York
or really just anywhere outside of the country.
But then I went to college in Canada
but I had a friend who went to college in New York
and she said, "Oh, come visit, come visit."
Not understanding that when most people say
that they don't mean it.
And I decided to come visit her.
As a 25 year old I said,
"I'm going to come for New Year's Eve."
I know it's so naive.
You do not bombard someone's apartment
in New York for New Year's Eve.
I mean have New Year's Eve
as anyone who lives around here anyways is daunting.
Right?
And I knew that she was going to feel excited to have me.
I didn't know that she was going to feel the pressure
of having to figure out what we would do if I came.
But I was 25 years old.
Honestly, we could have done anything
and I would've thought it was fabulous.
But when I got to meet her at her place
she had lived in a dorm near the East Village
and she said that we had an invitation to a party.
She was like, "Got us an invitation to a New Year's party.
I was like, "Oh my goodness
we're going to a party in New York.
This is amazing."
And she let me borrow some of her clothes
'cause mine were not good enough.
And the party, I said, "Where is the party?
And she said, "It's in Times Square."
This is in the nineties.
And so I was like, we're going to Times Square.
And she was like, "We're going to Times Square.
So, you know, we put on our outfits
and we took the subway pretty close
but of course you couldn't go very close
because it's all like fenced off
basically for the big ball drop.
But we had this address with an invitation
and she was just showing it to the policeman
who were standing guarding these barricades
and they were looking at it
and nodding and letting us through.
I had no idea that was special at all either.
I was like, oh, they're so helpful.
We got to the address
it was a condo in the middle of Times Square.
Now, you know, I wasn't so aware of where I was
'cause I was 25 years old my first time in New York
but I think it was like 45th and seventh.
And so it was a beautiful building.
And again, I didn't understand what was going on.
We walked in, there was a doorman,
he handed us champagne/
Or maybe it was Prosecco or maybe it was apple juice.
I mean, really at 25, it all was the same to me.
And I was like, oh my goodness
"This is where your friends live?"
And she was like, "Yeah."
And I honestly, I did not know the term
"trust fund kid" yet.
So I was like, wow
if I work really hard too.
Maybe one day.
And we took the elevator up to the penthouse
and the doors opened into the apartment
and I just remember the entire place was white
just white carpeting and white walls
and white furniture and white throw pillows.
And I was like, it's like Celine Dion's place.
And it was a party and everyone there was my age
but they seemed cool.
And I had conversations with all these different people
about art and we were spewing our ideas of philosophy
you know, all full of grandeur like you do.
And I didn't feel like myself.
I felt like a better version of myself.
And I was like, oh, these are the people I'm going to
I might hang out with one day.
And then it became close to midnight
and we were told we all have to go onto the terrace.
There was a terrace
the terrace basically looked over Times Square.
If you kind of went like this, you could see the ball.
And the countdown started and we all started counting down
and we're counting down at the same time
as thousands of people on the street beneath us.
Yeah so we're counting the same time.
It just feels wild.
And then it's Happy New Year and everyone is screaming
and laughing and I can't believe that I'm there.
And this man, he kind of looks
like Benicio del Toro grabs me.
I mean, it was the nineties
maybe it was Benicio del Toro grabs me
and just kisses me and then looks at me and goes
"Happy New Year" and like disappears.
And I was like, that is so New York
just to be desired and then off.
And then everyone on the terrace started shouting
"We're in the center of the world.
We're in the center of the world."
And those, you know, sparkles and the confetti was falling,
but it was so cold, it looked like sparkles were floating
from the air all around me.
And I looked at all these people and this place
I was and I thought,
"This is where I'm going to move to.
This is where I'm going to move to
and this is what my life is going to be like every year."
Thank you. (Ophira laughing)
(audience applauding)
- [Michelle] That was Ophira Eisenberg.
If you're curious about what happened
after she moved to New York City.
Well, we asked her and she sent us this little reflection.
- [Ophira] So I did move to New York.
It was years and years and years and years later.
But I did do it.
I don't live in a penthouse in Times Square.
Matter of fact, it was also many years
before I lived in an apartment that was beyond just a couch
in the corner of a living room with many people.
But here we are and New Year's.
Wow I never spent another New Year's in Times Square.
I've done a lot of cool fun things in New York
on New Year's but now I got to say my favorite
New Year's plan is to stay at home
and spend it with my family.
And I think that's the most New Yorky thing
to say of all time.
That on New Year's in the center of the world
you want to spend it in your apartment.
- Ophira Eisenberg is a standup comedian, writer,
and the host of the new comedy podcast
"Parenting is a Joke" with iHeartRadio
and pretty good friends.
She hosted NPRs asked me another
for nine years where she interviewed hundreds
of celebrities including Rosie Perez,
Yo-Yo Ma, Awkwafina, Roxanne Gay,
Nick Kroll, Chelsea Handler, and more.
She's appeared multiple times
on CBS's The Late Late Show, comedy Central, HBO,
the New Yorker Festival, Kevin Hart's LOL Network,
Gotham Live, and the Today Show.
Her own memoir,
"Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy"
was optioned for a television series
and her new comedy special "Plant-based Jokes" is available
as an album on iTunes and streaming on YouTube now.
That's all for this episode.
Whether your New Year's included exciting parties
fireworks, or just heading to bed early,
we hope you have a wonderful 2023
filled with incredible stories.
- [Mark] 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.
This episode of "The Moth" Podcast was produced
by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson
and me Mark Solinger.
The rest of "The Moth" leadership team
includes Sarah Haberman, Katherine Burns,
Jennifer Hixson, Meg Bowles,
Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust,
Brandon Grant, Lee Ann Gullie, Inga Glodowski,
and Aldi Kaza.
All "Moth" stories are true as remembered
by the storytellers.
For more about our podcast information
on pitching your own story and everything else
go to our website, themoth.org.
"The Moth" podcast is presented by PRX
the Public Radio Exchange
helping make public radio more public at prx.org.