More about The Moth

As some of you Twitterers might know, the story I did for The Moth last month in Burlington, VT is the featured podcast this week. It's about me and my dad and some of the things we did and didn't do for each other before he died this past year. You can download it at the link above and you can also find it at iTunes. If you like a good story - even if you don't like mine - subscribe to the weekly Moth podcasts. There is some amazing stuff going on there.

Standing on that stage in Burlington and telling such a personal tale, almost a confessional, in front of 1500 strangers was one of the highlights of my performing life. Until the moment I walked in front of the microphone a big part of me thought I was making a mistake. It was too personal. It was too revealing of a very low point in my character. It would make me choke up.

It was all those things and more and has made me very happy. If my dad had been around to hear, he would have been ashamed from the criticism and embarrassed of the praise and I realize that I could not have told the story before now. I've told parts of it before -- you can hear the extended story of my college drop-out and near-death accident that followed on Exploded, a fragmented monologue I performed almost 20 years ago. But I never got down to the conclusions of the experience because 20 years ago I did not yet know what they were.

Scars, it's said, are the tattoos of experience. But they are often a hieroglyph, and it takes some study to figure out what they say to us.