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0:34

Okay, before you can understand how Bob's sister became the

0:37

talk of the third grade and the

0:39

big day that that led to that people still remember,

0:42

I need to explain first that Bob's sister

0:44

is a drawing. The teacher

0:46

in this third grade class, Mr. Roblao, spotted

0:49

it one day while teaching math. He saw

0:51

one of the students, Antonio, working

0:53

on a picture. I went over to

0:55

him and said, put the picture away. I probably

0:58

did that two or three times. And then the fourth

1:00

time I went over and I just took the picture and

1:03

said, pay attention, it's math class. And

1:05

I put on my desk. He came up right

1:08

before recess and is like, can I have my picture back? And I was

1:10

like, what is this picture of anyways? And he said, it's Bob's

1:12

sister. And I'm like, who's Bob's

1:14

sister? Turns out Bob's sister

1:16

is a minion, which I

1:21

don't even think Bob's sister exists in the minion world.

1:23

You're saying the minions like from

1:25

the movie Despicable Me. Yes, exactly.

1:27

And he just invented like a sister character for

1:30

Bob? Yeah, apparently.

1:33

Mr. Roblao taped the drawing to the bookshelf behind his

1:35

desk near a photo of a wolf that was already

1:37

there. Because it was clear if Antonio

1:40

kept the drawing, it would continue to be a distraction

1:42

to him and a couple of his friends who

1:44

at that point were the only ones in class who really

1:46

cared about Bob's sister. And I was like, don't

1:48

worry. She's not going anywhere. She'll be right

1:50

here. Anytime you want to see her, she'll be behind me. Because

1:53

the kids were into the picture of Bob's sister. Yeah.

1:55

And I didn't really quite understand why I never

1:57

investigated why this picture was such a big.

1:59

deal. But yeah, they would talk about it.

2:02

They would go up and look at it. And yeah,

2:04

it was a thing. Why were you

2:06

guys so excited about Bob's sister, do you think?

2:09

I think it's because it was like another

2:12

distraction in class that people could talk about.

2:15

That's straightforward enough. This is

2:17

Dylan, one of Antonio's friends who

2:19

was into Bob's sister from the start.

2:21

Describe the drawing. It was just

2:24

like an octopus

2:26

and then it had two eyes and then

2:29

tentacles coming out of it. Anyway,

2:32

Bob's sister was an octopus? Bob's

2:34

sister was an octopus. But Bob's

2:36

a minion? Well,

2:39

it didn't really have anything to do with that.

2:42

And was he referring to the minion, Bob?

2:44

Or am I just- No, he was not. No, I

2:47

see. Was it a good drawing? It

2:50

was like an

2:53

eight-year-old's okay drawing. Like,

2:56

it wasn't amazing, but it was like you knew

2:58

what it was. This whole

3:00

question, is it an octopus? Is it a

3:02

minion? I asked Antonio, who

3:04

drew Bob's sister, about that. He

3:07

tended to see Bob's sister as a Pac-Man ghost

3:09

with big eyes. But he said, and I

3:11

thought it was surprisingly mature for somebody in elementary

3:13

school,

3:14

he thought part of the appeal of Bob's sister was

3:17

that it was open to interpretation. I really

3:20

don't know what it is. It's

3:22

a thing. I don't know what it- It's lots of

3:25

different things. You could think of it as a minion

3:27

that looks weird. You could think of it as a fly guy

3:29

with no legs. You could think of it as Pac-Man

3:31

ghosts with big eyes. Bob's

3:33

sister was different to everybody. We never

3:35

went with one of them. We just, like, we didn't say anything. Anyone

3:38

could believe what they want.

3:39

But the thing was key to Bob's sister

3:42

was, Bob's sister wasn't

3:45

actually anyone's sister. His

3:46

name was just Bob's sister, no space.

3:49

That's really funny. And we didn't come up

3:51

with a gender either. So Bob's

3:53

sister, gender unspecified, lived

3:55

on the bookshelf near the photo of a wolf until

3:59

one week with Mr.

3:59

Mr. Abrau went on vacation

4:01

and the kids had a substitute.

4:03

When Mr. Abrau came back, Bob's sister

4:06

was gone, vanished, disappeared.

4:10

And was all the kids wanted to talk about. This

4:13

is the point where everybody in class gets very,

4:15

very interested in Bob's sister.

4:18

There's kind of all this speculation about

4:20

like what happened to Bob's sister. Was

4:24

she stolen? Was she murdered? Did

4:27

she die? So

4:30

I go and, you know, I look a little bit. I

4:32

looked under the desk, I looked behind the bookshelf.

4:35

Did you ask the substitute?

4:37

I did, actually. He

4:39

had no idea what I was talking about, which was good enough

4:41

for me. Oh really, for me? That

4:44

makes him suspect number one. Interesting.

4:49

There's your guy. Do you not watch any crime

4:51

drama at all? There

4:53

are all kinds of theories

4:55

about what happened

4:58

to Bob's sister.

5:01

Antonio and Dylan said it was really fun to talk about.

5:03

Various abductors, including animals from

5:05

an alternate universe.

5:07

But Dylan says the prime suspect for his classmates,

5:10

that other picture on the bookshelf.

5:12

They just decided that the wolf ate it because

5:15

it was like right above the wolf. Like

5:18

the wolf was jealous or something. They

5:20

didn't really know why. They just, that's

5:22

what they said. Who said that? Basically

5:26

everybody. I mean, he's a wolf.

5:29

Yeah. The chatter about Bob's

5:32

sister does not go away, which is funny,

5:34

but also, you know, Mr. O'Blow's got a curriculum

5:36

to get through. And

5:37

I'm kind of vaguely annoyed because, you know,

5:39

there's a lot going on in the school day. I don't have much time

5:42

to think about a picture of Bob's sister.

5:44

But they're kind of pestering me about it. And

5:47

then one other student,

5:50

Dylan actually, pipes in and

5:52

says, can we have

5:54

a funeral for Bob's sister? And

5:57

I'm like, what are you talking about?

5:59

And they're like, well, she died. Something

6:02

happened.

6:03

And I'm like, a

6:05

funeral for Bob's sister, a picture. And

6:08

I say yes. Probably

6:12

just to get them to stop talking about Bob's sister.

6:15

But also, this is the kind of teacher he is.

6:18

He says sometimes it's smart to take some detours,

6:21

follow things where they bleed.

6:22

And they're like, when? I'm like,

6:25

I don't know when. I

6:28

don't know when this funeral is going to happen. And they're like, when?

6:30

When's it going to happen? When's it going to happen? We're going to

6:32

have a funeral for Bob's sister. And so

6:34

then finally, I'm like, after

6:37

recess on Friday.

6:43

That was Monday. Rest of the

6:45

week goes pretty normally. Mr. O'Blow sort of hoped

6:47

that they would forget about the funeral by the end of the week, but

6:49

no way. They're murmuring about it, preparing

6:52

for it, which he has no part of.

6:55

The eight-year-olds are the ones organizing this and thinking

6:57

it through. Finally, Friday

6:59

arrives, the big day, the day of the funeral.

7:02

Kids come back into the room from recess.

7:04

They're pretty giddy and pretty excited. So finally,

7:06

I'm like, OK,

7:09

game on, let's go. Funeral. I

7:11

have no idea what is about to transpire.

7:14

All of a sudden, boom, the tables

7:17

kind of move out of the way.

7:19

The leader of the funeral comes

7:22

up with the stool. Two

7:24

other students bring two tables and grab

7:26

the flowers. Apparently, a bunch

7:29

of girls had been making posters. They

7:32

write Bob's sister's funeral on the board.

7:35

Dylan's the leader of the funeral, and he prepared a eulogy.

7:38

So did his friend Theo. Dylan

7:40

gets in front of the class holding a microphone

7:42

Mr. O'Blow keeps in the room. The

7:44

rest of the class is totally on

7:46

the edge of their seats, just waiting

7:48

for this kid to start the funeral, paying

7:52

more attention to him than they ever pay

7:54

to me. They're just ready for it. He

7:57

starts out ad libbing about.

7:59

welcoming everyone, thanking everyone

8:02

for coming to celebrate the life

8:05

of Bob's sister.

8:07

Now, how did you know what to say

8:09

in a eulogy? We

8:11

didn't. We just said some

8:14

things that sounded about right, something

8:18

that you might say at a funeral that might make

8:20

someone cry.

8:22

Do you have your eulogy there? Yeah.

8:25

Take it out. Could you read it? Okay,

8:27

one sec. Okay.

8:31

And then it sort of, mine also says sort of back

8:34

and forth, she and he, so, because

8:37

I didn't really know. Bob's

8:40

sister was a great person. People

8:42

thought that Bob was just a drying on a piece

8:44

of paper, but I knew he was anything

8:46

but that. But she is

8:49

still in here. She made me think

8:51

I could do things in school. If she was

8:53

here today, she would say, keep on trying.

8:57

That's really nice. It sounds

8:59

like you were trying to be sort of inspiring. Yeah.

9:03

Had you seen a eulogy in a movie or something

9:05

that you knew what to do? Nope, never. Whoa.

9:08

The other eulogy that Thea wrote was

9:10

also really good. I just

9:12

want to say something about the special person here, Bob's

9:15

sister. She was such a good friend to all

9:17

the potatoes, and especially Mr. Potato Head.

9:20

Potatoes were another fascination in Mr. Roblell's

9:22

class that year.

9:24

What an honor it was to have her with us. God

9:27

bless her. And

9:29

then from

9:30

the back of the room,

9:31

Mr. Roblell, here's a boy crying.

9:34

I would say almost wailing, but it was like

9:36

a real cry. And at first I'm thinking, oh

9:39

my God, now they're just turning this into a joke.

9:42

And then I realized that he's actually

9:44

seriously crying. Like this is not a joke

9:47

cry. And

9:49

I

9:50

walk back, I walk back there, and

9:52

everyone kind of turns back.

9:54

Everyone's looking at both of us. And

9:56

so I

9:57

asked him, I'm like, what's wrong? What's going on?

9:59

going on, why

10:02

are you crying? And

10:04

he's like, it's because Bob's sister

10:07

died.

10:08

And I was like, it's not about anything else,

10:11

maybe.

10:13

And he's like, no, it's Bob's sister's died and

10:15

it's just so sad.

10:18

Mr. Oblal thinks maybe it was really about his dog.

10:21

Dog that boy had grown up with had died just two

10:23

weeks before. His mom had sent an email

10:26

to let him know. But Mr.

10:28

Oblal is really not sure. It ate

10:30

your plenty old enough to catch a glimpse of what death means.

10:33

And then I look up and then the whole

10:35

kind of feel

10:37

of the classroom has changed. It's gone

10:39

from kind of giddy excitement, this is a fun

10:41

thing, to half the class is

10:44

nervously laughing and the other half

10:47

looks like they're on the verge of tears. Like there's about

10:49

three girls that are like kind

10:51

of really sad. And I

10:54

was like, oh no, what

10:56

have I created?

10:58

Like this was reaching an emotional

11:00

level that I actually had never experienced before.

11:02

And I'd been teaching for about 15

11:04

years. And

11:06

I'd never felt kind of this, not

11:09

that it was getting out of control, but it was leading

11:11

to something that I didn't know

11:14

how it was gonna end, honestly. Like

11:17

I don't know what's gonna happen next. Like

11:20

if three other kids start crying,

11:22

I don't know how to handle the situation.

11:24

Right, like I had never

11:27

experienced kind of that in

11:29

a classroom. It's so interesting,

11:31

it's like they were playing around with,

11:34

I don't know, like with a Ouija board

11:36

and joking around and suddenly they accidentally

11:38

summoned a demon into the room. Yeah,

11:41

in a way. And for me, I was right

11:43

there on the Ouija board with them. And so

11:46

this monsters in the room, you've unleashed this like

11:48

really kind of a primal force, like this grief,

11:51

right? Yeah, grief, death.

11:55

And I mean, one of the really

11:58

neat things about third grade is, I

12:00

mean, there's a saying, they stop

12:03

learning to read and

12:05

are reading

12:07

to learn. So it's like, it's an

12:09

age where their world gets a lot bigger. They

12:12

kind of are experiencing real things.

12:15

And I think a funeral is one of those things. Like

12:18

they probably all heard of a funeral. They

12:20

read them in books, but most of them probably

12:22

hadn't been to one and didn't know what that

12:24

felt like.

12:26

And Mr. Abua felt responsible to

12:28

help them through this new experience. Like he had lots

12:30

of others that year. So

12:33

he took control of the room, back from the kids,

12:35

and addressed them all. I was like, well,

12:38

funerals are kind of serious. Sometimes

12:41

when you go to a funeral, it's very sad

12:44

because you're missing the person that's moved

12:47

on. And sometimes it reminds you of other people

12:49

who have moved on. And

12:51

it's important to remember those people. And it's

12:53

important to be sad.

12:56

And this is the end of the funeral.

13:00

Which worked. Everybody

13:04

snapped out of it. The demon left the room. Next

13:07

was free time, which they all enjoyed, and everything

13:09

was fine. But at the end

13:11

of the school year, when the class stood in a

13:13

circle and each kid named something that they remembered

13:15

and liked from third grade, a couple of the

13:18

kids said, Bob's sister's funeral.

13:20

It was a moment

13:22

for Mr. Abua, too. Sometimes

13:25

you know, you're joking around and it's all light and fun

13:27

and trying something you've never done before. And

13:30

some bigger subterranean force gets

13:32

unleashed.

13:33

That's what our show is going to be about today. Those

13:35

moments when you get a glimpse of all that feeling

13:37

that's there down below hidden

13:40

from sight. From WBC

13:42

Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm out of glass.

13:45

Stay with us.

14:01

So when you go to a big theater, you see all the people

14:03

who are on stage. They're brightly lit,

14:05

they're visible to everybody, they are literally there

14:08

to be seen. But then just

14:10

below them, down in front,

14:12

there's the orchestra pit. And

14:14

it seems straightforward enough what happens in there. Musicians

14:17

play their instruments. But other

14:19

things go on in there. All kinds

14:21

of interactions and feelings that usually we

14:23

don't get much of a picture of. You

14:25

know that old saying, hell is other people? It

14:27

actually comes from the theater. It comes from play.

14:30

No exit. That play

14:32

was not written by somebody who sits in the orchestra pit. But

14:35

J Caspian Kang is this story about

14:38

how many musicians in theatrical orchestras might

14:40

understand the sentiment. We first

14:42

broadcast this story back in 2020. We are bringing

14:44

it back today with an update. Here's

14:47

J. Nick Jimo moved to

14:49

New York in 2006 to try to make

14:51

it as a musician. He had just finished

14:54

up college and had all these dreams of playing the

14:56

trumpet for a living. But it was

14:58

a struggle. There just aren't many jobs

15:00

for trumpet players anymore. So he mostly

15:03

waited by the phone for gigs. Korean

15:05

mega church services, experimental plays,

15:08

and the occasional substitute job with Mary Poppins

15:10

on Broadway.

15:12

And then a spot opened up at his favorite

15:14

show. This might be TMI,

15:17

but I remember I was in my apartment.

15:21

I was on the toilet. I

15:26

got a phone call and I didn't recognize the

15:28

number. And I listened

15:30

to the voicemail saying hi, this is Kristen. And

15:33

freaked out.

15:34

This was one of the conductors for Phantom

15:36

of the Opera. She offered him a job

15:39

playing shows six days a week and twice

15:41

on Thursdays and Saturdays. I'm

15:43

not sure. I probably even let her finish her sentence.

15:45

You know, yes, I'm very interested and

15:47

available. It was life

15:50

changing, really. Did you feel

15:52

like you had won the lottery? Oh, yes. Actually,

15:55

I remember the next day I had to go grocery shopping

15:58

and I remember.

15:59

I remember buying coconut water. I don't know

16:02

why. That was like my treat. Because I always wanted to buy coconut

16:04

water, but it was always like too much of

16:06

a, it was like, you know what, this is, I just don't need to spend.

16:09

And I remember buying coconut water and feeling like such a bad-ass.

16:13

And I just felt like I can buy anything here.

16:16

It wasn't just a steady income Nick was

16:18

excited about. Phantom of the Opera

16:20

was a show Nick had loved since he was 11 years old. He

16:24

had just started playing the trumpet and would lay

16:26

on his living room floor listening to

16:28

the music of the night. You know it.

16:31

Slowly, gently,

16:33

night unfurls its splendor.

16:37

That call changed his life. He

16:39

had finally arrived.

16:41

Phantom on Broadway. On

16:43

his first day, Nick entered the Majestic Theater

16:46

on 46th and 8th Avenue. He

16:48

walked through a back alley, passed a giant tub

16:50

of dry ice, down a flight of stairs into

16:53

a locker room where he changed into all black.

16:56

He then headed into the pit to play the music

16:58

he had loved as a child. He had his

17:00

own seat there now in a music stand.

17:04

So he played the first show. Next day he went

17:06

back and played it again. And then again. His

17:09

brain started to adjust to playing the same show

17:11

eight times a week.

17:13

And then he started to notice it wasn't

17:15

just the music that repeated itself. You

17:18

know, seeing the same actors at the exact same time and

17:20

the same musicians at the exact

17:22

same time and seeing the same people in the

17:24

bathroom at the exact same time. Every

17:27

time one of the dancers comes through to put her wig on,

17:29

she says to one of the other dancers, good

17:32

job, Erica, like every single

17:34

day. It's very groundhog day.

17:37

At first this was funny, almost charming.

17:39

Nick was 30 and the youngest person in the pit.

17:42

Not by a few years, but by a few decades.

17:46

He'd never been in a situation like this where

17:48

everyone seemed so locked into routine. His

17:51

colleagues would sit down in their chairs at the exact

17:53

same minute every day. There's

17:56

a cellist who would say marvelous every

17:58

time Nick asked him how he was doing. There

18:01

was the first horn player who would pull out a stopwatch

18:03

every single night to time how long the second

18:06

horn player held a note in one of the songs.

18:09

Some days it would be 17 seconds, other days 16.2.

18:13

You definitely start to notice people

18:15

are talking about each other and complaining about

18:17

the same people are late every single

18:20

week. If you bump

18:23

into a standby accident, you'll get a like

18:25

a, what the f*** are

18:27

you doing kind of look. Like take

18:29

a deep breath.

18:39

What is it like being the

18:42

youngest guy there or the young guy? Basically

18:45

I'm not as jaded as the rest

18:47

of them. You know if I say anything

18:50

that's not like, you know, sucks

18:52

to be here. They're like, you haven't been here long enough. You're

18:55

still new. You're still new. You know, people kind of walk

18:57

in there like, okay, I can't

18:59

do this again. And some of it's just

19:01

in their body language, the way they walk in the door, like

19:04

they're kind of trudging in, you know, or

19:06

when someone says, do I have to do this tonight?

19:09

Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway in

19:11

January, 1988. It

19:13

was an instant hit. Everyone who

19:16

has seen this musical comes away enchanted.

19:19

The show is virtually guaranteed to run

19:22

well into the next decade. It

19:24

did.

19:27

And

19:27

then another decade and another.

19:30

The musicians of the pit signed contracts with

19:32

the provision which guaranteed their jobs until

19:34

the show shut down. They expected

19:37

two, maybe three years, but

19:39

the show kept going as three years

19:41

turned into five years, which then turned

19:43

into 32. That's

19:46

over 13,000 performances. Phantom

19:49

is now the longest running show in the history

19:51

of Broadway.

19:52

There's almost a feeling, I think, of

19:55

nausea that

19:57

you have to do it again and you have to do it again. That's

20:00

Melanie Feld, an oboist who's been in the

20:02

pit for 28 years now. I

20:04

don't know how to describe it. A physical sensation

20:07

that I get. Literally,

20:09

that I'm jumping out of my skin. Like, it's

20:11

a leg thing. I can't stand

20:13

my skin. I'm going crazy. Oh no, that thing is happening. I

20:16

first heard about the pit at Phantom through a friend

20:19

whose wife had recently subbed in the violin section.

20:22

She described what she had seen as a horror show,

20:24

like waiting for Gufman but 30 hard

20:27

years down the line. I couldn't

20:29

quite get it out of my head. It's one

20:31

of the first things people ask. How

20:34

can you possibly stay sane and play the same

20:36

music every night? Pete Wright has been

20:38

playing Phantom since opening night.

20:40

He's the French horn player who times the notes

20:42

on a stopwatch every night. You

20:44

know, there is something in that where you... I

20:46

would look at the music sometimes and it

20:49

would just literally look like shapes. I

20:51

would just see like

20:53

circles and lines

20:55

and dots. And I would have no

20:58

idea. I wouldn't even know what page I was on.

21:00

It's like a disassociative feeling

21:03

almost. It's like hearing yourself

21:05

speak and you aren't sure it's

21:07

English.

21:08

I

21:10

don't think that's ever happened to me, Pete. And

21:15

then the funny thing is you see someone else

21:17

do it and you immediately know what's going

21:19

on with them. What does their face look like?

21:21

Oh, they're just like... It's as

21:24

if they don't even know where they are. They're like

21:26

waking up in another room. It's like, what

21:28

happened? Where am I? You know,

21:30

what day is it? What week is it?

21:39

When

21:39

I started talking to the pit musicians a couple

21:42

years ago, I wanted to know how they found

21:44

meaning in the mundane and inevitable

21:46

repetitions of life. In lots

21:48

of jobs, people do the same thing every day. But

21:51

nothing quite like this. You're hearing

21:53

the exact same lines from the stage, playing

21:55

the exact same notes for the same songs.

21:58

Even the guy sitting next to you... you breeze in the exact

22:01

same rhythm. Every day, the Phantom

22:03

kisses Christine for the first time, and

22:05

the same chandelier comes crashing down in

22:07

the same spot on the stage.

22:10

I assume the orchestra members were

22:12

like Zen Archers, who pull back the

22:14

same bow with the same motion until

22:17

they die. I talked

22:19

to a trumpet player named Lowell Hershey. Lowell's

22:21

been at the show since day one, and everyone

22:23

says he's the sanest person in the pit.

22:26

And it kind of drives you nuts for the first few

22:28

weeks. And then after that, your

22:30

mind deals with it and just

22:33

flushes it out. So when you're not there,

22:36

you don't think about it. Do

22:37

you know the words to the songs that you're playing?

22:40

Uh, no. It's

22:43

not entirely. Where in the world? Think

22:45

of me fondly. Yeah. Whatever.

22:49

I mean, I remember one time after the show had

22:52

been running for a while, somebody asked

22:54

me to

22:55

play a little bit of a tune from the show and

22:57

I couldn't even do it. I couldn't even think

23:00

of one. I had submerged

23:02

so much. So like your brain

23:04

is like basically just rejected being

23:07

cognizant that the music is going on?

23:10

I think that's typical of people who do shows. What

23:13

do you think the right type of personality is that

23:15

can handle this job?

23:17

I'm descended from a long line

23:20

of serfs and peons, you know, people

23:22

who are used to laboring in the fields

23:25

for hardly any money and are relatively

23:28

happy with that.

23:29

The Phantom players aren't exactly serfs.

23:32

They're well paid, they play a beloved show

23:34

and they get to play in small orchestras on the side.

23:38

But these are highly trained musicians who

23:40

went to the fanciest music schools in the world.

23:43

Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted the best of the best

23:45

for Phantom, which means the pit will always

23:47

sound good. Though it also creates

23:49

some creative and spiritual problems

23:52

for the players who have to get through the score

23:54

night after night after night.

23:56

I'm a violent operator. Is

23:58

that how you describe that? That's how I describe

24:01

it. Yeah, it's very technical.

24:04

I have no emotional

24:06

connection with it.

24:07

That's a violinist named Kurt Coble.

24:10

He's a composer. His dream was

24:12

always to write scores for horror films. He's

24:15

now been a fan of for 22 years, long

24:17

enough to see three people in a section die.

24:20

When I'm playing the show, nobody's

24:23

interested in my creative input. I've

24:26

often compared it to working

24:28

in a hospice. You know,

24:30

it's just, we just keep

24:33

the show alive as long as we

24:35

can.

24:36

So here they all

24:38

are.

24:43

In this weird

24:45

social experiment trapped together for decades,

24:48

27 musicians crammed into this tiny space.

24:51

A trumpet player told me it's like playing in a submarine.

24:54

I've been down there and you can barely turn around

24:57

without knocking into something. In

24:59

the pit, you notice everything. The

25:01

way your neighbor blows out a spit valve, the

25:04

way someone brags about their kids, the

25:06

smell of someone's perfume. Every

25:08

little annoyance, every perceived slight

25:11

accumulates. One of

25:13

my favorite stories, which should drive anyone

25:15

who has ever played in a band crazy. There's

25:18

this bassoon player who has sat next to the same

25:20

clarinet player since 1988. She's

25:23

convinced he plays half a note flat on every

25:25

note he's ever played.

25:28

He denies this.

25:30

The person I talked to the most in the pit was Melanie,

25:33

the oboist.

25:34

She's one of the rare people you meet who has no

25:36

real filter.

25:38

So I was complaining about something

25:40

which I imagine was that it was really cold. It's

25:42

always really cold. And then someone

25:45

else from the orchestra said, just

25:50

so tired of the sound of your voice. You

25:53

know, and I'm tired of the sound of my voice too. So

25:56

I kind of sympathize with her. Then

25:58

there was that violinist got mad at me. because I said I used Roundup

26:01

in my garden. She said, and

26:03

she wouldn't speak to me for, I don't know, weeks.

26:06

During most of our talks, Melanie was making reads.

26:09

It's an extraordinarily meticulous process.

26:12

There's all sorts of medieval looking tools and tiny

26:14

bits of wood everywhere.

26:16

Obos are the most optimistic people in the world because

26:18

every time they make a read, they think that it might

26:20

work. They

26:22

usually don't, but anyway. This part,

26:24

oh no, I'm skipping the most important part. You

26:27

need to pick your color of thread. And

26:29

it just makes all the difference, and I never know what color to

26:31

pick. But this is the only fun that I have, so.

26:36

["Fantasize"]

26:39

That god-awful noise. Melanie

26:42

studied at Juilliard. She dreamed of

26:44

being the principal oboist in the Metropolitan

26:47

Opera or the Philharmonic. But

26:49

she kept bombing her auditions. Her

26:51

nerves got the best of her every time she was up

26:53

for a big seat. And then life

26:56

and bills intervened. Phantom

26:59

in that way is a very good job, in

27:01

a field where there aren't a lot of good jobs anymore.

27:04

It put Melanie's kids through college, paid

27:06

her mortgage, and provided security

27:08

while the music industry collapsed around her. But

27:11

at the end of 30 years,

27:12

sitting just inches away from your

27:14

coworkers, you lose all sense of proportion.

27:17

Your enemies turn into monsters.

27:20

For Melanie, the monster in the pit

27:22

was always a trumpet player named Francis

27:24

Bonny.

27:25

Everything he did drove Melanie nuts

27:28

from the black Viking shorts he wore in the pit

27:30

to always eating his dinner in the locker room with

27:32

his back turned to her.

27:34

Francis was the miserable son of a bitch. And

27:36

at a certain point, he started wearing, like

27:39

he put this black,

27:40

like, shade on the side of his glasses.

27:44

And he's wearing those things because he doesn't want to see me, right? That's why

27:46

he's wearing, I really truly believe this. I

27:48

wanted to run this all by Francis. It

27:50

just seems so unreasonable.

27:53

Francis was the only person I had talked to who had

27:55

actually escaped from the pit.

27:57

He got in a truck and drove out to the middle

27:59

of nowhere and Colorado. He says he's

28:01

much happier now. You spoke of

28:03

Melanie! Oh, yeah, yeah, we

28:05

did. I understand that you two did not

28:07

have the best relationship. One

28:09

of the things that she told us was that you

28:12

basically made an eye patch so that you wouldn't

28:14

have to look at her. Is this a true story that she's

28:16

telling us? I did do that at some point, but

28:18

that wasn't just because of Melanie. She's

28:21

taken it too personally. It was actually anybody

28:23

that was on my right.

28:27

She told us for a

28:29

long time that you sat in the locker room and

28:32

that you would turn your back to everybody

28:34

because you didn't want to look at them. Yeah, I was

28:36

in the locker room. I came there,

28:39

I ate my dinner, looked at the white wall, went

28:42

in, played the show, and then left the theater, left

28:45

the premises as fast as I could, and

28:47

it worked beautifully. Can

28:50

you compare the relationships that you have with other

28:52

relationships? It's family. It's

28:57

about if you can't stand, and

28:59

putting up with people that you just don't want to hear

29:01

their voice again, you sit there, thousands

29:03

and

29:04

thousands and thousands and thousands

29:07

of hours. This

29:09

is like a quarter of a lifetime. The

29:12

musicians in the pit don't play the whole time, which

29:15

means there are thousands of hours where

29:17

they're not actually doing anything. And

29:19

during those rest, they read books, spy

29:21

thrillers and mysteries, and do the crossword

29:23

with their neighbors. A trumpet

29:26

player has taught himself three languages. Another

29:28

musician ran a woodshop business on his

29:30

laptop during the show. And

29:33

socially, it's a bit like middle school. There

29:35

are the loners, the jocks, and the French

29:38

horns. They're like the boys in the back of

29:40

the bus. They bring in fart

29:42

machines and run the same practical jokes

29:44

over and over. Sometimes

29:46

they even mess with the audience. The

29:49

front row is right up against the pit, so

29:51

close that their feet sometimes dangle next

29:53

to the musician's heads. Occasionally,

29:56

one of the French horn players would take out a bottle

29:58

of whiteout and write little letters.

29:59

messages on the soles of the audience's

30:02

shoes. Those guys, they're

30:04

sitting right behind me, they're always chattering

30:07

and laughing. I, being

30:10

me, if I play badly, I think,

30:12

oh god, they're saying how terrible I am. Oh

30:14

god, I don't want to humiliate myself. This,

30:17

more than anything Melanie told me,

30:20

is what makes her want to sound good every night. She's

30:23

worried the French horn guys will make fun of

30:25

her. I'm not playing for the audience because the

30:27

audience doesn't. And so I'm

30:29

playing for those French horn players. I

30:32

do want to say, one of the compliments

30:34

I've gotten over the years is, how

30:36

do you still play so well when you've just been doing Phantom for

30:39

all those years? This is a choice that I've made.

30:41

My choice is to play this music like it's

30:44

any other music that I play and

30:47

make it beautiful. Can you just play

30:49

something for a Phantom? Well, I can play the really

30:51

hard one. If it's really bad though, I

30:53

beg you not. During

31:04

the pandemic, like the rest of Broadway,

31:07

Phantom shut down. The

31:09

unstoppable show was put on pause for

31:11

a year and a half. I

31:13

checked in with Melanie during that break. She

31:16

wasn't doing very well.

31:17

She wasn't getting paid by the show. And

31:20

she missed Phantom. This was surprising

31:23

to me. Melanie and all the other

31:25

musicians had told me about their fantasies

31:27

of finally leaving the show and I had believed

31:29

them. But now that it actually

31:32

happened,

31:33

she missed a routine. You know,

31:36

Phantom, I miss the the comradeship.

31:39

You know, the repetition of the silly jokes and

31:42

watching everyone eat. And I don't

31:44

know the routine. I kind of like routine

31:46

in my life.

31:48

This of course is the opposite of what she'd said

31:50

in the past before COVID. It

31:52

was always easy to complain that it was boring and

31:55

to complain about driving into the city and wasting

31:57

all that time in the car.

32:00

you know, playing the same music

32:02

and going home again. And I just thought,

32:04

I

32:05

knew I was lucky back then, but it

32:07

becomes very real now.

32:10

I mean, what can I say? Now

32:13

I really know what it's like

32:15

not having this job.

32:17

You know, it's just so much

32:19

fun to complain about things that don't matter. Oh,

32:22

the women in the bathroom, they were just always talking about their expensive

32:24

hair and makeup and I miss

32:26

the women in the bathroom. Yeah, I'd

32:29

be happy to complain about that again. Yeah,

32:31

I'd be happy to complain about that again.

32:43

Before the pandemic, every time I

32:45

talked to Melanie, I would ask how she was doing.

32:48

Her answer always depended on parking. It's

32:50

hard to park in Midtown Manhattan. A

32:53

good parking spot was a good day, but

32:55

bad parking spot was a bad day. This

32:57

is how she made sense of her life.

33:00

I think about this all the time. Most

33:03

of our lives are spent finding parking for the job

33:05

we don't want to do.

33:06

Melanie's not alone in that. And

33:09

after any number of years, those

33:11

routines accumulate and that's more or

33:13

less your life.

33:20

Of all the people I talked to in the pit, one

33:23

musician dealt with a mundane and inevitable

33:26

repetition of life in a way that really stuck

33:28

with me.

33:29

For the past two decades in the pit, Kurt,

33:32

the musician who described himself as a violin

33:35

operator, has been dreaming up the most

33:37

elaborate and metaphorically perfect

33:39

coping mechanism.

33:41

It's a band made up entirely of automatons.

33:44

I met these robot musicians in a warehouse

33:47

in Yonkers.

33:49

The PAM band. The

33:51

PAM band stands for partially artificial

33:54

musicians. Kurt's automatons

33:56

are made up of scraps of metal and string

33:58

all wired up to a sound.

33:59

that Kirk can program to create

34:02

whatever sounds he wants. There's

34:04

Magnus, an electro-chord organ, Krieg,

34:07

the bass guitar, and then there's Rosie,

34:10

the theremin. This is Jack,

34:13

a solid-body

34:14

electric violin, using the

34:16

exoskeleton design. This

34:21

is what helps alleviate

34:24

the boredom of the redundancy of Phantom, because

34:28

I'm constantly thinking about

34:30

this project and how I

34:32

can improve the automation and

34:35

the kind of music that I would like to create.

34:39

Why did you decide to do this?

34:45

If I ever see a therapist, maybe they

34:47

will help me understand this. Oh, pretend I'm a therapist.

34:50

Was there part of it where you're like, man,

34:53

I am playing in this orchestra, it's

34:57

not the expressiveness that I want. I

34:59

also kind of feel like an automaton,

35:02

and maybe I'll just make an automaton as a

35:04

violinist. Yeah, I can

35:07

see exploring that.

35:09

Am I looking

35:12

for some kind of soul

35:15

healing from this dehumanization

35:18

of being in a violin section?

35:21

Possibly. I

35:25

asked Kurt if the pan band could play the music of the night, or

35:27

all I ask of you, or any of the Phantom classics.

35:31

He wasn't into that at all. This

35:34

band was not designed to play Andrew Lloyd

35:36

Webber, but something inside

35:38

him just couldn't get away from Phantom

35:40

of the Opera. Back

35:43

when he was sitting in the pet, he'd composed,

35:45

just in his head, both the prequel

35:47

and the sequel to Phantom, both which

35:49

involved Indiana Jones-type characters. And

35:52

years ago, he got a copy of the 1925 silent

35:55

film version of Phantom and wrote an

35:57

entire score. to

36:00

play it for me. He turned out

36:02

the lights in the warehouse and projected the film

36:04

onto the wall. The PAM band

36:06

started to play.

36:07

The score features him,

36:09

Kurt, as the solo violinist and the star

36:12

of the show. The automatons

36:14

all play the same thing, but Kurt

36:16

always improvises. None

36:18

of his shows are ever the same. Jay

36:32

Caspian Kang

36:34

is a staff writer for The New Yorker and co-host

36:36

of the podcast Time to Say Goodbye. His story

36:38

was produced by Nicki Meek. So

36:41

we first broadcast that story three

36:43

years ago,

36:44

and now the decades

36:46

of repetition in the Phantom of the Opera pit

36:49

are finally coming to an end. After 35

36:52

years, the longest-running show in Broadway

36:54

history is closing this

36:56

week. Curious how

36:58

the musicians in the pit were taking the news, Jay

37:01

caught up with Melanie, the oboe player, when

37:03

she just had four shows left to play. Jay

37:06

asked about the moment when everybody who works in

37:08

the show heard definitively, during a big

37:11

Zoom meeting actually, that the show was

37:13

finally closing. What was your

37:15

first thought? Because I remember

37:17

that we had talked about it and you sort of, you

37:20

and Lowell

37:22

and Pete had all sort of fantasized

37:25

about it, because I asked you about this a lot. Just like, what

37:27

are you going to, like when you leave,

37:29

like how's it going to feel? Right. And

37:31

so like, how did it actually feel? Like, because you finally

37:33

get

37:34

confirmation that, okay, this is actually going to

37:36

end. So the first

37:38

thing is you have the dropping of your gut

37:40

into the cellar kind of feeling of shock,

37:43

just complete shock. Like

37:46

the bottom is falling out of my world kind of feeling.

37:49

I was upset. So what

37:51

I do, I said, I don't want to be sad, so

37:53

I will be angry. Let's choose anger. And I

37:56

said, I'm going to focus on all the things

37:58

I hate. And that way I won't be sad. And

38:01

so that's what I did. Did it work? Like, did it

38:03

work to? Yeah. I was

38:05

so successful. To just focus on everything

38:08

you hate instead of, you know, whatever

38:10

feelings of sadness or regret

38:12

or even, you know, fear that might

38:14

have popped up.

38:15

No, this is at the beginning. Okay. So

38:18

I was so good, right? I was so successful.

38:22

Now that it's imminent, I do feel different. So

38:27

now it's much more of a roller coaster up and down.

38:30

Right now there's all kinds of exciting activities

38:32

going on. And then you can sort

38:34

of forget that it's closing. I am certainly

38:37

sad about it. It's an entire way

38:40

of life. I

38:44

can't even really imagine knowing

38:46

it will never be back. But

38:49

most of those people I'm never going to see again. Are

38:52

people being nicer to one another in the

38:54

pit? Thank you for asking. People

38:57

are being so nice. I'm trying to be

39:00

quiet about things that annoy me, but fewer things

39:02

are annoying me. And it's all very festive

39:04

and fun.

39:05

We had a really fun photo op on Friday.

39:08

They had a full company photo call. So I

39:11

really enjoyed it because everybody was up on

39:13

stage. They all gave us a poster

39:16

and everyone's getting their posters signed like your high

39:18

school yearbook. And, you know,

39:20

when I first interviewed you several

39:22

years ago, one of the things that you told me that,

39:25

you know, made me laugh a lot was that you

39:28

after playing 20 something years at the time

39:30

of the show had never actually seen the show. Right.

39:33

And that sort of blew my mind because I was like,

39:35

you go every night, you know, like you've never

39:38

actually seen the show.

39:39

Yeah. So

39:42

I realized that I really wanted to see the show and

39:45

I asked the management and

39:47

they set me up at the soundboard and

39:49

it was wonderful. This

39:52

is just last week, I think. And what

39:54

amazed me was the pageantry of it, the beauty

39:57

of it. I had no idea. You

39:59

see them bringing in all. the ice backstage

40:01

outside of the stage door every day. So

40:04

there's a giant ice container, the dry ice, and

40:06

then they carry it in and then and

40:08

then we used to complain about the smoke.

40:11

But I never knew what the smoke did. And

40:14

so it creates this incredible atmosphere and then there's

40:17

all these lights. Like we see the candelabra

40:20

under the stage but they're

40:22

not lit under the stage and so I got to see them on

40:24

the stage and I got to see

40:26

the Phantom and Christine at the end of I don't

40:28

know which number it was but they

40:31

just disappear. I

40:32

mean it's a trapdoor but it's

40:35

just disappearing and I

40:37

feel like a little kid in a way just awestruck

40:41

by all these things that other people have seen so many

40:43

times.

40:53

Eleven people who were gonna be in the pit closing

40:55

night and musicians who were there on opening

40:57

night back in 1988. I

40:59

was able to reach Lowell Hershey who as Jay

41:02

pointed out in the story everybody calls the sanest person

41:04

in the pit. Like Balinese, Lowell

41:07

has other gigs lined up for after Phantom

41:09

Closes here and there.

41:11

Nothing big, nothing too challenging. Neither

41:14

of them imagines playing for another Broadway show, either

41:16

as a sub or as a regular player. Lowell,

41:20

I have to say, was very chill

41:23

about the closing. You know I can't

41:26

say that I didn't enjoy going

41:28

to work. I did. It's fun for

41:30

me to do that and so I will miss that. But

41:33

you know I think I could find other things

41:35

that will interest me. I don't feel

41:37

like I'll be bored.

41:39

How old were you on the first opening night? I

41:43

was 40. Can I ask

41:45

you to go back and imagine for a second 40

41:47

year old you on the opening

41:49

night of Phantom. If you could

41:52

somehow have said to him you will be

41:54

here for 35 years and you'll be here on

41:56

closing night of this show.

41:58

What would that 40 year old have said?

42:03

Well, I

42:05

would have been really happy to

42:07

have heard that because at the

42:10

time Phantom opened I had an 11 and

42:12

a 13 year old. I had two kids and college

42:15

was coming up and if you'd told me that

42:17

Phantom was going to go more than just a few years

42:20

and go 35, I would have been thrilled

42:23

because that would have meant that

42:25

I would have some security. So

42:28

yeah, I would have been very happy to have that

42:30

information.

42:40

Coming up, a mom goes underground, goes

42:42

undercover to get an urgent message to

42:45

her daughter. That's in a minute from

42:47

Chicago Public Radio when our program

42:49

continues.

42:52

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43:21

I'm Kim Barker,

43:24

host of The Coldest Case in Laramie, a

43:26

show from Serial Productions in the New York Times.

43:29

In 1985, I was a high school sophomore

43:31

in Laramie, Wyoming, when a woman was brutally

43:33

murdered there. The crime was never solved.

43:36

Then a few years back, the police arrested

43:38

someone for the murder. A former Laramie

43:40

cop. His DNA was found at the crime

43:43

scene. But then, prosecutors

43:45

dropped the charges. So I went back to

43:47

Laramie to try to find answers. The

43:49

Coldest Case in Laramie. Listen, wherever

43:52

you get your podcasts.

43:54

people,

44:01

usually hidden from view, coming to the

44:03

surface. We've arrived at Act Two

44:05

of our program, Act Two, How

44:07

I Met My Mother. So

44:09

in some families, what's buried deep below are

44:12

the true feelings people have about one another. There's

44:14

so many people out there who have trouble saying directly

44:17

what they really feel. One of the

44:19

producers here at our show, Elna Baker, comes from a long

44:21

line of passive aggressive communicators. By

44:24

the way, they know this, they own it. When

44:26

her grandmother wanted to get a message across, that

44:29

message like, don't leave change lying around.

44:31

One time she put an article on the fridge saying

44:34

toddler chokes on Penny, and

44:37

then just

44:38

left it to everybody else to connect the dots.

44:41

Elna's mother communicates in the same indirect way,

44:44

which became a problem in the years after

44:46

Elna left the church, Elna's family's

44:49

Mormon. And her mom had some important

44:51

things that she wanted to say to her. Here's

44:53

Elna. This all started when

44:55

I made a joke about me buying weed to my brother.

44:59

She said, if mom were to hear that, she'd send an email

45:02

to the whole family about how you're an addict. I

45:05

laughed, and then I was like, wait,

45:07

what? That was way too specific.

45:10

Did mom send an email to the whole family about me

45:13

being an addict? And he was like,

45:16

nothing, nevermind. Which could

45:18

only mean one thing, she did.

45:21

It took several rounds of questioning before I got the

45:23

whole story. The email he

45:25

was referencing, my mom had sent it 10

45:28

years ago. At the time, I

45:30

was about to host a comedy show in New York where

45:32

me and a bunch of performers would play drinking games

45:34

on stage. It was called

45:37

The Drunk Show. The

45:39

show was being promoted online. My mom,

45:41

a devout Mormon, saw an article about it

45:44

and freaked out. Mormons

45:46

don't drink, it's against the religion. And

45:49

what I learned from my brother, years after

45:51

the fact, is that my mom was so

45:53

worried that I was doing this show, she sent

45:55

an email to my family,

45:57

my extended family, uncles,

45:59

cousins. and family friends who I grew

46:01

up with like the Mitchells, the Cockses,

46:03

Heidi, my middle school drama

46:05

teacher. Dear friends,

46:08

it begins, I am writing because

46:10

I am concerned about the direction Elma's life

46:12

is turned. She is spiraling downward

46:14

fast. My mom then explains

46:17

to them that I'm doing this event called the drunk show,

46:19

then writes, I am very concerned.

46:22

In our family, you are either an alcoholic

46:25

or a Mormon, and I think she may

46:27

be headed in the wrong direction. I don't

46:29

know what

46:29

I can do personally. She doesn't hear

46:32

me. I'm going to

46:34

interject here that I didn't hear her

46:36

because she never said anything to me about it.

46:40

In the email, she inserts a link to the article about

46:42

the drunk show and then reveals her

46:44

grandmaster plan. She's been

46:46

commenting on the article under

46:48

fake names, warning me not to do

46:50

the show. Can everyone else

46:53

please make up fake accounts and also comment?

46:56

This way, I'll cancel the show. She

46:59

ends, thanks. Pray for us both,

47:01

please. When

47:03

I read this email, I was mortified. I

47:06

drink socially. I'm not an alcoholic.

47:08

But since I'd never intercepted the email, I

47:11

worried everyone who got it had thought this for

47:13

years. I immediately clicked

47:15

on the link to the article. At the

47:17

bottom of the page, there were four comments from

47:20

four different people trolling me, all

47:23

clearly my mother. Her

47:26

first fake character is Carol

47:28

from the West Village, who says,

47:30

quote, encouraging irresponsible

47:33

drinking that could end in hospitalization

47:35

of performers is an invitation

47:37

to a lawsuit. Don't be idiots.

47:41

The three other comments escalate from there.

47:44

Here's the weirdest part. She wrote

47:46

all these comments while she was staying with me. She

47:49

was in town the week of the drunk show. We

47:51

slept in the same bed. But she

47:53

didn't say a word to me about it. As

47:56

interventions go, it was the least successful

47:59

one I've ever heard of. or could imagine.

48:01

No one else among the family or friends chimed in.

48:04

And I, the target of the intervention,

48:06

never knew it happened. I never

48:09

heard of or read the comments online until

48:11

my brother accidentally let it slip years

48:14

later.

48:16

Since I found out about this, I've wondered

48:18

why my mom chose to communicate this message to

48:20

me the way she did. But I've never asked

48:23

her because I figured it would just lead to

48:25

a fight and no answers.

48:27

But we're much closer now than we were when I

48:29

did the drunk show. Why not try? To

48:33

my surprise, she agreed to talk about it.

48:35

But on these conditions, dad had

48:37

to be there in case we needed mediation.

48:40

I had to come home for Christmas in exchange.

48:43

And most importantly, I

48:45

could only do this story if she got to write

48:47

the ending, which we'll get to later.

48:50

Uh, talk for a second. Hi,

48:53

Alma, how are you? Wow, mom, you got sexy.

48:58

Wow, mom. I'm trying out a lower

49:00

voice because I think my voice is too screechy.

49:02

Don't do that. Don't spend

49:04

the whole interview not being yourself.

49:07

We started at the beginning. How

49:09

did my mother decide that anonymous comments

49:12

online would be the best way to reach me? She

49:15

said my sister Julia told her about the drunk show.

49:17

So I'm laying there on the couch.

49:20

I'm at your apartment, probably about five in the

49:22

morning. And I'm still in over this,

49:25

I can't sleep, haven't slept for hours. And

49:27

then I just had this little

49:29

epiphany. I can put this on

49:31

here in somebody else's voice. I don't have to

49:33

use my own voice. And then maybe

49:35

she'll take it seriously. You just

49:37

need to hear it from New Yorkers. Why?

49:41

Oh, come on, Alma, you're from New York. You live

49:43

in New York and you value

49:46

their opinions. More than

49:48

yours. Oh, absolutely. Cause

49:50

I'm, you know, this fuddy duddy old

49:53

fashioned Mormon lady

49:55

that doesn't know anything. No,

49:58

like from 1950, I'm like. June

50:00

Cleaver. Are you saying that you are like

50:02

that or that you think I think that? That's

50:04

what I think you think I am, yeah. Before

50:07

things get too tense, my mom and

50:09

I pull up the comments page together. The

50:12

first thing I learned was how fleshed out these

50:14

people were in my mom's mind.

50:16

Like Carol from the West Village, who

50:19

warned that irresponsible drinking could lead

50:21

to lawsuits. She's a lawyer?

50:23

Because that's the way a lawyer would say

50:26

things, isn't it? Okay.

50:28

She's dealt with lawsuits that

50:30

have been involved, drunk drivers

50:33

or something

50:36

with alcohol that's involved, right? To

50:38

be clear, nowhere in the comments does

50:40

it say Carol is a lawyer.

50:43

For each entry, there's just a name and location.

50:46

Like

50:47

Don from the Upper West Side. Pretty

50:50

ritzy area, right? Who's

50:52

Don in your mind? Don

50:55

is a comedian. Oh, okay. Who's

50:58

older. He used

51:00

to do kind of the old style comedy.

51:03

Again, reading the comments, you'd

51:05

never know Don was a comedian. Yeah,

51:07

he's just disgusted with how comedy has

51:10

evolved in the last 15

51:13

years or so. What does Don think

51:15

about me doing this show? He

51:18

says, comedy, where

51:20

you are laughing at the performers and

51:22

not with the performers, is not comedy.

51:25

It is tragedy. Is this

51:27

really what NYC comedy is

51:30

reduced to? Are you really not

51:32

cleverer than this? Why

51:35

did you think like Don

51:37

saying this to me would

51:39

reach me? Well, you'd love

51:41

comedians. I mean, it's all about the

51:43

comedy for you. So

51:46

of course, if this is not going to be funny,

51:49

then

51:50

maybe we shouldn't do this. The

51:52

next comment comes from the East Village. From

51:54

a commenter named, please. Okay,

51:58

so I'm thinking this is a.

52:01

a

52:01

policeman. And his

52:03

name is Police? Yeah, Officer,

52:06

please. It doesn't say Officer, Mom. It

52:08

doesn't mean, please.

52:15

What, why is this policeman writing me? Why

52:17

is he so offended by this show? Well,

52:20

he says 10 years after 9-11, and

52:22

this is where New York is? Come on.

52:25

The show is on September 17. I

52:28

think this week, of all weeks, we should

52:30

all be a little more sensitive and full of introspection.

52:34

OK. Can we just, I

52:37

think we can both agree

52:39

that you went real big

52:41

on this one.

52:44

I hit the 9-11 button.

52:46

Her last comment is a straight up Mormon talking

52:49

point. Alcoholism and

52:51

all other addictions take away freedom

52:54

of choice. Seven minutes

52:56

after she posted that, she sent the

52:58

mass email. My

53:00

mom said she went so hard because. So

53:03

I have two uncles who died of alcoholism

53:07

poisoning. My uncle died

53:09

at age 30. My other uncle came to my wedding

53:11

completely drunk and ended up dead

53:14

about two years later from

53:16

alcoholism. Gary's grandfather died

53:18

of alcoholism.

53:19

So that's how I get there. It's

53:22

not like it's a Mormon thing. It's

53:25

an experience that has

53:27

affected me. It affected

53:29

my mother. She was just

53:32

devastated over her brother and

53:35

his alcoholism. Stopping

53:37

the drunk show meant stopping me from becoming

53:40

one of these people. My mom

53:42

said she saw the promo photo of me sipping a drink

53:44

on the page announcing the show and thought,

53:47

she lost her mind. She

53:50

has relatives who died of alcoholism.

53:52

She's been taught since she was a little girl to

53:55

be careful around alcohol. Has

53:57

she completely?

54:00

Locked out everything I've ever taught

54:02

her

54:05

Did you ever consider just calling me

54:08

Elna We've

54:11

already been there you don't hear

54:13

me. You just don't hear me. It's just

54:15

a joke

54:17

You have to hear it from somebody who you think

54:19

is credible Come

54:22

on admit it Elna You

54:25

know you would have just laughed you would have

54:27

called Kevin you would have had a good laugh And

54:30

you would have had the show anyway, but you

54:32

didn't think come on admit

54:34

it. Wait, you know it You

54:37

know you would have rolled your eyes at me But

54:40

you didn't even try. I'm

54:42

a just just tell

54:44

me

54:47

What's the truth on your end Well,

54:49

I don't think I here's the thing. I think

54:52

if if you just told me not to

54:54

do it. I Would have

54:57

I would have done exactly what you're saying, but

54:59

if we'd had a full conversation where we really

55:01

talked Like

55:03

I so for example. I didn't know until

55:05

just now

55:07

Until we've had this conversation Like

55:11

I didn't really know that much about your

55:13

family history with drinking you

55:15

don't talk about these unpleasant things so

55:18

that like when you're So

55:21

against drinking I think I did think it

55:23

was just had to do with Mormonism and not that

55:25

it had to do with like really painful things you

55:28

Witnessed in your life because you never told me about

55:30

them. I'm sure I've

55:32

said this statement before in your life

55:35

in our family You're either

55:39

Mormon or an

55:42

Alcoholic alcoholic yeah, yeah,

55:45

I heard that one before

55:47

I Yeah,

55:49

I just didn't believe it She'd

55:52

said this to me all my life, but I was missing

55:55

the context I've never met

55:57

any of these family members who drank. I

55:59

don't remember for her ever mentioning any of these stories.

56:02

I saw my mother as sheltered. Almost

56:05

all her friends are Mormon. I just thought,

56:07

she doesn't know what she's talking about.

56:09

Which was unfair.

56:12

["The Man."

56:25

With each listen, my mother sounded less and less

56:27

like my mother. Like, I

56:29

stopped hearing her the way I usually do, rolling

56:32

my eyes, getting defensive. And

56:34

I actually started to hear what she had to say. This

56:37

is the line that struck me the hardest. ["Elma,

56:41

we've already been there. You don't

56:44

hear me."

56:45

She's right. And I can

56:47

hear in her voice that this has been hurting her feelings

56:49

for years. And that's my

56:51

fault. I see why she thinks

56:54

it's hopeless to talk to me about drinking, about

56:56

anything.

56:57

I'm incredibly dismissive.

56:59

That's my part in this.

57:02

And her part, she was totally upfront

57:04

about that.

57:05

She didn't want to confront me about drinking because

57:07

she has so much trouble with confrontation of any

57:09

kind,

57:10

with anyone,

57:12

going back to when she was young.

57:14

I mean, as a little kid, I used to just

57:18

admit fault to anything that

57:21

happened in our family. In order

57:23

to get the confrontation to be over with.

57:26

I never understood before this conversation

57:28

what that feels like for her.

57:30

She panics, feels trapped, like

57:32

she needs to run,

57:34

tightness in her chest.

57:36

Which is what makes this conversation so hard.

57:38

It's just we're doing exactly what

57:41

I hate to do. What? Talk

57:44

about conflict. So

57:48

what's happening to you when we do it? Well,

57:52

see, I'm twiddling my thumbs,

57:54

right? I'm feeling my

57:56

neck turn to stone.

57:58

This chord. which

58:00

is already coiled up, has

58:02

been triple coiled. And

58:04

coiled. For the headphones. So,

58:09

yeah. Well,

58:11

thank you for putting yourself in

58:15

your most uncomfortable place. Sure,

58:19

you're welcome, Elna. Anything for my daughter. I

58:22

knew what this meant. From the tone of her

58:24

voice, it was time to stop. This

58:27

was the most direct conversation I've ever had

58:30

with my mother, and the longest real

58:32

conversation we've ever had. She'd

58:34

gone above and beyond and did something she did not

58:37

enjoy for me. I

58:39

could return the favor and call it a day.

58:44

Well, folks, my ticket home for Christmas is

58:47

booked. And now for the ending

58:49

my mother requested. It

58:51

comes down to three words. She

58:53

was right. Not about me

58:55

spiraling downward fast, but

58:57

about the drunk show. For the record,

59:00

the drunk show was a disaster. I

59:03

was the one who organized the drinking games, but

59:05

because I'd only recently left the church, I

59:07

was brand new to drinking. And all

59:09

the penalties in the games were things like, take

59:12

four shots of whiskey. Things

59:14

went off the rails quickly. A

59:16

performer threw a chair at an audience member.

59:19

I drunk dialed my ex from the stage and

59:21

the call went so badly that I started crying

59:24

in front of the audience. Ira,

59:26

who was in the show, got blackout drunk.

59:29

For the first time in his life, he said. And

59:31

then threw up into a trash bag. And

59:34

someone ended up in the hospital. My

59:37

mom knew none of those details, of course, but

59:39

big picture, Carol from the

59:41

West Village knew what she was talking

59:43

about when she said,

59:44

irresponsible drinking can lead to hospitalization.

59:49

In other words,

59:50

mom was right. Donna

1:00:00

Baker is one of the producers of our show and

1:00:02

the author of the book, The New York Regional

1:00:04

Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. The

1:00:30

program is produced today

1:00:32

by Aviva de Kornfeld and Lena Mesitzis.

1:00:34

The

1:00:38

people who put together today's rerun include

1:00:40

Ella Mustafa, Stone Nelson, Matt Tierney,

1:00:42

and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is

1:00:45

Sara Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.

1:00:47

Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Our

1:00:49

website, thisamericanlife.org.

1:00:52

You can hear over 700 episodes of our program

1:00:54

for absolutely free. This American

1:00:57

Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX,

1:01:00

the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks

1:01:02

as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia.

1:01:04

You

1:01:04

know, we were talking the other day and

1:01:06

he got slip. He has not been listening to

1:01:09

our program for weeks. Weeks.

1:01:12

I was like, what?

1:01:13

Totally confronted him about it. And

1:01:16

I don't know. I guess he had a good

1:01:18

reason. Just

1:01:21

so tired of the sound of your voice. I'm

1:01:23

out of glass. Back next week,

1:01:25

I told Tori, I get it. You

1:01:28

know, and I'm tired of the sound of my voice too. So

1:01:30

I kind of sympathize.

1:01:46

Next

1:01:48

week on the podcast of This American Life. So

1:01:51

Elon Musk takes over Twitter. And one

1:01:53

of his aides comes to a Twitter employee named UL

1:01:56

and asks a question and UL answers.

1:01:59

And then the guy's like, oh,

1:01:59

Okay, you're going to tell that to Elon. And

1:02:02

the guy's like, great. And then he goes and gets

1:02:04

Elon. Who at this point I've like seen

1:02:07

on the internet, but I had not met in person.

1:02:10

And so Elon sits down

1:02:12

and

1:02:14

asks, well,

1:02:17

let me see our tools, our

1:02:19

tools. He owns the company at this point. And

1:02:22

what Elon says, who he seems to be

1:02:25

surprises you all. It's next week

1:02:27

on the podcast on your local public radio station.