The Moth (17 page)

Kimberly Reed
is a filmmaker living in New York City. She was named one of 25 New Faces of Independent Film by
Film-maker Magazine,
one of Five to Watch by
The Advocate,
and the Best LGBT Character of the Film Year by Towleroad. Reed has been awarded Fellowships at the Yaddo Artists’ Community and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She directed/produced
Prodigal Sons,
which
SF Weekly
calls a “whiplash doc that heralds an exciting talent.”
Prodigal Sons
was a co-production with BBC Storyville and Sundance Channel; it premiered at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival with a record seven screenings. The film has gone on to be shown around the world in theaters, festivals, and on television, garnering more than a dozen jury and audience awards, including the Fipresci Prize. She has been featured on
Oprah
and CNN, among other media outlets. Reed is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and a Montana native.

DARRYL “DMC” MCDANIELS

E
verything happens for a reason. I’m here in front of y’all today to tell you what happened several years ago when I asked myself:
Why am I here?

I was on tour with my band, Run-DMC. We were over in Europe, out there doing shows, getting $50,000 a night. But for some reason, something in me wasn’t right, and I had no idea what it was.

On this particular evening after the show, I got back to my room, and I lay there, and I thought about everything that had happened to me.

OK, I’m Darryl McDaniels. I grew up in Hollis, Queens, New York. Byford and Banna are my mother and father. My brother is Alfred. I went to a Catholic school that my mother and father worked every day to pay for. I treated them right by coming home with straight A’s. I was athletic. As a kid every day was Christmas. Life couldn’t be better. After growing up in Hollis, I met Joe and Jay, and we did the things that young guys do, and
then we started a rap group, and we put a record out, and then the record went number one, and we damn near created hip-hop.

We were the first to go gold, first to go platinum. All this good stuff—
Rolling Stone
, MTV—and now here I am in Europe getting $50,000 a night. But why am I so unhappy?

I was depressed to the point that I had suicidal thoughts. I don’t think I really would have killed myself, but I did once go to the ledge and look over.

But I said, “I ain’t jumping. It’s gonna hurt.”

I put poison in a glass, but I looked at it, and I said, “I ain’t drinking that.” I thought about a gun.

I knew something was wrong with me, even though life was good, because I had these suicidal thoughts.

But then I came to the conclusion, “I can’t kill myself on the road while we’re touring because Run and Jay’s gonna be mad at me. So I’m going to just wait until I get home.”

So we finished, and I came home very depressed. Didn’t know what this void was that was in me, because when I summed up everything, I was supposed to be happy.

I got in the car, and the limo driver goes, “Do you want to hear some music?”

I was like, “Yeah, just turn the radio on.”

“You have a preference?”

“No, just turn it on.”

So he turned the radio on, and this was 1997, and on the radio was a record called “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan.

Now look, fame, friends, fortune, and even my family didn’t mean nothing to me because I was suicidal, I was depressed, I was an emotional wreck. But for some reason, when I heard that record “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan, something in me said, “Life is beautiful. It’s good to be alive.”

So, for
one whole year
, all I did was listen to Sarah McLachlan’s record “Angel.” I went out and bought every record she ever made.

The only thing I was living for was listening to Sarah McLachlan. Over and over and over, everywhere I went.

I was driving my management crazy because they would be like, “Come on, Dee, we got to go on the road.”

“Okay, but you got to put this in.”

They would go, “No!”

And I’d say, “Then I ain’t going!”

And they’d be like, “OK, we’ll put it in for you. But there’s something the matter with you. What’s up with you?”

And at the end of the year, my manager goes, “Yo, Dee. I got tickets to Clive Davis’s Grammy party.”

Y’all know who Clive Davis is, right? If you win
American Idol
, you get a deal with Clive Davis. He discovered Janis Joplin and all these people.

But I’m like, “I have no time for Clive Davis and Hollywood because I have my Sarah McLachlan! That’s all I care about.”

He’s like, “Yo, Dee, man, I went through a hard time to get these tickets,” and blah, blah, blah.

I say, “OK. I’ll go to the party, but I’m only staying one hour.”

So I go to the party, Clive Davis’s Grammy party in L.A. I’m counting the seconds: 59, 58, 57…

I’m looking around, and there’s Stevie Wonder, so fucking what; Alicia Keys, who cares about Alicia Keys; and paparazzi, and all this stuff, right? And I’m there hating on everything.

But guess who walks in? That lady! (She was “that lady” to me then.)
That lady
that made the record that changed my life.

I’m losing it, because nobody knows I’m an in-the-closet Sarah McLachlan fan.

So I get myself together, and I say,
OK, I got to go over there. If I do die, kill myself, whatever, I got to go over there first, and let her know what her record did for me.

So I walk over to Sarah McLachlan. I’m in the whole Run-DMC garb—the hat, the black all the way down.

She sees me coming, and she goes, “DMC!” [
singing
]

I’m like, “Wow.” But in my head, I’m like:
That’s a good reason to stay alive, because Sarah McLachlan likes my music.

That’s where I was at, y’all.

I go over to her, and I say, [
speaking very quickly
] “Hey Miss McLachlan, I just want to tell you your record ‘Angel’ saved my life. I was depressed. I was suicidal. But every day I listen to that record. I don’t leave the house without listening to that record. Everything I do revolves around that record. And, listen, the record is called ‘Angel,’ you sing like an angel, people say you
are
an angel. But you’re not an angel to me, you’re
God
.”

And on, and on, and on, and on. And she’s looking at me like:
OK… where is this coming from? I just wanted to say hi to his ass.

So I finish my little rant, she looks at me, and she goes, “Thank you for telling me that, Darryl, because that’s what music is supposed to do.”

So three years go by. I’m still trying to figure out what this void is in me. Then, I realize something. People know my musical legacy, what Run-DMC did—first on MTV, first with a record deal, all the firsts—but nobody knows about the little boy, Darryl, who
became
DMC.

So I say, “I’m going to write a book, and it’s going to be, ‘Yo,
what’s up? My name is DMC. Yeah, I’m the kid from Run-DMC. I was born May 31, 1964.’ ”

When I get to that point, I realize that’s all I know about the day I was born. I’ve got to figure out the details of my birth.

So I call my mother up. “Hey Mom!”

“Hi, Darryl. How you doing? Love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Did you eat yet?”

“Mom, I—”

“You’re losing too much weight.”

“No, Mom, I’m working out. But whatever, I just need to know three things, because I’m writing this book. How much did I weigh? What time was I born? And what hospital?”

She told me those three things.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Hung up the phone. About an hour later the phone rings. It’s my mother and my father.

“Hey, son! How you doing?”

“Dad, yo. What’s up?”

“We have something else to tell you—blahsy blah this, blahsy blah that—you were a month old, we think you’re Dominican, and you’re adopted, you’re adopted,
you’re adopted, you’re adopted,
YOU’RE ADOPTED!”

Right then and there, the whole world stopped [
makes sound of screeching brakes
]. I thought about when I was lying in the bed three years earlier, summing up everything about me.
That
was the void, the missing link that had me going out of my mind. That was the one thing I didn’t know about myself. So the void was now filled.

Now, if you think there’s really a time to commit suicide, find out you’re adopted at age thirty-five.

And people say, “Dee, they told you over the
phone
?”

I really wanted to kill myself, but then I remembered something Sarah McLachlan had said:
That’s what music is supposed to do.

So I said, “OK, before I get suicidally depressed again and do something really crazy, I need to write a record that’s going to help that little orphan, or that little kid in foster care, who thinks:
They threw me away, I’m worthless, I mean nothing, no mother and father love me.
Because I may be DMC, but what I really represent is purpose and destiny, so I need to make a record that’s going to inspire somebody the way Sarah McLachlan inspired me!

Then I got a bigger idea. I thought,
I’m going to call that lady back up and have that lady make the record with me.

So I get Sarah McLachlan on the phone, and I’m thinking:
If she thought I was crazy three years ago, she’s going to really think I’m crazy now!

“Hey, Miss McLachlan! It’s Darryl. Remember me?”

“How could I forget you, Darryl? You called me God.”

“OK, here we go. Remember when I met you three years ago, and I told you what your record did for me?”

“Yes.”

“And then you looked at me, and you told me that’s what music’s supposed to do?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I just found out why I was depressed and suicidal. My father told me I was adopted. I need to make a record that’s going to inspire others the way your record inspired me. Will you help me do this record?”

She says, “Yes!” real quick.

I was like, “Wow, that was easy.” But I’m losing it now; I’m like:
She said yes!

“I’ll fly you to New York, put you in the Four Seasons.”

She says, “No, Darryl, you can come to my house and make the record.”

After three years of listening to this lady, I’m a fan, right? To make a long story short, when she said, “Come to my house,” I fainted. I woke up. I was in Vancouver, Canada, at Sarah McLachlan’s house, the lady whose record saved my life. It’s beautiful there.

I said, “Miss McLachlan, I want to make a remake of Harry Chapin’s ‘Cat’s in the Cradle,’ and I’m going to put my adoption story there, and I’m going to give it a happy ending.”

“OK, cool.”

Took us two days to make the record.

I was on my way out the door, and she says, “Darryl, before you go, I’ve got to tell you something.”

Now, I love her to death, her music, everything, what she did for me, I’m in heaven, I’m walking on cloud nine.

And I said, “What?”

And she says, “I was adopted too.”

And I did not know that. Everything happens for a reason.

Darryl “DMC” McDaniels,
one-third of the group Run-DMC, is a music icon. He is one of the most influential rap artists of all time and a pioneer in fueling the popularity of hip-hop into the best-selling musical genre that it is today. From being the first rap group to grace the cover of
Rolling Stone
to the first to appear on MTV, Run-DMC changed music, culture, fashion, and language, and made American history. Thirty million in record sales later, and
more than ten years after the untimely death of his bandmate Jam Master Jay, DMC still continues to create, inspire, and motivate. He is the co-author of the critically acclaimed autobiography
King of Rock: Respect, Responsibility, and My Life with Run-DMC
(St. Martin’s, 2001), and in 2006 released an award-winning solo album,
Checks, Thugs & Rock and Roll
. His story was the subject of the Emmy-winning VH1 documentary
DMC: My Adoption Journey
. In between his work as a musician, published author, and speaker, DMC co-founded the Felix Organization, a nonprofit that works with adoptees and foster children. In 2009, as a member of Run-DMC, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. More information can be found at www.me-dmc.com.

GEORGE DAWES GREEN

S
o how many of y’all here are from the South? Well, you will know that in the South we sometimes have too many stories. And there was a story that my mother used to drill into me about when my great-grandmother was a little girl during the Civil War.

One day Sherman’s troops came to visit our family plantation. And outside in the front yard, they found an area where the earth had been disturbed, so they decided that this was where the family was hiding the silver.

So they commenced to dig, and a woman came out on the veranda. She was very beautiful, but very frail.

She said, “Y’all won’t find it. We sold it all long ago, and all that lies there are the remains of my boys—my twins—who died stillborn. And if you dig them up, you’ll be seeing their faces for all eternity.”

But they didn’t believe her, so they
dug. And when they found the bodies of the two infant children, they were so shamed and remorseful and fearful that they just rode away.

That’s why our family plantation house was left unburned when Sherman marched to the sea. However, I once talked to a cousin of mine who told me that he’d heard a rumor that the family silver had never been sold. That it had been, in fact, hidden
underneath the bodies of the two stillborn boys
. When he told me this, the expression on his face was a mixture of delight and a horrible loathing for everything that was our family. And this conflict of emotion is, I think, the mark of a true Southerner. We love what we hate, and we hate what we love.