Hurt

Hey, listener, it's Zach Harper, Amino has in an Anthony Mays of Cinephobe. You may be asking yourself, what is Cinephobe? I mean, would you like to fill in the people? Cinephobe is the podcaster of Zack and I watch movies that are poorly rated on Ron Tomatoes, and try to ascertain.

I'll try to ascertain. Yes. Okay, ascertain. Whether or not they're accurately poorly rated, or maybe they didn't get a fair shake.

Cinephobe, produced by this guy, Anthony Mays. Hey, that's me, I produced this show. I also watched the movies, even though that wasn't included in the description, and I also ascertained. Whoo, whoo, whoo.

This month is... Wow! Oh, man, it's what? You say that?

Supercharge it. Hey, folks, this is Kevin, just a few words before we start. Listen, you may have noticed that the very first episodes of Risk from 2009 to 2010 are no longer available for free on iTunes or on our website, but finally, they are back. You can find the first episodes of Risk in the Albums section of the iTunes Store, remastered with all advertising removed for 99 cents each.

You can find them there, along with our All Star episodes. Get to the Albums section of iTunes, and you can hear classic stories from people like Michael Ian Black. I'm not a pussy, and just as I'm having those thoughts, I throw up all of them. Christian Finnegan.

This, uh, word of the lies, do not eat Mexican food when you're planning on having group sex. That's a good, put that in your book. Andy Borowitz. That the guy was O.J.

Simpson. Now, when we think of O.J. Simpson, we all think of the same thing, right, author. Elna Baker.

So the next day, we traveled to a small village in Africa, and I'm escorted into the hut of a 113-year-old sex expert, and I'm like, I'm going to ask her everything about sex, you know, from the tank to the balls, I'm not holding back, you know, I'm just, what's a dirty Sanchez? You know, I don't know these things, but I want it. Mike Daisy. But I can't apologize because freedom is made, freedom is made out, and all the shit just started pouring out of my mouth.

Jeanine Garafolo. And Willard had claimed he could hear John Hodgman grew the walls, doing a thing called a pump and milk. I'm so sorry to upset him. I said, I am not heard of it.

And I said, what is that? And Willard had picture Willard and I'd say, oh, it's been you, defecated, masturbated, Satan. And he said it too embarrassed to his poor John Hodgman. That idea of John Hodgman doing that with Willard and pretending he could hear it and do that make the lab so hard that I permeated to kiss.

Sarah Silverman. And I was like, my heart stopped, and I go, were you just eating pussy, and it goes, like, as if I was a, the way he thought about it, it was like a magician that guessed his card. He was like, yes! Paul F.

Tomkins. I didn't know when the crowd backed him high side. With my witty rejoinder, sorry if I didn't know any better, I swear you were trying to hurt my feelings. Andy Dick.

So it's like, yeah, fasting's wonderful. I mean, look at me. We're ready. So am I.

Boom. Crap my pants. And so many more. The first 10 episodes of RISC are back with no advertisements.

If you love RISC, you do not want to miss out on these classic episodes. Get to the album section of the iTunes Store and look for RISC today. Now here's the show. Hello kids, this is RISC, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share.

I'm Kevin Allison, and this is Jonathan Geer, behind me now. What's such an exciting time for us, a lot of us on staff have either just been on vacation or are going on vacation. I just returned to Kincamp for the third time. This time I returned as a faculty member.

I taught a class called Everything You Can Do to an Ass other than fuck it. It went terrific. The most exciting thing of all was that I would say maybe 10, maybe 12 people came up to me at camp this year and said, hey, we're here because we heard that RISC episode called Kevin goes to Kincamp. We decided to take a RISC.

We found DarkOdyssey.com online and we decided to come to camp. And they were so excited to be there. So what a thrill to be such a perverse influence, I guess. And I now know how I react when I'm tied up and tortured with an electric cattle prod.

I scream and cry like a six-year-old girl, that's the kind of stuff you learn about yourself when you step outside the old comfort zone. Speaking of pain, we're calling today's episode Hurt. Three very moving stories from recent RISC live shows in New York and Los Angeles, people who, you know, live through an ordeal. But came through and then came to this safe space to share about it.

In just a bit, we're going to hear from the wonderful New York-based storyteller, Robin Gelfenbein. But before that, we're going to start things off with my good friend and a brilliant actor, Mr. Ptolemy Slocum. He's been on The Wire, The Sopranos, and so much more.

Three is at the RISC live show at the Nerd Belt Theater in Los Angeles with a story we call When We Were Friends. I grew up in a small town in Northern California, really it's like Central California, like where the farms are. And it's kind of a small town, like suburb of nothing. It felt like we were on like a little like life raft with no city, just like farms, oceans around us, like nothing to do.

They actually get studies of bacteria and how it like grows over distances and then mapped it over lands like this and along the freeways like human colonies grow up like bacteria in the center of the state. It's like an ideal place, although there's nothing to do. And we live on a small neighborhood block, but we can walk to our elementary school, which is nice. Next door to us were Koreans, and good for them, because they decided to move to America.

This like, kind of made me nervous that they moved to this like tiny like nothing town in the middle of nowhere. But I was happy about it, it was very different. Plus they had a boy child my age next door to me, which means you have a best friend. And he doesn't speak English, which means he needs a lot of help.

So I kind of felt like I had my like big kendol type of thing that would like run around with me. But Koreans are very different than us. They told me as a child that they were from, they were like good Koreans and they were also bad Koreans. I understand that is now like North and South Korea, but to me at the time, they were good Koreans.

Like that's what they were trying to communicate, which unfortunately went into my mind is like at any moment, these people could turn bad, like, because it's like, you know, a family would be like, hey, we're not vampires. And it's like, why are you telling me that? Um, I was young though, but um, I'm going to, their son was named Alan, which is not true, but I cannot use his name, do the nature of the story. So we'll just say it's a very Americanized name.

We'll just go with Alan. Really was Philip, but I want you to take that off of there. Um, uh, okay, so but like in their backyard, like their grandparents lived with them for the most part. Like, uh, maybe there was like a few months that they weren't there, but for the most part they were there.

There would be these like jars of glass come back here, there would be like jars of glass filled with like gelatinous, like organic materials, like cucumbers, and then all this like red paste and then, and then cabbage, which is like kimchi, they would like pickle their own kimchi in the back in these huge jars and the jars would be stacked on top of each other and they would line both sides. So when you're walking in their backyard, it's like, you're in an alien spaceship and these like specimens of like dead like bodies, they're like, it's like, wah, bazaar, we can't like play in their backyard because there's so much food that's just like pickling in the sun. Um, that is strange. And it did smell by the way, this is not just like a visual thing.

It did smell. And also like inside their house, they had a room that was blocked off from children. Um, and I mean literally a velvet, uh, wrote, not like the round kind, but there was a velvet thing and inside that was like the nice furniture and it was kind of like that room was underwater somewhere. Like you walked past it and you weren't allowed inside of it as if there's like a museum that they live inside of like, you can access these parts, but as children, you don't have access to this.

And also their stereo was in there. So we had to like request a parent go in and like put something on and then we would compete to see who was Michael Jackson and who was Paul McCartney for that girl was my song because no, we didn't know who Paul McCartney was. Both of us wanted to be Michael Jackson. So I was like, all right, fine.

But then we had to have somebody put it back on the song again so that the other person would be Michael Jackson. Um, but yeah, it was fun to have Philip. We would play Star Wars obviously, um, next door in my house because we couldn't play at their house and the physical memory I have of playing Star Wars is just running with a fake gun and making the flip sounds. It was like, I don't know why for us that trans like playing Star Wars was having hard sold shoes on a hard sold surface.

So when we're on grass, we can't duplicate the feeling of Star Wars. So we had it's just two little boys running across grass going, and for me, he had to make the sound correctly or it wasn't working. So I feel real bad about the way I trained him to be an American, but it's a lot worse. Um, and we were playing with my Star Wars figures and my stores figures were like homeless Star Wars figures.

They were like naked and they were unarmed, uh, and they were like dirty. They would play with them in like the trees and they would just be like rubbed everywhere. My mom came outside once and was like, Philip, why don't you guys play with your Star Wars figures? And his line was because mine would get dirty and it's true back at his house, he had like the Darth Vader mask full of Star Wars figures and they all had clothes on them and Yoda had a fucking snake and they had like guns.

I guess I had gotten so used to it living without that I blocked out that they came with anything. I just opened it and lost everything and then just like played with it. Um, but they were very protective about their things and they did want to play with me which I respect because I guess they wanted to, you know, be more American. I feel terrible about the rest of the story.

Um, so we built a fort in the backyard. I remember that. It was also goony's time. So we built this tunnel leading up to the fort and it was mostly like, um, blankets and boxes and we built a table and that was like our living room and then we built this long tunnel with booby traps so that people couldn't get to the tunnel.

Obviously they could have walked through and like stepped on us because it was just she's but in our mind, we were protected by this booby traps tunnel, which was really just a string attached to a cup that said, pull on it. So you'd have to crawl through the tunnel and pull as an attacker, you'd have to pull on and the water would fall on you. Was not a great booby trap, but we felt safe and we slept there overnight and in the morning, we woke up when the sun came up, it was bright and we started playing house to some extent and house involves a man that is out and like does work by walking back and forth with the clicking sounds. This is not supposed to be the funny part, um, kids are sad and then he crawls up the tunnel and avoids the booby traps.

There were also toothpicks that were supposed to stab you, but they were just really laying on the ground. Um, terrible booby traps and then don't pull when you walk past the whole thing and then goes home to his girlfriend and the other dude would have to be the girlfriend and this is not nobody wanted to be the girlfriend, but we had to trade off. So what would happen is the man would come home and then just lay on top of the girlfriend and just like start making out, like the girlfriend had to like wait at home for him to go to work and then when he came home, just like lay still and he would get on top of you and just like, mmm, mmm, mmm, that's how we understood life as like adults, um, and I do remember like when I was the man, like I was the man, I came home and he would just like, he didn't like it and neither of us, none of us wanted to do this, um, um, I was specifically remember his face was just like crinkle up like a jerkball and he'd be like, because he would have to fake kiss me. So like this and I'd be like, and we did stay about this far, I was like, mmm, mmm, the dude's, like his version of the dude was also like kind of commanding, um, I equate that to like a Korean thing, like I'm the man, I'm the man, um, and then his version of the girl was like, mmm, and this is why I decided not to say his name during the story, um, because I guarantee you he either forgot this or never told anyone and never admitted to it, um, and we did go on to our separate ways, but this fucking happened and don't you forget it, Philip.

Um, but I did think of it myself like, this is not something that he would have gotten in Korea, so I'm glad that they moved next door because now there's an awkward like faux homosexual experience that he's gotten in the backyard, um, no one ever talked about it again, but I was over at his house, um, like a couple months later and we were playing at his house, it was just his grandparents were really cute, they spoke zero English, like zero, um, couldn't communicate or talk in English, so when you approached like the old like grandpa, his only way to interact was to make puppets out of whatever was nearby, so you'd ask like, where's the bathroom, like, oh, oh, some pens and he would like make a puppet show because he didn't know what you said but he was trying to be cute, um, they were really cute, they weren't like terrible like old grumpy Koreans, um, so I was over at the house, I was so happy to be playing at his house, I guess I was just, and we get to play with like the real shit, like Star Wars figures and he had like the, the speeder from Hoth and everything, like and I didn't have shit, like I just broke everything, but um, so I shit my pants there, um, and I just want to specify that I was, before we go on, just the idea of shitting your pants is that like, I get so into playing and I'm so interested in continuing playing that I literally do not want to go to the bathroom, in fact I do not go to the bathroom until like the first nugget like comes like, okay, okay look, I just pooped a little bit of my pants, it's time for me to go to the bathroom, like clearly I can't pood it off longer and I just, I consider it just a passion for play, I don't, I don't see it as an issue, but the first, when you just imagine the first nugget like hits the pan and then I went to the bathroom for, it's not like I fully shit my pants, right? Oh, that's the hard part of the story, um, so I go in their bathroom and like, I have to stop playing for a second, so I go in their bathroom and I don't want to even be in there but I like, finish pooping and I don't want to go home even though I have like underwear with poop in it, so I'm like, I don't want to leave, I never get to play over here, so I stash this underwear behind, so prone about it, behind the toilet or like next to the toilet, I just remember like this little like side bathroom and doing the math later, right now, I would have chosen to go back and retrieve it, because what happens is like, they're not going to not find it, in my mind they're like, oh, I'm doing the right thing, I can still play because I have pants on, nobody knows I don't have underwear on, and no one will remember that I put this behind the toilet, but the thing is that the poop smells eventually, which I understand now, I get it, like they found it, okay? Um, and the reason I know they found it is because Philip never played with me again, um, and I just imagine that cute old man like finding it, you know like, what smells in this hallway and like trying to like, locating like, oh, our neighbor's shit in the bathroom, and I went to like, I went from, I think, you know, I was already questionable, I'm sure because I was dirty and whatever, but I went from becoming this like tutor of their child to like, a psychopath that lives next door, that is like, dangerous, like America is dangerous, and like, this is like an evil, like he's an evil child, and when I say that Philip didn't play with me again, I mean like, like never again, like never again, he wasn't supposed to talk to me anymore, and they moved him from that elementary school to another elementary school, and there were only two, they moved him from Vinewood, which was right down the block to Christian assembly, which I don't even, yes, they were Christian, um, but it was like, another part of the town, but they wanted him away from, you know, they're controlling people, and they don't want like a shitting child like influencing their son, and so we were not friends again, and I remember him at one point, because I was like, hey, it's still talking, like I would run into him like randomly, he's like, yeah, it's me, you remember your friend? I'd be like, I'm not supposed to play with you, I remember that sentence, literally happened.

We were visiting the home again, the family kind of cut us off, which makes sense, my mother thought that I had taught him so much that he had no longer wanted a part of me, like that's how she rationalized, like, why stop talking to us all of a sudden, and then today I was like, no, mom, I shit in their house, um, it's like, oh, oh, that would also do it, um, but uh, years later we were visiting the house, I was in like, just out of college, my aunt lived there so many Christmases, and Sue, don't say Sue either, um, the mother came out, um, and it was kind of this moment where the two of them were like, in the street, and I was like walking around these bushes that we used to play Star Wars in, and the bushes were just like, gangly large, I couldn't play with them anymore, it was just weird to be home, and those two were talking, and they were both like looking at me and talking, and we got back in the car, and my mom probably didn't know the story then either, but she said, uh, Sue said, he seems so normal to my mother, like years later, which is like kind of the most offensive thing you could ever say about some, like, I literally thought he would break himself over, like, he's like a fucking craziest person of all time, and I feel bad maybe about some of these things, I mean, Phillip, don't say Phillip, went on to like, be fine, I think he's like a fine, whatever, but the fact is that I think that gave him a pretty good, like, American experience based on a lot of these stories tonight and a lot of shit that goes on, like, we're all pretty fucking dirty, weird people, and that's, that's what I fucking provided for them, so you're welcome. I got quite scared, and then I shit my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants, my pants. Did you get the idea? I don't think so.

It kind of smelled like something. So, uh, I couldn't wait to get to college. I was so excited because I wanted to study broadcast journalism at the same school, yeah, B.J. Majors.

I want to study broadcast journalism at the same school where Bob Positis and Dick Clark went. The Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Not because I wanted to be the next Katie Currick. I wanted to do funny stuff, you know, like, I wanted to interview Ricky Schroeder at the mall, or I'd do, like, trapeze, or be the wacky weather girl, I'd dream big.

And everything was going great. I had the best roommate, Mindy Cohen, not to be confused with Mindy Cohen from The Facts of Life, although that would have been awesome. But this Mindy and I loved all the same things, like, Air-Popped popcorn, musicals, and bulky from Perfect Strangers. And then all of a sudden, I started to hear, like, the strangest noise, and it was kind of like this hiss and it would build, and I heard it every time I came in and out of my dorm.

And I lived in a high-rise building. So I couldn't see who was doing it, but it sounded like this very large and very threatening group of guys. And it couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but it sounded something like, Vargas. And I didn't know what that meant, so I just kind of kept going about my day.

And then they started calling and waking me up in the middle of the night, and they would scream, Vargas. It sounded like they were like above me and below me on the 18th and 20th floor windows, and they would scream it out into the darkness at night, and then they started leaving me messages on my answering machine, with some voice modulator, was like, Vargas, Vargas, and I was starting to actually get a little nervous, but, and then just getting worse, like they would whisper behind me in class, and be like, fuck, and they yell at me in the dining hall, and it somehow word spread, and guys in the dorm next to mine started doing it too. And it was like everywhere I went, I heard this, and I didn't know what Vargas meant. So one day I met Block Party, and it's like the entire campus has descended on Fraternity Road.

It's like 16, 20,000 students are there, and I'm hanging out, and I'm singing to the band, and I'm drinking like a peach Bartles and James Winkeler, I'm having a good time. And then out of nowhere, 20 of these guys come up and surround me, and they're chanting. Vargas, Vargas, Vargas, and they're closing in on me, and the closer and closer they get to me, the farther away I see my friends walking, and my heart is racing, and finally like the big ringleader of the group, it's standing right in front of me, and he kind of looks like a brawny, a van der holy field, and he was this big football player on campus, and I finally, I guess it was like liquid courage for my wine cooler, and I was like, what does Vargas mean? And he got so close to my face, I could smell the cheap beer on his breath, and he goes, fast times rich mud high, you look like Mr.

Vargas, and he starts laughing, and then they start laughing, and it's like building, and it's maniacal, and they're so close to me at this point, and I go, who is that? Now if you guys don't know, Mr. Vargas was the science teacher in Fast Times at Ridge Mount High, who was played by this character actor named Vincent Skiavelling, who was also in this movie Ghost, where he played this crazy guy on this train, and he gave this wild crazy hair, and he was on the subway, and he was like, off my train, get off my train. That's who they thought I look like.

And it wasn't just that, that man is highly unattractive, it was that it was a man. And I was so crushed, I was so embarrassed and ashamed by that, but I didn't let on to my friends that that was how I felt. I just kept going as though everything was fine, but deep down, I was afraid to be home, I was afraid to be out, I was afraid to be anywhere, but I just kept going about my business in a few weeks later, I'm on my way to class, and I get on the elevator and buy myself, and it stops on the 18th floor, the door's open, and Chris is standing there with his friends, and his face lights up, and he smiles at me, and he gets on, and I don't say anything and they don't say anything. I just stand there, and I stay fixated on the numbers, but I can feel their bulky winter coats rubbing up against me, and then we stop on 12, and more of them get on, and they're all smiling and smirking, nobody's saying anything, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Chris go, and as he does that, his breath blows my curls across my face, but I just stay there and I keep watching those numbers, and then we stop on five, and more of them get on.

And at this point, the elevator is packed, nobody can move, my heart is pounding out of my chest, and I'm freaking out because I don't know what to do because I'm afraid of what they're going to do, and I finally stick my hand through their bodies and I hit the button for the third floor, and as soon as the elevator's door is open, I race through them, and I cross over, and I hear them scream, and I run through the common area, and I hide inside the stairwell, and after that, I was like, I have to tell somebody. So I go and I tell the residence director, as soon as I went into her office, I was like, Susan, this is what's been going on, and she's like, she goes, Robin, I get complaints about these guys every single day. They're either beating people up or breaking into cars, you should consider yourself lucky. And I was like, that's not really the word that came to mind.

But then I thought, well, maybe she's right, like, maybe relatively speaking, I am lucky, and maybe I should have told somebody sooner, maybe I should have told my parents, and you know, why didn't I do anything about this sooner? I was certainly angry with myself, and so I was telling my friend Lisa about it, she's from Long Island, and she's like, are you fucking kidding me? You're paying a risk, you need to talk to somebody. I was like, okay, okay, I'll do it.

All right, you got it. So finally I decided to go to judicial board, which was so scary for me, but I went and I told them what was happening, and luckily they took it seriously. They issued what they thought was a very appropriate punishment, they had them write letters of apology. And you can imagine what these letters were, it's like, Dear Robin, sorry, I called you Vargas.

Have a great summer. And at this point actually it had grown to like 60 guys who were involved in this, and the judicial board just punished five of them, but I was like, I don't care, I just want this to be behind me, because I'm here to be in the new house school. So a couple weeks later I'm getting all packed up to go home, Mindy's not in the room, I've got my door cracked open, I'm like rolling up my Howard Jones poster, I'm singing to a racer, I'm having a good time, and I look up and standing in the doorway is Chris. And I noticed two things about him immediately.

One, he's alone. And two, he's completely hunched over, and he's staring at the floor. And I go, hi, Chris. And he reaches his hand out, he's got this slip of paper in it, and he says, they told me I had to give you this.

And I said, I know, come on in. And the reason I wasn't nervous was because A, because he was alone, but B, I've been taking classes in nonviolent action and social change all year. And I was like totally into like, gone to get Martin Luther King, and I was like, this is like the perfect time to put this into practice, like love that enemy, this is gonna be amazing. So I have him sit down on my twin bed, my little pink comfort, or big football player, and I wheel my desk chair over to him.

And I'm like three feet from his face, because I want him to feel as scared of me as I've been of him. And I reach out my hand, I said, hi, I'm Robin. And he doesn't look up and he shakes my hand back. And he goes, I'm Chris.

I said, I know who you are. I said, you and your friends have made my life a living hell. I can't go anywhere without hearing this name. I just tried out to be the orange mascot, and you guys screamed at me the entire walk to the carrier room and the entire time back.

And I don't understand, we just met, right? And he's still not looking at me, but he's like, he's clearly very nervous. And I said, Chris, I just wanted to one thing. Why?

And he doesn't say anything. So I wheeled my chair a little closer. I said, I just want to know why. And he doesn't say anything.

So I let him go. Now, I wish I could tell you when I went back to sophomore year that everything changed, and I got it clean slate. But the truth is that, even though the yelling subsided, the stairs and whispers and laughter continued. But I sucked it up because I was determined to not let them stop me from getting into the new house program, and I got in.

But it didn't matter because the damage was done. For the next three years, I did everything I could to avoid them. It was like I was constantly looking over my shoulder. So I took 21 credits like each semester.

I would get up really early in the morning, and I would come home very late at night to avoid them. I got involved in all kinds of activities where I knew they couldn't find me, like student government, and dance troupe. I even joined the chapel choir, and I'm not even Christian. But the one thing that I wanted to do and the whole reason I was there was I wanted to join the campus TV and radio station.

But I didn't do it, because I was so afraid they were going to draw more attention to myself. And by the end of my senior year, I realized that I had been living in this self-imposed witness protection program. And I graduated and I got my degree from the new house school, and I was very, very happy. And the graduation they had me sing the National Anthem and the Alma Mater.

And after that was done, I sang a funny song that I had written for the students. And I sang that song by myself, acapella, in the carrier dome. And as I stood on this podium, I was so overwhelmed by this eruption of laughter from more than 30,000 people who were laughing with me. And as I took that in, I looked down at those bullies.

And for the first time, I felt so confident, because I knew I was no longer afraid of them. But more than anything, I was no longer afraid to be myself. Thank you. This is Risk.

This is Greg Lazwell behind me now. A song brought to my attention by Risk Music intern Joseph Bretzfelder. If you'd like to be a Risk Music intern, just write to me at Kevin at Risk-Show.com. We just heard from Robin Gelfenbine.

She has a very popular storytelling show of her own in New York called Yum's The Word. And you can find her at RobinGelfenbine.com. And of course, you can find the links to the websites for the storytellers and the musicians on the listen pages at Risk-Show.com. A final story today comes from a truly unique and wonderful new voice in the comedy world.

I think he is well on his way to tremendous success. Trevor Noah was born a mixed-race kid in South Africa when apartheid was still in effect. He has dozens of amazing stories just about that. And I assumed he was going to be sharing one of those with us, but the story he did end up telling at the Risk-Show in New York City was a total surprise.

But listen, there is so much more great stuff to hear from Trevor. And he has a special on Showtime this summer. It's called Trevor Noah, African American. It first airs on Showtime on July 6th at midnight and various other times throughout the month.

But here he is now at the Risk-Show in New York City. This is Trevor Noah with a story we call the best-looking person in the family. And I think that is really the best way to live with us. He couldn't live with us because we grew up in South Africa during apartheid.

I grew up during that time. My parents were already grown up when they were parents because this is generally what parents do. Not always, but most of the time. And so because of this we couldn't live together.

But I feel like even if we could live together we wouldn't have. My mother never wanted a man to own her child. It was a very strange deal she had with my father. She said to him, I want a child.

And he said, I don't want to be a dad. She said, no, I didn't say I want you to be a father. I said, I want a child. And so he agreed to make her pregnant, which I think was a good time.

And just because I know what this consists of. And so I was born to my mother and she named me Trevor Cliff Noah. The only reason I got the second name Cliff was because she wanted me to have the second initial C because she wanted my initials to stand for tender care, which is just a horrible reason to give somebody the name Cliff. You can just say that my name is tender care and we will know in the family, but she chose to destroy me with that name.

And my mom and I lived together. This was our thing. We were like a team, a fantastic team that went through life together, living in crazy places. We moved a lot.

In the beginning, I was her little fat child. She treated me very well. Every Tuesday, we would go and have pizza. This was like a special treat where she would buy me a pizza and then she would watch me eat it.

She wasn't allowed to join me because this was my pizza and she would do anything for me because I was her only child. And I was reminded of this. Even as a little child, I would look at her and I'll say, I could die, you know. And then she would let me eat my food alone, which was really cool.

And as foolish when you think in hindsight, but at the time as a child, I felt like this was appropriate. And so we lived together and we grew up in the strangest areas because my mom lived a very independent life. She didn't rely on her family. We lived together in a place called Eden Park, which was a horrible area on the very far outskirts of the outskirts of the city.

And so we used to walk to the main road and then hitchhike into town. That was only where we could get in. We had no car at the time. So we would live there and then every morning at 6 a.m.

we would walk for about an hour and then we would hitchhike from 7 a.m. And then that's how we'd get around. Sometimes my mom would tell me to hide and then wait for the car to stop for her and then I would run out because people were more likely to stop for a woman and not a woman and a fat child. So we used to do this all the time.

And then one day we got to a car, which was great. We got a car. And so we lived in this. We had a little beetle that we had together.

And life was really good. Until one day, my mom fell in love with another man, a very charming man. He didn't have front teeth, but he's charm circumvented this effect. He actually had a great smile even though he didn't have those teeth.

And he was a very charming guy, a sweet guy. And he was cool and he was hip. He was a friendliest guy ever. And he was a mechanic.

He used to fix our car. And he was just like the coolest guy ever. And one thing later, another one day we were having dinner with him. Next day we were just hanging out as friends.

And I got to know him. And he was my buddy. And he was cool. And then one day he slept over at the house, which I didn't understand.

I was a kid. I was just like, yeah, he slept over. I didn't think that he was doing things with my mom, which is horrible even now to think of. And so he stayed.

And then one day my mom said to me at a prayer group meeting that we always used to go to every Tuesday, she said, Trevor, I'm thinking of marrying this man. And I went, who, Jesus? Because that's who we'd be talking about. It's very important to build up something before you tell.

And she said, no, no, I'm thinking of marrying Abe. And I was like, what? Why would you marry him? It's just a cool guy that sleeps over.

It makes no sense. Plus, I've already got a dad. And she said, no, no, not to be your dad, to be my husband. And I said, that makes no sense.

You get husband so that they can be dads. And she didn't agree. And so they got married. And I never liked him.

I never liked him. I didn't. And I don't think he liked me. I never called him dad.

I refused. I called him by his first name, which was Abel. And I made sure I enunciated when I saw him. I said, hello, Abel.

And he would say, hello, Trevor. And we would eye each other. Almost like a young lion cub. I was the old one.

Like, one day when I'm strong enough, I will kill you. I was dreamt of that day. And we lived together for a while. Things were good.

And then one day, I'll never forget this. We were at home. And Abel, who was very charming in the beginning, started to become increasingly drunk as the relationship grew, become one more drunk. And then one day, he got to the house.

It was at 1 AM or somewhere there. This was a tiny little house we lived in together on the outskirts of the outskirts. And he came back. He was very drunk.

And he decided to cook himself some food. During the course of this meal, he fell asleep, which I don't think was in the recipe. And the food burnt on the stove. My mom woke up because she smelled that smell.

You know the smell. You know when something is burning. And she thought the house was burning down. She ran into the kitchen.

And she found the food. And then she started to shout at him. What are you doing? What are you doing?

What are you doing? Oh, this is the problem with you. This is the thing. You do the thing.

You get drunk. You're always drunk now. Why are you always drunk? Why are you always drunk?

And he was drunk. Like, ah, I'm drunk. And she said, why are you always drunk? Why do you do this?

What's wrong with you? And I thought, wow, why can't we just sleep? Let's just sleep. Let's just sleep.

And then, I'll never forget, I was sleepily watching this fight. And out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere. My mom was shouting, saying, how could you do this? Why are you doing this?

Drunk? You drunk? Why do you always do this? You're doing this?

And then he slapped her. And you know the weird thing about seeing your parent get hit is you just don't see it coming. Because parents are not actually meant to receive beatings. This is their job to administer beatings.

I was the recipient of many a beating in my time. This was very normal. I know in America children aren't supposed to be beaten, which I think is a waste of children. But in Africa, this was and still is very normal.

You hit your child. This is most of the fun of having children. And so I was beaten. I think kids are made for it.

We are meant to be beaten. We understand the beatings. But I'll never forget, my mom got hit by this man. And she fell to the ground.

And I'd never seen my mom in this position before she was there. And she looked at him. And this was the first time I said, what are you doing? And he said, something drunk, something drunk.

Shut up woman drunk drunk. And she got up and she said, what are you doing? How dare you? How can you do that?

What are you doing? And she said, shut up. And she said, I won't shut up. I won't shut up.

And she said, shut up. And I won't shut up. And then he hit her again. And then she just carried on talking from the floor.

And in my head, I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Don't you know how this works? Because I was an expert at receiving beatings.

I knew the technique was to question initially and then cry and then be silenced. This generally limited the duration of the beating you would receive. But she just carried on. She just carried on.

And then, and we made our way out. And we ran. And I'll never forget that. We ran to the police station.

And we got there. And my mom said, I would like to lay a charge against this man who has hit me. And the policeman said, well, did you do something? And my mom said, what do you mean?

Well, did you do something to make him hit you? And my mom said, no, no, I didn't. And we stood there. I remember standing there going, what did she do?

Can you do something to make someone hit you? I didn't know because this was the police and the police know everything. So I stood there and I didn't know. And I don't remember what happened for the rest of the night because I fell asleep on the police bench next to a man in handcuffs who had cradled me in his lap as I fell asleep.

I remember the warm handcuffs against my face. They're actually on that bed when they're warm. And they're cold. It's like, oh, handcuffs.

But when they're warm, it's just like excess of jewelry. It's okay. And I fell asleep. My mother didn't leave him.

And we lived together for many years. He didn't hit her again until one day, a few years ago, my mom was coming back from church. And I was in my new place. I just got in a place.

And I got a phone call from my brother, my younger brother in the morning. And he said, Trevor, where are you? Are you busy? And I said, yeah, sort of, what happened?

And he said, Mom's being shot. And I said, I'm sorry, what? And he said, Mom's being shot. Are you busy?

This sort of clears out my schedule. And he said, well, she's been shot. And it's so funny. I didn't ask by whom.

I knew immediately who she had been shot by. It was a strange thing. I always hated the man. He had an evil about him.

And so I said, okay, where was this? And my brother said, at the house, at the hospital now. So I got in the car and I drove to the hospital. I get to the hospital and my brothers outside holding back tears.

And he's ten years younger than me. He was much stronger than I was. I was crying. I was bawling like a little child.

I was crying. What did she do? Why didn't she leave him? I told him to leave him.

I ran in and people were there at the hospital. And they asked you all the important questions about her, you know, like that she have insurance, that she have medical insurance. And I go, don't you want to know her blood type? They said, no, we need to know her insurance type.

And they wouldn't help her until we proved her insurance, which we didn't. So I said, use my credit card and just pay for whatever. And they said, it might be very expensive. I said, no, it doesn't matter.

Money's no cost. This is money's no, money's no, no object. This is my mother. Just take the money.

And they said, but we need to do x-rays. It cost a thousand. I said, take the thousand. And I said, well, we need to do blood tests.

And we might need to do surgery. It might cost 10,000. I said, take the 10,000. They said it might be a lot of money if she has to go in ICU.

I said, just do it. They said, but it cost a fortune. I said, well, how much? How much?

Because I mean, we don't want it to be too much. Because I mean, I still want my money. And she's cool in everything. But she's lived a great life, I feel.

And I think she wouldn't want it for me to be broke. And she didn't like survive in surgery. Like, I think she wouldn't want that. So tell me when it gets to like more than like 100,000.

And then we'll really evaluate this relationship and everything around us. And then they said, no, it'll only cost a few thousand. I said, no, money's no object. Take the thousands.

Take the thousands and save my mother. Take it all. But not all. Just take what I said before.

But just imagine it's all. And so then my mum was there and she was bleeding. And I was crying. And my brother was there holding me like, it's going to be okay.

It's going to be okay. And he told me the story. Apparently this man came to the house while my mum was there coming back from church. Very ironically, I feel just come from church, church is the place where you almost go and re-up your auntie of good things.

You know, you go there and you go, hey, give me more good things for one more week, please. And then she came back and then now bad thing immediately. And I was just like, God, you let us down, Jesus. That was a bit of a slip up.

You should have protected it at least until Monday. I mean, on the Sunday, that's just major let down in terms of like God. I was very disappointed by that. And I let him know on many occasions as I re-up to my auntie.

But anyway, I go off the topic. And so my brother told me the story. He came to the house and he said, I've had enough of this. I've heard you want to leave me.

You will not leave me. And then he pulled out a gun and then he fired the shots at her. And miraculously, four of the bullets refused to fire. They just fell out of the front of the gun and fell onto the floor.

Just totally not discharged, which was very weird. I think that was Jesus. Like he was like four bullets. Then everything else was like, look man, I can't work miracles.

I mean, I can. But this is like bullets and wine are very different. So he stopped for bullets. So only one into my mom's head came into the back of her head and then out the front by her nose, ripped her nose to shreds.

And so she was in the hospital bleeding from her face. Now is they panicking? What are you going to do with it? My mom was there and gossed me for blood going on to worry.

Don't worry. It's like, I'm worried. I'm worried. I was like, she's the one bleeding.

But I'm cracking. I'm in so much pain. I'm in so much pain. She's like, okay, it's okay.

I'm like, it's not okay. You're bleeding out your face, lady. This is not okay. And it reminded me of the first time I saw my mom's tampons as a little child, because that was the first time I saw my mom bleed.

And I remember going, this is, you're not okay. You're going to die. And she said, no, this is what happens. And I came over there.

But then like, this was like, no, this is not what happens because you're bleeding out your face now. And it looks like it lasts more than seven days. So this is a problem. And we sat there and we cried together.

My brother and I. And then my mom miraculously survived. The bullet went through her, missing everything, her spine, her nerves, everything came out the front and it just ripped her nose to shreds. And I remember standing in the recovery room with her.

And when we just, you know, she regained consciousness. And the doctor came and he said, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. You have survived.

The bullets did no damage just to your face. And we can have plastic surgery if you want. And mom said, no, no surgery. I'll keep it the way it is as a reminder of what has happened to me.

And I remember looking at it and I went, wow, what a hero. What a hero. Sort of ugly hero because the nose is weird. But still a hero and she's my mom.

So I don't care. And I'll never forget just like, I guess, my inspiration, she looked at me. And my mom and I look very alike. Just, she's like the darker version of me because she's black.

And she looked at me. And this was the aftermath. Everyone had just been quiet for a long time. And she looked and she said, you know what this means now, right?

And I said, no, what does it mean? And she said, well, now, you're undisputedly the best-looking person in the family. And she said, there's a bright side to everything. And there was.

And she's cool now. And the man who shots her is in jail. And thanks to Jesus, they were no more than one bullets. And this is my story.

Thank you very much. I want to be slow. I want somewhere to go home. I want to be low.

Well, that is all for this week, folks. Don't forget that risk is going to be in Norfolk, Virginia on July 19th and 20th. If you are from anywhere near there and you might like to tell a story at the show, write to me. Pitch your story to me at Kevin at risk-show.com.

On the 25th of July, we'll be in New York with Dan Kennedy and in LA with Jay Moore. And on the 29th of August, we're coming to Austin, Texas. So, hey, Austin, you send me your pitches as well. If you'd like to be a part of our August show there at Kevin at risk-show.com.

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Was it a scary situation to you? Scariest seven dicks in a six-dicks salsa.