Primal

Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risky'll here, Julia Lechner. We're screaming as loud as we possibly can, and the monkeys, they're so loud, and they're so mad. Why are they so mad?

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Visit Max.com. Now here's the show. Hello kids, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, this is James Asher Behind Me Now, and we're calling this week's episode Primal.

Primal Fear, Primal Love, and the Tears and Cheers that come with them. In a little bit, we're going to hear a story that musician storyteller Frank Trainor told at our L.A. show this past January. But before that, we're going to hear a story told just a month after Frank's also at our monthly L.A.

show. I'll tell you, there is a constant stream of great stories coming out of our L.A. shows thanks to our host and curator David Krab out there. On June 17th, we have got a You Must Not Miss It show.

This is a biggie at the Hotel Cafe, Glenn Dunswiler, Michelle Murphy, Jenna Brister, and more that L.A. June 17th, the Hotel Cafe, and tickets are at risk-dash-show.com-slash-live. And now we're going to hear from a wonderful Risk Newbie, Julia Lechner, at that very same Risk L.A. show for the story we call.

Welcome to the jungle. Thank you so much. In 2012, after 38 years, New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure shut down their wild safari drive-through feature. But for the 38 years leading up to that, Jersey trash, like myself, could hop in your Toyota Camry or Honda Civic and drive your own way through a wild safari and the exotic plains of Jackson Township, New Jersey.

I only went to this wild safari once. I was in high school in the early 2000s, and it was a big day for me, an upper-classman named Blake, a senior boy who had a car, and he could drive because he was a senior. And his friend, we're going to take a couple of freshmen girls to go to the Six Flags to see the wild safari. And we were excited.

It's the first time you get that big invitation. And our game plan was just we were going to giggle and be cute and have fun and scream, but in a cute way on the roller coasters to impress the senior boys. And also, the safari sounded pretty cool. In Jersey, most zoos or things like that have possums and rats and just things that eat trash.

We're kind of known for things that eat trash. But the wild safari had exotic animals from foreign continents like elephants and giraffes and hippos and lions. So this was shaping up to be a pretty big day for us. So we got up super early.

Early 2000s, we got the top knots going, the bright colored, MTV TRL, low-slung jeans. We get it all together, mini-backpack, which is not big enough to hope what we need for the day, but it's cute. It's on trend. We're ready to go.

So Blake picks us up in the morning at my friend, Stephanie and Katie, and we get into his old Honda Civic. And it's a beater. It's his first car, but he's clearly very proud that he has this car. He can take these girls to go to the Six Flags.

Great Adventure Wild Safari. And we drive the hour to get there early in the morning. And when you first get to the Six Flags Great Adventure Wild Safari, you have a choice. You see a big parking lot with roller coasters beyond it to get to the theme park portion.

And that's filling up pretty quick. And then there's a much less crowded area to start the wild safari in your car. And we had mutually decided that we wanted to see the animals when they were like fresh and ready to see people in the morning before they were sick of all the Jersey people yelling at them all day. So we decided we're going to start there.

And Blake pulls up his Honda Civic and it looks really neat from the outside. Like big wooden gates that look like you're entering Jurassic Park, you know, and we're driving up and they seem to like magically open before us. And I'm sitting there like this is the greatest day of my life. I'm a freshman.

There's a senior boy that thinks I'm cute. We're going to go to the safari. We're going to ride roller coasters. This is a big high school moment for me.

This is what high school is all about. So we pull in through the magical gate and they have a sign that you can tune in your radio station and someone will narrate your journey through the wild safari feature. So we tune in the station and we start driving down this two lane paved road and the voice on the station says, look to your right and you'll see a hippopotamus in its natural habitat. And again, it's like it's New Jersey, but they tried to make it look like it's a habitat like they added in some rocks and a little fake lake and stuff.

So we look to the right and we see the hippo and it's right there, right next to the road and the car. There's no fencing between the road and the animals that we're seeing and really no staff insight at all. Again, it's a drive through wild safari. So they're really just tossing you in there right with the exotic animals.

So we look and we see a hippo and it's pretty cool and we keep on driving and we look to the left and the station says, on the left you'll see the elephants. And we look and again, they're right there just right next to people's minivans taking a bath while we're driving through and we see big roller coasters beyond us. And sometimes the animals come right up onto the road. So we're driving and a giraffe comes and it looks down in our moon roof to see if we have any food to give it.

The animals are clearly fed by the people coming through like it's Jersey. So, you know, soft pretzel, tasty cake crampet, that kind of thing. We don't have anything to give the giraffe so it just like sticks its head in and then moves on to the next family. And we keep going along and we're hearing the story about what it's like where the animals are from and, you know, there's nice little fake waterfalls and it's a beautiful little safari and it's actually like a couple miles.

So we do the four mile winding road. All of us are theater nerds so we're just getting really excited, talking about our upcoming production of South Pacific who will get which role. We live in New Jersey so you can't choose shows that are on Broadway. Fun fact, if anyone is aware, if you live too close to New York City and you're in Jersey, they consider you competition.

If Annie Get Your Gun is on Broadway, you can't do Annie Get Your Gun because people might want to see me as Annie Oakley instead of Bernadette Beaters. I get it. So, yeah, we're doing South Pacific that year and we're just like casting rumors or running rampant and we're chatting and again we're giggling and trying to be cute and have fun. And then we get to the end of this safari portion and we're given another decision which is we can go toward the parking lot and the roller coasters and go do our thing in the theme park or you can go toward the grand finale which is the monkey exhibit.

And we all mutually agree like, you know, we paid the money, we want to see everything that's available to us at Six Flags. So we decide to go into the monkey exhibit and we're getting ready to turn in there and there's a lot of like, enter at your own risk signs everywhere before the monkey exhibit. But again, like we literally just drove down a road where an elephant was also allowed to be on the roads for like, how bad can a monkey exhibit? It's not a big deal.

But just to be careful, like gets out, he screws the antenna off the hood of the car and he turns in the mirrors on the side and just makes sure everything looks good. The windows lock the doors and then we get ready to enter the monkey portion of the wild safari. It's not as exciting with like the big wooden gate, the like Jurassic Park thing. It kind of looks like you're about to enter a prison yard.

It's just like a large, unexciting fence with a lot of barbed wire at the top. And then as we pull through it, that radio station that's been narrating our journey just cuts silence. There's no more speaking. So, you know, maybe feels a little ominous, but again, it's like we're here to have a good time, we're having fun, we're giggling, we're cute.

It's the early aughts. We don't know, you know, how bad things are going to get. In the next few decades, like time in my life, let's do this thing. So we pull into the monkey exhibit in the silent Honda Civic and we look around and at first, I don't see any monkeys at all.

There's just, there's no water fixtures anymore. It appears to just be a barren field surrounded by a fence, very tall with barbed wire and spikes at the top of it. And we're looking around to see where the monkeys could be and we're just following now it's a much smaller road with less cars, it's a single lane road, inching forward. And as I look closer at the field, I notice it's actually not an empty field at all.

I see hubcaps, windshield wipers, just pieces of bumper, metal, strewn throughout the field, just parts of car littered across this barren field. And it's at this moment that we realize we've made a terrible mistake. And I look ahead and that's when I finally get my first glimpse of the monkeys. I look across the field around the cars that are making their way around the road, and I see what appears to be a group of baboons working together as a team, going from vehicle to vehicle and ripping anything they can off of every single New Jersey car.

Many bands, SUVs, and we can't hear the Jersey families that are within these vehicles, but when I'm looking across, I just see the shadows of people flailing their arms in terror. As monkeys find like what trophy is it that they want to take from your vehicle, you know? So it's like this one, I take a windshield wiper, that one, I just rip off a license plate and throw it into the field. And we realize we just have to wait for it to be our turn.

Blake suddenly goes from being a very cool senior guy with frosted tips in the spike hair. So in this moment, this 18-year-old guy just looks like a terrified child, and he's looking behind in his rearview mirror to figure out where can I go? They're going to tear out my first car in front of all these girls when I'm trying to look cool. And there's nowhere to go.

The gate is closed behind us. We've seen zero attendants the entire day so far. No one works here. I don't know who the prison guard is for the monkeys.

They're on their own. So we just wait, and we watch quietly in the silence as monkeys go from car to car, stripping them and throwing the trophies into the center of the field. And then we see the monkeys on the minivan in front of us and again, the family flailing, the terror in their gestures, and then they get to our Honda Civic. And when they get on top of our car, they're so much louder than I would have expected.

They are so angry at us. They're taking their little tiny monkey hands and they're slapping the hood and the roof and the windows as hard as they can. And they have pointy monkey teeth and they're gnashing at the car and we can see them through the windows. And I can tell they want to get in the car.

I don't know what they want to do with us once they get in the car, but they are determined to get in this car and fuck each and every one of us up. And my girlfriends and I get onto the floor of the Honda Civic and we're looking up through the moon roof and yelling, oh my god, oh my god. And cowering as these monkeys take their tiny monkey hands and they're just slapping the hood of the car while they yell and make noises. And we're like, what do they want from us?

What are they going to do? And Blake and the boys in the front, they're screaming too. And he's trying to figure out where to go. And there's nothing he can do.

And we're just screaming as loud as we possibly can. And the monkeys, they're so loud and they're so mad. Why are they so mad? And then they're looking, they're searching.

And I think they're getting angrier when they're like, oh, I can't take the antenna because he took that off. They're trying to figure out what their trophy will be from this Honda Civic. And then they finally find it. Those little black nubs that are on the hood of the car that squirt the windshield wiper fluid out.

The monkeys take their little pointy monkey fangs and they bite those nubs off the hood of the car and then they spit them out onto the field. And that's the moment when Blake just yells, that's it. And there's really nowhere to go. But he just hits the gas and we jut forward suddenly and it's enough to rile the monkeys.

And we hear as their little monkey paws just hold onto the car and they slide off the back of the Honda Civic. And then since they figured out what they wanted from our car, they go on to the minivan behind us. And again, we can't hear the family, but we see a mom and a dad and some kids in the back and they're just horrified. So frightened.

I've never seen a look like that on a person's face at that age in my life. And we watch as they're terrorized and we remain silent in the car. There's no radio station. None of the high schoolers are giggling anymore.

The only South Pacific casting rumors are not important after what we've seen that day. And we drive out to the Six Flags and we park in the parking lot outside of the amusement park and we take a moment to get out and assess the damage. Blake looks at the hood of his vehicle and he sees the little nubs. I've still never learned the technical term.

I've been removed and are gone. And he's like, this sucks. I don't even know what to ask for. Peppa is like, what are these?

How do you replace these? And he's upset that he just got this new car and it's destroyed and we're looking at the paint job and there's just like little tiny shit smeared handprints just all over the windows and the hood and the roof from where the monkeys tried to get in to kill us. And then we go on the theme park and we go on some roller coasters and we like yell and scream but it's not in the fun cute high school way I was planning to. It's in the way like that you'd really seen some shit that day.

And I understand why they closed the Six Flags Wives Safari drive-through feature after 38 years. If I learned anything from this experience, it's that the monkeys are angry. They are organized. And they're waiting for any opportunity to fuck each and every one of you up.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We've got it fun and games. We've got everything you want.

Honey we know the names we are. People that can find whatever you may need. If you've got no money honey we've got your disease in the jungle. Welcome to the jungle.

Watch your finger to your knees. Jungle, welcome to the jungle. I want to watch you scream. Welcome to the jungle.

Welcome to the jungle. I want to watch you scream. We prioritize our health. But have you ever considered the health of your mouth?

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You can find them at your nearest supermarket or high street pharmacy. For more information visit Causadil.co.uk This week on historical hyenas join our top panel of comedians as we take us. Is that okay? Are you still in the bath?

Yes, I'm listening to my podcast. Can I come in? Just need to grab the claw clippers. Don't worry.

I'll cover my eyes. Whoa! Whoa! I'm still not looking.

And I'm not listening to my podcast. Don't wombat it. Simple. I'm the youngest of seven children my parents had.

And I was born 11 years after the sixth one. Which makes some people think that I'm an accident? But I'm not. I was born because my mom was bored.

In fact her entire life my mom made it very clear that I was bland but only by her. My dad just thought he was getting lucky one summer night and that's how I came to be in this world. But that also means that most of my siblings are old enough to be my parents. And growing up that made me feel like I wasn't really part of my family.

Like I wasn't one of the siblings. Like I was just one kid that lived with them. And in fact for example my brother Ignacio who is much older than me. And he's also a macho acarata sensei who kills you five times before you touch the floor.

And when I was very young he would always tease me saying things like Mom never told you but you're adopted. Which I know is a thing that a lot of older brothers say but when your older brother is basically an adult and you're five it sounds way way more believable. But I do live with the hope that someday my brother Ignacio is going to be an 85 year old senile man just lying in some hospital bed really weak. And he will nearly do change, I don't know he's adult diapers for example.

And I will do it. But every time I do it I will lean in and have my revenge saying Mom never told you but you're adopted. In 2003 my father died and that was a really hard thing for all of us. We're a very patriarchal family he was a leader and we were you know headless.

And it was particularly hard for me being so young at the time I was 21. And that caused me to completely shut down and I just sort of stopped showing any real feelings and emotions. And that's why many years later when my sister tells me that my mom has only six weeks left to live I don't cry at all. You know that's death basically turned me into a man.

That's what a man does. A man doesn't show any feelings, any emotions. He's always in control. Everything is always okay.

You have all the answers. I'm a man. And that's why you know when I say something that I just don't cry. It was on April 1st 2009 and that day Argentina had lost six to one to Bolivia and some soccer game and that's all everyone can talk about.

I was like hey Mom what a terrible day right Mom? And you know I just you know joking is all I could do. Not crying. Just hiding behind the jokes because I'm a man.

I just hug my sister while she cries and then once she's done I will cut on the street. And I call my girlfriend to tell her the news. And I don't have the best relationship for the past year and a half. We just skip breaking up and getting back together again.

We're like this much more toxic version of Ross and Rachel in France. You know that's so us. So so us. But if there's something good to come out of that relationship is that my girlfriend helped me get closer to my mom.

You know what I mean? And that's pretty good. So I go out and just call her that day. A couple of days before meeting.

I met with my girlfriend and I told her you know there's something wrong with my mom and you know what it is. And she tells me well I want to be with you because I love you through this. So don't worry about it. But today when I call her she sounds different.

She's like well this is one of those things where nobody can do anything for you. And you just have to face it on your own. And I'm like well I'm actually pretty sure that this is one of those cases where it's okay. If you get the help and the support of those that love you.

I mean I'm not used to having your mom die. You know what I mean? This is actually my first time going through this once in a lifetime event. But I'm pretty sure that it's okay.

And of course we break up again because you know that's so us. I guess you know maybe she changed her mind because the night after I told her that something was going to run with the mom and she told me I love you want to be with you through this. I was at a bar near her house with my friends. And through the bar window I see this ugly little red car driving by really slowly.

And in the driver's seat I see this ugly man. And in the passenger seat I see my girlfriend. And immediately my heart just stops. But it starts beating really fast at the same time.

I feel this mix of fear, anger and shame that makes me think. This is probably what Bruce Banner feels before turning into the Hulk. So I choose my friend and I just run through the car. And I find them a couple of blocks afterwards.

And I pull over the way that you find young lovers in a car. Of course. And I still approach her window. And I knock on the window and I go, hey have you told him that you love him and you want to be with him like he told me yesterday.

And then she gets out of the car. And we start screaming at each other. And then she gets back in the car and the drive away. And I'm just left there because that's so us.

So us. A couple of days after my mom was diagnosed having only six weeks left to live. She leaves the hospital and she moves in with one of my sisters. Because basically my sister has a big family and a big apartment.

And there's a lot of space for everyone to hang out with my mom as much as we need. And she will never be alone in her last six weeks. And it's pretty good. And a couple of days after she's settled we meet with the doctors again.

And they tell us in this month and a half that she has left to live. We have to give her the best quality of life possible. And then one of my sisters who cannot take it anymore just goes, I'm gonna have six weeks. Then she'll make up your mind about how much time she has left.

My sister's having a really hard time and I don't blame her. But like her I'm not showing any real feelings. I just hide behind the jokes and I find the funny and everything like my sister not knowing how the calendar works. And I laugh about it, you know.

My mom's six weeks go by pretty well and we all take time to spend as much time as we can with her. In my case I'm a musician. So I'm with my band we just released our second album and we're supposed to be playing a lot. But we take time off so I can be with my mom.

And I do a lot of things with my mom. For example one night I get her drunk on her favorite thing which is red wine. And I ask her to teach me how to make shepherd's pie because she makes a mean shepherd's pie. She puts her end on top and she creates that.

You should try that. And my sister just freaked out. She goes like, what are you doing? I'm getting her drunk.

And I'm like, what is the worst thing that you think could happen to her right now? You know what I mean? Getting my mom drunk is fun so I'm still not crying. I'm having a great time with that.

And then one day towards the end of the six weeks my girlfriend calls me out of the blue and she tells me that she realized how wrong she was and she apologizes and she asks, you know, to get back together to which I very calmly answer. Oh my God, please take me back. I love you so much. I love you so much.

I love you so much. Thank you so much. You've got to know whatever you want. And we're back together again.

That's so odd, right? And then on Saturday May 9th, 2009, precisely six weeks after she was diagnosed because my mom was a very polite and punctual woman. My mother slowly starts to go and it's actually a pretty beautiful moment because, you know, all her children and her grandchildren gather around her bed. And I don't know if you've ever seen someone dying like that.

But basically what happens is that, you know, your body slowly starts to shut off and eventually you start having apneas. That means that every breath you take is deeper and exponentially farther from the one before to the point where you don't know which one is going to be the last one. Basically what my mom is doing, her dying bed is... And in one of those, you know, apneas keep going and it's so tense that everyone in that room suddenly, you know, goes quiet and the only thing you can hear is my mom, you know, every couple of minutes and, you know, we have to break that tension because my mom might be going but we all need to come back.

I need to come back because I'm not going to cry. Not now. I've been holding it in for so long. I've got to do this and my family needs some comedic relief right now.

So after a while I just look at my mom and I go, Die, you fucking teased, I already! Everyone in that room laughs so hard. So hard. Finally, me hiding my feelings is doing some good for once.

Any later, after one of those apneas, that is longer than the rest. One of my research decides that's it. That's the last one. And my mom goes, oh!

My six or so stuff when my mom is just going, that's it. That's the last one. Oh my God, that's it. Oh my God, she's dead.

And my mom goes, oh! And she's back! I'm just like, oh! I'm so confused.

I'm so confused. I'm so, so, so, so sorry. My mom eventually later that night did die and my sister didn't notice it. But everyone else did and they all started crying right away.

But I don't. I, by now I have trained myself really well that every time that I feel this need to cry, you know, I just hold my breath a little bit and I swallow like when you're swallowing something really big and then I feel this pressure on my chest like it's about to blow up. And then it just goes away and I'm back with the silly jokes all the time. All the time.

My mom wakes, begins the next morning as it is Argentina's tradition. And before we know it, my mom is already all made up in a coffin. The only problem is that one of the legs of a stand where the coffin is is a little shorter than the other three and that causes the coffin to wiggle a little bit, which also causes my mom's head to move side to side. And then I just stand next to my mom.

And my friend, Matthias was one of my best friends. He's like my brother and he grew up with me and my mom knows him so, so well. And he announced us that he's getting married very recently and my mom never got to find out. And he approaches my mom and I approach from the other side and I just go, Mom.

Mom, can you believe it? Matthias told us he's getting married. And as Matthias looks at my mom with sadness and love in his eyes, I just put my hand on the coffin. And I start gently moving it.

I like if I'm true, no, because I just start going, no, don't marriage. I just restate. Don't get mad. I find it hilarious.

Nobody else does that day. You know what I mean? I just then spend the rest of the week next to my mom. And every time somebody approaches, I just find something weird until my mom above them that would go to my mom to say no.

And I just move the coffin. And for example, my friend Beto comes on like Beto ate all the bananas at my family in the kitchen. And I go, Mom, can you believe this? Beto ate all the bananas.

And I move the coffin. I go, no Beto, how can you do that? It's so rude. Don't you do bananas in a part of the family.

Again, I find it hilarious. Nobody else that day does. But again, they're crying. What do they know?

Laughing is so much better, right? I'm a man. That's what a man does. On Monday, my mom is cremated.

And then, you know, by Tuesday, I'm back in the studio playing with my band and rehearsing. And I'm like, it's time to go back to my normal life. This is over and moving on. And then a couple of songs after we started rehearsing, I started feeling this bubble in my throat.

And it's changing my voice. I'm the singer. And I'm supposed to sound like, I keep thinking, I'm going to show you like a rocker. But instead of something like this, I'm like, I'm going to a folder.

Which sounds like having on the chipmunk are playing a tribute to my band, which would be a dream come true, but it's not the case. Which is, you know, we just stop playing. We're like, what is going on with you? I'm like, I don't know.

I stop like this bubble in my throat. It's changing my voice. I don't know what to do. But we just keep playing because we're men and we're rock stars.

Nothing is never wrong. So we keep playing. And after four songs, I feel like all this pain on my chest, on my back, and this bubble in my throat changing my voice. So we stop playing on the drummer takes me to the hospital where I find out that I'm having an emphysema.

And I have to stay in the hospital for 48 hours. And for no reason whatsoever, I'm supposed to talk in those 48 hours. And they give me a notepad and a pen to communicate. The next morning, I just know from the hospital bed, I just text my six siblings.

Hey, remember how mom died, like literally the other day? Well, guess who's in the hospital? No, I'm in the ICU. One of my sisters rushes to the hospital and she's there when I'm talking to the doctor.

And the doctor goes, well, guess it's like these young healthy people, like you usually have them, you know, they're psychosomatic and they happen when you've been, you know, just repressing a lot of feelings and a lot of stress. And so have you, you know, been under stress lately? And I read on the note that, yes. And before I'm done, my sister goes, yes.

Oh, mom just died and he never cried. And then the doctor is like, do you smoke? And again, I write yes. I know I could just circle the first yes, but I'm dumb.

I got to just write yes a second time. And again, before I'm done, my sister goes, yes. I'm not just figure it. His smokes marry one or two.

And then the doctor gets rid of this. I don't really care, lady. Look, but she never sees it because she's just looking at me with joys and herself. I just tell the doctor you do drugs.

Later that day, my girlfriend comes to the hospital and I just write him a notepad. I need you. And right below she writes, I love you. And I'm going to be here for you forever.

And on Thursday, I leave the hospital and I'm supposed to be my girlfriend in my apartment. But she never shows up. She just texts me. I can't go.

I'm sorry. It's over. And we break up again. But this time we break up.

Forget. And that's so not us. That's absolutely not us. But this is it.

You know, it's time now for me to move on with my life and keep going. But then on Sunday, I wake up to a phone call from my brother, Ignacio. Then much of what you got at the sense. Okay.

So five times before we touch the floor. And he's a very athletic man. He doesn't do any drugs. He doesn't drink.

But he sounds strange on the phone. He's like, hey, man, can you get me some blow? And I'm like, blow? What is this?

The 80s? What do you want? And he's like, can you get me some blow? Do you even know what blow is?

Yeah, marijuana. I'm like, no. What do you want? He's like, can you get me some marijuana?

Please get me some marijuana. I'm confused about it. So I hang up and I go to my friends who knows him really well. And he's like, well, he either maybe just try to kill himself.

Or he just became the coolest brother he could have. So I don't know. So just in case I really joined him, I go to my brother's place. And I find that in fact, he had taken a lot of pills to kill himself.

And I don't have a car. So I go to my sister. So I live nearby. I come with her car.

We just throw him in the back seat. You know, however we can. And then my sister drives at full speed in the heavy traffic of Buenos Aires to the hospital. Never looking at the road.

Always looking at the back seat of my brother yelling. I'm going to do this to us right now. When we make it to the hospital, they take my brother away and they pump his stomach and they save his life. And then once they're done, they allow me to go and see him.

And I just find my brother Ignacio just very weak lying in the hospital bed. And this is finally my chance to, you know, lean in and go, Mom, I never told you. But you're adopted. But I don't do it.

I don't because my brother needs me right now. And I'm here for him. And maybe it took my mom's death for me to finally find my place in my family. And that's all that I need right now.

So I just go home. And I don't cry again. I don't. I never did actually.

Time went by and I never cried. Years went by and I never cried. I eventually met this wonderful woman, Martina, who soon after became my wife. And we moved to the United States where we had our two children, Matilda, who is six, and Oliver, who is two.

And I've made sure that they know about my mom and I show them photos of her. And, you know, I tell them about her. And then when Matilda was told enough, I explained to her that my mom, you know, had died. And even though I'm an atheist, I told her that she went to heaven because telling her that we burned her body to ashes and then we put those ashes in a box with the ashes of more, get people and put that box in her church like a Frankenstein of Ash.

It's not a very kid-friendly story, you know what I mean? And then, you know, when Matilda was four, during dinner, my wife and I told her that we're going to go to Argentina very soon so she can meet everyone and see where her family is from. And Matilda was very excited. And once I'm done telling her, she goes, Dad, when we go to Argentina, I want to meet your mom.

And then it hits me. I thought I had it enough. You know what I mean? I thought I was very open to my daughter about my mom and what happened to her.

But I clearly haven't done enough to the point where, you know, she doesn't even know that her grandmother is dead and she is dying to meet her. And then it hits me. And then it hits me for a decade. And I can't breathe.

And I can't talk. But I finally cry. And I cry bad. I cry really loud.

And I'm just crying so much. And because it's not funny anymore. It's not funny anymore when I realize that my mom will never get to meet her favorite grandchildren. You know, it's not funny anymore when I realize that the kind of man that I want to be for my children is the kind of man that feels and lives through all his emotions and know that it's okay to not be okay all the time.

Know that it's okay to not be in control of the time, to not have all the answers, you know, to be a real man at least for six weeks or a month and a half. And that's so me now. Thanks so much. This is Risk.

This is the cure behind me now. And we just heard from storyteller and musician Frank Trainer. You can find on all the socials at Frank underscore trainer. Frank also produces a comedic storytelling show called It's Funny Now.

Check that out at it'sfunnynowstorytelling.com. I tell you, I'm very moved to hear Frank share about having difficulty crying. You know, I grew up terrified that people would discover that I was gay. And very much took in the idea that a boy cannot risk crying or just even letting a lot of emotion show at all.

And lately with this breakup I've been coping with. I've been so grateful to finally be at a place in life where Jesus Christ, I can cry. Even though I still do feel self-conscious, I still feel those tendencies rise up to want to stifle it, you know, and start to feel blocked. When I was younger, some very, very powerful acting teachers were encouraging me to go all the way and pursue serious acting.

Not just sketch comedy, I mean. But I was always so worried about, will I be shut down about crying or will I be too insecure about feeling my feelings all the way? You know, I think so many men struggle with this and I think all that pent up energy ends up being a cancerous in society at large. It causes more disconnection, more hurt, more fear, and you can see even sometimes hate.

So I'm very grateful to Frank for sharing about having difficulty getting through to crying and I'm glad he finally did. Before the break we heard Julia Lechner's Welcome to the Jungle, which was followed by Guns and Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, which was followed by Postmodern Jukeboxes. Welcome to the Jungle that you can find Julia on Instagram at JuliaEveLechner. And hey, let us know what you thought of those stories.

Remember what you can always email me at Kevin at risk-show.com. You can even send me a voice memo where you talk about how you felt about a story. You can tweet about it or visit our Instagram, both at riskshow or visit our Facebook risk podcast fans discussion group. You can also go right to risk-show.com and leave a comment on that particular episodes page.

So share the stories and join the conversation. Well, that's about it for this episode, folks, but there's so much more over at our Patreon. And this week, there's a new story there by Harrison Greenbaum. He had a tattoo on his arm, the numbers, which when we were younger, he told us with his phone number.

So we didn't forget it. Because he didn't want to explain the Holocaust to a four-year-old. My phone number. Which is actually almost a more horrifying explanation.

You can hear Harrison's story plus so, so, so much more at patreon.com slash risk. Folks, we are going through a really, really, really rough patch financially now. We're talking existential stuff. I wish I didn't have to say that, but we're really knuckling down and promising we will move mountains to keep the show running, but we sure could use your help.

Over at patreon.com slash risk. We are so hugely grateful for your support. And folks, today's the day, take a risk. On risk.

You know, there's anecdotal stories about people finding hot dogs in, you know, fish and mammals and this kind of stuff. So it's a win-win for everybody. I have a driver's license. I kissed a girl.

I've gone camping. Oh, fuck. Is that worth including? Hello, kids.

This is real. Damn it.