Puppets, Pastors & Secret Agents: The Moth Radio Hour

The Moth

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour features three distinct personal narratives exploring identity and resilience. Brently Heilbron recounts th

Key takeaways

• Brently Heilbron's band, Fragile Rock, faced intense criticism from judges Simon Cowell and Howie Mandel on AGT.
• Jonna Mendez utilized advanced facial masks to brief President George H.W. Bush while undercover.

Main topics

• Puppet bands
• CIA undercover operations

Notable quotes

If I were a dead toddler, then maybe I would enjoy this terrible thing.

Conclusion

The episode provides a profound look at how individuals navigate the s

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:12) This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Meg Bowles, and in this show, we take to the stage at America's Got Talent, go on a mission with a former CIA operative, and stand with a clergy member as he prepares for one of the hardest eulogies of his career. Our first story comes from Brentley Hilbrin. He told it in Austin, Texas, where we partnered with the Paramount Theater. Here's Brentley, live at the Moth. Speaker 4 (0:43) About a year before I was born, my infant brother Brian passed away of what they used to call crib death. And in the Jewish religion, you often take the first letter of the dead person's name, so I was named after him. And I always felt like I had two lives to live. I put this enormous pressure on myself to succeed because to fail... I mean, I failed not just for one life, but for two. And in spite of my best intentions, failure just seemed to follow me around. I failed at so many first dates. I wasn't particularly great in school, and then I pursued a career in acting, which is just a series of failures. Speaker 4 (1:32) And I got married in my early 20s, and when my marriage ended up failing, I was at the lowest point I had ever been at. I felt I let down my wife and my kids and the big brother that I never knew. Now, I'm a classic, sensitive artist type, so I really tried to write appropriately mopey songs to meet the moment, but my sarcasm always got in the way. And so one day, it just manifested itself as a Facebook post that simply said, I'm going to start an emo puppet band called Fragile Rock. Speaker 4 (2:16) Within minutes, I started getting notification after notification. People wanted in. Now keep in mind, this project did not exist. Here were respected people in the Austin creative community that wanted to be a part of it. And the first person to respond was a guitarist that said, I'll be in that band. And then within the comments, the band fleshes out with bass and drums. And an old friend volunteered to make puppets. And then by the end of the post, I was in fact in an emo puppet band called Fragile Rock. Speaker 4 (2:54) So I started to research, like, what do these characters look like? And we came up with the, like, tortured lead singer Milo-esque with the bangs and the eyeliner and the good-natured guitarist that's always auditioning and the Kim Gordon-inspired cool of the bassist. And we made a video for a song called I Am Sad and So Am I. Speaker 4 (3:20) and started playing around town and getting some notoriety. And soon we were asked to play at South by Southwest. Right before the festival, some nerdcore sites like Nerdist and Boing Boing started picking up stories about us and buzz began to grow. And even NPR ran a piece about us. And that led NPR's Bob Boylan to come to our show and offer us a tiny desk concert on the spot. Speaker 4 (3:51) A tiny desk concert for an emo puppet band. And it hit me. Is this what I'm going to be known for? Like, all those years of serious works produced nothing? Like, I can't be known for my searing portrayal of Laertes in Hamlet or like a pretentious one-person show where I play Lenny Bruce meeting Salvador Dali in heaven? No. An emo puppet band was the thing. And I felt like I was failing at success. Speaker 4 (4:31) Not long after, I got a message on Facebook that said, Hey, Brentley, I'm a senior producer at America's Got Talent, and we would love Fragile Rock to audition for us. And I'm like, we have performed in front of 100 to 300 people, but this is freaking ABC, and they have 10 million viewers per season. I mean, that's the thing that's going to put us on the national map. There's one catch. We had to mask everything but the puppets. And that's not what we did. It's a very strings-and-all kind of project. Fragile Rock, you see the band, you see the puppets, the puppeteers. You know, it's very Brechtian, which is my attempt at pretension creeping out again. Speaker 4 (5:26) But we figure, what's a little change when TV comes a-callin'? So we figured it out, and then we load up in a van, we head to Dallas for the audition, and they have us at the Fairmont Hotel, which is pretty posh. And when you audition for one of these shows, they put you in this room with, like, every kind of auditioning act imaginable. It is a total carny hellscape. I am overwhelmed, and I am exhilarated. And we audition, and I'm crouched down, and my arm is outstretched, and I am not a trained puppeteer. And this position, over time, hurts like hell. But we audition, we keep getting called back, and then a couple days later, I received a two-word text. You're in. We were going to America's Got Talent. Within a week, we are flying out to LA on AGT's dime. Three musicians, seven puppets, puppeteers, a coven of significant others. Speaker 4 (6:34) And when we get there, the producers start oozing with these confidence-building questions like, when you win the contest, not if, but when you win this, what are you going to do with the million dollars? And suddenly, this thing that like I never knew I wanted became the most important thing in the world. And I was certain we were going to win. So we're behind the curtain, ready to go on. The band is 25 to 30 feet away. We're usually right next to them. I can't see or hear them. A problem. Speaker 4 (7:21) And I'm giddy, and I'm nervous, and I'm a little bit frantic, and I'm crouched down. We have these TV monitors to kind of see what our puppets look like, and I can hear the rumblings of 5,000 people in the audience. And then I hear Simon Cowell say something to one of the celebrity judges. And on that night, we had Mel B, Scary Spice. Howie Mandel, Canadian, and my childhood comedy hero. I had all his records. We had Heidi Klum, supermodel, and of course, the infamous Simon Cowell. And I noticed our mics aren't quite working properly, and my stomach drops like I'm on a roller coaster, and I feel claustrophobic for the first time, cramped down behind a partition. Speaker 4 (8:18) But the curtain rises, the band starts playing, and we start singing. And it would have been great if we had played and sang at the same time. That first buzzer came in hard and fast. And I can't see it, but I know there's a bid-reg X in front of one of the judges, and I'm like praying it's not Howie Mandel. We stumble on for a few more seconds and that second buzzer comes like lightning. And that's when the boos start. First, a confident group by the judges and it grows by the thousands. We stumble on like a wounded gazelle and finally that third buzzer comes and puts us out of our misery. It is over before it began. And I just wanted to slink off stage and head back to Austin, but oh no, I forgot how these shows work. You see, even after the mercy killing comes the feedback. Now keep in mind, these are just our puppets that they're going to be talking to. We are still crouched down, mortified. Speaker 4 (9:50) The first person to speak was Mel B. She said, This is just too mean. I don't like mean. And I'm like, holy shit, I'm too mean for Scary Spice. The second to talk was Howie Mandel. And he said, This project is totally without merit. Whoever came up with it should be embarrassed and ashamed. Speaker 4 (10:21) And I'm like, oh, Howie, it was me. It me. That one hurt. Now, I don't remember what Heidi Klum said, but up next was Simon Cowell. And I try to preempt this nightmare by having my puppet say something like, hey, Speaker 5 (10:42) Simon, I'm just like you. We're like misunderstood geniuses that everybody hates. Speaker 4 (10:51) Nothing. Crickets. In fact, he seemed to inhale my comment like the sea sucks in the tide before a tsunami hits. And then he said, and I will never, ever forget this. He said, if I were a dead toddler, then maybe I would enjoy this terrible thing. Speaker 4 (11:35) And I think to myself, Jesus Christ, that's the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me. But I didn't think it. I said it out loud. Into the microphone. Completely breaking character. It was a natural reaction to the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. And we were then invited to rise. So we could take it all in with our human eyes. Speaker 4 (12:26) Where I got to see the stoned, angry faces of celebrity judges at the scorn and rejection of 5,000 pissed off people. And when we got off stage, a producer clarified that what Simon actually said was deaf toddler, not dead, but it hardly made it better. Here's the kicker. The show was so bad. Such an epic fail. They didn't even air it. Right? Here's a show built on people failing and we didn't make the cut. I failed at failing. When I got back to Austin though, a realization hit me. When you are in an emo puppet band built on the foundation of divorce, Speaker 4 (13:54) Failure is kind of baked into the project, you know? So we leaned into it and we started putting the judges quotes on our promotional materials. Fragile Rock, totally without merit. Fragile Rock, the embarrassed and ashamed tour. You know, I put myself out there on a national stage and it could not have gone worse. But I put myself out there, you know? And I think that that's the thing that people regret. Not going for it. Not trying. I think anyone here worth their bones will tell you that the road to success is paved with many, many failures. And I had a brother named Brian who never had the chance to fail. But I think we can all agree. Speaker 4 (15:21) that I have proudly done enough for both of us. Thank you. Speaker 7 (15:31) Brintley Hilbrin is a writer and performer based in