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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everybody, it's been a few months since our

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Speaker 1: last check In episode, and since then we've been hard

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Speaker 1: at work on a new season of Heavyweight. There will

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Speaker 1: be four new episodes coming out, some funny, some sad,

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Speaker 1: plus some bonus content like the check ins, which we

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Speaker 1: think you'll really enjoy. The first new episode launches next week.

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Speaker 1: But today I thought i'd share a story I made

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Speaker 1: way back in twenty fifteen for a then little known

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Speaker 1: podcast called a Reply All. These were the early days

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Speaker 1: of Gimlet, and I was in the middle of developing

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Speaker 1: what would eventually become Heavyweight, and in a lot of ways,

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Speaker 1: the story that I'm about to play for you would

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Speaker 1: form a kind of blueprint for Heavyweight. And like many

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Speaker 1: Heavyweight stories, it began with a personal obsession, a hunger

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Speaker 1: for answers, and a need to insinuate myself into the

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Speaker 1: personal lives of strangers, one stranger in particular. Without further

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Speaker 1: ado from the Gimlet media vaults, here is why is

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Speaker 1: Mason Reyes crying right after this very important message from

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. If as a child, I'd been told of

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Speaker 1: a future world where there dwelled a magical TV that

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Speaker 1: could play anything I wanted an infinite television jukebox that

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Speaker 1: I could watch all night without ever having the remote

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Speaker 1: pride from my hands. I'd say, you must be describing utopia,

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Speaker 1: and this is where I find myself. Wednesday night, two

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Speaker 1: thirty am Utopia.

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Speaker 2: Now this all time heavyweight Champnea fight.

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Speaker 3: Letty to go.

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Speaker 2: There's the bell and here's guile Abel.

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Speaker 1: There are things for my childhood that I've seen on

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Speaker 1: YouTube that I thought I'd go to my deathbed without

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Speaker 1: ever getting to revisit. Or two only undefeated everyweight champions

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Speaker 1: of the world, like the fake boxing match between Muhammad

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Speaker 1: Ali and Rocky Marciano that Special Effects Wizards put together

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy to determine who was the greatest fighter

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Speaker 1: of all time.

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Speaker 2: Off the Ropes again, Good Body Rally by marciall.

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Speaker 1: I often turned to it long after I should be

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Speaker 1: in bed.

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Speaker 2: Alisi the draw gasps of breath as he moved back

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Speaker 2: to the center of the ways.

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Speaker 4: There's the bell, Andy round one.

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Speaker 1: Our bookshelves are where we project our tastes, where we

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Speaker 1: announce to our dinner guests that, of course we enjoy Faulkner,

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Speaker 1: the Golden Age of comics and the essays of Montaigne.

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Speaker 1: But if our bookshelves are where we telegraph a version

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Speaker 1: of who we want to be, then our YouTube search

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Speaker 1: histories called from late hours, punching away at whiskey soaked

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Speaker 1: keyboards are what we really are, the self that is

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Speaker 1: led by desire rather than decorum.

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Speaker 2: Play will so Love God, Am Marcil, break, will break

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Speaker 2: the armory Jump.

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Speaker 1: After watching Ali and Marciano for a couple of rounds,

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Speaker 1: I think, wasn't there a song about Muhammad Ali? I'd

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Speaker 1: once heard the.

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Speaker 5: Black Superman?

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Speaker 1: And then Superman makes me think, of course, of David

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Speaker 1: Lee Roth heroically bounding around in leather spats and fishnet

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Speaker 1: bikini underwear, and so I seek out his haunting, isolated

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Speaker 1: vocal tracks that make Jump sound like an a cappella

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Speaker 1: spiritual intended to rouse the faithful to action.

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Speaker 2: Ah, might as well jump, job, might as well Job.

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Speaker 1: The clip recalls a time when Eddie Van Halen and

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Speaker 1: Valerie Bertinelli reigned as the Kim and Kanye of their day.

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Speaker 1: Eddie played guitar and Valerie starred in One Day at

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Speaker 1: a Time, a sitcom in which mustachioed, leather vested janitor

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Speaker 1: named Schneider allowed himself into her family's apartment whenever he pleased.

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Speaker 5: Very sex symbol. How you doing with the quarterback?

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Speaker 3: I hope you're not letting him score any touchdowns? You know?

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Speaker 3: I know?

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Speaker 1: Will you keep your nose out of this?

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Speaker 3: This is Julie's problem.

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Speaker 1: Even though we can see almost anything we want on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: there's something about the endless possibility that can cause anxiety,

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Speaker 1: and so we just circle back to the clips that

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Speaker 1: deliver the dopamine of childhood nostalgia. We all have that

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Speaker 1: sweet spot, and for me, it's the early seventies when

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Speaker 1: my first memories of being alive were beginning to form.

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Speaker 1: And the figure who most perfectly evokes this time the

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Speaker 1: ten letter late night search term I inevitably keep coming

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Speaker 1: back to more than any other, is Mason Reese.

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Speaker 4: People kept telling my mother, all, I look like a munchkin. Well,

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Speaker 4: this is what a munchkin looks like.

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Speaker 1: In the seventies, Mason Reese was an advert tizing phenomenon

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Speaker 1: who appeared in dozens of commercials for everything from.

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Speaker 3: Duncan Donuts, Do I Look like a Mudskin?

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Speaker 1: To Raisin Brant and the Underwood chicken spread as on

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Speaker 1: chicken spread with this adorable spoonerism that became a nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies catchphrase, like I.

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Speaker 4: Told her mom, you posada words like having a burgish board.

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Speaker 1: Lately, I've been trying to explain masonries and I keep

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Speaker 1: coming up short on analogies. He was like the Wendy's

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Speaker 1: Where's the Beef Lady, I say, or Mikey from Life Cereal,

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Speaker 1: But it isn't quite true. While they were limited to

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Speaker 1: one product and one memorable slogan, Mason advertised everything, and

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Speaker 1: he went from being a TV commercial star to being

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Speaker 1: a star star. When he walked down the street, people

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Speaker 1: asked for locks of his signature red hair and blessings

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Speaker 1: for their babies. One mother even named her twins after him,

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Speaker 1: calling one Mason and the other Reese. When I bring

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Speaker 1: him up to my mother to see if she remembers,

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Speaker 1: she says, wasn't he the little boy who was so homely?

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Speaker 1: He was cute?

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Speaker 4: How come every writing come with you?

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Speaker 1: I wish though there was something uncanny about Masonriese because

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Speaker 1: of his precocity. He didn't quite track as a child,

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Speaker 1: and some people even thought he was a little person

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Speaker 1: dressed in children's clothing who after a day's shoot, sparked

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Speaker 1: up a stogie and poured himself a bourbon. The little

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Speaker 1: old man's sat eyed face, the prince valiant haircut, the

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Speaker 1: scrunchy voice that sounds as though spoken underwater in a

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Speaker 1: tub of buttermilk. The hair that only seemed to grow

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Speaker 1: so bright red in the seventies. Mason Reese is as

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Speaker 1: synonymous with childhood as the memory of sitting in a

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Speaker 1: wet bathing suit on the hot vinyl backseat of my

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Speaker 1: father's Pontiac while listening to an AM radio Blair American Pie.

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Speaker 1: His face is the smell of my grandmother's kitchen of

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Speaker 1: crayons comic books. Except in the past year, new Mason

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Speaker 1: rees videos began to appear things from TV I don't

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Speaker 1: recall ever having seen. It was as though my very

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Speaker 1: desire was somehow having an incantatory effect, summoning deeper cuts

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Speaker 1: from the past. Mason on afternoon talk show The Mike

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Speaker 1: Douglas Show, tap dancing to singing in the rain, introducing

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Speaker 1: Leonard Nimoy and hamming it up like an old pro.

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Speaker 4: Please join me in rocketing one of my favorites, Leonard Neimoy.

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Speaker 1: And then there's this it's just not right.

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Speaker 5: A man that old and an eight year old boy.

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Speaker 1: An ABC sitcom pilot's simply called Mason, where he plays

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Speaker 1: a friendless child genius who brings home a thirty five

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Speaker 1: year old man in safari shorts he met while wandering

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Speaker 1: the streets of New York.

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Speaker 2: For all we know he's a pervert. Oh, I don't

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Speaker 2: think Mason leans that way.

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Speaker 5: Well, you aren't even let sleep over.

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Speaker 3: What kind of a companion.

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Speaker 1: But amidst this trove of new material, I found something else.

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Speaker 2: And he's doing something I understand. It's that you especially

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Speaker 2: like a song that you especially are fond of.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

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Speaker 1: In this clip, Mason is co hosting The Mike Douglas

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Speaker 1: Show and Harry Chapin is being introduced.

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Speaker 2: You want to tell us who what what the song is?

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Speaker 3: Or do you know? I don't? I mean, you know

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Speaker 3: what it is?

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Speaker 4: No, I don't want that song.

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Speaker 3: Why Mason, you're not putting on that song?

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Speaker 2: Now he gets he's very touched by that song.

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Speaker 1: But maybe Mason, seated on his mini director's chair, just

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Speaker 1: can't take it and drops the facade of the precocious

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Speaker 1: TV broadcaster and collapses his face into his hands and weeps.

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Speaker 2: Oh you know what song it is? Well, maybe we

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Speaker 2: ought to bring you the guy with the worms back.

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Speaker 2: Come on Pale, Oh, come on over here, Come on

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Speaker 2: over here with uncle Mike. What I said, You're gonna

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Speaker 2: be all right. This song is very touching and as

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Speaker 2: you can see, and Mason's very touched by it. Is

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Speaker 2: it okay? It's called Cat's in the Cradle Harry Chapin,

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Speaker 2: This is for my kids and for Mason. Thank you.

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Speaker 5: My child arrived just the other day, came.

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Speaker 1: And as Harry Chapin sings the quintessential song of complicated

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Speaker 1: father son loves Mason cries in console and he was.

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Speaker 5: Talking for I knew it.

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Speaker 1: And as he grew, he'd say, I'm gonna be like you.

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Speaker 5: You know, I'm gonna be like you.

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Speaker 3: And the Cats in the Cradle and.

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Speaker 2: A little boy blue of the Man of the Moon

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Speaker 2: when you're coming home that I don't know. When we

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Speaker 2: get together, then this time, you know we'll have a

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Speaker 2: good time.

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Speaker 1: Then YouTube is a cultural repository, but it's full of fragments,

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Speaker 1: broken and left over, like Roman ruins. Was there something

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Speaker 1: that took place before the Harry Chapin introduction, something that

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Speaker 1: was happening just outside the frame, off stage and unseen.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't much context to be gotten from YouTube commenters either,

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Speaker 1: most of whom were just mean, saying things like what

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Speaker 1: the hell is that red haired thing?

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Speaker 3: Wow?

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Speaker 1: He was more horrifying than I even remember. I hated

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Speaker 1: this ugly tour when I was a kid, But there

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Speaker 1: was this one thing, and when I first discovered it,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it was true. Looking more closely at

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Speaker 1: the user account the person uploading these new videos, I

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Speaker 1: noticed the name was Mason Reese. I now had many questions.

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Speaker 1: Why would Mason Reese upload a video of himself crying?

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Speaker 1: Myself crying as a child, should such footage exist? Would

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Speaker 1: be the kind of thing I'd probably never even show

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Speaker 1: my closest friends, let alone the whole world. Why was

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Speaker 1: Mason doing just that? And why did he post the

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Speaker 1: videos now? Forty years later? These were questions I couldn't

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Speaker 1: answer by just tweaking my search terms by adding more

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Speaker 1: tabs to the browser window. What I wanted most wasn't

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Speaker 1: to expand the frame, but to pass right through it entirely.

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Speaker 1: In short, I wanted the real world.

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Speaker 4: How long have you been.

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Speaker 2: Acting in commercials?

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Speaker 4: Well, since i'm so now I have been acting three years.

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Speaker 2: That would mean you started when you were about four.

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Speaker 1: What we were hoping to do is to actually look

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Speaker 1: at some of the clips with you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't mind doing it. Yeah, that's very interesting.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so I've started rolling you do.

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Speaker 3: Hello.

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Speaker 2: Hello.

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Speaker 1: Mason lives in a modest, two room apartment on New

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Speaker 1: York's Upper West Side. When he greets me and my

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Speaker 1: producer Chris at the door, I'm surprised by how little

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Speaker 1: he is.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna let that go.

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Speaker 5: What are you about.

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Speaker 1: The haircut's almost the same. I don't know, the red hair,

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Speaker 1: the eyes, the expressions, it's all there. Looking at him

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Speaker 1: is intense, like seeing an old friend.

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Speaker 3: Hebe now and then by the way, you might hear

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Speaker 3: a fire Injine or something go by. Because New York.

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Speaker 3: That's New York, baby, that's exactly right, living Manhattan.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Mason seats us in his living room, which is

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Speaker 1: a shrine to his child star. There's a photo of

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Speaker 1: him co hosting a telethon with Henry Winkler, a nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three Cleo Award for Best Actor in a Commercial,

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Speaker 1: and a photograph of himself jogging in Central Park with

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Speaker 1: Andy Warhol and Grace Jones and looking around like you've

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Speaker 1: got all of this, You've got all these photos of

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Speaker 1: yourself as a kid and a lot of memorabilia. In

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Speaker 1: some ways, do you feel this responsibility to that kid

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Speaker 1: in a way or like, do you feel like.

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Speaker 3: You're all of these pictures that you can see of

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Speaker 3: me with the Batmo Bill and Peter Lupis from Mission

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Speaker 3: Impossible and Leonard Nimoy and William Shatton and all this,

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Speaker 3: you know, cover of TV Guys, cover of TV Guy

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Speaker 3: in the book I published an I A seven. That's

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Speaker 3: that's That's what I have in my living room. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: in my bedroom there's not one picture. Why is that

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Speaker 3: Because that's where I'm an adult. That's you know what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying, And to me, that's very important. I'm a

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Speaker 3: fifty year old man. That's my private area. It's just

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Speaker 3: my public area. Yeah, and in private, this is not

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Speaker 3: who I am.

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Speaker 1: But is this is this here for like for us?

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Speaker 1: Or is this here for you both?

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Speaker 3: Both? Because it's a it's a great reminder to me

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Speaker 3: of what I've accomplished in my life.

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Speaker 1: Mason Reese is fifty, but he doesn't look it. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't look it in the way his Pomeranian doesn't look

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Speaker 1: his age or any age, because a Pomeranian is what

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Speaker 1: it is, and Mason Reese is Mason Reese. And the

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Speaker 1: world seeses on all those who are singular, unique, those

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Speaker 1: who are what they are, and the world celebrates them

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Speaker 1: the best it knows how, by nailing them to a crucifix,

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Speaker 1: by sticking them in front of a camera, to hawk

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Speaker 1: fried dough and canned meatspread. Mason hasn't made a commercial

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Speaker 1: since his teens, but his life seems pretty okay. In

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Speaker 1: the intervening years. He's opened a few bars and even

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Speaker 1: runs his own entertainment company, borges Moord Productions. And why

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Speaker 1: did he post the videos now forty years later? Mainly,

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Speaker 1: he explains to me because a friend of his put

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Speaker 1: together a DVD of Mason Reese's greatest hits and he

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Speaker 1: thought he might as well share it with people who

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Speaker 1: might be interested. Chris sets up a laptop on the

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Speaker 1: coffee table. What we were hoping to do is to

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Speaker 1: actually look at some of the clips with you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't mind doing it. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We start off with perhaps the greatest hit of them

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Speaker 1: all the Underwood doubled hand, I'm commercial.

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Speaker 4: Granburry sauce and red is on chicken spread, Shorty Peter

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Speaker 4: burn apple sauce on this one even made a nifty

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Speaker 4: suest tomato salad. Like I told her mom, you post

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Speaker 4: other words like having a burgish word.

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Speaker 3: So the whole borgoschword thing at the end, uh, I

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Speaker 3: mean that ended up being the money shot, as they

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Speaker 3: call it. You know, that was it? That was that

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Speaker 3: was the big one. It wasn't a mistake, it was planned,

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Speaker 3: but it was. Yeah, And I'll tell you how. So

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Speaker 3: Andy Doyle, who was the ad exac for the company,

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Speaker 3: came up to me and he said, Mason, we would

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Speaker 3: like you to mispronounce the word schmorgasport.

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Speaker 1: That's that's interesting.

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Speaker 3: And I said, well, but Andy, you know, I know

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Speaker 3: what the real word is, and I don't want America

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Speaker 3: to think that I'm not smart enough to know the

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Speaker 3: real word. So what he did was he went and

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Speaker 3: he got a yellow pan of paper and he wrote

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Speaker 3: down all these words that sounded like schmart sport and

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Speaker 3: I picked out borgosmort. So Andy looks at me, goes, Mason,

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Speaker 3: you are really incredible. You're not gonna believe this. Borgus

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Speaker 3: schmort is morgasbord in Swedish, but it's not right. Schmorgasbord

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Speaker 3: is sweeh. So he lied to me. So the bottom

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Speaker 3: line is the ad exact lied to a six and

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Speaker 3: a half year old kid, and that commercial literally launched

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Speaker 3: my career. That's what made people like Dick Havin and

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Speaker 3: Mike Douglas and all the others, uh, you know, call

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Speaker 3: me on the phone and say, hey, this kid is

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Speaker 3: something a little different, you know, and we want to

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Speaker 3: we want a piece of him.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, let's take a look at another ad.

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Speaker 3: Duncan Dunas.

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Speaker 4: Yes, people kept telling my mother I looked like a munchkin.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that was more commercial than I actually kind

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Speaker 3: of regret doing. Why Well let's watch it, yeah, and

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Speaker 3: you'll no at the tagline, I'll tell.

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Speaker 4: You why a big bunch basket or a great big

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Speaker 4: super munch basket. Tell me do I look like a munchkin?

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Speaker 3: Oh? The only reason why I'm not particularly fond of

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Speaker 3: that commercial was the fact that the tagline was don't

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Speaker 3: tell me I looked like a munchkin? Well, what do

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Speaker 3: you think happened? Every fucking place I went, you know, oh,

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Speaker 3: that's the Munchkin For a year. That was just abuse

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Speaker 3: after abuse after abuse.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to just take a look at the

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Speaker 1: Harry chapin no.

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Speaker 3: Dot or not? Oh?

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Speaker 5: Really?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I mean it was I'll tell the story

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Speaker 3: behind it, you know. For some reason, and I to

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Speaker 3: this day, I don't know what the reason is. Because

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Speaker 3: my father and I were very close, that song Cat's

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Speaker 3: in the Cradle has a really hard effect on me.

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Speaker 3: So people always say to me, oh, did you have

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Speaker 3: a strained relationship your father? Was he always away? And

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Speaker 3: the answer was no, My dad was always around. So

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Speaker 3: I never really understood why I identified with the song

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Speaker 3: other than the fact that I was a sensitive kid

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Speaker 3: and Harry was on the Mike Douglas Show. I was

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Speaker 3: the co host, and I asked him, are you gonna

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Speaker 3: be seting cats in the Cradle and he said no.

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Speaker 3: They asked me to do another one of my newer songs.

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Speaker 3: Oh okay. So I was not prepared for him to

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Speaker 3: do that, and at the age of seven, I wasn't

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Speaker 3: able to, you know, figure out what did he lie

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Speaker 3: to me? And that's what I must have been thinking,

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Speaker 3: you know, as a young kid, and I literally just

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Speaker 3: broke down and.

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Speaker 1: Fell apart because you had been lied to, or because

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Speaker 1: because I wasn't gonna.

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Speaker 3: Be yes because the song couldn't be played. But I'm

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Speaker 3: sure part of my mind was, well, why would Harry

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Speaker 3: say no? I literally just broke down into a step

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Speaker 3: and nobody understood why except me, my parents, and probably Harry.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's a ninety minute show back then, and

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Speaker 3: there was probably a good thirty minutes left in the show.

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Speaker 3: And I refused to come back. And I just went

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Speaker 3: down into the commissary, which was in the basement of

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Speaker 3: the building, and I sat there and I had a

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Speaker 3: soda or something.

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Speaker 5: And.

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Speaker 3: You know, I just refused. I didn't want to go

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Speaker 3: back anymore.

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Speaker 1: A lot of Mason's stories involved as being lied to

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Speaker 1: by adults, which is sad. But what was it about

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Speaker 1: Cats in the Cradle, in particular, a song to make

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Speaker 1: cry if anyone neglectful dads not little boys? Is it possible?

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Speaker 1: In a way, it was as though like it was

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Speaker 1: sort of like you singing the song to yourself. You're

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Speaker 1: both you're both a child and I don't have a childhood.

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Speaker 3: All of these stereotypical things that kids do and did

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Speaker 3: I didn't do. I mean I never went to a prom,

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Speaker 3: I never played sports, I never took extracurricular after school activities.

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Speaker 3: Did I sacrifice anything? I know you didn't ask that,

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Speaker 3: but that's a log But that's a logical question. Well,

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Speaker 3: I don't know, did I I don't think so. I

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Speaker 3: often tell people that when you've written an elephant in

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Speaker 3: the Barnum and Bailey circus, been an NBC correspondent for

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Speaker 3: the News, piloted the Goodyear Blimp. I wasn't in the

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Speaker 3: Goodyear blimp. I flew the Goodyear blimp. When you've gotten

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Speaker 3: to do all the things that I did, algebra is

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Speaker 3: pretty fucking boring. I'm a very unique circumstances. My mother

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Speaker 3: and father every day of my life life said I

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Speaker 3: love you to me, and every day of my life

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Speaker 3: would give me a kiss and a hug, and this

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Speaker 3: coming that they loved me. And like, my mom called

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Speaker 3: me this morning and she wanted me to I was

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Speaker 3: wondering yesterday for three hours, literally like vacuuming the floor

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Speaker 3: and cutting her toenails. You know, that's not what some

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Speaker 3: wants to do to a nine year old mother, but

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Speaker 3: I was doing it because I'm a nice boy.

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Speaker 5: I just thought, just in light of what you were saying,

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Speaker 5: if we just watched the one with your where your mother?

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Speaker 3: Sure I could watch them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. When when did you first discover missus?

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Speaker 2: Reeve said, this young man was a bit precocious.

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Speaker 3: My mom was a good looking, broad beautiful. He was

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Speaker 3: born April eleventh, I'd say April twelveth.

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Speaker 1: He is, to say, the least, an unusual child.

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Speaker 3: How do you and he can on fabulously? Yeah?

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Speaker 5: We yell, we fight, but we love each other a lot.

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Speaker 2: I want to bring his father out. Okay, Mason, do

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Speaker 2: you want to bring your dad? Huh?

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Speaker 3: Believe?

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Speaker 4: Will Bill Reese please them?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Tell me about his reading?

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Speaker 3: He reads it?

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Speaker 1: What level between tenth and eleventh grade?

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Speaker 3: That's incredible.

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Speaker 2: Does he attend a public school?

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Speaker 3: He attends a Montessori Method school. Why do you think

394
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Speaker 3: you're welling up?

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Speaker 2: Allows him to progress pretty much at his own case?

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Speaker 3: Well again, you know, I mean to some extent because

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Speaker 3: my mom and dad probably still loved each other at

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Speaker 3: this point in our lives. You know, things were a

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Speaker 3: lot simpler maybe for me. My parents had not divorced yet.

400
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Speaker 3: My two brothers and my sister and I were all

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Speaker 3: very close. We still all kind of lived together for

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Speaker 3: the most part. So yeah, I think that a lot

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Speaker 3: of it is uh, hearkens back to a simpler time,

404
00:24:25,490 --> 00:24:29,249
Speaker 3: more care free perhaps though even though I had a

405
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Speaker 3: job to do, it was still more care free because

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Speaker 3: I was a kid and a lot of responsibilities have

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Speaker 3: not been put on my head yet. You know, it's

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Speaker 3: funny my mom doesn't understand YouTube, you know. I mean,

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00:24:43,010 --> 00:24:45,489
Speaker 3: she kind of gets it, but doesn't really fully understand it.

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Speaker 3: I showed her this clip and I jokingly said to her,

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Speaker 3: but maybe it was true. I said, that's probably the

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Speaker 3: last time you ever kissed dad. Well, and I do

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Speaker 3: love my dad.

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Speaker 1: No, God, when you're a kid, you cry because you

415
00:25:14,290 --> 00:25:17,010
Speaker 1: feel lied to, because life is unfair and you don't

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Speaker 1: understand anything. And then as an adult, you cry because

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00:25:20,970 --> 00:25:24,810
Speaker 1: life still isn't fair, but you do understand it. You

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00:25:24,929 --> 00:25:30,489
Speaker 1: cry because you do understand it. By nineteen seventy seven,

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Speaker 1: Mason's dad would begin spending more and more time at

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Speaker 1: the company he started, and eventually he'd convert part of

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Speaker 1: his office into a living space where he could spend nights.

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Speaker 1: In his early teens, around the time the commercial offers

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00:25:44,129 --> 00:25:48,090
Speaker 1: started to dry up, Mason's parents would divorce, and Mason

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Speaker 1: would move into the office with his dad At eight

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Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. When employees began to show up,

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Speaker 1: Mason would sometimes still be lounging around in his T

427
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Speaker 1: shirt and underwear.

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Speaker 2: We're going to visit more with the Reese's following this,

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Speaker 2: We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: At one point, while watching the videos, Mason tells me

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Speaker 1: that he realizes the commenters can be mean. Oh my god,

432
00:26:14,850 --> 00:26:18,050
Speaker 1: what a freak. He was so ugly. What kind of

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00:26:18,129 --> 00:26:21,970
Speaker 1: talent did this kid have? He says, quoting them, I'd

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Speaker 1: be a liar if I said it didn't affect me.

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Speaker 1: When I ask him why he hasn't disabled the comments

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Speaker 1: for his videos, he seems genuinely surprised that you could

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Speaker 1: do such a thing. He pauses to consider it, but

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Speaker 1: as of today he still hasn't done it, and I

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Speaker 1: don't think he ever will. It would mean not being

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Speaker 1: able to receive any of the nice comments like this one. Hey, Mason,

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Speaker 1: thank you for these. They would not have been the

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Speaker 1: seventies without you. This episode was produced for Reply All

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Speaker 1: by me Jonathan Goldstein Will, along with Chris Neary, Tim

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Speaker 1: Howard Struthie Pennaminini, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. It was

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Speaker 1: edited by Alex Bloomberg, John Dolore and Bobby Lord mix

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Speaker 1: the episode. We'll be back next week with a brand

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Speaker 1: new episode of Heavyweight