Speaker 1: Pushkin bad time. I was just stepping out. I was
Speaker 1: just you enjoy music, right, Yeah. This week's show kind
Speaker 1: of deals with music, and it got me thinking. I
Speaker 1: have a confession to make. You know how, sometimes, like
Speaker 1: you have dinner parties and they're great. I wanted to say,
Speaker 1: sometimes how you sometimes play music? Yeah, sometimes I'm a
Speaker 1: little hesitant to come over for dinner.
Speaker 2: You're always hesitant to come over for dinner.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not including Mary Club's forty fifth birthday. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that? I do you know that Bumballeo song?
Speaker 1: I can't find my Gypsy King CD because your husband
Speaker 1: hit it. It's killing me, killing everybody. The reason sometimes
Speaker 1: I have some difficulty with my digestion these dinner parties
Speaker 1: is it's the Bumballeo song. It's the Gypsy Kings. Oh
Speaker 1: this is great. You know what bumble bambalaya translates as
Speaker 1: what wobble wobble? All right, we'll speak to you one
Speaker 1: thing before we go. Okay, I'm going to say bumbalao
Speaker 1: and then you say bumbalaya. Okay, I do, and then I.
Speaker 3: Bomb bye bye.
Speaker 1: From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight
Speaker 1: today's episode, Gregor.
Speaker 2: This guy's gonna ram you from behind because you're going
Speaker 2: eleven miles left, although you usually don't do it from
Speaker 2: the right line.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's not give killed. Do you have a driver's license?
Speaker 1: This is Gregor and me on our way to lunch,
Speaker 1: and what you're hearing is typical. When I'm driving, Gregor
Speaker 1: comments on my speed. When I eat, he comments on
Speaker 1: my table manners, and when I eat yogurt, he comments
Speaker 1: on the way I lick the inside lid, calling it
Speaker 1: both lecherous and unmanly. Some might say that Gregor is
Speaker 1: overly critical, possibly even prickly, but I would not. I
Speaker 1: love Gregor for many reasons. His loyalty, his generosity, his
Speaker 1: being the kind of person will pick you up at
Speaker 1: the airport at four in the morning without even complaining.
Speaker 1: But it's perhaps his courage to say the things that
Speaker 1: were all not exactly thinking, but maybe thinking about thinking,
Speaker 1: that is most thrilling. And so when he showed up
Speaker 1: at my office mocking himself instead of me and speaking
Speaker 1: in biblical parables, I was concerned.
Speaker 2: Was it the Pharaoh and the Joseph story who said
Speaker 2: the seven lean years and seven fat years?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I had this insight today that the fat years are
Speaker 2: about to end.
Speaker 1: Would these have been the fat years?
Speaker 2: That's what I realized Literally this morning. I woke up
Speaker 2: and I was like, wait, those were the fat years?
Speaker 2: You know, in every conceivable way, financially, stability, prestige, all
Speaker 2: the job stuff, and like creative accomplishment stuff. I just
Speaker 2: feel like it's like going up and I'm watching it
Speaker 2: go up and smoke.
Speaker 1: Gregor is forty eight years old and by profession he
Speaker 1: makes marketing videos for a cleaning product usually found in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I can't tell you the name of this
Speaker 1: product for fear Gregor will lose his job. In other words,
Speaker 1: he's not the filmo tour he dreamt of being back
Speaker 1: in his college days, underlining back issues of Kye to Cinema.
Speaker 1: On top of that, he says that over the past
Speaker 1: few years he's seen his career slowly sucked downward. Not
Speaker 1: unlike Oh, I don't know, the spiraling waters of a
Speaker 1: sink unclogged by a chemical drain opener designed to flush
Speaker 1: pipes and attack clogs at their worst.
Speaker 2: What's that children's game where everyone goes around the chairs
Speaker 2: musical chairs, chairs, and everyone sits down, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that friend of mine became a CEO. These four friends
Speaker 2: are like EVP SVP senior whatever.
Speaker 3: At their things.
Speaker 2: That friend of mine wound up sitting in the president
Speaker 2: of Estonia's chair, and then you're like the music stops
Speaker 2: and you're left standing.
Speaker 1: I've heard him reel off this list before, and Gregor
Speaker 1: fully admits it. The success of anyone he knows, no
Speaker 1: matter how thin, his connection to them, feels like a
Speaker 1: reflection of his own shortcomings, including the ascension of his
Speaker 1: elementary school's librarian son, who is now the president of Estonia.
Speaker 2: The point of the story is where's my presidency of
Speaker 2: my Estonia? My circumstances was. I was like, oh things
Speaker 2: will you know, about to break through, about to change?
Speaker 2: And now, like you could say, well, this is just
Speaker 2: to setback, it's you know whatever, Soon your ship's going
Speaker 2: to come in.
Speaker 3: But it's just not you know. I mean, that's just
Speaker 3: the simple truth, the uncomfortable truth.
Speaker 1: Of all Gregor's stories about the success of his acquaintances
Speaker 1: and friends, there's one story that he returns to most,
Speaker 1: and not only is it the greatest success story of
Speaker 1: them all, it's the one that touched his life the
Speaker 1: most intimately. The story all begins about twenty years ago
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, when Gregor was living in a small apartment
Speaker 1: in Chinatown with his older brother Dimitri. One night, they
Speaker 1: had a friend of theirs over for dinner, a techno
Speaker 1: musician friend.
Speaker 2: He was really poor at the time. He was living
Speaker 2: in like I think, in like a basement in a
Speaker 2: warehouse or something, for forty dollars a month. He was
Speaker 2: an articulate smart guy, still an articular smart guy, but
Speaker 2: he's sort of an unlikely rock star in that his
Speaker 2: hair had mostly fallen out even when we were still
Speaker 2: in our twenties. But I watched his ascent. He played
Speaker 2: the bigger and bigger crowds during this techno kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And then eventually he got a record contract, and I
Speaker 2: at the time got hold of a very obscure set
Speaker 2: of CDs which were field.
Speaker 4: Hollers oooh on troubles.
Speaker 3: I thought it was really interesting stuff. I loaned him
Speaker 3: this box set of CDs.
Speaker 4: Oooh lone trouble.
Speaker 2: So he then sampled it very heavily god and created
Speaker 2: a record which got him very rich and very famous.
Speaker 1: This guy you're speaking of, This guy's Moby trouble. Moby
Speaker 1: bald headed, bespectacled, castle dwelling, multi million records selling Moby.
Speaker 1: But back then he was just Gregor's pal who spent
Speaker 1: weekends at Gregor's family's place and attended family birthday parties too.
Speaker 1: In bars and during long car rides, Gregor and Moby
Speaker 1: had long, earnest conversations about God and the things they believed.
Speaker 1: They were living their twenties together and those CDs Gregor
Speaker 1: lent Moby. The Box. Sounds of the South was recorded
Speaker 1: by the ethno musicologist Alan Lomax. Beginning in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: Lomax and his father John made thousands of field recordings,
Speaker 1: mostly in the American South. These recordings are among the
Speaker 1: most important in American music, preserving dozens of African American
Speaker 1: songs from the early years of the twentieth century. Wait
Speaker 1: some Time better know than Alas some Time. Another hit
Speaker 1: on Moby's album is called Honey. It makes use of
Speaker 1: the song sometimes sung by Bessie Smith Jones. Jones was
Speaker 1: taught these songs by her grandfather, a former slave born
Speaker 1: in Africa. This is Moby's version, So is everybody feeling alive?
Speaker 1: Y I've here elected to play for you the live
Speaker 1: version of the song with all of its foot stomping
Speaker 1: and audience cheering. It's how I imagine Gregor hears it
Speaker 1: echoing in his head during those sleepless nights when his
Speaker 1: kishka's are slowly being corroded by battery ascid.
Speaker 2: When I discovered this CD set, I was like an evangelist.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is amazing. You got to check
Speaker 2: this out. He was over the house and I was like,
Speaker 2: you got to take this home. This is amazing stuff.
Speaker 2: This is the best CD I've heard. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't know how long I've been listening to NonStop rotation.
Speaker 3: I love the CD. So it wasn't just laying in
Speaker 3: a pile. And he happened to put it in his
Speaker 3: bag and walk out the door.
Speaker 2: I said, I sold him on it.
Speaker 1: And Moby makes use of several Lomax recordings on his
Speaker 1: album Play, which went multi platinum. Play eventually became one
Speaker 1: of the most commercially licensed albums ever recorded. At the time,
Speaker 1: the songs were used to promote everything from luxury cars
Speaker 1: to credit cards, and before Play, according to Rolling Stone Magazine,
Speaker 1: Moby was quote bumbling around New York as it has been,
Speaker 1: And then was there an intermediary step before or that?
Speaker 1: And then hearing it on the CD where he said, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, thanks.
Speaker 2: No, I said, this is amazing thing. Next thing I
Speaker 2: heard it's on the radio and I said, hey, can
Speaker 2: I get that box setback?
Speaker 3: And then years of not being friends.
Speaker 1: And according to Gregor, that was all he wanted to
Speaker 1: get his CDs back. He was looking for neither riches
Speaker 1: nor credit, just the CDs, which he claims were only alone.
Speaker 1: And so this is how it went. He began leaving
Speaker 1: Moby voice messages by Gregor's count, about a dozen that
Speaker 1: all went unanswered. Then, in a final act of desperation,
Speaker 1: Gregor penned a song called Moby give Me Back my CDs,
Speaker 1: which he sang into Moby's answering machine with accompanying karaoke
Speaker 1: music to the tune of Brian Adams Heaven. After much cajoling,
Speaker 1: Gregor dug up his lyrics, which I will now perform
Speaker 1: for you, Moby give me back my CDs. The recordings
Speaker 1: from the yield the Alan Lomax box at CDs. I
Speaker 1: think there were seven. Those discs are all that I need.
Speaker 1: The ones I gave you from my house. I think
Speaker 1: you'll be sure to see there were seven and that message,
Speaker 1: Gregor says, was met with over a decade of silence.
Speaker 1: Did he ever explain, like, did he just ever come
Speaker 1: out and tell you honestly what became of those CDs?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I think he was busy, like playing, like, you know,
Speaker 2: a concert to ninety thousand people in Rykovic and drinking
Speaker 2: champagne out of a prostitute shoe. Couldn't be bothered, Obviously,
Speaker 2: I put an exaggerated value on the CDs. I'm sure
Speaker 2: he could have sampled anything, and he had a plenty
Speaker 2: big career before.
Speaker 3: That and after that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not insane, but it was more that
Speaker 2: displaced feeling of like I had this thing go off
Speaker 2: and bloom without me.
Speaker 1: M m.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you an interesting detail in that. Yeah, whenever
Speaker 2: Moby music comes on, I can't listen to it.
Speaker 1: But do you think if you get it back you
Speaker 1: won't feel that way.
Speaker 2: I feel like I could work it through like therapy
Speaker 2: where I could then listen to the music again.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a sense of what.
Speaker 1: About my you know, where's my gold album?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Gregor has theories about why nothing ever happened for him,
Speaker 1: and they revolve around an aspect of his personality, an
Speaker 1: aspect he refers to as a lack of affability.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of times I'll say something completely earnestly
Speaker 2: mm hmm, like past the water, and they're like, are
Speaker 2: you being sarcastic?
Speaker 3: Like that happened to me all the time?
Speaker 1: How could you ask for the water sarcastically?
Speaker 3: I come across as being sarcastic when I'm not.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like a handicap of.
Speaker 3: It's a huge handicap.
Speaker 2: I think it's fundamentally, as I understand my own life,
Speaker 2: that is my cross to bear. That's what's wrecked my well.
Speaker 1: I think you would even like you told me that
Speaker 1: story about where you were in the conference room at work,
Speaker 1: They're like complimenting you on your new glasses or something
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, what does your wife think of those glasses?
Speaker 1: And you were like, how the fuck do I know?
Speaker 1: Why don't you ask my own wife to find out?
Speaker 1: Do you remember?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I mean, so.
Speaker 3: They said like, what is your wife think of that?
Speaker 3: I was like, how do I know? Ask my wife?
Speaker 1: Recently, Gregor and Moby have found themselves back in touch,
Speaker 1: though in the most tangential impersonal way possible through group
Speaker 1: emails and texts. Gregor's older brother Dimitri, remained friends with
Speaker 1: Moby over the years, and Dmitri recently had a baby,
Speaker 1: so he loops in Moby, Gregor, and one other old
Speaker 1: friend on updates. This has evolved into a small group
Speaker 1: of friends exchanging witticisms and fun facts like did you
Speaker 1: know that the fatty flesh around the elbow is called
Speaker 1: a weness? So while the new group email friendship isn't
Speaker 1: the same as the old close one, it's still an
Speaker 1: open door, and so I couldn't help asking the question,
Speaker 1: now that that door has swung open again, do you
Speaker 1: see this as an opportunity to ask for those CDs
Speaker 1: once again?
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it, were you just because it's
Speaker 2: kind of a little symbolic of what I don't even
Speaker 2: have a CD player anymore, right, But I was just thinking,
Speaker 2: for talismonic purposes, it would be interesting to have.
Speaker 1: Them back say more about that.
Speaker 3: I think that it might soothe me.
Speaker 1: Do you really think it would?
Speaker 2: I'll actually give you the clarity which just came to me, now, okay,
Speaker 2: it's not Instead of the money and the fame and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. What it is is tangible evidence. Understand
Speaker 2: you did this, you exist, you did it, you pulled
Speaker 2: it off.
Speaker 1: You want to be able to say, see these CDs
Speaker 1: on the shelf, that's.
Speaker 2: The ones that I gave to mommy, because for me,
Speaker 2: this would just be a version of proof.
Speaker 1: Wanting the CDs you lent someone decades ago and expecting
Speaker 1: them back is of course insanity, but insanity's repeated often enough,
Speaker 1: especially between friends, can begin to feel pacifying, lulling.
Speaker 3: Even.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, in a way, you just want your due.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think you can articulate that in a way
Speaker 1: that would make it understandable to him?
Speaker 2: Do you think I'm pretty confident I can't, because he's
Speaker 2: still pretty sensitive.
Speaker 1: Okay, pretty sensitive, pretty sensitive. Like the time Moby seemed
Speaker 1: to bristle when Gregor emailed him about something totally innocuous,
Speaker 1: a condolence for the death of Moby's friend David Bowie.
Speaker 2: You know, I said some witty thing about David Bowie dying,
Speaker 2: he wrote, like texted back, like the picture of him
Speaker 2: and David Bowie in the cover of Entertainment.
Speaker 1: Let's back up for a moment, what was the witty
Speaker 1: thing you said about David Bowie's death?
Speaker 3: You know that good night funny man?
Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
Speaker 3: That's usually what I say when people die.
Speaker 1: If this is a sampling of the hot takes Gregor
Speaker 1: has in store, I fear that this newly opened door
Speaker 1: between Moby and Gregor might not remain open forever. I
Speaker 1: also knew that if he has any hope of ever
Speaker 1: getting back those CDs, he'll need a middleman or interlocutor
Speaker 1: or interlocutor. So perhaps, against my better judgment, I allow
Speaker 1: myself to be swept up by the moment. I just
Speaker 1: don't know if this is going to lead to anything
Speaker 1: but heartbreak? But why don't we go after the CDs?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: And with that ringing call to arms, my path was
Speaker 1: set and the mission begun. Say I'm Moby, Like, how
Speaker 1: would you ask.
Speaker 3: Hey, Moby, can I have back those CDs? I've never
Speaker 3: understood approach other than a direct approach, So that's what
Speaker 3: I would do.
Speaker 1: After the break the Hollywood Hills, a surprise encounter with
Speaker 1: Rue Paul and maybe Moby. Maybe the airline tickets were purchased,
Speaker 1: the hotel was booked, but a couple days before we
Speaker 1: were set to leave for La, I got nervous. If
Speaker 1: Gregor already was in a bad place, could my meddling
Speaker 1: possibly make things worse?
Speaker 3: Hello?
Speaker 1: Hey Annika?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I decided to reach out to the person who knows
Speaker 1: Gregor best, his wife, Annika. So do you know about
Speaker 1: this this little project that your husband and I are undertaking?
Speaker 5: So I think that the is a strategy to like
Speaker 5: ambush Moby and try and get him to give back
Speaker 5: the CDs that he lent Gregor thirty years ago or however,
Speaker 5: well it was ago. Is that true?
Speaker 1: You make it sound like such a classy operation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Has Gregor brought this issue up to you before this
Speaker 1: whole Alan Lomack CD issue?
Speaker 5: So I met him on November eleventh, two thousand, Yeah,
Speaker 5: and it came up pretty early in our relationship, so.
Speaker 1: He yeah, like first date conversation, It was.
Speaker 5: Definitely early on. It's very hard for him to let
Speaker 5: stuff go. And like, even like early on our relationship,
Speaker 5: we went to Spain together and we bought a bottle
Speaker 5: of olive oil in some town or something and we
Speaker 5: left it by accident in the rental car and it
Speaker 5: still bothers him.
Speaker 1: Do you know. I think I actually know that Olive
Speaker 1: Oil story.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah. There is something that is in his
Speaker 5: character that is very much like the Larry David character,
Speaker 5: where it's like, you know, like obsessing about a very
Speaker 5: small point. But you know, he's a very he's like
Speaker 5: a very sensitive person. So it's just part of who
Speaker 5: he is and part of his wonderful package.
Speaker 1: Does this undertaking have your blessing or do you think
Speaker 1: it's foolhardy?
Speaker 5: I don't. I sometimes I worry about Gregor's feelings because
Speaker 5: he is very hurt, very easily, and I don't know
Speaker 5: if Moby is really that sensitive to his feelings.
Speaker 1: I Gregor flew in from San Francisco and I was
Speaker 1: there to greet him at the Bob Hope International Airport
Speaker 1: in Burbank.
Speaker 3: So this is the dream factory I've heard about.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful here. Even the underground parking lots smell like sentent.
Speaker 1: We have four hours before our appointment with Moby, so
Speaker 1: we set off in our economy sized Krrio or similar
Speaker 1: to experience everything LA has to offer. Are you excited? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't sound excited.
Speaker 3: No, I'm full of anxiety.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you I feel an increasing sense
Speaker 2: of dread about the futility of this undertaking.
Speaker 1: You can get those CDs back, my friend.
Speaker 3: Okay, whatever you say in a.
Speaker 1: Plastic bag, which he'll supply.
Speaker 6: You're gonna negotiate this look manage at which time of
Speaker 6: my client's choosing the one plastic bag recycled acceptable plus
Speaker 6: one coupon good for any flavor from basket in Robin's
Speaker 6: ice cream or any substante there too.
Speaker 1: With just three hours and fifty nine minutes to go,
Speaker 1: things were off to a rollicking start. It's like not moving.
Speaker 3: There's always traffic in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Look at the traffic. Are we gonna make it for movies?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna be stuck in horrible traffic.
Speaker 1: We have until two, No, we have until one.
Speaker 3: Oh really we'll never make it.
Speaker 1: Oh look there's the big Hollywood sign. Wow, what a sight.
Speaker 1: Huh used to say Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Land Actually before that it was called hollywood Landville.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Do you want Mexican food? Do you ever eat Mexican food?
Speaker 1: I love Mexican food. And to make U turn yeah,
Speaker 1: go go go? This is like a four lane uie,
Speaker 1: it's six really.
Speaker 3: Go go go go?
Speaker 2: Yes, when you knew to someone before they were famous,
Speaker 2: and you treat them like someone who's not famous. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they don't like that. Sometimes they're used to the difference
Speaker 2: and the rock star treatment from everyone.
Speaker 1: Can you can you try to treat them with a
Speaker 1: little more difference.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm gonna try to.
Speaker 2: But the mask always slips.
Speaker 1: Insofar as me coming here with you, How do you
Speaker 1: feel about me as an interlocutor?
Speaker 2: I'm actually full of dread mostly because of that.
Speaker 1: But what is that supposed to me?
Speaker 2: Because I recognize that I need an interlocutor. I did
Speaker 2: say that, and I do believe it. I think that
Speaker 2: you're going to be allows the interlocutor.
Speaker 1: What do you think I'm gonna embarrass you in front
Speaker 1: of your yes, famous friends?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that's.
Speaker 1: What you're afraid of. Yes? No, But seriously, you think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna blow this?
Speaker 2: I just feel like you don't get the vibe of
Speaker 2: what it's like when you're in like a guy's house
Speaker 2: and you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be like, say, nice toilets, what are he's made of?
Speaker 4: Porcelain?
Speaker 2: Ay, I'm gonna be like Johnny please, and you'll be like, no,
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're made up?
Speaker 1: Is to me the final iroty of this whole thing
Speaker 1: that you're concerned that I'm gonna embarrass you.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to trip me up in my game,
Speaker 2: my stride, my cadence.
Speaker 1: And what is it gonna be a part of your
Speaker 1: game here to.
Speaker 2: Try and relax and be myself. But I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: made self conscious when you're like, do.
Speaker 3: You validate parking here?
Speaker 1: And I just need you to validate God, this is
Speaker 1: so pretty, What a pretty place to live?
Speaker 3: Hey, well you're selling off CDs. You can live in
Speaker 3: a place like this.
Speaker 1: Worried about our being tardy, I decided to run down
Speaker 1: the clock doing laps around Moby's very pretty block, little
Speaker 1: tiny houses. They keep going straight. This is really pretty
Speaker 1: nice view of the mountains.
Speaker 3: This is his house right here where all right here?
Speaker 3: I want to drive by it.
Speaker 1: This house right there at the corner. We were passing
Speaker 1: the gates of his home over and over when a
Speaker 1: half hour before our appointed meeting.
Speaker 3: That's movie right there, is it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh Jesus, Moby emerges through the gates to get his newspaper.
Speaker 1: Excited about seeing an honest to goodness famous person. I
Speaker 1: instinctively slowed to a crawl and pulled over beside him.
Speaker 3: Go say hi, no, no, come on, let him go
Speaker 3: to keep going.
Speaker 1: We just turned around.
Speaker 3: He didn't see any Yes he did.
Speaker 1: He turned around and we made eye contact, like right
Speaker 1: up to him, and he turned around and he seemed scared.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: What did I do?
Speaker 4: You're creepy.
Speaker 3: Creepy, they don't slide up to people and they're going
Speaker 3: to get their.
Speaker 1: Pretty That's true. I really, I really did slide up
Speaker 1: to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did, like a creep You're gonna go another
Speaker 2: pass through when he comes up for his milk.
Speaker 1: We walk off our nerves in a nearby park, where
Speaker 1: Gregor dispenses life wisdom to a passing toddler.
Speaker 3: Enjoy it, kid, best, It's going to be for the
Speaker 3: rest of your life.
Speaker 1: Who says things like that to a child?
Speaker 3: His happy in love? His shirt said love. He's holding
Speaker 3: a little.
Speaker 1: Girls outside Moby's door. We do some last minute strategizing.
Speaker 3: Am I supposed to be the good cop or the
Speaker 3: bad cop? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you were supposed to be the bad cop. No,
Speaker 1: I'm the bad cop, you're the good cop.
Speaker 3: I'll usually play the bad cop.
Speaker 1: So fine, you're the bad cop.
Speaker 3: It's twelve to fifty seven. It's not really one yet.
Speaker 2: Hall wait oh hello, Hi, I'm sorry, sorry, we're early.
Speaker 2: It's twelve fifty seven. It's three minutes too early.
Speaker 1: Moby's personal assistant, a terrifyingly fit woman in jeans and
Speaker 1: T shirt, leads us towards Moby's home. By rockstar standards,
Speaker 1: it's pretty modest.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Hi, Sharman, Moe, been far too long? Should
Speaker 2: I take shoes off?
Speaker 1: Hi? I am Jonathan. Were led into a sunken foyer
Speaker 1: where a couple of assistants are gathering equipment and making
Speaker 1: themselves scarce. Standing at the top of the stairs looking
Speaker 1: not unlike a bald headed gray hoodie Norma Desmond is Moby.
Speaker 1: Gregor and he do not hug or even shake hands.
Speaker 1: They don't even wave.
Speaker 4: It's been far too long, my friend where he's staying?
Speaker 1: And Gregor drops his bag and has a looxie.
Speaker 2: Beautiful location, your beautiful assistant.
Speaker 4: Everything.
Speaker 1: He's even brought along a thoughtful gift, something to cater
Speaker 1: to Moby's strict veganism and clean, healthy lifestyle. Fancy all
Speaker 1: natural lemonades.
Speaker 2: Something disco with turmeric, WHOA something awful with probiotic cayenne peppers,
Speaker 2: something horrifying with lemons.
Speaker 1: To our parched dismay, Moby takes the beverages and places
Speaker 1: them in the fridge. Gregor and I are never to
Speaker 1: see those beverages again. As we settle in and I
Speaker 1: set up our recording gear, Gregor notices a pile of
Speaker 1: video equipment.
Speaker 4: Why do you have two C three hundreds here?
Speaker 1: Remember that slippery mask? Gregor mentioned the one hiding is
Speaker 1: rough Edges ten seconds in and it was already a slippin'
Speaker 1: Why am.
Speaker 4: I not involved that produce films all the time?
Speaker 1: I can help you to which Moby, rather than saying
Speaker 1: he's worked with David Lynch and David le Chappelle and
Speaker 1: probably all set on that front, instead says, I mean
Speaker 1: you live in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm here all the time, not literally in
Speaker 2: your living room, in your kitchen, though I could be
Speaker 2: more often.
Speaker 1: Gregor can't help treating Moby like a nephew making his
Speaker 1: first student film. That is, Gregor's treating Moby the way
Speaker 1: he treats me. And this of course is concerning.
Speaker 4: First of all, before we even get that far, how would.
Speaker 1: You At this point, Moby has mostly no idea why
Speaker 1: we're here. I made an appointment with his assistant, but
Speaker 1: it was left vague. So Moby takes the direct approach.
Speaker 7: So what are you guys doing?
Speaker 4: Well, this is an excellent question.
Speaker 2: Well, let's begin at the beginning, around the time contemporaneous
Speaker 2: with your recent autobiography, the mid nineties two thousands, and.
Speaker 1: Like, after all of his braggadoccio about how he was
Speaker 1: going to walk in there and demand the CDs back,
Speaker 1: Gregor's nervous, being uncharacteristically mealy mouthed, unable to explain the
Speaker 1: basics of our mission.
Speaker 2: And so this conversation became down this kind of alleyway
Speaker 2: of that facet of like I was kind of like,
Speaker 2: what is me?
Speaker 1: Moby had limited time, so at the risk of embarrassing
Speaker 1: Gregor in front of his famous friend, I decided to
Speaker 1: step in and explain. So and I tell my story
Speaker 1: of you coming to last time I saw Gregor. He
Speaker 1: came to visit me at work, and you were kind
Speaker 1: of in this mood where you were feeling like maybe
Speaker 1: those things that you were hopeful about achieving were not
Speaker 1: going to be happening, and I think you were in Well,
Speaker 1: Gregor looks on skeptically. I try to explain to Moby
Speaker 1: Gregor's midlife malaise how everyone was passing him by. Can
Speaker 1: you relate to the feeling of like, have you ever,
Speaker 1: at different points in your life felt like like surpassed
Speaker 1: by your friends? Or you know what I mean? Oh?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like there's always going to be someone doing so
Speaker 7: much better than you that if you spend the time
Speaker 7: to look at it, you're going to feel bad about yourself.
Speaker 7: Like my nemesis, well, according to him for a while,
Speaker 7: was Eminem, So if he was my nemesis, I was
Speaker 7: just being beaten publicly and badly because he was always
Speaker 7: more successful, always selling more records, always more popular, always cooler,
Speaker 7: And so depends on who I was comparing myself to.
Speaker 7: Over time, like other people start selling more records, getting
Speaker 7: better reviews, you start selling fewer tickets. And then as
Speaker 7: the two thousands progressed, my career waned and other people's escalated,
Speaker 7: you know, Like I would go to visit my record
Speaker 7: company and they'd have my picture behind the receptionist desk,
Speaker 7: and then one day I show up and it's Jack
Speaker 7: White's picture behind the reception system.
Speaker 2: Like wha what Yeah, I mean, I think the only
Speaker 2: way to hear that, honestly is in the split screen
Speaker 2: between totally head nodding, one hundred percent agree and totally
Speaker 2: like easy for you to say, because you're looking down
Speaker 2: from the mountain, looking up, you're like, fucking knock that.
Speaker 4: Guy off the mountain because all I need is mind
Speaker 4: billion dollars.
Speaker 7: Then I looked at But really, the kick in the
Speaker 7: teeth of fame is that if you don't have it,
Speaker 7: you beat yourself up that you don't have it, and
Speaker 7: if you do have it, you're miserable and you kill yourself. Literally,
Speaker 7: the most depressed I've ever been in my entire life
Speaker 7: was the height of my professional success. And I remember
Speaker 7: this one moment so clearly. I was at an MTV
Speaker 7: Awards in Barcelona, and there's this hotel called the Arts
Speaker 7: Hotel in Barcelona, and it's so beautiful and at the
Speaker 7: tippity top of the hotel they have four three bedroom
Speaker 7: apartments and I was in one. P Diddy was in one,
Speaker 7: John bon Jovi was in one, and Madonna was in one.
Speaker 7: And so you'd take like one elevator to get to
Speaker 7: a certain floor, then another elevator to another floor, and
Speaker 7: then a security guard would wave you through up to.
Speaker 1: Our hallowed floor.
Speaker 7: And the first night I was there, I invited some
Speaker 7: people over to like look at the view and drink,
Speaker 7: and I kept drinking by myself, and I got more
Speaker 7: and more despondent, and I literally, at the end of
Speaker 7: the evening, before going to bed, was walking around this beautiful,
Speaker 7: insane apartment crying, thinking about how I could get out
Speaker 7: the window to kill myself. And the next day I
Speaker 7: won an MTV award. So it's like, professionally, things couldn't
Speaker 7: have been better.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: The day before I'd played a huge concert, selling lots
Speaker 7: of records. The day after won an award, played more
Speaker 7: huge concerts, And I've never been more despondent.
Speaker 2: I appreciate your making up that story just to make
Speaker 2: me feel good.
Speaker 7: It's completely true, because I remember walking around this hotel
Speaker 7: and these walls of glass only had these little bitty
Speaker 7: like foldy open windows at the bottom, and I was
Speaker 7: looking at that and I was like, fuck, if that
Speaker 7: window opened more, I would just jump out and die
Speaker 7: because I'm done. You think, when you get to where
Speaker 7: you want to go. Finally you'll be happy. But then
Speaker 7: you get to where you want to go and you're
Speaker 7: just as miserable as you were. In fact, you're even
Speaker 7: even more miserable because you no longer have anything to
Speaker 7: aspire to, and you feel this hopelessness because everything like
Speaker 7: what's left to aspire towards.
Speaker 1: It feels like Moby's trying to explain something to Gregor.
Speaker 1: Moby grew up poor with a single mother and lived
Speaker 1: on food stamps. When Moby was a kid, his dad
Speaker 1: died in a car crash, and a few years ago
Speaker 1: his mom passed away from lung cancer. He has no siblings,
Speaker 1: so essentially he's alone.
Speaker 4: I look at.
Speaker 7: Gregor and I think of like, I know his family
Speaker 7: very well, and from my perspective, like, first all, he
Speaker 7: has a fel like I don't. Really I have some
Speaker 7: aunts and uncles and cousins.
Speaker 1: You have some other.
Speaker 7: Siblings, I'm sure, and and to me that still makes
Speaker 7: me feel like, oh, he's figured out things that I
Speaker 7: don't understand.
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm very successful that I have a beautiful
Speaker 2: child and blah blah blah, two of them, actually I
Speaker 2: won't say which one.
Speaker 4: I have two children. One is beautiful anyway, you know,
Speaker 4: the like.
Speaker 2: A man's wealth is measured in family, you know, and
Speaker 2: but it's not you.
Speaker 1: You turn every time these things come up, you will
Speaker 1: to make them into light.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I'm saying is something that you hear
Speaker 4: at the in the South Park, right.
Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is that that era when like
Speaker 2: it still seemed like life had potential to go a
Speaker 2: bunch of different ways. Now it seemed less. So it's
Speaker 2: not even squandered potential. It's just like you could have
Speaker 2: been somebody becomes like you didn't.
Speaker 7: Every year you lose a little bit of potential, you know,
Speaker 7: Like at this point, like I'm fifty and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 7: most of my life I thought at some point I
Speaker 7: could be a father. I'm like, well probably not. And
Speaker 7: I have one issue. Yeah, don't really have to peek.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and think, well, movie was conveniently indisposed. I
Speaker 1: took the opportunity to reiterate our mission getting back the
Speaker 1: CDs as much as it behooves you, like, just try
Speaker 1: to keep it toout the CDs.
Speaker 2: I don't think we only have about ten minutes to
Speaker 2: get to it. Do you want me to wrestle onto
Speaker 2: the ground and know you have something, particularly money, you
Speaker 2: want to say.
Speaker 1: Moby emerges from the bathroom, cutting our conversation short, and
Speaker 1: Gregor steps up to the plate and begins in the middle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still listen to Sounds of the South on YouTube.
Speaker 2: They have the full set. And as far as that
Speaker 2: actual desset, did you hang.
Speaker 7: On to that or that is the CD? The box,
Speaker 7: that's the actual stuff. Yeah, they're somewhere. Most of it's
Speaker 7: in storage and Queens is like this medium sized storage locker.
Speaker 4: It's just like packed to the rafters with stuff.
Speaker 1: Finally, it's my moment to be the interlocutor. I think
Speaker 1: Gregor sort of wanted those CDs back, if only to
Speaker 1: put them on a mantle, to feel like I was
Speaker 1: a part of something, like I mattered, I existed.
Speaker 2: I mean I view this more like I handed you
Speaker 2: the pen and then you wrote, you know, the great
Speaker 2: book with it.
Speaker 4: It's not that I had some role in.
Speaker 1: But like the guy who introduced Andy Warhol to the
Speaker 1: can of Campbell's soup or whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not like a legal deposition where
Speaker 2: it's like who said it.
Speaker 4: I mean it was fucking twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: As Gregor and I Parry. It's almost like we forget
Speaker 1: that Mobe's even there when suddenly he pipes up one thing.
Speaker 7: Just to be super clear from the album play, two
Speaker 7: of the most remarkably iconic songs on the record would
Speaker 7: never have been written or existed had I not been
Speaker 7: given those CDs. Like I didn't know who Alan Lomax was,
Speaker 7: and that the box set called Sounds of the South,
Speaker 7: I didn't know it existed, and I certainly like it
Speaker 7: was an expensive box set. And there's no way I
Speaker 7: was going to walk into Tower Records and spend sixty
Speaker 7: five dollars or however much it was going to be
Speaker 7: on a box set I knew nothing about from an
Speaker 7: archivist I'd never heard of. So like, those are one
Speaker 7: hundred percent the result of me being given those CDs.
Speaker 1: Wait, so we're saying you're not Gregor's not getting the
Speaker 1: CDs back. Okay, here's the story.
Speaker 7: Friend of mine, her mother died in a very very sad,
Speaker 7: tragic way, and she came to me and she started crying,
Speaker 7: and she said that at the funeral they played the
Speaker 7: song Natural Blues and everyone in the church was crying,
Speaker 7: and it was one of the most powerful emotional moments
Speaker 7: of her life that wouldn't have ever existed if you
Speaker 7: hadn't given me those CDs. So to me, that's more
Speaker 7: priceless and precious than any sort of like objective, quantifiable metric.
Speaker 1: How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4: I mean it makes me feel like.
Speaker 2: Thinking about, you know, getting a pair of bolt cutters
Speaker 2: and breaking into a steady storage in Queens is not
Speaker 2: what I'm going to do.
Speaker 4: That was my plan.
Speaker 1: And so Gregor doesn't get what he came for. But
Speaker 1: maybe not getting everything you want in the grander scheme
Speaker 1: isn't so bad.
Speaker 7: One practical issue. So I have two podcast interviews to
Speaker 7: do today. You guys are the first and a second.
Speaker 7: You're in good company. It's with Rue Paul nice crazy.
Speaker 7: I mean, if you wanted to, we could always drive there.
Speaker 7: Like if you guys want to get in the car
Speaker 7: with me, My girlfriend is coming here. She's gonna go
Speaker 7: with me because she's an obsessive Rue Paul fan.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Moby, his girlfriend, Gregor and I pile into
Speaker 1: Moby's Preas seen from the outside, Gregor seems happy to
Speaker 1: be a part of Moby's life again. He's even feeling
Speaker 1: comfortable enough to favor us with his famous John Travolta imitation.
Speaker 3: I could drink tea?
Speaker 1: What do you think I could drink tea?
Speaker 2: John Travolta When she says, he says, watch your coffee
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 3: Sometimes she's like, in Manhattan, we don't drink coffee.
Speaker 1: We drink tea.
Speaker 4: And he's like, so what I could drink tea?
Speaker 1: And then, for whatever reason, Moby takes over my role
Speaker 1: of interlocutor and begins explaining Gregor's style to his girlfriend.
Speaker 7: And Gregor is funny and at times like would maybe
Speaker 7: be here. It comes honest in a way that people
Speaker 7: might be take offense too or.
Speaker 1: At Or, as Moby's learning firsthand, interlocketing for Gregor isn't
Speaker 1: so easy.
Speaker 7: Hi, I'm here for RuPaul's podcast.
Speaker 1: At the hotel. We're shown into a conference room where
Speaker 1: we're green Rue Paul and his co host Michelle As
Speaker 1: I trail behind Moby. For the first time in my life,
Speaker 1: I feel a part of a bona fide Hollywood entourage.
Speaker 7: So we've been doing an interesting podcast because Gregor and
Speaker 7: I have known each other for twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Years at all. Yeah, We watch as RuPaul interviews Moby
Speaker 1: and when Moby says interesting things like my mom was
Speaker 1: born in San Diego.
Speaker 2: Was born in San Diego.
Speaker 1: RuPaul responds with engaged interest. And when Moby off handedly
Speaker 1: mentions a song, RuPaul and Michelle sing it, and as
Speaker 1: they do, I find myself thinking only one thing, now,
Speaker 1: this is how you run a podcast.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: When Moby and Gregor say their goodbyes, Moby tells him
Speaker 1: that he'll be coming to San Francisco soon and he'll
Speaker 1: be sure to give Gregor a call, and Gregor says
Speaker 1: he'd like that. But before parting, Gregor can't help giving
Speaker 1: it just one last nudge.
Speaker 2: I have one more question for you. Can you just
Speaker 2: tell me the name of the storage facility where the
Speaker 2: CD is. No, it's for a friend. They need to
Speaker 2: store something in Queens. No, there was one place. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, Hey, it's the same place.
Speaker 1: Gregor's comfortable enough to joke around about something that had
Speaker 1: once plagued him, and Moby's comfortable enough to uncomfortably laugh
Speaker 1: along with him. All around it feels pretty nice. So
Speaker 1: how did you feel about how that went? I think
Speaker 1: it was cathartic, No, really, seriously. With some time to
Speaker 1: kill before a flight, Gregor and I decide to hike
Speaker 1: up to the observatory. Do you feel like he screwed
Speaker 1: you out of your CDs? Yet? Again?
Speaker 2: The honest truth is he did give me a good
Speaker 2: long song and dance about how we all learned the
Speaker 2: and I didn't get the thing that I set out
Speaker 2: to get. But in seriousness, I honestly feel, in a
Speaker 2: funny sort of way, I got what I came for.
Speaker 1: Which was what you didn't get your CDs.
Speaker 3: You see, you're a petty person.
Speaker 2: What you just saw and apparently were deaf you couldn't
Speaker 2: hear was a reconciliation with two guys after twenty five
Speaker 2: years of slight estrangement.
Speaker 1: So you guys did get to be friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we just buried the hatchets. This CD thing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is a symbol. I mean, who cares about the CD?
Speaker 1: But you one' who cared about the CD.
Speaker 2: Look, it's hard to come together and just hug it out.
Speaker 2: What you just witnessed was a version of hugging it out,
Speaker 2: two men having a good cry.
Speaker 3: That's about the closest that I come.
Speaker 1: Well, then, I think that was great. I think this
Speaker 1: was a success. I agree, still would have been nice
Speaker 1: to get your CDs back.
Speaker 2: Of course, I don't know if the rental car you
Speaker 2: got there had a CD player, but it doesn't. It
Speaker 2: would have been no better ending to this day than
Speaker 2: to drive out of the parking lot cranking that CD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the cars don't have Nobody has CD players anymore.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you something, if some of the
Speaker 2: Mobi's song comes on the radio right now, I'd let
Speaker 2: it play.
Speaker 3: I'd even sing along if you I'm going to.
Speaker 1: Find it out my phone and play.
Speaker 3: That's okay?
Speaker 1: You sure? Because I actually downloaded it it specially boys.
Speaker 1: Three days later, and much to his surprise, Gregor received
Speaker 1: an email from MOBI. This might sound odd, the email read,
Speaker 1: but I realized I never said a true, heartfelt thank
Speaker 1: you for giving me those CDs, So, in all sincerity,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm sorry it's taken so long to say
Speaker 1: thank you. Gregor said he was happier that the thank
Speaker 1: you came three days later. This way, he knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't just out of politeness, that it must have been
Speaker 1: quote boring a hole through his head for days after
Speaker 1: receiving movies thank you, Gregor immediately wrote back a thank
Speaker 1: you of his own in the form of a joke,
Speaker 1: which if you didn't know Gregor, could also be taken
Speaker 1: as an insult. But Moby did know Gregor, and so
Speaker 1: for Gregor, it was back to being a normal friendship.
Speaker 1: Now that the Fernitures returned to its goodwill home, the
Speaker 1: last month's rand is scheming with the damage to Poz.
Speaker 1: Take this moment to do so if we imagine and
Speaker 1: we talk felt around from.
Speaker 2: Far to from things at accident.
Speaker 1: Lee to Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan
Speaker 1: Goldstein along with Wendy Dore, Chris Neary, and Khalila Holt.
Speaker 1: Editing by Alex Bloomberg and Peter Clowney. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Emily Condon, Paul Tuff, Stevie Lane, Michelle Harris, Dimitri Erlik,
Speaker 1: Sean Cole, and Jorgehus and a very special thank you
Speaker 1: to my dear friend Jackie Cohen. The show was mixed
Speaker 1: by Hailey Shaw. Music for this episode by Christine Fellows,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Talk Star, the Eastern Watershed, Klesmer Quartet,
Speaker 1: and Hailey Shaw, who also did our ad music. Our
Speaker 1: theme music is by the Weaker Thands, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Twitter. At heavyweight or email us at
Speaker 1: heavyweight at gimlimedia dot com. We'll have a new episode
Speaker 1: next week.
Speaker 2: I should go back and ring his doorbell now and
Speaker 2: ask for that Lenaide book.
Speaker 3: It was kind of expensive.
Speaker 4: Doesn't seem like you're gonna drink it.
Speaker 1: Gotta feel thirsty, And you know what, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want to show up twenty years from now asking
Speaker 1: for those lemonades because they're gonna tell me it's in
Speaker 1: a storage locker in Queen's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what'd you do with that?
Speaker 1: Seriously? Like when someone brings you beverages, like you put
Speaker 1: them out on the table. Maybe bring out a glass
Speaker 1: for a person or a straw.
Speaker 3: What kind of a monster is he