Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, before we start the show, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to make a little announcement. Heavyweight is going to
Speaker 1: remain available on every platform, but we're going to be
Speaker 1: making some extra bonus material exclusive to those who listen
Speaker 1: on Spotify right now. On Spotify, we're offering the hard
Speaker 1: hitting and beer sponsored eight part investigative series, The Heavyweight Diaries,
Speaker 1: and we'll have some other fun bonus content coming later
Speaker 1: this year. So if you want to check all that out,
Speaker 1: you can follow us for free on Spotify. All right,
Speaker 1: let's start the show. Hello Stevie, Yes, let me get
Speaker 1: Khalila on the line. Hello, Khalila, It's Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: Yep, Goldstein. I know you're both therey. What's going on?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 4: You know, I'm at home with my parents, and my
Speaker 4: older brother and his fiance, Miriam are staying with us
Speaker 4: as well. Yeah, and we're all pretty much on top
Speaker 4: of each other and there's like not really anywhere to
Speaker 4: escape to. But the thing I'm really enjoying about it,
Speaker 4: actually is I've gotten to know Miriam so much better.
Speaker 4: She and my brother have been dating for like eight years,
Speaker 4: but I don't think we'd ever hung out one on
Speaker 4: one before.
Speaker 5: Now it feels like Jane Austen novel or something, where
Speaker 5: like your brother's betrothed is staying at the house, and
Speaker 5: like the ladies are getting to spend time together and
Speaker 5: like go for strolls and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm learning all these little things about her
Speaker 4: which I find so entertaining. She has a terrible sense
Speaker 4: of direction. Basically, she can't form any kind of mental
Speaker 4: map in her head. She told me this great story
Speaker 4: about when she first started driving. She was in the
Speaker 4: town where she grew up her whole life.
Speaker 6: And I got lost, and I had no idea where
Speaker 6: I was going, and somehow I just decided to follow
Speaker 6: the car in front of me.
Speaker 4: Where were you trying to go?
Speaker 5: I was trying to get home.
Speaker 4: You were trying to go home, and you were just like,
Speaker 4: maybe the car in front of me is also going
Speaker 4: to my house.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, but I.
Speaker 6: Just figured they were going somewhere, and they would at
Speaker 6: least be going like on real roads and going like
Speaker 6: on the right direction in roads. But actually it was
Speaker 6: a terrible idea. And the car in front of me
Speaker 6: turned onto the highway, so I just followed them on
Speaker 6: the highway for like, I don't know a while, and
Speaker 6: finally I like pulled over in a gas station and
Speaker 6: I was like, where am I? And it was in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 6: and where did you start? I started in Maryland.
Speaker 4: It's pretty extreme, Like she gets lost in restaurants. If
Speaker 4: she goes to the bathroom, she can't find her way
Speaker 4: back to the table.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: She's been at our house for a little while now,
Speaker 4: and still like when she goes on walks in the neighborhood,
Speaker 4: she has a really hard time getting back. So she
Speaker 4: was telling me that the way she gets around is
Speaker 4: basically by just stumbling on what she calls landmarks.
Speaker 6: There's some bone on the street that's kind of near
Speaker 6: your street, like near the gutter, And a lot of
Speaker 6: times I'm walking and the bone is nearby, and then
Speaker 6: your house is really close by.
Speaker 4: Wait wait wait wait wait, like an animal boat.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Like I don't know if there's like part of
Speaker 6: a chicken bone or like even something a dog was
Speaker 6: chewing on. But it's been like really helpful because there's
Speaker 6: been a few times that I'm kind of like a
Speaker 6: bit lost and then I look down and there's the bone,
Speaker 6: and it's like.
Speaker 5: Oh good, wait, what's gonna happen? When someone cleans up
Speaker 5: that chicken bone.
Speaker 4: I know, I was like that bone could be gone
Speaker 4: like any day.
Speaker 6: The bone has been very reliable for like three, three
Speaker 6: or four weeks since I've been here.
Speaker 4: Our house, which for me is feeling like smaller and
Speaker 4: smaller every day. For her, it's like completely the opposite
Speaker 4: my experience of walking and moving around in spaces in
Speaker 4: the world.
Speaker 6: I do think everything feels really really huge to me
Speaker 6: all the time, like unfathomably, like infinitely just mysterious and
Speaker 6: kind of unknowable. And so I think I might be
Speaker 6: a bit lucky and that I may not be feeling
Speaker 6: that clausterphobia that a lot of people are feeling right
Speaker 6: now in quarantine.
Speaker 4: I just am fascinated by how she experiences the world,
Speaker 4: and I've actually been doing these sort of like experiments
Speaker 4: with her where I make her close her eyes and
Speaker 4: I ask her to point to things that are in
Speaker 4: the room, like the TV or the couch or the
Speaker 4: kitchen table or whatever, and then I have her open
Speaker 4: her eyes.
Speaker 6: Wait, oh my god, Wait, was all of that wrong,
Speaker 6: because I thought the whole time that I was in
Speaker 6: a totally different part of the house. Did you do
Speaker 6: that on purpose or no, no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 6: weren't trying to trick me. No, I was totally shocked
Speaker 6: to open my eyes.
Speaker 5: And I am not sharing my home with a sister
Speaker 5: in law to be. But I did talk to my
Speaker 5: little sister this week. Oh so she's much younger than me.
Speaker 5: She's a senior in high school right now. Her name's Jeffy,
Speaker 5: And I also feeling she like has it together in
Speaker 5: a way that I did not in high school. Like
Speaker 5: if I look at pictures of her and her friends,
Speaker 5: I'm like, wow, they look so polished. So normally she'd
Speaker 5: be graduating in a couple of weeks because she's a senior,
Speaker 5: but obviously they're not having a real graduation right this
Speaker 5: week she had her sort of fake graduation. What they're
Speaker 5: doing is they're having all the kids come to the
Speaker 5: school over the course of three days, and they're just
Speaker 5: filming them walking across the stage.
Speaker 7: They were basically like tapeline every six feet and yeah,
Speaker 7: we basically just walked across stage.
Speaker 5: Did they like play music or anything while you were
Speaker 5: walking across the stage. Nope, Like she just walked across
Speaker 5: a silent stage in an empty room, and they were
Speaker 5: like Okay, that's your graduation. Yeah, I guess it wasn't
Speaker 5: like totally empty. It was like there were a handful
Speaker 5: of people there in this very large arena.
Speaker 7: Obviously mom and dad were there, and then they had
Speaker 7: to wear masks, and my principal was there to like
Speaker 7: kind of remind me what to do, and but my
Speaker 7: principle he stick really close to me. That was like,
Speaker 7: really weird, the closest I've been to another person besides
Speaker 7: my family in a long time.
Speaker 5: And did it feel like a graduation?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 7: It was pretty as I claimactic none of this really
Speaker 7: feels real. So yeah, I mean I feel like you
Speaker 7: normally get those feelings anyway of like, oh, it doesn't
Speaker 7: really feel over, but like it really doesn't feel over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I assume you're not having a prom.
Speaker 7: No, that was one of the first things we canceled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 7: I feel kind of grateful that I hadn't already bought
Speaker 7: my dress. Little things right, Dad joking and was.
Speaker 5: Like, well, at least you don't have a date.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're right, No way, I'm getting a boyfriend in
Speaker 7: high school now.
Speaker 5: Well I didn't either, so I don't know if that's
Speaker 5: that any comfort.
Speaker 7: I didn't have super high over.
Speaker 4: Jonathan, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know I'm doing okay. I I had a milestone
Speaker 1: this weekend. My three year old Aggie showed an interest
Speaker 1: in what I do for a living for the very
Speaker 1: first time. So I invited him into my home studio
Speaker 1: so he could so you could feel the magic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you hear yourself. You could see how you're recording. When
Speaker 1: you see those little lines. When you talk loud, it
Speaker 1: goes up up. Okay, that's a little loud. Mostly what
Speaker 1: we did was just fight over the microphone. I hold it.
Speaker 2: Let.
Speaker 1: We ended up calling up his grandmother to interview her. Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: whenne viewing you. That makes me feel very important. Left
Speaker 1: new It's hard.
Speaker 7: To think of new things when you can't leave your house.
Speaker 1: I come out of more of a I guess public
Speaker 1: radio tradition, but Aggie seems to adhere more to commercial
Speaker 1: morning zoo, aesthetic knack knack. Who's there? Dung dung?
Speaker 3: Who dung doggy dung. I'm healthy, Papa, you are?
Speaker 1: I see you have a microphone?
Speaker 8: And are you in his studio?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 4: I mean the.
Speaker 1: Classic, Well, the closet is my studio. My fear. Now
Speaker 1: is that hearing his old man say in that pleading
Speaker 1: tone of voice that the closet is my studio might
Speaker 1: be Augie's very first memory. Anyway, you know what time
Speaker 1: it is? Twelve?
Speaker 5: Ad time?
Speaker 1: Did you say bedtime?
Speaker 5: I said add time, but I wish it were bedtime.
Speaker 1: Wrong again, It's AD time, So I was right. You
Speaker 1: know why they call them.
Speaker 5: Ads because they add a value tier, because they.
Speaker 1: Add so much to your life. And when we get back,
Speaker 1: you're not going to believe who I talk to next?
Speaker 1: Heavyweight Gang. Yeah, you remember my old friend James. He's
Speaker 1: a successful TV writer living in Toronto. In season one,
Speaker 1: we snuck onto a golf course to scatter his dad's ashes.
Speaker 1: So one night recently, James began to feel really ill
Speaker 1: with what he's now pretty sure was COVID scary, so
Speaker 1: his wife decided to steal them off in their bedroom,
Speaker 1: away from their two kids. And James is feeling much
Speaker 1: better now, but he's still in isolation. So I gave
Speaker 1: him a call to see how he's doing, and he
Speaker 1: told me about the weird way that the sickness first
Speaker 1: came on.
Speaker 2: I was doing a chickstarw puzzle. It's a woodstock puzzle,
Speaker 2: and you'd think it's all like hifty, peaceful, it's going
Speaker 2: to be easy. No, it was a nightmare of this puzzle.
Speaker 1: How many pieces? How many pieces on thousand?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm no punk, I'm no punk. Anything less than
Speaker 2: a thousand that's a kid puzzle. Anyways, it's a mad,
Speaker 2: challenging puzzle, and it was really getting on my nerves.
Speaker 2: He was pissing me off. I couldn't get to sleep
Speaker 2: because it started. I was getting angry and I felt sick,
Speaker 2: and I thought.
Speaker 1: You thought you were just like sick with anger about
Speaker 1: the puzzle for real?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was like starting to
Speaker 2: get you know, like, oh my stomach sick and I'm
Speaker 2: mad at this goddamn puzzle.
Speaker 1: But at a certain point, did you realize, you know, actually,
Speaker 1: it's not normal to be getting this upset and this
Speaker 1: sick over a puzzle.
Speaker 2: Eventually, about four five in the morning, I got so
Speaker 2: cold and I started to shake, and I went, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm sick, that's what this is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was moaning on every outpress like this. It was
Speaker 2: like for hours. I was going One night, as I'm
Speaker 2: going I heard people outside being like, what is that
Speaker 2: like I was causing a disturbance in the neighborhood. It
Speaker 2: was like the Extra Sister or something. You know, a migraine.
Speaker 2: You're in a migraine.
Speaker 1: No, but I mean I've heard I've read about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. So it's like I had a migraine
Speaker 2: in my body. It's like my legs were a migraine.
Speaker 2: Everything hurts. And I said something like I want to die.
Speaker 2: I want to die, you know. Oh, it's just I did.
Speaker 2: I really wanted to die for a good forty eight hours.
Speaker 2: Kill me.
Speaker 1: So the weirdest thing was that, in spite of how
Speaker 1: sick he was and how he felt like he was
Speaker 1: looking at his own mortality, we spent most of the
Speaker 1: conversation talking about this movie, this seventies disaster film that
Speaker 1: he'd seen as a kid and had decided to rewatch
Speaker 1: while he was recovering in Quarantine. And the movie is
Speaker 1: straight strangely timely because it's about a pandemic and it's
Speaker 1: called the Cassandra Crossing.
Speaker 2: It is one of the worst movies ever made. It's terrible.
Speaker 2: It's like eating bad ice cream.
Speaker 1: So wait to what happens. So it's it's Santa.
Speaker 2: Crossing takes place on a very sexy, glamorous train from
Speaker 2: Geneva to Rembra and it's filled the stars. And what's
Speaker 2: the twist that makes a disaster movie? A terrorist infected
Speaker 2: with the bubonic plague gets on the train and he's
Speaker 2: going to get everybody sick and they're going to die.
Speaker 2: And the government represent on of Burt Lancaster decides they
Speaker 2: just going to kill everybody. Let's just kill them, so
Speaker 2: they stop the train at Nuremberg. At Nuremberg, no connotations there,
Speaker 2: and they board it up with metal. The Cassandra Crossing
Speaker 2: of the title is they're going to divert the train
Speaker 2: over a crossing an elevated bridge, okay, massive, huge bridge
Speaker 2: over a canyon, knowing that the bridge cannot sustain this
Speaker 2: train and they will all plummet to their death. And
Speaker 2: they deliberately pump the train full of pure oxygen, which
Speaker 2: is flammable, knowing that when the train crashes, it's going
Speaker 2: to blow up. There's O. J. Simpson. He's playing a priest,
Speaker 2: but he's actually an agent from Interpol who's tracking Martin Sheen,
Speaker 2: the drug dealer. Turns out Martin Sheen's a heroin at
Speaker 2: and he goes bananas because he needs Heroin right, grabs
Speaker 2: a machine gun and starts shooting people. He starts shooting
Speaker 2: people and then because he's like, I need this stuff.
Speaker 8: So I get this.
Speaker 2: You're gonna love this. There is always a moment like
Speaker 2: this in all seventies movies where the British actor would act.
Speaker 2: So this is Richard Harris, this moment to act and
Speaker 2: he's like, so what will you do?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: Will you shoot everyone on the train?
Speaker 9: So stop start with me?
Speaker 2: Shoot me? And Barnishine's like, oh, yeah, you're right, that's bad.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't do that. Before he was a Heroin Addict
Speaker 2: slash Dealer, he was a champion mountain climber in Europe.
Speaker 2: He borrows some kids tennis shoes and he goes out,
Speaker 2: this is a terrible movie. So the stunt double is like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, eight feet tall and it's obviously not Martchine,
Speaker 2: but whatever do you know?
Speaker 1: As you're telling that, like it sounds as though like
Speaker 1: hadn't you said you saw this movie as a kid,
Speaker 1: I would think like was this a fever dream?
Speaker 2: It's very real. You can probably find it in the
Speaker 2: delete bin event gas station. As Susan Sontag said, the
Speaker 2: disaster movie gives the audience the opportunity to live through
Speaker 2: their own death.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's why you sought out this movie
Speaker 1: at this moment?
Speaker 7: Hell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, because I thought I was I don't mean
Speaker 2: to say I thought I was dying in a history onic,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of like melodramatic way. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm dying. I'm dying, and part of me wanted to
Speaker 2: die because I didn't want to keep going through what
Speaker 2: I was wanting through. It sounds stupid, but that's what
Speaker 2: I thought as I was coming out of it, surely
Speaker 2: before I decided to watch Concentral Crossing again and realizing,
Speaker 2: oh no, okay, you're not only are you not going
Speaker 2: to die, but it was really stupid to want to die.
Speaker 2: That was just the stupidest thing you've ever thought of.
Speaker 2: Because your kids are there, and yeah they're annoying, but
Speaker 2: they're awesome, and I have things to write, and I
Speaker 2: really did have this sense of like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's not over for me and I've got shit to do.
Speaker 2: I'm actually happier than I've did in a really long time.
Speaker 2: And I'm talking like you and years and years, I
Speaker 2: swear to god, I there's a lateness. I just feel
Speaker 2: light in a way that I haven't never Maybe.
Speaker 1: How long have you been in there now? Like a
Speaker 1: week and a.
Speaker 2: Half now, So I still got more time in here,
Speaker 2: got my computer, I got my Chickstop puzzle, of course
Speaker 2: I did. Sully did bring up my my Goddawn? Which
Speaker 2: star puzzle?
Speaker 1: Did you?
Speaker 8: Did?
Speaker 1: You continue working on it.
Speaker 2: As soon as I was able. As soon as I
Speaker 2: was able, I was back at.
Speaker 1: That shit Wow. A listener to the show, Cheyenne, wrote
Speaker 1: in about her boyfriend Torstein, who she's in a long
Speaker 1: distance relationship with, and Torstein is having a hard time.
Speaker 1: He's stuck at home, quarantining with a large family in
Speaker 1: a crowded house TV. You can relate, probably.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so he was supposed to go off to
Speaker 1: university this fall, which he was very excited about. But
Speaker 1: now all the classes are going to be online.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It feels like similarly like with my sister, just like
Speaker 5: a lot of the milestones that people would normally be
Speaker 5: hitting right now they kind of aren't getting to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so's he's sad about that, And Chyenne says that
Speaker 1: he's a big fan of the show, and she asked
Speaker 1: if the three of us could surprise him with a
Speaker 1: phone call.
Speaker 2: So fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's let's do it. Let's call Chyenne first. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Get ready to bring the sunshine, Kayley,
Speaker 1: Oh god, I want to hear a smile in your voice.
Speaker 5: I'm smiling now, can you hear it?
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's painting you.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like that model thing of smiling, just
Speaker 4: with your eyes. Just smile with your voice.
Speaker 1: It's called smiices. And this is called mooie.
Speaker 4: It's moisy.
Speaker 7: Got it?
Speaker 1: You got a that's such a gross word. All right,
Speaker 1: here we go. Hello, Seyenne. Hi, Hello, h Cheyenne. You'll
Speaker 1: conference Torstein in.
Speaker 8: Okay, okay, that was so great.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Hello, Hi tour Stein. Yeah, Hi, it's Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 9: Oh wow, Hi.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: You know your very nice girlfriend who seems to love
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: She wrote into the show and wanted us to say.
Speaker 9: Hi, thank you. Well, I'm kind of in shockering now.
Speaker 1: Yenne had said that you'd been feeling a little down
Speaker 1: in the midst of everything.
Speaker 9: Yeah, my school just got canceled for the rest of
Speaker 9: the year. Not like canceled, but like I'm going to
Speaker 9: be able to attend it. Yeah, so I was kind
Speaker 9: of bummed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how old are you?
Speaker 9: I am twenty How.
Speaker 5: Old are you? Makes it sound like you're like attending
Speaker 5: a children's birthday party.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I want to say. I just want to
Speaker 1: tell you. I mean, I don't know if this takes
Speaker 1: the pressure off, but truly nothing matters in like at
Speaker 1: least until twenty five. That does help. Yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: going to remember any of the things you're learning now anyhow.
Speaker 5: I mean I don't know that I totally subscribe to
Speaker 5: the whole nothing you will hearn ever, mean anything, I'm
Speaker 5: just trying to inspire.
Speaker 9: It's not necessarily that like attending classes the shame as
Speaker 9: much as like, there's like eleven people in my house
Speaker 9: right now. You know, I was supposed to move out
Speaker 9: and go to school, but because of the coronavirus and
Speaker 9: having to stay at home for another semester, and I love,
Speaker 9: I love my home, but you know, I want to
Speaker 9: move out and live my own life.
Speaker 1: Have you never been out on your own?
Speaker 9: Not Like I haven't lived on my own.
Speaker 1: So that was something that you were excited about.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, I have eight older siblings, and I
Speaker 9: grew up in a room with my three older brothers.
Speaker 9: Whenever one moved out, I would move up to a
Speaker 9: different bed. You know, there's the nicer beds in my
Speaker 9: own So I think that individuality is something that I
Speaker 9: decently desired, and it'll happen, but it just feels like
Speaker 9: it got postponed a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But I think you will probably end up looking back
Speaker 1: on this time with all eleven of you living in
Speaker 1: the house as an incredibly like a kind of moment
Speaker 1: of grace almost. You know, it's going to take on
Speaker 1: a certain kind of sweetness. Right. It might be hard
Speaker 1: to see now, but I.
Speaker 9: Think I do see it to some degree. I'm never
Speaker 9: gonna like have another chance to live with the three
Speaker 9: siblings that are home right now, and these is the
Speaker 9: nephews that are living at the house right now. There's
Speaker 9: joy in playing games with him and talking to them and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they probably think you're really cool.
Speaker 9: They're better. My first niece entered the world when I
Speaker 9: was twelve, and twelve year old me, it's like, I
Speaker 9: want to be called Uncle Awesome and that's just stuck.
Speaker 1: So for the rest of my life, they all call
Speaker 1: you uncle awesome. Yeah, all the time.
Speaker 4: They're also only twelve years younger than you, and I
Speaker 4: like the idea of you being like fifty in the
Speaker 4: late thirties and they're still like oh yeah uncle as.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no no. By that point, they'll be more mature.
Speaker 1: They'll probably out the uncle and just call you awesome
Speaker 1: because they have like an adult relationship exactly. Yeah, I'm Shane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is there anything that you wanted to say?
Speaker 8: I really proud of you and everything you've done, and
Speaker 8: I can't wait to see where you go on this long,
Speaker 8: long journey of life and the short little journey of
Speaker 8: college that's a little shorter now. But I'm crying. Why
Speaker 8: am I crying?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 8: I love you.
Speaker 3: I love you.