Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, Hello, Hi, hello, Hi. Here we all are
Speaker 2: in the studio. Yes, indeed, and today we've got something
Speaker 2: a little different.
Speaker 1: Ooh but kayleie, I don't like different things.
Speaker 2: Well, Jonathan, you might just have to give it a chance,
Speaker 2: because sometimes trying new things can be scary but rewarding.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, well here comes the chuo choo train
Speaker 1: of listening. What do we got here?
Speaker 2: Recently you're a guest on a show called Wildcard? Do
Speaker 2: you remember that?
Speaker 1: Of course? I remember? How can I forget? I was
Speaker 1: interviewed by Rachel Martin.
Speaker 3: How did it feel, Jonathan to be in the guest seat?
Speaker 1: It felked. I didn't like it. It's a tremendous loss
Speaker 1: of control. I have to say. It was like the
Speaker 1: spider had become the fly or something. But you know,
Speaker 1: here's the incredible. This is nuts. It doesn't even make
Speaker 1: sense to me. I'm just looking at their past episodes. Okay,
Speaker 1: of wild Card, you know who was on two weeks ago?
Speaker 1: Someone that's so famous they're known by one name, sure, Adele.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Share or Adel someone more? Actually, dare I
Speaker 1: say maybe someone more famous?
Speaker 3: Obama?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say as famous as Obama may be more famous.
Speaker 1: What all right, I'll just tell you Oprah interviewed Oprah
Speaker 1: last week, she interviewed Melinda Gates.
Speaker 3: She's got more money than you.
Speaker 1: Oprah has more money than me. Let's see who else has.
Speaker 2: I would say almost every guest is probably richer than you.
Speaker 1: You know, honestly. So I'm on her website right now,
Speaker 1: on the wild Card website, and I'm schooling, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm looking like Melinda Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, I
Speaker 1: mean crazy, And then I saw my name and I
Speaker 1: got nervous. I thought, like, that's a mistake.
Speaker 3: Do you think they had someone fall through that week?
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny, okay. So I did ask her that,
Speaker 1: like why am I on the show? Basically? And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, the answer would be something like, oh, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Like of course you you know,
Speaker 1: But she was honest. She was like, well, you know
Speaker 1: how it is, like sometimes you do like a biggie
Speaker 1: and then sometimes you just do a small one or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think she was more compliment than that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If she called me a small sounds like.
Speaker 3: She just wanted to talk to you, which is really nice.
Speaker 1: It is it is what thank you? That is very nice.
Speaker 2: You know, Me and Stevie usually are in on like
Speaker 2: the you know, we're producing the conversations you have. This
Speaker 2: is one that we got to come to just as listeners.
Speaker 2: We just heard the edited version at the end, and
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. I felt like it covered a
Speaker 2: lot of territory beyond just the typical like how did
Speaker 2: you come up with the show? Like, like I felt
Speaker 2: like you guys kind of went deep in a really
Speaker 2: interesting way.
Speaker 1: I got an interesting text from my mother in law
Speaker 1: after she had listened to it. She said that she
Speaker 1: had never had anybody express something about life and death
Speaker 1: that she had always felt. WHOA, yeah that's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And after I got the text, I told my wife,
Speaker 1: I said, Emily, you married your mother gradually. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we're going to listen to that episode.
Speaker 3: I think listeners will really enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: And if you don't, will we'll we'll send you a
Speaker 1: check returning your full purchase price.
Speaker 2: If you don't, try try the Oprah episode. You know
Speaker 2: maybe I like that.
Speaker 1: But first, a word from our sponsors, just.
Speaker 4: A heads up. This episode does have some strong language.
Speaker 4: Do you think people can really change?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I have to believe that. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the struggle. It's like the paradox.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we are who we are, but I
Speaker 1: think as long as we're alive, we're able to change.
Speaker 4: I'm Rachel Martin and this is wild Card, the show
Speaker 4: where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers
Speaker 4: questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards.
Speaker 4: They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one
Speaker 4: back on me. My guest this week is Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 1: I was writing and no one was buying what I
Speaker 1: was selling. I just couldn't get anywhere, and I just
Speaker 1: kept doing it because I felt compelled to do it,
Speaker 1: like a spider spinning a web.
Speaker 4: Jonathan Goldstein believes enclosure, which is what is massively popular
Speaker 4: podcast Heavyweight, is all about helping people move on from
Speaker 4: some kind of unfinished business in their lives. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: helping someone make amends or to say thank you to
Speaker 4: a stranger, or to help a person turn a page
Speaker 4: on a traumatic experience. And yes, the word heavy is
Speaker 4: in the title, but it doesn't feel that way, in
Speaker 4: large part because Jonathan is very funny, and he's also
Speaker 4: got this lightness about him. He's the kind of guide
Speaker 4: who makes it clear no matter what happens around the
Speaker 4: next bend, he'll be there rooting you on. I am
Speaker 4: so very happy to welcome Jonathan Goldstein to Wild Card. Hi.
Speaker 1: Hi, thank you so much. It would have taken me
Speaker 1: about ten tries to get that, and so much editing.
Speaker 1: I don't believe you, but it is, it's true, and
Speaker 1: yet it's true.
Speaker 4: I'm going to hold up three cards. You pick randly one,
Speaker 4: two or three. Okay, first three cards, First three cards.
Speaker 1: Now, one is on my left.
Speaker 4: I tend to think of one being this on my right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, that's my left.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make this as confusing as possible for
Speaker 1: perfect because I'm hoping, I guess my my subconscious wish
Speaker 1: is that you're just going to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: forget it, We're gonna do a rerun this week. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, you know what. I get the impression,
Speaker 1: as a as a child magician, that you're trying to
Speaker 1: force the number two cards. It's poked out a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, yeah, Okay, now you're forcing the one
Speaker 1: in the two. I just I just want to please you.
Speaker 1: I'll take I'll take the number two.
Speaker 4: I'm not pushing, I promise, Although I do like this question. Okay,
Speaker 4: look what happened there? Okay, what's an ordinary place that
Speaker 4: feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there?
Speaker 1: Okay. You see, it's very difficult for me to talk
Speaker 1: about places because I I'm not very place aware. Oh.
Speaker 1: I live so much of my life up in my head.
Speaker 1: For many years, I thought of it as like internal
Speaker 1: and then like through therapy, I've begun to see it
Speaker 1: as disassociative. Possibly, I will say broadly, movie theaters I
Speaker 1: are kind of like I think Pauline Kle called them
Speaker 1: like her church, and I think that's a little bit
Speaker 1: the way that I feel about movie theaters. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's one particular. I live in Minnesota, Minneapolis, and there's
Speaker 1: an old mid century theater that used to be walking
Speaker 1: distance from my house, and I would just go see
Speaker 1: anything that was playing there and always sit way way
Speaker 1: way back in the back row because I like to
Speaker 1: take it all in by yourself, by myself. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: had I'd like going there with people, but I you know,
Speaker 1: if I had my drothers, it was by myself, and
Speaker 1: that just felt like my place in the dark, looking
Speaker 1: up at this big screen, feeling like a baby being
Speaker 1: held by somebody. You know. Maybe that's a part of it.
Speaker 4: I don't know what was the extraordinary part of that experience.
Speaker 1: I think this particular theater because it's mid century. I
Speaker 1: had the experience last Christmas of going to see It's
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life there and I found it to be
Speaker 1: a very emotional experience. Like it it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a room. But I don't know, all of
Speaker 1: this stuff sounds very corny. I mean, my father used
Speaker 1: to watch these black and white movies and refer to
Speaker 1: it as like a time machine, and it is kind
Speaker 1: of like that. There is this feeling of the past
Speaker 1: kind of erasing, and you're kind of existing in all
Speaker 1: times at once. Beyond that, it's probably just pretty banal.
Speaker 1: It just yeah, there's just something extraordinary about in this
Speaker 1: day and age being able to kind of like turn
Speaker 1: your phone off and shut out the world for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours.
Speaker 4: I mean, thank God, hold on, there's one sound on
Speaker 4: here I need to make sure goes away.
Speaker 1: Is it my voice? You figured out the one thing
Speaker 1: that's dragging down this podcast?
Speaker 4: Okay, three more cards.
Speaker 1: I'll take one this time.
Speaker 4: Were you intimidated or excited about leaving your parents' house?
Speaker 1: Leaving my parents' house? I have to say, And you know,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of like you just don't know
Speaker 1: what you don't know back then, But I was nothing
Speaker 1: but excited. I didn't enjoy my childhood very much, and
Speaker 1: the idea of being able to make my own rules
Speaker 1: was very exciting. And I remember when I I harken
Speaker 1: back to it now that I got a kid, I
Speaker 1: think about how sad my mother was. She was sitting
Speaker 1: on the edge of my bed and yelling at me
Speaker 1: for what she called dismantling my room, for the stuff
Speaker 1: that I was taking, you know, And all I was
Speaker 1: taking was these milk rates. I didn't even have like
Speaker 1: a bookshelf. It was just like I kept my books
Speaker 1: and stuff in milk crates. And she was like very
Speaker 1: upset that I was taking them. And I remember I
Speaker 1: wore cowboy boots, which were a very impractical thing to
Speaker 1: wear in the summer when you're moving boxes. But there
Speaker 1: was something about it that felt very romantic. I had
Speaker 1: these cowboy boots that I only wore like once a year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it felt like that was an occasion for the
Speaker 1: cowboy boots, even though they were slippery.
Speaker 4: Where were you going to? Where were you moving from
Speaker 4: and to?
Speaker 1: So I was living in Montreal, That's where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and I was moving to a very cheap part of
Speaker 1: town called Pointing Charles.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was probably no more than like a half an
Speaker 1: hour car drive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it can be a whole world away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt great. There was a five dollars liter
Speaker 1: of apple wine that they sold at the corner store,
Speaker 1: and there was all these like dollar ninety nine breakfast places.
Speaker 4: It was like nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, back, this is back in the thirties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I could listen to all the jazz music I wanted. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was just yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: the feeling of being free. It really Yeah, it felt
Speaker 1: it felt free.
Speaker 4: Yeah, last one in this round one, two or three?
Speaker 1: I guess three.
Speaker 4: Oh, I feel like I'm putting all these place questions
Speaker 4: to you. What details do you remember about your childhood.
Speaker 1: Bedroom, the milk crate, the wall to wall posters of
Speaker 1: David Bowie. Nice, very big David Bowie fan. To this day,
Speaker 1: my father will call me up on the phone if
Speaker 1: David Bowie's on TV and I'll say, oh, your buddy's
Speaker 1: on TV. He just didn't get it.
Speaker 4: That he knows that you like him, and he was
Speaker 4: like trying to connect with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, just a lot of like pictures taken out
Speaker 1: of magazines and newspapers. And I don't it must still
Speaker 1: be the same way for kids, But it was like
Speaker 1: your whole personality was splayed across your bedroom walls. Like
Speaker 1: if it wasn't on your bedroom wall, then you weren't
Speaker 1: in the world properly. You know, you had to lead
Speaker 1: with all of these things on your wall. I had
Speaker 1: this little card table that with a type with an
Speaker 1: electric typewriter that I wrote on.
Speaker 4: What were you writing at the time?
Speaker 1: Such junk. I remember when I applied into the creative
Speaker 1: writing program at the University in Montreal Concordia with such
Speaker 1: high hopes because from a very young age I was
Speaker 1: always writing and making plays and making radio plays and
Speaker 1: you know, forcing my friends into performing in them. And
Speaker 1: I applied put together what I thought was my best work,
Speaker 1: and I applied to this creative writing program and the guy,
Speaker 1: the professor running the program rejected me. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why. And I made a meeting with him, and
Speaker 1: he said that someone that wrote the way that I
Speaker 1: did needed a therapist more than they needed a creative
Speaker 1: writing program, which was probably true, but was still like
Speaker 1: a very heavy thing to hear at like eighteen, you.
Speaker 4: Know, not helpful guidance.
Speaker 1: But it was all like nuts. I mean, like young
Speaker 1: men are, or at least me and my friends, I
Speaker 1: mean we were just nuts. We were just really pushing
Speaker 1: boundaries and you know, loved Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac.
Speaker 4: There's nothing, no offense, but there's nothing extraordinary about that.
Speaker 4: That's that doesn't signal depression. That's just being an angstret No.
Speaker 1: I was just depressed on top of that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was just a whole other side project. Yeah,
Speaker 1: various dark places, you know, very caught up in like
Speaker 1: what's it all about? I had, like during my teen years,
Speaker 1: like a foray into becoming religious and then kind of
Speaker 1: losing my faith and feeling that that brought on a
Speaker 1: really heavy depression. I wanted to believe and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't figure my way into it. And yeah, just like
Speaker 1: very from a very young age is very caught up
Speaker 1: in the big questions, I guess, and not that that's
Speaker 1: necessarily a formula for depression, but for me, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there was something very dire and desperate about it. Remember
Speaker 1: asking my father like at a like at a very
Speaker 1: very young age, like where God came from? And that
Speaker 1: feeling like a very basic question because God was given,
Speaker 1: but like, okay, so then where does God come from?
Speaker 1: And I remember him telling me that I should look
Speaker 1: it up, and I had these childs encyclopedia set and
Speaker 1: looking up.
Speaker 4: What did you look at God?
Speaker 1: And under g yeah, like God, And like I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to the bottom of this in
Speaker 1: two seconds. Everybody wanted to hear this, and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I remember like looking at the Bible and thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: it must be before Genesis, like before but you know,
Speaker 1: there's like no preface, there's no you know, it just
Speaker 1: starts with the big bang and that's it. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, it was probably also more banal, like I
Speaker 1: probably couldn't meet any girls, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a big existential stew of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very profound, very yeah. Well Schopenhower asks, is
Speaker 1: that a word?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, yeah, but I think dealing with that the
Speaker 4: uncertainty of life at that end, but.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see. Yeah, but I know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: still something that I struggle with. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: want to really let go and and give myself over
Speaker 1: to life. But I don't know, there's always just been
Speaker 1: this feeling of like if you're not totally invested in it,
Speaker 1: it'll make death easier. You know, like if you live
Speaker 1: your life as though like you're kind of you know,
Speaker 1: here's life and here's death, and they kind of are
Speaker 1: side by side, adjacent to one another on a shelf,
Speaker 1: it'll be more of a lateral move. Good night, folks,
Speaker 1: it's not too it's not too late to like run
Speaker 1: the rerun.
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to understand it. It means putting as
Speaker 4: much effort into the thinking about death as the thinking
Speaker 4: about life, and they are equal experiences, and so then
Speaker 4: it's a lateral.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're sort of like braced for death from
Speaker 1: a young age, you know, if you don't fully you know,
Speaker 1: throw yourself into the whole life thing. Then when the
Speaker 1: carpet is yanked out from under you, you're going to
Speaker 1: be braced for your fall.
Speaker 4: No, I get it. I like do this in my
Speaker 4: own mind. I am the worst case scenario person. It
Speaker 4: is how I live My life is to prepare for
Speaker 4: the worst things, and so I practice not being around anymore.
Speaker 4: It's dark.
Speaker 1: But and you don't want to model that for your No, I.
Speaker 4: Have two of them. I don't think that's a great
Speaker 4: way to live. But it actually doesn't bring me down.
Speaker 4: I don't get bummed about it. It just go there
Speaker 4: for a little bit. I try it on, and then
Speaker 4: I come back and I'm like, everyone was okay. Everyone
Speaker 4: when I was gone in my imaginary death, everyone grieved
Speaker 4: and then they lived beautiful lives and then it was fine.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful. So you're thinking about your own absence
Speaker 1: from the perspective of those you love, Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that's the mark of a superior human being. That's not
Speaker 1: how I was thinking about it. I was thinking more,
Speaker 1: fuck all, y'all. No, no, no, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about your show for a few minutes, because
Speaker 4: it is a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing
Speaker 4: that you have made.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Have you wait been nine years? Over nine years?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were doing their ninth season.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a little break the show was cancel
Speaker 4: was yeah, at the end of twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 4: then it found new life and it's as a listener,
Speaker 4: I think this is a wonderful thing. I'm sure when
Speaker 4: it was canceled you were like, yeah, maybe maybe I'm
Speaker 4: going to do something else, lean into my writing and
Speaker 4: you know, but but you were given this other shot.
Speaker 4: What do you love about making this show?
Speaker 1: Well, the simplest is that I like having a job.
Speaker 1: I found out when the show was canceled that I
Speaker 1: wasn't very good at not having a job. I had
Speaker 1: been kind of on various deadlines, Like before this, I
Speaker 1: had a show in Canada on the CBC for eleven years.
Speaker 1: It had been just kind of like twenty years of deadlines.
Speaker 1: This is wiretap right wire type. Yeah, that's right. I
Speaker 1: found not having a job difficult, and being back at
Speaker 1: it has given me a renewed appreciation. But I love
Speaker 1: I think I love it is a way from me
Speaker 1: to feel things and live, interact with people, and life
Speaker 1: in a way that for me is preferred. I guess
Speaker 1: there's a certain kind of safety about being alone in
Speaker 1: the attics studio a lot of the time and thinking
Speaker 1: things through in a way that I can't in real time.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm great in real time.
Speaker 4: We should just take a second and explain to people
Speaker 4: who haven't heard the show. I mean I nodded to
Speaker 4: it a little bit in the intro, but you really
Speaker 4: are getting into very intimate parts of people's lives. You're
Speaker 4: helping them through specific regrets and longing and helping them
Speaker 4: find closure, like someone who's you know, did something to
Speaker 4: someone wronged them twenty thirty years ago. More. You literally
Speaker 4: go find that person for them and help them sometimes
Speaker 4: come confront them and have a one on one exchange.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you don't find the person, but somehow through the
Speaker 4: journey they've been able to understand their life in a
Speaker 4: more intimate way. I mean, it's very emotionally intense work.
Speaker 4: I mean, you say you do this work in part
Speaker 4: just to feel things. That's a lot of feelings, Jonathan, Like,
Speaker 4: it's a lot of living that you are You're navigating
Speaker 4: through other people's experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there's definitely, like you say closure, I think
Speaker 1: like that is. Yeah, that is always kind of like
Speaker 1: the imaginary finish line. I don't think most of the
Speaker 1: episodes get there, but it is true what you also
Speaker 1: say about the process of getting there, and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: the thing that people are searching for is somewhat of
Speaker 1: a mcguffin. Like there was one episode called Scott where
Speaker 1: this former heroin addict had sold all of like many
Speaker 1: prize possessions that belonged to his father, among which was
Speaker 1: this gun that his grandfather, his father's father had taken
Speaker 1: off a Nazi in World War Two, and he had
Speaker 1: sold this this gun to a pawn chop to buy
Speaker 1: drugs and he wanted to get the gun back and
Speaker 1: he felt like he owed it to his father and
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, he gets the gun after I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't think we were ever going to find this gun again.
Speaker 1: It might have taken him a couple of years. We
Speaker 1: finally got it. He gives it to his dad and
Speaker 1: his dad's like, oh, thank you, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: just sort of like Jesus Christ, like that's not going
Speaker 1: to make a very satisfying end. It is the closure
Speaker 1: that we thought we wanted. But then it turns out
Speaker 1: that the conversation he ends up having with his father,
Speaker 1: the gun is merely a pass key that allows us
Speaker 1: into this emotional space where his dad is able to
Speaker 1: talk about his feelings about his dad and that gun,
Speaker 1: which he never liked, and he had mixed feelings about
Speaker 1: his own father, And it ends up getting to this
Speaker 1: point where the dad's able to say to him like,
Speaker 1: I don't really give a shit about the gun. I
Speaker 1: was afraid of losing you, and I'm so glad to
Speaker 1: have you back, and I don't care about getting the
Speaker 1: gun back, but I got you back. And it's sort
Speaker 1: of like we spent two years searching for the gun
Speaker 1: just to get us to this other place. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of like sometimes like if things wrap up too
Speaker 1: neatly and too quickly, it's not good. There needs to
Speaker 1: be that struggle in order to get to really get someplace,
Speaker 1: and you know, to get someplace emotionally and internal, and
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to dramatize that. You know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: just need the gun. You need that mcguffin.
Speaker 4: I really love interactions with strangers. They make me very happy,
Speaker 4: They give me life, They make me feel connected and alive.
Speaker 4: And I think you might love strangers even more than
Speaker 4: I do, because it's your whole thing. Is like a
Speaker 4: random person will come into your inbox and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, you, I imagine you fall in love a
Speaker 4: little bit with them and their plight or their struggle.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's complicated. When you said that about like
Speaker 1: loving to talk to strangers, I don't even know if
Speaker 1: this is really if this makes sense, but it occurred
Speaker 1: to me this morning. I was on a run and
Speaker 1: I saw these two kids. There's something very sweet about
Speaker 1: the two of them. They were they were wandering, you know, wandering.
Speaker 1: I was kind of like a on a running path
Speaker 1: and they were just taking a leisurely stroll and they
Speaker 1: were coming towards me, and they had such open faces.
Speaker 1: They looked like they were wearing pajama bottoms. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: just what kids do. It had the affect of like
Speaker 1: feeling like they just rolled out of bed and maybe
Speaker 1: they were, you know, in love and we're just happy
Speaker 1: to be spending the morning together, and or maybe they
Speaker 1: were on ecstasy. I don't know, but they just their
Speaker 1: faces just seem so open, and I felt like stopping
Speaker 1: and telling them that that's a wonderful thing to see.
Speaker 1: And then I also thought about how like if I
Speaker 1: was their age, that would be like yeah, and made
Speaker 1: me also it makes me aware of just like how
Speaker 1: like clenched my faces like I'm just waiting to get
Speaker 1: punched in the face, and like I'm just all like
Speaker 1: you know, and it's my natural like at this age,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what my face has become. And
Speaker 1: I realized that a part of my fear is going
Speaker 1: through life with my face open like those two kids,
Speaker 1: for fear that a weirdo like me is going to
Speaker 1: come up to them. And so I kind of keep
Speaker 1: I've kind of like, after fifty odd years, my face
Speaker 1: has just become this.
Speaker 4: Closed and don't talk to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like what am I afraid? What would be
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario if I did walk through the
Speaker 1: through the world with an open face and meeting people's
Speaker 1: gaze and not afraid of having people approach me, strangers
Speaker 1: approach me? What would be the worst case scenario?
Speaker 4: But you've developed a way, You've made a whole job
Speaker 4: for yourself where you get to meet strangers under your.
Speaker 1: Infety in a way like in with parameters and the context.
Speaker 4: Round two insights cars and.
Speaker 1: I haven't even skipped a.
Speaker 4: Flipped but you're not judged either.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what's in there. There might
Speaker 1: be something that's so embarrassing. So that's why I've been
Speaker 1: saving them. We've moved from the yellow carts of the
Speaker 1: blue cards, so I believe. So I can only imagine
Speaker 1: that this is.
Speaker 4: Getting more intense, okay, one two three one. What's a
Speaker 4: sound that instantly puts you at ease? That's a person
Speaker 4: who lives in sounds. I think a laugh, maybe anyone
Speaker 4: in particular or all of them, all the laughing.
Speaker 1: And this is coming from someone who does not, unfortunately
Speaker 1: for me, like have an easy laugh. Being in the
Speaker 1: business that I am in, it would be a nice
Speaker 1: signal to somebody of like, hey, I'm enjoying you. But
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, all kinds of different laughs. It lets
Speaker 1: me feel like the person isn't taking me too seriously.
Speaker 1: I feel dangerous when I'm being taken too seriously.
Speaker 4: You feel dangerous or the situation that erous.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Speaker 1: And I feel like my old friends don't take me
Speaker 1: that seriously. Like my friend Jackie, who opens the show
Speaker 1: who I phone, who has a very endearing, distinct, kind
Speaker 1: of insane laugh. I like hearing it. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel like it makes me feel free to say all
Speaker 1: kinds of really dumb things, you know, because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm not hurting anybody. When I hear the laugh,
Speaker 1: it's a signal that I'm not hurting anybody. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a big eie. I have a friend who
Speaker 1: told me a while ago, He's like, is this stupid?
Speaker 1: I go through life just always being afraid that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get yelled at? And I was like, no, I
Speaker 1: think I relate to that. You're afraid that you're gonna
Speaker 1: hurt somebody get yelled at or Yeah, you just want
Speaker 1: to be You just want to feel like you're not
Speaker 1: you're not messing anything up. And I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: laugh is like a really nice thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one, two or three?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 4: How much do you rely on the validation of others?
Speaker 1: I think, in some ways not a lot, because you know,
Speaker 1: hearkening back to that story about trying to get into
Speaker 1: a writer's program when I was eighteen, for a very
Speaker 1: long time, I mean, I was writing and no one
Speaker 1: was buying what I was selling like and I was
Speaker 1: getting rejections and I'm not talking like big magazines, but
Speaker 1: like zines and chapbooks, and no one would I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get anywhere. And I just kept doing
Speaker 1: it because I felt compelled to do it, like a
Speaker 1: spider spinning a web, like I I And in that sense,
Speaker 1: I think I was kind of like free of needing
Speaker 1: any validation. And maybe that's just the cockiness of youth
Speaker 1: or not knowing any better, but I think I still
Speaker 1: have that. I think I would still be doing what
Speaker 1: I'm doing regardless of whether anyone liked it. That being said,
Speaker 1: I do like to know what people are thinking. I
Speaker 1: think laughter, you know, getting a laugh or something is
Speaker 1: a form of validation, and I like that.
Speaker 4: That sounds like just the right healthy amount of caring.
Speaker 4: Not that you need me to validate your sense of
Speaker 4: whether validation is important.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm doing something healthy.
Speaker 4: We're moving to round three.
Speaker 1: Beliefs, all right, Oh, the red cards?
Speaker 4: Red cards one, two, or three?
Speaker 1: I'll take one.
Speaker 4: Do you believe in ghosts?
Speaker 1: I don't not believe in them. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen one or experienced one, but I believe
Speaker 1: in the idea of them. We moved in a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago into this turn of the century Victorian
Speaker 1: that I catch all kinds of weird smells in that
Speaker 1: I feel are kind of like ghostly remnants of people
Speaker 1: that lived here, that died here probably.
Speaker 4: And do sensations like that? Are they pleasant to you?
Speaker 4: Is that something you enjoy thinking about or is it disconcerting?
Speaker 2: Mm?
Speaker 4: Or neutral?
Speaker 1: Neutral? Yeah, Like I'll smell cigarettes all in a sudden
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, that's so weird. So there must
Speaker 1: have been there's something about the weather that's bringing out
Speaker 1: the smell. But it you know, of some long dead
Speaker 1: smoker who lived here. It feels like you just kind
Speaker 1: of passing through.
Speaker 3: That.
Speaker 1: Maybe one day you'll just be a faint smell. I
Speaker 1: think it's probably more towards the positive. Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: had to, if I had to choose, yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if I saw someone crab walking on the
Speaker 1: ceiling less so, but just something subtle, you like a
Speaker 1: wisp face right right, like a kind of spectral sort
Speaker 1: of you know, zero mostelle. Maybe one of the first
Speaker 1: long text exchanges I had with my wife was about ghosts.
Speaker 1: She had finished reading a book about ghosts, and I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a real kooky chick.
Speaker 4: Tell me more. I mean not not you tell me more,
Speaker 4: but you were like, tell me more. I'm into this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, bring it on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, three more cards one two or three two? Have
Speaker 4: you made peace with mortality?
Speaker 1: Some days I feel like, yeah, take me, this is
Speaker 1: a good day to die, and I feel like one
Speaker 1: of these stoic guys in a spaghetti western. And then
Speaker 1: other days, no, I guess it. Really it's crazy to
Speaker 1: think that something like that would be so mood dependent.
Speaker 1: Is that possible?
Speaker 4: It's so final.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just feels okay, and sometimes it just doesn't.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and then other times
Speaker 1: it just feels like, well, we all got to go sometime.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I liked about drinking, was
Speaker 1: that feeling of like of getting philosophical about that, like
Speaker 1: I was someone I'm not a great flyer, and that
Speaker 1: was when I relied the most on. You know, I
Speaker 1: would travel with the little bottles of booze in my pockets,
Speaker 1: so it just feeling them there gave me a sense
Speaker 1: of security. And sometimes during turbulence. I'd pop one of
Speaker 1: those or two of those, and it just felt kind
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, you know, we all got to go sometime.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that AH planes often summon internal conversations
Speaker 4: about living and dying. I mean for me for sure
Speaker 4: too as well.
Speaker 1: But but and sometimes it's like sorry, go ahead, no no,
Speaker 1: you say no, no, I was just going to ask
Speaker 1: you like it. It's that's sometimes not a bad feeling.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like you feel like crying sometimes when
Speaker 1: you watch sentimental movies on a flat.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and the complains are my favorite place to cry. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it feels like safe. There's like strangers around and that
Speaker 4: I find comforting. One of them might say something to
Speaker 4: me and I might be open to that or I
Speaker 4: might not. I don't know, but I like the idea
Speaker 4: that it could happen.
Speaker 1: What did they say to you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Just the possibility that they could say, are you okay?
Speaker 4: And then that look at it makes me emotional thinking
Speaker 4: about it. That breaks me. When you're in a vulnerable
Speaker 4: place and a stranger extends themselves at all, it makes
Speaker 4: me feel good. But now I pivoted this to myself
Speaker 4: and I didn't want.
Speaker 1: To No, no, no, no, not at all. What do
Speaker 1: you say? What do you say if someone asks you
Speaker 1: are you okay? Do you say not at all? Or
Speaker 1: do you say yes?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: I'm thinking of one circumstance in particular, and I said no,
Speaker 4: And I didn't want to talk about I didn't want
Speaker 4: to say anymore. But I really appreciated that.
Speaker 1: They asked, did you tell them that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: But I said no, but it's okay, And that was it.
Speaker 4: And and I think, am I trying too hard to
Speaker 4: sew this together? But I do think there's something about
Speaker 4: being suspended in air in a situation where you could
Speaker 4: die because planes don't make sense, and those being more
Speaker 4: truthful spaces because what the hell do you have to lose?
Speaker 4: So I get I get the plain thing for sure.
Speaker 1: And I also think that, yeah, yeah, you said no,
Speaker 1: I know, please please no.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say you you were saying
Speaker 4: at the beginning that it feels like dangerous to be
Speaker 4: so dependent on one's emotional state to determine whether or
Speaker 4: not one is okay with dying on a particular day.
Speaker 3: But I all, maybe this is just me.
Speaker 4: I think that's a sign of a healthy person who
Speaker 4: wakes up and and like observes the question, you know,
Speaker 4: like how is my life? And and when you're saying
Speaker 4: today's a good day to go, what you're really saying
Speaker 4: is I have lived a good life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if this is a quick story,
Speaker 1: but I felt I feel like I kind of got
Speaker 1: felt like I got the license to think about it
Speaker 1: in that way. From a story, a heavyweight story. It
Speaker 1: was about this woman who was in her forties and
Speaker 1: felt like her life had kind of gone off track
Speaker 1: because her foster mother didn't allow her to stay in
Speaker 1: stay with basketball because her grades weren't good enough, and
Speaker 1: she felt like her life would have been better if
Speaker 1: she could have pursued basketball, she would have gone in
Speaker 1: a scholarship. And so we went and found this foster
Speaker 1: mother who she hadn't spoken to in years, who was
Speaker 1: now this ninety four year old woman, to ask her
Speaker 1: why why didn't she allow her to pursue basketball when
Speaker 1: she saw it was her one passion. And this woman
Speaker 1: was a tough old bird, like it would have been
Speaker 1: so easy to say, oh, I'm sorry, and like she
Speaker 1: just wouldn't, and she had had a hard life herself,
Speaker 1: and I and I felt it was almost like she
Speaker 1: was unclear on the concept of regret, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And I was trying to explain it to
Speaker 1: her and she was like, no, no, no, I know what
Speaker 1: you're saying, and I don't. I honestly don't know if
Speaker 1: I had a chance to do it over again with her,
Speaker 1: whether I would have done it differently. And I think
Speaker 1: it really depends on my mood, what mood I was in.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, Wow, that is something that is
Speaker 1: seldom acknowledged. It is, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It is, but it isn't the whole ballgame. Not to
Speaker 4: make that bad pun but it.
Speaker 1: Is like, yeah, I get or more of it then
Speaker 1: we acknowledge. You know, just how drunk a lot of
Speaker 1: these Founding fathers were when they were coming up with
Speaker 1: their laws and ideas, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: they echo through the years.
Speaker 4: That was a journey. That question, this is the last one,
Speaker 4: Jonathan one, two or three?
Speaker 1: Three?
Speaker 4: Do you think people can really change? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I have to believe that. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that.
Speaker 1: And I think like that's the struggle is to really
Speaker 1: try to believe that. And I do think people are
Speaker 1: capable of change within limits. You know. It's like the paradox.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we are who we are, but I
Speaker 1: think as long as we're alive, we're able to change.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm working on a story that should come
Speaker 1: out this season. It's about a woman who is one
Speaker 1: hundred and two years old who one day her kids,
Speaker 1: who are you know, in their seventies, said, you know,
Speaker 1: you're getting on in age, we should probably clean up
Speaker 1: the storage room. And while they were doing that, they
Speaker 1: found this box containing two hundred and fifty six letters
Speaker 1: that had been sent to her by her fiance at
Speaker 1: the time when she was like twenty, who was in
Speaker 1: the war, this was World War Two, who died in
Speaker 1: the war. And she had not opened up this box
Speaker 1: and looked at these letters in over eighty years, and
Speaker 1: had never really mourned the loss of this man and
Speaker 1: this relationship. She put it aside, and she married a
Speaker 1: man named Irving, stayed married with him for sixty odd years,
Speaker 1: had three kids, and then finds his box and then
Speaker 1: finds herself at the age of one hundred and two,
Speaker 1: falling in love with this with this long dead young
Speaker 1: man from her past, and in that process like she,
Speaker 1: you know, a person who was very used to and
Speaker 1: maybe that's a little generational. Two is like you just
Speaker 1: pack it up and put it in a box and
Speaker 1: move on, but it sticks with you, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And like you know, she went through a
Speaker 1: lot of changes even at that age, which is kind
Speaker 1: of like a beautiful thing to see, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. As long as like we're alive, and as
Speaker 1: you know, as long as we keep going, there's always
Speaker 1: going to be change. You know, maybe not the change
Speaker 1: that other people want to see, but we're there's going
Speaker 1: to be changes.
Speaker 4: We end the show the same way every time, with
Speaker 4: a trip in our memory time machine where you go
Speaker 4: back and revisit one moment from your past. It's not
Speaker 4: a moment you would change anything about. It's just a
Speaker 4: moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. Oh,
Speaker 4: I know, there are many you could pick anything whatever
Speaker 4: comes to the fore.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the first thing that comes into
Speaker 1: my head is my child's birth. Yeah, I guess. My
Speaker 1: wife says that. I you know, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not an easy laugh. I don't. I
Speaker 1: wish I smiled more. But she said that like all
Speaker 1: through labor, I had such a big smile on my
Speaker 1: face which kept her going. Just such a wonderful, wonderful
Speaker 1: day and just filled with so much hope and wonderful
Speaker 1: expectation and beginning. And yeah, I think that. And I
Speaker 1: also really love the hospital cafeteria. It was at NYU.
Speaker 1: It was really good.
Speaker 4: Jonathan Goldstein, It's been such a pleasure. You can hear
Speaker 4: Jonathan on the newest season of his amazing show, Have Youweight.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked this episode,
Speaker 4: I think you would also dig my interview with Jonathan's
Speaker 4: former boss and host of This American Life, Ira Glass.
Speaker 4: Ira was super open and honest and way funnier than
Speaker 4: I expected.
Speaker 3: Check it out.
Speaker 4: This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by
Speaker 4: Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley.
Speaker 4: Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangwini. Our theme music is
Speaker 4: by rom team Ara Bluie. You can reach out to
Speaker 4: us at Wildcard at NPR dot org. We're going to
Speaker 4: shuffle the deck and be back with more next week.
Speaker 4: Talk to you then.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's Jonathan here again breaking out of the straight
Speaker 1: jacket of being a guest. I just had one further announcement.
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