Speaker 1: Pushkin. In October, the Heavyweight Gang gathered in New York
Speaker 1: City for a live event at Caveat on the Lower
Speaker 1: East Side. If I may be so bold as to
Speaker 1: speak on behalf of the crowd, the Weight staff, and
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries as a whole. A lovely time was had
Speaker 1: by all. There was a wall to write down your
Speaker 1: regrets and a meet and greet where you could take
Speaker 1: a picture with yours.
Speaker 2: Truly, thank you. I feel like I'm smiling.
Speaker 1: At all these pictures.
Speaker 3: Not quite a smile.
Speaker 2: It feels like you're my soul animal, So good luck
Speaker 2: to your soul Heavyweight.
Speaker 1: The first episode came out when I was twelve, for
Speaker 1: twenty two next week.
Speaker 2: Now, I feel like I practically raised you. If you
Speaker 2: weren't able to attend, fear not.
Speaker 1: We've recorded the event so that you can still expel
Speaker 1: experience it at home, half undressed and drinking less expensive
Speaker 1: beverages through the miracle of audio.
Speaker 4: Hi, everybody, thank you so much for coming to this
Speaker 4: live event celebrating the launch of the new season of Heavyweights.
Speaker 4: We're so glad you're here. My name is Greta Cohen.
Speaker 4: I'm the CEO of Puchkin Industries. We are the audio
Speaker 4: network that is the home to Heavyweight, and we are
Speaker 4: so thrilled that they are part of our network. The
Speaker 4: new season's wonderful. I'm sure you've all been listening to it,
Speaker 4: and today you're in for a real treat. Later on,
Speaker 4: the producers of the show, Stevie Lane and Khalila Holt,
Speaker 4: will be coming on stage and they're going to answer,
Speaker 4: along with Jonathan, some of your questions that you've submitted.
Speaker 4: But first Jonathan will be joining us to do a
Speaker 4: live reading. He has asked me to read an introduction
Speaker 4: to this reading. Okay, Jonathan asked me to read this
Speaker 4: introduction to his reading of the Old Testament of canaan
Speaker 4: able for those of you Heathens who have never cracked
Speaker 4: open a Bible or unscrolled to Torah. Cain and Abel
Speaker 4: were the sons of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve
Speaker 4: lived in a beautiful garden called Eden, where they frolicked
Speaker 4: in the nude all day. But relax, Back then, nudity
Speaker 4: was less a rio de janio hbo after dark thing
Speaker 4: and more a Nordic healthspot thing filled with good.
Speaker 3: Clean living and fruit platters.
Speaker 4: Also, everyone in Eden got to live forever and not
Speaker 4: have to go through painful childbirth or.
Speaker 3: Work for a living.
Speaker 4: It was a pretty groovy trip until the whole Tree
Speaker 4: of Knowledge thing went down and Adam and Eve were expelled.
Speaker 4: Jonathan has here chosen to retell the story of Adam
Speaker 4: and Eve's kids, Cana and Abel, who were born after
Speaker 4: the expulsion, as an illustration of the very first Heavyweight,
Speaker 4: A Heavyweight in which two beefing brothers are reconciled by
Speaker 4: the Lord. On Heavyweight, the role of the Lord is
Speaker 4: played by Jonathan Goldstein. Ladies and Gentlemen Jonathan Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Back in those first days, things changed very quickly. A
Speaker 1: new person being born meant there was a giant spike
Speaker 1: in the population. For Cain, his younger brother Abel's birth
Speaker 1: made the planet feel lopsided. He watched Eve bounce able
Speaker 1: in her lap and felt the Earth's gravity tilt in
Speaker 1: their direction. It pulled at the insides of his stomach
Speaker 1: and made him seasick. Years later, Adam and Eve would
Speaker 1: have many more children, but just then there was only
Speaker 1: Cain and Abel. Because there was nobody else, the brothers
Speaker 1: grew close. They played each other's stomachs like snare drums,
Speaker 1: cracked each other's knuckles as though they were cracking their
Speaker 1: They were different though. Abel was a thinker. He thought
Speaker 1: about things. If he bit off his own pinky toe,
Speaker 1: would it grow back. Cain, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: a doer. He'd reel back his fist and break a
Speaker 1: donkey's nose for the sheer thrill of it all. One day,
Speaker 1: when Adam and Eve thought the children were old enough,
Speaker 1: they sat them down and told them about the screw up.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to die, asked Cain. We're not
Speaker 1: exactly sure, said Eve, but basically, one day, and this
Speaker 1: is not any day soon, we will no longer be.
Speaker 1: There was silence. Then Abel spoke up. If we won't be,
Speaker 1: he said, then we won't even know that we're not being.
Speaker 1: There will be no we to see that we can
Speaker 1: no longer be. Yes, I guess that's true, said their mother.
Speaker 1: Well put, Abel smiled and went back to mashing a
Speaker 1: mutton liver into patay. Cain, on the other hand, felt
Speaker 1: like a sharp Plumpit had been forcefully lodged down his throat.
Speaker 1: All his life, he had felt like himself, that his
Speaker 1: face and fingers, that his thoughts were his own. Now
Speaker 1: he felt like they were someone else's, someone who could
Speaker 1: yank them away at any chosen moment. Until then, it
Speaker 1: had never crossed his mind that such a thing could
Speaker 1: even be possible. The brothers continued to live their lives,
Speaker 1: but all the while Kine felt a new sadness. It
Speaker 1: ate with him, worked with him, and in the morning
Speaker 1: it raised from his bed with him dying. It just
Speaker 1: didn't make any sense. He knew this deep in his heart.
Speaker 1: He thought nothing was more important than making God change
Speaker 1: his mind. He began to take his sacrifices more seriously.
Speaker 1: They became elaborate and garish. They involved richly choreographed interpretive dances,
Speaker 1: colorful oblong facial masks, and the very best of his legomes.
Speaker 1: But God never answered. Cain started to change. When he
Speaker 1: got a splinter, he cursed the heavy, all out of proportion.
Speaker 1: Back in the garden of Eden, there were no splinters.
Speaker 1: He even started to resent his parents. He spoke of
Speaker 1: them as though they had gambled away his inheritance. If
Speaker 1: it hadn't been for dumb dumb number one, tempting dumb
Speaker 1: dumb number two, we'd be living in luxury. Kane tried
Speaker 1: to get Abel all worked up about the whole thing too.
Speaker 1: But Abel had an easy come, easy go, we all
Speaker 1: have to die someday attitude that drove his brother nuts.
Speaker 1: Cain invented a game he called it get the hell
Speaker 1: out of Eden. He always insisted on playing. God, get
Speaker 1: your naked asses out of here, yelled God, What but
Speaker 1: we just got here? Yelled at him and Eve. Maybe
Speaker 1: there's some kind of mistake. The Lord does not make mistakes.
Speaker 1: God would then kick his brother, who would fall to
Speaker 1: the ground.
Speaker 2: Please please have mercy on me.
Speaker 1: His brother would cry, Let's play something else, but God
Speaker 1: would only laugh. Abel also made sacrifices to God. Every week,
Speaker 1: he would choose the fattest sheep as an offering. Everything
Speaker 1: Abel did in life was for a reason. He ate
Speaker 1: so that he would not be hungry. He made clothes
Speaker 1: so that he would not be cooled. But making sacrifices
Speaker 1: to God, he did it for reasons he could never know.
Speaker 1: He did it simply because.
Speaker 2: He was told to. There was something about that that
Speaker 2: made him feel clean and deep.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve made their sacrifices, had a fear of
Speaker 1: being further punished, and Cain was pleading for answers and changes,
Speaker 1: but able fulfilled his obligation and walked away, expecting nothing
Speaker 1: from God. He was glad with the way things were,
Speaker 1: and God could not have helped.
Speaker 2: Liking that. Meanwhile, Cain decided to test out a.
Speaker 1: New approach with the Lord. He believed that God would
Speaker 1: have greater respect for him if he did not kowtow
Speaker 1: He's going to kill us, he thought. He wanted God
Speaker 1: to understand that he couldn't walk all over people and
Speaker 1: then still have them come crawling back with their arms
Speaker 1: loaded with gifts. Woh, they had to get tough. So
Speaker 1: Cain's sacrifices grew lackadaisical. He didn't even bother to check
Speaker 1: of his gifts were being received. That would look like
Speaker 1: he was caving. Then one day, while Cain was lying
Speaker 1: in a field, Abel came running over. God spoke to me,
Speaker 1: cried Abel. Cain sat up and looked at his brother.
Speaker 1: What did he say? He said, he was a great
Speaker 1: fan of my lamb chops. He told me to keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. Was my name mentioned, asked Cain.
Speaker 1: It didn't come up.
Speaker 2: What was it like to hear his voice? Ask Cain.
Speaker 1: Look at me, said Abel, I'm still shaking. There was
Speaker 1: a certain pang that Cain started to feel. It was
Speaker 1: in his stomach. He felt the pang grow sharpest when
Speaker 1: he looked upon his brother. He could hardly speak with
Speaker 1: him without having to hunch over in pain. Since the
Speaker 1: world was still new and no one had yet felt
Speaker 1: this way, Cain did not know that it was jealousy
Speaker 1: he was feeling. Instead, he decided that his stomach no
Speaker 1: longer wanted to be his stomach. It wanted to escape
Speaker 1: his rib cage. It wanted to be Able's stomach. This
Speaker 1: was because he wanted to be able. There was no
Speaker 1: shame in this. Being able meant being happy. Being Cain
Speaker 1: meant being wretched. He had a plan. He approached Able
Speaker 1: with it. He decided to just spring it on him.
Speaker 1: I am no longer Cain, he said, I am now able.
Speaker 1: We are both able, all right, said Abel. The two
Speaker 1: Ables performed routines for the amusement of their brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: How's that, Apple, Able? It's fine Able. But then one
Speaker 1: day Kine asked, if I am able, am I just
Speaker 1: as much able as you yourself are able? I suppose
Speaker 1: that's true, said Abel. Then before God, are we both
Speaker 1: not able?
Speaker 2: Asked Cain. Well in the case of being before God.
Speaker 1: I think at that time I would be able and
Speaker 1: you would go back to being Cain. Cain's eyes lingered
Speaker 1: on his breath. He looked at this other able as
Speaker 1: standing in the way of who he was. He was able.
Speaker 1: He knew this in his heart. He simply wanted it more.
Speaker 1: Abel was among his flock when Cain neared him. Slowly,
Speaker 1: Kane pulled out his rock, and slowly he lifted it
Speaker 1: into the air. This way God will have to show himself.
Speaker 1: This way, God will have to stop playing possum and
Speaker 1: get directly involved. These were Cain's thoughts. Still, though there
Speaker 1: was no sign of God. He looked at the back
Speaker 1: of Abel's head. Then he looked into the sky, just
Speaker 1: in case God was reading his mind. He thought to himself,
Speaker 1: I'm really really going to do it. He brought his
Speaker 1: rock down onto his brother's head. He could hear no
Speaker 1: sound at all. Abel just toppled over. He toppled over
Speaker 1: the way he did everything with an easy going acceptance.
Speaker 1: He sank to the earth, as though thinking I must fall,
Speaker 1: so I will fall.
Speaker 2: I am falling. I have fallen.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 1: It was death. Cain couldn't believe it. He'd been sure
Speaker 1: that at the last moment, God would step in. He'd
Speaker 1: have thought only God could take a person's life, But
Speaker 1: it was as simple as killing a sheep. Abel his
Speaker 1: eyes wide and unblinking, stared directly into the mystery of
Speaker 1: life and death, and he was not saying a word
Speaker 1: about any of it. The sheep continued to graze, and
Speaker 1: the sun continued to shine. There were no bolts of lightning,
Speaker 1: no booming voice from behind the clouds. Life went on.
Speaker 1: That night, God appeared before Cain in a dream. Where
Speaker 1: is your brother? Asked God. It's always about my brother,
Speaker 1: said Cain. You ever ask where I am? No that
Speaker 1: you don't think of.
Speaker 2: What have you done?
Speaker 1: Asked God? Am I my brother's keeper, asked Cain. God
Speaker 1: did not answer, He just gave him a look. It
Speaker 1: made Cain feel naked and small. He then felt the
Speaker 1: finger of God upon his forehead. It sank through his
Speaker 1: head and into his brain, where it spoke. The earth
Speaker 1: shall scorn you, said the voice from the finger. I
Speaker 1: shall scorn you. You will wander the earth and death
Speaker 1: will not come. There will be no escape. All will
Speaker 1: look upon you, and none will dare kill you, for
Speaker 1: they will know you by your mark. God withdrew his finger,
Speaker 1: leaving behind a fingerprint on Cain's forehead. It was shaped
Speaker 1: like a teardrop. At first, he tried to convince himself
Speaker 1: that the mark was to protect him, that he had
Speaker 1: a secret pact with God, that they understood each other.
Speaker 2: For a while, he would wake.
Speaker 1: Up in the morning and pretend to be immortal and famous,
Speaker 1: but he was not very good at pretending. As the
Speaker 1: centuries passed, Cain abandoned farming and roam the earth. He
Speaker 1: walked with a sense of purpose, just in case anyone
Speaker 1: was watching, but in his heart he knew he had
Speaker 1: nowhere to go. He became so lonely and full of
Speaker 1: regret that instead of fearing death, he became yearnful of it.
Speaker 1: He would chase after bears, and they would scamper away.
Speaker 1: They haven't the guts, He'd say, run cowards, He'd call
Speaker 1: after the tigers, look at me, He'd cry into the
Speaker 1: face of an alligator as he tried in vain to
Speaker 1: pry open its jaws. More centuries passed, and Cain's desire
Speaker 1: for death became nearly constant. He would think about able
Speaker 1: up in heaven, paling around with God flying through the
Speaker 1: clouds on God's shoulders, while he was left to putts
Speaker 1: around for hundreds of years, begging his own children to
Speaker 1: drive sharpened branches through his heart. In life, Cain had
Speaker 1: been jealous of his brother, but it was in death
Speaker 1: that he became more jealous than he ever thought possible.
Speaker 1: Over time, Cain could no longer remember very much at all.
Speaker 1: Twenty years after the death of his brother, it seemed
Speaker 1: like it was only yesterday, But after two hundred years
Speaker 1: it felt like something that might have happened in a dream.
Speaker 1: There were details he remembered that now seemed improbable, like
Speaker 1: the way he saw his brother's soul leave his body,
Speaker 1: and the way he'd waved goodbye to him and winked.
Speaker 1: After three hundred and four hundred years at all felt
Speaker 1: so long ago that who he was back then felt
Speaker 1: like someone else. When people he met asked him questions
Speaker 1: about the old days, he just made stuff up.
Speaker 2: We had wings, he said.
Speaker 1: After five hundred years, his story was repeated so often
Speaker 1: that he only remembered the repeating, not the events themselves.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a fable, something that might have just
Speaker 1: as easily happened to a fox and a rabbit. As
Speaker 1: to himself and his brother, he began to doubt everything.
Speaker 1: He even began to wonder whether he had actually ever
Speaker 1: heard God's voice, whether the mark on his forehead was
Speaker 1: the mark of God and not just another liver spot.
Speaker 1: Was this a part of the punishment? He wondered to
Speaker 1: be left so uncertain of whether God really was or
Speaker 1: whether God was only something inside his own head. After
Speaker 1: seven hundred years, when he told the story to himself
Speaker 1: or heard it told by others, he felt nothing. He
Speaker 1: was too old to feel guilt or remorse or anything.
Speaker 1: He didn't even miss his brother anymore. He wanted nothing
Speaker 1: from God. He wanted nothing from the world. The world
Speaker 1: was what it was. He didn't need it to change.
Speaker 1: And in this way he finally got his wish to
Speaker 1: be just like Abel. And then God let him die.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: After the break a Q and A with Stevie, Khalila
Speaker 1: and Me, But first our producer Phoebe headed to the
Speaker 1: Wall of Regrets to see what regrets were trending.
Speaker 6: Can I ask you about you regret?
Speaker 3: I just really regret not going to see the catacombs
Speaker 3: when I was in Paris. I really like skulls. I
Speaker 3: wish i'd called me.
Speaker 7: I regret that I didn't pay enough in contact with
Speaker 7: certain friends of mine who are like religious and are
Speaker 7: now getting married. So I'm not getting invited to the weddings,
Speaker 7: and god do I want to be at the weddings
Speaker 7: just because I really like wedding.
Speaker 5: Do you guys mind just reading these aloud for me,
Speaker 5: like some of the ones that you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, find a therapist, staying night for reason, not being.
Speaker 3: More patient with my mother's cognitive decline, lacking patience with
Speaker 3: my brother's behavior than he died. How I said goodbye
Speaker 3: to my best friend before he died.
Speaker 1: I wish I joined the band.
Speaker 4: So now we are going to move into the Q
Speaker 4: and A portion of our event today, and I'd like
Speaker 4: to welcome to the stage, Khalila Holt and Stevie Lane,
Speaker 4: the producers of the show.
Speaker 3: Hi, Hello, Hi everybody, Hello, Hi bye all.
Speaker 4: So we asked you questions that you wanted to hear
Speaker 4: the Heavyweight team answer about the show, and we got
Speaker 4: so many. I think we are also going to have
Speaker 4: a little bit of time today to do some audience
Speaker 4: Q and A. Kicking things off with our Q and A. Here,
Speaker 4: what does Jonathan and Jackie's off show relationship really.
Speaker 6: Look like.
Speaker 1: Should I take this one?
Speaker 3: It's about you?
Speaker 1: So yeah, but you might have a more objective window.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty accurate glimpse into our dynamic.
Speaker 1: We've been friends since childhood. She likes to laugh at
Speaker 1: me and hang up and I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean the first time I met Jackie,
Speaker 3: I remember, we really bonded because over like she was like,
Speaker 3: isn't he annoying? And I was like, yeah, I feel
Speaker 3: like that made her like me.
Speaker 6: The first time I met Jackie, I was like, I
Speaker 6: want to be you and I grow up. She's very powerful.
Speaker 6: It's a very powerful person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she's a really nice person too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't I just bring out the worst in her.
Speaker 1: It's not her fault. I don't think she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a doctor, she helps people, she does good works. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I just bother her, you know. So I hope
Speaker 1: it's bringing some levity to her life. But truly, I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: But she was For the people who don't know, the
Speaker 3: backstory is well, just that you went to school together
Speaker 3: and she was like a popular girl.
Speaker 2: She was very popular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you really want to go deep on the backstory,
Speaker 1: I did a I did a story about a relationship
Speaker 1: on This American Life called The Allure of the Mean Friend,
Speaker 1: and I just talked to people about what Jackie Cohen
Speaker 1: meant in grade school and in junior high, and she
Speaker 1: meant a lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was the hardest episode to record?
Speaker 3: And why slash? Which call has you the most nervous
Speaker 3: to dial? I was the most nervous calling sorority girls
Speaker 3: for Rose, they were very I remember there was like
Speaker 3: a Facebook thread where they were like a sketchy sounding
Speaker 3: woman left us a message and I was like, I
Speaker 3: thought I sounded really nice and normal.
Speaker 8: I think for me, it was very early and when
Speaker 8: I just joined the show and you guys were working
Speaker 8: on a story at the time, and you were trying
Speaker 8: to find this two or three fingered man who had
Speaker 8: hung up on you many times, and I was just
Speaker 8: like new and bright eyed, and I was like, what
Speaker 8: can I do to help? And John then was like,
Speaker 8: you could try calling this guy. And I called him
Speaker 8: and he told me he would find out where I lived.
Speaker 6: And killed me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a rite of passage, Like everybody
Speaker 1: who's new on the show had to call. His name
Speaker 1: is Carl, But yeah, that would have been a good
Speaker 1: story too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the one where he finds me and murders me.
Speaker 2: He threatened to kill me. All it's just that's Karl, and.
Speaker 3: You've got a true crime serious, you know, Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: My hardest call was there was an episode where I
Speaker 1: was trying to find out about my psychiatrist that I
Speaker 1: had when I was a teenager and find out if
Speaker 1: she was a really good psychiatrist or you just don't
Speaker 1: know with a psychiatrist because it's so it's so sealed off,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't get or do you get great
Speaker 1: yelp ratings? Maybe now you do, back then you didn't.
Speaker 1: And I remembered someone that used to be in the
Speaker 1: waiting room when I would leave. He was a professor
Speaker 1: I once had when I was in college, and I
Speaker 1: thought maybe I can ask him, and so I had
Speaker 1: to call him and say, hey, I used to see
Speaker 1: you in the waiting room of my psychiatrist thirty odd
Speaker 1: years ago. That was very weird. That was even for me,
Speaker 1: that felt very weird. He was he had retired, he
Speaker 1: was living in Jamaica. That was a weird one who.
Speaker 4: Is a dream celebrity whose problem you'd want to solve.
Speaker 8: Oh so, Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan of the show,
Speaker 8: and all that I want is to reunite her with
Speaker 8: Kim Katrol And I email her agent every year when
Speaker 8: we're looking for stories, and I'm like just checking in,
Speaker 8: like wondering if Sarah has anybody.
Speaker 6: She maybe like needs to reconcile with. I should given
Speaker 6: it any thought. So far, she's been too busy. But
Speaker 6: now that in just like that is over, I feel
Speaker 6: like she might have more time.
Speaker 4: Perfect time, anybody else.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Celebrities don't have problems, do they.
Speaker 9: Aggie has one?
Speaker 3: Oh Augie, do you yeah?
Speaker 6: Who did you just say?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Kenya Klamar and Drake.
Speaker 1: Aggie is my son and he's a very big rap fan.
Speaker 1: He wants to see me reconcile the.
Speaker 3: Whole huge numbers for us.
Speaker 6: That's a idea, perfect for audio.
Speaker 3: So a good idea.
Speaker 1: Actually, I know, like why can't you Fellas just because
Speaker 1: that whole super Bowl thing was really out of hand.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was that was rough.
Speaker 4: We maybe have an opening for a new assistant producer,
Speaker 4: Aki lock In.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's going to be nine.
Speaker 3: Part time. He can balance it with school.
Speaker 4: Okay, Sometimes it seems like there's no progress or revelation
Speaker 4: to someone's journey until weeks or months later. How does
Speaker 4: the team maintain the morale to not be discouraged and years.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I am discouraged most of the time.
Speaker 3: I think I don't maintain the morale, would be my answer.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I sort of feel like I think I have
Speaker 8: the attitude that just like I just believe it actually
Speaker 8: will always work out, because I think we've there have
Speaker 8: been a lot of stories that we've thought were dead
Speaker 8: and then like years later or something changes, we get
Speaker 8: back in touch, whatever, and then they end up happening.
Speaker 6: So I just I think, I just it's blind optimism.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, I think Stevie brings up something
Speaker 3: for all of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have your work cut out. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I For me, it's desperation. It's always that. That's what
Speaker 1: passes for hope, I think is the desperation.
Speaker 4: If you could expand any episode into a season long series,
Speaker 4: which one would you revisit and what avenues would you
Speaker 4: take to further explore within that story?
Speaker 3: Well, do you remember when we did that like two
Speaker 3: day Descent into Madness where we laid out that whole whiteboard.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, well that yeah again desperation. I mean
Speaker 1: it came about the shorthand that we were using. We
Speaker 1: were gonna s town it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were like, this is gonna be our town,
Speaker 3: this is gonna be our sun.
Speaker 8: Just became a verb that it was like, we're gonna
Speaker 8: sk town this season.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just felt like none of our stories were
Speaker 1: working out. But we thought that like you're too young
Speaker 1: to get the reference to the love boat, but like
Speaker 1: where you're visiting different characters, thank you, you know, like
Speaker 1: we couldn't solve the story, but like maybe from week
Speaker 1: to week we can drift from character to character and
Speaker 1: like keep working on them and like tangle them all
Speaker 1: up together.
Speaker 6: And then nobody would notice that none of them happened.
Speaker 3: But truly, we spent like I think two whole days
Speaker 3: laying out like what the structure would look like, and
Speaker 3: then at the end of the two days, we were
Speaker 3: like this is insane, and we just erased the wayboard.
Speaker 1: I think it might have been more than two days. Really,
Speaker 1: it felt like a sizable chunk of time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. There's like my friends, I don't know where
Speaker 1: they are. The air Licks are here, Gregor.
Speaker 2: And is, Yeah, you're right to gasp and.
Speaker 1: His brother Dimitri And I mean, I feel like we
Speaker 1: could do a season of just like called the air Licks,
Speaker 1: where there would be so many good stories, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when people are increasingly concerned about privacy, how do
Speaker 4: you get people to speak to you and spill their
Speaker 4: hearts out on tape?
Speaker 3: Well, I have noticed a lot more people do the
Speaker 3: I thought it was a scam, so I didn't answer you.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if people actually think we're running
Speaker 3: some elaborate, confusing scam or if that's kind of just
Speaker 3: like a shorthand for like I didn't want to respond
Speaker 3: to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because what kind of scam would it be? Really?
Speaker 1: Not a very good one, like a real long con Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also people don't answer the phone anyway. People
Speaker 3: will answern on no number. I feel like that's changed
Speaker 3: even just in the time we've been doing the show,
Speaker 3: Like people used to pick up a lot more.
Speaker 8: Yeah, how do we convince them to talk once they
Speaker 8: once they do pick up the phone.
Speaker 3: My feeling is like people are either inclined to do
Speaker 3: it or not, and it doesn't matter that much what
Speaker 3: you say, like they kind of have already made up
Speaker 3: their mind.
Speaker 1: But that's true. Yeah, have you ever actually convinced anybody
Speaker 1: like where they.
Speaker 3: Didn't not like a hard no to a yes. I've
Speaker 3: had people who are on the fence like then they
Speaker 3: think about it, agree, but.
Speaker 2: You the most was maybe.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys remember the Sky the
Speaker 1: story about Sky who had her best friends they wrote
Speaker 1: the F word on her garage door. I'm saying the
Speaker 1: F word because my son's here and it would excite
Speaker 1: him too much. And one of the girls who were
Speaker 1: a part of it, she didn't want to talk, and
Speaker 1: we spoke a lot. We had many conversations over several days,
Speaker 1: and eventually she agreed to do it. And she agreed
Speaker 1: to do it for a really nice reason, like she
Speaker 1: wanted to show her daughter that it's okay, like you
Speaker 1: could comp to something that you did that you're not
Speaker 1: proud of, you know, And that was really sweet.
Speaker 6: I also there was also Chris in the Barbara episode.
Speaker 8: Yeah right, that was real that We did a two
Speaker 8: parter about Jonathan's mother in law's childhood friend and in
Speaker 8: trying to find her, we ended up on the phone
Speaker 8: with someone she'd been briefly engaged to when she was younger,
Speaker 8: and at first like he didn't want to talk to
Speaker 8: the I mean, he was like threatening legal action.
Speaker 6: He was like, my daughter's a lawyer, like I'm gonna
Speaker 6: come after you.
Speaker 1: I don't want them any.
Speaker 8: Party like it was, and it was very I was
Speaker 8: producing Jonathan on the call, and it was like I
Speaker 8: found it very scary, having flashbacks to the three fingered
Speaker 8: man kind of and you just kind of kept him
Speaker 8: talking like that was the You just kind of kept
Speaker 8: him talking. And I remember we got off the phone.
Speaker 8: I was like, what made you do that? And you
Speaker 8: were like, I just have the feeling that he actually
Speaker 8: wants to talk about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 6: He called back and was like, yeah, I do want.
Speaker 1: To talk about this. So it was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was like just I felt like it was kind
Speaker 1: of like the phone call that he'd been waiting for
Speaker 1: for for like thirty odd years or more.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It just I don't know, it just had that kind
Speaker 1: of feeling to it.
Speaker 4: So I'm I've been very excited to ask you guys
Speaker 4: this question.
Speaker 3: Who would play you?
Speaker 4: And have do you eat the movie?
Speaker 3: I do have an answers which is just my stock answer,
Speaker 3: who would play me in a movie? Which is Aubrey Palaza.
Speaker 6: Oh that's so good.
Speaker 1: I mean I think you know, in my mind, I'm
Speaker 1: like a very lanky, tall, sort of like Johnny Knoxville type,
Speaker 1: but I know that it would end up being like
Speaker 1: Walla Sean. Who you know? Maybe it Paul Giametti. I
Speaker 1: don't know you.
Speaker 8: Uh, I really don't know how.
Speaker 6: You might have to come back on this one.
Speaker 4: Okay, we'll come back to you on that.
Speaker 6: Hey everyone, it's me Stevie.
Speaker 8: So this question continued to haunt me for weeks until
Speaker 8: I finally decided till this Winton.
Speaker 6: There's more Q and A coming up right after the break.
Speaker 1: Our live event also featured a telephone, but unlike all
Speaker 1: those boring ordinary telephones that only let you reach businesses, institutions,
Speaker 1: and private residences, this telephone only allowed you to reach me,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Goldstein, and not even me really, but my answering machine.
Speaker 1: When you picked up the receiver, you heard a message
Speaker 1: prompting you to record your own heavyweight story. And you
Speaker 1: sure showed me, because record those stories you did.
Speaker 10: Hi, you've reached Jonathan Goldstein. I'm not at home right
Speaker 10: now because I'm in the middle of the live performance
Speaker 10: of a lifetime. But in the meantime, leave a message
Speaker 10: with your story. Don't overthink it. Just do the job.
Speaker 10: Do the job, Do the job. Don't say no, say yes.
Speaker 1: I was ghosted by every single male member of my
Speaker 1: high school class, and I don't know if I did
Speaker 1: something I thought all these people like me, I certainly
Speaker 1: like them.
Speaker 11: Found out that my dad was married beforehand. That was
Speaker 11: an arranged marriage. So I'm an Indian and it's very
Speaker 11: unique or very rare to get divorced during an arranged marriage.
Speaker 11: Definitely cause risks between my dad and the community.
Speaker 5: I would say that I'm not a very imaginative person.
Speaker 5: I enjoy logic. And I went to bed one night
Speaker 5: and I had a dream that my grandmother had died.
Speaker 5: Randomly told my friends at breakfast, and they were like
Speaker 5: just trying to do the forty and thing of like
Speaker 5: what could that mean, and me sort of just blowing
Speaker 5: them off, being like dreams don't mean anything. And then
Speaker 5: about four hours later, I received a call from my
Speaker 5: sister saying, hey, like sorry to tell you, but grandma died.
Speaker 6: Hi.
Speaker 1: My name is Dmitri Rlik.
Speaker 12: My story is once I was invited out to a
Speaker 12: bachelor party and we went out in Lawera Manhattan to
Speaker 12: Chinatown to a Chinese massage parlor and we had wonderful
Speaker 12: foot massages, and you, Jonathan, were doing an incredible job
Speaker 12: of pretending that it was painful because it felt great
Speaker 12: in every way. So my question is, have you ever
Speaker 12: considered doing any theatrical acting, either in film or television
Speaker 12: or on stages, because you're obviously quite a gifted Espian.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 12: Oh i'm mc gregor's brother, by.
Speaker 2: The way, And now back to the Q and A.
Speaker 1: Q and A stands for questions and answers.
Speaker 4: If Jonathan and Gregor could only listen to one movie
Speaker 4: song on repeat during a road trip, which one would
Speaker 4: it be?
Speaker 1: Well, Gregor, should we turn the house lights up? What
Speaker 1: would be the song?
Speaker 2: Gregor?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 2: Could would you stand up so people can?
Speaker 1: I don't know where we're going on.
Speaker 2: You have to figure out why we're on a road
Speaker 2: trip together.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let's say we were gonna go to
Speaker 1: Frontier Town together. I don't know, like something fun.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can imagine fighting with you about the radio on
Speaker 1: a road trip. How about that for an answer, like
Speaker 1: fighting over which Mobie song we would listen to? Exactly
Speaker 1: all the movie's greatest hits movies play Moby movie mob
Speaker 1: but you do you do listen to mobi songs?
Speaker 11: Now? Imten repeat?
Speaker 2: All I listened to is movie.
Speaker 1: Actually I have a question for you, because you gid
Speaker 1: said you're going to take Q and A from the audience. Well,
Speaker 1: was that all spontaneous stuff that you guys were really
Speaker 1: just wing it? Or did you already have your prefab
Speaker 1: like no, messed off the cuff like jazz?
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice singers, Thank you? Is it was that your question?
Speaker 2: Or yeah? I was curious, more like Ivy Stanley Tucci.
Speaker 2: You know, Okay, all right, thank you, Yeah, that's very nice.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'd like the sounds you're making of support.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 4: Gregor is correct. We are shifting into audience Q and
Speaker 4: A portion, So there are a couple of mics around.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 14: I think I'm the biggest fan. Now, So Jonathan, you
Speaker 14: recently had that episode about stopping drinking, and then, because
Speaker 14: I'm your biggest fan of Heavyweight, you had that live
Speaker 14: event episode where they alluded to how you needed a
Speaker 14: drink before you spoke, how it would help you. So
Speaker 14: I was just wondering tonight. Yeah, yeah, what's going on
Speaker 14: and how it is.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm lit, I'm I'm tanked. No, I uh yeah,
Speaker 1: this might be the first time I'm doing this.
Speaker 5: Guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes me a little nervous, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: haven't had anything to drink. And I Emma, by the way,
Speaker 1: I are you guys friends? Oh, you're just sitting beside
Speaker 1: each other. Emma mixes our episodes. She's the sound engineer
Speaker 1: and composes music.
Speaker 2: Emma munder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh yeah.
Speaker 2: It was definitely in my thoughts because I used to, like,
Speaker 2: I used to really like to do that.
Speaker 1: I have a drinker two or three before talking and
Speaker 1: a couple afterwards. So yeah, I'm just I'm free balling it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, And it was definitely a nuanced view of
Speaker 14: stopping drinking, like is it better?
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 1: Some days. I was saying last night to my friend Alex, Uh,
Speaker 1: I was saying, I miss that feeling of like that
Speaker 1: everything is all right, Everything's going to be okay, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, which is like a little like,
Speaker 1: but you got to figure it, like, you have to
Speaker 1: manifest that. You have to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: that feeling on your own. You know, it's not real.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm still working.
Speaker 6: On that and it is going to be all right.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 9: Everyone, I'm just going to reflect based off of that
Speaker 9: episode as well. I just recently lost your friend alcoholism
Speaker 9: and sorry. Your episode was really touching because it was
Speaker 9: a way to externalize and even open up those conversations.
Speaker 9: And I sent it to our friends group and it
Speaker 9: helped us a lot too. So thank you for being
Speaker 9: honest and open.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that. That's really that's encouraging to hear.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 9: Yeah. My question is, I'm sure there's stories that are
Speaker 9: just in the vault, still being worked on year after
Speaker 9: a year. Can you share a little bit of what's
Speaker 9: currently still being in development or if there's a story
Speaker 9: that you really wish can have see the light of
Speaker 9: data at some point.
Speaker 1: It's a good question. I don't know anything come to mind.
Speaker 3: I'm like scared to talk about any of them because
Speaker 3: I'm afraid I'm going to like doom them to never happen.
Speaker 3: But there are ones that I really.
Speaker 1: You're hopeful of that.
Speaker 3: That I would like love. Yeah, I've came back to life.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Sometimes you have like all the elements and
Speaker 1: you're it's very exciting, and then this one person doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk and yeah, you know, so it's it's
Speaker 1: weird model to be basing things on that.
Speaker 3: That's how I felt about why I'm like hedging a
Speaker 3: little bit, is that's how I felt about The Messenger,
Speaker 3: which is when we just did this season, like when
Speaker 3: we got laid off from Spotify, I did not forward
Speaker 3: the emails to myself because I was like, this story
Speaker 3: is dead, so I don't need these. And then it
Speaker 3: came back to life.
Speaker 1: So we never thought we'd get to talk to If
Speaker 1: you listen to the episode, Pat Crochy who we needed
Speaker 1: to talk to, and it just seemed like he wasn't
Speaker 1: going to do it.
Speaker 3: And then and Quinces, you had told us to no, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then it was like a friend of a friend
Speaker 1: over dinner, and you know it was this true serendipity.
Speaker 1: We got really lucky.
Speaker 15: Yeah, when you all are listening to recordings of yourselves
Speaker 15: doing interviews or having conversations with people. Have you learned
Speaker 15: that you have certain conversational habits that you've tried to
Speaker 15: alter or emphasize.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I noticed that I laugh when
Speaker 3: I'm nervous in the middle of things that are not funny,
Speaker 3: and that's like something I've tried to stop, especially when
Speaker 3: I'm interviewing someone on like a serious topic. You know,
Speaker 3: sometimes you like ask you a question and then you
Speaker 3: kind of laugh when you're uncomfortable, and then when I'm
Speaker 3: cutting it, I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I've tried to stop doing that.
Speaker 1: I'll just say I have the exact opposite problem. I
Speaker 1: can't laugh like I I wish I did laugh more easily,
Speaker 1: and I wish I had a free and easy laugh
Speaker 1: that told people like it's funny, that's great, keep coming,
Speaker 1: you know. So I wish I had a little.
Speaker 5: Bit of that.
Speaker 6: I will.
Speaker 8: Pitch my voice up, especially i'm calling people to interview them,
Speaker 8: and I hate it.
Speaker 6: I hate it so much. And when I listen back,
Speaker 6: it's like, Hi, I'm Stevie, I'm calling from the podcast.
Speaker 8: Heavyweight, and like it's like it's very and then like
Speaker 8: the tape doesn't even sound like me, Like the difference
Speaker 8: between the that I'm really trying to work on not doing.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's encouraging in something I learned
Speaker 3: from you, Jonathan is whenever I do something really stupid
Speaker 3: and embarrassing and tape, rather than cutting it out and
Speaker 3: trying to hide it, I'm like, well, that's going to
Speaker 3: be a front and center in the story.
Speaker 1: You're embarrassing yourself for work, for a higher purpose.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Most people go through their lives, you know, just embarrassing
Speaker 1: themselves willy nilly for nothing.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but for me, it's for art.
Speaker 13: My question is, I've noticed a lot of the episodes
Speaker 13: feature like interpersonal friendship relationships, focusing on like really deep
Speaker 13: platonic relationships over years. So how and Gregor and then
Speaker 13: when you went to pilates with your friend or like
Speaker 13: things like that, And I just love that. And what's
Speaker 13: your like advice for friendship longevity?
Speaker 1: You guys haven't lived long enough to answer that question.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't have any friends, so.
Speaker 1: I think it helps to be amused. And like I
Speaker 1: was saying, I'm not an easy laugh but I do.
Speaker 1: Gregor really makes me laugh when he's busting my chops.
Speaker 1: If you get a kick out of that, then then
Speaker 1: you're unstoppable. I mean, what's gonna you know, what's going
Speaker 1: to destroy you?
Speaker 2: Nothing?
Speaker 3: I say, I don't know that I have an answer.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm very I do have some long friendships,
Speaker 3: including my friend I went to Polaateius with, But I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I don't know why they're still
Speaker 3: my friends, but I'm grateful for it.
Speaker 1: You're a good person, is why.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks, Jeng.
Speaker 2: Sure I didn't mean to, you know, bring the place down, and.
Speaker 1: I haven't had contemporary side.
Speaker 4: Well, grab a drink, say hello and thank you again
Speaker 4: for coming.
Speaker 1: And thank you for coming virtually, and thanks to everyone
Speaker 1: who made the show possible. That includes Phoebe Flanagan, Kira Posey,
Speaker 1: Tara Machado, Amy Hagadorn, Jordan McMillan, Eric Sandler, Sarah Bruguer,
Speaker 1: and especially Morgan Ratner. Live sound mixing from the staff
Speaker 1: of Caveat and mixing for this broadcast version by Emma Monger.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with a brand new episode,
Speaker 1: an unlive episode the regular Old Kind