#42 Mark

Speaker 2 Hello, Stevie Lane.

Speaker 1 Hi, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 So, you've been a producer at the show how long now?

Speaker 1 Four, four and a half years.

Speaker 2 And how many times have you watched me strut into the studio, grab hold of the microphone, and thought to yourself, I could do that. Today is your day for all of that.
I am asking you to take over

Speaker 2 forever for For an episode,

Speaker 2 I have for you a Stevie Lane exclusive.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 It takes place in the art world. And you are an artist?

Speaker 1 I make jewelry.

Speaker 2 You make earrings? I do. You make regular rings?

Speaker 5 I make regular rings.

Speaker 2 Have you ever made a toe ring?

Speaker 1 I've never made a toe ring.

Speaker 2 How about a toe ring connected to a chain that runs to the belly button ring?

Speaker 1 That seems... That seems dangerous.

Speaker 1 I hope that this has nothing to do with the story you've brought me to know.

Speaker 6 No, but it's about art. It's about art.

Speaker 1 Do I get to introduce the show?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 Hit me.

Speaker 1 From Gimlet Media, I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight.

Speaker 10 That was great.

Speaker 2 Just maybe like a little more energy, a little brighter, like you're baptizing a ship. Like you're calling bingo numbers.
Project your voice all the way to the back of the room.

Speaker 5 From Gimlet Media,

Speaker 6 I'm Stevie Lane, and this

Speaker 11 from Gimlet Media, I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Mark,

Speaker 11 right after the break.

Speaker 12 This is an iHeart podcast

Speaker 11 on Fox One.

Speaker 9 you can stream your favorite news, sports, and entertainment live, all in one app.

Speaker 11 It's

Speaker 13 in unfiltered.

Speaker 11 This is the best thing ever.

Speaker 13 Watch breaking news as it breaks. Breaking tonight, we're following two major stories.

Speaker 13 And catch history in the making.

Speaker 10 Candy, meet Freddy, debates,

Speaker 4 drama, touchdowns.

Speaker 13 It's all here, baby. Fox One.
We live for live.

Speaker 4 Streaming now.

Speaker 16 In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that.

Speaker 16 They're now the best network, according to the experts at OoCla Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

Speaker 16 That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com.
Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S. where you can see the sky.

Speaker 16 Best network based on analysis by OOCLA of SpeedTest Intelligence Data 1H 2025.

Speaker 17 There's more to San Francisco with the Chronicle.

Speaker 3 There's more food for thought, more thought for food.

Speaker 17 There's more data insights to help with those day-to-day choices. There's more to the weather than whether it's going to rain.

Speaker 17 And with our arts and entertainment coverage, you won't just get out more, you'll get more out of it. At the Chronicle, knowing more about San Francisco is our passion.

Speaker 17 Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

Speaker 4 Boop, here. I'm here.

Speaker 11 This is Mark. And here is Michigan, where he lives and works as an artist.
His studio is littered with spools of wire and buckets of paint and huge paper-mâché heads. Because Mark makes giant puppets.

Speaker 11 How are you doing today?

Speaker 6 Better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Speaker 11 Mark is a lot like a puppet. He's goofy and enjoys joking around.
He even sounds like a puppet.

Speaker 11 But before Mark started making puppets, his dream was to be a famous painter. It's a dream he missed out on by only an inch.
Literally. One inch.

Speaker 11 Mark's story begins 40 years ago. He was in college, studying fine art.

Speaker 8 And part of the program was that you got to go to New York City and apprentice with an artist. And this was supposed to be a kind of launching point for your career.

Speaker 11 This would be Mark's chance to work alongside a real artist, someone who would help him make connections and eventually get discovered.

Speaker 11 So the fall of his senior year, Mark set off to New York City in pursuit of his dream.

Speaker 9 This was 1981, and New York was just almost a caricature of itself.

Speaker 8 It was like, you know, I got there during a garbage strike.

Speaker 9 So when I arrived, the streets were literally filled with piles of garbage 10, 12, 15 feet high, right?

Speaker 9 I remember my first day I got there and I put all my clothes in the washing machine of this, you know, fleabag hotel they put us up in.

Speaker 9 And I went down to get my clothes and they were all stolen, right?

Speaker 8 So I was like, I guess I'll be wearing these clothes I have on for um eternity

Speaker 11 so it was in these clothes that mark showed up for the first day of his apprenticeship with an artist named joe zucker whose art today can be found in the collections at moma the met and the smithsonian joe's studio was in a tribeca loft where he lived with his girlfriend When I first showed up to Joe's studio, I brought my portfolio with me.

Speaker 9 You know, I don't know what I thought they were going to do.

Speaker 6 Like, oh my God, your art's so great.

Speaker 8 Here, take over for Joe. You know, like

Speaker 11 Joe did not ask Mark to take over for him. He didn't seem very impressed by Mark's portfolio or by Mark.

Speaker 9 From the get-go, I just didn't get off on a very good foot, you know, like if you go into a room and you can just tell like someone's told a story and it's not in your favor.

Speaker 11 Had they had apprentices before or were you there for?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah, they made that clear.

Speaker 8 They had somebody right before me who was great, you know.

Speaker 6 Richard, he was the best.

Speaker 8 I can never live up to whoever this mythical person was.

Speaker 10 So it was intimidating.

Speaker 11 But most intimidating of all was Joe's girlfriend.

Speaker 4 Britta LeVay.

Speaker 11 Britta LeVay, as glamorous as her name.

Speaker 8 My sense was that her job.

Speaker 9 was to be a firewall between anybody else and Joe and his work.

Speaker 8 You know, she was kind of a gatekeeper. And honestly,

Speaker 9 I don't think she liked me.

Speaker 11 At the time Mark showed up on his doorstep, Joe Zucker had been hard at work for months on a series of 15 six by six foot paintings about boxing, each representing a round and a match.

Speaker 11 And the 15 completed works were to be displayed in a solo show at the Holly Solomon Gallery.

Speaker 11 The self-proclaimed princess of pop art, Holly Solomon launched the careers of artists like Robert Maplethorpe and was famously the subject of an iconic portrait by Andy Warhol.

Speaker 11 She was a tastemaker in the New York art world and had recently set her sights on Joe.

Speaker 8 So this was a big deal.

Speaker 9 These one-person shows could make or break you. You get plenty after that or could be the end of your career.

Speaker 11 Joe tasked Mark with building the wooden frames that would go around the paintings.

Speaker 9 It was labor-intensive, but completely brainless. You know, he just needed something to keep me occupied.

Speaker 11 A few weeks into Mark's apprenticeship, it came time for the show at Holly Solomon's. Joe and Britta were moving the paintings to the gallery, and Mark came to help pack them into the truck.

Speaker 9 But when I arrived that day, there was tension in the air. I could tell something wasn't right.
And it turns out that the paintings are too big to fit down the freight elevator.

Speaker 8 You know, it's sort of like we built this boat in a basement, right, and then tried to get it out.

Speaker 18 And nowhere along the way did someone go, hey, you know what?

Speaker 8 That elevator is about the same size as these paintings.

Speaker 10 Maybe we should check this out, make sure they fit.

Speaker 11 How close was it?

Speaker 8 My guess is they did fit before the frames were put on.

Speaker 11 That is, those frames that Mark had built, They were one inch thick and they made the paintings one inch too wide.

Speaker 11 The paintings were also too big for the stairwell, so Mark says Joe and Britta were frantic, trying to figure out another way to get them down from the fifth floor.

Speaker 11 They had a number of increasingly outlandish ideas, like removing a window and getting a crane to lift them out, or busting a hole in the side of the building with a wrecking ball.

Speaker 8 It was hairbrained.

Speaker 9 I mean, let's just be honest here. That was not a good idea.

Speaker 8 But the next idea wasn't so great either, and it was my idea, it turns out.

Speaker 11 While Joe and Britta argued, Mark went over to the elevator. It was an old elevator, the kind with caged accordion doors you had to manually shut.

Speaker 11 It didn't even have buttons, just two ropes, one for up and one for down.

Speaker 11 Mark opened the cage doors and paced out.

Speaker 6 And I was like, wait a second, these paintings will fit.

Speaker 9 We can't put all 15 in at once, but we could take them one at a time. We just got to put them in on a diagonal.

Speaker 6 And they stuck out a little bit, right? So you couldn't close the accordion doors.

Speaker 8 But I saw that there were some latches where if we pushed those latches, it would fool the elevator into thinking the doors were closed.

Speaker 11 Mark laid out his plan. And to his surprise, Joe agreed to give it a go.
And how did you feel? I mean, were you sort of like...

Speaker 8 I was totally triumphant. What a great idea.

Speaker 6 I saved the day.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, they were about to smash a hole in this building.

Speaker 11 So Mark and Joe brought the first painting into the elevator.

Speaker 11 mark stood on one side of the painting joe on the other they couldn't see each other over the top joe and mark each held the caged accordion doors open to accommodate the slightly too large frame then mark reached for the rope and we start to go down

Speaker 11 and we're going down a couple of floors and i'm like oh this is gonna be great For the first time since starting his apprenticeship, Mark felt useful.

Speaker 4 And then.

Speaker 11 And then.

Speaker 6 On one of the floors, the landing stuck out just a little further than the rest of the landings did.

Speaker 8 And as we went down, it caught a hold of the corner of this painting that was sticking out about an inch, right?

Speaker 11 It's that inch.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 8 then the elevator just kept going and it just crushed this painting.

Speaker 6 Oh my God.

Speaker 11 Because the painting was like a wall in front of him, Mark couldn't see anything.

Speaker 11 So, most of what he remembers about the next few moments are the sounds: the sound of canvas ripping, the sound of wood splintering and cracking, like breaking bones.

Speaker 8 But the sound I heard next, like I didn't hear anything on the other side of the painting for a little bit, and then

Speaker 8 I heard weeping, you know, I heard crying on the other side.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 8 I didn't expect that.

Speaker 9 And I didn't know what to do about that, you know?

Speaker 8 It was just sort of like,

Speaker 9 it just,

Speaker 14 it was horrible.

Speaker 8 Britta, who was up three floors, was yelling through the doors down into the elevator shaft, what happened?

Speaker 6 What happened? What's going on down there? And Joe's like, come on, come on. We got to go back up.
We got to go back up.

Speaker 8 Now, of course, you know where this story is going, right?

Speaker 8 I got the two ropes there, and all of a sudden, I get this like dyslexia. I know one is for up and the other one is down, but I, for the life of me, I'm like,

Speaker 9 I'm paralyzed.

Speaker 9 And so I pull one of the ropes, and it's the wrong one.

Speaker 8 And if the painting wasn't crushed before,

Speaker 9 well, when we dropped down another six feet, this thing was mangled. What had once been a six by six foot painting was now crushed to about two feet tall.
Oh my God.

Speaker 4 And it was irreparable practically at that point.

Speaker 9 It was just, you know, it was just, yeah, that wasn't good. That was bad.

Speaker 11 When Mark finally got a hold of the right rope, he and Joe rode the elevator back up to Britta and removed the mangled painting. Joe and Britta were fuming.

Speaker 8 They said, you know, you might as well go home.

Speaker 11 Joe and Britta told Mark they would call, so Mark returned to the fleabag hotel, tail between his legs, and spent the next few days in his room, waiting by the phone, willing Joe and Britta to reach out.

Speaker 11 But they never did.

Speaker 9 They just, you know, who could blame them?

Speaker 8 And that was the last I ever saw of them.

Speaker 11 For Mark, the elevator didn't just crush a painting. It crushed his dream.

Speaker 11 His plan had always been to move to New York after graduation and become a painter whose work would hang in galleries or museums. Basically, to follow in Joe's footsteps.

Speaker 11 But because of the elevator incident, Mark never went back to New York. And so here is the question that he's left with.

Speaker 9 If I had not crushed a painting in the elevator, would I be living in New York now, somehow having followed that trajectory of the life of an artist in New York City?

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 19 I don't know.

Speaker 11 Why have you been thinking about this again now?

Speaker 9 Okay, so I saw this thing called a miniature puppet theater workshop, I think it was called.

Speaker 8 And so I signed up for it.

Speaker 11 The class assignment for this miniature puppet theater workshop was to make a puppet show based on an event from your life.

Speaker 11 And the first thing that popped into Mark's head was the elevator incident, which isn't that surprising. Mark has told this story a lot over the years, to family and friends to make them laugh.

Speaker 11 But it's only in working on his puppet show this last year that he's begun to think about it differently. There were two people in the elevator that day, Smasher and Smashy.

Speaker 11 Mark is making a Mark puppet, but he also has to make a Joe puppet. And the Joe puppet has to have something to say.

Speaker 11 And that's where Mark is stuck. He's struggling with writing the Joe puppet's lines.

Speaker 8 I feel like half of this is missing without knowing Joe's perspective. It's like I'm going back to the scene of the crime, and I need the witnesses, the other witnesses.

Speaker 9 Otherwise, I'm just, I'm just rehearsing the same old lines in my head I've had for 40 years.

Speaker 11 What about Joe? What What about the show at Holly Solomon's? The last time Mark saw Joe, he was weeping in an elevator.

Speaker 8 I wasn't thinking this at the time.

Speaker 9 I was thinking only about myself. But now years later, I hope, you know, I hope that me crushing his painting didn't derail him in any way.

Speaker 6 I could just track him down, get his phone number, call him up, right?

Speaker 10 But a little bit of me scared.

Speaker 11 Mark doesn't think Joe and Britta have necessarily softened in the intervening years.

Speaker 11 Case in point, Mark read in Hampton's Cottages and Gardens magazine about the dream house Joe and Britta built after moving out of the city.

Speaker 9 It contained no guest room.

Speaker 11 In the magazine, Britta is quoted as saying, guests are completely out of the question. It makes it easier.
So they're not like the warmest. If we take their house as a metaphor for.

Speaker 6 Who builds a house without a guest room if you're building it and designing?

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 11 someone who doesn't want any disturbances, which is exactly what Mark wants me to be.

Speaker 8 It's all in your hands now.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you know, I'm not used to being the puppet master.

Speaker 10 Just remember to pull the right strings.

Speaker 11 Exactly. I'm going to label them up and down.

Speaker 6 I'll tell you that much.

Speaker 11 After the break, I roll down my sleeves and get up to business. No, wait, wait, I roll up my sleeves and get down and get down to business, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.

Speaker 11 I roll up my sleeves and get down to business.

Speaker 22 After the break, they don't find

Speaker 22 it.

Speaker 16 In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that.

Speaker 16 They're now the best network, according to the experts at OOCLA Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

Speaker 16 With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand.

Speaker 16 With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data data private for you, your team, your clients.

Speaker 16 And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business, supercharged.

Speaker 16 Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.
where you can see the sky.

Speaker 16 Best network based on analysis by UCLA of Speed Test Intelligence Data 1-H 2025.

Speaker 16 This message is a paid partnership with AppleCard.

Speaker 16 I was just at a theme park in Florida with my almost four-year-old. Between enjoying the sunshine and the rides, the last thing I wanted to worry about was my wallet.

Speaker 16 That's why AppleCard with Apple Pay saved my vacation. One tap, a check-in, and I was off to see the attractions.

Speaker 16 Every purchase from hot dogs, and oh, we had hot dogs, to t-shirts earned me daily cash. Unlike waiting in line for a ride, there's no waiting until the end of the month for rewards.

Speaker 16 And my daily cash is automatically deposited into the savings account I opened through Apple Card, where it earns interest.

Speaker 16 With Apple Pay's secure technology built right into my iPhone and Apple Watch, I pay to shops, restaurants, and attractions without ever digging from my wallet. The best part? No fees, no hassles.

Speaker 16 I spent less time managing my money and more time doing nothing short of epic. Apply for AppleCard in the wallet app on your iPhone.

Speaker 20 Subject to credit approval. Savings available to AppleCard owners subject to eligibility.
Variable APRs for AppleCard range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on credit worthiness.

Speaker 20 Rates as of July 1st, 2025. Savings on AppleCard by Goldman Sanct Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch, member FDIC.
Terms and more at AppleCard.com.

Speaker 17 There's more to San Francisco with the Chronicle.

Speaker 3 There's more food for thought. More thought for food.

Speaker 17 There's more data data insights to help with those day-to-day choices. There's more to the weather than whether it's going to rain.

Speaker 17 And with our arts and entertainment coverage, you won't just get out more, you'll get more out of it. At the Chronicle, knowing more about San Francisco is our passion.

Speaker 17 Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

Speaker 11 I've never phoned a famous artist. And on the whole, they strike me as a pretty scary bunch.
Cutting off their ears, collecting mummified feet, living in attics, and murdering people on tennis courts.

Speaker 11 So, to calm my nerves, I remind myself why artists make art in the first place. They are sympathetic to the human condition, I say aloud as I pick up the phone.

Speaker 11 They're sensitive to the struggles of their fellow man.

Speaker 11 I take a deep breath and dial.

Speaker 11 Hello? Already, I feel like the call is going poorly. Hi there.
I'm calling for Mr. Joe Zucker.
Is this the right number?

Speaker 11 Yes. Oh, hi, Mr.
Zucker.

Speaker 11 It's a good question.

Speaker 11 I guess to ask a famous artist to be on my internet radio show, to talk to an apprentice who mashed his painting in an elevator and is now immortalizing the incident in a puppet show?

Speaker 11 My name is Stevie Lane, and I actually wrote you. In a voice that sounds like a small dog rolling onto its back and exposing its vulnerable underbelly.
I explained to Joe who I am and why I'm calling.

Speaker 11 I am a producer for a podcast.

Speaker 1 Don't do things like that. I've got enough problems.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 11 I just want to make sure this you

Speaker 11 do you remember you did have apprentices 40 years ago when you were

Speaker 11 okay. So this is with regards to one of your old apprentices who who wanted to get back in touch with you oh is that what it is who is it uh his name is mark

Speaker 1 i don't want to deal with him

Speaker 1 he sounds like the person that i i had a problem with

Speaker 11 Talking to Joe, I learned that he and Britta had a number of apprentices, the majority of whom, Joe says, were great.

Speaker 11 In fact, he and Britta are still in touch with one, I assume Richard, to this day.

Speaker 1 But one of them, and it sounds like him, acted like a jerk.

Speaker 1 Talk to my wife about this.

Speaker 1 She handles all of the things that I do.

Speaker 1 T V interviews,

Speaker 6 shows,

Speaker 1 I just do the work, so if you call her...

Speaker 6 Okay, yeah. Hi.

Speaker 23 Hi.

Speaker 1 Hi. Hi.

Speaker 11 Suddenly, out of nowhere, Britta LeVay.

Speaker 22 Hi.

Speaker 11 Hi, is this Miss LeVay?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you are

Speaker 11 an absolute nobody, I feel like saying.

Speaker 11 Britta is curt. She sounds like someone who has better things to do, like dognap 101 Dalmatians for a fur coat.

Speaker 11 But I finally muster the courage to tell her about Mark, though not quite enough courage to get into the details of the elevator incident. I keep things pretty vague.

Speaker 11 He would like to reconnect with Mr. Zucker to sort of like

Speaker 11 understand.

Speaker 11 And before I know it, this pops out. To apologize for the way things went?

Speaker 6 Huh.

Speaker 11 Although Mark hadn't explicitly charged me with promising an apology per se,

Speaker 11 he did say he wanted Joe's perspective, that he felt bad about how things ended. It's not that big a leap.
Anyway, I got flustered.

Speaker 11 At the mention of a carte blanche apology, though, Britta's tone shifts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, if that's how he feels, you know, one certainly wouldn't object to that. I'm sure we can figure this out.

Speaker 11 40 years later, Britta is still Joe's gatekeeper. And just like that, the gate swings open.

Speaker 6 Hello? Hello?

Speaker 15 You've reached Mark.

Speaker 8 Leave a message and I'll get right back to you.

Speaker 11 You got me there. I was like talking to you as though you were there.
Hey, it's Stevie. I just wanted to let you know that we're on.

Speaker 11 Hi.

Speaker 8 What does Stevie want to talk about now?

Speaker 11 Stevie wants to talk about the upcoming conversation with Joe and Britta and the apology I promised. I outlined for Mark the terms of our parlay.
I ease into it.

Speaker 11 I mean, I hope it doesn't, I hope it's not what you don't want to say. I mean, I think my impression from like the last time we spoke was

Speaker 11 that in part it is, but I think,

Speaker 11 and I'm not saying this, I mean, you know, I understand like accidents happen and stuff, and I, you know, I'm on your side, but I think

Speaker 11 in terms of like sort of like setting this late clean for the conversation, I

Speaker 11 my impression is that a sort of like

Speaker 11 an apology would be something that they would, you know, I think that would just be a nice thing.

Speaker 24 Sure, I mean, and I can see that.

Speaker 11 Mark is happy to apologize, but having to apologize, it makes him realize that Britta and Joe still harbor resentment, which makes him nervous.

Speaker 8 I'm getting that feeling in my stomach like I used to get. You know, what was it? Not trepidation.

Speaker 6 dread, dread,

Speaker 10 I have a little dread here.

Speaker 11 I mean, you know, if you feel like you can't do this, then we should have that conversation.

Speaker 6 Um,

Speaker 22 uh,

Speaker 25 do you have friends?

Speaker 10 Is this what you do to them?

Speaker 18 Um,

Speaker 8 no, I have I have crushed paintings before in my life.

Speaker 6 I can do this.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 6 We're going to crush this. We're going to.

Speaker 11 Scheduling for Joe goes through Britta. And in the coming days, I'm on the phone with her frequently.
More frequently than anyone else in my life.

Speaker 11 I sort of feel like Britta LeVay is my new best friend.

Speaker 15 Hello?

Speaker 11 Hi, Britta. How are you?

Speaker 7 Oh, Stevie. How are you?

Speaker 22 I'm fine. I'm fine.

Speaker 11 Britta's working on a documentary about Joe, a book of Joe's work, organizing Joe's archives. Never once when I call is she just sitting at home, relaxing.

Speaker 23 I'm driving around and everybody's going off to the beach and I thought, what the fuck about me?

Speaker 23 Yeah, where am I going to the beach, you know?

Speaker 11 But as busy as she is, she always picks up when I phone. Even if she's in the woods.

Speaker 7 I was trying to dig out some swamp plant.

Speaker 11 Wait, so wait, you're literally out in the woods with a shovel?

Speaker 6 Like...

Speaker 7 and was almost arrested. What? Because some asshole drove by on a bicycle and he saw me with the big shovel.

Speaker 7 I'm gonna call the police.

Speaker 7 Don't you have anything better to do?

Speaker 11 Britta has strong opinions and isn't afraid to call people out. Like at one point, she tells me about another apprentice of Joe's.
And keep in mind, this is one that she actually liked.

Speaker 7 He was totally useless. And it was very sad to see this young, unattractive man, child, you know, trying to find a place in Joe's studio.

Speaker 11 I'm the kind of person who will go to absurd lengths to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

Speaker 11 Once, on a date, I made up a whole fake roommate and that fake roommate's fake sister, Lillian, who lived in Virginia, med school, second year, but was visiting and locked out of our apartment and needed my key, so I had to go just to avoid telling the guy I I was bored.

Speaker 11 When I got back to my apartment, I half expected Lillian to be there. So I let Britta know that I admire her honesty.
It's not so much that I'm honest, she says, but that I'm fearless.

Speaker 11 I've been that way since I was a young girl. Britta's father was wounded in World War II and left with facial scars.
People would gawk, and even as a child, Britta would stare them down, unafraid.

Speaker 11 Which is all to say, though I admire Britta, I worry that when meeting Mark, she may be overly fearless and underly sensitive.

Speaker 25 Okay, my hands are a little clammy.

Speaker 25 I don't know why. Why am I like 21 all of a sudden again?

Speaker 11 On a Friday after work, Mark and I get into a video call. Mark is in his basement, his son's drum kit behind him.
His beard looks freshly trimmed. Britta and Joe arrive right on time.

Speaker 11 Well, it looks like Britta's entered the room. I think I'm going to admit her.
You ready?

Speaker 4 Whenever you are.

Speaker 6 Countdown like three, two, one.

Speaker 23 So they're connecting.

Speaker 15 Hello.

Speaker 6 Hello.

Speaker 5 Hi.

Speaker 5 Hello.

Speaker 11 In the frame, Britta and Joe are seated side by side. Britta has Greta Garbo eyebrows, rounded like question marks, punctuating the question, and you are?

Speaker 11 Joe is in his early 80s now. He has artsy glasses and, like Mark, a gray mustache and goatee.

Speaker 23 Hi, Mark.

Speaker 25 Hello, Britta. Hi, Joe.

Speaker 23 Been a while, no?

Speaker 25 40 years. You guys look great.
You look as young as you ever did.

Speaker 23 Flattery gets you everywhere.

Speaker 11 Though Joe remembered Mark's name on the phone, he doesn't seem to remember Mark's face.

Speaker 27 You were from the Great Lakes Art Association.

Speaker 25 That's right, yes. Yeah.

Speaker 23 Did you get to pick Joe's studio?

Speaker 25 I don't think I did.

Speaker 25 You probably didn't get to pick me either.

Speaker 23 No, no, we didn't. We just got what we got.

Speaker 11 After exchanging a few more semi-pleasantries, Mark dives in.

Speaker 25 First of all, I want to just say thank you so much for

Speaker 25 offering to be here today.

Speaker 5 I'm so glad.

Speaker 11 But then he doesn't bring up the crushed painting. He doesn't make the apology, I promised.
Instead, he makes the artistic choice to begin with a flashback. A flash way back.

Speaker 25 Okay, so I grew up in Rutland, Vermont, and I was, you know.

Speaker 11 No sooner than he gets started, and Mark is already getting sidetracked, talking about going to a museum for the first time when he was 19, about a job he had as a caddy when he was a kid.

Speaker 19 And I pulled the cart across the green.

Speaker 25 Didn't know you weren't supposed to do that.

Speaker 11 To be honest, there are moments when I just have no idea what he's talking about.

Speaker 25 They're pretty nice now. I've walked by them.
They're lovely condos now.

Speaker 11 But in that time, I feel like I'm watching a filibuster on C-SPAN.

Speaker 11 As puppet master, I wish I could stick my hand up his butt like the open end of a sock puppet and make his mouth say, I'm sorry. I'm growing impatient, and it seems Joe is too.

Speaker 25 Lori Anderson, she just was coming out with her first album that year, 1981.

Speaker 27 What event are we talking about? Is there a specific event that you can nail down?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 11 I seize the opportunity. I feel like there's this elephant in the room.
It's the thing that we're not talking about, which is really the reason why we're here.

Speaker 11 Mark, if you want to remind Joe and Britta, why, you know, you were thinking about them again.

Speaker 25 So I was in your studio, the last day I was in your studio, actually.

Speaker 11 And so finally, Mark gets to it, bringing it back to the elevator incident.

Speaker 25 And there was this two-rope system, one rope to go up and another one to go down. Well, you know what rope I pulled, right?

Speaker 15 The wrong rope.

Speaker 11 I've heard Mark tell this story a lot.

Speaker 11 And every time it makes me laugh. But listening with Britta and Joe is like sitting through your favorite movie with your parents, seeing it for the first time through their eyes.

Speaker 11 The funny parts seem kind of crass, the raunchy parts cringeworthy.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 25 I crushed your painting, Joe.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 19 that is what I'm here. That is what I'm here to apologize about.

Speaker 11 On the screen, Joe and Britta look confused, even more confused than a few minutes ago when mark was monologuing about the vagaries of manhattan real estate what i realized over the years was you got to go back you got to say you're sorry you know

Speaker 28 no

Speaker 23 why are we talking about that painting because that's the painting he smashed in the elevator remember

Speaker 27 i didn't even know that he did it

Speaker 27 I thought somebody who was taking it, going to take it to the Delbert broke the painting in the elevator.

Speaker 28 I didn't even know.

Speaker 23 That it was Mark.

Speaker 8 I never remember him doing the damage to the painting.

Speaker 11 In fact, when Joe thinks of the damage to the boxing paintings, it's not the elevator story that sticks in his mind at all, really.

Speaker 11 Right before the opening at Holly Solomon's, it came time for Joe to sign his work.

Speaker 27 I forgot that I was using Feltip Marker, which goes through canvas.

Speaker 27 And when I signed the paintings, it came through.

Speaker 27 Feltip Marker was the culprit.

Speaker 11 Joe's signature bled through to the front of the painting.

Speaker 11 So just days ahead of the opening, Joe and Britta had to find an art restorer to fix it, which is also what they did to fix the painting Mark had mashed.

Speaker 11 And as it turns out, that painting made it into the show was there to complete the series as Joe intended. No one could tell it had practically been through a garbage compactor.

Speaker 11 In other words, no derailment. In fact, in a review of the opening, one critic even claimed that the power of the paintings lay in their hidden violence.

Speaker 11 If only she knew how violent their creation really was.

Speaker 27 That was an accident.

Speaker 27 There's nothing to fix. Things like that happen.

Speaker 23 Stuff happens, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 23 And, you know, no apology necessary.

Speaker 11 But if it wasn't about the painting, what was it that made Mark, quote, the one Joe had problems with? What did Mark have to apologize for?

Speaker 27 It was mostly attitude. He didn't like this.
He didn't like that.

Speaker 11 Mark didn't like being told what to do, didn't like taking things too seriously. Mark admits that he made glib jokes, which annoyed Britta and Joe.

Speaker 25 I was trying to act like I was cool and sophisticated, and I think I was on the defensive at first.

Speaker 11 And the thing that really bothered Joe, it seems, is that after the elevator incident, Mark disappeared.

Speaker 11 After 40 years, the specifics are fuzzy, but here's what I gather. From Mark's perspective, when Joe and Britta said, we'll call you, it meant, we'll call you and don't come back until we do.

Speaker 11 But from Joe and Britta's perspective, we'll call you was more of a, this is a nightmare, we don't need you here right now, but see you tomorrow.

Speaker 27 You have to realize I was dealing with Holly Solomon, which is an added part of the whole misery, because she was very difficult.

Speaker 11 Holly was to Joe what Joe was to Mark, someone who could make or break him. Joe and Britta weren't thinking about Mark when they had Holly to worry about.

Speaker 11 So they weren't thinking about how Mark was feeling. But today, they are.

Speaker 23 I'm really sorry we didn't have the wherewithal to see that the student had issues, had problems, you know.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 23 And I mean, I would have been devastated if I would have ruined some artist's work. That would have been very difficult to overcome.
So I'm really sorry that happened.

Speaker 11 Britta isn't afraid to call people out, including herself.

Speaker 11 And as always, Mark isn't afraid to make jokes.

Speaker 25 And I'm sorry that I crushed a painting in the elevator.

Speaker 15 So I guess we're even.

Speaker 19 I was imitating a lot of stuff, you know, because I was young.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 28 I think we need to stop.

Speaker 11 About an hour into the conversation, Britta interrupts Mark. On screen, Joe takes a hold of his walker and slowly rises to his feet.

Speaker 11 He turns away from the camera, calling out goodbyes as he moves down the long hallway behind them. Britta looks concerned.

Speaker 23 Because Joe had hip surgery and I can see he's not

Speaker 23 feeling well. I I think he needs to lay down.

Speaker 25 Well, thank you, Joe, so much for the time that you were able to spend with us. And maybe we can do this again.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I think that might be a nice idea, Mark. Please be in touch.

Speaker 11 Britta rushes to Joe's aid. As gatekeeper, she has spent years protecting Joe's art.
Now, it seems her main job is protecting Joe.

Speaker 28 Bye, everybody. Bye.

Speaker 11 And with that, the gate swings shut.

Speaker 6 Can you move the mic a little closer? Oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 11 That's much better.

Speaker 11 After the conversation with Joe and Brett, Mark and I debrief.

Speaker 24 If you go back to the scene of the crime and the victims don't remember and you say you're sorry to them, you know, what are you really doing? You're just sort of assuaging your own guilt.

Speaker 24 But I don't think it was really doing anything for them because they couldn't remember it.

Speaker 11 Joe seemed angrier at the felt-tip marker than he was at Mark. Maybe because the marker was in his own hand.
Those are the mistakes that are hardest to forget. Our own.

Speaker 24 So in some ways I think that, you know, the person I should be saying, I'm sorry to, was my younger self.

Speaker 11 In fact, the puppets Mark has been making for that puppet show, he made the Mark puppet to look like himself around age 20. But the Joe puppet doesn't look like Joe.

Speaker 11 Instead, Mark made it to look like himself, now at age 60.

Speaker 11 So in the scenes where the Joe puppet is yelling at the Mark puppet, making him feel like he's no good, chastising him for crushing the painting, it's actually present-day Mark yelling at his younger self.

Speaker 24 That little 20-year-old Mark,

Speaker 24 I think my older self blamed him

Speaker 14 for a road

Speaker 14 that

Speaker 19 I didn't take, didn't travel down.

Speaker 24 And then maybe my younger Mark can

Speaker 14 let the older Mark off the hook too.

Speaker 11 What would the younger Mark be letting the older Mark off the hook for?

Speaker 14 Well, I think for, you know, maybe a dream that I didn't follow through on.

Speaker 24 But you have to make sacrifices if you're going to be a kind of blue chip elite artist in New York, which was a dream of mine. But I would have given up so much to do that.

Speaker 24 Had to given up so much to do that.

Speaker 6 Like what?

Speaker 24 Oh my God.

Speaker 24 I have my family.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 14 yeah.

Speaker 11 Mark grows quiet, looks down.

Speaker 18 I am so lucky that the art I ended up doing could involve my own family.

Speaker 11 Mark got to share his art with his three sons as they grew up. He helped them with elaborate Halloween costumes.
He hosted birthday parties for them in his studio, surrounded by all his giant puppets.

Speaker 11 His sons participate in an annual street puppet festival Mark founded 15 years ago called Festifools. One son is a playwright, might even help him with the elevator puppet show.

Speaker 11 Of which.

Speaker 10 Holly, I told you before not to send these Philistines to my studio while I'm in the middle of working on a show.

Speaker 10 A show for you.

Speaker 11 When Mark first reached out to me, he was struggling with his puppet show. But since the conversation with Joe, he's made progress.
He's writing new scenes, new dialogue, and he's made another puppet.

Speaker 9 We have a new character, too, that we're going to introduce today.

Speaker 11 Can you guess who?

Speaker 6 Okay, now move the microphone just a little bit closer.

Speaker 10 Okay, is there anything you want to say? Like, you know, maybe you're sorry or something?

Speaker 6 Anything?

Speaker 10 Okay, let's just take it again from the top.

Speaker 10 Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home

Speaker 10 Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damaged deposit, take this moment to decide

Speaker 10 if we meant it, if we tried.

Speaker 11 This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me, Stevie Lane, along with Mohini McGowker and Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Khalila Khalila Holt.

Speaker 11 Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Phoebe Flanagan, Rayhan Harmancy, Andrea B. Scott, and Bobby Lord.
Bobby Lord also mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K.

Speaker 11 Sampson, Michael Hurst, Sean Jacoby, and he himself, Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimletmedia.com/slash heavyweight.

Speaker 11 Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at heavyweight or email us at heavyweight at gimletmedia.com.

Speaker 11 Jonathan will be strutting back into the studio for our season finale next week.

Speaker 12 Your drive powers your day. Now let it power change in your community too.
And when it comes to helping children in the Bay Area, Shell can keep your kindness rolling.

Speaker 12 When you fill up at the Purple Giving Pump at Shell, a portion of your purchase is donated to charities like the California Fire Foundation.

Speaker 12 Download the Shell app to find your nearest giving pump, less than two miles away. Because giving back doesn't cost you extra.

Speaker 12 From September 1st to October 31st, participating Shell stations will donate a minimum of one cent per gallon of the fuel pump from the giving pump or a minimum donation of $300.

Speaker 26 You've probably heard me say this. Connection is one of the biggest keys to happiness.
And one of my favorite ways to build that?

Speaker 26 Scruffy hospitality, inviting people over even when things aren't perfect. Because just being together, laughing, chatting, cooking, makes you feel good.

Speaker 11 That's why I love Bosch.

Speaker 26 Bosch fridges with VitaFresh technology keep ingredients fresher longer, so you're always ready to whip up a meal and share a special moment.

Speaker 26 Fresh foods show you care, and it shows the people you love that they matter. Learn more, visit BoschHomeUS.com.

Speaker 29 Every day has a to-do list, but adding Enjoy Belveda to yours can help you knock out the rest of it.

Speaker 29 Belveda breakfast biscuits are a tasty and convenient breakfast option when paired with low-fat yogurt and fruit that provides steady energy all morning.

Speaker 29 While Belveeta Energy Snack Bites give you the perfect mid-morning refuel, best part, they both taste great. So make the most out of your morning with a bite of Belveeta.

Speaker 29 Pick up a pack of Belveeta at your local store today.

Speaker 12 This is an iHeart podcast.