Heavyweight: Live from New York

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Speaker 7 Pushkin

Speaker 7 In October, the heavyweight gang gathered in New York City for a live event at Caveat on the Lower East Side.

Speaker 7 If I may be so bold as to speak on behalf of the crowd, the wait staff, and Pushkin Industries as a whole, a lovely time was had by all.

Speaker 7 There was a wall to write down your regrets and a meet-and-greet where you could take a picture with yours truly.

Speaker 8 Thank you. I feel like I'm smiling in all these pictures, but I'm not sure.
So what you do is not quite a smile. Feels like you're my soul animal, so uh, good luck to your soul.

Speaker 7 Heavyweight, the first episode came out when I was 12. Turn 22 next week.
Now I feel like I practically raised you.

Speaker 7 If you weren't able to attend, fear not, we've recorded the event so that you can still experience it at home, half undressed and drinking less expensive beverages through the miracle of audio.

Speaker 10 Hi, everybody.

Speaker 10 Thank you so much for coming to this live event celebrating the launch of the new season of Heavyweight.

Speaker 10 We're so glad you're here.

Speaker 10 My name is Greta Cohen. I'm the CEO of Pushkin Industries.
We are the audio network that is the home to heavyweight, and we are so thrilled that they are part of our network.

Speaker 10 The new season is wonderful. I'm sure sure you've all been listening to it.
And today you're in for a real treat.

Speaker 10 Later on, the producers of the show, Stevie Lane and Kalila Holt, will be coming on stage and they're going to answer along with Jonathan some of your questions that you've submitted.

Speaker 10 But first, Jonathan will be joining us to do a live reading.

Speaker 10 He has asked me to read an introduction to this reading.

Speaker 11 Okay.

Speaker 10 Jonathan asked me to read this introduction to his reading of the Old Testament of Cain and Abel.

Speaker 10 For those of you heathens who have never cracked open a Bible or unscrolled a Torah, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve.

Speaker 10 Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden called Eden, where they frolicked in the nude all day, but relax.

Speaker 10 Back then, nudity was less a Rio de Janeiro HBO after dark thing and more a Nordic health spa thing filled with good, clean living and fruit platters.

Speaker 10 Also, everyone in Eden got to live forever and not have to go through painful childbirth or work for a living.

Speaker 10 It was a pretty groovy trip until the whole tree of knowledge thing went down and Adam and Eve were expelled.

Speaker 10 Jonathan has here chosen to retell the story of Adam and Eve's kids, Cain and Abel, who were born after the expulsion, as an illustration of the very first heavyweight, a heavyweight in which two beefing brothers are reconciled by the Lord.

Speaker 10 On heavyweight, the role of the Lord is played by Jonathan Goldstein.

Speaker 10 Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Goldstein.

Speaker 7 Back in those first days, things changed very quickly. A new person being born meant there was a giant spike in the population.

Speaker 7 For Cain, his younger brother, Abel's birth, made the planet feel lopsided. He watched Eve bounce Abel in her lap and felt the Earth's gravity tilt in their direction.

Speaker 7 It pulled at the insides of his stomach and made him seasick.

Speaker 7 Years later, Adam and Eve would have many more children, but just then, there was only Cain and Abel. Because there was nobody else, the brothers grew close.

Speaker 7 They played each other's stomachs like snare drums, cracked each other's knuckles as though they were cracking their own. They were different, though.
Abel was a thinker. He thought about things.

Speaker 7 If he bit off his own pinky toe, would it grow back?

Speaker 7 Cain, on the other hand, was a doer. He'd reel back his fist and break a donkey's nose for the sheer thrill of it all.

Speaker 7 One day, when Adam and Eve thought the children were old enough, they sat them down and told them about the screw-up.

Speaker 7 What does it mean to die? asked Cain.

Speaker 7 We're not exactly sure, said Eve, but basically, one day, and this is not any day soon, we will no longer be.

Speaker 7 There was silence. Then Abel spoke up.
If we won't be, he said, then we won't even know that we're not being. There will be no we to see that we can no longer be.

Speaker 7 Yes, I guess that's true, said their mother.

Speaker 11 Well put.

Speaker 7 Abel smiled and went back to mashing a mutton liver into pate.

Speaker 7 Cain, on the other hand, felt like a sharp plum pit had been forcefully lodged down his throat. All his life, he had felt like himself, that his face and fingers, that his thoughts were his own.

Speaker 7 Now he felt like they were someone else's, someone who could yank them away at any chosen moment. Until then, it had never crossed his mind that such a thing could even be possible.

Speaker 7 The brothers continued to live their lives, but all the while Cain felt a new sadness. It ate with him, worked with with him, and in the morning it raised from his bed with him.
Dying.

Speaker 7 It just didn't make any sense. He knew this deep in his heart.
He thought nothing was more important than making God change his mind. He began to take his sacrifices more seriously.

Speaker 7 They became elaborate and garish. They involved richly choreographed interpretive dances, colorful, oblong facial masks, and the very best of his legumes.
But God never answered.

Speaker 7 Cain started to change. When he got a splinter, he cursed the heavens all out of proportion.
Back in the Garden of Eden, there were no splinters. He even started to resent his parents.

Speaker 7 He spoke of them as though they had gambled away his inheritance. If it hadn't been for dum dum number one tempting dum dum number two, we'd be living in luxury.

Speaker 7 Cain tried to get Abel all worked up about the whole thing, too, but Abel had an easy come, easy go, we all have to die someday attitude that that drove his brother nuts.

Speaker 7 Cain invented a game. He called it, get the hell out of Eden.
He always insisted on playing God. Get your naked asses out of here, yelled God.

Speaker 11 What?

Speaker 7 But we just got here, yelled Adam and Eve. Maybe there's some kind of mistake.
The Lord does not make mistakes. God would then kick his brother, who would fall to the ground.

Speaker 7 Please, please have mercy on me, his brother would cry. Let's play something else.
But God would only laugh.

Speaker 7 Abel also made sacrifices to God. Every week he would choose the fattest sheep as an offering.
Everything Abel did in life was for a reason. He ate so that he would not be hungry.

Speaker 7 He made clothes so that he would not be cold. But making sacrifices to God, he did it for reasons he could never know.
He did it simply because he was told to.

Speaker 7 There was something about that that made him feel clean and deep.

Speaker 7 Adam and Eve Eve made their sacrifices out of fear of being further punished, and Cain was pleading for answers and changes.

Speaker 7 But Abel fulfilled his obligation and walked away expecting nothing from God. He was glad with the way things were, and God could not have helped liking that.

Speaker 7 Meanwhile, Cain decided to test out a new approach with the Lord. He believed that God would have greater respect for him if he did not kowtow.
He's going to kill us, he thought.

Speaker 7 He wanted God to understand that he couldn't walk all over people and then still have them come crawling back with their arms loaded with gifts. No, they had to get tough.

Speaker 7 So Cain's sacrifices grew lackadaisical. He didn't even bother to check if his gifts were being received.
That would look like he was caving.

Speaker 7 Then one day, while Cain was lying in a field, Abel came running over. God spoke to me, cried Abel.
Cain sat up and looked at his brother. What did he say?

Speaker 7 He said he was a great fan of my lamb chops. He told me to keep up the good work.

Speaker 7 Was my name mentioned? asked Cain.

Speaker 7 It didn't come up.

Speaker 7 What was it like to hear his voice? asked Cain. Look at me, said Abel.
I'm still shaking.

Speaker 7 There was a certain pang that Cain started to feel. It was in his stomach.
He felt the pang grow sharpest when he looked upon his brother.

Speaker 7 He could hardly speak with him without having to hunch over in pain. Since the world was still new and no one had yet felt this way, Cain did not know that it was jealousy he was feeling.

Speaker 7 Instead, he decided that his stomach no longer wanted to be his stomach. It wanted to escape his rib cage.
It wanted to be Abel's stomach. This was because he wanted to be Abel.

Speaker 7 There was no shame in this. Being Abel meant being happy.
Being Cain meant being wretched. He had a plan.
He approached Abel with it. He decided to just spring it on him.
I am no longer Cain, he said.

Speaker 7 I am now Abel. We are both Abel.

Speaker 11 All right, said Abel.

Speaker 7 The two Abels performed routines for the amusement of their brothers and sisters.

Speaker 4 How's that apple, Abel?

Speaker 7 It's fine, Abel.

Speaker 7 But then, one day Cain asked, if I am able, am I just as much able as you yourself are able?

Speaker 7 I suppose that's true, said Abel. Then before God, are we both not able? asked Cain.

Speaker 7 Well, in the case of being before God, I think at that time I would be able and you would go back to being Cain.

Speaker 7 Cain's eyes lingered on his brother. He looked at this other Abel as standing in the way of who he was.
He was Abel. He knew this in his heart.
He simply wanted it more.

Speaker 7 Abel was among his flock when Cain neared him. Slowly, Cain pulled out his rock, and slowly he lifted it into the air.
This way, God will have to show himself.

Speaker 7 This way, God will have to stop playing possum and get directly involved. These were Cain's thoughts.
Still, though, there was no sign of God. He looked at the back of Abel's head.

Speaker 7 Then he looked into the sky. Just in case God was reading his mind, he thought to himself, I'm really, really going to do it.
He brought his rock down onto his brother's head.

Speaker 7 He could hear no sound at all. Abel just toppled over.
He toppled over the way he did everything, with an easygoing acceptance. He sank to the earth as though thinking, I must fall, so I will fall.

Speaker 7 I am falling. I have fallen.

Speaker 7 Here it was.

Speaker 4 Death.

Speaker 7 Cain couldn't believe it. He'd been sure that at the last moment God would step in.
He'd have thought only God could take a person's life, but it was as simple as killing a sheep.

Speaker 7 Abel, his eyes wide and unblinking, stared directly into the mystery of life and death, and he was not saying a word about any of it. The sheep continued to graze, and the sun continued to shine.

Speaker 7 There were no bolts of lightning, no booming voice from behind the clouds. Life went on.

Speaker 7 That night, God appeared before Cain in a dream. Where is your brother? asked God.

Speaker 7 It's always about my brother, said Cain.

Speaker 2 You ever ask where I am?

Speaker 7 No, that you don't think of.

Speaker 7 What have you done? asked God.

Speaker 7 Am I my brother's keeper? asked Cain.

Speaker 7 God did not answer. He just gave him a look.
It made Cain feel naked and small. He then felt the finger of God upon his forehead.
It sank through his head and into his brain where it spoke.

Speaker 7 The earth shall scorn you, said the voice from the finger. I shall scorn you.
You will wander the earth and death will not come. There will be no escape.

Speaker 7 All will look upon you and none will dare kill you, for they will know you by your mark. God withdrew his finger, leaving behind a fingerprint on Cain's forehead.
It was shaped like a teardrop.

Speaker 7 At first he tried to convince himself that the mark was to protect him, that he had a secret pact with God, that they understood each other.

Speaker 7 For a while, he would wake up in the morning and pretend to be immortal and famous, but he was not very good at pretending. As the centuries passed, Cain abandoned farming and roamed the earth.

Speaker 7 He walked with a sense of purpose just in case anyone was watching, but in his heart, he knew he had nowhere to go.

Speaker 7 He became so lonely and full of regret that instead of fearing death, he became yearnful of it. He would chase after bears, and they would scamper away.
They haven't the guts, he'd say.

Speaker 7 Run, you little cowards. He'd call after the tigers.
Look at me, he'd cry into the face of an alligator as he tried in vain to pry open its jaws.

Speaker 7 More centuries passed, and Cain's desire for death became nearly constant.

Speaker 7 He would think about Abel up in heaven, palling around with God, flying through the clouds on God's shoulders, while he was left to putz around for hundreds of years, begging his own children to drive sharpened branches through his heart.

Speaker 7 In life, Cain had been jealous of his brother, but it was in death that he became more jealous than he ever thought possible.

Speaker 7 Over time, Cain could no longer remember very much at all.

Speaker 7 Twenty years after the death of his brother, it seemed like it was only yesterday, but after 200 years, it felt like something that might have happened in a dream.

Speaker 7 There were details he remembered that now seemed improbable, like the way he saw his brother's soul leave his body, and the way he'd waved goodbye to him and winked.

Speaker 7 After 300 and 400 years, it all felt so long ago that who he was back then felt like someone else. When people he met asked him questions about the old days, he just made stuff up.

Speaker 7 We had wings, he said.

Speaker 7 After 500 years, his story was repeated so often that he only remembered the repeating, not the events themselves.

Speaker 7 It sounded like a fable, something that might have just as easily happened to a fox and a rabbit as to himself and his brother. He began to doubt everything.

Speaker 7 He even began to wonder whether he had actually ever heard God's voice, whether the mark on his forehead was the mark of God and not just another liver spot.

Speaker 7 Was this a part of the punishment, he wondered, to be left so uncertain of whether God really was or whether God was only something inside his own head?

Speaker 7 After 700 years when he told the story to himself or heard it told by others, he felt nothing. He was too old to feel guilt or remorse or anything.
He didn't even miss his brother anymore.

Speaker 7 He wanted nothing from God. He wanted nothing from the world.
The world was what it was. He didn't need it to change.
And in this way, he finally got his wish to be just like Abel.

Speaker 7 And then, God let him die.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 7 After the break, A QA with Stevie, Khalila, and me. But first, our producer Phoebe headed to the wall of regrets to see what regrets were trending.

Speaker 11 Can I ask you about your regret?

Speaker 12 I just really regret not going to see the catacombs when I was in Paris.

Speaker 13 I really like skulls.

Speaker 11 I wish I'd caught.

Speaker 13 I regret that I didn't pay enough in contact with certain friends of mine who were like religious and are now getting married, so I'm not getting invited to the weddings.

Speaker 13 And God, do I want to be at the weddings just because I really like weddings. Do you guys mind just reading these aloud for me, like some of of the ones that you're looking at?

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 Not finding a therapist. Saying no to Frieza.

Speaker 14 Not being more patient with my mother's cognitive decline. Lacking patience with my brother's behavior than he died.
How I said goodbye to my best friend before he died.

Speaker 7 I wish I joined a band.

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Speaker 11 So

Speaker 10 now we are going to move into the QA portion of our event today. And I'd like to welcome to the sage Khalila Holt and Stevie Lane, the producers of the show.

Speaker 11 Hi.

Speaker 11 Hello. Hi everybody.
Hello. Hi

Speaker 11 all.

Speaker 10 So we asked you

Speaker 10 questions that you wanted to hear the heavyweight team answer about the show and we got so many. I think we are also going to have a little bit of time today to do some audience Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 10 Kicking things off with our Q ⁇ A here, what does Jonathan and Jackie's off-show relationship really look like?

Speaker 7 Should I take this one?

Speaker 11 It's about you, so.

Speaker 7 Yeah, but you might have a more objective window.

Speaker 7 I don't know. I think it's a pretty accurate glimpse into our dynamic.

Speaker 7 We've been friends since childhood.

Speaker 7 She likes to laugh at me and hang up. And I don't know.

Speaker 11 I mean, mean, the first time I met Jackie, I remember we really bonded because over, like, she was like, isn't he annoying? And I was like, yeah.

Speaker 11 I feel like that made her like me.

Speaker 17 The first time I met Jackie, I was like, I want to be you when I grow up.

Speaker 17 She's very powerful. She's a very powerful person.

Speaker 7 Yeah, and she's a really nice person, too. I mean, I just bring out the worst in her.

Speaker 7 It's not her fault, I don't think. She's like, yeah, she's a doctor.
She helps people. She does good works.

Speaker 7 And I just bother her, you know? So

Speaker 7 I hope it's bringing some levity to her life, but truly, I don't know.

Speaker 11 But she was, for the people who don't know the backstory. There is a backstory? Well, just that you went to school together and she was like a popular girl.

Speaker 7 She was very popular. Yeah.

Speaker 7 If you really want to go deep on the backstory,

Speaker 7 I did a story about our relationship on This American Life called The Allure of the Mean Friend.

Speaker 7 And I just talked to people about what Jackie Cohen meant in grade school and in junior high and she meant a lot.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 10 What was the hardest episode to record and why slash which call has made you the most nervous to dial?

Speaker 11 I was the most nervous calling sorority girls for Rose.

Speaker 15 They were very

Speaker 11 I remember there was like a Facebook thread where they were like a sketchy sounding woman left us a message and I was like, I thought I sounded really nice and normal.

Speaker 17 I think for me, it was very early. Um, and when I just joined the show, and you guys were working on a story at the time, and you were trying to find this

Speaker 17 two- or three-fingered man who had hung up on you many times. And I was just like new and bright-eyed, and I was like, What can I do to help? And Jonathan was like, You could try calling this guy.

Speaker 17 And I called him, and he told me he would find out where I lived and killed me.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was like a rite of passage. Like we, everybody who was new on the show had to call.
His name is Carl.

Speaker 4 But yeah,

Speaker 7 that would have been a good story, too.

Speaker 17 The one where he finds me and murders me.

Speaker 7 He threatened to kill me. He killed me all.

Speaker 6 It's just, that's Carl.

Speaker 11 Then you've got a true crime series. Yeah.

Speaker 17 Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 7 My hardest call was there was an episode where I was trying to find out about my psychiatrist that I had when I was a teenager and find out if she was a really good psychiatrist or you know you just don't know with a psychiatrist because it's so it's so sealed off you know you don't get or do you get rated Yelp ratings maybe now you do back then you didn't

Speaker 7 and I remembered someone that used to be in the waiting room when I would leave he was a professor I once had when I was in college and I thought maybe I can ask him

Speaker 7 And so I had to call him and say, hey, I used to see you in the waiting room of my psychiatrist 30-odd years ago. That was very weird.
That was even for me, that felt very weird.

Speaker 7 He had retired, he was living in Jamaica.

Speaker 7 That was a weird one.

Speaker 10 Who is a dream celebrity whose problem you'd want to solve?

Speaker 11 Steve.

Speaker 11 So,

Speaker 17 Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan of the show.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 17 all that I want is to reunite her with Kim Cottrall.

Speaker 17 And I email her agent

Speaker 17 every year when we're looking for stories. And I'm like, just checking in, like, wondering if Sarah has anybody she maybe like needs to reconcile with.

Speaker 11 Has she given any thought?

Speaker 11 So far,

Speaker 17 she's been too busy. But now that I'm just like that is over, I feel like she might have more time.

Speaker 11 Perfect time. Yeah.
Anybody else?

Speaker 7 I don't know. Celebrities don't have problems, do they?

Speaker 11 You? Augie has one. Oh, Augie?

Speaker 7 Did you?

Speaker 17 Yeah, who did you just say?

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah, Kenya, Klamar, and Drake.

Speaker 7 Auggie is my son, and he's a very big rap fan. He wants to see me reconcile the whole thing.

Speaker 11 Probably huge numbers for us.

Speaker 11 Seriously? I'm like, that's a great idea.

Speaker 17 Perfect for audio.

Speaker 11 Yeah, so good idea, actually, Augie. We should pursue that.

Speaker 7 I know. Like, why can't you fellas just because that whole Super Bowl thing was really out of hand? I mean,

Speaker 11 that was rough.

Speaker 10 Do we maybe have an opening for a new assistant producer?

Speaker 10 Agi looking.

Speaker 7 Yeah he's going to be nine we should also say so hard time.

Speaker 10 Yeah. You can balance it with school.

Speaker 10 Okay. Sometimes it seems like there's no progress or revelation to someone's journey until weeks or months later.
How does the team maintain the morale to not be discouraged? And years, I mean

Speaker 11 I think I am discouraged most of the time. I think I don't maintain the morale morale would be my answer.
Yeah.

Speaker 17 I sort of feel like, I think I have the attitude that just like, I just believe it actually will always work out.

Speaker 17 Because I think we've, there have been a lot of stories that we've thought were dead, and then like years later.

Speaker 17 Something changes, we get back in touch, whatever, and then they end up happening. So I just, I think I just, it's blind optimism.

Speaker 11 I was going to say, I think Stevie brings the optimism for all of us.

Speaker 7 Yeah, and you have your work cut out.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 7 It's, I, I, for me, it's desperation. It's always that's what passes for hope, I think, is the desperation.

Speaker 10 If you could expand any episode into a season-long series, which one would you revisit? And what avenues would you take to further explore within that story?

Speaker 11 Well, do you remember when we did that like a two-day descent into madness where we laid out that whole whiteboard?

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 Well, that, yeah, again, desperation. I mean, it came about the shorthand that we were using, we were going to S-town it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, we were like, this is going to be our S-town. This is going to be our S-town.

Speaker 17 Also, S-Town just became a vert. It was like, we're going to S-town next season.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it just felt like none of our stories were working out, but we thought that, like, you're too young to get the reference to the love boat, but, like, where you're visiting different characters, thank you.

Speaker 7 You know, like, we couldn't solve the story, but like, maybe from week to week, we can drift from character to character and, like, keep working on them and, like, tangle them all up together.

Speaker 11 And then then nobody would notice that none of them had any languages in it.

Speaker 11 But truly we spent like I think two whole days laying out like what the structure would look like. And then at the end of the two days we were like this is insane and we just erased the whiteboard.

Speaker 7 I think it might have been more than two days. Really? It felt like a big, a sizable chunk of time.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I don't know. There's like My friends, I don't know where they are.
The Ehrlichs are here. Gregor and his, yeah, you're right to gasp.
And his brother, Dimitri.

Speaker 7 And I mean, I feel like we could do a season of just like called the Erlicks where there would be so many good stories, you know.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 10 At a time when people are increasingly concerned about privacy, how do you get people to speak to you and spill their hearts out on tape?

Speaker 11 Well, I have noticed a lot more people do the, I thought it was a scam, so I didn't answer you.

Speaker 11 And I don't know if people actually think we're running some elaborate, confusing scam, or if that's kind of just like a shorthand for like, I didn't want to respond to this.

Speaker 7 Yeah, because what kind of scam would it be, really?

Speaker 7 Not a very good one.

Speaker 7 Like a real long con.

Speaker 11 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11 And also people don't answer the phone anymore. Like people will answer an unknown number.
And I feel like that's changed even just in the time we've been doing the show.

Speaker 11 Like people used to pick up a lot more. Yeah.

Speaker 17 How do we convince them to talk once they do pick up the phone?

Speaker 11 My feeling is like people are either inclined to do it or not, and it doesn't matter that much what you say. Like, they kind of have already made up their mind.

Speaker 7 That's true, yeah. Have you ever actually convinced anybody, like, where they didn't not like a hard no to a yes.

Speaker 11 I've had people who are on the fence who like then they think about it and agree. But have you?

Speaker 7 The most was maybe in, I don't know if you guys remember the sky, the story about Skye, who had her best friends. They

Speaker 7 wrote the F word on her garage door. I'm saying the F word because my son's here and it would excite him too much.

Speaker 7 And one of the girls who were a part of it, she didn't want to talk and we spoke a lot. We had many conversations over several days and eventually she agreed to do it.

Speaker 7 And she agreed to do it for a really nice reason. Like she wanted to show her daughter that it's okay.

Speaker 7 Like you could comp to something that you did that you're not proud of, you know, and that was really sweet.

Speaker 17 I also, there was also Chris in the Barbara episodes.

Speaker 11 Yeah, right, right, right. That was like a real

Speaker 17 the that we did a two-parter about

Speaker 17 Jonathan's mother-in-law's childhood friend. Um, and in trying to find her, we ended up on the phone with someone she'd been briefly engaged to when she was younger.

Speaker 17 And at first, like, he didn't want to talk to the, I mean, he was like threatening legal action. He was like, my daughter's a lawyer, like, I'm going to come after you.
I don't want any part.

Speaker 17 Like, it was, and it was very.

Speaker 17 I was producing Jonathan on the call, and it was like, I found it very scary, having flashbacks to the three-fingered man kind of vibe. And

Speaker 17 you just kind of kept him talking. Like that was the, you just kind of kept him talking.
And I remember like, we got off the phone. I was like, what made you do that?

Speaker 17 And you were like, I just have the feeling that he actually wants to talk about this.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 17 he called back and was like, yeah, I do want to talk about this.

Speaker 7 It was like, I don't know. It was like just, I felt like it was kind of like the phone call that he'd been waiting for for like 30 odd years or more, you know? It just, I don't know.

Speaker 7 It just had that kind of feeling to it.

Speaker 10 So I've been very excited to ask you guys this question. Who would play you in Heavyweight the Movie?

Speaker 11 I do have an answer to those.

Speaker 11 Which is just my stock answer to who would play me in a movie, which is Aubrey Plaza.

Speaker 17 Oh, that's so good.

Speaker 7 I mean, I think, you know, in my mind, I'm like a very lanky, tall, sort of like Johnny Knoxville type, but I know that it would end up being like Wallace Sean, who,

Speaker 7 you know, maybe a Paul Giometti. I don't know, you?

Speaker 17 I really don't know.

Speaker 11 You might have to come back to me on this one.

Speaker 10 Okay, we'll come back to you on that.

Speaker 17 Hey, everyone. It's me, Stevie.
So this question continued to haunt me for weeks until I finally decided, Tilda Swinton, there's more Q ⁇ A coming up right after the break.

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Speaker 7 Our live event also featured a telephone.

Speaker 7 But unlike all those boring ordinary telephones that only let you reach businesses, institutions, and private residences, this telephone only allowed you to reach me, Jonathan Goldstein.

Speaker 7 And not even me, really, but my answering machine. When you picked up the receiver, you heard a message prompting you to record your own heavyweight story.

Speaker 7 And you sure showed me, because record those stories you did.

Speaker 7 Hi. You've reached Jonathan Goldstein.
I'm not at home right now, because I'm in the middle of the live performance of a lifetime. But in the meantime, leave a message with your story.

Speaker 7 Don't overthink it. Just do the job.
Do the job. Do the job.
Don't say no, say yes.

Speaker 7 I was ghosted by every single male member of my high school class.

Speaker 22 And I don't know if I did something. I thought all these people liked me.
I certainly liked them.

Speaker 5 Found out that my dad was married beforehand. It was an arranged marriage, so I'm an Indian.
And it's very unique or very rare to get divorced during an arranged marriage.

Speaker 5 Definitely caused rifts between my dad and the community.

Speaker 12 I would say that I'm not a very imaginative person.

Speaker 12 I enjoy logic. And I went to bed one night and I had a dream that my grandmother had died randomly.

Speaker 12 Told my friends at breakfast and they were like just trying to do the Freudian thing of like, what could that mean? And me sort of just blowing them off being like, dreams don't mean anything.

Speaker 12 And then about four hours later, I received a call from my sister saying, hey, like, sorry to tell you, but grandma died.

Speaker 23 Hi, my name is Dmitri Ehrlich.

Speaker 24 My story is once I was invited out to a bachelor party, and we went out in lower Manhattan to Chinatown to a Chinese massage parlor, and we had wonderful foot massages.

Speaker 24 And you, Jonathan, were doing an incredible job of pretending that it was painful because it felt great in every way.

Speaker 24 So my question is, have you ever considered doing any theatrical acting, either in film or television or on stages?

Speaker 23 Because you're obviously quite a gifted husband. Thank you.
Oh, I'm Gregor's brother, by the way.

Speaker 7 And now, back to the QA. QA stands for questions and answers.

Speaker 10 If Jonathan and Gregor could only listen to one Moby song on repeat during a road trip, which one would it be?

Speaker 7 Well, Gregor, should we turn the house lights up?

Speaker 7 What would be the song, Gregor?

Speaker 7 Please, would you stand up so people can

Speaker 25 on this road trip. We have to figure out why we're on a road trip together.

Speaker 7 I don't know. Let's say we were going to go to Frontier together.
I don't know, like something fun.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 25 I can imagine fighting with you about the radio on a road trip. How about that, Fernanzer?

Speaker 7 Like fighting over which Moby song we would listen to.

Speaker 25 Exactly. All the Moby's greatest hits, Moby's play, Moby, Moby, Moby.

Speaker 7 But you do listen to Moby songs now.

Speaker 4 I'm constant repeat.

Speaker 25 All I listen to is Moby. Actually, I have a question for you, because you said you were going to take QA from the audience.

Speaker 25 I was going to ask, was that all spontaneous stuff that you guys were really just winging it? Or did you already have your prefab like

Speaker 11 jazz?

Speaker 7 Yeah, improvised.

Speaker 25 Nice zingers.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 7 Was that your question?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I was curious, more like maybe Stanley Tucci, you know.

Speaker 11 Okay, well, all right, thank you.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's very nice. Thank you.
I like the sounds you're making of support. Thank you.

Speaker 10 Well, Gregor is correct. We are shifting into the audience QA portion.
So there are a couple of mics around.

Speaker 10 Hi.

Speaker 26 I think I'm the biggest fan now.

Speaker 26 So, Jonathan, you recently had that episode about stopping drinking.

Speaker 26 And then, because I'm your biggest fan of heavyweight, you had that live event episode where they alluded to how you needed a drink before you spoke, how it would help you.

Speaker 26 So, I was just wondering tonight,

Speaker 26 what's going on and how it is.

Speaker 7 I'm lit.

Speaker 11 I'm

Speaker 7 tanked. No, I

Speaker 7 yeah, this might be the first time I'm doing this.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it makes me a little nervous, but yeah, I haven't had anything to drink. And hi, Emma, by the way.
Hi. Are you guys friends? Oh, you're just sitting beside each other.
Emma mixes our episodes.

Speaker 7 She's the sound engineer and composes music. Emma Munger.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's

Speaker 7 yeah, it was definitely in my thoughts because

Speaker 7 I used to really like to do that, to have a drink or two or three before talking and a couple afterwards. So, yeah, I'm just

Speaker 7 freeballing it. I don't know, yeah.

Speaker 26 Yeah, and it was definitely a nuanced view of stopping drinking. Like, is it better?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 7 Some days. I was saying last night to my friend Alex,

Speaker 7 I was saying, I miss that feeling of like that everything is all right. Everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? Which is like a little like, but you got to figure it, like, you have to manifest that. You have to figure out how to get that feeling on your own.
You know, it's not real.

Speaker 7 So, yeah, I'm still working on that. And it is going to be all right.
Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that.

Speaker 20 Hi, everyone. I just want to reflect based off of that episode as well.
I just recently lost a friend to alcoholism and

Speaker 20 your episode was really touching because it was a way to externalize and even open up those conversations. And I sent it to our friends group and it helped us a lot too.

Speaker 20 So thank you for being honest and open.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 7 Thank you for saying that. That's really

Speaker 7 encouraging to hear. Thank you.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 20 My question is,

Speaker 20 I'm sure there's stories that are just in the vault, still being worked on year after year. Can you share a little bit bit of what's currently still being in development?

Speaker 20 Or if there's a store that you really wish can have see the light of data at some point?

Speaker 7 That's a good question. I don't know.
Anything come to mind?

Speaker 11 I'm like scared to talk about any of them, though, because I'm afraid I'm going to doom them to never happen.

Speaker 11 But there are ones that I really

Speaker 11 love, yeah, if it came back to life.

Speaker 7 Yeah, sometimes you have like all the elements and you're, it's very exciting, and then this one person doesn't want to talk.

Speaker 7 and yeah you know so it's it's weird model to to be basing things on that but that's how i felt about why i'm like hedging a little bit is that's how i felt about the messenger which is one we just did this season like when we got laid off from spotify i did not forward the emails to myself because i was like this story's dead so i don't need these and then it came back to life so right we never thought we'd get to talk to if you listened to the episode pat crochet who we needed to talk to and it just seemed like he wasn't going to do it and then and quincy had told us no right yeah but and then it was like a friend of a friend over dinner, and you know, it was this true serendipity.

Speaker 7 We got really lucky, yeah.

Speaker 19 Um, when you all are listening to recordings of yourselves, doing interviews or having conversations with people, have you learned that you have certain conversational habits that you've tried to alter or emphasize?

Speaker 11 That's a good question. I noticed that I laugh when I'm nervous in the middle of things that are not funny.

Speaker 11 And that's like something I've tried to stop, especially when I'm interviewing someone on like a serious topic.

Speaker 11 You know, sometimes you like ask a question and then you kind of laugh when you're uncomfortable, and then when I'm cutting it, I'm like, What am I doing? Yeah, so I've tried to stop doing that.

Speaker 7 I'll just say, I have the exact opposite problem, I can't laugh.

Speaker 7 Like, I uh I wish I did laugh more easily, and I wish I had a free and easy laugh that told people, like, oh, it's funny, that's great, keep coming, you know. So, I wish I had a little bit of that.

Speaker 17 I will

Speaker 17 pitch my voice up, especially when I'm calling people to interview them.

Speaker 17 And I hate it. I hate it so much.
And when I listen back, it's like, hi, I'm Stevie.

Speaker 18 I'm calling from the podcast heavyweight.

Speaker 17 And like, it's like, it's very, and then like the tape doesn't even sound like me. Like the difference between the, that I'm really trying to work on not doing.

Speaker 11 But I do think it's encouraging and something I learned from you, Jonathan. It is.
Is

Speaker 11 whenever I do something really stupid and embarrassing in tape, rather than cutting it out and trying to hide it, I'm like, well, that's going to be front and center in the the story.

Speaker 7 You're embarrassing yourself for a higher purpose.

Speaker 11 That's wonderful.

Speaker 7 Most people go through their lives, you know, just embarrassing themselves willy-nilly for nothing.

Speaker 11 I know. But for me, it's for art.

Speaker 18 My question is: I've noticed a lot of the episodes feature

Speaker 18 interpersonal friendship relationships, focusing on really deep platonic relationships over years. So, Howard and Gregor, and then when you went to Pilates with your friend, or like things like that.

Speaker 18 And I just love that. And what's your like advice for friendship longevity?

Speaker 7 You guys haven't lived long enough to answer that question.

Speaker 11 I don't have any friends.

Speaker 7 I think it helps to be amused. And like, I was saying I'm not an easy laugh, but I do.
Gregor really makes me laugh when he's busting my chops. If you get a kick out of that, then you're unstoppable.

Speaker 7 I mean,

Speaker 7 what's going to destroy you? Nothing, I say.

Speaker 11 I don't know that I have an answer. I mean, I'm very, I do have some long friendships, including my friend I went to Pilates with.
But I'm like, I don't know why.

Speaker 11 I don't know why they're still my friends, but I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 7 You're a good person, is why.

Speaker 11 Oh, thanks, Sean.

Speaker 11 Sure.

Speaker 7 I didn't mean to, you know, bring the place down.

Speaker 7 I have an adult contemporary side.

Speaker 10 Well, grab a drink, say hello, and thank you again for coming.

Speaker 7 And thank you for coming virtually. And thanks to everyone who made the show possible.

Speaker 7 That includes Phoebe Flanagan, Kira Posey, Tara Machado, Amy Hagedorn, Jordan McMillan, Eric Sandler, Sarah Bruguer, and especially Morgan Ratner.

Speaker 7 Live sound mixing from the staff of Caveat and mixing for this broadcast version by Emma Munger. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.
An unlive episode.

Speaker 11 The regular old kind.

Speaker 28 Hey, audiobook lovers. I'm Cal Penn.

Speaker 22 I'm Ed Helms.

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Speaker 9 What a matchup we got, y'all. This is that classic HBCU vibe.
Non-stop action.

Speaker 9 The band is rocking and the crowd blick chants echo drum beat everybody showing that school pride game like this yeah it calls for an ice cold coca-cola

Speaker 9 ah crisp and refreshing that's a game changer right there

Speaker 9 yeah that taste always hits the right note just like a band at halftime

Speaker 9 and just like that we're back at it passionate fans school colors everywhere and an ice cold coca-cola that's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard, everybody knows.

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Speaker 9 So grab a Coca-Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.