Latest / Heavyweight / The Heavy Wait Diaries: Chapter 3
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Previously on Miller High Life Presents The Heavyweight Diaries. Bloomberg
- 0:06Speaker 1: is acting coy lay him what I've been working on?
- 0:09Speaker 1: I have nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, Bloomberg says. Pinky swears
- 0:14Speaker 1: are sacred. The Gimlet Media conference room is a blaze,
- 0:32Speaker 1: glowing with the brilliant light of the elephantine chandelier hanging
- 0:37Speaker 1: low enough to almost tickle the top of my balding pate.
- 0:41Speaker 1: But the room is made even more radiant by the luminous, young,
- 0:44Speaker 1: scrubbed faces of the Gimblet advertising team, the Gimlet Marketing team,
- 0:48Speaker 1: the Gimblet Brand Synergies team, the Gimlet Press outreach and
- 0:53Speaker 1: public relations team. In the room too is Michael, my
- 0:57Speaker 1: designated observer from People Off who ever since the Way
- 1:02Speaker 1: Too Casual Friday incident of twenty sixteen, has been assigned
- 1:07Speaker 1: to all my meetings. I watched the room watch me
- 1:11Speaker 1: for a full thirty seconds as I pull mightily on
- 1:14Speaker 1: the sliding glass door trying to enter the conference room. Finally,
- 1:20Speaker 1: my designated Michael comes to the rescue, opening the door
- 1:25Speaker 1: with a quick flick. He leads me over to the
- 1:27Speaker 1: head of the fifty foot long table and stuffs a
- 1:30Speaker 1: piece of paper in my hand. It reads meeting agenda
- 1:36Speaker 1: time two hours, speaker Jonathan Goldstein, purpose to report progress
- 1:43Speaker 1: on the new season of Heavyweight. It here bears mentioning
- 1:47Speaker 1: that the new season of Heavyweight is progressing poorly, very
- 1:52Speaker 1: very poorly. It might also bear mentioning that everyone in
- 1:56Speaker 1: the room except for me, is wearing a toilet seat
- 2:00Speaker 1: around their neck. Gimlet has a new sponsorship with Hoity
- 2:13Speaker 1: Toity Toilet Seats, a startup that crafts toilet seats from
- 2:17Speaker 1: a single piece of salvage timber and delivers them straight
- 2:21Speaker 1: to your door. The business teams are showing their support.
- 2:26Speaker 1: Hoity Toity Toilet Seats were designed by two graduates of
- 2:29Speaker 1: Stanford's prestigious School of Medical Fashion. The ad copy reads
- 2:34Speaker 1: wearing them around the neck like a Hawaiian lay promotes
- 2:38Speaker 1: proper posture. Flipping over the trifoled brochure reveals celebrity spokesperson
- 2:44Speaker 1: Harvey Kaitel insisting that not only are his Hoity toities
- 2:48Speaker 1: the height of hygiene and a soothing balm for his
- 2:51Speaker 1: near constant whiplash, but with the right shoes, they're perfect
- 2:56Speaker 1: for an evening on the town. Will Heavyweight be sponsored
- 3:00Speaker 1: by the good folks at Hoity Toity as well. I
- 3:03Speaker 1: ask Hoity Toity's focused on a different demo. Madison, head
- 3:09Speaker 1: of marketing, says, they're more Cardi B than Wilfrid B.
- 3:14Speaker 1: That's what I call Wilford Brimley. But we do have
- 3:17Speaker 1: some exciting sponsors for heavyweight, like what I ask adult undergarments,
- 3:25Speaker 1: she says, mobility scooters, orthopedic insoles, wheat, germ fiber supplements,
- 3:31Speaker 1: some super cool stuff. Awesome sauce, I say, so, how's
- 3:37Speaker 1: that quirky, self deprecating commentary of yours coming along? Asks
- 3:42Speaker 1: the senior VP of brand Synergies, a twenty three year
- 3:45Speaker 1: old toddler named Bryce. Super Awesome sauce, I say, wiping
- 3:51Speaker 1: the sweat along my hairline with a fish taco wrapper
- 3:54Speaker 1: from the pre eating lunch that I wasn't sure I
- 3:57Speaker 1: was allowed to eat, but which with reluctant, tensative rat
- 4:02Speaker 1: like bites and loud, nervous swallows. I've been eating without
- 4:05Speaker 1: cessation since I entered the room. Bryce twirls the artisanal
- 4:15Speaker 1: toilet plungeries carrying as a matching dandy stick, and suctions
- 4:20Speaker 1: it to the tabletop with a loud, thwacking sound. What's
- 4:24Speaker 1: the first episode about? What isn't it about? I ask?
- 4:29Speaker 1: I then try out a jolly, infectious laugh in order
- 4:33Speaker 1: to get the room laughing and establish a tone of
- 4:37Speaker 1: casual bonami. But what comes out of my mouth instead
- 4:41Speaker 1: sounds like a barking seal who's just eaten tainted yogurt,
- 4:45Speaker 1: has yogurt all over his seal whiskers, and has begun
- 4:48Speaker 1: barfing out shrimp, cocktails, scuba gear, and whatever else it
- 4:53Speaker 1: is seals normally eat. In the ensuing silence, Bryce asks
- 4:58Speaker 1: me to offer a little more detail. It's about this
- 5:02Speaker 1: teacher who once yelled at me and made me cry
- 5:04Speaker 1: in third grade. I say, I finally just tracked her down,
- 5:09Speaker 1: and asks Bryce, making eye contact and leaning forward exactly
- 5:14Speaker 1: fifteen degrees, as stipulated in gimblet Media's Good Listeners Make
- 5:19Speaker 1: Good Managers video tutorial. In an interesting twist, I say,
- 5:25Speaker 1: it turns out she died five years ago. I ended
- 5:28Speaker 1: up speaking with her hospice nurse who cared for her
- 5:31Speaker 1: in her last days, and asks Bryce, leaning forward an
- 5:37Speaker 1: additional five degrees. He says, I say she made no
- 5:43Speaker 1: mention of me. Bryce fiddles with his toilet seat. What
- 5:48Speaker 1: else you got, he asks, and the room erupts in laughter.
- 5:54Speaker 1: What else I got? I got nothing? As the sound
- 6:01Speaker 1: of the room's youthful titters stab at my ear drums,
- 6:04Speaker 1: I consider pitching a trip to England, where my unique
- 6:07Speaker 1: powers of interlocution might help solve Brexit, But that would
- 6:12Speaker 1: involve taking a trip to England, where the dampness might
- 6:15Speaker 1: amplify my trots into a full blown case of the scoots.
- 6:31Speaker 1: Desperate for an idea that was more local to my
- 6:34Speaker 1: personal bathroom, and with yogurt on the brain, I explained
- 6:39Speaker 1: how Gimblet media editor Jorge just was just telling me
- 6:42Speaker 1: how he'd been up all night after accidentally eating some
- 6:46Speaker 1: spoiled yogurt. I add some sly emphasis on the word
- 6:50Speaker 1: accidentally to up the intrigue. What if he had a
- 6:56Speaker 1: do over, I say, affecting the voice of a wizard
- 6:59Speaker 1: casting a magical spell, and could undo having eaten the yogurt,
- 7:05Speaker 1: not by barfing nine times like he already did, but
- 7:09Speaker 1: by not having eaten it in the first place. As
- 7:15Speaker 1: I speak, I wave my arms in theatrical suspense building
- 7:19Speaker 1: circles and slowly rise from the table, hypnotizing my brand
- 7:25Speaker 1: strategy biz marketing colleagues with a perfectly executed borsh belt bob,
- 7:30Speaker 1: an old Vaudeville trick designed to focus the audience's attention
- 7:34Speaker 1: onto the performer along with it, my voice grows louder
- 7:39Speaker 1: and louder as my pitch reaches an hysterical crescendo. If
- 7:45Speaker 1: you allow yourself to venture past the limits of your
- 7:48Speaker 1: earthly imagination, you might begin to envision what such a
- 7:52Speaker 1: do over might yield. With my eyes closed and head
- 7:57Speaker 1: tilted back, I shoot my arms out to each side,
- 8:01Speaker 1: bono style and fall into silence. I count down in
- 8:06Speaker 1: my head five, four, three, executing a perfect pocono'se pause,
- 8:14Speaker 1: an old Vaudeville trick designed to increase tension at the
- 8:17Speaker 1: end of a performance to a level so high that
- 8:20Speaker 1: the audience can't help but break it with a rapturous
- 8:23Speaker 1: standing ovation. Two and a half two one, Wait for it,
- 8:32Speaker 1: Wait a little longer for it. With no applause forthcoming,
- 8:37Speaker 1: I start the countdown again, three, two and a half,
- 8:43Speaker 1: two and one. When I open my eyes, the boardroom
- 8:50Speaker 1: is empty save for Michael, my people ops observer, who
- 8:55Speaker 1: is furiously scribbling angry notes or angrily scribbling fury notes.
- 9:01Speaker 1: Either way he avoids my gaze. On the table beside
- 9:07Speaker 1: me is a Gimlet brand Vellum note card. Written upon
- 9:10Speaker 1: it in big floury handwriting is a note from Bryce
- 9:16Speaker 1: loved your little skit bro ps. You've got three weeks
- 9:21Speaker 1: to cough up something or else. It's curtains for certains
- 9:27Speaker 1: XO XO Bryce. Cakes. All I've got is a big,
- 9:33Speaker 1: fat Canadian goose egg. It'd take three weeks alone just
- 9:37Speaker 1: to figure out the perfect cutesy retort to Bryce. It
- 9:41Speaker 1: was beginning to seem like my Canadian goose was cooked.
- 9:45Speaker 1: I sit down at the head of the boardroom table
- 9:49Speaker 1: and help myself to the last remaining vegan brownie on
- 9:52Speaker 1: the party platter. To wash it down, I crack open
- 9:56Speaker 1: an unopened Miller High Life, which is still ill mercifully cold.
- 10:10Speaker 1: This has been chapter three of the Heavyweight Diaries. With
- 10:13Speaker 1: any luck, the new season of Heavyweight will begin on
- 10:16Speaker 1: September twenty sixth. Until then, you can chart our progress
- 10:20Speaker 1: each week with a new diary update. And remember the
- 10:24Speaker 1: best place to listen to Heavyweight is on Spotify. The
- 10:27Speaker 1: second best place to listen to Heavyweight is on a
- 10:29Speaker 1: love seat sharing a pair of earbuds with your sweetheart.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Heavyweight is Me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Jorge just Stevie Lane,
- 10:37Speaker 1: Khalila Holt, NBA Parker. This episode was mixed by Emamonger.
- 10:42Speaker 1: Music by Bobby Lord. Our ad music is Vivaldi's Spring,
- 10:45Speaker 1: performed by the Wichita State University Chamber Players. We'll have
- 10:49Speaker 1: a new chapter of the Heavyweight Diaries next week