Latest / Heavyweight / #60 The Messenger

Transcript

#60 The Messenger · Heavyweight

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin, Happy birthday to me.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It was your birthday.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: It was your birthday last week, wasn't it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's kind of why I was phoning. I.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, buddy.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It lose to something when you have to call a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: week later to receive to get your own your own
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: birthday wish from someone you know, it hurts.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, Honestly, I feel like your birthdays is that important
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: to you?
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Am I wrong?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not as important to me as the first
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: night of Kanka and the second night, not the third night.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I hate the third night. You know what, As a
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: birthday present to myself, I'm going to hang up on you.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Happy birthday to me indeed from Pushkin Industries. I'm Jonathan Goldstein,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and this is Heavyweight Today's episode The Messenger right after
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the Break. As a kid growing up in Cleveland, Michael
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: loved acting. The only problem I wasn't very good. In fact,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: he stank in every summer camp show. He was placed
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: in the back row. In a children's production of The
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Hobbit the Musical. Backstage, a kid dressed as a dwarf
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: told Michael, my mom says, you're singing is awful. But
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it didn't stop Michael. He nursed his acting bug all
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the way through senior year, when one day he heard
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: about a movie being filmed in Cleveland and the director
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: needed lots of teens to be extras. Straight after school,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Michael made his way to the auditions. He was shown
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: into a room with the director and some of the crew.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: They gave him a script and he started acting.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: And their eyes lit up, and I was asked to
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: keep reading, and so we did the scene again.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: We did it again and again and again, and all
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the while Michael was overcome by a curious feeling.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: I was doing a good job.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Had you ever experienced this before, like, been in an
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: audition where people were responding this way?
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: No, No, I was usually in auditions where they're like,
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: we can make him a tree.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: At the end of the audition, the director told Michael
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that he was not going to be an extra. Michael
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: was going to be the star of the whole movie.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Why was he going to be the star of the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: whole movie? Was it his brando esque brooding, his Shia
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: la Buffian intensity.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: They showed me the storyboard and I looked exactly like
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: the kid in the drawings of the storyboard. That's the
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: reason I got it. They were just like you look
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: like the kid we drew.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: The film was called The Messenger, based on a true story,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and the true story it was based on was a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: little known World War II anecdote about a teenager named
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Thomas E. Jones. Jones was a telegram messenger in Washington, DC.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: On August fourteenth, nineteen forty five. He was sent to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: deliver the telegram that announced Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but on the way to deliver the message, he got
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: pulled over for an illegal U turn, and thus the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: end of World War Two was delayed by ten minutes.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Michael played the role of Thomas as he navigated that
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: fateful day.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: I show up to set and I just was immediately
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: involved in the magic of film. And they had to
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: fake the daylight by putting lights outside the window. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: I remember being like, Oh, you're not just like capturing
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: a moment, You're creating a moment.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: And the custodian of this exciting new world. The director
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of the movie was a twenty five year old wonder
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: kid named Quincy. Quincy took to Michael immediately. Throughout the production,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: he check in with Michael on the phone and take
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: him out for wings. Michael looked up to Quincy to.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Meet someone who was orchestrating this giant production and then
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: for him to take time talk to me.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I felt part of Even after filming wrapped, Quincy stayed
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: in touch, calling Michael with updates about the movie's release.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: We were going to premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: I learned that it was a big production, one hundred
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: thousand dollars short film, which is a lot of money
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: for a short movie. The executive producer was this man
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: named Pat.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Croche Pat pad Pad if you don't know the name.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Pat Croche was a media presence, an entrepreneur, famous in
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the world of sports because he owned the Philadelphia seventy
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: six ers in the late nineties. He was a motivational speaker.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I get up, I slap my palms together, It's going
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: to be a great.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Day, a noted pirate enthusiast.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: People ask me if I'm a pirate, and I say yes,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: but three hundred years too late.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And the kind of beloved pre me too, macho man
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: who'd show up unannounced on the set of the local
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: news just to scoop the anchor woman up into his arms.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Accident on the jersey term.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I guess, oh my god, because when you have that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: much joi de vivre, what choice do you have?
• 5:59
  Speaker 6: You know, whatever Pat comes in the room, you never
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: know what's.
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: Gonna happen, rules because Pat crochy, because he's involved. The
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: movie gets a lot.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Of press for a short film by an unknown director.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: The Messenger received an unheard of amount of press. ESPN
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: carried a story with footage of Michael on set, and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: there was a huge write up in USA Today. My
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: dad was.
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: Flying that day. You know, he's in an airport. He
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: picks up the USA Today. He flips it open and sees,
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: you know, a two page spread with my picture on it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: So the family's excitement, the friend's excitement. Everyone starts to
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: just be like, this is a very big deal.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Michael was planning on college in the fall, but as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: anticipation around the movie grew, he started to reconsider.
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: Leading up to the Philadelphia Film Festival, talking to Quincy,
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: He's like, Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: is a real chance, this is a real opportunity. This
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: is bigger than I imagined. I was like, maybe maybe
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: I try and pursue acting.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe Michael had been wrong all these years everyone had
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: been Maybe he really was a good actor, and it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: took Quincy to discover it. Michael couldn't wait to walk
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the red carpet, see himself on the big screen, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: enjoy a virgin appleteini with Tom Hanks.
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: Did your parents come with you to the premiere? Well,
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: we didn't make it to the premiere. The movie was canceled.
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: So the week before the Philadelphia Film Festival premiere, I
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: got a phone call from Quincy and he was clearly crying,
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: and he told me that the movie wasn't going to
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: come out and nobody was going to see it. Because
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: it turns out that Quincy had lied and had told
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: a really big lie.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: The lie Michael's referring to had nothing to do with
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: his historical anecdote itself. That part was true, But over
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the end credits, Quincy played footage of the actual present
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: day Thomas E. Jones being interviewed on his deathbed. The
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: only problem.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: That guy was an actor.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: It seems Quincy had just found a random old man,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: slipped him into a gown, strapped him into a hospital bed,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and christened him Thomas e Jones. But there was one
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: thing Quincy wasn't counting on.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: Because the movie had received so much attention, Thomas E
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: Jones's real family found.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Out, and Thomas E Jones's real family wasn't happy because,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: as it turned out, the real Thomas E Jones was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: very much alive, breathing, eating, sleeping, and not on a
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: deathbed but just a regular old bedbed, and so Pat
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Crochey decided to pull the movie.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, it was crushing disappointment. I had the ticket
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: to go, I had the suit, I had all the
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: expectation I had in my brain, everything that could be
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: possible after and it's all gone, it's all it vanishes.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: And then it's a wave of embarrassment because I have
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: to tell everybody.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Michael had to go back to his friend's family, his
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: grandmother who'd been clipping every article about the movie, and say,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: remember how I was going to be a big movie star.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: It was all a fraud. And the guy who thought
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I had talent also a fraud.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: And I never talked to Quincy again.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Michael abandoned his dream of becoming an actor, but his
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: time on The Messengers still had its impact. It allowed
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: him to realize how much he loved being on a set,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: loved the magic of creating a whole world from thin air,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and that pushed him towards a career in TV, writing
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: for shows on Disney and Nickelodeon. Meanwhile, Quincy's IMDb credits
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: have grown sparse.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: I always wondered what happened to Quincy becau to him.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: There was part of me that wanted to tell him
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: that I've like succeeded, that I've pursued movies because of him.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: But along with that, Michael has a lingering question for Quincy.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: I never understood why you would take such a big
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: risk like that to make such a big line. It's
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: like you've set up a film crew to film this
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: guy on his deathbed and it wasn't like it just
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: seems like a bad plan.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: As Michael has climbed the ranks of show business, this
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: question has only gained in poignance. Why risk your reputation,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: especially when the story was good enough as it was.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: Why did you lie.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: After the break searching for Quincy to become the messengers messenger?
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: But first, the best messages of all promotional messages from
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: our cherished sponsors, We really do love you guys ill
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: two gross. It's a little gross, eh, keep it in.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Why did Quincy lie? The more I think about it,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the less sense it all makes. Why go to the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: trouble of hiring an old man and building a hospital set?
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Why not just use the real Thomas E Jones?
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: Hello?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, hello, my name is Jonathan Gould. I've so far
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: been unable to contact Quincy, so I reach out to
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: someone else who might have the answer. I was looking
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: for a Thomas E. Jones.
• 11:56
  Speaker 7: He's deceased.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm very sorry.
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: Yes, I'm his widow. When he died, we would have
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: been married almost seventy years.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Thomas's widow, Nancy, is eighty nine years old. She says
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: she doesn't know why Quincy didn't just go to Thomas himself,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: But we get to talking and she tells me the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: story of how she first met Thomas. It was through
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: his work as a messenger. It turns out Nancy's father
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: was Thomas's boss at the telegram office. She tells me
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: how in nineteen forty five, there was a dedicated telegraph
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: machine standing by for the sole purpose of awaiting the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Japanese surrender.
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: And when that machine started ticking my father. He handed
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: his message first to my husband, who was a bicycle
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: messenger at sixteen years of age.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Since the bike was too slow for such an important message,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a coworker agreed to drive Thomas in his car. Unfortunately,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: he set out in the wrong direction, and thus the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: most famous U turn in American history, or at least
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the only one I've ever heard of, and I've read
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: my Howard Zinn. The U turn got Thomas and his
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: driver pulled over by a cap Of course.
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: They were saying, we've got the Japanese piece a render
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: message here. Yeah, I've heard a lot of stories. But
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: the police realized it was the truth. They just pore
• 13:18
  Speaker 7: up the ticket.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Wow, what a story is. Yeah, and it's a pretty
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: different story than the one in the Messenger. Not only
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: were the Joneses angry about the fake Thomas, but they
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: were also angry about what they considered the fake story.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: In Quincy's version of events, Thomas is in no hurry
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to deliver the message. He makes a casual pit stop
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: at a diner, where he hits on the waitress and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: enjoys a large breakfast of pancakes, all while the war
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: rages on the Jones has read about that scene in
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the media coverage of Quincy's movie, Newspaper write ups with
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: headlines like boys, pancake breakfast delayed the end of World
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: War Two.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: Well, you know, my kids were just serious about that.
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: Talking about kids, We're talking about people now sixty years old.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: We were outraged. The kids were outraged.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: This is Victoria Jones. She's one of Thomas and Nancy's
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: six children, all of whom when it came to the messenger,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: were in agreement.
• 14:22
  Speaker 8: Which was unusual for the six of us.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: This is Thomas's son, Mike Jones. He says that the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: only one inclined to let the whole thing go was
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Thomas himself.
• 14:33
  Speaker 8: That was kind of my dad's attitude, like, oh, don't
• 14:35
  Speaker 8: make a big deal, don't get this person in trouble.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: We said, no, this is altering history.
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: It just kind of portrayed him like as the slacker,
• 14:43
  Speaker 8: you know, like, oh, the heck with that, I'm going
• 14:44
  Speaker 8: to go and flirt and eat pancakes.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Victoria says that although Quincy never reached out to her father,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: he easily.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: Could have, just like you found my mother by getting
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: a few phone calls, Quincy could have found my father,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: and he never tried.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: When she found out about the movie, Victoria messaged Quincy
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: several times, but she says he grew defensive and eventually
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: stopped answering.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And then when my father died, I sent him a
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: message and said my father is now deceased.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Huh. And he did not respond to that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: No, I should go back and look. He might have said,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and that was it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I tell the Joneses the story about Michael and how
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to reach Quincy myself.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Good luck with that one.
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: I'm sure he'll take this better left of dead story
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: out too.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It turns out Nancy Jones is right. When I finally
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: get through to Quincy via email, his response is emphatic.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not interested in talking about that project anymore, he writes,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And that's the last I hear from Quincy. What happens
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: next is years go by, unrelated to my failure to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: speak with Quincy. But you never know. Heavyweight is canceled
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and I lose my job. And while the story never
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: entirely leaves my mind, without an ergonomic office chair and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a long distance phone plan, there's not much I could
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: do about it. And then one day, while trying to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: decide on a fun font for my resume, I receive
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a message from Michael. He says he has an important
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: update to share. Hey Jonathan, Hey Michael, how are you good?
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: How are you doing?
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: It's been almost three years since Michael and I have spoken.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: You have a son.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: Now, I've got a wife, I've got a son.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: The whole family is currently in New York, where Michael's wife, Katie,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: is producing a movie. It turns out that Katie's movie
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: is the reason for Michael's update.
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: He's the associate producer on the movie. His Name's Dan.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Michael explains that while out for dinner with Dan, they
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: started talking about the industry, by which I mean the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: show business industry. And one of the things people in
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the indie enjoy chatting about most is how they got
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: into the industry industry. So Michael told Dan the story
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of the Messenger, about the director Quincy, about the producer
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Pat Crochy.
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: And Dan is from Philly. Dan's parents are family friends
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: with the Crochies.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: You're kidding. Show biz connections in this life, There's not
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a thing that doesn't come down to show biz connections.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It's not what you know when you know where you
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: know it or why you know it, but whom you know.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Pat Crochy was the executive producer on the movie, the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: one who ultimately shut it all down. So, with Quincy
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: unwilling to talk, he's our best shot at figuring out
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: why Quincy had lied. At some point Pat had to
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: have demanded an explanation from Quincy. Dan agrees to talk
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: to his mom, who agrees to talk to Pat's daughter,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: who agrees to talk with Pat, who then agrees to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: talk with me. Mister Crochy, call me Pat. This is
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Pat Pat Pat Crochy.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: One thing I like to say about your Heavyweight podcast
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: is that it always inculcates a high vibrational frequency.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Can you say more about the high frequency?
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Well in the realm of form? If we're going to
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: transcend form.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Pat Crochy has a white goatee that ends in a
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: point at his chest. He's in the Zenden, a large
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: room above the barn on his fifty three acre estate.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: His walls are covered in Chinese and Tibetan calligraphy. He
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: says that these days he seldom makes any media appearances.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Is there any reason for that?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Ah, it's a great question, you interviewer you well. Ten
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: years ago, something happened. My mind cracked.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Pat's mind cracked in a meeting for one of his
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: restaurants he owned several, among them the Rum Barrel, which
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: is pirate themed.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there think it to myself, what the
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: hell am I doing here? I don't really give a
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: shit about the next great group or sandwich. This is
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: just more. I always was seeking more, another win, another
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: standing ovation, another best seller, another another more more. There
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: was never enough. Never.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: What Pat realized was that in spite of all his successes,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: he wasn't really happy, and so he tried to change
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: his way of thinking. But it was a slow process.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: The ego in the was if I can change my mind,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: that'd be another great bestseller and I would go back
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: on the speaking gain. It was all ego, all commercial,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: but that's how Grace hooked me. Everything that unfolds is perfect.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I have this adage, the past has served his purpose perfectly,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: But most people are cherry pickers. Where I wish that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: would have changed, or I wish this, or no. The
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: purpose of the past, Jonathan, There's only one purpose to
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: bring you and me right here and now. Okay, the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: past is smoke off the end of my cigar.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: For me, the past is also smoke off the end
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: of my cigar, juicy wafts of precious smoke to be
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: hysterically clod at, like a rabid raccoon attacking a helium
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: filled garbage can. And so I asked Pat to go
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: back to the past and explain how he became involved
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: with Quincy, Michael and the Messenger. He says it all
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: began in Key West at the pirate themed museum he
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: owned that sat beside the pirate themed restaurant he also owned.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: And you get to know all the piratical personalities on
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: that island, one of which was Reef. And Reef is
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: a salvager and he's really got a piratical nature. He
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: would even dress as a part and I really loved him.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: One day, Reef ast Pat for a favor. Could Pat
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: meet with his son, Quincy, who wanted to make a movie.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: And we got talking and he turned me on to
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: this script that he has been writing.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: And you liked it?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, are you kidding me? It's talking about this
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: young boy who has an effect on the ending of
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: World War two?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And you hadn't known that story. I hadn't known that story.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I had never heard of it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: What was your impression of Quincy when you first met him?
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I liked him and so and I believed everything Quincy
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: told me.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: When Quincy's lie came out, Pat was furious prior to.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Ten years ago before you know, my minecrack. He's lucky
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: he didn't cross my path, or else he wouldn't be walking.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Do you mean that you mean that literally?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Uh, let's say no, since this is being taped. I'm
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: pretty street savvy. I couldn't believe that I got buffalo
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: like this as someone I thought was a friend, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a friend, a Key West friend. I was so hurt
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: that I was angry. And when I'm angry, the old
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Pat crocheap, the old corner guy man. Not only did
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I lose the money, but all the contacts that I
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: made for him to get him in USA. Today, I
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: opened all these doors, through all my relationships, and then
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, when I realized that it was
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a fraud, that it was phony. I mean I had
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: to go and apologize to everyone.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But Pat says that these days he doesn't have time
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: for rumination or regret.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: And even though I am here at peace. My body
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: has bell marrow cancer. I'm on chemo every twelve hours
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: of chemo mets incurable. However, I don't regret that. I
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: don't nothing. Oh wow, Jonathan, it's only my body, It's
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: not me.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Before we get off, I ask Pat Michael's burning question,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: why did Quincy lie? But Pat says he doesn't ask
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the why questions only Quincy. Pat says, if he goes deep,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: can answer that. Patt and Quincy haven't spoken for decades.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Their last interactions were angry ones. Right after Quincy's lie
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: came out all the same, Pat offers to reach out
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: to Quincy. He contacts a friend who he thinks might
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: have Quincy's phone number. I don't have high hopes, but
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Patt and Quincy do end up speaking, and afterwards, for
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: reasons I can't discern, Quincy agrees to speak with Michael.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: A video call between Michael and Quincy is arranged, and
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: while we wait for Quincy, I asked Michael the opening
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: question I learned in jayschool. Are you in a bathroom now?
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: This is our tiny little kitchen in our apartment.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: It's late at night, and Michael gives me a tour
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: of his darkened New York apartment.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: And there's our Carson's little lunchbox.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Very sweet. Where is he right now?
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: Carson is asleep.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: What a lazy bones? And then Hello. Quincy enters the chat.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It's been almost twenty years since he and Michael were
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: together on set. Quincy was twenty five at the time.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: He's in his forties now.
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: It's nice to see Michael's face. I haven't seen his
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: face in a long time.
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: And it was good to see you.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Michael and Quincy begin by reminiscing about their time together
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: about making the movie.
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: There are two scenes that really stand up for me.
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: One is when all the kids are in the.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Diner and the exchange memory from what feels like unfraught
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: territory stuff like the casting and the fun of being
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: on set.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: My favorite scene was doing doing the U turn. You
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: had me drive stick shift and I lied when I auditioned.
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: You're like, can you drive stick And I was like,
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: I can drive stick. I couldn't drive stick I was
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: I never heard that, I know, and I was like
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: stalling out, like grinding the gears.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It feels like Michael is trying to make Quincy comfortable,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: show that Quincy wasn't the only one capable of lie
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: was a fraud.
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: Into the car from like pulling his hair out to
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: I thought the kids could drive.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't take long before the conversation turns to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the elephant in the room, and it's Quincy who brings
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: it up.
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: I remember wanting to reach out to you in years
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: the past. Yeah, I felt a lot of guilt because,
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: like this film, everybody had put so much sweat and
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: tears into it, and uh, it was just nothing like evaporated.
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: And I thought, my god, I failed every single person.
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: And then I became like national news, and then the
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: blogs were writing about.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Me because The Messenger got a colossal amount of press.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: When the truth came out, Quincy received a proportional amount
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of backlash, similar to how the tidal wave of The
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Messenger's success hit Michael, the bad news about The Messenger's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: failure hit Quincy. He was at the airport reading that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: day's newspaper over someone's shoulder and.
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: They were reading the article about me and how I
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: had lied, and that hit me like I'd say a
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: ton of bricks, But a ton of bricks would have
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: felt like a pillow compared.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: To what that was how are you coping?
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: I was in denial. I kept going back to this
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: like excuse of well, the Titanic, right, the Titanic, it's
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: a fake movie. It's based on a true story. There
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: was no Jack and Rowe, and yet what I had
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: done was totally different. I mean I was literally trying
• 27:14
  Speaker 6: to pretend that this other actor i'd hired was Thomas Jones.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: And it took me a year or two to sort
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: of come to terms and just be like, man, I
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: really fucked up.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the question of why why swap
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a random old man for Thomas E. Jones? To explain
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Quincy starts with how he came to the story of
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the Messenger in the first place.
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: I'd been working that summer at the Truman Little White
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: House in q Wes, and sort of in my onboarding
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: at that museum, they told us to read David McCullough's
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: Truman biography, and it was in that book that I
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: saw this one sentence about Thomas E. Jones and The Messenger, And.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It was literally one sentence, one sentence in parentheses, in
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the middle of a thousand page book.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: And I thought, God, what an amazing story.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But Quincy thought, you know what would make it an
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: even more amazing story if he could find Thomas E. Jones,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: interview him and include that interview in the movie. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in Quincy's telling, he did look for Thomas Jones.
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: I had hired literal investigators to go find this person,
• 28:24
  Speaker 6: two different guys, and they both said, like, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: we can't. We can't find them, but we found these
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: two death certificates that kind of match up.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: So the death certificates felt like enough. Quincy concluded that
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the Thomas E. Jones he was looking for probably was dead.
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: And I didn't share that with anybody because in my head,
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: I just saw the story rolling out. He's like, we
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: were going to tell the story and then the end
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: you saw the real guy and that I couldn't get
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: away from that story.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: And in the absence of the real guy, the next
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: best thing was a fake guy.
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: Oh well, that decease Thomas Jones will never know and
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: anybody that sees the movie, it's gonna be so great
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: and they're gonna be crying and laughing at the end
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: of it that they won't care.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: For this role. There was no casting, no auditions. In fact,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the part of Thomas E. Jones wasn't played by an
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: actor at all.
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: He was actually a tour guide at the Truman Little
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: White House.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Quincy had asked a work friend from the museum to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: do the job.
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: And then the real Thomas Jones found me. And I
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: certainly remember that feeling. It was like a disgust I
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: felt for myself.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: In the aftermath, Quincy left the film world for many years.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: He was fired from his job at the Truman Museum.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: He eventually found work clerking in a bookstore and making
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: wedding videos. Well, this was the first time a live
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Quincy's had been so brutally exposed. He admits that the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: lying itself was something he'd been leaning on since his
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: teen years.
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: You know, I had come from a fairly poor family
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: in Key West, and I had attended a very exclusive
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: prep school up in western Massachusetts called Deerfield Academy, where
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: I had no business being there, And so I I
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: felt this like sense of just like always needing to exaggerate.
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: People would be like, oh, I'm going to Paris for
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: want or break, and I'd be like, oh, gosh, you know, Paris,
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: It's great. I didn't even know what country it was.
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: In it was like a daily thing. Freshman year, someone
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: had a picture Jimmy Hendrix a poster and I remember
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: looking at his name and thinking it looked kind of French,
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: and I was like, oh, I love Gym Hendrye. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: I remember him looking at me and being like, what.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: For Quincy. Lies became a beautiful wall between himself and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: everyone else. Lies protected him but also isolated him. It
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: took the collapse of The Messenger to finally get him
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to stop, and.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: It was actually very relieving because it took a lot
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: of weight off my shoulders that I didn't have to
• 31:03
  Speaker 6: make every story ten percent better. I didn't have to.
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: As hard as that was, that was the most important, lesson,
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: full stop period of my life.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: After we did The Messenger, I didn't take that as
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: anything that stopped me.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: When Quincy is done sharing the effects The Messenger had
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: on his life, Michael shares the role that played for him.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: Seeing the camera, seeing the crew, it blew my mind.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: I didn't know that this was possible. I didn't know
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: that this is what it looked like.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And I was in It's Quincy and The Messenger that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: inspired Michael's career, but it isn't just that Quincy gave
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: him a professional life. He gave him a life.
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: I married this beautiful person who she's a movie producer,
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: and we have this amazing kid called Carson who's two
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: and a half years old. And all of this life
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: that I have, this partner, of this career, this kid,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: it comes from this wild, weird, random moment in Cleveland,
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: Ohio where you decided to cast me in this short film.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: And it's all this to say, like I never got
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: to just thank you. I've always appreciated that door that
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: you showed to me and allowed me to walk through
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: that moment, that time, that invitation that you gave me
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: to be on set changed the entire direction of my life.
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: That means a lot to me. I I look back
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: on that time and totally with totally different eyes. It
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: was one of the most difficult things in my life.
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: And I can't tell you like how meaningful it is
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: to me to hear that someone had something good come
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: out of it, because it certainly didn't feel like that.
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: I was convinced that it would ruin everyone's life, because
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: that's what I was feeling at that moment.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Quincy just assumed anyone involved with the messenger would still
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: be furious with him, and so a few weeks back,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: when he saw Pat Croche's name pop up on his phone,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: he says he almost felt too scared to pick up,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: but when they spoke, instead of yelling at him, Pat
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: told him it was time to let it go.
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: As soon as he said that those words let it go,
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: I just sat out in front of my house and
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: cried for a good twenty minutes. I didn't know before
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: we talked today, actually genuinely what you were going to
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: say today.
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: You know you were I met you as this person
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: I looked up to.
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: You're gonna make me cry. I'm really, really genuinely happy
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: for you.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Thank you for taking time just to talk to me.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: It really thank you for the life I got to
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: have because of it.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Recently I got to share in that life. One day,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: leaving our New York studio, Michael says he's off to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: meet his wife Katie. Her crew is filming just a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: few blocks away, and Michael asks if I'd like to come,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and I say sure. On the corner of twentieth Street
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and Seventh Avenue, shooting is in full swing. The movie
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: stars John Tatruro as an aging pickpocket who ends up
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: with a thumb drive containing a crypto wallet on it.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Michael and I are waved past the protected perimeter and
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Katie gives me a pair of small headphones as I
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: watch take after take of John Totruro slamming down a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: payphone and screaming fuck in fake fury. I feel like
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a ten year old on a field trip. All around us,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the city bustles as normal. We are tucked away in
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: our make believe world, watching make believe things. It's all
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a lie, of course, but one that we're all in on.
• 35:19
  Speaker 9: And how good.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: Now that the fern ures returning to it's goodwill home,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: Now that the last month's raft is scheming.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: The damage to possum.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: Take this moment to desolee too felt around for five team.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: From Things That Accident Lee. This episode of Heavyweight was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: produced by Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Moheeny mcgauker and Phoebe Flanagan. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Lucy Sullivan,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Karen Chakerjee and Nazanine RAFs and Johnny Our production council
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: is Jake Flanagan. Emmamonger mixed the episode with original music
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Bobble Principal and Shanghai Restoration Project.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Our theme song is by the Weakerlands, courtesy of Epitaph Records.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast, or email us
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: at Heavyweight at Pushkin dot Fm. We'll be back next
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: week with a new episode.