Latest / Heavyweight / Jonathan Goldstein on Wild Card

Transcript

Jonathan Goldstein on Wild Card · Heavyweight

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone, Hello, Hi, hello, Hi. Here we all are
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: in the studio. Yes, indeed, and today we've got something
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: a little different.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Ooh but kayleie, I don't like different things.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Well, Jonathan, you might just have to give it a chance,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: because sometimes trying new things can be scary but rewarding.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, well here comes the chuo choo train
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of listening. What do we got here?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Recently you're a guest on a show called Wildcard? Do
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: you remember that?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Of course? I remember? How can I forget? I was
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: interviewed by Rachel Martin.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: How did it feel, Jonathan to be in the guest seat?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It felked. I didn't like it. It's a tremendous loss
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of control. I have to say. It was like the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: spider had become the fly or something. But you know,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: here's the incredible. This is nuts. It doesn't even make
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: sense to me. I'm just looking at their past episodes. Okay,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of wild Card, you know who was on two weeks ago?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Someone that's so famous they're known by one name, sure, Adele.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It wasn't Share or Adel someone more? Actually, dare I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: say maybe someone more famous?
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Obama?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say as famous as Obama may be more famous.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: What all right, I'll just tell you Oprah interviewed Oprah
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: last week, she interviewed Melinda Gates.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: She's got more money than you.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Oprah has more money than me. Let's see who else has.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I would say almost every guest is probably richer than you.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You know, honestly. So I'm on her website right now,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: on the wild Card website, and I'm schooling, and I'm like,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm looking like Melinda Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: mean crazy, And then I saw my name and I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: got nervous. I thought, like, that's a mistake.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Do you think they had someone fall through that week?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny, okay. So I did ask her that,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: like why am I on the show? Basically? And I thought,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the answer would be something like, oh, what
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? Like of course you you know,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: But she was honest. She was like, well, you know
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: how it is, like sometimes you do like a biggie
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and then sometimes you just do a small one or
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: something like that.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I think she was more compliment than that.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: If she called me a small sounds like.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: She just wanted to talk to you, which is really nice.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It is it is what thank you? That is very nice.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: You know, Me and Stevie usually are in on like
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the you know, we're producing the conversations you have. This
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is one that we got to come to just as listeners.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: We just heard the edited version at the end, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. I felt like it covered a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: lot of territory beyond just the typical like how did
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: you come up with the show? Like, like I felt
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: like you guys kind of went deep in a really
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: interesting way.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I got an interesting text from my mother in law
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: after she had listened to it. She said that she
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: had never had anybody express something about life and death
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that she had always felt. WHOA, yeah that's cool.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And after I got the text, I told my wife,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I said, Emily, you married your mother gradually. Yeah.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So we're going to listen to that episode.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I think listeners will really enjoy it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And if you don't, will we'll we'll send you a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: check returning your full purchase price.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: If you don't, try try the Oprah episode. You know
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: maybe I like that.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: But first, a word from our sponsors, just.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: A heads up. This episode does have some strong language.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Do you think people can really change?
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I have to believe that. I mean,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the struggle. It's like the paradox.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, like we are who we are, but I
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: think as long as we're alive, we're able to change.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I'm Rachel Martin and this is wild Card, the show
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: back on me. My guest this week is Jonathan Goldstein.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I was writing and no one was buying what I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: was selling. I just couldn't get anywhere, and I just
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: kept doing it because I felt compelled to do it,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: like a spider spinning a web.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Goldstein believes enclosure, which is what is massively popular
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: podcast Heavyweight, is all about helping people move on from
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: some kind of unfinished business in their lives. Maybe that's
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: helping someone make amends or to say thank you to
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: a stranger, or to help a person turn a page
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: on a traumatic experience. And yes, the word heavy is
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: in the title, but it doesn't feel that way, in
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: large part because Jonathan is very funny, and he's also
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: got this lightness about him. He's the kind of guide
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: who makes it clear no matter what happens around the
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: next bend, he'll be there rooting you on. I am
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: so very happy to welcome Jonathan Goldstein to Wild Card. Hi.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Hi, thank you so much. It would have taken me
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: about ten tries to get that, and so much editing.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I don't believe you, but it is, it's true, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: yet it's true.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: I'm going to hold up three cards. You pick randly one,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: two or three. Okay, first three cards, First three cards.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Now, one is on my left.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: I tend to think of one being this on my right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, that's my left.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to make this as confusing as possible for
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: perfect because I'm hoping, I guess my my subconscious wish
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is that you're just going to say, you know what,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: forget it, We're gonna do a rerun this week. Okay, sorry,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, you know what. I get the impression,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: as a as a child magician, that you're trying to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: force the number two cards. It's poked out a little
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, yeah, Okay, now you're forcing the one
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: in the two. I just I just want to please you.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I'll take I'll take the number two.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: I'm not pushing, I promise, Although I do like this question. Okay,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: look what happened there? Okay, what's an ordinary place that
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Okay. You see, it's very difficult for me to talk
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: about places because I I'm not very place aware. Oh.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I live so much of my life up in my head.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: For many years, I thought of it as like internal
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and then like through therapy, I've begun to see it
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: as disassociative. Possibly, I will say broadly, movie theaters I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: are kind of like I think Pauline Kle called them
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: like her church, and I think that's a little bit
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the way that I feel about movie theaters. Yeah, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: there's one particular. I live in Minnesota, Minneapolis, and there's
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: an old mid century theater that used to be walking
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: distance from my house, and I would just go see
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: anything that was playing there and always sit way way
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: way back in the back row because I like to
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: take it all in by yourself, by myself. Yeah, it
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: had I'd like going there with people, but I you know,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: if I had my drothers, it was by myself, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: that just felt like my place in the dark, looking
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: up at this big screen, feeling like a baby being
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: held by somebody. You know. Maybe that's a part of it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know what was the extraordinary part of that experience.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I think this particular theater because it's mid century. I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: had the experience last Christmas of going to see It's
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life there and I found it to be
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a very emotional experience. Like it it's just I mean,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it's just a room. But I don't know, all of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: this stuff sounds very corny. I mean, my father used
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to watch these black and white movies and refer to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it as like a time machine, and it is kind
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of like that. There is this feeling of the past
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: kind of erasing, and you're kind of existing in all
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: times at once. Beyond that, it's probably just pretty banal.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It just yeah, there's just something extraordinary about in this
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: day and age being able to kind of like turn
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: your phone off and shut out the world for a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: couple of hours.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, thank God, hold on, there's one sound on
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: here I need to make sure goes away.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Is it my voice? You figured out the one thing
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that's dragging down this podcast?
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Okay, three more cards.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I'll take one this time.
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: Were you intimidated or excited about leaving your parents' house?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Leaving my parents' house? I have to say, And you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and this is kind of like you just don't know
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: what you don't know back then, But I was nothing
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: but excited. I didn't enjoy my childhood very much, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the idea of being able to make my own rules
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: was very exciting. And I remember when I I harken
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: back to it now that I got a kid, I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: think about how sad my mother was. She was sitting
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: on the edge of my bed and yelling at me
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: for what she called dismantling my room, for the stuff
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that I was taking, you know, And all I was
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: taking was these milk rates. I didn't even have like
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: a bookshelf. It was just like I kept my books
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and stuff in milk crates. And she was like very
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: upset that I was taking them. And I remember I
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: wore cowboy boots, which were a very impractical thing to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: wear in the summer when you're moving boxes. But there
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: was something about it that felt very romantic. I had
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: these cowboy boots that I only wore like once a year. Yeah,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and it felt like that was an occasion for the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: cowboy boots, even though they were slippery.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: Where were you going to? Where were you moving from
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: and to?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So I was living in Montreal, That's where I grew up,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and I was moving to a very cheap part of
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: town called Pointing Charles.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: It was probably no more than like a half an
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: hour car drive.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but it can be a whole world away.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt great. There was a five dollars liter
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of apple wine that they sold at the corner store,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and there was all these like dollar ninety nine breakfast places.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: It was like nineteen thirty four.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It was yeah, back, this is back in the thirties. Yeah.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I could listen to all the jazz music I wanted. Yeah, No,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It was just yeah, it was just
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the feeling of being free. It really Yeah, it felt
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it felt free.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, last one in this round one, two or three?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I guess three.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: Oh, I feel like I'm putting all these place questions
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: to you. What details do you remember about your childhood.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Bedroom, the milk crate, the wall to wall posters of
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: David Bowie. Nice, very big David Bowie fan. To this day,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: my father will call me up on the phone if
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: David Bowie's on TV and I'll say, oh, your buddy's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: on TV. He just didn't get it.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: That he knows that you like him, and he was
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: like trying to connect with you.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, just a lot of like pictures taken out
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of magazines and newspapers. And I don't it must still
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: be the same way for kids, But it was like
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: your whole personality was splayed across your bedroom walls. Like
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't on your bedroom wall, then you weren't
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: in the world properly. You know, you had to lead
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: with all of these things on your wall. I had
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: this little card table that with a type with an
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: electric typewriter that I wrote on.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: What were you writing at the time?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Such junk. I remember when I applied into the creative
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: writing program at the University in Montreal Concordia with such
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: high hopes because from a very young age I was
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: always writing and making plays and making radio plays and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: you know, forcing my friends into performing in them. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I applied put together what I thought was my best work,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and I applied to this creative writing program and the guy,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the professor running the program rejected me. And I couldn't
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: understand why. And I made a meeting with him, and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: he said that someone that wrote the way that I
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: did needed a therapist more than they needed a creative
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: writing program, which was probably true, but was still like
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a very heavy thing to hear at like eighteen, you.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: Know, not helpful guidance.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But it was all like nuts. I mean, like young
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: men are, or at least me and my friends, I
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: mean we were just nuts. We were just really pushing
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: boundaries and you know, loved Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: There's nothing, no offense, but there's nothing extraordinary about that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: That's that doesn't signal depression. That's just being an angstret No.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I was just depressed on top of that. Yeah, that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: was that was just a whole other side project. Yeah,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: various dark places, you know, very caught up in like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: what's it all about? I had, like during my teen years,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: like a foray into becoming religious and then kind of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: losing my faith and feeling that that brought on a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: really heavy depression. I wanted to believe and I just
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't figure my way into it. And yeah, just like
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: very from a very young age is very caught up
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: in the big questions, I guess, and not that that's
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: necessarily a formula for depression, but for me, I don't know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: there was something very dire and desperate about it. Remember
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: asking my father like at a like at a very
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: very young age, like where God came from? And that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: feeling like a very basic question because God was given,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: but like, okay, so then where does God come from?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And I remember him telling me that I should look
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: it up, and I had these childs encyclopedia set and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: looking up.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: What did you look at God?
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And under g yeah, like God, And like I thought, oh, well,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to the bottom of this in
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: two seconds. Everybody wanted to hear this, and it wasn't.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I remember like looking at the Bible and thinking like, oh,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it must be before Genesis, like before but you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: there's like no preface, there's no you know, it just
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: starts with the big bang and that's it. But I
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: don't know, it was probably also more banal, like I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: probably couldn't meet any girls, you know.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a big existential stew of things.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very profound, very yeah. Well Schopenhower asks, is
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that a word?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Now, yeah, yeah, but I think dealing with that the
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: uncertainty of life at that end, but.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I couldn't see. Yeah, but I know, you know, it's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: still something that I struggle with. I mean, I just
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: want to really let go and and give myself over
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to life. But I don't know, there's always just been
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: this feeling of like if you're not totally invested in it,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it'll make death easier. You know, like if you live
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: your life as though like you're kind of you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: here's life and here's death, and they kind of are
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: side by side, adjacent to one another on a shelf,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: it'll be more of a lateral move. Good night, folks,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it's not too it's not too late to like run
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the rerun.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I'm just trying to understand it. It means putting as
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: much effort into the thinking about death as the thinking
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: about life, and they are equal experiences, and so then
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: it's a lateral.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're sort of like braced for death from
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a young age, you know, if you don't fully you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: throw yourself into the whole life thing. Then when the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: carpet is yanked out from under you, you're going to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: be braced for your fall.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: No, I get it. I like do this in my
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: own mind. I am the worst case scenario person. It
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: is how I live My life is to prepare for
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: the worst things, and so I practice not being around anymore.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: It's dark.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: But and you don't want to model that for your No, I.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Have two of them. I don't think that's a great
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: way to live. But it actually doesn't bring me down.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: I don't get bummed about it. It just go there
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: for a little bit. I try it on, and then
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: I come back and I'm like, everyone was okay. Everyone
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: when I was gone in my imaginary death, everyone grieved
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: and then they lived beautiful lives and then it was fine.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful. So you're thinking about your own absence
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: from the perspective of those you love, Yeah, I guess
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that's the mark of a superior human being. That's not
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: how I was thinking about it. I was thinking more,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: fuck all, y'all. No, no, no, I'm just kidding.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about your show for a few minutes, because
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: it is a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: that you have made.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Have you wait been nine years? Over nine years?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were doing their ninth season.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a little break the show was cancel
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: was yeah, at the end of twenty twenty three, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: then it found new life and it's as a listener,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: I think this is a wonderful thing. I'm sure when
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: it was canceled you were like, yeah, maybe maybe I'm
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: going to do something else, lean into my writing and
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: you know, but but you were given this other shot.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: What do you love about making this show?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Well, the simplest is that I like having a job.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I found out when the show was canceled that I
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't very good at not having a job. I had
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: been kind of on various deadlines, Like before this, I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: had a show in Canada on the CBC for eleven years.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It had been just kind of like twenty years of deadlines.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: This is wiretap right wire type. Yeah, that's right. I
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: found not having a job difficult, and being back at
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: it has given me a renewed appreciation. But I love
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I think I love it is a way from me
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to feel things and live, interact with people, and life
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in a way that for me is preferred. I guess
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: there's a certain kind of safety about being alone in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the attics studio a lot of the time and thinking
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: things through in a way that I can't in real time.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm great in real time.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: We should just take a second and explain to people
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: who haven't heard the show. I mean I nodded to
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: it a little bit in the intro, but you really
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: are getting into very intimate parts of people's lives. You're
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: helping them through specific regrets and longing and helping them
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: find closure, like someone who's you know, did something to
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: someone wronged them twenty thirty years ago. More. You literally
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: go find that person for them and help them sometimes
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: come confront them and have a one on one exchange.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you don't find the person, but somehow through the
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: journey they've been able to understand their life in a
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: more intimate way. I mean, it's very emotionally intense work.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, you say you do this work in part
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: just to feel things. That's a lot of feelings, Jonathan, Like,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of living that you are You're navigating
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: through other people's experience.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there's definitely, like you say closure, I think
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: like that is. Yeah, that is always kind of like
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the imaginary finish line. I don't think most of the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: episodes get there, but it is true what you also
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: say about the process of getting there, and sometimes it's
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the thing that people are searching for is somewhat of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: a mcguffin. Like there was one episode called Scott where
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: this former heroin addict had sold all of like many
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: prize possessions that belonged to his father, among which was
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: this gun that his grandfather, his father's father had taken
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: off a Nazi in World War Two, and he had
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: sold this this gun to a pawn chop to buy
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: drugs and he wanted to get the gun back and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: he felt like he owed it to his father and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: spoiler alert, he gets the gun after I mean, I
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: didn't think we were ever going to find this gun again.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It might have taken him a couple of years. We
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: finally got it. He gives it to his dad and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: his dad's like, oh, thank you, you know, and it's
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: just sort of like Jesus Christ, like that's not going
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: to make a very satisfying end. It is the closure
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that we thought we wanted. But then it turns out
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that the conversation he ends up having with his father,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the gun is merely a pass key that allows us
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: into this emotional space where his dad is able to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: talk about his feelings about his dad and that gun,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: which he never liked, and he had mixed feelings about
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: his own father, And it ends up getting to this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: point where the dad's able to say to him like,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I don't really give a shit about the gun. I
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: was afraid of losing you, and I'm so glad to
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: have you back, and I don't care about getting the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: gun back, but I got you back. And it's sort
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of like we spent two years searching for the gun
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: just to get us to this other place. So it's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: sort of like sometimes like if things wrap up too
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: neatly and too quickly, it's not good. There needs to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: be that struggle in order to get to really get someplace,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and you know, to get someplace emotionally and internal, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's hard to dramatize that. You know, sometimes you
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: just need the gun. You need that mcguffin.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: I really love interactions with strangers. They make me very happy,
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: They give me life, They make me feel connected and alive.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: And I think you might love strangers even more than
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I do, because it's your whole thing. Is like a
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: random person will come into your inbox and all of
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: a sudden, you, I imagine you fall in love a
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: little bit with them and their plight or their struggle.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's complicated. When you said that about like
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: loving to talk to strangers, I don't even know if
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: this is really if this makes sense, but it occurred
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to me this morning. I was on a run and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I saw these two kids. There's something very sweet about
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the two of them. They were they were wandering, you know, wandering.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like a on a running path
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and they were just taking a leisurely stroll and they
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: were coming towards me, and they had such open faces.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: They looked like they were wearing pajama bottoms. Maybe that's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: just what kids do. It had the affect of like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: feeling like they just rolled out of bed and maybe
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: they were, you know, in love and we're just happy
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to be spending the morning together, and or maybe they
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were on ecstasy. I don't know, but they just their
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: faces just seem so open, and I felt like stopping
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and telling them that that's a wonderful thing to see.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And then I also thought about how like if I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: was their age, that would be like yeah, and made
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: me also it makes me aware of just like how
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like clenched my faces like I'm just waiting to get
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: punched in the face, and like I'm just all like
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's my natural like at this age,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is what my face has become. And
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I realized that a part of my fear is going
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: through life with my face open like those two kids,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: for fear that a weirdo like me is going to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: come up to them. And so I kind of keep
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I've kind of like, after fifty odd years, my face
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: has just become this.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: Closed and don't talk to me.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like what am I afraid? What would be
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the worst case scenario if I did walk through the
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: through the world with an open face and meeting people's
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: gaze and not afraid of having people approach me, strangers
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: approach me? What would be the worst case scenario?
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: But you've developed a way, You've made a whole job
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: for yourself where you get to meet strangers under your.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Infety in a way like in with parameters and the context.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Round two insights cars and.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I haven't even skipped a.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Flipped but you're not judged either.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what's in there. There might
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: be something that's so embarrassing. So that's why I've been
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: saving them. We've moved from the yellow carts of the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: blue cards, so I believe. So I can only imagine
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that this is.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Getting more intense, okay, one two three one. What's a
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: sound that instantly puts you at ease? That's a person
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: who lives in sounds. I think a laugh, maybe anyone
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: in particular or all of them, all the laughing.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And this is coming from someone who does not, unfortunately
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: for me, like have an easy laugh. Being in the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: business that I am in, it would be a nice
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: signal to somebody of like, hey, I'm enjoying you. But
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, all kinds of different laughs. It lets
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: me feel like the person isn't taking me too seriously.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I feel dangerous when I'm being taken too seriously.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: You feel dangerous or the situation that erous.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I shouldn't be taken too seriously.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: And I feel like my old friends don't take me
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that seriously. Like my friend Jackie, who opens the show
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: who I phone, who has a very endearing, distinct, kind
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: of insane laugh. I like hearing it. It makes me
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: feel like it makes me feel free to say all
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: kinds of really dumb things, you know, because I feel
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: like I'm not hurting anybody. When I hear the laugh,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it's a signal that I'm not hurting anybody. And I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: think that's a big eie. I have a friend who
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: told me a while ago, He's like, is this stupid?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I go through life just always being afraid that I'm
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: gonna get yelled at? And I was like, no, I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: think I relate to that. You're afraid that you're gonna
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: hurt somebody get yelled at or Yeah, you just want
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to be You just want to feel like you're not
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: you're not messing anything up. And I don't know. Yeah,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: laugh is like a really nice thing.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, one, two or three?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Three?
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: How much do you rely on the validation of others?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I think, in some ways not a lot, because you know,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: hearkening back to that story about trying to get into
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: a writer's program when I was eighteen, for a very
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: long time, I mean, I was writing and no one
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: was buying what I was selling like and I was
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: getting rejections and I'm not talking like big magazines, but
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: like zines and chapbooks, and no one would I couldn't.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't get anywhere. And I just kept doing
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: it because I felt compelled to do it, like a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: spider spinning a web, like I I And in that sense,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I think I was kind of like free of needing
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: any validation. And maybe that's just the cockiness of youth
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: or not knowing any better, but I think I still
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: have that. I think I would still be doing what
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I'm doing regardless of whether anyone liked it. That being said,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I do like to know what people are thinking. I
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: think laughter, you know, getting a laugh or something is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: a form of validation, and I like that.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: That sounds like just the right healthy amount of caring.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Not that you need me to validate your sense of
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: whether validation is important.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm doing something healthy.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: We're moving to round three.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Beliefs, all right, Oh, the red cards?
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Red cards one, two, or three?
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'll take one.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: Do you believe in ghosts?
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I don't not believe in them. I don't know that
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen one or experienced one, but I believe
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: in the idea of them. We moved in a couple
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: of years ago into this turn of the century Victorian
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that I catch all kinds of weird smells in that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I feel are kind of like ghostly remnants of people
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that lived here, that died here probably.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: And do sensations like that? Are they pleasant to you?
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Is that something you enjoy thinking about or is it disconcerting?
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Mm?
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Or neutral?
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Neutral? Yeah, Like I'll smell cigarettes all in a sudden
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and I'll be like, that's so weird. So there must
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: have been there's something about the weather that's bringing out
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the smell. But it you know, of some long dead
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: smoker who lived here. It feels like you just kind
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of passing through.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: That.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe one day you'll just be a faint smell. I
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: think it's probably more towards the positive. Yeah, if I
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: had to, if I had to choose, yeah, yeah, I mean,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you know, if I saw someone crab walking on the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: ceiling less so, but just something subtle, you like a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: wisp face right right, like a kind of spectral sort
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of you know, zero mostelle. Maybe one of the first
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: long text exchanges I had with my wife was about ghosts.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: She had finished reading a book about ghosts, and I thought, wow,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: this is a real kooky chick.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Tell me more. I mean not not you tell me more,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: but you were like, tell me more. I'm into this. Yeah.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, bring it on.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, three more cards one two or three two? Have
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: you made peace with mortality?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Some days I feel like, yeah, take me, this is
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a good day to die, and I feel like one
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of these stoic guys in a spaghetti western. And then
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: other days, no, I guess it. Really it's crazy to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: think that something like that would be so mood dependent.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Is that possible?
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: It's so final.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it just feels okay, and sometimes it just doesn't.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it just doesn't make sense, and then other times
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: it just feels like, well, we all got to go sometime.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: That's one of the things I liked about drinking, was
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that feeling of like of getting philosophical about that, like
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I was someone I'm not a great flyer, and that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: was when I relied the most on. You know, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: would travel with the little bottles of booze in my pockets,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: so it just feeling them there gave me a sense
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of security. And sometimes during turbulence. I'd pop one of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: those or two of those, and it just felt kind
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: of like, yeah, you know, we all got to go sometime.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that AH planes often summon internal conversations
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: about living and dying. I mean for me for sure
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: too as well.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But but and sometimes it's like sorry, go ahead, no no,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you say no, no, I was just going to ask
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you like it. It's that's sometimes not a bad feeling.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like you feel like crying sometimes when
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you watch sentimental movies on a flat.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and the complains are my favorite place to cry. Yeah,
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: it feels like safe. There's like strangers around and that
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: I find comforting. One of them might say something to
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: me and I might be open to that or I
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: might not. I don't know, but I like the idea
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: that it could happen.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: What did they say to you?
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: Just the possibility that they could say, are you okay?
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: And then that look at it makes me emotional thinking
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: about it. That breaks me. When you're in a vulnerable
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: place and a stranger extends themselves at all, it makes
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: me feel good. But now I pivoted this to myself
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: and I didn't want.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: To No, no, no, no, not at all. What do
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: you say? What do you say if someone asks you
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: are you okay? Do you say not at all? Or
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: do you say yes?
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking of one circumstance in particular, and I said no,
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: And I didn't want to talk about I didn't want
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: to say anymore. But I really appreciated that.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: They asked, did you tell them that?
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: No?
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: But I said no, but it's okay, And that was it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: And and I think, am I trying too hard to
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: sew this together? But I do think there's something about
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: being suspended in air in a situation where you could
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: die because planes don't make sense, and those being more
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: truthful spaces because what the hell do you have to lose?
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: So I get I get the plain thing for sure.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: And I also think that, yeah, yeah, you said no,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I know, please please no.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: I was just going to say you you were saying
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: at the beginning that it feels like dangerous to be
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: so dependent on one's emotional state to determine whether or
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: not one is okay with dying on a particular day.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: But I all, maybe this is just me.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: I think that's a sign of a healthy person who
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: wakes up and and like observes the question, you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: like how is my life? And and when you're saying
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: today's a good day to go, what you're really saying
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: is I have lived a good life.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if this is a quick story,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: but I felt I feel like I kind of got
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: felt like I got the license to think about it
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: in that way. From a story, a heavyweight story. It
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: was about this woman who was in her forties and
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: felt like her life had kind of gone off track
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: because her foster mother didn't allow her to stay in
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: stay with basketball because her grades weren't good enough, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: she felt like her life would have been better if
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: she could have pursued basketball, she would have gone in
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a scholarship. And so we went and found this foster
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: mother who she hadn't spoken to in years, who was
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: now this ninety four year old woman, to ask her
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: why why didn't she allow her to pursue basketball when
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: she saw it was her one passion. And this woman
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: was a tough old bird, like it would have been
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: so easy to say, oh, I'm sorry, and like she
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: just wouldn't, and she had had a hard life herself,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: and I and I felt it was almost like she
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: was unclear on the concept of regret, you know what
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, And I was trying to explain it to
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: her and she was like, no, no, no, I know what
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: you're saying, and I don't. I honestly don't know if
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I had a chance to do it over again with her,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: whether I would have done it differently. And I think
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it really depends on my mood, what mood I was in.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, Wow, that is something that is
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: seldom acknowledged. It is, you know what I mean.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: It is, but it isn't the whole ballgame. Not to
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: make that bad pun but it.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Is like, yeah, I get or more of it then
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: we acknowledge. You know, just how drunk a lot of
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: these Founding fathers were when they were coming up with
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: their laws and ideas, you know what I mean, and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: they echo through the years.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: That was a journey. That question, this is the last one,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: Jonathan one, two or three?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Three?
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: Do you think people can really change? Oh?
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I have to believe that. I mean,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: even if I don't believe it, I have to believe that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: And I think like that's the struggle is to really
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: try to believe that. And I do think people are
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: capable of change within limits. You know. It's like the paradox.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, like we are who we are, but I
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: think as long as we're alive, we're able to change.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: You know. I'm working on a story that should come
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: out this season. It's about a woman who is one
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and two years old who one day her kids,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: who are you know, in their seventies, said, you know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you're getting on in age, we should probably clean up
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the storage room. And while they were doing that, they
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: found this box containing two hundred and fifty six letters
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: that had been sent to her by her fiance at
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the time when she was like twenty, who was in
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the war, this was World War Two, who died in
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the war. And she had not opened up this box
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and looked at these letters in over eighty years, and
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: had never really mourned the loss of this man and
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: this relationship. She put it aside, and she married a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: man named Irving, stayed married with him for sixty odd years,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: had three kids, and then finds his box and then
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: finds herself at the age of one hundred and two,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: falling in love with this with this long dead young
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: man from her past, and in that process like she,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: you know, a person who was very used to and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a little generational. Two is like you just
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: pack it up and put it in a box and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: move on, but it sticks with you, you know what
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: I mean. And like you know, she went through a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: lot of changes even at that age, which is kind
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of like a beautiful thing to see, you know what
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I mean. As long as like we're alive, and as
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: you know, as long as we keep going, there's always
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: going to be change. You know, maybe not the change
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that other people want to see, but we're there's going
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: to be changes.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: We end the show the same way every time, with
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: a trip in our memory time machine where you go
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: back and revisit one moment from your past. It's not
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: a moment you would change anything about. It's just a
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. Oh,
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: I know, there are many you could pick anything whatever
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: comes to the fore.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the first thing that comes into
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: my head is my child's birth. Yeah, I guess. My
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: wife says that. I you know, like I was saying,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not an easy laugh. I don't. I
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: wish I smiled more. But she said that like all
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: through labor, I had such a big smile on my
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: face which kept her going. Just such a wonderful, wonderful
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: day and just filled with so much hope and wonderful
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: expectation and beginning. And yeah, I think that. And I
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: also really love the hospital cafeteria. It was at NYU.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: It was really good.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Goldstein, It's been such a pleasure. You can hear
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: Jonathan on the newest season of his amazing show, Have Youweight.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you, thank you.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much for listening. If you liked this episode,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: I think you would also dig my interview with Jonathan's
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: former boss and host of This American Life, Ira Glass.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Ira was super open and honest and way funnier than
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: I expected.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangwini. Our theme music is
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: by rom team Ara Bluie. You can reach out to
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: us at Wildcard at NPR dot org. We're going to
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: shuffle the deck and be back with more next week.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Talk to you then.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Hi, it's Jonathan here again breaking out of the straight
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: jacket of being a guest. I just had one further announcement.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: We here at the show have started a free newsletter
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and it's a lot of fun. Khalil a Holt. Wouldn't
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: you say, yeah, come on, step it out, step it up.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: It's fun.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I'm still not convinced in these.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Dark days you can open up your inbox and have
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: a little sunshine.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: That's right, as opposed to all of those phishing scams
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and viruses in there. And we will not.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Try to take your information. No, well, we will take
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: your email address. I guess that's how you get the newsletter.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Well, yes, yes, indeed, But in return you're gonna get fun, fun,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: fun till your daddy takes your Patreon newsletter away.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: No social Security number required.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: If you get something in your inbox the claiming to
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: be from us, where they're telling you to trace your
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: safety deposit box key onto some tracing paper and mail
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: it into them, you'll know right away that it was
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: not us.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: No, we would never do that.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Would We just wouldn't do that. So sign up for
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: our newsletter at patreon dot com. Slash Heavyweight