Latest / Heavyweight / Regrets, I've Had a Slew

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Regrets, I've Had a Slew · Heavyweight

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Back in February, I participated in a podcasting festival called
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: On Air Fest that took place in Brooklyn, New York.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Whereas I'm usually the one helping a stranger confront their deepest,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: most uncomfortable regrets, on this occasion, I turned the spotlight
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: on myself, live on stage. And because we recorded the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: whole thing, you, Dear listeners can journey back in time
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to experience my dangerously personal self-interrogation from the safety of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: your earbuds.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: And that's all coming up after the break.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, welcome back to the space. So after a decade
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: of sharing other people's regrets on the acclaimed and beloved
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: podcast Heavyweight, host Jonathan Goldstein looks back on his own
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: regrets making the show. Revisiting 10 years worth of stories
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: and tape, Jonathan reflects on his work and then opens
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: it up for an audience Q & A with his
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: producers Kalilah Holt and Stevie Lane. So please welcome Jonathan Goldstein.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Woo!
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: And so you are wondering, what are the personal regrets
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of a man who traffics in the regrets of others?
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: What might a man who.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Receives to his inbox each day countless why didn't I's,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: what I should have's, and why did I eat that?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: A man for whom other people's regrets are the mud
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in which he ruts like a motherless sow. What might
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: such a man's inner hellscape look like? Well, not to
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: make this all about me, but since I do have
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a microphone and you are seated in chairs facing in
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: my direction, I will say this. The reason I created
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a show like Heavyweight is because of my own capacity
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: for regret. As a suckling baby, I'm certain I regretted
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: choosing my mother's left breast over the right. As a teenager,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I regretted things I had not even done yet. Alcohol, drugs,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: unprotected sex. I looked forward to regretting the hell out
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of them. And now as an adult, my regrets are
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: still many. Take today, for instance. I regret the beta
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: blockers I swallowed before.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Coming out here.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: They're making me feel like I'm talking to you from
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the bottom of an oatmeal bowl. And of course, I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: regret agreeing to appear at On Air Fest in the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: first place. During that initial meeting with its organizers, I
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: especially regret using words like awesome and sounds like fun.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But the greatest breeding ground for my remorse has been
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: sown in the gray garden of the Heavyweight podcast itself. Sure,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I've had some good times while making Heavyweight. There was
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: my stay at an airport hotel in Burbank that served
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: free cucumber water. And there was the time I used
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the recording studio after Esther Perel, and the whole room
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: smelled of eggnog and gardenias.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: But nothing else comes to mind.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Mostly the experience has been dominated by Dorkenschadenschmier, the German
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: word for why must everything I do be the exactly
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: wrong thing to do? Because of this tendency towards second
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: guessing myself, re-listening to my own work can be sheer misery.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: But is it not I who knows better than anyone
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: that it is only by reliving, re-inhabiting, and re-flagellating oneself
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with the past that one can finally heal? If only
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I had my own Jonathan Goldstein.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Alas, there can only be one.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: But for today, my on-air fest audience, you will be
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: my Jonathan Goldstein to bear witness as, together, we will
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: listen to my top seven most regrettable moments from heavyweight.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Regret number one, seat of the pantsing it. Roused from
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a nap, fingers sticky with grape jelly, I'm often not
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: at all prepared before an interview. But occasionally, I'm so ill-equipped,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I should have my podcasting license revoked. In the clip
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: of tape I'm about to play you, I'm phoning a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: 102-year-old woman with an 80-year-old regret and allowing this to happen.
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Hello?
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: Hello, is this Barbara? No, this is Deborah. Uh, how
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: are you related to Barbara?
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: I don't know who Barbara is.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: The reason she doesn't know who Barbara is is because
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: there is no Barbara.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, my.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: I'm so sorry. For some reason, I think I thought
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: your name was Barbara.
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: It's okay.
• 5:33
  Speaker 8: I've lived long enough.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I could take any name.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I've listened to this over and over, and I still
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: can't figure out how I came up with the name Barbara.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: My mother's middle name is Barbara, and my girlfriend in
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: college was named Barbara, and her mother was named Deborah,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: so maybe that's why. Which leads me to regret number two,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: not keeping focus. When teasing out a story, I want details.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You spilled hot coffee on yourself? Was there sugar in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the coffee? What color was your coffee cup? Often this
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: can elevate the storytelling, but just as often it can
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: do the opposite. In the episode called Julia, Julia has
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: only begun to lay out a painful memory from her
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: private school days when I am already derailed by the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: details of her school uniform.
• 6:25
  Speaker 9: That's sort of a puke green uniform with a button-down
• 6:30
  Speaker 9: white shirt, and on Mondays we had to wear ties.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: We also had bloomers.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever understood what bloomers were.
• 6:37
  Speaker 9: It was just sort of like a balloon.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: With holes in the bottom.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And were they ruffled?
• 6:46
  Speaker 10: See that?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: While it's true I've been cursed with a lifelong inability
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to distinguish between bloomers, culottes, pantalettes, pantaloons, drawers, and knickerbockers,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: should I have chosen that moment to sort it all out?
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Should it have required a five-minute digression and the sight
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of my producer frantically giving me the wrap-it-up motion to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: finally move on? This would be the part in the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: podcast where the music would swell up for a few seconds,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: allowing you to consider the questions. Since I have no music,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I'll instead give you a moment while I check my phone.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Regret number three, being overly eager for resolution. If I've
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: learned anything from my work in the business of forcing
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: people to ask terrifying questions, it's that it's always best
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to just get it over with. Ask the question, why
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: did you ruin my life? And get ready for a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: painful and often unsatisfying response. But sometimes you have to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: take it slow. In Heavyweight's very first episode, my 80-year-old father, Buzz,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: had not spoken to his 85-year-old brother, Sheldon, in 40 years.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: In the tape I'm about to play you, they're just
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: settling in with some small talk. My uncle Sheldon is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: sharing an anecdote. a filthy, inappropriate anecdote about someone named
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Johnny from their old neighborhood. Listen for my artful attempt
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to steer the conversation towards the touchy-feely, the pokey-wokey, so
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: soon into their first encounter in decades.
• 8:22
  Speaker 8: We're riding on Queens Boulevard. Johnny's in the backseat with
• 8:26
  Speaker 8: the hood. He's got his naked ass up in the
• 8:30
  Speaker 8: air and he's humping. The funny thing is we had
• 8:33
  Speaker 8: to stop for a light and there's a truck driver
• 8:38
  Speaker 8: sitting in the cab up high who looked at the car,
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: it was funny.
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: Did you guys miss each other? Did you miss each other?
• 8:52
  Speaker 8: You know, he asks the weirdest questions.
• 8:56
  Speaker 11: What is he.
• 8:58
  Speaker 8: A broad?
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: No, I mean, I don't know.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: It's, you know.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: A part of me still regrets not pile-driving my 85-year-old
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sheldon with enough force to set off his life-call
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: medical alert bracelet.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: But instead, I moved on. Regret number four.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: In the episode, The Marshes, I regret comparing Steve Marsh
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to a dog. While it's easy to be free in
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: your thoughts while writing a script, it can sometimes be
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: hard to live with the aftermath. And in this case,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the aftermath was especially hard because Steve and I became friends.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And every time we get together, somewhere in the back
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: of my mind is my guilt over how I described
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Steve in the episode, which is like this. I first
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: met Steve Marsh at my brother-in-law's wedding. In conversation that night,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Steve was given to making soulful observations, punctuated by the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: word man. It's perhaps also worth mentioning that while Steve
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't invited to the wedding per se, all the guests
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: were both happy and unsurprised to see him. Of course
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Steve would be there, and his entrance felt like a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: lovable St. Bernard had just wandered into the reception hall.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Would you send a wedding invitation to a St.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Bernard?
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: Of course not. But would you be darn pleased to
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: see one show up?
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I've always regretted comparing Steve to a St. Bernard, so
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I called him up to apologize.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: Hey, Steve?
• 10:30
  Speaker 7: Yeah, man.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: What are you up to? So I'm giving this talk
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: at On Air Fest.
• 10:36
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: So the thing that I'm doing, I'm talking about my
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: own regrets while making a show about regret.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: But the reason why I'm phoning is because I... I've
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: always felt some amount of regret for the way that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I describe you in the marshes, the way that I.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: Really?
• 10:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: What part?
• 11:00
  Speaker 12: The Great Bernard?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I always felt like maybe it was a little presumptuous
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to refer to you as a St.
• 11:05
  Speaker 13: Bernard.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: I think I'm okay.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know, man.
• 11:11
  Speaker 8: I think you're good.
• 11:12
  Speaker 10: I thought it was affectionate, Jonathan.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: It was.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: It sounded affectionate to me.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: Okay, cool. I think my.
• 11:18
  Speaker 9: Brother had so much more trepidation about it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: Not the way you described him, but just like bringing.
• 11:25
  Speaker 13: Up the fact that he was a meth head, you know?
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Oh shit.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: One regret healed and another to take its place.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I guess I owe Steve's brother a call now too.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And a great swell of music to allow some time
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: to properly savor the irony. And regret number five. Being
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: unable to keep from gagging. While I always feel empathy
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: for heavyweight subjects, I don't always show it enough. In
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the episode Tony, Tony is regretful about the fact that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: while he's been made a godfather three times, he's blown
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: it each and every time with each and every one
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of his three godchildren.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So I decided to help him fix those blown relationships.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Here's Tony trying to reconnect with goddaughter number two, now
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a teenager who he's not seen in years. We've just
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: picked her up after school and are driving around. Knowing
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: that young people enjoy gross stuff like poop-flavored jelly beans
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and Timothee Chalamet's mustache, Tony takes his shot at bonding.
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: I have a really gross, disgusting story to tell you. Oh. Well,
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: can you contextualize what disgusting is?
• 12:43
  Speaker 8: Oh, my God.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I'm only thinking about it because it happened right around here.
• 12:46
  Speaker 9: Oh, no, I don't like where this is going.
• 12:48
  Speaker 12: A friend of mine.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: He's been collecting his vomit for the past 20 years
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: in a gigantic tin, like a gigantic metal drum in
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: the basement.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: What the heck?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Instead of nearly retching, I should have been more supportive,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: offering Tony helpful follow-up questions to help keep the vibe light.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I could have asked, did your friend buy this gigantic
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: metal tub at the container store? And is there a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: special aisle for barf? And yet, on other occasions, I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: do worse than merely failing to support a subject. Which
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: brings me to regret number six, disrespecting the profession of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: journalism by abandoning even the semblance of objectivity. In the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: episode Joey, a young rollerblading hipster named Joey is living
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: in a loft with six other young hipsters. Since Joey
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: is crippled by shyness, he spends all his days hiding
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: in his room. that it isn't even really a room
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: so much as it's an area in the living room
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: walled off by a bed sheet. Eventually, Joey's roommates grew
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: so upset by his creepy secretive ways that they kicked
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: him out. Finding it hard to get a handle on
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Joey's essence, I decided to speak with his sister, Elise.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: She tells me about the phone call Joey made to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: her on the day he was ejected from the loft.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: He was like almost in tears telling me this story.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: And he told me about how he cried, which is always,
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: he doesn't cry that often. You could tell it was
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: a big deal that he expressed that he cried about it.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: And he told the whole story and I was laughing
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: so hard because it's a really funny story. And I
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: wanted him to see that it was funny too. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: he could see the humor in it, but he was
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: also pretty clearly devastated.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: When I ask Elise what's so funny about her brother
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: crying on the phone, she makes a pretty strong case,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: casually eviscerating Joey in the way only a loving sister can.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: Him in his rollerblades and often, like, funny-looking tank tops, his, like,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: creeper mustache and his mullet.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And this is where I should have shown more professionalism,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: rather than laughing, which is what I did.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Definitely just the look of him.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Hang on a second. He has a mullet?
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Full creepy young child mustache. And his shoulders and arms
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: look strong, but they're small. And same with his legs.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: His legs are shockingly skinny. They do have an incredible
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: shine to them, I will admit.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I've always regretted my euphorically blithe tone, so I decided
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: to call up Joey and comp to it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 10: Is this Mr.
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: Jonathan Goldstein? Joey, can I tell you why I was phoning?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Please. So I'm talking about my personal regrets while making
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a show about regret.
• 16:00
  Speaker 13: Okay, a little meta.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So I played a passage from our story, your story,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: the Joey story, a regret that I had was when
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I spoke with your sister, how I didn't maintain a
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: lot of journalistic objectivity.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: I ended up, you know, kind of laughing with her.
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry you feel that way. You've always felt okay
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: about it, I hope.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: That part, yeah.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: No, that was.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Oh, okay.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: You say that part. Was there another part that you
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: felt less okay about?
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: Um.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Um, no, I wouldn't say that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Done and done. Apologies made, grace granted. It really is
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that easy.
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: And good luck with this talk. There's a chance I'll come.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It's like down the street from my house, so I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: usually just sneak in.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah. I'll leave a fire escape open for you.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Would that be something you'd want to be like and
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: he's in the audience right now kind of thing or
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I think if you were yeah I think I would
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: do that okay and Joey are you in.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: The audience hey.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad because I regret forgetting to leave the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: fire escape open but you found your way in okay Finally,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: regret number seven, I regret my regret. For me, no
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: experience is complete until it's been thoroughly, vigorously regretted. But
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: for some, regret isn't even a word in their vocabulary.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: In the episode titled Christina, Christina confronts her foster mother, Isabel,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: over a decision Isabel made 30 years earlier. It was
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a decision that derailed Christina's life for the worse. At
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the end of the episode, after a long reconciliatory conversation,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I brought up the notion of regret, asking Isabel, now
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: in her 90s, if she at all regrets the decision
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: that caused her foster daughter so much pain.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: This was Isabel's response.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: Oh, I wish I had known more about it at
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: the time, but I mean, I still have no regrets
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: about it.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: It's as though Isabel just doesn't understand what the word
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: regret means. So I offer a working definition. If we
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: were to set off in a time machine where we
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: could return to that time and Christina were to say,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you know... I know what you're saying, but frankly, I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: don't know what I'd do.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: You know, I really don't. It would depend on what
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: kind of a mood I'm in. If you were in
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: the mood that you're in right now. I really have
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: no idea.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I could give you a lot of BS and tell
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: you how good I would have been, but.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: It wouldn't have been the truth. It's a decision that
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: was made when she was younger. It wasn't the right one.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: But how many wrong decisions are made as we go along?
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: Regretting something is a waste of time.
• 19:06
  Speaker 7: You move on.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Regretting something is a waste of time. Unsentimental, but correct.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: For me, regret has a mystical dimension too. It isn't
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: just about wishing I'd done things differently. Regret is a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: reminder of our free choice, even if it means freely
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: making poor choices, because even bad choices speak to life's possibility,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that it's not just predetermined, that we're more than ball
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: bearings repeating a mantra of, oh well, as we bump
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: around in patterns set off by the Big Bang. Even
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: though it often feels like we're so close to getting
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: everything right, such a thing is, of course, never possible.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: The right way is outnumbered a million to one by
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: all the wrong ways. Nonetheless, we tell ourselves, live and learn.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe next time. Maybe next time, everything will line up
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: just right. But until then, there's heavy weight. wherever you
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: get your podcast.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: This is the part where Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Was supposed to play me off, but we couldn't afford
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: the right.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So instead, I'll just say thank you and scamper off
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to the couch area for some Q & A with
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: my producers, Kalila Holt and Stevie Lane.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And to get you started with the Q & A, Q,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: is it time for some advertisements? A, yes it is.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: Here they come.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Stevie Lane. we were going to open the floor hoping
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that maybe some of you might have some questions oh
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: yes I would.
• 21:04
  Speaker 12: Imagine that there's some stories that you spent a lot
• 21:06
  Speaker 12: of time chasing down that ended up not panning out
• 21:09
  Speaker 12: so I'm curious if you feel like you've gotten better
• 21:11
  Speaker 12: at telling when something's not going to have a satisfying
• 21:14
  Speaker 12: resolution what the farthest you ever went and then pulled
• 21:17
  Speaker 12: the plug on something.
• 21:19
  Speaker 10: I feel like there's certain kinds of stories that we've
• 21:21
  Speaker 10: learned people are like more reticent to participate in, like
• 21:25
  Speaker 10: bully kinds of stories when it's sort of like mean
• 21:28
  Speaker 10: girl situations like that.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And then also sometimes in the times where we do
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: not find the thing that we're looking for, we really
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: have to have something to say about it. And that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: can sometimes be very challenging. Because if you don't find
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the parrot, then you have to be like, well, who
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: among us has not found the quote unquote parrot?
• 21:49
  Speaker 9: Maybe we're all parrots in some way.
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 10: And when you ask, what's the farthest we've gotten?
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: Of course, things have fallen apart.
• 21:56
  Speaker 10: We've located the person and they're dead.
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: That falls apart.
• 22:00
  Speaker 10: But we usually just shelf the story and keep checking
• 22:05
  Speaker 10: in with the person. And sometimes with time, something new
• 22:09
  Speaker 10: comes up or something changes.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: Anybody else? Yes, in the back.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: We were considering having Joey zipping around on his rollerblades
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: with the microphone.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: My question is for the producers.
• 22:24
  Speaker 11: I believe you guys have been with the show for
• 22:26
  Speaker 11: a super long time at this point, right? How has
• 22:30
  Speaker 11: the experience and role of producing the show grown and changed?
• 22:35
  Speaker 11: Are you able to work together in person or is
• 22:37
  Speaker 11: it remotely?
• 22:39
  Speaker 9: Well, answer the remote thing because that's like an easier,
• 22:41
  Speaker 9: like that's just facts. Me and Stevie are both in
• 22:44
  Speaker 9: New York. Jonathan is in Minnesota. So we're doing a
• 22:47
  Speaker 9: lot remotely. But occasionally we're in the same place. And
• 22:51
  Speaker 9: often like Jonathan and I just went on a reporting trip.
• 22:54
  Speaker 9: So like sometimes when we're in the field, we're also together.
• 22:57
  Speaker 9: But a lot of the editing is remote.
• 23:00
  Speaker 10: How has it changed over time for us? I think
• 23:04
  Speaker 10: we've like developed a shorthand.
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like submarine talk.
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: Abbreviated language.
• 23:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: And also it's, I think, the loss of my brain.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I just like point to things and I'm like, you know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that thing.
• 23:16
  Speaker 9: I still remember when you called George Clooney the gray-haired
• 23:20
  Speaker 9: doctor from ER.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: But you knew what I was talking about.
• 23:23
  Speaker 9: And I knew who you were talking about, yeah.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, see, that's teamwork.
• 23:29
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: Right behind Sean Cole.
• 23:36
  Speaker 7: Because the stories that you are looking into for these
• 23:39
  Speaker 7: guests are so, excuse me, my voice is so hoarse.
• 23:45
  Speaker 7: Because they're so personal and often these stories that people
• 23:48
  Speaker 7: have been carrying for their entire lives, I would imagine
• 23:51
  Speaker 7: that the work you do is changing some lives. Have
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: there been any stories that you feel have changed your life,
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: either in hearing them or the process of spending years
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: working on them?
• 24:07
  Speaker 8: Hmm.
• 24:08
  Speaker 11: Nah.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: My life has changed all the time, I will say,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: in all sincerity. Like, there's so many people that I
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: admire that have been subjects on the show, and I'm like,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: what a special, unique person, you know, to lend themselves
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: to this thing, and Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 9: And I feel genuinely humbled that people are willing to
• 24:34
  Speaker 9: share that with us and like invite us in on
• 24:37
  Speaker 9: that process.
• 24:38
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker 10: For me, it's maybe not like one particular story, but
• 24:41
  Speaker 10: a big lesson that I've taken from it is like
• 24:44
  Speaker 10: when you have something in your life that you feel
• 24:46
  Speaker 10: really terrible about, not always, but like most of the
• 24:49
  Speaker 10: time you are thinking about it more than the other person.
• 24:53
  Speaker 10: And it's just a nice thing to remember in your
• 24:56
  Speaker 10: own life for the things that you feel like you've
• 24:59
  Speaker 10: done wrong, that, like, probably the ripple effect is not
• 25:02
  Speaker 10: as big as you maybe.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: Thought it was.
• 25:05
  Speaker 9: And that if you feel weird about something, you can
• 25:07
  Speaker 9: be like, hey, what was up with that? Like, you
• 25:10
  Speaker 9: can ask people questions about stuff, and they can not
• 25:14
  Speaker 9: really answer you, but you can at least try.
• 25:17
  Speaker 10: And you can record the whole thing secretly for potential broadcast.
• 25:21
  Speaker 9: Depending on the state. LAUGHTER LAUGHTER She's kidding. That would
• 25:29
  Speaker 9: be highly unethical.
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: I'd love to ask about Jackie.
• 25:40
  Speaker 13: I think it does something pretty special, and I would
• 25:43
  Speaker 13: just love to hear about how it happened and how
• 25:46
  Speaker 13: you've thought about it going forward.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Can we turn up the house lights, Jackie? There's no
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: way she would be here.
• 25:54
  Speaker 9: Ever.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: Well, how did it come about? It was just like
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: a last minute thing.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: We had a very elaborate opening, very conceptual, involved me
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: on the G train and the voice of the stand
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: clear of the closing door voice. I had a friend
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: who sounded just like that guy. And he was like
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the voice of God. And we would have a conversation
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: at the beginning and at the end of the show.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It was like producing a whole other podcast.
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: And you can hear it if you sign up for
• 26:24
  Speaker 9: Pushkin Plus.
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I tell the whole story.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: But then at the last minute, I was like, I
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: could just call up my friend Jackie, who will just
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: be annoyed and hang up, and it'll be entertaining.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: And that was it.
• 26:39
  Speaker 9: And I have been annoying her ever since.
• 26:41
  Speaker 10: Ever since.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: Ever since.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: But I've known her since we're children, you know, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the dynamic's been pretty much set.
• 26:53
  Speaker 13: As a fellow producer, sometimes it feels like you listen
• 26:56
  Speaker 13: to the tape about a hundred times. With those particularly
• 27:00
  Speaker 13: hard-hitting episodes, I'm wondering, like, over the years, has it
• 27:03
  Speaker 13: gotten easier to listen to those really difficult stories, or...
• 27:08
  Speaker 13: How do you deal with the emotional exhaustion.
• 27:11
  Speaker 9: That can come from that? While you're making it, you mean?
• 27:13
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: I feel like.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: We're all unwell, is the answer, I guess.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Kalila is right. We are all deeply unwell. But maintaining
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: this level of emotional instability doesn't come cheap. We'll be
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: right back. after these paid messages from our sponsors. With
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: our emotional instability now fully paid for by our corporate sponsors,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: we return to the question of how the team copes
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: with the heavy stuff.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: Here's Stevie.
• 27:56
  Speaker 10: I don't know if this is good or bad, but
• 27:58
  Speaker 10: I find that for me personally, like when I'm like
• 28:00
  Speaker 10: making decisions, making it and listening to it over and
• 28:03
  Speaker 10: over and cutting it and, like, writing it before I've
• 28:05
  Speaker 10: played it for anybody, like, it starts to kind of
• 28:07
  Speaker 10: lose its power and I don't hear it in that
• 28:09
  Speaker 10: emotional way. And then it's, like, not until I'm playing
• 28:12
  Speaker 10: it in an edit for other people that I feel
• 28:14
  Speaker 10: like I really hear it that way again. I don't
• 28:18
  Speaker 10: know if that's, like, a self-protective thing my brain is doing, but, like,
• 28:21
  Speaker 10: I've never cried, like, cutting the tape, but I will, like,
• 28:25
  Speaker 10: cry in an edit sometimes.
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: It's once that scoring music's in there.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I think you're right, though, Stevie. Like, while you're
• 28:33
  Speaker 9: actually cutting and writing, you're, like, so sort of hyper-focused
• 28:37
  Speaker 9: that you don't have that. Like, I feel like I,
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: in the interviews, have a lot of feelings about stuff.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:41
  Speaker 9: And then when the episode is done, and in between,
• 28:44
  Speaker 9: it's like I'm so sort of, like, tunnel vision on
• 28:47
  Speaker 9: making the thing that, I don't know. That also feels bad. Yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 9: it feels like I'm, like, desensitized to people's deep feelings.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Well, you're problem-solving.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It's like you're, you know, it's like you're putting together
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: a crossword puzzle a little bit.
• 28:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:03
  Speaker 10: Why do you think people agree to talk to you?
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: Especially people who are, you know, from your initial email
• 29:10
  Speaker 7: with them, it's clear that, like, maybe they have something
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: to answer for. They're maybe going to be the antagonist
• 29:15
  Speaker 7: in the story.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Why do they say yes?
• 29:18
  Speaker 10: I wonder that all the time.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: I wonder that same thing.
• 29:22
  Speaker 10: But I just think, like, people aren't used to having people, like,
• 29:26
  Speaker 10: ask them questions and then sit there and really listen.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: Like, really listen.
• 29:31
  Speaker 9: Yeah, I think also not always because sometimes, yeah, people
• 29:35
  Speaker 9: just don't remember. But like the one, the trip that
• 29:41
  Speaker 9: we just took, the reporting trip, I feel like in
• 29:44
  Speaker 9: that case and in some other cases too, like maybe
• 29:47
  Speaker 9: the person we're going to also has unresolved feelings about
• 29:50
  Speaker 9: it or like regrets. So in some ways, even if
• 29:53
  Speaker 9: they did something wrong, it's like helpful for them to
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: have that space as well. And also like we, when
• 30:01
  Speaker 9: someone is really willing to like sit down and have
• 30:02
  Speaker 9: a conversation with us like that, we don't want to
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: cast them as just like a villain. You know, we
• 30:07
  Speaker 9: like want to give people chance to like give their
• 30:11
  Speaker 9: perspective and say their piece too but also a lot
• 30:14
  Speaker 9: of people say no and then those stories don't happen so.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah the best episodes are the ones where there's like
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a reciprocity where both parties are getting something out of
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: it but um uh there there is um there is
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: a leap of faith i think because there's not they're
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: not like performer type people they're trusting us so.
• 30:35
  Speaker 14: I think it's probably mostly for Jonathan. There have been
• 30:39
  Speaker 14: some episodes where it sounds like the subject is sort
• 30:41
  Speaker 14: of hesitating, confronting the person they're trying to maybe reconcile with,
• 30:47
  Speaker 14: and there have been times where it sounds like you
• 30:49
  Speaker 14: have to step in. You strike me as somebody who's
• 30:53
  Speaker 14: perhaps non-confrontational, so I'm wondering, what do you do to
• 30:58
  Speaker 14: get yourself to confront them?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I think I think about what it's going to feel
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: like if I don't do it and I don't always
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: do it or I don't always do it so well,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: but I think about what it's going to feel like.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to live with that echoing through
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the years of having let the person down, you know? Um,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: so I usually try to like awkwardly work my way
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: through it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: I don't think I have a special skillset.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I just think like I'm there, you know, uh, in the,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I always mispronounce this, the deus ex machina machine, you know,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: like where I'm just descending and I'm wearing the toga
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and the beard and like I have to play that role,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you know, so I do my best.
• 31:45
  Speaker 9: Is some of it too like the crossword puzzle thing
• 31:47
  Speaker 9: where you're like, you're able to take the emotional part
• 31:49
  Speaker 9: out of it because you're like, I need this for
• 31:51
  Speaker 9: the episode, so I.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: Have to ask. There's that also, yeah.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I can't face you two without having Actually just done it.
• 32:03
  Speaker 6: Big fan of the show, so it's fun seeing you guys.
• 32:06
  Speaker 6: I'm curious to hear from all of you on this.
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: In the layoff between Spotify and Pushkin, what was that
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: like for you guys personally? And did you think the
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: show might not come back?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I was really down, like unexpectedly. Like it was very
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: difficult for me in a way that I did not anticipate.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I felt like, oh, this isn't so bad. you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I'll catch up on my reading. I'll take my son
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: to school and stuff like that. But, like, pretty soon,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you were aware of just what a...
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: You were aware. I was really, like, not in good shape. So,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: thank you, Pushkin.
• 32:46
  Speaker 9: And look at him now.
• 32:48
  Speaker 10: It was like a real up and down, I would say,
• 32:53
  Speaker 10: for me.
• 32:55
  Speaker 9: I agree.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I do think the.
• 32:57
  Speaker 9: We've talked about this a little bit, but taking the
• 33:00
  Speaker 9: step back actually was helpful. I feel like it then,
• 33:02
  Speaker 9: once we were set up again, helped us come back
• 33:05
  Speaker 9: with renewed energy and new joy in doing the thing.
• 33:09
  Speaker 10: I remember one of the first story meetings we started
• 33:14
  Speaker 10: having when we were looking back at pitches that had
• 33:16
  Speaker 10: come in in that year was.
• 33:19
  Speaker 10: Jonathan was just like, yeah, let's do that one.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let's do that one.
• 33:23
  Speaker 10: And Kaylee and I were like.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: Who is this? I'm not normally like that.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: What's next?
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: Book them.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: Optimism.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 33:36
  Speaker 9: Are we out of time? The clock's at zero.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: No, the clock's at zero. Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Heavyweight is produced by senior producer Kalila Holt and supervising
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: producer Stevie Lane. Today's live show was made possible by
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Sarah Bruguier, Phoebe Flanagan, and Morgan Ratner. Mixing by Emma
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Munger with production help from Lisa Wang. We'll be back
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: next week with a brand new episode.