Heavyweight Check In 6

Pushkin. Hey everyone, before we start the show, I just wanted to make a little announcement. Heavyweight is going to remain available on every platform, but we're going to be making some extra bonus material exclusive to those who listen on Spotify right now. On Spotify, we're offering the hard hitting and beer sponsored eight part investigative series, The Heavyweight Diaries, and we'll have some other fun bonus content coming later this year. So if you want to check all that out,

Hi.

Yep, Goldstein. I know you're both therey. What's going on?

So?

You know, I'm at home with my parents, and my older brother and his fiance, Miriam are staying with us as well. Yeah, and we're all pretty much on top of each other and there's like not really anywhere to escape to. But the thing I'm really enjoying about it, actually is I've gotten to know Miriam so much better. She and my brother have been dating for like eight years, but I don't think we'd ever hung out one on one before.

Now it feels like Jane Austen novel or something, where like your brother's betrothed is staying at the house, and like the ladies are getting to spend time together and like go for strolls and stuff.

Yeah, and I'm learning all these little things about her which I find so entertaining. She has a terrible sense of direction. Basically, she can't form any kind of mental map in her head. She told me this great story about when she first started driving. She was in the town where she grew up her whole life.

And I got lost, and I had no idea where I was going, and somehow I just decided to follow the car in front of me.

Where were you trying to go?

I was trying to get home.

You were trying to go home, and you were just like, maybe the car in front of me is also going to my house.

I didn't know, but I.

Just figured they were going somewhere, and they would at least be going like on real roads and going like on the right direction in roads. But actually it was a terrible idea. And the car in front of me turned onto the highway, so I just followed them on the highway for like, I don't know a while, and finally I like pulled over in a gas station and I was like, where am I? And it was in Pennsylvania, and where did you start? I started in Maryland.

It's pretty extreme, Like she gets lost in restaurants. If she goes to the bathroom, she can't find her way back to the table.

You know.

She's been at our house for a little while now, and still like when she goes on walks in the neighborhood, she has a really hard time getting back. So she was telling me that the way she gets around is basically by just stumbling on what she calls landmarks.

There's some bone on the street that's kind of near your street, like near the gutter, And a lot of times I'm walking and the bone is nearby, and then your house is really close by.

Wait wait wait wait wait, like an animal boat.

Yeah, Like I don't know if there's like part of a chicken bone or like even something a dog was chewing on. But it's been like really helpful because there's been a few times that I'm kind of like a bit lost and then I look down and there's the bone, and it's like.

Oh good, wait, what's gonna happen? When someone cleans up that chicken bone.

I know, I was like that bone could be gone like any day.

The bone has been very reliable for like three, three or four weeks since I've been here.

Our house, which for me is feeling like smaller and smaller every day. For her, it's like completely the opposite my experience of walking and moving around in spaces in the world.

I do think everything feels really really huge to me all the time, like unfathomably, like infinitely just mysterious and kind of unknowable. And so I think I might be a bit lucky and that I may not be feeling that clausterphobia that a lot of people are feeling right now in quarantine.

I just am fascinated by how she experiences the world, and I've actually been doing these sort of like experiments with her where I make her close her eyes and I ask her to point to things that are in the room, like the TV or the couch or the kitchen table or whatever, and then I have her open her eyes.

Wait, oh my god, Wait, was all of that wrong, because I thought the whole time that I was in a totally different part of the house. Did you do that on purpose or no, no, no, no, no, you weren't trying to trick me. No, I was totally shocked to open my eyes.

And I am not sharing my home with a sister in law to be. But I did talk to my little sister this week. Oh so she's much younger than me. She's a senior in high school right now. Her name's Jeffy, And I also feeling she like has it together in a way that I did not in high school. Like if I look at pictures of her and her friends,

They were basically like tapeline every six feet and yeah, we basically just walked across stage.

Did they like play music or anything while you were walking across the stage. Nope, Like she just walked across a silent stage in an empty room, and they were like Okay, that's your graduation. Yeah, I guess it wasn't like totally empty. It was like there were a handful of people there in this very large arena.

Obviously mom and dad were there, and then they had to wear masks, and my principal was there to like kind of remind me what to do, and but my principle he stick really close to me. That was like, really weird, the closest I've been to another person besides my family in a long time.

And did it feel like a graduation?

Uh?

It was pretty as I claimactic none of this really feels real. So yeah, I mean I feel like you normally get those feelings anyway of like, oh, it doesn't really feel over, but like it really doesn't feel over.

Yeah, yeah, I assume you're not having a prom.

No, that was one of the first things we canceled.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel kind of grateful that I hadn't already bought my dress. Little things right, Dad joking and was.

Like, well, at least you don't have a date.

Yeah, you're right, No way, I'm getting a boyfriend in high school now.

Well I didn't either, so I don't know if that's that any comfort.

I didn't have super high over.

Jonathan, how are you doing?

You know I'm doing okay. I I had a milestone this weekend. My three year old Aggie showed an interest in what I do for a living for the very first time. So I invited him into my home studio so he could so you could feel the magic. Yeah, yeah, you hear yourself. You could see how you're recording. When you see those little lines. When you talk loud, it goes up up. Okay, that's a little loud. Mostly what we did was just fight over the microphone. I hold it.

Let.

We ended up calling up his grandmother to interview her. Hi, Hi, whenne viewing you. That makes me feel very important. Left new It's hard.

To think of new things when you can't leave your house.

I come out of more of a I guess public radio tradition, but Aggie seems to adhere more to commercial morning zoo, aesthetic knack knack. Who's there? Dung dung?

Who dung doggy dung. I'm healthy, Papa, you are?

I see you have a microphone?

And are you in his studio?

No?

I mean the.

Classic, Well, the closet is my studio. My fear. Now is that hearing his old man say in that pleading tone of voice that the closet is my studio might be Augie's very first memory. Anyway, you know what time it is? Twelve?

Ad time?

Did you say bedtime?

I said add time, but I wish it were bedtime.

Wrong again, It's AD time, So I was right. You know why they call them.

Ads because they add a value tier, because they.

Add so much to your life. And when we get back, you're not going to believe who I talk to next? Heavyweight Gang. Yeah, you remember my old friend James. He's a successful TV writer living in Toronto. In season one, we snuck onto a golf course to scatter his dad's ashes. So one night recently, James began to feel really ill with what he's now pretty sure was COVID scary, so his wife decided to steal them off in their bedroom, away from their two kids. And James is feeling much

I was doing a chickstarw puzzle. It's a woodstock puzzle, and you'd think it's all like hifty, peaceful, it's going to be easy. No, it was a nightmare of this puzzle.

How many pieces? How many pieces on thousand?

Well, I'm no punk, I'm no punk. Anything less than a thousand that's a kid puzzle. Anyways, it's a mad, challenging puzzle, and it was really getting on my nerves. He was pissing me off. I couldn't get to sleep because it started. I was getting angry and I felt sick, and I thought.

You thought you were just like sick with anger about the puzzle for real?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was like starting to get you know, like, oh my stomach sick and I'm mad at this goddamn puzzle.

But at a certain point, did you realize, you know, actually, it's not normal to be getting this upset and this sick over a puzzle.

Eventually, about four five in the morning, I got so cold and I started to shake, and I went, oh, I'm sick, that's what this is.

Yeah.

I was moaning on every outpress like this. It was like for hours. I was going One night, as I'm going I heard people outside being like, what is that like I was causing a disturbance in the neighborhood. It was like the Extra Sister or something. You know, a migraine. You're in a migraine.

No, but I mean I've heard I've read about them.

Yeah, me too. So it's like I had a migraine in my body. It's like my legs were a migraine. Everything hurts. And I said something like I want to die. I want to die, you know. Oh, it's just I did. I really wanted to die for a good forty eight hours. Kill me.

So the weirdest thing was that, in spite of how sick he was and how he felt like he was looking at his own mortality, we spent most of the conversation talking about this movie, this seventies disaster film that he'd seen as a kid and had decided to rewatch while he was recovering in Quarantine. And the movie is straight strangely timely because it's about a pandemic and it's called the Cassandra Crossing.

It is one of the worst movies ever made. It's terrible. It's like eating bad ice cream.

So wait to what happens. So it's it's Santa.

Crossing takes place on a very sexy, glamorous train from Geneva to Rembra and it's filled the stars. And what's the twist that makes a disaster movie? A terrorist infected with the bubonic plague gets on the train and he's going to get everybody sick and they're going to die. And the government represent on of Burt Lancaster decides they just going to kill everybody. Let's just kill them, so they stop the train at Nuremberg. At Nuremberg, no connotations there,

So I get this.

You're gonna love this. There is always a moment like this in all seventies movies where the British actor would act. So this is Richard Harris, this moment to act and he's like, so what will you do?

Then?

Will you shoot everyone on the train?

So stop start with me?

Shoot me? And Barnishine's like, oh, yeah, you're right, that's bad. I shouldn't do that. Before he was a Heroin Addict slash Dealer, he was a champion mountain climber in Europe. He borrows some kids tennis shoes and he goes out, this is a terrible movie. So the stunt double is like, I don't know, eight feet tall and it's obviously not Martchine, but whatever do you know?

As you're telling that, like it sounds as though like hadn't you said you saw this movie as a kid, I would think like was this a fever dream?

It's very real. You can probably find it in the delete bin event gas station. As Susan Sontag said, the disaster movie gives the audience the opportunity to live through their own death.

Do you think that's why you sought out this movie at this moment?

Hell?

Yeah, absolutely, because I thought I was I don't mean to say I thought I was dying in a history onic, you know, sort of like melodramatic way. I was like, I'm dying. I'm dying, and part of me wanted to die because I didn't want to keep going through what

How long have you been in there now? Like a week and a.

Half now, So I still got more time in here, got my computer, I got my Chickstop puzzle, of course I did. Sully did bring up my my Goddawn? Which star puzzle?

Did you?

Did?

You continue working on it.

As soon as I was able. As soon as I was able, I was back at.

That shit Wow. A listener to the show, Cheyenne, wrote in about her boyfriend Torstein, who she's in a long distance relationship with, and Torstein is having a hard time. He's stuck at home, quarantining with a large family in a crowded house TV. You can relate, probably.

Yeah, totally, I get it.

Yeah. And so he was supposed to go off to university this fall, which he was very excited about. But now all the classes are going to be online.

Yeah.

It feels like similarly like with my sister, just like a lot of the milestones that people would normally be hitting right now they kind of aren't getting to have.

Yeah, so's he's sad about that, And Chyenne says that he's a big fan of the show, and she asked if the three of us could surprise him with a phone call.

So fun.

Yeah, so let's let's do it. Let's call Chyenne first. Okay, here we go. Get ready to bring the sunshine, Kayley, Oh god, I want to hear a smile in your voice.

I'm smiling now, can you hear it?

It sounds like it's painting you.

It's sort of like that model thing of smiling, just with your eyes. Just smile with your voice.

It's called smiices. And this is called mooie.

It's moisy.

Got it?

You got a that's such a gross word. All right, here we go. Hello, Seyenne. Hi, Hello, h Cheyenne. You'll conference Torstein in.

Okay, okay, that was so great.

Hello, Hello, Hello, Hi tour Stein. Yeah, Hi, it's Jonathan Goldstein.

Oh wow, Hi.

Hi.

You know your very nice girlfriend who seems to love you very much.

Uh.

She wrote into the show and wanted us to say.

Hi, thank you. Well, I'm kind of in shockering now.

Yenne had said that you'd been feeling a little down in the midst of everything.

Yeah, my school just got canceled for the rest of the year. Not like canceled, but like I'm going to be able to attend it. Yeah, so I was kind of bummed.

But yeah, how old are you?

I am twenty How.

Old are you? Makes it sound like you're like attending a children's birthday party.

Well, no, I want to say. I just want to tell you. I mean, I don't know if this takes the pressure off, but truly nothing matters in like at least until twenty five. That does help. Yeah, you're not going to remember any of the things you're learning now anyhow.

I mean I don't know that I totally subscribe to the whole nothing you will hearn ever, mean anything, I'm just trying to inspire.

It's not necessarily that like attending classes the shame as much as like, there's like eleven people in my house right now. You know, I was supposed to move out and go to school, but because of the coronavirus and having to stay at home for another semester, and I love, I love my home, but you know, I want to move out and live my own life.

Have you never been out on your own?

Not Like I haven't lived on my own.

So that was something that you were excited about.

Absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, I have eight older siblings, and I grew up in a room with my three older brothers. Whenever one moved out, I would move up to a different bed. You know, there's the nicer beds in my own So I think that individuality is something that I decently desired, and it'll happen, but it just feels like it got postponed a little bit more.

But I think you will probably end up looking back on this time with all eleven of you living in the house as an incredibly like a kind of moment of grace almost. You know, it's going to take on a certain kind of sweetness. Right. It might be hard to see now, but I.

Think I do see it to some degree. I'm never gonna like have another chance to live with the three siblings that are home right now, and these is the nephews that are living at the house right now. There's joy in playing games with him and talking to them and.

Yeah, yeah, they probably think you're really cool.

They're better. My first niece entered the world when I was twelve, and twelve year old me, it's like, I want to be called Uncle Awesome and that's just stuck.

So for the rest of my life, they all call you uncle awesome. Yeah, all the time.

They're also only twelve years younger than you, and I like the idea of you being like fifty in the late thirties and they're still like oh yeah uncle as.

No no, no, no no. By that point, they'll be more mature. They'll probably out the uncle and just call you awesome because they have like an adult relationship exactly. Yeah, I'm Shane. Yeah, is there anything that you wanted to say?

I really proud of you and everything you've done, and I can't wait to see where you go on this long, long journey of life and the short little journey of college that's a little shorter now. But I'm crying. Why am I crying?

Please?

I love you.

I love you.