Heavyweight: Live from New York

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. This is Jacob Goldstein. When you're a business owner interested in expanding to new markets, there's a lot to consider and countless questions to answer before making the call. The most important one being, are you ready? That's where ChatGPT comes in. Give it a goal, add your files, and ask Chat to help you map out different scenarios for the future of your business. So when growth is on the table, you've got an expansion plan ready to implement. Get started today at ChatGPT.com. Because every musician remembers the point where everything changed, and this podcast tells the stories that came before it. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR. Fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. In October, the heavyweight gang gathered in New York City for a live event at Caveat on the Lower East Side. If I may be so bold as to speak on behalf of the crowd, the weight staff, and Pushkin Industries as a whole, a lovely time was had by all. There was a wall to write down your regrets, and a meet-and-greet where you could take a picture with yours truly. Three, two, one. Thank you. I feel like I'm smiling in all these pictures. So what you're doing is not quite a smile. Feels like you're my soul animal, so good luck to your soul. Heavyweight, the first episode came out when I was 12. Starting 22 next week. Now I feel like I practically raised you. If you weren't able to attend, fear not. We've recorded the event so that you can still experience it at home, half undressed and drinking less expensive beverages through the miracle of audio. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for coming to this live event, celebrating the launch of the new season of Heavyweight. We're so glad you're here. My name is Greta Cohen. I'm the CEO of Pushkin Industries. We are the audio network that is the home to Heavyweight, and we are so thrilled that they are a part of our network. The new season is wonderful. I'm sure you've all been listening to it, and today you're in for a real treat. Later on, the producers of the show, Stevie Lane and Kalila Holt, will be coming on stage, and they're going to answer, along with Jonathan, some of your questions. Thank you. Thank you for all of the questions that you've submitted. But first, Jonathan will be joining us to do a live reading. He has asked me to read an introduction to this reading. Okay. Jonathan asked me to read this introduction to his reading of the Old Testament of Cain and Abel. For those of you heathens who have never cracked open a Bible or unscrolled a Torah, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden, called Eden, where they frolicked in the nude all day. But relax. Back then, nudity was less a Rio de Janeiro HBO After Dark thing, and more a Nordic health spa thing, filled with good, clean living and fruit platters. Also, everyone in Eden got to live forever, and not have to go through a painful childbirth, or work for a living. It was a pretty groovy trip, until the whole tree of knowledge thing went down, and Adam and Eve were expelled. Jonathan has here chosen to retell the story of Adam and Eve's kids, Cain and Abel, who were born after the expulsion, as an illustration of the very first heavyweight, a heavyweight in which two beefing brothers are reconciled by the Lord. On heavyweight, the role of the Lord is played by Jonathan Goldstein. Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Goldstein. Back in those first days, things changed very quickly. A new person being born meant there was a giant spike in the population. For Cain, his younger brother, Abel's birth made the planet feel lopsided. He watched Eve bounce Abel in her lap, and felt the Earth's gravity tilt in their direction. It pulled at the insides of his stomach, and made him seasick. Years later, Adam and Eve would have many more children. But just then, there was only Cain and Abel. Because there was nobody else, the brothers grew close. They played each other's stomachs like snare drums, cracked each other's knuckles as though they were cracking their own. They were different, though. Abel was a thinker. He thought about things. He'd get off his own pinky toe. Would it grow back? Cain, on the other hand, was a doer. He'd reel back his fist and break a donkey's nose for the sheer thrill of it all. One day, when Adam and Eve thought the children were old enough, they sat them down and told them about the screw-up. What does it mean to die? asked Cain. We're not exactly sure, said Eve. But basically, one day, and this is not any day soon, we will no longer be. There was silence. Then, Abel spoke up. If we won't be, he said, then we won't even know that we're not being. There will be no we to see that we can no longer be. Yes, I guess that's true, said their mother. Well put. Abel smiled and went back to mashing a mutton liver into pâté. Cain, on the other hand, felt like a sharp plum pit had been forcefully lodged down his throat. All his life, he had felt like himself. That his face and fingers, that his thoughts were his own. Now he felt like they were someone else's. Someone who could yank them away at any chosen moment. Until then, it had never crossed his mind that such a thing could even be possible. The brothers continued to live their lives, but all the while Cain felt a new sadness. It ate with him, worked with him, and in the morning it raised from his bed with him. Dying. It just didn't make any sense. He knew this deep in his heart. He thought nothing was more important than making God change his mind. He began to take his sacrifices more seriously. They became elaborate and garish. They involved richly choreographed interpretive dances, colorful oblong facial masks, and the very best of his legumes. But God never answered. Cain started to change. When he got a splinter, he cursed the heavens all out of proportion. Back in the Garden of Eden, there were no splinters. He even started to resent his parents. He spoke of them as though they had gambled away his inheritance. If it hadn't been for dumb-dumb number one tempting dumb-dumb number two, we'd be living in luxury. Cain tried to get Abel all worked up about the whole thing, too. But Abel had an easy-come, easy-go, we-all-have-to-die-someday attitude that drove his brother nuts. Cain invented a game. He called it "Get the Hell Out of Eden." He always insisted on playing God. "Get your naked asses out of here," yelled God. "What? But we just got here," yelled Adam and Eve. "Maybe there's some kind of mistake." The Lord does not make mistakes. God would then kick his brother, who would fall to the ground. "Please, please have mercy on me," his brother would cry. "Let's play something else." But God would only laugh. Abel also made sacrifices to God. Every week, he would choose the fattest sheep as an offering. Everything Abel did in life was for a reason. He ate so that he would not be hungry. He made clothes so that he would not be cold. But making sacrifices to God, he did it for reasons he could never know. He did it simply because he was told to. There was something about that that made him feel clean and deep. Adam and Eve made their sacrifices out of fear of being further punished, and Cain was pleading for answers and changes. But Abel fulfilled his obligation and walked away expecting nothing from God. He was glad with the way things were. And God could not have helped liking that. Meanwhile, Cain decided to test out a new approach with the Lord. He believed that God would have greater respect for him if he did not kowtow. "He's going to kill us," he thought. He wanted God to understand that he couldn't walk all over people and then still have them come crawling back with their arms loaded with gifts. No. They had to get tough. God wanted them to understand that he could not walk all over people and then still have them come crawling back with their arms loaded with gifts. No. So Cain's sacrifices grew lackadaisical. He didn't even bother to check if his gifts were being received. That would look like his death. No. he was caving. Then one day while Cain was lying in a field, Abel came running over. God spoke to me, cried Abel. Cain sat up and looked at his brother. What did he say? He said he was a great fan of my lamb chops. He told me to keep up the good work. Was my name mentioned? Asked Cain. It didn't come up. What was it like to hear his voice? Asked Cain. Look at me, said Abel. I'm still shaking. There was a certain pang that Cain started to feel. It was in his stomach. He felt the pang grow sharpest when he looked upon his brother. He could hardly speak with him without having to hunch over in pain. Since the world was still new and no one had yet felt this way, Cain did not know that it was jealousy he was feeling. Instead, he decided that his stomach no longer wanted to be his stomach. It wanted to escape his rib cage. It wanted to be Abel's stomach. This was because he wanted to be Abel. There was no shame in this. Being Abel meant being happy. Being Cain meant being wretched. He had a plan. He approached Abel with it. He decided to just spring it on him. I am no longer Cain, he said. I am now Abel. We are both Abel. All right, said Abel. The two Abels performed routines for the amusement of their brothers and sisters. How's that apple, Abel? Abel, it's fine, Abel. But then one day Cain asked, if I am Abel, am I just as much Abel as you yourself are Abel? I suppose that's true, said Abel. Then before God, are we both not Abel? Asked Cain. Well, in the case of being before God, I think at that time I would be Abel and you would go back to being Cain. Cain's eyes lingered on his brother. He looked at this other Abel as standing in the way of who he was. He was Abel. He knew this in his heart. He simply wanted it more. Abel was among his flock when Cain neared him. Slowly, Cain pulled out his rock and slowly he lifted it into the air. This way, God will have to show himself. This way, God will have to stop playing possum and get directly involved. These were Cain's thoughts. Still, though, there was no sign of God. He looked at the back of Abel's head. Then he looked into the sky. Just in case God was reading his mind, he thought to himself, I'm really, really going to do it. He brought his rock down onto his brother's head. He could hear no sound at all. Abel just toppled over. He toppled over the way he did everything, with an easygoing acceptance. He sank to the earth as though thinking, I must fall, so I will fall. I am falling. I have fallen. Here it was. Death. Cain couldn't believe it. He'd been sure that at the last moment God would step in. He'd have thought only God could take a person's life, but it was as simple as killing a sheep. Abel, his eyes wide and unblinking, stared directly into the mystery of life and death, and he was not saying a word about any of it. The sheep continued to graze and the sun continued to shine. There were no bolts of lightning, no booming voice from behind the clouds. Life went on. That night, God appeared before Cain in a dream. Where is your brother? asked God. It's always about my brother, said Cain. You ever ask where I am? No, that you don't think of. What have you done? asked God. Am I my brother's keeper? asked Cain. God did not answer. He just gave him a look. It made Cain feel naked and small. He then felt the finger of God upon his forehead. It sank through his head and into his brain, where it spoke. The earth shall scorn you, said the voice. the finger. I shall scorn you. You will wander the earth and death will not come. There will be no escape. All will look upon you and none will dare kill you, for they will know you by your mark. God withdrew his finger, leaving behind a fingerprint on Cain's forehead. It was shaped like a teardrop. At first, he tried to convince himself that the mark was to protect him, that he had a secret pact with God, that they understood each other. For a while, he would wake up in the middle of the night and say to himself, "I am God, and I will be with you forever and ever and ever." He would say, "I am God, and I will be with you forever and ever." He would say, "I am God, and I will be with you forever and ever." He would say, "I am God, and I will be with you forever and ever." to the face of an alligator as he tried in vain to pry open its jaws. More centuries passed and Cain's desire for death became nearly constant. He would think about Abel up in heaven, palling around with God, flying through the clouds on God's shoulders while he was left to putz around for hundreds of years, begging his own children to drive sharpened branches through his heart. In life, Cain had been jealous of his brother, but it was in death that he became more jealous than he ever thought possible. Over time, Cain could no longer remember very much at all. Twenty years after the death of his brother, it seemed like it was only yesterday, but after 200 years, it felt like something that might have happened in a dream. There were details, he remembered, that now seemed improbable, like the way he saw his brother's soul leave his body and the way he'd waved goodbye to him and winked. After 300 and 400 years, it all felt so long ago that who he was back then was no longer possible. Cain's brother, Cain, was no longer possible. Cain felt like someone else. When people he met asked him questions about the old days, he just made stuff up. We had wings, he said. After 500 years, his story was repeated so often that he only remembered the repeating, not the events themselves. It sounded like a fable, something that might have just as easily happened to a fox and a rabbit as to himself and his brother. He began to doubt everything. He even began to wonder whether he had actually ever heard God's voice, whether he had heard God's voice, whether he had heard God's voice, whether the mark on his forehead was the mark of God and not just another liver spot. Was this a part of the punishment, he wondered, to be left so uncertain of whether God really was or whether God was only something inside his own head? After 700 years, when he told the story to himself or heard it told by others, he felt nothing. He was too old to feel guilt or remorse or anything. He didn't even miss his brother anymore. He wanted nothing from God. He wanted nothing from the world. The world was what it was. He didn't need it to change. And in this way, he finally got his wish to be just like Abel. And then God let him die. Thank you. After the break, a Q&A with Stevie, Kalila, and me. But first, our producer Phoebe headed to the Wall of Regrets to see what regrets were trending. I just really regret not going to see the catacombs when I was in Paris. I really like skulls. I wish I'd caught them. I regret that I didn't pay enough in contact with certain friends of mine who were like religious and are now getting married. So I'm not getting invited to the weddings. And God, do I want to be at the weddings? Just because I really like weddings. Do you guys mind just reading these aloud for me, like some of the ones that you're looking at? Not finding a therapist, saying no to a reason. Not being more patient with my mother's cognitive decline. Lacking patience with my brother's behavior. Then he died. How I said goodbye to my best friend before he died. I wish I joined a band. If you're a music fan, here's a new podcast to check out. It's called Before the Moment, a new series hosted by the legendary Nile Rodgers. You know him as the producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of Chic. But in this series, he's hitting the road to sit down with some of today's most fascinating artists. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every artist can point to that turning point, that moment before the breakthrough, before the success, before everything changed. Through candid conversations and personal stories, you'll hear what happened before the moment that made them who they are today. When you're running a business and looking to expand, you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions. ChatGPT can help you prepare. Connect your Google Drive, point to relevant files and reports, and ask it to research competitors, industry forecasts, and market signals. It can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team. Growing a business is ambitious, and ChatGPT can help you do it with confidence. For I don't know how long, maybe 12, 13 years, I've worn a whoop band on my wrist. I started doing it because I met the founder of WHOOP at a conference. He heard that I was a runner and he said, oh, you'll love this. It's perfect for athletes. And he was right. I've worn one ever since. Every time I work out, I see how hard I worked, how long I need to recover. I wake up in the morning and I get a complete picture of how my sleep went, which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night. WHOOP is no screen. It doesn't need to be recharged every five minutes. It's sleek, handsome, and everywhere I go, I can instantly see who's part of the WHOOP community. WHOOP offers three membership tiers. Power your performance with the lowest price at WHOOP One. Improve your health now and for the future with WHOOP Peak. And tap into medical grade health insights with WHOOP Life. WHOOP is a winner. New members can try WHOOP with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership. That's WHOOP.com for your free month of WHOOP. So now we are going to move into the Q&A portion of our event today. And I'd like to welcome to the stage Kalila Holt and Stevie Lane, the producers of the show. Hi. Hello. Hi, everybody. Hello. Hi. Hi, all. So we asked you questions that you wanted to hear the heavyweight team answer about the show. And we got so many. I think we are also going to have a little bit of time today to do some audience Q&A. Kicking things off with our Q&A here, what does Jonathan and Jackie's off-show relationship really look like? Should I take this one? It's about you, so. Yeah, but. You might have a more objective window. I don't know. I think it's a pretty accurate glimpse into our dynamic. We've been friends since childhood. She likes to laugh at me and hang up. And I don't know. I mean. I mean, the first time I met Jackie, I remember we really bonded because over, like, she was like, isn't he annoying? And I was like, yeah. I feel like that made her like me. The first time I met Jackie, I was like, I want to be you when I grow up. She's very powerful. She's a very powerful person. Yeah. And she's a really nice person, too. I mean, I just bring out the worst in her. It's not her fault, I don't think. She's like, yeah, she's a doctor. She helps people. She does good works. And I just bother her, you know. So I hope it's bringing some levity to her life. But truly, I don't know. But she was for the people who don't know. People who don't know the backstory. There is a backstory? Well, just that you went to school together and she was like a popular girl. She was very popular. Yeah. If you really want to go deep on the backstory, I did a story about our relationship on This American Life called The Allure of the Mean Friend. And I just talked to people about what Jackie Cohen meant in grade school and in junior high. And she meant a lot. Yeah. What was the hardest episode to record and why? Slash, which call has made you the most nervous to dial? I was the most nervous calling sorority girls for Rose. They were very, I remember there was like a Facebook thread where they were like, a sketchy sounding woman left us a message. And I was like, I thought I sounded really nice and normal. I think for me, it was very early. And when I had just joined the show and you guys were working on a show, I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to And you were trying to find this two or three fingered man who had hung up on you many times. And I was just like new and bright eyed. And I was like, what can I do to help? And John was like, you could try calling this guy. And I called him and he told me he would find out where I lived and killed me. Yeah, it was like a rite of passage. Like we, everybody who's new on the show had to call. His name is Carl. But yeah. That would have been a good story too. Yeah. The one where he finds me and murders me. He threatened to kill me. It's just, that's Carl. And you've got a true crime series, you know? Yeah, it's true. My hardest call was there was an episode where I was trying to find out about my psychiatrist that I had when I was a teenager and find out if she was a really good psychiatrist or, you just don't know with a psychiatrist because it's so, it's so sealed off. You know, you don't get, or do you get rate Yelp ratings? Maybe now you do. Back then you didn't. And I remembered someone that used to be in the waiting room when I would leave. He was a professor I once had when I was in college and I thought, maybe I can ask him. And so I had to call him and say, hey, I used to see you in the waiting room of my psychiatrist 30 odd years ago. That was very weird. That was even for me, that felt very weird. He was, he had retired. He was living in Jamaica. That was a weird one. What's the biggest problem you'd want to solve? Oh, um, so Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan of the show and all that I want is to reunite her with Kim Cattrall. And I email her agent every year when we're looking for stories and I'm like, just checking in, like wondering if, um, Sarah has anybody she may be interested in, maybe like needs to reconcile with. Has she given any thought? Um, so far, uh, she's been too busy, but now that I'm just like that is over, I feel like she might have more time on her hands. Perfect time. Yeah. Anybody else? I don't know. Celebrities don't have problems, do they? Uh, you? Auggie has one. Oh, Auggie. Did you? Yeah. Who did you just say? Oh yeah, Kendrick, Lamar and Drake. Auggie is my son and, uh, he's a big fan of the show. He's a big fan of the show. He's a, he's a very big rap fan. He wants to see me reconcile the whole. Would probably do huge numbers for us. I'm like, that's a great idea. Perfect for audio. Yeah. So good idea actually, Auggie. We should pursue that. Yeah. I know. Like, why can't you fellas just, cause that whole Superbowl thing was really out of hand. I mean, that was, that was rough. Do we maybe have an opening for a new assistant producer? Is Auggie looking? Yeah. He's going to be nine. I should also say. Part time. Part time. Yeah. You can balance it with school. Um, okay. Sometimes it seems like there's no progress or revelation to someone's journey until weeks or months later. How does the team maintain the morale to not be discouraged? And years, I mean. I think I am discouraged most of the time. I think I don't maintain the morale would be my answer. Yeah. I sort of feel like, I think I have the attitude that just like, I just believe it actually will always work out. Yeah. Because I think we've, there've been a lot of stories that we've thought were dead and then like years later something changes, we get back in touch, whatever, and then they end up happening. So I just, I think I just, it's blind optimism is what I do. I was going to say, I think Stevie brings optimism for all of us. Yeah. And you have your work cut out. Yeah. It's, I, for me it's desperation. It's always, that's what passes for hope I think is the desperation. Yeah. So if you could turn the episode into a season long series, which one would you revisit and what avenues would you take to further explore within that story? Well, do you remember when we did that, like a two day descent into madness where we laid out that whole whiteboard? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well that, yeah, again, desperation. I mean, it came about, the shorthand that we were using, we was, we were going to S-town it. Yeah. We were like, this is going to be our S-town. This is going to be our S-town. Also, S-town just became a verb. That was, it was like, we're going to S-town it. Yeah. It just felt like none of our stories were working out, but we thought that like, you're too young to get the reference to the love boat, but like where you're visiting different characters. Thank you. You know, like we couldn't solve the story, but like maybe from week to week we can drift from character to character and like keep working on them and like tangle them all up together. And then nobody would notice that none of them had an ending. But truly we spent like, I think two whole days laying out like what the structure would look like. And then at the end of the two days we were like, this is insane. And we just erased the whiteboard. I think it might've been more than two days. Really? It felt like a big, a sizable chunk of time. Yeah. I don't know. There's like, my friends, I don't know where they are. The Ehrlichs are here, Gregor and his, yeah, you're right to gasp and his brother, Dimitri. And I mean, I feel like we could do a season of just like called the Ehrlichs where there would be so many good stories, you know? At a time when people are increasingly concerned about privacy, how do you get people to speak to you and spill their hearts out on tape? Well, I haven't noticed a lot more people do the, I thought it was a scam, so I didn't answer you. And I don't know if people actually think we're running some elaborate confusing scam or if that's kind of just like a shorthand for like, I didn't want to respond to this. Yeah. Cause what kind of scam would it be really? Not a very good one. Like a real long con. Yeah. Yeah. And also people don't answer the phone anymore. Like people won't answer. on no number yeah i feel like that's changed even just in the time we've been doing the show like people used to pick up a lot more yeah how do we convince them to talk once they once they do pick up the phone my feeling is like people are either inclined to do it or not and it doesn't matter that much what you say like they kind of have already made up their mind that's true yeah have you ever actually convinced anybody like where they didn't not like a hard no to a yes i've had people who are on the fence who like then they think about it and agree but have you the most was maybe in i don't know if you guys know remember the sky the story about sky who had her best friends they wrote the f word on her garage door i'm saying the f word because my son's here and it would excite him too much um and one of the girls who were a part of it she didn't want to talk and we we spoke a lot we had many conversations over several days and eventually she she agreed to do it and she agreed to do it for a really nice reason like she wanted to show her daughter that it's okay like you could comp to something that you did that you're not proud of you know and that was really sweet i also there was also chris in the barbara episode oh yeah right right that was like a real the the we did a two-parter about um jonathan's mother-in-law's childhood friend um and in trying to find her we ended up on the phone with someone she'd been briefly engaged to when she was younger and at first like he didn't want to talk to the i mean he was like threatening legal action he was like my daughter's a lawyer like i'm gonna come after you i don't want him any part like it was and it was very i was producing jonathan on the call and it was like i found it very scary having flashbacks to the three-fingered man kind of vibe and you just kind of kept him talking like that was the you just kind of kept him talking and i remember like we got off the phone i was like what made you do that and you were like i just have the feeling that he actually wants to talk about this yeah and yeah he called back and was like yeah i do want to talk about this so it was like i don't know it was like just i felt like it was kind of like the phone call that he'd been waiting for for for like 30 odd years or more you know it just i don't know it just had that kind of feeling to it so i'm i've been very excited to ask you guys this question um who would play you in heavyweight the movie i i do have an answer to this um which is just my stock answer to who would play me in a movie which is aubrey plaza oh that's so good i mean i think you know in my mind i'm like a very lanky tall sort of like johnny knoxville type but i know that it would end up being like wallace sean who you know maybe a paul giometti i don't know you uh i i really don't know you might have to come back to me on this one um okay we'll come back to you on that hey everyone it's me stevie so this question continued to haunt me for weeks until i finally decided tilda swinton there's more q a coming up right after the break if you're a music fan here's a new podcast to check out it's called before the break before the break before the moment a new series hosted by the legendary nile rogers you know him as the producer songwriter guitarist and co-founder of chic but in this series he's hitting the road to sit down with some of today's most fascinating artists from hit makers like miguel to rising stars like alex warren nile explores the stories behind the careers the songs and the moments that changed everything because every artist can point to that turning point that moment before the breakthrough before the success before everything changed through candid conversations and personal stories you'll hear what happened before the moment that made them who they are today listen to before the moment a lincoln original series on the iheart radio app youtube or wherever you get your podcasts this is jacob goldstein with chat gpt you can do more than get answers you can get things done when you're running a business and looking to expand you need a clear view of the landscape before making any decisions chat gpt can help you prepare connect your google drive point to relevant files and reports and ask it to research competitors industry forecasts and market signals it can turn the findings into a strategic deck in your team's template that you can review before presenting to your leadership team growing a business is ambitious and chat gpt can help you do it with confidence get started today at chat gpt.com for i don't know how long maybe 12 13 years i've worn a whoop band on my wrist i started doing it because i met the founder of whoop at a conference he heard that i was a runner and he said oh you'll love this it's perfect for athletes and he was right i've worn one ever since every time i work out i see how hard i worked how long i need to recover i wake up in the morning and i get a complete picture of how my sleep went which helps me understand the kinds of things that lead to a bad night and the kinds of things that lead to a good night whoop is no screen it doesn't need to be recharged every five minutes it's sleek handsome and everywhere i go i can instantly see who's part of the whoop community whoop offers three membership tiers power your performance with the lowest price at whoop one improve your health now and for the future with whoop peak and tap into medical grade health insights with whoop life whoop is a winner new members can try whoop with a 30-day free trial before committing to a membership that's whoop.com for your free month of whoop our live event also featured a telephone but unlike all those boring ordinary telephones that only let you reach businesses institutions and private residences this telephone only allowed you to reach me jonathan goldstein and not even me really but my answering machine when you picked up the receiver you heard a message prompting you to record your own heavyweight story and you sure showed me because record those stories you did hi you've reached jonathan goldstein i'm not at home right now because i'm in the middle of the live performance of a lifetime but in the meantime leave a message with your story don't overthink it just do the job do the job do the job don't say no say yes i was ghosted by every single male member of my high school class and i don't know if i did something i i thought all these people like me i certainly like them found out that my dad was married beforehand it was an arranged marriage so i'm an indian and it's very unique or very rare to get divorced during an arranged marriage definitely caused rifts between my dad and the community i would say that i'm not a very imaginative person um i enjoy logic and i went to bed one night and i had a dream that my grandmother had died randomly told uh my friends at breakfast and they were like just trying to do the freudian thing of like what could that mean and me sort of just blowing them off being like dreams don't mean anything um and then about four hours later i received a call from my sister saying hey like sorry to tell you but grandma died hi my name is dimitri erlich um my story is once i was invited out to a bachelor party and we went out in lower manhattan to chinatown to a chinese massage parlor and we had wonderful foot massages and you jonathan were doing an incredible job of pretending that it was painful because it felt great in every way so my question is have you ever considered doing any theatrical acting either in film or television or on stages because you're obviously quite a gifted lesbian thank you oh i'm gregor's brother by the way and now back to the q a q a stands for questions and answers if jonathan and gregor could only listen to one moby song on repeat during a road trip which one would it be well gregor should we turn the house lights up what would be the song gregor please could you would you stand up so people can i don't know where we're going on this road trip is to figure out why we're on a road trip together uh i i don't know uh let's say we were gonna go to um frontier town together i i don't know like something fun i don't know i can imagine fighting with you about the radio on a road trip how about that for an answer like fighting over which moby song we would listen to exactly all the moby's greatest hits moby's play moby moby moby but you do you do listen to moby songs i'm constant repeat all i listen to is moby actually i have a question for you because you get said you're going to take q a from the audience well i was gonna ask was that all spontaneous stuff that you guys were really just winging it or did you already have your prefab like no that was just off the cuff like like jazz yeah improvising nice zingers thank you wait is that was that your question or yeah i was curious more like maybe stanley tucci you know okay all right thank you yeah that's very nice thank you i like the sounds you're making of support thank you well gregor is correct we are shifting into audience q a portion so there are a couple of mics around so there's a couple of mics around hi i think i'm the biggest fan now so jonathan you recently had that episode about stopping drinking and then because i'm your biggest fan of heavyweight uh you had that live event episode where they alluded to how you needed a drink before you spoke, how it would help you. So I was just wondering, tonight, what's going on and how it is? I'm lit. I'm tanked. No, I, yeah, this might be the first time I'm doing this. Yeah, it makes me a little nervous. But yeah, I haven't had anything to drink. And hi, Emma, by the way. Hi. Are you guys friends? No. Oh, you're just sitting beside each other. Emma mixes our episodes. She's the sound engineer and composes music. Emma Munger. Yeah, it's, yeah, it was definitely in my thoughts. Because I used to really like to do that, to have a drink or two or three before talking and a couple afterwards. So yeah, I'm just, I'm free balling it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, and it was definitely a nuanced view of stopping drinking. Like, is it better? Yeah, it is. Some days. I was saying last night to my friend Alex, I was saying I miss that feeling of like that everything is all right. Everything's going to be okay. You know what I mean? Which is like a little, like, but you got to figure it, like, you have to manifest that. You have to figure out how to get that feeling on your own. You know, it's not real. So yeah, I'm still working on that. And it is going to be all right. Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that. Hi, everyone. I just want to reflect based off of that episode as well. I just recently lost a friend to alcoholism. I'm sorry. And your episode was really touching because it was a way to externalize and even open up those conversations. And I sent it to our friends group and it helped us a lot too. So thank you for being honest and open. Thank you. That's really, that's encouraging to hear. Thank you. Yeah. My question is, I'm sure there's stories that are just in the vault still being worked on year after year. Can you share a little bit of what's currently still being in development? Or if there's a story that you really wish can have, see the light of day at some point? That's a good question. I don't know. Anything come to mind? I'm, like, scared to talk about any of them, though, because I'm afraid I'm going to, like, doom them to never happen. But there are ones that I really. You're hopeful about. That I would, like, love, yeah, if came back to life. yeah yeah sometimes you have like all the elements and you're it's very exciting and then this one person doesn't want to talk and you know so it's it's weird model to to be basing things on that but that's how i felt about why i'm like hedging a little bit is that's how i felt about the messenger which is when we just did this season like when we got laid off from spotify i did not forward the emails to myself because i was like this story's dead so i don't need these and then it came back to life so we never thought we'd get to talk to if you listen to the episode pat croce who we needed to talk to and it just seemed like he wasn't going to do it and then and quincy had told us now right yeah but and then it was like a friend of a friend over dinner and you know it was this true serendipity we got really lucky yeah um when you all are listening to recordings of yourselves doing interviews or having conversations with people have you learned that you have certain conversational habits that you've tried to alter or emphasize um that's a good question i i noticed that i laugh when i'm nervous in the middle of things that are not funny and that's like something i've tried to stop especially when i'm interviewing someone on like a serious topic you know sometimes you like asking a question and then you kind of laugh when you're uncomfortable and then when i'm cutting it i'm like what am i doing yeah so i've tried to stop doing that i'll just say i have the exact opposite problem i can't laugh like i uh i wish i did laugh more easily and i wish i had a free and easy laugh that told people like ah it's funny that's great keep coming you know so i wish i had a little bit of that i will um pitch my voice up especially when i'm calling people to interview them and i i hate it i hate it so much and when i listen back it's like hi i'm stevie i'm calling from the podcast heavyweight and like it's like it's very and then like the tape doesn't even sound like me like the difference between the that i'm really trying to work on not doing but i do think it's encouraging and something i learned from you jonathan is um whenever i do something really stupid and embarrassing in tape rather than cutting it out and trying to hide it i'm like well that's going to be front and center in the story you're you're embarrassing yourself for a perk for a higher purpose i mean that's wonderful yeah most people go through their lives you know just embarrassing themselves willy-nilly for nothing i don't know but for me it's for art um my question is i've noticed a lot of the episodes feature like interpersonal friendship relationships focusing on like really deep platonic relationships over years so howard and gregor and then when you went to pilates with your friend or like things like that and i just love that and what's your like advice for friendship longevity you guys haven't lived long enough to answer that question yeah i don't have any friends so uh i think it helps to be amused and like i was saying i'm not an easy laugh but i do gregor really makes me laugh when he's busting my chops if you get a kick out of that then then you're unstoppable i mean what's gonna you know what's gonna destroy you nothing i say i don't know that i have an answer i mean i'm very i do have some long friendships including my friend i went to pilates with but i'm like i don't know why i don't know why they're still my friends but i'm grateful for it you're a good person is why oh thanks tron sure i didn't mean to you know bring the place down i have an adult contemporary side well grab a drink say hello and um thank you again for coming and thank you for coming virtually and thanks to everyone who made the show possible that includes phoebe flanagan kira posy tara machado amy haggadorn jordan mcmillan eric sandler sarah bruguere and especially morgan ratner live sound mixing from the staff of caveat and mixing for this broadcast version by emma munger we'll be back next week with a brand new episode an unlive episode the regular old kind if you love music and great artist interviews check out before the moment hosted by nile rogers this new series follows nile as he travels across the country talking with some of today's most fascinating artists about the moments that shape their lives and careers from hit makers like miguel to rising stars like alex warren nile explores the stories behind the careers the songs and the moments that changed everything because every musician remembers the point where everything changed and this podcast tells the stories that came before it listen to before the moment a lincoln original series on the iheart radio app youtube or wherever you get your podcasts for i don't know how long maybe 12 13 years i've worn a whoop band on my wrist i started doing it because i met the founder of whoop at a conference he heard that i was a runner and he said oh you'll love this 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