The Heavy Wait Diaries: Chapter 6

Previously on Miller High Life Presents The Heavyweight Diaries. Can't 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:08.920 wait to hear the first episode of the new season. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.000 I have not. Timothy Nelson is our union representative Subway Sandwich, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.320 Timothy Nelson. Are we all set for our listening part? 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:33.120 Timothy Nelson Gimbletz executive listening room is a darkened chamber 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.600 with the deadened acoustics of a sarcophagus. We all find 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.960 our seats. Stevie and Khalila take the couch, and Heavyweight 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:47.960 Union head Timothy Nelson commandeer's a backwards office chair. Nelson 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:52.320 don's his careful listening face a horrid affair that involves 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.760 squinting his eyes, tilting his head beatifically, and I can 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:02.840 only assume tightly puckering his colon. Finally, Bloomberg drags his 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.119 silver plated Peloton bicycle into the center of the room. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.760 Hope you don't mind if I take a spin while 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.880 I take it all in, he says, And Timothy Nelson, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.320 let's loose a belly chuckle sick a fantic enough to 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.720 make my spermatic cord unraveled at great expense. Only weeks earlier, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.520 re ravel as much an enemy of capitalism as he was, 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.200 Timothy Nelson still couldn't help kissing the ring, and by ring, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:39.920 I mean caboose, Alex Bloomberg's executive Ask caboose, nice one, chief, 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.520 says Nelson, chasing after Bloomberg's two wheeler to swat his 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:49.400 foot in camaraderie. Once the room settles down, I squint 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:53.240 through the darkness. Eight beady eyes stare back at me, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.639 expectant and unblinking, like a pack of rabid raccoons about 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:09.080 to tear through a garbage bag full of content. My 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.960 only option is to stall. I succeed in buying myself 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:17.920 ten minutes by accidentally rebooting my computer several times, but 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.160 the room is growing restless. What is a heavyweight? I 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:27.919 ask a portmanteau composed of two separate words, heavy meaning 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.280 to exert a gravitational pull and wait, something that can 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.840 be hoisted either in a curling motion or from a 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:41.360 squatting position. While my mouth jabbers on autopilot, my brain 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:46.720 is in a terrible sweat. Think Johnny, Think stories. Stories, 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.880 But of the billions of stories to steal and repurpose, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.760 only two come to mind, The seminal kiddie book Good 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.040 Night Moon, in which a suicidal rabbit bids adieu to 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.520 his earthly possessions, and that poem about footsteps in the sand. 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.040 Please give me something else, I beg my throbbing brain. 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:13.000 Good night podcast. It whispers back, good night Healthcare, good 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.360 night Twitter followers. But just as I'm about to initiate 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.840 Plan B, tearing down the window curtains and a curtain 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:25.000 clutching fake heart attack worthy of Red Fox, a third 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:37.920 story enters my brain. Pan no, please, I scream and 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.840 think get out, as I will later recount in increasing 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:47.280 states of hysteria to increasingly expensive therapists. It's in this 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.840 moment that my fate hops into a potato sack with 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.680 Timothy Nelson's fate. Before I even knew what I was saying, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:00.080 I was saying this. The scene is set in in 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.680 an office elevator, as one man tells the tale of 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:09.600 Sandwich is gone AWRYE if you will, I laugh at 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:14.480 my own joke to enforce its comedic properties. I don't 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:19.280 get it, says Stevie. I think I do, says Khalila. 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.760 I shoot them a stern look and continue. My girlfriend 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:28.040 wanted a subway sandwich without olives. The man says, and 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:33.359 I wanted a subway sandwich with olives. That's me, cries 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.680 Timothy Nelson. I am that man. With a wave of 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:42.680 my storytelling arm I shush him down. Ah, but with 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.440 impish leco slavic lord of misrule helming the wheel of 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.840 this supper wagon we call life. Nothing is ever certain. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.200 And so the man who desperately drooled for a sandwich 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:59.080 with olives received the one without, while his lady friend, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:05.159 vigorously salivating for a sandwich without olives, received a sandwich with. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:13.680 Will these star crossed sandwiches ever find their rightful sandwich eaters? Well, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:19.279 why don't they just swap sandwiches? Asks S Bloomberg. Why, indeed, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.920 I wonder it's just as I'm about to admit defeat. 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.120 Admit that I have nothing. Admit that, like a half 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.960 baked sandwich bread made without yeast, this plotline has no 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.320 rising action. Admit that, yes, Alex, this is indeed the 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.480 most asinine story ever told. It is at this exact 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.279 moment of my final comeuppance that Timothy Nelson grants me 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:48.359 a kind of salvation. My special lady is allergic to 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.360 pickled peppers pipes. He and my sandwich was populated by 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.479 a peck of them. And like the humble sandwich, so 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.479 too is man, I say, already hearing the well of 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:05.400 orchestral music in my mind's ear. Like sandwiches, are we 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.599 not assembled according to a greater, unknowable plan? Who among 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.920 us has not found themselves slathered in the mayonnaise of doubt, 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.360 sliced in two by the bread knife of self hatred? 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.800 Had our crusts removed by the attentive mother of anxiety? 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.919 Who among us will not be chewed up, devoured, and 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:34.520 excreted before our time? Out of the darkness, I see 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.440 Timothy Nelson wipe a tear from his cheek. So true, 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:42.599 he says, But what if that olive, burdened couple had 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.560 the chance at a do over? I continue affecting the 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.040 voice of a wizard casting a magic spell, and could 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.839 confront the sandwich maker who got their orders so horribly wrong. 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.240 If you allow yourself to venture past the limits of 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.720 your earthly imagination, try to invent what such a conversation 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:07.520 might yield. Bloomberg stops peddling his three thousand dollars wheelless bicycle, 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.800 his attention wrapped interviewing the subway sandwich artist who got 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:17.520 the order wrong. He says, of course, to offer the 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.960 mustard of forbearance, I say, the sweet tapanad of forgiveness. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:27.840 Timothy Nelson is now openly blubbering, damn you and your storytelling, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.280 he weeps. And for an added layer of narrative richness, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.560 I say, the man eavesdropping in the elevator was none 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:42.400 other than the host of Heavyweight himself. You were wearing earbuds, 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.560 cries Nelson with incredulity. And when I asked you how 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.119 your weekend was, you ordered me to pipe down because 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.560 you were listening to a podcast. But you weren't listening 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.560 to a podcast at all. Oh but I was, I say, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:13.720 just one that was yet to be recorded. Beautiful, says Bloomberg. 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.480 The symmetry is breathtaking. In response, all of us in 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:23.040 the room, dutifully quoting from the Gimlet Manifesto, recite in unison, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:30.360 symmetry divided by catharsis and multiplied by advertising dollars equals storytelling. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.079 We all take deeply satisfying SIPs from the miller high lifes. 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.120 We've all been drinking, and that I never mentioned until 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:49.240 this moment. You and Timothy will have to work together 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.760 very closely on this one. Bloomberg says, I'm seeing a 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:59.840 co reporting situation. I don't know, I say, Khleland, Stevie are. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.160 He's telling me that Heavyweights more of a one man operation. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.880 We could sell some product placement, brand opportunities to Subway, 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:13.440 says Bloomberg, steamrolling me. And maybe you can also find 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.280 out why subway bread smells the way it does. You 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.400 mean smelling like if you put an armpit in a 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.160 Betty Crocker easy bake oven and set it on high. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:27.560 I ask that smell. I love the smell of subway bread, 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.480 says Timothy Nelson. Bloomberg laughs and claps his hands together. 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.280 I'm just loving the banter here, he says. I know 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.440 we can put our political differences aside and the interest 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:45.640 of creating some compelling content, says Timothy Nelson, And then 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:50.800 for some reason, he extends his fist to me uncertainly. 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.560 I grab hold of it and shake. I had saved 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:02.480 the show, But at what price? This has been Chapter 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.280 six of the Heavyweight Diaries. The next season of Heavyweight 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.520 will begin in three weeks on September twenty sixth. Remember 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.720 September twenty sixth is Spotify Day. Actually, every day is 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.120 Spotify Day, at least according to the corporate mantra we're 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:23.360 forced to repeat every morning. Heavyweight is me Jonathan Goldstein 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.360 along with Jorge just Stevie Lane, Khalila Holt, and b A. Parker. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.040 This episode was mixed by Emamonger, music by Bobby Lord. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.119 Our ad music is Vivaldi's Spring, performed by the Wichita 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.600 State University Chamber Players. Will have a new chapter of 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:40.920 the Heavyweight Diaries next week.