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This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
01:05:37
The tiny thing that unravels your world.
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Sony Pictures Classics
This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with the Room Next Door, the new.
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Inflation
Film by Pedro Almodovar, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
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Sony Pictures Classics
After years go by, two friends meet again in an extreme but sweet situation. Now playing in select theaters. A quick warning.
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This American Life
There are curse words that are unbeeped.
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Sony Pictures Classics
In today's episode of the show.
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This American Life
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
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Sony Pictures Classics
This is not a setting where Chris was used to learning anything important, much less having his whole world rocked by something somebody said. He was 15 in health class in San Juan Capistrano, California. As Chris remembers it, it was the beginning of the period. Class was just beginning to settle down. The teacher was also the school's basketball coach.
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Chris Bedderev
You know, in my memory, he's sort of this standard issue, I don't know, tallish, white guy coach with, like, neatly parted brown hair. And, you know, the bell rings, class is supposed to start, and we're all just, you know, talking over him, not listening, and he's trying to get class started. And I think he's getting understandably, a little annoyed. And then at one point, one of the girls said loudly like, we're all gonna be friends forever. And then he gets our attention and said something like, you know, just for your information, you're not gonna all stay friends forever. And let me tell you a little bit about, like, how friendships work. He says, like, in a couple of years, you know, high school's gonna end and you're gonna all scatter to different jobs or colleges, and you're gonna start falling out of touch with each other. And eventually you're not gonna talk to most of any of these other people. And now you might remember him.
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Sony Pictures Classics
That is such. It's real. It's very true. But, like, what a funny thing to say to a bunch of kids.
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Chris Bedderev
Yeah. It's like suddenly he had our full attention.
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Sony Pictures Classics
But then the teacher kept going. He wasn't done. He got very specific and said, okay, you might stay in touch with a few friends from high school.
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Chris Bedderev
He said, like, well, then you're going to get into your 30s and your 40s, and it'll be harder. You know, you'll be working, and then, you know, some of you might get married and your free time A lot of that should go towards your spouse. And if you have kids, oh, like whatever little free time you have left, like that'll go to the kids. And finally he said, like, the only friends you're gonna be left with are the parents of whatever kid your little toddler or whatever randomly sidles up to because they both like the same part of the playground. Like that person, that parent, that's gonna be your friend.
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Sony Pictures Classics
That is a very thorough and vivid and not unaccurate picture of the future that it's amazing that he went into that much detail.
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Chris Bedderev
Yes. By then we were like, I remember a sort of stunned silence at that point and maybe there's like one person who said like, no or like, no, he's wrong or we're gonna stay friends or something. And then the class began. And I don't remember anything else from that day.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Chris is actually one of the producers on our show, Chris Bedderev. He says he remembers the other kids in class kind of shrugging this off like, yeah, whatever, but he couldn't. Did you think it was true?
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Chris Bedderev
Absolutely. I thought that he. I remember thinking, oh no, I hope that he's wrong, but it sounds like he's right. That's what I remember thinking. It had the air of truth, like partly because it was so specific, the playground detail.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Especially before this moment. Chris hadn't bothered picturing what the future was going to be like very much. He had a vague sense that things were going to get better and better. But now, thanks to this random speech by this otherwise forgotten teacher, he realized the future he was facing.
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Chris Bedderev
It's going to get tedious and small and narrow and boring. Because when you're in high school, like, what is better than hanging out with your friends, right? Like that was the best thing you could do. And so you're gonna have less and less of that. And this tiny world where you don't even get to pick your friends. I don't know, that just seemed very sad at the time and scary a little bit.
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Sony Pictures Classics
In fact, as senior year approached, as graduation day approached, Chris says that this tiny two minute speech by this teacher totally colored. How are you seeing it? He loved his friends.
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Chris Bedderev
I was scared of the end of high school in a way that I think most 18 year olds aren't. It seemed like this was gonna be the beginning of the end. And so I became very kind of nostalgic and also fearful. Like, you know, a doomsday clock or something was running down.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Chris actually checked on the health teacher recently and of course he had no memory of making that speech, though he said it was exactly the kind of thing that he might have said. And in fact he did remember saying it at some point to his own kids. The teacher said that he would like to believe that he meant it in a kind of nice, cherish these special times sort of way. And he was horrified at the thought that this made Chris or any other kid feel bad for the rest of high school. But it just goes to show you that somebody can say something off the cuff. They can accidentally turn somebody else's world completely upside down. We asked listeners if they ever experienced this and hundreds responded. Some of the sentences that were said casually to them, they're later alone. They obsessed over it's not your glasses that are uneven, it's your face. You must have been surrounded by some pretty insensitive people growing up. No, no. You're the only circumcised one in the family. And one last one said by a childhood acquaintance at a funeral, Jenny, little Jenny, you're the one that nobody liked. In Chris's case, the teacher's comment obviously stayed with him. How old are you now?
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Chris Bedderev
I am 38.
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Sony Pictures Classics
And how many friends from high school are you in touch with?
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Chris Bedderev
I. A few. A few count three or four. Three or four. And really only one that I see regularly.
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Sony Pictures Classics
So the guy was right.
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Chris Bedderev
Yes, he was absolutely right. He fully predicted my future.
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Sony Pictures Classics
These days, Chris is married, one child.
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Chris Bedderev
In fact, the only friends I've made recently are the parents of the other kids who were in my son's daycare.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Yeah. And in fact, now that you are married and have children, is your life tedious and narrow and boring?
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Chris Bedderev
In some ways it is. But I like it. I really like it. I obviously like spending time with my kid and my wife and like the people I made friends with that are the parents of the kids randomly assigned to my kids daycare class. Yeah, they're delightful.
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Sony Pictures Classics
What a day. On our program, if you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. We have stories about the things that people say that unravel your world. Turn it upside down, shake it like a snow globe. Pick your own metaphor for this. Some of these offhand things that people say are completely accurate. Others are the exact opposite. And it can be really hard sometimes to tell which is which. We have real life case examples, including somebody who thinks his life was completely upended after a single brief real life encounter with Weezer. From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Stay with us.
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This American Life
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Sony Pictures Classics
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This American Life
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Sony Pictures Classics
Business on one platform head to squarespace.com.
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This American Life
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Inflation
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Sony Pictures Classics
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Inflation
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Sony Pictures Classics
Able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com story okay, so hey, this is Ira talking now in the break and I'm here in the break to give you this little talk that I feel a little ashamed of. But I'm also going to do which is to remind any last minute shoppers out there that you can give a this American Life Partners subscription as a holiday gift. So if you have a loved one who's a fan of the show, someone who would enjoy getting all the bonus episodes that we've been putting out and so far there's been one every other week. It's a lot of material. Life Partners also hear the show without ads like the one you're listening to right now. They get a greatest hits collection of hundreds of favorite shows right in their podcast feed shows up right there. So if you know somebody who might like that and you need a last minute present, sign them up@thisamericanlife.org LifePartners that link is also in the show notes. It is also a gift to us here at our show, of course, because all these subscriptions help us keep making the show. Okay, that's all I have to say about that. Back to today's episode cis American Life Act 1. The world has turned and left me here. So let's kick off this show about people saying things that unravel your picture of the world with this from Lily Sullivan.
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Inflation
In my family there's a story, the kind your family never forgets. It's about a hitchhiker. It happened decades ago in 1974. There were three women in a car. My aunt Manuelita, her daughter and their cousin. Manuelita was driving and I was going.
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Anita
In my car and then here I saw him head shaking like this, holding.
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Inflation
His finger in the air.
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Anita
Uh huh.
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Inflation
Manuelta is now 96 and her daughter in the car. Anita remembers more of the details. So I'm gonna let Anita tell a lot of this. She was a kid at the time, 10 years old.
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Manuelita
For me, it was such a shocking event. It permeated every cell of my being. Meaning, like I just remember it all very clearly. We were in the car, my mother was driving. She was always impeccably dressed if she was going out. And it was raining that day. My mother exited the freeway and she spotted this young man hitchhiking. He was tall and lanky and he had long blonde, dirty blonde hair. Well, because it was wet, it was raining, you know, and his beard was just like down to his chest and he had his shirt inside out and miss buttoned. And she said, oh, he has such kind eyes. And I was like, no, he doesn't. You can't see his eyes. It's raining.
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Anita
Then she said, no, I was not afraid of him.
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Inflation
But she was. Yeah, Anita was scared because they were in Northern California and there were serial killers, a few of them around there in the 70s. Even at 10, Anita knew this. All three women in the car were small, all under 5ft. Anita in the front seat, their cousin Cecilia in the back. Again, here's Anita.
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Manuelita
And then, of course, I was protesting loudly, don't stop the car. And Cecilia even said, no, Manuelita, don't do it, don't do it.
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Inflation
Manuelita stopped. Anyway, the man came to the window.
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Manuelita
And he had to talk through the passenger side window where I was sitting and kind of like freaking out that he was in my face.
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Inflation
Now, Anita remembers sitting stock still, staring straight ahead, afraid to make eye contact as the stranger somehow talked them into letting him into the car.
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Manuelita
And my mother didn't speak very good English, neither did Cecilia. But guess who did speak Spanish.
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Inflation
Serial killer looking white guy, turns out fluent in Spanish. The hitchhiker lumbered into the backseat next to Cecilia. Cecilia had only been in the country a few weeks at that point and was like, what on earth? She was 26.
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Manuelita
And Cecilia, you know, she was all dressed prim and proper and she even had little white gloves on. And he had a booming personality to match a booming voice. He had a great voice. He got in the car and everybody calmed down when we heard him speak to Cecilia so kindly. And my mother introduced, and she pointed out that, you know, she had just come.
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Inflation
Cecilia had just come to the US from Peru. And this is how the story started.
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Manuelita
Their life Changed our lives, changed. It was like a meteor hitting the earth. When we met Brian.
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Inflation
Brian, that was the hitchhiker's name, which I know because that guy's my dad. Cecilia. That's my mom. And this story, it's the story of how our family came to be. Their legendary first meeting. It was followed by a similarly legendary first date. My mom's sister and cousin dressed her up in their own clothes. White bell bottoms, white platform heels. My dad showed up in a poncho and he took her hiking in the redwood forest where it rained. He ended up carrying her so that she wouldn't ruin the shoes she'd borrowed. Two weeks later, they eloped, headed off to Reno, but ended up stopping in a random town nearby where marriage licenses were $5 cheaper. They got married at 7am on Christmas Eve. Anita remembers them coming home after with their marriage license.
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Manuelita
I can remember even the knock on the door. And I ran to open it and there they were, standing there. I yelled to my mom that they were here and she came running.
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Inflation
And her mom, Manuelita, she welcomed them.
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Manuelita
In and I don't know what happened next, but they came back married and they loved each other till the end.
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Inflation
That's so cool. It's such a good story. Like I said, legendary. This story is the bedrock foundation of how I see my parents, especially my dad. I Picture him at 26, his misbuttoned shirt catching rides through the west coast alone. This big white guy from Detroit climbing into this car full of immigrants, just exuberant and thinking, wow, I'm gonna marry this lady. And I picture my mom at 26, having just arrived in the country, self contained, determined, seeing this weirdo and deciding, yes, him. When you enter the family, this is pretty much the one story we make you memorize. And then you could be a citizen of the family. Here's my brother in law, Lars. How many times do you think you've heard this story?
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Sony Pictures Classics
Oh, I don't know, many times, 50, 100?
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Inflation
Many times. And the meaning of this story has always been clear.
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This American Life
If they didn't pick him up, we would. All of us wouldn't be here right now.
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Inflation
Here I am with my niece and nephews. I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be here. Your mom wouldn't be here and Sammy wouldn't be here. Sammy wouldn't be here.
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This American Life
Tianena wouldn't be here, Marianne wouldn't be.
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Inflation
Here, Wally wouldn't be here.
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Anita
Anyone that we know wouldn't be here.
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Inflation
Well, we wouldn't be here to know Them there's something predestined about it. This is such an important story. I thought, you know what? I want to visit the spot where the meteor struck. My dad died 10 years ago. I miss him always. And he doesn't have a grave. He insisted on cremation by, quote, the cheapest means possible. He didn't like fancy things. And I also think that he didn't want to be a burden. Anyway, when I want to remember him, there's not, like, a location I can go to. I can't, like, put flowers by a tombstone. So how about this place, this legendary spot where he climbed into a car and our family began? So, can't be hard. So where was it? Anita says it was by the freeway exit by our house. Manuelita says it was an on ramp heading downtown. But they're not definitive about it. So I went to the third person in the car that day, my mom. And she says, sure, I know exactly where it was. And then she starts to tell me.
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Anita
This story I remember. What I remember is that we were walking down the. Walking to the car, and Brian said, hola, Brian. My dad, Manuel, said, hola. Hola. We all say hola.
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Inflation
You saw him when he was walking?
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Anita
Yes. He was walking to go to the bus stop.
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Inflation
The bus stop. He was taking the bus. This is not the story I'd always heard. In my mom's version, they weren't in a car. She and Manalita were walking down the street. They just left the Jacksons house. The Jacksons were a family where my tia Manuelita worked as a cook. She says it was a beautiful day, not raining at all. And most importantly, dad wasn't hitchhiking. Was he, like, holding up a sign or something saying he wanted a ride? No, because the story's always been hitchhiking.
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Anita
No.
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Inflation
Wait, Mom. But your story and Anita's story is completely different. She remembers it clearly.
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Anita
Your dad was walking to the stop.
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Inflation
Then why does she remember this other story?
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Anita
I don't know.
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Inflation
From my mom's point of view, this is especially mysterious because she's quite certain that Anita wasn't there. Not in a car, not on the street, not there for this moment at all.
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Anita
I don't think Anita was.
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Inflation
Anita remembers it.
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Anita
I don't think she was. No, no, no.
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Inflation
This kind of knocked me over. The hitchhiking story, as I've said, is the origin story of my family. My mom's had a private version of it for 50 years that she's kept to herself during the many, many conversations where we tell It. When my dad died 10 years ago, we wrote about this story in his obituary, like printed it in our local newspaper. We ran that obituary by my mom. Didn't think it was worth correcting. Dad was the memory keeper of our family. A big hearted, big brained guy who held onto everything that happened. Who had chickenpox first as a kid, Natalie, he'd say. What was the name of that iguana that we had that died? Mari Iguana, he'd say. He would absolutely know exactly where this happened. And the thought that he's not here to tell us, it makes him feel so gone. Like we had a favorite photo of him and we have no idea where it is anymore. When my dad died, it was sudden and it devastated me. As time passes, we lost so much of him. His clothes have lost his smell of wool and sawdust and too much tied laundry detergent and this. It was like losing a big piece of him again. Because in his absence and in our negligence, we simply forgot to remember. Unforgivable. I had to fix this. I had to get to the truth. I forced the three of them, Manolita, Anita and my mom to sit down together to try to work this out, come to some agreement about what happened and where. Anita is stunned to hear that my mom and Manolita don't think she was in the car.
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Manuelita
So, yeah, my story's not going to change. I was in the car. I was in the front seat. You were in the back seat.
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Inflation
Mom turns to me, I don't remember.
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Anita
Never anir being around.
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Inflation
She tells the others they weren't even in a car. But Manulita, you remember him hitchhiking and you were driving and you pulled over, right?
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Anita
Oh, yeah, of course. That's why I pick him up.
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Inflation
Yeah, she remembers walking, that you all were walking.
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Anita
No, we were not walking. Oh, yeah, I was driving. Yeah, I was driving. Yeah, Hitchhiking. He was hitchhiking.
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Inflation
This went nowhere. And the fact that we've been telling this hitchhiking story for 50 years and my mom's never mentioned that, she thinks it's complete bullshit. I have to say that's very much like my mom. She's eminently capable of keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself. She has feelings, obviously, but she shows love in concrete ways. An unasked for plate of fruit, a bowl of soup. She'd give me her kidney or hide a body from me, no questions asked. But sitting around gabbing about feelings, not her thing, she finds that trying. She'll either roll her eyes or blurt out something explosive and walk away or clam up. Here's us in the car, Mom.
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This American Life
So.
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Inflation
But. But I just. Is it interesting to you that you have one memory and other people have a different memory? Is it interesting?
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Anita
I know that stories are like that.
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Inflation
I know, I know. But is it interesting? I want to talk about the feelings of it.
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Anita
That's good. Yeah. That's how we met.
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Inflation
Yeah, but what's it like? How do you feel?
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Anita
Nothing. It's okay.
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Inflation
She gets impatient. She dodges in response. I get impatient with her about everything. I compulsively nitpick everything she does. Can you put your bag in back? Because of the noise. It's too much noise.
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Anita
Yeah.
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Inflation
Rustling. That bag makes noise that gets on the mic. I tell her, so does her beaded necklace. Could you take off your necklace?
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Anita
Yep.
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Inflation
Rather than engage with me, she whips out her little pot of Mary Kay cold cream and starts dabbing it on her cheeks and forehead.
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Anita
Okay.
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Inflation
Can you just put the cream on after we go?
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Anita
Okay.
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Inflation
But just.
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Anita
It's okay. It's good.
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Inflation
We can't be messing with it as we drive.
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Anita
Okay.
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Inflation
I'm a nightmare. She lets it go. She's a good mom. Of course, the day my parents met, there was one other person there. My dad. I'd interviewed him in 20, 10 years before he died, before he even got sick. I've never been able to bring myself to listen to that recording. Just too hard. So I had no memory of what we talked about that day. But I had a hunch that if I'd done an interview with him, I would have asked him to tell me this story. I had no idea where this interview was, but I'd given him a copy, and I knew he would have kept it. The week I talked to my mom, I spent hours digging through old file cabinets and boxes in the garage. I finally found it one night at 2am I threw on all the lights, ran into bed and listened immediately. Okay. How did you meet Mom?
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Sony Pictures Classics
I was hitchhiking on Rio del Mar Blue, and Manuelita picked me up. And I believe Anita was in the car too.
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Inflation
Oh, my God. Of course. He has all the answers.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Anita said, no, don't. Don't even think of stopping for this guy. And Manuelita said, he's cute. And. And that's how I met your mom.
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Inflation
What kind of car were they driving?
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Sony Pictures Classics
Huge. Lincoln Continental. Yeah, it was Liam. I mean, it was like a Star wars machine, you know? The front of it went by, and then five minutes later, the rear of it went by. It was huge. Biggest car in the world. Manuelita, smallest person in the world.
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Inflation
And what did you think when you got in the car?
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Sony Pictures Classics
I said, she's a cutie.
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Inflation
That's the first thing you thought when you got in the car? Of course, you weren't like, who are these tiny ladies picking up a huge.
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Sony Pictures Classics
I've. I didn't know, you know, I didn't know what I was getting into.
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Inflation
Oh, why did you think she was cute?
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Sony Pictures Classics
She was very self confident and.
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Inflation
Oh, really?
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Sony Pictures Classics
Well, you know, your mom, she's nothing if not self confident. She's smart. Yeah, she's really smart. Really smart.
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Inflation
So they picked you up on R in front of what, like, what would it be there today?
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Sony Pictures Classics
Same. It hasn't changed. Rio del Mar. And right by that bridge, you know the bridge on Rio del Mar Boulevard?
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Inflation
The one by like the little bridge.
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Sony Pictures Classics
That goes across that little ravine there?
- [27:49]
Inflation
Oh, right there.
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Sony Pictures Classics
Yeah, right there. Uh huh.
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Inflation
And so then what happened in the car? When did you get out?
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Sony Pictures Classics
They invited me over to dinner. Mine. What? Lita did. So I went over to dinner.
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Inflation
Anita was against this, very much against this. And then did you ask mom out?
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Sony Pictures Classics
Either that or Manuelita asked us both. I think Manuelita asked us both out. She said, when are you coming to take her out? Something like that.
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Inflation
What did you say?
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Sony Pictures Classics
I said, oh, I don't know, tomorrow. She goes, okay.
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Inflation
This recording is from 14 years ago. I haven't really heard his voice in 10 years since he died. I hadn't forgotten, but I sort of had forgotten how much fun we had just talking to each other. And my dad told the same story as Anita and Manuelita. This story my dad tells about their meeting was not news to my mom. She says, yeah, we always disagreed about that. Of course he said that. He's got it wrong. Always has.
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Anita
I remember we argued a lot when we told people how we met. People laugh. He wants to say one thing, I want to say another thing.
- [29:04]
Inflation
But I thought a lot about why my mom prefers her version where he's walking to a bus stop and not hitchhiking. And the main thing I keep thinking about is in my dad's version, my mom's people make the first move. Their meeting is kind of random, a split second fluke. But in the version my mom likes, everyone's on foot on this rainless, beautiful day. And my dad sees them and approaches. He makes the first move, which is maybe more romantic. Everyone wants to be chosen. I run my hypothesis by her. She kind of blinks at me blankly, slightly Impatient. Nothing. The day after I found that interview with my dad, I woke up early. And the mismatched memories, it all started clicking together. Okay, this is just me in my room. It's Wednesday. Last night, I listened to that recording, and dad said it was in Rio del Mar, right by the bridge. So I think. I think I just figured it out. I think their car was parked on the street a little ways from the Jackson's house. And they had to walk to the car from the house. So my mom remembers that walk. And then they got in and had just started driving when they hit that bridge and saw my dad. That's like a block away from the Jacksons. No time at all. Easy for my mom to forget. And there he stood, not at a bus stop, but hitchhiking. Okay, here's me explaining my theory to my mom. And you had barely gotten in the car. You went around the corner, and dad was right there.
- [30:54]
Anita
Mm. We drove around the corner.
- [30:57]
Inflation
Maybe because what dad said, and dad has a really good memory, you know?
- [31:00]
Anita
Oh, yeah, I know.
- [31:02]
Inflation
But what I think might have happened is. Mom, your feet. Can you stop? Yeah, I think you guys might have just gotten in the car, barely driven, and then he was right there.
- [31:11]
Anita
Yeah, I think so. I think that's where it is.
- [31:14]
Inflation
You think that sounds right?
- [31:16]
Anita
Mm, I think it sounds right. Yeah. That's how I remember. Not much driving.
- [31:23]
Inflation
Yeah. Do you want to go drive and see where he said let's go look at?
- [31:27]
Anita
Yeah, he was close by.
- [31:28]
Manuelita
Yeah.
- [31:34]
Inflation
We drive to the spot. My dad said, you remember Rio del Mar?
- [31:38]
Sony Pictures Classics
And right by that bridge, the little bridge that goes across that little ravine.
- [31:43]
Inflation
The Jackson house is maybe a minute away around the corner. There are trees everywhere. An intersection between residential blocks. Not much around, except for there's a bus stop.
- [31:56]
Anita
He was walking here.
- [31:58]
Inflation
Mom, it's a bus stop.
- [31:59]
Anita
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Inflation
I've never seen this bus stop before. She had been talking about this bus stop the whole time, and I didn't believe her.
- [32:15]
Sony Pictures Classics
Mom.
- [32:16]
Inflation
But it's the bus stop, the one you've been talking about.
- [32:18]
Anita
Yeah, but he was walking to the bus stop.
- [32:23]
Inflation
I think this is it, Mom.
- [32:27]
Anita
I so glad I knew this road.
- [32:29]
Inflation
Like the back of my hand. And I'd never seen a bus stop there. But here it was, tucked under some trees. Just a sign and a little bench. Mom. Good job.
- [32:42]
Anita
The past memory never goes away.
- [32:45]
Inflation
I'm so relieved.
- [32:47]
Anita
Yeah. Very close. Everything is so close.
- [32:53]
Inflation
Good job.
- [32:55]
Anita
We found the bus stop.
- [32:58]
Inflation
Wow. This was it. What I'd wanted to find. The place our family Began a bus stop I'd driven past a million times. Not the fanciest spot in the world, but pretty. A place you wouldn't mind visiting again. My mom said, next time I'm in town, we should go sit at that bus stop. Bring champagne, toast my dad, probably get a ticket, she said, but to hell with it. Part of what made this whole project a little weird for me was this thing that I've mentioned a few times that my mom doesn't really like, discussing feelings. But I learned something. Talking to my sister Kim, about all this stuff. That driving home, I really wanted to tell my mom. Do you know that when he was sick, Manuelita came to the house, and she was sitting with him, and he was sick. You know, he was just lying down and not really talking that much at that point. But he did say to her, he said, manuelita, thank you for my life. Did you know that?
- [34:13]
Anita
He said, I don't remember. I think she said something. Yeah.
- [34:18]
Inflation
What? What does it feel like to hear that? He said that?
- [34:24]
Anita
It's nice.
- [34:26]
Inflation
Tell me more. Tell me more about what it feels like.
- [34:28]
Anita
Well, I feel just like crying. What? Like crying.
- [34:37]
Inflation
You feel like crying?
- [34:39]
Anita
Yeah. That he was going to die so fast, so soon.
- [34:57]
Inflation
Well, like, I think when I hear that story, it's kind of beautiful to me, because he loved his life so much. He did.
- [35:07]
Anita
All of it. Yeah.
- [35:08]
Inflation
And he loved his family, and he loved you.
- [35:11]
Anita
Yeah. Yeah.
- [35:15]
Inflation
Right? Mm.
- [35:19]
Anita
She said, thanks to me, too. And kind of, you know, we're not perfect. We can forgive each other if we hurt, if we. He was dying.
- [35:30]
Inflation
I brought up my dad's last days, and my mom's mind went straight to their last night together. Cut to the heart of her grief, to this moment when he was dying. And they forgave each other for their hurts. We've never talked about this. My mom never talks like this.
- [35:48]
Anita
You know, she said, number one, everything was in order. And I forgive him, whatever he did, because we're not perfect. And he forgives me to whatever I did. So we tossed in the room, you know, the end.
- [36:03]
Inflation
Yeah.
- [36:04]
Anita
And then we hug. And I saw that we sleep together the last night. But I was so afraid to touch him. I didn't want to hurt him. So I just touched his legs, his feet, and he slept the whole night. No.
- [36:29]
Inflation
Mom didn't stop there. She told me something else. When I was nine, my parents hit a rough patch in their relationship and decided to separate. After a few months, they got back together. I never really knew how or why. We didn't like to speak about that time in my family, but as I was talking to my mom about all this, she brought it up. You wanted the real hitchhiking story, she said. She told me that during the time they were separated, one day she was driving down the street and she saw my dad was walking, and as she approached him on the road, he saw it was her in her Volvo and he threw his thumb in the air. Cool joke, huh? So she stopped, picked him up. A couple days later, they got back together. That's the important story, she said. After that, my parents stayed married another 20 years. During that time, they had a blast together, sometimes inseparable. The best time of their marriage, my mom tells me, after they returned to that root moment where everything started. Only this time it wasn't random chance. It was his choice to flag her down and hers to scoop him up.
- [37:50]
Sony Pictures Classics
Lily Sullivan is a producer in our show. Special thanks to Lily's sisters. This song is one of their dad's favorites. Used to play it for them on the piano when they were growing up.
- [37:59]
This American Life
Floods so swift, rain won't lift, gate won't close, railings froze and get your mind off winter time, you ain't going nowhere, nowhere.
- [38:27]
Sony Pictures Classics
Coming up. One badly tuned instrument on one song at one concert can change your life. That's a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
- [38:40]
This American Life
Support for this American Life comes from Indeed. People are driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate.
- [38:48]
Sony Pictures Classics
Isn'T to search at all.
- [38:50]
This American Life
Don't search match with Indeed. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging.
- [38:55]
Sony Pictures Classics
So you can connect with candidates faster.
- [38:57]
This American Life
Get a $75 sponsored job credit to.
- [39:00]
Sony Pictures Classics
Get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need. Indeed.
- [39:10]
This American Life
Support for this American life comes from Solventum 3M Healthcare is now Solventum. They're a new company with a long.
- [39:17]
Sony Pictures Classics
Legacy of creating breakthrough solutions for their.
- [39:20]
This American Life
Customers and are ushering in a new era of care.
- [39:23]
Sony Pictures Classics
Learn more@ solventum.com this is American Life. I'm Eric Glass. Today's program if you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. We have stories about small moments between people that suddenly change how everything looks. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program. Act 2. What's with these homies dissing my girl? In his early 20s, Mike Comate wanted to be a professional musician. He was trying his absolute hardest to make that happen. Until one day it all came undone. Weirdly, right in front of Weezer. Mike Tells what happened.
- [39:56]
This American Life
There's this video. I've watched it more times than I'd like to admit in the last decade and a half. Kind of like a retired football player watching old game tapes from his glory days who pauses and rewinds that one play where he tore his ACL over and over to see where his career went sideways. It happened at Bonnaroo, this music festival with some of the biggest acts in the world that year, Dave Matthews Band and Jay Z were playing. It was 2010. The band I was in was invited to play on one of the medium sized stages, which is a huge deal for us. There'd be over 2,000 people watching. It'd be the biggest stage we'd ever played on. But then I saw that Weezer was also playing Bonnaroo. It felt like some kind of fated opportunity. We were actually covering a Weezer song in our set. And so I had this big idea. Our front person, Julia, was a musician who had blown up on YouTube. She had thousands of followers on social media. What if we got them all to tweet at Weezer's lead singer, Rivers Cuomo, to see if he'd come sing with us? I asked Julia if she was game for it. And shockingly, it worked better than we could have hoped. Rivers didn't come sing with us. Instead, he invited Julia to come play her ukulele and sing with Weezer during one of their songs on the main stage. Julia's visibility of Bonnaroo would be multiplied tenfold. If this went well, who knows where it could lead? Maybe Weezer would bring us on tour with them as their opener. Our agent immediately submitted us to their team for some of their upcoming shows. Or maybe Rivers would write a song with Julia, play on our record, or she'd play on theirs. The possibilities kept me up at night. I was 22. I'd only been playing music professionally for a year at that point. But I was convinced this would be the moment that would transform our careers. The day of the show, Julia split off from our group to rehearse with Weezer on their tour bus. I felt a little sting finding out I wasn't gonna meet them too. Weezer went on a little before sunset. Me and the rest of the band sat way back in the crowd on some bleachers while Julia was somewhere backstage. There had to be at least 20,000 people between us and Weezer. I couldn't believe that a dumb idea I'd cooked up in rehearsal had led to this. The song Julia was going to play on was called Trippin down the Freeway. Weezer started it. A few songs into their set, there's a new song called Trippin down the Freeway. Julia's offstage for the first half of the song, but after the guitar solo, Rivers brings the band down to a vamp and has Julia come out kind of dramatically. All right, we're gonna bring out a special guest now. Final room, this is Julia. News on ukulele. Julia walks on stage strumming her uke, but something sounds off. Are we in the right tuning? They are not in the right tuning. She's in a different key. Oh, it's supposed to be EU flat. For a split second, I'm convinced I'm having a nightmare. I try telling myself to wake up. She's got this amazing tuner on her ukulele giving. Nope. Weezer is still on stage having a conversation mid song about Julia's tuning through the PA system. Rivers pivots. All right, I'm gonna tell a little story while you tune your ukulele. He turns to the crowd and starts talking about how Julia had ended up on stage with them that day, about Twitter, about Julia's fans. They started hitting me up saying, hey, dog, Julia is an amazing singer, and ukulele is. Most of the time, she even knows what key the song is in. So why don't you guys have a problem? He's making fun of her. I start clenching my jaw from the stands. I said, I don't know, man. This is Weezer. This is a professional night. We demand perfection. And Julius Frank said, trust us, dog. Julius. The moans. I'm mortified. I can't believe how mean he's being to her. Just so passive aggressive. At this point, our crew member, who's been sitting next to me excitedly filming Julia's big moment, quietly stops recording and puts down her camera. This isn't her video. Someone else posted this one to YouTube. I couldn't help thinking I'd been the one to suggest she do this in the first place. This was on me. After an excruciating 62 seconds of improv, Rivers wanders across the stage to where Julia is trying to retune with another band member. So we could just have you sing. I'm just gonna sing. She says. All right. She's just gonna sing. Check your mic. Oh, what the heck. Yeah.
- [44:47]
Manuelita
All right.
- [44:48]
This American Life
Give us the bass line, Scott. Rivers counts off and starts singing. Julia jumps in. Julia looks so small from where we're sitting, but I can tell she's holding her ukulele by her side as she SINGS they finish the song. Rivers thanks Julia and she walks off the stage. I'm sitting in the bleachers, shocked by what just happened. Weezer keeps playing a bunch of my favorite songs and I can't enjoy them. Give me a guitar, my man. The next day, Rivers tweeted at Julia and thanked her for playing despite the mishap. A few weeks later, Weezer's manager officially turned us down for the opening spot on tour. In the music business, you need some moment to pull you out of obscurity and propel you forward. And it felt like for us, Weezer had been it. Instead, we'd blown it. And that was the beginning of the end. After Bonnaroo, Julia and I stayed busy touring, just the two of us, for a while. But then things slowed down. Julia and her management were about to part ways. I started getting nervous about being able to support myself. So I tapped out of touring with Julia and got a full time job where a lot of struggling musicians and actors end up at the Apple store. And so this is when I started watching and rewatching that video, the Weezer performance. I've been doing that for the last 14 years. Each replay I keep hoping that it won't be as bad as I remember, but it always is. I'm still stuck on what the fuck happened and in particular, was it our fault? On stage, Rivers had made it seem like it, but I've gone through the details again and again. Julia had received tuning instructions from Weezer's road manager. Were those incorrect? Had Julia done the math wrong tuning her uke? Had I? I'd helped her with that. I found a video of Julia rehearsing with Weezer on their tour bus. She was doing the wrong tuning there too, but no one had noticed. Julia might know what went wrong, but I never really talked to her about that show, only once, right after. It was uncomfortable. She was clearly upset, had been crying. She asked to let it go, so I did. But she must remember something from that day, so I called her. When is the last time you thought about the Weezer performance? It doesn't, like, revisit me in the quiet, dark night. Okay. I think when Weezer comes up, like, if Weezer is on at a party, I might or might not be, like, I've played with Weezer once and I totally fumbled. Julia lives in Austin, Texas now. She's still releasing music, but her career has shifted more towards life coaching and guided meditation. Her memories of the Weezer incident were not as vivid as Mayan. She didn't remember how she and Weezer got in touch. She didn't remember what year it happened. She definitely did not have the email from the road manager about the tuning. And she never puzzled over why her tuning was off, because for her, that whole show was a totally different experience. When Rivers was saying all that stuff about her on stage, it never registered to me as like anything. Anything other than, like, a musician just trying to make the show go, oh, my God. I feel like I've just been stewing in it for so long, being like, that dude was an asshole to my friend. Oh, Mike, no way, man. I have never once thought that Rivers was mean. I didn't know what to say in that moment. I didn't know what to do. Like, he could have just been like, okay, never mind. But the fact that he came up with a real time solution to be like, yeah, just sing. I was so grateful. I watched this video probably more often than I should. I feel like I'm responsible for it in a way that's like, if I had just not said anything in that rehearsal that day, we could have just gone about our days and rehearsed and just had our set at Bonnaroo. And then you would have come to Weezer's set and sat in the bleachers with us, and we just would have enjoyed Weezer together. Mike, don't you dare. But instead, you went on stage with him, and this thing that could have changed your career, in my view, had this effect that this. Like, you seemed so sad afterwards and devastated, and I was like, oh, my God. If I had just said nothing, this wouldn't have happened to you. God, I. I don't think that experience had any sort of detrimental pivot for my career. The thing that made my career not happen is that I couldn't take the pressure. It's not that you. I think that you offering that Weezer thing was brilliant. I wish I would have done a bunch of different things, but, like, not playing with Weezer and not fucking up on stage is not one of my regrets at all. I'm glad Julia was so much more at peace with the day than I was. She said the band, our band, wasn't sounding good to her anyways. She thought opening for Weezer was a long shot, even if she had been in the right tuning for Tripping down the Freeway. But also, the moment Julia remembered most from that performance wasn't the mistake. It was the part of the video that I usually skip over the moment where it works out right after Rivers asks Julia if she wants to Sing. I'm looking Rivers Cuomo in the eye. Once we decide to start singing, everyone cheers. And we start, like, dancing together. And we put our arms around each other and we're like, head to head, singing, like, full blast, tripping down the freeway. And I felt like we sounded really good together. Yeah.
- [51:17]
Inflation
I don't know.
- [51:18]
This American Life
Like, all of that feels important to me. You can't see any of this in the video I'd been replaying all these years. That one was shot from way back, near the bleachers where I watched the show. I almost couldn't believe what Julia described. But changing up the wording of my YouTube search, I found another video from that day filmed close to the stage. You can see everyone's faces. And even when the tuning mistake becomes apparent, they're smiling and they're laughing. Julia and Rivers dance. They're having a great time. Watching it. I felt this wave of relief. It's what I was missing all these years. Julia was okay, and I believed her. That the band didn't break up because of a tuning mistake. And this moment wasn't why I stopped playing music for a living. After Julia and I talked, I finally heard back from Weezer's former road manager. She found the email they'd sent us before the performance, and the instructions were wrong. There would have been no way for Julia and me to tune correctly with them. I had the full answer now, but I was surprised by how little it mattered to me. I was over it.
- [52:37]
Sony Pictures Classics
Mike Comedy. He is one of these super skilled people who work here at the show doing audio mixes and adding music to our stories. Diane Wu produced this story. Here is Mike playing guitar and singing with Julia, whose full name, by the way, is Julia Nunes. This is a song they used to cover together years ago.
- [52:55]
This American Life
There will always be someone better than you Even if you're the best. So let's stop the competition now or we will both be losers. I'm ashamed I ever tried to be higher than the rest. But brother, I am not alone. We've all tried to be on top of the world somehow. Cause we have all been losers. I don't want to be laid down no, I don't want to die knowing that I spent so much time when I was young just. Just trying to be the winner. So I want to make it clear now. I want to make it known that I don't care about any of that shit no more. Don't care about being a winner or being smooth with women. Going out on Fridays, Being alive for parties and no no more. No.
- [54:29]
Sony Pictures Classics
Act three. And if you see her, tell her it's over. Now, in this last act, we turn from small personal moments to big news that the whole world experiences. But that hits some people very, very personally. You probably saw the headlines in reports that a couple weeks ago, after his family ruled Syria for over 50 years, the President dictator Bashar Al Assad was run out of his own country very suddenly. Assad ran a government that did not tolerate dissent. He used chemical weapons against his own citizens. He spent much of the last 13 years brutally crushing an uprising. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, tortured, disappeared. More than half the population was displaced in that conflict. Six million Syrians fled the country. So when a rebel coalition forced Assad out two weeks ago, Syrians all over the globe had their world turned upside down. And a few of us here at the show called around to see what that's been like for them. Diane Wu put together this story.
- [55:25]
Mint Mobile
The regime collapsed late on a Saturday night. My co workers and I talked to a few Syrians who are living abroad now about what that night was like for them. One was up studying for an exam. Another was out to an anniversary dinner. Kept checking his phone. But the person I want to tell you about is Selma. She was in London on Saturday. She lives in another part of England, but watching the news by herself. In the days before that, she felt like she had to be around other Syrians. So she got on the train and headed to her friend's apartment. She'd been crashing there since Thursday.
- [55:56]
Gas Pump
It's like this tiny one. It's not even an apartment. It's like a studio. So it's this tiny, tiny studio. We're all sitting together on this couch, five of us, and we're all, like, on our phones and then the TV's on and we're all checking and there's, like, barely any space. I don't know if I would describe it as crashing because we didn't sleep. So none of us were sleeping, actually. It felt like we were on duty for some reason, you know, like, we were, like, on call constantly.
- [56:28]
Mint Mobile
It felt like their job to not look away. Something huge was happening back home. The rebels kept taking more and more ground each day, liberating more and more cities with hardly any pushback. Everyone was worried that Assad would do something desperate, like retaliate with chemical weapons or bombings, or that Russia would jump in. Salma and her friends were barely keeping it together.
- [56:49]
Gas Pump
One of them, it's not funny, but he kept fainting. And so he. He would go into the room and then just, like, almost pass out. So the first thing I did was I didn't know what to do, so I gave him a tomato with, like, salt on it, and I just shoved it into his mouth. And I was like, okay, like, I think your blood pressure is dropping. And.
- [57:09]
Mint Mobile
And were you guys, like. Like, were you worried or freaked out or was. Was he kind of like, oh, this is something that happens?
- [57:15]
Inflation
We were.
- [57:16]
Gas Pump
I don't think we were super freaked out just because, like, a lot of us have medical training.
- [57:23]
Inflation
Okay.
- [57:24]
Gas Pump
It wasn't that big of a deal. That's handy.
- [57:26]
Inflation
Okay.
- [57:28]
Mint Mobile
They noticed there was a pattern to his fainting. First he'd start sweating profusely, then go stand in the door to cool off, then head towards the bathroom.
- [57:37]
Gas Pump
By the third time, we kind of got the routine down. Like, so I've opened the door. We're like, he's about to pass out. Like, someone start, you know, doing. Doing all the steps. We kept joking. They're like, you have. We have. Like, you can't pass out now. Like, you got to be strong. You got to make it till the regime falls.
- [57:55]
Mint Mobile
Selma told me that her friend who kept fainting had been detained by the regime when he was a teenager. Three times. He fled Syria after the third time, but his parents are still there. He was really concerned about them. Other people in the room were also having physical reactions from all the stress and fear.
- [58:13]
Gas Pump
I think it was just like our bodies going into shock, and each person was kind of doing it differently. For me, I cry a lot, and I have panic attacks, and then I throw up, which is kind of gross. But that's what would happen to me. I would get really nauseous. Really nauseous, really nauseous. I would go and throw up.
- [58:30]
Mint Mobile
It was from inside this crowded apartment scattered with takeout containers and nervous bodies that these friends then witnessed a sudden unraveling that none of them had anticipated. Salma's from Damascus, the capital, which was the seat of the Assad regime. And as the rebels kept advancing across Syria, taking Hama and then Osweida and then Homs, her friends from those cities celebrated around her. If the rebels succeeded, her hometown would be the last to fall. When Salma saw a video of people standing on a tank in Umayyad Square in Damascus, Sal singing Jenna, Jenna, a revolutionary song, it was finally reeled to her.
- [59:09]
Gas Pump
It was over knowing that we would be the last. I was holding it in. And so the first thing I did was I cried. I hugged all my friends. I Sat there kind of like staring at the wall, crying, crying, crying, crying.
- [59:25]
Mint Mobile
They stayed up all night and then celebrated more the next day in Trafalgar Square. Then Selma went home and mostly laid in bed in the dark for a few days, trying to make sense of this brand new world. Selma's family had left Damascus in the first year of the war, 2011, when she was 15. They moved to Connecticut, where she joined the soccer team and tried to do regular life while going to protests against the regime on weekends. Now she had to figure out how to reverse this thing she's been doing since she was a teenager, separating herself from Syria.
- [59:58]
Gas Pump
I knew I couldn't go back with the regime there, and so I started, like, slowly distancing myself from my memories. Like before, I would post a lot of photos and, you know, saying, I miss Damascus or I miss this or I miss my house and I miss that. And I stopped doing that kind of on purpose. And even, like, between myself, when I'm alone, if I would remember something or if I would find myself kind of, like, daydreaming, I would stop myself and I wouldn't let myself kind of go through with it.
- [60:29]
Mint Mobile
What kind of daydream?
- [60:32]
Gas Pump
Like, sometimes I would daydream about my house and, like, sorry.
- [60:39]
Inflation
It's okay.
- [60:42]
Gas Pump
Yeah, I don't know. Like, it's a place where I have a lot of good memories, and it's the place where, like, me and my siblings did this and did that. And like, sometimes I would just daydream about, like, walking into my room and going back and, like, sitting in my living room and looking out the window, and I just. I wouldn't let myself do that anymore. And even, like, at times where I would have, like, dreams about, like, being in my house again, I would, like, wake myself up and be like, no, like, this isn't real.
- [61:12]
Mint Mobile
Someone else I talked to described it like this. Ciri was on a different planet from the one he lived on now. There was no way to visit it. He had to flip a page, start a new life. Better not to think about it anymore. But now that the regime was suddenly gone, Syria was back on this planet. A place like any other place. And they had to reset their minds to take that in, which was hard to do after so many years of doing the opposite. Salma started thinking about visiting home, not just in a dream way, but, like, the logistics of where she would stay when she went back.
- [61:46]
Gas Pump
So we still have our house. And now I'm like, would I stay at my house or would I want to Stay somewhere else or what am I going to do? And now I can think of all the plans.
- [61:55]
Mint Mobile
The euphoria of the regime falling was laced with heavy feelings too. In the days following the collapse, as Salma learned just how many people who'd been disappeared by the Assad government had been killed, were not coming home. She had another panic attack. Salma's been watching all kinds of videos coming out of the new Syria, and there's a particular type that delights her, one I wasn't expecting.
- [62:27]
Gas Pump
It was a girl in a karate uniform and this guy was standing across from her with something on his head, I can't remember, like a water bottle. And she closes her eyes and she like karate kicks the water bottle off the top of his head with her eyes closed. And then the camera pans back and everyone's like clapping and cheering. I saw people doing parkour in Damascus. They're like doing like back flips in the street in the middle of the.
- [62:54]
Mint Mobile
Celebration, watching these people just be silly and happy. For Selma, she sees that as getting to watch them finally be free.
- [63:02]
Gas Pump
In Latakia, someone was lifting weights.
- [63:04]
Mint Mobile
Like in the street?
- [63:06]
Gas Pump
Like in the street, yeah. Like in the middle of this. Like there's like fighters kind of passing by on, on cars, like waving flowers and he's like right on the side doing all of these moves and his like gym clothes. It's just so, so unsterious, so fun, you know, like it's things you could have done before, but it's just that the, the mentality of you're free, you can do anything and you belong to this country or it feels like it's yours again. I think the slogans of the regime were so damaging to our psyche. Like calling it Syria just, it removes you from the equation. So who are you in Assad, Syria? You're nobody. You don't belong. Seeing the people now in Syria, seeing their reaction that are slowly kind of feeling like it is theirs, like we, this is our country, we're the ones who are responsible for it now. We're the ones who are going to take care of it.
- [64:05]
Mint Mobile
There's pretty much no way to overstate how much there is to do next, how many things will need to be figured out, how many unknowns there are. But one person told me none of it could be worse than what we live through already.
- [64:24]
Sony Pictures Classics
Diane Wu is a producer on our show. This story was co produced by Hani Hawassley.
- [64:39]
This American Life
God damn, I am I can sing and hear me me, know me if you want to destroy my sweater. Hold this thread as I walk away.
- [65:01]
Sony Pictures Classics
That's Mike and Julia covering Weezer's sweater song Undone. Our program was produced today by Lily Sullivan. The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennett, Dana Chivas, Sean Cole, Cassie Halley, Hana Joffe, Walt, Henry Larson, Seth Lynn, Kathryn Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Shipp, Lily Sullivan, Christopher Sertala and Matt Tierney. Our managing editors, Sara Abderrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry. Special thanks to Natalie Sullivan, Kim Sullivan, Sarah Kim, Steve Sopchak, Erin Marie Cometey, Dave Burns, Todd Johnson, Leanne Victorine, Darienne woods and Yazan Abou Ismail to become a this American Life partner. Which gets you both bonus content, ad free listening and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org lifepartners. The link is also in the show notes. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the public radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co founder, Mr. Tory Malatea. You know, he invented this new appetizer where you put a hot dog in a handful of straw. What's it called? Hey, Dog Hour Glass back next week for more stories of this American Life.
- [66:17]
This American Life
Let's be friends and just walk away. I hear Lying on the floor Lying on the floor I've come ra.
- [67:03]
Sony Pictures Classics
This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with.
- [67:06]
Inflation
The Room Next Door, the new film by Pedro Almodovar starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
- [67:12]
Sony Pictures Classics
After years go by, two friends meet.
- [67:15]
Inflation
Again in an extreme but sweet situation.
- [67:18]
Sony Pictures Classics
Now playing in select theaters.