In short
Podcast Notes: This American Life - Episode 850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Episode Overview
- Theme: The tiny things that can unravel one's world.
- Host: Ira Glass
- Production: WBEZ Chicago
- Release Date: (Information not available from the transcript)
Structure of the Episode
- Prologue (8 minutes)
- Ira Glass interviews Chris Benderev about a significant high school moment.
- Act One (27 minutes)
- Producer Lilly Sullivan explores a defining family story about her parents.
- Act Two (13 minutes)
- Mike Comite reflects on a pivotal moment with his band at a music festival.
- Act Three (9 minutes)
- A woman's perspective on the changes in Syria following the civil war.
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Detailed Summaries
Prologue
- Chris Benderev's Reflection:
- Chris recalls a conversation with a health class teacher who expressed that high school friendships often fade after graduation.
- This moment instilled a sense of nostalgia and fear in Chris, marking a stark realization about adult life.
- The teacher's candid comments resonated deeply, shaping Chris's view of relationships and future connections.
Act One
Lilly Sullivan's Family Story
- The Hitchhiker Incident:
- Lilly recounts a legendary family story dating back to 1974, where her mother, Manuelita, picked up a hitchhiker, Brian, who later became her father.
- Various family members provide differing accounts of this significant event, revealing personal biases and varying memories.
- The story signifies the foundation of Lilly's family, emphasizing themes of memory, love, and familial bonds.
Act Two
Mike Comite's Musical Journey
- Bonnaroo Festival Incident:
- Mike shares the experience of playing at Bonnaroo with his band and a mishap involving their guest singer, Julia, during a collaboration with Weezer.
- The performance was marred by a tuning issue, leading to a public moment of embarrassment.
- The incident marked a turning point for Mike, leading to a shift in his musical aspirations and a reflection on the pressures of performance.
Act Three
Selma's Perspective on the Syrian Civil War
- Revolution and Personal Impact:
- Selma, a Syrian living abroad, discusses the emotional turmoil experienced during the fall of Assad's regime.
- She describes the weight of memories, the challenge of reconciling her past with a changing future, and the joy of seeing her homeland slowly reclaim its identity.
- The complexity of returning home and confronting the legacy of the war is highlighted, illustrating the broader impact on displaced Syrians.
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Key Themes and Takeaways
- Impact of Words: The power of seemingly small statements can profoundly affect individuals' perceptions and lives (e.g., Chris's teacher's comments).
- Memory and Identity: Family narratives shape personal identities and beliefs, as seen in Lilly's exploration of her parents' story.
- Performance Pressure: The pressure to perform can lead to significant emotional consequences, as illustrated by Mike's experience at Bonnaroo.
- Cultural and Personal Recovery: Selma's story emphasizes the struggle of reconciling the past with hope for the future, reflecting the complexity of identity in a post-conflict society.
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Conclusion This episode of *This American Life* intricately weaves personal stories that highlight how small moments can have lasting effects on our lives. Each act presents a unique perspective on change, memory, and the human experience, fostering a deep understanding of what it means to navigate life's unpredictable threads.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOA Teacher's Impactful Speech
0:45 to 3:21
Chris reflects on a high school teacher's speech about friendships and the future.
“And I think he's getting understandably a little annoyed.”
The Realization of Growing Up
3:21 to 5:56
Chris shares how the teacher's words shaped his fears about adulthood and losing friends.
“Like, partly because it was so specific.”
Listener Reflections
5:56 to 8:10
Listeners share their own experiences of impactful comments that changed their perspectives.
“Some of the sentences that were said casually to them, that later, alone, they obsessed over, it's not your glasses that aren't even, it's your face.”
A Hitchhiker's Story
9:01 to 14:03
Anita recounts the legendary story of how her parents met involving a hitchhiker.
“Act one, the world has turned and left me here.”
The Family Origin Story
14:03 to 15:29
Learn about the pivotal family story that shaped the narrator's view of their parents.
“This story is the bedrock foundation of how I see my parents, especially my dad.”
Discrepancies in Memory
15:30 to 18:15
Discover the differing memories of how the narrator's parents met and their implications.
“This is such an important story, I thought.”
The Challenge of Remembering
18:16 to 21:29
Explore the emotional journey of grappling with family memories after loss.
“The hitchhiking story, as I've said, is the origin story of my family.”
Uncovering the Truth
21:30 to 24:22
Follow the narrator's quest to clarify the true story of their parents' meeting.
“Mom, so, but, but, I just, is it interesting to you that you have one memory and other people have a different memory?”
Different Versions of Love
24:23 to 27:37
Understand how the variations in their meeting story reflect deeper romantic themes.
“I mean, it was like a Star Wars machine, you know.”
Piecing Together the Past
27:38 to 28:00
Witness the narrator's realization about the true sequence of events surrounding their parents' meeting.
“The day after I found that interview with my dad, I woke up early and the mismatched memories, it all started clicking together.”
Show all 22 chapters
Uncovering Family Memories
28:00 to 31:34
The narrator explores family memories with his mother about a pivotal moment involving his father.
“Last night I listened to that recording and dad said it was in Rio del Mar right by the bridge.”
Reflections on Life and Loss
31:35 to 35:19
The conversation turns emotional as they discuss the father's last days and forgiveness.
“Part of what made this whole project a little weird for me was this thing that I've mentioned a few times.”
A Chance Encounter
35:20 to 35:54
The mother shares a significant story about a reunion with the father during a separation.
“During that time, they had a blast together, sometimes inseparable.”
The Bonnaroo Experience
36:19 to 42:00
A musician recounts a pivotal performance at Bonnaroo that changed his career trajectory.
“We've arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2.”
The Impact of a Performance Mistake
42:00 to 46:00
Explore the emotional aftermath of a performance mistake at a Weezer concert.
“The next day, Rivers tweeted at Julia and thanked her for playing despite the mishap.”
Different Perspectives on the Incident
46:00 to 49:10
A conversation reveals contrasting feelings about the Weezer performance incident.
“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 seem so sad afterwards and devastated.”
Discovering New Insights
49:10 to 52:40
Uncovering new information about the performance changes the narrative of regret.
“Mike Comete, he is one of the super skilled people who work here at the show doing audio mixes and adding music to our stories.”
The Syrian Revolution Experience
52:40 to 56:01
Understanding the personal impact of the Syrian revolution on those abroad.
“So she got on the train and headed to her friend's apartment.”
Selma's Journey of Emotions and Memories
56:01 to 58:25
Selma navigates the emotional aftermath of the regime's fall and her memories of Syria.
“And so the first thing I did was I cried.”
Celebration of Freedom in Syria
58:25 to 1:00:10
The newfound freedom in Syria leads to joyful expressions and a sense of belonging.
“hard to do after so many years of doing the opposite.”
The Future of a New Syria
1:00:10 to 1:01:15
The challenges ahead in rebuilding Syria and the weight of responsibility are discussed.
“You know, like, it's things you could have done before, but it's just the mentality of you're free, you can do anything, and you belong to this country, or it feels like it's yours.”
Selma's Return and New Beginnings
1:01:15 to 1:01:43
Selma reflects on her visit to Syria and her decision to move back for work.
“The story was co-produced by Hanny Ho-Wassley.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. 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. You know, in my memory, he's sort of the standard issue, I don't know, tallish white guy coach with like neatly parted brown hair.
0:39And, 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 going to be friends forever. And then he gets our attention and said something like, you know, just for your information, you're not going to 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 is going to end and you're going to all scatter to different jobs or colleges.
1:28And you're going to start falling out of touch with each other. And eventually you're not going to talk to most of any of these other people. And now you might. Can we just pause? That is such. It's real. It's very true. But like, what a funny thing to say to a bunch of kids. Yeah, it's like suddenly he had our full attention.
1:59But then the teacher kept going. He wasn't done. He got very specific and said, OK, you might stay in touch with a few friends from high school. 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 going to 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.
2:47Like, that person, that parent, that's going to be your friend. That is a very thorough and vivid and not inaccurate picture of the future that it's amazing that he went into that much detail. Yes. By then we were like, I remember a sort of like 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 going to stay friends or something. And then the class and then the class began. And I don't I don't remember anything else from that day.
3:30this is actually one of the producers on our show chris bed to rev 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 absolutely i thought that he i 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, 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.
4:08But now, thanks to this random speech by this otherwise forgotten teacher, he realized the future he was facing. It's going to get tedious and small and narrow and boring. Because like 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 going to 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. In fact, his senior year approached. His graduation day approached. Chris says that this tiny two-minute speech by this teacher totally colored how he was seeing it.
4:54He loved his friends. 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 going to 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.
5:21Chris 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, cherished 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 that can accidentally turn somebody else's world completely upside down.
5:52We asked listeners if they ever experienced this, and hundreds responded. Some of the sentences that were said casually to them, that later, alone, they obsessed over, it's not your glasses that aren't even, 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? I am 38. And how many friends from high school are you in touch with?
6:36I... A few. A few. Count. Three or four. Three or four. And really only one that I see regularly. So the guy was right. Yes, he was absolutely right. He fully predicted my future. These days, Chris is married. One child. In fact, my... The only friends I've made recently are the parents of the other kids who were in my son's daycare. Yeah. And in fact, now that you are married and have children, is your life tedious and narrow and boring?
7:17In some ways it is, but I like it. I really like it. I obviously like spending time with my kid and my wife And the people I made friends with that are the parents of the kids randomly assigned to my kids' daycare class. Yeah, they're delightful.
7:44What 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.
8:17I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.
8:30Clarity is a competitive advantage, especially when it comes to the economy. That's because anybody can know what's happening, but understanding why it matters is crucial. Hi, I'm Kai Rizdahl, the host of Marketplace. We provide the context you need to understand how the economy influences our everyday lives, from our local communities to the global conversation. You'll be smarter every time you listen, and these days, that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app.
9:00This American Life, our show today, is a rerun. Act one, 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. 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 in my car and then I saw him hitchhiking like this. Holding his finger in the air. Uh-huh. Manuelita is now 96 and her daughter in the car, Anita, remembers more of the details.
9:43So I'm going to let Anita tell a lot of this. She was a kid at the time. Ten years old. 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 misbuttoned 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.
10:42Then she said, no, I was not afraid of him. 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 five feet. Anita in the front seat, their cousin Cecilia in the back. Again, here's Anita. 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. Manuelita stopped anyway. The man came to the window. 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 now.
11:30Anita remembers sitting stock still, staring straight ahead, afraid to make eye contact as the stranger somehow talked them into letting him into the car. And my mother didn't speak very good English, neither did Cecilia. But guess who did speak Spanish? 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. and Cecilia you know she was all dressed prim and proper and 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 they my mother introduce them, and she pointed out that, you know, she had just come.
12:32Cecilia had just come to the U.S. from Peru. And this is how the story started. Their life changed. Our lives changed. It was like a meteor hitting the earth when we met Brian. Brian. That was a 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.
13:05It's 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 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Anita remembers them coming home after with their marriage license. I can remember even the knock on the door.
13:47And I ran to open it. And there they were, standing there. I yelled to my mom that they were here, and she came running. Her mom, Manolita. She welcomed them in, and I don't know what happened next, but they came back married. And they loved each other till the end. 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 Miss Button 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 going to marry this lady.
14:33And I picture my mom at 26, having just arrived in the country, self-contained, determined. Seeing this weirdo and deciding, yes, him.
14:47When you enter the family, this is pretty much the one story we make you memorize. And then you can be a citizen of the family. Here's my brother-in-law, Lars. How many times do you think you've heard this story? Oh, I don't know. Many times. Fifty. Hundred. Many times. And the meaning of this story has always been clear. If they didn't pick him up, all of us wouldn't be here right now. Here I am with my niece and nephews. I wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't be here. Mom wouldn't be here. And Sammy wouldn't be here. Sammy wouldn't be here. Tina wouldn't be here. Marian wouldn't be here. Wally wouldn't be here.
15:26Anyone that we know wouldn't be here. Well, we wouldn't be here to know them.
15:37There'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.
16:22So 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 this story. I remember. What I remember is that we were walking down the street, walking to the car. And Brian said, hola. Brian, my dad. And Manolita said, hola, hola. We all said, hola. You saw him when he was walking? Yes. He was walking to go to the bus stop. The bus stop? He was taking the bus? This is not the story I'd always heard.
17:10In my mom's version, they weren't in a car. She and Manuelita were walking down the street. They just left the Jacksons' house. The Jacksons were a family where my tía 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. No. Wait, Mom, but your story and Anita's story is completely different. She remembers it clearly. That was working to stop. Then why does she remember this other story? I don't know. From my mom's point of view, this is especially mysterious because she's quite certain that Anita wasn't there.
18:07Not in a car. Not on the street. Not there for this moment at all. I don't think Anita was. Anita remembers it. I don't think she was. No. No, no. Okay. 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.
18:52A big-hearted, big-brained guy who held on to everything that happened. Who had chicken pox 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've lost so much of him. His clothes have lost the smell of wool and sawdust and too much Tide laundry detergent. And this, it was like losing a big piece of him again.
19:40Because 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.
20:00I force 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. 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. Mom turns to me. I don't remember never a near being a rock. 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? Oh yeah, of course. That's why I pick him up. She remembers walking, that you all were walking.
20:46No, we were not walking. Oh yeah, I was driving. Yeah, I was driving. Yeah, hitchhiking. He was hitchhiking. 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 for me, no questions asked. But sitting around gabbing about feelings, not her thing.
21:27She 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, so, but, but, I just, is it interesting to you that you have one memory and other people have a different memory? Is it interesting? Um, I know that stories are like that. I know, I know, but is it interesting? I want to talk about the feelings of it. That's good. Yeah, that's how we met. Yeah, but what's it like? How do you feel? Nothing. It's okay. She gets impatient. She dodges. In response, I get impatient with her. About everything. I compulsively nitpick everything she does.
22:17Can you put your bag in back? It's the noise. It's too much noise. Rustling that bag makes noise that gets on the mic, I tell her. So does her beaded necklace. Could you take off your necklace? Yeah. See, go mama. Rather than engage with me, she whips out her little pot of Mary Kay cold cream and starts stabbing it on her cheeks and forehead. This will crease my face. My hand to give any Mary Kay poor. Don't focus. Okay. Can you just put the cream on after we go? Okay. You can't be messing with it as we drive. Okay. I'm a nightmare. She lets it go. She's a good mom.
23:08Of course, the day my parents met, there was one other person there. My dad. I'd interviewed him in 2010, 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 2 a.m.
23:51I threw on all the lights, ran into bed, and listened immediately. Okay, how did you meet Mom? I was hitchhiking on Rio Del Mar Boulevard. And Manuelita picked me up, and I believe Anita was in the car, too. Oh, my God. Of course he has all the answers. Anita said, no, don't even think of stopping for this guy. And Manuelita said, he's cute. And that's how I met your mom. What kind of car were they driving? Huge. Lincoln Continental.
24:30I 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 the huge, biggest car in the world. Manuelita's the smallest person in the world to drive.
24:47And what did you think when you got in the car? I said, she's a cutie. 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...
25:05I didn't know. I didn't know what I was getting into. Oh, why did you think she was cute? She was very self-confident. Oh, really? Well, you know your mom. She's nothing if not self-confident.
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25:27She's smart. Yeah, she's really smart. Really smart. So they picked you up on Rio Del Mar. In front of what? Like, what would it be there today? Same. It hasn't changed. Rio de Mar and right by that bridge, you know the bridge on Rio de Mar Boulevard? The little bridge that goes across that little ravine there. Oh, right there? Yeah, right there, uh-huh. And so then what happened in the car? When did you get out? They invited me over to dinner. Manuelita did. So I went over to dinner. Anita was against this. Very much against this. And then did you ask Mom out? Either that or Manuelita asked us both.
26:09I think Manuelita asked us both out. She said, when are you coming to take her out? Something like that.
26:19What did she say? I said, oh, I don't know, tomorrow? She goes, okay. 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. There's 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. I remember we are your last when we told people how we met. people laugh. He won't say one thing, I won't say another thing.
27:08I've 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.
27:53The 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.
28:36No 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. Mm-hmm. We drove around the corner. Maybe because what dad said, and dad has a really good memory, you know? Oh, yeah, I know. 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. Yeah, I think so. I think that's where it is. You think that sounds right?
29:15Mm-hmm, I think it sounds right. Yeah, that's how I remember. Not much driving. Yeah. Do you want to go drive and see where he said? Sure. Let's go look at it. It was right this way.
29:34We drive to the spot my dad said. You remember. Rio Del Mar and right by that bridge. The little bridge that goes across that little ravine. 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 he was walking here mom it's a bus stop yeah
30:03I've never seen this bus stop before she had been talking about this bus stop the whole time and I didn't believe her
30:14mom but it's the bus stop the one you've been talking about Yeah, uh-huh. But he was walking to the bus stop. I think this is it, Mom. I'm so glad. I knew this road 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. But the past memory never goes away. I'm so relieved. Yeah. Very close. Everything is so close. Okay. We found the bus stop. 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.
31:11A 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.
31:35Part 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.
32:12Did you know that? She said, I don't remember. I think he said something, yeah. What, um, what does it feel like to hear that he said that? It's nice. Tell me more. Tell me more about what it feels like. Well, I feel like crying. What? Like crying.
32:36You feel like crying? Yeah. Good night.
32:45So I really know that he was going to die so fast, so soon.
32:56Well, like, I think when I hear that story, it's kind of beautiful to me because he loved his life so much. He loved it, yeah. And he loved his family and he loved you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. She said thank you to me too. And kind of, you know, we're not perfect. We can forgive each other if we hurt, if he was dying. 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.
34:09They were so afraid to touch him. They didn't want to hurt him. So I just touched his legs, touched his feet. And he slept the whole night. No problem.
34:28Mom didn't stop there. She told me something else. When I was nine, my parents had 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 and her Volvo, and he threw his thumb in the air.
35:07Cool 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.
35:49Lily Sullivan is the producer on our show. Special thanks to Lily's sisters. Coming up, how one badly tuned instrument on one song at one concert can change your life. That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio. when our program continues. 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. Today's show is a rerun. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2. What's with these homies dissing my girl? In his early 20s, Mike Comette wanted to be a professional musician.
36:28He 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. 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.
37:03The 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, and she was game for it.
37:39And 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 at 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.
38:15I'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.
38:28The 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 going to meet them too.
38:38Weezer 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!
39:07Julia is off stage 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 going to bring out a special guest now.
39:28Julia walks on stage strumming her uke, but something sounds off. They are not in the right tuning. She's in a different key. For a split second, I'm convinced I'm having a nightmare. I try telling myself to wake up.
39:48Nope. Weezer is still on stage, having a conversation mid-song about Julia's tuning through the PA system. Rivers pivots.
40:00He 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's 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 look? 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 act. We demand perfection. And Julius Mann said, trust us, dog. Julius the ball! I'm mortified. I can't believe how mean he's being to her. Just so passive-aggressive.
40:48At 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's trying to retune with another band member.
41:16We could just have you sing. I'm just going to sing, she says. All right, she's just going to sing. Check your mic. Oh, what the hell? Yeah! All right, give us the bass, guys, Scott. Rivers counts off and starts singing. Julia jumps in. One, two, three. No way we ain't gonna break up. We made a promise and the world won't fade out. 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.
41:59All right. Give me a guitar, my man.
42:06The 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.
42:25In 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 re-watching that video.
42:59The 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 in the wrong tuning there, too, but no one had noticed?
43:42Julia 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.
44:34Her memories of the Weezer incident were not as vivid as mine. 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.
45:12Oh, 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, OK, 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 watch 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.
45:59And 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 seem 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 um 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.
46:59I'm glad.
47:10Julia 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 Trippin' 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 asked 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.
47:54And I felt like we sounded really good together. Yeah, I don't know. 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.
48:38It'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.
49:18Mike Comete, he is one of the 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. 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 And 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 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 Or going out on Fridays Be in the life of parties No, no more, no In the year since we first broadcast today's show, Julia's been making a new album that Mike plays bass on.
51:17Act 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 and reports almost exactly a year ago that after his family ruled Syria for over 50 years, the president-slash-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.
51:56More than half the population was displaced in that conflict. Six million Syrians fled the country. So, when a rebel coalition forced Assad out last winter, 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. 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.
52:32She 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. 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.
53:08So 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. 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. Salman and her friends were barely keeping it together. One of them, it's not funny, but he kept fainting. And so he would go into the room and then just like almost pass out.
53:47So 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, I think your blood pressure is dropping. And were you guys, like, were you worried or freaked out? Or was he kind of like, oh, this is something that happens? I don't think we were super freaked out just because, like, a lot of us have medical training. Okay. It wasn't that big of a deal. That's handy. Okay. 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.
54:27By the third time, we kind of got the routine down. We saw him open the door. We're like, he's about to pass out. Someone start doing all the steps. We kept joking. They're like, you can't pass out now. You got to be strong. You got to make it till the regime falls. 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. I think it was just like our bodies going into shock and like each person was kind of doing it differently.
55:09Like for me, I cry a lot and I have like panic attacks and then I throw up, which is kind of gross. But that's what would happen to me. Like, I would get really nauseous, really nauseous, really nauseous. Like, I would go and throw up. 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. Selma'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 Asweda and then Homs, her friends from those cities celebrated around her.
55:44If 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, singing, Janna, Janna, a revolutionary song, it was finally real to her. 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. And I just, I sat there kind of like staring at the wall, crying, crying, crying, crying. 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.
56:27Selma'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. I knew I couldn't go back with the regime there. And so I started slowly distancing myself from my memories. Before, I would post a lot of photos 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 what kind of daydream like sometimes I would daydream about my house and like sorry it's okay yeah I don't know like it's a place where I have a lot of good memories and 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 and going back and like sitting in my living room and looking out the window and and I just I wouldn't let myself do that anymore.
57:52And even at times where I would have dreams about being in my house again, I would wake myself up and be like, no, this isn't real. Someone else I talked to described it like this. Syria 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.
58:36So 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. The euphoria of the regime falling was laced with heavy feelings, too. In the days following the collapse, Asselma learned just how many people who'd been disappeared by the Assad government had been killed or not coming home. She had another panic attack.
59:09Asselma'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. 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 karate kicks the water bottle off the top of his head with her eyes closed. And then the camera pans back, and everyone's clapping and cheering. I saw people doing parkour in Damascus. They're doing backflips. in the street in the middle of a celebration. Watching these people just be silly and happy.
59:48For Selma, she sees that as getting to watch them finally be free. In Latakia, someone was lifting weights. Like in the street? Like in the street, yeah. Like in the middle of this. Like there's like fighters kind of passing by on cars, like waving flowers. And he's like right on the side doing all of these moves. In his like gym clothes. It's just so, so unserious, so fun. You know, like, it's things you could have done before, but it's just 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 Suriyah al-Assad, Assad, Syria, just, it removes you from the equation.
1:00:37So who are you in Assad, Syria? You're nobody, you don't belong. Seeing the people now and seeing their reaction that are slowly kind of feeling like it is theirs. Like, 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. 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.
1:01:14Diane Wu is a producer on our show. The story was co-produced by Hanny Ho-Wassley. In the year since River's broadcast today's show, the year since Assad's fall, Selma finally made it back to Syria for a visit. And at the end of the year, she decided to move back for a job in the new government's Ministry of Health. Her friend, the one who fainted, has also been back to visit. And they both feel like their luck has changed. To the point that when they get a good brunch reservation in London, they tell each other, oh, it's because the regime fell.
1:02:12Hold this thread as I walk away
1:02:42Executive Editor is Emmanuel Barry. Help on today's rerun from Suzanne Gabber. Special thanks today to Natalie Sullivan, Kim Sullivan, Sarah Kim, Steve Sopchak, Erin Marie Kamate, Dave Burns, Todd Johnson, Leanne Victorine, Darian Woods, and Yazan Abu Ismail. Become a This American Life partner, which gets you bonus content, ad-free listening, and hundreds of our favorite episodes of the show right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash 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.
1:03:16Tori Malatia. You know, he invented this new appetizer where you put a hot dog in a handful of straw. What's he call it? Hey, dog! I'm Eric Glass. Back next week for more stories of This American Life. I don't want to destroy this tank top Let's be friends as I walk away
1:03:44I'll soon be naked Lying on the floor, lying on the floor I've become undone
1:04:14Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.
From the publisher
The tiny thing that unravels your world.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: Ira talks to Chris Benderev, whose high school years were completely upended by an impromptu thing his teacher said. (8 minutes)
- Act One: For Producer Lilly Sullivan, there’s one story about her parents that defines how she sees them, their family, and their history. She finds out it might be wrong. (27 minutes)
- Act Two: For years, Mike Comite has replayed in his head the moment when he and his bandmate blew their shot of making it as musicians. He sets out to uncover how it all went awry. (13 minutes)
- Act Three: Six million Syrians fled the country after the start of its civil war. A few weeks ago, one woman watched from afar as everything in her home country changed forever – again. (9 minutes)
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