Pushkin Khalila Holt, Welcome to the studio.

You don't have to welcome you to the studio.

Every time I feel welcome, I think they're welcome carries over week to week.

I am a host of a nationally broadcast podcast.

It's what we do host with the most.

We're contractually obliged to welcome our guests, and you are my guests.

Make no mistake about it.

You're going to like offer me something to drink or no.

So now we're going to be listening to a encore presentation of a little episode called Joey.

Yes.

And actually there is a line in this story that I still quote that we both oh, that's true.

At the end of our meetings, Yeah, that's true, one person will say to the other adios.

Yeah, I think it's you guys late to audios.

Yeah.

And as you listen, you'll be able to hear where that quote comes from.

Yeah.

So maybe you guys can work that into your lives too.

All right, So let's get to it.

Coming right up, an encore presentation of Joey And at the end of the episode, we're going to check in with Joey and a surprise guest.

I can't wait to find out who it is.

It's not you.

No, you're a guest, but you're not a surprise guest.

No.

People are like, yeah, that makes sense that she is there.

But first a word from our sponsors.

Hi, John, Okay, if I were to plan a surprise vacation for us, where would you want to go?

Did you say vacation?

Surprise vacation?

It could just never happen with my work schedule, like I can, that can never happen.

Where would you want to go?

Why would I want to go?

For fun in the sun?

Listen, no stress, you sound the idea of actually being on.

Vacation with you, nice idea.

It wouldn't be vacation with any It would be a slight caation because we do everything on a sleigh.

We dashed through the snow and I don't know, like check our phones and argue.

Occasionally you'd hang up on me and I'd start the show.

But up bump from Gimblet Media.

I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.

Joey as a young man, whenever conflict arose, my go to move was to roll up into a fetal ball and pray to go unnoticed.

Of course, this only made matters worse.

Case.

In point one afternoon, while riding a trolley, I fell into a daydream and missed my stop.

Anyone else in my position might have yelled, I missed my stop.

Up or open the door please, But in imagining all these trolley riding strangers turning around to stare at me, my mind went blank.

So I decided it might be simpler draw less attention if I just jumped off.

As I landed onto the street, I heard a high pitched scream that I would later realize was coming from me.

Instead of drawing less attention, I was now center stage.

The trolley conductor skidded to a halt, and all the passengers ran to the windows to watch as I painfully crawled into a nearby bush.

Once in the bush, I hid waiting for the trolley to leave.

For young Jonathan Goldstein, the cost of staying silent that day was two twisted ankles and the loss of my pride.

Hey, Joey, hey.

There to hear from you.

This is young Joey, and he recently had a bad day that forced him to realize his fear of being seen, his fear of speaking up was exacting a far greater cost than a mere double ankle injury.

It was ruining his life, and so he's reached out for help from.

Me and just never get myself in a situation like this again.

I think Joey is twenty two years old, and the lead up to his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day begins right after his art school graduation, when he moved into an artist's loft in downtown.

LA live in that downtown city life kind of living, that communal living style.

The downside was that the loft had bedsheets for walls in six roommates.

But the plus side, the loft had bed sheets for walls and six roommates, six super cool roommates, a DJ, a dollmaker, a photographer, a guy who quote trimmed weed, and super coolest of all, a podcaster.

And I pictured these cool artist types having great parties and a lot of cool people over and all the artists in the LA scene would come through and I was gonna come in and hopefully fit in immediately.

But Joey didn't fit in immediately.

He never felt comfortable just hanging out with everyone, never knew what to say, and so he ended up spending most of his time alone in his room, rehearsing icebreakers.

I like your tattoo, he'd repeat to himself, your tattoo.

I like it, sweet tat, he'd say, pointing limply at the mirror, like a socially crippled Travis Bickle.

Unable to come up with anything that felt right, paralysis set in.

Joey began spending all day in his room, a shadow behind a bedsheet.

They'd all be in the living room right next to my room, hanging out, watching a movie, drinking, hanging and doing the thing, and I would be in my room, just like making people uncomfortable with by not, you know, being out there.

Joey had been living in the loft several weeks when he realized just how isolated he'd become.

One day, well, waiting outside the bathroom, he ran into one of his new roommates.

She She was like, oh, Hi, what's your name?

Oh where do you live?

I was like, uh, here, I'd live here.

Eventually, Joey began avoiding the loft altogether.

He'd spend every day wandering the street, only returning in the evening.

When I was back in my house at night, I would sneak into my room and then make and then make it drink make sure I didn't drink too much water so that my bladder was empty so I wouldn't have to leave my room to pee.

My new goal was to just be as unobtrusive as a roommate as possible, be invisible, so in this time I would just try to spend all my day out of the house, out on my rollerblades, which I had also recently taken up.

Everyone needs a hobby, and Joey found one that provided both good exercise as well as a way to free himself from the oppressive yoke of human dignity.

And so it was while rollerblading that Joey discovered his new home away from home, the pizza Parlor.

The pizza parlor played cool music and had cool art on the walls.

It even served cool pizza.

There was one shape like a marijuana leaf, and other shape like circles.

But because Joey was Joey, even a simple thing like ordering pizza was a challenge, and so he rehearsed his icebreakers.

I found myself like making sure I could you know, have something to say, like preparing something for the quick interaction while I buy my pizza.

Like kind of thing.

I don't know, Like if it's raining out, I would have something clever to say about.

That, Or give me an example of the clever thing that you would say when it was raining.

I'd say, oh, man, bummer, and this is not rollerblading weather, okay, like I would, or I don't know what I'm trying to say.

Slowly, Joey began making social inroads, even managing to earn himself a nickname, that rollerblading guy.

His fantasy is a fun and friendship with his bohemian loft buddies were over, but his fantasy is a fun in friendship with his bohemian pizza parlor buddies had only just begun.

I had planned on continuing to visit there and making these friendships grow and hopefully progressing them to real life friendships outside of the shop.

And so every morning Joey would blade straight to the self service refrigerator that housed the day old dollar slices.

I pretty much exclusively ate pizza from that moment on for all your meals pretty much.

There was definitely days that went by when it was just pizza, Like how many slices a day.

Were you eating to say four or five two for breakfast and then stick them in my backpack for the rest of the day.

What were you doing for fruits and vegetables?

I occasionally got the veggie slice.

And that was Joey's life, eating a, rolling blades, and waiting for old man scurvy until one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, January fourteenth, was like every other day.

I woke up to go get my pizza, headed into the shop and unfortunately I only found pepperoni in the fridge.

Joey is a vegetarian, and so without having prepared anything and clever to say, like pepperoni pizza, Oh man, bummer, Pepperonis aren't vegetarian, he instead said nothing and tried to just roller blade back out the door without anyone noticing.

But he'd only bladed a couple of blocks when he saw a familiar face biking towards him.

And it's one of the pizza chefs.

So I just thought he was gonna hell, I don't know.

I thought he was gonna say, what's up, man, let's hang out.

What's your name?

Will?

Let's you know.

I thought he was just interested in me.

So I was excited to see him biking towards me, and I took off my headphones to greet him.

And the first thing he said is don't come back.

I said, excuse me.

He said, you're taking slices.

I said what, And then it clicked, flipping through the dollar slices and then abruptly leaving in silence.

Looked fishy, like Joey was stealing pizza.

And I was kind of like panicking talking to him, like I could feel that I could hear the panic in my woice and stuff.

But I didn't know what to say, so I kind of just I was kind of speechless, and I, you know, didn't have the confidence to keep fighting.

Okay, Yeah, and then he.

He biked away.

I started crying on the streets, and I must have looked ridiculous, rollerblading down the street while crying.

At that point, it was a terrible day.

It became horrible as well as no good and very bad when Joey, crying on the street, received a phone call bearing more bad news.

The roommates had been kind of talking and they that they used the words getting under their skin.

The roommates found Joey's silent, sneaky ways, unsettling.

They wanted him out.

I like went and got my stuff, and I don't know, I basically moved out in that moment.

I like just left without without seeing anybody, and I kind of ran away.

As the day came to a close, Joey called the one person he always calls, the person he's leaned on his whole life, Elise, his twin sister.

She gave me the same advice that everyone did, which is just you know, go talk to them, be normal.

But I don't know, I mean, I never was able to take that advice from anybody coming from her, though it was especially I felt especially bad.

He was like almost in tears telling me this story.

Elise knows Joey better than anyone, and he's relied on her socially his entire life.

When he started dating, Elise introduced him to her friends, and when he was too anxious to attend family functions, Elise would go in his place.

And he told me about how he cried, which is always he doesn't cry that often.

Hm.

Hm, you could tell it was a big deal that he expressed that he cried about it.

And he told the whole story and I was laughing so hard because it's a really funny story, and I wanted him to see that it was funny too, and he could see the humor in it, but he was also pretty clearly devastated.

When I ask Elise what's so funny about her brother crying on the phone, she makes a pretty strong case, casually eviscerating him in the way only a loving sister can.

Him and his rollerblades and often like funny looking tank tops, his like creeper mustache, and his mullet definitely wait, just the look.

Of him, Hang on a second.

He has a mullet.

Full mullet full, full, creepy young child mustache, and his shoulders and arms look looks strong, but they're small, and same with his legs.

His legs are shockingly skinny.

They do have an incredible shine to them, I will admit.

Does he does he play?

I'm not sure that's ointment.

I'm guessing that's just his oily self.

I don't want Joey to have to wait years and years like I did, just to know the sweet joys of uncrippling an abnormality.

So I asked Joey's oily self what he most wants out of all this, and the answer he delivers is pretty to the point, almost like he's rehearsed it.

I want to say sorry that that I wasn't able to leave my room.

I wish they knew how I felt, basically.

But when I put forward my action plan for Joey to fix his bad day by rerollerblading through it, rerollerblading back to the pizza parlor to clear his name, and rerollerblading to the loft to apologize for being such a creepy, sneaky roommate, I can hear the beads of sweat squeak out of Joey's hairline and saturate his mullet.

Right, Yeah, I'm definitely Yeah, I've definitely been meaning to, but the prospect is pretty scary.

Just mentioning it, I got nervous, for sure.

Joey still wants to be invisible, but decades of experience have taught me that oftentimes the more invisible you try to make yourself, the more visible you become.

So if I have my way, Joey will no longer have to hide in the metaphorical bush like a young metaphorical Jonathan Goldstein.

After the break helping Joey to stop spinning his wheels.

Okay, hold the line for a moment, Joey, all right.

Sounds good.

Hang on, I'm practicing my witty retorts anything.

Don't do that, Okay.

During the ad break, while you were loading up on unbelievable deals, I was considering the full extent of Joey's dilemma as much as Jonathan Debonair Goldstein wanted to help him.

The truth is, Jonathan Stuart Goldstein is actually a lot like Joey, and so I made a phone call to an old friend, a man whose example and critical feedback, some might say overly critical feedback, have helped me to become the animal associate alibis.

I am today, happy, confident, out of the shrubs and loving it.

And I was hoping you could work the same magic on Joey.

Joey, this is my friend Gregor.

Howdy.

Hey, So Joey was living in this loft and he Gregor is the exact opposite of Joey and me in any given social interaction.

He's never afraid to stand out, never afraid to say the wrong thing.

Case in point, was Johnny kidding when he said you're wearing rollerblades.

No, I am a rollerblader, but.

So you rollerbladed into the store wearing your.

Rollerblades, that's right.

I have these very vivid memories of being in Central Park and seeing these people, mostly grown men, on rollerblades with that folded hands over the lower back and their body bent forward like ipping around in like a lycroskin suit, the big giant grin as they gasped for breath, and like, goggles on.

You got all that out of your system.

I hate rollerbladers, and I hate everything about rollerbla but I think most people don't have the cardage to ask for help.

It takes a very big man to ask for help.

Okay, so the guy wants to roller blade.

Fine.

Since Joey feels most comfortable when he's rehearsing social interactions, I suggest we do some role playing.

Joey plays himself and Gregor plays the pizza shop owner.

After ten minutes deliberating over his character's name, Gregor decides on Carmine, please call me Karmi.

All right, stop just trying to a little depth of the character.

Don't do that.

Once I finish offering some helpful direction, we begin.

So Okay, so you're you're the owner.

I'll do the folly work.

I'll make any necessary sounds.

Okay, Joey, you're coming up to the pizza parlor, tingle, tingle.

Hey, so it's been a long time.

I don't know if you heard I.

I had a bit of a.

Joe trails off even in a simulation.

His nerves get the better of him.

I try to inspire him with more folly work.

Tingle, tingle.

The place is starting to fill up a little, so you might want to spit it out.

Tingle, tingle, tingle, tingle.

Oh my god, it's like radio lab.

Suddenly a monkey came in.

Gregor call me Carmen the whole duration of this shoot.

I need to be in character.

I'm like Daniel day Lewis.

I will only answer if you call me CARMI.

Why did I even have you be the shop owner?

Why wasn't I the shop owner?

I could be your son who's got like bigger dreams.

I don't want to spend my whole life singing pizza derailing that I got big dreams.

I want to get into real estate, commercial real estate.

I want to least laundromats.

See I'm not like you.

You really, I want to.

Have a self storage unit.

They're very profitable, don't you see?

Now we're gelling as a team right at the very end.

As you start to fade us down, you can't even hear what I'm saying anymore.

Sure, Gregor was taking none of the work seriously, But Joey was enjoying Gregor, and in his own way, Gregor was enjoying Joey.

It looked like Gregor was in I noticed that you like to sit very close to the gate.

Gregor and I meet at the airport for the flight to see Joey in La.

While squatting on the floor staring fixedly at the gate, Gregor shares some insider tips on air travel.

Because when they say extra time getting down the gate, joe Way, you're allowed to run.

Past those people.

You're allowed.

See if like I could easily run outrun that little girl in the purple.

Anyway, Johnny, stick with me.

I'm gonna show you how to board this big bird.

That's where I stay at the pilot when I bought the claim.

Let's bring this big bird down brother.

That way, he knows I'm a member of the free Eternity of aviation.

Cross check at ready to grow accomplies.

Once we've board it, running down the jetway like a couple of giggling idiots, Gregor regales me with stories the time lou Reid threatened to put an ashtray through his head.

No he didn't, Yeah, heavy glass one.

The time a taxi driver told me he had eyes like his dead brothers.

That's a terrible story.

The time all dozen or so members of the Wu Tang clan squeezed onto his living room couch.

He asked for my seat to t Then come the aviation stories, all the flights he's been on where people have died.

But then there was another photos on when someone died right next to me, and they were literally doing the thing on the PA where they're like there's any doctors on board?

And I was like, I'm kind of a doctor.

How are you kind of a doctor?

I'm a very good diagnostician.

Look, we're on twenty five RL.

It's one of my favorite always.

Gregor and I rent a car and meet up with Joey at his favorite coffee shop.

From here, we planned to head to the pizza parlor, get him unbanned, and then go to the loft so Joey can apologize to his former roommates.

Morning, nice to meet hi.

How are you Hi?

How you?

As well as being rollerblade footed, Joey's just as chopstick legged, mustache lipped, and mullet headed, as his sister Relise had cautioned, did it take you a while to decide like what you were going to wear today?

Joey seems anxious, so I asked him, Joey, are you anxious?

But before he can answer, Gregor steps in.

John, Let's take it from here.

You don't want to make the guy nervous by asking me if he was nervous, why don't you go around in a circle and each say, a member of the woutang until we get on.

With his idiot's game.

What Gregor's really doing is distracting Joey, protecting him, in this case, protecting him from me.

Ready, Okay, I'll start the diju.

Let's stop just this is the genius, genius?

Okay, stop number one?

The pizza parlor?

Is this the place?

What time they open?

Eleven?

Oh?

I'm getting nervous.

My stomach is jumping.

Oh wait here, Joey, I have some in the creer just in case.

As Joey's mentor, I know he runs a pretty good chance of choking, so I prepared him some notes during my flight.

Okay, here you go.

Read this.

Right.

You guys were like family to me, and when you accuse me of theft, I try it slower.

You guys were like family.

Go ahead.

You guys were like family to me, and when you accuse me of theft, I mishandled the situation.

I became discombobulated.

I should have defended myself, told you I'm no thief.

Although we want to offer for Joey help, it's important that he do this on his own.

No Gregor, no Jonathan, no Elise.

We'll be there with Q cards and emotional support, but ultimately Joey needs to enter the pizza shop and make his case solo.

We're gonna let Joey shine.

Yeah, I mean I think like you bring your shinebox, Joey.

Are you getting the reference to the shinebox?

That would be a You guys got a lot of references.

O don't that?

Have you seen Good Fellas?

Do your joe pesci for Joey just to loosen him up a little.

Ed was one tough irishman.

I put his head in advice three days until his eyebowl pop.

That yet, get too vegetarian pizzas stuff.

I instruct Joey to order pizza and kombucha's for his roommates.

This way, the pizza parlor crew will see he's not just a dollar slice guy, but someone capable of committing to an entire pie and a vinegar and bile based beverage.

It'll show personal growth.

Just have fun.

Joey swings open the door and roller blades inside.

Remember the rollerblading this whole time, Joey's been wheels down wearing his blades.

You might want to rewind a few minutes and re listen with that image in your mind.

And it's not just the roller blades.

Joey is also wearing a wire.

So standing outside, Gregor and I can eavesdrop on how things are going inside the parlor.

Do you want to hear?

Wow?

I can't stand well.

Gregor paces back and forth on the sidewalk.

I cut an earphone and listen as Joey rolls up to the counter.

Hey, how's it going?

Joey is greeted by a pizza chef.

Yeah, I don't know if you remember me, I used to come here all the time.

I was kicked out of your shop a couple months back for stealing slices, even like I was accused of slices.

No, I totally know why you thought it was me, because it looks like I mean, I came in.

Gregor and I watched nervously through the storefront window.

Oh he's blowing it.

I rushed him.

Sat.

Joey isn't mounting a defense, and he isn't offering a counter narrative.

Instead, he's exhibiting a level of mealy moothery not seen since a young Jonathan Goldstein tried to explain to a trolley conductor why he was hiding in a bush.

And I was kind of hoping I could come back just because I love But as Gregor and I bicker over whether to walk inside and roll Joey out the door like a dessert trolley full of flaming horse manure, we noticed something.

I know, it's weird that's been so long, but I just like felt really bad at me, was really embarrassed.

Really, I'm sorry, she's really nice.

Saw like someone come in and with like roller seats.

I remember that day I was recommitting.

Not only does she remember that day, but she also remembers Joey always.

A guy who came in like several times.

Just like, yeah, no, I see, I think that was me.

Kind of remembers Joeoe.

I came in.

I'm a vegetarian.

I saw that you guys only had Pepperoni slices because I was like, oh, not for me, And I just turned around totally looks like I just grab one.

And since he didn't do it, you know, you don't have anything to apologize for.

Yeah, I just want to make sure you, like you guys don't think I did a man Okay, okay, cool?

Yeah, if he was willing to come back to face his accusers, she says, he probably didn't steal the pizza, and with that, Joey orders his pies and kombucha's with her faces pressed against the window.

Gregor and I watch with amazement as Joey waits for his order while engaging in some completely unscripted repartee cool song.

He says, totally.

She says this band is so cool.

He says yeah.

She says, we didn't prepare Joey for any of this, but here he was riffing and scatting away like some kind of improvisational jazz cat.

Carmine would have been proud, thank you very much, and tingle tingle.

Joey emerges from the restaurant holding our pizzas aloft like trophies.

Joey, oh you did it.

Oh my god, I'm shake it.

I'm shake it.

You did a great job.

Despite his fear of saying the wrong thing, Joey had managed to put himself out there and stumble his way through.

Joey, that was great, Like, yeah, you really like and you did it by yourself.

We didn't have to go in or anything.

That's awesome.

Oh I really really was nervous that I felt my leg completely shaking.

I thought she was going to look down and just see my leg shaking like it.

Okay, on one to ten, how do you feel did you wrestle the bear?

Because I know I still have to go to the loft.

It's you know, the relief has it come.

But after the break, Joey tries rolling up a much harder hill, apologizing to people he actually knows.

Those people you live with, they actually know the real joy.

I mean, maybe they didn't like the real joys.

But they knew who you were.

No, I don't think they did.

I mean I hope they did that.

Do you think it's a good sign that the roommates did not respond.

No.

No.

To be honest, I'm pretty nervous about that.

Joey had tried to contact his former loftmates via group text to let them know he'd be coming by to talk.

But as we stand on the street in front of the building, our kombucha bubbling and vegetarian pizzas congealing, Joey checks and re checks his phone, not a single one of his former roommates has responded.

Not even like any response is not a good sign.

Well maybe that's better than like responding by saying I'm not interested.

Right, the loft is on the second floor, behind the metal gate, and there's no doorbell.

All right, let's figure out how to get into this fortress.

There's no drain pipe to shimmy, no fire escape banister to reverse oli.

All we can do is wait for someone to come in or out.

Gregor fills the time with yet another aviation story.

When I was going through the TSA, the lady was like, could you pull your pants up a little bit?

You just told me to take my belt off.

Now my pants are falling down.

You want me to pull my pants up?

Which is it?

You really get told to play an?

I get told that every time I go through the t.

Where's a belt with a pair of shorts?

You wear a belt and shorts?

Yep, I never heard of that.

How do you think I keep mouth?

I think someone's coming.

Thankfully we're interrupted.

Yoh, how's it going?

One of Joey's old roommates emerges.

He's a hip young man who, if not wearing a straw pork pie hat and carrying a gondola paddle, is certainly giving off that vibe, a Venetian boatman vibe.

Joey, foregoing all social foreplay, dives right in.

Yeah, I'm here because I want to apologize.

I don't know if you've got the group text.

Oh yeah, I just wanted I felt really bad about how I left things here, so I brought some pizza and my friends here.

Okay, Joey gestures over to his friends, two balding middle aged men slumping behind him like bald scarecrows stuffed with muse ley.

Hey, right, okay, all right, well this is really awkward in a surprise.

All right, I was just going.

Out of my car.

Okay.

So the boatman isn't very receptive, but Joey persists, does.

Anyone else tell him if you want to, like, ask if they are okay with me coming up like that?

Okay, thank you so much.

It's taken all of Joey's courage to return to the place where the coolest art kids in La live, and he's still being denied entry.

As Joey stares in silence at the steel door that's just clanged shut, in his mustachioed face, I struggle to come up with something positive to say.

I think you handled yourself.

Well, I'm extremely nervous right now.

I don't feel good about how this is going.

Upstairs, the gondolier is saying to his roommate something along the lines of, Hey, remember that silent roller skating weirdo we kicked out of our art loft.

Well, he's downstairs with pizza and his two gay dads.

But then, yo, hey, what's.

How you doing.

Zach is the unofficial head of the household, the guy who takes care of all the square noormy stuff like throwing out expired cottage cheese and paying the rent on time.

He's bearded and shaggy.

He turns to Joey.

Joey stares down at his rollerblades and starts mumbling explanations.

Yeah, I just thought, I mean, I didn't think it was just like, I just thought, like.

I haven't heard this much mealy mouthing since I guess an hour ago, when Joey was at the pizza parlor.

Zach looks at Joey skeptically.

His arms are crossed.

Nonetheless Joey's soldiers on, I.

Just feel really bad about kind of how how I left things here.

Yeah, I know that I wasn't the best roommate, and I feel really bad and just kind of uncomfortable about like just you know, even just how you guys think about me.

But I just wanted to apologize and make things right.

There were things like that bugged me.

Here we go.

Whereas the pizza chef had been impressed with the mere fact Joey had returned, for Zach, that wasn't enough.

You had your headphones on a lot, and you had noise canceling headphones.

You're just like in your world.

He launches into a laundry list of grievances.

Didn't clean the bathroom, and I was just.

Like dude, Joey ignored everybody, never cleaned up after himself.

I ever even washed a dish.

The amount of rant or who's paying what?

Or why are you paying her and not paying Ah?

The worst thing Joey could imagine was happening.

He was being seen and told that he'd always been seen.

He put all his effort into trying to become invisible and absolutely no effort into doing his share of the chores.

That's why his roommates wanted him out.

They'd seen him visibly not cleaning the loft, visibly not taking out the garbage, trying to hide but not really hiding at all.

He taking an advantage of And that's what I was.

Like, whoa O If ordering a pizza had given Joey the Jimmy legs, facing Zach was giving Joey the Joey leg a name I've just coined for a condition in which one's entire body becomes one single Jimmy leg that is a Joey leg that won't stop Jimmy ing is like.

A liberty, you know.

But while Joey is Jimmy ing.

He isn't folding, He's not running away.

But it was just the way that it was done.

Yeah.

As Zach finishes speaking, Joey maintains eye contact, and what's more, as the la breeze whips up the hindquarters of his mullet, he does not fall prey to his lifelong crutch, silence, without notes, without wittyish rejoinders.

He responds, all this stuff, like the.

Not paying rent on time, and just all the story stuff, all that stems from this shyness, this like the weirdness and like just feeling uncomfortable to like, I don't know, be in the public space kind of just because I'm weird and shy.

And I can't blame it on anything but myself.

I mean, it was all It's all me.

It's like my own things.

Zach looks at Joey's I wish I was more able to like be friendly with you.

Guys, sees him struggling, and his face softens.

I understand like having social anxiety, having like issues where you're like you feel something that's like strangling you in a position where you have to converse or whatever.

Like I can understand that.

Yeah, Like I only wanted to just be friends with you, guys.

I have I appreciate it.

Where were you staying now?

Awkwardness is just a step along the way to vulnerability, and being vulnerable, allowing yourself to be seen is the only soil from which friendship can grow.

I love your funky style.

And what better fertilizer than a mutual love of the mullet.

I've been contemplating a similar mullet as yours, but I don't know if my hair would work as much as yours.

You have a different volume.

So as Zach and Joey wax on about the beauty of Joey's ape drape, another loft made appears in the stairway.

Nice, yeah, if that's okay, that's great, Thank you, Holy cow.

This is a really big space.

It's good.

Joey leads Gregor and I on a tour through the old audio cassettes and dummy heads, past the kickboxing bag and vinyl collection, and ends the tour in a truly empty V cribs kind of way at his old bedroom where the magic happened.

And by magic, I mean where Joey slept on the floor wrapped in unwashed blankets.

This is where they used to stay.

Did you have a mattress?

Joey breaks out the pizza and kombucha, and we all gathered by the hot plate for a toast.

You're supposed to actually look up, look at each other's eyes.

The communication.

After we choke back our kombucha, I suggest the symbolic gesture, Hey, you want to you want to wash all the glassy I do.

This is totally ridiculous.

You're gonna use soap and everything.

I don't know if it's good with the vision or something that.

Stop with them.

Just as we're about to leave, Gregor decides he'd like to use the bathroom.

And whereas a couple of shrinky and sneaky violets like Joey and me might just slink off looking for it, Gregor does not.

It might be too much of in a position if I was to leave a little urine in your toilet on the way out.

By embracing the awkwardness of life, acknowledging that we are creatures who require toilets, Gregor somehow makes things less awkward, at least for himself.

Gregor has mastered something that Joey is still learning, the art of saying here I am, even when ping into a toilet while wearing a lapel microphone.

You're welcome, Thank you, take it easy.

Thanks.

After leaving the loft, there's only one thing left to redo.

Hello.

Yeah, Joey phones up his twin sister release and this time he isn't crying.

It was so good, it was so cool.

Yeah.

I think he genuinely forgave me.

And I did it all on my lone, son.

No, you did it.

You needed so much help.

Well after I got the help, I did it on myself, you know, I mean, but now I just feel like I can do it on myself by myself.

I'm very I am really proud of you that I know.

It takes a lot, it did.

It takes a lot from me.

Yeah, you know, more than anyone.

Your proudness feels good.

I'm not surprised that Elise is proud, but I'm taken aback to see that.

Gregor looks proud too, proud of himself, of course, but also with Joey.

So once Joey gets off the phone, Gregor offers up some fatherly advice.

I understand what it is to be young.

It's a tough phase until you're about forty five.

Life is really difficult, okay, and then from there on in it's all just sitting in one of those soapbox derby cars rolling down the hill to your sinescence and eventual death.

Gregor, you're depressing the guy.

I'm coming to my Hallmark inspirational line.

I'd say it's a tough fifteen to twenty five year period.

It's very unpleasant, really most of it.

Could you repeat that Hallmark line again?

And with that, Joey pulls off his unlikeliest feet, yet he gets in a genuine off the cough inger.

Gregor and I had brought this big bird down, Guang.

There we going.

Now that the fernitures returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's rant is skating with the damage to Posle, take this moment to dissolve.

If we meant it, if we talked, we felt around for far.

Thanks accident.

Hello Joey, Oh wait, here comes our surprise.

Guest.

You ready for it?

It comes?

Gregor, you look very moisturized.

Did you have an HR policy where you're not supposed to comment on people's physical appearance?

Because I think Johnny skipped that day when he was getting on boarded.

Well that, I mean, that's a compliment, don't you think, Yes, young lady, you.

Look great in that druss.

You really fill it out.

Well that's a compliment too.

I mean, come on, I that's time like you had a mullet and were rollerblading and eating a slice of pizza and had like eleven roommates.

Not too much has changed.

Some things are have improved.

Can I see the back of your head and you've still got a mustache?

I do, it's grown in.

That's what seven years will do.

Wow, look at that, you've grown up, just in the blink of an eye exactly.

So we just wanted to check in with you and see how you were doing.

I want to hear about how now like you were sort of pushed out of the nest that instead of falling to the sidewalk and getting eaten by a cat, you have taken off to soar with the seagulls.

Bernie and ethel seagull.

All right, listen, we're getting off track here, Joey.

We're here to hear about you.

I was enjoying this.

So what's going on in your in your life?

Are you in la?

I?

Actually I'm in New York and I moved out here about four years ago.

How many roommates do you have?

This will shock you ero.

So no, no bed sheet walls, just all you.

I do live in like a large studio apartment railroad style where there's like multiple rooms without proper doors, so they are separated by what kind of looks like a bed sheet.

It's like a curtain.

I don't know if you can tell the back.

Was that something that you were looking for?

You you told the real estate agent that you wanted something with bed sheet.

Yeah.

I don't feel at home unless i'm around bad shoots.

Joey's doing.

Joey's thriving.

Look he's got a cow.

Is that a couch you're sitting on?

It's a share I don't have a couch.

Oh are you still rollerblading?

Of course I still love rollerblading, but I also I found that I love riding a bicycle too.

I have a question.

Oh go ahead, gregor.

Not too personal?

Are you drinking your own urine?

What's all right?

So good talk, Joey.

Any thing you'd like to say in parting?

I guess I want to say thank you for helping me all those years ago.

It actually, I do think meant something and it worked.

Did it?

Really?

I think it did?

How so I felt a lot more confident after that.

Just yeah, I mean the lessons imparted on the day, but also just hearing it back.

Over the years, I've revisited.

It and whenever I do, it makes me laugh first, but also kind of shows me how far I've come.

So I'm grateful.

This may come across a slightly patronizing, but I feel like Joey's all grown up.

I think I am.

I think you're right.

Okay, let's close this out by all together ready.

Woo tang tang, Woo tang.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this episode together.

We'll be back next week with another encore presentation of Heavyweight

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