Wiretap - Pride (Pt.5 of Seven Deadly Sins)

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

We're talking about Pride. After a long self-love affair, Narcissus finally breaks up with himself. Plus a motivational pep-talk to make us all proud.

We're in the midst of the dog days of summer. And it's called that because during this period, Sirius, the dog star, rises with the sun in the morning. Not because it feels like several dogs are breathing their humid breath on you all the time. Can you tell he's a cat person? Hello, I'm Neil Kerkstel. And I'm Chris Houghton. We're the co-hosts of As It Happens.

But throughout the summer, some of our wonderful colleagues will be hosting in our place. We will still be bringing you conversations with people at the center of the day's major news stories here in Canada and throughout the world. You can listen to As It Happens wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and you're listening to Wiretap on CBC Radio 1. Today's episode, Part 5 in our series on The Seven Deadly Sins, Pride, in which Narcissus breaks up with himself,

Cookie falls in love with herself, and I, for the first time in Wiretap history, stick up for myself Johnny Oh hey Gregor How are you my friend I'm okay I'm dropping you as a client Johnny

What are you talking about This isn't just an opportunity for me Johnny This is an opportunity for you It's an opportunity for both of us I don't understand Listen Johnny before both of us say things we'd regret Let's just keep this above board We're still going to be friends

I'm not sure how my fee structure is going to change now What fee structure if we're just friends? Please, Johnny. You're getting hysterical. Do you have a glass of water nearby? Take it and splash it in your face. I'm trying to talk sense to you. Trust me when I tell you, it's not you, it's me. Oh, is it? I need to move on. I have bigger things to do than... They're not necessarily better. Well, there are better things. For me, they're going to be better. So you want to drop me as a client. We've had some good times together, but it's over. It's done. There's nothing left. You deserve happiness. We both deserve happiness. Isn't this what we talked about?

You're talking like you're breaking up with me. Listen, I'm just graduating to a new and better client, and thank God. Thank God. You know why? Why? Because I had some eggs in the fridge, and the eggs were starting to spoil. Do you follow my metaphor? Are you talking about your ovaries? No, I'm going to make an omelet, a success omelet, a money omelet. So let me get this. So you've got a new client? I'm just about to sign them, yes. And who is this?

Are you familiar with the video of the baby monkey driving around on the back of the pig? It's been a big hit on YouTube. It's got like 70 million. Yes, yes, I've seen that. I've seen it's just footage of a monkey on a pig. Pig. There's such footage, as you say, with contempt in your voice has made millions of people laugh, about 70 million. Okay. Well, turns out I was at a party, and the monkey was already represented by CAA. Uh-huh.

The pig was coming up for free agencies for international rights. So, you were now talking to the person likely to be Ms. Pigglesworth's foreign rights distribution agent. You're telling me that you're dropping me as a client for a pig. One of the most famous pigs of our day. Social media hit. No, no, hang on a second. Is this going to be awkward if we run into you in a restaurant?

That's just, it's just, I've seen that video. It's just a pig and a farm. You're not going to make yourself bigger by making other people look smaller. She's not people, Gregor. She's a pig. The subsidiary rights to that darling, irresistible sow, are worth in the high six figures, easily. Is that so? Who do you think is throwing out the first ball of the season for Major League Baseball next year?

Who is Pigglesworth? You guess correctly. Correctly. You know what your one tragic flaws, Johnny? Worse than your bad breath, your bad body odor, and your terrible manners. It's your pride. I'm proud. You're so blinded by pride that you walk around with your head high, thinking, hey, look at me, I'm so much better than a pig. If you made bacon out of me, it would be delicious. You think you're better than a pig? Well, I got some news for you, Johnny. You'll never be a pig. Why you just say like this? This is how it should go down. Hey, Johnny, I'm replacing you with a pig. Oh, that's great. Congratulations. What do I get from you instead? I mean, man, man, I can't believe you leave me if you're a pig. You know why? Because you're an ungrateful little whelp who should have been put down at birth. Oh, wait, hold on one second. I'm getting a call.

All right, Johnny. We both said some things we regret. I didn't say anything I regret. The point is, it's time to move on. That was Miss Picklesworth, and she's decided to go with William Morris. You know what that means? We're back in business, buddy. Me and you, going straight to the top.

I don't want to be back in business with you. Oh, Johnny. No, I don't want someone who would dump me for a pig. I got your book to participate in a hog calling. Let me see, in April, there's an opportunity to do this duet album with Miss Piggy. These are all leftover gigs from Miss Picklesworth. I have a hoofprint contest. Again, these are for Mrs. Pigglesworth.

Depending on what your hoof print looks like. We can make you into bacon. How fat are you right now? I'm not doing pig gigs. I'm proud to have quit. My job. I'm proud of how awesome my bulldog is. I'm proud to have overcome the ADD I was diagnosed with when I was young.

I am proud that I can resist temptation. I'm proud to be the first person in my family to go to college. I'm proud I have the guts to let my friend paint a nude portrait of me. I am proud of myself for not checking her Facebook page in three whole months. I'm proud that I haven't broken any hearts yet this year I'm proud that I can walk away from a bad relationship I am proud of having no ego Narcissus breaks up with himself

by Doug Lieblich Dear Narcissus I just want to let you know that it's over between us I'm breaking it off but please understand it's not that I'm not beautiful, sensitive, or a generally perfect guy. I am. In fact, it's not me at all.

It's me. I still remember the moment I saw your reflection in the lake. You looked so familiar. I knew I had seen you somewhere before, perhaps while cleaning my sunglasses or polishing my chariot. Our first afternoon together was divine. Remember how your eyes never left my gaze? Hades, we would even speak at the same time. Jinks, buy me an ambrosia coke.

Jinks? Jinks! Jinks again! We did that for eight hours. Oh, Narcissus, remember after just one date, I asked you to come home and meet our parents? It was like they had known you forever For a time it was bliss I saw much of myself in you And I loved every bit of it

I loved your radiant intelligence Your gorgeous locks of hair Your caring manner Your modesty Seems so far away now You've changed I've changed Frankly

You have grown selfish You never give me any time alone. It's always Narcissus, Narcissus, Narcissus. On top of that, you've gained weight, refused to shave, and you have love handles hanging out of your toga. You're like a fat Greek muffin. For crying out loud, Narcissus, you've let yourself go. I tell you to go take a long look in the mirror,

but I know you'd only come crawling right back to me. And then, of course, there is our whole situation. in the bedroom. Face it, Narcissus, I just can't make love to myself like I used to. Alas, I have a confession of my own. There is someone else. I'm seeing another me. Sneaking behind our backs was difficult.

You seem to stare at me, eyes ablaze with disapproval everywhere I turned. I'm sorry to unload all this on you, Narcissus, on your birthday, which is coincidentally also my birthday, which is coincidentally also our anniversary, but I felt like you never brought anything new to the table. And that is why it is over, Narcissus. Something is missing between me and me. My only advice is if you eventually want to love others, you must first learn to love yourself like me.

Remember, there are plenty of other reflections in the sea. Sincerely, Narcissus. Pride goes all across your life. You've got to act good. You got to look good. Right. To look ugly is the biggest sin than anything you can ever imagine. And that's why, like, I'm so careful to always look fantastic, and I always do.

And it's because, like, I don't want to hurt people's eyes, and I never would. You know, if you have, like, ugly jeans on, or you, like, don't, you have not figured out your hairstyle. You've had a face. Like, sometimes you see an older woman, you're like, you have this face for however many years. You haven't figured out that you shouldn't cut your head of chin length because it makes your neck look big. You know what I mean? What are some of the, what's a part of the process of making yourself look good? Like, how do you...

Like, I wear a lot of makeup. I'm not going to lie. and I never take it off I just add to it So I'm never completely At the end of the day You don't remove it? No

I just add to it And so I'm never Like the kind of thing where I wake up I'm like, eke I'm always like Looking good cookie So you keep your makeup on All the time

Always I always keep my makeup on I want to be ready for anything I always wear a cute outfit When I go to bed too Always Like what kind of outfit? You know, I can't sleep with a downcomfitter because my heels ripped up the downcomfitter and their feathers get everywhere.

What do you mean your heels? I never take off my heels. Ever. Even when you're sleeping, isn't it? The only time I take off my heels is to get my toenails done. What about when you take a shower, say, yeah? Wear my heels and a cute dress. Do you never know?

Like, what if the house burns down? When you're in the shower, you want to look good? If the house burns down while you're in the shower, say. fire fighters are so hot but what you're talking about to be so filled with vanity and pride that's sinful behavior and that that's a sin there's these sins that everybody's always talking about but like I'm helping America by looking good you know like that's me doing my part and I wish everyone did their part and then there'd be no more problems because everyone looks so good

and then you feel so good inside because you look so good on the outside everybody would look hot so that's not a sin to me. But being, I mean, being too obsessed with outward appearance. You mean, working hard at it? I mean, if you think about it, if everyone at the UN looked good the whole time instead of being like, you know, call to order, why, I'd no more bombs or whatever, they'd be like, you look nice, you look nice, cute shirt. Where'd you get that top, you know? I mean, is there a point where you just feel like maybe you can, you can have too much pride? Because, I mean, I think that's where it gets into deadly sin territory.

You can never have too much pride You can never have too much pride No, I think it's a deadly sin to not have enough pride But no, hang on a second I mean, let's say it keeps you from You know, let's say out of pride You haven't spoken to your sister in years or something I had a sister once

I haven't spoken to her in years Well, that's what I'm saying I mean is that that's because you're Your sister Nicolina Well I would say that's maybe that's too much pride That's really or should she not have Going after the guy I had a crush on Ricky, no,

Dunzo. She's dead to me. I haven't talked to her in like 17 years. She lives next door too. She lives next door. And you have not spoken to her in 17 years. No. So you see, I would call that excessive pride. I would do, exactly. Successful pride.

No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. I succeeded in having a lot of pride. I think if there's anything I'm the most proud of in my life, it's of my pride. My pride is my pride. So you run into, I mean, I imagine you see your sister once in a while, just, you know. I see every day, like eight times a day. I've already seen it twice today.

Isn't it uncomfortable to not be speaking? No, I look at her, and she looks at me, and we walk by each other, and then my brother lives across the street, I don't talk to him. You don't? No, no. Because he got married to that total whore, and I don't talk to him. That's how my family shows that we love each other. We want the best for them, so if they cross us, we'll.

We don't want them anywhere near us. You know what I mean? That's wanting the best for them? Yeah. It works for us. The quietest night of the year is Christmas Eve. We all get together at my mom's house, and none of us talk to each other.

We're a proud family. It's our way. I'm proud I called my mom yesterday. I'm proud that I'm a natural redhead. I'm proud that I'm a natural redhead. I am proud to have three editions of Gone with the Wind in my library. I'm proud that my record collection is better than yours. I'm proud of my beard.

I am proud to throw on a little leopard print when my day just hasn't been exciting enough. I am proud of eating 1,000 slices of pizza in my four-year college career. I am proud of my ability to play the Soviet Union anthem on a children's accordion. I'm proud of my ability to stop my hiccups on command. command. I'm proud of the fact that I've made it further in my career than most people, and I only have my GED. I am proud of my contribution to human knowledge as a scientist. I'm proud of my ability to befriend strange men in cafes. I'm proud that I can see 180 degrees, like a freaking deer.

If you're absolutely loving yourself, summer read and don't want the book to be over, your experience doesn't actually have to end when you finish reading. I'm Matea Roach, and on my podcast bookends, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind the books you love. Like, why Emma Donahue is so fascinated by trains, or how Taylor Jenkins Read feels about being a celebrity author. You can check out bookends with Matea Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. I think part of being a blind guy, you can't afford pride about certain things.

You know, like things that you want to do or think you can do, you just probably shouldn't. And, you know, for me, Power Tools is one of those things. I wish I was the kind of guy that could use them. I mean, were you able to use them? Did you have a thing for Power Tools before going blind? I think I had an idea of wanting to be a certain kind of man when I was young and my dad was a very handy guy and, you know, I sort of wanted to live up to that

similar image at a certain point, being blind, I had to just learn to let go of that. Let me give you an example of, you know, something I had to let go of, something that I thought I could do. It happened on my 30th birthday, around my 30th birthday. my wife Tracy and I have the same birthday I don't know if you knew that but we are 12 hours apart and when we turned 30

my parents threw a birthday party for us and my father gave me a roadside membership card so like if our car broke down we could call for assistance and he gave my wife Tracy a pink toolbox and it was like a regular, like, cool, metal toolbox, like a serious one. But he'd spray painted it, hot Barbie pink.

So we got home, and within a couple days, I decided I was going to use these tools. And what I did was I took out the toolbox, and I was going to install a towel rack. And I did. I got out the power drill and carefully plugged. it in. And I measured things out on the wall with my hand and scratched things with a nail and sort of did the whole thing and put this towel rack in. And when Tracy came home, she was like, yeah, you did it. You put it in a towel rack. And I was sort of proud of myself. And that was that. So I used the tools. And then I was getting out of the bathtub one night in the dark, which is what blind people do. And it's sort of hard to describe without you seeing me do it. But I leaned across.

from, like, stepping out of the tub, I leaned across the room to grab a towel from my towel rack. And the water must have dripped off my finger because I saw this flash of light and it was the electricity arcing off the towel rack and going up through my finger. So, you know, like, that Michelangelo painting of the invention of Adam,

where, like, God and Adam are touching fingers. Like, that was me in a towel rack. this current shot into my arm and I went across my chest and came out my other hand. And Tracy ran in and she said, what happened? And she said, apparently I was turning blue and I said, I think I'm fine. I am. And I kept saying things where the syntax was just garbled. What was going?

How did the towel rack electrocute you? Because I didn't really, I don't know why until later when we actually brought in an electrician to look at it. he explained it to me what I'd done. When I'd screwed it in, I'd actually, like, skewered this electric wire. And it was because I was soaking wet. And I was, like, one foot in the tub. Right. So technically it wasn't really my fault.

Like, I didn't, you know, it's still the builder. Are you, in saying that, are you still speaking out of pride, do you think? Maybe a little bit. I mean, a thing that bothered me, though was at the end when the electrician came in and sort of figured out what it happened I told him that I got electrocuted and I was sort of proud of it um you know like I'd had my my war wound you know and uh he said oh that's nothing and he gave me his visor and I felt it and the the whole face of this plastic visor that this electrician had felt like braille

and it was just filled with these little shards of iron and stuff and he said that's what happens when you clip a live 600-volt wire with wire cutters. They just explode in your face. And I was like, wow. And then I sort of hated him, too, because it's like, I finally had a sort of mechanical story. I had sort of a guy story about, you know, trying to do stuff with tools and this sort of war story ensues from it. And then he just sort of wiped it away, you know. You need a war story. Even if it's with a towel rack. Yeah, you just sort of try and make the most of that, right?

Testing, testing. Welcome to the Ottawa Centurion Conference and Event Center. It's my pleasure to introduce you to our featured speaker, motivational guru, and stress management consultant, Mr. Jonathan, the turbochargers, Superbo. All right, okay, give me that, Mike. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Woo! All right. Stand up, everybody. Come on. Everybody, get up on your feet. Come on, that's it. Woo! All right. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to turn to the person to your left. Shake their hand. Very good. Introduce yourself. How do you do? Okay. Now, I want you to look them in the eye and say, nice and loud, you make me sick. That's right. Okay, go ahead. Come on, do as you're told. You make me sick. You make me sick. Okay, good. Okay, now turn to your neighbor on the right and say to them,

you make me sick. You make me sick. Good. Now, ask yourself, are you going to take that? Are you going to take that? Of course you will. And why? The man on the stage told me to do it,

and he was elevated from the ground. elevated from the ground and talking into a microphone. With all due respect, you people are human garbage. But lucky for you, I am the garbage man, and I'm taking you to the curb. The curb of self-respect. I am going to heave you into the dumpster of pride, drive you to the recycling factory where spineless noodles are recycled into men. Okay, let's review.

Your next-door neighbor uses your deck chairs whenever he has a lawn party and doesn't even bother to invite you over. No biggie, you say. Kirk, the office intern, picks up timbits for everyone in the office, and when you reach for one, your very first one. He tells you to stop being such a pig. Then he laughs and slaps you on the back, hard enough to make your teeth rattle. Kirk's just joking around, you tell yourself. Igor, the guy he works the sandwich truck, hands you a tuna club roll, even though you clearly asked for the roast beef, and you call it serendipity.

A hump day surprise. Well, I've got a surprise for you, pal. You're the hump. Surprise! I used to be just like you. At the very first threat of confrontation, why I'd roll over and wave my rump in the air like a macaque monkey at a gorilla convention. Well, I know the drill. You go home after a bad day with Kirk,

lock yourself in the bathroom and stifle your own screams with a mouthful of bath sponge. Don't want to wake the wife. If you do, they'll be hell to pay. I get it. I know where you're coming from. But it is time to take the sponge out of your mouth and show some pride.

Yeah, that's right. Stand up for yourself. Don't let the Kirk's of the world tell you that your red suspenders clash with your forehead pimples. Don't let him tell you that your sweater vest smells like tomato soup. Have some pride in what you had for dinner last night. Bravo, you tell us.

Yeah. Okay, look, I want you to turn to the person on your left and say, get your own cinnamon toaster struddles, Kirk. These are mine. That's my name on the box. Go ahead. Come on. Give it a try.

Get your own cinnamon struil. Okay. Now turn to the person on your right and say, I've been buying roast beef from you almost every day for three years, Igor, and not once have I ordered tuna. I've been buying roast beef from you. I've been buying roast beef. Yeah. I have an allergy to fish of any time. Be a winner. Be your pride. All right. Good work. Let's walk it off. Okay, let's take a quick break and cool down a little, all right? Okay, you can also use this time to check out the merch table. There's an earthenware. Don't touch this coffee mug because it's mine coffee mug.

Oh, and guys, leave the bridge chairs where you found them, okay? I brought them from home. They're mine. And I counted them before I got here, so don't take off with any. Okay, guys? My wife doesn't know that I took them and she'll have my head if I lose it again. I am proud that I try to reduce and reuse before I recycle. I'm proud that I didn't get any toothpaste on my sweater while brushing my teeth this morning.

I am proud that I just make my bed every damn day no matter what. I'm proud I stopped myself from crying over cheesy song lyrics in Starbucks this morning. It was close. I am proud of my daughter, even though I have never told her so. I'm proud that I haven't had a cigarette today. I am proud of my mother for being the strongest woman I know. I am proud that I can eat my three-year-old's unfinished sandwiches, even if the edges are soggy. That's what dads do.

I'm proud of my children and grandchildren. They'll do better in this life than I've done. I'm proud to be happy and alive. I'm proud of my future self. He'll be awesome. On Wiretap today, you heard Gregor Ehrlich, Laura Cookiecraft, and Doug Lieblich. reading his short story, Narcissus breaks up with himself. You can find more of Doug Lieblick's writing at the Huffington Post.

You also heard Ryan Knighton, author most recently of the memoir, Come on Papa, Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark. Special thanks to our listeners who wrote in with the things they're proud of, and thanks too to the men and women of CBC Montreal for reading them on air. Wiretap is produced by Mirabirdwin Tonic, Crystal Duhame, And me, Jonathan Goldstein. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.