Radio weirdo Jonathan Goldstein returns as awkward therapist
Regrets, self-deprecation, oddball asides and tiny human moments. These are familiar tropes for fans of Jonathan Goldstein's work.
After wrapping his long-running CBC radio show, Wiretap in 2015, Jonathan Goldstein is back with a new non-fiction podcast, Heavyweight — a show all about second chances. In it, he asks his loved ones to relive old conflicts, confront each other and, hopefully, straighten out their differences. So far, his batting average is about 50 per cent resolution.
"When you do actually help someone solve some problem from the past, you can hear it, you can feel it in their voice. There's a kind of heaviness that's lifted," he says to guest host Candy Palmater today adding that feelings, hurt and otherwise, can tend to "amplify as it echoes through time."
The new series has him enjoying a conversation with his traumatic first love, taking a road trip with his curmudgeonly father (remember Buzz from Wiretap?) and helping his friend (Gregor!) get CDs back from Moby. All this while curbing his natural tendency to embarrass himself.
Jonathan Goldstein: the man is embarrassed of his embarrassment. But as Jonathan Goldstein: the narrator, he can use it to make people laugh and bring them together. It's humiliation for a purpose.
WEB EXTRA | Below is the audio trailer for Heavyweight which hits podcast feeds on September 27.