Family Lore Drop with Hrishikesh Hirway

Gossip skeptic Hrishikesh Hirway joins us for a deep dive into the history of a (close) family full of secrets, lies, and prophecies. Follow Hrishi on Instagram @hrishihirway https://www.instagram.com/hrishihirway?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Get tickets to Kelsey's book tour here! https://kelseymckinneybook.com/ Pre-order Kelsey's book, YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, here! https://shop.lostcitybookstore.com/product/9781000275124 Subscribe to our newsletter for writing from Kelsey and Alex, blog recommendations, and bonus secrets! https://defector.com/normal-gossip-podcast You can support Normal Gossip directly by buying merch https://defectorstore.com/collections/normal-gossip or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com https://defector.com/products/normalgossip. Our merch shop is run by Dan McQuade. You can also find all kinds of info about us and how to submit gossip on our Komi page: https://normalgossip.komi.io/ Episode transcript here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BEw4afT6i44aX__FUDk8GrjUdB6bLgbSRwMrBVQCxnM/edit?usp=sharing. Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip https://www.instagram.com/normalgossip/, and if you have gossip, email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney (@mckinneykelsey https://www.instagram.com/mckinneykelsey/) and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs https://www.instagram.com/alexlaughs/), Ozzy Llinas Goodman (@ozzy_llinas https://www.instagram.com/ozzy_llinas), and Jae Towle Vieira (@jaetowlevieira https://instagram.com/jaetowlevieira?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==). Abigail Segel (@AbigailSegel https://twitter.com/AbigailSegel) is our intern. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Credits read by Sean Conard. Show art by Tara Jacoby. Normal Gossip is a proud member of Radiotopia https://www.radiotopia.fm/. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Hi and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm Kelsey McKinney and in each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip from the real world. I am so excited to welcome to the show friend of the podcast, Rishi Kesh Hirway. Rishi is a singer and songwriter and the host of Song Exploder, which is an award-winning podcast and Netflix series where he interviews other musicians about how they created one of their songs. Rishi co-hosted the award-winning podcast Home Cooking with chef and previous Normal Gossip guest Samin Nosrat, and he hosts the podcast The West Wing Weekly. Rishi has also composed original scores for film and TV, including the Netflix series Everything Sucks and the video game The Red

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Lantern and the upcoming sci-fi thriller Companion, which comes out in theaters in January. It's a little rude for him to be this talented. Rishi, welcome to the show.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  I'm so excited you're here. How are you feeling?

• 1:02Speaker 01

  I'm feeling a little stressed right away, but excited still.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  I feel like part of my stress is definitely because of the topic of this podcast.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Okay, well, let's talk about it. Tell me what your relationship with gossip is. Why are you feeling stressed about it?

• 1:18Speaker 01

  I think that I've been conditioned to be stressed out by gossip from birth. My family's Indian and my mom had a real sort of what would the community think aspect to, I don't know, the way that she raised my sister and myself.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  You know, just making sure that you don't give any fodder to this sort of vague idea of an outside world so that they might have something bad to say about you. You also don't want to be too showy or look too good because you don't want people to give you the evil eye.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  But you just need to ride a sort of, somewhere in the like the high middle where people will talk about how good you are at school and where you ended up going to college, but not so much that people will, yeah, give you the evil eye and not so badly that people will be like. Did you hear about their daughter?

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Okay, this is so funny because I feel like I was raised in a really similar way. Like, my father was a pastor. I was very aware of like, the way that I was perceived in the world and the way I needed to behave to like, make sure that no one thought I was either bad or too good, right?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  I feel the same about that. But how did gossip play into that? Like, were you told not to gossip?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  You know, I don't even think that the term gossip was really used. It was just the way that people talked about each other. But sometimes that information would be good and sometimes that information would be negative. And I was just deathly afraid of anybody saying any, anything negative about me. In a way that I find, you know, like, I can joke about it a little bit, but I actually think that it had serious, kind of crippling ramifications for me as an adult and for me as like a professional, a creative person.

• 3:11Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, that's something that I imagine is hard, if that is a feeling you had as a child that has continued in your profession, where you are now public and people are like aware of your existence.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and especially, I think, as a musician, as a songwriter, it's really hard. I've only recently kind of come to appreciate how much distance I feel between the world of like punk rock and rock and roll and this kind of like, who cares, you know, middle finger to the air kind of attitude that is, I think, represents so much of what people love about that kind of music

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  and where that music comes from. And to try and take this kind of, I'm just trying to be a good boy in school. Nobody say anything bad about me and turn that into like some kind of musical persona that, that is exciting for people to listen to.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to the show. It's me, your favorite boy. Yeah.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  She.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  How, so there is a difference, right? In people gossiping about you and the fear of gossip at large as something that could affect you and gossiping as an individual, right? Like doing the gossip creation. Do you gossip?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  I try and avoid it, I think, for all of these reasons. You know, like a sort of version of the golden rule and this deathly fear of my own. There's literally only one form of gossip that I believe in, which is when you try and set people up on a blind date.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Like, I think that's

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Match.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  That's when you're talking about somebody. Yeah, matchmaking, exactly. That is the best kind of gossip because you're doing it with the aim of benefiting all the parties involved.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  It's so funny. I feel like you're the second person, we've done how many episodes of the show, right? Like, you're the second person to come in and say, like, I actually am afraid of it and I'm kind of against it. And like, it's kind of like a breath of fresh air to be like, okay, like, it's interesting to have someone sitting here saying like, no, I'm kind of against it, actually. Like, am I here on a podcast called Normal Gossip? Yes, but that's not my business.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. And so I will be quiet for the rest of the episode.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  I'm gonna tell this story in silence.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  People will love it.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Welcome to Kelsey's monologue.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Well, then I feel weird asking you this next question, which is, did you bring a gossip for me?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Well, I was thinking about my love of matchmaking and where that might have come from.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  And there's a very obvious answer, I think, which is that my parents had an arranged marriage.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  And that's kind of, you know, the ultimate blind date.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  You know, they had went on one date and got married.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  The date was the marriage. In a way, they're still on their first date.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. You know, it worked out for them. They were, they were married for 49 years. Like, my mom passed away a few years ago, but they were married for 49 years. They had a wonderful, strange marriage that, uh, that was my certainly like primary understanding of what a family looks like.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But it all started with a with an arranged marriage. And so I love the idea that somebody put them together. You know, like, there's somebody out there who I've never met.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  And I was asking my dad recently to fill in some of the details. Like, I knew that they had been set up. I kind of know the story from when they first met, that like first meeting. But I didn't really know how they got there.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  How did they get there?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And so does this count as a gossip story?

• 6:44Speaker 00

  I'm like, how did they get there?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  So my dad told me recently, his version of this story. There is one person really at the at the center of the marriage. His name is Sri Kishin Bhagade.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  And I'd heard this name Bhagade before, you know? And so I was like, can you tell me about him? Like, who was this person? Was it a whole family? And he said, oh, well, my father, so my grandfather on my dad's side, used to tutor people in math. He was a math teacher, but he used to also do like, you know, tutoring. And and Sri Kishin Bhagade was one of the people that he tutored.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, okay. So so so that's how you met him? He's like, he was my dad's student. And then later, actually, when I was older, when I was in school, he tutored me in math.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Huh.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, that's that's interesting. How come your dad didn't just tutor?

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Good follow up.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  And he said, yeah. He said, oh, well, you know, he was older and I was at this school and it was closer for me to just go to to his house and get tutored by him. And I was like, wow, that's so cool that that this person who your dad tutored then ended up becoming your tutor. And my dad's like, yeah, also, he was he's also, you know, my cousin.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  What?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  What? How is that not the? And so then it turns out it's my, you know, he's my dad's first cousin. He's the the son of my dad's sister. So, yeah, these are the kinds of details that like emerge much later. When my dad went to the US. To get his PhD, he was studying there and he was in grad school. He got permission from his professor, the one who like ran the lab that where he worked. My dad was studying food science.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  He got permission to go back to India for 30 days. And my dad thought he would go and, you know, try and look for a job for, for post graduation.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  So he sent his resume to his family and, and said, like, can you please, you know, just like pass this around and see if there's anybody that is hiring.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Also, uh, if you happen to know of any suitable, you know,

• 9:04Speaker 01

  marriage prospects, I'd also be open to that.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  I love the idea of here's my resume, send it to all potential employers and all my wives.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Meanwhile, my mom, uh, 24 years old, had just finished her master's degree in literature. She went home to her dad's place, her mom and dad's place in a town called Osmanabad. And at that time, Bagadi uncle was working there as an engineer.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  An adult working and he, uh, went with his boss, who was the, I guess, like executive engineer is of the city or some, some kind of something. And my, my mom's dad was a judge. So there was some kind of level of, you know, city official friendship. I don't know. They were having some kind of party or gathering at their house.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And, um, Bagadi uncle went with his boss to my mom's father's house and they were all talking. And, um, and his boss asked, uh, my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, oh, you know, how, how's your family? I, I think I heard your daughter just finished school. How's she doing?

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  My grandfather said, yeah, you know, she's, she's good. He's good. We're trying to find somebody for her. It's been a little tough. My mom was very picky.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  And this was true even then, picky about everything. And, uh, and so they're having a little bit of a hard time finding somebody that wouldn't work. So, um, so then Bagadi uncle and his boss leave the party and right as they're leaving.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  They haven't gone far at all, according to my dad. And then he says to his boss, you know, actually, I know somebody. Maybe I would it be OK? I actually have this cousin, or maybe he called him his former two T.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  And they went back to the house. And I was like, oh, the next day he's like, oh, no, no, no. They hadn't really gone far yet, so they just turned back around. So same day, same night, they turn back around and go back in and say, actually, we know somebody he's, you know, comes from a good family. He's a nice, nice guy. He's coming back to the US in a couple of weeks or whenever it was going to be, you know, soon. He was coming, coming back to the US.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  And, and so then, then my grandfather, the next day, like went on, you know, like a pre Google deep dive of my dad and like tried to do all the research that he could about the Here way family and.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Oh, my.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  And then they, they, they met my dad at the Bugatti's house. When he came to visit, that was sort of like neutral territory, I guess.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  This man is an icon, like to, to leave a party and then be like, you know what? Actually, I have a resume in my pocket from my former two T slash cousin that I think is perfect for this is like a matchmaker.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Right. It's like, yeah, I have a resume slash dating profile right here.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it worked, even though your mom was picky.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they met my dad at the Bugatti house and, and so my dad was in, you know, in, in India for 30 days. By the end of those 30 days, they were married.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  That's wild. How long was it between meeting and actual?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  I couldn't, I couldn't get that information, but we've got less than three weeks to work with.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  It's so nice that your parents found love and that it worked for them.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  High stakes first date, but gossip was a necessary component to this whole thing happening.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Uh oh, Alex is typing. Who knows what this could be? Wow. She says that she's hearing that Rishi owes his life to gossip and in a way, in a way.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. It's, I think that can't be denied.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Wow, that was beautiful. Thank you for bringing me that, Rishi. I loved it. I love love. I love family. I also think a little bit of a nice continuity to the gossip that I had to tell you.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I'm scared, but I'm ready.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  We've been cooking up a fun, special holiday project for y'all over here at Normal Gossip. And usually when work gets crazy, I kind of just try to continue my life like nothing's happening. But recently, thanks to therapy, this time around, I was like, what if I did not try to pour from an empty cup? And that is what growing feels like. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, then I think you should check out today's sponsor, Growth Therapy. Growth Therapy is built for therapy that actually feels like care. You can find therapy based on what matters most to you, like insurance taken, mental health specialties, identity, or night and weekend availability if you're working a lot.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Book your first session in minutes and you can start in as little as two days. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on your insurance plan. Prepare for holiday glimmers instead of holiday stress. Visit growtherapy.com/gossip to get started today. That is growtherapy.com/gossip. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  I'm gonna admit something embarrassing. I know, shocker. I have not had a bedside lamp for an undisclosed amount of months, long enough that I basically haven't read before bed for a really long time. And I only realized this because I'm hosting a friend and I was like, wow, they deserve to have a light by their bed at night. I don't. But this finally inspired me to find the perfect bedside lamp. And I had a vision in mind, Wayfair. They had exactly what I need, which is one of those library-style lights with like the green lampshade and little pull cord. I have been having this image in my mind of having one. And now I have one because of course Wayfair had it.

• 15:34Speaker 02

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• 16:36Speaker 00

  Our friend of a friend today, we're gonna call her Allegra.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  And Allegra is from a huge Catholic family from a big city in the middle of the country. And this is the kind of family with like stories, right? Like stories about uncles who did god knows what, great-grandfathers who immigrated with suitcases full of cheese, great-great ancestors who had feuds that like lasted generations, the kind of stories that get passed down and down and down forever.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Epic.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  The story I'm gonna tell you is about like one story, basically, that Allegra heard when she was in high school and that she thinks about constantly.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  To tell this story, we have to do some genealogy, you and me, to make sure that we understand the family tree.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  All right. Can I take notes?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yes, you can.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Taking notes.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Okay. So our main girl is Allegra. Okay. And we're gonna be dealing with Allegra's grandfather's family.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Which is giant. I'm gonna walk you through it. Okay, so Allegra is like the bottom of the tree.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I've already put her in the wrong place.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Exactly. And above her is Allegra's mom. The level above that is what I'm gonna call the grand level.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  And this is the level where most of our drama is gonna take place.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Great.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  So Allegra's mom's dad, her grandfather, his name is Enzo.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  And Enzo is the youngest of 11 kids.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  You do not need to know all of them because that's too many people. You only need to know two other people on this level. The first one is Aunt Julia and the second is Aunt Maria.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Okay, and then the final level of our tree is like the great grandparents, the original matriarch and patriarch of this family.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Okay, got it.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  So Allegra heard this most important legend in her family when she was in high school, which was like a little more than a decade ago. And at this point, Grand Aunt Maria and Grand Aunt Julia were in their like early 80s.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Grand Aunt Maria is a character. We're talking like always in a fur coat, always in pearls, always in skintight leggings.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Going out to the grocery store, fur coat.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Exactly. Where did her long dead husband's money come from? Don't ask that question. I didn't say anything about that.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  That's a different episode.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  That's not our business. Okay, so Grand Aunt Maria lives in this giant house. Like sweeping staircase with a metal railing, a driveway that's a whole loop, like a big bathtub that can fit a whole adult. Like there's a fountain somewhere.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  And she lives there with her sister Grand Aunt Julia.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  You like it when sisters are friends?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  I like it that she has all of this luxury around her and she shares it with her family.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. Grand Aunt Julia's whole thing is that she is the most dramatic woman to ever live.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Like something gets spilled, she's crying. She hears a couple fighting, she assumes they're getting a divorce. Right? Like she has to do laundry. It's the worst day of her life.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The sensitivity level is turned all the way up.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Okay, so in high school, Allegra goes over and her grand aunts tell her this story, which I will now tell you.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Great grandma matriarch had 10 beautiful children. Her youngest was six years old when she decided she wanted one more child. An 11th child.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  That's just exhausting to think about. It's exhausting just to hear.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  It's so many children.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I don't know that I've ever had 11 of anything. I have four plates.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Four plates. So she tries to have this 11th child for two years and does not become pregnant. And this is like very hard, right? During this time, she goes on a business trip with great grandpa patriarch to San Diego.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Great.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  And even though she was a Catholic woman, she was like so stressed and having such a hard time that she said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna see a psychic.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  P S A N D A. Yeah, that makes sense because when you're traveling, you can do things that you wouldn't normally otherwise do.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  You think it makes sense to see a psychic in San Diego? This is something that is reasonable to you.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Did I eat seven desserts when I was in London in two days? Yes, different rules.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're on vacation. So she goes to see the psychic in San Diego and the psychic gives her three predictions. The predictions are she needs to move apartments.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Okay, is that a prediction or just advice?

• 21:06Speaker 00

  Unclear. The second is that she would be pregnant by the end of the year.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  And the third is that her eldest son, who was engaged at the time, must wait to get married until the baby was born.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  And what's the age difference here between like, how old is the eldest son at this point?

• 21:23Speaker 00

  At least 20.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Man, well, the whole thing stresses me out again, just to think about my own upbringing. Because my mom, when I was a baby, she was.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  At somebody's house and there was another person visiting there and that person was like, oh, you just had a baby. Do you want me to do their astrological chart? Because astrology is really big in India.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Right?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  And I think my mom was like, yeah, sure. So in any case, this woman did this whole astrological thing where

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Reading.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, a reading and like told my mom all this stuff about my life.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And my mom, and I don't know how old I was when my mom told me, first told me this story. I think a teenager or something like that, but my mom started to tell me this and I was like, I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me anything that she said at all. Please never talk to me about this. I have no interest in this. In fact, I have like an active interest in never hearing this again.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Wow. This is, you have never been farther. So you've never seen a psychic?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  I have never seen a psychic. It's true. And you know what else? I don't watch trailers for movies.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  As with movies, as in life, I will experience it when the time comes.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  It's not your business what's gonna happen in the future.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. No, my business is right now. Does this feel like it relates to the gossip thing?

• 22:52Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I don't want the people at the beginning of the movie to be telling me about the movie behind the movie's back.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I, I wait outside.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  The movie did not.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  No, I, I wait outside until the trailers are over and then I go sit down. Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Rishi, like, do you have someone in there to text you or are you?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Well, now, you know, you can, you can buy your seats ahead of time, which was such a gift for me.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  So, yeah. I, I will just, yeah, hang out and then, you know, I like sort of poke my head in. And now there are all these long kind of featurettes between the trailers and the thing where you have Nicole Kidman saying, you know, heartbreak feels good in a place like this. And so that's my cue to go sit down.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  I love this. So psychic, not for you. The future, not for you.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  You reject it. Unfortunately, we have heard from a psychic already in this story.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  I've read enough Greek mythology. I don't trust prophecies.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  That is smart. I think it's very smart to not trust a prophecy. Okay, so her great grandmother, matriarch, receives this prophecy, these three predictions. She returns home from San Diego and she's like, it's time to get to work. It's time to put these predictions into action. She immediately finds her family a new, like, bigger place to live.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  They move.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  She really trusted this psychic.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Sure enough, by the end of the year, she was pregnant.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  And this is important. She was 48 years old.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  So that baby became Enzo, the grandpa. So grandpa's whole life, he was like spoiled, beautiful, miracle baby.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  But wait, but what about the third prediction? Did they follow that last one?

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Good question. So because the first two predictions came true, great grandmother matriarch was like, well, we are absolutely following this third prediction because safety first, like, we don't want to offend the psychic.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  And so the eldest son did postpone his wedding until after the baby was born.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  This is the family legend. Do you like it? What do you think?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's stressful, but I think I, the reason why I don't want to hear about the future and I don't want to hear about prophecies is because they scare me too much.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  It sounds like my life is really ruled by fear and maybe I guess it is.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  I'm just coming to, I'm learning this about my life.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  But I, because I think I respect them too much, you know, I'm too scared of the idea of like, if this is what is supposed to happen and you try and either thwart it, are you going to head into disaster? Or are you going to somehow find yourself fulfilling the thing that you're trying to avoid?

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I also think in a, in a family like this, right? Like, because the psychic was right, this becomes lore.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Right? Like, were the psychic wrong? We would have never heard this story and it would have disappeared forever.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Right?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  So this is a story Allegra hears from her grand aunts. She loves it. She ends up going to college in California and she's like seeing psychics constantly, like going down to San Diego to see psychics. Because she's like, maybe I can find one that will give me the same kind of guidance, but never any luck.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Like never, never got a psychic that gave her anything good? Or just nothing that came true? Or just simply wasn't able to find a psychic?

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Just like never got this kind of psychic that would be like, here are things you should do. Everyone was going vague mode.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You will meet a mysterious stranger.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. You will find fulfillment in your life. You will find a career that you like. It's like bomb, perfect how.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Okay. You had to hear this whole story because it is important to our main drama, which takes place like 10 years after Allegra graduated from college.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Wow, this is an epic story. So we, we're spanning, this must be close to a century.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  And importantly, in that 10 years, because the grand generation was all very old, most of them have died.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Aunt Grand Maria has died. Grandpa Enzo has died. Like a bunch of people in the generations above her have died.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  No weird prophecy related tragedies.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  No prophecy related tragedies. And what our story is concerned with is the death of Aunt Julia.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  The most dramatic woman to ever live. Because Aunt Julia is the last one of that grand generation to die. She died at a glorious age of 99 years old.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  And were she and Allegra close?

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Yes, like Allegra would go over to her house in Gab. Like she had a very good relationship with Allegra's mom. Like they were close in a way that like families who are big and live in the same city can be.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  I, I wish I had that. I want to have, I mean, I, I really love my aunts and I, and I really enjoy spending time with them. And I'd love, like when we do all hang out, that is my information gathering period. You know, my sister and I will just be like, tell us about this and tell us about that. But, but none of our aunts or uncles live anywhere close to us. Most of them for most of our life, you know, they didn't live in this country. So that sounds really nice.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  I think you like gossip so much.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  Seeing your aunts and being like, what were you doing in 1985?

• 28:11Speaker 00

  Okay, it's winter when Grand Aunt Julia dies. It is cold. Everyone is sad, but they are also like, we loved our Grand Aunt Julia. She lived to 99 years old. She had this great, full life.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Did she continue to live in Maria's house?

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Yes. She dies in Grand Aunt Maria's giant spiral staircase home, which is beautiful in a way. Everyone's doing the stuff that happens after someone's died, right? Like, they're telling stories, they're showing photos of them when they were 25 and being like, "Look how hot she was," right? Like, that whole rigmarole. And one day Allegra's mom is like, "Hey, will you go with me to do, like, the funeral arrangements?"

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  And this is a family that, like, knows how to throw a funeral because there were 11 grand generation people, and almost all of those people got married and had kids, right? So they know how to throw a funeral.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  So Allegra goes with her mom, and she helps her pick a coffin, helps her pick flowers, helps her do the obituary, all the normal stuff. They go to the funeral place, and the man at the funeral place is like, "I'm so sorry for your loss." And they're like, "Thank you so much."

• 29:15Speaker 00

  And they're like, "It's okay, you know, like, she lived such a long life. She was almost 100 years old." And the man is like, "What?"

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Huh?

• 29:25Speaker 00

  And they're like, "What do you mean, what?"

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  And he's like, "Uh, well, that, that is gonna be a problem."

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Okay, what?

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're like, "What's gonna be a problem, man? Like, what do you mean?" And he's like, "Well, the problem is, according to the government records that we have, she was about to turn 94."

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  Which is much younger than 100.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  You know, I don't actually know how old my dad is.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Mysteries abound.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he might be one year older than, or younger than what he is because, uh, sometimes in India, they would just send kids off to school to just, like, get them out the house and go, you know, because he's one of seven kids. And, um, and so I think they, there's a chance that they might have said that he was a year older than he was. So that he could start school and now nobody has any way of verifying. So I like this very much.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Incredible. The thing is, no one in this family knew that this was a controversy. Right? Like, they all were like, Grand Aunt Julia is almost 100. And now they have this man in the funeral parlor being like, mm, I don't think so. So Allegra and her mom are like, okay, whatever. Like, we don't care that your government records say 94 and.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Right. At this point, it's moot.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Like, whatever.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  She's dead. And the man is like, not whatever. The government documents say one thing and you're saying another. And there are like logistical rules about dying. And we cannot finalize her death certificate until we know how old she was. And Allegra's mom is like, I don't care. This does not matter to me. I want this over with. And the man is like, I'm so sorry. That's not how this works. You have to get a birth certificate.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. You can't just be like, yeah, fine. You're the government. Okay, fine. We'll go with 94.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  No, you cannot, or at least they weren't allowed to. But the problem is, they don't know how old she was, right? Like, she's dead. Her parents are long dead. Her siblings are all dead. So there's no one to be like, when is your sister's birthday?

• 31:40Speaker 00

  So they're like fumbling around in the dark, right? They're like, can we order a new birth certificate for this dead woman? Who was either 99 or 93? It's unclear.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  And because this is a big family and things are moving and a funeral is planned, they are on a time crunch. People are coming from out of town and it takes time to get a birth certificate for someone that old. What do you do here?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I mean, do they know where she was born?

• 32:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, they know where she was born.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  You know, even without the actual birth certificate, maybe there's other kinds of records that you can access, like at a hospital or something like that, if you know the hospital.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Great idea. Everyone in this family is like, we're looking for evidence now. Like, we are going through the hundreds of drawers in Grand Aunt Maria's house that haven't been opened in decades. And we are looking for anything that is like an official document.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Right. High school graduation.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Exactly. They're finding scrapbooks from a million years ago and folders and like tons of receipts that Grand Aunt Maria just like kept in bags for some reason. And they come up with two pieces of evidence. One is a scrapbook with like a picture of baby grand aunt Julia that has the date of her birth written, making her 99 years old.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  The other is a tattered piece of paper that's like 70 years old with the names of everyone in the family in cursive and their brand new social security number and their ages. And this puts grand aunt Julia as younger.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  So you have two conflicting documents.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  And both of them are handwritten.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  And both of them are handwritten.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  That's, uh, this is juicy.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Do you know anything about the history of social security numbers?

• 33:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Okay, great. I'm gonna tell you because I looked it up.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  Social security numbers were introduced by the Social Security Act in 1935. They began in earnest in November of 1936 with FDR's New Deal. And what we did as a country, I guess, was we converted a thousand post offices into typing centers and then they just like made cards and shipped them to Washington. So that means that everyone who was born before 1936 did not have a social security number, right? Someone was like coming to your house and being like, who lives here? What's their name? How old are they? Writing that down on a piece of paper and then getting you a card with a number on it. So the document that they have in the house is this document that is like from the family's social security numbers being assigned.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 34:15Speaker 00

  What? You're like scratching.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, like the way names are changed at Ellis Island, you know, just the way that like one person who might've been sleepy, one social security, newly minted social security worker might've not had their coffee that morning and, uh, the way a four might look. I'm just thinking about all the ways that things could go wrong with the system.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  Yes, and there are like a couple of real problems with this document, right? Like people's names are spelled wrong. Like the handwriting is borderline illegible.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Grandpa Enzo's quote, "middle name" is just the letter D. And sure enough, Julia's age is five years younger than the family thought it should've been.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Here's a question I have for you. If some guy... Came to the door and he was like, what's your name? And your birthday and your age? Is it possible she just lied?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I don't think that, that especially at that time, it would be lying about a child's age. In my imagination of this, um, it's the, the grand matriarch. And she's giving the information and you know, like a proud mom might say, these are my children and these are their ages. And you would just tell the truth. You would just say, yeah, I have these 11 kids and here's how old they are.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  So I'm thinking about this as if I answered the door and I'm like, I'm 33 years old.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  It's about your own age.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm like, if a government officer asks me my age, one, I might forget, right? I might get it wrong. Who's to say? And two, the temptation to be like, I'm 28 is certainly there.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  But then would you, would you not think of that as your escape route? Yeah, like, like to be like, hey, look, government document backs this up. I'm only 28.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, then you should change your age for everyone.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  But then she continued to say 99. So I don't think the error lies on the family's part.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Okay, I love this read. Everyone in the family in present day, like post Aunt Julia's death is like, mystery solved, somebody wrote down the age wrong. Maybe she lied.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter, right? Like they're like, we have a document that says she's 93, which is what the government thinks she is. That's fine. We accept this false narrative.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  We'll get her buried.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Priorities.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  But at this point, Allegra's own mother is like, huh? I just like, really thought there was going to be a bigger reveal here.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Hmm, why?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, everyone's like, why would you think that? And Allegra's mother is like, well, right before Grand Aunt Julia died, she said something to me. And everyone's like, what did she say? And she's like, well, she told me that her whole life was a lie.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  What? Way to bury the lead, honey.

• 37:13Speaker 03

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• 37:53Speaker 00

  What do you do with this information?

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, how do you hit pause to be like, I need a lot more than that.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Everyone in this family is like, did you ask her follow up questions? Like, what else did she say? And Allegra's mom is like, to be honest, I just assumed she was being dramatic.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Oh, fair.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  Which is a possibility, right? Because like Grand Aunt Julia was the most dramatic woman who ever lived. And so she could have just been saying this because she like learned that someone was a fake blonde.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  What's your instinct here? Do you think it's just dramatique?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  I, oh, I feel like a bad relative.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  But yes, I think that she's just being dramatic. From everything that I know, my whole, the whole, all the time that I've spent with Aunt Julia, I feel like she's an unreliable narrator. When it comes to statements like these.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  She certainly is. I think that's a great read. Everyone in the family is like, whatever, right? Like, this is becoming a whole thing. The funeral needs to continue. So they like go to the funeral guy. They're like, so sorry, our bad. We were confused. We accept whatever the date the government has. Here's this document they have. Like, is this a lie? Yes, whatever.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  He's like, great. Things are being sorted. Like, sure, the date on her headstone is going to be wrong, but whatever. They're like, it's probably what Grand Aunt Julia would have wanted anyway.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, Kelsey, I just remembered. The seed that you have planted however many minutes ago, now I'm full of dramatic tension.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  In the lead up to the funeral, TikTok releases a new filter.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Despite the compliment I just gave to your storytelling technique.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Worst transition ever.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  We're going somewhere. That filter is a filter.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  So much.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Go ahead. Get it out.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  So much disrespect on Julianne, her funeral. I'm so sorry. Pause on your dramatic lie of a life and your impending funerial rites. TikTok just dropped a new filter.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, and that filter, this is going to connect, I promise. That filter is the filter that makes you look old. Do you remember this?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  I'm not on TikTok yet. Maybe I will be someday, but, but I remember that people were posting all these aged up pictures of themselves.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah. Allegra puts this filter on her beautiful 30 something face and it's like a jump scare. Right? And she's like, oh, my God, okay, I need more retinol. I need sunscreen. I gotta take care of myself. But she's also like, wait a second. I look exactly like Granddaddy Julia.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay. I mean, could be, could be fine. Sometimes familial relation, you know, whatever. There's, yeah, who knows? Sure.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Genetics can be weird, right? Like, I look like my dad's sister.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  For example, that's weird. So she has this picture of herself that looks exactly like Granddaddy Julia. She takes a screenshot and she sends it to the family chat. And everyone's like, oh, my God, that's crazy. You look just like her. That's so cute, right? Because it's like, oh, adorable. And then suddenly Allegra is looking around at everyone in her immediate family. And she's like. We all kind of look like Grand Aunt Julia. Like, we all have her eyebrows and her hair. And we love to be dramatic. Do you have any thoughts on this? You think she's reaching?

• 41:35Speaker 01

  I mean, again, genetics are weird. I'm, uh, I'm not on board with any conspiracy theory yet, yet.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  Allegra is like, ready to pull out the like red string.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  Right? Like, she's ready. She's on a mission. She's like-

• 41:50Speaker 01

  But what, what's her theory?

• 41:51Speaker 00

  Okay, she's like, okay, my whole life is a lie. Right? 93 or 99? And then she's like, wait a second. The legend.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  The legend.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  Do you remember the legend of the psychic that I told you up top?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Yes, they said to move houses.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Uh, you were gonna be pregnant by the end of the year.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And, um, your eldest son needed to postpone his wedding until after the baby was born.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Bingo. Okay, wow, great memory. Incredible. Allegra is like, thinking about this legend. And she is like, the part of it that just like never made sense to me is like, why he moved the wedding?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  She's like, why would that wedding need to be moved? She's like, sure, the mom saw a psychic and the psychic told her to. But like, it's a baby. Like, what does that matter? You're a mother of 10. Like, it's not scandalous to be pregnant with your 11th child at your son's wedding. Like, even if you're older.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  And then she's like, wait a second. She's like, she was like so much older when she had Grandpa Enzo. Like, her 10th kid was born a full eight years before Allegra's grandfather.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Forty-eight years old, yes, right.

• 43:07Speaker 00

  And suddenly, she's like, how old was Aunt Julia when Grandpa was born?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Okay. Wow.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Allegra is like, I'm going straight to my mom. Right? She goes straight to her mom. She's like, how old was Aunt Julia when Grandpa was born? And her mom is like, ha, ha, who's asking? Because famously, she has two ages. And Allegra's like, Mom, not now. Like, how old was she? And her mom is like, well, 20. She was 20 years old. Why? And Allegra's like, and she wasn't married, right? And her mom is like, yeah, she was never married. And Allegra's like, okay, hear me out. What if Aunt Julia got pregnant out of wedlock at 20 years old? And had a secret pregnancy and a secret baby? And that secret baby was miracle baby Enzo, your father.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  And what, what did the mom say? She's never considered this possibility.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  The mom is like, what, like, where is this coming from? But Allegra is like on a roll, right? She's like, and great grandma matriarch lied to cover for her so that her reputation wouldn't be ruined.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Now the two of them are cooking. The mom's like, oh my God, the my whole life is a lie thing. It all makes sense, right? She's like, my aunt always doted on me more than my other cousins. She's like, this is nuts. She's reeling. Allegra's like, yeah, I was always closer to Aunt Julia than all my other cousins. Like, what does it mean? They're like, this would make the wedding move make sense because it would be scandalous to have a pregnant Julia at the wedding.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  At the wedding, right.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Or scandalous if she wasn't at the wedding.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Wow, okay, but I'm still a little bit unsure how this plays into the age change.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Allegra is like, well, she could be lying about her age because if she's five years younger, she couldn't be her brother's mother.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, she could be, but, but certainly it would be then it's a different kind of story. Yeah.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  She's like, it all makes sense.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, even if she's not the one doing the lying, like, this is a conspiracy between her and her mom. So there's a concerted narrative that they're presenting. And so regardless of who's answering the door for the social security person, they could say, here's the story that we're telling and we're sticking to it.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  Are you buying this? Do you think that this ties up all the parts of the legend?

• 45:27Speaker 01

  I, I do buy it. Yeah, I, I buy it. And my heart breaks for everybody. For the lying, for, for Julia never being able to be the mom to her son. For Allegra never to get to relate to her as her great grandmother. It feels very tragic to me.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  To lessen the tragic a little bit. The nice thing is that this is a very close family where like they were close.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Everyone was close. So it's like, it wasn't that she was like disconnected from her family. It was just that everyone was doing a lie at the grand level.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Wow. A nice pun there.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Okay, there's one piece of the family legend that Allegra's like, this doesn't make sense. Allegra's like, why tell them to move apartments?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  So Allegra's like, okay, I'm convinced now that like, she was pregnant, that grandma lied, that they moved the wedding to hide her pregnancy.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Is San Diego even a place?

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Right. She's like, is the legend even real? She's like, and why move? And this piece like grates on her.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Right? Like she's not sleeping in the lead up to this funeral because she's like, why would they move? Like, why would the psychic tell them to move?

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  The funeral comes. It is like both a joy and a pain to celebrate the life of Julia, who was either Allegra's great aunt or great grandmother.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Speaker 00

  But like, when you loved someone, it doesn't really matter exactly what their relationship was to you, right? So she was like, I have all these beautiful memories with her. I loved her so much. I will miss her. Great thing about funerals is it's also a time to like riff with people that you love about the person who has died. Right?

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  So they're riffing. Allegra's chatting it up with one of her mom's like random brothers and she's telling him all about this situation. Right? She's like walking him through. She's like, I think the legend is wrong. I think da, da, da, da, da, da. And drama famously is one of this family's most dominant traits. So he's like locked in.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  And suddenly this guy is like, oh, you know, there's another weird, like funny thing here. And Allegra's like, great, gimme, I'm looking for evidence.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  And this guy's like, your grandpa had a weird middle name.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Oh, the letter D?

• 47:30Speaker 00

  And Allegra's like, the letter D? Exactly. And this guy's like, yeah, I think it was for Diego.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  This is a strange middle name for this man to have, right? Like this is a family of Donnies and Dinos and Marcos and that type of name.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Good old Italian name.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  And Diego is like just off enough.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  And Allegra is like San Diego? Like he was named after the psychic city?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  And her uncle casually is like, oh no, I don't think he was named after the city. I think he was named after the neighbor boy. And Allegra's like, what? And he's like, oh yeah, like when your granddads were growing up, there was a family next door and the kids were like the same age and the oldest was named Diego.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Wow, that's, that's a real clue. That's more than a clue.

• 48:24Speaker 00

  Drama.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Allegra's like, oh my God, that's why they had to move.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Grand Aunt Julia got knocked up by the neighbor boy.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  I forgot about the moving part. I was so excited about the discovery of Diego. They had to keep them apart. For me, then you, you, you have to track down Diego, right? Does she try and find out who Diego is?

• 48:52Speaker 00

  The first thing she does is like run around and tell everyone, right? She's like, she's like, oh my God, guys, guys, guys, I've like figured it out.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  And a bunch of the people who like knew the grand generation really well are like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. Like he was always around.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Like he like loved your grandfather, like he was kind of like an uncle to a lot of us. Like, that's crazy.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Well, he sounds great. Why would they have to move away?

• 49:17Speaker 00

  I don't know, unfortunately. We are at the end of this story. How do you feel? Whose side are you on?

• 49:24Speaker 01

  First of all, I was riveted. I would absolutely watch this like prestige drama.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  You know, I, I'm imagining the period piece costumes and oh, it's just great. It was, thank you so much for, for letting me hear this story because I loved it.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Great, wow.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  So exciting. I'd please bring me back for the sequel when we find Diego.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  When we get more information.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  I need to complete my red string board here of genealogy and.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know it's infuriating. Do you feel like you can take a side in this story?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm on the side of the truth.

• 50:07Speaker 04

  And I don't care who I have to go through to get it.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  I do like that you're like, knowing about the future, not my business. I reject it. Knowing about the past, I must know.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah. Because those are facts.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  I do have like, one very final update for you.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 50:23Speaker 00

  Which is that like, ultimately, there is no way to know if she lied. Like, everyone who would have known the truth took it to their grave with them.

• 50:31Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  But someone did find a photo of Diego in one of the family albums, and he looked exactly like grandpa.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Wow. Oh, beautiful. End of tragedy. I mean, just poor Diego and Julia.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Star-crossed lovers.

• 50:47Speaker 04

  But I also love a tragedy, so.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Rishi, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a delight to have you.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for having me. This was really an epic saga. And, um, and, and thanks for, you know, therapizing me a little bit about my relationship with.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at [email protected], or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 gossip. If you love this podcast and want to support us, become a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Normal Gossip. You can follow Kelsey on all social media at @McKinneyKelsey. This podcast was produced by Alex Su-John Laughlin, Ozzy Linus Goodman, and Jay Toal Viera. Justin Ellis is Defector's projects editor. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector's business guys. Alex Su-John Loughlin is Defector's supervising producer. Tom Lay is our editor in chief.

• 52:02Speaker 04

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• 52:59Speaker 04

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