December 22, 2022 • 55 mins
In 1525, the Archbishop of Glasgow placed a curse on the Elliott family. Now, 500 years later, one very unlucky branch of the Elliotts wants it lifted.
Credits
Heavyweight is hosted and produced by Jonathan Goldstein.
This episode was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane, and Mohini Madgavkar. The senior producer is Kalila Holt.
Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Blumberg, Valentina Powers, Max Green, Damiano Marchetti, and Jackie Cohen.
The show was mixed by Bobby Lord.
Music by Christine Fellows, John K Samson, Michael Hearst, Blue Dot Sessions, Sean Jacobi, Gideon Freudmann, Hew Time, Jaybird Blonde, Roma, and Bobby Lord. Our theme song is by The Weakerthans courtesy of Epitaph Records.
Dillon Elliott has been volunteering for a suicide-prevention organization, Samaritans, for years. To find out more about their important work, visit www.samaritans.org
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
What I'm trying to remember. Do you have any celebrity
impressions that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Didn't you used to do celindio?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
No, I used to.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Do that the theme song to the Titanic.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
No, that was Karen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Karen used to.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Sing that song.
Speaker 6 (00:19):
Karen does sing that song.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Does she have a nice voice?
Speaker 7 (00:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Because guess who I have on the other line. Karen?
Did that scare you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Did it give me a little nervous?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Did it not make you feel alive?
Speaker 8 (00:36):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (00:38):
Get a little scared?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A little scared.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Yeah, she doesn't have a nice voice.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I mean she can wait.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
A second, She's back on the line. It's Karen. Oh, Jackie,
how could you say that about my singing? From Gimblet Media,
I'm Jonathan Gold and this is Heavyweight Today's episode the Elliots.
(01:11):
Right after the break, I get a lot of emails
from people looking for help, but Dylan's stood out. Dear Jonathan,
It read I have a big one for you, the
heaviest weight yet. Dylan's email was over the top clickbaity
(01:34):
even Hi Dylan, how are you?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Jonathan?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
But who among us is inured to the lure of clickbait?
Dylan Elliott lives in Dublin and the story he tells
me you'll have to hear to believe. Dylan says that
when he and his family get together, their favorite thing
to do is share stories of their misfortune, mysterious ailments
(02:00):
and plumbing disasters, near drownings, and dental procedures gone terribly awry.
They always come away from these sessions wondering the same thing,
how can one family have so much bad luck?
Speaker 5 (02:13):
So a few years ago, mostly large family gathering.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Dylan says that at a recent family wedding, he and
his brothers were going around the table enumerting their woes
as usual wrong in their lives, when their father suddenly
interrupted them.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
And then my dad came out and said, well, they
don't know about the curse, the Elliot curse.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Dylan and his brothers looked at each other. What elliot curse?
They'd never heard of such a thing, And so their
father offered what would prove to be a unifying theory
of their terrible luck. He began at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
The very beginning is fifteen twenty five.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
About five hundred years ago, Scotland and England were at
war over the territory along their border. The people who
lived along these borderlands were hardest head.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
And so they were left in this nomadic position where
the only living they could make was by going back
and forth across the border and thieving.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Thieving, in pillaging, in maiming, as well as murdering.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
What they had to be as a culture was extremely
friendly but also really murdery, because like, if you've got
to be in moving from area to area, you had
to be very open to people because there could be
trades going on, but if they wrong you, you've got
to kill them immediately.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And these people, these friendly, murdery people who lived along
the border were called border reavers. You say reavers, Yeah, reavers?
What are those?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
It's kind of like the exact opposite of a weaver.
So weavers makes clothes. Reavers were kind of like murderers.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Wait, weavers make clothes, but revers are murderers. Yes, which
technically isn't the opposite of making clothes.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
It's quite far away, though, in fairness.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It is it is. But probably the opposite of making
clothes would be like maybe ripping.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Up clothes and stealing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I guess, yeah, again, not necessarily the opposite, but I
get it. Yeah, it's the other end of the spectrum. Sorry,
thank you. That's the opposite of a curse, by the way.
To bring it back to opposites, Dylan says there were
a number of Reaver family clans, but one of the biggest,
(04:35):
most notorious, least weavery, and most murdery of all were
the Elliots. And that's you. You're You're Dylan Elliot.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
In fifteen twenty five, the then Archbishop of Glasgow, desperate
to deter the Reavers, placed a curse on them, the
aforementioned Elliot curse. I should read the cris to you please.
I curse their heads and all the hairs of their head.
I cursed their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose,
(05:07):
their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast,
their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms,
their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of
their body from the top of their head to the
soles of their feet, before and behind within them without
as a jew raised on Yiddish curses, my bubb is,
(05:30):
may you hang upside down like a chandelier, most often
levied against my grandfather for losing the TV remote. Was
about as bad as I got it sounds worse than Yiddish,
but still it's nothing compared to this curse.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
I cursed them going, and I curssed them writing. I
curst them standing, and I cursed them sitting. Curse.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
This curse reads like a children's book written by a
serial killer. I would curse them here or there, I
would curse them anywhere.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
I curse them within the house, I cursed them outside
of the house. I cursed them at home. I cursed
them away from home. I cursed them rising, their cattle,
their wool, their sheep, their barnyards, their cowsheds, their cabbage patches,
even their cabbage patches, their horses.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And it's not just the Reavers themselves that the Archbishop damns,
but anyone remotely associated with them.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I forbid all Christian men and women to have any
company with them, eating, drinking, speaking, crying, lying, going, standing
under the pain of deadly sin.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And just when you think there's nothing left, a curse, okay.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Made the thunder and lightning which rain down upon someone.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
For a full three minutes, Dylan continues on with wildfires
and dyspepsia, pestilence, and plagues, until finally I.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Condemned them perpetually to the deep pit of hell, there
to remain with Lucifer and all his fellows, then ripped
and torn by dogs until late forbear They're and sins
and make satisfaction at Bennett's.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, that's a curse. Back at the family wedding, seated
around the table, Dylan says he remembers that when his
dad was done reciting excerpts from the curse, he was
met with stunned silence.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
You almost expect people to laugh when hear curs. Liked that,
but there wasn't really a laugh. The reaction in the
room with this kind of aha moment reference like this
makes total sense. This explains why so many weird things
of mont Our family.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Weird and also weirdly specific to the curse. Dylan tells
me about the soles of his feet he was born
flat footed, and his tongue he was born tongue tied,
and regarding the I curse you away from home part
of the curse.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
Pick up mugged three days in a row in Paris,
Oh my, And each morning I went out and I
bought the slightly shittier phone than I had previously, until
eventually I had a phone, which is like an old
person's phone with giant buttons on it, and I got
mugged for that one as well. So I got mugged
three days in a row in Paris.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Like three separate occasions by three separate muggers.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Yeah, three separate muggers, three nights in a row.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Doesn't that's insane? Like I think the other I was
trying to work it out. I think the odds of
getting mugged in a given year are zero point three percent,
So what of the odds are getting mugged three days
in a row. It's like getting struck by lightning. I'm
winning the lottery at the same time or something.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And Dylan says it's not just him. He tells me
about his brother, a talented gardener who can grow anything
except cabbages.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
The one thing that's mentioned in the Curse. The curse
says I cursed their cabbage patches, and he can't grow cabbages.
He can't grow brascas at all.
Speaker 10 (08:53):
I've been pretty successful growing all different types of vegetables.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This is Dylan's younger brother, Rory Elliott.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
But like the cab in particular, like always seemed to
be afflicted by some kind of like mold or fungus.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Then there's Rory's feet.
Speaker 10 (09:09):
My mum always said that my feet were like out
of a Buzzet's pretty much Talon's.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, and his eyes.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
I tore my cornea.
Speaker 10 (09:16):
I had to wear an eyepatch. And mouth I've had
so many mouth sulcters. I'm just being worried that it's
like the cur is trying to stop me. Talk to
you guys.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Rory is a scientist, so he knows that believing in
curses is crazy, but he also knows the value of
hard data and the evidence is semi undeniable, Like how
the archbishop curses them going and curses them riding.
Speaker 10 (09:42):
I see them that he had riding horses, but I
guess it covers bicycles.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Okay, what has happened?
Speaker 10 (09:48):
Like, for instance, one time I was cycling to get
some seaweed to put on my crops because they weren't.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Doing very well, his crops being the cabbages. He was
getting seaweed for his cabbages.
Speaker 11 (10:02):
And there was an iron bar in the ground and
then I ended up going like head over the handlebars
on like flying headfirst into a dog food factory.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Sorry, did you say you you flew into a dog
food what a.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Dog food factory?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah? Okay, broke my raist, I broke.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
My arm, need a lot of sticks. That was fairly cursed.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Logical level not superstious at all, but I am a
little bit superstious.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
This is Dylan's other brother, Tim Elliott. Tim is waiting
to receive funding for his pH d in history. In
the meantime, I'm.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
A sort of.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Just a freelanced person.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What do you freelance at?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Oh, not really much.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
If Dylan is rather ere like and Rory is something
of a negative nelly, then Tim is like Charlie Brown.
If Charlie Brown were looking for PhD funding.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I'm given the curse, well, I mean, who would have
much hope for that?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Like his brothers, Tim lists off sorrows specific to the curse.
He went bald in his twenties, has teeth with holes
in them, in his feet.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When I was born, my feet pointed outwards, and then
I was putting these shoes, so you think, okay, here
comes a solution. But then they pointed inwards and we're overcorrected.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Then there's the muggings. While Dylan's been mugged a poultry
three times, Tim's been mugged five times.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Oh yeah, one of them. I was mugged while I
was dressed as a robot.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That just really surprised me. It feels wrong to laugh
at someone's misfortunes. But then when the follow up question
you're forced to ask a grown man is why were
you dressed as a robot, it seems acceptable somehow.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
This was Halloween.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I was dressed as a robot called it's a tim
Tron five thousand. I mean, I put so much effort
into it. I had a set of light going on
in my chest, drinking. I had a police sir on
my head.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm imagining you, like in a box, wrapped in a
tinfoil or something.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
You're exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I was with a group of friends, all dressed differently.
I think there was a bumblebee there as a pirate.
There was.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I'm sorry, Yeah, so the tim Tron five thousand, The
Bumblebee and the pirates were walking along when they were
suddenly approached by a group of kids. And when I
say kids, there were.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Young fellas who are fourteen.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Really, Yeah, the ringleader demanded Tim hand over the beers
he was carrying, but Tim refused, So he pulls out.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
This pocket knife and he says, I'm gonna you know,
what do you think about this?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Now?
Speaker 3 (13:25):
If you recall John said I'm wearing nothing for cardboard boxes.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Oh, I recall.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So the bumblebee, the pirates disappear, and I'm not quite
as sleep of foot, and I get pushed onto my
back like a tortuous completely unable to get up.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
The kids pulled the siren from Tim. Tron five thousand's
head roughed him up a bit. Did you report it?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, we got the police and they sort of just said, well,
I mean, what do you.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Expect with my family? It's like.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It's shorthunt. Now here's Dylan again, like we just.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Rule arizing and goes, oh, fucking curse.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
The misfortunes that you they you mention, I mean, do
you literally feel like they're connected to this five hundred
odd year curse.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
I think it's like this Jonathan in my head is like,
if you've got five hundred years of people wishing you ill,
it cannot be good for your soul.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Dylan says that since the old archbishop of Glasgow levied
the curse. The present day archbishop is the only person
with the power to lift it. Others have made appeals
to him, but he's never responded.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
What I love is the curse to be lifted. We
will do anything to lift this curse.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And so Dylan has come to me for help. They
did notice that there were something in the curse about
anybody who helps you, I think their curse too.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
It's any Christian man. All Christian men who speak to
me are cursed by proxy. I think being Jewish, you're
actually excused.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Oh, because I am not Christian. It gives me a
leg up, I think. So, yeah, is that the loophole here?
Is that why you came to me. It wasn't because
of my previous good works. It was just because I'm
a jew, which brings us back to his email about
how lifting the curse would be the biggest heavyweight yet,
because the curse isn't limited to just the Elliots, it
(15:34):
encompasses all the reaper families.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
I mean, there's three hundred thousand elliots in the world.
How many Armstrongs and Scot's and Nixon's and Dixon's and Springles.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Not to sound like one of those CD personal injury lawyers.
But if your name is Scott or Douglas, Reed or Robson,
Nixon or Dixon, you may be entitled to karmik compensation.
I'm trying to find the exceptions to the rules, you
know what I mean. Like you mentioned pringles, Like, well,
you know they had those canisters of chips, so they
probably did.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Okay, can tell me you've had the pocket fringles not
fell a little bit cursed afterwards?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Well put, Dylan and his brothers are tired of their
mouth ulcers and tooth holes, tired of wearing eye patches
and getting beaten up by children. They're ready to live
their best lives. If we got this lifted, what would
the ensuing days look like? If you had to speculate
for me.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
It'd probably be getting funding.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
To do your PhD.
Speaker 10 (16:39):
Yes, Well, when I'm be able to grow cabbages because
I actually love cabbage, I don't know. I would just
love to be able to grow.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Cabbages, Okay, cabbages and what else?
Speaker 10 (16:52):
Yeah, mainly the cabbages, Like I really, I really love cabbages.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
It's like a stir fry soup. But I don't know. Yeah,
most the cabbages.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're gonna get you, Elliotts turned around.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
We're gonna good to hear it.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Erase the chalkboard, a fresh news start. The curse still
in red to me, and it's dizzying entirety comes from
the Elliot Clan Society website. It turns out there's a
whole organization of descendants of Border Reavers named Elliott. The
(17:35):
site contains a history of the Elliott family, a map
of Elliott Territory, and a list of famous Elliots like
Ts Eliott, the poet who dared not eat a peach,
and Sam Elliott, the push broom mustachioed actor who safe
to say, should probably also stay away from peaches. And
then there's the page with the transcript of the curse.
(17:57):
Underneath it there are rems and realms of comments. Stephen
Kyle Elliott posts that he's the only member of his
family in four generations that hasn't been to prison or
had problems with drugs. I try to do right and
be a good person, but I always seem to have
the most bad luck possible, he says. Mary Elliott cites cancer,
(18:18):
airplane crashes and fires. Long before I ever heard of
this curse. I felt a curse had been put on
our family, she writes, Believe me, the curse is alive
and well. Hello, Hello, Is this Margaret Elliott? Yes, it
(18:44):
is Margaret Elliott is the chief of the Elliott Clan society.
This is Jonathan Goldstein calling from the American podcast.
Speaker 9 (18:52):
I'm marri Heartrising.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It is my held belief that setting off on a
quest to lift a five hundred year old clan hers
requires the blessing of a clan Chieftainess. Margaret Elliot sounds
like someone who owns at least a dozen and a
half Welsh Corgies, and like real nobility.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
She says.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
She inherited the role from her father, who was chief
before her. With the title, does there come a dwelling
like the way the President of the United States gets
to live in the White House? No, I'm fortunately not
to begin. Margaret proudly shares some fun facts about the
Elliott family.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
The Canadian Prime Minister was an Elliot. His middle name
was Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Pierre Elliott Trudeau traced his lineage back to the Elliot clan.
I didn't know that, Yes she did. Yeah, my middle
name is Stuart it is. When I get down to
(19:58):
explaining my mission, Margaret tells she's known about the curse
her whole life. It's a part of Elliott history. But
at the same time, I.
Speaker 9 (20:06):
Don't pay this any attention at all. Yeah, I mean,
this is the first time I've ever actually talked about it.
I've never thought it was remotely important.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's important to her constituents, though. I tell her about
Dylan and his brothers, the eye patches, the constant muggings,
the cabbage problems.
Speaker 9 (20:27):
Which I don't think he can plain it. I think
maybe he's got the wrong sort of grand for cabbage.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, the cursed kind. Although Margaret doesn't put stock in curses,
she still blesses the mission and even offers to help.
Speaker 9 (20:48):
Well, I mean, I.
Speaker 12 (20:49):
Could probably get the archbishop on the phone.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Do you think you can get an archbishop on the telephone?
Speaker 9 (20:57):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Wow? I really appreciate your good old American moxie on
that one.
Speaker 9 (21:05):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What does good old American moxie mean, Margaret? It's throwing
a bottle rocket into a trash can just to see
it go boom. It's staring down your enemies while picking
your teeth with a corn dog stick. It's sowing a
Canadian flag onto your backpack when traveling through Europe. So
when you toss a bottle rocket into some Parisian poobell,
(21:28):
Canada looks like the idiot Moxie is getting a bishop
on the horn and greeting him with a big fat
American howdy. Do have you ever reached out to an
archbishop before?
Speaker 5 (21:41):
No?
Speaker 9 (21:41):
I know Bishop wil too, but no I don't have.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
It'd be interesting.
Speaker 9 (21:47):
I will follow it up. You've inspired me.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Wow, Okay, that isn't often what I do, So I
appreciate that.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
Very good.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Margaret is on the case. But before getting off the phone,
she counsels me against talking to other elliots about the
curse if they're blissfully unaware. She says, why share something
that will only trouble them. To illustrate her point, Margaret
tells me about an art installation memorializing the curse. It's
called the Cursing Stone, and it's a fourteen ton granite
(22:20):
boulder with the curse inscribed upon it. It was commissioned
by the City of Carlisle in two thousand and one.
Speaker 9 (22:26):
Tasa was fairly unwise. Why why they believe in this curse,
but there are people who do, like your friend Dylan,
and I think it is unwise to bring it out
again because it alarms people.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But the follout caused by the stone suggests it more
than alarmed people. Following its installation, the city experienced the
series of disasters, the worst flood in two hundred years,
an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, numerous businesses and
factories shutting down, among them notably a bar called the
Reaver Pub, and the local soccer team, Carlisle United, lost
(23:06):
so many games they were relegated to a lower league.
So I speak with the artist who sculpted the cursing stone,
Gordon Young, of the Border Reaving Young Clan. But despite
the biblical plagues unleashed by his art, Gordon doesn't put
any stock in the curse at all. Do you think
there's anything suggestive about the timing, you know, like just
(23:27):
after the unveiling of your work and all of these
misfortunes occurring, do you see anything not at all? In
then you don't admit that the timing is sort of
an interesting No, Do you feel like you've been affected
by the curse? Like, do you feel that you're unluckier
(23:49):
than your friends.
Speaker 13 (23:50):
I feel a lifelong sighting would be if I fell
down a toilet, come up smelling of roses on a field.
I have been very, very, very lucky all my life.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Gordon's answer surprises me, so I conduct an informal survey.
Turning to the phone book, I dial random Elliots to
see how unlucky they are. Hello, is this Dale Elliott?
Speaker 12 (24:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Hello? Is this Tanya Elliott Hensby? Yes? I even phone
a real estate agent on a lawn sign Elliott, and
I reach out to Margaret's Elliott Society clan officers all
across the USA. You're a state commissioner for Alabama, Arkansas.
Speaker 12 (24:41):
But yeah, I'm a chemist for Clan Elliott in Texas.
Speaker 13 (24:44):
Yes, yes, I'm the Northern California commissioner for it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I ask if any of them have experienced the things
the Elliot brothers have, the inability to ever grow cabbage,
any dental problems. You own cattle or sheep growing cabbage?
Are you bald? But it seems they haven't.
Speaker 13 (25:03):
Nope, Nope, no, no, I'm a gorgeous ready.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I find myself wondering whether ill fortune might be
less a border Reaver problem, and more a Dylan, Tim
and Rory problem. What was going on with the Elliott brothers,
why all the bad luck? And was the curse really
to blame for it? Since Dylan, Tim and Rory's dad, David,
was the one who first told them about the curse,
(25:31):
I wonder if he would have any insight. So I
reach out to David, but at the last minute he balks.
Dylan says it's because his dad is nervous that even
talking about the curse could exacerbate it. But in David's stead,
Dylan's aunt Joe, agrees to talk to me.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Hello, Johnson, how are you?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I'm okay? How are you today?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Not too bot I'm very loud of Friday.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In the background, I can hear Joe pouring something into
a glass. What is it that you're drinking? Oh, pino, Gricia,
It's absolutely okay.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I sometimes think that I could tell what someone's drinking,
but it's a little piccadillo of mine. I asked Joe
about her family whether they are a bunch of magical thinkers,
like say, someone who thinks he can tell what beverage
someone is drinking over the phone. Maybe they've over indexed
on this whole curse thing. Was your upbringing superstitious? Did
your parents have rituals and stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, I was brought up on my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And then Joe tells me the reason she was raised
by her grandparents.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Our parents died when we were all very young.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Your parents died around the same time.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Yeah, they died in a car accident.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oh my, I'm so sorry. Yeah, and they were together.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Did that Has that ever struck you as a It
was a bit of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It was really bad luck, right, I mean, the worst
luck ever almost.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Joe was only four years old at the time of
the accident, so she doesn't remember the day, but she
does remember learning about the death of her parents for
the first time.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I was able to read. So I must have been
about six, and I've found a newspaper cutting in my
grandmother's chest of drawers, and I could see that my
name was in there, and my sister's name was in there,
and I could see it as talking about two people,
and I wasn't sure who theirs names were.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
But it sounded really sad to me.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And it's had this really big long word at the
top of it. So I went to mask my grandmother
what it was, and she said, well that that word
is an obituary, and these people are your mum and
dad and their dad. I do have a few memories.
(27:56):
So my dad used to go out to work. I
used to have to help them put the socks on. Today,
my dad went in to tell the teacher off in
school because she was really horrible to me. And I
remember being woking up in the middle of the night
to come downstairs and see the new toys that my
dad had brought home from work. It was a little
(28:17):
red teeth set. I remember the first time I tested
Chinese food because my mom was ill in bed and
my dad brought me in to tasted Chinese food and
there was pineapple on it, and I'd never had pineapple before.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Joe says that after her parents' death, she and her
six siblings were all split up, sent to different relatives.
It took them many years, not until they were adults,
to all reconnact. Do you think this this family trauma
has kind of cast a Paul over David's kids.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
There is no day in our family that our parents'
death was, oh my goodness, catastrophic. In a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
It was terrible.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's a big soddness, and I think they picked that
up when you're a kid.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
It's a scary thing to learn that tragedy can strike
at any moment for no reason, that there's no insulation
between you and the darkness. Joe doesn't think the curse
caused the accident, but the accident might have given the
idea of a curse a certain allure. It offered an
explanation for something unexplainable. Growing up, Dylan and his brothers
(29:38):
heard about their grandparents' death. Were raised with the feeling
of a vague dark cloud that hung over the family.
But now they've given that dark cloud a name, the
Curse of the Eliots. And what you can name, you
can vanquish. What do you think that lifting the curse
might change for David or for your nephews.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It might.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
Gives a breathing space.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And I don't know why I've said that word or
that phrase, but that's just what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
A breathing space.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Regardless of how Margaret Elliott or any of the three
hundred thousand Elliots feel about the curse, these three Elliots, Dylan,
Rory and Tim Elliott, they believe in it, and I'm
going to help these elliots by lifting this curse once
and for all. My greatest hope for lifting the curse
(30:55):
lies with Elliott clan chief Margaret, who promised me a bishop.
But at this point I haven't heard from Margaret in weeks,
so I send an email asking for a progress report.
When she replies, I'm surprised by her terseness. No bishop,
She writes, I really think there is no point in
pursuing this, and your friend who complained about his baldness
(31:18):
and not growing cabbage will have to put up with
it and not blame an entirely irrelevant sixteenth century curse.
I'm not sure how to account for the shift in
Margaret's tone until I read this. I would be grateful
if you would not contact any more clan officers and
alarm them unduly. It seems some of the elliots I
(31:40):
spoke to, ever loyal to their chieftain, ratted me out,
telling Margaret how I'd been pestering them about their bad luck.
As chief, Margaret wants to protect her flock and not
from the curse of the archbishop. But from me, it
looks like I'm on my own on the Archdiocese of
(32:03):
Glasgow's website, I find the name of the Archbishop's director
of Communications, mister Confrey. Hi, thank you so much for
talking to me.
Speaker 12 (32:12):
No problem at all. I'm glad to be able to chat.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I explained to Ronnie Convrey about Dylan and his brothers,
the robot muggings, the dog food factory.
Speaker 12 (32:22):
He's worried the curse from whatever five hundred years ago
is affecting his daily life.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yes, hardy, harharr if you will, Ronnie Convrey, But I
thought stuff that happened hundreds of years ago and still
affects daily life is the Church's bread and butter. Of course,
I'm too cowardly to actually say that, but I do
say this, I'll be it mincingly. Why can't the archbishop
(32:48):
just lift this one little old curse, just this one
little old time.
Speaker 12 (32:52):
It's not going to happen. It's not like, you know,
the archbishop puts on a stool and goes into the
cathedral and mutters a few payers in lot and then
sprinkle some holy water around and everything stakes. I mean,
there is no such ceremony for lifting curses.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And even if there were a ceremony, Ronnie says there's
no one to perform at the last archbishop died just recently,
and appointing a new one can take months, even years.
Is this something that the Pope could lift?
Speaker 12 (33:22):
I had no idea, to be honest, I were you,
I wouldn't waste trying to figure out how.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
You could speak to the Pope. You know you'd be
here to.
Speaker 12 (33:30):
Goomsday and that you wouldn't get a nail the Pope
on something like this.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, he's a he's a busy man. I'm sure. I mean,
it's not like you could just call the Vatican switchboard
and has to speak to the Pope.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Turns out you can call the Vatican switchboard, but the
problem not in Italiana. Is there anybody that spinks?
Speaker 9 (33:58):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (34:01):
My sisters taking English? It's okay?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
At yes, okay. I never imagined the Vatican to be
the kind of mom and pop operation where you'd have
to wait for somebody's sister to get back from her
lunch break at the Vatican. Quiz No's when I phoned
back Trey hours later, though the person who picks up
doesn't know what I'm talking about. She was like, Yeah,
(34:29):
my sister's going to be here, later.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
That sounds like Italy to me.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, is that what it is? This is my gimlet
coworker Valentina. She was born in Florence and speaks Italian,
and agrees to help me. Phone back a few weeks later.
Have you ever called the Vatican before?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
No.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It turns out that while there isn't an office at
the Vatican for curse removal, there is a department for
papal blessings. Maybe a strong enough blessing can wipe out
a curse. Love KOing hate kind of thing. So Valentine
and I phone up the Office of Blessings.
Speaker 10 (35:08):
Yes, hello, okay a lot of.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Valentina explains the details of my problem, the cabbages and cankers,
but the operator says, we need a different department.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
It's an exorcism office.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Oh so getting a curse lifted is that falls under
the department of exorcism.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, that's there's that's the old department that can you know,
deal with that because we are exactly the oppos.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You know, of course, bless you blessings are the opposite
of courses.
Speaker 13 (35:58):
In general.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So I call the switchboard back and ask for the
Department of Exorcism. Why the operator asks, and so yet
again I explained the ulcerated mouths, and Talento's.
Speaker 8 (36:11):
It's really absurd.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Absurd.
Speaker 8 (36:14):
In twenty twenty one, we are still thinking about a
curse dating back to fifteen twenty six. Oh it's five.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Centuries, yes, and so it's about time.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
If both Francis hears about that, I don't know how
he would react.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
How would he react?
Speaker 8 (36:41):
I don't think he will react in a good way.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Are there special circumstances in which you know someone could
speak to the Pope?
Speaker 8 (36:51):
It's not as easy, but it's happened, It may happen.
It's not so easy.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
What are the circumstances in which you pass? Does he
have a cell phone? Does the Pope have a cell phone?
To people that he travels with have a cell phone?
Is it just a landline?
Speaker 8 (37:09):
What do you want to I don't know what you
really want to do.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
When I tell the operator about the original reason for
my call that I want to be put through to
the Department of Exorcisms, I learned there is no such department,
or there is, but it's a department of one. There's
only one exorcist for the entire Vatican.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And he has a portable number.
Speaker 8 (37:37):
You want the number of the.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Portable cellular device of the Pope's personal exorcist. Uh, yeah, yes, please,
oh oh one, okay, thank you very much for your health. Yes,
God bless thank you. Wow, it's really great. This is
(38:05):
really great. So should we try the try the welcome
to Verizon Wireless.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Your call cannot be completed as the called party is
temporarily unavailable.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Is that a good sign? It's not a good sign.
Once a week for the next eight weeks, Valentina and
I try calling him back. The call never goes through.
When I phone the Vatican switchboard again, the operator directs
me to the Secretary General of the Diocese of Rome,
(38:44):
who says I'll need to speak with a Padre Milily. No,
Mi Lily. But Padre Mediately's secretary says he's not the
right person either, apparently, since the curse effect not just
the elliots of Rome or Dublin, but all elliots everywhere.
(39:05):
My problem is an international problem.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
She says, we need to call the Association of International Exorcists.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Oh, come on, it's called a ya aie Association internationalities.
She just made that up. But it turns out that
the International Association of Exorcists, has over eight hundred members,
publishes guides for exorcists around the world, and is accredited
(39:34):
by the Vatican. The AIE and I email back and forth,
but eventually the Exorcists start giving me the brush off too.
It's been nearly a year of unreturned emails, wrong numbers,
and all around royal runarounds. I've been waking up at
(39:57):
four am to call the Vatican so often that at
this I'm basically on Italian time, which is kind of
like being on a vacation in Italy with none of
the Italy but all of the sleep deprivation. It's while
complaining to my wife one day about how sleepy I
am all the time, how badly my neck and back hurt,
that I'm forced to ask myself did I have the
(40:18):
Elliott Curse. If I did, it wouldn't be so bad
if I had anything to show for it. As it is, though,
I feel like I'm in a Dan Brown novel, but
the boring parts like the table of contents or the
author's note that nobody reads. And to add insult to injury,
I've been at this so long that a new Archbishop
of Glasgow has finally been installed. So I phone Ronnie
(40:42):
Convrey and leave half a dozen messages over a number
of weeks. When someone finally does pick up, rather than
being granted an audience, I'm granted this.
Speaker 9 (40:52):
Good afternoon, Ar's Diocese of Glasgow.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Hi, there is Ronnie Convy there.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
I believe he is.
Speaker 9 (41:00):
Can I ask who's calling?
Speaker 12 (41:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It's Jonathan Goldstein?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Right?
Speaker 12 (41:07):
Can yield for a moment?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Certainly?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Hello?
Speaker 10 (41:12):
Yes, you must have stepped away from his desk.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Do you think it would be okay to maybe try
him a little later?
Speaker 10 (41:27):
His schedule is quite unpredictable, that's the only thing. He's
in and out quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
The only thing left to do is admit defeat. Except
for the fact that, unbeknownst to Ronnie Convrey, the Archbishop,
the Vatican and even me, in the Battle of Goldstein
versus the Curse, the curse was on the ropes. This
(42:00):
might have been the heaviest weight yet. But that's the
thing about heavy's weight. When you hoist them, there's no
finer feeling. But the only thing I've succeeded in hoisting
is myself by my own batards. And so, without another choice,
I phoned Dylan to tell him I failed.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
Hello Dylan, Yeah, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
More importantly, how are you? It's been fourteen months since
Dylan first reached out to me, Another cursed year has
come and gone. The thought of how violently, excruciatingly Baldy
must be at this point is frankly too much to bear.
But what Dylan says next, you'll have to hear to believe.
(42:46):
How are things really good?
Speaker 4 (42:48):
I've got a pretty great second half of a year,
to be honest, really yeah, it's everything seems to be
going a bit better.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
You know, well, you sound different. I mean, your energy
feels different.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Y seem totally different. I feel kind of much much better.
I was kind of one a minute. Was there anything
in the background, of course?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Wise?
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Because that's a really really good second half of the year.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I never dreamt of hearing the words really good, let
alone really really good come from the mouth of Dylan Elliott.
What was going on? And on top of that, it's
not just Dylan who's been feeling better.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
It's on some quite good shape at the moment. Like
I mean, my brother Tim, he's accepted onto a PhD
course and he's got funding for it. It's going fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
This is Tim using the word fantastic.
Speaker 14 (43:37):
I'm suddenly working for myself, meeting offs of new interesting people,
having a really lovely time.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Is there a moment where you feel like things started
to turn?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I think probably beginning a still year in September, so.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Like in the fall. Yeah, this is a different you know,
a different Tim from when I spoke to you last Yes. Yes,
no muggings in the past year, zero zero muggings. That's
a net positive. How are things for Rory?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Oh, Rory's having a great time.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
He just sent me a picture He's made.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Friends with a donkey. I think it is.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
It's very small.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So what what?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
What?
Speaker 1 (44:30):
What? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (44:33):
When you just it's certainly a picture of.
Speaker 10 (44:36):
Him and his friend, who is a donkey.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, where where is Rory?
Speaker 10 (44:44):
I've moved to the West of Ireland. I'm really happy.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
This is Rory living here with my partner, the donkey,
injury free. What about the mouth ulcers? Have they cleared up?
Speaker 10 (44:56):
I don't have any any of them.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Incredible For months, and perhaps most importantly and to my mind,
most insanely.
Speaker 10 (45:06):
My ability to grow cabbages as really improved. Like this season,
my cabbages have been amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And as a victory, lap Rory made wine from cabbages.
Speaker 10 (45:18):
Mean it tastes like really strongly alcoholic fermented cabbage juice.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
That's fair City.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
When I just looked up cabbage wine, it seems as
though like one makes it with sixty percent cabbages and
forty percent grapes.
Speaker 10 (45:33):
I'm filled cabbage.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
You're going one hundred percent cabbage.
Speaker 10 (45:37):
I'm fill cabbage.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Dylan sounds like a new man. Tim's doing his PhD.
Rory's dating a donkey. Even the Reaver Pub in Carlisle
that closed down just this year it reopened. What has changed?
Was it merely my trying to get the curse lifted
that perhaps weakened. It is lifting a curse like attempting
(45:59):
to open a pickle jar when it's just so impossible
that you give up and accept that you're never going
to eat pickles ever again. But then someone comes along
and pops it open. No problem because of all your
hard work. Had I loosen the pickle jar? I returned
to the Elliott Clan Society web page to reread the
curse for clues. Maybe while high stepping around like a jackass,
(46:23):
I'd inadvertently, Crane kicked some satanic goblin in the privates,
knocking him into a key structural beam of the Curse's
complex architecture. But when I get to the Curse's website,
I'm shocked by what I find, because what I find
is nothing. In big block letters across the screen, it
(46:45):
reads error four O four page not found. The curse
has been removed.
Speaker 9 (47:01):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Hello, is this miss Elliott.
Speaker 6 (47:05):
This is Marlbur's idiot speaking here.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
And so I phone Margaret Elliott, chief of the Elliott
Clan Society slash web page. Oh hello, this is Jonathan
Goldstein calling. I don't know if you remember me, the
American podcaster.
Speaker 8 (47:21):
Yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 6 (47:23):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I'm sorry to bother you. Might you just have a
couple of minutes to speak? I just had a I mean.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
Yes, I've got I'm not terribly keen on talking about
this curse anymore.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I long for the olden days when Margaret was terribly
keen on talking about this curse.
Speaker 9 (47:43):
Perfect well, I mean I could to get somebody on
the phone.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
My middle name is Stewart.
Speaker 9 (47:50):
You've inspired me.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Now all I have is a dumb old montage. I've
made enough calls to people desperate get off the phone
with me to know that I only have a few
minutes before Margaret hangs up. So I launched right into
my question why was the curse taken down from the
Elliot Clan website?
Speaker 6 (48:11):
I asked for it to be taken down.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Uh, just had a pure curiosity. Was it taken down
because of me?
Speaker 9 (48:20):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:20):
I think you probably triggered something and maybe think all
the more deeply a budget and that I wanted to anyway,
So yes, it was you, awfulled.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
It wasn't my ability to procure a papal blessing, archbishop's
recantation or priestly exorcism that in the end got rid
of the curse. It was simply my ability to be annoying.
I annoyed that curse right out of existence on the internet.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
It was all due to you.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
You mean, knew take responsibility, I mean not to not
to you know, take all the credit.
Speaker 9 (48:56):
But yeah, yeah, did take all the credit.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Why since the Elliot brother's luck began improving in the fall,
I run my donning theory about why by Margaret, I wonder, well,
this might seem silly to you, but might it correspond
to the fact that the curse was taken off the website.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I wouldn't think so.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
No, but the intersection of the Elliot brothers change in
luck and the change in the web page is just
too tantalizing for me to let go of. So I
can't help but continue to toe dance on Margaret's last
remaining nerve. Do you remember the day that it was removed? No?
Speaker 6 (49:40):
I did, Like I remember, do not put the two together.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Dylan Elliott's luck started to change around the end of
last year. I think the fall going into winter was
that I'm.
Speaker 6 (49:58):
Not going to be sucked to this. I just absolutely
think it's entirely relevant.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
But was that that wasn't around the generally the.
Speaker 6 (50:08):
Okay, when I hope this is all done and dusted now, yes,
I think so good? Great, all right, have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Okay, Yes, and tutelou, as they they.
Speaker 9 (50:21):
Say, exactly, we say that all the time.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
After speaking with Margaret, I searched the Internet archives and
discover in fact that indeed the page of the curse
was removed around the time of the Elliot's change in fortune. Okay,
now I'm going to ask you to try to find
that page about the Elliott curse. Together, Dylan and I
(50:51):
turned to the page of the curse on the Elliott
Clan website.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Gone, let me see.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
What do you see?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
I can't find that page.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
That's right, you can't find it. It's been removed.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Why how comes lifted?
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Lifted? Not from reality technically, but from the.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
Internet twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Can we just at this point safely say that the
curse has been lifted?
Speaker 4 (51:26):
I mean, yeah, actually definitely can. I think?
Speaker 1 (51:29):
And when I ask Rory if he buys the whole
internet exorsus my idea scientist that he is, he carefully
analyzes the empirical evidence.
Speaker 10 (51:38):
I mean, you know, it's definitely possible.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
You know, in fact, it's probable.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
In fact, I think it's definitely the case.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Next time I'm in Carlisle, I'd like to buy you
a pint at the Reaver.
Speaker 10 (51:56):
Pub, you know, yeah, I'd like to offer you a
glasses champaign.
Speaker 4 (52:06):
Plans with the girlfriend to go off to brying a
camper van.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Very shortly, here's Dylan again, a camper van.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Yeah, we're going to take it in the road and
kindick with traveling. It's just feeling the immense feeling of freedom.
It's been kind of incredible.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Are the Elliott Boys better off for anything I did?
Who knows? And frankly, at this point, they probably don't
even care. When things are going well, we don't think
too hard about the why of it. It's only when
things are bad that we do. That's when we seek
out therapists to analyze and exorcist to exercise. When things
are going well, we just enjoy them for as long
(52:44):
as they last, which usually isn't very long at all.
But for now, there's breathing space. When is your girlfriend
do over?
Speaker 13 (52:53):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (52:54):
Imminently?
Speaker 5 (52:56):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Okay, enjoy the rest of your day with your girlfriend.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Thanks a million, that's quickly, Okay.
Speaker 15 (53:01):
Take it easy, Dylan, bye bye.
Speaker 7 (53:34):
Now that the furnitures returning to its good will home,
now that the last month's rent is skiming with the damaged, possible.
Speaker 6 (53:50):
Take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 7 (53:54):
If we met him, if we tried, we felt around
for five.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
From the names at Accid and Leaves. This episode of
Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane and me
Jonathan Goldstein, along with Mohemy mcgauker. Our senior producer is
Khalila Holt. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Valentina Powers,
(54:24):
Max Green, Domiano Marquetti, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed
the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
Michael Hurst, Sean Jacoby, Blue Dot Sessions, and he himself,
Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our website,
Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by
(54:44):
the Weaker Than's courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
Twitter at Heavyweight. This was the last episode of the season,
but we're already looking for stories for next year. So
if there's a moment from your past that you need
help resolving, please send us an email at Heavyweight at
gimlet media dot com. Have a happy and safe holiday season?
Speaker 12 (55:04):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Should I ask Aggie if he wants to come up
here and wish everyone a happy holiday season?
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Ai?
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Do you want to be in the credits? Have a
happy and safe holiday season, Ogi
Speaker 4 (55:16):
And will see you next y
What I'm trying to remember. Do you have any celebrity
impressions that you do?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Didn't you used to do celindio?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
No, I used to.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Do that the theme song to the Titanic.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
No, that was Karen.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Karen used to.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
Sing that song.
Speaker 6 (00:19):
Karen does sing that song.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Does she have a nice voice?
Speaker 7 (00:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Because guess who I have on the other line. Karen?
Did that scare you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Did it give me a little nervous?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Did it not make you feel alive?
Speaker 8 (00:36):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (00:38):
Get a little scared?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A little scared.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Yeah, she doesn't have a nice voice.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I mean she can wait.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
A second, She's back on the line. It's Karen. Oh, Jackie,
how could you say that about my singing? From Gimblet Media,
I'm Jonathan Gold and this is Heavyweight Today's episode the Elliots.
(01:11):
Right after the break, I get a lot of emails
from people looking for help, but Dylan's stood out. Dear Jonathan,
It read I have a big one for you, the
heaviest weight yet. Dylan's email was over the top clickbaity
(01:34):
even Hi Dylan, how are you?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
Jonathan?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
But who among us is inured to the lure of clickbait?
Dylan Elliott lives in Dublin and the story he tells
me you'll have to hear to believe. Dylan says that
when he and his family get together, their favorite thing
to do is share stories of their misfortune, mysterious ailments
(02:00):
and plumbing disasters, near drownings, and dental procedures gone terribly awry.
They always come away from these sessions wondering the same thing,
how can one family have so much bad luck?
Speaker 5 (02:13):
So a few years ago, mostly large family gathering.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Dylan says that at a recent family wedding, he and
his brothers were going around the table enumerting their woes
as usual wrong in their lives, when their father suddenly
interrupted them.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
And then my dad came out and said, well, they
don't know about the curse, the Elliot curse.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Dylan and his brothers looked at each other. What elliot curse?
They'd never heard of such a thing, And so their
father offered what would prove to be a unifying theory
of their terrible luck. He began at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
The very beginning is fifteen twenty five.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
About five hundred years ago, Scotland and England were at
war over the territory along their border. The people who
lived along these borderlands were hardest head.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
And so they were left in this nomadic position where
the only living they could make was by going back
and forth across the border and thieving.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Thieving, in pillaging, in maiming, as well as murdering.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
What they had to be as a culture was extremely
friendly but also really murdery, because like, if you've got
to be in moving from area to area, you had
to be very open to people because there could be
trades going on, but if they wrong you, you've got
to kill them immediately.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And these people, these friendly, murdery people who lived along
the border were called border reavers. You say reavers, Yeah, reavers?
What are those?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
It's kind of like the exact opposite of a weaver.
So weavers makes clothes. Reavers were kind of like murderers.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Wait, weavers make clothes, but revers are murderers. Yes, which
technically isn't the opposite of making clothes.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
It's quite far away, though, in fairness.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It is it is. But probably the opposite of making
clothes would be like maybe ripping.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Up clothes and stealing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I guess, yeah, again, not necessarily the opposite, but I
get it. Yeah, it's the other end of the spectrum. Sorry,
thank you. That's the opposite of a curse, by the way.
To bring it back to opposites, Dylan says there were
a number of Reaver family clans, but one of the biggest,
(04:35):
most notorious, least weavery, and most murdery of all were
the Elliots. And that's you. You're You're Dylan Elliot.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
In fifteen twenty five, the then Archbishop of Glasgow, desperate
to deter the Reavers, placed a curse on them, the
aforementioned Elliot curse. I should read the cris to you please.
I curse their heads and all the hairs of their head.
I cursed their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose,
(05:07):
their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast,
their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms,
their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of
their body from the top of their head to the
soles of their feet, before and behind within them without
as a jew raised on Yiddish curses, my bubb is,
(05:30):
may you hang upside down like a chandelier, most often
levied against my grandfather for losing the TV remote. Was
about as bad as I got it sounds worse than Yiddish,
but still it's nothing compared to this curse.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
I cursed them going, and I curssed them writing. I
curst them standing, and I cursed them sitting. Curse.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
This curse reads like a children's book written by a
serial killer. I would curse them here or there, I
would curse them anywhere.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
I curse them within the house, I cursed them outside
of the house. I cursed them at home. I cursed
them away from home. I cursed them rising, their cattle,
their wool, their sheep, their barnyards, their cowsheds, their cabbage patches,
even their cabbage patches, their horses.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
And it's not just the Reavers themselves that the Archbishop damns,
but anyone remotely associated with them.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I forbid all Christian men and women to have any
company with them, eating, drinking, speaking, crying, lying, going, standing
under the pain of deadly sin.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And just when you think there's nothing left, a curse, okay.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Made the thunder and lightning which rain down upon someone.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
For a full three minutes, Dylan continues on with wildfires
and dyspepsia, pestilence, and plagues, until finally I.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Condemned them perpetually to the deep pit of hell, there
to remain with Lucifer and all his fellows, then ripped
and torn by dogs until late forbear They're and sins
and make satisfaction at Bennett's.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, that's a curse. Back at the family wedding, seated
around the table, Dylan says he remembers that when his
dad was done reciting excerpts from the curse, he was
met with stunned silence.
Speaker 5 (07:17):
You almost expect people to laugh when hear curs. Liked that,
but there wasn't really a laugh. The reaction in the
room with this kind of aha moment reference like this
makes total sense. This explains why so many weird things
of mont Our family.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Weird and also weirdly specific to the curse. Dylan tells
me about the soles of his feet he was born
flat footed, and his tongue he was born tongue tied,
and regarding the I curse you away from home part
of the curse.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
Pick up mugged three days in a row in Paris,
Oh my, And each morning I went out and I
bought the slightly shittier phone than I had previously, until
eventually I had a phone, which is like an old
person's phone with giant buttons on it, and I got
mugged for that one as well. So I got mugged
three days in a row in Paris.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Like three separate occasions by three separate muggers.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Yeah, three separate muggers, three nights in a row.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What is that?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Doesn't that's insane? Like I think the other I was
trying to work it out. I think the odds of
getting mugged in a given year are zero point three percent,
So what of the odds are getting mugged three days
in a row. It's like getting struck by lightning. I'm
winning the lottery at the same time or something.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And Dylan says it's not just him. He tells me
about his brother, a talented gardener who can grow anything
except cabbages.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
The one thing that's mentioned in the Curse. The curse
says I cursed their cabbage patches, and he can't grow cabbages.
He can't grow brascas at all.
Speaker 10 (08:53):
I've been pretty successful growing all different types of vegetables.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
This is Dylan's younger brother, Rory Elliott.
Speaker 10 (08:59):
But like the cab in particular, like always seemed to
be afflicted by some kind of like mold or fungus.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Then there's Rory's feet.
Speaker 10 (09:09):
My mum always said that my feet were like out
of a Buzzet's pretty much Talon's.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, and his eyes.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
I tore my cornea.
Speaker 10 (09:16):
I had to wear an eyepatch. And mouth I've had
so many mouth sulcters. I'm just being worried that it's
like the cur is trying to stop me. Talk to
you guys.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Rory is a scientist, so he knows that believing in
curses is crazy, but he also knows the value of
hard data and the evidence is semi undeniable, Like how
the archbishop curses them going and curses them riding.
Speaker 10 (09:42):
I see them that he had riding horses, but I
guess it covers bicycles.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Okay, what has happened?
Speaker 10 (09:48):
Like, for instance, one time I was cycling to get
some seaweed to put on my crops because they weren't.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Doing very well, his crops being the cabbages. He was
getting seaweed for his cabbages.
Speaker 11 (10:02):
And there was an iron bar in the ground and
then I ended up going like head over the handlebars
on like flying headfirst into a dog food factory.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Sorry, did you say you you flew into a dog
food what a.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Dog food factory?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah? Okay, broke my raist, I broke.
Speaker 10 (10:24):
My arm, need a lot of sticks. That was fairly cursed.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Logical level not superstious at all, but I am a
little bit superstious.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
This is Dylan's other brother, Tim Elliott. Tim is waiting
to receive funding for his pH d in history. In
the meantime, I'm.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
A sort of.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Just a freelanced person.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What do you freelance at?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Oh, not really much.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
If Dylan is rather ere like and Rory is something
of a negative nelly, then Tim is like Charlie Brown.
If Charlie Brown were looking for PhD funding.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I'm given the curse, well, I mean, who would have
much hope for that?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Like his brothers, Tim lists off sorrows specific to the curse.
He went bald in his twenties, has teeth with holes
in them, in his feet.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When I was born, my feet pointed outwards, and then
I was putting these shoes, so you think, okay, here
comes a solution. But then they pointed inwards and we're overcorrected.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Then there's the muggings. While Dylan's been mugged a poultry
three times, Tim's been mugged five times.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Oh yeah, one of them. I was mugged while I
was dressed as a robot.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That just really surprised me. It feels wrong to laugh
at someone's misfortunes. But then when the follow up question
you're forced to ask a grown man is why were
you dressed as a robot, it seems acceptable somehow.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
This was Halloween.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I was dressed as a robot called it's a tim
Tron five thousand. I mean, I put so much effort
into it. I had a set of light going on
in my chest, drinking. I had a police sir on
my head.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm imagining you, like in a box, wrapped in a
tinfoil or something.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
You're exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
I was with a group of friends, all dressed differently.
I think there was a bumblebee there as a pirate.
There was.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I'm sorry, Yeah, so the tim Tron five thousand, The
Bumblebee and the pirates were walking along when they were
suddenly approached by a group of kids. And when I
say kids, there were.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Young fellas who are fourteen.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Really, Yeah, the ringleader demanded Tim hand over the beers
he was carrying, but Tim refused, So he pulls out.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
This pocket knife and he says, I'm gonna you know,
what do you think about this?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Now?
Speaker 3 (13:25):
If you recall John said I'm wearing nothing for cardboard boxes.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Oh, I recall.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So the bumblebee, the pirates disappear, and I'm not quite
as sleep of foot, and I get pushed onto my
back like a tortuous completely unable to get up.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
The kids pulled the siren from Tim. Tron five thousand's
head roughed him up a bit. Did you report it?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, we got the police and they sort of just said, well,
I mean, what do you.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Expect with my family? It's like.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
It's shorthunt. Now here's Dylan again, like we just.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Rule arizing and goes, oh, fucking curse.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
The misfortunes that you they you mention, I mean, do
you literally feel like they're connected to this five hundred
odd year curse.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
I think it's like this Jonathan in my head is like,
if you've got five hundred years of people wishing you ill,
it cannot be good for your soul.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Dylan says that since the old archbishop of Glasgow levied
the curse. The present day archbishop is the only person
with the power to lift it. Others have made appeals
to him, but he's never responded.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
What I love is the curse to be lifted. We
will do anything to lift this curse.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And so Dylan has come to me for help. They
did notice that there were something in the curse about
anybody who helps you, I think their curse too.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
It's any Christian man. All Christian men who speak to
me are cursed by proxy. I think being Jewish, you're
actually excused.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Oh, because I am not Christian. It gives me a
leg up, I think. So, yeah, is that the loophole here?
Is that why you came to me. It wasn't because
of my previous good works. It was just because I'm
a jew, which brings us back to his email about
how lifting the curse would be the biggest heavyweight yet,
because the curse isn't limited to just the Elliots, it
(15:34):
encompasses all the reaper families.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
I mean, there's three hundred thousand elliots in the world.
How many Armstrongs and Scot's and Nixon's and Dixon's and Springles.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Not to sound like one of those CD personal injury lawyers.
But if your name is Scott or Douglas, Reed or Robson,
Nixon or Dixon, you may be entitled to karmik compensation.
I'm trying to find the exceptions to the rules, you
know what I mean. Like you mentioned pringles, Like, well,
you know they had those canisters of chips, so they
probably did.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Okay, can tell me you've had the pocket fringles not
fell a little bit cursed afterwards?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Well put, Dylan and his brothers are tired of their
mouth ulcers and tooth holes, tired of wearing eye patches
and getting beaten up by children. They're ready to live
their best lives. If we got this lifted, what would
the ensuing days look like? If you had to speculate
for me.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
It'd probably be getting funding.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
To do your PhD.
Speaker 10 (16:39):
Yes, Well, when I'm be able to grow cabbages because
I actually love cabbage, I don't know. I would just
love to be able to grow.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Cabbages, Okay, cabbages and what else?
Speaker 10 (16:52):
Yeah, mainly the cabbages, Like I really, I really love cabbages.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
It's like a stir fry soup. But I don't know. Yeah,
most the cabbages.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're gonna get you, Elliotts turned around.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
We're gonna good to hear it.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Erase the chalkboard, a fresh news start. The curse still
in red to me, and it's dizzying entirety comes from
the Elliot Clan Society website. It turns out there's a
whole organization of descendants of Border Reavers named Elliott. The
(17:35):
site contains a history of the Elliott family, a map
of Elliott Territory, and a list of famous Elliots like
Ts Eliott, the poet who dared not eat a peach,
and Sam Elliott, the push broom mustachioed actor who safe
to say, should probably also stay away from peaches. And
then there's the page with the transcript of the curse.
(17:57):
Underneath it there are rems and realms of comments. Stephen
Kyle Elliott posts that he's the only member of his
family in four generations that hasn't been to prison or
had problems with drugs. I try to do right and
be a good person, but I always seem to have
the most bad luck possible, he says. Mary Elliott cites cancer,
(18:18):
airplane crashes and fires. Long before I ever heard of
this curse. I felt a curse had been put on
our family, she writes, Believe me, the curse is alive
and well. Hello, Hello, Is this Margaret Elliott? Yes, it
(18:44):
is Margaret Elliott is the chief of the Elliott Clan society.
This is Jonathan Goldstein calling from the American podcast.
Speaker 9 (18:52):
I'm marri Heartrising.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It is my held belief that setting off on a
quest to lift a five hundred year old clan hers
requires the blessing of a clan Chieftainess. Margaret Elliot sounds
like someone who owns at least a dozen and a
half Welsh Corgies, and like real nobility.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
She says.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
She inherited the role from her father, who was chief
before her. With the title, does there come a dwelling
like the way the President of the United States gets
to live in the White House? No, I'm fortunately not
to begin. Margaret proudly shares some fun facts about the
Elliott family.
Speaker 9 (19:29):
The Canadian Prime Minister was an Elliot. His middle name
was Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Pierre Elliott Trudeau traced his lineage back to the Elliot clan.
I didn't know that, Yes she did. Yeah, my middle
name is Stuart it is. When I get down to
(19:58):
explaining my mission, Margaret tells she's known about the curse
her whole life. It's a part of Elliott history. But
at the same time, I.
Speaker 9 (20:06):
Don't pay this any attention at all. Yeah, I mean,
this is the first time I've ever actually talked about it.
I've never thought it was remotely important.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's important to her constituents, though. I tell her about
Dylan and his brothers, the eye patches, the constant muggings,
the cabbage problems.
Speaker 9 (20:27):
Which I don't think he can plain it. I think
maybe he's got the wrong sort of grand for cabbage.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, the cursed kind. Although Margaret doesn't put stock in curses,
she still blesses the mission and even offers to help.
Speaker 9 (20:48):
Well, I mean, I.
Speaker 12 (20:49):
Could probably get the archbishop on the phone.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Do you think you can get an archbishop on the telephone?
Speaker 9 (20:57):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Wow? I really appreciate your good old American moxie on
that one.
Speaker 9 (21:05):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What does good old American moxie mean, Margaret? It's throwing
a bottle rocket into a trash can just to see
it go boom. It's staring down your enemies while picking
your teeth with a corn dog stick. It's sowing a
Canadian flag onto your backpack when traveling through Europe. So
when you toss a bottle rocket into some Parisian poobell,
(21:28):
Canada looks like the idiot Moxie is getting a bishop
on the horn and greeting him with a big fat
American howdy. Do have you ever reached out to an
archbishop before?
Speaker 5 (21:41):
No?
Speaker 9 (21:41):
I know Bishop wil too, but no I don't have.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
It'd be interesting.
Speaker 9 (21:47):
I will follow it up. You've inspired me.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Wow, Okay, that isn't often what I do, So I
appreciate that.
Speaker 9 (21:55):
Very good.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Margaret is on the case. But before getting off the phone,
she counsels me against talking to other elliots about the
curse if they're blissfully unaware. She says, why share something
that will only trouble them. To illustrate her point, Margaret
tells me about an art installation memorializing the curse. It's
called the Cursing Stone, and it's a fourteen ton granite
(22:20):
boulder with the curse inscribed upon it. It was commissioned
by the City of Carlisle in two thousand and one.
Speaker 9 (22:26):
Tasa was fairly unwise. Why why they believe in this curse,
but there are people who do, like your friend Dylan,
and I think it is unwise to bring it out
again because it alarms people.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But the follout caused by the stone suggests it more
than alarmed people. Following its installation, the city experienced the
series of disasters, the worst flood in two hundred years,
an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, numerous businesses and
factories shutting down, among them notably a bar called the
Reaver Pub, and the local soccer team, Carlisle United, lost
(23:06):
so many games they were relegated to a lower league.
So I speak with the artist who sculpted the cursing stone,
Gordon Young, of the Border Reaving Young Clan. But despite
the biblical plagues unleashed by his art, Gordon doesn't put
any stock in the curse at all. Do you think
there's anything suggestive about the timing, you know, like just
(23:27):
after the unveiling of your work and all of these
misfortunes occurring, do you see anything not at all? In
then you don't admit that the timing is sort of
an interesting No, Do you feel like you've been affected
by the curse? Like, do you feel that you're unluckier
(23:49):
than your friends.
Speaker 13 (23:50):
I feel a lifelong sighting would be if I fell
down a toilet, come up smelling of roses on a field.
I have been very, very, very lucky all my life.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Gordon's answer surprises me, so I conduct an informal survey.
Turning to the phone book, I dial random Elliots to
see how unlucky they are. Hello, is this Dale Elliott?
Speaker 12 (24:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Hello? Is this Tanya Elliott Hensby? Yes? I even phone
a real estate agent on a lawn sign Elliott, and
I reach out to Margaret's Elliott Society clan officers all
across the USA. You're a state commissioner for Alabama, Arkansas.
Speaker 12 (24:41):
But yeah, I'm a chemist for Clan Elliott in Texas.
Speaker 13 (24:44):
Yes, yes, I'm the Northern California commissioner for it.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I ask if any of them have experienced the things
the Elliot brothers have, the inability to ever grow cabbage,
any dental problems. You own cattle or sheep growing cabbage?
Are you bald? But it seems they haven't.
Speaker 13 (25:03):
Nope, Nope, no, no, I'm a gorgeous ready.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
So I find myself wondering whether ill fortune might be
less a border Reaver problem, and more a Dylan, Tim
and Rory problem. What was going on with the Elliott brothers,
why all the bad luck? And was the curse really
to blame for it? Since Dylan, Tim and Rory's dad, David,
was the one who first told them about the curse,
(25:31):
I wonder if he would have any insight. So I
reach out to David, but at the last minute he balks.
Dylan says it's because his dad is nervous that even
talking about the curse could exacerbate it. But in David's stead,
Dylan's aunt Joe, agrees to talk to me.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Hello, Johnson, how are you?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
I'm okay? How are you today?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Not too bot I'm very loud of Friday.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In the background, I can hear Joe pouring something into
a glass. What is it that you're drinking? Oh, pino, Gricia,
It's absolutely okay.
Speaker 10 (26:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I sometimes think that I could tell what someone's drinking,
but it's a little piccadillo of mine. I asked Joe
about her family whether they are a bunch of magical thinkers,
like say, someone who thinks he can tell what beverage
someone is drinking over the phone. Maybe they've over indexed
on this whole curse thing. Was your upbringing superstitious? Did
your parents have rituals and stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Well, I was brought up on my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And then Joe tells me the reason she was raised
by her grandparents.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Our parents died when we were all very young.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Your parents died around the same time.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Yeah, they died in a car accident.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Oh my, I'm so sorry. Yeah, and they were together.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (26:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Did that Has that ever struck you as a It
was a bit of bad luck.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It was really bad luck, right, I mean, the worst
luck ever almost.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Joe was only four years old at the time of
the accident, so she doesn't remember the day, but she
does remember learning about the death of her parents for
the first time.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
I was able to read. So I must have been
about six, and I've found a newspaper cutting in my
grandmother's chest of drawers, and I could see that my
name was in there, and my sister's name was in there,
and I could see it as talking about two people,
and I wasn't sure who theirs names were.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
But it sounded really sad to me.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And it's had this really big long word at the
top of it. So I went to mask my grandmother
what it was, and she said, well that that word
is an obituary, and these people are your mum and
dad and their dad. I do have a few memories.
(27:56):
So my dad used to go out to work. I
used to have to help them put the socks on. Today,
my dad went in to tell the teacher off in
school because she was really horrible to me. And I
remember being woking up in the middle of the night
to come downstairs and see the new toys that my
dad had brought home from work. It was a little
(28:17):
red teeth set. I remember the first time I tested
Chinese food because my mom was ill in bed and
my dad brought me in to tasted Chinese food and
there was pineapple on it, and I'd never had pineapple before.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Joe says that after her parents' death, she and her
six siblings were all split up, sent to different relatives.
It took them many years, not until they were adults,
to all reconnact. Do you think this this family trauma
has kind of cast a Paul over David's kids.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
There is no day in our family that our parents'
death was, oh my goodness, catastrophic. In a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
It was terrible.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's a big soddness, and I think they picked that
up when you're a kid.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
It's a scary thing to learn that tragedy can strike
at any moment for no reason, that there's no insulation
between you and the darkness. Joe doesn't think the curse
caused the accident, but the accident might have given the
idea of a curse a certain allure. It offered an
explanation for something unexplainable. Growing up, Dylan and his brothers
(29:38):
heard about their grandparents' death. Were raised with the feeling
of a vague dark cloud that hung over the family.
But now they've given that dark cloud a name, the
Curse of the Eliots. And what you can name, you
can vanquish. What do you think that lifting the curse
might change for David or for your nephews.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
It might.
Speaker 6 (30:06):
Gives a breathing space.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And I don't know why I've said that word or
that phrase, but that's just what it feels like.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
A breathing space.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Regardless of how Margaret Elliott or any of the three
hundred thousand Elliots feel about the curse, these three Elliots, Dylan,
Rory and Tim Elliott, they believe in it, and I'm
going to help these elliots by lifting this curse once
and for all. My greatest hope for lifting the curse
(30:55):
lies with Elliott clan chief Margaret, who promised me a bishop.
But at this point I haven't heard from Margaret in weeks,
so I send an email asking for a progress report.
When she replies, I'm surprised by her terseness. No bishop,
She writes, I really think there is no point in
pursuing this, and your friend who complained about his baldness
(31:18):
and not growing cabbage will have to put up with
it and not blame an entirely irrelevant sixteenth century curse.
I'm not sure how to account for the shift in
Margaret's tone until I read this. I would be grateful
if you would not contact any more clan officers and
alarm them unduly. It seems some of the elliots I
(31:40):
spoke to, ever loyal to their chieftain, ratted me out,
telling Margaret how I'd been pestering them about their bad luck.
As chief, Margaret wants to protect her flock and not
from the curse of the archbishop. But from me, it
looks like I'm on my own on the Archdiocese of
(32:03):
Glasgow's website, I find the name of the Archbishop's director
of Communications, mister Confrey. Hi, thank you so much for
talking to me.
Speaker 12 (32:12):
No problem at all. I'm glad to be able to chat.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I explained to Ronnie Convrey about Dylan and his brothers,
the robot muggings, the dog food factory.
Speaker 12 (32:22):
He's worried the curse from whatever five hundred years ago
is affecting his daily life.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yes, hardy, harharr if you will, Ronnie Convrey, But I
thought stuff that happened hundreds of years ago and still
affects daily life is the Church's bread and butter. Of course,
I'm too cowardly to actually say that, but I do
say this, I'll be it mincingly. Why can't the archbishop
(32:48):
just lift this one little old curse, just this one
little old time.
Speaker 12 (32:52):
It's not going to happen. It's not like, you know,
the archbishop puts on a stool and goes into the
cathedral and mutters a few payers in lot and then
sprinkle some holy water around and everything stakes. I mean,
there is no such ceremony for lifting curses.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And even if there were a ceremony, Ronnie says there's
no one to perform at the last archbishop died just recently,
and appointing a new one can take months, even years.
Is this something that the Pope could lift?
Speaker 12 (33:22):
I had no idea, to be honest, I were you,
I wouldn't waste trying to figure out how.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
You could speak to the Pope. You know you'd be
here to.
Speaker 12 (33:30):
Goomsday and that you wouldn't get a nail the Pope
on something like this.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, he's a he's a busy man. I'm sure. I mean,
it's not like you could just call the Vatican switchboard
and has to speak to the Pope.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Turns out you can call the Vatican switchboard, but the
problem not in Italiana. Is there anybody that spinks?
Speaker 9 (33:58):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (34:01):
My sisters taking English? It's okay?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
At yes, okay. I never imagined the Vatican to be
the kind of mom and pop operation where you'd have
to wait for somebody's sister to get back from her
lunch break at the Vatican. Quiz No's when I phoned
back Trey hours later, though the person who picks up
doesn't know what I'm talking about. She was like, Yeah,
(34:29):
my sister's going to be here, later.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
That sounds like Italy to me.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, is that what it is? This is my gimlet
coworker Valentina. She was born in Florence and speaks Italian,
and agrees to help me. Phone back a few weeks later.
Have you ever called the Vatican before?
Speaker 4 (34:46):
No.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It turns out that while there isn't an office at
the Vatican for curse removal, there is a department for
papal blessings. Maybe a strong enough blessing can wipe out
a curse. Love KOing hate kind of thing. So Valentine
and I phone up the Office of Blessings.
Speaker 10 (35:08):
Yes, hello, okay a lot of.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Valentina explains the details of my problem, the cabbages and cankers,
but the operator says, we need a different department.
Speaker 6 (35:28):
It's an exorcism office.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Oh so getting a curse lifted is that falls under
the department of exorcism.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, that's there's that's the old department that can you know,
deal with that because we are exactly the oppos.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You know, of course, bless you blessings are the opposite
of courses.
Speaker 13 (35:58):
In general.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So I call the switchboard back and ask for the
Department of Exorcism. Why the operator asks, and so yet
again I explained the ulcerated mouths, and Talento's.
Speaker 8 (36:11):
It's really absurd.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Absurd.
Speaker 8 (36:14):
In twenty twenty one, we are still thinking about a
curse dating back to fifteen twenty six. Oh it's five.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Centuries, yes, and so it's about time.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
If both Francis hears about that, I don't know how
he would react.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
How would he react?
Speaker 8 (36:41):
I don't think he will react in a good way.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Are there special circumstances in which you know someone could
speak to the Pope?
Speaker 8 (36:51):
It's not as easy, but it's happened, It may happen.
It's not so easy.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
What are the circumstances in which you pass? Does he
have a cell phone? Does the Pope have a cell phone?
To people that he travels with have a cell phone?
Is it just a landline?
Speaker 8 (37:09):
What do you want to I don't know what you
really want to do.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
When I tell the operator about the original reason for
my call that I want to be put through to
the Department of Exorcisms, I learned there is no such department,
or there is, but it's a department of one. There's
only one exorcist for the entire Vatican.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
And he has a portable number.
Speaker 8 (37:37):
You want the number of the.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Portable cellular device of the Pope's personal exorcist. Uh, yeah, yes, please,
oh oh one, okay, thank you very much for your health. Yes,
God bless thank you. Wow, it's really great. This is
(38:05):
really great. So should we try the try the welcome
to Verizon Wireless.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Your call cannot be completed as the called party is
temporarily unavailable.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Is that a good sign? It's not a good sign.
Once a week for the next eight weeks, Valentina and
I try calling him back. The call never goes through.
When I phone the Vatican switchboard again, the operator directs
me to the Secretary General of the Diocese of Rome,
(38:44):
who says I'll need to speak with a Padre Milily. No,
Mi Lily. But Padre Mediately's secretary says he's not the
right person either, apparently, since the curse effect not just
the elliots of Rome or Dublin, but all elliots everywhere.
(39:05):
My problem is an international problem.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
She says, we need to call the Association of International Exorcists.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Oh, come on, it's called a ya aie Association internationalities.
She just made that up. But it turns out that
the International Association of Exorcists, has over eight hundred members,
publishes guides for exorcists around the world, and is accredited
(39:34):
by the Vatican. The AIE and I email back and forth,
but eventually the Exorcists start giving me the brush off too.
It's been nearly a year of unreturned emails, wrong numbers,
and all around royal runarounds. I've been waking up at
(39:57):
four am to call the Vatican so often that at
this I'm basically on Italian time, which is kind of
like being on a vacation in Italy with none of
the Italy but all of the sleep deprivation. It's while
complaining to my wife one day about how sleepy I
am all the time, how badly my neck and back hurt,
that I'm forced to ask myself did I have the
(40:18):
Elliott Curse. If I did, it wouldn't be so bad
if I had anything to show for it. As it is, though,
I feel like I'm in a Dan Brown novel, but
the boring parts like the table of contents or the
author's note that nobody reads. And to add insult to injury,
I've been at this so long that a new Archbishop
of Glasgow has finally been installed. So I phone Ronnie
(40:42):
Convrey and leave half a dozen messages over a number
of weeks. When someone finally does pick up, rather than
being granted an audience, I'm granted this.
Speaker 9 (40:52):
Good afternoon, Ar's Diocese of Glasgow.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Hi, there is Ronnie Convy there.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
I believe he is.
Speaker 9 (41:00):
Can I ask who's calling?
Speaker 12 (41:01):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It's Jonathan Goldstein?
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Right?
Speaker 12 (41:07):
Can yield for a moment?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Certainly?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
Hello?
Speaker 10 (41:12):
Yes, you must have stepped away from his desk.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Do you think it would be okay to maybe try
him a little later?
Speaker 10 (41:27):
His schedule is quite unpredictable, that's the only thing. He's
in and out quite a bit.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
The only thing left to do is admit defeat. Except
for the fact that, unbeknownst to Ronnie Convrey, the Archbishop,
the Vatican and even me, in the Battle of Goldstein
versus the Curse, the curse was on the ropes. This
(42:00):
might have been the heaviest weight yet. But that's the
thing about heavy's weight. When you hoist them, there's no
finer feeling. But the only thing I've succeeded in hoisting
is myself by my own batards. And so, without another choice,
I phoned Dylan to tell him I failed.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
Hello Dylan, Yeah, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
More importantly, how are you? It's been fourteen months since
Dylan first reached out to me, Another cursed year has
come and gone. The thought of how violently, excruciatingly Baldy
must be at this point is frankly too much to bear.
But what Dylan says next, you'll have to hear to believe.
(42:46):
How are things really good?
Speaker 4 (42:48):
I've got a pretty great second half of a year,
to be honest, really yeah, it's everything seems to be
going a bit better.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
You know, well, you sound different. I mean, your energy
feels different.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Y seem totally different. I feel kind of much much better.
I was kind of one a minute. Was there anything
in the background, of course?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Wise?
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Because that's a really really good second half of the year.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
I never dreamt of hearing the words really good, let
alone really really good come from the mouth of Dylan Elliott.
What was going on? And on top of that, it's
not just Dylan who's been feeling better.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
It's on some quite good shape at the moment. Like
I mean, my brother Tim, he's accepted onto a PhD
course and he's got funding for it. It's going fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
This is Tim using the word fantastic.
Speaker 14 (43:37):
I'm suddenly working for myself, meeting offs of new interesting people,
having a really lovely time.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Is there a moment where you feel like things started
to turn?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I think probably beginning a still year in September, so.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Like in the fall. Yeah, this is a different you know,
a different Tim from when I spoke to you last Yes. Yes,
no muggings in the past year, zero zero muggings. That's
a net positive. How are things for Rory?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Oh, Rory's having a great time.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
He just sent me a picture He's made.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Friends with a donkey. I think it is.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
It's very small.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So what what?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
What?
Speaker 1 (44:30):
What? What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (44:33):
When you just it's certainly a picture of.
Speaker 10 (44:36):
Him and his friend, who is a donkey.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, where where is Rory?
Speaker 10 (44:44):
I've moved to the West of Ireland. I'm really happy.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
This is Rory living here with my partner, the donkey,
injury free. What about the mouth ulcers? Have they cleared up?
Speaker 10 (44:56):
I don't have any any of them.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Incredible For months, and perhaps most importantly and to my mind,
most insanely.
Speaker 10 (45:06):
My ability to grow cabbages as really improved. Like this season,
my cabbages have been amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And as a victory, lap Rory made wine from cabbages.
Speaker 10 (45:18):
Mean it tastes like really strongly alcoholic fermented cabbage juice.
Speaker 4 (45:23):
That's fair City.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
When I just looked up cabbage wine, it seems as
though like one makes it with sixty percent cabbages and
forty percent grapes.
Speaker 10 (45:33):
I'm filled cabbage.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
You're going one hundred percent cabbage.
Speaker 10 (45:37):
I'm fill cabbage.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Dylan sounds like a new man. Tim's doing his PhD.
Rory's dating a donkey. Even the Reaver Pub in Carlisle
that closed down just this year it reopened. What has changed?
Was it merely my trying to get the curse lifted
that perhaps weakened. It is lifting a curse like attempting
(45:59):
to open a pickle jar when it's just so impossible
that you give up and accept that you're never going
to eat pickles ever again. But then someone comes along
and pops it open. No problem because of all your
hard work. Had I loosen the pickle jar? I returned
to the Elliott Clan Society web page to reread the
curse for clues. Maybe while high stepping around like a jackass,
(46:23):
I'd inadvertently, Crane kicked some satanic goblin in the privates,
knocking him into a key structural beam of the Curse's
complex architecture. But when I get to the Curse's website,
I'm shocked by what I find, because what I find
is nothing. In big block letters across the screen, it
(46:45):
reads error four O four page not found. The curse
has been removed.
Speaker 9 (47:01):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Hello, is this miss Elliott.
Speaker 6 (47:05):
This is Marlbur's idiot speaking here.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
And so I phone Margaret Elliott, chief of the Elliott
Clan Society slash web page. Oh hello, this is Jonathan
Goldstein calling. I don't know if you remember me, the
American podcaster.
Speaker 8 (47:21):
Yes, yes, I remember.
Speaker 6 (47:23):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I'm sorry to bother you. Might you just have a
couple of minutes to speak? I just had a I mean.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
Yes, I've got I'm not terribly keen on talking about
this curse anymore.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I long for the olden days when Margaret was terribly
keen on talking about this curse.
Speaker 9 (47:43):
Perfect well, I mean I could to get somebody on
the phone.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
My middle name is Stewart.
Speaker 9 (47:50):
You've inspired me.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Now all I have is a dumb old montage. I've
made enough calls to people desperate get off the phone
with me to know that I only have a few
minutes before Margaret hangs up. So I launched right into
my question why was the curse taken down from the
Elliot Clan website?
Speaker 6 (48:11):
I asked for it to be taken down.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Uh, just had a pure curiosity. Was it taken down
because of me?
Speaker 9 (48:20):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:20):
I think you probably triggered something and maybe think all
the more deeply a budget and that I wanted to anyway,
So yes, it was you, awfulled.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
It wasn't my ability to procure a papal blessing, archbishop's
recantation or priestly exorcism that in the end got rid
of the curse. It was simply my ability to be annoying.
I annoyed that curse right out of existence on the internet.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
It was all due to you.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
You mean, knew take responsibility, I mean not to not
to you know, take all the credit.
Speaker 9 (48:56):
But yeah, yeah, did take all the credit.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Why since the Elliot brother's luck began improving in the fall,
I run my donning theory about why by Margaret, I wonder, well,
this might seem silly to you, but might it correspond
to the fact that the curse was taken off the website.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
I wouldn't think so.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
No, but the intersection of the Elliot brothers change in
luck and the change in the web page is just
too tantalizing for me to let go of. So I
can't help but continue to toe dance on Margaret's last
remaining nerve. Do you remember the day that it was removed? No?
Speaker 6 (49:40):
I did, Like I remember, do not put the two together.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Dylan Elliott's luck started to change around the end of
last year. I think the fall going into winter was
that I'm.
Speaker 6 (49:58):
Not going to be sucked to this. I just absolutely
think it's entirely relevant.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
But was that that wasn't around the generally the.
Speaker 6 (50:08):
Okay, when I hope this is all done and dusted now, yes,
I think so good? Great, all right, have a nice day.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Okay, Yes, and tutelou, as they they.
Speaker 9 (50:21):
Say, exactly, we say that all the time.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
After speaking with Margaret, I searched the Internet archives and
discover in fact that indeed the page of the curse
was removed around the time of the Elliot's change in fortune. Okay,
now I'm going to ask you to try to find
that page about the Elliott curse. Together, Dylan and I
(50:51):
turned to the page of the curse on the Elliott
Clan website.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Gone, let me see.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
What do you see?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
I can't find that page.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
That's right, you can't find it. It's been removed.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Why how comes lifted?
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Lifted? Not from reality technically, but from the.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
Internet twenty first century.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Can we just at this point safely say that the
curse has been lifted?
Speaker 4 (51:26):
I mean, yeah, actually definitely can. I think?
Speaker 1 (51:29):
And when I ask Rory if he buys the whole
internet exorsus my idea scientist that he is, he carefully
analyzes the empirical evidence.
Speaker 10 (51:38):
I mean, you know, it's definitely possible.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
You know, in fact, it's probable.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
In fact, I think it's definitely the case.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Next time I'm in Carlisle, I'd like to buy you
a pint at the Reaver.
Speaker 10 (51:56):
Pub, you know, yeah, I'd like to offer you a
glasses champaign.
Speaker 4 (52:06):
Plans with the girlfriend to go off to brying a
camper van.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Very shortly, here's Dylan again, a camper van.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Yeah, we're going to take it in the road and
kindick with traveling. It's just feeling the immense feeling of freedom.
It's been kind of incredible.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Are the Elliott Boys better off for anything I did?
Who knows? And frankly, at this point, they probably don't
even care. When things are going well, we don't think
too hard about the why of it. It's only when
things are bad that we do. That's when we seek
out therapists to analyze and exorcist to exercise. When things
are going well, we just enjoy them for as long
(52:44):
as they last, which usually isn't very long at all.
But for now, there's breathing space. When is your girlfriend
do over?
Speaker 13 (52:53):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (52:54):
Imminently?
Speaker 5 (52:56):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Okay, enjoy the rest of your day with your girlfriend.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Thanks a million, that's quickly, Okay.
Speaker 15 (53:01):
Take it easy, Dylan, bye bye.
Speaker 7 (53:34):
Now that the furnitures returning to its good will home,
now that the last month's rent is skiming with the damaged, possible.
Speaker 6 (53:50):
Take this moment to dissolve.
Speaker 7 (53:54):
If we met him, if we tried, we felt around
for five.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
From the names at Accid and Leaves. This episode of
Heavyweight was produced by supervising producer Stevie Lane and me
Jonathan Goldstein, along with Mohemy mcgauker. Our senior producer is
Khalila Holt. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Valentina Powers,
(54:24):
Max Green, Domiano Marquetti, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed
the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson,
Michael Hurst, Sean Jacoby, Blue Dot Sessions, and he himself,
Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on our website,
Gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by
(54:44):
the Weaker Than's courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on
Twitter at Heavyweight. This was the last episode of the season,
but we're already looking for stories for next year. So
if there's a moment from your past that you need
help resolving, please send us an email at Heavyweight at
gimlet media dot com. Have a happy and safe holiday season?
Speaker 12 (55:04):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Should I ask Aggie if he wants to come up
here and wish everyone a happy holiday season?
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Ai?
Speaker 1 (55:09):
Do you want to be in the credits? Have a
happy and safe holiday season, Ogi
Speaker 4 (55:16):
And will see you next y
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