Reaching Out

This American Life

This episode features excerpts from Sayre Quevedo's podcast Reaching Out, which documents his and his twin brother Connor's multi-year search for their long-lost birth father in

Key takeaways

• Sayre Quevedo has recorded nearly all of his personal conversations for years to document his life and twin brother dynamics
• Connor initiates the search using DNA testing results that finally provide their birth father's correctly spelled name and Los Angeles location

Main topics

• Twin brother dynamics and divergent life choices
• Searching for a birth father using DNA results

Notable quotes

"The critical difference between you and Connor is this. Long ago, without realizing it, you chose a kind of freedom."

Conclusion

The episode offers a compelling look at how modern technology and raw audio

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hey there, it's Irel with a quick message before we start. I'm going to be doing a live show on stage this Friday with Vic Michaelis, and you can watch it live for free online. What the show is going to be is basically I'm going to be telling stories on stage, and then after each story, Vic and this crack team of incredibly funny comedians are going to improvise scenes. Vic and I did a version of this show once at a small theater in New York. It was completely, it was so funny. wonderful. The show on Friday is going to be in Los Angeles. We're going to be live streaming it for everybody who is a This American Life partner. Now, you may ask yourself, is this a ploy to get you to sign up for life partners? The answer is yes. Yes. And. We have set up a free trial so you can see the live stream for free. And then we want you to take a look around at all the bonus episodes you get. We want to let you try listening ad-free, and we hope you like it. And if you don't, you can cancel. No harm, no foul. A little disappointing, but whatever. So again, the show is Friday, October 9th, 6.30 Pacific, 9.30 Eastern. To sign up so you can see it for free, sign up at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners. The free trial code you're going to need this to is the word live stream. One word, live stream. And we'll send details about how to watch the live stream soon. Speaker 2 (1:24) All right, here's today's show. Speaker 1 (1:27) A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Speaker 2 (1:38) From WBZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. I recently heard this podcast that was so exciting to hear because it felt like the people who did it invented something completely new, which is so rare. And it's like I feel like they took what shows like ours do and then just pushed it further and further until it became something else. And I want to play you some of that show today. It's by somebody who I had never heard of before. His name is Sarah Covado. And the series is called Reaching Out. It's made by Futuro Studios. And as you'll hear, like at some point years ago, it seems like Ser started recording nearly all of his personal conversations, including like these especially like passive aggressive conversations with his twin brother that get more interesting and complicated the further you get into the series. And it's just, I don't know, real messy life captured on recordings in a way that is rare to hear. And then Sarah also invented this way to do narration that at first when you hear it, you're like, what's happening? And then, I don't know, I really came to love it. And the show is ambitious. I don't know if I've heard another podcast that tries to capture a person's life as completely as this one does. And like just what it feels like to be alive right now. So we're going to excerpt some of the show today. That's going to be the whole hour. And I just want to say stay with it. I guarantee. It pays off. Here's Sarah. Speaker 3 (3:05) On February 15th, 2020, Connor calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father. Speaker 3 (3:14) You do not record this conversation. This is notable if only because so much of your life has been recorded. Moments far less consequential than this. Your and Connor's fourth birthday. Speaker 3 (3:34) A school performance. You play a scared rabbit. Your only line. Speaker 3 (3:44) A house party when you were 16, when you first began to record yourself. Speaker 7 (3:50) Talk to them about what you're up to. Speaker 2 (3:53) Since it's about me and it's about the things I do, I figure I should record this. Speaker 3 (3:59) There is a price for what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. Speaker 3 (4:05) If you had known how this would all turn out, maybe you would have recorded everything. Or if you'd known the cost, maybe you would not have recorded anything at all. Speaker 3 (4:16) On February 15th, 2020, your brother calls you to ask if you want to look for your birth father. But there is no record of that call. Speaker 3 (4:27) There is, however, a recording of the call you make a few days later. Speaker 7 (4:59) Nothing. My phone is at 10%, by the way. That's cool. I don't feel like talking on the phone very long. I'm tired. I'm recording. I hope that is okay. Speaker 7 (5:12) Oh, really? Speaker 4 (5:13) Okay. Yeah. Speaker 7 (5:17) Thank you for recording because you want to talk about dad stuff? Speaker 7 (5:22) Yeah, well, not just because of that, but yeah. Speaker 3 (5:38) These days, you rarely know where Connor is until he's already there. You call and he's in Washington with his girlfriend. You call again and he's barely got service. He's trimming weed in Arcata. Or he's hopped a train to the Midwest. Or he's crashing on a friend's couch in Oakland. Right now, Connor is partying in New Orleans with his girlfriend. Right now, you are pacing around your room in Harlem, staring at a whiteboard where you have scribbled a list of vague to-dos. Speaker 7 (6:08) walking to go get my bike and we walked by this guy who apparently used to live here. We keep walking and all of a sudden... Like, here be your steps and look behind. Speaker 3 (6:18) Connor does not like it when you point out your differences. But contrast is the rightful and unavoidable dominion of twins. They're superficial distinctions, the kind of differences strangers point out when you inevitably pull up a photo of Connor after they learn you're a twin. Your tightly coiled curls, Connor's loose wavy hair. Connor's growth spurt at 16. Your 5'7", which you say is 5'8". But nothing makes you feel more different from your brother than when he tells you these kinds of stories. Speaker 7 (6:48) And... Speaker 7 (6:50) And the fucking guy is like a block away from us. Whoa. I just had fucking like these knives in his hand and like polishing his knives on his shirt and like looking at us. Speaker 3 (7:01) The critical difference between you and Connor is this. Long ago, without realizing it, you chose a kind of freedom. The kind that imparts stability and safety and that you pay for in unsubsidized loans, quarterly job reviews, happy hours with coworkers, boring party conversation, conferences with field practitioners, mid-century modern furniture. boxing classes, and dental checkups. And Connor chose a kind of freedom that comes with land projects, one-off jobs at biker festivals, wide-open mountain ranges from the Union Pacific Line, and that he pays for in a persistent smoker's cough, weeks on remote weed farms with fish fans, and being pursued in New Orleans by a guy with a knife. Speaker 7 (7:45) He's just like psycho. Speaker 7 (7:47) Yeah, that was crazy. That's why I was talking to you. Speaker 3 (7:52) your brother thinks you are a judgmental normie and you think he is a judgmental hobo this is the shared cost of your divergent freedoms you both pay for your choices with the degree of distance it puts between you But you do love each other, and you are trying to be better, to be nicer, to be closer. This routine of phone calls, which began a few months ago, is your attempt. Speaker 7 (8:15) and drink water and eat meals yeah we have a house i love you we can cook yeah i know you're not like eating over a trash fire okay i love you okay there's nothing wrong with that Speaker 3 (8:27) You do not return to the subject of your birth father tonight. There are no records of phone calls with Connor that week or the next. You assume his impulse to look for your father is a passing one. You doubt you follow up. You went through your phase, of course, the one that you imagine most fatherless teenagers go through, in which your father's absence took on an outsized significance, in which your adolescent brain dissected and disassembled its meaning in relation to your sense of self. Was your fatherlessness, while you felt so apart from others, was his abandonment a sort of permanent wound on your psyche? Only one way to find out. Write a lot of shitty poetry. Speaker 3 (9:08) None of those poems are recorded, thank God. But one vestige remains. A play about two boys waiting to meet their father at a cafe. You wrote it when you were 17. It was called, perhaps a little over-precisely, Waiting to Meet Your Father, and was haltingly, painfully acted out by two fellow art students. Speaker 8 (9:30) What if he doesn't show? He will. And if he doesn't? I'll be okay. Speaker 3 (9:41) The central tension of the play is that the two boys are waiting at a cafe to meet their father who they've never known. But he is running late, or maybe he is standing them up. The brothers argue about whether or not they should wait to find out which one it is. One boy is sure it won't be worth it. The other is adamant they stay. Speaker 8 (10:00) Do you think about him a lot? No. Speaker 7 (10:02) Do you? Speaker 8 (10:04) Well, sometimes. Like when we're about to fall asleep, it's... Usually while I'm not thinking that I think about it the most, you know, it's... It's one of those things where when my mind is just drifting, I'll suddenly start wondering about him. And then I'll have to make myself do something to take my mind off him. The more I think about trying to think about him, the more I end up thinking about him. Speaker 3 (10:25) In the end. Speaker 8 (10:26) Let's go Speaker 1 (10:28) Are you sure? Speaker 8 (10:29) Yeah. Speaker 3 (10:31) Their father arrives a few moments after they walk out the door. Speaker 3 (10:40) You turn 20. On the eve of this new decade of life, you decided it was not worth it to actively think about your birth father anymore. It was not cool to still feel hurt about it, and so you could choose to feel nothing. And you plan to continue to do so now. You will not sabotage your brother's efforts, but you will not help them either. So you do not follow up with Connor about looking for your father. And Connor does not call. but there are also no records of other calls either. If you had recorded everything, you would hear three sessions here with your new work-subsidized teletherapist. The first, an intake session. A concise, summarized biography of your life as it relates to your inner problems. You make radio documentaries. You won some awards for this last year. Speaker 7 (11:27) Wow, hold on one second. There are Speaker 6 (11:29) two parts to this speech and I was gonna keep it short But what the hell I got gold. So yeah Speaker 3 (11:36) You crave the attention and acknowledgement, and it also repulses you. You work at the most famous newspaper in the world, at one of the biggest shows in the country. Lately, you've been leaving early to see if anyone notices. They don't. Speaker 3 (11:54) You were raised by a loving single mother in the Bay Area. Speaker 3 (12:04) You would hear yourself tell your teletherapist that your birth father left before you were born and you've never met him. That you suspect, based on nothing more than an elementary understanding of Freud and a few Instagram therapy videos, that this is the root of some of your problems. Daddy issues. Speaker 3 (12:21) You have a twin brother. Speaker 3 (12:23) but you're not identical. You probably make the same joke you always do, that you're sorry to disappoint your therapist. People are always more excited when they think there's some other version of you out there. most relevant to your teletherapist, what you would like to fix about yourself. It is mostly one thing, which you are almost embarrassed to admit. You have the sneaking suspicion that you will never fall in love. Speaker 3 (12:50) Your last attempt officially ended the night of your 27th birthday. You and your ex shouting at one another beneath the rattling viaduct of the M-Line. Your ex saying, it's been two years. You need to get over me. I got over you in a week. I know you said, I know, even though you didn't know. Speaker 3 (13:14) That is as far as you get. Your therapist calls it quits at the start of the pandemic. You build fortresses of routine to keep the mania of your confinement from creeping in. You quit smoking, start running. You record your phone calls. You tell yourself it's for a project you hope to make one day about this historic moment. Speaker 3 (13:34) Hello. Your aunt and your mom have been living together in Portland since quarantine began. Speaker 4 (13:42) She's here. You're back. She's here. Speaker 4 (13:45) Does it go from bear to otter and then to something else? Or does it just bear and otter? It's not like an Speaker 7 (13:52) evolution. It's just different groups. Speaker 4 (13:56) Okay. Twinks are a totally different category, right? Speaker 3 (13:59) This is your favorite kind of call. You get stoned and curl up in bed with the phone balanced on your cheek. You are still at 27, like most children. You like to hear stories of the world before you were in it, of your mother before she was your mother, like when her and your aunt were strippers at the New Century Theater in San Francisco. Speaker 7 (14:19) And what did you dance to?