Ye Old Mental Imbalance

[00:00:00] intro-outro: Tired. So tired, Overtired.

[00:00:04] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired No Longer your Taylor Swift podcast, but a, a, a mental health podcast about the shit that keeps us up at night. I’m Christina Warren. I’m joined as always by my friends, Jeff Severance, Gunzel and Brett Terpstra. Hey guys, how are you?

[00:00:21] Jeff: Good

[00:00:22] Brett: good. I’m not. I’m not tired. Are you tired?

[00:00:25] Christina: Oh, I’m exhausted, Jeff. No,

[00:00:28] Jeff: I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m undecided.

[00:00:30] Brett: What’s going on with you, Christina?

[00:00:32] Christina: well, it’s seven o’clock in the morning and I went to bed at four, so that’s, that’s my, yeah.

[00:00:40] Brett: I stayed up late last night because I got obsessed with a show that I’ve already seen, but you guys ever watch Arrow?

[00:00:47] Jeff: Mm-hmm.

[00:00:48] Christina: Yes. Not in a long time.

[00:00:51] Brett: Yeah, it’s like 10 years old. Uh, it, I, I started watching The Flash with Al and like immediately there’s a crossover episode where characters from the Arrow come on, and it gave me this like, longing for watching Arrow, and it’s just such a great, like, revenge story. And I got, and everyone in it is hot.

[00:01:12] Like everyone from like the main characters to the detective, to the, like the CFO company, like everyone’s hot. It’s, it’s, it’s a visually appealing show with a great revenge plot, and it’s way better than the flash.

[00:01:30] Jeff: Wow. I’ve never seen either of those.

[00:01:33] Christina: Uh, they’re from, they’re, they’re from Greg Vigilante who, uh, created brothers and sisters and, um, Couple of other things, but, uh, but who I, of course, always will remember because he was like the showrunner and one of the lead writers on Dawson’s Creek. So, uh, he also created Everwood. So, yeah. So, uh, but, but you know, it makes sense that like the longest running, most enduring kind of franchise thing of the CW is, is from like a Dawson’s Creek alum.

[00:01:58] Um, so, so Brett, Brett, appreciate that. You’re, you’re enjoying and rewatching stuff like from like the absolute deepest bowels of Teen tv, Vdo

[00:02:10] Brett: thank you for that perspective. I never would’ve known that without Christina.

[00:02:15] Jeff: I tend to, I tend to re-watch things when I don’t feel like there’s something new for me to get. Uh,

[00:02:23] Brett: that’s where I’m at right now. All, all of the shows, all the new shows we’ve been watching have ended and we’re in that, like, lull between seasons and we’re like, we’re watching a lot of Big Bang Theory and, and, and older shows and just finding out like, wow, we just started Dickinson, which I didn’t, I had never heard of on Apple

[00:02:44] Christina: Oh yeah, it’s pretty good. Yeah, with

[00:02:46] Brett: it is, it is pretty good.

[00:02:48] Then there’s like three seasons of it already completed, so it’s a new, it’s a new show to.

[00:02:54] Christina: yeah. No, she’s amazing because I believe that she, somehow, her agents must be just phenomenal because she was able to get the Dickinson deal and do, um, Hawkeye on Disney Plus, and they were like two at one point, one of, I think it was season three and Hawkeye, they were like airing at the same time.

[00:03:13] And usually how the streaming things work is, it’s not quite as restrictive as like network TV shows where they’re like, You are committed to our show and only our show. But usually they’re like, You can’t be on two competing services with brand new shows at the same time. So whoever reps her is doing a fucking great job.

[00:03:33] Uh,

[00:03:34] Brett: was good too.

[00:03:35] Christina: Well, yes, Hawkeye was great. Well, you know what? She’s really good. Um,

[00:03:39] Brett: Apparently

[00:03:41] Christina: she’s very good. Well, she’s, she was nominated for an Oscar when she was 11, so, Yeah. Um, but I mean,

[00:03:47] Brett: Same.

[00:03:48] Jeff: It’s not a

[00:03:49] Christina: but, uh, uh, what was the, the movie was with the Edge of 17 or something. Um,

[00:03:55] Jeff: Ooh,

[00:03:56] Christina: it’s kind of like a No, uh, I know that’s a CX song, but it might have just been called, uh, 17.

[00:04:02] But she, she, uh, she’s really good. Um, but she, uh, yeah, but, but Dickinson, um, I haven’t watched the whole thing, but I remember

[00:04:12] Brett: I’ve just gotten going. But immediately, immediately I was like, This is a good show. I, I can get into this. And, and I haven’t, I haven’t read Emily Dickinson. Like El my partner, uh, is a big fan. She, she’s a poet by trade and like she knows all about Emily Dickinson. So it’s, it’s fun for her in a different way.

[00:04:32] For me, it’s an exploration of, of an author that I, I really don’t know anything about. So this is all, it’s all new to me and fun for her. So it’s a good show.

[00:04:44] Christina: That’s cool. Oh, and, and I was right, it was, the film was called Edge of 17,

[00:04:48] Jeff: Oh, sorry.

[00:04:50] Christina: uh, which also the Stevie Nicks song. I’m sure that’s why it was named that. But anyway, but yeah, no, that’s fun. That,

[00:04:55] Jeff: wonderful album, Belladonna. Ooh.

[00:04:58] Brett: Are you a CB Nicks fan?

[00:05:00] Jeff: Oh, I’m a Stevie Nicks fan. Yeah, I got her right back here in the record. Bile

[00:05:03] Brett: I could. I could. I could use more cv Nicks like, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve heard, but I’ve never done a deep dive on Stevie Nicks

[00:05:10] Christina: so, So it’s funny you say that. So it’s funny that you say that like you and L are watching like Dickinson or whatever, and I love that you’re both doing this, but then we went to the Stevie Nicks place cuz what I’m re-watching right now, and I don’t always do this when there’s not more stuff to watch, it’s just sometimes what you want as a comfort.

[00:05:27] I’m doing something which is absolutely stupid. I’m rewatching Glee and, And Glee was an, Glee was an insane show when it aired. And in retrospect it’s even more insane. It’s like the fact that that Ryan Murphy, not only that, it was like a show that was on mainstream like network tv, but that it was like a phenomenon and it was like a billion dollar enterprise is just.

[00:05:53] Hilarious to me. But I was watching the Rumors episode of that, like last night because they, they did an episode it, they did an episode entirely dedicated to the Rumors album and, uh, uh, so yeah, it’s all, it’s all full

[00:06:08] Brett: g, did you guys ever give the new Heartbreak High a chance? I still recommend that it is still, it is a I and I went back after Christina told me that this was a reboot. Uh, we went back and I watched the first episode of the original Heartbreak High, and it, it didn’t, it didn’t hook me. Um, It was, it was weird.

[00:06:30] Like I could maybe, like if we completely run out of shows, I could see giving it more of a chance. But the new heartbreak high, I think you guys would love esp. Like, it, it’s that high school glee feeling. It’s, it’s super, it’s super diverse. High school. It’s kind of the way you wish high school was. Uh, but, but still with all the teen drama that you would expect, except it’s kind of like Heartbreakers, um, or Heart Stoppers, I mean where like, it’s the story of, of, I mean, there are queer people in the story and you keep worrying that they’re gonna go through what queer people in your high school went through, but they don’t like, it all ends up being supportive and, and like heartwarming even though there’s that tension of like, when is, when is the, when is the hate crime gonna happen?

[00:07:23] Um, and, and

[00:07:25] Jeff: Yeah. The way, the way that queer characters were allowed into TV for the longest time was as victims.

[00:07:31] Brett: Yeah.

[00:07:33] Christina: Or,

[00:07:33] Brett: It’s a new era.

[00:07:35] Christina: or, or Matt F’s place who like was allowed to kind of hug a guy occasionally and like, they had a kiss that was actually even filmed that they cut. I mean, this was 1993, where instead it just kind of looks like they like give each other some sort of look and, and like Bill or somebody sees it happen because it’s like his friend and he gets kind of uncomfortable, but like, they cut the kiss so it’s, you know, the, the victim, you know, or, or something else.

[00:08:01] Yeah.

[00:08:01] Brett: Did you guys watch Heart Stoppers?

[00:08:04] Jeff: Mm.

[00:08:05] Brett: Cause holy shit, like I, I grew up, like, I was not out in any way in high school. I had gay friends, but like I was, I came from an evangelical family and worked very hard to repress any homosexual urges that I.

[00:08:23] Jeff: Mm

[00:08:24] Brett: um, going back and watching these high school dramas about queer kids coming of age, uh, is for me, and maybe, and maybe you guys wouldn’t have the same reaction, but for me it’s just extremely heartwarming.

[00:08:38] Uh, heart stoppers just melted my heart. And, uh, if you have, if even if you’re, even if you don’t have, uh, a like vested interest in it, I think it’s such a great show.

[00:08:51] Christina: I, Uh, yeah. All, all my friends in high school were gay, basically. Um, and, and then I, and then I famously for years, like I would always be like the, the girl who would, like, I’d go to like gay Halloween or gay New Year’s Eve or whatever, managed to find like the one like straight adjacent person there, um, to get caught in compromising positions in the closet with

[00:09:11] Jeff: Because all the straight sexual behavior had to happen in the closet at the gay New Year’s

[00:09:15] Christina: Yes, exactly. That was, that was exact, honestly. And, and, and that’s like, yes.

[00:09:22] Jeff: So I’m rewatching, I’ve stopped rewatching it, but I started rewatching Daredevil, the Netflix Daredevil. Um, it’s a great show. Uh, and I don’t know if you remember the, the journalist Ben Urick in that series played by Vondi Curtis Hall. Um, he’s, he’s incredible. He comes in early in the series, um, older black actor, um, who when I saw him in Daredevil was like one of those things where you’re like, How the fuck have I not seen this guy in 45 amazing shows or movies?

[00:09:55] Um, because the, his, his presence is so incredible. And I go to IMDB to figure out like, have I seen him before? And I realize that like the role he had the most kind of repeat appearances in was Cop Rock in 1990. Do you remember Cop Rock the Musical about being cops? Um,

[00:10:17] Brett: A, a new, a new level of propaganda.

[00:10:19] Jeff: But yeah, but what was amazing is that like two days after, uh, watching a much of these episodes and thinking like it is a, it is a crime that this man has not been all over, you know, every amazing thing ever. I start watching Ray and Raymond, which is a movie that just came out on Apple tv, Ethan Hawk and you and McGregor are like two half brothers that have to deal with their, have to deal with their dad’s death.

[00:10:44] And man, Vondi Curtis Hall has a great role in it. And so I’m just really hoping that from this day forward, uh, for as long as he lives, he’s born in 1950, so he is getting up there, uh, that we can see Vondi Curtis Hall over and over again cuz he’s just phenomenal. Also opening scene of Ray and Raymond, or Raymond and Ray, I don’t know which one it is, is like these two, like barely connected half-brothers.

[00:11:08] One knocks on the door of the other in the middle of the night and he comes to the door and he says, Dad died. And then the other brother goes by his own hand

[00:11:16] Brett: Ha,

[00:11:17] Jeff: Cause it’s like the most bizarre way of two brothers communicating. It’s like, what? No. So I just always assumed to be by his own hand. It’s a great, it is an amazing movie about what, um, how our parents can live in us, um, and how we can become totally captive to their chaos.

[00:11:36] Um, and how that has to be released and can be released. It’s an amazing movie. So first of all, first pick here today. Pop culture pick Vondi Curtis Hall. Second pick, Let’s see. Is it Ray and Raymond? Or Raymond and Ray?

[00:11:48] Brett: I, uh, I’m absolutely watching this. Maybe even

[00:11:52] Jeff: Raymond and Ray. Yeah. This dad named his, these two half brothers. He gave them the same name.

[00:11:57] He named them both Raymond And it’s beautiful. It’s, it’s absurd and beautiful, so I highly recommend it. Anyway, I feel like we’re at the end of the podcast.

[00:12:09] Brett: Yep. This is time to wrap it. Should we, should we do a sponsor break before we do the mental health corner?

[00:12:17] Christina: Yeah, let’s go ahead and do that.

[00:12:18] Jeff: Sure.

[00:12:19] Brett: Uh uh, Jeff, I feel like a lead in to the mental health corner. Might be a, a promo swap with a, another podcast about mental health.

[00:12:29] Jeff: Well, let me just go dig in here in my pocket and see if I have a promo swap to

[00:12:32] Brett: what you got.

Podcast Swap: Mental Chillness

[00:12:33] Jeff: Oh, here’s one. Um, so the Mental Chillness podcast, if you’re looking for more mental health podcasts, mental Chillness is a safe space that heals with the power of laughter. It’s led by Con and Jules to people with mental illness that come together weekly with occasional guests to share their daily process of working towards mental chillness.

[00:12:54] You see what they did, Chillness coming from childhood environments that weren’t open about mental wellbeing and emotional self-regulation. We can relate to that. Con and jewels are opening up the conversations of the everyday struggles of dealing with adhd, depression, anxiety, epilepsy, and growing into adulthood.

[00:13:16] I’m not, not, not a complete process for me. At 47 , they share tips and tricks of emotional awareness from their personal experiences and how they hold themselves accountable. And the way they know to do it best is with humor. You can keep up with them on any podcast platform and the YouTube channel.

[00:13:34] Mental Chillness for full video content. Thanks for swapping with us. Mental Chillness.

[00:13:40] Brett: Yeah, that means they’re gonna be talking about us too.

[00:13:43] Jeff: What the hell do they say about us?

[00:13:45] Brett: Uh, maybe that we have an amazing mental health corner.

[00:13:48] Jeff: Hmm. We’re in the corner.

Mental Health Corner

[00:13:51] Christina: I can start, um, I’m fine. Uh, I’m going out of town for 10 days tomorrow and I need to pack and I need to find some stuff. So that’s stressing me out a little bit. Um, but, but I’m fine in some ways. I’m actually doing pretty good. I’m a little bit stressed at the moment because I’m trying to figure out, and I’m very distracted and I’m stopping myself because I have until, uh, apparently the ninth to, to figure this out.

[00:14:13] But Taylor Swift tickets, uh, were announced this morning, uh, before I woke up. And, uh, although maybe about the time I went to bed, which dumbass don’t ever go to sleep. Um, and so that’s stressing me out because my mom really wants to go and I have friends who really. O and I, uh, have a reputation for always being able to get the tickets.

[00:14:39] And I don’t want another adult situation where I wind up. I mean, it’s, it’s inevitable that I’m gonna wind up having to pay over price for at least one of the shows I wanna go to. But I do not wanna be in another situation where I pay $3,000 for shitty ass seats like I did with Adele in Vegas when she then motherfucking canceled and then we had to reschedule, and now we’re going at the end of January.

[00:15:03] And the whole thing I’m pissed about, like, Adele could go fuck herself.

[00:15:06] Brett: You, you, you said multiple times that you were fine. And, uh,

[00:15:11] Christina: I’m stressed. I’m clearly not

[00:15:12] Brett: in my experience in 12 step programs, fine has a bunch of meetings. You wanna hear some of the acronyms that people have attributed to fine,

[00:15:21] Christina: sure

[00:15:22] Brett: Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

[00:15:26] Christina: that’s accurate. That’s completely

[00:15:27] Brett: Fran Frantic, insane, nuts and egotistical, Faithful involved, knowledgeable and experienced.

[00:15:36] foggy, insecure, neurotic emotion. Uh, feeling I’m nothing to everyone like these. It goes on, there’s a whole list of what fine act, And this is funny because my, I, my, my therapist will ask me, How are you doing? And I’ll say, I’m good. And he’ll be like, Okay. That’s not a response to How are you doing? Like, yeah, like you can be, you can be all of these things, but good is not a proper response.

[00:16:03] And we’ve talked about how like, I’ll often respond with like, I’m fucking great or absolutely fantastic if I’m in a good mood. But yeah, so I feel like fine is not fine, is not an answer to how’s your mental health.

[00:16:17] Christina: No. So I think the first one, Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Is that what the first one

[00:16:22] Jeff: You’re like, That’s what

[00:16:23] Christina: Okay. Yeah,

[00:16:24] Brett: that’s a, that’s an A Smith reference,

[00:16:27] Christina: Oh, is it? Well, well done. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. That is Joe Perry was the other

[00:16:32] Jeff: Never. Well done. Uh, Stephen Tyler. Never ever. Well done.

[00:16:36] Christina: I mean, well live Tyler. Like he

[00:16:39] Jeff: No Live Tyler.

[00:16:40] Brett: Well done. Well done. Well

[00:16:42] Jeff: the, There wasn’t Mc

[00:16:43] Christina: I’m saying

[00:16:45] Jeff: There was a web post on Mc Sweeney’s. Ones titled, I’m the guy who puts the bandanas on Stephen Tyler’s microphone Stand

[00:16:51] Christina: Oh, I remember this. I

[00:16:52] Jeff: And I’m sick of it. And I, and then I’m sick and tired of it or something

[00:16:56] Christina: I, I, Yes, yes, yes. I remember this. I mean, that, that, that’s, that’s almost as good as, Oh, speaking of mixed Sweeneys, it is now, um, you know, decorative gor season motherfuckers. Um,

[00:17:08] Brett: Classic.

[00:17:09] Christina: um, no, but yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m stressed. The, the, the, the ticket drama aside, which is just, that’s just occupying the front part of my brain cuz I can focus on it. Um. I don’t, I mean, look, I don’t care. I’ll, I’ll figure that out. Uh, getting packed and, um, honestly, I’m trying to, so like, things are messy and we had like a, a cleaner come in and she did a good job, but something was put away and I don’t know where.

[00:17:37] So I’m gonna have to go through a bunch of stuff to try to find my, um, my portable, uh, wireless mic packs. The alternative being, and I don’t wanna do this because A, it’s the easy way out and b, it costs money that I don’t wanna spend. But I’m afraid, like if I can’t find them in time, then I’m just gonna have to buy another fucking set of wireless mic packs that I don’t wanna do.

[00:17:59] So I have, uh, and so if I can avoid spending $300, I would like to. So, um, yeah, but I’m gonna be gone for 10 days and that’s just getting everything ready for that. I’m not actually nervous about. Yeah, I’m not actually nervous about universe at all. Like, I’m feeling really good about that. And there are gonna be some cool things that happen when I’m in San Francisco.

[00:18:22] Like I was, I was asked to speak, um, at, at a class at, uh, at Berkeley, um, next week. And so that’s really awesome. And, um, uh, the EFF awards happened to coincide with when I’ll be there. And so I was, uh, so I’m gonna get to go to those. Um, so like, it’s gonna be a good trip. Um, I’m just, you know, it’s, I’m gonna be gone for a long time and, uh, just getting everything ready for that is stressful.

[00:18:48] Jeff: When you’ve had quite a like four to six weeks, really,

[00:18:51] Brett: Yeah. Right.

[00:18:52] Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:54] Jeff: Just like running.

[00:18:56] Brett: Last time I was at the EFF Awards, uh, Best of Booty was DJing and it was, it was crazy. There was a Sisters of Mercy BC Boys mashup that they played, and I could not stop dancing. It was insane.

[00:19:09] Christina: Oh, the, I, I, I’ve been to those booty parties before, um, in, in San Francisco. God, I hadn’t thought about those in years.

[00:19:16] Brett: Christina, that’s, Yeah, I would be stressed out as well. That is, You got a lot on your plate and you haven’t had downtime,

[00:19:25] Jeff: I feel like, uh, the I’m fine is always, always, always missing one word, which is godammit.

[00:19:33] Brett: or fuck off. I’m fine. Fuck off.

[00:19:36] Christina: I’m fine. Fuck off.

[00:19:38] Jeff: I had a therapist once who asked, how do, I said, Good. And, and she paused and she said, I’d like to invite you to make a bigger wave than good

[00:19:50] Anyhow, um, I could, I could go. So they started talking. Should I,

[00:19:54] Christina: Yes.

[00:19:56] Jeff: um, I’m, I’m doing, I’m, I, I was gonna say I’m doing good. Um, I was reminded yesterday, uh, in a therapy appointment about two kinds of check-ins, uh, that you can do with yourself. One is just called like a five point check-in where it’s like, feel my feet, feel my hands, feel my butt on the chair, feel the back of the chair on my back, feel like into the center of my stomach.

[00:20:20] You know, if you can kind of like quiet yourself enough to see if that’s even possible, it’s like a, a good little check in a good little way of like figuring out, am I present or am I not, or whatever. Right? There’s no wrong answer. And then another one is, is when having sort of. , Um, and you’re in kind of an elevated state, mental health wise to just kind of ask yourself like, how old do I feel right now?

[00:20:42] Right? Like, cuz sometimes it can be the case that this is some like old version of you that’s like taking up all the space. Um, and actually you don’t need that old version of you to be reacting this way in this situation, Right? So I. Question for my therapist, which is . I have been going down YouTube rabbit holes that have definite years attached to them.

[00:21:07] So as an example, watching interviews with the Edam and SMILE Band. David Lee Roths Band from like 86, right? And watching performances all through 1986, or watching interviews with the Sound Garden guys, uh, and performances in 1991. And I realized that like there were two or three different sort of time brackets in the last two weeks that I’ve been just obsessively going down YouTube rabbit holes.

[00:21:32] And they all have very specific times in my life attached to them. Sixth grade was a huge time for me. Junior in high school was a huge time for me. And I asked my therapist, I’m like, Do you think this is an indication of how old I feel right now? Like if I’m, if I’m just obsessively watching the Edam and Smile band, right?

[00:21:50] Like through the ages, am I, am I somehow in my sixth grade space? And if so, why? Right? So anyway, I’m just turning, uh, turning YouTube rabbit holes into a mental health investigation.

[00:22:02] Christina: I don’t, I don’t, I wonder if it’s your wanting to recapture either the comfort you get from that era or the, the things you remember from there, rather so much than like, Feel like that age, like if it’s just more about like, like the comfort of that time. Kind of like watching TV shows that we’ve seen before because it can be more relaxing and, and you know, there’s like a, as we were talking about before, there can just be like an element, like when there’s nothing else new to watch, it’s like, well, I’m gonna watch what I’ve, what I’ve seen before, um, is on the background.

[00:22:32] I wonder cuz I do that too sometimes. And I definitely don’t feel like I’m re oftentimes I don’t, it’s not necessarily about like reliving like those periods of time. It’s about like, I liked however I felt then or whatever comfort I got from that period.

[00:22:45] Jeff: yeah, totally. I, I think that’s, that’s a piece of it too. It has to be. I also noticed lately that like, I’m really, so I was a, like you with Taylor Swift, um, Christina, I was a super fan of a handful of things from. Fifth grade on, I always had one or two bands that I was like obsessed with. Like Motley Crew was one at one point, right?

[00:23:10] Metallica was one at one point. David Lee Roth and Van Halen were ones at one point. Right. And then it got into more sophisticated stuff. But like, those were the ones I went deep on. Those were all pre-internet. And one of the, one of the things that I find draws me in, um, for days on end, if it’s like end of the day tubing is like, I can go now and learn all the things that I had no access to learning about these bands, then I mean like a Great, I’m gonna bounce for a second.

[00:23:38] A great example is, have you ever watched some kind of monster, the Metallica documentary

[00:23:42] Christina: Oh, it’s one of my favorites. It, it’s one of my favorites, and I’m not even like, and, and I’m somebody who, frankly, like, because my, my generation’s biggest exposure to Metallica was that they sued their fans, right? Like that was, that was the whole thing, was that they, they literally sued their fans and, but that is one of my favorite, like documentaries.

[00:24:03] I still can’t like that. The Dixie Chicks

[00:24:05] Jeff: And why? Why is that a why? Why do you love that documentary?

[00:24:08] Christina: Because you get to see the breakdown of what’s happening and band in a very real way, like most of the time in, you know, there are a couple of exceptions. The band by Martin Scorsese is obviously kind of, you know, and that’s a hybrid, like concert film, other thing, like there are some documentaries about musicians that really show the real behind the scenes stuff, but by and large they are PR blitzes, right?

[00:24:30] It’s been like that. The director has been chosen. They are making it very clear what footage is and is not going to be shown with some kind of monster. I’m sure there was stuff that was left on the cutting room floor that would’ve made individuals look even worse or, or, you know, whatnot. Although I thought that it, you know, humanize them in a lot of regards.

[00:24:49] But like, it was capturing a very specific moment and some very real things that you typically don’t see. Not only do you not see them in documentaries usually, but you almost never see them in celebrity documentaries. So for me, that’s why that to me is one of the standout, um, like rock, you know, like celebrity, like whatever, musician documentaries of our time, especially since, because of the success of that film and the success of, of the Dixie Chick ones and whatnot.

[00:25:21] There then became this whole like, niche industry, which now most of 'em are on Netflix that are pure propaganda, right? Where you will never see anything even remotely real and verte. Um, like it, it, it’s a documentary only in the sense that like somebody shows up for a few hours and follows them around, but you’re not seeing anything.

[00:25:41] Whereas I think that some kind of monster you got the sense that you got shit, you got to see shit that you. So one of the best in the genre would be dig Not, uh, you know, have you guys seen that on, on Timor about the, um, uh, uh, Brian Jonestowns massacre and, uh, and um, uh, the Dandy Warhols and, um, that is, she had access to these two bands for like a decade and she captured so much of their stuff.

[00:26:11] And in fact, like, uh, uh, the guy who’s from the Ryan Jonestown massacre, like, he was not happy with the, with the film. It won the, uh, the Sundance, um, like highest honors at Sundance. Um, when it came out, that is like a real ass documentary, but both of those bands are small enough that you could have, you know, the risk of maybe pissing them off and doing things you could get around, get away with.

[00:26:35] And that to me is like, that’s like a real ass documentary. Some kind of monster is a little more polished, but it’s like still showing shit that. Does not paint them in a good light. And that definitely captures a moment in time that their record label, I’m sure would not have liked for that to be the, you know, the promo for the album.

[00:26:55] Jeff: The thing that I loved about it, having been a fan in, I think I saw them, I know I saw them on the Injustice for All Tour, and I must have been a fan for a couple years before that. But that’s, and I saw them on the Black Album tour and then I kind of fell off. But like having been in bands from eighth grade until I was about 24, the marker of a band experience is that you have so many stupid fights, right?

[00:27:17] You have the dumbest arguments, right. About rifts, about is that, you know, a little too jammy or is that a right And, and you never assume that Metallica, especially because they had a persona that was just so kind of mythical, right? Like they seemed, uh, beyond human to me as a kid. And to watch them having these same little fights, um, and to watch how, sort of like, for lack of a better word, like kind of whiny they could be with each other as they made this music was like, God, I wish I knew this when I was a kid.

[00:27:52] Cuz I really think that you, you try to become the. I watched a lot of people go down bad roads trying to be what they thought these people were. Right. But in fact they were just like us cuz they’re just human beings. And for anybody, No, this is like, Metallica hires a therapist for $40,000 a month to be with them for like two years as they try to make a record.

[00:28:14] And in the course of that, Jason Newstead, their basis quits. The therapist himself starts suggesting lyrics, uh, and pissing the band off like it is. It is amazing.

[00:28:26] Christina: It is amazing cuz the therapist like, gets off on the fame and like starts to see himself as a member of the band and, and

[00:28:32] Jeff: to play it. Cool.

[00:28:34] Christina: he is. But it, it, it’s fantastic. And, uh, yeah. Um, and it’s funny I just looked this up. Yeah. Some kind of monster and, um, and Dig came out the same year, which is probably why I associate them together a little bit.

[00:28:47] Uh, but, but no, it’s, it’s just, it’s a great, it’s a great fucking documentary.

[00:28:53] Jeff: and to bring it back to being a kid really quick, like the, the sweetest part of that documentary is when they hire Robert to heal, to be their new bass player. After, after, uh, uh, auditioning a bunch of people and they’re sitting at the table with him telling them he’s in and they say, And what we want to do is we’re gonna give you a million dollars just to join.

[00:29:13] And that’s, that’s just to join. And then you’ll start getting other money, right? And he watching him just be like, What the fuck? And then they cut to this shot of him bouncing around his bedroom as a goddamn grown ass man, pre million dollars playing his bass like a little kid in his room. And he just got hired from a million dollars to be the bass player in Metallica,

[00:29:33] It was like amazing. Anyway.

[00:29:35] Brett: feel like after you watch some kind of monster, you have to go back and watch Murder in the Front Row

[00:29:40] Jeff: Oh, so good. Yeah, that’s true. Good point. That’s the early thrash documentary that documents the early days of Metallica and uh, and Exodus and

[00:29:50] Brett: era.

[00:29:51] Jeff: yeah, that’s true. That is a nice, uh, added piece now.

[00:29:55] Brett: Jeff turned me onto that documentary. It was, it was like, yeah. It, it brought me back to being a certain age again, um, to like, to remember where, where Exodus was, like the beginning of so many things and, and, and how the, the interactions between all those early thrash bands, uh, change exchanging members and everything and kicking members out and.

[00:30:21] Christina: Um, yeah, I, I, I wanna go back and watch that. I, I have never seen that. That sounds amazing. This is just a side tangent cuz I was looking at the directors of some kind of monster, and this is why I think that film works, like, why it’s like better than almost anything of its genre. The two directors, um, are, are probably most, Well they, they directed a documentary called Brothers Keeper, which is very well known.

[00:30:42] But what they’re most famous for is they, they did the Paradise Lost documentaries for HBO about the West Memphis. and, and which, you know, similar to a thin blue line, like is responsible

[00:30:55] Jeff: did not realize that was the same

[00:30:58] Christina: I didn’t either. I didn’t either until I just looked that up and I went, Holy shit. Okay, well that makes sense because you had real fucking like, you know what I mean?

[00:31:06] Like you had real fucking filmmakers.

[00:31:08] Jeff: Right, right. Awesome. So I don’t know where my mental health check check-in began or ended, but that’s where I’m

[00:31:15] Brett: I can actually segue your mental health check in just fine. Um, so first of all, when you ask Christina why she liked some kind of monster and she knew like she, she had reasons off the top of her head, that blows me away because I watched things and I’m like, I was fucking great. I love that. But if someone were to be like, What, what was so great about it?

[00:31:40] I have to think really hard. I have to like do all of this analytical processing in my head, and I usually come up with the wrong answer. And like later on late at night, I’ll be like, Wait, no, here’s why I actually like that. Here’s why that spoke to me. So it, it blows me away when other people are like, Yo, because this and this and this and this, obviously this is why it was great.

[00:32:03] That’s, uh, that blows me away about Christina. Um, uh, and

[00:32:07] Christina: And I haven’t, and I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen that in, in at least a decade. Sorry, go on.

[00:32:12] Brett: Sure. Exactly. That’s what I’m talking about. Um, uh, randomly the vow is back, Christina, and,

[00:32:19] Christina: Oh my God. We have to talk about it at some point. Um, it’s, Did you see the episode last night?

[00:32:25] Brett: Uh, I, No, I’ve only seen the first episode of the new series.

[00:32:29] Christina: Okay. Okay. Uh, the, we’ll talk about it next time I’m on a pod because at that point we’ll have another couple episodes. But the one that aired last night, um, and, and, and Jeff, if you need to watch this, we’ll find a way to do it or I’ll lend you my HBO login. But if you don’t already have HBO. Okay. But it, it’s, uh, yeah.

[00:32:48] Sorry. It’s back. It’s great. Sorry. Go on. Go on.

[00:32:51] Brett: so speaking of feeling a certain age, uh, this actually was a big, uh, big part of my last therapy session. Uh, because when I’m talking to my parents and they, they, they will intentionally press a button. They’ll say something like, There’s no evidence for evolution or Democrats or murdering babies.

[00:33:12] And like they are, they’re hot button topics that immediately send me back to being in high school. And when I first started splitting from the church and, and I first started having dinnertime arguments with my parents and I, I hyperventilate like. Once they say something like that, if you were to say something like that, or if any other person in the world were to say something like that, I could calmly say, Well actually here, here, here’s what I believe here, here are the, the known facts.

[00:33:48] And, and I could explain to you why I believe what I believe, but when it’s my parents, like it sends me back to being this 16 year old kid who’s just starting to like break away from indoctrination and just starting to like flail, like I was flailing. Like I knew, I didn’t believe what they believe, but I didn’t know what else to believe.

[00:34:13] And it is rough and like we’re working like therapy right now. I’m working on trying to. A Sue, um, I, uh, inform that, that younger version of me, so that the adult version of me can have these conversations with my parents in like a sane way. Uh, and like usually a statement like that results in me storming out and, and not talking them to them for a couple weeks.

[00:34:45] Um, and, and I would like to find a way around that where things could remain civil. Um, clearly they, they’re not looking for civility when they say things like that, so like, it’s up to me to like maintain that civility. But man, that has been, that has been a, a trial for me. But, uh, like mental health wise, I, I hit depression.

[00:35:13] Um, and I was able to lift myself out of it pretty quickly. Um, I’ve, I’ve developed new coping strategies that allow me to, uh, use, um, uh, rigorous scheduling to kind of, uh, break the cycle. And I had a, I had a, a manic episode that I was able to keep down to just, uh, two nights of no sleep and then immediately curtail it and never get to that, like shaky, um, real super manic point.

[00:35:51] And then I was able to, Stop depression after just a few days, and depression usually lasts me, My bipolar depression usually lasts me at least two weeks. And, uh, thanks to my new coping mechanisms and, uh, my girlfriend’s understanding of, of what was going on. Uh, actually I’m, I’m pretty good today. I’m not gonna say I’m like totally stables, totally out of depression, but I’m, I’m productive.

[00:36:23] I’m, I’m not thinking critical thoughts, self-critical thoughts. I, I, I, I feel like you guys like me today, um, which is, you know, a great, a great place to be. I had coffee. See? That’s super sweet. It doesn’t feel like that to me. And it’s not your fault. Like

[00:36:44] Christina: No, no.

[00:36:45] Brett: That’s nothing that you

[00:36:46] Christina: no, no, no, no, no. And I wanna be clear. I understand that impulse, so I like, I’m not discounting that. I’m just letting you know like that. Our reality is we love you and I know that that how your brain sees things, that it doesn’t always feel that way or whatever. But I’m just putting it out there because sometimes it has helped hear it over and over again like we do love you.

[00:37:04] But anyway, Sorry, go on. You were having,

[00:37:06] Brett: yeah, so, so my best friend from middle school, um, we were, we were thickest thieves. We were in the church together. And, uh, we lost, we, we drifted apart a little bit in high school, but we were still friends. And then kind of just ceased our connection after, uh, a couple years after high school. And, um, I hadn’t really, hadn’t really interacted with him.

[00:37:34] And, um, I had coffee with him. I had seen some of his posts on Facebook. He had seen some of mine, and I realized, yeah, I still, I still connect with this guy. Like we still go through the. We still hurt in the same ways and we still are dealing with the same shit. And, uh, so we got together, I, I, I instigated it months ago, and then I had like a manic episode.

[00:37:58] I’m like, I just, I can’t, I can’t be with you right now. And, and it dragged on for a couple months. We finally did it and holy shit, like it was, he’s overweight and I gave him shit in middle school and high school, like, just joking, like, look at you chubs and, and like to look back and realize how much pain he was in, um, and how, how much that affected his mental health.

[00:38:30] Uh, he’s been through, well he’s been through like prison time and, and shit that I, I don’t necessarily have any, uh, any way of relating to. In fact, all my high school friends went to prison except for me, uh, . I don’t know what that says,

[00:38:49] Jeff: I have a similar situation.

[00:38:51] Brett: yeah. Uh, but it was, it was a very meaningful, like, it, it, as far as mental health goes, like it was, and he’s still dealing with a lot of shit.

[00:39:01] And, uh, but seeing how he’s grown and the things he’s been through and how he’s dealt with it was very informative to me. So that’s my mental health check in. Should we take a sponsor break? And I will tell you about Nord vpn. Let me get some saliva built up here so I can get through this.

[00:39:22] Jeff: Oh yeah. You need a minute.

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[00:40:15] I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a cat’s tongue, but. Like French frenching a cat, it’s gotta be rough. So luckily nor VPN is the fastest VPN in the world. I don’t even notice it running. So I can stream and browse online with no buffering or lagging. I can even play intensive cat, cat dating games with no pause.

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[00:41:33] Jeff: And please join us again, uh, for the next episode of Can We Lose a sponsor?

[00:41:39] Brett: didn’t, I did not get in trouble for the Norwegian blood sports last week.

[00:41:43] Jeff: listeners would not be surprised that Brett has a shortcut on his phone and he hits it when he walks into his office and the lights go down. Uh, a sort of Catnet mist, uh, is expelled into the air and, uh, and Nord VPN is fired up and he is ready to go.

No the Other Conway

[00:41:58] Brett: ready to go? Should we, uh, should we talk about Conway West? Kanye. Conway, Conway Yest

[00:42:07] Christina: yeah.

[00:42:08] Jeff: Twitty.

[00:42:09] Brett: Kanye. Kanye Yee. Should we talk about.

[00:42:12] Christina: Yay. Yay.

[00:42:14] Brett: Yay.

[00:42:15] Jeff: I’ll see what happens. I’m not inclined.

[00:42:18] Brett: Why is it, Why would it be Yeezy? But then, Yay,

[00:42:21] Jeff: don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You can’t do it. You’re like,

[00:42:26] Brett: Yay is spelled y a y.

[00:42:28] Jeff: to another white podcast, Discusses Kanye West.

[00:42:32] Brett: what is going on? What is going on with I, I want Christina’s take on what is happening.

[00:42:37] Christina: Uh, I mean, the whole thing is sad. So I’ve mentioned on this podcast before that I’ve, by and large stopped having, like, making any sort of public comments about him or anything, and like finding any sort of like entertainment and the spectacle. Like in, in early 2016 when he was going on some of his, his Twitter rants and stuff, like it was, the meltdown that was happening was entertaining, but we didn’t know that.

[00:43:01] I mean, in retrospect, maybe it should have been obvious, but we didn’t know that he was bipolar. He hadn’t been diagnosed yet. He hadn’t had like that, that breakdown on stage, like those things hadn’t happened. I’m in no way defending anything that he said, cuz I think it’s important and I think that people continuing to platform him actually and like interview him on podcasts for so, but basically what’s been happening is he’s made a lot of antisemitic and really crazy out there and frankly, conspiratorial like qan shit comments, um, uh, about the Jewish media controlling everything and, and these Jewish doctors diagnosing him with something he doesn’t think he has and all this crazy shit.

[00:43:36] And then he’s doubled and tripled down on it. And, uh, he’s been dropped by, uh, by Adidas. So his, his shoe empire, um, is, is gone. He’s, uh, you know, he’d already lost things with his record label. Like they hadn’t, didn’t have an arrangement. But Def Jam has basically been like, we’re not doing anything with you.

[00:43:54] CAA dropped him, um, documentary that he had is not gonna come out. Balenciaga uh, uh, dropped their affiliation. Um, his partnership with the gap ended like, His career is basically, I mean, I’m not gonna say it’s over because people love comeback stories and people will forgive geniuses lots and lots of things, but it’s, it, it’s really, um, bad.

[00:44:18] But what I wanted to talk about, and I wanted to get your two perspectives, because you’re both bipolar, I have a hard time with this. Not in any way that I want to absolve or in any way, like say the, what he like give excuses for what he said, cuz that’s, that’s not the case. But to me, this is somebody who, for years now, has clearly been in mental health crisis.

[00:44:40] Like, and, and I, we’ve even talked about this on this pod before, Brett, like it’s angered me cuz I’m like, it’s similar to Britney Spears. There are people who are in their lives who clearly don’t give a shit about. Because they’re letting them continue to just like spiral. And in this case, it’s happening really publicly.

[00:44:56] And I’ve actually been really bothered by a couple of things. One, the number of like podcasts hosts and other people who have continued to do interviews with him. Like, uh, Lex Friedman brought him on his podcast because Lex Friedman thought he’d, he thought he’d be smart enough to be able to talk him out of all of his conspiratorial bullshit. Lex, of course, you’re not Lex. Of course you’re not. And and also he’s not mentally well, so all you’re doing is, is platforming somebody who is not in a position, in my opinion. Like you see somebody who’s going through a mental health crisis, don’t bring them on your fucking podcast for clout because that’s what you’re doing.

[00:45:34] The whole reason you’re doing, it’s cuz you know you’re getting clicks. Even if you’re like, Oh, well I’m smart enough that I can change his mind. No, you can’t. He’s sick. He’s fucking sick.

[00:45:43] Brett: my understanding is that he’s willfully untreated for bipolar. Is that correct?

[00:45:48] Christina: That is, that is correct. And that is not uncommon. Right. And, and I’m not defending any of this. I’m just saying these are things that as the public, as we talk about, it should be part of the conversation. And instead the conversation seems to be either, how can we use this for clicks, or I’m going to defend him because of my own issues and, and, and racism and, and, and, and antisemitism and bigotry or, and then this is what does honestly bother me, where you got people who go, Oh, well mental illness has nothing to do with the way he’s acting.

[00:46:22] He’s just a motherfucking asshole. So fuck this guy. And this has nothing to do with this mental health. And to me that is really harmful. And that’s coming from people who should fucking know better.

[00:46:31] Brett: Yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent agree. Um, I want, I wanna pause for a moment on the willfully untreated, uh, aspect of it because like so many artists in history, um, dating back for as far as we can reasonably make, we have enough documentation to reasonably make a, a post-mortem assessment. Like there have been so many bipolar artists in history, and so many people have faced the, uh, since, since treatment began this for a bipolar person.

[00:47:08] Like we are creative people and, and we create, and the idea of medicating. Something that we, once we have a diagnosis, it’s, it’s hard for us to separate what we create from our mental illness. And the idea of treating it is a very holy shit, what if I can’t do this thing? In Kanye’s case, that has made him famous.

[00:47:35] Uh, like the idea of Kanye not being able to create has to be terrifying. And, and I, I get why someone would say, No, I can’t treat this. I’m just gonna roll with it. But to your point,

[00:47:48] Christina: Especially if your first experience with medication, which as you can both probably attest, what we can all do has been negative and has maybe like lessened and flattened your creativity and you feel drugged. Because many times that is, especially if you’re in like a, like a, an acute mental health crisis, the first thing they’re going to give you is basically going to be a tranquilizer and it is going to mute you.

[00:48:09] So, sorry, go on. I didn’t mean to cut you

[00:48:11] Brett: Yeah. Well, and, and I highly, I talked about Ellen Forney last week. Um, I highly recommend anyone thinking about this particular topic. Uh, read Marbles by Ellen Forney, uh, cuz she goes through this. Uh, this whole thought process. But, um, to your point, like, yeah, I, I’m bipolar. I say crazy shit when I’m manic.

[00:48:36] Um, I, I intentionally push buttons when I’m manic. I, uh, my train of thought goes places that, uh, uh, stable me, never would. Um, so, and, and I, you know, I only have hypomania to, to say that that mental illness, that bipolar couldn’t make someone say the crazy shit. Couldn’t, like, there was a, I think it was N Y T, uh, didn’t article on how he wanted to use Hitler and the title of his last album and like, frequently Espes an a fondness for Hitler.

[00:49:17] Um, like this shit. Absolutely can be attributed to mental illness and to say otherwise is disingenuous and

[00:49:27] Christina: And unhelpful. And, okay. I, this is what I wanted to point out cuz this was the article that finally made me wanna talk about it. Uh, there were two things. One, I thought a really good exploration how I think a lot of people feel Casey Nasdat did like a vlog on his channel, um, where he, he talked about how Kanye broke his heart and talked about what a huge fanny was of Kanye and how disappointing all this stuff is.

[00:49:47] And he does elude a little bit to some of the mental health stuff. But just as a pure like fan human perspective, I thought his video was really good. That’s positive. Here’s the negative and this is what fucking pisses me off and this really pisses me off because this is a place I used to work. The headline for Gizmoto is when Kanye, when Kanye spewed hate, some blamed his mental illness experts say that has nothing to do with it.

[00:50:13] And. Fuck you, First of all. First of all, this whole thing was written clearly when you read the post. It was written as a response to people who would say on Twitter or online, whether it’s being seen as defensive or not being like, okay. Maybe chill out a little bit on making on, on some of like the, the rhetoric because the guy has clearly gone well and going, Oh well, there’s no way in hell.

[00:50:37] Just because you’re mentally ill doesn’t mean you spew antisemitic shit. Sometimes it does. Um, and, and I mean certainly if you have schizophrenia, uh, and I’m not saying he does, but certainly that’s very famous for people saying all kinds of crazy shit. You, you’ve just said, like, uh, you know, um, uh, and I’ve known people who are bipolar, who have said all kinds of stuff that is completely out there and conspiratorial and is like paranoid.

[00:51:01] And that is delusional, frankly. Um, when they’re in states. And, and I’m not saying that there aren’t, like I, I’m not making it as an excuse, I’m just saying, and maybe it doesn’t, it’s not a subset of some things that exist, but maybe it’s the push buttons. We don’t know. All I’m saying is that what they did is they wanted to prove.

[00:51:19] People on Twitter wrong. So they called up psychologists and psychiatrists who have never evaluated him, who probably don’t even know the situation to get them to say, Oh no, um, this has nothing to do. His, his, his actions have nothing to do with his mental health and fuck you. Like on the, in the same breath, we see some of the same people who say that a homeless guy in, in, in Prospect Park where I used to live, who, uh, was, was spewing, really was saying really terrible things, uh, tossing urine on a woman and killed her dog.

[00:51:52] Were saying that that guy should be excused because clearly he’s mentally ill and, and, and shouldn’t be arrested. But were saying that Kanye West. Going through a clearly, like a, a, a mental, like a, a, a manic episode where no one in his inner circle seems to give a fuck about him, and the public is just like gawking at it.

[00:52:13] We’re saying, Oh, but that has, that has no bearing. His, his completely outrageous behavior has, has no bearing on mental health. Like, what, what is it? You know what I mean? Like the same people are saying both of those things and, and that really bothers me. And I’m sorry, I’m with my rant.

[00:52:26] Brett: no, it’s fine. I, I, I want to hear Jeff’s input too, but I will say that, For me, growing up in an evangelical, like fundamentalist childhood combined with years of mania and depression makes me extremely, um, uh, susceptible to conspiracy theory. Um, like, just like the fundamentalist upbringing, you are always looking for who’s persecuting you and who is to blame for your problems.

[00:53:01] And you combine that with a little bit of mania and mental illness, you can go off the reels fast and, and like that is, that’s not a personal, like, I have to work really hard not to buy into conspiracy theories that make just a little bit of sense. Oh yeah. That, that explains this thing in, that fills in these holes.

[00:53:23] In my understanding, in a way that I can accept and, and to be radicalized from there, it’s, it’s, it’s an easy step. And, and to get down, down far right, uh, keyholes is, is pretty easy. But Jeff, do you, do you wanna weigh in on this?

[00:53:42] Jeff: I don’t know that I have anything to add to what you two have said, which I really feel resonates with me for sure.

[00:53:52] Brett: I do feel at the same time that Kanye has been very bad for mental illness. Um, like I’m embarrassed enough to talk about my bipolar, uh, bipolar comes with more of a stigma than something like ADHD does. Um, people are immediately more scared. When you tell them you’re bipolar. Um, my, to be fair, the reaction in general in interpersonal conversations has been very uplifting for me.

[00:54:20] But, uh, to have someone publicly making bipolar look that bad, it’s, it’s not great for me personally. I, So, speaking of, nope, I can’t segue easily into gratitude from here. Um, but I feel like we should, before the show ends,

[00:54:40] Christina: Yeah. No. Well, I think, I think this is our segue here, which is, which is like, I’m grateful for both of you and I’m grateful for this podcast for having these hard conversations and to have a place where we’re not being like, we’re not doing like the knee-jerk, like bad hot takes, right? Like, I’m grateful for that.

[00:54:58] So now let’s talk about some apps we’re grateful for.

[00:55:00] Jeff: for sure. For sure.

Grapptitude

[00:55:03] Brett: Um, I’ll kick it off. Uh, my pick this week is Code Runner, which will not matter to anyone who does not write code, but if you write code in Java or Lua or Rust or Ruby or Python, um, it is a great little like self-contained app where you can try things out, um, execute them as you write them and see what the result will be.

[00:55:27] So when I’m working on a larger project, uh, in X Code or Sublime or VS code, I’ll copy snippets of code out, create small testable instances of it. And, and then Code Runner provides like a very IDE like interface with auto completion and everything that I can modify and, and continually test and refine a small piece of code, um, and see the output of it as I work on it.

[00:55:56] Uh, it, it handles maybe 30 different languages. Um, and you can add, uh, any, any processors you need to it. And it’s, it’s, it’s fantastic as a small, uh, test tool and it’s available on setup and for any developers out there, especially developers who already have set up, um, that’s my recommendation for.

[00:56:21] Jeff: I, uh, I want to add something about Code Runner, which I love is the first thing you do when you download it is you go into the preferences and you go to the general tab. You won’t have to go there, you’ll be right there. Friends. Uh, at the bottom it says file type associations and you can edit which files get automatically opened by Code Runner.

[00:56:41] In my experience, when you open this thing the first time, it takes everything. It’s super greedy and it’s super confusing. But, uh, once you make that change, it’s just wonderful cause you can run Diagnos Diagnostics on your code and there’s so much you can do. It’s really nice.

[00:56:57] Brett: yeah. But yeah, like if you, if you don’t regularly use Lua and, and then you, you need to edit a Lua file and you double click it, instead of opening in VS code or Sublime, it’s gonna open in Code Runners. So yeah, it’s worth checking out those preferences.

[00:57:14] Jeff: Yep. Yep. All right. Should I go next? Christina, you wanna go next?

[00:57:19] Christina: Um, yeah, I’ve, um, I’ve got one. So, uh, this came out last week and, um, I, I missed it, but I, uh, love this. And, um, it, it’s free, it’s open source, but you can also like name your own price if you want to support it. So were either of you, um, uh, ever HyperCard users.

[00:57:39] Jeff: No.

[00:57:40] Brett: before my, before my Mac time.

[00:57:42] Christina: So I, um, and it was actually technical. It was before my time, but for whatever reason, we had like a version of it in elementary school, I wanna say.

[00:57:51] And I, it was sort of my introduction to the idea of hypertext and, and, and, and linking things and whatnot, which is sort of what it did. While there’s, um, uh, an app that came out last week, uh, from, um, Beyond a Loom, um, called Decker. And um, it is basically built to be, A, um, it’s like a HyperCard, um, kind of clone that has the visual aesthetics of like a classic Macs app.

[00:58:20] So it’s kind of like the, the black and white, uh, kind of thing, like straight out of 1984. And, um, a lot of the same simplicity that HyperCard had. I’m gonna be, uh, reading from their website, uh, while adding many subtle and overt quality of life improvements, like a deep undue history, support for scroll wheels and touch screens, more modern keyboard navigation and bulk editing stuff.

[00:58:41] And so you could use it if you wanted to like, create, you know, like throwback looking zines or, you know, presentations, book games, doodling. Um, what’s really neat about it is that, uh, The guy who who created this is, is that it’s like command line friendly. Um, it comes with, uh, his own language lilt, which I think is inspired by Lua, uh, which is like, uh, like his own kind of language where you can like read and write and manipulate and, and execute Decker commands.

[00:59:09] Headlessly. Um, it, like I said, it, it’s, uh, open source on, um, GitHub, but, um, it’s also he’s putting out periodic binaries for Mac West and Windows on I io where you can like pay what you want and, um, there’s a browser demo that you can check out. I just, this is the sort of thing where it’s not an app that I necessarily would like use a lot, and it’s not something I think that has maybe like super broad appeal, but the amount of work that clearly went into this is incredible.

[00:59:42] And I think that, um, like taking this very classic application and modernizing it, but also keeping that like nostalgic look, um, is, is fucking badass. And, and, uh, I just, I’m really impressed with every aspect of this. Like, just all the work that went into this, I’m just like so impressed.

[01:00:03] Brett: I know some people that will love this. I, I hadn’t seen this, but.

[01:00:07] Jeff: There’s, um, there’s also , there’s an amazing looking artist Technica, um, article about the history of HyperCard, and I will put it in the show notes. It looks awesome. I did not realize, I did not realize that Mist was built using HyperCard, which is awesome.

[01:00:25] Christina: Yeah, no, I mean, it, it’s funny because I remember like before PowerPoint and before like webpages, like that was sort of my introduction to how you could do things like that and, and, and, you know, link multiple things together. And like, I, I, my theory has always been that I think the reason that the web made so much sense to me as young as I was when I got into it was because I had spent hours and hours and hours in elementary school with hyper.

[01:00:54] Jeff: Hmm.

[01:00:54] Christina: Um, and, and so many of the paradigms made sense because they all came from the same place, right? Like, it all came from like many of the same, uh, things. You know, obviously like what, what, um, uh, Tim Burners Lee was doing with the worldwide web and building on, you know, like, like, you know, uh, high protect markup language and all that stuff like that was like inspired by many of the same, um, things that were happening when HyperCard and some other stuff was, was happening.

[01:01:20] So it’s, it’s, uh, uh, that’s always been my personal theory. Um, also, you’ll appreciate this, uh, breadth that if you wanna build the documentation, it requires multi markdown. So, um, so he uses multi

[01:01:34] Brett: Oh, multi markdown.

[01:01:36] Christina: know. I agree. And I mean, that’s my favorite flavor. So the, the whole thing, I think, uh, it’s, um, anyway, it, I think it’s really, really, I just thought this was incredible.

[01:01:46] I think this is just like a clearly, like a big labor of love and like an ice achievement. So just wanted to get that shot.

[01:01:52] Jeff: That’s really cool. Um, I am going to set up what I’m, uh, what I’m gratitu uh, without saying what it is at first. Um, cause I think we’ve already done it, but I have all of the, all of these audio clips. From years of doing interviews and, um, I also, for years of my life, always kept like a dictaphone with me.

[01:02:13] And so I would just record conversations with friends or road trips or whatever. And I’ve had this, this audio forever and I have not known what to do with it, even though I really wanted to share some of it. And I recently decided that I would crack open headliner and, uh, make some like audiograms out of this stuff that I have.

[01:02:34] So an example is last week I was talking about, uh, an interview I did with Fugazi and Minor threats, Ian mackay. And he, he emphasized that he is a, in fact, a punk rock motherfucker. Um, I made a little audiogram out of that and it was delightful. And I’m gonna make one today out of a, out of the clip with a interview I did with Wallace Sean Inconceivable of

[01:03:01] Christina: I love

[01:03:01] Brett: Yeah.

[01:03:02] Jeff: and many other things.

[01:03:03] And I, I asked him, Yeah, he put a, um, my dinner with Andre, all of that. He put a book of essays out. He’s a socialist. He put a book of essays out and I was working at a magazine and I, I interviewed him for a podcast and I asked him, cuz he’s kind of an Upper West side, you know, liberal elite type of guy.

[01:03:22] Um, and I, and I, and he, he really believes in, you know, socialism in such a way that, like a class war feels inevitable. And so I said, So what happens? The class war, uh, comes, they’re knocking at your door with the pitchforks and the torches. They break it open and what do you say? And he said, Um, Well, I would make a case for myself, but in the end I wouldn’t think it the greatest tragedy if they were to kill me. So I have all these things and I realize they lend themselves so well to these little headliner, um, audiograms. And what’s cool about that is it feels like I sat on these little audio clips for years not knowing what to do with them. And it’s just because the way I wanted to use them didn’t exist yet.

[01:04:10] And now I feel like there is a way to use them, albeit very time consuming if you wanna do it well. Um, but it’s, it’s something I’ll be playing with all week, including our own headliner bits.

[01:04:21] Brett: So is headliner to the pick.

[01:04:23] Jeff: So headliners the pick. And for anybody that doesn’t know it’s a service that, you know, if you’ve ever been scrolling through Twitter and a podcast you love has a little clip with a wave form going and, and uh, and uh, subtitles.

[01:04:37] Um, and it’s just an entertaining little clip. That’s the kind of thing that Headliner does beautifully. That said, working on them to really make the transcript match the exact appearance of the words and that kinda stuff makes me realize that we’ve gotta be just a few years away from somehow I make these with a markdown document just to like, bring in last week’s pick deck set Cause it does feel like it’s, it’s highly, it’s highly dependent on this interactive, um, kind of design that is very well done for what it’s trying to do, but also feels somehow very, um, uh, not of its time. So

[01:05:19] Brett: Nice.

[01:05:19] Jeff: that’s it. Get some sleep friends.

[01:05:22] Christina: Get some sleep towels.

[01:05:23] intro-outro: The system.