The Many Returns of Bryan Guffey

Tired. So tired Overtired.

Jeff: Hello people. This is Jeff Severns gunzel this is the Overtired podcast. We have a special guest today. First. I want to introduce my cohosts. Christina Warren. Hello, Christina

Christina: Hello.

Jeff: and Brett Terpstra.

Hello, Brett.

Brett: Oh, hi,

Jeff: Brett has a beard. He’s thinking of shaving, but we won’t get into that Um, unless he actually starts to shave it in on the episode.

Brett: That’s terrible radio.

Jeff: and our very special guest Brian Guffy, uh, is here, been here many times before. Hello, Brian. Welcome back.

Bryan: Hello. Hello. Glad to be here. Very excited and very caffeinated.

Christina: Yay.

Jeff: good.

Christina: That is very.

Jeff: What type of caffeinated? Like too much coffee or too much red bull.

Bryan: Starbucks cold brew.

Brett: Man. I got this stuff from this company called wandering bear. They ship you like winery in a box except it’s coffee. So I have this like tap in my fridge that I can just pour out a full glass of cold brew. Anytime I want to. It’s dangerous. And I’m on a subscription plan. It just constantly refills itself.

It’s like magic.

Jeff: Wandering bear. That could be my street name.

Bryan: honestly, I feel you

Brett: I feel like that given, given your heterosexuality that might give the wrong impression to some people.

Bryan: haven’t been wandering enough lately. So that’s my problem is I would be like stagnant bear.

Jeff: so listen, I know you’ve been on a bunch of times, but do you want to give a little introduction to Brian Guffy before we start talking about things?

Bryan: Sure I can do a real quick thing. Um, so let’s see. I host, uh, the podcast’s unsolicited fatties talkback and, um that’s with Deshaun Harrison, Mikey Mercedes, and Caleb Luna and Jordan Underwood, where we just talk about, basically we take advice, columns designed for fat people or about fat people and reinterpret them from a fat liberation lens.

And then I do this other really fun podcast called, um, technically queer, which is four trans people with ADHD and other mental health, uh, challenges, trying to make a podcast and get it out on a regular basis. And to tell you how successful we are. We have four episodes out we’ve recorded another five that we have just forgotten to release.

Christina: So there’s like your lost episodes.

Bryan: Yeah, exactly. Like we’re gonna release them. We just keep forgetting to put them up and hit published.

Jeff: You know, I, I actually can see how that would happen because there are times when I just enjoy the conversation and like, can forget that something’s gonna come of it.

Bryan: Yeah, absolutely. And I don’t know which one of us is the most responsible. It really changes week to week. Except it’s never Alex Cox. I love Alex, but they’ll tell you, like, they’re not the one that’s gonna get the thing posted.

Brett: Hi, Alex.

Christina: Hi, Alex, we love you.

When therapy becomes commodity

Jeff: All right. So we have some topics that we’ve kind of previewed when we were all kind of talking before we started recording. And one we’ve been sort of kicking down the road and I’m, I’m actually really glad that it lands here. Um, a couple of episodes ago, before we started recording, I went on the Overtired Twitter and just said, does anybody have anything they wanna hear us talk about or follow up on?

And there’s a podcast called pod therapy. And one of the hosts of pod therapy wrote in with this question, he said, what are your views on the appification of mental health? Is the examples like Headspace better help cerebral. We could probably add the sponsor, uh, that we brought on last week. Um, mind bloom and awkwardly would just, just add a sponsor into this conversation.

Um, and, and he said,

Brett: better, better help has also been a

Jeff: that’s true. That’s

Brett: gonna, we’re gonna speak honestly.

Jeff: And he said, do you think the tech industry and venture capital can do this well? So that’s the question that we’re gonna like look at now, before we get really started. I wanna also just point out that Christina had circulated an article to all of us from the wall street journal.

Um, Christina, why don’t you take a stab at summarizing that article?

Christina: Yeah, so it’s, it’s a really good, uh, read it’s it’s, it’s a, it’s a long read, um, uh, but we’ll have a link to it in, in the show notes. Um, and it’s, it’s, um, one of the stories that it kind of centers on is, um, this guy, Harland band, who, was living in a sober house. He’d been diagnosed as a kid with ADHD, but, he’d had, you know, his struggles with, um, I guess substance abuse, um, but, using, done, which is one of the, uh, various services that advertises on, on TikTok and Instagram and, and YouTube and things like that.

He was able to connect with the doctor and basically get, within about 10 minutes, you know, get a, uh, appointment with. Who was then able to prescribe from Adderall. And that, I think it was actually not even a doctor was a nurse practitioner, but someone who had the ability to, prescribe medication and that kind of set him off on, a relapse.

And, uh, it was the, the entire, uh, story, I think it opens up this, this question of a couple of things, one, which is sort of the culpability of what these services have in terms of, you know, prescribing medication to people and trying to kind of balance, you know, on the one hand we talk about how there’s lack of access to a lot of people who have mental health problems and, and they don’t have access to doctors.

And this was especially true during the pandemic. And I think we’ve all, uh, all of us on this pod we’ve benefited from, um, you know, like telehealth services, but kind of trying to, to balance that with okay, Do the people who are, are issuing these prescriptions, how much do they actually know about their patients and, and how much are they actually, how much due diligence are they doing?

Because in this case, you know, this was somebody who was able to kind of answer the right question, say the right things. And in a, in 10 minutes, get a prescription, you know, for, for a, a schedule to narcotic, mailed to his house, uh, which then set him off on, um, a, uh, a relapse. Whereas. Not to say this couldn’t have happened in person, but in person there would maybe be other, uh, um, barriers to, to prevent that.

And I think beyond that, it’s saying, you know, uh, one, one of the things the article goes into, and, and there are some other articles that the, the same reporter for the journal had written about is the, I think the pressure that the, um, either the doctors or nurse practitioners or whoever are working for these services have to turn over patients as quickly as possible.

So it’s not just that you don’t get a lot of time with people it’s that they themselves are under pressure and are basically encouraged to kind of turn people over as quickly as possible, but also to prescribe as much medication as possible because you need to have higher satisfaction rates. And so what does that do?

Um, you know, uh, ultimately to, to treating mental health and, and does this, you know, create more problems than, than it potentially.

Jeff: Has anybody has, have any of you used any of these services? It’s kind of weird to have head. There, but I, I, I think it’s fine, but beyond Headspace, anything that would be actual one-on-one mental health treatment.

Brett: I tried out better help. Um, I had a pretty good experience with better help. Uh, didn’t ultimately feel like I connected with my therapist there and let it go. But, um, it, I didn’t try again, like you have the option with better help to continue.

Jeff: And how did that, how, what was that like, how did that kind of get started? What was it like to, to log on? Did it feel, um, like sort of a commodifying of mental health or did it

Brett: no, it actually.

Jeff: I just don’t click with this.

Brett: It actually felt really good. And I say full disclosure, they were a sponsor of ours. Uh, they have been in the past. Um, I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about better help. They’re not prescribing medications. Um, I feel like they’re

Christina: That’s a very

Brett: from right. But, uh, it did. It felt like they, they connected me with someone that checked off all the boxes that I, I said, these are the things that are important to me and a therapist.

They found someone, uh, that matched as best they could. Um, I guess I had requested someone who was, uh, well versed in ADHD. And when I talked to my therapist there, uh, she did not actually have any experience with ADHD. So I guess they kind of failed in that regard. Uh, but I did have the option to, to switch therapists and I just didn’t follow through on it.

So I don’t know if it would’ve gotten. If I would’ve gotten better results, if I tried.

Christina: Yeah. And I can just say, um, my mom, who is, who is a licensed, uh, you know, uh, therapist and counselor, she has been contacted, she’s contacted by them probably, you know, a couple times a month asking, you know, if she wants to work for better health. Um, and for her, you know, she’s retired. It probably, I’m not sure how much they pay per hour from what I’ve looked.

It looks between probably like 35 and $45 an hour for her as a retired person. It might make sense if she were to work, you know, 20 hours a week or something, um, as just something to do. Right. Um, not, not as her primary income or anything else, but I do like one of my concerns with, with services, like better health, even though I, I agree with Brett, like I think that, you know, you can get good people out of it, uh, but that you can get, you know, maybe not good people too.

It just kind of depends on, on who you’re doing. One of my concerns with better health, more than anything else is the fact that it’s like the amount of money that they are paying, that the counselors is, in my opinion, going to necessitate one of two things, either people who are, um, you might have people like my mom who are retired and are qualifi.

And I’ve been doing this for a long time, but you might also have people who are fresh out of school and can’t get jobs other ways and might be doing this in addition to other things. And, you know, maybe don’t have the experience that you would want, especially since frankly, when you look at the price of the service, it’s, it can be less expensive than, you know, like weekly therapy without insurance, but it’s not cheap, right?

Like

Bryan: No at all.

Christina: couple, it’s a couple hundred dollars a month, which again, you know, like my, my psychiatrist who does therapy with me, he does not take insurance. That’s always been his thing. He’s about $400 an hour. Um, but so, you know, I see him once a month, but if I saw more than that, obviously something like better health will be less expensive, but better health is still several hundred dollars a month.

And, um, I think that unless you find somebody who you can really connect with, it’s kind of a crapshoot, at least that’s been what I’ve kind of picked up on from talking to people. Who’ve used it.

Bryan: Yeah. I think one of the things that I, so I’ve used modern health, I mean, Christina and I we’ve talked about modern health before they do EAPs for a lot of companies

and

Christina: we, yeah, we have moderate. I haven’t used them, but I have access to them.

Bryan: Yeah. And so I got an, I got a specific ADHD counselor through there, not for any med, like I was just looking at their website and they don’t do, they don’t prescribe, uh, restricted, uh, like scheduled medication.

They don’t do that because, uh, probably is my guess of this exact thing. But, um, you know, my experience was also like the ADHD therapist I got was like fine, but I definitely like stayed with her longer for that specific thing, because it was free, you know, like I got so many sessions involved or included.

Um, but I also wanna say that I think one of the problems with therapy in general, as I know you just went through, like Brett is therapy is a crap shoot, finding the right therapist, period is a crap shoot. And one of the things that I actually think. Is a bit frustrating to me with better help. And some of these other services is the reason they exist is because of how expensive it is to get treatment period.

Especially if you’re UN specifically if you’re uninsured.

Christina: right, right. No, you’re exactly

Bryan: thinking I can, yeah, I can go to done and I can get an ADHD prescription really easily. And we can all probably talk to how hard it can be to get a diagnosis for things and how much money you can spend. Um, you know, that’s the reason these things exist.

Um, at least partially,

Jeff: Or how easy to get the wrong diagnosis.

Bryan: oh yeah.

Christina: No, but I think you’re right. I mean, I think this is what one of the, the struggles is, is that this is obviously an area where I think that you can disrupt it with technology. Like I, I’m not willing to say that. I don’t think that there’s any role for VC in this, because I do think that technology can disrupt healthcare.

I think that I, I, I think you can disrupt, uh, this field. I think it is open to that. And, and Brian and I, we we’ve discussed some of the advancements that have happened even kind of in the app space around insurance, which I think has been really positive. I think that the disconnect is how do you make sure that you’re not disrupting it in a way that could be harmful actively to, to the people where, where, you know, you go into typical like VC mode where you’re thinking I’m just gonna go for the Moom and we need to do pure growth.

And you’re not taking into consideration that this is still people’s.

Brett: Yeah, the, the main, the main problem is the same problem. Is you see throughout the healthcare industry is profit motive. Um, it’s right. It’s right for disruption. But when that disruption comes at the price where, where everything has to make a profit, uh, when you turn mental health into a commodity, uh, which is exactly what will happen with, with VC, uh, you turn it into a commodity.

You’re not gonna get the best for the patient. You’re gonna get the best for the investor.

Jeff: Yeah. And it’s like the nurse, the nurse practitioner in that wall street journal story. It’s super interesting because you know, this, this guy having gotten the Adderall prescription, went down a dark road into old addictions. And this person when interviewed by the wall street journal reporter, not surprisingly has no memory of him, right.

Like, because she was in a machine and, and processing people.

Brett: you had a 30 minute appointment to do all this.

Jeff: Exactly. And, and I thought that, that, that was one of those times actually, when it’s very powerful to have gone to this person. Cause I wouldn’t honestly reading the article. I’m thinking I don’t have anything to learn from this person about this guy.

They’re not gonna remember. Right. But that’s the point and that’s the problem that can exist with, like you said, uh, Christina, the pure profit approach.

Christina: And, and, and, and to be clear though, that could also be the case if, if this was like a regular doctor, right? Like, like my, my mom, um, she was recently went through some heinous stuff with, with, um, her like her primary care doctor and, and with actually with a cardiologist. And we could talk about the, the ridiculous amount of, um, like ageism that exists in medicine, but that’s a whole separate topic, but, you know, these are these massive healthcare centers that are, you know, like huge buildings that are, that are not HMOs, but are, you know, just the, these huge practices that these corporations own, where doctors see, you know, hundreds of patients and, and you don’t know, like how much are they going to remember, you know, one person to the next, other than their charts, right?

Because it’s, it’s all, it does become a, an assembly line and becomes a.

Bryan: Yeah. And I’m, you know, I’m just not sure. Um, if there, there’s also something about the virtual aspect, if you’re not, if all you’re doing is virtual stuff, right. If all you’re ever doing is virtual, if that’s the way you enter as a practitioner, particularly, I think there can be an issue with seeing the person as quite the same as you would see somebody that you met in person, just in terms of like the way we treat people from a humanity perspective.

We know for a fact that like, Computers, all of this technology is like a substitute, but it’s not a perfect one for being in person with people, for connecting with people, for taking the time, the minute the person is off the screen, you know, in a, in a regular session, like you’re still in your office, you know that you have another person coming in.

There’s time set aside for you to take notes. You know, all of those things are allowed because you’re in a physical space, which may not be the case. If you are in a virtual space, the Mach again, the program might just pop somebody else up on your screen.

Jeff: right.

Bryan: know, how much is it like a call center?

Jeff: Yeah. Here’s a whole nother human. On the other hand, like I, I have friends who are therapists, who, um, who really believed during the pandemic, if there were patients that came to them because they wouldn’t have to come in person.

Bryan: Oh yeah.

Christina: I think that’s the challenge, right? Is, is that these things, if you were to do it the right way without that profit motive, which I think you’re exactly right, right. Like that’s the problem with this. If you were able to do, to take on some of this disruption, without it being about how can we exact as much profit out of this as possible, then I think that some of this tech could be really good and could lead to better care, but that’s not how we think about the system in this country.

Like we, we think about it literally as how much money can we extract and, and how much like, like what’s, what’s our best option. And the problem with that, I think, especially when you start talking about like, when you’re now talking about schedule two drugs and, and mailing them to people after a 10 minute meeting, you know, O over a zoom call, That’s a problem because, you know, look, this guy who this story’s about, he was not upfront with a therapist or with a doctor, nurse practitioner or whatever he was not upfront did not share his history.

Um, and there’s no telling that he would’ve been honest in person. Right. He might have been able to get drugs in person as well, but I also have to think that in person, when you’re not on kind of a 10 minute thing, somebody might have asked some questions, like, have you had, do you have any history of substance abuse?

Do you have, you know, what was your past experience with these things? And that might have led to a, a slightly different, um, you know, outcome. I, you know, there, there’s no telling if it would’ve or would not have, but it definitely does. I, I definitely have to say as someone who is in favor of more people having access to medication, I’m equally uncomfortable with people having.

Unfettered access in some ways to these types of drugs when there’s not a lot of due diligence happening on, on behalf of, of the people who are prescribing them. Like that, that to me, I think is really scary because these are things that, that could fuck people up in really serious ways.

Bryan: Well, and the particular thing that I think we have to look at with done is done is basically to be very clear, they markets themselves, as you can get your ADHD meds in 30 minutes, right? This is not some normal run of the mill psychiatrist or therapist. Who’s there to give you therapy. They’re literally there to write you a prescription.

That’s why they exist, you know? And that’s like, that’s the purpose of the company, which again, like one of the things that I think about in all of this is how, in some ways it is the entire insurance, like. The whole medical system in the United States sets us up for this because why do therapists charge so much money?

Uh, because insurance, um, because insurance often will screw a therapist in terms of the money that they get. Like they can’t, and it’ll take them forever to get money back, you know, in reimbursements and everything. Uh, it’s almost impossible for any individual therapists to go out on their own and take insurance because of the amount of paperwork it requires in all of this, you know?

And so we put all of these barriers into allowing cuz it’s not just about profit. It’s about sort of like. Astronomical profit. Right? We want people to be able to live, right. We want therapists to be able to provide services and give good money and like, and get, uh, have a decent living in exchange. But they can’t do that with the way the system is set up right now without like charging exorbitant amounts of money.

That’s a lot of people can’t afford. Um, or, and then, so then you get on the other side of this, a thing like done, which charges you very little money and gives you a prescription really quick, because that’s the way that’s like, there’s those two options for people. And one for people is inaccessible.

Jeff: And as we’ve talked about so much on this podcast and privately with friends, like the thing I thought about, you know, putting aside some of the particulars of the, the man’s story and the wall street journal story, like just starting ADHD meds, starting Adderall, there are so many questions. There’s so many questions you have about why does my body feel like this?

Is it the drug? Or is it the drug’s interaction with something? Is it neither? Am I just nervous? Am I stressed? Because I’m putting this thing in my body. Right? That’s if you’ve never had experience with such a thing, right? Like even if you’ve had experience, sometimes you can get a higher, you know, dosage than you probably should get just.

As people feel like, oh, you you’ve done this before. Right. And so for me, like I’ve found with, especially with Vivance, which is the only ADHD med I’ve taken, um, I’ve had such a road with that particular drug that the idea of just having a quick, Hey, you know, yeah, you can get this and here’s how, and here’s your meds and you’re often running and, you know, no real follow up, uh, no promise of follow up that really scares me cuz of what it can do to your body and to your mind.

Um, especially if you’re not used to sort of paying attention to your body and your mind as it sort of changes day to day,

Christina: Yeah, 100%. And I think that Brian made a really great point. Is that done, um, you know, would advertise itself specifically as this is the easy way to get your, your, your ADHD meds in 30 minutes, which attracts a very different audience type than somebody who’s looking to solve a problem. I mean, what you’re doing there and just be explicit about it.

You’re going after college kids and you’re going after people who are looking to abuse drugs and get it, get it cheaply and get it without, without having to go through barriers. That’s what you’re doing.

Bryan: Or people who are already so fed up with the system, right.

Christina: I mean, potentially. Yeah, potentially. Yeah. I’m just saying, I think that the way they advertise it, not to say other people couldn’t use it, but the way they advertise it is very clearly for drug seekers.

Brett: So there was like a two year period of my life where, um, I like, I was cut off from my ADHD meds by a system that. Just like wrote me off because I had drug abuse in my history and there was like no chance I would ever get, uh, ADHD meds again. Um, and like a service, like dun could’ve saved. Like, I mean, my life fell apart.

Uh, I I’m, I got divorced. I lost, or I gave up my job. Uh, and I couldn’t find new work. Like I went broke, um, like things did not go well. And, and, and, and I started abusing alcohol again, uh, because one of the things that being treated for ADHD is actually good for addicts. Uh, if your ADHD is treated, you are far less impulsive in your use of drugs.

So the idea that an addict should never get an ADHD medication, uh, is, is errant. Um, but like a service like done could have saved me from a lot of heart.

Christina: 100.

Brett: But you’re right. Like, what’s the difference between me and a college kid who wants Adderall to take their finals? You know, like no, no one could determine that in a 30 minute or less conversation over, over the phone.

Bryan: Yeah. That’s the thing. Yeah,

Christina: I was gonna say, I think that’s the problem, right? Like I,

Bryan: it flattens you, it flattens them.

Christina: exactly, and, and to the, to this point, because now I think that the, the pharmacies see it as a liability, um, uh, Walmart and CVS were two of the, the biggest pharmacy changed in the us will not fill prescriptions from done. And, and it has to be because of this sort of thing.

And that’s unfortunate because again, like, I do feel like to your point, like Brett, like you’re not the only one who could have been saved and had really good benefits from this. Like, I, I was reading about the service and at first I was really sympathetic to the service because I was like, I think that what, what they’re trying to solve is an important thing.

And then though I think about it though, and I’m like, God, but. This is still some serious stuff. Like there has to be a checks and balances here. And I guess the more I was kind of reading, especially about done with their CEO and whatnot, the fact that a big red flag for me is zero background in, in healthcare or, or medicine, um, or, or, or, you know, bioengineering, anything like that, right.

Is, is to be like, which I’m sorry. I think does a little bit preclude you from starting a startup like this, right? Like at least have a co-founder who’s a doctor. Right. But if you don’t have anybody on your founding team who comes from this world and you just see this as an area to, you know, create a middle man opportunity for yourself and speed things up and be efficient.

I don’t have a lot of trust that you’re going to do things the right way. And, and in that case, you could potentially my big fear with a lot of this is that this ends up because when people have been overprescribed and have been overdiagnosed in my opinion, and I think that that leads to people, not taking people who have the actual.

Diagnoses and need help. Seriously. I, I genuinely believe that. And I think that it, it leads to this thing where, uh, it, there could be, uh, like a pendulum swing where it would be very difficult for all of us, like on, on this and many people who listen to this podcast to actually get their medications. And that, that, that’s a thing that scares me because of, of how these services work and, and just kind of this culture of, yeah, we’ll give anybody a diagnosis if you happen to be of a certain class and happen to have access to certain things and, and, and say the right, you know, phrase, then we’re gonna give you your Adderall.

Like, I don’t wanna not be able to get my dexo drain because you know, the, the Congress decides that they need to have more stringent guidelines, you know, because, because of this sort of thing, that that’s, I have to be completely like selfish and say, that’s one of my fear.

Brett: Well sure. That’s that’s every, every, everyone who is successfully treated for ADHD, that’s a constant fear we have to live with

Bryan: Yeah. I mean, yeah. It’s, I mean, they have this new advisor, uh, yeah. They just hired a new advisor probably after all of this stuff happening is why they did this. Um, Steven Stahl. Who’s actually a guy I’ve read about before, who has a lot of experience treating HD ADHD, but like fundamentally 30 minutes and a one minute assessment is not enough.

Like they promote a one minute assessment. There’s a reason why the ADHD assessments take a while. Like there’s so many things

Brett: Can’t assess something in one minute.

Jeff: it’s the ADHD assessment for ADHD.

Christina: really

Brett: Right.

Bryan: a joke or my boyfriend told me was if you wanna test somebody for ADHD, just have them pack a suitcase for a trip.

Christina: Yeah. a good one actually.

Brendon Fraser in a fat suit

Jeff: uh, we actually have like a couple of pop culture topics. And I’m wondering how you feel about transitioning.

Brett: do.

Bryan: Yeah. Pop

Jeff: All right. Well it’s I was thinking it, Brian came in saying it Brendan Frazier in a fat suit. Everybody. Do you wanna do the summary first, Brian?

Bryan: Sure. So. Honestly who doesn’t love Brendan Fraser, Brendan Fraser in the mummy, Brendan Fraser in all sorts of great movies as a kid, you know, George of the jungle, like we loved Brendan Fraser in the nineties and the two thousands then Brendan Fraser disappeared. And in 2018 he came back and, you know, there was an article in GQ where he talked about, um, being blacklisted by the film industry, after speaking out about being sexually assaulted, um, you know, he has started to see, you know, more, more career, more, uh, more roles and things.

And so this September, there was a big movie that was, you know, high profile called the whale, which is also a play that was, um, by Darren Aoki. Um, It’s like it’s Oscar bat, but it’s Oscar bat in which Brendan Fraser wears a fat suit. I should also note that most of us who remember Brendan Fraser, remember him as a thin, very muscular hot person.

Typically Haun person,

Brett: And oh man. That’s how I remember bringing

Bryan: Brendan Fraser himself is fat now. And so I think that’s important to understand as well, a little bit about this movie, just a quick background. This is a movie about a man who, um, is struggling. It’s about a 600 pound gay man struggling to connect with is estranged daughter before his compulsive binge eating kills him.

Um, you know, and it got him a six minute standing ovation at the Venice film festival and yeah, I mean, so this

Christina: based on, based on a,

Bryan: Based on a play.

Christina: play. Yeah.

Bryan: A pretty successful play. And like for me straight up, I’ll start the story. I don’t think, I don’t think people should be wearing fat suits. I don’t think that I don’t think that people’s bodies are costumes to put on and take off personally.

Um, uh, I have a, I have a personal problem with this. I think this movie also is sympathy porn for fat people for like thin people to be like, oh, here’s a reason for me to care about a really fat person. When oftentimes what we do is we ridicule them in shows like my 600 pound life and all of those sorts of things, instead of seeing them as whole people.

Um, I’m also like personally, like really struggling with the fact that Brendan Frazier as a fat person who I hope will have started to realize what it is like to live in a fat body will then choose to put a fat suit on, on top of. But I also recognize the flip side of this is that I want to think about the fact that here is Brendan Frazier.

Who’s been blacklisted from the film industry for a very long time, finally getting opportunities. Um, and they come to him with this, you know, and here’s an opportunity for him to do something in a, in a movie that, you know, to me is a lot like movies about drug addicts, right. Where we’re trying to like, you know, empathize with the drug addicts.

So we tell a story of a drug addict who like goes through this inspiring thing and I just really struggle with it because, um, why don’t we care about drug addicts normally, right. Why do we have to tell inspiring stories about them?

Jeff: For me, it really fit in not directly, but it fit in with this tradition of often, um, very sort of trim Hollywood, male actors gaining 60 to 80 pounds for a role, I think like Robert de Niro and raging bull and like a million of those examples. Right. And like, they are praised. Yes, they are praised and placed in a very special category almost as if look what you did to your beautiful self, you made yourself this thing, just so you could act for us, you know, and it’s a very, and you’re doing violence to your body, anyhow, cuz you’re doing you’re gaining and then losing it really fast, right?

Bryan: it’s really bad for your body. It’s really bad.

Brett: This episode brought to you by fatness.

Bryan: it’s awesome. It’s just like thinness. They’re all part of the natural human spectrum.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I struggle with this because on the one hand, I do think again, to your point, like we have this history for whether it’s a good, or it’s a bad thing. It is a history of, of people, you know, transforming their bodies for roles and, um, people, you know, um, being moved by it and, and I’ve definitely been moved by those performances, like by Christian BA’s performances, by, uh, Robert Janero and raging bull by, um, you know, uh, uh, the elephant man and, um, um, uh, Daniel de Lewis in my left foot.

Like these are really fantastic performances that I, I don’t, uh, look at them as, as being like negative, um, uh, in most cases or, or like, uh, Pejoratives in certain ways. Um, ones that I find a little ridiculous, although not discounting, what, what she, the work she went into it, but like, you know, um, the fact that like Renee Zeiger, you know, the weight she gained for, um, Bridget Jones, I think that the people like Laing, that was ridiculous because she became like the, the sides of like a normal person, but I’m not going to discount ha having been someone who is very thin and then gained weight, I’m not going to discount.

Uh, and then lost it again. I’m not going to discount like the actual toll and what it does to your body when your body changes that way. Like, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna discount that, but I feel, I I’m, I’m, I’m sort of conflicted because on the one hand I’m I’m with you, I’m like, I, I don’t think that we should, you know, be using like, uh, fat suits and.

Although there’s a part of that says, okay, but what’s different about one prosthetic versus another, right. We use prosthetics in so many other ways. So are we going to say that one type of prosthetic is allowed on another isn’t um, and if you wanna have a conversation about the nuances that I’m happy to, but, but I think that’s important thing to put out.

But the other thing though, is that I do fear and, and this is I’m sorry, but I’m just gonna be honest here. If we were to make a rule that says that people can’t use prosthetics or fat suits, then I do think that you would not see any stories that people of size told not because, because a, the number of actors who would be available to do it, but B like.

This film is getting attention because it’s Darren Aronofski and it’s Brenna Fraser. If they actually cast an actual 600 pound actor in this, no one would care and it wouldn’t get funding and it’s it’s show business, right? Like, like people were really upset. Again, Renee Zevier with the thing about Pam, I understand that.

Here’s the thing. If the Oscar winner is not attached to that project, it doesn’t get made. So sometimes I think you have to like opening up to, to, to the rest of you, but like have to say like, do you, do we want stories told or do we not? Cuz sometimes I think it really does come down to that.

Jeff: What about Coda? I feel like Coda is a, is a film that kind of makes the, the sort of other.

Christina: Yeah. But that’s a small film, right? Like you can do that for sure. I’m just saying like, you’re not going to get like Coda, didn’t go to the Venice film festival, right? Like it was, it was purchased at Sundance by apple TV. And they, you know, a really good Oscar campaign, but also in fairness here coulda had the attachment of an, of an academy award winner, right.

That had had Marley Matlin. If you didn’t have her attached to it, who is unfortunately the on she’s been the face of, of, of deaf of people in acting for her entire career. Right. And because she won an Oscar when she was, you know, 21 or whatever, like she’s been the one person there, if she was not attached to that film, that film doesn’t even get its, its small amount of funding.

Right. Let alone getting picked up. So like it’s a pipeline problem. I hate to be like that, you know, but that is part of it. But it just, I, I wonder if like if we can even open with a pipeline more, if you don’t have any of these roles done. Like, like if, if it’s, if it’s, so if people are so like at the point where they, they don’t even feel like they can tell any stories like about drug addicts or about people of size.

Or about, you know, deaf people, like what, what, what do you do? Like I do think I do agree. In most cases you should have the people who are those things playing those roles. But I also understand that, like, it, it’s a it’s show business and it’s gonna be about who you can, you know, attach to it, to actually get funding, you know?

And, and if it’s a, if it’s a matter of the film of the story, getting told and not getting told I’m, I’m a little more conflicted there.

Bryan: I don’t think this story needed to be told.

Christina: And that’s

Bryan: I think just like, yeah, I think, yeah, I think that’s the problem for me. Um, I don’t know why we need a, like we don’t, I guess, and I don’t know why we need stories about a 600 pound man. Who’s apparently decided he’s going to die because of a compulsive eating disorder.

Um, like I’m not sure that that’s the story that needed to be told. Um, I also think, yeah, absolutely. I also think you could have told it with like a 400 pound person or a 300 pound person, which like Brendan Frazier already was we already, I think like it, what’s weird about it for me is like the.

Excessive, like, let me just say this. People think that 300 pound people are gonna die already. People think all like so many, like the stereotype is the fat people. You’re just, we’re all gonna drop dead of heart attacks. And so it seems like it really does seem like they used the fatness as an opportunity to make it a bigger deal than it was.

And you could have told the story otherwise,

Brett: Do you feel like you might have to amplify it though for, for people to sympathize

Bryan: well, right.

Brett: for the average person

Bryan: but that’s the problem, right? Like, yeah. Now, now we’re saying that we, you, we don’t care about fat people unless they’re 600 pounds. And then we care about them in a really weird way. know, which is that we only care about them if they lose weight or they’re going to die, not if they’re just like normally living people.

Um, and I think the last thing was you talk about prosthetics, Christina. I would just say, I think, as you said, the nuances here, I think the biggest one is like some prosthetics change the human body in a way to align with stereotypes and those, you know, like, I don’t just as like mainly it’s like, I don’t think, I don’t think men should play women.

Either, you know, like, I don’t think that, you know, like when, when Jared Leto played a trans woman, like, I think it was Jared Leto. Like, no, not like cast a trans woman. And part of the reason why they’re not casting these people is because we’re not in the industry. And the reason we’re not in the industry is because they decided they’d rather cast thin people and have them wear fat suits or prosthetics.

So I think the question is, you know, we have to, like, there are probably great actors out there who are fat and they just don’t know

Christina: Sure. No, and I don’t disagree with that at all. And, and, and look, it’s a chicken and an egg thing. You’re, you’re not wrong. I’m just saying like, we have to accept the industry reality, which is for instance, with, with JTO right. That film does not get made unless it is starring Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, that film does not get made.

And so, like, that’s just a fact. And, and so, you know, especially then now you might have a better chance you would still need to have Matthew McConaughy. You would never be able to, to make that film without it. Um, you know, I, I wasn’t in favor of the Scarlet Johansen, you know, film where she was going to be playing a transman.

However, that film fell apart after she left the project, they could not get funding. So it, it does like people are retroactively angry at, at like Hillary Swank being in, in boys don’t cry, which I think is bullshit because I think in that time, That, that was the, she was perfect casting and, and that was an indie film made with, with very little money.

And I think it fit the, the, the nuance of that story incredibly well. So I actually have a big problem with people retroactively being angry with that, but I can understand not wanting to, to CA like wanting to cast trans people over S I get that. I just also like, think that we have to acknowledge, this is a, this is a business, fundamentally, this is a business.

And, you know, for a lot of people, the question would then become like, do we like, do we tell the stories or not? I think that there’s a valid comment to say, does this story, this play need to be told, does this need to be a film? And I, I get that, but I, I think that the more broadly you have to, like, for instance, Shirley’s th who absolutely deserved her Oscar for monster, and it’s still, to me, one of the, like, most amazing performances ever, she gained weight, they modified her face.

She was in makeup for hours and hours a day. They could have cast an ugly person, right. I don’t think that you can make the argument, at least to me, cuz cuz like pretty privilege is, is, is a very real thing. And, and obviously most people who are on screen are going to have pretty privilege, but like, I, I, I, I, and I know this, isn’t what you’re saying.

I’m just saying people could take this to, to its other place where they’re like, well, we, we couldn’t have cast Charlie’s Thoran in that role because we should have cast, you know, someone who actually, you know, uh, didn’t need to modify their body that way. And, and, and I think that there are nuances to, to be clear.

I know you’re not saying that. I just think that sometimes the conversation becomes flat to the point where I have a hard time sometimes engaging with it because it’s like a it’s art and, and you know, a lot of people, their process is modification, but B. This is, this is a, this is a business and it’s about who you can market to and, and who you can, you know, what name you can attach so that you can get people willing to put millions and millions of dollars on the line.

Cuz it, these projects, it’s not like it’s, you know, a small amount of money. It means you’re talking about, you know, like hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. And, and you know, that’s, that’s gonna be difficult to, to do for somebody who doesn’t have a, a reputation or a name.

Bryan: Yeah, I think the question, I mean, which, which goes back, I mean, what we’re pointing at at the end of the day here is that there are large systemic problems that, that cause us to be in the reality that, that we are here. I think the question is when do you decide to start focusing on the systemic problem versus worrying about or versus saying, oh, well we can’t make this now.

And maybe that’s okay if we can’t make this now maybe we have to wait until we have the better people to do it, you know? And, but once again, it goes back to what did we talking about earlier profit, right? Like we wanna make this movie now because we wanna tell this story now, because we think it’s gonna be a hit, which is both, it’s a good story maybe, and it will make money, you know, and it’s.

Christina: Although, although, I mean, the only thing I’ll say is like, let’s not ever pretend like the film industry. I mean, the one thing I will say like about it, it’s always been upfront that it’s a business, right? Like, like if you’re an artist and you’re somebody who can find somebody to fund you and you wanna not be seen, that’s fine.

And you can get grants and what on you can do your work that way. But like, it, it it’s the whole point is to have people see your work and for it to make money and, and to do that. So I think that, unfortunately just there’s, there’s always going to be a push pull about that for certain things. But I do think you’re exactly right.

Like we have to maybe have the conversation is not okay to tell these stories. I guess the only thing I would say is if we say that, then I think maybe we have to like, let people know these are the stories you’re missing out on. If that makes any sense. We’re not telling these stories, not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t have a way to do it that fits in with this system.

And maybe that’s the only way you can get the system to, to, to adapt. But you have to be willing to let the stories not be told. And at the same time, not, you know, like be very angry when the stories aren’t told, like you’ve gotta almost like,

Bryan: Oh, agreed.

Christina: you know,

Bryan: Yeah.

Brett: If I can put a positive spin on trans people in, uh, television and movies, you guys watched the umbrella club.

Bryan: Umbrella academy.

Jeff: No,

Brett: Umbrella academy. Sorry. Yeah. Umbrella academy. They actually wrote in Elliot page’s transition into the script and changed the, the credit sequence after the, after the character, just after the character, on the, on the TV series.

Transitioned.

Bryan: Yeah. And trans people in film, film, and TV are a great example of where we’ve started to see things change, you know, and, and that is both because of pressure that’s been put on like social pressure and more trans people have felt able to be in the industry to come as themselves to the industry. And like, and Elliot is a great example.

I mean, Elliot is probably the first major movie star to transition publicly and to go well. Yeah. You know, we’re not there yet with fat people.

Jeff: Well, no, I’m in a transition. That’s. On, um, I’m gonna transition right now.

Brett: on

Bryan: Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Jeff: unless if there’s anything anyone wants to say wrapping that up, I wanna transition into pop culture topic. Number two,

Brett: I just wanna point out we skipped the mental health corner and that’s part of why Brian is here.

Jeff: do we have sponsors?

Brett: No, actually we don’t, this, this, this episode is brought to you by whoever you want it to be brought to you by.

Mental health corner

Jeff: Do you wanna just do a, like a, a late check-in and I, I mean, and I know, you know this Brian, but there are no rules. It doesn’t have to be long or short or any kind of depth or, or anything. It’s just what you’re feeling like. You want to check in with.

Bryan: Oh yeah. I mean, I’m happy to kick it off. I’ll just say, um, so. I a line up to being fat, right? Like this is actually, it ties in really well. So I recently got a new doctor and I got this new doctor because my previous doctor, when I told him that I didn’t wanna talk about weight loss said to me, well, then I won’t be your doctor anymore.

Christina: Oh, fuck

Bryan: Um, yeah, absolutely. It was, uh, luckily, um, the, I, I complained the medical director contacted me and she turned out to be a health at every size certified practitioner. So I’m now seeing her. And I just had my first appointment with her, um, health at every size is a framework that was started really to begin the conversation around the fact that like, Being fat is not fundamentally unhealthy.

There are. Um, and there’s a longer conversation to say we should, we value people based on their health, which I would say no, but, um, this was the first step of like the, the past the fat liberation, which is like, um, you know, studies show that like being fat does not automat there’s no, I’m gonna say this.

Nobody has yet proven causation for being fat, making you unhealthy. They have shown correlation, but not causation. And so many people forget that that’s a really important thing in science. Um, but anyway, so I went to this doctor, um, I’ve had some concerns recently about my, uh, my blood pressure. Um, I’ve been on Adderall, I’m on blood pressure pills.

Um, but. I had a period where like, I was just like, my heart was beating a lot faster when doing a lot less than I thought it would need to. Um, and if it’s kind of gone away, but I was still kind of nervous about it. And so I see this new doctor, you know, um, she was really great. Like she didn’t, she said, if you wanna weigh yourself, you’re welcome to there’s no requirement.

That was really cool. The first time I’ve ever had that experience, my blood pressure was fabulous. Also a wonderful thing. So, you know, great appointment and everything. But then the day after I get my labs back and there are some things that are high and this is the first time I’ve ever had labs that showed abnormalities. Um, and so my doctor was very nice. You, you all may know these days, doctors will share things at the same. Like you get the lab result at the same time your doctor does this part. Right. And so I was freaking out y’all. I was freaking out about what these numbers meant. Um, Turns out. I, so I had to follow up with my doctor today, but my doctor was like, don’t freak out.

We’ll meet. I probably have hyperthyroidism.

Christina: Okay.

Bryan: Um, which turns out is not hard to treat

Christina: Nope. You take a.

Bryan: and yeah, like I found that out from a lot of people, but I was in a rollercoaster this weekend. Like Friday, I was ready to believe that I was gonna die. You know, um, I have really bad illness. Anxiety is like one of my types of anxiety that I have.

Um, but you know, had a lot of friends like step up and share with me their experiences with their thyroids and everything. And help me understand that it wasn’t like a, like, you know, an end of the world thing. And, and also that it was probably, um, You know, unrelated again, to being fat. I had a, I think we may have talked about this before, but I had a friend in last December pass away, big sort of like iconic person in the fat liberation movement.

I was working with her on the fat studies conference that happens every year or every two years. Really. We do it and she passed away suddenly. Um, her name was cat PAE. She’s really like one of the founders of the fat studies movement from an academic perspective. And she passed away suddenly. And you know, one, when that happens to somebody who is fat, you worry, you worry a lot.

And I had been worrying until I went and saw my doctor, you know, so I was like this rollercoaster of wow, clean bill of health. Oh, wow. Maybe not there’s something going on. But then I met with my doctor today and she’s like, all of these labs, like, it’s, we just wanna figure out what’s going on with this thyroid.

And it’s not super urgent. You know, all of those things are really good to hear, but it has been a Rocky weekend. Like. Like big time. My mental health was like sort of up and down and all over the

Brett: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Bryan: otherwise, you know, I’m doing better now, so that’s good.

Christina: That is really good. I’m, I’m glad, I’m glad that you are like, feeling calmer about that. And, and, and I hope that if I say this, this, this doesn’t like come across the wrong way, but. If, if this is something with your thyroid, you might find that your weight might change, like naturally because of that, which, which could, you know, lead to maybe like other, you know what I mean?

Like, I’m not trying to say like, oh, maybe this will help you like lose weight. Cause that’s not what I’m trying to say, but like, I, I I’ve, I’ve had thyroid problems and, and it has an absolute effect on, on, on, on your weight, um, which, which, you know, so I’m, I’m glad that they’re, they’re looking into this and getting this checked out.

Bryan: Yeah, it’s a very interesting thing to consider inside of fat liberation. I have already begun, like there was a period where I lost some weight cuz I was just exercising more. And like I had to start to think about how I feel about felt about losing weight in a different way, which is really interesting.

Um, you know yeah,

Brett: I have that thing where my heart beats loud and fast when I’m not doing anything and it scares the shit out me. I’ve gone to the emergency room before, uh, only to have them run hours of tests on me to say, you’re fine, everything’s fine. Maybe you’re constipated or something who knows. And it’s, it’s, it’s very disconcerting though.

When you can hear your heart throbbing in your ears and you can’t fall asleep, you know, it’s awful. Yeah,

Bryan: terrifying.

Brett: yeah, yeah. I’ll go next. Uh, pretty, pretty good actually, um, sleeping too much. Uh, I think like I’m hitting that like post, uh, post mania, depression, but I’m not like I’m not down. Um, I’m doing I’m I’m, I’m, I’m being very social and, um, I’m not, I’m not scared that you guys all hate me right now.

Jeff: Uh,

Brett: sure I’m pretty sure we’re all cool. I feel like we’re all cool. Um, and, and, and I’m, I can, I could drop and take a nap time of the day right now, which is weird for me, but, uh, but other than that, uh, just kinda stable. I have an appointment with my therapist. My third appointment with my therapist is tomorrow.

Um, looking forward to, uh, seeing him when I am not manic.

Jeff: Is that in person or

Brett: think it’s in person. I can’t remember what we scheduled. I have to check the calendar. Um, if it’s not in person, then the next one will be in person next week. Um, I will, I will be, I will be trying both versions, both flavors of this therapist to see what I actually like better.

Um, but last time we talked, I was still manic and the conversation was pretty much entirely about mania and I have so many other things I wanna get into. So I’m kind of looking forward to that. Uh, we’ll see what happens.

Jeff: That’s great.

Bryan: That’s really awesome. I totally feel you on the, oh my gosh, everybody hates me thing just random, random days. I’ll get it for different people.

Brett: real.

Jeff: Yep. I had to ask, we had a, we had really good friends over like the kinds of friends that I’m super comfortable with and they get me, they know me, uh, and we had about, it was two couples over for dinner and I was just on like, super, super on the whole time, which I get when I really like the people that I’m with, but I sort of lose myself a little bit and I can’t really tell how on I was and I spend the next two days.

Yeah. I spend the next two days just being like, oh my God, was that a disaster? Like people seem to be enjoying my company.

Brett: We’ve had episodes where I feel like I was really gone and then we get done and I’m like, oh my God, was I the asshole?

Bryan: no, the answer is Christina and I are always the assholes and it’s totally

Christina: say I’m always the asshole. I think. Thank you, Brian. I, I, I, I was, I was gonna, I would’ve added that, but yeah.

Bryan: Listen, we both have very strong contrarian streaks, Christina.

Christina: We do, which is why I appreciate you so much because I, I, I like like being able to like, have more like, robust discussions about things.

Bryan: Yeah. Uh, how are you, Jeff or Christina? Yeah.

Jeff: I can go. You want me to go Christina? Okay. Um, I am, uh, you know, I was reading a book this morning called the face a time code and it’s, um, it’s by this, um, Japanese American writer who actually, I had never encountered before Ruth Ozeki or Ozeki, um, it’s actually a pen name. Um, but this is, um, what she did for this book was she, she took inspiration from a, a Harvard art professor who’s, uh, who.

Whose article or like the transcript of her talk, I will put into the show notes. It’s incredible. This is an art, um, history teacher who has her students each year, pick a painting and go sit in front of that painting for three hours, knowing that that’s insane. Like, you know, she’s not just like, you’ll find your space, right?

She’s like, that is uncomfortably long. And maybe even physically uncomfortably wrong,

Bryan: fall.

Jeff: like you can get up, you can stand whatever. And the idea being that like, you know, by the end journal the whole time, just like the things you, you know, start to see, and she had this great. Thing about how, you know, just seeing is not seeing right.

Not having access to something is not the same as seeing it. Right. And so anyhow, this, this woman, um, who wrote this book, the face very short book, wanted to do this, where she put a mirror up and she was gonna stare at her own fucking face for three hours. And the book is half time coded journal and half more considered memoir.

And she goes through all the stuff you can just imagine going through over that, you, the things you hate about your face, the things you are curious about in your face, the things that used to bother you, but don’t anymore things that used to be true, but aren’t true. And the way that she, um, The way that she wrote this thing was just incredible and, and beautiful.

And I, and what happened to me? I read it this morning and I actually, so my, the background of this is this is the first day that my wife and my kids are all back at school. My wife works at the university, so I’m home alone and I can just have a nice slow morning. And so I’m just like laying on the couch, reading this very slow book about a very slow thing, looking at your face for three hours.

Right. And I felt so good. Just be reading and not be reading exactly like story or anything. You know how sometimes like you can reading is great, but it can kind of activate parts of you, either trauma or too much joy or whatever. Right. Like it can bring you into places that you don’t mean to be. And this just kind of like hovered with me in a way that was just really.

Really powerful, but she, she opens up by asking this question or writing this question. That’s, it’s, it’s a Buddhist coin, which is kind of like a, a thought puzzle. They’re like these single questions that, um, that you ask yourself and they’re meant to how she put it is they’re meant for you to like break your brain over them basically.

Right. And the question that she writes is what did your face look like before your parents were born? And I loved that. So goddamn much in part, because I’m in this phase of therapy, which is also known as therapy, um, Where parent stuff is like super present. And I see myself through the lens, uh, of the son of these two people.

Right. And, and more than I would like to what doesn’t say anything, that’s, that’s a neutral statement more than I would like to. Right. I would like to see myself or, or feel myself as being something more sort of detached and individual. And there was something about this question. What did your face look like before your parents were born?

That like took me to that place for just a second. I just felt like a different kind of being or a different kind of presence. So, no, I’m not high, even though my co-op now sells tht THC gummies because the Minnesota state legislature made a mistake and accidentally legalized them. That’s a whole nother topic.

Christina: Oh my God. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So, so, so, so gummies are legal, but, but not anything

Brett: Yeah, they act, they accidentally legalize small amounts of, of edibles.

Jeff: because the Republican on the committee. Read it just a little wrong and, and so was like, yeah. Okay. That’s fine. And then all of a sudden, I was like, you just legalized gummies. Thank you.

Christina: like,

Bryan: that’s

Christina: like the, oh my God, this is amazing.

Jeff: literally my fucking co-op now sells gummies. Like it’s just like it’s

Christina: do. Cause it’s

Jeff: so what I need to do to close out my check in is go take a bunch of gummies and go. What did your face look like before your parents were born? all right, Christina, that was I, I took us all over the place. You wanna

Christina: did. Yeah. Okay. So I’m still, um, unfortunately dealing with of my, uh, uh, like issues with, with my digestive system, which means like, I’ve been having a hard time, like with, uh, like my esophagus, like, I’ve been it it’s, it’s not the gross digestive stuff. It’s like, there it’s an ulcer something, I don’t know.

I’ve got an appointment, but I’m not gonna be able to be in for a couple. So I’ve been dealing with that and that has not been fun at all. Like it’s, it’s been pretty shitty I’m I’m not gonna lie. So that, that’s kind of where I’m at right now.

Jeff: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That’s the kind of thing. That’s like tooth pain. It’s like, it’s just there.

Christina: no, E exactly. And it’s just like, it’s not, it’s just not good.

Um, but I’m, I’m trying, and, uh, you know, my mom is freaking out obviously because a as frequent listeners of this show know, like my mom is, is like the stereotypical helicopter mom and, and it doesn’t matter how old I am or how old she is. Like, she will never not worry about these things. So, uh, yeah. But, uh, but yeah, no, it’s pretty bad this weekend.

Um, and, uh, but hopefully that will, I can at least get things under control until I can get to a doctor and then have, you know, full, uh, you know, upper GI and, and all that stuff. Maybe if they’re scope me, they have to scope me, but that’s fine. Um, but yeah. I mean, I’ve had it done before, so it’s,

Jeff: Yeah. No, it’s

Brett: Scoping as in like colonoscopy.

Christina: Yeah. Potentially or endoscopy, it would be either one I’ve I’ve maybe both ends. Maybe I’ll get lucky and I’ll, I’ll get the, I’ll get I’ll get both.

Brett: Ooh. And they can meet in the middle,

Christina: God, fuck. Yeah, no, I really don’t want that, but yeah, that would be,

Bryan: Oh, my gosh, absolutely not in the middle. I just think about going back. I, Christina, I just think about going back. I can go all the way back to 2007. No, 2003. When I no, 2004, again, can’t do dates. But when I got diagnosed with IBS

Christina: mm.

Bryan: and the, and like the lead up to dealing with that, like to figuring out what was going on and just the pain, I could still remember the pain, like, uh,

Brett: IBS basically means we couldn’t figure out what was going on. Cuz I went through $10,000 out of pocket, worth of colonoscopies and checkups and check-ins and dietary, uh, discovery. And ultimately they’re like, yeah, you have IBS, which means you don’t have diverticulitis. And we don’t find any other issues.

Other than you have clear symptoms that we can explain. So you, you have IBS and I have lived with that ever since.

Bryan: My doctor was the doctor that I, and I was a different doctor. Cause I was in the middle of nowhere. I was at it like, uh, summer theater doing summer stock theater. And he was like, yeah, I think you have IBS. And I was like, okay. And I mean, I have never, I have never challenged that the things that I’ve done have worked.

So,

Brett: Yeah,

Bryan: uh,

Brett: can I, can I complain about one thing before we get to gratitude?

Christina: Please.

Brett: So Y do you guys remember simple the banking

Christina: Uh,

Brett: company? Simple. So I,

Christina: R I P

Brett: yeah, I signed up for simple and they, they closed. I was like, whatever. I had like 30 bucks in my account, they sold my account to PNC bank. and, um, and I, I thought, whatever, you know, it’s, it’s in perpetuity, I’ll have $30, but they started charging service fees.

And I got an email. I I’ve been getting emails every 12 hours for the last three days saying that my account was in low balance mode, meaning I was 18 cents overdrawn. Uh, in, this is an account I have not touched in a decade. I do not have an account number. I do not have a card.

Jeff: Well, you clearly bought a gumball.

Brett: I do not. I do not have anything related to this account.

I have no login. I have, I have no way to modify the situation. I’m talking to them and they’re like, oh, all you have to do is show up at a PNC location with a photo ID. I live in fucking bum, fuck Minnesota. I have no PNC location within the state. Let alone near me.

Bryan: Oh, my gosh.

Brett: So basically I have until 10:00 PM Eastern tonight to rectify this situation before they start charging me overdraft fees on an account, I haven’t touched in a

Bryan: Oh,

Jeff: Christ.

Brett: they’re not giving me.

And they’re like, oh, we’ll escalate this issue. Give us your phone number. So I’m waiting for a call

Christina: Oh, fuck

Brett: Yeah.

Christina: Oh my God. What a

Brett: just, just close the account. I’ll pay you 18 cents to close my account and just leave me the fuck alone anyway. Okay. So I promised my mother, I would take her for a hike in the Wisconsin wetlands, um, in, I’m supposed to pick her up in seven minutes.

So if we could, if we could, if we had roll on into gratitude, I’m sorry. Oh my God. We were gonna talk about Taylor swift for the first time in like how many weeks

Grapptitude

Christina: Look the whole reason. This is my gratitude. It’s usually an app. It’s gonna be Taylor swift this time.

Bryan: perfect.

Brett: fair

Christina: Okay. So, so Taylor swift, I feel like has written an album. Her next album is called midnight. So it’ll be out in October. I feel like it is in many ways, a complete acknowledgement of this podcast Overtired, because the whole thing is about the things that keep her up at night.

Jeff: Nice.

Brett: Shout out you Overtired.

Bryan: Honestly, I’m down with it.

Jeff: Awesome. Yeah, she put a little something in the acknowledgements. I saw, I got a promo of the CD, which probably doesn’t even happen anymore. People get promos of CDs

Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett: I still get my, uh, my Columbia house,

Christina: Columbia house,

Brett: every

Jeff: God, what a fucking wonderful time. That was.

Bryan: Oh my God.

Christina: man. I rip, I ripped them off so much.

Bryan: my same Christina. Oh my gosh. Oh, Columbia house and BMG.

Jeff: if you were under 18, you could. There’s nothing they could

Christina: You could.

Bryan: could, my parents would just call and say, sorry.

Jeff: Oh

Christina: Yeah. I, I had accounts on the dog’s name. I’m like, you’re the one who set it up an account for shadow warrant. Like, what is, what is wrong with you? Like

Bryan: get so mad at me for doing it again and again,

Christina: I didn’t, I didn’t even hide it. Like.

Bryan: so many CDs.

Jeff: all right. Should we do gratitude? Jesus. I could have gone down that rabbit hole for the next five hours. Uh, Brian, do you have a gratitude?

Bryan: Yo, of course I have a gratitude. I’m ready. Honestly, my gratitude is, uh, going to be a is going to be the app craft. Did we do craft already?

Christina: No, we haven’t, but I like craft a lot, so, yes. Great, great, great pick

Bryan: I love craft. I love craft craft is craft came up at the same time that obsidian did, but it’s very like craft is a prettier

Christina: it’s obsidian without having to be all the

Bryan: obsidian. Yeah, no, you don’t need to deal with a markdown stuff.

Brett: Yeah, I was gonna say, it’s not a, it’s not based on markdown tax files. So we have a, we have a difference of

Jeff: Brett, Brett, this is about gratitude.

Brett: Right, right. Sorry, this isn’t me. This isn’t mine.

Christina: No, what I’m trying to say is obsidian is like for Brett, right? Like, like craft is for like normies.

Bryan: Yeah. I got like, I couldn’t keep remembering all of them. My problem with markdown is that I can’t remember the markdown syntax, cuz I haven’t probably used it enough. So craft is great. It’s so pretty. Uh, they’ve been doing so many things. They updated and they have a whole web F now it’s really running so you can use it on the web.

They’re also, I mean, we’re gonna give a shout out to all of the teachers and students craft is giving you 50% off

Christina: Nice.

Bryan: for back to school. Uh, this is, they’re not a sponsor, but they should, um, Yeah, it’s really pretty. It works really well. Um, and they’ve built their own workflows into stuff too, which I really love.

So I’m just really loving craft is the place that I can try to remember to go, to, to put things in, because I have the problem of like, where are you putting things, Brian, which of the 15,000 places are you putting things? And craft is on all of the places right now, so I can try to make a craft be the thing.

Jeff: Oh, it’s always so nice when you feel like even for a little bit, this is the place.

Brett: We could do a whole episode on that.

Christina: We really could,

Brett: We won’t, cause that’s not what this show is. That that’s what the, that’s what this segment of this show is.

Bryan: I mean, Brett, what we could say is that’s the Patreon.

Jeff: Hmm.

Brett: you can just, you can just listen to Brett opine about note taking methods

Bryan: I mean, people would

Christina: they would, I’m saying, I’m saying like I

Bryan: ready for the Overtired Patreon, cuz I’m signing up.

Brett: that said craft is truly beautiful. Like I hit, I hit up, I hit up against limitations. I personally, uh, didn’t like almost immediately, but I could easily see how someone willing to invest in this little craft ecosystem could be like very well served by craft. I think it’s a great app.

Christina: Yeah. I, I like it a lot better than notion personally.

Jeff: Brett,

Brett: Okay. So I’m cheating. I’m going meta.

Jeff: you’re choosing meta

Brett: my pick meta. No.

Bryan: choosing better. Wow. Bold choice, Brett.

Brett: My pick this week is home brew. Um, the, the package manager, uh, people old enough to remember Mac ports will understand the concept. Um, anyone younger than that will just understand that if you are willing to install X code, you never actually have to use it, but you get a package manager that from the command line, you can install any command line utility available.

And with casks, like the whole thing is beer base. So if you, if you have casks, you can install most Mac apps, especially free ones, uh, using brew. You can dump out a brew file. And when you open up a, a new com a new Mac, you can, you can run a brew. Install that installs all of your favorite packages, all of your favorite apps.

It is. It’s just an easy way to, you can type brew, upgrade and upgrade everything on your system all at once. It is just the ultimate package manager. I love it.

Bryan: Did you know that you can install Ruby gems using brew?

Brett: I did. I knew, I knew it’s possible, even though they specifically said we don’t handle things like pick PIP packages and Ruby gems, you can actually make a formula to install Ruby gems.

Bryan: There’s a they’ve. So somebody already has a PA basically a formula to install called Ruby gems, which lets you then install gems

Brett: you can, you can tell like brew, gem install, and then, then manage your, your gems through brew. Yeah, I did see that

Bryan: Which is how I’m going to install doing on my computer today. Speak. Yeah.

Christina: Nice.

Jeff: Um,

Bryan: Which I’m going to call feeling based on last week’s conversation.

Christina: I like.

Bryan: about journaling and

doing

Jeff: All right. Mine is an app called table flip by Christian TES. It’s been out for a while. It’s been out for a few years and, um, what it is. So it’s like a wonderfully simple app for building tables in markdown, but it is also just its own little table building interface that. You can just work with so quickly, like anybody who writes primarily in markdown you’d know the woes of making a table, like you only make a table in markdown when you fucking know you have to, right.

But with table flip, like you open this app, you can really quickly kind of go it’s this many rows, this many, whatever you can just do all sorts of really quick movements and start filling out a table that you then copy and paste or export into markdown. And as much as I, I use table flip for making tables that go into markdown documents, I actually use it more often as a thinking and planning tool, sort of how I use mind maps as a thinking tool.

So like with table flip, I can just, or open it up and start typing. Um, Kristen Tets is someone I’ve I’ve really, I’ve really loved for a long time. He also made an app called the archive, which is a note taking app.

Brett: He was integral in the creation of NV.

Jeff: Uh, I did not know that

Brett: I used, I used code from divine dominion back in

Jeff: I had no idea. He also wrote an app that I love called word counter, which like, it just lives in your menu bar. And you can just say count words in these apps. And then it’ll just tell you, like you just, you just typed 30 words in, you know, Quip, um, or in Firefox or whatever. He just writes these really simple, but like, oh my God, I need these kind of utilities.

Brett: he’s a man after my own heart. One thing I would add on about table flip is it does, you can open a markdown file and table flip and have like two-way communication. So you edit the table in table flip and it will automatically update that table in your markdown file. And that’s, that’s the selling

Bryan: Oh, wow.

Christina: Yes.

Brett: you can send a table back and forth between the two.

Jeff: That that shows you how much I use this as a thinking tool, because I don’t do that, but that is totally the selling point. And also like people talk a lot about the zeal Caston style of note taking now, like obsidian is all about that and Rome and all this stuff. But like I learned about all that stuff from Christian’s blog and his ability to write about that is just fantastic.

So just go check out Christian stuff. Generally, the apps are about 10 bucks each. He’s got other apps besides one we’ve talked about, but just a developer that like, obviously we’re all on board with here. So that’s me. All right. Hey Brian, it was awesome to meet you.

Bryan: Friends. This is wonderful. Absolutely. I, this is so great to be with all of you and to see all your faces,

Brett: Do you wanna say it, Brian,

Bryan: some sleep.

Brett: get some sleep.

Christina: Get

Jeff: some sleep.

Track 5: The.