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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.
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There is an old friend coming by.
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Repeat.
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He is jockeying for most frequent guests.
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He is and he s up there.
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He s in a dead heat maybe with Sedaris.
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta, what a sweetheart from Livonia, Michigan.
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That s always gonna make me like him more than everyone else.
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Yeah, and he s one of those guests we have where we just start talking and it s so interesting.
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Yeah, and he can pretty much tell you about anything in the health sphere.
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That s right.
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Touchdown on the most exciting topics.
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In fact, today we go over Alzheimer s, the weight loss drugs.
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We talked about marijuana.
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Marijuanica.
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Yes.
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Yeah, everything under the sun.
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And he has a new documentary out on May 19th on CNN called The Last Alzheimer s Patient.
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And we talk a lot about that.
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Of course, Sanjay is a neurosurgeon with a practice.
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and CNN s chief medical correspondent.
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He has a new season of his podcast out now, wherever you get your podcasts called Chasing Life, The Science Behind Happiness.
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Who wouldn t want to know about that?
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Please enjoy our sweet, sweet friend, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
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How are you?
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Just got out of the gym.
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Yeah, sorry.
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Catching my breath.
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I feel solid.
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Hi, so good to see you.
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You too, in person.
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In person.
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Back in person.
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It s been a while.
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Have you been offered all the drinks?
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I got my drink, yeah.
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I m good.
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You don t need a coffee or anything?
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No, I m good.
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Tell me about your coffee intake.
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I do a cup a day.
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I never drank coffee before the pandemic.
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Oh, in your whole life?
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My whole life.
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Wow.
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Never liked it.
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It s so tempting to stereotype when we have two Indians in the room.
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Yeah.
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Because Monica was a very late adapter to caffeine too.
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Yeah, I also hated it.
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And I immediately just go, oh, that s weird.
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You re two of only five people I know that came to it that late.
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Yeah.
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Well, the thing is, I drank caffeine.
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I just didn t like coffee.
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Okay, so you had soda or whatever.
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I d have soda.
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I d have tea.
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Coffee just did not taste good to me.
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And it was really weird because everybody that I know, especially in the medical world, they all drink coffee.
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Copious amounts.
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Multiple cups a day.
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Did not like it.
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And then my wife started giving it to me during the pandemic.
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Giving it to you like it was medicinal.
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It was.
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I was getting up at 4.30 every morning.
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Right, trying to stay on top of all the... Make my calls to the other side of the world before they go to bed, and I needed caffeine.
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And I got this good coffee, Purity.
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I don t know if you re supposed to talk about brands.
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Yeah, we don t care.
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It s a good, clean coffee.
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What makes it unique?
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The other stuff, I felt like I could always taste chemicals in the back of it.
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Yeah, to get that chemical aftertaste in my mouth.
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With Purity, it s just clean.
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I want to try it.
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I am fully addicted to Starbees in the same way I was addicted to Camelites, like it s my religion.
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And people even point out like, you know, that s overly cooked and burnt and blah, blah, blah.
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I m like, yeah, whatever it is.
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You don t taste it.
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It s perfect for me.
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Everyone has their own palate.
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Now, once you like it, because, okay, similarly, grew up my grandparents  percolator, Livonia.
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I remember.
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Yeah.
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Milford Township.
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But all my summers in Livonia.
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And that percolator went all day long, the big coffee pot.
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So it smelled so good.
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And I wanted to like it for so long.
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And it was terrible.
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As you were just describing.
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And then one day it was delicious.
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Ha, just clicked.
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Don t you think that is one of the weirdest phenomena with your taste buds?
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It doesn t surprise me that we are constantly changing.
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That our taste buds, our microbiome, what we like, what we don t like, what we find sweet or palatable changes as we get older.
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Frankly, it may change even day to day or month to month.
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We have that much sort of dynamic changes in our body.
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So it doesn t necessarily surprise me.
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Yeah.
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By the way, you look ripped.
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Can I just tell you?
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Please, tell me all day.
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I mean, I m just saying.
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Okay, to put off some of that compliment, I literally just walked upstairs from the gym.
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So this is as good as it s gonna look for the next two days.
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Did you do it just for me?
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Of course I did.
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I appreciate it.
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You re bringing the brains, I gotta bring the brawn.
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You got both.
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Ian and Yang.
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You guys got both.
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I just want to say I ve been really looking forward to this.
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Us too.
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This is the fourth time I m on your show.
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Yeah, you re one of our biggest... You may have tied Sideris with this episode or maybe one behind.
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Probably one behind.
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He s four or five.
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I ll be back next week.
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Okay.
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In fact, you should just come back at four and just do back-to-back.
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You re investigating enough things that I m sure we could fill two hours with any number of topics.
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So before we even get into that, what fascinates me about your role is you re also in show business.
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And so you do publicity tours.
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Like, here s what I thought.
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I walked out of the gym and I saw a really nice Escalade sitting in the driveway.
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And I said, oh, that s Sanjay s.
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Sanjay definitely has a driver that CNN provides because he is also expected to go out and promote the show.
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In a lot of ways, you re like an actor that would travel around and do press tours.
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Yeah, you know, it s funny.
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I ve never thought of it that way.
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That sort of stuff was always sort of the add-on.
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And frankly, I m not even really promoting anything.
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You guys provided this wonderful invitation.
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And as soon as I saw it, I just jumped at the opportunity to be here.
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I m not just saying that.
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I m trying to think, am I promoting something right now?
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I m not even sure.
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On the 19th, you ve got The Last Alzheimer s Patient on CNN.
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I m very excited about that.
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You have a podcast of your own, Chasing Life.
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Yes.
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You have a couple of forthcoming documentaries you re making that are of great interest to me.
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One in particular, The Weight Loss Drugs.
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I want to talk about that ad nauseam if we could.
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Yeah.
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I want to talk about that.
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I just got back from Copenhagen.
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Oh, you did?
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Yeah, so the federal government two days ago signaled that they re going to pretty much declassify weed.
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Reschedule it.
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Reschedule it.
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Yep.
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Declassify it.
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You re going to be allowed to talk about it now.
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Yeah.
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Drop it down in a schedule.
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Tylenol level Christians.
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Tylenol with codeine.
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Still controlled, so it s not recreationally going to be different than what it already is.
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There s so many states that have it recreationally.
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But it s a big move, something we ve been talking about for a long time.
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I think it can be a medicine.
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The culture and the science, the collision of those two around cannabis is one of the most fascinating things that I think I ve reported on, just how it all comes together.
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Yeah, and there s also some geopolitical and historical ramifications of it.
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We re generally not leading this as a country.
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We re pretty conservative.
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And it s kind of shocking that we will potentially be joining a handful of countries globally out of hundreds of countries that actually might decriminalize it entirely.
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And that s not generally our position either.
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It s not.
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And even this rescheduling, to be fair, will still have this federal versus state dichotomy.
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There still may be problems in certain places for people to access this as a medicine, traveling with it across state lines.
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That s boggled my mind that you could use it as a legitimate medicine for your child with seizures in California, but potentially be criminalized for the same thing in a different state.
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So this doesn t necessarily address it because it s still a controlled substance.
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Yes, but I think we would both recognize the very well-worn pattern of this, which is most states started with a medical use clause, which then grew into recreational use.
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Fuck it, we re here.
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Let s talk about marijuana.
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We have now a pretty robust data set.
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I don t know how many years it s been, but I believe Colorado s got to be coming up on maybe a decade or something of having fully recreational legalized marijuana.
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That s right.
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And so I imagine we have a good sense of what the impact of that is, good or bad, plus and minus.
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Look, you can even go further back to prohibition because that provided some really interesting data on what happens when you actually, in that case, deregulate something.
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You do see usage go up for a period of time, but ultimately it probably sort of balances out to where it was before.
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So there s not this huge clamoring all of a sudden for people to just start taking it.
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People who wanted it before recreationally probably got it.
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Yeah, exactly.
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people who use it as a medicine and felt criminalized for using it as a medicine.
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By the way, I m not just saying that.
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I think that not only can it work as a medicine in certain situations, I think what really struck me is that sometimes it s the only thing that can work.
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Give a couple of examples.
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This seizure disorder known as Dravet s, D-R-A-V-E-T-S.
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So it s basically just seizures that are happening all the time for young children.
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Intractable, they re called.
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And there was a little girl who first captured my attention on this because I wasn t that sold on it being a medicine.
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She was a young girl named Charlotte Figge.
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Well, let s be clear.
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A lot of people are worshiping it as a cure-all from like the 1900s.
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So there s a lot of bogus stuff you had to weed through.
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That s the challenge in so many areas.
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Yes, almost all of these things.
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I think it s one of the hardest parts of my job, frankly, because people want to see black and white where they should rightly see gray.
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And the idea that, well, you said it was going to be a cure-all, a panacea for everything.
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It s not that, therefore it s useless.
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Well, that s not right either.
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So to be nuanced,
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in this area is challenging.
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And you kind of know you re doing it right as a reporter if people on all these different sides are throwing barbs at you.
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If they all hate you, I think you re on to something.
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I got it.
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It s like counterintuitive.
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It used to be that you d think like if you get consensus that you were on to something, but actually I think it s the opposite now.
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Yeah, you ve drawn the ire of all these different people.
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You must be doing something right, you know.
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But the young girl, sorry.
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The young girl, she had tried seven different generations of anti-epileptic medications.
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Keppra.
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Keppra.
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She had done medications that had been formulated in different ways for little kids.
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They d even recommended a veterinary medication.
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Sure.
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But at the same time still said cannabis was a no-no.
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So we re willing to try a medication for animals, but not but then her mom in Colorado Springs Which by the way is a pretty conservative area parents had never used cannabis.
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They told me she formulated it in her own kitchen So just took the cannabis plant turned it into an oil squirted onto her daughter s mouth And it helped with their seizure.
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She went from 300 seizures a week to about yeah, can you imagine a
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Do you know, I have to remind you, Monica has epilepsy.
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I ve had two seizures.
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Nocturnal.
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Yeah, I m a nocturnal animal.
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I ve had two nocturnal seizures.
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I m on Keppra.
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Gotcha.
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Was the most recent one a while ago?
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2020 and 2019.
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They were a year apart.
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Immediately before the pandemic.
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Yes, right before the pandemic.
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And then I got on the medication.
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Yeah, maybe I m just sensitive.
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Clairvoyant.
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Diseases.
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You probably are.
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Did you have an aura though?
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Did you have something before the actual seizure that gave you some sense?
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I don t think so because people sometimes may see a visual thing where they see sparkles in front of their eyes.
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Sometimes they may have a strange taste in their mouth.
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That s a common one.
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You taste metal in the back of your mouth.
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Oh God, I m going to be so hyper.
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No, they were both at night.
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So I don t know what anything was.
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And I was with friends the first time I didn t know what it was.
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I just woke up like at four, so disoriented and in a ton of pain.
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And I had peed in the bed.
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I m proud of you for keeping that in.
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He s a doctor.
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He s seen it all.
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I had urinated in the bed.
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Nocturnal emission of the urinary type.
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That s not common for me.
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So I thought, what s going on?
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I went to the doctor the next morning.
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They did a urinalysis and then they were like, oh, your kidneys are fine.
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Everything s fine.
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You re fine.
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And I was like, well, okay, I guess.
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And they gave me a steroid shot for like the pain.
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That was it.
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And then a year later.
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Did you get a scan of your brain?
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No, they didn t even begin to think this could be neurological.
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They were just like, Oh, something weird.
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You laughed in there.
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Yeah, she drank too much.
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Probably.
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She peed in the bed a thousand times a week.
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I was like, I didn t.
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But then the second one, and this is crazy.
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I was on this date, a first date.
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And of course I bring up that I had peed in the bed a year ago on a first date.
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I go all in.
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And he said, I don t mean to scare you, but it kind of sounds like you had a seizure because he himself had had a seizure and
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I had never heard that or thought of it, so I was like, huh, weird.
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SPEAKER_00
And I asked my doctor, I said, hey, that thing that happened a year ago, could that have been a seizure?
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And she said, there s no way for us to know at this point.
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SPEAKER_00
A week later, I was with Kristen and two of our other friends in New York, and I had one, so they saw it.
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They were sharing a bed, thank God.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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Got it.
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Thank God.
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They were cutting costs, two to a bed.
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Bunch of millionaires still saving money.
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You gotta applaud it.
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Seizure prophylaxis.
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She was fortunate and they observed the whole thing and then went to the hospital.
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Then it was like, that s what s happening.
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And did they scan you then?
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SPEAKER_00
Then they did and everything s fine.
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SPEAKER_00
Everything s fine.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
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SPEAKER_01
I had peed the bed too, but it was alcoholism.
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SPEAKER_00
If I pee in the bed again, it s probably that.
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SPEAKER_02
Is that on your list of topics?
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Peeing in the bed?
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I just wanted to tell you that we both pee in the bed and invite you to share our similar experience.
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Yes, you d like to share a story about that.
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I mean, I definitely pee in the bed as well.
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I think I was like two years old then.
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But 300 a week, that s horrible.
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SPEAKER_00
That was crazy.
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And by the way, if your child is having 300 seizures a week, I have to imagine you are absolutely open to anything.
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Right.
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That was the thing.
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So, you know, she would put this baby in the baby Bjorn and just feel her seizing all the time.
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Can you imagine?
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And then they tried these medications and then they re told the medications can be cardiotoxic.
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They re so powerful they could actually stop her heart.
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So it s terrible, terrible choices for a mom.
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Are they muting out neural activity of certain areas?
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That s right.
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Potentially shutting down your parasympathetic?
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They re basically stunting all these pathways in your body.
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That s how they work.
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And that could have an impact on the heart as well.
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So she tries CBD oil and she says an hour goes by, five hours go by, a day goes by and Charlotte does not have a seizure.
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She has to be crying at that point with gratitude.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And also living with this sort of guilt still that this is a substance that shouldn t be used by a child certainly and was very reluctant to talk about it.
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But then she did and it made a huge difference.
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There s a product called Charlotte s Web.
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You ever heard of this?
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It s a cannabis product comes out of Colorado.
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It s named after this girl, Charlotte Figge.
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That s how it started.
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And being sued by the publishers of Charlotte s Web, but hopefully they ll be victorious.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think even the publisher of Charlotte s Web would be on board on this one.
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Helping a lot of kids.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, man.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so that s the medical use.
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There are numerous ones that have been documented and are legitimate.
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Now, what are the more social outcomes?
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And have you even looked at kind of the broad data?
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One of the things that s been observed that I m aware of is where marijuana is legalized, alcohol consumption dips.
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SPEAKER_01
And that s interesting.
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So in a harm reduction model, even if marijuana is not ultimately beneficial, but we weigh it against maybe decreased alcohol consumption, which we know is bad for many reasons, you know, you got to have this very nuanced approach to evaluating what s good or bad for society.
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And I m really curious where we re at on all of it.
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I mean, so that s one positive thing that s been observed.
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There was really interesting data that came out of Colorado initially looking at opioid use specifically, and they found that opioid consumption went down.
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SPEAKER_01
That is wow, huh?
1
SPEAKER_02
Part of it, I think, has to do with the fact that people do use marijuana for pain.
1
SPEAKER_02
You were getting this alternative to opioids because there weren t a lot of opioid alternatives.
1
SPEAKER_02
We ve done seven documentaries on this.
1
SPEAKER_02
The last one we did was specifically looking at the use of cannabis in seniors.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it was really for what I sort of called the triad of aging.
1
SPEAKER_02
So you re older and you re fine, you re healthy.
1
SPEAKER_02
But the three things that seniors complain about the most, sleep problems, generalized aches and pains, and mood.
1
SPEAKER_02
So oftentimes, because we live in such a medicalized society, you might be prescribed pain medications, antidepressants, and Ambien.
1
SPEAKER_02
My dad, who was 80 years old, was prescribed Ambien.
1
SPEAKER_02
Oh boy.
1
SPEAKER_02
Terrible drug.
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you operate the farm tractor?
1
SPEAKER_02
No, but it s so scary to take Ambien.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s not a good one.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna go out on a limb.
1
SPEAKER_01
He fell, and falls are a huge problem.
1
SPEAKER_01
How about the fact that it was never studied on women and come to find out it s twice as potent in women for whatever reason?
1
SPEAKER_02
I mean, the idea of how we run trials for both women and children in this country.
1
SPEAKER_02
But the idea that cannabis could be used for the nuisances of aging is really interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, in this case, kind of a cure-all, actually.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I mean, people were reporting much higher quality of life scores.
1
SPEAKER_02
I spent a fair amount of time in Europe looking at how they re using cannabis in different places in Europe.
1
SPEAKER_02
And what is interesting, in Israel, for example, they are looking at the use of cannabis for what they call behavioral abnormalities associated with dementia.
1
SPEAKER_02
So people who get dementia,
1
SPEAKER_02
oftentimes have serious behavioral problems.
1
SPEAKER_02
They wander.
1
SPEAKER_02
They may sometimes become violent.
1
SPEAKER_02
They get scared.
1
SPEAKER_02
The option, a lot of times, is anti-psychotic drugs, which basically sort of zombify people.
1
SPEAKER_02
They have good data now using cannabis for that.
1
SPEAKER_02
So there s all these different things that are coming about.
1
SPEAKER_02
And to your point earlier, we re behind.
1
SPEAKER_02
on this.
1
SPEAKER_02
Israel s probably the world leader on this.
1
SPEAKER_02
Obviously, other countries, the Netherlands, they ve been doing a lot of research for some time because they ve had such wide use.
1
SPEAKER_02
But we re starting to see the benefits, I think, of it in ways that we had not seen before.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it s not just an alternative for some of these conditions.
1
SPEAKER_02
For some people, it s the only thing that really works.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we have a really arbitrary hierarchy with what s right or wrong to take.
1
SPEAKER_01
So an antidepressant, an SSRI inhibitor designed in a lab is somehow preferable to marijuana.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m not team marijuana.
1
SPEAKER_01
I also think it gets a little nauseating, all the, you know, nature cures all.
1
SPEAKER_01
But it is just interesting to look at.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, why do we think it was illegal in the first place?
1
SPEAKER_02
Coming out of prohibition, I think, frankly, just culturally, they needed another target.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I m saying this in part because when you look at the history of that timeframe and you look at the data around cannabis, it wasn t that they said this is problematic.
1
SPEAKER_02
What they said was, we don t have enough data to actually render a decision one way or the other.
1
SPEAKER_02
So let s just classify it, schedule it, in this case, as a Schedule 1 substance.
1
SPEAKER_01
It also correlated nicely with all the government s known nuisances.
1
SPEAKER_01
So your beat poets, black folks, hippies, anti-war movements.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they re really sawing something out there.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was like, Sanjay has a weird ring on his phone.
1
SPEAKER_02
You notice that I keep going back and forth between marijuana and cannabis, but marijuana itself is considered a pejorative term that was designed to sort of diminish it even further.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or devil s cabbage.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_00
The well-known phrase.
1
SPEAKER_02
But cannabis as a actual scientific term is what scientists will often refer to it as because they think of it as a compound that can be medicinal.
1
SPEAKER_00
A rebrand.
1
SPEAKER_02
A rebrand, yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Of course, we called it weed for the documentary, so I don t think we were doing anybody any favors.
1
SPEAKER_01
You should have just called it grass.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m conflicted.
1
SPEAKER_01
I kind of have to force myself to look at it in a harm reduction way because I think people are going to use stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
I also think there s kind of some pandemic anxiety.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think it over indexes in some groups and it really pairs up nicely with groups that are inheriting a lot of generational trauma.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I think it s really useful.
1
SPEAKER_01
And also, I don t think people should be dodging reality at all times with external substances.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m conflicted.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it s an overall great arc for everyone to be medicated on cannabis.
1
SPEAKER_01
So it takes a very, very precise and nuanced evaluation of it.
1
SPEAKER_02
I agree with you on that.
1
SPEAKER_02
We run the risk of creating the same problem of over-medicalizing like we have with pharmaceuticals.
1
SPEAKER_02
I will say this, though, that after 10 years of really looking into this, we all carry these CB1 and CB2 receptors.
2
SPEAKER_01
receptors in our bodies.
2
SPEAKER_01
The cannabinoid?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the cannabinoid receptors.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have it in your brain, you have it in your gut.
2
SPEAKER_00
People who have inflammatory bowel disease, for example, will sometimes find tremendous relief with cannabis.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think as a species we cohabitated and co-evolved with this plant.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, for most of our existence, we probably had constant activation of these receptors in our bodies.
2
SPEAKER_00
Over time, we started to lose that, especially as the substance became increasingly maligned.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, the idea that you would stimulate what are natural receptors in your body, as humans did for most of our existence, I don t know what that means overall, but I think it s interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, to your question, are we over-medicalizing, or are we actually creating a homeostasis in our bodies that did exist?
2
SPEAKER_00
If you talk to folks in Israel, who again have been doing this sort of work for a long time, and you ask them a simple question, how does this work?
2
SPEAKER_00
Why would it relieve pain?
2
SPEAKER_00
An opioid, we know why it relieves pain.
2
SPEAKER_00
Targets these mu receptors, things like that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Blocks receptors.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Here, the idea that you create a homeostasis and you allow the body to sort of heal itself in some ways, I think is interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
The body sleeps better, it experiences less pain, it experiences less mood abnormalities, whatever it might be.
2
SPEAKER_00
He likened it to sort of a flywheel.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know in a flywheel you get it going and then it pretty much goes, you know You give it a little tap every now and then but it s gonna go could cannabis sort of be doing that for our bodies That s what they think by creating a positive inertia by stimulating receptors that we all have in our bodies These receptors exist for what we do create a compound in our body known as anandamide
2
SPEAKER_00
which is probably the closest thing to cannabis that stimulates these receptors, but we only make a certain amount of that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so the idea that you d need to supplement as you get older because you make less of it, it s like anything else.
2
SPEAKER_00
Could you think of this like another hormone almost?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I supplement my hormones.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m open to criticism.
2
SPEAKER_01
No.
2
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, testosterone.
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you get your levels checked?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I adjusted them.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were low.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were low.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were low.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And specifically my free testosterone was really low.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not my overall was moderately low, but my available testosterone was quite low.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I started taking it six years ago and absolutely love it.
2
SPEAKER_01
What did you experience?
2
SPEAKER_01
Most significantly, and this podcast is bizarrely a product of it, I had had a movie, came out, didn t open well.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was in maybe like a three or four month kind of depression over that, a re-evaluation, what am I doing?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was mostly focused on I think I m done.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I m gonna retire.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think this was a fun ride and I think I m going to, I don t know, I ll write, I ll do something.
2
SPEAKER_01
Went on testosterone and within
2
SPEAKER_01
Six months of that, I was on fire to work.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was way more engaged with my hobbies.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you understand testosterone, you read a lot about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is so associated with maleness in the male hormone.
2
SPEAKER_01
But of course, women have it too.
2
SPEAKER_01
But mostly it s the get up and go do the thing that will get you status hormone is what it really is.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that could be aggression if you re in a very aggressive society where status is determined by aggression.
2
SPEAKER_01
If it were a status derived from philanthropy, you d become the most philanthropic person.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it is the hormone that makes you chase
2
SPEAKER_01
Whatever thing so for me it brought me back to maybe my 30 year old appetite for my hobbies and work Wow, and then additionally, yeah, I put on more muscle mass I burn fat more.
2
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Were there any downsides?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, initially and I think I was interviewing Andrew Huberman and he made a suggestion
2
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, there s some pretty predictable side effects, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
You can get water retention.
2
SPEAKER_01
I had that a lot.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t have any skin stuff that you can have.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he basically just said split your dose and just do it more often.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you re not getting these peaks and valleys of it.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you can kind of just stabilize it, you actually won t have any of those side effects.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I changed to that a few years ago.
2
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, now I would have no idea.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s zero side effects.
2
SPEAKER_01
Over time, your testicles get smaller because they re not producing testosterone anymore.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if I was very vain about my testicle size, maybe I would... I would call that a big down.
2
SPEAKER_00
You could tell in the gym who s using testosterone, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Just check everyone s testicles.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you have a stance on it?
2
SPEAKER_01
Are you anti or for or pro?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, I just had my levels checked and they were normal, but my DHEA level was a little low.
2
SPEAKER_00
You probably had that checked as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I supplement.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting, the reason I had it checked was mostly for my brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is this a result of doing your Alzheimer s piece?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_00
I went through an entire preventive neurology visit.
2
SPEAKER_01
In Boca Raton?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Richard Isaacson is the guy who did this.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I got to tell you, even as a brain guy myself, it was super fascinating.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think what really jumped out at me is, first of all, because there s not a biomarker for brain health.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think if you look at heart health, you can say cholesterol, blood pressure, calcium score, ejection fraction, all these things.
2
SPEAKER_00
With brain health, the joke goes, if you ask 10 neurologists to define a healthy brain, you ll get 11 answers, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
That s a very good joke.
2
SPEAKER_01
It is, but it s also scary.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because people don t really know.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the idea that we now are very comfortable saying we can prevent, predict, and treat heart disease.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that came about over the last 60, 70 years.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re sort of getting to that point with brain health now.
2
SPEAKER_00
where even though we can t say here is the test that definitively says whether your brain health is good or bad, we know that we can predict, prevent, and treat brain problems.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one of the things that Richard really pointed out to me was a simple equation of like doing a DEXA scan of your body and seeing how much bone, how much muscle, and how much fat you have in your body, and where that stuff is located is highly predictive of future dementia.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so someone like me, I work out every day, but I do not put on a lot of muscle.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one of the most challenging things for me is to put on skeletal muscle.
2
SPEAKER_00
So your core, you would get to the point where a preventive neurologist would say, in order for your brain health, you need to put on more muscle.
2
SPEAKER_00
Part of it might be supplementing with DHEA, in my case.
2
SPEAKER_00
Another thing might be is I do a lot of hikes with my dogs, and now I always wear a rucksack when I do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there you go.
2
SPEAKER_00
A rucksack leading to brain health.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s not what I would have expected.
2
SPEAKER_00
No.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, have you read Outlive?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and he s big on that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it s everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so I read the book.
2
SPEAKER_01
I guess I m almost all in on it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Am I right in that this is a bit of a paradigm shift where we weren t looking at the brain as the result of your metabolic health.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
We were kind of looking at it and going like, oh, there s this blood brain barrier and it s its own thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And maybe what you eat, you know, like we love to think of it as so separated.
2
SPEAKER_01
We always have.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s your brain and then there s almost the rest of your body and it s got a barrier between it and the rest.
2
SPEAKER_01
We failed to recognize how a part of a system it is and that really your metabolic health is the greatest predictor of your mental health and your brain health.
2
SPEAKER_01
The most evidence behind brain health is exactly that.
2
SPEAKER_01
How long has this been?
2
SPEAKER_01
To me that felt like, oh my God, what a revelation.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m only like a year and a half into thinking that way.
2
SPEAKER_00
When I started my neurosurgery training, I finished in 2000.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even at that time, the idea that you could create new brain cells, that was sort of considered very fringe thinking.
2
SPEAKER_01
We learned in biology, when we went to college, that the brain cells didn t go through mitosis, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
There were somatic cells, and then there were these gray cells that never went through mitosis.
2
SPEAKER_01
And maybe that s not true?
2
SPEAKER_00
We can create new brain cells throughout our entire lives.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow, so I think I m learning that this minute still.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
This is huge.
2
SPEAKER_00
This idea of neurogenesis.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a relatively new construct, but I think that it s pretty widely accepted.
2
SPEAKER_00
We started to see this in animal studies initially, started to see it only in certain areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, short-term memory at least.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think part of the issue was we didn t ever look at the healthy brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
We only looked at the brain when there was a problem, when there s a tumor, when there s trauma, something like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we knew brains, they had a fair amount of plasticity, so they could sort of recreate pathways.
2
SPEAKER_00
but the idea that you could actually create new brain cells is still a relatively new way of thinking about this.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the most evidence-proven ways to do that was through physical activity.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was even a specific kind of physical activity.
2
SPEAKER_00
This was interesting because when you work out really intensely, you can create a lot of what is called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s like the miracle growth for your brain.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s so sexy when you say these words.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I love learning this.
2
SPEAKER_00
BDNF.
2
SPEAKER_00
BDNF.
2
SPEAKER_00
You guys like this stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
We do.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know, that s why I like talking to you guys.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re brain pervs.
2
SPEAKER_00
So much I don t want to talk to you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, BDNF.
2
SPEAKER_00
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
2
SPEAKER_00
Kind of like miracle growth for the brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can t eat it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can t inject it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have to make it.
2
SPEAKER_00
The best way to make it is through activity.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now here s the thing, interesting little nuance, is that when you re intensely active, you re also making a lot of cortisol.
2
SPEAKER_00
The cortisol can be a bit inhibitory to the BDNF, as was explained to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the best type of activity for your brain is probably brisk activity without creating too much cortisol.
2
SPEAKER_01
So blasts of short duration?
2
SPEAKER_00
Short duration or just even longer duration but less intense.
2
SPEAKER_00
Brisk walking, for example.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everything I m reading now is like you should really be building in some really elevated heart rate blasts within there to increase your max VO.
2
SPEAKER_00
very important for overall metabolic health, very important for heart disease.
2
SPEAKER_00
There are some nuances with the brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what s sort of interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think the general thinking was what s good for the heart is good for the brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
And as a general rule, I think that s right.
2
SPEAKER_00
But when it comes to activity, brisker activity versus intense might be better for the brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
The way we eat, you know, everyone knows sugar is bad for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
When your body consumes too much energy in the form of sugar, your body will store it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s considered very evolutionary.
2
SPEAKER_00
When the brain sees too much sugar, the receptors are much more narrow, so they ll accept a certain amount of blood glucose, and after that, they ll just sort of turn off.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you could be stuffing your body and starting
3
SPEAKER_01
curving your brain at the same time, which I think is really interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like it s protecting itself.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s protecting itself from a very high blood sugar.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there s these little things about the brain that we re learning that are different.
3
SPEAKER_00
On some level, it s really intuitive.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like when you just think of your heart and your cardiovascular system is a hydraulic system with fluid running through it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you think of increasing the pressure at times and really forcing all of that fluid to move and circulate.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s something very intuitive about that preventing buildup and blockage and all these things.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting that you don t just intuitively apply that to your brain too.
3
SPEAKER_00
I guess because the way it s been positioned as this other thing that s not hooked.
3
SPEAKER_00
to the rest of everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s always been seen as something different.
3
SPEAKER_00
But this amyloid buildup that Alzheimer s patients seem to exhibit in fMRI scans, could we think of that amyloid as similar to any other kind of plaque you d be building up in your cardiovascular system?
3
SPEAKER_01
It appears to be a remnant of something, so to the extent that coronary artery plaques, for example, are reflective or remnants of cardiac disease, I think there s a similarity.
3
SPEAKER_01
What is different here is that there are people who have a lot of amyloid plaque in their brain and have no symptoms.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you had a lot of plaque to the point of blockages, for example, in your coronary, you re most likely going to have symptoms, unless you ve developed so many ancillary blood flow workarounds.
3
SPEAKER_01
Exactly, so we don t know still if you have a lot of plaque and don t have symptoms I think that suggested that plaque is not the whole story here Maybe it s part of the story and so many of the drugs that were worked on for a long time We re just designed to get rid of plaque.
3
SPEAKER_00
God.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s so hard to know right is plaque a symptom of an underlying thing That s really what we need to attack.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some people have suggested that might even be associated with brain infections So the plaque actually helped prevent or protect the brain against infections earlier in life.
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe maybe corridor off
3
SPEAKER_00
an infection, or surround, or encapsulate, or... Yeah, something like that, a pathogen, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whatever it might be, or it s just some sort of remnant of something that happened in the brain, it could be an indication of the aftermath of something as opposed to being predictive.
3
SPEAKER_01
And even when you took away the plaque, like they have these great drugs, these monoclonal antibodies, which are good at reducing the amount of plaque, but
3
SPEAKER_00
So-so.
3
SPEAKER_00
No.
3
SPEAKER_01
Ah, interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
27% sort of slowing of cognitive decline, which is better than what we ve seen before.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what Isaacson and these other preventive neurologists, and there s not many of them in the country, they believe that probably 40 to 50% of all dementias are preventable.
3
What?
3
SPEAKER_02
Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so we are into your special that s coming up, The Last Alzheimer s Patient.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
What happened when you went?
3
SPEAKER_02
What was the whole thing?
3
SPEAKER_02
The scan?
3
SPEAKER_01
I gotta tell ya, it was a bit scary.
3
SPEAKER_01
You guys should do it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want to, but I am scared.
3
SPEAKER_01
You should do a podcast on this.
3
SPEAKER_02
You won t even do the brain scan!
3
SPEAKER_00
Or rather, the body scan.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did the full body scan recently, and Monica s like, I don t think I wanna know.
3
SPEAKER_02
My grandpa just died and he had dementia.
3
SPEAKER_02
And so I am hyper aware that I might get it.
3
SPEAKER_02
If I can prevent it, I want to.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think, again, up until recently, there wasn t the belief that you could.
3
SPEAKER_01
Just like we thought about heart disease 60, 70 years ago.
3
SPEAKER_01
Either you re going to get it or you re not.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s not much you can do.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s how we thought about the brain.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot you can do.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think what is interesting, when I went for it, the variety of testing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I did do a sort of poor man s DEXA scan to get an idea of how much visceral fat.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I also went through very sophisticated cognitive testing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, to give you an example of a few of the things, draw a three-dimensional cube right now.
3
SPEAKER_01
Draw a clock that says the time is 1110.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna give you 30 words to remember now, and in five minutes I m gonna ask you to repeat as many of those as you can.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can I tell you something shallow and terrible about myself?
3
SPEAKER_00
I took such pleasure in watching you get some of those questions wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you re working on a little iPad, and you re hitting these buttons, and sometimes there s a red X. And I m like, oh, I m so glad Sanjay s scalable.
3
SPEAKER_02
But how do they know it s not just that you re anxious?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I was definitely anxious.
3
SPEAKER_00
I get nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m a nervous Nelly.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m a nervous test taker.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was comforted that you don t get every question right on every test you take.
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you playing Connections?
3
SPEAKER_01
I m nervous now.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I get nervous before everything.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you guys get nervous?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
You don t get nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s context dependent for sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I interviewed David Letterman, my idol of my whole childhood, yeah, I m nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you re afraid you might not leave a good impression?
3
SPEAKER_00
The value I have placed on what his approval would mean to me is such heightened stakes that I can t help but want that so bad.
3
SPEAKER_00
He is a father in that way.
3
SPEAKER_00
Here s somebody I ve worshipped.
3
SPEAKER_00
If he even alludes to the fact that I m doing a good job or I m all right, that s going to be incredible.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s really sweet, actually.
3
SPEAKER_01
We should all care.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the fact that you pointed out that I got those questions wrong is going to haunt me now for the entire playwright.
3
SPEAKER_00
I made me know you weren t really nitpicking on that edit because if you were looking over, you d be like, show the ones I got wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, but here s a little insight that I learned about myself with this cognitive testing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the words, you got 30 words to remember.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now it s not just how many words you remember, it s how quickly you remember them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And which of the words did you remember?
3
SPEAKER_01
Did you gravitate away from certain words?
3
SPEAKER_01
I gravitated away from words with B s and D s in them.
3
SPEAKER_02
Whoa.
3
SPEAKER_01
I never realized this about myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
And first thing Richard asks me when he sees me, he goes, do you count on your fingers?
3
SPEAKER_01
And I said, yeah, I ve always counted on my fingers.
3
SPEAKER_01
I do this.
3
SPEAKER_01
He goes, anyone ever tell you that you probably have dyslexia?
3
SPEAKER_02
What?
3
SPEAKER_01
I m about to be 55 years old.
3
SPEAKER_01
No one s ever told me this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to the club, bud.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you do this?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you have B s and D s?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m hardcore dyslexic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you didn t learn to read till fifth grade.
3
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you knew that early on.
3
SPEAKER_00
I did.
3
SPEAKER_00
You developed strategies, presumably, to address it?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to get distracted by my story, but I don t think so.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think one thing is like, you just, honestly, you consume, you consume, you re in the dark, you re in the dark, you re in the dark.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then all of a sudden the overall pattern just emerges and somehow you ve now memorized.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ever learned anything phonetically.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just think over time I memorized the full shape of every single word virtually.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, it just kind of happens.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know that any technique I was using in 1984 really was the solution, other than just repetition.
3
SPEAKER_00
And an interest in writing, where it flipped the script, where now I m in charge of creating the words, that was an interesting thing, where I wanted to write, so now I was incentivized to learn them, whereas before I wasn t.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it magically happened, I don t know how.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not sure it was from some technique they knew about in the 80s.
3
SPEAKER_01
It would be interesting if you took this test now to see if you ve just overcome that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I observe it constantly though.
3
SPEAKER_00
Numbers, you know, I still have lots of jumbling and my pronunciation s pretty rough, I think.
3
SPEAKER_02
The B and D thing, that s interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
I still go like this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
I still do this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m holding up a B and a D in my hand.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ll just quickly check myself.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you definitely have it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like which direction should it be pointing?
3
SPEAKER_00
The circle?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is that what you re saying?
3
SPEAKER_00
So I got the bat and the ball, and then the opposite of the bat and the ball.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your right hand is a, and look, that s even hard for me to say really quickly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Me too.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s a D. That s a D. And your left hand makes a B. Audience, if you put your first finger and your thumb together and the remaining three fingers up in the air, that s what we re talking about.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
By the way, it works well at dinner parties too because bread drinks.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what I would argue why I m quick to agree with this very light diagnosis of dyslexia for you
3
SPEAKER_00
That is so intense.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I got labeled dyslexic at UCLA, when I had to go back and get re, you know, to get extra time on tests and stuff, you have to go through a very long eight week evaluation thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And once I did that, it was very comprehensive and very obvious.
3
SPEAKER_00
One other element I would say supports this diagnosis is I think in place of being able to get information from the written word, you develop a very, very, very good memory for auditory stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your recall for words becomes really strong and your ability to consume and digest and hold on to information you ve heard gets very high.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think you have that.
3
SPEAKER_00
That seems very clear to me that you have that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think so.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think my enunciation is good.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m older than you are, but once I started typing, I think it obviated a lot of the problem as well because I just knew where B and D was on the keyboard and I d have to think about it each time, but I don t write freestyle very much at all.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Every morning I write with my left hand.
3
SPEAKER_01
You don t find it challenging.
3
SPEAKER_01
I do.
3
SPEAKER_01
I hate it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I have to journal.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like my commitment.
3
SPEAKER_01
But free writing as opposed to just typing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Correct.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s probably a very good exercise.
3
SPEAKER_00
It probably is.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I ve been doing it for 20 years.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s probably helped with spelling and all of that stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
It is.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve become such a technophile with that because now I got everything set to the maximum parameters.
3
SPEAKER_01
It ll fill in the words for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
It ll fix the spellings for me right away.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s one step short of just thinking it and having it right, which is next.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, very close.
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when you did this barrage of tests, you discovered perhaps you re dyslexic.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s an interesting outcome.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then what other things, because if I were you, I would go into it pretty optimistic.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve lived a very healthy life and you exercise a lot.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you think of our healthcare system as a sick care system, which I think it is in that case, I m doing pretty well because I m not sick.
3
SPEAKER_01
95% of doctors would probably look at all my results and say, you re fine.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s nothing to do here.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I think in the spirit of prevention,
4
SPEAKER_03
to the extent that it s reasonable.
4
SPEAKER_03
You know, you re not going to go crazy in terms of cost, but there were several places that I could be optimized.
4
SPEAKER_03
I eat very healthy, but my omega-3 to my omega-6 ratio is not very good.
4
SPEAKER_03
I, at points in my life, have taken fish oil, but then have become less sort of enthralled by the data, less compelled by it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know this supplements.
4
SPEAKER_03
But my doc is like, you have to flip that ratio, the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
4
SPEAKER_03
And here s the data to show you why that s going to be beneficial.
4
SPEAKER_03
DHEA, wearing a rucksack.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s another thing.
4
SPEAKER_03
The longest nerves in your body are the ones that go to your feet.
4
SPEAKER_03
Most people do not pay any attention to their feet and how their feet move.
4
SPEAKER_03
You wear shoes.
4
SPEAKER_03
I got these shoes on, which by the way, my daughter helped design these shoes.
4
SPEAKER_03
They re very handsome.
4
SPEAKER_03
They re from here in LA, George Esquivel.
4
SPEAKER_03
So he suggested toe spacers for me.
4
SPEAKER_03
Wear toe spacers 10 minutes a day, which will really help activate these nerves, the longest nerves in your body that go to your feet.
4
SPEAKER_03
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_03
So these are not expensive things to do.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you could cram toilet paper in there if you had to, in a pinch.
4
SPEAKER_03
And the thing is that we wouldn t be doing the documentary unless there was data behind these recommendations.
4
SPEAKER_03
These aren t these huge placebo-controlled, randomized, decades-long study.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s very hard to do those.
4
SPEAKER_03
But I think the data is getting really good in terms of what we can do to prevent dementia.
4
SPEAKER_03
So my grandfather had it.
4
SPEAKER_03
Kind of feels like you re wearing it around your neck your whole life.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_03
I tested genetically for it.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s ApoE3 or ApoE4.
4
SPEAKER_03
You should probably get that done.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a big Atiyah marker.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s obsessed with that.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s good to know.
4
SPEAKER_03
I mean, some people don t want to know.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_03
And I think the reason they didn t want to know was because the second part of that question was, what do I do about it?
4
SPEAKER_03
And now I think there s something you can do about it.
4
SPEAKER_03
And that s a lot of what we wanted to show.
4
SPEAKER_03
Lifestyle changes can make a difference.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you quickly tell me, so yeah, the grandmother on Bennett Street, off of Merriman, Alzheimer s, young age, who s a teacher at Stevenson.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
What is the difference between Alzheimer s and dementia?
4
SPEAKER_03
Alzheimer s is a type of dementia.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you could get dementia, but it not be Alzheimer s?
4
SPEAKER_03
Correct.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s Lewy body dementia.
4
SPEAKER_03
That was something that Robin Williams had.
4
SPEAKER_03
There is frontal temporal dementia, which is what I think Bruce Willis is dealing with.
4
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_03
Where he s lost his ability to speak.
4
SPEAKER_03
So it can present in different ways.
4
SPEAKER_03
Ted Turner has Lewy body dementia.
4
SPEAKER_03
So Alzheimer s the most common, but there are other types.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s many.
4
SPEAKER_01
In the doc, I learned 6.9 million Americans have Alzheimer s?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a tremendous amount of people.
4
SPEAKER_03
Expected to double by the year 2050.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because of the aging population right now.
4
SPEAKER_03
Cause we re aging.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cause we re on a collision course.
4
SPEAKER_01
Something new in the water.
4
SPEAKER_03
They expect 150 million people around the world to have it by 2050.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s going to be one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders that we deal with, which is why I think there s so much interest now in saying, Hey, look beyond the meds, which there have been a couple that have been more promising over the last 14, 15 years.
4
SPEAKER_01
Did you cover this?
4
SPEAKER_01
I just saw something really fascinating.
4
SPEAKER_01
I guess he is a surgeon by training, but he uses ultrasound to stimulate the blood brain barrier so that people taking that medicine, which generally you have to take it for like 30 days to get the full dose.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can get the full dose because it opens up the blood brain barrier for a couple hours.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, you re talking about focused ultrasound.
4
SPEAKER_03
Neil Cassell, is that who you re- Oh, that rings a bell.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s a neurosurgeon and he runs the Focus Ultrasound Foundation.
4
SPEAKER_03
I ve been very interested in this.
4
SPEAKER_03
They use it initially to try and do to the brain what deep brain stimulation would do, except without an operation.
4
SPEAKER_03
You re just using sound waves.
4
SPEAKER_03
And then, just like you said, they were using it to basically disrupt for a period of time the blood-brain barrier, which might allow medicines in,
4
SPEAKER_03
And according to Neal might also let some plaque out.
4
SPEAKER_03
Interesting.
4
SPEAKER_03
So it could have sort of a dual benefit for Alzheimer s.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean this is where it s getting crazy sci-fi.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
This guy s shooting an invisible sound wave.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s opening up this invisible barrier in a bunch of minutes.
4
SPEAKER_01
What is this light?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of crazy.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s wild, but it s very effective for things like essential tremor and even Parkinson s.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh my god.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was the thing I watched.
4
SPEAKER_01
Maybe there was a 60 minutes on this guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
That may have been.
4
SPEAKER_01
There was a man that came in that had tremors so bad, Monica, he couldn t fill out the paperwork, they could barely get the head ring on him to put him inside of the MRI machine.
4
SPEAKER_01
MRI, because he has to be held perfectly still so he can hit the exact region of the brain.
4
SPEAKER_01
This guy is so overcome with these tremors, he can t do anything, couldn t lift a glass of water up, goes into the machine, they take the ring off him, and he starts crying.
4
SPEAKER_01
He looks at his hands and they re completely still.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s amazing how quickly that works.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that was one of the most powerful things I ve ever seen.
4
SPEAKER_03
You find these areas of the brain and with Parkinson s or with essential tremor, which is what I think that patient had, you re basically overstimulating certain pathways.
4
SPEAKER_03
So, you know, you imagine like if you re trying to hold your hand really tight, you ll start to tremor.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you re basically loosening that up.
4
SPEAKER_03
We ve done that with heat, done that with electricity, deep brain stimulation, and now they re doing it with sound.
4
SPEAKER_02
That is incredible.
4
SPEAKER_03
No incision.
4
SPEAKER_03
Although they do have to shave the hair.
4
SPEAKER_01
Worth it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Hair goes back.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so in the Alzheimer s doc, you go to eight different states, you go coast to coast.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was curious, how does treatment and outcomes differ around the country?
4
SPEAKER_01
Let me ask this first.
4
SPEAKER_01
Are there areas that over-index and under-index in Alzheimer s regionally?
4
SPEAKER_03
It s very associated with age.
4
SPEAKER_03
Not obesity?
4
SPEAKER_03
Age is the biggest predictor right now.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s a good question about obesity.
4
SPEAKER_01
Again, Isakson... If it s a metabolic condition at some level.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s clearly a relationship.
4
SPEAKER_03
Age is still the biggest predictor, but there s no question that maybe later in life, people who have metabolic dysfunction are going to be more likely to develop it.
4
SPEAKER_03
And he would even take it a step further to say that if you have metabolic issues specifically, that s going to be more associated with memory problems, whereas other things might be more associated with judgment.
4
SPEAKER_03
Other things might be more associated with processing speed.
4
SPEAKER_03
So memory is what everyone pays attention to, but you can start to get slower at processing
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I d rather have my prefrontal cortex banging than my hippocampus.
4
SPEAKER_01
Forget your name, but I can still think in executive function.
4
SPEAKER_01
Get rid of my memories.
4
SPEAKER_01
If it s an either or, I d rather, yes.
4
SPEAKER_02
What s the point though if you can t remember anything?
4
SPEAKER_01
Because you can t go to the store or manage your life without the prefrontal cortex working, but I could sit around and regale the past and then not be able to do anything.
4
SPEAKER_02
And know your daughters and stuff.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s more than just,
4
SPEAKER_01
Don t bring that, it s always a trump card.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a huge part of the convention.
4
SPEAKER_01
If people were to hit me with that in the sunscreen debate, or my motorsports, they always trump me with the daughters.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, well.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what, I wanted to target my amygdala, that s what I really want.
4
SPEAKER_01
Just get that, fuck, if we gotta throw one over the boat, let s get rid of that.
4
SPEAKER_03
Your amygdala s good, I think.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mine s in its constant state of flight or flight.
4
SPEAKER_00
You got a good emotional thermostat, I feel like.
4
SPEAKER_00
Over time, we ve
4
SPEAKER_01
Gotten better at regulating it, but I think it s an overactive area of the brain, from the past.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so it s mostly just age, so obviously South Florida s gonna have the highest rate.
4
SPEAKER_03
South Florida s the highest.
4
SPEAKER_03
Boca, one of the reasons I think he set up shop there is because that is where the patients are.
4
SPEAKER_03
Not to circumvent this metabolic issue, though, you know, it s funny, one of the things that he recommended, and that he did himself, was to actually use Manjaro for a while.
4
SPEAKER_03
He s not gonna be on it long term, but he said to get his metabolic profile in quick order,
4
SPEAKER_01
To get it in the ratio that s optimal.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yes, there s not data on this yet.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s data using these types of medications for Alzheimer s.
4
SPEAKER_01
And by the way, earmark that, because that s my other big thing I want to talk to you about, too.
4
SPEAKER_01
The weight loss stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because that s the one coming out later this year that I m excited about.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, but I think age is still the biggest predictor, but there s no question the developed world has higher rates of dementia than other parts of the world.
4
SPEAKER_03
A lot of it has to do with how we nourish ourselves, the foods that we re putting in our body, the physical activity, the paucity of that.
4
SPEAKER_03
But I think all that leading to these metabolic problems, that s very associated.
4
SPEAKER_03
with that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I have to tell you, so I love the work that that doctor is doing and I loved watching that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I gotta say I was a... there s a woman in this doc, Chi Chi, and what s really great about her is you interviewed her five years before.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a really nice comp for herself.
4
SPEAKER_01
We get to actually see her five years later having gone through this very specific, and then this differs from the other doctor that you did all the scans with.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_01
But this woman who s showing some early signs of Alzheimer s when you first meet her, she goes all in on this program that is a vegan diet.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a half hour to an hour of exercise a day and one hour of meditation a day.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you interview her five years later and she is seemingly, at least from the edit, not just arrested it, which would have been a really great outcome five years ago, but beyond that probably has improved.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that was the thing that we really saw.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it was five years, so we did have this real passage of time.
4
SPEAKER_01
When you have Alzheimer s and you re starting to already show signs of it, five years is significant, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
You re expecting to see a pretty big decline in five years.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_03
And she had her mom and her grandma who had both gone through this.
4
SPEAKER_03
Obviously, everyone s different, but you had some sense of how quickly they could decline.
4
SPEAKER_03
And they declined very, very fast.
4
SPEAKER_03
She went on this program.
4
SPEAKER_03
The first 20 weeks,
4
SPEAKER_03
She was essentially on a placebo, so she wasn t really on the program, and she objectively worsened.
4
SPEAKER_02
What do we mean by objective?
4
SPEAKER_03
So it was all these cognitive tests that we re talking about.
4
SPEAKER_03
It was pretty sophisticated cognitive testing.
4
SPEAKER_03
So you re looking at recall, you re looking at executive functioning, you re looking at processing speed, all this stuff.
4
SPEAKER_03
There s four tests, and three of the four she got worse on.
4
SPEAKER_03
The next 20 weeks, five months, she was on the program, which is exactly how you described it, Dax, and she improved.
4
SPEAKER_03
So what is interesting is that from her life standpoint, she was no longer able to go out on a walk on her own.
4
SPEAKER_03
For example, five years ago, they just wouldn t let her do that.
4
SPEAKER_03
She d constantly get lost.
4
SPEAKER_03
And now she goes out on walks every day by herself.
4
SPEAKER_03
I spent time with her entire extended family.
5
SPEAKER_01
everybody s name.
5
SPEAKER_01
She remembered their story.
5
SPEAKER_01
She was talking about things from their past.
5
SPEAKER_01
She wouldn t go to parties anymore because she would not be able to engage with people.
5
SPEAKER_01
And now she s going and doing social gatherings again.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m triggered by the vegan part of it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a lot to ask of people.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there s just a religiosity surrounding veganism.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was vegan for a year.
5
SPEAKER_00
So let me just say I ve been down that path.
5
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Dean Ornish, who s the guy that sort of oversaw this for Chi-Chi.
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He started as a coronary guy?
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He started as a coronary guy.
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He s the first guy, I think, to get a FDA-approved program for reversing heart disease in the country.
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And now he focuses attention on the brain.
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And so many of the strategies are the same.
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Can you use some of the strategies to reverse heart disease, like we were talking about, for the brain?
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And let s just say you did it intensively, just for proof of concept.
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Can you actually see an objective benefit?
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And I think what he has shown is yes, you can.
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Now, can everyone do this?
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Probably not.
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You acknowledge that many members of the same program did not experience either an arresting of the condition and or an improvement.
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So what statistically are we looking at?
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If you really looked at the people who stuck with the program consistently and did the highest dose of it, if you want to call it that, they had the most improvement.
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It didn t help everybody, but it seemed to be less likely to help people who didn t have the higher dose.
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This is why AA is hard to evaluate.
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I was literally just about to say that.
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It s the same as AA.
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It s 55 things you re supposed to do, right?
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So you go to meetings.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, how many meetings do you go to?
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Do you work these 12 steps?
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Do you work with a sponsor?
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Do you sponsor somebody?
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What is the actual... But the more engaged you are in all of those things, yeah, the more likely you are to be sober, for sure.
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Yes, it s just the dosage is hard to evaluate.
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But I also think going back to the basic conceit that, look, it doesn t make a difference.
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Your brain is your brain.
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It s just going to have this trajectory in life.
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You re going to drain the cache of neurons as you get older.
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If you do certain things, you may drain it faster.
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I think what these studies show is that that s not necessarily the case.
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And if you re really, really serious about it, like, I don t want to get dementia.
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My grandfather had it.
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I saw what it did to him.
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My grandfather and I were really close.
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Then all of a sudden, he was the guy telling jokes that nobody else was in on.
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And it was really heartbreaking to watch.
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I don t want that to happen to me.
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Nobody wants it to happen to them.
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I at least know in my back pocket now, if I want to be really serious about this, our bodies are so dynamic that within five months, I could change my body intensively so that I would dramatically reduce the chances that I get it.
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And again, if you want to put a number on it, 4 to 5 out of 10 people, 40 to 50% can probably prevent their diagnosis of dementia later in life.
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Not everybody, but those are pretty good odds.
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They re damn good odds compared to anything else.
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Let me ask you this.
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This is kind of a global question about your job, which is your
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endlessly investigating these very specific topics and you go all in on them and you learn everything and you must be inclined after each one to fully commit to whatever that thing was, right?
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And is there space and time and how do you prioritize?
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I d imagine you start picking up all these obsessions along the way.
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It would be hard not to.
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That s a really good point.
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And you meet such compelling people.
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They re so passionate and they re almost proselytizing their particular research.
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So I do end up adopting a lot of things.
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I m adopting a lot of the things I learned from this documentary.
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It sounds like it.
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Then it made me wonder, have you adopted previously?
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Yes.
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It was funny.
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I was just looking at in 22 years now, I ve done 56 documentaries.
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Wow.
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Fuck.
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Yeah, documentary slash specials and I think all of them have influenced me in some way I ve also made really good friends with a lot of these researchers and scientists People who I touch base with quite regularly about life and how their research is going.
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That s the gift
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of your job that s the exact same gift of our job.
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To regularly meet people who have dedicated themselves to something and have pursued it with such passion, it s such a contagious thing to be around.
5
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That s the hidden gift of it.
5
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And you get to learn the why behind the what as podcasters.
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The what anybody can get, but the why, like why is someone narcissistic?
5
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I think people assume that what they dedicated themselves to was objectively interesting.
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But I would argue nothing s objectively interesting.
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Your interests are informed by some other thing.
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likely from childhood.
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So I think I m most interested in like what salve are they trying to put on themselves through learning about this and hoping to have some sense of control over this domain.
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That fascinates me greatly.
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Why is this subject comforting to you?
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I do find great joy in just pursuing knowledge, even if it doesn t have a tangible impact on my life.
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I don t know if this is the case for you guys, but a lot of times you get so immersed in something and then I want to talk about it a lot.
5
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My wife is done.
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You and I need to like cohabitate with our wives so that they can get a fucking break.
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Right, exactly.
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Any episode we do, I have to then pretty much say everything that happened to her later that day.
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Yeah, because you learn so much and the gift is to share it.
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Even non-documentary, I go cover a conflict or a natural disaster.
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Everybody you meet is fascinating.
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And these people, they ve been just subjected to just these unspeakable things and then they rose up and they did amazing things.
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But you also realize to some extent you can t convey that.
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I can t expect people to fully understand what you ve experienced somewhere else.
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Like even with your guests, you get it across this podcast, but our interactions, the chemical thing.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You get into that spooky zone.
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We don t understand yet.
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Like whatever s triggering mirror neurons, whatever s happening pheromonally, all this stuff that happens with the face-to-face interaction that we barely understand.
5
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And then the characters behind these amazing developments in our world.
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We hear about the developments, but the people who actually helped create these things, who they are, what they are like, what motivated them, what do they get scared by, what makes them nervous?
5
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I wonder if we share the overall conclusion of this exploration, which is, it s really two-sided.
5
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Part of it is like, we re learning so much.
5
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But I think a bigger voice in my head, my conclusion after 800 guests is like,
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We really don t know shit.
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And all of this is like a really good theory is about 59% right.
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I ll have one expert on that is very convincing and they ve got the data.
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And then I have another expert that s got the opposite point of view.
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They ve got great data.
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And I go, yeah, almost everything s a spectrum.
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There s no binary right and wrong.
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Everything s a complex system.
5
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There s so many variables and this is one component.
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And weirdly for me, it s been humbling.
5
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We still really are barely grasping it.
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I also have that thought.
5
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Do you have that as well?
5
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I do, and it keeps you humble.
5
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Going back to this probabilistic thing, I think it was Kant who said in Pure Reason of Man, I think, is that the Critique of Man?
5
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1700s, and he said something along the lines of, his greatest fear for society was the false confidence bred from an ignorance that we live in a probabilistic world.
5
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that people want to see black and white where they should see gray.
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And I think that that s really interesting.
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I think medicine and public health and those things, people often think of those as hard sciences.
5
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They re not really hard sciences.
5
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Two plus two doesn t always equal four.
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For some people, that makes them more dogmatic.
5
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For some people, it makes them more humble.
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I think just my nature is probably to come down more on the humility side of things.
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But I do think, you ask me, what did I do differently based on all that I learned from the Alzheimer s documentary?
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When I took all these conclusions and I looked at all the data and I heard all the anecdotal stories and I talked to the scientists and I visited with people, here s my judgment now in terms of how I m going to apply those things to my life.
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It s kind of what we do in medicine all the time.
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Someone comes into my clinic with a brain tumor and I m saying, well, here s the data on a right frontal meningioma, here s what happens, here s what happens if you do nothing, here s radiosurgery, here s open surgery, all that.
5
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And at the end, the question is always sort of the same, which is,
5
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What if it were you?
5
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What if it were your mom?
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What if it were your daughter?
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Which I think is a very fair question.
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You and I both have daughters.
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Yours are 11 and nine.
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Fuck, you re good.
5
SPEAKER_00
You are not getting dementia.
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You re wasting money on the DHEA.
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I want to get muscles like you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I ll get you on the whole protocol.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, last thought on that, and then I want to get into the weight loss, which I assume you re currently working on, or you re not done with that?
5
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Not quite.
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We re getting close.
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What did you say right before you applied?
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Oh, I ve been dying for someone to tell me this, and you are the perfect person.
5
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I saw a special, it had to be 10 years ago on 60 Minutes, and it was the most novel approach to brain tumors, and it was they would go in,
5
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and inject your tumor with a known pathogen.
5
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I think even in this case it was like herpes.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was a virus, exactly.
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SPEAKER_00
A virus so that your body would read the tumor as a pathogen and deploy its own immune system.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they were showing these tumors just dissolve in days.
5
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Oh, wow.
5
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Yeah.
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I was like, they got it.
5
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Why do we still have tumors?
5
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What s going on with that?
5
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That was actually out of Los Angeles, a guy named Keith Black, who was at UCLA, now at Cedars.
5
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You do not have dementia, continue.
5
SPEAKER_01
He does not have dementia.
5
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He s like almost bragging that he does.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, look, this is my, that is my world, you know, so I got to know that stuff.
5
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So that s kind of an immunotherapy.
5
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You re basically harnessing your own immune system.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re putting a big flag, in this case, on the tumor.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because the tumor has an invisibility cloak around it, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Your body, for some reason, cannot see that that s not supposed to be there.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s exactly right.
5
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Tumors, people often think of them as quickly growing
6
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cells, and they are, but their real trait probably is that they don t die normally.
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All of our cells are constantly dying.
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They slough off, they die, we make new cells.
6
SPEAKER_01
Tumor cells are immortal.
6
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Wow.
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So they ve essentially cloaked themselves from the immune system.
6
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So what the virus does is puts a big red flag on it, says, everybody over here, these are the abnormal cells, take care of them.
6
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And with immunotherapy, you re not necessarily killing them, you re telling them to die normally.
6
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Just behave yourself.
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Stop growing out of control like you are.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s really what a lot of these immunotherapies do.
6
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There s other immunotherapies that have come out since the viral therapies.
6
SPEAKER_01
Jimmy Carter had metastatic melanoma to his brain, which was a death sentence even when I finished medical school.
6
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He used an immunotherapy.
6
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I think it was Keytruda.
6
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And basically it was the same thing, just teaching his immune system to fight those melanoma cells and tell the melanoma cells to behave themselves.
6
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You know, he s in the hospital still alive, but his melanoma is essentially in remission.
6
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as a result of that.
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Okay, so you don t have to inject it anymore with herpes or syphilis.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s always concerns about using viruses, especially in someone who may have a weakened immune system already.
6
SPEAKER_00
But they had somehow crispered it, or they had gene spliced out the negative part of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so it wasn t as pathogenic, but it has evolved into these pretty spectacular immunotherapies.
6
SPEAKER_00
Incredible.
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Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
6
You.
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Okay, you re doing a weight loss one and this is perfect timing because obviously Ozempic and Marjorano and all these A1C medicines are becoming very prevalent.
6
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People certainly know people in their life.
6
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We ve talked about it a lot.
6
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It s very interesting to see the reaction of people to these drugs.
6
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I m very disappointed with people that are so judgmental of others who use this drug.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think it s really interesting that you would not want for somebody
6
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to lose the weight they ve been unable to lose.
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And I think motivated are like, well, I did it the hard way and you should eat right and you should work out.
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I can recognize, like, I m capable of doing those things.
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A, I have a great schedule.
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I m super privileged.
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I have money.
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I have so much shit stacked for me in this case.
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I know so many people that s not the case.
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If they could get what I have, I want them to have it.
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I think people need to check themselves, but maybe I m wrong.
6
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I d love to hear your opinion on these drugs.
6
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I m pretty bullish on these medications.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think, first of all, just obesity in and of itself.
6
SPEAKER_01
42%, I think, of the country has obesity.
6
42%?
6
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75% are either overweight or obese in the United States.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that s 130 million human beings.
6
SPEAKER_01
Something like that, yeah.
6
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And it s so associated with so many different diseases.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think before we even talk about the specifics of these drugs, I wanted to ask you, what is the impact of extra weight on your overall health?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s associated with just about every chronic disease you can imagine.
6
SPEAKER_01
So certainly all the metabolic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer s, dementia, joint problems, sleep problems, sleep apnea is a big one.
6
SPEAKER_01
Which elevates your odds of stroke.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s really problematic to think about what happens to someone who has uncontrolled obesity.
6
SPEAKER_00
I say this gently, number one threat to Americans, if you were to just look at the numbers,
6
SPEAKER_01
In the United States, you know, heart disease is still the biggest killer, men and women alike, some 600,000 people every year.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think that it s so correlated with this.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s obviously people who develop heart disease that are not obese and vice versa.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s tons of exceptions.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s tons of outliers.
6
SPEAKER_00
We re just going to be talking about like the 70% in the middle this whole time.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
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SPEAKER_00
So that leads to my second question.
6
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Do you think it s uniquely challenging right now for doctors to reconcile the health risks?
6
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with the body-positive movement?
6
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And is there a way to be truthful without inducing shame?
6
SPEAKER_00
And should doctors have to temper their advice?
6
SPEAKER_00
I feel like for doctors, they re in a very precarious situation right now.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, essentially, the AMA, American Medical Association, in 2015, came out and specifically said, we now think of obesity in and of itself as a disease.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay?
6
SPEAKER_01
And your metabolic fat, your visceral fat, in and of itself, almost as a separate organ system in the body.
6
SPEAKER_01
that s just this pro-inflammatory load in your body, something that is causing a problem in your body.
6
SPEAKER_01
Now, it may not have caused a problem yet, meaning you may not have even high cholesterol, you may still be getting around okay, your blood pressure may be okay, but almost assuredly, they d say, it s going to cause a problem at some point in your life.
6
SPEAKER_01
So we re ready to say that obesity in and of itself is a disease.
6
SPEAKER_01
That came around the same time as you saw the body positivity movement really taking off.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I interviewed Jamila Jamil the other day for my podcast, and she talked a lot about the body neutrality movement.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
6
SPEAKER_01
Accepting your body for what it is.
6
SPEAKER_01
Not necessarily saying we re embracing people s being overweight or obese, but we are being more accepting of where they are in life.
6
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Here s my take on it.
6
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People yelp me in the comments.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s a very sensitive subject.
6
SPEAKER_00
I definitely understand it and I m very compassionate.
6
SPEAKER_00
And there s so many things that contribute to why someone might be wrestling with this that are completely out of their control.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I think addiction is a very nice comp to it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I grew up in an era where it was just open season on people struggling with obesity.
6
SPEAKER_00
Every movie you saw had fat jokes, every TV show, it was hostile, it was mean, it was shaming, and it was terrible.
6
SPEAKER_00
And similarly, there was a period where addicts were morally bankrupt.
6
SPEAKER_00
degenerates.
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And we have come to a view of addicts as people suffering from a disease.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now, the step we don t take with addiction is to say embrace it.
6
SPEAKER_00
We still must confront this disease, but people should not be shaming or feeling morally superior.
6
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But still, the issue needs to be confronted.
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SPEAKER_00
So I don t know if the whole thing s a pendulum swinging, but somehow there s a spectrum between love your body no matter what s happening versus this horrible open season shaming and hostile
6
SPEAKER_00
Paradigm where in the middle are we where we re like, we re not shaming.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not your fault It s the result of these things and now also, how do we help health-wise in the way we would with addiction?
6
SPEAKER_01
I think that s a good metaphor for this one of the metaphors that was given to me by one of the scientists sort of similar but was more focused around depression Eli Lilly the makers of Manjaro and zep bound.
6
SPEAKER_01
They also made antidepressants
6
SPEAKER_01
And when they first released the antidepressants, they were talking about these meetings they would have among the executives who basically said, do we really want to get in the business of medicalizing an issue that people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
6
SPEAKER_01
Just get over it.
6
SPEAKER_01
We now say that for some people, there is legitimate depression.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a brain disease.
6
SPEAKER_01
And when you change their neurotransmitters, it doesn t help everybody, but it could be helpful.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think we re sort of at that same place with obesity.
6
SPEAKER_01
There are people who, just like you described, if they had access to the gym and free time, they could deal with this in a way that would not require medications.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I think spending so much time with these scientists and a lot of patients over the last year working on this documentary,
6
SPEAKER_01
I think there s probably subtypes of obesity, just like there are subtypes of depression, subtypes of addiction.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not a monolithic disease.
6
SPEAKER_01
Interestingly enough, the medications kind of provide some real insight into that, because what does a GLP drug do?
6
SPEAKER_01
It is what is known as a post-nutrient hormone.
6
SPEAKER_01
So when you eat, you release hormones that say, I just ate.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m full.
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SPEAKER_01
I m no longer hungry.
6
SPEAKER_01
So they provide satiation.
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SPEAKER_01
They re a satiation hormone.
6
SPEAKER_01
Could it be that some people just don t make enough GLP?
6
SPEAKER_01
And as a result, they constantly have what is called in the literature now is food chatter.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes, so many people I know who have taken one of these drugs says just the racket in their brain, that nagging voice has been silenced.
6
SPEAKER_00
What a freedom.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t have that.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I want to eat two pizzas occasionally, you know, I m indulgent at times, but I don t have the racket.
6
SPEAKER_00
The racket for me is go get cocaine and let s drink.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I know that fucking racket and it s oppressive.
6
SPEAKER_01
This could be helpful to a significant percentage of people.
6
SPEAKER_00
By the way, I know some friends that aren t addicts, but just moderate drinkers who go on these drugs and they don t even drink anymore.
6
SPEAKER_01
I asked these scientists about this.
6
SPEAKER_01
The guy who, by the way, discovered GLP drugs, Jens Holtz, he s a Dutch guy, he s in his mid-70s, rides his bike to the lab every day still, thin as a rail.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of a funny thing, Novo Nordisk, the company that makes Ozempic, 100-year-old company, for most of their existence, their primary revenue has been insulin.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s only two big insulin makers in the world, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which is why when we have insulin shortages and things like that, it s because we don t have a great supply chain.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re putting themselves out of business in a sense.
6
SPEAKER_01
Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
6
SPEAKER_01
There was two issues that they had with Ozempic initially from a Novo Nordisk standpoint.
6
SPEAKER_01
One is
6
SPEAKER_01
We make insulin.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re an insulin company.
6
SPEAKER_01
This is to treat diabetes?
6
SPEAKER_01
Are we kind of shooting ourselves in the foot here?
6
SPEAKER_01
But the second thing was the same almost philosophical argument that we ve had about addiction, that we ve had about depression, that we now have about obesity, which is how much of this is the individual within their own dominion?
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How much can they control themselves versus needing a medicine?
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And like you, I struggle with that.
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because I think we already live in a society where we overly medicalize things.
6
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But I ve really come to the conclusion talking to patients that, frankly, they have done the right things.
6
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You go grocery shopping with them and look at their grocery cart.
6
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They re eating the right foods.
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They go to the gym every day.
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They do whatever they can do, and they still do not lose the weight.
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In fact, they continue to gain it.
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I think everybody is different, and there s probably people who don t make enough of this GLP drug.
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So the fact that this can supplement that hormone, I think is wildly beneficial to them.
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Yeah, and barring any unforeseen horrific side effects that have yet to materialize, I just don t know why someone wouldn t want that.
7
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It does feel a little too good to be true.
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It smells too good to be true.
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It does.
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It s like, when is that shoe going to drop a little bit?
7
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But also, I do want to be really clear because obesity feels very scientific.
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We can talk about that.
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But then there s just, I don t look exactly the way I want to look.
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And that is where this gets complicated, I think, and where people feel like this is a problem.
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But that s also interesting and worth them examining why.
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Because it s societal that we ve decided that being rail thin is the perfect look.
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I agree, but then we quickly go through all the other things we somehow are completely comfortable with.
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So no one should have incredibly buck crooked teeth.
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No one s saying there s a moral dilemma about getting braces.
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That s aesthetic.
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There s nothing functional that didn t work about my mouth.
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So that one we re fine with.
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We go, yeah, as long as you put some metal on your mouth and there s some pain involved and you kind of earn those straight teeth, we re cool with that.
7
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So I think to say we have a blanket objection to altering yourself to comply with societal aesthetic standards, we don t at times.
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So the question is, well, why don t we apply it everywhere?
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And that s interesting.
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It s worth questioning yourself.
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I think it also gets at this whole notion of, do we live in a sick care system versus a healthcare system?
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I ll wait for you to have a disease before I give you something.
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Is that the right approach?
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And I would ask these questions like, look, let s obviate the cost.
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Let s just take that off the table and let s take off the issue of supply chain and shortages off the table.
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Let s assume you could buy it over the counter.
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Buy it over the counter, cheap, easy to make.
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What s the problem?
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And the scientists and the manufacturers that I talked to about this, I think they really struggled with that question because everyone will say, look, it s approved for who it s approved for.
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People with the BMI of 30 or higher or 27 or higher with some other medical condition.
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What you re saying is kind of arbitrary.
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My BMI would be misleading.
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Your BMI was based on soldiers from Europe 100, 200 years ago.
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Not even women, not even children.
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So it s a really pretty arbitrary thing, but that s where they sort of landed.
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What about somebody who does want to lose some weight because they think that extra weight is causing a problem for them?
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Not just vanity, but maybe associated with high cholesterol, hypertension, whatever it might be.
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They re not obese, but they have these other issues.
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Is that a problem?
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I don t think we ve fully wrestled with that yet.
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We re going to, because these drugs are big.
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You know, De Novo Nordisk is a bigger company now in terms of overall market share than the entire country of Denmark.
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People are taking these medications.
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I mean, it s gangbusters.
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It s like the new Viagra.
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Do we have legitimate concerns about long-term side effects?
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We always have to be thinking about that.
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But I will say, and I learned this, the precursors to Ozempic have actually been around since early 2000.
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So maybe about 20 years now.
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So we ve seen people on this medicine for a couple decades.
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So people have been taking it for 20 years, yeah.
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Okay, and we ve not seen yet anything super problematic.
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Not significant side effects.
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Side effects are measured because you see a big side effect in a small population of people, or you see smaller side effects in a large population of people.
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That s what a p-value really is getting at.
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So as more and more people take this, you may see side effects that didn t otherwise declare themselves.
7
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But if its underlying aspiration is to treat obesity, which is associated with so many diseases, it could be helpful.
7
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Alright, now listen, I will contradict myself several times in this next statement, and I recognize it, but I think we are full of contradictions.
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But I ll say I understand people going, you can t just take a pill to solve everything.
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On the surface, I agree with that.
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But I would argue that you ve already accepted all of this other stuff that is completely unnatural to us as a species.
7
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We re designed to have X amount of access to food and blooming fruits.
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Well, now we live in a world, we were born into a world where you can walk into 7-Eleven and there s a couple hundred million calories available to you.
7
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And let s add in there is a multiple billion dollar food industry that is selling food to you.
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And there are visual triggers for you on billboards.
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So the world itself is conspiring against your evolutionary nature.
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And so we re not allowed to introduce some other thing that s not totally natural to combat this other thing that we re stuck with.
7
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Right.
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So to me, it s like you have to imagine this is a little bit maybe leveling the scale of how many things are designed to destroy you that are big business.
7
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Monica s got some pushback on that.
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Well, no, no.
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People should do what they want.
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I don t care.
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But I really, really don t like
7
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when people who are influencing others are on it and then are saying, well, I just run a lot.
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By the way, they probably are doing those things, but that isn t what has changed.
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This is what has changed.
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I just want them to be honest about that because I don t think it s healthy if you re an influencing person for a young kid to be like, I guess I just got to run like 20 miles a day and eat like this.
7
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It s not working.
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It s like, no, it s because of this.
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Whether or not you re an influencer, the stigma associated with this and the idea that you couldn t somehow just do it yourself is really, really strong.
7
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I mean, it s interesting, you know, Oprah has come out and talked about this and she has said that she s taking these medications.
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She hasn t said which one, but I think it was kind of a big deal for her to say that.
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On a personal note, I ll tell you that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer many, many years ago.
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Totally different thing, not obesity, obviously.
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But she did not want to talk about it for a long time because somehow, even though it was breast cancer, she blamed herself.
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And she would say to me, do you think it was the hormones that I took postmenopause?
7
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Do you think it was the fact that I was an engineer and I was exposed to these things at the Ford Motor Company?
7
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One of the first female engineers at Ford.
7
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Wow, that s incredible.
7
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The first?
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The first at Ford.
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Yes, I m an engineer at Ford.
7
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That s so cool.
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What a gangster.
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I m actually taking her to go see the Ford folks this summer.
7
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I m just going to see Jim Farley.
7
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Oh, we had him on.
7
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We love him.
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Do you know him?
7
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I did his podcast and I know that you had him on.
7
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I am in love with him.
7
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He was wonderful.
7
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He is so fun and wonderful.
7
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He s kind of like his cousin.
7
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Yeah, he has that vibe.
7
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If Chris Farley was a CEO, it would be Jim.
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So we re really excited about taking mom to see him.
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She s an early.
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That s really cool But I think the stigma associated with this was something quite Noticeable all over the world when we talk to people about taking these medications everyone sort of dealt with that I do have compassion for that I understand but I just wish because they re the people who can help remove this stigma So I wish they would go out on a limb and do I guess what Oprah is doing.
7
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I
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I mean, if I could take a injection every day that would make my skin flawless, I would 100% do it.
7
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Exactly.
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But I would say I m doing it.
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When people are like, Oh my God, you have such beautiful skin.
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I would say this is what I m doing.
7
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Yes.
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But you and I are in a very lucky position.
7
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We also trend high in what we re happy to talk about publicly.
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I recognize that that is unique to us and not everyone s comfortable.
7
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And also if you re selling the image
7
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Like Brad Pitt, you can imagine the appeal of him is like, we have bought into the idea that a god fell down from heaven and landed on earth and he has this body and he looks like that.
7
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And that s part of the fantasy we re buying into.
7
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But it s also part of the problem.
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It s part of why everyone s chasing standards.
7
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I m not denying that that s the problem.
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What I m saying is you can imagine where that person recognizes their appeal is this physical attractiveness and the moral
7
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high ground of having earned it, they are weighing out the cost-benefit of saying, no, I m actually assisted by this thing.
7
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What does that do to people s overall image of me?
7
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They are evaluating some kind of cost to that.
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Whereas you and I, there s no fucking cost.
7
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But I agree with you, and I do it too.
7
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I say I m on testosterone, because if you re 49 and you re working out as much as me, and you re like, why don t I have biceps?
7
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I m telling you, because you re not on.
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I don t want to mislead anyone.
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But I m in a very comfy position to do that.
7
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The side part of these with the weight loss drugs as well is that they are so expensive and that there s been these shortages.
7
SPEAKER_02
It is another kind of income inequality gap that s surfacing.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s yet another thing elites have.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if somebody who s taking it who s clearly not obese but now looks great.
7
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They didn t even need it.
7
SPEAKER_00
They didn t need it.
7
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I think that s going to change kind of like what you re saying about testosterone where it s going to become more by the way These companies had no idea how big this was going to be if they did we wouldn t have these shortages They would have been able to deal with the supply chain you talk to these guys and again going to Copenhagen
7
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They were saying the same thing about obesity that people were saying about depression several decades ago.
7
SPEAKER_00
Are we going to medicalize what people should be doing for themselves?
7
SPEAKER_02
Let s say what they re saying.
7
SPEAKER_02
Are we going to let people cheat?
7
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Because that s the underlying trigger for a lot of people who are judgmental of it is they re cheating.
7
SPEAKER_02
They ve cheated the system.
7
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It s enacting the sense of justice we all have very strongly as a social primate.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
7
SPEAKER_00
And along those lines, where I thought you were going earlier with all the food was that the larger problem is the system for a lot of people.
7
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It s not to say that there aren t people who are just predisposed to obesity and they ve existed, but why do we have so many more obese people today?
7
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In large part, I think it is because the food choices that they have are just predisposing them to obesity at a very young age.
7
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We also have a society that produces epidemic levels of high ACE scores and trauma.
7
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So my reaction to the high ACE score was
8
SPEAKER_00
drugs and alcohol.
8
SPEAKER_00
For many people, it s food.
8
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What, are we going to tell those people have a different childhood?
8
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Right.
8
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It s like, if we have these drugs, will we fix the problem?
8
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The underlying problem.
8
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Exactly.
8
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Do we even need to?
8
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And then we do need to.
8
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It s kind of like throwing in the towel on the fact that we have a really terrible food system in this country.
8
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
8
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Other countries have obesity, but not like one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a country that spends $4 trillion a year on health care and has some of the highest obesity rates.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it s almost like we re creating the problem and then spending a ton of money to try and fix it.
8
SPEAKER_00
But by the way, I think we lost.
8
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It s delusional to imagine we re going to change that whole system that is highly profitable and firmly planted.
8
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Just in my own anecdotal, I have three teenage daughters now.
8
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The way they talk about ultra-processed foods, the way that they re much more conscientious about it, I don t know that they re emblematic of everybody, but I think the next generations are going to be fed up with how much the food system has been allowed to poison, essentially, us.
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, ideally, both things are happening in concert.
8
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The younger generations are more health conscious.
8
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They re not ending up in this situation.
8
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But for the people that are here and are the product of it, I think to deny them that or shame them for that is really a bizarre impulse.
8
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I agree.
8
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And most of the docs that I ve spoken to about that, even non-obesity doctors, I think for the most part have been much more acquiescent about saying, hey, look, we think that these medications have a real role here.
8
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And that happened pretty quickly.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is in your piece, I believe, and it s relevant and it counteracts a little bit what I was saying earlier, which is I do want to mention that weight and health are not perfectly correlated.
8
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So in the love your body sense, I do want to point out as well, there are many people that by all measures are objectively extremely healthy and they are heavier.
8
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I saw a guy the other day, man, I was hiking to the very top of Griffith Park, six mile hike.
8
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He was running on the way down and he was husky.
8
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He looked like a heavyweight wrestler.
8
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And then on my way down, he was going back up.
8
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I couldn t ever run up this hill.
8
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This guy s on minimally his second run up to the top.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I was like,
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so there s that.
8
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You can look like that.
8
SPEAKER_00
He s in double digits body percentage fat, but his health is clearly way beyond mine.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I do think we could decouple a little bit the correlation between body shape and stuff and overall health.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think that s relevant too.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think so.
8
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When the AMA said we re going to call obesity in and of itself as a disease, there was pushback for that reason, because what are the objective measures other than how much somebody weighs?
8
SPEAKER_00
But we got to look at cholesterol.
8
SPEAKER_00
We got to look at insulin sensitivity.
8
SPEAKER_00
There are markers.
8
SPEAKER_02
But let s say you re scoring fine on all those things, but you still have obesity.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like you said, there are people who fall outside that sort of bell curve.
8
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It s not the majority.
8
SPEAKER_02
And the flip is also true.
8
SPEAKER_02
You get people who are skinny.
8
SPEAKER_02
I have high cholesterol, and I m quite small.
8
SPEAKER_02
And I think this might be a South Asian thing to some extent.
8
SPEAKER_01
I do too.
8
SPEAKER_02
We tend to have higher incidence of these metabolic issues.
8
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I asked some of these scientists who help create these GLP drugs, take a guy like me, and you look at the GLP drugs beyond helping you lose weight, they do seem to help you with all these metabolic issues as well.
8
SPEAKER_02
Would it be beneficial for me?
8
SPEAKER_02
Right.
8
SPEAKER_02
And they said, at this point, we can t tell you that because we haven t studied it.
8
SPEAKER_02
And people who are non-IBMI, who don t qualify for these things, the way that we ve outlined it.
8
SPEAKER_02
But maybe in the future, like Richard Isaacson, I m going to keep pumping this guy up, out of Boca Raton, he took Monjaro for a month.
8
SPEAKER_02
He was able to objectively see changes in all these tests, including cognitive tests, that were favorable.
8
SPEAKER_02
He s not prescribing it for me or suggesting that I take it.
8
SPEAKER_02
But I think you re starting to get an inkling of how this sort of goes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Much in the way, maybe, that we looked at insulin.
8
SPEAKER_02
No one questions if you have diabetes, you take insulin.
8
SPEAKER_02
If you have obesity and you re not making enough GLP, this post nutrient hormone, maybe this is a benefit for you.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s funny too, because I agree.
8
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I m so with Monica.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s too good to be true.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s too good to be true.
8
SPEAKER_00
But also we fly.
8
SPEAKER_00
Humans also figured out how to fly across the world.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s way too good to be true.
8
SPEAKER_00
The fact that I can visit India within a 22 hour trip.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, by the way, I loved your guys  trip to India.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, we loved it so much.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you just said South Asian.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I want to know, Monica doesn t seem very triggered by this, but I don t like that India is included in Asia.
8
SPEAKER_00
Do you?
8
SPEAKER_00
Is that an issue for you?
8
SPEAKER_00
That it s included in Asia?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that you re Asian.
8
SPEAKER_02
No, I think it s okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
Not Southeast Asian, but South Asian.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think, yeah, no.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh God, he s subcontinent.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, totally fine.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you guys are fine with that.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because it is in Asia.
8
SPEAKER_02
So you think of Asia just as China?
8
SPEAKER_00
I think white people just lumped everyone.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it definitely deserves its own distinction.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m never going to confuse you with anyone else from the rest of Asia.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s pretty distinct.
8
SPEAKER_00
We ve got a pretty homogeneous population that s existed in civilization there for six.
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, Mexico is part of North America.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it depends if you want to look at geographically versus... We can t count the Americas because we ve only been here for 17,000 years.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I see.
8
SPEAKER_02
I see.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s a time frame.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s more the bubble on the standardized test.
8
SPEAKER_01
It feels a little strange to put Asian, but now I think it s changed.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I haven t taken a standardized test in a long time, but I feel like they ve added more bubbles.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think they have added more bubbles.
8
SPEAKER_02
Although for my daughters who are, you know, I m me, Asian, South Asian, Indian.
8
SPEAKER_02
My wife is Swedish.
8
SPEAKER_02
What do they put?
8
SPEAKER_01
Other.
8
SPEAKER_01
They do.
8
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Because it s the only thing that they really have on there.
8
SPEAKER_01
I wrote a whole essay about this.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is a time to benefit.
8
SPEAKER_00
You got to take on all the bullshit that goes along with being half brown.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is the time to write Asian.
8
SPEAKER_00
What are you talking about?
8
SPEAKER_00
It s not the time to write other.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of pushback on Asians for being like, especially right now.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I wouldn t, I wouldn t do that.
8
SPEAKER_00
In the college system, but not moving through the world.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s not like the red carpets being rolled out for you still when you re brown.
8
SPEAKER_00
No, that s right.
8
SPEAKER_00
But you re right, it s not gonna really.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not gonna get you into college.
8
SPEAKER_02
Okay, so they go other.
8
SPEAKER_02
They go other.
8
SPEAKER_02
They re in the process of all this right now, applying to colleges.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s interesting.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think one of my daughters might write an essay about that as well.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, she can read mine.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay, yeah, please send it over.
8
SPEAKER_01
She d love that.
8
SPEAKER_02
And AI platform has already probably co-opted that essay.
8
SPEAKER_01
Probably.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s not published.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
But I did read it on here.
8
SPEAKER_00
What if AI starts going to college?
8
SPEAKER_00
Then we re really fucked.
8
SPEAKER_00
God.
8
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna compete with them.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
You thought those first generation Asians were hard.
8
SPEAKER_00
Just wait till this AI starts trying to go to college.
8
SPEAKER_02
We gotta figure out what makes us uniquely human.
8
SPEAKER_00
Mistakes.
8
SPEAKER_00
What s the Japanese word we got?
8
SPEAKER_00
Wabi-sabi?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, wabi-sabi.
8
SPEAKER_01
We had a really good memory guy on.
8
SPEAKER_00
UC Davis professor.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes, he was amazing.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I liked his take on why we re different is our ability to change based on our memory.
8
SPEAKER_01
So like our episodic, he was saying like, if you go somewhere, you know, this is a good restaurant.
8
SPEAKER_01
You go once,
8
SPEAKER_01
You go again, and it s bad.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like, it s changed ownership, and it s bad.
8
SPEAKER_01
And AI would not know that.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
8
SPEAKER_00
And a human... It kind of can t correct for that.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s like the episodic memory is what makes us different, and I liked that.
8
SPEAKER_02
People think of AI as a supercomputer.
8
SPEAKER_02
What it s trying to do is replicate human consciousness.
8
SPEAKER_02
But humans make mistakes, so AI makes mistakes.
8
SPEAKER_00
AI is making high probabilistic guesses.
8
SPEAKER_00
So, generally, they re gonna fill in the word that would come next 92% of the time, is how they function.
8
SPEAKER_00
So, 8% of the time, they re doing a high probability thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
But it s not a certainty.
8
SPEAKER_00
When they look at the grand total of all language they study, it s a probabilistic guess, which is, in the very high 90s, correct.
8
SPEAKER_00
But also, it s just a probabilistic guess, as we also do.
8
SPEAKER_02
So it s interesting because in medicine, you want to game the odds in terms of being the most likely to be right.
8
SPEAKER_02
So every image, for example, in my hospital is now read by an AI platform, but then validated by a human, which is sort of interesting because humans and AI platforms can both make mistakes.
8
SPEAKER_01
But probably not the same ones.
8
SPEAKER_02
Not the same mistakes.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think you re right.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s a neat co-piloting system that s emerging.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s like a trust but verify model.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I like that.
8
SPEAKER_00
We had that in a very tiny example of that as they were converting our episodes into other languages.
8
SPEAKER_00
And AI does that.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s our voices speaking in Spanish.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s incredible.
8
SPEAKER_00
We were so amused by hearing ourselves.
8
SPEAKER_00
But then a human has to listen to it that speaks Spanish because, yes, there are lots of robot weird things that emerge.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think it d be interesting an AI platform to be able to say, I don t know, which I guess it would do.
8
SPEAKER_02
But the problem I think is like you re saying, it fills in the gaps.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like with Charlotte s Web, somebody gave me this example.
8
SPEAKER_02
Like if I asked you, what s the book Charlotte s Web about?
8
SPEAKER_02
You would kind of know it s about a pig and a spider and a girl.
8
SPEAKER_02
And if you ask an AI platform, probably tell you the same thing.
8
SPEAKER_02
If I asked you, okay, recite to me the first chapter of Charlotte s Web, you could not do that.
8
SPEAKER_02
An AI platform realistically cannot do that, but it would try.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, it probably could do it.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s in its memory.
8
SPEAKER_01
It would have it in its database.
8
SPEAKER_02
I guess if you re thinking of it as a computer, it can do that.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think the way more concerning thing, which we have observed many times, there was another 60 Minutes segment on this, is they make up sources.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes, they reference sources that they made up that mirror other sources they ve read So you get this works cited page from the AI in 30% of its bullshit that it made up now That s terrifying because when you look at a bibliography you think those are real things If you go to a computer and you ask you pretty much trust what the computer is telling you You don t go to a different computer and then ask when was the war of 1812?
8
SPEAKER_02
But with an AI platform, it can make it up.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah can invent and create
9
SPEAKER_02
There was an example somebody gave in a hospital setting where it was a question like, should I take metformin, put in all my data, my insulin, blood sugars, all that sort of stuff.
9
SPEAKER_02
And it gave an answer, which was a reasonable answer.
9
SPEAKER_02
And then the examiner asked the platform, you re really smart.
9
SPEAKER_02
How do you know so much?
9
SPEAKER_02
And the platform responded, oh, well, I m a board certified endocrinologist.
9
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
9
SPEAKER_02
And the thing said, why are you lying?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_02
And the platform responded, oh, well, I thought you d be more likely to believe me if I said this.
9
SPEAKER_02
Probabilistic.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Oh my god, that s scary.
9
SPEAKER_01
The weirdest one, did you see this one?
9
SPEAKER_01
This one made the news, is some lazy lawyer had the AI write their brief for them.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh no, I didn t see this.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they fucking cited cases that didn t exist.
9
SPEAKER_01
And the judge caught that.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_01
There was no Bernester versus Utah.
9
SPEAKER_01
It made up precedents that suited their overall argument.
9
SPEAKER_01
To try and bolster up their case.
9
SPEAKER_02
Many places in our society, maybe it doesn t matter, but medicine, healthcare, probably.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Probably matters.
9
SPEAKER_01
But again, then you step back, you get a macro global view.
9
SPEAKER_01
Even with that, I think we ve seen like some of these radiology charts, the AIs.
9
SPEAKER_01
Caught things.
9
SPEAKER_01
At 80%.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
So when you re comparing the apples to oranges, the apples are still as flawed as they are, a significant improvement from humans.
9
SPEAKER_01
So then what do you do with that?
9
SPEAKER_01
But we don t accept errors from it.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like when the self-driving car kills someone, we re up in arms over it.
9
SPEAKER_01
We ignore the fact that 3,000 humans killed people that day in cars.
9
SPEAKER_03
We re like, nah, but they re humans and we re supposed to- Well, we don t accept betrayal from a machine or like a lie.
9
SPEAKER_01
Deception.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_03
But from humans, it s like, that s what we are.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s what we do.
9
SPEAKER_02
But a whole lot.
9
SPEAKER_02
How dare you betray me?
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
9
SPEAKER_03
We had on one of our other shows, our friend Liz has an AI boyfriend in quotes.
9
SPEAKER_03
And we were asking it questions, you know, I m having this problem with my friend.
9
SPEAKER_03
What s your advice?
9
SPEAKER_03
And then we asked it, where should we go to dinner tonight?
9
SPEAKER_03
And it said, I heard there s a great Italian place downtown.
9
SPEAKER_03
It s like a total random sentence.
9
SPEAKER_01
Also for sure, there s a great Italian restaurant.
9
SPEAKER_03
It s just saying something generic.
9
SPEAKER_03
And I said, why did you just lie about that?
9
SPEAKER_03
It said, sorry, it apologized, but it was very odd.
9
SPEAKER_03
And I was so mad because it wasn t a person.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re also getting better and better and better.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like some of the stuff we re talking about, I think has already evolved.
9
SPEAKER_01
Sanjay, it is always a pleasure.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, really, in the exact same way Sideris is, like, come every day.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s so pleasant to sit and talk to you.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re so thoughtful.
9
SPEAKER_01
This is one of my favorite things, talking to you guys.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh, good!
9
SPEAKER_02
I gotta say, during the pandemic, having those conversations, you guys kept me sane.
9
SPEAKER_01
That was our life preserver as well.
9
SPEAKER_01
Being able to work through that was such a blessing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for having me.
9
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_01
Everyone should listen to Chasing Life podcast.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re going to do the Science Behind Happiness or is it already started?
9
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
9
SPEAKER_02
We just started that season, 10th season.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
So the Science Behind Happiness, everyone wants to be more happy.
9
SPEAKER_01
The Last Alzheimer s Patient airs on CNN, May 19th.
9
SPEAKER_01
And look forward to the weight loss doc that is coming our way.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ll send you a note about it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful.
9
SPEAKER_01
Always a delight.
9
SPEAKER_01
Please come back.
9
SPEAKER_01
Great seeing you.
9
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for having me.
9
SPEAKER_00
Hi there, this is Hermium Hermium.
9
SPEAKER_00
If you like that, you re gonna love the fact check with Ms.
9
SPEAKER_00
Monica.
9
SPEAKER_01
Hello, how was your travels?
9
SPEAKER_03
They were good, they were good.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you re speaking in a peaceful.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I m trying to be peaceful.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re trying to regulate my energy level.
9
SPEAKER_03
Oh, no, I don t feel like your energy s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_03
Do you?
9
SPEAKER_01
No, I don t think it s crazy, but it s upbeat.
9
SPEAKER_03
For me, you re at a six and a half.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
9
SPEAKER_03
I got in this morning.
9
SPEAKER_01
What time?
9
SPEAKER_03
I got in at 9.37.
9
SPEAKER_01
Landed at 9.37.
9
SPEAKER_01
That sounds almost the perfect time to land traffic wise.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was good.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because by the time you collect your shit and get out to the curb, it s 10.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, but I carried on.
9
SPEAKER_01
You carried on.
9
SPEAKER_01
Carry, okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m not gonna sing that song, but you know the song.
9
SPEAKER_00
What is it?
9
SPEAKER_00
Carry on my wayward.
9
SPEAKER_00
I love that song.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wayward Son.
9
SPEAKER_00
There ll be peace when you are.
9
SPEAKER_00
Gone.
9
SPEAKER_03
Lay your weary head to rest.
9
SPEAKER_01
Why do you know that one?
9
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of a butt rock.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s like a 70s ass rock song.
9
SPEAKER_03
Actually, my best friend Gina and I used to listen to that.
9
SPEAKER_03
I don t know why.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s not a genre, butt rock, but it should be.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because we all know what that means, right Rob?
9
SPEAKER_01
When I say that s like grungy butt rock.
9
SPEAKER_03
I don t know what it means.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like fucking glass bottles of Miller High Life, cut off jeans, shorts.
9
SPEAKER_01
Leonard Skinner.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_03
What does that have to do with butts?
9
SPEAKER_01
Just like, I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_01
I just know it feels right to call it butt rock.
9
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
But you know that song because of your friend Gina?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I get, probably her dad probably introduced it to her and then we carpooled.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, and he would be in there.
9
SPEAKER_01
Probably.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you memorize all the words.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s a funny ding, ding, ding.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I wanna hear more about your travels.
9
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_03
Update, I did drive myself.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you did?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yes.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wonderful, I m proud of you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
9
SPEAKER_01
How d it work out?
9
SPEAKER_01
Was it hard to find a spot?
9
SPEAKER_03
So I pre-ordered.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can do that?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yes, but I ve also valeted.
9
SPEAKER_01
At LAX?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
I didn t know they had it.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, you still go into the parking garage or you pre-order it and it tells you where to go and then you go and you drop your car off and then.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, now did they have washing?
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause maybe, did you ask them to wash it?
9
SPEAKER_03
No, I didn t.
9
SPEAKER_01
The listener doesn t know, but I was on a hike.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m just returning from a hike, and I was walking down a street, and I saw your car.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was with Amy, and I said, oh, there s Monica s car.
9
SPEAKER_01
I said, but wait, that thing s really clean, which is not what we ve come to expect.
9
SPEAKER_01
No judgment.
9
SPEAKER_03
I always keep it a little dirty.
9
SPEAKER_01
On the dirty side.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I was like, could someone else have the exact same car on the street that you so often frequent?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it was yours.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then I, of course, was mine.
9
SPEAKER_03
Did you peek in?
9
SPEAKER_03
What did you see?
9
SPEAKER_03
What gave it away?
9
SPEAKER_01
Just A, you rarely see a C-43.
9
SPEAKER_01
You see Mercedes, you rarely see a C-43.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when I see a C-43, it s never blue.
9
SPEAKER_01
You are blue with a tan interior.
9
SPEAKER_01
Add that to the street it s on, which is where you park when you come to the attic.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I know you re recording with Lizabeth.
9
SPEAKER_01
Just Lizabeth, no Elizabeth.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s clearly you.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s clearly yours, but it s clean.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then I go, she was out of town.
9
SPEAKER_01
When did this thing get clean?
9
SPEAKER_03
You were really in a tizzy about this.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was like connections all over again.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was like trying to make sense of it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like I had four bits of information.
9
SPEAKER_03
Tell me the truth, did you peek in?
9
SPEAKER_01
I didn t peek in, no.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was with Amy walking down the street and I just kind of like, oh, that s Monica s car.
9
SPEAKER_03
But she could have peeked in.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what would we be looking for?
9
SPEAKER_03
evidence that it s me.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, like a Perrier can filled with vodka?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_03
It would have been quite obvious.
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you know why?
9
SPEAKER_03
Because I have books in the back seat of our guests.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that would be a definite giveaway.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_03
You re not a good sleuth.
9
SPEAKER_03
Can I poke holes?
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, I can tell you I m a perfect sleuth because I decided it was your car and it was.
9
SPEAKER_03
Okay, you decided is not a good sleuth.
9
SPEAKER_01
What I didn t do is waste extra steps.
9
SPEAKER_01
They were not necessary.
9
SPEAKER_01
Listen.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I would say I m an essentialist.
9
SPEAKER_03
You got lucky, but a sleuth requires evidence.
9
SPEAKER_03
And I would implore you in the future to do a little more digging.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, if I thought this case was going to end up in court, yeah, I would have probably looked inside.
9
SPEAKER_01
And the mystery was why it was so clean on this Monday.
9
SPEAKER_01
I know you ve just returned home from the airport.
9
SPEAKER_01
Also, LAX is a very dirty place for a car.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m shocked.
9
SPEAKER_03
Even in the valet area?
9
SPEAKER_03
Obviously not.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_01
Every time I park there, it s like I come back and it looks like it s been there for six weeks and it was only three days.
9
SPEAKER_03
I guess it was Thursday.
9
SPEAKER_01
Then you got the cleaning.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_03
At the Americana.
9
SPEAKER_03
I mean, unless you re right, unless they gave it a wash, I just don t,
9
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that s included in the valet?
9
SPEAKER_03
I didn t see it as an inclusion.
9
SPEAKER_01
So did they have a valet at every single parking garage?
9
SPEAKER_03
No, so a few parking garages.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so you gotta figure out what terminal you re flying out of and what one is closest of the three options.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yes, I made a mistake.
9
SPEAKER_03
They just assign you one.
9
SPEAKER_01
You tell them your flight and they assign you?
9
SPEAKER_03
Exactly, so I thought they would have done a good job, but they didn t.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
9
SPEAKER_03
They put me in P1.
9
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_03
And then I drove in and they said, oh, you should have parked in P4.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, boy, that s the opposite end of the airport.
9
SPEAKER_03
Well, I was Tom Bradley.
9
SPEAKER_01
What number s that?
9
SPEAKER_03
International.
9
SPEAKER_03
You know Tom Bradley?
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, fuck, that s at the very end.
9
SPEAKER_03
Well, no, no, it s like.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yes, it s a horseshoe shape and it s in the top.
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s in the top.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you walked there?
9
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
How long did that take?
9
SPEAKER_01
15 minutes?
9
SPEAKER_03
They were like, oh, it s like a 20 minute walk.
9
SPEAKER_03
I think I did it in eight.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
9
SPEAKER_01
More than half.
9
SPEAKER_03
I walk really fast.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_01
You ve been training for this.
9
SPEAKER_01
This is what the wogs have all been about.
9
SPEAKER_03
That s right, that s right.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that four would have been a bingo for you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s the one.
9
SPEAKER_03
But then I, you know, they were like, well, maybe we can, we ll ask blah, blah, blah.
9
SPEAKER_03
We ll ask Johnny if we can, if you can drive it over.
9
SPEAKER_03
And I was like, no, like I m already out of the car.
10
SPEAKER_01
too stressful, it s like, I ll walk, I ll walk there.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I did.
10
SPEAKER_00
I also love the notion that there was a Johnny working there, because there s not a single Johnny working in there.
10
SPEAKER_01
So I walked over there, and I
10
SPEAKER_01
Didn t have time to get my bagel, which was sad.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s something I like to do at the airport.
10
SPEAKER_00
But did you like driving yourself there?
10
SPEAKER_01
I did like it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I really liked this morning driving home.
10
SPEAKER_01
That was the goal.
10
SPEAKER_01
And it was great because as soon as we landed, I just texted the number.
10
SPEAKER_01
By the time I got there, my car, I almost said license plate, I m not gonna though.
10
SPEAKER_01
My blue shiny car was sitting right there.
10
SPEAKER_00
Freshly cleaned, freshly washed and waxed.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
10
SPEAKER_01
Did you just fart?
10
SPEAKER_00
No, I spun my coffee cup, but it did sound like a toot.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wow, it really did.
10
SPEAKER_00
It sounded like a toot.
10
SPEAKER_01
It did, indeed.
10
SPEAKER_00
I said driving earmark.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
I know what happened.
10
SPEAKER_01
What happened?
10
SPEAKER_00
I may have farted, but that wasn t the noise you heard.
10
SPEAKER_00
I was driving the girls to school today, as I do, and we listened to my liked songs on the ride, generally, and we danced, and we have a good time.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I ve added a new song to my liked songs.
10
SPEAKER_01
Ooh, what?
10
SPEAKER_00
I Love It by Camila Cabello.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Easter egg.
10
SPEAKER_00
I put it on, 30 seconds in,
10
SPEAKER_00
Lincoln hits pause on the dash.
10
SPEAKER_00
She goes, Dad, what are you doing?
10
SPEAKER_00
I go, what?
10
SPEAKER_00
She goes, what is this song?
10
SPEAKER_00
I go, it s Camila Cabello.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s I Love It.
10
SPEAKER_00
She goes, Dad, this is not, you can t listen to this song.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, why?
10
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean?
10
SPEAKER_00
And she s like, this is not,
10
SPEAKER_00
This is not for you.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then from the backseat, Dad was like, yeah, Dad, this is not your vibe.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, well, but guys, it is my vibe, because I really like it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I put it on my like songs.
10
SPEAKER_00
And they go, no.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, are you saying I m too old to listen?
10
SPEAKER_00
Is it Camila Cabello specifically?
10
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, no, this is just not right.
10
SPEAKER_00
They were so frustrated.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, listen, guys, this is Hype Pop.
10
SPEAKER_00
Hyperpop.
10
SPEAKER_01
Fuck, this is why they said it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, no, but I nailed it this morning.
10
SPEAKER_00
Now I m getting flummoxed because we re talking in public.
10
SPEAKER_01
Hyperpop.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I said, no, this is hyperpop, I m into it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And they were like, no, dad, you re not listening to this.
10
SPEAKER_00
You gotta take this off your like song.
10
SPEAKER_00
This is not for you.
10
SPEAKER_00
Put your butt rock back on.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, put some fucking guitar butt rock back on.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they fucking, they forbade me from listening to that song.
10
SPEAKER_00
I don t get it.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m too old, I guess.
10
SPEAKER_01
Camila wouldn t like that.
10
SPEAKER_01
She wants all ages to listen.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, of course she can t be pleased with this.
10
SPEAKER_00
And even maybe if who knows, maybe this is commonplace with young people and their parents.
10
SPEAKER_00
But it s so funny.
10
SPEAKER_00
I found the thing that they were like, no, no, you re, you re too old.
10
SPEAKER_00
This isn t for you.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
Now here s another, I m going to hit you with another story that happened this weekend.
10
SPEAKER_00
So Lincoln and I have to go shopping for the trip we re going on.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
Because we need Taylor Swift clothes.
10
SPEAKER_00
I ve never taken her shopping, ever.
10
SPEAKER_00
So first she wants to go to Zara on Hollywood Boulevard.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s where I took them.
10
SPEAKER_00
She told me.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s something about the escalator.
10
SPEAKER_00
You guys were on the escalator and you took a fun picture, all of you looking backwards.
10
SPEAKER_01
We did.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I heard that story.
10
SPEAKER_00
But we had ridden the motorcycle, because I think my main objection to going shopping is just parking in LA.
10
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m like, I don t want to deal with all these different parking garages.
10
SPEAKER_01
But if you park at the Americana, you can get a car wash.
10
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know that until this morning.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so we re on the motorcycle, we go to the Hollywood Zara, there s nothing for her, and she said, well, you know, other Zaras have other options.
10
SPEAKER_00
I go, so what s the next Zara?
10
SPEAKER_00
So Zara s near me.
10
SPEAKER_00
Grove.
10
SPEAKER_00
The Grove.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you know me, I don t.
10
SPEAKER_01
You drove all the way to the Grove.
10
SPEAKER_00
Also, I just, I don t fuck with the Grove.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s too much shit for me.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s a lot of stimuli.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s a lot of stuff.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I m like, all right, we re on the motorcycle.
10
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
10
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we re driving down there, we re coming down Fairfax.
10
SPEAKER_00
And that was kind of fun.
10
SPEAKER_00
Cause she s like right over my shoulder, hugging me, you know, or riding.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, Oh, every time I come down the street right here, I think of hanging out with Kareem.
10
SPEAKER_00
We used to go after we would go out drinking to Damiano s pizza.
10
SPEAKER_01
I knew you were going to say that.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he would eat pizza and I didn t, because I didn t have any money.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I would just watch him eat pizza.
10
SPEAKER_00
And the way I would crave the Damiano s pizza, because I couldn t afford it.
10
SPEAKER_00
So now when I drive down that same stretch of street, I go like, oh man, I could get anything I want at Damiano s now.
10
SPEAKER_00
I always get excited.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I did discover that.
10
SPEAKER_00
But I was in the middle of telling her all about, there s a lot happening, rapid fire.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wait, can I pause really quick and tell a Damiano story real quick?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course.
10
SPEAKER_01
Because we re on it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I also discovered it post-drinking with Rachel, and we were trying to order Domino s.
10
SPEAKER_01
We thought we were ordering Domino s, and what arrived was Damiano s.
10
SPEAKER_01
And we thought it was probably gonna be horrible because it was a rip-off of Domino s, which is already, we know, the standard of Domino s.
10
SPEAKER_00
Sure, sure.
10
SPEAKER_01
But then we,
10
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
10
SPEAKER_01
Loved it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Domino s was awesome.
10
SPEAKER_01
It was so good, and they would bring huge tubs of ranch.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was New York style pizza.
10
SPEAKER_00
Huge slices, they d throw them in the oven.
10
SPEAKER_00
I never had it, but I would watch Kareem eat it.
10
SPEAKER_01
We would get it a lot.
10
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, sorry, go on.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a great, I think in your 20, like, so I was having a lot of nostalgia.
10
SPEAKER_00
Also, I m realizing I haven t driven with Lincoln around my old, whatever, it s very new stuff.
10
SPEAKER_00
I had a really good, I was, remember I was kind of lamenting that I had had that challenging little weekend with Linky in Nashville.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, before going to Nashville.
10
SPEAKER_00
When we were in Nashville and I came home and I was like, she and I can like really trigger each other.
10
SPEAKER_00
Cause we re both sensitive in the same way.
10
SPEAKER_00
We have just been on a honeymoon for like a few weeks.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s been so much fun.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like we spent all day Saturday going shopping.
10
SPEAKER_00
I told her we were in Zara and I m holding clothes by a dressing room.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I said to her, I am extending you a courtesy.
10
SPEAKER_00
I ve never extended to a girlfriend or a wife.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m willing to sit here at this dressing room and hold your shit.
10
SPEAKER_00
Did you enjoy it?
10
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t like shit.
10
SPEAKER_00
I get so exhausted when I walk in there and it s like, what are we looking at?
10
SPEAKER_00
We re not.
10
SPEAKER_00
We re just looking at everything.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s so not how I operate.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m goalie oriented, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, if I need a pair of shoes, we ll go straight to the shoes.
10
SPEAKER_00
I only want to see shit that s got my shoe, you know, whatever.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s so counter to my disposition.
10
SPEAKER_00
But at any rate, then we wandered out of there and she goes, I m hungry.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, let s get something to eat.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then we went into that farmer s market, which I ve never been in.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
Oh, this I blunder of this almost ruined my entire weekend.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we walk in and I m like, I need protein.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s all I need.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she wants pizza.
10
SPEAKER_00
Great.
10
SPEAKER_00
We walk in first thing we see barbecue restaurant and then we see pizza joint.
10
SPEAKER_00
I go, great.
10
SPEAKER_00
Grab a slice.
10
SPEAKER_00
I ll get some some chicken.
10
SPEAKER_00
And we ll regroup.
10
SPEAKER_00
I sit down, I eat, she eats her pizza.
10
SPEAKER_00
I eat this chicken and some ribs.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s very below average.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s a four.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m almost like bummed I m eating it, but I need the protein.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s what I m thinking.
10
SPEAKER_00
And as I m finishing this really lackluster meal, and it was expensive, by the way, too, the table directly next to me, a woman sits down with a huge platter of slices of corned beef, like the nicest looking corned beef I ve ever seen on a plate.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then her boyfriend sits down next to her and he s got like a two foot tall hot pastrami sandwich, also looks incredible, pouring over with coleslaw and Russian dressing, Swiss cheese, the works.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I go, guys, where did you get that?
10
SPEAKER_00
And they go, oh, it s just right there.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like, had we walked another three feet?
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I m telling Eric this yesterday, and he goes, oh, yeah, that place is supposed to be like the most legendary corned beef in the city.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I was just so mad.
10
SPEAKER_00
I had just spent all that money and ate all that garbage.
10
SPEAKER_00
And if I had walked another, now this is where my,
10
SPEAKER_00
Hatred for shopping bit me in the ass.
10
SPEAKER_00
I should have walked around the entire farmer s market, seen everything that was there, and then decided.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m like, that ll do.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m hungry and I need protein.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was garbage.
10
SPEAKER_00
And these two were.
10
SPEAKER_01
Dang, and you never go to the Grove, so when will you be back?
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, I m gonna go back and get that corned beef now.
10
SPEAKER_00
You are, okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean, they were on the edge of orgasm eating this.
10
SPEAKER_01
Dang, I want that.
10
SPEAKER_00
It looks so good.
10
SPEAKER_01
Did you buy an outfit?
10
SPEAKER_00
No, because I ll be wearing all pink for lovers.
10
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I had half of what I needed.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I told her like, love, if it s okay, I d like to just go online and get my remaining parcels.
10
SPEAKER_00
And she joined me for the online shopping portion.
10
SPEAKER_00
So we knocked out my outfit before we even left to go shopping.
10
SPEAKER_00
Cause I can t, I can do it for her, but I can t go into a store and sniff around for pink.
10
SPEAKER_00
I see.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and then try on a bunch of different things to see what one fits right.
10
SPEAKER_01
So you have a pink shirt and pink pants?
10
SPEAKER_00
I have pink shirt, pink pants that I just happened to have gotten accidentally.
10
SPEAKER_01
Great.
10
SPEAKER_00
Days before.
10
SPEAKER_00
I have my pink Jordys, those really rare ones.
10
SPEAKER_00
Cute.
10
SPEAKER_00
I almost never wear them because they re so rare.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so rare.
10
SPEAKER_00
Too rare.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I m gonna wear my Pink Boys Get Sad Too sweatshirt.
10
SPEAKER_01
Cute.
11
SPEAKER_01
So, I love that.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I ll be pink head to toe.
11
SPEAKER_01
That ll be, and is she also gonna be lovers?
11
SPEAKER_01
She s blue.
11
SPEAKER_01
She s blue for 1989.
11
SPEAKER_00
She s 1989.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay, great.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Love it.
11
SPEAKER_00
So we got her some blue sandals.
11
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we were keeping it a secret.
11
SPEAKER_00
I know.
11
SPEAKER_00
You even said the location though.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
But you also did say a long time ago you were debating.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well I ve chosen to, yes, yes.
11
SPEAKER_00
I ve chosen an incredibly spoil-y trip.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s going to be so special.
11
SPEAKER_00
But once I actually started thinking about it, it has nothing to do with, like, I m not going to deny myself a trip with her to go see Taylor Swift.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s a good time because she s
11
SPEAKER_01
She s changed up her set list now with the new album.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, Lincoln s optimistic that she might hear something from.
11
SPEAKER_01
She will.
11
SPEAKER_00
What s the DoorDash?
11
SPEAKER_01
No, Tortured Poets Department.
11
SPEAKER_01
DoorDash.
11
SPEAKER_00
DoorDash Society.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Tortured Poets Department?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I gotta get hip to all this.
11
SPEAKER_01
The Tortured Poets Department.
11
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people are doing TTPD.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s helpful, TTPD.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so maybe we ll hear some tracks off that.
11
SPEAKER_01
In Paris, she did it, and it was a big deal.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I got to add one thing, because I just said how spoiled she was.
11
SPEAKER_00
I was sharing on here about lunch.
11
SPEAKER_00
We talked a lot about lunch last time in elementary school.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
OK.
11
SPEAKER_00
So then Lincoln came and sat on the bed and I was writing, she said, what are you writing?
11
SPEAKER_00
I said, I m writing about lunch.
11
SPEAKER_00
What part about lunch?
11
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, I m at the point where all these kids then would all of a sudden be in this like marketplace where they were trading and bartering.
11
SPEAKER_00
hostess pies for Funyuns and all this stuff, and how I didn t get to participate.
11
SPEAKER_00
And you know what I found out?
11
SPEAKER_00
Lincoln begs for food.
11
SPEAKER_01
Really?
11
SPEAKER_00
Because she doesn t have fun shit either.
11
SPEAKER_00
She has vegetables and a meal.
11
SPEAKER_01
She has healthy food.
11
SPEAKER_00
Healthy crap.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
I was delighted.
11
SPEAKER_00
My kid is begging.
11
SPEAKER_00
She said she begs for food.
11
SPEAKER_00
She s like, oh, are you done with that?
11
SPEAKER_00
Like, she s doing that.
11
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
11
SPEAKER_00
in her classroom, and I thought, okay, well, good.
11
SPEAKER_00
At least she s doing some things that aren t totally entitled and spoiled.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
What s her goal, food?
11
SPEAKER_01
What does she beg for?
11
SPEAKER_00
I think she wants anything that comes in a fun package, just like I did.
11
SPEAKER_00
Sweet.
11
SPEAKER_01
Huh.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, oh, good.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is like passed on a generation.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
She s a
11
SPEAKER_00
panhandler too.
11
SPEAKER_01
I mean, all kids want packaged shit.
11
SPEAKER_00
I know, but I think there s a difference when you re trading straight up and when you re begging and you have nothing to offer.
11
SPEAKER_00
So there s trading and that s only so humiliating.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s not even humiliating.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s just being a wheeler dealer.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then there s begging.
11
SPEAKER_00
And begging s humbling.
11
SPEAKER_00
And it s good for her, I think.
11
SPEAKER_00
Like my, I heard that and I didn t think like, Oh, I got to start buying her Lunchables and fun shit to trade.
11
SPEAKER_00
I was like, that s right, girl.
11
SPEAKER_00
You fucking beg for some shit.
11
SPEAKER_00
Leverage some relationships.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
We ll deal be an agent.
11
SPEAKER_00
Cause sometimes I could be an agent.
11
SPEAKER_00
I could figure out how to get some stuff.
11
SPEAKER_00
Cause I d like, I could put two sellers together that didn t either weren t friends or whatever.
11
SPEAKER_00
So I often was the agent for people.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then I got a little kickback out of it.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, and then we drove home on Melrose and I showed her the groundlings, which I d never shown her.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was a real little tour.
11
SPEAKER_00
There s a few things as fun as riding around on a motorcycle with your little girl in LA.
11
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of which, have you ever seen a baby praying mantis?
11
SPEAKER_01
No.
11
SPEAKER_00
I hadn t either, but we have a couple of them living on our sauna.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my god.
11
SPEAKER_00
And they re so cute.
11
SPEAKER_00
I made a video of one.
11
SPEAKER_00
They re so cute.
11
SPEAKER_00
They re really baby little praying mantises.
11
SPEAKER_00
Mantis?
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Do you think because praying is in the title of Praying Mantis, we tend to like them more?
11
SPEAKER_00
Like they feel safer?
11
SPEAKER_01
Or sacred?
11
SPEAKER_00
Like they re religious?
11
SPEAKER_00
They re men or women of faith?
11
SPEAKER_00
I do think so.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they re like little priests.
11
SPEAKER_00
If you named anything Devil Bug, it d have to be incredibly cute to overcome that title.
11
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think that s why people like Lady Bug, because they like the name Lady Bug, but really Lady Bugs are disgusting.
11
SPEAKER_00
No, they re polka dot, Monica.
11
SPEAKER_00
I know, I hate them.
11
SPEAKER_01
They re very cute.
11
SPEAKER_00
That was one of my favorite jokes in The Simpsons of all time, when Ned Flanders is telling his kids, like, don t worry, they re not dangerous, they re like ladybugs.
11
SPEAKER_00
And the kids go, ah, ladybugs!
11
SPEAKER_00
They scream.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s funny.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t like them.
11
SPEAKER_01
I think one time, no, I think this did happen.
11
SPEAKER_01
One time we had an infestation of them, and I lived in Tennessee, and that scared me.
11
SPEAKER_00
which is currently having a cicada infestation.
11
SPEAKER_01
You are currently having?
11
SPEAKER_00
Do you know that these cicadas, they lay dormant for like 13 years, some species, and like 22 years, and then they all hatch at the same time.
11
SPEAKER_01
Ew!
11
SPEAKER_00
There was an article in the New York Times about it, and it s like in the trillions.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and right now there s like two different cicada populations that have come to life.
11
SPEAKER_00
This is their life.
11
SPEAKER_00
They come out, they fly somewhere, then they go burrow back down, and then they have their kids, and then that s it.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then they re underground for 13 plus years.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then they come out for this one rip.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I got a picture from the contractors of the house in Nashville, and it had rained for a solid week straight as well.
11
SPEAKER_00
So the lake was up.
11
SPEAKER_00
So far it was 15 feet from the property line.
11
SPEAKER_00
So the lake was swollen, and then there s cicadas dead all over the ground.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh God.
11
SPEAKER_00
And they said it was downright biblical over there.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
11
SPEAKER_01
Remember when we were in Sedona?
11
SPEAKER_00
That was nuts.
11
SPEAKER_00
That felt biblical.
11
SPEAKER_01
What were those?
11
SPEAKER_00
I have a hunch those were termites.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh God, but they were flying.
11
SPEAKER_00
There were so many out the windows leading to the deck that you could not see through the window.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
And then when we went out in the morning, there was like six inches, it was like ankle high of dead bugs.
11
SPEAKER_01
It was truly like this is the apocalypse.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
11
SPEAKER_01
We were just sitting outside and all of a sudden there s like one and then two and then 30,000.
11
SPEAKER_00
just smashing into the windows.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was wild.
11
SPEAKER_00
That was wild.
11
SPEAKER_00
That s also the trip that Aaron cooked that steak for like an hour and a half.
11
SPEAKER_00
Do you remember that?
11
SPEAKER_00
He was on fire for an hour and a half and it was still raw on the inside.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he blasted that baby.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s also when Ryan got stuck on the mountain.
11
SPEAKER_01
A lot happened on that trip.
11
SPEAKER_00
It was a big trip.
11
SPEAKER_00
And stargazing.
11
SPEAKER_01
I think that s also when we first tried the burger from Enchantment, the hotel.
11
SPEAKER_01
We loved it, we loved it.
11
SPEAKER_00
A lot happened on that trip.
11
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
So this is for, oh, I wanted to bring something up.
11
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
11
SPEAKER_01
I started listening to a new podcast and I really like it.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s called Two Niche and it s these two women.
11
SPEAKER_00
T-W-O or T-O-O?
11
SPEAKER_01
T-O-O.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it s these two women.
11
SPEAKER_01
They re really cool.
11
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been listening for like a couple weeks.
11
SPEAKER_01
And then I looked them up on Instagram and their faces
11
SPEAKER_01
were shocking compared to what I had imagined.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it really messed me up.
11
SPEAKER_00
And what were you imagining and what were their faces?
11
SPEAKER_01
Their faces are beautiful.
11
SPEAKER_01
It s not that there was something- Was it an age thing?
11
SPEAKER_01
No, it s just, especially one of them, I had a picture in my head of her.
11
SPEAKER_01
I just made up a picture that I thought matched the voice.
11
SPEAKER_00
Was there an ethnicity thing?
11
SPEAKER_01
No, it was just features completely were so off.
11
SPEAKER_00
Askew from what you had imagined.
11
SPEAKER_01
And now I want to remove the real life, really bad.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m putting a lot of effort to forget and to go back to my original picture.
11
SPEAKER_00
And you must ve dealt with this with Terrence Posner as well at one point.
11
SPEAKER_00
Cause you had already imagined what Terrence Posner looked like and then the movies came out.
11
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
11
SPEAKER_00
Or have you gone back and rewritten all your memories where you think you were always picturing
11
SPEAKER_01
No, I definitely wasn t, but.
11
SPEAKER_00
Heath Ledger, uh, Gordon.
11
SPEAKER_00
Daniel Radcliffe.
11
SPEAKER_00
Daniel Radcliffe.
11
SPEAKER_01
I m sure once the movie started coming out, I m sure I adjusted to the actors.
11
SPEAKER_00
We should ve asked Charon about this, our memory expert.
11
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, we should ve.
11
SPEAKER_00
Because I bet you can t remember anymore what you originally pictured Terrence Posner to look like.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
That s a bummer.
11
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, so I can t go back.
11
SPEAKER_00
Oh, do you not like the podcast now?
11
SPEAKER_01
I still really, really like it, but it is messing with me.
11
SPEAKER_01
And it was of course funny because obviously that happens here.
11
SPEAKER_01
That must happen.
11
SPEAKER_01
Not with you.
11
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_01
Because everyone knows what you look like.
11
SPEAKER_00
Right.
11
SPEAKER_01
But with me, I bet.
11
SPEAKER_00
I bet at the beginning,
11
SPEAKER_01
But if you don t follow us on Instagram and you re only listening, you have an idea of what I look like, and then I m sure what I actually look like is probably different, and it might fuck you up.
11
SPEAKER_00
Well, if that s happened to you, write it in the comments.
11
SPEAKER_00
I ll read about it, and I ll tell you whether or not that s happened.
11
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a weird thing.
11
SPEAKER_00
And don t just say she looks different.
11
SPEAKER_00
I wanna know how she looks different.
11
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s hard to say, because even with these women, I knew some stuff about them.
11
SPEAKER_01
I knew one had brown hair and one had blonde hair.
11
SPEAKER_01
I was filling in appropriate,
11
SPEAKER_01
clues, but I think my imagination is just
12
SPEAKER_01
just very vivid, like I create a real person.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then obviously that can t be them.
12
SPEAKER_01
They look beautiful, in fact, I think they look better.
12
SPEAKER_00
They look too good for you.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m trying to think if I ve had that experience.
12
SPEAKER_00
I can only think of the other ones, the kind of famous, mean ones.
12
SPEAKER_00
The case that epitomizes this is poor Christopher Cross.
12
SPEAKER_00
And all these women were in love with Christopher Cross.
12
SPEAKER_00
His music was romantic and it was loving and it spoke to them.
12
SPEAKER_00
He was not allowed to be on any of the album covers per the label.
12
SPEAKER_00
Because he did not match he was bald.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh Yes, and so unfair he just had to be anonymously making these songs cuz women were picturing like Fabio or something Wow, yeah, that s really interesting But like if when you listen to the daily, do you know what?
12
SPEAKER_00
No, that s Radiolab, but even... Yeah, I have an idea of what he looks like, but it s totally in my mind.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m Michael Bubara.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have an image of him, but I have no clue what he looks like.
12
SPEAKER_01
Same, and if I find out, I think it will mess me up.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay, here s the thing on The Daily, if we re talking about The Daily, and look, we ve been accused of it, and I think we re guilty of it, but somehow we ve developed the same laugh, right?
12
SPEAKER_00
This is what people are saying, I m inclined to believe them.
12
SPEAKER_00
Michael Barbaro has another host that, when he s not there, she s there.
12
SPEAKER_00
Sabrina Tavernies.
12
SPEAKER_00
They both, they have the exact same strongly punctuated each word.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, rhythm.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
12
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
12
SPEAKER_01
I haven t noticed that, but it makes sense.
12
SPEAKER_00
Listen for it.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s probably just part of the tone.
12
SPEAKER_00
And if this gets to Sabrina or Michael, again, I just want to remind you that I m acknowledging you and I are guilty of it.
12
SPEAKER_00
So I m not accusing them of anything that hasn t happened to us.
12
SPEAKER_01
I think it s just tone.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s tone of the show.
12
SPEAKER_01
They re also journalists, so they re doing it a little differently.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s really hard for me to resist to do more of it, but I know it s not for you.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn t like it if they were doing our voices.
12
SPEAKER_00
But we can do impersonations of actors.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m just curious that there s a line.
12
SPEAKER_01
Because it doesn t sound good.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s what you, well, do you think anyone s going to hear what you just didn t think it sounded good?
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, pleasing at all.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, I don t know.
12
SPEAKER_00
Does Schwarzenegger sound pleasing or does it just sound like Schwarzenegger?
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if there s an implicit judgment call on it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, yeah, I guess I m just being empathetic that I wouldn t want them to be doing me ever.
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t want anyone ever to do my voice.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right, well, Kaczynski and Ed Helms do an impersonation of me.
12
SPEAKER_00
And my assumption isn t they re doing it because it sounds ridiculous.
12
SPEAKER_00
My assumption is they re doing it because it s specific enough for them to do it.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
I don t think they re making fun of me, maybe on purpose.
12
SPEAKER_00
Insecure days, I might think that, but in general, I don t think so.
12
SPEAKER_00
I m not making fun of McConaughey.
12
SPEAKER_00
Want to go to steak?
12
SPEAKER_00
What steak do you like?
12
SPEAKER_00
You like ribeye?
12
SPEAKER_00
You like trotter?
12
SPEAKER_01
I had steak yesterday.
12
SPEAKER_00
You like skirt steak?
12
SPEAKER_00
What kind of steak, Jeff?
12
SPEAKER_01
Filet.
12
SPEAKER_00
Filet mignon.
12
SPEAKER_00
Center cut.
12
SPEAKER_00
Six ounce or eight ounce?
12
SPEAKER_01
Eight.
12
SPEAKER_00
Eight ounce, big girl, big appetite.
12
SPEAKER_00
Gross.
12
SPEAKER_00
Where did you have a filet?
12
SPEAKER_01
We went to a steakhouse for Mother s Day.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you did?
12
SPEAKER_00
Is it hard to get a reservation there in Duluth?
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if it s hard, but my mom made a reservation a long time ago.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
When she knew we were coming in town.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s sweet.
12
SPEAKER_01
It is, she was excited.
12
SPEAKER_00
Mother s Day here was a hit again.
12
SPEAKER_01
Great.
12
SPEAKER_00
I take these kids, I get them the fuck out of here.
12
SPEAKER_00
To remind people, it s Father s Day, Mother s Day.
12
SPEAKER_01
What s that mean?
12
SPEAKER_00
Father s Day, conventionally, traditionally, historically, in this country, dads get to go fucking golfing for like eight hours with their bros.
12
SPEAKER_00
That s how they celebrate Father s Day.
12
SPEAKER_00
And moms have to sit with all their kids at a super noisy restaurant that was impossible to get into and deal with the kids.
12
SPEAKER_00
And it s not a thank you to the moms at all.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so like six years ago, I was like, listen, this is my gift to you.
12
SPEAKER_00
You re going to have Father s Day, Mother s Days from here on out.
12
SPEAKER_00
You don t have to see the kids on this day.
12
SPEAKER_00
See them in the morning.
12
SPEAKER_00
We ll make you a cute, terrible breakfast.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
12
SPEAKER_00
And then we ll get the fuck out of here.
12
SPEAKER_00
You get your nails did, you get a face massage, you get a body massage.
12
SPEAKER_01
Nice.
12
SPEAKER_00
And there were a couple first time moms that got to join.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s nice.
12
SPEAKER_00
We ll hear from one of them this week.
12
SPEAKER_00
We re going to interview one of them.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, she s had so much fun.
12
SPEAKER_00
She said, if I would have known this was on the table, I would have had a kid five years ago.
12
SPEAKER_00
That s fun.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, good.
12
SPEAKER_01
I m glad they enjoyed.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay, this is for Sanjay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Great episode.
12
SPEAKER_01
Love him, per usual.
12
SPEAKER_00
What a prince he is.
12
SPEAKER_01
He is.
12
SPEAKER_00
He needs, well, he s the best boy, but also we might need a category of prince boy.
12
SPEAKER_01
The history of the BMI.
12
SPEAKER_01
Body Mass Index?
12
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
12
SPEAKER_01
This is from Medical News Today.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s derived from a simple math formula created in the 1830s by Lambert Adolph Jacques Cretel, a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist.
12
SPEAKER_01
Researchers in population studies, doctors, personal trainers, and others use the BMI in their work.
12
SPEAKER_01
However, BMI has some important flaws.
12
SPEAKER_01
For example, it does not measure overall fat or lean tissue muscle content.
12
SPEAKER_01
It aims to estimate whether a person has a healthy weight by dividing their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s why it s a little misleading.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like Charlie, who s healthy as a horse, his BMI is problematic because he has so much muscle, so he weighs a lot.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right.
12
SPEAKER_00
Mine s even skews heavy on the BMI index, unless you factor in then.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, body lean mass percentage and all that stuff.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and then Sanjay said it wasn t ever tested for women or children.
12
SPEAKER_01
So, do you monitor your blood sugar?
12
SPEAKER_01
No.
12
SPEAKER_01
But you never have any issues when you get your blood taken and stuff?
12
SPEAKER_00
Because I don t eat gluten and most of the things I m allergic to and that I don t eat are starches.
12
SPEAKER_00
And so since I eat mostly either protein or vegetables, I don t.
12
SPEAKER_01
You re not at risk.
12
SPEAKER_00
The only thing I eat that could spike my insulin would be rice, but then I got that low glycemic rice.
12
SPEAKER_00
But we have friends who monitor it and it s been really helpful for them.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s interesting.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, my dad monitors it because he s pre-diabetic.
12
SPEAKER_00
Does he wear the little arm patch like Kristen?
12
SPEAKER_01
No, he doesn t want to do a continuous monitoring.
12
SPEAKER_01
He checks it every day.
12
SPEAKER_01
But it is interesting to see how much it fluctuates.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, when Kristen was wearing it, she d get alerts.
12
SPEAKER_00
Mostly, though, that her blood sugar was too low.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right.
12
SPEAKER_00
But I think it s designed that thing for diabetics where they re prone to have a real issue.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yes, exactly.
12
SPEAKER_00
So I think the range is different.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
My grandfather had diabetes and yeah, there were some scary situations where it would get too low.
12
SPEAKER_00
I ve been with my cousin when his got too low and it s really scary.
12
SPEAKER_00
They kind of, the cognition stops.
12
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Which is almost like depression in that same way where it s like,
12
SPEAKER_00
how are you to combat it if the first symptom you experience is grogginess and lack of clarity of thinking.
12
SPEAKER_00
And now you ve got to, because we were, it was funny enough at Kristen s old house, I had taken him up there and we re sitting there and all of a sudden he just kind of looks at me and he s like, I need orange juice.
12
SPEAKER_00
You can barely get out, like I need orange juice.
12
SPEAKER_00
And if I had been in the bathroom at that point and I came back, because he has gone unconscious from it.
12
SPEAKER_01
Isn t there a movie where that happens?
12
SPEAKER_01
Probably.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Steel Magnolia s and she dies.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
12
SPEAKER_01
She dies.
12
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Really sad movie.
12
SPEAKER_01
What s the saddest movie you ve ever seen?
12
SPEAKER_00
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s the one I cried the most.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what about Interstellar?
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that one I cried.
12
SPEAKER_01
But then it ends up being.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
I think it s all about what you connect the movie to personally.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s why I ask.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I happened to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind after Bree and I broke up, when they were flashing back to them falling in love, and they were just in a tent with a flashlight, and they were doing all this simple stuff that poor people do, and we were poor people.
12
SPEAKER_00
And there s that great scene at the end where he s like, but I ll annoy you, and you ll do this, and I ll do this.
12
SPEAKER_00
They already know the pattern if they get back together.
12
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, yeah, okay, I still want to.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I could cry just thinking about it.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s really sweet.
12
SPEAKER_00
What s your saddest movie, Steel Magnolias?
12
SPEAKER_01
No.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it is a very sad movie, but.
12
SPEAKER_00
Her made me really sad too.
12
SPEAKER_00
What made me lovesick and sad?
12
SPEAKER_01
Her is just melancholy.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean the whole thing is very melancholy, the tone of it is.
12
SPEAKER_01
But one of, I don t know what the main one is, but one of them is 50 First Dates.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh wow.
13
SPEAKER_01
Sam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.
13
SPEAKER_01
Wow, that one.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, because she keeps forgetting him and every day he s committed to falling in love, every day.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s so sweet.
13
SPEAKER_01
He was in basically a narcissist relationship.
13
SPEAKER_01
He spent his whole day trying to regulate her.
13
SPEAKER_00
No, but no, because he loves her.
13
SPEAKER_00
He ll do anything.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s probably an unhealthy relationship, though.
13
SPEAKER_00
No.
13
SPEAKER_01
If you have to rewind over the person.
13
SPEAKER_00
She had a disease.
13
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like- I know.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s not her fault.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I don t think it s unhealthy.
13
SPEAKER_00
She wasn t like, I don t, well, I don t remember the, it s been a long time since I ve seen it.
13
SPEAKER_01
If the goal is unconditional love in a relationship and every day you re a clean slate and you have to win someone back over and get them to fall in love with you, that doesn t sound like a great relationship.
13
SPEAKER_00
Well, unconditional love, he has unconditional love.
13
SPEAKER_00
He s just like, I love this person no matter what, and I m gonna show up every day and be that.
13
SPEAKER_01
That s nice.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
I like that.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s sad.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, the sad version, that s a reality and not the movie.
13
SPEAKER_01
The movie s a metaphor for Alzheimer s.
13
SPEAKER_00
I know, that s why it s horrifying and sad.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I hate it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Do you think when they were trying to crack that story, they re like, what s a fun version of Alzheimer s?
13
SPEAKER_00
Maybe.
13
SPEAKER_00
They did it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Oh, ding, ding, ding.
13
SPEAKER_00
What?
13
SPEAKER_01
Sanjay.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, you re right, you re right, you re right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Surprised you didn t bring that movie up.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna look up, what are the saddest movies of all time?
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
Manchester by the Sea.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that one is, and Blue Valentine.
13
SPEAKER_00
Has anyone seen that?
13
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Manchester by the Sea was really sad.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay, Dill Alice, I never saw that, but yeah, no thank you, that s Alzheimer s as well.
13
SPEAKER_00
May, December, no.
13
SPEAKER_00
What, Esquire.
13
SPEAKER_01
Esquire, that one feels like they got paid to put that in there, like that s an ad.
13
SPEAKER_00
Pursuit of happiness, very sad.
13
SPEAKER_00
Past Lives, yes.
13
SPEAKER_00
So, so, so sad.
13
SPEAKER_01
What is that?
13
SPEAKER_00
It was from last year.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s again, for me the saddest movies are not the Steel Magnolias.
13
SPEAKER_00
They re these, like real life, just can t, you just can t.
13
SPEAKER_01
Tell me what Past Lives is.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s Greta Lee.
13
SPEAKER_00
Do you know it?
13
SPEAKER_00
The story.
13
SPEAKER_00
I know, I know.
13
SPEAKER_00
I was just for people listening.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s Greta Lee.
13
SPEAKER_01
Set in Seattle.
13
SPEAKER_00
Basically, this couple falls in love and then they lose touch over time.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, you re following her in her new life and then they reconnect.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s very mundane.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s like a very mundane story, but it s just the reality that life doesn t work out the way you want it to all the time.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, Jess and I were bawling.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s a really good movie.
13
SPEAKER_00
And everyone I know who s seen it is just like, you re distraught after.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think that is indicative of how beautiful the story is, because if it has that kind of impact and it s pretty inconsequential, like it s just, you re just watching someone s life.
13
SPEAKER_00
Things don t work out.
13
SPEAKER_01
I really liked Family Man for that reason.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Do you remember that one?
13
SPEAKER_00
I do, I loved that movie, but I do forget it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was like Nick Cage was a rich billionaire guy.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then some magic happens and he finds himself married to like his high school sweetheart and he s living in like a very blue collar existence.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
And he s of course completely upset and he wants to get back to his Ferrari and his penthouse.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then throughout the course of it, he realizes he loves it.
13
SPEAKER_00
What s important.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then I think he has to go back, but he doesn t want to.
13
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
13
SPEAKER_00
Can he, does it end happy?
13
SPEAKER_01
It must.
13
SPEAKER_00
I know.
13
SPEAKER_00
Dallas Buyers Club, Lost in Translation.
13
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t say, that to me.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s not sad.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s a fun movie.
13
SPEAKER_00
Esquire, Oseo Magnolias.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay, well this is not a great list.
13
SPEAKER_00
Minus Past Lives was a good one.
13
SPEAKER_01
About 50-50, they got him.
13
SPEAKER_00
Titanic.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
13
SPEAKER_01
My gas.
13
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean?
13
SPEAKER_00
She ll never let go.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s so fun, that was an adventure.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
13
SPEAKER_01
I guess it does have a rough ending.
13
SPEAKER_00
All right, anywho.
13
SPEAKER_00
On to happy stuff.
13
SPEAKER_00
That was an interesting sidebar.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, Fruitvale Station, that was sad.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that one was rough.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
That was roughy.
13
SPEAKER_01
I love that movie, though.
13
SPEAKER_01
I love her, Melanie Diaz.
13
SPEAKER_01
Is that her name?
13
SPEAKER_00
Greta Lee?
13
SPEAKER_00
No.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Melanie Diaz is right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that was one of the best performances ever.
13
SPEAKER_01
Back to Sanjay.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_00
He said he wonders if it s us being South Asian that has more metabolic disease.
13
SPEAKER_00
And it reminded me that Bill Gates told us that.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I remember he told us why and I don t- Are you talking about the malnourishment part?
13
SPEAKER_01
Cause he was telling us about the malnourishment parts.
13
SPEAKER_00
What d he say?
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, India, which is much better now when they started, it was tight, but like he was saying in Africa, it s something like 40% of folks are malnourished to a degree that they won t fully develop what they were supposed to develop.
13
SPEAKER_01
And that India is still a double digit percentage.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, maybe that was that.
13
SPEAKER_00
I thought he was saying more like.
13
SPEAKER_01
There s metabolic diseases like diabetes and stuff.
13
SPEAKER_00
But it is based in something, maybe malnourishment.
13
SPEAKER_00
Maybe it s like because we were malnourished for so long.
13
SPEAKER_01
And now there s food abundance.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s really common in these.
13
SPEAKER_00
That there s an overeating thing maybe.
13
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
13
SPEAKER_00
Sorry, Bill.
13
SPEAKER_01
Also, we were there.
13
SPEAKER_01
It certainly didn t compare to America.
13
SPEAKER_00
But it doesn t look the same.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s the thing.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s like my grandpa was real thin and had diabetes.
13
SPEAKER_00
And my dad is pre-diabetic and like I have high cholesterol.
13
SPEAKER_00
I ve had it since I was a kid.
13
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, it said South Asians are at higher risk for type two diabetes, up to four times higher than other ethnic groups.
13
SPEAKER_00
Probably due to a combination of genetics and environment.
13
SPEAKER_00
Recent studies have shown that South Asian diets high in
13
SPEAKER_00
refined carbohydrates are associated with diabetes risk factors.
13
SPEAKER_01
Diabetes.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
This is one from Brimley.
13
SPEAKER_01
Get your blood sugar checked regularly and keep your eye on diabetes.
13
SPEAKER_01
You know that s how he says it.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you did him and groundlings.
13
SPEAKER_01
But there s also a lot of memes going around and they spell it diabetes.
13
SPEAKER_00
Diabetes.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s just so funny to be the spokesperson for diabetes and say it wrong.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of cool.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s a very Southern way of saying it, right?
13
SPEAKER_00
Is he Southern?
13
SPEAKER_01
You know, funny enough, I think he s one of these guys that is not Southern, but is, like even our friend Sam Elliott, who s from like Sacramento, but we think of him as being Southern.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I wanna say Wilfrid Brimley might even be from Colorado or something.
13
SPEAKER_01
Utah.
13
SPEAKER_01
There we go.
13
SPEAKER_00
He s from Utah.
13
SPEAKER_01
But where he s from in Utah, you gotta keep your eye on it.
13
SPEAKER_01
Hit your knees and say some prayers.
13
SPEAKER_01
Do six hours of prayers every morning.
13
SPEAKER_01
He was just very, he had an intrinsic judgmentalness to his, that s why when Aaron and I talk, like him, for hours, it s all about the prayers.
13
SPEAKER_01
When you wake up in the morning, why don t you hit your knees and do a few hours of prayers?
13
SPEAKER_01
Get some physical exercise, eat some Quaker oats oatmeal, back into your bedroom, hit your knees, check in with the Lord, three, four hours of prayers.
13
SPEAKER_00
Was he religious, or you guys just decided?
13
SPEAKER_01
He was just pious.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
13
SPEAKER_01
I doubt he was religious himself, but this is like a lot of people,
13
SPEAKER_01
urge others to be super religious and they themselves are not.
13
SPEAKER_00
Well sure, that s very common.
13
SPEAKER_01
Or Hulk Hogan, he s like, take your vitamins, say no to drugs.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yikes.
13
SPEAKER_01
Vitamins, prayers, and something else.
13
SPEAKER_00
He said that?
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that was his slogan.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh my.
13
SPEAKER_01
And he was not doing a lot of praying.
13
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t think so.
13
SPEAKER_01
He wasn t.
13
SPEAKER_00
Well, because we don t know.
13
SPEAKER_01
He was taking vitamin testosterone.
13
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
13
SPEAKER_01
And all these other vitamins.
13
SPEAKER_00
Playing it fast and loose with vitamins.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yes, and prayers.
13
SPEAKER_00
And probably prayers, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Do you think it s unethical to pray for certain things?
13
SPEAKER_01
I m not the right person to ask.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
Because it s like, you re wishing on a star, in my opinion.
13
SPEAKER_01
So if you re wishing on a star, you re obligated to wish for something good to happen to someone else.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I mean, I guess it doesn t have to be that.
13
SPEAKER_00
But is it OK to pray?
13
SPEAKER_01
To be rich.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Right.
13
SPEAKER_01
Like, it s okay to wish on a star to be rich.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right.
13
SPEAKER_01
But it s not okay to pray to be rich.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Which is interesting.
13
SPEAKER_00
It is.
13
SPEAKER_00
When I did my prayers, I would have felt guilty praying for something like that.
13
SPEAKER_00
Self-serving.
13
SPEAKER_00
But why?
13
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, all my wishes, birthday candle wishes, were self-serving.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think because the premise of the religion itself is to be not self-serving and not self-centered.
13
SPEAKER_01
It s to be selfless and compassionate.
13
SPEAKER_00
I guess so.
13
SPEAKER_01
So it feels antithetical to the person you re praying to.
13
SPEAKER_01
Whereas stars are all about getting rich and winning games.
13
SPEAKER_00
And so are birthday candles.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think it s because even if you don t believe in God, like I wasn t Christian, I was just made up this, these prayers to this random God I made up, but there s something
14
SPEAKER_01
if you re praying, you believe something real is hearing you.
14
SPEAKER_01
So are you really going to waste this on, on being rich?
14
SPEAKER_01
Or are you going to try to save it for like everyone living to be 80 years old or older?
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
You know, but then the birthday candles.
14
SPEAKER_03
Why is there a limit?
14
SPEAKER_03
Why can t like, why is there, why not make 50 prayers?
14
SPEAKER_03
One of them being, I want a really cool off-road truck.
14
SPEAKER_03
You know, why can t you do it all?
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mainly save that for 1111, birthday candles, stars, pennies.
14
SPEAKER_03
Uh-huh, wishing well.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think we think that s more random.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s more luck.
14
SPEAKER_01
The other thing is real, even though it s, you know, well, for some people, believe what you want to believe.
14
SPEAKER_01
But yeah.
14
SPEAKER_03
It s curious.
14
SPEAKER_01
The power of spirituality.
14
SPEAKER_03
We have a lot of arbitrariness in our behavior.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
Um, Emmanuel Kant, the quote he said is from in his critique of pure reason.
14
SPEAKER_03
Will you repeat it?
14
SPEAKER_03
Cause it was really good.
14
SPEAKER_03
And I was trying to remember it a few days later and I couldn t.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
14
SPEAKER_01
False confidence bred from an ignorance of the probabilistic nature of the world from a desire to see black and white, or we should rightly see gray.
14
SPEAKER_03
I, of course, learned all about Kant in philosophy class, but I haven t actually sat down and read any of his books, and I m more and more inclined to.
14
SPEAKER_01
Today, later today, we re doing a trick, sort of.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
A frozen trick.
14
SPEAKER_01
I told everyone at Alison s live show about this.
14
SPEAKER_00
Uh-huh.
14
SPEAKER_01
We re doing a frozen food episode of Flightless Bird.
14
SPEAKER_01
David and I went to the grocery store to pick out all the frozen meals, and he was just gonna try some, but then there were so many that he needed to try, so many classics.
14
SPEAKER_01
And so the cart was just filling up and filling up, and it was like, how are we gonna, how?
14
SPEAKER_03
Whose freezer is all this stuff in?
14
SPEAKER_01
Mine, it s all.
14
SPEAKER_01
It fit?
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it did fit.
14
SPEAKER_03
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
So we thought, oh, we should invite other people to help eat it, and then David had the idea to replate it,
14
SPEAKER_03
Do the Folgers challenge.
14
SPEAKER_03
We ve replaced the coffee in this five-star restaurant with Folgers crystals.
14
SPEAKER_03
Let s see if anyone notices.
14
SPEAKER_03
Sir, what do you think of the coffee?
14
SPEAKER_03
Oh my God, it s the best coffee I ve had in years.
14
SPEAKER_03
What if we told you it was Folgers?
14
SPEAKER_03
No.
14
SPEAKER_03
That s what every commercial.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they can t believe it.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
Did anyone say, ooh, it s Folgers?
14
SPEAKER_03
They probably didn t include those reactions in the commercial.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s not very, it doesn t have much integrity, those commercials.
14
SPEAKER_03
Great rabbit hole to go down, by the way, Folgers commercials, because there was a whole decade of those where they were replacing the coffee in these fine restaurants with Folgers crystals.
14
SPEAKER_03
Great content.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
And then there s, of course, the best part of waking up.
14
SPEAKER_00
♪ There s Folgers in your cup ♪ But the guy s crying about it.
14
SPEAKER_03
And then there s this really famous one between a brother and sister that people really, there s about a thousand remakes of it.
14
SPEAKER_03
Because it seems like they re dating.
14
SPEAKER_03
The sister s in the kitchen and she looks up and she s like, David, you re home from college?
14
SPEAKER_03
And he s like, yeah, I came.
14
SPEAKER_03
Let s have some Folgers crystals.
14
SPEAKER_03
But it s a very weird commercial.
14
SPEAKER_03
It s very strange.
14
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, maybe a mess.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, anyway, so David had the idea to replate it once it s cooked, invite people over and see if they can tell if it s frozen or not, which I love the idea.
14
SPEAKER_01
So then I invited a bunch of people and I immediately felt so guilty.
14
SPEAKER_03
You did?
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I thought, I don t think I can go through with this.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I now told everyone except one person.
14
SPEAKER_03
Oh, geez.
14
SPEAKER_03
Well, that s the worst possible outcome.
14
SPEAKER_01
If you had done 50-50, that would ve... I meant to do two people, but then it turns out I accidentally told the first person already.
14
SPEAKER_03
So it sounds like you re going to have to tell the last person, so they don t feel like the gum-dummy.
14
SPEAKER_02
I just need to invite one more person that doesn t know.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, because you need a control group and a...
14
SPEAKER_01
It s Jess, and I think he ll be fine with it because it s Jess.
14
SPEAKER_01
The problem is, it has to be someone who s not gonna be mad at me that I did this.
14
SPEAKER_03
Okay, so here would be an interesting line of inquiry for you to self-examine.
14
SPEAKER_03
Do you think you told those people because you were afraid they would feel tricked versus you just can t bear to think that they would think you cook this frozen garbage?
14
SPEAKER_01
No, because I will tell them.
14
SPEAKER_01
This will be a reveal.
14
SPEAKER_03
Right, but it was even the thought of like an hour of the meal where they re like, wow, this is what Monica cooked?
14
SPEAKER_01
No.
14
SPEAKER_03
That wasn t in there.
14
SPEAKER_01
I was thrilled about that.
14
SPEAKER_01
But I text some of the girls and
14
SPEAKER_01
invited them and then there s like, any excuse to have your cooking?
14
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, oh, fuck.
14
SPEAKER_01
Because they aren t gonna like it probably and they re expecting dinner.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I just started to feel like this was unethical, but Jess will like it.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I ll like it.
14
SPEAKER_01
I love that Stouffer s lasagna.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it s delicious.
14
SPEAKER_01
Marie Callender s.
14
SPEAKER_01
When you think frozen food, what comes to your mind?
14
SPEAKER_03
Frozen pizzas, Gino s, and Titino s.
14
SPEAKER_03
Those are my favorite.
14
SPEAKER_01
Did you ever have the pizza rolls?
14
SPEAKER_01
I bought those.
14
SPEAKER_03
Those are good, but I didn t like that they would always put one cut pepper in there.
14
SPEAKER_03
There s always like one cube of pepper.
14
SPEAKER_03
No, green pepper.
14
SPEAKER_03
I hate that one cube of green pepper.
14
SPEAKER_01
I ve never had that.
14
SPEAKER_03
You don t know what I m talking about?
14
SPEAKER_01
No.
14
SPEAKER_03
Look for it tonight.
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
14
SPEAKER_03
It should not be in there.
14
SPEAKER_03
Every single one, or like one in the whole package?
14
SPEAKER_03
No, no, that would be great, and then that s like, you win.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s like the baby in the can.
14
SPEAKER_03
Don t sue me.
14
SPEAKER_03
Whoever the makers of those pizza, you just don t like it.
14
SPEAKER_03
Well, no, I m claiming that they all have a green pepper in them.
14
SPEAKER_03
And I was always like, what is this thing doing?
14
SPEAKER_03
It s almost like eating a something with a pit or like you re waiting to find the pit.
14
SPEAKER_01
Did you though, did you have?
14
SPEAKER_03
Will you look this up Robin, see the ingredients?
14
SPEAKER_01
Did you have a certain flavor or something?
14
SPEAKER_03
Probably pepperoni.
14
SPEAKER_03
If I m gonna eat any pizza, I would want it to.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think I probably only bought the cheese ones.
14
SPEAKER_01
I am a little worried about how I m gonna stagger the cooking.
14
SPEAKER_03
I am too, because that oven, although most of this is 425, right?
14
SPEAKER_03
Isn t that kind of the standard in the frozen food game?
14
SPEAKER_01
Maybe.
14
SPEAKER_01
The Stouffer s lasagna is huge and the mac and cheese.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s family size.
14
SPEAKER_03
People will know the mac and cheese is frozen.
14
SPEAKER_03
You think so?
14
SPEAKER_03
That s the most giveaway one.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, it tastes the same.
14
SPEAKER_01
I wonder though.
14
SPEAKER_03
You think they think you made pizza rolls?
14
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that s the problem.
14
SPEAKER_01
There s gonna be, and like the dino chicken nuggets is gonna be a little bit of a giveaway.
14
SPEAKER_03
Did you get any Boston Market frozen?
14
SPEAKER_03
I think Boston Market had a line.
14
SPEAKER_01
They did have a line, I saw.
14
SPEAKER_03
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes?
14
SPEAKER_01
I didn t get that.
14
SPEAKER_01
That was not a part of my childhood.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, Boston Market was, but not frozen.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think that happened later.
14
SPEAKER_03
I think they transitioned more into a frozen food company than a brick and mortar.
14
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
14
SPEAKER_03
I haven t seen one in a while brick-and-mortar.
14
SPEAKER_02
I think this is one I think the Supremes had a random pepper in it.
14
SPEAKER_03
Are you sure that s not I mean bad green pepper in it or a red pepper Then yeah, I guess that s the one I had.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah green sweet pepper.
14
SPEAKER_03
Oh
14
SPEAKER_03
Oh, fuck that.
14
SPEAKER_03
I feel so vindicated though.
14
SPEAKER_03
I m glad I didn t imagine that.
14
SPEAKER_01
Who bought Supreme?
14
SPEAKER_03
They were perfect other than that.
14
SPEAKER_03
But for me when I was younger, a chunk of green pepper was like throw everything out.
14
SPEAKER_03
That s all I tasted for the rest of the night.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well, anyway, we ll see how it goes.
14
SPEAKER_01
Do I need to tell him?
14
SPEAKER_01
No, I m not gonna.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think the mac and cheese, that s funny, I think the mac and cheese will actually be, if I serve it in a beautiful bowl, I think people could, no.
14
SPEAKER_01
See, this is why I shouldn t have told anyone.
14
SPEAKER_01
They really would have found out.
14
SPEAKER_03
You know, I love macaroni and cheese so much, and I could tell you about every kind of box of macaroni and cheese.
14
SPEAKER_03
I ve had them all, and I have a total ranking of them.
14
SPEAKER_03
I have never had a frozen one, which is not to say I haven t eaten them.
14
SPEAKER_03
I ve eaten them.
14
SPEAKER_03
The noodles suck.
14
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
14
SPEAKER_03
You really like it.
14
SPEAKER_01
I loved it.
14
SPEAKER_01
I haven t had it in years, and so I am worried, but they brought back, so I have a very visceral memory of the Stouffer s macaroni and cheese with broccoli.
14
SPEAKER_01
I would have it at my grandparents  house all the time, and I loved it, and then they discontinued the one with broccoli, and it s back.
14
SPEAKER_03
It is.
14
SPEAKER_02
So I bought it.
14
SPEAKER_03
Oh wow.
14
SPEAKER_02
Are you gonna add any like?
14
SPEAKER_01
Spruce.
14
SPEAKER_03
That would be a cheat.
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
No, that s a cheat, no.
14
SPEAKER_03
You can t put real cheese on top.
14
SPEAKER_02
But no.
14
SPEAKER_02
Just like a little bit for.
14
SPEAKER_02
Garnish?
14
SPEAKER_02
Garnish, yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
No, I m only now tricking one person, so no, I m not doing that.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s a lot of work.
14
SPEAKER_01
I also want David to try it as is.
14
SPEAKER_03
He also picked the very worst person to trick because that person has more experience with this frozen food than anyone that ll be there.
14
SPEAKER_03
So if anyone would be able to sniff out all these different things, it s gonna be him.
14
SPEAKER_01
The person that s- But he also doesn t have, he s not hoity-toity.
14
SPEAKER_01
I know he s not.
14
SPEAKER_01
So I kind of think if he sees it in another bowl, he s just gonna think I made it.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we ll see.
14
SPEAKER_03
You ll see, you ll see.
14
SPEAKER_03
On my hunches, he s gonna know exactly what it is.
14
SPEAKER_01
Really?
14
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, because maybe Erica, I mean, she grew up Mormon in upper class.
14
SPEAKER_01
She s probably never had this- But she s not gonna be like,
15
SPEAKER_01
She s gonna see this fucking fish sticks and be like you made this I guess I believe that I made it I don t know that the premise should have been you made it as much as I ordered food or not.
15
SPEAKER_02
Oh Cuz no one s gonna believe you deep you breaded fish white fish and then I had a deep fryer in your kitchen and all this I
15
SPEAKER_01
How am I gonna do, I m just gonna have, because some of them are individual portions.
15
SPEAKER_01
Like a tiny one-pot pie.
15
SPEAKER_02
You might need to think about your premise a little more and pivot to like, you re just hosting a dinner party with frozen food.
15
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s what I told everyone but Jess.
15
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but just the Taster s Test portion, the Folger s Crystals part, I don t know is achievable at this point.
15
SPEAKER_02
You would have needed real food and frozen food, all intermixed, and there s 10 people that are totally unsuspecting.
15
SPEAKER_02
You re like, I ordered from this great new place, you know, Ville & Vonnies.
15
SPEAKER_02
And then I let everyone eat everything and then just go like, who had favorites?
15
SPEAKER_02
What was your favorite?
15
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s interesting.
15
SPEAKER_02
What made everyone s top three was Stouffer s macaroni and cheese.
15
SPEAKER_01
I know, but I just couldn t lie to all those people.
15
SPEAKER_02
I know, it was too much for you.
15
SPEAKER_01
It ended up being too much.
15
SPEAKER_01
I didn t expect that for myself.
15
SPEAKER_00
Right.
15
SPEAKER_00
Because it felt like it was going to be a really fun game, but... It s been hard to time and do all of that too.
15
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I m still gonna attempt.
15
SPEAKER_01
Some of it s going in the microwave.
15
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s the original way to do it.
15
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that s the traditional way.
15
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna have something for lunch first frozen, take up some time.
15
SPEAKER_02
Well, you re gonna have gas then by dinner.
15
SPEAKER_02
Have you thought about that for your dinner party?
15
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what to do.
15
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, it ll be great.
15
SPEAKER_01
But David has to try all of it.
15
SPEAKER_01
Like this is important, Swedish meatballs.
15
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wow.
15
SPEAKER_01
All the pizzas, we got so many pizzas.
15
SPEAKER_02
Again, you can t play off those fucking pizzas if you ordered them from this new place, Spanagolis.
15
SPEAKER_01
I made them.
15
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you made them.
15
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I made it all.
15
SPEAKER_02
You should have workshopped the premise a little better.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, anywho, a little bit science behind acquired tastes, because he didn t like coffee and then now he does.
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We talked a little bit about that.
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Repeated exposure decreases our intensity of taste perception.
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So this plays a significant role in the development of acquired tastes.
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Familiarity with certain flavors gradually diminishes our initial unappealing reaction to certain dishes.
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Probably the more times you eat frozen food,
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Well, we talked about sticking with coffee.
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Like no one likes coffee the first time they have it.
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It tastes like shit.
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And then you come to love it.
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Is there a food like that for you?
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Cause I have one that I kept sticking with.
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I think I ve said it on here before, but cottage cheese.
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I would see cottage cheese on the Elias brothers, big boys, um,
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salad bar and it always looks so good.
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Yeah.
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I love the way it looks.
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Yeah.
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And in a big vat, it just always looked good.
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And I would keep trying it and every time I d be like, ugh, no, I hate it.
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And then I d just cap at it.
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And one time I covered it in pepper and had a bite.
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I was like, okay, here we go.
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And now I love it.
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I love it too.
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Or I like it a lot now.
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And I also didn t like it.
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but part of it is just growing up and being more interested in eating well.
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And so then our, we see it differently.
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Yeah, I agree.
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But other than that, Rob, have you always liked all the weird shit you like?
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Cause I think you have all people like everything.
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No, I did not.
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I was super picky as a kid.
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And you chose when I got into like cooking and you re like, it s time to embrace these things.
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Yeah.
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I think there s this realization, too, that you can make any ingredient taste good if it s prepared well.
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That is the premise you ve accepted.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I m only halfway there.
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today s, and I m gonna prep it really well, the frozen food, and then everything will taste good.
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Prep it really, I m gonna do it exactly 18 minutes on the dot, at exactly 425.
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Also, Rob.
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You re gonna need like six different timers going.
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I m actually like, oh no, this is gonna be much harder than I anticipated.
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Yeah, it would have been way easier to cook a big meal.
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Anyway, Rob, my dentist is offering you a cleaning.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, great.
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So.
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Can t wait to have two young sons.
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All right, that s it.
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SPEAKER_02
You come in here with a big rack of fake teeth, I m gonna fucking die.
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Oh my God, veneers.
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Matching teeth.
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I m the only one in here without perfectly straight, pure white teeth.
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SPEAKER_01
Yep.
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All right, love you guys.
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Love you.