Bryan Guffey returns to talk coffee, religion, and mental health, possibly all at once. Maybe.

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• Bryan Guffey
• Don King Only In America
• Ving Rhames
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• Chronicling
• Prompt
• No More Secrets Sneakers Shell
• CMatrix Matrix Rain
• Starbucks App
• Ahead
• Loopback
• Rogue Amoeba’s Ultimate Podcast Bundle
• Brett’s Giveaways
• Hatchet Hall
• Colin Hanks
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• Joseph Arthur-In The Sun (Official Video)
• Petra Means Rock
• Stryper
• DC Talk
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Transcript

Don’t Be A Regex Princess with Bryan Guffey

[00:00:00] Jeff: Hi, everybody. This is the Overtired podcast. I am Jeff Severins Gunzel, and I am here with my co hosts, Brett and Christina. Hi. And we have an awesome, awesome guest today, one of our favorites to have on, Bryan Guffey. Hello, Bryan.

[00:00:22] Bryan: Hello! How is everybody?

[00:00:26] Jeff: Hello!

[00:00:26] Christina: We’re so glad to have you back.

[00:00:28] Bryan: I’m so glad to be back. It’s

[00:00:31] Jeff: I’m glad to be here with you, because I missed you. I missed you last

[00:00:34] Bryan: Yeah, it’s really great, yeah, that we all get to be here together. I’ve been bugging Brett a lot, Jeff, being like, I want to, I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. I want to be on a podcast with Jeff. His brain, I love his brain.

[00:00:45] Jeff: I hope it’s worth it.

[00:00:48] Don King and Katt Williams

[00:00:48] Bryan: Listen, your hair already does it for me. Like, I’m so here for your hair.

[00:00:52] Jeff: Oh, man. I, I love my hair.

[00:00:55] Bryan: No, absolutely. I mean, it is just very, like, it’s very on par with [00:01:00] like it fits you.

[00:01:01] Jeff: I don’t, I, here’s why I, I love my hair, because it sounds like a fucking weird thing to say, but, um, I haven’t had to put a comb through it. Since, like, I don’t know what, because at some point I landed on the, like, Mad Professor hair, and, and I don’t have to maintain it, but I kinda, I like a little swoosh.

[00:01:19] Jeff: There’s a lot about, about me I don’t love, but I like my hair.

[00:01:23] Brett: both have a bit of a Don King thing going on.

[00:01:26] Jeff: Oh, yeah!

[00:01:28] Bryan: yeah, this is all hiding behind the, the,

[00:01:29] Jeff: Well, yeah, Bryan just made it Don King.

[00:01:32] Brett: who is actually black can pull it off

[00:01:34] Jeff: Bryan, who is actually becoming Don King before us right now, I wish you could see it.

[00:01:38] Christina: Yeah, I was gonna say, you, this, this is very much, um, who, who played Don King in the HBO movie? Cause like, you’re totally giving like those vibes right now.

[00:01:47] Jeff: Who did

[00:01:47] Brett: idea There was an HBO movie? Was it Idris Elba? I’m just kidding. Of

[00:01:53] Jeff: Did anybody else I’m gonna be such a

[00:01:56] Bryan: In, in the HBO, in the NDH, not in Ali, [00:02:00] then

[00:02:01] Christina: No, it was Don King only in America. It was a 1997 film developed, uh, uh, directed by John Herzfeld and written by Cario Salem. Um,

[00:02:08] Bryan: Ving Rames.

[00:02:09] Christina: yeah, fuck yeah. That was actually who I thought it was. No. Okay. But, but I’m sorry. That’s who I thought it was. And I was like, I’m going to say that and I’m going to be wrong.

[00:02:18] Brett: heh.

[00:02:18] Bryan: that’s so awesome.

[00:02:20] Christina: good, good job.

[00:02:21] Bryan: to watch that, I love Ving Rhames.

[00:02:23] Christina: He’s the best baby boy. Uh, RIP, John Singleton. But like, genuinely like that film like gets slept on and that’s like one of like the best films.

[00:02:31] Jeff: Love John Singleton. That’s

[00:02:33] Bryan: Right, isn’t, isn’t, and, and, Ving Rhames is in, he’s the one who’s in, he is, yeah, he’s the one that’s in every Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, they’re like best friends.

[00:02:43] Christina: Yes. He’s like the smart one. He’s, he’s like the one, he’s like, he’s like, he’s like, no, chill dude. what are you doing?

[00:02:51] Jeff: heh.

[00:02:52] Bryan: so good.

[00:02:54] Jeff: Oh,

[00:02:54] Christina: Bernie Mack is, was was in this, this is

[00:02:56] Jeff: Bernie

[00:02:57] Bryan: Oh, Bernie

[00:02:58] Jeff: Did anybody follow the Cat [00:03:00] Williams thing?

[00:03:01] Christina: Yeah. Oh my God.

[00:03:02] Jeff: God, that was a blast.

[00:03:04] Christina: That’s the best three hours of my life.

[00:03:07] Jeff: And now on TikTok, my algorithm is so tweaked to Cat Williams because I looked at every response and watched every clip like three times that now it’s like all Cat Williams and monkeys in my TikTok feed.

[00:03:20] Jeff: Baby monkeys,

[00:03:21] Christina: so,

[00:03:21] Bryan: That’s a really hilarious pairing, I just want to point out, and then we’ll move on from

[00:03:26] Jeff: yin and yang, you know?

[00:03:28] Christina: it is, just for background, for anybody who wants to go down this rabbit hole, because it is delightful, um, the, the comedian, Cat Williams, who has had problems, um, and, and, but I used to very much enjoy his stand up specials, does an absolutely unhinged, um, uh, podcast with a, who is it with, with Shannon Sharpe, right?

[00:03:45] Jeff: Yeah, I think that’s it.

[00:03:46] Christina: yeah, uh,

[00:03:47] Jeff: all I see is Cat Williams in my head.

[00:03:49] Christina: And, and so, and it’s like, it’s like over three hours long and it’s Saturday Night Live even parodied it. And he like makes the most unhinged like [00:04:00] declarations about all the people he’s ever had beef with and like just makes these like claims that are just provably false. It’s the most unhinged, delightful, insane interview you’ll ever watch. And then all these people like fact checked him on everything he said.

[00:04:13] Christina: And it’s,

[00:04:14] Jeff: And the problem is, like, if anybody else had done that kind of interview, I would have been like, ugh, gross, but it is irresistible. Like, the like, the extent to which Kat Williams is like, I’m not getting up from this chair, I’m not apologizing, I’m just gonna go deeper and deeper.

[00:04:31] Bryan: And I think that’s partially because, like, Cat Williams over the past couple of years has sort of been, like, a truth teller in certain areas, about, and saying things like, calling out Dave Chappelle and some other

[00:04:40] Christina: yeah.

[00:04:42] Bryan: so I think people were like, Oh, we don’t expect this wildness from Cat Williams now, but here it is again, he’s back.

[00:04:51] Christina: Right. He’s back. He’s like, he’d had some like incident a number of years ago. I can’t remember what it was when he’s, when he was having some problems that was like seriously [00:05:00] deranged. Um, but yeah, then he was like speaking truth to power and you’re like, okay, maybe he’s doing well.

[00:05:05] Christina: Okay. Again. And you see this interview and you’re like,

[00:05:08] Bryan: Nope.

[00:05:08] Christina: this is, this is great. Um, uh, but, um, Yes. Yes. Shannon Sharpe was the one who, who, who did the

[00:05:16] Bryan: you’re talking about NFL, the NFL’s Shannon Sharpe.

[00:05:20] Christina: And, and,

[00:05:20] Bryan: That’s even more

[00:05:21] Christina: funny. And what’s funny to me is,

[00:05:23] Bryan: a podcast.

[00:05:23] Jeff: Watching him handle that was incredible.

[00:05:26] Christina: Yeah. Well, okay. Well, Shannon Sharp, not only does he podcast, he has a very successful ESPN show, and he used to have a show with, uh, he was on, um, with a Skip Bayless on his, uh, um, a Fox Sports show. And then they had a very, very bitter breakup.

[00:05:40] Christina: And, uh, now Shannon Sharp has, um, a, um, a very popular like ESPN show, but um, apparently it’s received 54 million views. So far,

[00:05:52] Jeff: And the last thing, I mean, the one thing I want to say about it that was amazing about watching Shannon Sharp is like, here, Cat Williams is essentially firing a machine gun [00:06:00] over, just over his shoulder. And you can see him being like, I am not moving into the target. Like, I have to figure out how to both like, keep my own integrity in the midst of this and not end up in the line of fire somehow, either now or afterwards.

[00:06:16] Brett: Alright, is it okay if I reign this in

[00:06:18] Jeff: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:19] Christina: Yes, of course.

[00:06:20] Brett: we decided this week to do a new format, um, maybe just this week only, but we’ll see how it goes, but we’re going to start the show with Graptitude, um, which is usually the final segment on the show where everyone talks about one favorite piece of software or developer for the week, um, I have mine picked out, do you guys, are you prepared for this early onslaught of Graptitude?

[00:06:48] Brett: Jeff, do

[00:06:48] Jeff: you suggesting that sometimes we pick our graftitude in the course of recording?

[00:06:52] Brett: absolutely do. Yes.

[00:06:54] Christina: I absolutely do as well. But no, I got one. Wait, did we do? We didn’t do one last [00:07:00] episode, right?

[00:07:00] Brett: Nope, we didn’t. We skipped it

[00:07:02] Christina: cool.

[00:07:02] Jeff: ended up essentially being Chat GPT.

[00:07:04] Brett: still two hours long.

[00:07:07] Christina: right. No. Okay. Yeah. No, I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t share the one that I had last week, um, for, for, for this week. So,

[00:07:13] Bryan: I love, I love Brad being like, it was still two hours long and I’m like, that’s what I loved about it. Even though I understand from like the perspective of being in it, how hard it can be to go two hours because your brain goes, And

[00:07:26] Jeff: definitely.

[00:07:27] Brett: Alright, Jeff, kick us off.

[00:07:30] grAPPtitude off the top

[00:07:30] Jeff: I will, I will kick us off, but first I’m going to suggest a slight change to our tagline, which can be Overtired, Tech, Mental Health, and Cat Williams. Just putting it out there. Um, I mean, you know, it’s just an option. So, um, okay. So.

[00:07:44] Bryan: Cat Williams could also be, Brad has a new cat named Williams.

[00:07:47] Christina: yeah,

[00:07:47] Jeff: Oh, that’s good. I like that. Yeah, cat with a k though,

[00:07:50] Brett: do, I have a cat named Morris. It would fit.

[00:07:53] Bryan: Perfect. Oh, now we’ve got an agency going.

[00:07:55] Christina: yeah, exactly. Yes. Well done. Well done.[00:08:00]

[00:08:01] Jeff: Um, okay. So mine is actually something that, um, that, uh, Alex recommended. Alex Cox recommended on the first episode of the year, uh, in answer to My Graptitude Then, which was, um, Datum, um, which is a great app for sort of just tracking whatever it is you want to track. Um, and they had recommended at the time, um, Chronicling. an app by the developer Rebecca Owen. Um, and the first thing I want to say about this app, and then I’ll talk about the functionality in a second, but it is so, um, it is so incredible to me when you start using an app. It’s, it’s beautiful. The UI is intuitive.

[00:08:40] Jeff: It, it has just the right kind of constraint, right? Like it does some of the things you need it to do right away when you go looking in the settings, but then it doesn’t, doesn’t give a person like me, too much opportunity to just fiddle and not actually utilize the app. And it’s in regular development and updates and meaningful features are added.

[00:08:58] Jeff: And it’s just a wonderful app. [00:09:00] It’s chronicling, um, uh, uh, with a L I N G and not, it’s missing, let’s just say it’s missing a vowel. That’s all I’m going to say. So you go on that little, uh, goose chase. Um, but anyway, so it’s one of these apps that allows you to say, you know, I want to press a button every time I, actually call my father.

[00:09:18] Jeff: I want to, I want to press a button. Um, every time I get an oil change, I want to press a button every time. I think a shower in my case is. Joking with Alex about that on Mastodon, but it’s not really a joke, like it’s a good indicator of mental health, right? And, um, and, and Rebecca in this app has made that not only very easy to do, but also very beautiful.

[00:09:37] Jeff: And there’s also just kind of a, the cool thing is you can choose the scope of time in which you’re tracking these things. Is it inside of a week, inside of a month, inside of a year? And then next to each thing, each item on your, on the home screen is just a little chart. That just kind of shows a little line for each time inside of a week or a month or a year that you did this thing.

[00:09:58] Jeff: And then also tells you how many days [00:10:00] it’s been since you did the thing. So I happen to know that it’s been 37 days since we trimmed our cat’s nails. Um, and

[00:10:06] Jeff: It’s been 13 days since, uh, since I got a haircut. Um, and, and what I love about it is it’s not, it’s not at least the way it allows you to use it, not.

[00:10:15] Jeff: So much for like habit building, like, I think a lot of those apps, I said this when we were talking to Alex about this kind of app, it’s like, a lot of those apps are designed in a way that makes sort of a judgment call, like, you’re supposed to decide what you’re supposed to do, and then you’re rewarded with haptics and confetti every time you do it, right?

[00:10:32] Jeff: Which feels great.

[00:10:33] Brett: prescriptive versus descriptive.

[00:10:36] Jeff: Ooh, nice. And, and what I literally want is to be like, when’s the last time I hung out with a friend in person? When’s the last time we went out to a restaurant? Like, I actually want to see that stuff. Not because I feel bad when I see it, but it like, it helps me a little bit. I’m like, Oh yeah, no, I, I probably should get a haircut or whatever it is.

[00:10:53] Jeff: You know? Um, haircut’s a terrible example. I have so many things I’m tracking in there, but a lot of them are about [00:11:00] Relationships and, um, and just like well being, like things that are sort of good indicators. Um, it does in some cases encourage me to actually do a thing. Like if I see it’s been X number of days since, you know, I took a long walk or something, I’ll be like, Oh, I should do that.

[00:11:13] Jeff: But it doesn’t, it’s, I don’t know what it is. It’s the designer. It’s the overall vibe, but it doesn’t in any way inspire guilt. It’s just like, I just want to know, you know.

[00:11:23] Brett: like this that have always worked for me are the ones that are descriptive that just give me the data and let me make my own, um, kind of judgments. And, and okay, this worked in this way, I should keep doing this, so I’m going to make, you know, a judgment call based on their description of what I have done.

[00:11:46] Brett: Um, the ones that are prescriptive, the ones that are like, here’s my goal, now I’m gonna hold myself to this New Year’s resolution kind of idea. Where I’ll just feel guilty when I once again fail to keep them. Um, [00:12:00] yeah. I, I can appreciate that. Uh, by, by the way, that is how you spell chronicling. It’s not missing a vowel.

[00:12:08] Jeff: uh, I wish I could say edit that out, but that’s not, that’s, that’s not what we’re gonna

[00:12:13] Bryan: perfect.

[00:12:14] Jeff: Um, I don’t know, that’s funny. Okay, fine. Fine. I didn’t finish high school. I mean, I, I work alongside PhDs, you know, like, I’ve seen their spelling errors,

[00:12:27] Bryan: Absolutely. Spelling is not, spelling is not an

[00:12:30] Jeff: No, like I need the red line. You know, I need the red line.

[00:12:34] Jeff: Like, it’s fine to show me what’s wrong. Um, all right. Sorry, Rebecca. You’re, you’re, you’re also brilliant because you know how chronicling is spelled. I mean, that’s incredible. You know, like, it’s a thing to just remove. Here’s the thing. I’m not, I’m not defensive. I’m a little embarrassed. But like, the thing about assuming that there was a vowel missing is that, um, Okay.

[00:12:54] Jeff: That’s what all apps are missing.

[00:12:57] Brett: And, and

[00:12:58] Jeff: saw that and I’m like, [00:13:00] Chronicling, what an interesting

[00:13:00] Brett: and I didn’t look this up. I’m going for my own innate sense of spelling. So it could turn out in retrospect after this episode is out that someone like Harold comes along and says, actually it’s Proniculling and, and I was totally wrong. So last week I called Harold a pedant, a pedant, a pedant, a pedantic

[00:13:21] Jeff: ask Harold.

[00:13:22] Brett: And, and

[00:13:22] Bryan: love that you said feed in. Are we, are we getting into, uh,

[00:13:26] Brett: he. He laughed

[00:13:28] Bryan: ahead.

[00:13:29] Brett: He told me it was fine. I told him I was afraid that that came across as mean, but he was okay with it. But back to Chronicling. This looks good.

[00:13:37] Jeff: Yeah. And also, I mean, like, uh, certainly, uh, uh, something that has to be true for me is that you can, you can export your data, right? So you can also export your data. You can pull it into something else you want. And the last thing I’ll say about it is like, that’s a good sign. Maybe it’s as much about me as anything, but like, it’s almost the end of January and I started it at the beginning and I’m still keeping stuff filled on it, which is like, So that’s gotta be something to say about the app.

[00:13:59] Jeff: So anyway, that’s, [00:14:00] that’s my thing.

[00:14:02] Brett: All right, Christina.

[00:14:05] Christina: so my pick is the new version of Prompt, uh, Prompt 3 from, um, Panic. Um, I, um, You know, I don’t know. So, and it’s interesting. This is a universal app now, so it works on Mac as well as iOS. Um, it is moved to a subscription model. So how you feel about that, or I think you can buy it one time and the one time price is a little bit high.

[00:14:27] Christina: I’m not going to lie. Uh, I think it’s probably more, more than I would spend. I’m going to do the subscription for a year, mostly to support Panic and to see how much I like it. There are a bunch of, at this point, I think, really good SSH clients for iOS. There’s, um, um, ISH, uh, which is, uh, available both from a test flight and, um, it’s in the app store.

[00:14:48] Christina: Um, there’s, um, La Termina from, um,

[00:14:51] Brett: Yeah, that’s

[00:14:51] Christina: Miguel De Queza, which I really like a lot. Um, and then there’s the things like specifically for, for Mosh and, and, and whatnot. Um, but, uh, [00:15:00] but I love the, the, the team at Panic. Um, this had been an app panic, uh, prompt to, maybe I’m misremembering this, but I thought I remembered at one point that they’d kind of put it in maintenance mode or basically killed it.

[00:15:12] Christina: And so I was glad to see this revived. Uh, and so, um, I, um, uh, and I do have to say like the, the intro video and stuff is really good. Um, again, it’s interesting that it has the, the Mac client. I don’t know how necessary that is when you have terminal, just being completely honest. But, um, you know, and certainly this is not as good of a terminal emulator as iTerm.

[00:15:37] Christina: It’s, it’s just not. But I do think that this is, um, a, uh, a good thing for, for, for Mac, uh, or not for Mac, for, for iOS. Um, and I’m not mad. It now does have MOSH support. Um, you can, uh, it has a CLIFFS feature so you can have like your most frequently used commands and text snippets right there. That I think is actually Pretty useful.

[00:15:59] Christina: And then of course it [00:16:00] works with Panic Sync, which I like a lot. Um, usually what I, I use these sorts of things for are for like, Using for, for jump boxes. Um, that’s mostly what I use, uh, the, the iOS types of clients for. But, um, anyway, I, um, I, I, this came out, I think it had come out last week when, uh, we were talking, like I was going to make my picket.

[00:16:23] Christina: It had just come out. I’ve been playing with it a little bit. Um, and, and I like it so far. Like I said, I don’t know if this is going to be something I remain subscribed to all the time, but, um, um, I’m happy to see more apps like this. And. Always happy to see Panic have apps. So,

[00:16:40] Brett: I gotta look back into Mosh. Like, I’ve been, I’ve been using Tmux Sessions. Um, and like all of my, uh, config files, when I SSH into a remote host, it always loads up a tmux with my last session. So before I disconnect from an SSH host, [00:17:00] I just exit out of tmux and then disconnect, and that has given me really stable, uh, SSH sessions.

[00:17:08] Brett: But, uh, but I, I remember seeing Moush and thinking, oh, that might be a great answer and then forgetting about it. So,

[00:17:16] Christina: same. And so I do remember from like the prompt two days that that was always like a much requested feature. Uh, and so, um, I was glad to see that, um, exist. I do have to say, I do like the, the, um, website that they’ve created for, uh, for prompts.

[00:17:31] Bryan: I was about to

[00:17:32] Brett: good. I was just

[00:17:33] Christina: The aesthetic, yeah, the aesthetic is really good, and the music, um, when you install it, if you go through, like, the trial or whatever, is really good.

[00:17:40] Christina: Also, the video and stuff that they created, um, I think, I think Christa still makes all their videos, is, like, just fire, so. Um, um. There are, at this point, it’s a different landscape than when, uh, Prompt 2 came out. Um, there are a lot of good options for iOS, but, um, I’m still gonna [00:18:00] make this my, my Graftitude.

[00:18:02] Brett: I like, on their

[00:18:03] Bryan: make status port again?

[00:18:05] Christina: Yeah, right?

[00:18:06] Brett: why, why did they cancel that? I don’t remember.

[00:18:10] Christina: I think at the time, it was too hard to make money off of it. And also, like, Apple

[00:18:17] Brett: it away for free.

[00:18:18] Christina: Well, they tried. And then, and then, you know, trying to do kind of like IAP stuff. I think what was hard at the time, it would be different now, but at the time, this was right when Apple switched the connector type.

[00:18:30] Christina: And so the AV connector from the 30 pin could let you do things that you couldn’t do from lightning for a long time. And I think that kind of fucked them. And then there were also problems where they had with like certain companies, like if you wanted to put in like API keys and other sorts of things, like.

[00:18:44] Christina: Apple really limited what you could do and how, how you could customize those boards. Like, it’s weird. Like, this is a product that I honestly do think you’re dead on, Brett. Like, I think that you could revive this now and you could make it work. Honestly, web technology has gotten good [00:19:00] enough that you could just do, you know, like, some certain calls, you know, like, without having to do things the way they did them now.

[00:19:06] Christina: Like, you, honestly, you could probably build it out even more as a web thing. But, um,

[00:19:11] Bryan: Cable, are you listening?

[00:19:13] Christina: yeah. Bring it back.

[00:19:16] Brett: There’s, uh, in the, like, kind of video that’s running on the computer on the website, bus out to a Matrix terminal for a

[00:19:25] Christina: I love that.

[00:19:26] Brett: There are, you can install a matrix app through brew.

[00:19:30] Christina: Yep. I

[00:19:31] Brett: have an, I have an old bash script that uses TPUT and a random, like a random kernel to put Kanji characters on the screen, but what it’s super random and doesn’t create those nice falling columns, uh, that you get from whatever’s on homebrew.

[00:19:48] Brett: I think it’s written in Rust.

[00:19:49] Christina: Yeah, it is. I think so. Um, and then there’s also a, um, um, there’s a way that you can get like the sneakers, um, effect, uh, that, [00:20:00] that’s also, um, on, on GitHub somewhere. I’ll find that because I made that like

[00:20:04] Brett: Yeah, drop that in the show

[00:20:05] Christina: Yeah, I will. Yeah.

[00:20:07] Bryan: Amazing.

[00:20:09] Brett: Bryan, what you got?

[00:20:11] Bryan: Okay, so, it was very difficult. I’m gonna do two. And the first one, I’m just gonna go super, super

[00:20:18] Brett: allow it.

[00:20:19] Bryan: I’m gonna do Basic White Girl, and it is the Starbucks app. I

[00:20:25] Christina: It’s a great app.

[00:20:26] Bryan: love It’s such a good app. It is such a good app. And they just added live activities for your, um, for your pickups. If you order,

[00:20:35] Jeff: what’s that mean? Live activities.

[00:20:37] Bryan: Yeah, it comes up on the lock screen, and it’s an updating, so it tells you like when your order’s ready and it’s done being made. Um, and like, it’s so great, and I just, I mean, and I, recently I hadn’t even realized that they had added like, uh, Siri shortcut support, so when you search for Starbucks, you can just press to like, order your regulars, and it’ll, it’ll ask you like, Hey, [00:21:00] is this what you’re getting?

[00:21:01] Bryan: And then you can tell it, yes. And then it’s like, okay, so we have this much money on your card and we’re going to charge it. And it just walks through a shortcut and does the whole thing. You don’t even have to open the app to order stuff. I use this. I mean, it’s one of my most used apps. Like I use that app every single day, almost more than Nathan thinks I should.

[00:21:17] Bryan: Um, um, and I, it’s such. It’s such a good app. It almost is like, there’s almost never any issues with it, even though they’re running a massive backend, web backend, it’s almost always up and running, like it’s just rock solid. And so I really love the Starbucks app.

[00:21:34] Christina: To your point about like how long that has been, um, like it, it’s been an app that’s been around for a really long time. And I have to give, um, I think the Starbucks team immense credit that they have from the very beginning. I remember when that app launched and it was, Apple Pay didn’t exist, Apple Wallet didn’t exist, and they were already kind of creating a way where you could pay using kind of like the, the, the, you know, kind of a predecessor of QR codes, and we’re really kind of getting into that space where you could [00:22:00] make it easy to use, like they had their own kind of terminals and whatnot.

[00:22:04] Christina: And I have to say, like, of all the various commerce apps, Most companies have stopped making native apps and, uh, because it just kind of doesn’t make sense. I mean, if they have them, they’re, you know, like little more than wrappers, but like the Starbucks team has continued to work really hard on that app.

[00:22:19] Christina: And you’re right, like for the fact that it is a massive web service on the back end, it’s really performant and it works really well. But also, um, I didn’t realize that they’d added the, um, um, Live Activities feature either, but like that’s really great and um, they’re always, I think, like a really good iOS citizen.

[00:22:37] Christina: That’s all I was gonna say.

[00:22:38] Brett: What do you usually order at Starbucks?

[00:22:42] Bryan: Oh my.

[00:22:44] Brett: When, when Siri suggests an order, what does, what does Siri know you want?

[00:22:49] Bryan: I normally order, these days I order a, like basically a decaf [00:23:00] iced coffee. So, um, which is complex sometimes because of what they have on they don’t make decaf iced coffee so you have to like order What I realized actually was that I was not ordering that for a long time when I was just ordering an iced coffee with decaf espresso shots in it.

[00:23:18] Bryan: I had no idea. Um, which is now what I just do, um, because I was supposed to not be drinking caffeine because I was on Vyvanse, but surprise, my blood pressure’s been stable. Um, So, I mean, it’s usually an iced coffee with, um, far too much, far too much sugar and, like, far too many caramel, like, syrup shots, um, and caramel sauce shots, and then Stevia, as if that’s going to fix the problem of all the caramel sauce I put in. Um, and then also,

[00:23:44] Christina: Right, right.

[00:23:46] Bryan: and then also the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich. I love the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich.

[00:23:52] Brett: Yeah, like for me, we have Starbucks here in little old Winona, but they don’t make great espresso. [00:24:00] Um, I make better espresso at home, way cheaper. And I’ve never figured out like, what the draw of like, intelligent adults is to Starbucks. Um,

[00:24:14] Bryan: things. I

[00:24:15] Brett: I’d be curious. I’m just curious. Like I, I know that a lot of smart people go to Starbucks that, that could

[00:24:22] Jeff: Smart Bucks.

[00:24:24] Brett: that, that could afford their own, could afford their own coffee setups and like cook their own breakfast. But is it a time thing? Is it, does it just save time? All

[00:24:34] Bryan: Well, and the food, I love, I mean, their hot food is, their sandwiches are actually like, pretty banger. And so And also their pastries, like, uh, during the winter, like the gingerbread loaf during the holidays,

[00:24:46] Christina: It’s good.

[00:24:46] Bryan: the, I don’t know what they put in the icing on their, on their things, but it’s so amazing. It is, I, I’m really sad that they, they discontinued the Thanksgiving turkey sandwich that they used to have.

[00:24:56] Bryan: That was also the greatest thing in the world.

[00:24:59] Christina: Oh yeah, that was like the [00:25:00] Monica sandwich, right? Like, I never had it, but, but, I never had it, but, but it, that’s what, like, what it looked like.

[00:25:05] Bryan: It was so good. Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s mostly, I love seeing the baristas and saying hello, even if it’s just through the drive thru, so there’s that part. And I used to spend a lot of time at the Starbucks, um, in Columbus when I lived there.

[00:25:19] Brett: Yeah, so there’s a personal connection. That makes sense.

[00:25:22] Bryan: And it’s also that I don’t have to make, like, I forget to make, uh, I forget to brew a pot of cold, brew some cold brew and so on, and I have to have it in the morning.

[00:25:30] Brett: Oh, I would never forget that. Um, there’s a, there’s a bar here in town that has a big ceramic pizza oven. And, um, I believe they opened with the intention of being a high end bar, but also became a pizza place in the process. And they made a special pizza around Christmas that was essentially just a Neapolitan pizza.

[00:25:52] Brett: And it was, in my opinion, their best pizza. And then it ended. Christmas ended and they stopped serving it. So, [00:26:00] like, I went back to the kitchen. Or I had, I had a, a hostess who’s, who had a boyfriend who worked in the kitchen. And, and she was my proxy to say, how can I continue ordering this year round? And we worked out a deal, like, here’s the code word, here’s what you say, because it’s simple ingredients.

[00:26:18] Brett: It’s stuff they always have on hand. It’s just off menu, and, and I worked it out, and that’s why I would go out to a pizza place rather than make my own pizza, is that kind of, like, ability to order off menu, that, the ability to have some kind of personal connection. And I just assumed that you would never have that at Starbucks.

[00:26:40] Christina: Well, weirdly, so for food, probably not so much because most of it is pre packaged, um, and or pre made, but like for the drinks, that is like, honestly, the whole thing is that it’s off menu. Like you can get it customized however you want. Um, and that’s why I think they make so much money. Now I live in Seattle.

[00:26:57] Bryan: Cause you pay, you pay like three times as much for [00:27:00] your off menus. Like, when you start to customize the additional shots and everything, the price goes up in this. Oh,

[00:27:05] Christina: Additional pumps, which is why, like, they had to, like, there was a whole bunch of drama. I remember, uh, God, this was so long ago, but I remember going down this rabbit hole because I loved the drama of people who would, like, save up coupons and things from their Starbucks stars and, like, really use it to get, like, the most ridiculous drink orders they could.

[00:27:20] Christina: Like, they would basically find a way to get, like, 13 drinks. I’m not even joking. Um, you know, with, like, their, their, their coupons. And so Starbucks had to kind of, like, cut down on, on how much they were giving out the, the bonus points and whatnot. Um, I live in Seattle where there are a ton of Starbucks and we have a thing called the Starbucks Reserve.

[00:27:38] Christina: And there aren’t many of them in the world, but we, there is one, um, literally like three blocks from my house. Um, and they have like the most expensive type of coffee machines and they do like really high end types of brewing and whatnot. Yeah. Oh, that they do. They do. [00:28:00] And, and, and it’s insane, and like, and that’s, that’s a good place to go.

[00:28:04] Christina: We don’t have Dunkin and that I’m not gonna lie, like, I grew up my entire life having access to Dunkin at all times, and there are no Dunkins in the state of Washington because of the Starbucks mafia. And so, um, because Starbucks started in

[00:28:20] Jeff: That sounds like a really lame reading group name.

[00:28:22] Christina: It really

[00:28:23] Jeff: Like a great, like a book club. We’re the Starbucks mafia.

[00:28:26] Bryan: Jarvox

[00:28:26] Christina: God, you know, you know that, you know that some bitches in Bellevue, like, some, like, some moms group have fuckin done that, or like, Woodinville, uh, all the fuckin wine

[00:28:35] Jeff: one of them as a, as a food blog, Hubby’s, Hubby’s away this week.

[00:28:39] Brett: there was a, there was a coffeehouse in, I think it was in St. Paul, um, and Their claim to fame was that they had bought three Clover machines when they opened, which are like, I think at the time, 20, 000 espresso machines. And

[00:28:57] Bryan: every Starbucks has a Clover now.

[00:28:59] Brett: [00:29:00] yeah, they had, this place had a small sign and their windows were always steamed.

[00:29:04] Brett: Like you could never see inside the place and you could walk by it and never have any idea it existed, but I

[00:29:10] Jeff: the, like the boxing gym in my neighborhood.

[00:29:13] Brett: Yeah, we’d go there just for their clover machines. Um, that was, that was worthwhile to me. So, if every Starbucks has a clover, I might need to check it out again.

[00:29:23] Bryan: Yeah, so if y’all remember, that was my, that was my, that was my basic one. So, the other one is this app called AHEAD, and AHEAD is a, it’s an emotions coach app. So this is a great lead into Mental Health Corner. So, um, It’s science backed, started by, I think, I forget, they’re in another country, because I met with one of the co founders just the other day. Um, but, I struggle a lot with, uh, anger, actually.

[00:29:58] Bryan: Um, and I [00:30:00] didn’t realize it was anger, but like, underneath all of the defensiveness and all this other stuff, it’s just anger, anger, anger, anger, anger. Um, and AHEAD has been really helpful in teaching me how to be Uh, Less Angry, How to Get Less Defensive, How to Reframe the Angry Thoughts. And, it takes you through little bite sized lessons, it, uh, has, it like, it has you, like, draw little things on the screen to, like, commit to doing a thing.

[00:30:26] Bryan: Um, it, it, it, then it gives you the opportunity to, like, record when you got angry or when you had an angry situation and, like, how it made you feel. And like what the underlying feelings were. And so then over time you start to be able to see like, oh, most of my angry moments come from feeling, feeling like misunderstood.

[00:30:49] Bryan: And then that gives you, and then it gives you tactics on like how to address it. Like if you’re about to get angry in a situation before you do, like play out the situation in advance so that you can sort of, [00:31:00] like, like, pre feel the regret, or, like, imagine this is a comedy, like, imagine the situation that you’re about to get angry at as a comedy. And like as a kid would see it, and it’s really funny then, uh, like when, sometimes when I get into a big argument with Nathan about nothing, like this is a very hilarious if you’re on the outside.

[00:31:19] Bryan: And it is really, really, it, the first thing that really helped me get my defensiveness under control. And so I’m just like really a big fan of it. They have, I think a seven day free trial, then they will charge you, I think 60 a year, but like I happily paid it and I don’t normally pay, uh, for apps like that.

[00:31:39] Bryan: Yeah.

[00:31:39] Christina: That’s awesome. Ahead?

[00:31:40] Brett: Yeah, I found the, I found the link. It was hard to track down, but, uh, the link’s in the show notes. Um, I, when apps give themselves names that are just words in the English language,

[00:31:54] Christina: I know.

[00:31:55] Jeff: all the vowels

[00:31:56] Brett: For example, Marked. Um, [00:32:00] it uh, um, it makes it hard to track them down, but uh. Envy Ultra is easy to find. Anyway, um, my pick for this week is Loopback from Rogue Amoeba. Um, I honestly could pick all of Rogue Amoeba’s apps, but, uh, specifically Loopback just fascinates me. Rogue Amoeba does black magic, and you know this because Every time there’s an OS update, all their stuff breaks, um, and the fact that they, within, within two weeks of, well, okay, two weeks before a new OS becomes public, they will come out with new versions of their apps and, and they have never failed to get their apps working with a new OS.

[00:32:51] Brett: But the fact that they break every time means they are doing some, some deep black magic. And what fascinates me about Loopback, [00:33:00] uh, Loopback is the, the tagline is cable free audio routing for Mac. Um, and it lets you make these virtual audio devices that can combine Different inputs, different outputs, input from different apps, uh, pipe them to here, pipe them to there, and create, uh, like a, a literal audio device that you can select from your input or output menu, and Loopback doesn’t have to be running anymore once it creates the device, um, so for example, I have, uh, Uh, a complete audio six that has six audio inputs, and one of those inputs is from the Echo in my office, and that goes into the three, four, RCA inputs in my Komplete Audio 6, I can then combine that output into almost like a pass through for all of the other audio that comes out of my system.

[00:33:57] Brett: So I can patch my [00:34:00] Echo and the output from my Echo, which I often use to play Spotify, I can patch that in as if it’s just coming from my system, and I And I don’t have to, I don’t even have to select a special audio device. It just acts as a pass through device. Um, and with this device that has six different inputs and my Wave XLR and my, uh, uh, uh, Solo 2, um, like I can.

[00:34:30] Brett: I can basically pipe, in my case, eight different inputs to specific places and create single devices that can be used throughout any application. I don’t have to be like, Audio Hijack does a great job of doing this stuff internally, as long as you’re running Audio Hijack. But this brings that ability to pipe all your inputs to outputs and create literal OS Specific, like, audio inputs and outputs, and [00:35:00] I love it.

[00:35:00] Christina: Yeah. And what’s great is that because of, of how it works, um, uh, like it’ll show up in all of your other apps as like a, a, a, you know, a thing that you can

[00:35:09] Brett: Yeah,

[00:35:10] Christina: So, so, so you don’t have to worry about like if Zoom or Teams. Teams is going to usually be the culprit here, let’s be completely honest. Um, you know, or, or something else, or something in a web browser, like you don’t have to worry about them supporting some of the features that they may not support.

[00:35:26] Christina: You can just choose the, the, um, the group that you’ve chosen in Loopback, and it’ll just act like any other sound source.

[00:35:33] Brett: another stupid but obvious use for it is you can create a virtual device for, so I can take my complete audios, six inputs, two outputs, um, I can, I can create a, a virtual device that acts with that as a passthrough and just outputs it. Directly the way it was, but by using that device instead of selecting the complete audio as my output, I now [00:36:00] suddenly have volume and mute controls that you wouldn’t have on an external device like that normally.

[00:36:06] Brett: Um, so like the system, the mute button on any media keyboard, or if you assign it to, you know, your, your hackable keyboard, uh, your mute button will suddenly work with an audio device that normally wouldn’t allow you to mute it. It’s, it’s not a cheap app. It’s like a hundred dollars for this app, but honestly, I consider it worth it.

[00:36:28] Brett: And

[00:36:29] Christina: something quite as, quite as, uh, happy, as big as Loopback, you might be okay with SoundSource, which can do some of that. Um,

[00:36:37] Jeff: is great!

[00:36:37] Christina: SoundSource is great.

[00:36:39] Brett: if you want to go open source, you could find Soundflower. I don’t know if it works anymore. Um, but yeah, like all of these kind of had that kind of patch, um, patch mentality. Sound source itself will add, it’ll do the mute for an external device and it will do, uh, I can’t remember what they call it, super [00:37:00] something, but it will allow you to boost volume.

[00:37:02] Brett: on devices that at max volume aren’t loud enough. It’ll allow you to like 120 percent your volume. Uh, SoundSource is also from Rogue Amoeba and, um, I’ll be doing a giveaway on that later this year, um,

[00:37:16] Bryan: woo!

[00:37:17] Brett: com. So sign up for the mailing list, find out all about it. I didn’t convince them to give away loopback though.

[00:37:24] Christina: what I will say for people, if you’re interested in some of the Rogue Amoeba apps, like if you think you would get some use out of them, consider getting their, their ultimate podcast bundle, which will basically give you all the apps at once. And um, like that it’s, it’ll end up coming in, in cheaper. Um, And, uh, the, the apps are, like, they wait a number of years between updates.

[00:37:48] Christina: So, um, like, I, I made that, I made that outlay, you know, a number of years ago and I was like, this, this has paid off for me, but yeah.

[00:37:56] Brett: you, have you ever used. Firago, or [00:38:00] Farago, or whatever their soundboard app.

[00:38:02] Christina: I have, but it, like, not, like, I thought that I would use it more, um, and, and I think that just whatever my workflow was at the time, I didn’t. And now at this point, I feel like the apps that I use where that could be useful, like they have their own built in soundboards. So, um. It’s cool, again, like, what’s great about all the Rogue Amoeba stuff is that, like, it works independently of what app or program you’re in.

[00:38:30] Christina: Um, and they are one of the only companies that I trust, uh, including Apple, to be very, very clear to, like, actually understand how the Apple audio, um, uh, like, APIs work. And, um,

[00:38:44] Brett: than Apple.

[00:38:44] Christina: Oh, I think they absolutely understand better than Apple, which is why I was so mad about the way that you have to install, um, some of the, their stuff, um, on, on various

[00:38:53] Brett: still true? Like, you mean with the rebooting and disab or like, dis disabling? Uh, [00:39:00] there were yeah, there was a whole three step process that involved multiple reboots, and

[00:39:04] Christina: Yeah. They, they, they, they make it very difficult for you to install their app. Well, yeah.

[00:39:07] Brett: haven’t had to do that recently.

[00:39:10] Bryan: They just put, they just, they just announced, um, that they’ve been working with Apple, and then I think in the latest OS update, it’s been changed now that you don’t even have to, um, you don’t even have to, like, put in your password in some cases.

[00:39:29] Christina: Oh.

[00:39:32] Bryan: Yeah, I just, I think I heard about this on, um, Upgrade, I think. Let’s see here.

[00:39:41] Brett: Yeah, I would hope that’s gotten better, cause that was, that was some bullshit.

[00:39:44] Christina: No, it was complete bullshit. Yeah, I, I didn’t know because I haven’t had to, because usually it was a one time thing. So once you got it installed, you didn’t have to do it again. Um, but I haven’t, um, I haven’t gone through the, the process, um, in a long time. And [00:40:00] so, um,

[00:40:01] Bryan: yeah, they said here

[00:40:02] Christina: that. But yeah, if you’ve gotten rid of it, that’s even better.

[00:40:05] Bryan: Or they’re about to, maybe they shipped it, so this was, they released this in their 2024 status report by Paul on January 9th. And I think what happened was then there was the release of 12. 3, is it? 14. 3, 14. 3.

[00:40:24] Christina: hmm.

[00:40:25] Bryan: And there was a note that there was like a new permission in 14.

[00:40:29] Bryan: 3 and Jason put the two together that he thinks that what happened is, so Audio Hijack, basically what they, what Amoeba has done here is that they’re going to be shipping updates that Airfoil Audio Hijack and Piezo will feature an installer free setup that won’t even need your administrator password and Loopback and SoundSource will new a, use a new audio capture plug in called.

[00:40:51] Bryan: ARK, A R K, that won’t require a single system restart. So I’m not sure, maybe it’s out completely, but they, Jason figured [00:41:00] that probably they’ve been working with, um, Apple and Apple has made some changes around security in terms of what, like added a new, a new category of

[00:41:13] Christina: So there’s like a new entitlement or

[00:41:14] Bryan: setting. Exactly.

[00:41:16] Bryan: Yep. And I think that’s, what’s going to address the issue.

[00:41:21] Christina: Oh, well, that’s great.

[00:41:23] Bryan: Oh yeah, Screens and System Audio Recording, it’s now called. So they added, yeah, System, there’s a System Audio Recording Only option now in, in 14. 3.

[00:41:34] Christina: Oh, nice.

[00:41:35] Bryan: Yeah,

[00:41:36] Brett: Can I nerd out for just 30 seconds before we get to Mental Health Corner?

[00:41:41] Christina: Please.

[00:41:42] Now that’s service!

[00:41:42] Brett: I.

[00:41:42] Jeff: if nerding out isn’t what’s been

[00:41:44] Brett: Right, so I got a request from a reader of my blog that he wanted to figure out when his VPN connection was disconnected and at that point [00:42:00] kill, you know, a QTorrent And so I had to look into how um, and I did ended up diffing, uh, ifconfig output when the VPN was connected versus when it was disconnected and found out there was a new. Network interface that showed up in ifconfig when it was connected. Um, so then I could just run ifconfig through a grep to see if that device, see if that interface was present, and then I would immediately know if the VPN was connected, um, and put that on a one second loop and just have it run until, uh, until the VPN is no longer detected and then pass through to a kill all command.

[00:42:45] Brett: Um, so it’s like a seven line script that can actually kill it, kill an app when your VPN connection terminates. It was fun. I’ll probably post it on his blog, but I’m, I’m asking him for permission to, uh, share the script, not [00:43:00] like his personal details or anything, but. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the kind of service.

[00:43:06] Brett: Oh, and it was weird because I sent him like an example Just like an outline of like how I thought it could work and he came back and he’s like the parentheses don’t work I’m like the parentheses were the parts where you were supposed to insert the working commands and And I realized in the process that he was actually very new to shell scripting

[00:43:27] Jeff: That sounds a little bit like helping me, Brett.

[00:43:29] Brett: Right, except even more intense.

[00:43:31] Brett: I sent him a two screen long email this morning detailing why it worked and how, and explaining the basics of shell scripting. And that right there is the kind of service I provide.

[00:43:45] Jeff: That is, yeah, that’s, that’s very fucking Brett, and God bless you. God’s bless you.

[00:43:51] Brett: Hey, I learned it the same way. I learned it from people who were like, whether it’s on Usenet or, or Reddit [00:44:00] or in, in private forums,

[00:44:02] Jeff: Stack

[00:44:03] Brett: you learn this shit from people that can tell you what you’re doing wrong and how it should work. And if you don’t give back, you’re not like, that’s, that cycle has to perpetuate.

[00:44:15] Brett: Like

[00:44:15] Jeff: is that like when you download torrents but you don’t seed them?

[00:44:19] Christina: Ha ha ha. Yes.

[00:44:21] Bryan: Yes,

[00:44:22] Christina: or, or, or, or when you don’t reciprocate head. Like that’s honestly, like,

[00:44:26] Bryan: yeah, absolutely, that’s a good one.

[00:44:27] Jeff: it’s all, I think it all falls under the heading of unrequited,

[00:44:31] Brett: Yes. Yes. back to Shakespearean, Shakespearean works. Yes. Um, so anyway, you want to get into a mental health corner?

[00:44:42] Christina: yeah, I just came up, I just thought of a good pun though for what we were just talking about. Don’t be a regex princess.

[00:44:49] Jeff: Ooh, that’s good.

[00:44:52] Brett: that the show title?

[00:44:53] Christina: Maybe that shouldn’t be. Don’t be a regex princess. I like that.

[00:44:56] Jeff: sex princess with Bryan [00:45:00] Guffey.

[00:45:04] It’s all Mental Health Corner from here on out

[00:45:04] Brett: Do we have any volunteers for first mental health corner?

[00:45:10] Jeff: We always give the guest the option.

[00:45:11] Bryan: My mental health is better. It’s been a difficult few months. Like, my partner Nathan and I have been coming out of, like, a difficult stretch. I talked about, like, my defensiveness and, like, just I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a non Like, to be a neurotypical, live with a neurodivergent person who also, like, constantly wants to make everything your fault because they have a lot of their own, like, trauma.

[00:45:43] Bryan: Um, Brett talking about complex, you’re talking about complex PTSD and, you know, uh, really You know, I’ve had that revelation with my therapist and psychiatrist as well. And just how much, one of the things that I [00:46:00] continue to sort of be amazed by is how much everything can come back to the trauma that you’ve experienced and how that shapes the way that your brain ends up working, you know, that again, like ADHD and.

[00:46:12] Bryan: Autism and all of these things can be, you know, both downstream of the trauma that you’ve experienced because it’s shaped your brain in different ways, but also it can exacerbate those things. Um, and the other thing that I’ve been, I’ve been sort of dealing with a lot is just recognizing how often people will fuck you up without having anything but the best of intentions. And how, and how you sort of have to learn to reconcile that without needing to have them take responsibility for it.

[00:46:48] Jeff: What did Merlin say last week? They’re doing the best they can, and that’s the problem.

[00:46:52] Bryan: yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. I listened to that episode and like, and it was really weird, like having the, the, the super long mental [00:47:00] health corners the last couple of times, plus that I was like, wow, this is all just sort of coming together at the right time, you know? And so it’s, you know, also work has just been absolutely like just pouring water over top of you, like waterboarding levels of like overwhelming. And so I’ve really had, I mean like I was in a meeting earlier this week with my boss and she was like, she is also I’m pretty sure neurodivergent and like it is learning. to be a better manager still and is like a very good engineer but that means that like sometimes she gets really worked up about things and like when your boss gets worked up about things like then you get worked up about things and there was a moment in which i was just like i am screaming inside right now we just stop for a moment uh because like i cannot take any more information being thrown at me and be asked to like operate

[00:47:55] Brett: Yeah. So

[00:47:57] Bryan: It’s been, so it’s just been a really [00:48:00] intense period.

[00:48:02] Bryan: And I’m like trying to get out of the house more and do more things. I was down in, uh, down in LA for the weekend. My mom was in town, saw my brother, my sister in law and my nephew and went out to eat, you know, um, at a restaurant that was mostly outdoors. Uh, if you’re in LA, go to the Hatchet Hall. It’s a phenomenal restaurant.

[00:48:20] Bryan: Um, but it’s just been, it’s just been like really intense and overwhelming You know, just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, oh, does it ever get, like, really, can I get life to be boring again?

[00:48:38] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:48:39] Bryan: all been going through that for years, right? But now, like, like, but there was a period where, like, COVID was happening, and I was like, well, my life is really boring inside of COVID, and I love it. That’s at home, doing nothing, like, same thing every day, had the same stuff delivered every two weeks for groceries, it was so awesome, and now people want me to do things again. And now, like, now, [00:49:00] like, all of the stuff that I thought I had figured out, but mostly I was just hiding in my house, which is, like, fine, except that, like, my partner does not have the capability to give me the amount of social interaction that I need.

[00:49:11] Bryan: Um, Now it’s just like all of the other stuff is coming on top of it and COVID is still going on to some degree. Like, it’s so, it’s just like very, very exhausting.

[00:49:21] Brett: I relate to this, I relate to this inclination to not do anything or to have things be the same every day. Um, that is where I feel the most comfortable, but in the times I am kind of forced or, you know, by circumstance, I end up Doing things outside of my comfort zone, I usually end up feeling a sense of, um, accomplishment and satisfaction.

[00:49:48] Brett: Do you find, like, being forced to do things to actually be maybe good?

[00:49:55] Bryan: Yes, I do. Like it is, it is, the struggle is that this, the amount [00:50:00] of time that’s available, right? Like the other things, doing the other things is great. But like, I’m not yet getting to choose to not do other things. You know, so there’s just not enough time at all at the moment. And, you know, it doesn’t, I, I love them.

[00:50:17] Bryan: They are like one of the greatest joys of my life. But having nine dogs, um, is, you know, and particularly like the, the process of dog training right now, which is two nights a week for like three hours each

[00:50:31] Brett: Yeah, that sounds

[00:50:32] Bryan: is just like so much, it’s so much

[00:50:35] Jeff: Hold on, pause, mental

[00:50:38] Bryan: Oh, you didn’t know. No,

[00:50:49] Jeff: That’s insane, I love it.

[00:50:51] Bryan: we had zero,

[00:50:52] Jeff: or are they all one breed?

[00:50:55] Bryan: so they’re all Doxan mixes, um, they’re all [00:51:00] except one from the same bloodline and family and we have, we have mom, um, and All but three of them came into our lives on February 24th last year. Because they were born in my, in our, in my partner’s bedroom.

[00:51:16] Jeff: Oh, right, because they were a litter of six, basically.

[00:51:19] Bryan: Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:20] Jeff: they do come in numbers, don’t they?

[00:51:23] Bryan: They really do, and then we just decided we’d

[00:51:24] Brett: Have you spayed

[00:51:25] Bryan: Yeah, everybody is spayed and neutered, yeah. Oh, yes.

[00:51:29] Brett: okay. Um, so remind me, I can’t remember, is your partner neurodivergent?

[00:51:36] Bryan: So, according to, according to the tests, no.

[00:51:41] Brett: Okay. So you are actually in a, a weird coupling.

[00:51:46] Bryan: yeah, but he’s also like,

[00:51:51] Bryan: So, I think people who are very, very, very highly intelligent, Exhibit their own types of what we, [00:52:00] what you like of non normative engagement. Uh, for example, Nathan doesn’t really forget anything ever. Um, and he knows something about almost everything. So like, you’re not normally in a relationship with somebody who’s basically never wrong.

[00:52:21] Jeff: everyone’s in a relationship with someone who thinks they’re

[00:52:23] Brett: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, 100%.

[00:52:25] Bryan: this is, but the problem has been that I have discovered, like, he’s actually, cause he, he, he does not say that he knows something unless he actually knows it, which is so foreign to me as an ADHD person who spent so much time in my life just being like, yeah, I know that because I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know something cause I couldn’t remember it.

[00:52:46] Jeff: Totally.

[00:52:47] Brett: I, uh, my, my partner, um, at, when we started our relationship, they thought they were neurotypical. And for the first five years of our relationship, [00:53:00] Uh, we operated under the assumption that I was ADHD and bipolar and they were normal. Um, and it wasn’t until

[00:53:07] Jeff: Grading on a curve.

[00:53:08] Brett: they got their diagnosis that Autistic, that we suddenly realized, oh, we are both neurodivergent in, in pretty drastic ways.

[00:53:18] Brett: And it changed. It, like, we had been working out ways to deal with my shit, um, without realizing we also needed to figure out ways for me to deal with their stuff. Um, and, and that was a big turning point, but, uh. But, if I, like, I was journaling last night, that if there was one gift I could give to Elle, that would actually matter, it would be a shorter memory.

[00:53:48] Brett: Um, because I can go into any conflict fresh. Like, This is, this is a new thing that we have to discuss. I don’t have a history for this. I don’t have a list of [00:54:00] complaints. I don’t have a list of grievances to bring to the table here. I’m just, I have a, I have a very short memory. I have an ADHD memory. I exist in the moment and I feel like I can deal with a problem in the moment.

[00:54:14] Brett: But as soon as I’m hit with this backlog of data that I can’t prove or disprove, I could be easily gaslit.

[00:54:22] Christina: totally.

[00:54:22] Brett: as soon as I’m hit with that, I’m, I have to shut down.

[00:54:25] Christina: No, I’m in a similar sort of thing and I have a memory like a steel trap, however, there are some things that you just, you don’t remember every sort of, you know, nuance, everything you ever said, everything you’ve ever done. Like I might know ridiculous factoids and have like a photograph, a photographic memory for things that I’ve, I’ve read.

[00:54:43] Christina: Um, and, and, you know. Seen or whatever, but I don’t necessarily remember everything I’ve ever said in person or, or whatnot. I might remember, like, I might make a quip on this podcast that in 30 minutes I might not, somebody be like, oh, I can’t believe you said that. I’m like, what did I say? You know? Um, and, [00:55:00] and, and I think you’re right, Brett.

[00:55:01] Christina: Like it is one of those things where I’m similar to you in that. Even though I have a decent memory, I don’t hold on to, I don’t want to say grudges because I think that’s too simplistic, but like I try to start fresh and I try to not let stuff linger, um, unless it’s had a real impact on me, in which case that’s a sign that I should have like a deeper conversation with someone and I try not to let it fester, right?

[00:55:21] Christina: But I, I run into that, this problem with, with, uh, with my partner where, like, he will remember things very deeply and I don’t have a, to your point, like, I don’t always have a good way of knowing, okay, is this accurate or is this not? Because sometimes I’m like, I don’t think this is, like, your memory of this is different than mine.

[00:55:38] Christina: And, but, but like, there’s, there’s no way to prove it, you know?

[00:55:42] Brett: yeah. Without, without a list of data. Yeah.

[00:55:45] Bryan: Right. Well, I’ve had this experience with Nathan. I mean, you know, so we’ve been going to couples therapy and we’re going to couples therapy with my therapist and it was very funny because Nathan was like, I, I was worried that if we went to couples therapy with my therapist, that like my therapist would [00:56:00] like be too hard on or Nathan would feel like my therapist was too hard on him.

[00:56:03] Bryan: But no, instead, like my therapist was like, no, like normally she’s like, it’s your, it’s, it’s your, you’re the, you’re the problem here, Bryan. Yeah. like, it’s your problem, it’s your shit that’s causing the problem. A couple of things that have happened is that one, one of the things that I’ve had to learn, because my brain is so associative, um, as an ADHD person, like, it is not, you all know this, it’s not linear, it’s somebody says something that makes you think of something else.

[00:56:28] Bryan: Which means, we are having a conversation about something that I did, Right? And it makes me remember the time Nathan did something kind of like it. And I want to talk about why are these two things different, or you shouldn’t have done that. And I’ve had to learn really, really, like, really deeply. We are talking about me right now.

[00:56:46] Christina: Right.

[00:56:47] Bryan: And the problem is, is that I’m, again, because of the forgetfulness. I worry that if I don’t bring it up now, I won’t get to. And there’s this feeling that, again, like I’m going to be taken advantage of. But he is, and this is the part that I’ve had to [00:57:00] learn, because I think a lot of us have had the experience of being gaslit and taken advantage of a lot.

[00:57:04] Bryan: And so we, we jump on things when they happen immediately because we don’t want to lose them.

[00:57:09] Brett: Mm hmm. Yep.

[00:57:11] Bryan: I’ve had to really realize he is not everybody else in my life. He’s not all of those other people that I didn’t know as well who took advantage of me or hurt me, right? Like we actually have a saying that it’s, it’s been this idea to like really radically reframe things so that I didn’t start.

[00:57:26] Bryan: And honestly, I have admitted now that like some of this came from Being so obsessed with social media for me and using like Twitter so much is that I got into the habit of responding to everything with a, but what about this? Or no, what it could, it should like, it was automatically adversarial the way that I would engage.

[00:57:46] Jeff: Mm.

[00:57:47] Bryan: Um, and in fact, when I started Not using Twitter as much, I started having more arguments with Nathan, my therapist was like, I’m pretty sure this is because you’re not fighting with people. Exactly. [00:58:00] Yeah. And so we’re actually do this thing now. I actually have on my home screen, it’s a picture of Nathan and then a piece of text that I put on there using like Canva.

[00:58:08] Bryan: That’s just basically like, remember, Nathan is always right. And Some people got very words in my life like that’s very scary why would you ever say that like well I just think your partner’s always right and I had to clarify with them that what that

[00:58:21] Jeff: sounds like something done under duress.

[00:58:23] Bryan: right but like the idea here but the problem was was that I was always getting into arguments with him and then having to come back and apologize because I was wrong

[00:58:32] Brett: Yeah,

[00:58:33] Bryan: because, because your brain makes, like when you feel something strongly, when you feel righteous anger, you think, how could I be wrong?

[00:58:41] Bryan: How could I be wrong? And we don’t realize how much of an unreliable narrator our brain is.

[00:58:45] Brett: it’s super helpful to have that framing. If you go into the conversation assuming the other person is right and being willing to look at how you might be wrong, it doesn’t mean you’re conceding the [00:59:00] argument. You’re able to take a different look at it. The one thing I’ve learned recently with Elle is If I can present, if I’m feeling hurt, if I’m feeling offended by something, um, if I can, instead of saying you offended me, if I can come at it and say, I feel offended and then think about here’s why, here’s how that hit me, here’s what that indicates within me, we can have a long, deep conversation.

[00:59:27] Brett: But if I come right out the gate and I’m like, you’re wrong, you hurt me, you did this. Incorrectly. Uh, it’s a totally different conversation that shuts down very quickly.

[00:59:39] Bryan: For me with Nathan, it is that he does not have a problem. This is, he’s a scientist, and it’s, sometimes it’s very frustrating he’s a scientist. I’m not allowed to use the word research in this household, um, because research means something very specific,

[00:59:54] Brett: Same as theory and hypothesis. Yes.

[00:59:56] Jeff: can just say, Educate yourself, man.

[00:59:58] Bryan: exactly. He’s like, or, or, [01:00:00] or, you know, or, or do some googling, you know, read some articles, learn some things, um, but, uh, he, he is more than happy to admit that he’s, when he’s wrong, like, annoyingly so. Also, like, even, and I have had, and, It’s been a combination of this plus a deep need for people to not be mad at me, and some real codependence, that I was often confusing, feeling upset or angry.

[01:00:33] Bryan: With the actions that I took when I was upset or angry or how I engaged with him. Because I would watch him get upset and angry, but then also be like, I’ll take your feedback or I’ll think about that. And I’d be like, but you got upset or angry. We’re not supposed to do that. And my therapist, it happened in like in real time in one of them.

[01:00:50] Bryan: And she’s like, no, the difference is he got upset. You could see it on his face. And then, and then he also still responded appropriately. And the difference is you get [01:01:00] upset and then you try to make it his fault.

[01:01:03] Brett: Do you find a sense of relief when you do admit you’re wrong?

[01:01:08] Bryan: Yes.

[01:01:09] Brett: I have this instinct to, to argue for whatever I’ve stated, even if I don’t fully believe it or can’t fully back it up. Like I feel this, this, uh,

[01:01:21] Bryan: be, to be wrong is to be bad

[01:01:24] Brett: right. Exactly. Uh, but the moment I can say, you know what, like, given this new information, given this data that I was incapable of gathering myself, I can see, I can see that I was wrong.

[01:01:39] Brett: And there’s this sense of relief that comes with it to just, to be able to say, Yeah, no, I was wrong coming into this. You were right. And it just feels like smoothing out all these waves of like emotion that I had.

[01:01:54] Bryan: There was not a lot of space. And I think Brett, you can probably relate to this. There’s not a lot of space growing up [01:02:00] for me to be wrong, for me to make mistakes. And it was a combination of, uh, I don’t think my mom My mom always tells a story about how when she started school, which was right after Brown vs.

[01:02:15] Bryan: Board of Education, her parents said to her, don’t do anything that will make these white people think you’re less than them. she has always been an overachiever. Also, uh, pretty certain she has ADHD. She’s actually finally going to talk to her doctor about it at 71. I’m so proud of her. And I’m pretty sure she’s autistic too, because this stuff runs in the family.

[01:02:36] Bryan: Um, but, and, so And she, she was one of the, like, I learned to get over things emotionally, or at least act like I was over them, maybe it was part of the ADHD. And then I would go to her and she would not be ready to, like, talk to me yet. She’d still be upset.

[01:02:53] Christina: Yeah, she’d still need

[01:02:54] Bryan: Right, and so,

[01:02:55] Christina: it.

[01:02:56] Bryan: right, and so I was like, well then that means that I’ve, like, I’ve [01:03:00] done something bad, you know, like, and so I, and also my parents were always very confused about how I could be so smart.

[01:03:08] Bryan: And still like make mistakes. And then they thought once they put me on medication, that that would solve everything because at the time that’s all they knew.

[01:03:15] Brett: hmm. Mm hmm.

[01:03:16] Bryan: Um, and it did not. And so, uh, learning that it is like, I still struggle with being able to recognize that, like making what, what happens is I’m constantly trying to recover from the mistake that I’ve made by not like, by not.

[01:03:32] Bryan: Making another mistake. But in the, in the process of doing so, I keep making more mistakes because Nathan’s like, stop apologizing a hundred times because all you keep doing is bringing it back up and I’m just trying to like, I’ll forget about it in 30 minutes if you leave it alone and I’m over here still obsessing over it because I made a mistake and it’s the perfectionism of all of us of trauma survivors, you know, and

[01:03:55] Jeff: mean, I can, I’m, I’m wired in such a way that like, when I, you had said to be wrong [01:04:00] is to be bad, right? Like, even though I have watched people in my life fuck up over and over and I’ve, they’ve never almost lost me. I assume that the fuck ups pile up when we get to four or five, it’s over.

[01:04:13] Bryan: yeah,

[01:04:14] Jeff: Never happened

[01:04:14] Bryan: always, and that somebody is always hiding something and they’re not telling you all the reasons of the way that they’re feeling

[01:04:19] Jeff: yeah, yeah,

[01:04:19] Bryan: to surprise you.

[01:04:21] Jeff: Exactly. Exactly. Surprise.

[01:04:23] Brett: You should read my journal for the last week. Yep.

[01:04:26] Christina: Yeah.

[01:04:27] Jeff: he actually has a live journal page. You can read his journals there if you

[01:04:30] Christina: Livejournal.

[01:04:31] Bryan: my live journal.

[01:04:32] Jeff: It’s all written in Russian, but

[01:04:34] Bryan: I was flame, I, I, my, my, my, my handle was Flaminice. And I, it was a picture of Emmett Honeycutt from, from Queersfolk.

[01:04:43] Christina: yes. Which is the perfect LiveJournal, like, like, show. Um, yeah. I, uh My username would be fairly easy to figure out. Um, let’s just, I don’t need to go further than that. Uh, because some of the stuff might still be there. Who fucking knows? Um,

[01:04:59] Brett: a [01:05:00] guess. I have a guess, but it sounds like you don’t want us to guess. I’m

[01:05:04] Christina: no, I mean, it, it, it’d be completely

[01:05:06] Jeff: can bleep. We can bleep in this thing, can’t

[01:05:09] Brett: doing a Google right now.

[01:05:11] Christina: Oh, no, you can’t Google it. That’s the great thing. It’s not indexed.

[01:05:14] Brett: Oh, nice.

[01:05:15] Jeff: Yeah.

[01:05:16] Christina: This was the

[01:05:17] Jeff: almost everybody on planet Earth with a computer in those years.

[01:05:21] Christina: no, that was a decision that Brad made, like, very, like, deliberately. It wasn’t, um, an accident. He made the decision to not index the stuff unless you purposely opted in. You had to go into your settings and opt in to be Google indexed because he understood because he was in college when he started this thing as a way to talk with his high school friends.

[01:05:40] Christina: And then it blew into this, like, many million user service that like had to have an invite system, um, uh, for many years to scale that he was like, this is shit that people aren’t going to want people to find. And so by default, it’s not

[01:05:55] Brett: by today’s standards. That’s highly unusual, but also a smart, like [01:06:00] admirable move.

[01:06:00] Christina: Well, that’s because this is why Brad, I think he should be so much richer than he is because he created these underpinnings for what the whole modern web runs on. And I asked him once, I was like, do you ever get mad that like Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Mullenweg, like all these people have like, you know, David Karp, all these people have made, you know, money essentially using a lot of the software you’ve built.

[01:06:19] Christina: And he’s like, if it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else. And A, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But B. Just the fact that, like, that’s his attitude is, like, why he’s, like, one of the, like, best people that, like, I can call my internet friend for the last, you know, two decades. Well, and we’ve met in person, too, but, like, you know, I’ve literally known him for decades, and, um, that’s why Livejournal will always have my heart.

[01:06:46] Christina: But that’s my slash rant, sorry. Didn’t mean to

[01:06:49] Brett: That’s cool. That’s awesome. Um, I think we should let Jeff go because I don’t know what his schedule here is.

[01:06:57] Jeff: I actually have a good, um, bridge here to [01:07:00] mine. Um, LiveJournal. Back in the, back in the day, I remember I went into the Punk Planet offices one day, which was just two people. Um, and, and Dan, who had created it, was the editor, brought me over to his computer. He’s like, check this out. And he, a friend had given him a URL that would allow you to look at.

[01:07:18] Jeff: And, Um, all of the live journal images, uh, that have been updated in the last whatever amount of time. And so anytime you could refresh that and you’d be looking at like 40 live journal images from the full spectrum of live journal, right. Probably some ethical issues, but, oh my God, was it the most amazing?

[01:07:36] Jeff: It’s like when you, have you ever, have you ever just sat and scrolled through like TikTok lives and just been like this? is all of the kinds of people, right? Like, that’s what it felt like. And I had a curated list, uh, I mean, a curated folder of all those, of my favorites of those photos that just, like, I had that same feeling of like, I’m looking across ways of living, you know, and being and [01:08:00] whatever.

[01:08:00] Jeff: Um, as I describe it, I realized it’s a little problematic, but, um, let’s, let’s, and if I, I could be challenged on that, but I don’t do it anymore. I mean, this was 20 years ago and, and I was fascinated by seeing the world. Um, so I’m sorry, everybody, if it feels wrong. I’m happy to admit it. Uh, but anyway, that was also just a weird, that time of the internet thing that something that would even exist, right?

[01:08:25] Jeff: Like that you could even kind of do that. I mean, you could scrape it obviously, but this was not, this was like, you could hit a URL and be like, here are the last hundred images that posted on live journal.

[01:08:34] Christina: No, which is, which is amazing. I mean, at a certain point, like that very quickly, like got out of scale, but yeah, like that, that’s, it’s crazy how, um, fast things move to the point where like, I remember when, when Twitter, um, I, I know Brett remembers this, Bryan, I don’t know if you do or not. Um, and Jeff, I’m not sure about you, but I remember like the first probably, you know, year or so, like there was the live feed.

[01:08:57] Christina: of Twitter that you could just look at. You [01:09:00] could like literally just go to Twitter. com and you would see the entire firehose of every tweet that was being sent on the network.

[01:09:07] Jeff: Wow.

[01:09:08] Christina: I, that’s how I discovered, that’s how I got a following. That’s how I discovered like people is I would just like randomly reply to people and you would just have random combos with people and you know, yeah,

[01:09:18] Jeff: Amazing. So only slightly related, but it is an okay bridge. Um, this is actually a rare mental health corner where I’m just focused on something that gives me like quiet joy, um, which obviously is key with mental health. Um, so a long time ago, I don’t have a great memory. That’s a theme today. Um, but I have a lot of stories in my life that I want to remember that just make me smile.

[01:09:41] Jeff: Um, and, uh, and as an example, Um, I’ll tell one in a second, but it, this whole thing stems out of a, um, out of a writing exercise I invented for myself some years ago, where I decided to focus on like, you know, my band probably did like six tours in the late nineties, but they were [01:10:00] like really formative experiences.

[01:10:02] Jeff: And, and things happen on those tours that I never want to forget. A lot of them are just dinner party stories anyhow, but, but I just don’t want to forget them. So I decided I’m going to sit down every day for like 20 minutes, I’m going to write postcards from these moments, essentially. Right? Like I’m going to write them short.

[01:10:15] Jeff: It’s going to be as if I was writing a postcard and it’s going to tell this story, just like the, the basic details of the story. Um, and, and I have one of those right now, which I want to share, and I want to tell you what I’m doing with them. That’s giving me quiet joy. Okay. Bye. I only just remembered this because I’m watching the show, The Offer, which is

[01:10:32] Christina: Oh, so good.

[01:10:33] Jeff: yeah, it’s great.

[01:10:34] Jeff: It’s irresistible. I mean, like there’s times when you’re like, Oh, this isn’t like the best TV show in the world, but it’s fricking irresistible, especially as a fan of the movie, like it’s candy. Um, so Colin Hanks is in that movie, um, which is what made me think of this. So I was at a show and, um, This was actually a reunion show 10 years ago, so it’s not even on tour.

[01:10:54] Jeff: And, um, and, and I’m backstage after the tour. I’m just like, after the show, I’m super sweaty. I’m sitting on a [01:11:00] chair. My friend brings down this guy and goes, Hey everybody, this is my friend Colin. And, uh, and he looks at me and he, and my friend looks at me and says, you guys are Colin’s new favorite band.

[01:11:10] Jeff: And I look at Colin, who I do not recognize. And I say, Come sit in my lap. And so he comes over, sits in my lap, a photo’s taken that I never got. He gets up, whatever the night goes on. I find out the next day it’s Colin Hanks. And I’m like, you know how those things are. It’s like, you kind of can’t ask for the photo.

[01:11:29] Jeff: Like, you know, his friend took the photo and probably his friend would feel weird about giving even though that friend was my friend. I never asked for the photo. Didn’t want to seem too needy. And so I don’t have it. Okay, so When you don’t have an image of a thing, right, like, um, it’s kind of, you know, one thing that, that I’ve experienced with trauma and we probably all have is that traumatic incidents can exist as frozen photographs, essentially frozen moments that won’t unfreeze for no matter how hard you try or wish them to, which is where therapy obviously comes in.

[01:11:58] Jeff: Definitely for me where EMDR [01:12:00] comes in. My cat’s complaining. Um, but I wanted to create, so I decided I’m going to plug these little postcard stories into Dolly, um, and have it create just completely fucked up fake memory images of these moments. So I’d be like, create me a postcard image of this thing.

[01:12:17] Jeff: Now, in this case, the best it could do was give me a picture of Tom Hanks sitting in Tom Hanks’s lap. Um, it’s no matter how hard I tried.

[01:12:26] Christina: I love

[01:12:27] Jeff: That’s all I would get, but that was, but that was great. But I’ve also, so I’ve been putting them in and it shoots back these pictures that are so wrong and something about engaging with the story itself and then, and then almost cartoonizing them because they are stories I love.

[01:12:40] Jeff: I’m not putting hard stories in there. Right. It’s just like, it’s been a way to connect with. moments in my life that I love, or even in this case, I’m kind of proud of. I’m proud that my reaction was come sit in my

[01:12:51] Christina: I am too!

[01:12:52] Jeff: Like, and I love that Colin Hanks sat in my sweaty ass lap without hesitation.

[01:12:58] Christina: weren’t even drunk, but also,

[01:12:59] Brett: know [01:13:00] you weren’t

[01:13:00] Jeff: one was drunk.

[01:13:01] Christina: also, also, like, you, like, your band was like Colin Hanks favorite band, like, what the

[01:13:06] Jeff: That night, yeah, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. So, um, another one I did that was just so, so delightful is like, I started plugging in dreams. So I’ve, I’ve had nightmare problems forever, but I also have the most delightful absurd dreams. And there was a dream once where I was driving a blue Cadillac convertible and an orange jumpsuit, not like a prisoner jumpsuit, but like a, like a seventies fly jumpsuit.

[01:13:29] Jeff: And I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm. I crashed through the fence of a monkey farm, and the monkeys were so excited to meet me.

[01:13:38] Jeff: So I decided to put this in, and the thing that was hilarious is that I had to keep re prompting with this one prompt. Make the monkeys even more happy to see me. But anyhow, this, this was like, I said, kind of like these are quiet moments of joy. There are these great things where it’s like these, these small little joy torpedoes, and they just happen with me [01:14:00] quietly with my laptop and my couch and these little memories. And it’s, It’s so much, it’s so interesting.

[01:14:05] Jeff: Cause like, I feel like the way we share these things over time is obviously with people and the older you get, the more the people in your life have already heard those fucking stories. Right. Um, and so, but you still want to interact with those stories. They’re memories that like do something for you.

[01:14:17] Jeff: Right. And so this has just been an amazing way to just interact with the parts of my life that delight me. Um, and, uh, and have it just be me and, but still have something reflected back at me, just like someone reacting to your story, you know? So that’s been really nice for me. And what has been like a.

[01:14:33] Jeff: Like you, Bryan, just a tough ass work week or a couple of weeks,

[01:14:36] Brett: I think I’ve, I think I have two questions and they’re actually for Jeff. Um, first, have you seen Life in Pieces? Oh, amazing show with Colin Hanks. Uh, second, have you seen the meme where they ask Dali to make John baptizing Jesus, but happier? And they have these two white [01:15:00] guy two white guys in a river in robes just yucking it up, just laughing and dunking each other.

[01:15:08] Brett: It’s, and they’re very, they’re very white. Notably, John and Jesus are both very white in Dali’s recreation of John baptizing

[01:15:18] Jeff: something crazy happened totally against their racist algorithm, which is that the very first thing I put in was the story where. We’re playing in Houston and at the beginning of the show, I hate Houston. I mean, I don’t hate it in a kind of way that I’m damning a city, but I never liked playing Houston.

[01:15:33] Jeff: Um, it could, we run this label Amphetamine Reptile Records and it was just meatheads that came out to those shows basically, right? Like we weren’t really, it wasn’t our thing, but like, whatever. So this is like when you go to Texas on that label, you really get, can get meatheads. So no offense, Texas, or, but if you’re a fan and you went to an AmRap band show, you know, it’s true.

[01:15:51] Jeff: Um, so anyway, beginning of the show, I’m already feeling angsty. There’s a street sign behind me, you know, how they used to decorate the clubs back in the day. [01:16:00] I reach back with my sticks to do some big like crashing thing and I slice my finger open on the sign and I’m bleeding everywhere. I was a little bit known for always bleeding.

[01:16:09] Jeff: I was like G. G. Allen, but I didn’t mean to be bleeding. Um, and so I was always like my, my drum heads had blood on them, my sticks, but I was really bleeding. And by the end of the show, I was just, I don’t know, it was like in a young person angsty moment where I like, I didn’t even like playing for these people and, and I didn’t like how they looked at me and I just didn’t like it.

[01:16:27] Jeff: Right. And so at the end of the show, as the, my bandmates were just making noise, um, I got onto a road case I had that had wheels and I, I, I surfed through the crowd throwing my bloody sticks kind of hard, like in a way that I don’t feel good about now. And, and as soon as the show was over and the lights came up.

[01:16:47] Jeff: And all of a sudden the magic’s over, right? You’re not, you can’t be in that character anymore. I realized, like, I’d just thrown the last of my sticks and I had no money. And so I started looking around for the sticks and I, and I see [01:17:00] three of them next to a dude whose back is to me at the bar, who is a very big, strong man.

[01:17:06] Jeff: And, and I don’t know if he kept those as evidence of someone hurt, almost hurting people or what, but I go over. I tap him on the shoulder, these are desperate times, and I go, hi, excuse me, those are my drumsticks, is there any chance I could get them back? He turns around, looks at me, and goes. You guys were fucking awesome.

[01:17:24] Jeff: So I plug this in a version of this into the thing, and it makes me a black drummer with blood dripping off my hands, albeit, but like, I was like, Whoa, like, I normally actually will just say, as is my habit, anyhow, if I’m describing myself to people that don’t know me, I’m like a six foot four white guy.

[01:17:44] Jeff: Cause right? Like white people don’t do that. They’re just like, Oh, I’m wearing a striped shirt. It’s like, Oh, okay. Well. I guess, uh, this is a test. I’m assuming you’re white. Like, it just, it’s a fucked up test of your brain. If you’re a white person, I like, I’m probably like all around. But I was like,

[01:17:57] Brett: was trained on death and bad brains,

[01:17:59] Jeff: [01:18:00] was the first time.

[01:18:00] Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. It was the first time I ever tried it. And I was like, they made me a black drummer. And then I had to write the really funny sentence of like, yes, but I’m white. Because like, I know this is like, okay, I love this, but it’s like, feel a little weird holding it. Anyway, that’s

[01:18:16] Bryan: great. That’s amazing. That’s so good.

[01:18:20] Brett: Mine can tie into multiple themes. Do you mind if I go next,

[01:18:24] Christina: No, please, please.

[01:18:25] Brett: Um, so, I, okay. Um, I, back in, I don’t even remember what year, but about ten years ago, I lost a couple terabytes of photos. Um, and History. Fuck you, Drobo. Um,

[01:18:43] Jeff: What’d you call me?

[01:18:45] Brett: and, um, and it, like, just gone, because I had trusted a backup system that was not to be trusted.

[01:18:52] Brett: Um, so what I have left from those years exists in what I did upload to Flickr, what I did post to [01:19:00] my blog, um, what I did, what I did make available online, because I had no local copies of these memories left. And I was going through old YouTube videos today and I found one. It was, it’s a company called Pummel Vision.

[01:19:14] Brett: It was an app that is gone now. Uh, if you try to go to their site, you get like a weird Apache error message. Um, or Nginx. I, whatever it, uh, it, it, it’s gone now, but what it does is take all of your. I think it was from Flickr, um, and it takes all of your photos and puts them up like two photos per second in this barrage of years worth of photos in like two minutes.

[01:19:46] Brett: And

[01:19:47] Jeff: dizzying.

[01:19:47] Brett: yeah, it’s, it pummels you with these memories and it was crazy because I did not have, I had completely forgotten about All of this, because [01:20:00] it makes me realize exactly how bad my memory is, um, if I don’t have photographs, if I don’t have photographic evidence or a blog post that something happened, then it may as well have never happened as far as I’m concerned, um, which is why I’m pretty religious about taking photos and backing them up and uploading to Flickr and blogging Blogging about things I learned because I will forget a year later, I will, I will search for the solution to a problem, find my own blog and realize I have already solved this.

[01:20:34] Brett: I have already done this. And this happens to me. I want to say, you know. Infrequently, but it, it’s like once a month, I find out I’ve already solved the problem, and I’ve blogged about it, and other people have linked to it, and I had forgotten about it, but this, this pummel vision, and then looking back through old Flickr photos, and like realizing that that segment of my life, it was about a two year [01:21:00] span, uh, that I had thought, you I had no memory of, but I did actually have online traces of.

[01:21:06] Brett: And honestly, it makes me really thankful for things like Flickr, for things like LiveJournal, for, well, I mean,

[01:21:15] Christina: Well, yeah.

[01:21:17] Brett: were backed up, things like my blog, for things, uh, these, these external, we’ll say cloud based. Versions of our life that they’re curated. They’re what we want to remember. They’re not necessarily indicative of reality or what really happened, but they are the things that for ADHD people, we would forget.

[01:21:41] Brett: Like they would be lost to time were it not for these services. And that has made me, it’s, it’s been a fascinating journey. And actually after watching that Pummel Vision, I reconnected with a couple of friends that I had forgotten even existed. And I’m like, Oh my God, I actually had [01:22:00] like a real connection with this person at one time.

[01:22:02] Brett: They were important to me. We took them into our home. We gave them shelter. Um, when. When things were bad and I had forgotten about them entirely, and it made me reach out and, and reconnect. And that was, that was, I don’t know, man. It makes me realize how bad my memory really is. . But the other meaningful thing I don’t like, I find, I found an IFS therapist, um, I’d had my first meeting with them.

[01:22:30] Jeff: family systems.

[01:22:32] Brett: Um, I have my first meeting with them on, uh, Tuesday. Uh, it’s just a 15 minute, like, let’s find out about each other and see if we want to do this thing. Uh, but I might get to move forward with IFS, which I’ve decided, even though I’m. Super skeptical about the whole thing. Like I’ve read the books and I really think if there’s a way through CPTSD for me, it’s going to be through IFS.

[01:22:58] Brett: Um, so I [01:23:00] am excited to have finally gotten off a wait list and gotten in to see somebody. But, um, the most meaningful thing I learned in the last week was, so anyone who’s grown up in an evangelical or Baptist type of, of setting, um, has experienced the idea of witnessing, where you are expected to share, uh, the message of Jesus Christ with your friends, um, and in your daily life you’re expected to, uh, convert.

[01:23:34] Brett: And this leads to alienation, this leads to, um, arguments, and rarely does it lead to anyone coming to join your church. Um, and it was always this thing that I, I felt super embarrassed to do, but like, I felt this compulsion, like this, like requirement that I do this if I were [01:24:00] going to be part of the church.

[01:24:01] Brett: Um, and what I learned was that this is actually, a technique used in psychological manipulation where you send somebody out to be specifically rejected by the out group so that they can return to the in group. And be lauded and comforted and told, you did great. They, they are, they are others.

[01:24:25] Brett: It further others the out group and makes you feel connected to the in group. And it gives you this, uh, sense that everything outside is dangerous. And, um, and this was absolutely the case for me. And, uh, and it was the. The basic, like, tenets that I was taught of, like, questioning reality, of loving unconditionally, of accepting strangers, that weren’t truly practiced by the church, but those concepts, when applied about the [01:25:00] church, actually got me out of the church and moved me on to, like, a better place in my life.

[01:25:06] Brett: So, like, I can’t They, they taught me some good things, uh, but this idea that witnessing was, was , psychological manipulation of the parishioner, not of the outer, you know, sources, um, that was actually really, it was fascinating to me and helped me put a lot of that in perspective.

[01:25:28] Christina: That’s cool. I, I I would, I would love to talk to you like on a different venue sometime about like how you got what, what, what the catalyst was, um, cause you just talked about it a little bit, but like what the catalyst was for you, like stopping being a believer, like, like what got you questioning your faith and like moving away from the church because you did that as a teenager.

[01:25:49] Christina: Um, and, and then like had a pretty radically different life. Um, uh, from like how what you’ve been raised and kind of expected to have. And it seems like it happened pretty quickly. I’d love to, [01:26:00] um, but,

[01:26:00] Brett: can summarize it, like basically, I, I, enough people contradicted the things I was told to tell them, and eventually I was like, wait, so the majority of the world sees, the majority of the world believes evolution is real. Can the majority of the world actually be wrong? Which led me to do my own independent.

[01:26:26] Brett: And decide, holy shit, no, there’s so much evidence for this thing that my church eschews that I think my church might be wrong. And that led to more and more questioning and more and more kind of deconverting. Like they didn’t call it that then. Um, this is back in like 92 through 96 that I kind of went through this deconversion process.

[01:26:51] Brett: Um, but just like led to question things. In a way that I literally, I had been taught to question everything the world told me. [01:27:00] Um, but I just, I redirected it and, and questioned the church.

[01:27:05] Christina: Okay. Well, see, that makes more sense then that you were taught to question things, but you were taught to question the outside world, not anything else. Cause I

[01:27:11] Brett: taught that there was this core simple truth, and anything that disagreed with it had to be questioned.

[01:27:18] Christina: Got it. So, it’s, it’s so interesting to me talking with people who, you know, um, uh, their religion changes or how they, you know, deal with faith or anything like that changes, um, because I think, uh, for most of us, it does usually follow a pattern where it’s, it’s usually we’re teenagers and, and we have these kind of moments of, of reflection where like, okay, this thing that I was taught, this thing I was told is not true or doesn’t feel true to me anymore.

[01:27:42] Christina: Um, And now I’m having to question my entire belief system and like re evaluate that. Um, for me, it’s, it’s a little bit different because I didn’t have the same, I was raised religious. But, not in a way where, like, the outside world is lying to you and, [01:28:00] um, this is the only way to be, like, I, I think that, I have to be honest, like, all things considered fairly healthy in terms of, like, uh, you know, cause my mom is, is a very religious person and it’s a very pure thing and it’s a very real thing to her, um, but it’s not like a thing where there’s judgment on others.

[01:28:18] Christina: It’s a very personal thing to her. And so. My faith was always very personal to me. And then it was a personal thing where I was like, I started questioning stuff and I went, okay, I’m, I’ve, I’ve, A, I have questions about, you know, some of the historical accuracies and whatnot because of the, the data and the proof that’s there where I can go, oh, I know that these books weren’t, weren’t written or were changed and how these things are translated or it’s fucked up.

[01:28:42] Christina: But the bigger thing for me was putting that aside was like, I’m not getting out of this what I’m supposed to be. This is supposed to be offering me comfort and it’s not. And then that led to like a much larger existential crisis. But I digress. But, but like, um, but the reason I, I like ask though is just because I [01:29:00] think it is so interesting that we have like a nation really of a lot of people who were raised up to a certain point to have one belief system and then were changed.

[01:29:10] Christina: But even when we change our belief system, we can’t escape, you know, that. Like formative stuff and it’s, it’s, it’s fucked. Like, I think that I don’t want to be a person who is, is like unilaterally shitting on religion because I think for a lot of people, it does offer a lot of good. And I think that there’s value in that, even if it’s not something that I get from an organized, structured thing.

[01:29:33] Christina: But I do think that we as a society don’t investigate enough how much damage is done by these, by these groups.

[01:29:40] Brett: have, I already talked about this concept of God’s love before,

[01:29:45] Christina: I don’t think so.

[01:29:47] Brett: this just struck me. This, this just struck me in the last, uh, last month or so, that I would hear, there’s this song by Joseph Arthur, um, [01:30:00] I forget the name of it now, but there’s this line that’s repeated, May God’s love be with

[01:30:05] Christina: In the sun. Yeah.

[01:30:07] Brett: In the Sun, yes, In the Sun by Joseph Arthur, and, and I listened to it And when he sings it, I, I remember that feeling I used to get when I was part of the church of being loved by God before it became nothing but judgmental, uh, before it began feeling like I, like I was going to hell, uh, that who I was, was going to send me to hell.

[01:30:34] Brett: This feeling of this all encompassing, it’s just love. Right? And, and you attribute it to whatever deity you were taught to attribute it to, but I think it’s a feeling that any human can experience in any context. And I think it’s a feeling, for those of us who had to, uh, force ourselves out of religion, who had to [01:31:00] literally pry ourselves out of it, and we developed this idea that all religion is bad, And that, like, the entire concept of a god is, is detrimental.

[01:31:12] Brett: And, and we can no longer access this feeling because it feels like it’s related to religion. It feels like something religious people feel. But I honestly, like, in exploring this, realized that this feeling is possible to feel and you can attribute it to whatever higher power you want to. You can attribute it to the universe, to universal energy, to God, to Allah, wherever you are most comfortable feeling this feeling emanating from.

[01:31:49] Brett: And for me, it It’s not attributed to any higher power. Um, but I am able to access that feeling of just [01:32:00] being loved. And I think that that feeling for like the, the religion that you’re describing, Christina, I feel like that’s a bigger part of it. People have this faith because it’s about love. It’s about feeling cared for and about just feeling accepted and part of and, and I think that’s true for, I think it’s true for evangelicals, but they mix it with this also eternal damnation

[01:32:27] Christina: Yeah, they, yeah, they, they, they, they mix it with these other things, with this judgment, like this thing that’s

[01:32:32] Brett: Yeah,

[01:32:32] Christina: opposite, this thing that’s the opposite of it in a lot of ways,

[01:32:35] Brett: Yeah, exactly. It’s 100 percent

[01:32:37] Christina: like, like, like, like genuinely, and so, um, uh, I’m gonna, I’m downloading this now, I’m gonna, like, send it to you, there was an EP, it’s no longer available to purchase, this is why I have, well, A, I wouldn’t care about Pirating it anyway would be, but there was a thing for, um, Hurricane, um, actually it might not even been, I don’t remember if it was Hurricane Katrina or not, but they did it.

[01:32:56] Christina: Um, uh, Joseph Arthur did, um, like a [01:33:00] EP where he did, um, versions of In the Sun with, um, Michael Stipe and,

[01:33:04] Brett: Oh, I have, it’s on YouTube. It’s on YouTube.

[01:33:07] Christina: Well, I, I have, I have it, I have it purchased.

[01:33:10] Brett: There are multiple versions with

[01:33:12] Christina: Yes there are.

[01:33:13] Brett: Stipe doing In the Sun. Like, I didn’t realize there was a connection. I discovered Joseph Arthur because a friend of mine was in NA with him

[01:33:23] Christina: Oh, wow.

[01:33:23] Brett: City.

[01:33:24] Christina: So, I discovered

[01:33:26] Brett: like, you should check out this guy.

[01:33:27] Brett: He’s been playing shows here locally and he just put out an album.

[01:33:32] Christina: I discovered him I think because, I think because In the Sun or something like that was featured on Dawson’s Creek. I’m almost

[01:33:37] Brett: Also, that song was in the movie Saved, if you’ve ever seen Saved,

[01:33:42] Christina: is a great movie.

[01:33:42] Bryan: Uh,

[01:33:43] Brett: a great kind of farce about

[01:33:45] Christina: Religion.

[01:33:46] Bryan: of S. A. T. E.

[01:33:48] Jeff: Wow!

[01:33:49] Christina: yes. No, sages so good. Uh, uh, Gina Malone deserved a better career.

[01:33:53] Brett: me, let me add Save to our show notes before I forget.

[01:33:56] Christina: But no, but Gina Malone really, she like, she almost [01:34:00] broke through.

[01:34:00] Bryan: Boys briefly?

[01:34:02] Christina: love them so much and I’m so happy for Kieran. Like that, I, like

[01:34:08] Bryan: And I, I mean, I grew up with a cru Macaulay Culkin and I are near the same age, so, like, crushing on Macaulay Culkin. Macaulay Culkin, Jonathan Brandes, like,

[01:34:17] Christina: Uh,

[01:34:18] Bryan: my, these are my, these are my boy crushes.

[01:34:20] Christina: Devon Sala. Um, uh, I never liked Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I always thought I

[01:34:25] Bryan: I honestly liked, I liked, you know who I liked instead was his younger brother,

[01:34:29] Christina: Oh,

[01:34:30] Bryan: ended up being really tall and gothy.

[01:34:32] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Taryn Noah Smith. I, I, I know all their names because of course I do because I was like, you know, I, I was an elementary school girl, um, in the nineties.

[01:34:41] Bryan: One thing I didn’t talk about that I want to share with you guys is that, you know, I grew up, um, in the church actually as well, uh, because my mom, uh, I mean, to this day is still very involved with the United Church of Christ, which is like the good church, right? The one that, you know, ordained women and queer people early.[01:35:00]

[01:35:00] Bryan: And you know, um,

[01:35:02] Christina: represent. That’s where I’m from. So I got you. Yeah.

[01:35:04] Bryan: yeah, I mean, the Episcopals are like the, the, the Catholic light version of the United Church of Christ, like the good version, you know? The UCC is as like as left as you get before you hit the Unitarian Universalists. Who are like, anybody, anyone, you know, this week

[01:35:18] Jeff: Today we read from the Gospel of Steinbeck.

[01:35:21] Bryan: exactly, yes. And so I had the experience of thinking that everybody, like all churches, all Christians were cool with like queer people and everything, and then Yeah, and then we had a question on a boy in high school who turned out, like, to be, he’s like, I’m Christian, so, and he’s like, you’re gay, and I don’t understand the problem.

[01:35:42] Christina: right.

[01:35:42] Bryan: but part of, part of this is that I, but, so what’s interesting about this is, there weren’t, like, a separate set of Christian musicians that we listened to that were mainstream, because that didn’t really exist. So like, when I went to church camp, which I did for several years, we would listen to, like, [01:36:00] Michael W.

[01:36:00] Bryan: Smith.

[01:36:01] Christina: yeah, he did break through a little bit. He and Amy Grant, there were a few of them who kind of like,

[01:36:06] Brett: Petra. You remember Petra?

[01:36:08] Christina: Petra

[01:36:08] Bryan: yeah, Pecha,

[01:36:09] Christina: Petra

[01:36:09] Brett: Petra

[01:36:10] Jeff: of breakin through back then. Yeah. Ha,

[01:36:12] Bryan: Yeah, and like, I just remember, like, I needed, but it was, I had this experience of this journey, like, so my connection to Christianity has always very much been about the music.

[01:36:22] Christina: Totally. I

[01:36:23] Bryan: much about the music, and it has been, it has been a very interesting journey as I’ve continued to grow older, of like, finding out that every single, like, Christian artist that you liked, like, does not like you,

[01:36:36] Brett: Yeah, sure.

[01:36:37] Jeff: ha, ha, yeah.

[01:36:38] Bryan: know?

[01:36:39] Bryan: And, but like, but also still deeply, deeply like, the music is so good.

[01:36:44] Christina: Many

[01:36:44] Bryan: I love the music.

[01:36:46] Christina: Well, that’s the thing, like, worship bands Well, some, well, depends, cause like, um, like there was like, like Mute Math, like there was like this whole thing of like, like rock, like Christian type rock bands. Like Swiftfoot, I think is an amazing band and, [01:37:00] and some of these bands like, uh, then like later like had changed, you know, their, their thing to be like, Oh, we’re more secular or whatnot.

[01:37:06] Christina: But like they started out as

[01:37:08] Brett: They went where the money was.

[01:37:10] Christina: they,

[01:37:10] Brett: Christian Rock had a huge, like, that was profitable for people. Like, Striper is a good example of, like, following the money.

[01:37:19] Jeff: with the Ah, man, they were following their own

[01:37:22] Christina: no, uh, no, no, what, what, what I mean is actually more the inverse where these were bands that like got a following and then started to actually be played on mainstream where mainstream didn’t realize that they were Christian and then they decided they wanted to promote themselves more as, as secular.

[01:37:35] Christina: Like Evanescence. Evanescence

[01:37:37] Bryan: I want to call out is just that, like, like, worship music is some of my favorite music out there.

[01:37:42] Christina: Oh, I agree. I, I

[01:37:44] Bryan: progressions, yeah, and the, and the experience of, the other part is, it’s the experience of singing with other people,

[01:37:51] Brett: It’s very

[01:37:52] Bryan: that is just so, well, it’s

[01:37:55] Brett: convince someone they’re having a spiritual experience, sit them through [01:38:00] three or four, like, praise songs with a, with a live band, and then hit them with this, like, do you feel, what you’re feeling right now is because of our Lord and Savior Jesus, and they’ll buy it because it

[01:38:13] Bryan: and what I want to say about that is, Right, and see, what’s weird is, I actually, it’s so interesting, they are having a spiritual experience, but it’s not about any, like, particularly, particular god or anything. It’s about the incredible biological things that happen when you are in sync with other people and you’re singing with them.

[01:38:36] Bryan: Like, that’s,

[01:38:38] Brett: A lot of, a lot of, a lot of human development is like, there’s, there are theories that, um, tribal gatherings that involve music, uh, that

[01:38:48] Bryan: is why I’m obsessed with acapella music.

[01:38:50] Christina: Same.

[01:38:52] Brett: a major, there’s a major component of human development that is based around the social construction of sharing music,[01:39:00]

[01:39:00] Christina: Oh yeah. Without a doubt.

[01:39:01] Bryan: and I

[01:39:02] Brett: and participating, not just sitting and listening, but participating.

[01:39:05] Christina: I, I was. Yes. No, I was just gonna say, like, I grew up in an Episcopal church, so our music, like, I would listen to them to worship music, my mom’s car, my aunt and whatnot, but it wasn’t like we had that in church, because Catholic light. Um, uh, but, like, Um, it definitely is manipulative, but then you, but I think the reason you have like, like Hillsong and like these like worship bands and things like that, you’re not wrong that it can, it can be manipulative and whatnot.

[01:39:32] Christina: But there’s also, I don’t think we can discount the fact that for thousands and thousands of years, like that’s how people have been able to connect and share

[01:39:40] Brett: there’s a real power to

[01:39:41] Christina: yeah,

[01:39:42] Brett: just, I don’t like it when it’s used, when it’s, when it’s attributed to something that isn’t responsible for it. Um, like the music is powerful and the connection of sharing music is powerful. And I think if we say that. It’s awesome. I think that’s, that’s, [01:40:00] that’s that kind of God loves feeling that I’m talking about.

[01:40:03] Brett: That feeling you get from sharing that experience with other people. That is powerful in and of itself and doesn’t need to be a tru Who, who else here memorized DC Talk lyrics at the same time they memorized Vadila Ice lyrics?

[01:40:18] Jeff: Oh, what if you memorized

[01:40:19] Bryan: I memorized

[01:40:20] Jeff: snob? Uh,

[01:40:22] Bryan: memorized the same type of thing, but I wasn’t, I was not a DC, I was not a rock kid. Except like, I was R& B rock, I was Michael Jackson rock, you know. Um. But I memorized, I memorized all of the Michael W. Smith songs, like lyrics, right along memorizing like, Beat It, and Nuke is on the Block lyrics, like, absolutely, I’m with you.

[01:40:43] Brett: DC Talk was the one group that had a black person in Christian Rock at that time. Um, and I thought they must be legit because they had,

[01:40:55] Bryan: I love how this book, this, this thing happened to you, right? Through all [01:41:00] of, like, the, and I don’t know, I don’t know what your parents, like, uh, views on race are, um, but it is fascinating. Okay, it’s separatist. Okay. So, the fact that you are such a, uh, that like, even at that age, you’re like, TC Talk.

[01:41:20] Bryan: They have a black person. They must be legit. Like,

[01:41:22] Brett: It was a rebellion of sorts.

[01:41:25] Bryan: well, that’s fine, but like, there’s a lot of people that don’t do the rebellion, right? And it’s fascinating that you did, that you found your way through that, that way, because there’s still so many people, yeah.

[01:41:39] Brett: you guys ever heard of Cornerstone?

[01:41:42] Jeff: yeah, I was in, I was in, uh, yeah. Yep,

[01:41:45] Brett: It’s a Christian, a Christian rock

[01:41:47] Jeff: Hi, Danny Glamour.

[01:41:50] Brett: Yeah, um,

[01:41:51] Jeff: Oh, oh yeah, Danny Glamour literally, possibly just shut the radio off. He was deep, he was deep in that, in that world.

[01:41:59] Brett: [01:42:00] um, it was the first time I heard Christian death metal, uh, was at Cornerstone, and that was

[01:42:05] Jeff: Christians die.

[01:42:06] Brett: It was a, it was a turning point for me where I was like, when I realized that Christians in this industry, in this particular industry, were basically stealing music that was popular elsewhere and then attributing, like, forcing God into it.

[01:42:28] Brett: And it made me realize maybe I would just like the pure version of this music.

[01:42:33] Jeff: is it stealing and forcing? That seems, uh, ungenerous. What about just

[01:42:39] Bryan: generosity about

[01:42:40] Jeff: a link in the chain and just feeling like, I want to do that, but I have to do it, or I want to do it in this context.

[01:42:46] Brett: we aspire different motives to it, because in my mind it’s very, um, very much a decision. Um, and there was money at that point in selling Christian music. There was like a captive audience of

[01:42:59] Jeff: One Cornerstone had a [01:43:00] label. I

[01:43:00] Brett: who would only buy things because it was Christian. And you could sell them anything as long as it was

[01:43:07] Bryan: There are certain people that, I think to Brett’s, or to Jess point, there are certain people who have that mindset that you’re talking about, Brett. A lot of the actual individuals and artists did not. It was, this is what they were told they had to do.

[01:43:20] Christina: Yes.

[01:43:21] Bryan: But both, so both existed.

[01:43:23] Christina: Yeah, and in fact many of them like I think had kind of like a it’s like okay Who’s gonna sign us? Like what can we do and then you would see like bands like like break beyond that sort of thing right to be like no This isn’t what we care about like, you know do other things then you do have artists like to say like like like Suzanne Stevens who is a very, like, like, faith based, like, musician, and, like, his early stuff, especially, was very, like, the only way you can read the text, like, he’s very explicit about, like, the, the, the Christianity behind it, but, I mean, he’s gay, and he’s one of, like, the best indie musicians out there, like, there’s, there are layers of things, [01:44:00] but if anything, like, it hurt his probably career To be, so to this day, like he still has to kind of fight like the whole like, Oh, I’m a Christian artist thing.

[01:44:07] Christina: And he’s like, I don’t want to talk about my faith when I’m talking about my album, just because it is an inherent part of who I am, but it is not, you know, part and parcel for everything else. But, you know, the, to your point, like when the labels realized that there was a way you could make a shitload of money off these captive audiences, they’re going to make the money, but the bands don’t

[01:44:26] Bryan: of those people were Christian labels too, who like, were absolutely doing the same sort of prosperity gospel

[01:44:32] Christina: of course. Even

[01:44:33] Bryan: those big church leaders were doing as well,

[01:44:36] Christina: Arguably

[01:44:36] Jeff: have an edge case.

[01:44:37] Bryan: all times.

[01:44:38] Christina: You tell

[01:44:38] Jeff: an edge case, Brett, you’re going to love this. So what, first of all, I want to say that, um, Danny Glamour, friend of the show, uh, may or may not, um, have a partner, also a dear friend who drove Striper around on a golf course, uh, on a golf cart at the, um, Cornerstone Music Festival.

[01:44:55] Jeff: May or may not have that experience in his home. Um, and the other weird thing [01:45:00] is that I for just a minute. I was a drummer in a band on the Cornerstone label that always played the Cornerstone Festival.

[01:45:10] Jeff: Because Cornerstone was organized by this organization called Jesus People, USA and, and Jesus people, USA was like the Black Panthers of, of evangelical Christians. They had a label, they had a magazine they had, right? Like they fed, they fed kids like the whole thing. But, um, all of my friends that were there left, I mean, they left in, in a, in a pretty serious wave.

[01:45:28] Jeff: But the , one of the things that helped me to be, uh, uh, in this band was that their albums had all been recorded by Steve Albini. And I thought, wow. I mean, I love the people in this band, but I was like, if I’m in this band. And we make a record, I get to record with Steve Albini. So there’s a bizarre, like, clashing of and Steve Albini’s partner,

[01:45:45] Brett: That is the weirdest sentence I’ve heard in a while.

[01:45:48] Jeff: Steve Albini’s partner then went on to make a sort of expose documentary on Jesus People USA.

[01:45:53] Jeff: It’s just like, I just wanted to throw that in, but I also want to mention that, Christina, you’re, you’re up.

[01:45:58] Christina: Oh, yeah.

[01:45:59] Brett: real.[01:46:00]

[01:46:00] Christina: For real. Um, no, so, um, I think probably the most pressing thing that has had an impact on my mental health corner since we talked last, because there hasn’t been a lot of changes. Um, I did try my, uh, husband’s, um, ProVigil, uh, uh, uh, like for two days this week. And I think that, um, when I talk to my shrink, um, like next week, I think, or two weeks, um, I’m going to bring it up to him, but, um, that might be like a good combo for things.

[01:46:28] Christina: Um, but, uh, my, my week was pretty good in terms of trying to get my ADHD stuff on track. I had a lot of work meetings. Uh, which seems to be a similar theme across all of us. But the thing that, and it’s embarrassing for me to say this, but it’s not because fuck it. This is, this is our show. This had like the biggest impact on my mental health, genuinely, is that I can finally use my Twitter account again after two and a half months.

[01:46:50] Jeff: Oh my God. Yeah.

[01:46:51] Christina: I can’t get into the details of how, but basically, favors were asked. I’m very grateful for, some people who have a way to reach humans there because [01:47:00] again, like, I didn’t do anything wrong. Um, this has been the most frustrating part about this is that Most people in my life have taken the default assumption that I had to have done something wrong for me to be locked out of the account the way that I was locked out of it.

[01:47:13] Christina: And I didn’t. I literally didn’t do anything wrong. Um, I, it was, it was some sort of like a tech snafu thing. And then because this is a company that is run by a megalomaniac, That has very few staffers, you know, in place. Like, you can’t reach a human being and, and it was just like, a problem. Um, and the thing is, is that I am probably going to spend, not even probably, I am going to spend less time on Twitter.

[01:47:37] Christina: I’d already been spending less time there even before, um, I was locked out of my account on November 7th. But like, I want to do it on my own terms. It, you know, having your account show that you, um, might have violated Rules, which leads people to think, oh, well, what the fuck did she say? Which never in 16 years of using the service have I ever even received like a warning, you know, let alone violated rule.

[01:47:59] Christina: [01:48:00] Like I, I don’t do that. You know what I mean? Um, I, and so, uh, then that gets people thinking shit that isn’t true. And then, you know, you have, um, people DMing you because they don’t know, you know, uh, what’s happening and, and you can see the DMs, but you can’t respond to them and you don’t have any other way of contacting them, which is awkward.

[01:48:19] Christina: And then you have people who are, you know, like, again, like sending me, you know, messages other ways. It was making it very difficult for me to do parts of my job. Um, and also again, like, it’s a cautionary reminder for all of us. I think that like, we don’t control these platforms. We don’t control these followings and these things can be taken away from us.

[01:48:36] Christina: And I always knew that. And it wasn’t like I was unaware of that. But when you experience that, I think it makes you like, Uh, at least makes me think doubly hard about, okay, how much do you want to invest on some of these things, um, without having any sort of backup plan? And certainly I could have continued my life without ever having a Twitter account again, but I’m incredibly relieved that I have access to it again.

[01:48:58] Christina: I’m already more [01:49:00] Productive, which I know sounds fucked up, but again, like things that I do with my job, because people see me as one of the main contact forces for the company that I work at. And that means that people will at me and things, or they will try to DM me, and then I have no way of responding.

[01:49:13] Christina: Now I can solve people’s problems. I can like, actually do work. And that’s just been like the Biggest relief off of my chest because I’ve had like just this in addition to the normal anxiety that I feel all the time I’ve had like this additional sense of dread and whatnot of like I genuinely did nothing wrong I could not reach a human being to get this, you know rectified um, this was like just like a bad situation and i’m You know, never changing my display name again.

[01:49:42] Christina: Ever. Ever. Like, never, like, making any, you know, gonna try to make as most minimal changes to, you know, the thing as possible. But, like, fuck. Um, I, I, it sounds dumb, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who, in their mind, are like, Well, and I appreciate you saying that because you actually were [01:50:00] one of the few people who really understood that.

[01:50:01] Christina: Jeff even commented, but how are you doing with this? This has to be like a big thing for you because a lot of people, their flippant reaction and I get it. Um, if you don’t think it through all of its logical things and how people can use tools differently than you use these tools, they can go, well, it’s not that big of a deal.

[01:50:16] Christina: You shouldn’t be on it in any way and, and, and, and good riddance and this and that. And it’s like, okay, again, If I make that choice myself and I do it on my own terms, that’s one thing. When that decision is made for me and I don’t have any way of even having a goodbye message or even telling people, follow me these places.

[01:50:33] Christina: I can’t even pin something. That’s completely different. Um, and

[01:50:38] Brett: the key right there is like people who have left Twitter, more power to them. Um, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re looking out for their own mental

[01:50:47] Christina: Which I totally appreciate. Yeah.

[01:50:49] Brett: And we could do a whole episode on Twitter and mental health, um, or Facebook and mental health, like social media and mental health, but to have it, to have a communication platform [01:51:00] that you depend on in any way, that’s Taken away from you is an inverse effect on mental health.

[01:51:07] Brett: That’s, that has the actual, absolute opposite, uh, reaction

[01:51:12] Christina: no,

[01:51:13] Brett: choosing to leave

[01:51:14] Christina: than choosing to leave and, and I think, you know, and then for me, like, I mean, and so, okay, look, is this tied up in ego? Sure. But, but it is what it is. Like, I’m aware enough

[01:51:24] Jeff: where, it’s where we all live. I mean,

[01:51:26] Brett: I don’t think it is tied up in

[01:51:28] Jeff: it’s like losing your passport.

[01:51:29] Christina: was going to say it kind of is that, but I was, well, I was going to say this aspect, like what you’ve, what I’ve had to kind of realize in some certain regards, it’s like, okay, you know, like a lot of, I owe a lot of my quote unquote success to the personalities and the things I’ve built up online.

[01:51:44] Christina: And when you lose access to that lever, even when that lever has been weakened over time, and even when people leave and whatnot, that’s a loss too, that you then have to like go through a lot of like. Me anyway, I have to go through like a lot of like internal things. Like, well, who am I? Like, do I [01:52:00] matter without having, you know, this thing?

[01:52:02] Christina: Like, because, you know, well, will people still want to, want to talk to me or reach out to me if I don’t have this platform that they see as maybe being more important than it is? Like, I might know how. Unimportant it is and how, like, my reach is, is not what they think it is. But that gives people a certain sense of who I am.

[01:52:18] Christina: What am I without that? And, and how do I exist without that, right? Like, so, and, and that, and that’s the ego part a little bit. And that’s okay to have, again, like those conversations. And I’ve certainly had to kind of grapple with like the, the waning influence as it were, which is fine. But again, to what you were saying, like, uh, Bretton agreeing with me, like, I, you know, do it on your own terms when, when it’s taken away from you.

[01:52:43] Christina: It’s like, it is a negative mental health thing. And so.

[01:52:47] Bryan: I mean, it’s a loss of, I mean, it’s a loss of, it’s a significant and severe loss of control. And also, ego, I just, I want to take a moment to reframe that word, which is that it is [01:53:00] important to have a healthy ego as a person. You know, like you need to have a level of self, like self actualization and self worth and self understanding.

[01:53:12] Bryan: Um. People often think, well, you know, these ideas of, like, will I matter, or do I make a difference, or how do people see me, that these are somehow, like, I mean, it goes back to all of the bullshit of, uh, like, you know, like, uh, The specific of Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity, the idea of we need to completely be devoid of the self, um, but like, you know, because then you’re not a functional human being.

[01:53:45] Bryan: So, you know, worrying about those things, understanding who you are, understanding whether you matter, that’s why we do things. Very cool. We do things because we want to matter. We want to be seen. We want, we want to be seen to show [01:54:00] that people, so that we know we exist. One thing that I think about so much, especially as I think about, I thought a lot about the experiences of what my, like my identity creation has been as I have sort of pulled those away and thought about them is how often we are forced to place our identities.

[01:54:19] Bryan: in the hands of others. Because so much of what we think about ourselves comes from how other people see us, because we don’t see ourselves. It’s just not a thing that we do regularly,

[01:54:29] Jeff: hmm.

[01:54:30] Bryan: you know? And so, and we are perceived far more, we are perceived by others far more than we perceive ourselves.

[01:54:38] Jeff: Mm.

[01:54:39] Bryan: so, We think about ourselves in the context of what others tell us about ourselves. And I think one of the hardest things to do, and one of the things that I am most impressed of by people who have figured out how to do it, is mainly because it is very antithetical to, I think, being a person in the world [01:55:00] today is people with very strong senses of self don’t get rocked by external things that affect the way others see them because it’s not, like, in some ways it’s not normal.

[01:55:15] Bryan: Like,

[01:55:15] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:55:17] Bryan: because, I mean, that’s how society is built, right?

[01:55:20] Jeff: I was gonna say, who are these people you’re describing?

[01:55:22] Bryan: My partner is one of them. It’s very weird, but I think he had to go through, he had to go through a pretty rough separation and divorce for like, to figure some of that stuff out. I mean, yeah, like we don’t, our society is, is literally founded on the idea that you should care what other people think about you because that’s how you build a community.

[01:55:42] Christina: Right.

[01:55:43] Jeff: Mm.

[01:55:43] Bryan: And there are good things and bad things about that, and the internet has, to some degree, taken it to an nth degree, and we’re, we weren’t prepared for it, and now we’re trying, we’re trying to figure out how do we integrate that, because it’s not going back in the bottle.

[01:55:54] Christina: Right.

[01:55:55] Jeff: Oh, God, no, the bottle just gets bigger, at least. [01:56:00] That didn’t make any sense, but you get what I’m saying. Nerd!

[01:56:05] Bryan: if we put it in the bottle, the bottle just keeps expanding. It’s like, um, a bag of holding, or the TARDIS. It’s bigger on the inside.

[01:56:12] Brett: Nerd.

[01:56:13] Bryan: Oh,

[01:56:13] Brett: Um, are we officially a two hour podcast

[01:56:17] Jeff: I was just gonna say, so whoever’s coming next, we don’t know yet, but the next person that comes on and we don’t go two hours, it’s gonna be awkward, but it’s not gonna be their fault. It’s not gonna be their fault.

[01:56:29] Christina: Season four, year 2024 has been like the year of like the two hour, um, overtired podcast, which honestly does feel like it’s kind of two podcasts melded into one, but I kind of dig it. Like

[01:56:39] Jeff: And it totally tracks with the fact that we’ve had a guest, intentionally, every episode since the year or the season started. Yeah. Which I love.

[01:56:47] Brett: Yeah. I’ve loved it too. I, I think, I think Bryan and I both agree that maybe if we’re going to do a two hour podcast, we should have an intentional bathroom break at like the one hour mark.

[01:56:59] Jeff: [01:57:00] For the

[01:57:00] Brett: five minutes, five minutes to walk around, do your thing, make a cup of coffee, come back.

[01:57:06] Bryan: Yeah, because I mean, definitely I’ve spent half of this episode.

[01:57:10] Brett: Two hours straight with ADHD is rough.

[01:57:14] Bryan: well, and I think one of the things that the two hours, the two hour, the two hour fit does it a little better actually, I think for Overtired to some degree is that most of us at different points in the podcast are off busy being ADHD. And so we can do that, and you don’t feel like, as previously, sometimes I felt like I didn’t get to, we didn’t get as deep as I wanted to because I was, I was off in the mist for 30 minutes. You know, on my

[01:57:41] Jeff: yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. I get that. I get that.

[01:57:45] Brett: All right. Well,

[01:57:46] Jeff: Well, thank anyone who hung to the end, we see you, and you definitely see us.

[01:57:51] Brett: we’ll call it there. We love you all and you guys get some sleep.

[01:57:56] Jeff: Get some sleep.

[01:57:56] Bryan: Get some sleep.

[01:57:57] Christina: Get some sleep. [01:58:00]