347. Emesis Kindling

Hey pals, you are not in trouble. We just wanted to give you a heads up that this week's episode includes mentions of drug use, self-harm, and death. That's Starts at the final chapter called Kimber and the timestamp will be in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry if you that bummed you out. It's really not a bummer of an episode, but just wanted to let you know. Hello? Hello, can you not hear me? Oh no, the problem is I can hear you fine. Um yeah, completely clearly This is Do by Friday. This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge Consider conducting yourself in the absence of anger. Hey, how are you? Oh, I'm doing very well.

I just woke up. Oh, I'm sorry. Can I please ask you not to apologize to me? I I I have to keep asking people to please not apologize to me. Um, you know what? In this case, I strongly uh agree. Oh good. That's that's critical. I I um yeah, I I I said I because my wife sometimes she apologizes to me and and I said there's there's a couple problems with that apology. One is th you don't need to apologize. Like, oh I'm sorry, I was just standing in the hall and I'll be like or whatever. Like she'll just be like Yes. You ever do that where you're like, oh, I was just about to do a thing that's unrelated to what's happening right now and I thought I'd tell you that. And I'm like, It's the way of the woman.

Just program. How would you know about that at all? I listen, I was a fraud for many years, but I still learned, you know, uh what's the problem? So anyway, uh, and I said the other problem that's a deeper problem, this is kind of a new thing for me, which is the like it seems like I'm being mean to you about one thing when I'm actually gonna be like super mean. triple heart about uh the opposite which is like you should apologize more for things you actually did that you're sorry that you're actually sorry for that's the problem have I talked to you about emotional paint jobs No? Um not not that I Oh okay. I was uh seventeen minutes ago, I was dreaming I was asleep. Now I'm awake and you're asking me if I'm if I remember that.

Now what you really want to say is I'm about to what no I I I know, you are sorry. Just just just just let me know when you're done. The Alex to French translation of that is not a question. It is that I'm about to tell you a story about something and by by giving it a name and asking you if I said it before. Have hey gosh, this drives me crazy. Have I ever talked to you about how, oh my gosh, how much I dislike you? Have we ever talked about that? Have we talked about the dislike job? Have we talked about the emo emotional uh left out of the phone? I don't think I don't think I know about that, Tommy. But it is your problem. And uh often things aren't your fault, but they become Merlin Mann's problem.

But I have not been a little bit closer to me. Uh oh no, I'm I'm just saying in regards to my personal friend Merlin Mann, that is something about me with the message. We're not okay, no, this is a job. I was dreaming, I was asleep. I was back at my old job from the 90s. Oh, oh, ooh. Have you ever told you about that? Sorry I had to mute because my Scooters decided to start making R2 D2 noises. Oh no no no don't make that noise no no Dave it knows exactly what it's doing it doesn't have a rotator cuff I hate the way you move in public. Uh I haven't been able to stop thinking You're the storyteller right now, and I can't stand it. Spanish guitar? Alright, no son of mine is gonna play Spanish guitar Hey everybody, please, please Listen slash watch the work of Chris Fleming because it's also good.

It's also I was re-watching Hell yesterday. Thank you for flying, Delta. It's travel that makes us human. I've watched it uh three times since last week. So Like a little boy in Jerry Maguire. Thirsty? Thirsty? Fancy? You talk about tell them one or tell them two? It is life. T Tillem Two's for working with hard. Oh God. And when you watch a comedy special with y your spouse as I do. So God Oh we're we're not married to laughers title. I can just a couple months after I met her. And I So I walk in and she says, Oh I'm sorry, I'm standing in the hallway doing a fake laugh. I'm sorry. Ha ha ha. Oh you. I swear to God I'm not menstruating. I'm sorry. I was thinking about the time I thought I could be happy in life.

KK. Paint job. What's the paint job? Mm uh, I haven't been able to s stop thinking about the Delta incident where the man had diarrhea on a plane. All the way up and down the plane. So up and down the aisle. You don't you know Casey, I I was very clear about it. Did he send you the the the photographs and videos as well? That's that that's also how you know Twitter has really gone to shit because well The the uh I really wanted to like zoom in on the paint job. I couldn't. I didn't I'm like this actually isn't that upsetting to me at all. It's like a vague shade of brown uh in this blurred video. I mean I mean diarrhea is like head wound. Like a head wound. Like where it's like it it's not as bad as it seems.

Oh a little diarrhea goes a long way. Yes. Yeah. Okay, I see where you're going. If you had a shot glass of liquid shit and threw it on a plane, there aren't that many people that would be happy about it. No, no. Given that it's a plain, I mean it could be cranberry juice and people wouldn't be happy, but the fact that it's shit, it's a bummer. Like it's probably not gallons. It's again, it's not gonna be like Mr. Creoso vomiting in the restaurant. I mean the the article that I sent you via messages which I I know you don't like when I send you things without confidence. I don't like being handed things and I don't like when you don't click things. You just send me things with f with funny names and with no clicks.

You might as well send me a picture of yourself in a hat. I oh don't don't give me that idea. But um there is something called red Z, quote, that is poured over vomit to dissipate it. which she calls she being a flight attendant amazing. I I love this article about like how often do biohazards happen on uh b n neither had I. Well I think they use Well, you gotta be prepared for lots of stuff, but also you just you can't carry everything with you. Like, you know, everything weight is such an issue on a plane. It's like why You know, they make the chairs so light 'cause the peop 'cause the people so big. I'm not sure who that's racist to, but probably stewardess attendance. But uh a shot glass full of poop, we don't have we don't have room for that.

I one of the kids remember sawdust. Yes, Mr. Harding would come in and put spawners. that somebody else saw that and threw it up and threw up and then a third person threw up. So you you that that's like not that does happen, at least when I was a kid. Yes. It's a joke on The Simpsons or whatever, but it did happen in elementary school. Chain vomiting. That is absolutely a true thing, and this is another distinction, I think, between public school and private school Since we've talked about how the there's there's a little bit more stress sometimes, uh not necessarily in private Oh in your case the vomit actually becomes the literal body of Christ. Yes. It it it and then we need to lick it up.

It's called trans vomitation. Yeah. But um I wasn't the only kid at Catholic school super stressed out, and sawdust came out at least once a week, usually before or after attack. Here comes the dust, Domini Domini Yep, yep, yep, yep. And it was and and then there was a janitor and teachers who were like clear, clear. The janitors dress like dress like clergy people. That'd be so funny. No, but that would be funny. Uh father harding. That would be funny. I know letter Yeah another oh the wee ones are under a bit of stress. Bring me the red seven or whatever it's hard. There was buckets of sawdust in every classroom because it seems like a fire hazard. I mean, you know, you don't want a bio biohazard, so yeah.

Fires of hell, literal fire. We're gonna get some more of this Emisis Kindling. That's the name of some kind of an author for sure. From the BHYY in the B H Y Y in Philadelphia This is Dave Davies, and for Dave Davies and for our Terry Gross. Today we welcome the author, Amish Kinling. Best known for Can I get this chair? Dickle. Mises Kinling, that's funny. It's kind of like Eustace Tilly. A Mises Kinling. Okay. Keep going. You're using the sawdust bucket which they keep lots of in your um thing. Yeah. And they kept a lot of it it it happened less in high school, but th that's because there was a little bit more freedom to go to the restroom when necessary. Oh so the so the Vomiter Prime, Vomiter Zero, is somebody who probably If they if any if it was Kate Katie in Mean Girls, she would assume because she's grew grew up in Africa that it's just okay to go to the bathroom when you need to, right?

But in that case you're probably like, oh my god, I I don't want I'm so embarrassed. I can't even ask to go to the bathroom or they're gonna drop the buck on me. Okay. This is another thing. People have been shocked By when I talk about how, man, it really sucked in grade school when you had to raise your hand and ask if you had uh like uh y you know, do I can may I go to the restroom please, especially if it was between a time period where you already have the opportunity. So someone like the the class knew there was either a paint job or a blood situation God forbid your tiny frail body doesn't adhere to a schedule. And I I I don't think I've had a friend who has said what are you talking about?

No, you just take a little pass and like the a I mean there was a you know like a hall monitor who would make sure, but I I didn't ever think of, oh, it should be talk about bodily autonomy. I probably Yeah, I mean it's too much it's way too much to get into and way too actually very, very sad to talk about, but I don't think that's a joke at all. Uh I and I I know you don't mean it, it you know it's only partially a joke, but it's not really a joke. It's like Uh you know what, this is too sad, I don't want to talk about but the way that we the way that we control uh people and instill fear in people and uh basically get the prisoners to watch themselves is very, very it's a thing that I think about a lot and it makes me really Really sad.

So anyway, uh you got you got uh Red Faw standing by and you pour that, you the the the priest comes in. See now imagine your janitor's next month sit out, which would be kind of badass. The power of restraint compels you. There was also only one janitor, uh of course, and he was They kept getting transferred away to other diocese. Oh god Oh man. Unfortunately yeah. Also I don't know why he has that little roll in his voice. I'm gonna try again take two. Three, two. Yes, me cleans the toys a little bit too well. Merlin, have I ever told you about emotional paint job? Me? I don't think so. Yes, you the you there. Hello. Um First time Alex here. Yeah. Emotional paint jobs. Yes. Every day I've been thinking about the Delta paint job incident and it it made me realize that everyone had a terrible day.

Absolute t t awful awful day. There's there's no there's no nobody anticipated that day. Right? No no person involved in that, including me reading about it, was anticipating that. No, no, no, no. Uh but the person who you know, uh did the job itself. I have to think that all things considered, he had the worst day Especially the like the thing is you the doing the paint job sucks. That the anxiety that preceded the paint job sucks. Getting back on the plane after five hours would be the worst part. Oh God. And do you go in the same do you go sit in the same seat. You had the same person sitting next to you. I I would not get back. There would be uh if you're one of the people that had to climb over the seat like and you're like next to that person for a flight to wasn't an overseas flight?

I'm not sure. That the the it stress it stresses me out to read about this. Speak about it. What is it? What is it you think is this is it something about the the you said you you left off a Bad day for the f w what is it you think? Oh, l everybody is having like the w probably one of uh not probably, possibly one of the worst days of their lives, but I'm thinking the guy who had uh uh you know who did the paint job, that's was probably the worst day of his life. And People who are ic quite mentally ill or or just having a bad t day. Like, it is the They are having the worst day. They are feeling or physically quote the worst, but everyone's experiencing their paint job. They're walking around uh the gross fuel of whatever sort of uh d toxic emotional gas th that there is.

And now I'm the person who's like, man, I like to pride myself and never causing a a let's say bio paint job, but uh in regards to our, you know, a little bit of spoiler ch challenge this week, like a lot of anger too is Maybe you're the w having the worst day, but ev everyone's gotta n experience the angry paint job And I can't I just can't stop thinking about it. I don't know. I mean, I I don't know. Um when you're doing the wh whatever your version of doing the uh challenge this week is to um conduct yourself in the absence of anger and and the the the the trick we could talk about it all we want, whatever, but like the the I I thought it w I found it instructional. to me because not only how can I put this there's so many levels to it I think you're talking about the second and third levels of it the first the first level is like you know okay sure I'll give it a I'll give it a spin second is wow I I it's I now that I'm noticing this, there is an element of anger to a lot of things that happen in my world that are mostly owing to me.

And then you get to this next level of like e n you if you keep digging and you interrogate it, you don't have to like obsess over it. But you know, this is why it's useful to have What do they say? Loose opinion loo what what does it say? Loose strong opinions loosely held, you know? Like this is that's the that's the idea behind a thought technology is that you invest yourself completely in it without needing to do it for the rest of your life. And I think I found it very interesting in ways I didn't expect, which was that like I I kind of was like, wow, anger. And I don't I don't think of myself as an angry person. The anger that I actually have in my life is not part of the bits you hear on a podcast, so please don't presume to guess you know me.

The the I'm talking about the kind of anger, the frustration with myself a lot of the time. I'm talking about the anger of why why are these untenable situations so untenable? And and I I feel like I with with pat myself on the back, the the part I I really it becomes so ineffably uh true is the whole like the Plinko game part of this, which is however it started out. It might have started out as a nice morning coffee and you get on a plane. Somebody on that plane is gonna be angry. And it's understandable. It is understandable. But the thing is, that's that when I talk about the Plinko gaming and the gravity that takes every emotion to eventually become anger. I guess the only thing after anger is violence.

But anger is something that it can come out of frustration. It can come out of anxiety. Anger can come out of something that has been building up for years and never had a name. And then one day it just explodes like a giant like zit. And I I I don't know. I um I'm I'm interested. What did you think of it? I enjoyed it quite a bit. I I've gotten permission to tell this uh story. And also, hey everybody, I'm okay. This is this uh episode well uh r relatively Less often than is really logical, but yes. Less often I less often hopefully less often than than usual. But our episode is l We're all doing our best every day, Alex. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm just trying to do a little bit. I'm just trying to up my best.

You know, le level in up slowly but surely. I I uh uh life is a game of Dark Souls. You just Gotta have a good sense of humor. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. I love all Tacitus games. Home. I love Kingdom of the Dark Souls. I love Nart Knight and the Mario Man. Uh Disparate Engagement. That's mostly a kind of a funny storytelling game. I love that one. I love that gun where I the the game where I wear a nightgown. Okay, Dark Mario is actually a very funny idea. I know Dark Mario is a funny idea. That's a very no one. No, you you don't even know what hats you're uh putting on now. No, no, no, no, no. Right, but it would it would take it would take uh it would take uh energy that could go into other things to learn how to make this a joke about such an unnecessary So anyway, you're in Kingdom of the Dark Souls 7.

Scott Kogan knows how to play that. Oh my god. Um this this week's episode is tardy. Oh, don't say that. Uh we're a little late this week, pretty late this week, because uh m Matthew, my spouse, had uh his tonsils taken out on Wednesday and uh we were all good to go planned, like He was going to have uh friends and his mom take uh care of him, but then his dad got into a car accident. that was uh pretty gnarly and he was dumb. He uh did like a one of those t turns where maybe you don't understand this unless you live like in Florida or Illinois. where you can technically kind of turn left on a red light if you've if it's if you know you're like in the intersection and uh It's it's still illegal.

You should not do it. The people behind you in the turn late will honk at you. Who who fucking cares? Don't Don't turn left on a red, even if you think you're in the safety zone. I don't live in Illinois, so it's not really mine to say. I would have to agree, Alex. Take taking a left turn on red, I think, is probably largely For more often than not, you know, at least fifty-one percent of the time, turning left on red is probably not a good idea. Well was that a thing in Florida when you were there's not a thing called turning left on red. Unless there's a blinking unless there's a blinking, there's nowhere in the world you can do that. You can take a right turn on red, and if you don't stop very well before you do it, Sometimes they call that a California turn or California stop.

But California had had um right on red, like right at right on red or right at stop signs. I think they did it first in like the seventies. But I don't know. I mean it's if you can turn left on red, that's not really a red light then. It's either not really a red or not really a light. Exactly. Exactly. It is it's like the people who quote roll through stop signs, which I have very strong feelings about and they're not good at the end of the year. Yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And you know, the the sort of Illinois r uh red light rule is g fine until you've got into a a nearly fatal accident and then This is Matt's dad and he turned left on red. So anyway, keep going. So we uh so then I had to skip.

Uh Merlin was very gracious, and so I took care of m Maddie. Maddie's mom took care of his dad. It's boring, but everything's fine now. Hooray. But the f Th there was almost like a fury uh of m me and Matt around, oh my god, you fucking stupid man, why the fuck did you do that? That was ins insane. Like there are many social norms that are just ludicrous Like, I I know that we're joking around of like there's no such thing on a left on red, but this is a very common thing. Like I know, I know, I know. Like rolling through stop signs. Not at all like rolling through stop signs. It's more like tossing a gun in the air on Tuesday. I promise. I That's really fucking stupid. It will be an yes. No, I agree.

It it's a little bit more than a little bit. Flashing red light is a four-way stop usually. Wha uh in this case a Okay, never mind. I don't wanna talk about this. Okay, go. So I'm so so so you guys still care each other. But you found an element of anger. Oh, uh absolutely The same way I get angry around um when I not even around, like when I hear about someone rolling through a stop sign, like but it became That was the sound of the school bus slamming on its brakes. Yeah. I'm busy. Um but th this was clearly a case of uh the i it wasn't a long But the initial part was like clearly this anger came from a mix of fear and anxiety, like fairly quickly. I don't even have to know this the the details of the story to to be able to tell you, in my opinion, at least three or four things that that comes from.

All of almost all of which are shameful. Um the first one is inconvenience. Oh jeez. This is a whole thing now. I gotta deal with this. Right? There's that. There's the there's the anger of, you know, family member whom I love, uh, I I I love you, and I'm so angry that you could have been taken away from me because you're busy and in a hurry or that you could have really hurt somebody else's dad doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Or or it could be like Oh gosh, you know, boy, two train wrecks sharing an apartment. It's it's not really always such a fun thing. Look there's all kinds of little elements of how that becomes here's new information in the world. And the response to that is, well, this has already happened and now it's my problem.

But or not, or not. And that's the thing is that when you've gotten so good, and this is the Twitter angle in some ways, is the the more time that you've spent becoming angry, more angry Quicker and quicker for less and less reason. That's you guess what, buddy? You you are now officially ripped. You have your your anger muscles are so overdeveloped. and you've been skipping so many leg days, by which I mean learning to be a fucking human being, you can be perma-angry now. And like everything, your anger is now never more than d just a a few seconds away at any time. Because that's right? D you you get me though? Like I I and and if you think that's not you, you fucking piece of shit listening to this, think again.

Because I thought that too. I bet you Alex thought that too. You don't even and I'm not angry. But the um, but but it's it is really, dang it, it's really true. is that that rehearsing rehearsing and I think one of in one of those games of Plinko, I think a lot of anger comes out of, let's be honest, last six, eight years, whatever, frustration. I I am I I feel like again like you sound like Mugabe in uh in uh Zoolander. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Am I losing my mind right now? Am I the only person looking at this and going What what are you people doing? What what NFTs and Web3? Are you fucking insane? What is wrong? You're you're buying fake money? You're buying receipts for fake money with fake money from other receipts?

Are you kidding me? No, actually, it's really an exciting new way to deal with the problems of fiat currency. No, it's not. It's a shell game, and and you're that kind of thing. Let alone the Trump thing. I'm not even talking about Donald Trump. Not talking about crows. Anyway. Not talking about crows. Such a strange joke. Um But you know what I mean? Like it's it like but pretty soon anger is always, always like just it's just there for the taking all the time. And it's almost it becomes almost more like you've got this thing, like you've got this personal rancor whom you love very much, but whom you've trained uh to to to kill all the skywalkers. And it finally you're just like, please, please, please, please, please, Rancor Master, please let me kill a Skywalker.

And you're like, okay, buddy, you can kill a Skywalker. And then when the rapport does die, you cry because you miss the anger. Mm-hmm. I actually distinctly remember uh you saying, I don't think I'm ready to make fun of the crypto guys yet. And I was really uh impressed. with that. It was a long, long time ago. I should have said that's a good idea. Well what did what did you say? What I probably said because it's what I believe. It's that it's a goddamn shame that crypto and blockchain have come come to mean the same thing. Because crypto is not blockchain. Blockchain's fucking amazing. Crypto's weird. Yeah, yeah. That that was that was part of it. The crypto people are they're fucking Morlocks.

But I still think blockchain is a very interesting idea. I don't know if you need it for your place that makes insurance brochures or whatever, but you know What? What's oh god? Nothing. It's just we were going we're going somewhere so good and now we're talking about crypto. No, no, no, we're not talking about crypto. Headline. No. And you're gonna get that and then you're gonna be a bell of rings every time you start to talk about some kind of current event that makes you go. No, no, this was I was saying that I was impressed by how you examined your like uh your anchor around s He Ah ah bell Alex's dumb dummy dumb bell. Yeah. I in the doc, but anger versus frustration and or boredom, which now I'm just thinking should be an and and not even an or, because I think I get my anger, a lot of my anger comes From boredom, which sounds weird initially, but boredom as in hmm tell me what that means When you go to a meeting that nobody should have to go to, and like one of those things that could be an email and just takes up people's time.

It should have been an unnecessary email instead of an unnecessary email. Exactly. Like at least with an unnecessary email. I I don't know, there's a little bit more dignity around that. At least you can still, you know, read it while you're going to the bathroom and you don't need to do a paint job. Whereas a daily standing meeting type of thing I I've seen a lot of anger around those because it's uh I I don't know. I think for me it was anger around not just the lack of agency, but the lack of power, I guess. And I I I don't I don't know. That that I don't want to do the Yoda thing. Angry's to hey rah. Um But man, God, so much of my resentment comes from people. Not resentment, but initial resentment is from people just I mean but but the thing is Well, I don't know.

I don't I don't yeah, I I feel like I I could disassemble these things all day and not get bored with it because and and I'm not again I I would Now I'm not I don't mean to do that here, although I may be doing that just a little bit here, but I think I think it's useful to look at, like I say, just in my opinion, my mental model. I'll get one thing out of the way. Something personally, this episode that I am going to try to avoid that would be almost at least difficult to avoid is talking about other people's anger because there's so much to talk about with other people's anger. Honestly, like they're really I'm not saying that as like a bit or rolling my eyes. It's like we still have not really begun even the most cursory gloss of how angry everybody is all the time about everything.

We call talk about it sometimes, it comes up from time to time, but then we just go back to being angry and forget about whether it's something we need to be talking about. So I just want to clarify for myself. And if it seems like I'm steering a little bit away from the like what other people do to us stuff. Uh it's before my own selfish reason, uh, which is that this has been useful to me as an inward turning thing where I go, yeah, but what about you? Mr. Big, what about you, Mr. Smart Guy? Like, you know, I I I I think it's fun. Like it's the the to in in the way like a spa treatment. makes you more sensitive to the problems of beautiful people, I guess. You you you can go like, oh gosh, I thought about anger for thirty minutes and now I feel like I understand the world so much better.

No, how about this? How about you think about anger one minute every hour? instead and notice how much you learn about yourself. Because that's that's the exercise. The exercise is not to identify how other people could be better if they were smart as smart as you are, in my case. It's for me to look at myself and say, well I can what I can do though is if you st uh so anyway, is that does that make sense what I'm saying? Oh absolutely. So to to respond with what you're saying though And I don't know if people know the game Plinko. I I just feels like a good an apt analogy for me in some ways, which is just this game when the prices, right? When I was a kid, where you dropped this oversized poker chip.

Think of the game Pachenko or something like it. Or, you know, where it's a non-mechanical pinball type game where a chip goes down and there's these little pins that it pops off it bounces around. People know Plinko, right? And then you hope it's complete luck. There's no skill to Plinko. Plinko, you drop in the chip and you hope it lands in one of the big money uh slots at the bottom. And I don't know why that feels so enduring to me. It's not a perfect analogy, but I I think it's useful to look at the kinds of Feelings. I thought anxiety was I gave myself a diagnosis of anxiety a long time ago. And it's taken fift ten, fifteen, twenty years to understand that no, anxiety is a side effect of like three problems I have.

Anxiety is not the problem, anxiety is the result. Right. So at first what I realized or what came to realize eventually was that anxiety one thing is anxiety is a product of ADHD. You know what else is crazy, dude? You ready for this? Anxiety. You think, oh, are you somebody says, oh, I'm depressed. Well, okay, I'll see you sleep a lot. Yeah, I do. Well, yeah, but like you can also sleep you can sleep a lot and have anxiety. Because guess what? Anxiety is something that comes from From depression. Anxiety, it's like when you hear those drug ads and they have to tell you the side effects and how nausea, headache, nausea, and vomiting are side effects of almost everything. Well, headaches, nausea, and vomiting are like a side effect of life.

And anxiety is the product of so can come from so many different things. Why am I telling you this? I thought anxiety was the problem instead of the product. I thought my anxiety was what caused trouble in my life. Instead of realize things that cause trouble in my life also produce anxiety. And if you don't if you think that's a distinction without a difference. Hakuna matata. There's a big fucking difference. And so anger. Okay, well, I have these anger issues, so I'm gonna go to anger management class. Well, anger management class. There's a reason they call it anger management class, I think. I suspect. Like you've ever you've heard like in a as a joke like when Andy on the office has to go to anger management class.

Yeah, it's not anger we need. It's a funny thing because that came up like in the nineties. It was a new thing and we thought it was kind of a funny idea. is that you're you're the enraged boss you could think of from like a TV show or whatever, like a J. Jonah Jameson person. Like, um, you know, HR uh the company's making them go to anger management. class. And you're like, oh, that's that's hilarious. They had anger management classes? Because of course what's the joke there? The joke is, well, do you want you to stop acting angry? Well I guess they can't. So what do we do? We send them to anger management class. Now why is that interesting? Well It's not called Anger Eradication Day. It's called Anger Management Class.

Right? Yeah. Which might as well be called fart containment room. Mm-hmm. Like here's the clo here we we can never stop you from farting farting, but we demand that you go and take this course to be certified in how to hold in your farts so you don't bother us with it. Yep. Okay. And it again, uh, you know, I hope that hope somebody gets that. Two of you will get that. What I'm trying to say is, guess what? Anger is a product. You could very much anger once anger gets big enough and and and as ready as always like a fingertip like a grab. Oh I just woke up like that. like an hour ago. Once once anger becomes something that is so accessible and ubiquitous in your life, it can't help but become a problem of its own.

But but have you really interrogated why you're so fucking angry? Have well first of all, look again, and the like step negative one of the challenge in some ways is like are are you even is one even aware of how often Anger has an effect on one's life. Let's not even call it angry. It's not equals equals angry. It's not equals angry. It's, you know, like or as angry. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. And how are you are we are we are we aware of what that factor is? So in some ways that really was the the challenge was to like start noticing that. But where did it come from? Can I give you some crazy ones? Here's a crazy one. Yes, please. All these uh uh you know, uh sorry you hit the headline bell, but you know, incel type guys or guys who are real jerks and they they're terrible toward women.

I think it's probably seems to me from a remove that a lot of those guys are pretty angry. Well, why are they angry? Well, I'll uh you know why they're angry. Anybody listening to this knows why they're angry. Instead we just walk around calling them angry, which is true, right? They are angry. But why are they angry? I can think of so many reasons they're angry One that comes straight to mind is they have they know they're just not good with people. And it hurts a lot to not be good with people. people. You're defending them. Okay, fine. I'm defending them. Sure. Uh no maybe I'm not defending them. Maybe what I'm trying to say is you're so fucking angry you no longer have the ability to understand.

How many things in life start with abuse, trauma, or a broken heart? And it's it's not that could be th all those things apply to they apply to coal miners. They apply it to incels. Uh just who whoever the Mr. Corn dog in your life is, like he's angry for some fucking reason. It could be because his dad beat the shit out of him and said, That's this is how you know I love you. And you know, and it's it's like we're we're so deeply, so deeply incurious about how why people we don't like are so unlikable. It's just easier to bin them over here. Well you know what? How about this? How about we all take that big fucking spotlight and point it at ourselves and go, Why are you so angry, Mr Mr. Guy?

And I think it's a very d I'd love to hear from you. I think I I find it a very interesting process. And boy, is it ever already helping me. I have been thinking about Inger a lot for a long time, and what has begun to frighten me the most is how much I've communed with folks who are angry about the same thing, but w where that anger comes from is very, very different. D does that make sense? Like some people are, like you said, are I I think I think So get well, I don't want to guess. Tell me. So like you're talking about like in like like stuff in the queer community, like Uh oh yeah, for sure for sure. Well I don't know what you're talking about. A lot of queer communities as as well as n neighborhood organizing uh com communities and um commissions, things like that.

Like everything is fine and good um while I while you are working towards a goal because you are angry about a situation or an injustice, but there's very little discussion about the m motivations f for e each person, which is why a lot of uh activist groups have a lot of drama and fighting. Uh yeah. It could be like sometimes like something as simple as old guard, new guard. Like old old feminism, new feminism, those kinds of things? Yeah, but yeah, yeah, exactly. Like some uh That's real, right? I'm not just making that that up, right? Oh no yeah but not it not at all. And i i except it comes bet it it's not as often an age thing as people think. A lot of times it is f oh god the the biggest one I I can think of right now because we both did did you listen to the this American life slash what's next piece uh called the call.

Yeah I think I saw what I masked it on. Yeah I think you recommended it to me and I did. Well but it was I started texting you. I started texting you immediately. Oh Kimber yeah Kimber. That was incredible. Yeah. Basically about about uh this this heartbreaking story of people trying to basically people who it's a c it's a hotline you can call if you're about to like do dangerous drugs and somebody will just like talk to you while you're doing it. And it's a ver form of harm reduction. And it's exactly the kind of thing that makes a lot of people well sing along with me. Very angry. Harm reduction makes them very much where you bring. Yeah. And it's uh it's um it's even more moving and upsetting than you might imagine.

I f I would f I would I would say I it actually uh I mean it was very m moving, but that's a very common experience I've uh uh had being on the one side of c uh at at one point there uh the story i is broken up and like spoilers whatever. Um, but this woman who works for this harm reduction hotline was inspired to do it because her own daughter had on and off the but had a lot of drug problems. And at one point they were so angry at each other They got into a literal physical fist fight in public. Because I'm from West Tennessee, I hit her back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was her line. Mm-hmm. God. And she just uh uh realized she was angry because she wanted her daughter to stay alive one more day.

And this Yeah, yeah. Like yeah. Like what what do we do? Like my whole job and she's oh she's uh she's a a nurse of some kind, right? I don't know if she's an RN, but she's some kind of a health professor. And she's like, but she's just like really straightforward about it. She's like, I'm just gonna stay on that. And she's you can tell she knows everything about it. She knows all the like She doesn't sound like some kind of like hip Facebook mom trying to use lingo. Like she knows. She's not the mean grope moms of like everything's where Like at at one point she invites her uh daughter and friends who are addicts into her home to use because They're doing some uh a drug in in Kimber's car and she's like, Kimber, how can I help ya if you're in the car?

Get inside and because that's where the Narcan is. It's it's inside. Um whereas um But because because we look at drug use and abuse addiction, whatever we decide, whatever you call it, I don't I'm reluctant to give a name to s something that's So complicated and involves so many different people. But if if that were you know how you get frustrated sometimes with a relative who like has dementia and falls down a lot or falls down a lot or something? You can't help but do it. Like if you if you've never felt that frustration, let me just go ahead and just predict that you've never had to take care of somebody in that situation. Taking care of somebody with Alzheimer's is very, very tough. And you are going to have shameful anger like you've never had.

How do you not remember daddy? How can you I take care of you all day and you don't remember your husband? I would see my mom do that and I would go, Mom, she can't help it. She's but that wasn't my dad. that my mom was forgetting. Okay. And that read the book 36 hour day is really good. Um and so But y you you you come into that stuff and like but if somebody falls down a lot, what do you do? Do you like Kathy Bates them in the ankles? No, you do your best to like try you you keep the same way you would put the pa puppy on the paper or help the kid, like when we were c potty training the little lord. We you you you see you see the look. You know there's you eventually get a look. Oh you're about to do that thing where you go stand and look out the window on a diaper and groan.

No, you go and you you grab one of the armpits and Madeline was the first one to do this, but of course I picked it up too you pick up the kid and you start running you go gotta get the potty fast fast fast fast fast fast fast and not stressful but funny like here we go like fast fast fast fast you're gonna be like the transmanian devil we're gonna go this is what happens when you gotta go potty fast fast fast fast fast fast fast I don't beat the shit out of the kid because I can't stand to see my kid covered in pee. Yeah. I don't I don't I don't Kathy baits grandma's ankles because she's it's so frustrating that she keeps falling down and not remembering grandpa. And yet I didn't know Kathy Bates would become a big thing.

And yet and yet if's if your daughter, who you know is an addict, is in the car I'll tell you I'll tell you something terrible about me. There's a part of me that would just be like, please don't do that in the house. Please don't come inside. I can't stand to know You're doing that. And every impulse for the way I've been raised my entire life tells me I should not be, quote, allowing you to do that, let alone allowing you to do that in my house. Imagine this the imagine what it takes to be able to go, I hate my kids' addiction more than you will ever understand, which is exactly why they need to be in the house. I need to like, I need I You know what I'm saying? It but but but but why? Why why is there a difference?

Well the difference is we think that's a matter of human weakness and we despise human weakness. We hate it in ourselves and that makes us despise it in others. Also, you're costing me money and my s my precious tax dollars. So you're no, there's no more addicts. How could you do that? How could you give out clean needles? What do you want these people to live? Yeah. How will they die if you keep giving them clean needles? Right. And uh working with uh mentally ill people i especially Well if you give them a house, they'll have a place to do drugs. Yeah. Exactly. Like next thing you know they'll be getting a job. Mm-hmm. Yeah. A c a cell phone? What? I button. Exactly. If you get these people off drugs, if you give them a house, if you give them money, pretty soon they'll be supporting themselves.

They're they're dr they're druggers. Don't help truckers. What? I mean I I I Bonnie with I I just saw Bonnie helping a drugger. I can't have Bonnie see me struggling with his cheese. God, I hope Chris Fleming is a happy man. He sh I oh he makes people so happy and I hope to- Dave put seashells on the doorknobs. We can't have clothes. Company is coming. I I mean but if if Chris Fleming is not happy, I would rather him be alive And not happy. You should try drugs. Okay, you were at you were at um I cut you off, you were at um the podcast episode. about drug helping. Oh, oh, just um I have uh f found my I'm not trying to convince anyone or say that I am on uh the right side of this argument, opinion, whatever you want to call it, but I You can't do anything with uh dead and that's really limits the options for what we're gonna do.

Yeah. Uh smaller scope. Really I can't make a joke about But I mean it's to the point where okay if The only option for somebody is, you know, their self-harm, whether it be uh like uh razors or needles or burns, whatever. Oh, we're gonna need a uh a giant size. Warning on this. I don't even know what to call this. It's just the the content warning itself is gonna be ups I know, I know, I know. It's gonna be like the worst Netflix thing ever. You know, instead of it's like some some smoking and coarse language. Ah, everything you're scared of. We don't have a time for this. Oh, just No nudity, you're welcome. Nonviolent mischief. That's my favorite one, and I still don't know what it means. Well, I love the ones that are mis mischief.

I love the word mischief. Yeah. Mischief is like just walking into somebody's office and dumping over part of their desk. It's just not it's not gonna like it's not gonna ruin or knocking one book off the shelf. That's mischief. It's Britt, it's it's like when someone says, Oh, they're such a stinker. I'm like, what does that mean? What are like does that mean they're malicious? What are you talking about? You talking about stinker? Stinker's kind of like a rascal. He's just a little stinker. I what does that mean? You're talking about little I think you're talking about Lil Stinker. Mr. Cox, this court finds you to be a little stinger. We're saying the f the the fart suppression group Ha ha ha plecito get uh get some fourth for the FSG.

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