Episode 543
with Aubrey Gordon, Chris Meija, and Danielle Ponder
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello recall some fads of the past; Aubrey Gordon unpacks how her hit podcast Maintenance Phase debunks the junk science behind nutrition, wellness, and fatness; standup comedian Chris Meija takes us on an unexpectedly hilarious account of his call to the suicide hotline; and lawyer-turned-powerhouse vocalist Danielle Ponder performs "Only the Lonely" from her newest album Some Of Us Are Brave.
Aubrey Gordon
Writer and Podcaster
Aubrey Gordon started writing under the pseudonym Your Fat Friend in 2016. As Your Fat Friend, she published and wrote anonymously about the cultural realities of moving through the world as a very fat person for four years. Her work has been published in Literary Hub, The New York Times, Vox, SELF, Health, Roxane Gay’s Unruly Bodies, and Jameela Jamil’s IWeigh. She is a regular columnist at SELF Magazine. Her debut book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat was released to rave reviews, and her latest book You Just Need to Lose Weight equips readers with tools to reframe myths about fatness. Today, she co-hosts the popular podcast Maintenance Phase with Michael Hobbes. Together, the two debunk and decode wellness and weight loss trends. Website • Twitter
Chris Mejia
Comedian
Chris Mejia is one funny guy. Regarded as a bright up-and-comer as he performs in clubs and showcases all across the West Coast, his comedy has also been featured on the BBC World Service Radio and he has performed at Treefort Music Festival, Bumbershoot, Madison Comedy Week, and more. Alongside his festival performances, he was a Semi-Finalist in the Seattle International Comedy Competition. Chris regularly features for nationally touring comedians and has opened for Chris Redd, Dulce Sloan, Jamali Maddix, Jai Knight, Langston Kerman, and others. Chris is also a writer whose works have been featured on satire sites including Flexx Mag and The Needling. Website • Twitter
Danielle Ponder
Singer-Songwriter
Bravery can take many forms. For singer-songwriter Danielle Ponder, it took the shape of leaving her successful day job working in the public defender’s office to devote herself full-time to sharing her powerful voice with the world. The sixth of seven children, Ponder had always been musical, but she chose to pursue a career in law after her brother received a 20-year sentence due to a “three strikes” law. Still, music was never far from her heart. Written and recorded over three years, the singer-songwriter’s mesmerizing debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice. Described as "a singular talent on a meteoric rise” (SPIN) and following her much lauded performances at SXSW and showcases in New York and Los Angeles, Ponder continues to successfully tour. She is among the 30 new artists in YouTube’s Foundry Class of 2022, a global development program for independent music, supporting indie artists at all stages of their careers through annual artist development classes and ongoing release support campaigns. Alumni including Arlo Parks, beabadoobee, Dua Lipa, Clairo, ROSALÍA, girl in red, Kenny Beats and more. Website • Listen
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Luke Burbank: Hey there, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going great. Are you ready for another round of "station location identification examination"?
Elena Passarello: The first one of 2023, if I'm not mistaken.
Luke Burbank: That's right. This, of course, is a place Live Wire's on the radio. Elena has got to guess where I'm talking about. This city is home to the Ploy festival, which is a pancake type of mix. One of the events at the Ploy festival is making the largest ploy that you can. Currently, 12 feet in diameter is the reigning champion. I see you nodding your head. Do you know where I'm talking about?
Elena Passarello: When I went to Maine, somebody made me a Ploy. So I know it's somewhere in Maine, but I don't know. It's probably not Portland or Bangor because we've already used those cities.
Luke Burbank: That's right. It is in Maine, though you never cease to amaze me. It's also home of the International Muskie Fishing Derby. Does that narrow it down?
Elena Passarello: No.
Luke Burbank: I'm going to give you the point just for getting the right state. I am talking, of course, about Fort Kent, Maine, where we are on WMEF. I am so impressed. It's ploye? Is that how you say it?
Elena Passarello: It's like a pancake with mixed with an English muffin so it can, like, absorb all of the sirups and things into its nooks and crannies. So it's really, really good.
Luke Burbank: Oh, man. We're going to do a live show from Fort Kent, Maine, so I can have some of that. All right. Shall we get on to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: Take it away
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's..... [Audience chants "Live Wire"]
Elena Passarello: This week, writer and podcast host Aubrey Gordon.
Aubrey Gordon: Everything we think we know about diets is science. Everything we think we know about diets is marketing everybody.
Elena Passarello: And comedian Chris Mejia.
Chris Mejia: It's cool to go to therapy. It's a bragging right on a dating app to say you're a man who goes to therapy. It's great. The bar has never been lower.
Elena Passarello: With music from Danielle Ponder and our fabulous house band I'm Your announcer Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Hi to all the folks listening out there in Ploye Country in Fort Kent, Maine. We have a great show in store for you this week. Of course, we asked Live Wire listeners a question. We asked, what is a fad that you fell for? This is related to one of our guests this week. We're going to hear those answers coming up in a few minutes. First, though, it is time for the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show that there is good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news you heard this week?
Elena Passarello: Okay, well, this best news involves two of my favorite things heavy metal music and stamps.
Luke Burbank: A classic overlap of those two worlds.
Elena Passarello: Is like peanut butter and chocolate. So last week, the British Royal Mail released their latest series of stamps, and they've had them devoted to other musical acts in the past, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. But the 2023 musical stamp issue is for Iron Maiden. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: No way. Yes. Bruce Dickinson and the folks from Iron Maiden.
Elena Passarello: I'm sure that every single member of our listening audience can name as many members of Iron Maiden as you.
Luke Burbank: That I just did.
Elena Passarello: Well, as all of our listeners already know, Iron Maiden is one of the longest running musical acts in British history. They formed in 1977 and they are still touring today. Our listeners could probably name all 17 of their albums, including Number of The Beast, Fear of The Dark Killers, and my 11th grade AP English teacher's favorite Power Slave.
Luke Burbank: All albums. I would have been grounded for life if my very Christian parents had caught me with when I was in middle school.
Elena Passarello: Right. And I think one of the reasons that I had those messages is because the covers were so graphic. They always had this mascot, Eddie Vedder.
Luke Burbank: Yes, that skull guy.
Elena Passarello: Yes. Skull Guy is on all 17 album covers and he's also on four of the 12 Iron Maiden stamps that the British Royal Mail has just released. And the other eight stamps of the series are of various members of Iron Maiden performing at their notorious, infamous world famous live concerts, which they've been doing, you know, for like 40 years. The best news is that you do not have to be a citizen of the British crown to buy them. You can buy lots of different packages, including some kind of a gold foil version that's like mounted in a special case for about 180 bucks. And then the Iron Maiden postal marriage can be alive and well in your home, too.
Luke Burbank: You know, I was a bit of a philatelist myself as a kid. I was in the Daniel Bagley Elementary Stamp Collectors Club, and I would have been very excited about some mint Iron Maiden stamps at that age. I have some good news related to my TikTok habit. Elena. You know how I tend to spend far too much time looking at that app? Well, TikTok is finally doing some good in the world. Let me tell you the story of a guy named Frank Steele lives in Las Vegas, and for 30 years, he says he has been dreaming of opening his own restaurant. And he finally did it a little while ago, a few months ago. It's called Frankensons. They make pizza and subs and all kinds of yummy stuff, but he has not been getting a lot of business. Said sometimes they might only make $400 a day. He was pretty bummed out about it. So somebody who worked for him at this restaurant reached out to a guy named Keith Lee. Okay. Keith Lee is a former Army fighter in Las Vegas who has now started reviewing restaurants and particularly restaurants that are not getting a lot of attention. Keith Lee gets the email from this person that works at Frankensons and so goes down to Frank and Sons the next day and buys a bunch of the stuff, takes it back to his house, and then sets up his camera because this is what he does. He's got millions of followers now on TikTok, where he reviews different kinds of food. And let me tell you, Keith Lee loved the food from Frank and Sons. Let me play you just a little clip of Keith Lee's I don't know why this is relevant, but he's sitting on a small child sized paw patrol chair while he does this. I just want to throw that out there because it's a weird detail that I thought was interesting. It's Keith Lee reviewing this food.
Keith Lee: This is one of the best wings I've ever had. This a ten. Boy, I swear. This is why I start making videos like this. Because places like this that don't bobody know of, this a 9.8 out of ten. Frank, from me to you, this is my opinion. There is no way you should be behind on rent or struggling to pay rent. The food is delicious. Yeah, Frank! Yeah, Frank, I'm coming back and I'm shaking your hand.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love it.
Luke Burbank: Frank did not even realize this was happening, right? He didn't send the email. He did chat, by the way, with Keith Lee at the restaurant, but not realizing that he was setting something in motion that was going to change the course of his life. Frank is now sold out of practically everything at Frankensons in Las Vegas. People are coming in from all over the country. The video has a 40 million views right now, the review. And now Frankenson's own Tik Tok page has like a couple 100,000 followers. And they keep posting these things that are like, Thank you so much for the love and support. We're out of wings, we're out of everything. But please come back. We're going to buy more and have them for you. Frank says it is a miracle. It is totally, in his estimation, saved his business. This one. TikTok food review.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love it. The next time I want to throw my phone across the room because I've been watching an hour of TikTok of just like ducks attacking cats or whatever. I'm going to remember that it is a device that can be used for not just good, but great.
Luke Burbank: That is the best news that we've heard all week. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to the show. She's a writer and podcast host. Her writing has been published in The New York Times and Self magazine, where she's a regular columnist. Her debut book, What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, came out back in 2020. And these days, she is the co-host of the extremely interesting and popular podcast Maintenance Phase, which the New York Times calls essential listening for anyone who's ever been in the grips of the diet industrial complex or latest book, You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths about Fat People is out now. Take a listen to this is our conversation with Aubrey Gordon, recorded in front of a live audience at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland.
Aubrey Gordon: Hi, everybody.
Luke Burbank: Hi, Aubrey. Hi. Welcome to the show.
Aubrey Gordon: Thank you so much for having me. This is a joy.
Luke Burbank: We run into one of those episodes where clearly one of the guests is vastly more popular than us. And we're okay with that.
Aubrey Gordon: Yeah, totally fine.
Luke Burbank: You have a legion of fans here. Is that, I mean...[Fans Continue Cheering}
Aubrey Gordon: I spent six days a week in my home office. So like one of the days of the week is like something like this. And I'm like, this is a real shock to the system.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I'm curious. Was there a particular diet fad or kind of wellness trend that you saw that you thought? I have got to sound the alarm on this and start a podcast?
Aubrey Gordon: No, no, there wasn't like a particular trend, but I think there is this idea. There are a couple of ideas that we all sort of collapse into each other when we're thinking and talking about diets and wellness trends. And one of them is that everything we think we know about diets is science. Everything we think we know about diets is marketing everybody. Right. Like there's actually a great episode of I don't know if you guys listen to this. There's a great episode of Decoder Ring where they talk about sort of the invention of hydration, which absolutely charts back to Gatorade, trying to market to more than athletes. Right. It's like that's how we got bottled water. That's how we got the idea that you are dehydrated all the time. That's how we got sort of all of this set of ideas, Right. So I think stuff like that stuff like sort of the very intentional social construction of an obesity epidemic and the sort of scapegoating of fat people that comes along with all of that felt like to me and I think to my co-host, Michael Hobbes. [Crowd Cheers.] Yeah. Yeah. That's right. It just felt like there was this huge piece missing. Right. That we are able to talk about misinformation and disinformation now in politics. We're able to talk about misinformation and disinformation in media. And yet still, some of the smartest, sharpest critical thinkers I know would go willingly into the Whole30 and be like, I'm never going to get cancer, and now I'm immortal, right? You should talk about it. No, that's not right. Like, so that felt like the broader thing to illustrate, right, was like, it's a lot of the emperor has got no clothes and we should be able to sort of like talk about how those stories come to be and how we perpetuate them and how we sort of allow these myths to to flourish.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I'm wondering, you are so natural on the show, as is your co-host, Michael Hobbes. Were you in speech and debate in high school? Were you a drama kid like you just seemed completely at ease holding forth for, you know, hours at a time and you're just such a natural at I'm wondering, had you done something like this before?
Aubrey Gordon: No, I was an organizer for a long time. And you you know, like, I spent just like years and years knocking on people's doors, being like, I'm gay. Do you think I should have anything? Okay. And I think that just, like, hardens you to whatever. Do you know what I mean, like, literally everything on planet Earth is easier than, like, ringing the doorbell of the guy whose doorbell placard says Home security by Smith and Wesson. And you're like, Oh, I'm going to ask you about gay people. We're going to see how this goes. What does this guy think about immigrants? Let's find out. Yeah, right. So, like, genuinely, like, truly everything is downhill from that. Especially like being in my pajamas, talking into a microphone.
Luke Burbank: That feels very doable for you compared to...
Aubrey Gordon: Extraordinarily. Yes.
Luke Burbank: Yes, absolutely. This show is so popular. I'm wondering what you think it says about our society that so many people have latched on to your program.
Aubrey Gordon: The thing that we hear most from listeners is the idea that we are told directly, right? Like, it's not like some hidden message that everyone's tapping into in the same way. It's like, you know, we're told outright that if you try a diet and you don't lose weight, that's your fault. If you're fat, that is a failing of your character, right? That is a failing of your tenacity. It's a failing of your intelligence. It's a failing of all of these other things. Right. So we're piling all of these moral judgments onto ourselves and onto the people around us based on the size of our bodies and theirs. I think people are really thirsty to know that that is not their own brokenness, right? That that is a brokenness in systems that exist outside of them.
Unidentified: [Crowd Cheers]
Aubrey Gordon: And in systems that shape our thoughts and our behaviors. Right. Like it's hard to think about yourself as like, you know, you don't want to think about yourself as gullible. You don't want to think about yourself as anything other than an egalitarian. You don't want to think about yourself in any of these ways. And those are the only ways that we think about ourselves when it comes to our bodies. Right.
Luke Burbank: I want to, after the break, talk about what I think is almost sort of the genesis point of so many of the things you discuss on maintenance phase, which is the BMI scale. So we're going to do that in a moment. This is Live Wire from PRX. We're talking to Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast. We'll take a quick break and then we'll be right back with much more.
Luke Burbank: Hey, welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. My name is Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. We're talking to Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast. So you and your co-host, Michael Hobbes, you tackle a whole variety of trends and quote unquote, wellness ideas. You talk about apple cider vinegar, how that became such a thing, low carb diets. And there's one thing that I think really is kind of at the center. It's like the piece of dirt at the middle of the snowball. That is all the misinformation around weight. And that's the BMI scale. Now, I'm sure most of the people listening know what that is, but that's the body mass index. And it was supposed to be this thing that would scientifically tell people if their weight was healthy or not based on their dimensions. Yeah. How did it get started? How did they get it so wrong and how is it still passed around so much as a scientific truth?
Aubrey Gordon: Okay, so I have bad news for the sound person that I promised not to yell. I was like, I won't blow your levels. Sorry. We're going to talk about the BMI. So the BMI was developed in the 1800s by a Belgian astronomer and statistician who was mad that Belgium was being left behind in the intellectual revolution that was happening. And he was like, I'm going to put Belgium on the map. And he started looking for these laws called the laws of social physics. He wanted to know how people would behave in any number of situations. And the only data that he had access to was the data that the state already had. So he started dealing with whatever information he could get from the state. And some of that was the height and weight of military conscripts, which is how he developed the BMI. And he figured that the average height and weight should be the ideal. He was looking for the average man as the ideal of humanity, right? That we should all be aiming for the middle. A real weird time in human history. Just a very strange rallying cry. It was then picked up by Sir Francis Galton in the formation of eugenics as a way of thinking.
Luke Burbank: Rarely a good resumé note for something.
Aubrey Gordon: Really special skills. I helped out with this like, Oh, yeah. So then it sat on a shelf for about 50 years because everyone was like, Why do we need to know your weight divided by your height? What does that help with? And then American life insurance companies came into play and were like, Hmm, We figure if we can tell some people that they're so fat that they're going to die early that we could charge them more money. So health insurance companies started using and life insurance companies started using the BMI as a way to charge some policyholders more than others. And over time, it just sort of seeped into the medical system. The big study that established the BMI as an individual medical tool was testing it against two other methods calipers those like the pinchers and water displacement. And they were like, the BMI is the easiest one and the cheapest, and it works about half the time. So let's go with that one. It's also worth noting that the BMI has never been tested on or adjusted for communities of color and even amongst the white folks and the white men that it was designed for, it only sort of accurately, quote unquote, predicts obesity, which is weird language, but here we are about half the time and then it goes down from there. So it doesn't even tell you who's fat, right? It doesn't do that very well. And even when it does, it leads to terrible health outcomes for fat people. It leads to terrible health outcomes for communities of color. It leads to particularly terrible health outcomes for black and indigenous communities. Like it's bad news all the way down, man. It's bad news all the way down. And now we're at a point where many insurers require doctors to weigh their patients at every visit and log a BMI in order to get insurance reimbursement. So now it's also a decision that in some cases is out of health care providers hands. It's like that level of baked in.
Luke Burbank: I was learning something from the episode that you did. Is being Fat bad for you? Which was really interesting data around the fact that oftentimes people who are underweight or skinny, I should say, have worse health outcomes than people that are somewhat overweight, which is not taught in schools ever. I'm wondering, like, what do we get so wrong about this, given that I think culturally we've all grown up with and a lot of us still just hold very tightly to, which is being fat is always unhealthy for you. Being skinny is always healthy for you.
Aubrey Gordon: I think part of what we get wrong is that the science starts with that set of assumptions, right? That the research questions aren't, "What would it look like to keep a fat person healthy and alive and living their best life?" The questions are, "Okay, so this fat person is definitely going to die if they stay this fat. What's going to kill them first?" Right. Like those are the kinds of studies that we're getting on fat folks. And there is very little research in the way of like here are effective modes of connecting with fat patients. Here are ways that you can actually build rapport and maybe not lecture them about weight loss every time so they don't become part of the, like, overwhelming numbers of fat patients who postpone care for years, Right? Like, there are ways through this, and we're not asking those questions at a large enough scale yet to get any real answers there. We start with our own assumptions and then we backfill science to get there is really what it feels like when we're looking at the science of fatness and fat people. And I will also say. Boy, oh, boy. It's real hard to find a fat person who is a researcher listed as an obesity expert. So I also say there is an utterly bananas and sort of like, frankly, on a personal level, pretty deeply insulting layer to this, which is all of the experts in fatness are thin people. And that's like astonishingly gross to me. So, like, I will absolutely get from time to time a little Twitter lectures from MDs or whoever who will be like, actually the respectful term is person with obesity. And I'm like, I didn't put it in my handbag. Well, there's not like a separate part of me that is the fat part. It's all the fat part. I don't know what we're doing here. Right. But like, it just all feels like we are starting from a place of bias and refusal to interrogate that bias. And so we create a bunch of things that reinforce that bias because it feels good to be right, you know?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Have you heard from any of the people behind any of these fads that you've kind of taken down? Like has Gwyneth Paltrow reached out?
Aubrey Gordon: Absolutely not. No. Someone tweeted at me a couple weeks after we did the Oprah wagon of fat episode. And this person was like, has Oprah tweeted at you, yet? And I was like, when have you ever seen Oprah tweet at anyone? But that's not what Oprah does. Get out of here. No, we haven't heard from we haven't heard from anybody. We haven't heard from anybody for the most part. Mostly we hear from. I will say when we talk about disgraced researchers in particular, we get like 1 million graduate TAs who were like, "I knew that guy was wrong." We get so much from the like Jersey Shore house that is academia, the like real world house of just like everyone hates each other, but they never say it to each other so that they just anonymously email podcasters about like how much they hate their boss. It's a real situation. It's very fun for me.
Luke Burbank: This is the most delighted Elena Passarello who is an actual college professor I think has ever read. Does this resonate with you?
Elena Passarello: Oh, I feel so seen. I think I'm the Snooki of this Jersey Shore.
Luke Burbank: Not that you speak for all fat people, and I use that term advisedly, but like, what would it look like if skinny people were being allies in this? What should people do? What can people do?
Aubrey Gordon: Oh, my gosh. There are big things and there are little things. I would say some of the little things are if you go out to eat somewhere with fat friends, let them pick where to sit. I think a lot of folks don't think about folks who haven't had to deal with this, don't think about a lot of booths. Tables are bolted to the floor and they are expecting a limited width of person. So if I sit in most of the fixed booths in this town, I end up with just bruising, just like really gnarly bruising. Right? That is true of a lot of theater seats or airplane seats. That's true of a lot of spaces like that. So I think thinking about stuff like that and just letting folks pick spaces that are comfortable for them and you can follow their lead, that's just fine. I think things like thinking about the weight capacity on furniture and equipment that you buy if you're in a medical office thinking about getting an exam table that holds 800 lbs instead of 200 lbs. Right. That like very clearly limits the patients you are willing and prepared to offer help to rate in a medical office. And then I think there are really big things like joining up with organizations like the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance or the Association for Size Diversity in Health, to start fighting for fat folks, actual rights to keep their jobs and not be fired just because someone thinks you're too fat or not be paid up to 20 grand, less than thin people doing the same job. Right. We're talking about massive, massive gaps. And at this point it would be like really, really wonderful to have many more folks joining in on some of that harder work, which is uncomfortable. Right? It's uncomfortable to think about the stuff you haven't thought about before and the privileges that you've got and haven't had to interrogate. Right. That's always like a weird dance to do. And also, when we don't do that dance, like currently, I would say fat people are sort of paying the price for a lot of that.
Luke Burbank: Well, I also really think that Maintenance Phase, your podcast is an entry point for folks.
Aubrey Gordon: That's the hope.
Luke Burbank: Because there's so much stuff that you and your co-hosts bring up that had never occurred to me, you know, either that something is junk science or what somebody has experienced in the world as a fat person might be like. Backstage, you were telling me the download numbers and I feel like y'all are reaching a lot of people.
Aubrey Gordon: Yeah, that's really true.
Luke Burbank: So hopefully that's also part of it.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast, everybody, thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Aubrey Gordon right here on Live Wire. You can listen to Maintenance Phase wherever you get your podcasts. Also, Aubrey's new book. You Just Need To Lose Weight And 19 other Myths about Fat People is available now. And check this out. We had so much fun talking to Aubrey that we actually had more content than we could fit into this episode. So if you head over to the Live Wire podcast feed, you can hear Aubrey answer some questions from our Jar of Truth exercise, including what seems more dangerous letting a psychic dictate your life or letting a crypto bro dictate your finances. You know, we only provide you with the hardest hitting journalism here on Live Wire. You can find that also wherever you get your podcasts.
Luke Burbank: Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska Air dot com.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. Of course, each week we ask our listeners a question this week because we're talking about diet fads and things like that. We asked listeners what's a fad that you fell for? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: I have to say that in my curation of this collection, I have been very biased to all the fads that I fell for. Because there are so many. How about this one from Lauren? Lauren followed the fads of big bangs and jelly shoes all the way.
Luke Burbank: Jelly shoes.
Elena Passarello: I used to take this nasty curling iron and curl the top part of my bags back toward the crown of my head, and then the front part of my bangs forward toward my nose. And then I would just make this rave a hairspray cemented waterfall of I mean, and the rest of my hair I didn't do anything with. So I just had regular hair. And then this, like Mr. Softee swirl.
Luke Burbank: Well, people were so focused on what was happening on the front that that you didn't even have to invest any time in what was going on in the back. What are some other fads that the listeners jumped on?
Elena Passarello: Leah says, I read the Artist's Way three times. Ultimate Portland Early aughts hippie fad. Did you ever do The Artist's Way?
Luke Burbank: I regularly dated people who told me at length about how much I needed to read The Artist's Way.
Elena Passarello: I still do this thing that's in the artists where I wake up every morning and I just write a page. It just really, Yeah, you just handwrite. You can say whatever you want, but because I'm an old lady now and more than I'm an artist, it's usually just like grocery lists and things that I need to do.
Luke Burbank: Okay, one more fad that one of our listeners did.
Elena Passarello: Oh, this one was anonymously submitted, but I believe it must be a millennial because the fad is avocado toast. Then the person adds, This is why I can't afford a house.
Luke Burbank: Oh my gosh.
Elena Passarello: Of all the fads we've listed, this is the best one because avocado absolutely so good.
Luke Burbank: Like I had avocado toast like two days ago and I have I also have a mortgage. I would take avocado toast over the mortgage. Way better than having a mortgage. If that is why millennials can't afford houses, which by the way, it's not. It's a good trade, in my opinion. Yeah. All right. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with their responses to our question. We got another one coming up for next week's show, which we will reveal at the end of today's program. In the meantime, our next guest has performed standup all over the country, including the Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Bumper Shute, Madison Comedy Week and many other places. He was a semifinalist in the Seattle International Comedy Competition, and he's the co-host of The Bachelor and Bachelorette Recap podcast, We Didn't Get a Rose. And a quick note before we get started with playing you this performance by Chris Mejia. He does talk about his own personal experience with mental health and also suicidal ideation. We do think it's an important and tough topic that is really presented here with some humor, and we're really grateful that Chris was willing to talk about this on stage. But just a heads up, that's what you're about to hear Chris Mejia recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland.
Chris Mejia: Live Wire. Hello, hello. I'm a huge advocate for mental health. I firmly believe we should all care about mental health, especially. Yeah. Shout out. We out here sad. And I love the therapy. I've been going to therapy for several years because I'm better than you. And I think it's dope that now we've transitioned as a society to get to the point where now therapy is the buzz word. It's a trend. It's cool to go to therapy. It's a bragging right on a dating app to say you're a man who goes to therapy. It's great. The bar has never been lower. It used to not always be this way. Now people are talking so openly about therapy. It's great. People like, "Oh, I go see a therapist. Like, Oh my God, my therapist is keeping my group chat alive." Or, "Oh my God, your therapist said that, they sound like such a Pisces." Like, it's just. But here's the thing. One thing about therapy, people don't realize. People think you just need to go to therapy a couple of times and then, boom, your abandonment issues are cured. And that's not how therapy works, because who you are as a person is always changing and evolving. So you're never a finished product. You're gonna have to work on yourself until the day you die, and you're always going to need to go to therapy because of that. And the way I learned that was because there's moments in my life where I realized, despite all of the years of therapy I've had, that therapy is not working at all. Last time I had that moment, I'll never forget I was leaving my therapist's office and my therapist. As I'm leaving. He just looks at me. He's like, "Chris, I just want to let you know it's been an absolute pleasure to witness the growth you've experienced over these past couple of years and to see the person you become. It's been an honor to be your therapist, and I'm proud of you." And I almost responded, "Thanks, Dad." Whewwww. Now I got to hire a second therapist to talk about what I almost said to my first therapist. Only way that would have been worse was like, "Thanks, Daddy." Like, that's. That's how you get a restraining order. But when talking about mental health, we need to realize that also involves talking about the dark, uncomfortable things about mental health. Like, for example, I'm gonna keep it up with y'all. Last year I got super depressed so much to the point where I had a mental breakdown and I wanted to kill myself. I did. And I didn't. Spoiler alert. For three reasons. One, I call it the National Suicide Lifeline, and it saved my life. Which real quick side note, I had multiple breakdowns last year, multiple times where I want to kill myself and I call it Suicide Lifeline several times. And the first time I call it the national one. That was only one I knew. It saved my life. And the second time I had a breakdown, I did some research. I found out and this is true, there is a smaller lifeline that was like religious owned. And me personally, I believe in supporting small local businesses. I was like, I'm going to do a field survey and find out who does a better job keeping me alive. That's. And I call it that lifeline. Let me tell you that lifeline sort. It was not good at all. I had an older white man help me. I could tell it was an older white man because his name was Richard. He didn't go by Rich and I could hear the New Balances on his feet. And this is true. This is true. I was telling her, I was like, I feel like I'm not going to ever find someone who will love me for me and feel like I'm ever going to be enough and I don't want to live. And he told me this is true. He was like, "You need to suck it up and deal with rejection because life is full of rejection and you need to be strong to overcome it." In my motivation to live became purely out of spite. I'm not going to let this man be right. Are you kidding me? But I live for three reasons. One, I call it the suicide lifeline, too, because honestly, I hate spontaneous plans. I got tickets for Hamilton next Friday. What am I doing? And three, because at that moment, I felt like killing myself was just too much of a commitment, Which is just a weird way to find out you have commitment issues. Even my therapist was like, I'm glad you found the solution, but the math you did was all wrong. And here's the thing. I understand it is weird and uncomfortable to hear people talk about suicide. I understand that. I don't blame you if you feel weird and uncomfortable. But if we truly want to eliminate the stigma around mental health and suicide, we can't get weird and uncomfortable and people speak up about it. [Audience Claps]
Chris Mejia: Your claps are very nice, but I got like a minute left. Let me do this. And that's why I want to talk about tonight. Because I knew someone who was brave enough to talk about calling the lifeline inspired me to call. And I called and it saved my life. And thank God calling the lifeline saved my life. Because the first impression of calling the lifeline was not good at all. Because after having a mental breakdown, all I needed was the comfort of a stranger's voice. And all I heard was a robotic voice that was like, "You matter. Please hold." Like, I know I got to live long enough to not die in an elevator music. I got at least lived long enough so I could talk to the operator and complain. Like, first of all, you get this Windows 95 screensaver music out of here. Inspire me to live plays to Megan Thee Stallion. But I will say it despite the fact that that's how the call started, the operator truly was. I didn't even believe they were going to help me. And they really the operator was able to help me get to a good place. And I'll never forget at the end of the call, the operator was like, "I unfortunately have to go. Because there's a lot of people calling and there's only so many of us operators. But I want you to know I genuinely care about your safety. So please be honest with me. What are your plans for the rest of the night?" And I told her, I'm like, "Because of your help. I'm choosing to live tonight. So honestly, the only thing I'm going to do when I hang up this phone is go get some Taco Bell." And then the concern in her voice, was more there when I said I wanted to kill myself. How low do we think of Taco Bell where she was like, "Oh, Taco Bell. Code Red. I got ten more minutes. I can talk." You're getting a chalupa that does kind of self harm, that counts. Y'all have been a lot of fun. I'm Chris Mejia. Thank you so much. Have a great night, everybody.
Luke Burbank: That was Chris Mejia here on Live Wire performing at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, you can find him on Twitter at Topher Mejia. And if you or someone you know is in need of support, please do call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. I'm Luke Burbank. Here with Elena Passarello. We've got to take a quick break, but do not go anywhere because we will be back with some incredible music from Danielle Ponder. Stay with us.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. Before we get to this week's musical guest, a little preview of next week's show. First up, we are going to be talking to a true icon, filmmaker, actor and tiny mustache enthusiast John Waters about his first foray into writing fiction, which he's done with his book Liarmouth. Also, he's going to tell us why he will never leave Baltimore. Spoiler alert It's because there are some very famous bathrooms that are named for him there in Baltimore. We're also going to be talking to writer Sasha Lapointe about how the TV show Twin Peaks impacted her life as a young native woman in the Pacific Northwest. And as if all that weren't enough, we have got even more a musical performance from one of our very favorite bands, Deep Sea Diver. So please do tune in for all of that. Plus, as always, we're going to be looking to get your answers to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We want to know if you could have anything named after you, what would it be?
Luke Burbank: So this of course, if you're in Baltimore, the bathrooms are taken. Their name for John Waters, just as a heads up.
Elena Passarello: Not all the bathrooms, just the ones at that art museum.
Luke Burbank: At the Baltimore Art Museum. You're right. There's there's still a chance for some of these people. Anyway, if you want to give us your answer to something you'd like to have named after you. You can hit us up on Twitter or Facebook. We are at Live Wire Radio. All right. Our musical guest this week initially turned to a career in law after her brother received a 20 year three strikes prison sentence. She served as a public defender in her hometown of Rochester, New York. But at the same time, she was playing music in numerous bands and was really drawn to that. And so eventually took a leap of faith by leaving the public defender's office to focus on her songwriting. Written and recorded over three years, her mesmerizing debut album, Some of Us Are Brave, received critical acclaim, and has earned her new fans all over the country, including us here on Live Wire. Take a listen to Danielle Ponder, who joined us on stage at Revolution Hall here in Portland, Oregon.
Luke Burbank: Hi, Danielle.
Danielle Ponder: Hello. How are you?
Luke Burbank: I heard, Danielle that your your dad was a pastor.
Danielle Ponder: He still is a pastor. Kind of, sort of.
Luke Burbank: Okay. But I was my dad was a pastor as well. And like you, we were not allowed to listen to non-Christian music. I'm wondering, did you develop a system for listening to secular music on the low?
Danielle Ponder: You know, I just told my brother I was so thankful that he would like sneak in hip hop tapes. But honestly, when my dad would find them, he would destroy them. But that was like the only way we heard it. But I would like make up song because I would go to school and be like, Did you hear that new Janet Jackson song? And I just completely make it up because of course, I didn't hear it. So I'm also thankful because I think that's how I became a songwriter, lying about knowing pop songs.
Luke Burbank: You were a public defender. I'm wondering if there's any overlap. Now, you're a professional musician between those two worlds. Does anything you learned, like in law school or practicing law inform the world of being a singer or vice versa?
Danielle Ponder: Yeah, I think that the world of being a singer helps me be a better public defender, because I think public defense is also about storytelling. Telling your clients story in a way where the jury becomes empathetic or the judge becomes empathetic. And that's the same thing you're doing as a songwriter. You're telling these stories in a way where the audience can connect or relate. So to me, both of them share the art of storytelling.
Luke Burbank: What's your process for...How do you how do you create a song? Every artist is sort of different with that.
Danielle Ponder: You know, I start with the music first, usually on guitar, maybe on keys, and then Avis comes in and adds, like all of the actual magic to it, and then the lyrics come later. I think the music tells me what the song is about, and I don't write down my lyrics. I put on my headphones, I get in the booth and I start singing and it just comes out.
Luke Burbank: Now, I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily try to describe your music as not being Christian, but is your dad okay with the fact that you are singing what is basically secular music?
Danielle Ponder: You know, if you asked my dad, I'm still a lawyer, okay? That's what he's proud of. He's like, Yeah, yeah, but she's a lawyer. She's a lawyer. I don't think he's really accepted that. I am now a full time musician, but he does love my music, but not as much as he loves bragging about having a lawyer for a daughter.
Luke Burbank: Well, he should be very proud of both things. What song are we going to hear?
Danielle Ponder: You're going to hear Only the Lonely, which is a sad song about the breakup I went through a few months ago. So, yay.
Luke Burbank: Alright! This is Danielle Ponder with Avis Reese here on Live Wire.
[Danielle Ponder Performs Only The Lonely]
Luke Burbank: That was Danielle Ponder here on Live Wire. Her latest album, Some of Us Are Brave, is available now. Also, Danielle is on tour this year, so catch her when she comes to a town near you. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests Aubrey Gordon, Chris Mejia and Danielle Ponder. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester, our marketing and production manager is Paige Thomas, and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Al-vez and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer and Our House Sound is by D. Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Jennifer Coyne of Portland, Oregon, who is also a member of our Board of Directors. Thanks, Jennifer. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank. Really and Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
Elena Passarello: PRX.
