The Morning Stream - TMS 2994: That Bong Dingo Guy

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Idiocracy was a future documentary. Chuck Adjacent. I'll Eat Your Outrage Milkshake. I saw the band Twice once. Lawsuit-Induced Heroin Addiction. That's My Secret. I'm Always Offended! You Cut My Fiber, I'll Cut You! The Kim Johnson Lasagna Teleportation. My money is on Ringo. Call before, ya dig? Spudging it. Shunking the Road into a Truck. Slowly stopping at Brian's house. No Titles From TRPW Today. Positivity Olympics with Wendi and more on this episode of The Morning Stream. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever have a good cup of coffee and think, that was the best part of waking up. No? Yes, neither. We happen to think the best part of waking up is TMS in your ears. Support that effort at patreon.com slash TMS. Coming up on the morning stream, idiocracy was a future documentary.

Chuck adjacent. I'll eat your outrage milkshake. I saw the band twice once. Lawsuit induced heroin addiction. That's my secret. I'm always offended. You cut my fiber? I'll cut you.

The Kim Johnson Lazzon. Teleportation. My money is on Ringo. Call before, you dig. Spudging it. Skunking the road into a truck. Slowly stopping at Brian's house. No titles from TRPW today. Positivity Olympics with Wendy and more. On this episode of the morning stream.

You think I care about dentists? I don't care about dentists. Nobody cares about dentists. I went through his pockets. Frisked him, as they say in the stories. The morning stream. Ironing, isn't it? An archangel needs a monkey to get a vision from God.

Hello and welcome to TMS. This is the morning stream for April 16th, 2026. My name is Scott Johnson. His name is Brian Abbott. Hello. Hello. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can't tell because he's got pretty good energy.

Brian's like crazy. I'm running on, I'm running on fumes right now. Two concerts, two nights in a row. There's no such thing as a concert that doesn't go late or have weird parking issues or a million other things. You know what, though? I'm going to say, this one really surprised me. So, you know, did the K-pop concert twice Tuesday night. The band twice, everybody.

He didn't see it twice. I didn't see it twice. I saw the band twice. It's like the the. It's really bad. It's a difficult name because you feel like you have to explain it anytime you talk about it. Last night, we went and saw Colin Hay. And Colin Hay is your front man, former front man of the band, Men at Work.

I mean, basically, co-founder of the band, songwriter, lead vocalist. The voice you think of. And for those kids who just saw Scrubs and that's the only exposure you've had to Colin Hay, that was a good exposure. That's a good exposure. But keep going, because the guy's amazing. Yeah, so good. Exactly. So he's been on a bucket list.

Ever since I saw his man at work documentary. I still need to see that. Oh, it's so good. It's great because it follows him on the road. He talks about how he grew up, the kind of family grew up in, did a lot of moving around, ended up in Australia. I think he's actually not born in Australia. Oh, I would have got that trivia question wrong.

assumed he was absolutely from there. Well, grew up there. Oops, I might be wrong. Yeah, grew up there. That makes sense. Yeah, let me see here. Scottish. He is Scottish. Oh, really?

Yeah. He's even cooler than I thought. That's awesome. Born in Scotland. And you can hear it in his accent. And, um, it's a little mixed like, uh, it's a little mixed. Right.

Exactly. That's great. So, um, technically, I guess this is the second time I've seen him live because the first time he was a member of Ringo Starr's, star band which is one of those cool shows where you've got ringo star and then five a list musicians yeah um all all getting to do one of their you know three or four of their songs intermixed with a bunch of beatles songs and some solo ringo stuff but this was this was a bucket list item because Colin in that documentary has does this kind of unique hybrid show where it's it's half

storytelling and half music. Or two-thirds of music, one-third storytelling. He really engages with the audience, constantly is talking to them and not just talking about, oh, this song means this, and here's where I wrote this song, but also like, oh, you know, you guys,

not lounge performer, like, oh, where are you guys visiting from? Oh, yeah, okay, good. How's the weather in Schenectady? Sure. But kind of interacting like, you know, talking about the Paramount Theater where he was performing last night and stuff like that. Anyway. So it just worked out that this was the second night of two nights of concerts.

I would have been happy if this was a week later or three days later. Sure. You weren't out to have a two-day or like that. No, exactly. But I will say, as far as a second night of concert going goes, it went really well. he started right on time. You know, the show started at eight, which is late for a school night,

but starts at eight. Usually means it's going to go. It's going to start late because they almost always start late. Exactly. Yeah. No, he was out on stage with the band at eight o'clock. Oh, I love it. He played, you know,

everything that I would have wanted to hear. And he was done by about 9.30. Like, he did an hour and a half, but it didn't feel like there was no point I said oh is that all he's doing is that really it didn't overstay his welcome didn't

didn't under it sounds just about right for me and my taste today that's a really exactly yeah I mean it's seriously like a really good really good amount he did a bunch of men at work stuff he did a bunch of his solo stuff

he did some covers and talked about his cover album that he did during the pandemic and oh I somehow missed that you've probably talked about it before I haven't. I think I've even played a track from it, but it is, it's named after the Dusty Springfield song. I just don't know what to do with myself. And it's got, you know, Delamitri cover on there. And he's, he's, he's great. He's, you know, it's so good.

He also looks like he should, he should star in a few episodes of Justified his case. He does. He kind of looks a little bit like Chuck did when Chuck Robinson had it was growing his beard out. You know what? But an older but a 20 year old older version of him. Yeah, much older Chuck but nonetheless, a very Chuck like, but it looks like he's going to tell Walter White where to go.

It's that, it's that beer, it's that mustache thing that goes all the way to the chin is what it is. I love it. I'm going to have to go catch up because I think I kind of, I think I slept on this. Oh, it's good. Yeah. Listen to that after the show today. But anyway,

had a really good band backing him up. an incredible multi-instrumentalist named Rachel Mazer, I think, who was keyboards, saxophone, and flute during the do-d-do-do-do-do-do. Oh, she had to do it the new way, didn't she? Yep. No, no, because they won that lawsuit. Oh, that's right. It went back his direction.

So for a while there, though, they had to do it, and they were some version of the song. Because of the Cuccoborah song. Yeah. And even, I think Ron Stryker, it was the, was the guy. It was, whoever was the guy that did, they came up with that flute part, felt horrendous because, you know, he just kind of, he was just, he was friends with Colin. He was a member of men at work. He's like, oh, here's the song down under. Oh, I'll do this little bit.

This do, do, do, do do do do. And, and then they get sued by the writer of. the cuckabur tree or whatever it's whatever the real song title is. Yeah. Ancient ass song in Australia. Exactly. And the lawsuits were a massive expense, went on forever. They eventually won. Men at Work eventually won. And, yeah, it was, it was, no, I guess it wasn't Colin Stryker. It wasn't Ron Stryker. Who was maybe Greg Hamm?

I don't know those guys' names. I think it was Greg Ham. Let's see if he's that law jurid, yeah, lawsuit and plagiarism accusation. Larkin records brought the rights to the 1930s children's song Cucabara in 1990 for $6,100. In 2009, music published Alarcan music sued men at work, alleging that the flute riff copied the Cucabarra song, which they own the rights to. Federal Court of Australia ruled that down under, let's see, oh, did infringe and awarded Larkin 5% of the song's mechanical royalties backdated to 2002. I don't think you should get that kind of return on your six grand investment.

I don't think so either. That is some bullshit right there. Can you imagine that buying the rights to a song for $6,000 and then, oh, that's, that's, that's highway robbery, dude. I don't like it. Because if they bought that in 1990, the song had been out for six years. I think Business as usual came out in 1984. Yeah, something like that. Somewhere around that, 83 or actually, maybe even earlier.

I think cargo was 84. Oh. Business usual might have even been 83 or 2. But they had to know, right? You think they went into it and bought the rights to that song knowing that they were going to turn around and sue meant it work for using it? I mean, it's a little weird that they waited. Let's see, they got it 90 and then didn't sue until 09.

Yeah. It's a big chunk to wait. It's a big chunk to wait. It's still freaking, I hate that. Yeah. But then it got reversed and went back the other way or something because they appealed it. Was that the deal? Okay.

Yeah, they kept appealing and he kept costing more and more money. But eventually Greg Hamm died from a heart attack. And his friend said, yeah, it's because he had a long battle with heroin addiction, which basically stemmed from all the lawsuits. Like he, that kind of escalated it. Wait, so that, so, okay. So he was trying to bankroll his addiction kind of there at the end. No, no, no, no.

No, no. The guy from men at work. died from a heart attack after heroin addiction, which escalated from the Cuccabera trial. Yeah, not the guy who bought the ones. I thought it was the guy that had the rights. All right. No, the guy who basically, like, you know,

who wrote that little piece for, you know, the member of men at work that wrote that little riff was so distraught over the whole thing. It kind of escalated his heroin addiction, and then he died from a heart attack. I think I accidentally wrote an episode of Law and Order SVU or something. I took it in a different place. Yeah, Colin Hattuck's, I think, is it called Man at Work?

That sounds right. It does, but I don't think that's, looking for it, and that's not it. I'll have to find what the name of the, the name of the documentary is because, I can't find it either. The books. Yeah. This is elusive. I could have sworn that was it.

Colin Hay. There's even a ton of like autocomplete searches that oh men. Waiting for my real life. Music doctor documentary chronicling the life of of Colin Hay. Gotcha.

And he talks about, you know, talks about getting onto scrubs and what kind of resurgence that brought to his career and all that stuff. But he talks a lot about the lawsuit and the loss of his

bandmate and friend. The heroin guy. The heroin guy. Right. Probably. Craig Cam. Not the next. nicest thing to say the heroin guy. The heroin guy. He's the guy. You know, if you see men at work

videos, he's the blonde guy. He's instantly recognizing him out of all of the bunch of them. Like, he's, he's kind of like the clown of the band and the music videos. Usually you don't hear about heart attacks associated with heroin. Heroin's usually the one that your heart stops, maybe, but attacks are usually this, like the cocaine and stuff like that. Yeah, the stimulants out there. Right. Prime Video is where it's streaming. So you can watch it right now, waiting for my real life Colin Hay on Amazon Prime and you definitely need to do that.

Funny you bring that up. Amazon Prime has this they do live TV now. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah, but it's like some of it's news and sports and things like that, but then they have live channels that are just repeats of things or collections of things that are just running. It's like Pluto.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's what I think of the Pluto thing where it's like, here's a Master of the Universe channel. And it's nothing but one animated master of the universe. universe episode. Yeah, I think it's basically what they were trying to do with freebie as an off shoot and then it's just, they just rolled it all in. So I think it's just that. So they may have been doing this for much longer, but I just started noticing some cool channels. Like there's an entire South Park channel. You just watch South Park on repeat. There are ads, but whatever is background noise, you know, treat it like a hotel room or whatever. And it's fine. And there's all the sites do it now. Tubi does it. I think Hulu even has live channels. Like everybody's got something. And they always have like, there's the grit channel, which is like nothing but. old westerns, TV and movies. Oh, cool. Okay. And there's like all these other things. Yesterday I'm watching it. One of the commercials pops up for something called 50 cent action. Okay. And I went, what do you pay? Like 50 cents per watch or like what is this? And they're showing like all these action movies.

Like his little bit of The Matrix. There's a shot of Conan the Barbarian. It's a shot of whatever, whatever. And it's like just this mash cut of all these action films. I'm like, this sounds kind of fun. You just pop it up, you know, 50 cents each. no, at the end is freaking the rapper 50 cent. And these are his favorite action movies. His own curated list of... I mean, that's what they say. I think they just pay to have his face on there. Probably. Anyway, it was real dumb.

Since you brought up prime, I figured I'd do that. Hey, do you still have a guy out in your front yard with a stop sign? What's going on with that? Yeah, so they are currently... Currently, for the last few days, have been grading our neighborhood streets, It's basically resurfacing. So they have to do this thing where they grind up the current asphalt and have it go into like a, it's a really cool deal where they've got a truck following another truck.

And one of them is grinding up the road and shunking it into the back of this other truck. That's cool. Yeah, I like that. But, excuse me, they did all that now today. They are doing the actual laying down to the resurfacing. and my house, which is in the middle of the street, which is a very, very, very fine house. We could do either song, and it would be appropriate.

I'm not at the entrance to the intersection or anything. We're in the middle of the circle, yet in front of my house right now is a guy with one of those signs that has stop on one side and slow on the other, and he's going to basically, we get so little traffic in our circle, that he's basically going to be sitting there for like an hour. Oh, and then a car is coming. Hold up the sign.

These guys get paid a lot of money, by the way. They do. They do well. I always hear about how all these guys, these stop sign holder guys, and I don't know if they swap around and they take turns or whatever, but whoever that is for any of these kinds of construction deals, I can't remember who told me.

It was probably my brother-in-law is in construction, but he told me what they make. And it was like, are you freaking kidding me? Is it just because it's like dangerous? Or tedious, dangerous. Oh, yeah, it's dangerous because they have to be out on like, on highways and stuff with cars going by really fast and things like that. Yeah, which I guess makes sense.

I just never really thought about it. To me, it seemed like give Jasper the sign. He's worthless. Just get him like. I don't know how this stuff works. Exactly. Oh, look, there's actually stuff going on out there right now. Looks like a woman is bringing him something.

Oh, it's, it's Kim Johnson. and she's brought him a plate of lasagna and a big glass of lemonade. Record, record time. Amazing how quickly she got that cooked and out there to him. That's incredible. She had to get through, I mean, just getting to Green River by this time would have been. She's currently setting up an umbrella for him and a lawn chair. It's amazing.

Maybe that government guy, the FEMA guy, was not lying about teleportation. I saw a video of him talking today. Holy crap. Can you believe he has a job of any importance in this government? believe it. No, no, it's insane. I mean, I know it's easy to point at some of these appointees and go, well, of course, he's an idiot, but I don't know, maybe he's got some, something he could do to do this or whatever. He's dynamic or he's charismatic. So that's something.

I mean, it's all sucks. Don't get me wrong. Exactly. But then you meet a guy who says he teleports around. That F. Yeah. And then he woke up at a Waffle House because he teleported there. You watch this guy and you're thinking, this is exactly the kind of guy you'd see a consistent. conspiracy theory online from with like, you know, Illuminati and pyramids and do do do do do do.

Oh yeah. Hell yeah. He would be, he would be that half of these guys were that. Yeah. Before they got jobs. You guys don't know what Cash Patel used to do. Sit around and talk about conspiracy theories. That's right.

That's their trajectory, right? Yeah. You have your YouTube site where you talk about conspiracies. then you get to Fox News and then you get hired to be in this administration. Sometimes you skip Fox News all together like cashed it and you get really lucky that way. But like that bong dingo guy that was like second in charge of the FBI, his entire channel is just yelling at a thing. He could only hack it for a year and then he retired and went back to his freaking podcast channel. You know what, Brian, what it tells me is we got to up our game and just be complete dicks.

We're doing the wrong thing. Exactly. We're way too nice. We're way too logically. we need to stop that and start, you know, like, I don't know, I think the windmills are turning us gay. Yeah, exactly right. And I don't know how to get there from here because here's what I thought would happen. Enough crazy talking heads would stick around for long enough. And I swear to you, it's been a real solid 10 to 15 years of this. Yes. That the reasonable ones among us would then the swing would come back.

We would have the pendulum come this pendulum. come this way and smack us in the head so that we're like, oh, now what's popular are cool-headed normal decent people? Yeah, yeah. It hasn't happened yet. No. Who knew that we were so outnumbered, Scott, as being intelligent, level-headed thinking logical human beings along with us and the tadpool and this whole community that we'd be in the minority. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, we love our little crowd. We love everything about this. It's just that. Oh, yeah. I thought it would broaden. And it's just that, we're just that, we're, People are addicted to outrage.

They love it. Yeah, they are. Yeah. They see an outrage thing on a hook and they go, I'm num, num, num, num, num, num, num, num, I'll eat your outrage. I'll eat you a milkshake, like that. Yep, yep. Yeah, absolutely Benjant.

Mike Judge, visionary. He figured this all out and made a movie, tried to warn us, called it Idiocracy. We said, oh, this is a comedy. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't. It was a future documentary. Yeah.

Yeah. And in some ways. We were laughing at, oh, go away, baiting. No, no, we should have been paying attention to the other rules at this. Yeah, the other part that we, the part he underestimated is the guy baiton would also be added to the cabinet. You know what I mean? Right, exactly. Or the guy baiton would actually be in charge.

Yes. Freaking sh-hmm. Yeah. Who knew that, you know, having a president who's all into electrolytes and giving Brondo and giving plans what they need actually would seem like a way better president. Yeah. Yeah, I can get more. I'll get behind Terry Cruz. I like his platform.

Oh, 100%. All right. Let's get off that. Let's move on before the emails flow in from people who are somehow offended by the things we just said. Let's do this. We have time for a news story. Okay, cool. So we'll do one.

Here we go. Right here. It's the news brought to you by. I'll make it quick. The Ramones, their debut album came out 50 years ago this month. Can you believe that? The Ramones. Blitz Creek Bop.

I want to be sedated. Judy is a punk. uh sheena is a punk rocker uh 50 third and third etc etc i could go on but why would i do it here when i'll do it on my show later um track by track covers of all of the songs from that romones debut album done by folks like the beautiful south uh weird al yankovic sonic youth like you know people you know sure metallica red hot chili peppers hell yeah uh green day covering uh the romones everybody He loves the Ramones. And today you can hear it right after TMS.

Twitch.tv. slash coverville. I think I still have Coverville TV redirecting, but I'm not sure. But Twitch. dot TV slash Coverville, just to be safe. Go check it out.

Now, here's the deal. I'll just say it now. Yeah. They're the best. I don't know if this is controversial. They are the best. That is the best punk album in the world. I love that album so much.

Now, I know there's a lot of competition. And a lot of people are going to... I like London calling. no doubt. But I like that song track. I like that track more than I care about the rest of the... Yeah? The tracks.

Man, I don't know why this is, but I... Like the song Lodin calling more than the rest of the album? Yes. Don't get me wrong. I love the Ramon's debut album. I think it's one of the strongest debuts from a rock band ever. Because they came out of the gate hot. Blitz Creek Bop, first album.

Yeah. I want to be sedated. First album. I don't know if I could put at the top. Yeah. It's up there. It's up there. It's really up there. And for a band that kind of, they're like, I mean, obviously their legacy last, but so

Wham and then kind of gone. And then a lot of them have died. Actually, have all of them died? I think Marky might still be alive. They got one Ramon left. Yeah. I know Joey was the first did I from lymphoma. Some cancer thing. Yeah. And Joey or Tommy died two years ago, last year, two years ago, three years ago.

Nobody's died while being sedated, right? As far as we know. That'd be great if not, just because you don't want to. Yeah. They might all, I'm thinking about it, D.D. was pretty early on too. They might all be, they might all be deceased. Yeah. Because there's not many bands you can say that about.

no you know like the beetles still have a couple of modern bands yeah yeah like modernish like stuff that popped in the 60 70s 80s they're all at some form of them are together still yeah markey marky is still alive um he was not a member of the original four though so the first album had joey djani and tommy um and ritchie uh both of whom are still alive so um first first albums um first albums lineup of the original four have all passed away. Well, that's wild to me. Yeah.

Yeah. That is kind of crazy. Yeah. Well, Wendy's here on absolute freaking dot of the time. Oh, really? We're going straight to that. Here's the big news.

Here's the news. All the Ramones are dead and Wendy's here. Something wrong, Batman. Has anybody seen Wendy? Hey, Wendy. My sister, Wendy. What are you doing? How are you?

Oh, I'm good. Well, good. The Ramones are all dead? No, well, yeah. The original four are, but Markey, who was the drummer at in like the second or third album, he's still with us. Okay. You're a big roommate. You like the Ramones, right?

Everyone likes the Ramones, and that just makes everything feel like it's going too fast. I know. Why are they all dying? I know. We still got a couple of Beatles. They lived a very hard life. Yeah. They kind of abused themselves a little bit, the Ramones.

That's true. Yeah. Do you think, I mean, that's going to be a weird day when both Beatles are. are out. The last two. The last two when Ringo and Paul finally. Yeah. Doesn't that feel like that'll be pretty massive?

It'll be pretty massive. Who do you think is first? I think Ringo. With peace and love. I think Ringo outlasts them all. I don't know why. I think so too. I don't know if he's got some magic in that hair dye he's using or what's going on.

But he looks like he's going to make it. He's holding up. It seems he's holding up better than Sir Paul. But, you know, and Sir Paul, Sir Paul lives a very, or lived a very like wild life. Not talking just the drugs or anything like that. He was in Japan for pot for quite a while.

Because you cannot bring pot into the country. And he brought pot into the country. Yeah. But even his just rigorous touring schedule and all this stuff he does and this and that. And I think Ringo like, well, I think I'll maybe go out on tour for another two weeks. And then it's back to bed.

Back to bed. Peace and love. Yeah. Well, anyway, that's not what Wendy's here for, but I like where we went. Hey, Wendy. Good to have you here. Wendy is here for therapy Thursday. She is an actual mental health professional,

helping people all the time with their real issues. But today we talk about yours. And today is an interesting question. It's very short. But it's one that I hadn't really thought about. And now that this email came across the desk, it is like all I've thought about. It feels pretty accurate. Yeah, it's a weird thing. So we're going to, we're going to ask it. And then Wendy's going to help us make some sense of this. So here goes. It goes, hi, Wendy. This person said we could use their name in the PS. I didn't put that here, but her name is Candace. She says, hi, Wendy and crew, I saw this sign the other day that said, and this is all in caps. Your brain remembers insults for 20 years, but forgets praises in 30 days. She says, this felt very true to me, and I wonder why this is a thing. Is it a thing? Wendy, is there a way for people to tune things the other way in their heads?

Ask Candace. Also, they really are changing up the signs of the Jimmy Johns. I know, right? It used to be, you know, try our day olds for a buck each, but now it's, you know. Yeah. Your brain remembers insults for 20 years. So I'm getting Jimmy Johns today. I got a coupon.

It's funny you said that. Nice. Nice. So Wendy, this felt like weirdly, like a slap in the face kind of true. And I don't know why. There are things I started thinking back like, all right, let's go back. And I go back to like 20 years ago. And I can still remember stuff that happened with like, say, a friend of mine here locally who said something that just rubbed me wrong so hard.

And I'm still bugged by it. I've seen him a million times since. We're well past it. None of it matters now. But it still annoys me. Do I remember the last time that same person said something nice? No, but it was probably like two weeks ago, three weeks ago or something. So why is that? Why do we do that?

Okay, I'll explain that, but let me ask a follow-up question real quick. Who is it? I need his name and his address. No, all right. Think of a recent time somebody has said something that theoretically 20 years ago would have rubbed you the wrong way. But like now you're like, fine, people, whatever. Like, has this improved at all? Oh, now that you ask that, yes.

Like, I don't have, I feel like I've got no time for grudges. Like, it's just not worth it. And it's, if anything, I, if it's coming from somewhere where I don't have a ton of investment in the relationship or something. Let's say it's just a stranger, someone emails or something. And they have some insult to give. that used to be really problematic in my head. So I'm like, why would some stranger on the internet just pipe up with this? And it's it just, why wouldn't they ask it this way?

And I used to get really bunged up in it. And now I just see it and go block, block sender. I don't even reply most of time. Now, if I feel like they're actually digging something that's like a meaningful question or, you know, they have a legit reason. And I can just sort of suss that out and sense it. Well, then I'll engage and we'll talk. and we usually come out on the other side with a better understanding or whatever.

Again, this is usually a listener thing. I don't really have this with a lot of people in my personal life, but maybe that's also part of this. I don't, I no longer care. Well, and I'd like to congratulate you on for literally doing nothing to improve this as a decision. It's all neuro mechanics. Yeah.

As we get older, it's just legit happens to us. We have less of a negative. bias. And there's a positivity bias, by the way. So I'll get into all the details here. But it evens out around 70. So Scott, you are basically 70. I'm head of the game.

They really are pretty equal by then. But when you are younger, you know, think of like a little kid throwing a fit or something because you gave them the wrong color sippy cup, right? They react as if it is the end of the world because it is still so new in there. and it does feel like the end of the world. And, you know, so we have bigger reactions. We are way more tuned into how the world thinks of us and how we're doing. And so any negative comment will feel super intense when you're younger.

When you're older, you're like, okay. Just don't care. It's kind of awesome. Everyone, we should have a whole episode on just how excited we should all be to get old. Because none of us, we're all, we are all ages. last one of us, including the oldest among us, will be agest. But there are a lot of benefits and a lot of happiness benefits. And this is an example of one where our brain stops doing this. I think it's because evolutionarily, it's like, it's okay if you die. Yeah. Yeah, no, honestly,

because you get to a certain point and you're like, well, I have to admit, like once in a while you'll have a thought like this. Like, you know, trying to make sure the budget part of Nurtacular works out as an example. That's been super stressful. It's, It's like the biggest stress ever and it's a bunch of factors out of my control. So it's like this weird thing I have to wrestle with every day. Also while, you know, moving forward and going for it and doing what we have to do. And so there's this back and forth all the time. And once in a while, I'll have a literal thought like this.

I'll go, well, you know, I could get hit by a car tomorrow and that'd be it. We'd be done anyway. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's this weird. And it's weirdly. And it's weirdly. no, it's like weirdly comforting, not the idea of dying. Right.

They don't just saying like it's, I can't explain it. It's a way I know I would not have felt at age 25. If I was 25, I would have said, you know, survival is everything really and, and offenses everything. And I don't care how nice you're being. You're a jerk, you know, and you would and you would be, you'd, you'd, you'd, ruminate on it all the time and all that. But now it's just like, let's go.

It's just whatever. like we got to do it. So let's just do it. There's that vibe. And it's actually for me, it's way less, I have way less anxiety overall these days because of this, this kind of thinking. So it's weird. It is actually helpful. Way to get old guys.

Good job. Well, let me tell you what's happening. So it's called the negativity bias. And we've referenced it on the show before, but it's the idea that, you know, basically positive stuff is like we're like Teflon. But we are absolutely ill-crow for negative stuff. And it's a survival response, right? If you think of your way, way, way long ago ancestors, the ones who survived were the ones that paid attention.

Negative things caught their attention, right? So a rustle in the bushes, you had to respond in a way that kept you alive, even if it was like a butterfly. Yeah. Right? And so that is built into our hardware and our wiring. So you don't undo that just by saying, well, I don't want it. You know, it's just the natural sort of state of things.

You can affect it with practice. And I'll get into that for a second. So our brains really stick. The negative stuff is sticky. So that's why you could get anyone to say, hey, what happened in grade school that you remember as clear as if it happened yesterday. Yeah. But you're not going to remember maybe a negative thing that happened in a meeting. six months ago or something because it's just not as sticky or it will work itself out a little

quicker, whatever. Our brain's just, you know, as we get older, it's less of a thing. So one thing to think about for this person, like, okay, so we have an explanation. Here's this sort of back end of, you know, all of human history has led us to this moment. Welcome. But also you can actively increase sort of the positivity. So if you think about, you know, can positivity become more sticky? The answer is yes. And there's a couple ways to do it. So one very human way that has always existed and we're still doing it. Now we just get on planes and go to new places. But is our desire for discovering something new, you know, exploring, branching out past the edges of something that is known. That is where, you know, we get this huge evolution. brain boost by finding something new, something potentially rewarding. That is like the crack of life.

And so it can be done in lots of different ways, right? And this is often why, you know, we're seeking out new stimuli. And our brain is really built for that kind of positivity. Like we're going to wander around to the side of this rock and there is a bush full of berries, right? And so we're rewarded, we're rewarded that way as well. So we're rewarded by running from the negative and being safe from negatives. And then we're rewarded also by exploring and finding positives. And you can see there's, you know, maybe some tension there.

But it can change over time and it does. And then there's this other thing. And this is the thing I, you know, in terms of, hey, what can I do about this? If you find yourself really relating to this and ruminating and thinking over and over about, you know, the insult you received 20 years ago, one thing to know is what's actually happening in your brain. So when you conjure back that memory or you look it over or it just shows up, right? It's not like everyone's choosing to pull this up on a Tuesday. It just happens. You get a little burst of course, all the stress hormone. Your hippocampus is like, what's up? I got a memory. Here we go. And it sort of gets you in this little spiral of sorts.

And what most people want to do, their natural tendency, is to try to talk. themselves sort of out of having it like I shouldn't think this it's so stupid it was 20 years ago or they'll get really really stuck in it and get all the feelings back it's it's like time travel right you can put them right back into that into that space reminds me of that walton goggins arc in that episode or those that arc in uh white lotus Brian we were talking about how Goggins is such a yes it cannot get past right the past even though that's a gnarly past yeah like it's not not quite the same as just like someone offended somebody, but it reminded me of how, because he was so in his own head about it so long for most of that season,

there was a very effective portrayal of this thing you're talking about. It's a pretty tragic version of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, we could look at trauma and how that affects the brain and the stickiness of all of those things, right? Like the replaying of events or recreating the feeling, the sights, the sounds, the

smells of something, right? It's, it's, it's, the brain feels like it's haywire, but it's really what the brain does to keep us safe. And it is not, it's no longer keeping you safe, right? And so that's where you go getting help for that makes all the difference. Because what you're going to do in therapy and there's different modalities for this, you're going to train the brain to no longer associate, you know, fear of death or trauma with the things that it's been through. Right. It's, It's just remembering. If you are having a post-traumatic reaction to something very difficult, it's because your brain works, right? And so you have to, you know, get someone to help you.

Yeah, 100%. And it will not stop because you almost died or the threat of, you know, your safety or failure or 100% was all on the line. And its whole job is to do that. And so you have to work with it to wire it towards safety again. And so there's kind of a thing I want to share that might be helpful. And it's that there's a researcher out of the University of California where it's about framing the thing. So when we will often do the water half full, glass half empty kind of thing or glass half full half empty. And that's just a framing, right?

And somebody, so you know, do a quick straw hole. How many people think it's half full? How many think it's half empty? Like what comes naturally to people? And that's often some set points we just kind of have, right? We might be just a little more optimistic or a little more pessimistic about something, right? But if you take, like, imagine it in an actual picture frame and we change the lighting in that picture frame. And then we darken it and we make it scary, right?

We're going to see it a little differently versus there's sunshine and on a beach and there's a glass there, right? There is bigger picture framing that we have a little more control over. And so let me just tell you about a quick study that I thought was pretty clever. So they took all these people and they were going to have a medical procedure and they told half of them that it had a 70% success rate for that procedure. And then they told the other group that was a 30% success rate. And then, you know, got their take. Like, how do you feel about this?

You mean 70%? 70% success rate. rate and a 30% failure rate, you mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Gotcha, okay. Sorry, I said it weird. But basically, like, the numbers are exactly the same in the truth. It's just one was framed positively and the other one was framed negatively.

And what they found is when you frame it that positive way, people were like, yeah, let's do the surgery. Okay, cool. And then you frame it negatively, they're like 30%. No way. That's a lot. That's high. Right? That's how when you say, like a 0.05 increase.

in cancer risk. People are like, yeah, not going to do it. That's why, this is why people spin everything, though, right? Like what you? Absolutely. The reason that spin exists is because people want to manipulate the listener. Yeah. 100%. 100%. So really quick, let me just finish what happened. So they do that. Then they take that group that was told it was 30% and they've switched it now to 70% effect. They try to re-change the frame. And then they did the same thing with the 70% now told them there's a 30% failure rate. So they just, it's like swapping the frames on everyone. Do you guys want to guess what happened?

Oh gosh. I flipped the other way. Like the ones of the 30s, the 30s said it, sure I'll do it or? No. No. 30% who the original negative frame when then given the positive frame stuck with, nah, we don't want to do it. Because they heard the other one first.

It wasn't enough to overcome. So they were primed, right? Yeah. Whereas the other group flipped a lot. little bit. They were like, oh, well, yeah, I guess if you put it like that, maybe I don't want to, but there were still more people who felt positive. Interesting. The original frame was positive. So yeah, I mean, framing and spin, you can, there's all sorts of versions of this. This is why we buy things or we don't buy things, right? How are they framed? How is the problem they're going to

solve for me framed? So it's really powerful. And this is how you would apply in your real life as just like a regular person. Okay. So pick something, I don't know, know, it could be something coming up. It could be something you've been through and, you know, just experiment by writing it out or talking it out. How do you frame it? How do you tell the story of it or the story that's coming? And you can see maybe your tendency is to do a negative frame, your tendency is to do a positive frame. So if it is a positive frame, you might enjoy that, keep going. If it is a negative frame, there is a way to, and this is why we do these sort of daily practices of things like gratitude, right?

We have found that you write three things every day you're grateful for. You start to shift the way your brain will frame stuff. If I'm always looking for something to be grateful for, my brain will start to say, oh, that's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for the world's biggest jerk to cut me off in traffic. I'm looking for, look at the lovely flowers or whatever. The gratitude starts to build a muscle of looking towards more positive things. instead of sort of the natural do nothing burger guess what we do nothing we have the negative

framing is just the one that's built in because that's what you got yeah yeah until you get 70 and then you're like that's really interesting I don't know why this is all hit me is kind of revelatory but like um you know I think of examples I suddenly examples are popping off my head like there's controversy around how much money uh this is a this is a this is going to going to seem separate, but it really isn't. But it's how much of a percentage that Steam, Apple, PlayStation, and all these other places, what they take of the developer cut. So the way they frame it is, we give 70% of all the revenue to the creator. And when you see an article where it's speaking of this entire situation negatively, it's always, Steam takes 30% of the thing. And I'd never

really hit me before how that frame, a simple one, that's a binary one, right? In fact, it matches the one you used. The 30-70 thing is it's never quite hit me the way that it's hitting me right now. And so what that makes me think is, a, you know, outside sources are constantly trying to manipulate us using this framing. Yeah. Technique. Never thought once about how to make, how to pull the trick on myself, though. Yeah.

So I guess here's the question. How do you go into a situation that you? that you may proceed, you may naturally go, oh, the negatives, the negatives. And instead, flip it the other way. Like, are there tricks? Can I talk to myself?

Is there like a... Once you've heard the negative, like it was with the patients. It was hard for them to hear the positives. Yeah. Do we know too much, I guess? I guess that. Brian just say exactly what I'm trying to get to.

It's like, if you already know that, I don't want to end up like those negative nilly 30 percenters that we already talked about, you know? I want to be that 70 side. So that's where the ongoing training matters, right? If you are training optimism, you're training, you're training gratitude or you're training meditation. Some of those things where our minds just don't get to jump to their negative

conclusions unchecked, right? They're just, they're automatically going to go there. We all have kind of a set point, though, right? you have met people who don't train for the positivity Olympics. They just are. And they are lucky to be alive. Their ancestors somehow got here, right? But there is kind of a different set point.

And what we often find is that people will go through really tough things or really sad things. And they'll kind of go right back to their set point of well-being before they started. And, you know, that's pretty wild. But this is this training and just sort of. getting your brain to not ruminate as much. That's where the mindfulness meditation often is utilized, is that it gets the brain to not be stuck in tracks and ruts that it likes to live in because you've practiced training other grooves in your brain, right?

So this is the hard part about being a human if you want to feel good in life, is that you do have to do some work for your brain not to just be like, everything is on fire and terrible and you're going to die any second, right? because it can. And that is when we look at anxiety disorders or people have gone really far into depression, their brain is no longer giving them any of the positive parts. But a brain with none of that going on

is still going to just tilt towards the negative. So a little bit of training can go a really long way. The other thing is if you want to, I think this is one of the reasons therapy can be so powerful is that as people are processing a story, they're actually rewriting the history a little bit, maybe not fundamentally changing some of the facts or something, but they're changing the way they understand it.

They're taking, because if you're in the middle of a traumatic moment, there's no nuance. You can't take someone else's perspective. There's no way to understand that there was a time and a place and developmental issues. Like you, you're just traumatized. So as you dig in and reframe, that is a common, common, common thing we do in therapy is reframe whatever is happening because we're story creators and story makers and that's how we make sense of the world and that's how we feel good about the world which is why you can do the 70 30 percent negative or positive and it works every time doesn't matter which direction is that the frame

fits our need for narrative and our need for a storytelling situation that makes sense to us right so take something take the thing like your your friend said 20 years ago And it will get into a like a feeling loop, right? Like a thought and a feeling little spiral, right? And this is where reframing it or panning back and looking at it, like a couple of these kinds of skills, you can see it in context. You can make more sense of it. You can add to the story while you're thinking about it rather than what we often do,

which is just let it swirl around and then go watch a funny video so we stop thinking about it. Right. Oh, yeah. You actually give it a new story. That is kind of the way, isn't it? Yeah. It could be anything. It could be a book. Could be a video.

It could be your video game. Could be whatever you're just like. Any distraction. Needness escape valve. That's super interesting. I am, once again, I think a common thread through every time Wendy's on here, it feels like. The common thread is there's work to be done. You can't, there's a thousand books a year telling you that they think they have the solution for a perfect,

peaceful state of being. And they're all maybe have some decent ideas in them, mostly regurgitated or reproduced in a different wording or order. But at the end of the day, if somebody had nailed it for as long as we've had printing presses, we wouldn't need a thousand books a year to try to take care of it. Yes. The fact that multiple exist means that none of them work 100%. And at the end of the day, it always seems like it does come down to that.

You have to do the work you have to do for yourself, whatever that is. What we do here hopefully on Thursdays is not only show that, but also expose the actual methods, some of the tools to do that work, not just tell you you have work to do. Well, let me throw something in with you're doing this work, right? And you might get frustrated because you're like, I'm trying to reframe this thing. But if you don't believe the reframe, right? And that's what's tricky when your brain lies to you all the time. and then you try to make up your own thing to think about. Sometimes you're like, I don't trust that.

But what I trust is the random neural firing that is a lie. And it's because we spend a lot of time in our heads having our own experiences. And so this is why I always recommend find a buddy, find a piece of paper. There's so many ways to just process outside of yourself. That is the safest, most effective way to under. understand what's happening to you is have it happening outside of you. Most people get stuck inside and there's the same tools available if you're in there. And those tools got you here and we'll keep you there. And that's, that is really the sort of frustrating part is maybe we're not

shown that from a young age or we don't watch other people do that. And then sometimes we do and we're like, wow, why is that person so, you know, put together? You should ask them. They're probably like, well, I do a lot of, and they wouldn't say these words, but reframing and processing. outside of the Hey, hey Misha, why are you so happy every day? It's all reframing. I'm all about that.

What's the reframing? I'm doing some reframing. Yeah, like, for example, take something bad that's ever happened to you. How do you think about it now? And that is the story. The story you will tell yourself forever. You can actually shift and see meaning.

And truly, this is, I think, why 70-year-olds start to feel better about all this stuff is because they have stuff to love. look back on to see that you survive. And actually stuff I thought was terrible was actually the best thing that ever happened for me. I would never have changed that. Like there is some real value in being able to have some data to work with.

When you're younger, it truly just is scary because you only have, you know, childhood to look at it and you don't have any power then or whatever, right? Versus years and years of we made it work or we're okay or whatever. Right. Well, I think this is going to be helpful to, was it Candace? Yes, Candice. I always like that name. Yeah.

You hear those birds? Wendy, you have birds? I know, it's so peaceful. I love that. Yeah. No, it's really nice. Those aren't your birds. It's just birds.

No, I don't have birds. But I have the window open and the birds. Hold on. My sister Wendy has a dog and now birds. I don't know. She's saying she doesn't have birds. Oh, oh, okay. All right.

You know how messy. birds are and I have children. I don't need one more. No, they're horrendous. And they die out of nowhere sometimes and then you have trauma. Or live for 90 years. Or live forever. Yeah. You either got to take care of them forever or one day they just fall over and give no reason. There's no reason.

But to our audience listening, if you have a bird, that's great. Oh, yeah. Go on. Keep it up. 70%. 70%. 70% of people love having a bird. I love a bird feeder. And I love the cardinal that will just show up in. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Brian does a bit of that too.

Yep, I've got the bird buddy. And every once in a while we get a nice little blue jay that pops in and has a snack and then flies off. And here's right there is a great example of old people, everyone. It's that. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. One day. I'm not kidding.

One day you're like bird shmurred. And then the next day you're like, I love a bird. And then you take time and look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's how I know I've been able to attract my aging. I get the bird feeder. I like started getting fascinated. Like, oh, the birds are coming to eat at the feet.

It's the best. Oh, no. Those squirrels are coming now, too, and they're eating the food. I'll put out another bowl of food for the squirrels. Yeah. And that aged me like another 10 years. Now I've got the squirrels. Now you've got a walker.

You've spent it all up. Yes, exactly. All that stuff. That's great, though. Birds are jerks, but also great. Well, anyway. Wendy, no better you.com is the place to go. sign up for future stuff.

Find out what's going on. There's plenty there. There's an image of a guy that looks like he's farting and creating flies. I love that. I know. I'm going to change that. You're just a bad person to think. I'm just kidding.

Here's the thing. Once I told her. You actually just made a bunch of people go click. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just kidding. Guys, there's this farting yoga instructor. Please do that.

Where is he? There he is. Right there. He looks like he's going, and he's got flies around him. It's perfect. Butterflies look like flies. I know.

It's pretty gross. Real quick, I would love, okay, we haven't done this in a long, long time. But I would love, you know how my kids have done some weird, like, fundraising and all you need are emails or people to vote for something. Those days are long, long gone. But there is an organization here in the Twin Cities that I love deeply. And they have this thing. I just send it to you, Scott. You can pull it up.

It is a link to this bank here called Old National Bank, which I think is a funny name. Anyway, if you just give me your burner email and vote for, they're called YouthLink, Y-O-U-T-H-L-I-N-K, and it is a homeless center that does just incredible work for teenagers. It is just helping teenagers who have found themselves in that position and jobs, clothes, training, It's really a cool thing. And all they need are just a bunch of people to vote that it's your favorite charity. And then they get an extra $27,000. And they're just their website, if you ever go to it.

I mean, it's just an incredible place. I always like to fundraise for them when I can. But anyway, so, you know, I just need your burner emails, everybody. Yeah, get your burners ready. I'll put the link in the chat as well. Folks at home, I'll remember to stick this in all the post stuff for today when the show goes up. That would be awesome. And you know what I love for me at all?

they would never know that they're going to wet their pants. Yeah, because they're going to see all this huge increase of emails. If for some reason you never see how the page is goofy, I wish it was an easier URL. Yeah, I know. I'll come up with something. We'll put it in Discord.

Okay. Yeah, so just your fake email is great. But like a vote gets them needed funds. Yeah, which is awesome. Just a simple vote. Cool. Super cool. Yeah, your vote counts or something.

It does. Yeah, remember that one time you all voted for that Swedish story and you broke their website? Yeah. I love that. And then his whole class got to go to Denmark to Walmart. That's awesome. Which I didn't realize. And I'm like, oh, that was a little much.

But anyway, good job. Still, look at the impact. So that's what we hope to make today. Wendy, always fun hanging out. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.

Oh, she hung up on me. Good. That's amazing. Yeah. Johnson, that's what we do. We hang up. The whole family really does it. It's not just me.

We all do it. Whatever the equivalent of an Irish goodbye is. Yeah. I've heard that before. Is that what an Irish goodbye is? Yeah, that's like you're at a party and you've had enough. You just walk out the door. You don't say goodbye to anybody.

You just, I have that in me. Because even at parties where I'm done, I'm like, all right, we're going. Yeah. Do you want to say anything to anybody? I'm like, no. Like, no, it'll, it'll take too long if I say goodbye to people. I want to go now.

I hate awkward goodbyes. Hate them. Yeah, I do too. Let's get to one email and then we'll take these people home where they belong. Okay. Today's email is one of these. This is about the jugs of pain. And this is from call before you dig.

All right. Okay. All right. I'll do that all. Before we dig, we'll call. You know, it's a good advice for people doing ditches and stuff. For sure. Doing landscape.

and all that stuff in their yard. All before you dig. You cut my fiber. I'll cut you. Yeah. Well, it's all related to this, of course. Yeah, of course. It says way back in the 20th century while walking around the rural community of Lieburg, Oregon,

where my wife lived when I met her, the local cemetery had a very prominent plywood sign by the road with, quote, call before you dig and a phone number. We always try to visit old cemeteries and are often rewarded with interesting discoveries. Also check out findagrave.com. That's cool. Says if you're looking for, basically you have to know where you're looking though. I went here. Yeah.

It's great because you can look for by name. Let's see. They've got like cemetery location if you know it. Like it's just a way of narrowing down ancestors. Exactly. It's like, oh, let's see if we can find great uncle Lester and see if we can find where he's buried or something like that. Oh, that's interesting.

I've got it. It's almost like geocaching for. For corpses. For bodies. Yeah. Tida's. into old cemetery. She loves going. When we travel somewhere,

we like working in a little bit of an old cemetery visit. Did that in New Orleans and and Ireland and Tokyo and stuff like that. I'm a big fan of that too. New Orleans is the best because it's all above ground. It is really cool and so ornate

those little memorials and things. Don't go at night though, honestly. I've done that. Yeah, no. Then you ran into the guy who used to show seven up and he goes, Cola nut. Cola nut. Half of his head blows off.

Yeah. Oh, go watch liver. Let die. Or live and let die. Liver let die. Liver let die, which is my weekend. Yeah, let my liver die is a different way of saying it. Anyway, he says the sign has been updated with a metal sign and more appropriate wording on the gate. Confirmed with Google Street View says call for big you dig or before you dig.

There's no, unfortunately, there's no, he didn't give me a link to an image or a photo attachment or anything, so I don't know what it looks like, but I love it. I love it. Yeah, exactly. It's funny. Can you imagine, dude, if you went out to... That's not the appropriate wording on the gate is what he means, right? I think, yeah, I think he means... The culp, like, it's not... The thing in bold at the end is his actual name, or the name he

used as he wrote in. That's not what the sign has been updated with. Oh, good point. I don't know. No, it wouldn't be, right? I think that's just his name, but maybe... maybe it is called before you dig? Yeah. Well, now I don't know. Since that was the, since that was the plywood sign at the cemetery,

I don't know. Can you imagine, though, you're out there digging holes for your, your, let's say, fence posts? Sure. And you cut into the side of a coffin

you didn't know was buried there. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that would freak me the F out. That would freak me out, too. Not a fun time.

That would have to be really old, though. If it was like an ancient coffin with like just skeletal remains. I'm kind of down with that. I'm right with that. Yeah. Not down with it. You know what I mean?

You saw poltergeist. You know what happens when you put a swimming pool where it doesn't belong? They're all going to float. That's it for today's show. Frogpants.com slash TMS is the place to go for all your needs. Everything is there. Today at 1 p.m. We will have an episode of Core, myself, Bo and John.

So tune in for that. Coming up today at 1 p.m. We also have a TMS Friday tomorrow. Film sack this weekend. The accountant. Yep. And Brian's got cover. Are you doing cover real right after this?

I'm doing cover real right after this. All right. Yep. We'll do the raid if you don't mind. Not at all. That sounds great. That's coming right up after this. So stick around live audience.

Make sure you get your votes in and your submissions for our titles today. Because we'll be doing those post show. Can't clear my throat. All right. Let's take a trip down song request alley. What do you got for? Yeah, sounds good. Robert Monty wrote in.

ambassador domo living in that weird abandoned church that he does he says another year another birthday number 62 i don't feel old okay maybe a little i suggested a song but any would be fine from the cover master now robert's birthday is actually tomorrow but i've got two set up for tomorrow or two two birthdays happening tomorrow so we'll use the other one at the end of tms friday tomorrow so look forward to that thanks um robert's request was uh this amazing cover from a very recent like last year talking heads tribute album um this is paramour and their cover of the talking heads burning down the house production find all our shows at frogpats dot com you're so white