A short newsletter about pickles and the universe
And basketball and Daniel Johnston and I like all those nouns.
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Is this a pickleball item or a basketball item?
Professional pickleball team owner Kevin Love will be on our show on Monday. It’s a really interesting interview because besides being smart and sensitive and eloquent, he’s easily the tallest player I’ve had on the show, one of the only NBA players I’ve interviewed in depth (David Sedaris had a couple of 10-day contracts with the Magic but didn’t stick), and the only person I know related to the Beach Boys.
We talk about what sounded like a not-all-that-fun childhood where he was just really good at sports right from the start. Big, fast, coordinated, and loved playing, especially basketball. But if you’re noticeably good, people try to latch on to you so they can get some of your eventual fortune. And he was dealing with a fair amount of mental health problems in his genetic line. His uncle is Mike Love of the Beach Boys and his dad’s cousin is Brian Wilson.
The part of the interview I’ve been chuckling about is when I asked him what he’d say to people who think he shouldn’t be depressed if he makes all that money. Getting better, he said, is not a matter of injecting actual money into his veins. Doesn’t work like that.
By the way, I’m fascinated to see the rapid rise of pickleball. It was invented on Bainbridge Island near Seattle and kids played it with zealous manic fervor when we had it at the camp where I worked. Where I met my wife! As soon as they were free in a given day, they’d pour onto the court and set up elaborate systems about who got to play when.
NO PICKLES ARE INVOLVED!
New Daniel Johnston podcast
An upcoming podcast coming up out of Austin. And Austin loves their Daniel Johnston, the late musician and songwriter known for his eccentric and eclectic approach. Johnston dealt with many mental health problems over the course of his life and was able to produce a lot of beloved music as well.
The program’s hosts are students from the University of Texas at Austin, while clinical advisors from the American Psychological Association and the Texas Psychological Association provide additional commentary. The Hi, How Are You Project’s Dr. Sonia Krishna, a member of its board of directors, also shares insights. The nonprofit foundation’s goal is to open conversations about mental health free of stigmas.
Racial disparities kill, and there are numbers
The Satcher Health Leadership Institute, part of the Morehouse School of Medicine, has issued a report on the effects of lack of equity in mental health access.
In an analysis of data between 2016 and 2020, the institute estimates there were 116,722 preventable deaths among members of minority groups. The institute also estimated the total cost of those disparities reached $278 billion over that four-year span.
Daniel Dawes, executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute, said the report is the culmination of “a 15-year dream of studying the economic burden of mental health inequities in the United States.”
“I think we expected that the numbers were going to be quite frightening, and that’s probably an understatement,” Dawes told Chief Healthcare Executive.
I read all about this in Chief Healthcare Executive magazine. There is a magazine called that.
You are quite small. No, smaller than that.
I guess part of mental health is having access to a 3:31 video that causes an existential crisis. Right? No. But here it is: