Max Fun Drive Update With Goaties
As I write this, we’re about halfway (there, oh OH living on a prayer
) toward our goal of 500 new members for Depresh Mode during this, our annual Max Fun Drive, the only fundraising drive we do for the show all year. Which brings up the question of what reward I should offer to motivate people to go to maximumfun.org/join and join up.
I’ve been asking folks on Twitter, on Facebook, and around my house, and the results are pretty conclusive:
the vast majority of people want me to interview some farm animals about mental health. Which: huh. Okay then.
So that’s what I’ll do! We have until the end of the drive on THIS FRIDAY EVENING to scare up another 250 or so members to get me to go to a farm and make a video where I interview the animals about mental health. The animals, I’m quite certain, will have little to say beyond baa, moo, and cluck. But THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN.
Okay, I see the appeal.
Gary Gulman Is Feeling Much Better
On the Depresh Mode podcast this week, we welcome Gary Gulman. It’s a bookending of sorts to an episode of my old podcast from 2017, in which I talked to a Gary Gulman who was in rough shape. He was in better shape than he HAD been at that time, having recently been hospitalized, where he had received electroconvulsive therapy or ECT. But he was still far away from feeling good, as he does in this latest interview.
Gary shares several things that have worked for him, including some very gentle ways to get exercising again. He had decided, back when he was in a pit, that he would try to run for five minutes and if he couldn’t go on, that’s okay, he’d walk back home. Another method was to run in Manhattan where, if he came across a Don’t Walk signal at the intersection, he would stop and rest until the signal changed. So none of that jogging in place thing that runners do.
We talk about Gary’s legendary “state abbreviations” set that he did on Conan many years ago, in the context of his worrying that he would never again write and perform something so acclaimed. So he had this triumph but depression wouldn’t let him enjoy it.
Spoiler: he did make something even bigger. It was his HBO special The Great Depresh. Which you will enjoy.
Spoiler alert: His success (or failure) doesn’t alter his inherent value as a person if he did make something bigger or did not.
Here’s a fun interview about how that set came together.
All the action is in mental heath
Fast Company has an article about where the newest, fastest companies are. You see, we are in a mental health crisis in America right now as the stats of people suffering look increasingly bleak.
Evidently, investors and entrepreneurs have taken notice. Mental health is prominently featured on this year’s a16z Marketplace 100 list, an annual ranking of hot startups and private companies, published by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Among the overall 100 startups comprising the rankings, four operate in the mental health field, which helped make mental health the fastest-growing category. That may be due to the increased focus on mental health and overall wellness in the wake of the pandemic.
Why is there an empty picture frame in the Oval Office?
Because it’s not a picture frame!
That solves that
Wolfgang Van Halen, musician and son of Eddie Van Halen, was accused on Twitter of trading off his family name by using his name professionally. Mr. Van Halen pointed out that Van Halen, like, IS his name. But to satisfy the critics, he’s doing a bit about changing his last name to Led Zeppelin.
This is a funny worlds-colliding moment: I know those goats! They're about 20 min away from me, and we visit them several times a year. They, and their people, are the absolute best.