Gary Gulman, Anxiety, Self-Help, and Eye Pie
There is no book that contains all those things. I wish there were. But they're all here.
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Gary Gulman returns to talk childhood, regrets, depresh, food comedy
As I say in the intro to this week’s podcast episode, yes, I’ve had Gary Gulman on the show before. This current show and the former show, in fact. Two reasons for that: one, Gary always has something new to say and two, the things he has said before are often things that you could probably stand to hear again.
Gary has talked a lot about his experiences with depression, on my shows and more notably on his HBO special The Great Depresh. And while we do touch on his experiences as an adult with the condition, we talk a lot more about his childhood, which is the subject of his book, Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ‘80s.
In our interview, Gary tells the story of painfully remembering being cruel to a classmate in second grade and later, as a teenager, being really obnoxious with friends in a movie theater. Decades later, the shame of those memories made him feel that he didn’t really deserve to be alive anymore. He has perspective on it now but it’s an example of the strength of depression in its ability to distort your thinking and, you know, try to kill you.
On a muuuuuch lighter not, we also talk about Gary’s reputation as a food comic, why we went there and why he’s moved away from the topic since. So let’s find a clip of Gary doing comedy about food. Ah, here we go
Maybe it's just anxiety and not an anxiety disorder
Vox takes a look at the broad brush of anxiety and how they say our society is lumping a whole lot of things under that category that don’t really belong. It’s a kind of pathologizing which turns a rational response into an illness. Then the person seeks/receives treatment for an illness that they don’t actually have and yeah, that’s probably never a good idea, right?
People may mistake anxiety for stress. Stress is when you have too many demands and not enough resources, like time or money to outsource some responsibilities, Rosmarin says. “Anxiety often happens in the context of an abundance of resources,” he says. You may be getting enough sleep, have a supportive partner, and a job you love, for instance, but still spiral over would-be worst-case scenarios that may never materialize. Even fear can be confused with anxiety. Fear is in response to a concrete threat, whereas anxiety is triggered by an amorphous or future risk.
Here, have a panic attack:
Some new self-help books and whether they’re any good or not
I guess if you can’t get all the mental health assistance you need from a substack newsletter or a podcast, there’s always self-help books. The New York Times (the Washington Post of newspapers) has a rundown on some recent entries in the category, including one about what you eat affecting how you feel:
I’ll admit, I flipped to the back of this book, silently screaming Just tell me what to eat. It turns out, there isn’t a single brain-healthy approach; there are several that can be effective. (Ede is a proponent of the ketogenic diet.) The idea is to eliminate foods that cause inflammation — processed sugars, refined vegetable oils, refined carbohydrates. My scared-straight moment: A 2022 study at Wake Forest University showed that Alzheimer’s patients had linoleic acid blood levels that were 56 percent higher than people without cognitive impairment. I may be confused by much of this book, but you can bet I went into the kitchen and chucked the Pringles.
Man, there’s keto again. I think I need to do a show on keto because it keeps coming up as an effective way to reduce the severity of a mental disorder. I guess I’m just wary because it feels like another fad diet or fad foodie movement but the science is starting to get pretty loud.
Guy goes to “the world’s best restaurant” and it’s totally gross.
When food writer Adam Roberts scored a coveted table at Noma, which has been called the best restaurant in the world in several places and which is scheduled to close later this year, he made a special trip to Denmark to dine there. What he found was several courses of ick, including tea made from beetle poop and something called eye pie.
That’s right: cod head with tongue on the bone and “eye pie.” That’s really what they called it. “Eye pie.”
The waitress who served it explained that it wasn’t exactly a whole eyeball, it was just the white of the eyeball, and they used squid ink to make the pupil — as if that made it better?
Imagine feeling nauseous and then somebody hands you this.
Lindy West on Sleeping with Celebrities
The brilliant writer Lindy West relaxes by watching other people complete video games at great speeds. She’d like to tell you about that to put you to sleep.
Lindy West Slows Down By Watching Others Play Video Games Fast
Yes, that headline can be confusing. Read it slowly. We’ll wait. Lindy West is an acclaimed author, podcaster, and all-around funny person. Her best-selling book, Shrill, was adapted into a series for hulu starring Aidy Bryant. Lindy finds it relaxing to surf through YouTube videos of expert gamers performing “speedruns” through popular games, especially games that Lindy herself played as a young person, like the King’s Quest series. Maybe you can get to sleep by listening her describe those games, so you’re even more safely removed from actual excitement.
I can talk to you if you want me to
One of my favorite things to do in the world is travel places to give speeches. I have spoken to community groups, corporations, schools, and just about everywhere else. A fun run, once. Another time at the Carter Center in Atlanta. I give speeches about mental health and wellness, delayed covid trauma, the optimism I have for fighting mental health stigma, and more. The speeches are well-received, judging from the rave feedback I’ve been receiving. Perhaps you would like me to come talk to your group? It’s easy to arrange! Just visit Collective Speakers and get in touch with my friends there.