Talk of the Table: The Mom in The Bear, Power Slap Madness, Liver King & The Masculinity Crisis, Will Smith’s Mid-Life Spiral, What “Baby-Girled” Really Means & Why Reality TV Isn’t Real

Dustin Grinnell (00:00:00 --> 00:02:06)
I'm Dustin Grenell, and this is Curiously.

One morning while I was having breakfast, I had the TV on and caught an episode of Jenna and Friends. Jenna Bush and her guest were talking about sharing locations through their phones with family and friends. The guest said she just wanted to know where her kids were, but her husband wasn't on board. I realized how many of these morning talk show hosts just sit around and chat about current events or everyday things, and people seem to love love it. They want to hear familiar voices they trust weigh in on what's happening, even if they don't always agree.

There's something compelling about two people wrestling with a relatable idea in real time. And it made me reflect on my podcast. For a while now, I've been thinking about format and engagement. When I look at some of the most popular podcasts, I notice a few things in common. They release episodes frequently, they can respond quickly to what's happening, and they often focus on current events or headlines.

People like to stay informed. But they also like having someone help them make sense of it all. Up until now, my podcast has been more interview-based and structured. I usually prepare a series of questions, guide my guests through an arc, and focus on their story or expertise. I've tended to keep myself out of the way because honestly, I never liked when hosts dominate their shows with their own opinions.

But staying detached comes at a cost. Listeners don't always get to know me, and in podcasting, that connection with the host matters. People want to feel like they know the person behind the mic. They want to trust them, relate to them, laugh with them, sometimes even dislike them. And I've been realizing more I need to let more of my own personality show, which, believe it or not, isn't always serious and intense.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:07 --> 00:02:10)
But I I thought, what if I tried something a little different?

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:10 --> 00:03:18)
I decided to go for it. So for my first Talk of the Table, I'm bringing back a past guest as a co-host. When Katie Concannon joined me for episode 23, we talked about her work in Ayurveda, her health expertise, and her new business, Frost and Flow Wellness Collective in Newton, Massachusetts. People told Katie after the show that their favorite parts were when her and I went off script, when we digressed into something funny or personal. That's why she felt like the perfect person to team up with for this experiment.

We agreed to bring in a handful of topics that caught our attention recently and just go back and forth, reacting, sharing, and seeing where the conversation takes us. I love this idea because it's timely, spontaneous, and it lets us show more of our personalities without being overly scripted or stiff. Honestly, I didn't know how it would turn out, but I liked that uncertainty, and I hope you do too.

Dustin Grinnell (00:03:21 --> 00:03:23)
Katie Concanon, welcome to Curiously.

Katie Concannon (00:03:24 --> 00:03:25)
Thank you, happy to be here.

Dustin Grinnell (00:03:26 --> 00:03:44)
Uh, so, uh, thanks for coming back on the show. We're gonna do something of a different format. I think the first thing I want to start off with is a pretty non-serious, uh, subject, but, um, nonetheless it's in my social feed every single day. It's something called the Power Slap Competition. Have you ever heard of this?

Katie Concannon (00:03:44 --> 00:03:44)
No.

Dustin Grinnell (00:03:45 --> 00:04:06)
Okay, so it's essentially a slap competition where two people, men and women, uh, they stand across this like a little podium and they just slap each other as hard as possible. And sometimes they just knock each other out. Literally, they hit each other so hard that they get knocked out. Yeah. And I have a lot of thoughts on this competition.

Katie Concannon (00:04:06 --> 00:04:08)
I have a lot of questions.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:08 --> 00:04:14)
And I think it's best to like just get a sense of what we're working with here, we should watch a video of it.

Katie Concannon (00:04:14 --> 00:04:15)
Let's see it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:33 --> 00:04:34)
Thoughts?

Katie Concannon (00:04:34 --> 00:04:35)
So many thoughts.

Dustin Grinnell (00:04:35 --> 00:04:35)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:04:36 --> 00:05:11)
Before I saw the video, my first instinct was to ask you if both parties were voluntarily participating in this. And now that I see the video, it appears to be formalized in, you know, some— I'm going to put in air quotes— sport aesthetic, sort of like other sports that are non-sports. But I'm not really clear where the winner is, given that one person is just sort of shoving their face towards the other person waiting to be slapped. It's, you know, there's one offense and one defense person here. Can you win as the person receiving?

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:11 --> 00:05:13)
Well, it's kind of like, you know, boxing or something.

Katie Concannon (00:05:13 --> 00:05:14)
Is it?

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:14 --> 00:05:19)
It's pretty different. So this guy Dana White, the president of UFC, started it.

Katie Concannon (00:05:19 --> 00:05:20)
Cool. Okay.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:20 --> 00:05:25)
Yeah. And yeah, I guess you basically have 3 rounds. Each fighter gets 1 slap per round.

Katie Concannon (00:05:26 --> 00:05:27)
Are there points?

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:27 --> 00:05:43)
Yeah. You basically— the scoring judges score based on how effective the slap was, if it was clean, and how well the opponent recovers. Knockouts or technical knockouts can end the match immediately. And in many cases, the videos I'm seeing in my feed, people just get knocked out.

Katie Concannon (00:05:43 --> 00:05:44)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:44 --> 00:05:50)
And seems a little like exploitative, maybe like deeply damaging to these people's brains. Like what?

Katie Concannon (00:05:50 --> 00:06:02)
I think it's quite bizarre. I think the other highlight that, you know, we should be trying to untangle here is why are you seeing so much of this? Because I would say that the general public probably doesn't have this in their feed every day.

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:02 --> 00:06:03)
I can't look yet.

Katie Concannon (00:06:03 --> 00:06:10)
You do. And so there's something about your searches or how you speak around, you know, your phone that might be encouraging this type of violence?

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:11 --> 00:06:18)
Yeah, I mean, I don't consider myself a violent person, so I doubt my, like, the speech that's caught on, like, the mic is driving the algorithm there.

Katie Concannon (00:06:18 --> 00:06:20)
They just think you have a preference for watching violence.

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:22 --> 00:06:29)
Just because I click on it. I just always click on it. I mean, it was subtle at first. It was like a novelty or whatever, and then it was just like, you can't look away. It's a train.

Katie Concannon (00:06:29 --> 00:06:30)
It's a, like, a car crash.

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:30 --> 00:06:39)
Yeah. Yeah. But also I feel like I can't not think about NFL players who have, you know, experienced—

Katie Concannon (00:06:39 --> 00:06:40)
Traumatic brain injuries.

Dustin Grinnell (00:06:40 --> 00:07:04)
Concussions, CTE. I think about like Muhammad Ali and completely like cognitively handicapped at this point and Parkinsonian symptoms almost because of repeated head trauma. And it's like, I don't want to be like the hall monitor here or like say like, oh, this sport is like too damaging, but it's kind of like— Yeah, this competition, this professional slap competition.

Katie Concannon (00:07:05 --> 00:07:06)
Yeah, we're going to a match.

Dustin Grinnell (00:07:06 --> 00:07:08)
What are we doing here?

Katie Concannon (00:07:08 --> 00:07:48)
Yeah, I mean, I think NFL is maybe my favorite thing to watch, and so I really do want to put some effort into separating those things. I think there's a nuance to just voluntarily going just for the impact, right? You know, when you play football, the goal isn't to have a helmet-to-helmet injury or some sort of— that unfortunately does happen. And I think the NFL is always trying to figure out new ways to prevent those injuries from happening. It is terrible that that happens, but it isn't the point of the sport, right? There is a different goal here, there's a different point system that has nothing to do with the violence that can sometimes be a side effect of the sport, whereas this feels like there isn't anything else. It's just this impact.

Dustin Grinnell (00:07:49 --> 00:07:51)
It's like, is there technique, is there craft?

Katie Concannon (00:07:51 --> 00:07:52)
That's right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:07:52 --> 00:07:54)
It's really just how hard can you hit?

Katie Concannon (00:07:54 --> 00:08:01)
And what is a clean hit or what is recovering well? How are those identified? I'd like to see a scorecard.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:01 --> 00:08:02)
A good defender, and it's just too quick to take a hit.

Katie Concannon (00:08:02 --> 00:08:38)
How are you trained as a referee or a scorer of said match? So I think, you know, there's still unanswered questions there, but I would say overall it feels like anything where it's just this impact is the sole point of it is not a very interesting sport to me, and I find it quite bizarre. I don't know why anyone would want to do it. I have a lot of questions about how many people are doing it and if there's any prize other than, you know, pride or Dustin Grenell's, you know, cheering alongside on Instagram. What— why, why are people doing this?

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:38 --> 00:08:45)
Well, isn't it just like if you think about ancient Greece or Spartan or gladiators in a coliseum?

Katie Concannon (00:08:46 --> 00:08:48)
Well, not all of them were doing it because they wanted to.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:48 --> 00:08:49)
That's right.

Katie Concannon (00:08:49 --> 00:08:51)
Have you seen that? That's actually a movie I've seen.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:51 --> 00:08:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's the, the shock value, the, the fact that you're seeing this unreal violence.

Katie Concannon (00:08:59 --> 00:09:01)
It's just very uncool violence. It's like really kind of lame.

Dustin Grinnell (00:09:01 --> 00:09:05)
It's also dudes slapping each other across the face. There's something not very cool about that.

Katie Concannon (00:09:05 --> 00:09:46)
It's not even, yeah. And I don't even know that the impact, I'm shocked at how many people are knocked out. And maybe you're just getting the highlight reel, but an open fist slap doesn't feel like it has as much impact as say, an NFL helmet or even two men boxing that are really trained for that. And I don't, I don't want to be judgmental based on the aesthetic of these videos, but they don't look to be well-trained athletes that know how to like hit in the same way that you might, you know, put them in a category with Muhammad Ali or other, you know, people that you mentioned before. They don't, they look more like the athletic type of like a dart thrower or a bowling person, you know?

Dustin Grinnell (00:09:47 --> 00:09:49)
They're just slobs. They're slobs with a gun.

Katie Concannon (00:09:49 --> 00:09:50)
Well, I was trying to say it in a nicer way.

Dustin Grinnell (00:09:53 --> 00:10:00)
But the kind of impacts that they create shocking to me. And yeah, I kind of like have a problem with it.

Katie Concannon (00:10:00 --> 00:10:02)
It's not good. Yeah, you should stop watching.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:02 --> 00:10:03)
Kind of wild.

Katie Concannon (00:10:03 --> 00:10:04)
I would stop clicking on them.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:05 --> 00:10:08)
Yeah, but I think I just— the algorithm just got me by the neck at this point.

Katie Concannon (00:10:08 --> 00:10:09)
Do your part.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:09 --> 00:10:18)
Um, okay, well, get strong. Next time we'll get a medical doctor on to talk about like concussion symptoms or something. Anything else on the power slap competition?

Katie Concannon (00:10:18 --> 00:10:34)
Maybe we could get like little heads or something where we're slapping them in different ways and we could see, you know, what's the— how do we measure the power impact of a closed fist punch, some other object, and/or a slap? Slap just feels silly.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:35 --> 00:10:40)
But it's so much more than a slap if you really watch these, to give these guys credit.

Katie Concannon (00:10:40 --> 00:10:42)
We should stop encouraging watching them.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:42 --> 00:10:54)
It's really just a very powerful slap. Yeah. It's— they get like— sometimes the guy gets hit so hard that I'm like, I think he might be dead. I think that guy's dead. And that's not—

Katie Concannon (00:10:54 --> 00:10:54)
It's not good.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:55 --> 00:10:58)
Yeah, I feel bad for everybody involved in that.

Katie Concannon (00:10:58 --> 00:11:00)
Let's just put out a call to just stop watching these.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:00 --> 00:11:03)
Yeah, just boycott it.

Katie Concannon (00:11:03 --> 00:11:10)
Yeah, with less attention, like, you know, the gladiators wouldn't be fighting if no one was watching. So I think we can really be the changemakers here.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:10 --> 00:11:12)
Hard to look away though, I'm telling you.

Katie Concannon (00:11:12 --> 00:11:12)
You can do it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:13 --> 00:11:19)
So the other thing I wanted to talk about, I started watching Bachelor in Paradise. Do you know this show?

Katie Concannon (00:11:19 --> 00:11:20)
I know what it is.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:21 --> 00:11:37)
Okay. So these are like the rejects of Bachelor, the, or the, you know, the most controversial, the hottest participants in Bachelor. They all get sent to an island called Paradise and they all hook up with each other and find pairs and stuff like that.

Katie Concannon (00:11:37 --> 00:11:39)
But they find paradise.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:39 --> 00:11:40)
Yeah, they do. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:11:40 --> 00:11:41)
Okay, good. It's a verb.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:41 --> 00:11:52)
And There was one girl said something interesting. She said like a phrase I'd never heard before. I wanted to get your opinion on it. She said she just wanted to be baby girled. Have you heard that phrase?

Katie Concannon (00:11:53 --> 00:11:53)
No.

Dustin Grinnell (00:11:53 --> 00:12:03)
So I looked it up and basically she— it says like she just has a desire to be pampered, doted on, and treated with affection and care, which I guess is like, doesn't everybody want that?

Katie Concannon (00:12:03 --> 00:12:04)
Sure.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:04 --> 00:12:09)
But like I'd never heard baby girled before. I wonder what you think of that expression.

Katie Concannon (00:12:09 --> 00:12:14)
So we're not going to talk about the fact that you watch Bachelor in Paradise. We're going to go right to this. We're going to just go right to this part.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:14 --> 00:12:15)
I figured I wouldn't be able to get that by.

Katie Concannon (00:12:15 --> 00:12:37)
Sure. Well, we'll circle back. Yeah, I think it sounds bizarre. I feel like your definition doesn't feel all that strange, but in hearing you say just the term, my first thought was that it was more of an infant kind of roleplay sort of stranger thing where she wants to be like a little girl.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:37 --> 00:12:38)
Like infantilized?

Katie Concannon (00:12:38 --> 00:12:43)
Maybe. I don't know. Baby girl to me means like treated like a little kid.

Dustin Grinnell (00:12:43 --> 00:13:01)
It kind of— to me it meant like, um, I'm your baby girl. Like, I don't— like, whatever. Like, it's not— it has nothing to do with like cute. Okay, infantilization. It's more just like be your girlfriend. Yeah, but like in a more babyish way. I'd never heard it.

Katie Concannon (00:13:01 --> 00:13:17)
Yeah, I don't know. And so if it's just as innocent as like a, you know, what the kids are saying now for, uh, be your girlfriend, then that seems normal and, yeah, non-concerning. But usually I feel like people, when they come up with these terms, they mean something a little bit more niche.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:18 --> 00:13:19)
Have you seen the movie Baby Girl?

Katie Concannon (00:13:19 --> 00:13:20)
No.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:20 --> 00:13:29)
Oh, Nicole Kidman is in it. But I think the idea of that movie is a little bit more like she wants to be dominated.

Katie Concannon (00:13:29 --> 00:13:34)
Right, right. It could mean that too. Yeah, like a— yeah. Daddy situation.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:34 --> 00:13:34)
Yes.

Katie Concannon (00:13:34 --> 00:13:35)
Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:35 --> 00:13:40)
Yeah. Like dom/sub. She wants to be a sub, right, in that situation.

Katie Concannon (00:13:40 --> 00:13:40)
Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:40 --> 00:13:45)
Even though she's a high-powered woman, that's often the ones that do. Why is that?

Katie Concannon (00:13:45 --> 00:14:06)
I don't know. I think me, again, I'm not really sure. I'm not an expert on this topic either, but I do feel like people who are always in charge, you know, in their life, maybe want an area where they're not. And I think those types of fetishes, even the little kid ones, are like that. Or like in that television show Billionaires, I think that's the one, right?

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:06 --> 00:14:06)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:14:06 --> 00:14:24)
Oh yeah, the, the main character is like a high-powered— I think he's a, an AG, and he has all these scenes where he's being dominated, and like that's his sort of sexual fetish. He's married, but his wife lets him go and kind of do this side thing because he just needs a place where he is not in charge.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:25 --> 00:14:31)
Yeah, it fulfills like the need to be To just give up like agency, to give up freedom?

Katie Concannon (00:14:31 --> 00:14:45)
I think so. Or for some people, maybe there's a little bit of like a shame fetish or something where they want to be— I learned a lot about this on Howard Stern also. There's a lot of interviews there where people come on and talk about fetishes like this back in the old days of the show.

Dustin Grinnell (00:14:45 --> 00:14:57)
So the shame factor, it's kind of like maybe it's a low self-worth, low self-esteem, and maybe there's something familiar about being dominate or something.

Katie Concannon (00:14:57 --> 00:15:11)
Yeah, like there's a— yeah, a lot of that, right, where there's a little bit of like maybe harm, right? There's some pain involved or some sort of shameful act. But yeah, I don't— I don't know, I've taken this in a weird turn from potentially just being someone's girlfriend.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:12 --> 00:15:24)
Yeah, yeah. No, what— what— what this woman in Bachelor in Paradise said about being baby girled, she just wanted to be pampered. She just wants to be— have this paid for. Yeah, basically.

Katie Concannon (00:15:25 --> 00:15:38)
But none of those guys have jobs. So they're just also on the show looking for some— they want maybe hosting gigs or professional reality stars. How many slots are there for that? She might want to go somewhere else.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:39 --> 00:15:41)
It's hard to say. They all have an agenda, so to speak.

Katie Concannon (00:15:41 --> 00:15:45)
Right. Are they there for the right reasons? Is that still a thing?

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:45 --> 00:15:54)
Yeah, it's less so on Bachelor in Paradise, I think, because they're just so like transparently there to promote themselves.

Katie Concannon (00:15:54 --> 00:15:54)
Sure.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:55 --> 00:15:58)
And to like hook up and have a good time and get drunk.

Katie Concannon (00:15:58 --> 00:15:59)
Find paradise.

Dustin Grinnell (00:15:59 --> 00:16:03)
Yeah. So it's really, yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:16:04 --> 00:16:07)
Do you watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette also?

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:07 --> 00:16:07)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:16:07 --> 00:16:08)
You do?

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:08 --> 00:16:22)
I mean, not as consistently, but I started, you know, young. I started in high school, started watching it. My thing is that it's this paradox of like the whole show is made to find love, right?

Katie Concannon (00:16:23 --> 00:16:24)
So many questions.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:24 --> 00:16:41)
It's the whole idea, right? But, uh, the fact of the matter is it's very ineffective in doing that. In fact, most people don't find love. Those who do eventually break up. All of them, to be honest, after like 20 years or so. I think there's very few people who are married still.

Katie Concannon (00:16:41 --> 00:16:42)
Makes sense.

Dustin Grinnell (00:16:42 --> 00:17:04)
Happily. Yeah, you know, they all just disintegrate. And then in the process, so many people get hurt, right? Contestants, the participants, the, the actual Bachelor or Bachelorette. And I find that to be incredibly unethical. I find it to be just like reckless. I have no idea why a show like this can exist.

Katie Concannon (00:17:04 --> 00:17:09)
And you're watching it. This feels like the slap again. There's an audience for it. You're a participant.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:09 --> 00:17:38)
I think there might be something to like, why do we watch reality TV? It's kind of, you watch these people make fools of themselves, get humiliated, and maybe it makes you feel like your life is just going okay. I mean, it's not that bad. It's not as bad as you're watching. Maybe it's just like watching drama in general.

You get to feel like these are characters, fictional characters almost. They're not real to you. They're constructs. And we know that because producers and the editors, they cut it up in a way that it's not real. It's not a depiction of reality.

Katie Concannon (00:17:39 --> 00:18:28)
I think the term unethical is a stretch for me for these types of shows because people are going on willingly. They actually desperately want to go on, and then they go on over and over again. They go on Bachelor, it's my understanding, and then they can then become the Bachelorette. Like, that's usually someone who was on the previous season. Is that right?

And it kind of switches back and forth. And I don't watch those shows, but I'm not above reality TV. I watch a significant amount of Bravo. And so it's just another form of probably, you know, some type of train wreck watching. It's not always a show for love.

Most of the time it's not. But but it's equally a train wreck to watch. But I think that that's, I don't know, I think it's that person's choice to make. I'd say the only time that I feel reality TV got like really unethical, there's a couple of places I suppose, but the shows around like addiction where, what was that show called? It was like an A&E show.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:28 --> 00:18:29)
My Strange Addiction?

Katie Concannon (00:18:29 --> 00:18:35)
No, that one was awesome. But I mean, that show's A+. But probably also in that bucket.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:35 --> 00:18:37)
This guy was in a relationship with his car and I just will never forget that.

Katie Concannon (00:18:37 --> 00:18:42)
I've seen that. I actually first learned about it on Howard Stern. But the woman who ate chalk and the one who ate her couch.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:42 --> 00:18:45)
And the one who eats toilet paper. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:18:45 --> 00:18:54)
There's a South Park episode about the one that does the keyboard cleaning. Wow. And Towley has an addiction to this. You know, it's, um, she sings I'm Walking on Sunshine.

Dustin Grinnell (00:18:54 --> 00:18:54)
Wow.

Katie Concannon (00:18:54 --> 00:19:28)
It's maybe one of my favorite episodes. But those types of shows, and there's another one that's just about like general substance abuse, people with drug and alcohol problems. Oh, Intervention. Very obvious title. Yeah. Those shows I had a really hard time watching because I think the person who is struggling is not necessarily of the right mind and body to make a decision to be on television. And then years down the road, they might look back on that and feel really exploited in a way that I don't feel the same unethical struggle around watching a reality television show with just a bunch of rich housewives, for example, on Bravo.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:28 --> 00:19:32)
So they're of sound mind. They're— this is what they want to do. This window is wide open.

Katie Concannon (00:19:32 --> 00:19:37)
Yeah, and they're making a choice and they want to— it's a trade they're making for money and that's what's the priority to them.

Dustin Grinnell (00:19:38 --> 00:19:39)
And some getting their heart broken.

Katie Concannon (00:19:40 --> 00:20:17)
Yeah, again, I don't know that I watch a lot of dating versions of this. It's fascinating to me that you do, but I think people who want to be on reality television because their desires are just, I guess, identify them as just different than mine. They want to be famous, they want to be on television, they like all attention is good attention is sort of my assessment of a Bravo reality character. Whereas something like My Strange Addiction or Intervention is a real private moment or like, Right now there's the documentary on The Biggest Loser and there's a lot of scrutiny. I haven't watched it yet. I'm excited to watch it and I will say I really enjoyed that show when it was on.

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:17 --> 00:20:18)
Me too.

Katie Concannon (00:20:18 --> 00:20:25)
And I thought it was really doing some good. Yeah, and I loved Jillian Michaels at the time. I've turned some of my opinions on her activity since.

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:25 --> 00:20:31)
She gave some people caffeine pills and stuff and obviously that's not cool, but it's like we don't have to—

Katie Concannon (00:20:32 --> 00:20:53)
Well, I mean, for things that— Yeah, there are absolutely worse things, but there's something interesting about those types of shows where then people afterwards feel that they really were exposed exploited. I don't know. I just, again, I've not watched The Bachelor, so I can't really say other than I don't find a lot of empathy for those characters in the same way that I would some of these people that are sort of raw with their problems.

Dustin Grinnell (00:20:53 --> 00:21:04)
It's like, I don't like seeing people get like destroyed in the media, and I don't like people getting like publicly humiliated online and stuff like that.

Katie Concannon (00:21:04 --> 00:21:11)
But you might because you're watching all these shows, you know? So I think there might be a conflict going on for you.

Dustin Grinnell (00:21:11 --> 00:21:11)
I pity them.

Katie Concannon (00:21:12 --> 00:21:16)
You watch Bachelor in Paradise or The Bachelorette to pity them?

Dustin Grinnell (00:21:16 --> 00:21:33)
Yeah, I think I pity them. I also look at it from like a creative standpoint. Often I'm very much like thinking like, okay, what was the question that was asked in that confession in order to get that person to say that thing? And then it's pretty much what they said is now in context.

Katie Concannon (00:21:33 --> 00:21:34)
Interesting.

Dustin Grinnell (00:21:34 --> 00:21:35)
Rather than like they just spat that out.

Katie Concannon (00:21:35 --> 00:21:37)
You're trying to back into production.

Dustin Grinnell (00:21:37 --> 00:21:53)
Oh, I'm always thinking about it from a production standpoint. You know, and I think that's one of the appeals for me because it's like, wow, like, you producers, you showmakers, you just don't really give a damn at all about these people. Like, they're total just—

Katie Concannon (00:21:53 --> 00:22:28)
No, no. But I don't think— again, I don't know that that's very different from any other profession. If you work in a corporate setting, that's not a place where there's a bunch of empathy coming from an executive team down to the rest of the employees from a care perspective. Generally. Yeah. In other areas, like I think we've both had some interesting jobs in different pockets of the world in different ways, and I don't know that I've ever come to a place where that's true. I think that's, you know, a nice thought, but not always true in any real-world setting.

Dustin Grinnell (00:22:28 --> 00:22:53)
Yeah. I guess I don't know why I would never in a million years say I'm like a social justice warrior or something like that. I have some sort of like, I want to I don't like vomit when I hear that phrase, but like I definitely have like a freedom fighter quality to me where it's like, you know, even if some piece of shit on The Bachelor was wicked, I generally don't want to see them publicly destroyed.

Katie Concannon (00:22:53 --> 00:22:54)
Sure.

Dustin Grinnell (00:22:54 --> 00:23:09)
Like I just don't think it's proportional. I don't think it's necessary. And in corporate settings, I don't know why we can't like fulfill like our organization's goals and outcomes, like, while treating people like objects.

Katie Concannon (00:23:09 --> 00:24:27)
And sure, and I think some organizations do try to do that, and I think it's hard to do, right? And so I don't think that every person in every organization, whether that be a reality television show or a corporate office or a yoga studio for that matter, wants people to feel bad, or it goes out and sets an intention to exploit the people, you know, working for them. But I think I think over time as stuff evolves and goals need to be met or numbers need to be made, whether that's viewership or top line revenue, whatever it is, there's a sacrifice sometimes in the treatment to hit whatever the goal is in any for-profit and often even in a nonprofit setting. So I think it's probably just more of a problem around human nature of trying to win or get the goal or whatever that thing is, that then there's some sacrifices there that happen on the other side. I also have had some experiences where corporate environments were great and I think it can be an okay place to be and I'm sure there's television shows where people have really had a wonderful experience, became a millionaire, got famous and didn't hate it. I think both are true, but there's no guarantee it's going to protect everybody and I think expecting any work environment to do that, although it would be really lovely and it's a great idea, I think is a naive expectation.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:28 --> 00:24:35)
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I very much consider like modern work is completely transactional and cutthroat and yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:24:35 --> 00:24:45)
And I think that's— so that's the transaction, right? If you're on Bachelor in Paradise, you're going there and saying, I want this amount of money and this amount of fame and I'm willing to sort of embarrass myself.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:45 --> 00:24:48)
Because you have no control over how you're portrayed.

Katie Concannon (00:24:48 --> 00:24:52)
And you sign an agreement to say, "I give up that control." Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:52 --> 00:24:56)
I'm not sure how I could agree to that.

Katie Concannon (00:24:56 --> 00:24:56)
I wouldn't.

Dustin Grinnell (00:24:57 --> 00:25:04)
Yeah. You could have a couple beers and just flippantly, you know, like, say something that just— there it is. And that's who you are now.

Katie Concannon (00:25:05 --> 00:25:05)
Exactly.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:05 --> 00:25:08)
You are defined by your most flippant remark.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:09 --> 00:25:09)
No.

Katie Concannon (00:25:09 --> 00:25:12)
I would never want someone to record me when I've had a couple beers.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:12 --> 00:25:15)
I mean, doesn't— yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:25:15 --> 00:25:15)
No, thank you.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:15 --> 00:25:28)
So to sign up for that is a little bit— The thing I find really interesting when people talk about fame is a lot of time they say who they are in the public eye is not really who they are privately.

Katie Concannon (00:25:28 --> 00:25:29)
Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:29 --> 00:25:40)
And I would have a big trouble with that, I think, which that everybody thinks they know who I am, but they don't. They know who is constructed.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:40 --> 00:25:40)
Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:25:40 --> 00:26:03)
In how you're portrayed. Spike Lee talked about that too. When his earlier movies, they portrayed him as aggressive and hostile, whatever. And he's just a jovial, creative guy. His public image was totally different than his private conception of himself. And that's what you're signing up for if you get into that reality space.

Katie Concannon (00:26:03 --> 00:26:04)
That's right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:26:04 --> 00:26:04)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:26:04 --> 00:26:35)
And I suppose I would hope that there are some famous people or just people we're aware of in the world show up in their authentic selves, right? I don't know that that's always true, but it's part of why I would never want to be a famous person. I don't know how to flex to a different version. That would take so much effort. I would probably do it poorly. My true version would slide out, and I think yours would too. Like, it just wouldn't be possible for me to be in a public setting at some number of hours per day and then not behave as myself.

Dustin Grinnell (00:26:35 --> 00:27:21)
I think I think the interesting experiment might be is we don't know what it would be like to live your life with cameras on you all the time. And so it's this kind of observer effect. It's like when you have cameras on you, do you really forget about them? Because if you do, then maybe you're being captured as your authentic self. But if you're not, then you're never being captured authentically.

You're always going to be a product of being observed. Which, what is that? I don't know what that is. I mean, we're maybe getting a little bit right now because we know we're like being recorded, but we're not live. We're just being recorded.

Katie Concannon (00:27:21 --> 00:27:52)
Sure. I mean, I don't, yeah, true. There's a little bit of, you know, being slightly more aware of what I say maybe. But I think even when we did this before, I don't know, I think, Part of what makes this fun for me is that I think you and I can have a kind of natural conversation. I don't know that it would be entirely different if there weren't microphones here. I mean, maybe less structured around topics, but it would sort of end up in the same— we could have the exact same conversation about Bachelor in Paradise if there were no cameras and we were having a couple beers. I think it would be maybe with more swears.

Dustin Grinnell (00:27:52 --> 00:27:53)
Probably.

Katie Concannon (00:27:53 --> 00:27:53)
The same thing.

Dustin Grinnell (00:27:54 --> 00:28:22)
Probably. Though I do find there is some pressure to this environment. Like, I'm not as loose or as quick, I think, because there's like a— your, your prefrontal cortex is kind of on guard a little bit. You, you check in that you're kind of being interested. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, well, yeah. So I guess I would just— going on a reality TV show would be like a philosophical nightmare, I feel like.

Katie Concannon (00:28:22 --> 00:28:29)
Is there any reality show that you would want to be on? Like, is there one version of reality television that you've seen and said I could do that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:30 --> 00:28:31)
Power slap competition.

Katie Concannon (00:28:32 --> 00:28:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:34 --> 00:28:35)
If I want—

Katie Concannon (00:28:35 --> 00:28:36)
I think you'd get into it. I honestly do.

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:36 --> 00:28:39)
Yeah. I don't know, maybe American Ninja Warrior or something like that.

Katie Concannon (00:28:39 --> 00:28:40)
Cute.

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:40 --> 00:28:42)
Um, Quiz Show. Bring Quiz Show back.

Katie Concannon (00:28:43 --> 00:28:44)
I don't know what that is.

Dustin Grinnell (00:28:44 --> 00:29:05)
It was like Jeopardy, but like— you know what I would like to have come back? What is public intellectuals debating? So there used to be like Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. They used to just like go at And like Noam Chomsky would come on with William F. Buckley and they would just like a conservative versus liberal.

Katie Concannon (00:29:05 --> 00:29:11)
Oh, I'm following. I guess the face I'm making for those that aren't seeing us, I'm very confused.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:11 --> 00:29:11)
It's not real.

Katie Concannon (00:29:11 --> 00:29:13)
Yeah, it's absolutely impossible.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:13 --> 00:29:13)
It's intellectual.

Katie Concannon (00:29:13 --> 00:29:18)
A version of that I think wouldn't be possible. I mean, I don't even know how that would be possible.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:18 --> 00:29:25)
I guess nowadays it's video podcasts and it used to be the Charlie Rose Show and any talk show I guess is that.

Katie Concannon (00:29:25 --> 00:29:27)
Sure. Yeah, I think there's just two—

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:28 --> 00:29:30)
But two public intellectuals getting on.

Katie Concannon (00:29:30 --> 00:29:44)
—voids screaming in their own voids on different topics. It's very rare, I think, that you've got a conservative person coming to debate a liberal person in any intellectualized way in the last at least two years. True.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:44 --> 00:30:24)
I think like Bari Weiss at the Free Press is kind of— she was an ex-New York Times opinion columnist, and she started the Free Press. She's doing like live debates now, which will get like a panel of 4 people across the political spectrum. They'll come in with like a big idea like, "Is religion dead?" or something. Then 2 people argue for that and 2 people argue against it. That to me is— I get a real buzz off of like people wrestling around ideas, trying to interpret our reality for us, trying to give meaning to things that are very confusing right now. And trying to get to the truth, you know? Yeah, I dig that. That has nothing to do with reality TV, sorry.

Katie Concannon (00:30:24 --> 00:30:30)
Yeah, you tried to make like a really highbrow version your answer of would you go on a reality television show?

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:31 --> 00:30:35)
I don't think I would. Yeah. Yeah, it would be totally embarrassing.

Katie Concannon (00:30:35 --> 00:30:37)
I think you might go on American Ninja Warrior.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:37 --> 00:30:38)
That's a good answer. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:30:39 --> 00:30:40)
I could see you doing that.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:40 --> 00:30:42)
I need to get a little more in shape for that.

Katie Concannon (00:30:42 --> 00:30:44)
Well, no one's calling you in tomorrow, so you have time.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:44 --> 00:30:55)
That's true. I'm gonna need like 3 to 5 years for that. All right, I have another topic and then we'll kick it over to you because—

Katie Concannon (00:30:55 --> 00:30:57)
because you're gonna force me. You failed.

Dustin Grinnell (00:30:57 --> 00:31:06)
You brought 3 topics, which is just really bad. Yeah, so we got to talk about Will Smith. I think we do. If we're at Talk of the Table, I think we have to talk about Will.

Katie Concannon (00:31:06 --> 00:31:14)
I mean, because— because of Red Table Talk, that feels like— isn't that— isn't that Jada Pinkett Smith's podcast.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:15 --> 00:31:17)
Oh no, tell me I don't know anything about this.

Katie Concannon (00:31:17 --> 00:31:29)
I think it is. I thought that's what you were going for when you're like, for a talk of the table. I'm pretty sure she has a podcast called— I think it's called Red Table Talk. I'm actually not sure if that's the name, and I've never heard it. Didn't know that. Um, I know it from Howard Stern.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:29 --> 00:31:57)
Yeah, like, Will Smith's going through it, you know. And say more. Nobody liked the slap of Chris Rock. I mean, I don't know, this is a slap-themed— that's crazy. That's true, that's true.

Yeah. But I like that guy. I, I, Robot and Pursuit of Happiness and on and on. So many great movies. And he's just like off the rails right now.

Katie Concannon (00:31:57 --> 00:32:02)
Did you think Men in Black was good? Yeah, sure. What about that Wild West one? No, horrible. Okay.

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:03 --> 00:32:17)
Do you think the song was good? Yeah. So that's kind of what I wanted to bring up. So he had a song recently. Do you know the song Pretty Girl? No. That's great. So I can get your basically hot take right up. You've never heard it.

Katie Concannon (00:32:17 --> 00:32:18)
Never heard it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:32:18 --> 00:32:49)
Okay, so I have some pretty strong feelings about this song. It's been a problem ever since I was a little boy, you know. Um, actually, I think it's gotten worse as I've gotten older. Um, I thought I had it under control, but I'm literally experiencing it right now. Like, literally this second. Oh. And how would you define this problem?

Katie Concannon (00:32:51 --> 00:32:53)
Can you make me understand?

Dustin Grinnell (00:33:25 --> 00:33:28)
So this song sucks, like, real bad.

Katie Concannon (00:33:28 --> 00:33:31)
You're leading the witness. Don't you want my initial reaction? Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:33:31 --> 00:34:07)
What if I love it? You— I saw your face and it was like a face of like revolt. Like disgust, which is kind of what I expected. Yeah. And there's a few reasons. Like, I think melodically it sounds horrible, but then also just like the subject matter, what, what it's about. He's in therapy because he likes pretty girls. Like, what a burden, right? It's incredibly shallow, and it's like he's just singing about like trying to find someone to be like a sugar daddy for and— what?

Katie Concannon (00:34:07 --> 00:34:18)
I have a lot of thoughts. I mean, I think the first thing when you're seeing him in a way that you almost start to have feelings of empathy or he's sitting in this chair.

Dustin Grinnell (00:34:18 --> 00:34:19)
He's going through something.

Katie Concannon (00:34:19 --> 00:34:37)
And he looks sort of— he's sensitive and he's about to share something really deep. My initial thought before I knew he was faking that was like, How can you really tell if this is real? He's a fantastic actor. So that becomes like a creepy line when you're looking at someone trying to show sort of raw emotion or whatever.

Dustin Grinnell (00:34:37 --> 00:34:38)
It's a creepy line.

Katie Concannon (00:34:38 --> 00:35:05)
For me, I'm like, "Can I trust this or is this person lying?" And I think in this instance it was very quick. "Oh, he's just— this is a joke. He's making a joke out of that stuff." And I think that's sad given that he was very recently on sort of an apology tour for slap and a really strange outburst in reaction that was inappropriate. And so he's, I thought, on a bit of a publicity tour to gain some public support back.

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:05 --> 00:35:06)
He clearly doesn't give a fuck anymore.

Katie Concannon (00:35:06 --> 00:35:07)
He doesn't give a fuck.

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:07 --> 00:35:09)
Yeah, he's just gonna say what he wants to say.

Katie Concannon (00:35:09 --> 00:35:16)
And it does also lean a little bit, I don't know how much you know about Jada Pinkett Smith or the guy she allegedly was having sex with, and was a friend of his.

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:16 --> 00:35:18)
No, you didn't explain it to me, yeah, I'm not sure.

Katie Concannon (00:35:18 --> 00:35:49)
So there's been a little bit of rumor around their marriage that maybe it was open and then maybe it wasn't open. And then she went on a bunch of talk shows, really weird. I wish I had those clips because she was asked very directly a couple times if they had an open marriage and she gave very strange answers, like real roundabout non-answers. But I think he's gotten a strange reputation of being a bit of a pushover while she's going out and doing whatever she wants and he's at home defending her and in love with her. Yes, I wasn't going to use that word.

Dustin Grinnell (00:35:49 --> 00:35:50)
He's getting cuckolded by Jada?

Katie Concannon (00:35:50 --> 00:36:36)
Well, these are things I've read other places. I certainly have no firsthand knowledge. But I think this feels like a play to say, like, I'm doing it too, in a really pathetic way, is I guess my reaction. And my sadness here is that I've become a really big fan of Willow. I think she's fucking awesome. Willow is who? Their child. And I think her music is insanely good. I'm obsessed with her. She opened last summer for Childish Gambino. I had tickets and I didn't make it to the show and I'm very upset. But I think children who are now artists and like really cool and putting out some interesting music must be horrified by this display of the parents. And that is really bad music and weird outfits and nothing about it seems cool.

Dustin Grinnell (00:36:36 --> 00:36:41)
He's a legend and he's really, embarrassing himself.

Katie Concannon (00:36:41 --> 00:36:45)
Yes, that was hard to look at. I'm glad I hadn't seen it before, and I hope to never see it again.

Dustin Grinnell (00:36:46 --> 00:36:52)
No, the video is ridiculous. What is the outfit? We— it's just, it's all bad top to bottom.

Katie Concannon (00:36:52 --> 00:37:00)
Yeah, it just feels like a desperate play to say, I've got some stuff going on the side too, and I got all these girls.

Dustin Grinnell (00:37:00 --> 00:37:18)
You think it's sort of like Drake versus Kendrick? Yeah, it's a little bit like a public But it's husband and wife. I mean, yeah. Oh, okay. That would actually make a little more sense to me. That's— if he's kind of like, I'm just gonna make a public announcement that I'm going after some other girls.

Katie Concannon (00:37:18 --> 00:37:20)
I'm pretty sure they're still married. Oh, okay.

Dustin Grinnell (00:37:21 --> 00:37:22)
I think— I didn't know.

Katie Concannon (00:37:22 --> 00:37:38)
Yeah, but she had some boyfriend and he came out and said he was sleeping with her, and like Will Smith allowed it or whatever. He's a young guy, like I think he was like 30 or something. And yeah, so she never confirmed or denied any of that stuff, but Red Table Talk, they talk about it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:37:39 --> 00:37:45)
I just, it's like, I don't want to be like above it, but like it's pretty shallow subject matter.

Katie Concannon (00:37:46 --> 00:37:47)
Yeah, it's terrible.

Dustin Grinnell (00:37:47 --> 00:37:48)
We're not talking about, yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:37:48 --> 00:38:07)
And not for nothing, I don't know that Will Smith ever put out good songs. Maybe controversial topic, but like maybe Summertime, maybe the Miami song. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Super catchy. Men in Black, bad song. The Wild West one, bad song. But I— Parents Don't Just Understand or whatever that is, not a good song.

Dustin Grinnell (00:38:07 --> 00:38:11)
Oh yeah, what's the one? Is he talking to his son or something?

Katie Concannon (00:38:11 --> 00:38:17)
No, that's the old one from like the Jazzy Jeff timeframe. It was like Parents Just Don't Understand in summertime.

Dustin Grinnell (00:38:17 --> 00:38:37)
So Will Smith is, I think he's in a midlife crisis. Seems like it. And so I think that's really the topic for the talk of the table. It's like, You know, he had everything, still does. Rich, famous, powerful. He could pick any movie that he wanted to. You know, his family seemed to be going well, and then he just kind of like blew it.

Katie Concannon (00:38:38 --> 00:38:54)
I have another point on Will Smith though. How do you feel about celebrities that are heavily into Scientology? Because I think he's like a high-level Scientologist and has been for a long time, like decades. Oh yeah, he and Tom Cruise have been around for, I think, the same amount of time in Scientology.

Dustin Grinnell (00:38:54 --> 00:38:55)
I didn't know he was in that.

Katie Concannon (00:38:55 --> 00:39:25)
Which leads me to believe that the struggle has existed long before this decade. And not to make a— I might be making a broad judgment around organized religion, but I just think if you are that attached to Scientology, and maybe you're looking for something, or there's something not going well that that is providing, or that has got you hooked into. That group?

Dustin Grinnell (00:39:29 --> 00:39:29)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:39:29 --> 00:39:31)
How do you feel about Scientology?

Dustin Grinnell (00:39:32 --> 00:40:09)
I, I feel like it's a cult, and I feel like it really damages people. Um, obviously wraps them into these hierarchies that get them on this treadmill of trying to go clear or whatever it is, and it's a great documentary. Yeah, like perverts your mind. It warps your sense of reality. If you start to feel like you're getting out, they just ostracize you and do totally deranged things to you. And, uh, yeah, it's just like a pariah on society. Like, it should be abolished, you know? It's— I don't see any good that it's actually doing. Agreed.

Katie Concannon (00:40:09 --> 00:41:02)
Yeah, but that's a slippery slope with religions as a whole. And, you know, I don't know that we want to start banning them, but it is a tricky thing. And then it's similar to reality television. Like, if people voluntarily want to go in, how do you protect people from that? And where is the public's responsibility to protect people or not from any of these things, whether it's signing up for reality television, embarrassing yourself, entering something that ends up being a cult? I mean, Scientology is, I think, really that middle line between very clear, just pure cult. Like, there's plenty of those other ones that are just— they're not even pretending to be a religion. It's just straight-up cult behavior. And then there's, like, religions that are maybe more are acceptable, I think, really just because they're older, not necessarily because they're more correct. And Scientology sits like, I feel like, right in the middle of that. But I, I think you and I believe enough in freedoms of individual people that you would never actually want to ban it. Exactly.

Dustin Grinnell (00:41:02 --> 00:41:04)
As long as you're not breaking laws and— correct—

Katie Concannon (00:41:04 --> 00:41:32)
or affecting my life or whatever, like, go ahead and do it. So there's no way to like abolish it, but I do think It's an interesting question to say what came first, this sort of the unraveling of Will Smith, which we're assuming, or the religion. Did he find the religion because he needed it because he was already struggling? Or did he find this religion, which then caused this weird spiral? Who knows? Hard to say.

Dustin Grinnell (00:41:34 --> 00:41:35)
It is hard to say.

Katie Concannon (00:41:35 --> 00:41:37)
I have a lot of content on Will Smith for you.

Dustin Grinnell (00:41:37 --> 00:42:05)
Yeah, you do. And Scientology too. I remember I was in California once and I walked into a Scientology building. You know, you could just walk in. Sure. It's almost like an Apple Store for like psychotics or something. You, um, they give you this like little test where you like hold two metal rods or something. Oh yeah. And you're supposed to like think— if you just think about something like painful or traumatic, and it like makes this little meter like move or something, right? And it was the most like grotesque display of like pseudoscience.

Katie Concannon (00:42:05 --> 00:42:08)
Yeah, it's like a snake oil situation. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:42:08 --> 00:42:36)
And I was just like, are we— we're supposed to laugh right now, right? Like, this is— the guy was just like unironically like explaining the science behind this. I was like, cool. Like, it just felt like an anthropologist. I was just dropping in, writing a little case study, and just being like, I'm gonna just file that away in like totally bizarre ways people can get wrapped up in an ideology that makes no sense, but somehow made sense to them.

Katie Concannon (00:42:37 --> 00:42:54)
[Speaker:JENNIFER] Here's a topic that I didn't have written down, but I think kind of is a nice segue from this is like, what are your thoughts? So I agree, there's these evidence-based things where you can hold these polls and that's in, I think it might not be Going Clear, maybe it's one of the, I've watched many Scientology.

Dustin Grinnell (00:42:54 --> 00:42:55)
[Speaker:JONATHAN] Yeah, me too. [Speaker:JENNIFER] Dr. Greaser asked me. [Speaker:JONATHAN] Years ago though.

Katie Concannon (00:42:55 --> 00:43:18)
Yeah, I don't like a lot of movies, but I do like a documentary about cults. That's sort of the one niche where I could rank them all. There's a lot of content there, but they provide something tangible for people that are really desperate enough to look, and that provides some good feeling or something that helps people feel better, right? There's a little bit of community. There's a little bit of maybe hope.

Dustin Grinnell (00:43:18 --> 00:43:24)
It's a lot of people are lost spiritually. Correct. They don't have something to believe in or something that gives their life meaning.

Katie Concannon (00:43:24 --> 00:44:31)
Yeah, so it made me think about Clare and astrology or Vedic astrology, like tarot card reading, sort of all of these things, which feels— it feels really close to some of these religious things where people are looking for some sort of answer. And my initial thought always is, you know, if we're pulling tarot cards to figure out what to do next, like something's wrong and we gotta figure out something else to do. But then I will admit there's like these moments of, of my experiences with yoga and Vedic astrology and things like that where I've thought maybe there is something else out there. So I only bring that up to say like I try not to be overly judgmental about people who identify with some element of religion because to me some of that Vedic philosophy that sits in the broader yoga or Ayurveda umbrella I think is real. I don't know how much because then the line goes very quickly into stuff that I find to be very goofy, right? And so I don't know, maybe it just made me think of that, holding those things and kind of seeing the line move in a Scientology setting.

Dustin Grinnell (00:44:31 --> 00:44:40)
I guess if I'm going to be a little bit more honest, I'm not that judgmental. It's more like I'm ambivalent. Yeah, it's more like I'm just like, not yes, not no.

Katie Concannon (00:44:40 --> 00:45:00)
But is there any version of it? Like, I can identify mine that I'm like, okay, this little space, this sort of Vedic astrology reading planetary. We don't need to get into what all of that means because it's too long to describe, I think. But I don't know. There's like a piece of that where I'm like, I don't know if I'm making a big life decision, would I call a Vedic astrologer? Probably.

Dustin Grinnell (00:45:01 --> 00:45:02)
Yeah.

Katie Concannon (00:45:02 --> 00:45:17)
Which is, I know you're not doing, but like, is there something, is there anything that's non-tangible, uh, belief system of something bigger? And it could be aliens, I don't know, anything that you think that you haven't seen that you believe in.

Dustin Grinnell (00:45:19 --> 00:47:12)
So there's this like somewhat famous parable that the French philosopher, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, he was approached by a man who said, I'm facing a very difficult decision. I don't know whether or not to go off to war and fight for my country, which is something I want to do, and go with my brothers and and fight for freedom and all that, or stay home with my sick mother and take care of her. So he's thinking, well, you know, if I take care of my mother, I'm very important to one person. If I go and join the war, I could be very important to many. I could have maybe a bigger impact or something.

So it's a question of impact, influence, where should he spend his time, what decision should he make? He's trying to make a really hard decision. And Sartre, you know, he's just a real character. He was basically like, I have no advice for you. You have to search your own heart.

You'll have to get quiet and figure it out for yourself. And you might make the wrong decision. You might make a decision and you'll never be sure if it's right or wrong. That's my philosophy. My philosophy is it's on you.

You know, you have to believe your own conscience and believe your own own heart and move forward, right or wrong. Make a choice, correct if it's wrong. If it's right, good on you. But like, I don't know if he should have gone to war, take care of his mother. I don't know.

His mom would have been happy if he stayed, maybe. But maybe his whole town who ran off to war, maybe they think he's a coward. Maybe, you know, who knows? So I think if you were making a big decision, go for a Yeah, and think, and then let the answer reveal itself. I don't know.

Katie Concannon (00:47:13 --> 00:47:18)
So the answer is no, you don't believe in anything sort of greater than yourself, which isn't a bad answer.

Dustin Grinnell (00:47:18 --> 00:47:19)
I don't mind signs. I don't mind—

Katie Concannon (00:47:20 --> 00:47:22)
you don't mind them? I don't—

Dustin Grinnell (00:47:22 --> 00:49:27)
I don't just— I don't reject them outright, you know? Okay. My mom passed away last fall, and whenever there's a hummingbird, my sister is like, "Mom's with us." And like, that's a very comforting thought to her. But it's not. You know, has her— first of all, we're like 100 miles away.

So that hummingbird came from— so yeah, let's just not even get into it that way. But also, so of all the hummingbirds she incarnated in, that one that flew by us, or maybe they were attracted or whatever. So if I have any, like, just the long answer to this is like, What I think is that there— I think it all comes down to physics in some way, at the quantum level, at the dimensional level. We're a pretty young species, and we're a tool-holding species or whatever, tool-building species. And we're doing a great job, like flying rockets to the moon, you know, like nuclear technology.

And that's all great, but it's still extremely immature. I think we have a long ways to go with our technology, our tools of observation to understand the reality that we're in. And I don't know if it's like we are one of multiple parallel universes. We haven't— we don't have the tool yet to identify that. Sure.

And that's what a ghost is. That's what apparitions are. It's one— it's matter coming from one parallel universe to the other, or I don't know what manifesting thoughts are, things or something. Like, maybe a thought is an actual magnetic pulse or something, and that then has an electromagnetic connection with other consciousness or something like that. We just don't have the tools, and I'm not ready to step into that space and being like, this is it, um, it's, it's this invented philosophy, it's this bullshit, or whatever, you know.

Katie Concannon (00:49:27 --> 00:49:52)
So can I say, I think what you're saying is you don't have a specific school of thought that you identify with and say, yes, I feel really confident that this feels right, or identify with this, but you do believe something bigger than yourself exists potentially that we haven't yet figure it out, right? But it's not nothing. It's not a void of nothing. It's something, but just something unexplainable.

Dustin Grinnell (00:49:52 --> 00:50:04)
Yeah, yeah, that would— that may very well explain everything, right? And it may be that we are like— our Milky Way galaxy is in the middle of a huge black hole. Like, who the fuck knows? Who knows?

Katie Concannon (00:50:04 --> 00:50:07)
Maybe Scientology is correct. I doubt it, but like, I think—

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:07 --> 00:50:29)
could you prove it isn't? Circling— I mean, this is incredibly like grandiose, crazy thing to say, but like all religions and whatever, they're all circling the same thing. Yeah, you know, sort God, and, you know, it's always inside of us. And, you know, it's just— we just don't fundamentally understand the nature of consciousness and our physical reality. Yeah, so we invent. Right.

Katie Concannon (00:50:29 --> 00:50:33)
There's too much human interaction in the definition to make it correct. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:33 --> 00:50:42)
Yeah, I agree. So, yeah, I'm scientific. I'm a materialist, I think. And so I do think there's probably, like, a materialistic explanation.

Katie Concannon (00:50:43 --> 00:50:46)
But once you— you need a sort of tangible evidence.

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:46 --> 00:50:49)
I'm gonna need a really powerful tool to like— it's not—

Katie Concannon (00:50:49 --> 00:50:50)
it's not the handles.

Dustin Grinnell (00:50:50 --> 00:50:59)
And I think it's going to be great once we have that tool. We're going to be like, oh, you know, that's— that explains the afterlife.

Katie Concannon (00:50:59 --> 00:51:01)
It might be great. It might be bad news.

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:01 --> 00:51:04)
It might mean it is what it is. Sure.

Katie Concannon (00:51:04 --> 00:51:08)
Yeah, it might be better to not know. Ignorance is bliss is a true statement. It might not—

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:08 --> 00:51:15)
for me, like, if here's a topic, if you if you can know the day and time of your death, would you want to know? No. Oh, I would.

Katie Concannon (00:51:16 --> 00:51:16)
No, I would not.

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:17 --> 00:51:23)
Well, because if it, say it was September 22nd, 2025, wouldn't you want to know that?

Katie Concannon (00:51:23 --> 00:51:32)
I'd probably start smoking cigarettes. It wouldn't matter. You could do anything. I know, right? But that wouldn't be, I wouldn't really enjoy that, but I probably would. I just know that about myself.

Dustin Grinnell (00:51:33 --> 00:52:02)
But there's a good book called The Measure by Nikki Erlich, and it Basically everybody, the whole book is every human gets a little strand delivered to their doorstep, and that strand is the length of their predicted life. So if it's short, you only have, and they measured it, they figured out a way to measure it. So some people have 2 weeks, some people have 2 years, some people have 20 years. And so everybody gets a strand, and then so everybody knows when they're gonna die. Some people don't open it, you know, whatever.

Katie Concannon (00:52:03 --> 00:52:04)
Does anyone outkick their potential?

Dustin Grinnell (00:52:05 --> 00:52:21)
Nope, it's always solid. It's always just like, yeah, there's no way around it. And you can measure it down to like the nanosecond. So naturally it's a book club discussion book because it's like, oh, what do you do?

Katie Concannon (00:52:21 --> 00:52:22)
What would you do? Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:52:22 --> 00:52:33)
And I don't, yeah, I mean, if I knew I'm gonna live to 80, it changes the way I live my life if I'm only gonna live, another year and a half. [Speaker:CRISTINE] Sure.

Katie Concannon (00:52:33 --> 00:53:49)
I don't think, I think there's something really beautiful about not knowing like what's next. It's almost to really simplify it. Like one of my closest friends, he always Googles the ends of shows before we finish watching them and like finds out what's happening. And I think that sucks. I wouldn't want to watch the end of Game of Thrones knowing the finale.

I don't want to watch like— I don't want to read a synopsis of like season 2 of Severance and then go watch it. And I think there's a good, just bigger, more beautiful version of that that is one's life. I don't want to know. And then I think it informs my decisions in a way that I don't necessarily believe might be good. I think there's smoking cigarettes.

Infinite opportunity when you don't know, right? There's so much potential, and you take all of that potential away if you just— if you— if there's a no way out of it, this is all you've got. Like, yeah, maybe you make some of the days more exciting, but I mean, shame on you if you don't do that anyways. You should. And a lot of people don't.

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:49 --> 00:53:53)
But don't we? Don't we basically just—

Katie Concannon (00:53:53 --> 00:53:54)
human beings are me and you.

Dustin Grinnell (00:53:55 --> 00:54:02)
No, I mean, even people like us, you know, like who want to get after it and do stuff and—

Katie Concannon (00:54:02 --> 00:54:12)
No, I don't think so. I think there's still a healthy amount of rest that people need, but I think, no, I feel like, I think we're doing it right. I don't know. And maybe that's an arrogant thing to say.

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:12 --> 00:54:14)
But it's a constant push and pull. Sure. Because for me—

Katie Concannon (00:54:14 --> 00:54:19)
But if you knew you lived to 80 and you had 40 more years, that would still probably be true.

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:19 --> 00:54:27)
Yeah, I've heard some like writers, they're like writers, they'll say, you know, if I had one day to live, I'd write faster. And it's like, right, okay, yeah, right.

Katie Concannon (00:54:28 --> 00:54:32)
And then there's like, live every day like it's the last day, like those little silly phrases you see in a HomeGoods.

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:32 --> 00:54:59)
Like, it just depends on the time. If it's 5 years, I'm still gonna sit at my desk and stare at a screen and try to write the book and all that. But if it's 5 days, sure, no, I'm gonna— I don't even know, just see some family, see some friends, see the people I love, maybe fuck off for a couple days, like walk on an island and watch the sunset and like cry and get, wrap my arms around this.

Katie Concannon (00:54:59 --> 00:55:15)
[Speaker] Yeah, I mean, I think if the question was like, would you wanna know that it was your last 5 days, maybe my answer would be different, right? Like, do I wanna know when it's that last moment to get like a big, bold, like big, beautiful goodbye to life? Totally. But would I wanna know 30 years in advance, 50 years in advance? No.

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:16 --> 00:55:27)
There's a, do you ever see Don't Look Up, the movie Don't Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio? And it's basically an asteroid's coming and it's gonna blow up.

Katie Concannon (00:55:27 --> 00:55:31)
Oh yeah, yeah, I did see this movie. They're like around a dinner table at the end. Well, exactly.

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:31 --> 00:56:22)
And like the tech leader and like buffoon and like government official They escape. They find a way off. So their reaction to planetary destruction is get the hell out of Dodge. Now people without the resources, just regular people, they know the planet's gonna blow up. So what did they do?

What do most people do? Well, we saw one group of people, a family and some friends, they just had dinner. They just had dinner and then the whole living room just flies apart when the asteroid hits. But like, so that's what, there's our message there. It's like, you know, spend, time with the people you love if you know you're going to die?

Katie Concannon (00:56:22 --> 00:56:42)
And I think it's just a— those are two different scenarios, right? Like if you've got— do you want to know when it's your last 24 hours so you get to like tie up all your loose ends? Yes. But do I want to know at birth how long I've got? And then that just limits or sets my potential. I just think it's a heaviness on your possibility.

Dustin Grinnell (00:56:42 --> 00:57:13)
But you would always be— say we have like a genetic testing technology that could tell you the length of your life. I feel like you would always rail against that. Yes. You know, you would be like, I'm going to eat healthy, exercise, get good sleep. I will be the exception to my— it's It's like it's fate and free will kind of. Sure. You don't like the idea that we— Right.

Katie Concannon (00:57:13 --> 00:57:36)
If you have the opportunity to like know you can do these things and live longer, you should. And I think, I mean, I believe that I do try to live that way for the most part, like within reason. I'm not living like a renunciate life where I'm only taking care of myself like that CEO that's doing all that like biohacking to be like a 20-year-old and he sleeps this weird schedule and eats these weird leaves and takes all Yeah, his documentary, Don't Die.

Dustin Grinnell (00:57:37 --> 00:57:40)
Right. And there's something really weird about that because he doesn't look healthy.

Katie Concannon (00:57:40 --> 00:57:57)
And he's not living. So like, I think there's a range of going out and experiencing the world, like Anthony Bourdain style, like go have a Negroni, have two, sit at this place, eat the ice cream, get the cream sauce. Like that philosophy is part of living also.

Dustin Grinnell (00:57:57 --> 00:57:59)
Except for Negronis, 'cause Negronis are nasty, but—

Katie Concannon (00:57:59 --> 00:58:05)
They're the best, and I think that Anthony Bourdain sides with me Yeah. Is evidence that it's correct.

Dustin Grinnell (00:58:05 --> 00:58:40)
He's a great example, right? So you put him up against this guy, this tech CEO, don't die leader guy, and put them up against each other. And I think it's pretty easy to tell who's getting the most enjoyment out of life, getting— living more meaningfully. I don't know. Before you react, I want to say I think that guy, the don't die guy, he is kind of thinking about it from like a competitive professional sports. Like, he's trying to think like, how can I be the— almost like an Olympic longevity— he's trying to make it like a science.

Katie Concannon (00:58:40 --> 00:58:42)
He's made himself a science experiment.

Dustin Grinnell (00:58:42 --> 00:58:54)
That kind of makes it a little bit better for me. It's not for his vanity. Yeah, it is probably, but like, he's also trying to like kind of push, as a biohacker would try to push the field forward and whatever. But yeah, sure. Yeah, totally.

Katie Concannon (00:58:54 --> 00:59:38)
Brian, I think, yeah.

Was Anthony Bourdain happy? I think we can all say like, oh, he was out there, the one living his life and really enjoying it. But in the end, was that true? I don't know. I like the idea of being the one that's out in the world traveling, meeting people, eating the food, experiencing beautiful sunsets and weird dive bars and different cultures and all those things.

Dustin Grinnell (00:59:38 --> 00:59:56)
He was very tortured. [Speaker:JAD] Well, in someone who committed suicide, you wonder about the years prior of depression and to what degree were they isolated. And I think he was, even though he looked like he was having a lot of meals and being in healthy relationships, he was probably pretty isolated on the road and whenever he— I think we knew that. And I think it surprised a lot of people.

Katie Concannon (00:59:57 --> 01:00:54)
—because I think a lot of people identify with like, "I'm going to go enjoy life the way that Anthony Bourdain did." And I think we almost just fell into the same trap of saying it now, even knowing what happened. So weird answer to say, like, I do think there's something to subscribe to that type of lifestyle of go be in the world and live a life that's enjoyable and hope you've got enough time to do it. But don't be so attached to, you know, staying healthy and making sure you live long that you don't live at all. Like, you know, I think this guy his life feels really restricted in a way that I don't know if he's enjoying any of it. And maybe he's like a sacrifice for science, I don't know, which I understand to some extent, but it certainly wouldn't be the life I would choose. Just like any other type of really renunciate— I'm gonna just kind of give up the sort of average householder life to dedicate myself to whatever that is, like a monk or someone who lives in a sort of isolated way for whatever the, the higher reason is. Well, it's always—

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:54 --> 01:01:14)
isn't it always like the middle way? It's the, the Buddhism's— the middle path— thought of the middle path. And even like, like the Buddha, he, when he was in his searching days after he left his family— and no one talks about that, he just walked out, whatever— he, for like 7 years— people do talk about that. That's good.

Katie Concannon (01:01:14 --> 01:01:30)
And MySpace people talk about that. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Well, that's what I mean. You can make these choices if you become this renunciate person where you give up all your sort of householder things, which is your spouse, your children, your job, your friends, and you just dedicate yourself to spirit.

Dustin Grinnell (01:01:30 --> 01:02:18)
But he hung out with the renunciates. And, you know, did like extreme yoga and got like emaciated by eating like one like piece of rice like every day and stuff like that. And so, but then he said, that's not it. Like, that's not the way. And even in Hermann Hesse's book, Siddhartha, like he even talked about himself, the author, like he actually lived like a bourgeoisie life for a while.

He like made money. He had a satisfying, materialistic existence for a while, and he didn't like that either. Right. And so the middle way is the middle way, you know. It's—

Katie Concannon (01:02:18 --> 01:02:41)
and I think it's a varying spectrum, right? Every person's a little bit different as far as like, what is— what does that look like? And for some people, it might be a renunciate life. Like, I don't know if that— if there's individuals that really feel fulfilled in that way, and that's what they came here in this lifetime to do, great. If that's really satisfying you and you don't want the other sort of spoils of regular life, life, fine. Who's to say that a Negroni is for everyone, you know?

Dustin Grinnell (01:02:42 --> 01:02:45)
I wonder if the Buddha would like Negronis. Probably not.

Katie Concannon (01:02:45 --> 01:02:47)
Definitely disgusting. Anthony Bourdain did.

Dustin Grinnell (01:02:48 --> 01:02:50)
Anthony Bourdain was just so fucking cool.

Katie Concannon (01:02:50 --> 01:02:51)
Yeah, and he drank the coolest drinks.

Dustin Grinnell (01:02:51 --> 01:03:05)
He was a great writer. People don't talk about that. Like, he wrote the voiceovers, and they're really lyrical and insightful as fuck, you know? He's like really getting at like like the stuff of life.

Katie Concannon (01:03:05 --> 01:03:18)
I think everyone identifies with Anthony Bourdain. Like, no matter— I don't— I just don't— I feel like he's a yes for at least all of American culture. Like, there isn't a group of people who are like, "Not that guy." You don't think?

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:18 --> 01:03:21)
You don't think some people think he's trying to be— he's like too cool for school, or he's—

Katie Concannon (01:03:21 --> 01:03:25)
The only person I would guess that would feel that way is you. I don't think—

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:25 --> 01:03:26)
And you love him.

Katie Concannon (01:03:26 --> 01:03:26)
I know. That's why I think—

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:26 --> 01:03:34)
I do, because he's real. Yeah. He was always real. Like, he was just like— He like had the bad boy persona thing, but like he didn't—

Katie Concannon (01:03:34 --> 01:03:35)
But he was a nice guy.

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:35 --> 01:03:40)
He wasn't a caricature of that. Right. Yeah, exactly. He just was a rebel and—

Katie Concannon (01:03:41 --> 01:03:52)
And he could eat at a fancy restaurant, but he could eat at a dive bar. He could eat at a little shack on like the side of a beach. Totally humble. He could eat at a kitschy, goofy, you know, theme park bar. Like he could do— he could go anywhere.

Dustin Grinnell (01:03:52 --> 01:03:59)
He sat there with Obama and he was just like chill. And it was like one of the best episodes too. I guess. Yeah. His—

Katie Concannon (01:04:00 --> 01:04:12)
He's a version of maybe, well, I guess maybe not. My thought was he's a version of that public persona kind of being the same. Like he didn't put on a different show, but if there was a secret darker side, maybe he did.

Dustin Grinnell (01:04:12 --> 01:04:57)
I do think there was. Yeah. There must have been. Yeah. Because it's like, did you see the documentary Roadrunner?

Yes. About him? Yeah. It's like the whole idea of him him doing like a travel show was they just threw it together. Like two producers just approached him and said, "Hey, you want to like go around with a camera?" And like that early footage was really bad.

Like they kind of were like, "This isn't working. Like he's not, you know, he's not responding. He's not like media trained." I think he just didn't have, he didn't know how to host. Because it's like a skill and you learn it. But anyways, he got his legs and he figured it out.

And what did he figure out? He figured out a persona. He figured out like a performative technique. Right. That's not—

Dustin Grinnell (01:04:57 --> 01:04:57)
maybe that's not him.

Dustin Grinnell (01:04:57 --> 01:04:58)
I don't know.

Katie Concannon (01:04:58 --> 01:05:24)
I don't know. Or maybe it's all the same thoughts, but he packaged them in a way that's more digestible to like a listener, right? You can have that thought in a rambly, tangenty way, or you can make it more concise and digestible and quick enough bites that people can— and hear it. And sadly, that's getting smaller and smaller. The days of Anthony Bourdain was still probably a much longer format than today's listening.

Dustin Grinnell (01:05:24 --> 01:05:42)
Yeah, it's all bite-sized now. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like we have to talk about The Bear. I haven't watched the new season. Okay, so, okay, we can't talk about the second half of my question, but basically I want to talk about the Yeah, great.

Katie Concannon (01:05:42 --> 01:05:51)
I mean, I was expecting you to talk about The Bear, so thank you for bringing this up. I think part of the reason that I'm not watching the third season is because of the mom. I'm not ready.

Dustin Grinnell (01:05:51 --> 01:05:51)
Why?

Katie Concannon (01:05:52 --> 01:06:09)
Because I think that if you have a challenging relationship with your mother, the Jamie Lee Curtis character is so real to me that it's wildly triggering. And my mom is an active problem at the moment. So I am not watching.

Dustin Grinnell (01:06:12 --> 01:07:12)
We could bring up the iconic 3-minute scene from the Thanksgiving dinner, but I think you probably just know it. I know it. Unless you want to watch it. No, I know it. Okay.

So yeah, it's like the main character, Carmen, the chef, he goes to his— he's in his mom's house, family house, and he goes to his mom who's smoking a cigarette in the kitchen. They're at Thanksgiving and they're just about to go have Thanksgiving dinner. And Carmen, the main character, goes up to his mom and says, "Everybody's ready." pretty, like everything looks so beautiful, and she's struggling. So she's like, has mental health issues, like, you know, she's anxious depressive, one could say. She's narcissistic.

Katie Concannon (01:07:12 --> 01:07:30)
Well, you could see the moment where his face goes, here, we're about to hit an episode. Like, it was a familiar— it wasn't like, oh, like, I think he's like, okay, now we gotta get— we buckle up, the episode is coming. You could see it was very familiar and that he knew it was about to get worse. That's how at least I interpreted So do you—

Dustin Grinnell (01:07:32 --> 01:07:41)
yeah, to the degree to which you want to talk about your personal experience, that idea of like seeing an episode coming, do you know what that is like? Yes.

Katie Concannon (01:07:42 --> 01:07:47)
I think so. And that's why— yeah, and I think that's why I interpreted that scene that way. I mean, I think The Bear—

Dustin Grinnell (01:07:47 --> 01:07:48)
it's like, here we go again.

Katie Concannon (01:07:48 --> 01:09:40)
It's well written. The characters are amazing and the acting is A+. And so Even inside of that, I think there's some component of it that is you interpreting your own experience. I think that's how we consume any type of entertainment, right? There's a little bit of a lens of like, you know, I identify or recognize this in this way, or I interpret it in this way.

So that's how I saw it. I think my brother texted me the day that that episode came out and said, I don't think I'm going to be ready to speak about this episode with you for at least a year, because we had a similar reaction to the mom And there's something hard about it, specifically at holidays or when you're in a bigger group, 'cause I think, you know, my mom suffers from a similar amount of mental illness that the broader group might not understand. Like they kind of know, oh, she goes a little, she gets a little crazy. Like they might have a little bit of like, here we go, but it's different in the immediate circle if you're really familiar with such an unstable character that like there's a real trauma that that triggers in all of the siblings. You can see it in the sister, you can see it in Carmi, You just kind of know they're like, "Fuck," you know?

And so that totally hit home for me in a way that they didn't have to say it, which is also part of what I love about The Bear as a television show in general, is that there's no explaining it. There's a lot of silent parts where the acting is just in facial expressions, but so much is happening and it's just communicated in body language and the way they look at each other that I think is really powerful. And I appreciate a show that respects the audience enough to like, let you figure out what's happening without overly having to drag you there. So I think there's something really special about the show in that sense. But the mom specifically is— Jamie Lee Curtis is incredible always.

Dustin Grinnell (01:09:40 --> 01:09:58)
She did something, something that happens not often. It's something like alchemical. I don't know. It's, uh, what did she do? I don't know. It's not acting. It's something else. It's like she universally grabbed everybody's mom on their worst day or something. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (01:09:58 --> 01:10:05)
I want to know about her mom. Where is she getting this content? Because it is accurate. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:10:05 --> 01:10:50)
Or is it like George Clooney? Everyone says George Clooney just plays himself, George Clooney. And he's like, fuck it, whatever. It's hard to play myself, you know? Right.

Is she just playing a part of herself? Herself, you know? Yeah, like a little bit, uh, unstable. And I don't think so. Yeah, but I bring it up too because I saw my mom in her too.

I think the thing that I saw, it was guilt, you know? It seems like Jamie Lee Curtis, her character, she has a lot of like guilt and shame for being crazy. I fucked you guys up. And there's a sense that she feels like she doesn't deserve the success of her kids. There's another scene.

Katie Concannon (01:10:50 --> 01:10:51)
At the restaurant.

Dustin Grinnell (01:10:51 --> 01:11:21)
At the restaurant where she shows up on opening night. She's there. And what's-his-face is there. The husband, the sister's husband. Being like a sweet guy. Oh, come on in or whatever. And she's like, I can't. Yeah. She says, "I love them so much and I don't know how to show it." Heard that before. Felt that before. "I don't know how to say I'm sorry." Heard that before. Felt it. And then she says, "I don't deserve to see how good this is." Yes.

Katie Concannon (01:11:22 --> 01:11:44)
That hit me harder than the fishes episode. The language in that. Right. Dialogue, I think is so factually correct for those of us that have had narcissistic and mentally ill moms. I think there is— I still think that's a wildly narcissistic way to behave. It's not about you.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:44 --> 01:11:48)
It's about the opening of this restaurant that took years and effort and money.

Katie Concannon (01:11:48 --> 01:11:50)
Just show up for them. It isn't about you.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:50 --> 01:11:52)
What are you going through? Yeah. That's right.

Katie Concannon (01:11:52 --> 01:13:13)
And so I don't think she can see beyond herself and it's all negative. And so I think sometimes for people that aren't that familiar with narcissistic behavior, I think might think that only narcissistic people think wonderful things about themselves. But I think oftentimes it's just the world revolves around them in a really negative and problematic way. And I think that's this character. You know, she has the— even in the— it reminds me of a Real Housewives thing, which I'm not gonna go into, but it's a very similar freakout during the dinner in the fishes episode where she's freaking out about, you know, all the effort she puts in and stuff like that. So it's because it's both things. It's like like nobody cares about me, nobody loves me, I do so much, and then I do nothing, I don't deserve anything, and those swings are the sort of unsteady piece that unless you're in that sort of inner circle that understands both waves, you don't get how extreme it is. And so I think that's what anyone who has like a mom like mine, maybe yours, I don't know, identifies with that, 'cause it's both things. This freak out of nobody's good enough to me, no one's appreciating me, and then it's a I did nothing to deserve this so I can't be part of it. In both instances, it's totally about them. There's no space for her kids, for her spouse, for any of the other relatives sitting at the table. There's no— she takes up all the air, right? In both ways.

Dustin Grinnell (01:13:13 --> 01:13:28)
Which is why Carmen didn't— that's why he left. Yes. And he went to New York City and, and imprisoned himself in kitchens. And he didn't want to come home. He did. Yeah. It just— she's too much. She—

Katie Concannon (01:13:28 --> 01:13:49)
it's not healthy. The healthiest thing you can do is leave, I think, in those situations. But it's a hard— and everyone's decision is different. And if you feel some tie to take care of a family business or her or whatever, I mean, that might end up being some people's fate. But I think it's to your own detriment. Like, if you're the caregiver of a person who's unwilling to care for themselves, they'll probably take you down. Too.

Dustin Grinnell (01:13:50 --> 01:15:10)
They provide some, you know, healing between them. And I wanted to talk about the very end of it, but you're not there yet because— You should have told me to watch. Yeah, I should have. He's going through some things. He's going to— think about making a decision that's pretty big.

So is it about Claire? I definitely— yeah, so a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Things that are impacting his ability to show up for Claire, right? Because in his current state, in his current obsession with work, he doesn't know who he is, right?

And so the next one is a little bit about, well, who am I? And he actually says a line, he says, what am I? I don't know what I am. Wow. So he's going to start to think about making some decisions based around that he's been underwater just being a great chef.

Katie Concannon (01:15:11 --> 01:15:59)
I feel like, is that enough? Can you just be really successful at whatever your job is and is that enough? Can you be a successful writer? Can you be a successful business owner, a successful chef? And is that a fulfilling life without the other parts?

And I have always— I don't think so. And that's what I love this sort sort of struggle of Carmy's character is really beautiful to me because he is in the middle of trying to figure that out because he so wants those other things. But I think it's this component of his mom that shows up of like, I don't deserve her. I don't deserve this. I just— I'm gonna just work and be hard on myself in this way that it's like that side of the Jamie Lee Curtis character is in Carmy.

Dustin Grinnell (01:16:00 --> 01:16:27)
"Everybody should be more grateful to me." Yeah, definitely. Yeah. There's— I'm not really giving anything away by saying it's the next scene, but there was the next season. But there was just one moment that, like, really got me. Basically, Carmen is, like, anxious. He's an anxious guy. He, like, he doesn't have, like, panic disorder, but he's he's really wound.

Katie Concannon (01:16:28 --> 01:16:31)
He can't sit in his body and be still. Right. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:16:31 --> 01:17:33)
So he's just super keyed up all the time. And he's like in this, like, party atmosphere where his whole family's there. And he's just kind of— he just walked in, he's getting his bearings. And it's really loud. And it's like, you know, the portrayal of it from his perspective is that he's kind of like disoriented and panicky.

It's like, this is too much. I'm overstimulated. I need to get out of this. And then you hear Jamie Lee Curtis's voice says, Carmen, like just from behind him. And everything just kind of falls away.

Katie Concannon (01:17:34 --> 01:17:59)
Yeah, it fucking sucks, but you can't. Yeah. And there's something— yeah, I mean, hopefully what she says next isn't terrible. Yeah, because it might be, right? Or within the next 5 sentences it might be. And that's the trick of like having that person that's so significant to your life, because I don't think there's any way to detach from your mom being your mom or that being a really significant bond, even if it's terrible. It's a huge part of, I think, who a person is.

Dustin Grinnell (01:17:59 --> 01:18:04)
It's like only his mom would be able to tell what he was going through there.

Katie Concannon (01:18:04 --> 01:19:14)
And because she's so unstable, it can be a really dangerous place. It's really beautiful when it's guarded, when it's regulated. Yeah. But that's uncommon. Yeah.

And so that's what's really sad about it, because he's now in this position where where he's vulnerable to her, and she's really unhealthy. And so it's beautiful in those moments where she's kind, but I've had that experience too, and it's lovely, and you get, you know, okay, maybe. And then a week later it's— Right. Forget. And then so that roller coaster of that is what breaks my heart for him.

Dustin Grinnell (01:19:14 --> 01:19:16)
I thought you were gonna try to loop it back to the power slap competition.

Katie Concannon (01:19:16 --> 01:19:58)
No, I'm sure you'll wrap up with some circle back to that, but I'll leave that to you. It's the same thing of like, if you just knew it was all terrible, you could close the door and leave it. But this, you know, or if you knew you had this many days, then you could plan accordingly. But this hope that she provides or that my own mother provides or any mother that's like this provides in these moments where they're kind, then you can't shut it totally down. And sometimes the healthy boundary of like, this is just gone, is easier than this in and out and in and out. And I recognize that that's a really wildly shitty thing to say to you who just lost their mother, but there's something very, very difficult about maybe this time it's gonna be better. And then—

Dustin Grinnell (01:19:58 --> 01:20:02)
[Speaker] 'Cause you have these moments of redemption that kind of say, oh, maybe things could be different.

Katie Concannon (01:20:02 --> 01:20:05)
Yeah, it allows you to get your heart broken over and over again.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:05 --> 01:20:19)
Wow. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that bad for me. Good. But, um, it sounds like Jamie Lee Curtis' character had a lot to say for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katie Concannon (01:20:20 --> 01:20:23)
So I'm hiding from The Bear, although it's my favorite show ever.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:23 --> 01:20:26)
Um, well, she starts doing some work on herself, so that's— that's again—

Katie Concannon (01:20:26 --> 01:20:41)
that's what I don't want to see. That's more triggering to me than if she was just totally crazy. You don't want to see her sick? No, I mean, maybe. Let me just put it this way. Which is a really fucked up thing to say. She's less sick. Yeah, but I guess the hope of that is the most hurtful thing. That's the hardest thing for my nervous system.

Dustin Grinnell (01:20:42 --> 01:20:54)
Right, because like, even if you spend the whole season of her like healing and in therapy and not drinking and not acting crazy and she's like— Don't trust her. Right, because then it would hit even harder than it ever hit before.

Katie Concannon (01:20:55 --> 01:21:00)
And it's going to, is sort of how my nervous system and my brain works at this point. Decades of that.

Dustin Grinnell (01:21:01 --> 01:21:01)
Wow.

Katie Concannon (01:21:01 --> 01:21:54)
That's what happened. Yeah. And so when it's good, it's harder because you don't know how to take it because you want to be happy, but it's not safe. And that's what I imagine is showing up in those characters if they're written well, which I'm sure they are, is that it is not a safe place to— you want it, and every time you kind of have to show back up because you're the kid and they're the mom and they're sick and you want to help them when they ask for it. And you do that over and over again And then the other shoe falls or whatever that phrase is. So that's harder for me to see because it just, it's a fresh heartbreak every time versus when they're just continually bad. It's just more, well, I've already processed that. Reopening it is tricky unless she's really better, which would be lovely. But I think is, you know, it's a fiction show. So maybe they get Yeah, I mean, I think they go for that.

Dustin Grinnell (01:21:55 --> 01:22:01)
I think they go for that. Right. But like, yeah, say there's a season 3 and then she starts drinking again or something.

Katie Concannon (01:22:01 --> 01:22:03)
That's not going to be good for you. But your guard's up.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:03 --> 01:22:22)
Like, it sounds like— I can't even watch this season. Well, that's— yeah, that's the best way of putting it, isn't it? Yeah. It's almost like you can't even bear to— no pun intended— you can't even bear to watch her get healthy because you just expect her to get unhealthy.

Katie Concannon (01:22:22 --> 01:22:28)
It just asks for this hope that I don't want to re-hope. Yeah. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:28 --> 01:22:31)
You might want to put in a call to the therapist after this episode.

Katie Concannon (01:22:31 --> 01:22:35)
Yeah, he's on vacation this week, but I'll talk to him next week. Don't worry.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:35 --> 01:22:37)
That's grace for the mill though, I'll tell you what.

Katie Concannon (01:22:37 --> 01:22:44)
We are in regular cadence on her right now because she's active. Flaring? She's flaring? It is, yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:22:45 --> 01:22:59)
Oh man. Okay, so it's been dark and heavy. You wanna lighten it up? No, I wanna go darker. I actually wanna go as dark as we can.

Katie Concannon (01:23:00 --> 01:23:02)
What's weirder than the conversation I just had about my mother?

Dustin Grinnell (01:23:02 --> 01:23:41)
It's not weirder, but like, what's the worst way to die? So let me go first, 'cause I thought about this obviously, and you haven't had a chance to think about this. This. So I used to think like getting set on fire would be the worst. But it's fast.

But it's relatively quick. Yeah. And if you see it depicted in movies, it's probably like, what, 20 seconds, right? It's an excruciating 20 seconds. Totally.

Katie Concannon (01:23:41 --> 01:23:44)
and then it gets warm and then you go away, Is water or fire better out of just the two?

Dustin Grinnell (01:23:44 --> 01:23:46)
I just have to ask that question. Yeah, so water's better.

Katie Concannon (01:23:46 --> 01:23:47)
Water's better, I agree. To me. Yeah, same.

Dustin Grinnell (01:23:47 --> 01:23:48)
To me, but—

Katie Concannon (01:23:49 --> 01:23:50)
But neither are the worst.

Dustin Grinnell (01:23:51 --> 01:24:20)
No, I have a worse one. I thought about it. It's falling off a cruise ship. So say you're in the Pacific and you fell off a cruise ship. It's way too fucking big to ever turn around. You fall off, you're fucked. And it doesn't even need to be at night. Night, but night's worse. But like, you fall off, you're dead, right? But you're not dead for a while, right? And so how long can you tread water, right? 48 hours.

Katie Concannon (01:24:20 --> 01:24:21)
And should you?

Dustin Grinnell (01:24:21 --> 01:24:31)
And should you? Because like, okay, hope lasts a while. So say night turns into, into day, you go—

Katie Concannon (01:24:31 --> 01:24:34)
now you're all sunburned and hungry, your face is getting torched.

Dustin Grinnell (01:24:34 --> 01:25:24)
That salt water makes you more thirsty. It's a physiological mechanism. So you're in a bad place. So, okay, fine. I'm going to make it till the sun gets to the center of the sky, right?

Okay. 5 hours. I'm starting to get a little tired and the water's kind of cold. So I'm kind of hypothermic. So the best case scenario is like maybe you make it a day, and then it gets hard.

Do you let go? And how do you let go? Big gulp of water? Swim down so far that it'd be too far? You're basically trying to go against your programming, the self, the survival instinct.

Katie Concannon (01:25:24 --> 01:25:26)
Right, you have to hack that system.

Dustin Grinnell (01:25:26 --> 01:26:06)
Yeah, versus like gulping water and drowning, being set on fire and rolling around futilely to think you're gonna, like, not be on fire anymore. So it's so much more psychologically complicated and devastating at the same time. Yeah, because if you do give up, say it's like 3 PM, well, as you're starting to drift off, you're thinking at any moment a helicopter could have flown by, whatever. So you, like, never gave up hope, but you still decided just essentially commit suicide, right? But you didn't because you're like, you're lost, right? And then I didn't even mention sharks or other wildlife.

Katie Concannon (01:26:07 --> 01:26:12)
I mean, shark would probably be the easiest out at that point, but if it takes your leg off, not good, correct?

Dustin Grinnell (01:26:12 --> 01:26:30)
You know, I mean, if it comes back and finishes you off, good, but like just the nibble, just the foot off or whatever, not good. The horror of like seeing it come at you and like banging at it and stuff, all bad. That is to me the— so you go, and if you can beat that, that'd be great.

Katie Concannon (01:26:31 --> 01:26:55)
Yeah, I mean, I will say, I think in a similar vein, my instinct when you just first asked the question was starving to death because of the length of time, right? So I think there's some things that look more dramatic on television, but I share the mindset with you that it's gotta be a long-form torture for it to be the worst. I think, yeah, drowning at sea, some version of that is a similar—

Dustin Grinnell (01:26:56 --> 01:27:10)
So that could be like one day, two days, but starvation could be, I mean, technically weeks. Weeks, yeah. So like they say what, 3 minutes without oxygen you can go, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food, generally speaking.

Katie Concannon (01:27:10 --> 01:27:22)
So if you were like locked somewhere that didn't have food was my, but you don't have these choices of giving up, assuming there isn't some way to do that. That in wherever you're stuck without access to food.

Dustin Grinnell (01:27:22 --> 01:27:27)
So it's length of time and the degree to which you can contemplate your demise.

Katie Concannon (01:27:27 --> 01:27:43)
The mental component of like, yeah, holding hope versus— it's similar to the mother situation. Do you hold hope or do you just give up and commit suicide? What is the healthiest choice for you as a person?

Dustin Grinnell (01:27:43 --> 01:27:48)
It made me think about the movie Alive, which is based on a true story of the— South American—

Katie Concannon (01:27:49 --> 01:27:50)
I've seen that movie.

Dustin Grinnell (01:27:50 --> 01:28:36)
Something in the '80s or something. Different name? Yeah, it's different, but they redid it. And it's just as devastating. Plane goes down in the Andes and you're there for weeks and you don't have food and you realize that the ones who had passed could be food.

Right. Would you eat them? Nourishment. I mean, I think so. I don't know.

Yeah, because in the movie, especially the new one, there's a real debate over the, obviously, like the ethics of it, the humanity of it. What do you lose? Well, you lose your humanity. Yeah. But you survive.

Right. So to me, that's kind of where I would fall. But I don't know. It's like, I'm not there. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (01:28:36 --> 01:29:33)
I mean, honestly, I think I would have a harder time eating a dog. Than eating a human. And I think, so I would also do that. I wouldn't kill somebody for it, I don't think, but I would definitely eat a dead person if that was my only means of surviving. And I think you can mentally, I don't know, I always have a hard time with eating any living thing.

Like I love steak, but I love cows and I feel really bad about it. And I don't like looking at them or thinking about them in the same connection. So living meat is a component of what makes our human bodies strong, but is also kind of a sad reality. And so I'm able to do that mental gymnastics for other meat. I think if in that extreme circumstance I could.

Dustin Grinnell (01:29:34 --> 01:29:37)
Versus like in China, you might eat a cat or—

Katie Concannon (01:29:37 --> 01:29:46)
Or dogs or horses or, you know, and then some places wouldn't eat cows pigs in the way that we do. Pigs are incredibly intelligent. They're much smarter than lions.

Dustin Grinnell (01:29:46 --> 01:29:49)
But you wouldn't know when we eat a dog. But in—

Katie Concannon (01:29:49 --> 01:29:50)
No, I think in some cultures they do.

Dustin Grinnell (01:29:50 --> 01:29:52)
Oh, no one in America. Correct. That's what—

Katie Concannon (01:29:52 --> 01:29:55)
exactly. Or a horse. Or a cat.

Dustin Grinnell (01:29:55 --> 01:30:12)
No. And I mean, I went to East Africa and went to this like restaurant where they were serving everything except for endangered species. Right. Like you can't eat cheetah. Right. But you could eat warthog. You could eat all the others. And I was kind of like, uh, do I want to eat warthog?

Katie Concannon (01:30:13 --> 01:30:45)
Yeah, exactly. And then like, do we make the decision because someone puts it on a menu, then it's socially acceptable to eat because that social construct, wherever we've landed in that moment, has decided it? Or do you have your own sort of moral compass about what's a yes and no? Who decided that for you? And I don't know that it's always us because it is certainly not in our version what animals are the most intelligent intelligent or have the most feelings or are the closest to our nervous and emotional system, those are not the ones that we've spared. And so I don't know how we decide that, but I think it's—

Dustin Grinnell (01:30:46 --> 01:30:52)
Well, you wouldn't eat a chimpanzee and you wouldn't eat a dolphin unless people do dolphins. Yeah.

Katie Concannon (01:30:52 --> 01:31:16)
I don't think they do in the United States, but I do think they do other places. But I think octopus are more intelligent than dolphins. Right. Okay. And that's very popular. So I don't know where the rulebook came from, but it's not logical. Well, it's just culturally— Right, but who decided that? Like, why did we as a culture in the United States, we say dolphins no and octopus yes?

Dustin Grinnell (01:31:16 --> 01:31:17)
I don't know, just like centuries.

Katie Concannon (01:31:17 --> 01:31:19)
How delicious they are, you know? I don't know.

Dustin Grinnell (01:31:19 --> 01:31:28)
Yeah, yeah. Or available, or the degree which we domesticated them or not, uh, how we think about them as a species. Right.

Katie Concannon (01:31:29 --> 01:31:33)
Someone decided how we think about them, which is— I don't like.

Dustin Grinnell (01:31:33 --> 01:31:59)
Yeah.

That brings me to one other topic I had, maybe the last one. Let's see. Are you aware of this guy called the Liver King? No. They call him the Liver King because he like eats liver, like raw.

He eats raw meat, but he eats liver, animals' livers and things like that too. But he's just like an influencer, fitness influencer. Sensation. Millions of followers on Instagram. Really?

Katie Concannon (01:31:59 --> 01:32:01)
You need to check out who you follow on Instagram. He's an absolute animal.

Dustin Grinnell (01:32:01 --> 01:32:37)
Sounds like it. He's like classic controversial public figure, right? Like there's something of a buffoon there, but there's also something like high-minded and maybe principled there as well. Okay. Something to take from it. Many people think this way about Jordan Peterson, right? It's like, oh, there's something objectionable, but there's also something like he's— there's personal development there as well. Yeah. So, but if I could just pull up his Instagram, you can see this guy.

Katie Concannon (01:32:38 --> 01:32:53)
So he's jacked, but his face looks challenging. Like, he doesn't— I mean, not in a charitable— that's rude. But I mean more like it doesn't— he doesn't very healthy in his face. He looks gaunt. Yes. Yeah. And very—

Dustin Grinnell (01:32:54 --> 01:32:57)
he's like in his 50s too, so you got to give him that. Okay.

Katie Concannon (01:32:58 --> 01:33:06)
And the thing, if you saw just his face and you said he's 70, I might say sure. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. But his like— yeah, he's got abs. Right.

Dustin Grinnell (01:33:06 --> 01:33:46)
So the thing, like, for a long time— and this is what the documentary explores, you can click on something— but basically, you know, I have— he's got like a production team who follows him around and they make content for him and stuff. And they're doing a great job at getting followers and being controversial. But for a long time, the controversy with him was like, he's doing steroids. And when I saw him, I was like, yeah, guy is on so much steroids. And so for a very long time, just the way Lance Armstrong did, he publicly denied it. He was not on steroids. He was not doing steroids. Even to say that is just like, fuck you, haters, you know, that kind of thing.

Katie Concannon (01:33:46 --> 01:33:49)
Just the way Lance Armstrong did is really leading the witness.

Dustin Grinnell (01:33:50 --> 01:34:37)
It's like, okay, but no, you just You, like, destroyed everybody around you as you denied everything. And it's just like, come on, man. Like, that's one way to do it. Right, right. He eventually said that he's doing steroids, so we all knew that.

It's like, come on, man. Was he denying it? Yeah, he was denying it for so long. But I think the thing that I wanted to talk about is, like, the potential, like, good things he's talking about. And he's talking about basically, like, what he calls ancestral living.

Katie Concannon (01:34:37 --> 01:34:39)
I saw this, 12 tenants. Oh yeah, yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:34:39 --> 01:34:41)
I don't know them. Do you?

Katie Concannon (01:34:41 --> 01:34:41)
I don't.

Dustin Grinnell (01:34:41 --> 01:35:17)
I saw them listed, but I— they forgot— I forgot them. Okay. But basically he's like— how do I put it— he's living like our ancestors, right? Eating meat and living off the land and like living with his shirt off and flexing all the time and stuff. And but he likes the idea. He says it's like good to be strong He thinks modern man, modern men in general, have become weak. We've lost our way. And I do think it's an interesting conversation to have about modern men, masculinity.

Katie Concannon (01:35:17 --> 01:35:21)
I have a lot of thoughts on that topic. It's a big topic.

Dustin Grinnell (01:35:21 --> 01:35:51)
I have like one more thought and then I'll hand it over. But basically, like, I think there is something definitely going on here of men not feeling strong. I think in culture and popular culture, TV, movies, they are in some cases depicted as weak and maybe effeminate in some ways. And I think it's something of a crisis for men. So I think, what do you think about this? I love this topic.

Katie Concannon (01:35:51 --> 01:35:53)
Thank you for bringing this topic up.

Dustin Grinnell (01:35:53 --> 01:35:58)
Yeah, please, as a woman, tell me about What my observation is.

Katie Concannon (01:35:58 --> 01:40:37)
That's a real weird setup. So yeah, I mean, I guess initially on this Liver Man, I think there can be— Sorry, Liver King. Excuse me, Liver King, got it, cool. I think there can be some harm in, falsifying the effects of what your diet is to show results that aren't really from that, right? And I think that this happens in supplement community and in different types of diets that are just out in the world in a way that you think you're going to get this type of body if you do X, Y, and Z.

And now there's so many people who ironically are having like liver failure or other things from supplements, even Ayurvedic supplements, which is like my wheelhouse. I think, you know, they don't always make sense, and without enough information, going on the internet. I also think it's ironic that he's saying he's living like this old-timey lifestyle, but he has 3 million Instagram followers and he's pretty much posting on the internet every day. So there's something a little bit silly about this. Like if you were truly living in this way from before, you would have none of this is it, not that, right?

And then what he's saying is not entirely true. So I find there's a lot of things in that that I think are a little bullshitty, if I'm being honest. To be honest. Him aside, the broader question around like where is the modern man? And again, I'm not a man, so I can't speak to your lived experience, of course.

But I think there is something sort of tricky going on in the way that I observed masculinity or the culturally appropriate definition of men when I was growing up in the '80s and '90s versus like what's happening today. And I think there's some stuff in there that's really important and healthy. And then there's some things that I think are really not great, or maybe that I would align with your observation on. I think there's this component of our society right now that's looking back on the old ways and wishing for the old times because they're feeling problems of today. I think that always happens.

I think there's always like a, it was better before, there's some pocket of our— Nostalgia. Totally. And I think there's always like a right now is a crisis. Crisis in a way that sort of always is. I also believe right now is sort of a crisis.

That's a different topic, which we're not going to hit on today. But I think when it comes to this idea that like masculine men were so much more empowered before, I don't actually believe to be true in the sense that I think we set men up in a way that they— I think everybody has masculine and feminine qualities inside themselves, right? And I think teaching men, specifically like young boys, you know, uh, how to attach or how to work through shame and fear and, and emotions that are softer can help them be stronger men. I think sometimes there's just over, uh, like overly dominant masculine traits showing up to mask other components of a person that they don't know how to process. And so like, I met a friend of mine a couple of years ago that goes to prisons, and he teaches— he just goes to men's prisons and he teaches them how to work with shame, and I would definitely identify him as a very masculine man from the basic constructs of that definition.

But I think what he sees in these guys that end up in these either violent type situations or committing crimes of usually a violent nature, but sometimes others, is that they don't know how to deal with these other pieces and that we never gave men those tools. And I get that there can be also this encouragement for people to just be completely, totally soft, not even probably just men, human beings right now in this like lack of accountability. Everybody gets a trophy, everyone's great, let's not criticize anything, like everyone's doing wonderful. Like there's a problem in that, but I don't think that's the same as this idea that like we should be teaching men how to have those softer feelings and process them because you can't remove them. I don't believe for a second that men don't have them.

I think we just, we created so much shame around them feeling them that they just hid them and now And now men are trying to figure out how to process those. And I think that's a really beautiful and healthy thing that's going to create more of an ability for just a happier life that isn't like a closeted amount of rage or a closeted amount of like sexuality or whatever that is, violence, whatever's coming out because you don't want to like touch those feelings. So I think we should be encouraging men to be a little bit softer or have those traits. I think that they are actually quite brave. And I think that it can serve to create a much more masculine man.

Dustin Grinnell (01:40:39 --> 01:40:43)
Anybody doing it right in our culture who you look up to?

Katie Concannon (01:40:44 --> 01:41:22)
From a celebrity perspective, I don't know. I mean, again, I initially thought of this guy, his name's Ben, that I've known for a couple of years that does it in prisons. And I think that that's like a really important thing to be doing, especially to teach these guys that don't have any idea how to tap into those things. And I think that's creating a really safe space in an all-male community to start to like take the shame away from shame. And I think that's super, super important. I don't know that I know any celebrities doing it, although I think there's probably some men that can speak about themselves in a way that's, say, a little bit more well-rounded. I can't come up with any of them off the top of my head.

Dustin Grinnell (01:41:22 --> 01:42:30)
Yeah, yeah, really scary stuff. Uh, kind of like how, you know, young boys especially could be radicalized online. It's not a safe place for them. Just like we thought, like, letting them outdoors wasn't safe, right? It's not safe in their room anymore in some ways.

That's right. And your mind could be warped, and they can turn into beliefs that are harmful, and then it can lead to violent behavior. And I thought it was a really interesting line that that the therapist or psychologist was talking with the young boy, he was like, you know, she was trying to get at like why he did what he did. Yeah. And she said, I'm not interested in what you think is true.

I'm not interested in what's true. I'm interested in what you think. Yeah. Because what you think is true, right? That's right.

Katie Concannon (01:42:31 --> 01:42:35)
I don't know that he's okay with it. I think that's what, that's what creates that behavior. Correct. Yes, right.

Dustin Grinnell (01:42:35 --> 01:43:08)
Yeah, he'd rather not, but he just knows he's like whatever, nondescript as far as attractiveness goes, and he's just never going to be in that top thing. And he's just very angry. And like when he gets bullied, cyberbullied, he feels humiliated. And yeah, it's a new form of mistreatment and abuse, and it's complicated. It certainly just doesn't justify what he did at all. But like, I think it— you can feel sorry for him. Bigger— yeah, raises bigger— you could pity him, but it raises bigger questions about like, well, where are young boys?

Katie Concannon (01:43:08 --> 01:44:27)
Like, I saw— I will say I saw on Instagram this morning, it's a— I forget the name of it. This is a little political So his name is like the Jolly Red Ginger, Jolly Something Ginger. He's like this big burly guy with a big beard who wears all flannel, who hunts and drinks beer and does all that stuff. But he's like very, very, very liberal. And he does a lot of posts about some of the like conservative men and what they're saying about the sort of woke man.

And there was this like video of this woman, like a beautiful blonde model woman who said like, "All woke men are too feminine and they're not masculine men." And then there was this really interesting conversation about that that I watched this morning around, I do think there's a political component of that happening right now around woke versus not woke or like what's okay to be accepted from the old construct of what a man should be versus like, you know, some of the ideas that we're looking at now or even just accepting them, not as yourself, but just like accepting that they're part of the world. And so I loved what he said around here are all the things that you're defining. I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. I can still support these other things and I'm still very much a masculine man. And I think it doesn't deserve just one definition, but I think there's something really cool about getting comfortable with this squishier stuff.

Dustin Grinnell (01:44:27 --> 01:44:42)
yeah, I'm okay with it too, of being vulnerable and having a better, like, handle on your own emotional life, therefore makes you more, you know, makes you stronger in a way because you're more Feminine shit is strong. You're just more aware.

Katie Concannon (01:44:42 --> 01:44:44)
It's just different. Yeah, I mean.

Dustin Grinnell (01:44:44 --> 01:45:03)
It's very powerful. I don't like subjugation. I don't like humiliating men for the ills of the patriarchy. Sure. I don't like kicking them in the balls when they're down because they're a little bit lost in terms of like, well, how do we reconcile modern man with traditional values and stuff like that?

Katie Concannon (01:45:03 --> 01:45:10)
Like, just help us upgrade. Let's talk about it. But I don't think the response should be like, let's get more masculine. Everyone lost their masculinity.

Dustin Grinnell (01:45:10 --> 01:46:21)
Root. Yeah, that's liver king stuff. It's like, yeah, yes, yeah, it's like this, the pendulum's just gonna swing the other, and that's what's happening. It's an answer, but it's not the right answer. That's right.

It's just, it's one part of the spectrum. And yeah, I think the other reason I bring up adolescence is because like, I found myself really not triggered by the depiction of men in that movie. I just loved it. I mean, I mean, starts off with the detective, the Black guy, like super firm, super strong, like physically strong, but also just like tolerant and like fair and aware, you know? And he like put your argument down in a very articulate way, but he would accept one that is, well, well put together and he's like a good man.

Katie Concannon (01:46:22 --> 01:46:24)
Trying his best to like hold his family together. Yeah.

Dustin Grinnell (01:46:24 --> 01:46:36)
I mean, we could spend 2 hours talking about him and his reaction. It's heartbreaking. It is. It was incredibly devastating. But so we basically have to wrap up, um, unfortunately.

Katie Concannon (01:46:36 --> 01:46:39)
But like, yeah, I don't have time for my topics.

Dustin Grinnell (01:46:39 --> 01:46:49)
I want to start doing them. Yeah, you, uh, starting to wonder if you had any at all. I did. Um, probably didn't. Uh, so we'll do it again. Yeah. Um, that was a good— I'll bring them.

Katie Concannon (01:46:49 --> 01:46:54)
Yeah, now that I feel this better, I can understand how to prepare better. I do have some, but I feel like I needed this first.

Dustin Grinnell (01:46:54 --> 01:47:12)
Yeah, I tried to set you up, and it sets— hopefully it'll set it up for others too format of just like, let's just come off this big idea ship for a second and just like talk about things that are topical and interesting and in the media and maybe making headlines. And, um, yeah, I think it'll be like relatable. So thanks for doing this experiment with me.

Katie Concannon (01:47:12 --> 01:47:13)
Yes, thank you for having me.

Dustin Grinnell (01:47:15 --> 01:47:43)
Thanks again for listening to this episode of Curiously. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Katie Concannon. If this episode challenged you or helped expand expand your perspective or satisfy your curiosity about the world, please consider sharing it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. If you want to support Curiously, please consider leaving a review. They encourage people to listen and help attract great guests. Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for more conversations with people I meet along the way.