Episode 14: Transcript

"Am I being extra stupid right now?" - with Stewart Reynolds

Doug French (00:00:00):

So I thought of you this morning. I was doing Spelling Bee and the first word that I got was MOXIE.

Magda Pecsenye (00:00:06):

Okay.

Doug (00:00:07):

<Laugh>. And you are unimpressed. Okay.

Magda (00:00:09):

I'm impressed. I mean, the word’s all over the place. And basically anybody who ever knows that I used to write a website called Ask Moxie, and that for a long time I was anonymous on the internet as Moxie. Everybody always sends me things with Moxie on them, but I haven't gone as Moxie in I don't know how many years.

Doug (00:00:29):

Right. But it's a throwback to when you were Ask Moxie, I was Laid-Off Dad. No one knew us. And you should know that the Pangram was MONOXIDE. So you can't spell monoxide without MOXIE

Magda (00:00:40):

Alright, well that's kind of exciting.

Doug (00:00:43):

I can tell. So yeah, just regain your senses and let's talk about Stewart Reynolds and let's, we'll do this, this is going to be a fast one because you've got a ton to do. I've got a ton to do. 

Magda (00:00:51):

And we also have a ton of time, like we talked to Stewart for a long time. Oh my God. I look like Jabba the Hutt. <Laugh> <laugh>. So for people out there, Doug and I record these through a system called Riverside that lets us control each track separately. And we put the video on while we're recording so we don't talk over each other, and then we just dump the video. And so I'm lying down on my couch with the laptop on my lap. And so <laugh> the way I'm like, you know, when you're lying down the camera and your whole head blends into your whole body, and I'm also wearing a shirt that's the same color as my skin, practically <laugh>. And I'm really genuinely like Jabba the Hutt. It's very, oh God.

Doug (00:01:42):

It's an uncharacteristic slump.

Magda (00:01:44):

It's an uncharacteristic slump. I don't know, I've hit that point in the whole packing journey in which I'm just like, oh God, kill me now.

Doug (00:01:52):

Given the fact that you are slumped over on something because your normal space is covered with boxes, your house is in complete disarray. As is mine, by the way. 

Magda (00:02:03):

I know you keep talking about this, like, “sympathetic move,” whatever. I just need to tell you, nobody cares because you're not actually moving anywhere. 

Doug (00:02:10):

Well, no, you don't care because you're not in a position to care about anything that's outside of your window of influence right now. 

Magda (00:02:17):

That, that's true. I can't.

Doug (00:02:18):

I’ve got to say you’ve moved like five or six times since I've lived here. I should have sympathy moved every time because you go through the pantry, you get rid of all the old food you don't want, you clean out the fridge, you get rid of all the old books, you vacuum up the dust bunnies. It's fantastic.

Magda (00:02:34):

I should just put you in charge of moving me every time. 'cause I haven't done all that stuff. Every time I've moved. I just packed boxes.

Doug (00:02:40):

No. 

Magda (00:02:41):

I’m the one who found diapers, cloth diapers in a box here.

Doug (00:02:48):

This is part of our essential incompatibility. You live a very different way than I do.

Magda (00:02:52):

I know. Okay. Can we talk about Stewart?

Doug (00:02:55):

Well, I've known Stewart several years. I visited him up in Stratford with his wife, and she's just wonderful. His family's great and I just love his story just because of the thing he's built for himself. Especially given he built this entire career. He was like 43 and not sure what to do next. Then got a million followers on Vine, like was the premier Vine-ster. And then Vine just went away and his entire platform just dissolved. And he just like, “all right, I'll do something else now.” I mean, his resolve, his willingness to bet on himself and his talents and his knowledge of how to do it really inspires me. 

Magda (00:03:33):

That’s cool. I didn't know anything about him until you told me about him a few weeks ago. And I started following him and started looking at his stuff and thought it was funny. And then when we talked to him, he's just so thoughtful. And it's interesting to see somebody who is our age and sort of at our level of, I don't want to say “resignation,” but kind of thoughtfulness about life, who is creating content. You know what I mean? Because I think a lot of content creators are like, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!!! I'm right in your face!!!” And he's not like that. His content is just funny, but it's sort of quietly funny. It's not bombastic and, you know, weird. It's just funny. 

Doug (00:04:15):

He's got his sense of humor. He's got his sense of humor. He knows it works. Yeah. And he's just leaning into it: “I'm 53 years old. This is my view on life. Calm the hell down maybe a little bit.”  Is his current vibe now. And he has that new book coming out, which we'll talk about, The Stupidpocalypse. The great thing is too, is like you call him and say, “Hey, do you want to come on the podcast?” He's like, “Absolutely. Let's do it.” Yeah. He's just a mench. Yeah. It's a treat just to sit back and talk to him. You leave a conversation with him feeling more relaxed than you started. But not as relaxed as Magda is right now, lying back on her couch.

Magda (00:04:48):

I know. With this flesh-colored shirt.

Boppy theme music crossfades in, plays for twenty seconds, then crossfades out.

Magda (00:05:10):

Being a slightly up tart, uptight nerd. Like

Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds (00:05:14):

I think “uptart” is better.

Doug (00:05:16):

Uptart. Slightly uptart. Talk about butter tarts.

Stewart (00:05:19):

I'm slightly uptart.

Doug (00:05:21):

<Laugh>.

Stewart (00:05:23):

It's really good.

Doug (00:05:25):

I love the fact that Butter Tarts are making their way south as a thing.

Stewart (00:05:30):

It's how it happens. It's reverse manifest destiny is what it is.

Magda (00:05:34):

<Laugh>. Well, I mean, we can get ketchup chips at our regular grocery store.

Stewart (00:05:39):

That's how it starts.

Doug (00:05:40):

Where at? At Aldi?

Magda (00:05:42):

My Meijer on Eight Mile.

Doug (00:05:43):

Oooooh. These are things I need to know,

Magda (00:05:46):

But I don't usually get 'em. 'cause I like the roast beef and onion chips instead that are actually vegan.

Stewart (00:05:54):

Wow. That's interesting. 

Magda (00:05:56):

The magic of chemistry.

Stewart (00:05:58):

Their potato chips. Are you vegan at all?

Magda (00:06:00):

No, I am not vegan, but I have stopped eating mammals.

Stewart (00:06:03):

That's fair. I have a friend who also made that distinction as well. Actually she didn't, but my wife Shannon did. She said, I don't like eating anything, you know, and she listed off like this and this and this and, and Shannon said, you just don't want to eat mammals. That's it. That's all you don't want to eat. You're willing to kill and eat anything else, but nothing about mammals. Yeah. Not the adorable ones.

Magda (00:06:23):

And it's just like gross to me now. It's not like I'm, it's not like a philosophical thing that I'm having a hard time maintaining. It's just, yeah.

Stewart (00:06:33):

Yeah. No, I haven't eaten meat in about a year now. Apart from fish and shrimp, that type of thing. 

Magda (00:06:42):

Well, if you get a craving for something charred and meaty tasting, if you can get your hands on those potato chips that really do taste like grilled steak, but are actually vegan. It's kind of funny. Okay.

Stewart (00:06:58):

It's a very British flavored chip. I like it. It's good.

Magda (00:07:01):

It's kind of a British flavored chip, although I think they might have horseradish in it. And these don't have horseradish.

Stewart (00:07:06):

Right, right.

Doug (00:07:07):

Well, the people at International Flavor and Fragrance are working overtime.

Stewart (00:07:11):

<Laugh> <laugh>.

Doug (00:07:14):

Do you have a lot of still British influence in the food you eat? I know the family came from Scotland way back in the day, but yeah,

Stewart (00:07:21):

I mean a little bit, but I mean, Scottish food, as Mike Myers said, is based on a dare. So it's more, you know, like I'm not into blood pudding a little bit. Yeah, for sure. I guess I'll say for sure I don't like everything, but there's definitely an influence in what we eat. It's definitely British for sure. Yeah.

Doug (00:07:37):

Well there's still some good pub grub in Stratford. You know, there's, yeah.

Stewart (00:07:40):

Well, Shannon says, 

Doug (00:07:42):

By the way, there's not enough pubs down here. Yeah.

Stewart (00:07:43):

I would like more pubs here in Canada, though. We were in the UK in February and we were in London for business stuff and then went up to Scotland to see Shannon's pals. 'cause Shannon grew up there, went to high school and stuff there. <Laugh> like by day two we were like, oh, dear God, we need to leave this country because our livers will explode. <Laugh>, we need to, we are going to die in Scotland because we were so out of practice. It was like, I forgot how much people drink up here. So, and they do <laugh>

Doug (00:08:16):

And that's the reality of our times. Right. You can walk into a pub in your twenties and just think, you know, they'll carry me out whenever. And now you got to be like, exactly. Hmm.

Stewart (00:08:24):

Yeah, yeah. I know.

Doug (00:08:25):

Does my HMO cover this?

Stewart (00:08:28):

They don't even know what that is. <Laugh>.

Doug (00:08:30):

Exactly.

Stewart (00:08:32):

<Laugh>.

Doug (00:08:34):

Do you know, I threw that last little discussion point in. The whole idea of health planning, estate planning. Yeah. What is that like in Canada? I mean, and what is your role in that as far as taking care of your parents when they really are going to need it?

Stewart (00:08:49):

I mean, I think that that aspect of like, their healthcare aspect of it is really just navigating the space and navigating the system. That's mainly, it's never like how much is that going to cost? Which is, I'm really thankful for and I'm a fierce proponent of public healthcare. It's like, I don't want, I want everyone to be triaged. I want, there's three of us that show up at the hospital. I want someone way smarter than all three of us to go, “you need help first.” Our healthcare system in Canada is in need of a lot of help and it needs to be restructured and it needs to be protected but also fixed as well. There's a lot of bloated, top-end administrative people who are making way too much money. Like making 10 times a nurse's salary and doing about 10 times less the work.

Stewart (00:09:40):

And that's not right. That needs to get fixed. But that's led to some people thinking, well, we should have more, we should have some more private services because then you'll be able to just, if you need an MRI, you'll just be able to pay for one and just go get one. And the logic behind that kind of bothers me. 'cause it's like, well no, 'cause when the public is paying for MRIs, we should just be able to get MRIs as we need them. You shouldn't have to jump the queue. If my kid needs an MRI and you have, you know, $15,000, you get to go first. That's not right. That doesn't make any sense. If you need to go first, you need to go first. Otherwise, get in line buddy. As far as my folks go, like I said, it's navigating the system.

Stewart (00:10:18):

Like my dad has dementia and Parkinson's and all of his healthcare is free. So that includes doctor care, that includes appointments and of course free. Everyone's like, it's not really free, you have to pay for it in taxes. It's like, yes. Like roads, roads are free except for toll roads. <Laugh>. So yeah, so my dad's doctor's appointments and all that kind of stuff and his medication is fairly heavily subsidized, I think's maybe $6 a month or something like that for whatever he needs. And then his support workers that come, who shower him and get him ready throughout the week, the day program he goes to is heavily subsidized. It costs $13 a day for him to be there at a day program, from 10 o'clock until three o'clock. And he gets fed, which is great.

Stewart (00:11:06):

And then one day a week on Fridays, we have a private support worker coming, coming in for a few hours. And she's great. She's 30 bucks an hour and she's worth every penny, which is awesome. But the rest of the support work is done by like, we don't have to pay for it. It's just part of the system. But again, it's part of, you have to know how to navigate that system. That was the biggest challenge with my dad with Parkinson's and dementia, was that it meant that myself and Shannon, my wife, had to like, and my mom had to really kind of dig in to be like, how does this system work? Well, who do we talk to? What do we, I don't know exactly what I need, but I think we need someone to help you with this. Well, that means you talk to this department and talk to these people. That was the hardest part. But thankfully there've been no bills, which is good. 

Magda (00:11:49):

I don't actually know anyone who argues in favor of the American lpay-for-play system. Like, you know, obviously somebody <laugh> is in favor of it because we have the

Stewart (00:12:02):

The people making money, that's who.

Magda (00:12:03):

I don't know any of those people. But their argument is, “oh well, you know, these Canadians and basically these people in every other country on the planet that have public healthcare, they still have to navigate this horrible system.” Well, we still have to navigate this horrible system that instead of having six layers has six by six by six <laugh>.

Stewart (00:12:31):

It's really interesting you say that because you know, I remember talking to a friend almost 10 years ago, an American friend and she was saying, well, we just can't afford to do it here 'cause there's 10 times the people. And I was like, well no, that's the how the whole system works. Everybody puts money into the pot. And there's 10 times more people, there's 10 times as much money theoretically. But now I find, like whenever I post anything about healthcare online, I get a just a barrage of Americans going, “yes, you're right. You're absolutely right. We should fix our system.” And it's boggled my mind. It's like I've known so many American friends who have gone through financial turmoil because of health issues. And it's like, dear God, for a country that bases itself on the market economy, don't you want everyone in the market? Like, don't you want people back out there right away as opposed to like four people buying more boats. You need to get people back out and back in there making money. Earning money and, and not being a burden on society as such, and not going bankrupt and not playing at all. It's fascinating. 

Doug (00:13:26):

That’s the standard myopia. The whole idea of you need to have quarterly profits and if you think longer term, that's just too far down the pipeline for people who are just looking at their balance sheets and saying, why aren't your margins bigger? Yeah. 

Magda (00:13:38):

Elizabeth Warren wrote a book back in the nineties in which she crunched the numbers and found out that the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States was medical debt.

Stewart (00:13:49):

Ridiculous. That's so depressing. 

Magda (00:13:51):

And it's only gotten worse.

Stewart (00:13:53):

“Oh, you've got cancer, you loser. What a moron.” 

Magda (00:13:56):

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I know people who work for hospitals and for health insurance companies who can't afford to get necessary procedures done because their insurance through the insurance company isn't even good enough and they won't get approved for whatever! 

Stewart (00:14:14):

It's shocking. And I think it's, you know, I know there's lots of mixtures of private and public healthcare and I always get pushback from people who say, well, even public healthcare, your general physician, your GP is private 'cause they have to pay their own bills. They get paid by the government, but they still have to run a business. And it's like, well, yeah, kind of. But they're being paid all the same rate from the government except for recently, which is happening. Which is most distressing in Canada. As in, there's two things that's happening with healthcare. One is that it needs to be fixed desperately. The province has run the healthcare system. The funding is helped by the federal government, and the emergency departments across Canada, some of them are closing or having restricted hours, which is bonkers to me. Absolutely bonkers. There were kids who were in a house party who got stabbed about 15 minutes from here. They drove another 15 minutes to the closest ER and were told no, you have to drive another 15 minutes to get to the one that's open. And they're stabbed in the back. Luckily they all survived. But I mean it's like, good lord. This is stupid.

Doug (00:15:17):

And then emergencies don't have business hours <laugh>.

Stewart (00:15:20):

No, exactly. It's like “we're going to close at six.” It's like what? It's like, I hope you don't get hit by a car at 6:01. And it's craziness to me. And there's also, in BC there's a town whose emergency department doesn't have a doctor on staff. So when the nurses are faced with an emergency requiring a doctor, they are instructed to call 911. It's like for a paramedic to show up. First of all, the people are pushing in Canada for private systems are usually people who stand to gain. And it's been really interesting. When I posted some stuff on Twitter, I'd get pushback from people in Canada saying, no, no, no. This is the better way to go. We’ve got to let go of this public system. And I would do a little digging and find out, oh, you have a vested interest in this healthcare company. You work for such and such or you are such and such. And it's like, this is awful. The big issue is that there's not enough doctors and nurses. So it doesn't matter how private it is, it's not like if they offer more money, they're suddenly going to pop up a bunch of doctors going, well actually I've been trained this whole time and just decided not to use it till now. 

Doug (00:16:17):

So why do you think that is? Because we've talked with a lot of medical people here who say we're out of the medical industry 'cause we're just tired of dealing with it. It's not a question of burnout, it's just a question of there's too much. I mean, limiting our ability to care for people.

Magda (00:16:29):

A huge crisis. There's a huge crisis, especially in women's health here because malpractice for delivering babies is just so astronomical. And because all these states putting in these regressive laws about women's healthcare and so people just aren't going into gynecology or they're getting out of it. And then I also think like, you know, your case in BC I'm guessing that the reason they don't have a doctor is because it's a rural area. So how do they see a case in which there is money to be made in a rural area? From having healthcare and not to fund privately a doctor like that doesn't make sense. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the free market.

Stewart (00:17:15):

Exactly. That's a really good example of that, is in our town of 36,000 people here, the doctors used to be at a building that had free parking and it was a lovely building that had been renovated and they might have grown out of it and it could have been a bit more purpose-built. It wasn't a purpose-built building. And they moved to another building where they were offered free rent. You now have to pay for parking, which I hate. I don't mind paying for parking at the hospital 'cause that money goes to the hospital. I think you should have to pay double to park at the hospital. If you're going to the maternity ward for good news, they should vet you at the gate. They should be, what are you coming here for? Well, I'm here because my mother's sick. And she said, well okay, let's just park for free.

Stewart (00:17:54):

What are you here for? Well I'm here because my wife just had a baby and I'm going to go up to visit and I'm taking this teddy bear. It's $50 to park. You know, it's like great. Then you'd be like, whatever. You're parking for two now. So they moved to this building where you have to pay for parking 'cause it got cheaper rent and all that kind of stuff. It's whatever. That's annoying. We never pay for parking. We always go and take the free ticket and then drive around and keep looping through for their free time. And just like, we will waste so much paper because it goes to a private company and I hate the fact that it goes to a private company. But anyway, the story was essentially there was a medical lab in the building, which was very convenient, but it was a private company.

Stewart (00:18:26):

And I remember going in there the first time and there were two nurses and they were lovely and they were very fine. They were run off their feet really, really busy. But they got things done. That was fine. I had to go back another time a number of months later, went back in to get blood taken and there was one nurse working the front desk and taking blood and receiving samples and all that kind of stuff. And she had about six people and four people waiting. And I said, is it just you here? She goes, yes it is. She reached over and grabbed a card and said, here's my head office complain about this. This is terrible. So they didn't want to pay for two nurses 'cause it wasn't making them enough money. Within about four months of that, they shut down entirely because there wasn't enough money to be made.

Stewart (00:19:07):

And it's like, this is why healthcare needs to be a public service as opposed to a profit service or for-profit service. Because it's like libraries, as I've said in a video before, it's like there's not a lot of private libraries popping up. It's not a moneymaking game. No one's going to get rich off of being in a library. Librarians get paid well, but you don't make money off a library. You know, like let's do an extension of a library. It's the same idea. It needs to be a public service. And, and I don't, I don't know why it's, every country doesn't do it like that. It doesn't make any sense to me. Even UK's two tier system drives me insane as well. Which we've navigated briefly like four years ago with our youngest son, when I was in the UK with him and I had to make a choice. It was like, will I go to the NHS system and wait for a day and a half or do I pay $350 and get blood taken at a private clinic? Well I've got $350, so yeah, I'll do that instead. Even at the time I felt dirty, I was like, no, I shouldn't be doing that. But also at the same time, why isn't the NHS just better? You know what I mean? So.

Magda (00:20:03):

Right, right. You know, I mean I'm 20 minutes from Canada. There are a lot of people who just come over to get things done, like MRIs, stuff like that. Tests that they can just pay cash for and it's not even that expensive. Like, I got an x-ray and I paid $50 cash for it. So to come over, you know, if you need an x-ray in Canada and they're telling you, hey, you got to wait three days. 

Stewart (00:20:31):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Magda (00:20:31):

Or you can just zip over here and it costs what,

Stewart (00:20:35):

And you're done, this is $12

Magda (00:20:35):

Your afternoon to come across the bridge and then you pay $50 cash. And then you stop and buy some American snack foods on your way home. 

Stewart (00:20:44):

Whatchmacallit!

Magda (00:20:45):

Or milk. Cheap milk. Our milk is very cheap. <Laugh>. There was a thing for a while when people were observing desi truck drivers, like Indian, Pakistani Canadian truck drivers who were coming back up to Canada were stopping at American grocery stores and buying just like gallons and gallons and gallons and gallons and gallons of milk. Which you can, because they're stable here. They sit in jugs in the truck, they're not in bags. 

Stewart (00:21:09):

Right, right. Yeah. Okay. Nice dig. Nice dig <laugh>.

Magda (00:21:13):

Thanks. I got that in there. And people are like, what is going on? And thought it was some super-nefarious plan. And then it turned out it was completely not nefarious at all. It was just that our milk is so much cheaper, and the drivers were bringing them home to make paneer. Too funny. Like Occam's razor always works, but it's just funny. Like what's more expensive here and what's more expensive on the other side of the border. And I think people who live in the middle of the countries don't realize that there's this whole calculation that people who live on the border are always doing like, how much milk do I have to buy? 

One time I was going over to Canada for a conference and as I was walking in through the parking thing, so I went in and I'm just sitting there waiting for, to talk to a guy, and there are these three Canadian ladies who had come over to go to lunch and to go shopping. And all they had to do was declare what they had purchased and pay the duty on it. They said the one thing they thought Americans had on the Canadians is if this was an American station, they would've had a separate short line for people who just needed to pay money. Right?

Stewart (00:22:25):

Yeah. Yeah.

Magda (00:22:25):

And they wouldn’t've had to wait to do the whole thing. Like they said, Americans are so much better at taking money than comedians are. And I was like, right. And then I have this episode when I'm leaving. 'cause there was this guy who had come in who was trying to get everyone to pay attention to him there. And it turned out that he was American. Of course. And he had a ventriloquist dummy with him. And if you were going to cross an international border with a ventriloquist dummy, you would've put it in 

Stewart (00:23:03):

The high occupancy vehicle lane. Yeah, exactly. 

Magda (00:23:05):

In the trunk of your car.

Stewart (00:23:07):

Oh, right. Yeah. You should maybe give him a heads up, Joe.

Magda (00:23:10):

He had the ventriloquist dummy with him and when he came through and the nice Canadian agent was asking in his hand,

Stewart (00:23:16):

Like with the hand up the — .

Magda (00:23:19):

So this guy, instead of just having his ventriloquist dummy, which he claimed was his job. It wasn't like he just was, it wasn't like he was being

Stewart (00:23:28):

No one's admitting to that as a hobby. 

Magda (00:23:30):

Yeah. It wasn't his friend. He had the ventriloquist dummy on his hand. And when the Canadian agent was asking him these questions like, no, show me your passport and blah, blah, blah. He was having the ventriloquist dummy answer the Canadian agent.

Stewart (00:23:46):

That doesn't–

Magda (00:23:47):

And like you guys tend, I think, to have a default level of niceness that's higher than the American level of niceness. But you're not completely porous. And so this agent was like, “oh, what the fuck? Just get out of my face” and sent him to the office. 

Stewart (00:24:05):

Exactly. Straight to cavity search to both of you!

Magda (00:24:08):

He kind of thought that he was hot and that people were going to be impressed by him.

Stewart (00:24:13):

Oh no. I mean it's impressive. 

Magda (00:24:15):

And everyone in the room was like, “oh, if there is a Canadian gulag, that is where you are about to go.”

Stewart (00:24:22):

That's where you're going man. Exactly. 

Magda (00:24:24):

Just because of your attitude. 

Stewart (00:24:26):

Hope you and that puppet like being together. Exactly.

Magda (00:24:28):

Yes. The ventriloquist dummy was attempting to hit on me as I was walking out of the

Stewart (00:24:34):

Just the dummy, which is very impressive. Yes.

Magda (00:24:37):

Right, right. <Laugh>. Yeah. And so I was just like, Hey, I'm walking out. You're stuck in Canada for who knows? A Canadian jail for the next 20 years. So I walk out.

Stewart (00:24:50):

Which are pretty nice. No, I'm kidding. They're horrible. Well, I don't know, they're terrible. I would, nobody wants to be there.

Magda (00:24:55):

I don't know. They probably give you coffee and  Nanaimo bars every day at three. Right?

Stewart (00:25:00):

I don't want to find out. Don't want to find out

Magda (00:25:02):

Timbits. Right.

Doug (00:25:04):

We have a discussion about prison Timbits

Magda (00:25:06):

<Laugh>. So I'm walking out to my car and when I had walked in a couple hours earlier, these people were dismantling this car and it was a regular car, it was like a sedan. By the time I came out, all of the seats were out of the car. God. And the whole thing was disassembled and there was a pile of about 30 boxes of American breakfast cereal.

Stewart (00:25:31):

They don't listen, they take it seriously. They took it very, very seriously. <Laugh>.

Magda (00:25:36):

Yeah.

Stewart (00:25:38):

Craziness. Craziness. Yeah. 

Magda (00:25:40):

Was that like talking about excitement relative to timeframe. That was the most exciting time I have ever had on Canadian territory. 

Stewart (00:25:54):

We got Captain Crunch, everyone! Get down!

Magda (00:25:56):

Exactly. The most exciting three hours I've ever had <laugh>.

Doug (00:26:00):

And how long have we had that story in the chamber, Magda, because here is our first Canadian guest and we're worth all of of a sudden, I don't know where we go from here because we got off into a whole rant about intra-continental commerce. And now we're talking about the vicarious nature of customs agents.

Stewart (00:26:18):

I think it's pretty obvious that you have an attraction not just to bad boys, but to bad puppets. And I think that's

Magda (00:26:26):

That's exactly it. <Laugh>

Stewart (00:26:28):

And that's why you've held onto that story. Like, you know what, I can kind of imagine our life together on the run from the Canadian Border Services. <Laugh>,

Stewart (00:26:40):

One of my favorite things, and they don't do it all the time now, which is really frustrating. But you do your passport thing, which is a whole, it's a mess. They're implementing a new system, but you do your passport thing and you get through and you have to give your piece of paper that says, you know, you're legit to the border services agent. And they say, welcome home. And I'm like, yeah, cool. Whereas like the US guards are like the Highway 61 movie which is a fantastic movie about these people that transported dead bodies from Thunder Bay down to New Orleans, which is a direct line essentially from Highway 61 and the US border guards played by Jello Biafra. And he says now, oh wow, America's like my home. What would make me let you, a stranger, into my home? And that's kind of the attitude that we get.

Stewart (00:27:29):

It's like everyone's like, I find it funny as a Canadian as well. It's always like, you're coming here to stay forever. It's like, no, I'm coming for the cheap beer, the good weather, and I'm getting the hell out. You are no threat for me whatsoever. I'm going to spend way too much money. I'm going to forget about the exchange rate and then I’ve got to come home. I've only made a US Customs guard laugh once. And that was when I was going to LA from Toronto Airport. And he said like, where are you going? I said, Los Angeles. And he said, where are you going there? I said, meetings.  What do you do for a living? And I said, I make videos on the internet, which is a terrible answer. And he said, what kind of videos? And I said, comedy videos. And I said, you ever seen like the one by explaining Canada Day to the US? And he went, oh, that's you. Well have a good time. Take care. And I was like, wow. He smiled, laughed, stamped my passport and just sent me right into his home. It was nice.

Doug (00:28:20):

Any opportunity you get to throw some star power around to get where you need to go,

Stewart (00:28:25):

Oh, I'll wringing it out, man. I'll wring it out. For sure.

Doug (00:28:27):

You must be accustomed to that by now. Just people fawning over you everywhere you go. Oh. Laying out rose petals in your path.

Stewart (00:28:34):

Pretty much. <Laugh>. Exactly.

Doug (00:28:36):

<Laugh>. Now there's your segue point. I was wondering where we were going to go after we had this whole conversation about how healthcare is lacking everywhere, but at least Canadians get to look at each other and say, it's not as bad as it is in the States. So let's at least have that in our <laugh> in our optimism here.

Stewart (00:28:54):

That's like living in a crappy house and looking at your window at your neighbor's, which is on fire and going, yeah, we can still tidy up.

Doug (00:29:00):

Yeah, we could probably put in a new dormer up on the second floor, but at least it's not <laugh>, flaming <laugh>.

Magda (00:29:08):

I think our previous four or five or 12 guests have all been talking about how horrible dealing with the medical system is because we're all dealing with parents or kids or ourselves or,

Stewart (00:29:22):

You know. Oh, it's, yeah. 

Magda (00:29:25):

That's indicative of the age 50, right?

Stewart (00:29:25):

Yeah, absolutely. <Laugh>.

Doug (00:29:28):

Well then when you talk about alleviating the scourge of potential bankruptcy, the whole idea. 'cause many Americans our age are just afraid to get sick for that very reason. Because there has to be so much stuff in place. Do I get supplemental insurance to pay for how crappy my regular insurance is? Right.

Stewart (00:29:47):

Crazy.

Doug (00:29:47):

It's a wonderful dance. But apart from that, your parents are there with you in Stratford. And are you their only child or are you, for all intents and purposes, their only child when it comes to shepherding 'em into their golden years.

Stewart (00:30:02):

I'm their favorite child.

Doug (00:30:03):

That's all that matters.

Stewart (00:30:04):

No, I'm just kidding. It's myself and my sister. My sister's eight years younger than me, and we have had very different relationships with my family. They're both good. But just for, to give you an idea, when I left home, I was 22 when I left home. But my dad was high management, upper management, making decent money. We'd go to Hawaii, we'd go to Florida. It was all good. Everything was great. And then literally within about two years of me leaving home, my dad was let go from his job. And then suddenly he was unemployed at 47 and had no money and so much debt from living a lifestyle that was way beyond their new means. And my sister grew up in her teen years with that <laugh>. So I grew up in a bounty. And then she grew up and like, we have no money. No, it all turned out okay. It ended up sort of, it lasted about sort of five or six years, but very, very different experiences. 

Doug (00:30:58):

Those are five very big years. Big for a 14 year old. Very big.

Stewart (00:31:01):

Oh my God. Yeah. So, so big. What's been really interesting with my dad having dementia is that it's actually kind of brought my sister and I closer because it, as I've said before, for all intents and purposes, I kind of lost my dad about three and a half years ago. He knows who I am, but I can't share anything with him. I can't, like even the weather is hard to share. Sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's like, it's a beautiful day out. And he's like, this is like a month ago. It's a beautiful day today. It's gorgeous. Lots of sunshine today. It's going to be hot. And he says, yeah, well as long as I get this snow cleared from the roads, it'll be good. And I'm like, okay. It feels like I've lost him three and a half years ago and I feel my sister felt the same.

Stewart (00:31:38):

So we were able to kind of bond over that and kind of decide, looking at the situation, how to help my mom the best we could. We felt that was best served by opening the lines of communication as much as possible and as bluntly as possible. And no beating around the bush, no polite talk or worrying about that. It's just like, let's just get to the nitty gritty. And that's been really great. I mean, the circumstances suck, but it's been good to have myself and my sister to kind of like, you know, tag team help my folks, which is good.

Doug (00:32:08):

So she's local too?

Stewart (00:32:09):

She is. Yeah. No, she lives in Stratford as well. So it's great.

Doug (00:32:14):

See, that's just a great thing. I mean, both Magda and I are very far from our parents. And she's about to be farther from them. And so and we're both oldest children,

Magda (00:32:23):

Well, let it be known, my parents moved away from me, like <laugh>, I moved back to be near them.

Doug (00:32:28):

Well, my parents moved away from us. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They both spread out. Yeah. And now they're wondering, geez, what did we do?

Stewart (00:32:34):

Well, exactly. Yeah. I think people don't, they underestimate the importance and power of a support network. And that can just be as something as simple as, like yesterday my dad went to the day program, but our car was in the garage. So it's like, I usually take 'em, but I said to my sister, can you get out of work to take 'em? She's like, sure. And I mean, that's great. That convenience is amazing.

Doug (00:32:54):

It's the little things that just add up. They're priceless. So now it's interesting you mentioned dementia just because our last episode was about caregivers, unpaid caregivers for dementia patients, of which there are like 11 million in the States alone. And what the real revelation for me was how similar caregivers caring for dementia patients is like improv comedy. It's all about “Yes, and”. There's no,

Stewart (00:33:26):

Absolutely there

Doug (00:33:26):

There's no value in correcting somebody. There's no value in shaming someone into letting them know they forgot something. You just kind of like when your dad says, you know, we'll get the snow up and that'll be fine. You're like, yep. And we got a snowman going in the backyard and it's the, she called it “the therapeutic fiblet.”

Stewart (00:33:45):

<Laugh>. Yes, it's true. That was like a big revelation for my mom. 'cause my mom would keep trying to correct him. And it's, I mean, I think with dementia specifically and Alzheimer's, any sort of similar type of thing to mention, Alzheimer's is terrible for the person who suffers from it, it is 10 times worse for their partner. Little stuff. Like my mom saying, you know, she'll be watching the news on television and she'll want to talk about it. She'll be like, I can't believe that so-and-so did that. Do you, what did you think about that? There's nothing there anymore. And that person that's been there for decades is now unable to comprehend and process and engage with you whatsoever. So, you've essentially, as her doctor said to her, you're continually grieving the loss of your husband every day. And now he's kind of gone and now you're left with this guy who looks like him, kind of.

Doug (00:34:34):

That's drawing out the Oh, it's inevitable and it's got to be really painful. Yeah. Painful.

Stewart (00:34:38):

But also comedic. My mom's,

Doug (00:34:40):

Well, you have to be, have to, that's how you preserve your, totally your fantasy to say, Hey, it's your birthday again. Really? Yeah.

Stewart (00:34:46):

<Laugh>.

Stewart (00:34:47):

Well, two things. One, he was, my dad was going off on some tangent about something nonsensical. And my mom said, I just thought I'd test him. And I said, “I jumped out of a plane this afternoon.” And he stops, thought, and he went, “You're just being sarcastic.” And it was like, oh God. Okay. This is a little bit of moments of clarity there to realize that's not real, but everything else is bizarre and bonkers. Like moments later, he is talking to “a bunch of people” that no one else can see in the corner–I air quoted there talking to “a bunch of people”--and turning to my mom, going, I'll get to you in a minute. You know, <laugh>, it's like, it's just bizarre. <Laugh>. But you know, we take my mom for breakfast on Friday mornings and she got in the car one morning and she, I said, how was last night with dad?

Stewart (00:35:24):

And she said, well, he had a fall. And I heard a thump and I was really concerned. And I went in, I was like, oh no. And she's like, it was really, really terrible. And I said, is he okay? And she went, “yeah,” <laugh>. Oh God. So that's where they're at. That's where they're at in the journey now. It's like, yeah, I'm glad he's okay. The humor just gets darker and darker. Yeah. It's like, oh God. I was like, you know, if you ever, we ever find him at the bottom of the stairs, I'm going to look for a, you know, a size five shoe print in the back of his spine from my mother. So <laugh>, 

Magda (00:35:54):

I think, so my grandmother died of Alzheimer's. And my uncle and I were the people who really visited her the most, she was in a memory care facility. And it was so interesting to me to observe the other people who were in her memory care facility because my uncle and I were in child and grandchild relationships with her. And things had already flipped at a certain point, I mean, for our generation, it was like our parents couldn't program the VCR and we had to take it over. And you know, now it's like, I don't know how to operate TikTok and so my kids are starting to take over and there's that flip over, right? And so yesterday when we were talking to Emily Gavin, the person talking about being a caregiver for dementia, she was saying that it, technically, it's like a LIFO situation.

Magda (00:36:45):

Like the last in skills are the first out skills, right. So it really is like losing all of your adult capabilities first, which I think makes sense for children caring for a parent. It just seemed so brutal for the people who were visiting people in the memory care center who were their spouses and had been their partners. Like how do you go from having a romantic equal relationship with someone to being their actual caregiver and not being able to trust the decisions they're making or know that they are not even understanding those decisions. 

Stewart (00:37:25):

Yeah. It's horrendous. And I think it's, you know, there was a period of time in my dad's “journey,” as they refer to it with dementia, where he had tremendous fear. Like in 2019 we were in Vancouver for my birthday and I'd flown the family out and stuff. And it was fun. It was supposed to be fun for the weekend. My dad just spent the whole weekend terrified that we were going to get ripped off. 'cause we were trying to buy the hotel. No one had said the word dementia at that point at all. But he, I remember being at the airport and just feeling like, we flew back. We're waiting for everyone to get their bags. I'm sitting with my dad and he just turned to me and he is like, we just have to be really careful because I'm sure these people are going to take advantage of us.

Stewart (00:38:05):

And the look in his eyes was heartbreaking. It was like, oh my God, this is supposed to be fun. And then all he's done has been panicked all weekend, which then ruined, of course, my mom's weekend as well. It's not about ruining the weekend, it's just about that notion of like, God, I can take crazy. I love crazy. I love the fact that my dad said about two months ago, “is that butterfly hatched yet? Because if if it's going to hatch soon, we better build the landing strip.” What the does that mean? I don't know. But, I'm happy with that, that it's like, yeah, it's like the improv thing that you said. It's like great. It's like, sure, absolutely. We'll get right on that. It's the stuff where he's scared and it's like, don't be scared. Like, you're fine. Everything's good. And I think that's part of the improv as opposed to people with dementia is, and parents is offering, you know, a companion for their mental journey, but not making it scarier in any way. Like it's, everything's good. And, you know, just everything's a reassurance constantly, constantly, constantly.

Doug (00:39:05):

Exactly. Yeah. Because the best improv comedians take care of their scene partners. Exactly.

Stewart (00:39:09):

Exactly.

Doug (00:39:11):

Speaking of your nuclear family, you've got your parents around, you've got your sister around and your boys are both nearby, right? Are they both in Toronto? 

Stewart (00:39:18):

They’re both in Toronto, which is about a couple hours from here. Both doing really well, thankfully. I mean, they're, they're 21 and 24. Our youngest is a social media content creator, and he does very, very well. He's very good at it too. And our oldest is into audio and audio engineering, sound engineering. He's an award-winning podcast producer. He is working with big companies and corporations doing internal podcast production and sound production and movie sound and all that kind of stuff. So I'm very fortunate in that regard. And the thing with kids when they're younger, you can be their manager. When they get older, you're lucky if you're their consultant. And that's kind of where we're at now with the boys. It's like, we'll get consulted on things now. And that's great.

Doug (00:39:59):

And you have made a career the last several years making videos on the internet and they grew up watching that. So when you had discussions about what they would want to do with themselves, how Gregor became the star he is, how Owen became the technician he is. And you talked about college and training and ambition and so forth. What were those discussions like? Did they ask you at all what life as an entrepreneurial content creator was like, or how did you build up that level of competence?

Stewart (00:40:28):

No, I mean, we never had direct conversations about like, I want to do this. What do you think? Or what's it like doing what your job is? Because I think they had a front row seat for what we did. Like when we, I've been doing videos online for social media as a full-time gig for 10 years. And the reason I got into it is because we ran out of options. We were fiscally screwed. We had like the notice in the front door of the house. We were having lentils for dinner every night. We had a very successful business for the 10 years prior and then lost essentially everything they were, when we sold our company, that was, that had fallen apart. We sold the remnants of it. We ended up having a little bit of a windfall for about six months. And the boys referred to that time as “the limousine days” because we literally rented a limousine twice in those times.

Stewart (00:41:15):

Like, just foolish. So we'd gone through so much stress and we're like, screw it, let's just get a limo everywhere. So I think they've had a front row seat to the life of an entrepreneur. So they did. They weren't, it wasn't romanticized. They were like, no, it's not pretty sometimes. And we can tell that dad is super stressed and mom's super stressed. And then the flip side of that is that, oh, now they get to go places and they can just decide to come with us to see us do this. Or, you know, there's a freedom that was balanced out with absolute terror. And I think that our oldest son, Owen, he would do anything for just a stable clock in, clock out job. Our youngest has just always wanted to be the boss of whatever he does. He is never going to work for somebody else. So he's quite content to kind of ride those highs and lows

Doug (00:41:58):

Because you're now Canada's favorite dad, et cetera, et cetera. Or the Internet's favorite dad. That's right. I should, I should specify. 'cause the internet is global. 

Stewart (00:42:05):

Love for me knows no borders

Doug (00:42:06):

And we don't want to confine you to

Stewart (00:42:11):

No, don't confine me to your, don't restrict my love. Don't, don't restrain it.

Doug (00:42:15):

So when you create your videos, what makes you feel relevant when you make them?

Stewart (00:42:20):

I think probably the first thing is I'm a big fan of brevity. People are trading their time. I'm getting their time in exchange for them watching me. So I have to give them something back. I have a kind of a credo, which is “entertain first, sell second.” So if I'm doing any brand work, that's kind of the motto I try to run under. It's like, this has to be funny on its own. If there's a messaging that has to be sold afterwards, it's like, that should just be incidental. That should be like, oh, why? So I had fun watching it anyway. 

Doug (00:42:47):

That's the battle, right? Because so many people, so many people who would pay you for your skills would be “advertise first and create later.”

Stewart (00:42:54):

Yeah. And it's dumb. I think like, you know, I understand there's arguments like with the agencies are like, we want our product shown, our service shown, our brand shown in the first two seconds. And it's like people will tune out. 'cause their logic is, you know, retention dives after a short period of time on videos anyway. Like, just naturally the majority of retention will, but then it just dies quicker when you stick, when you say, Hey, this is an ad, without saying, Hey, this is an ad. You know, as opposed to just showing  a logo or something like that. 

Magda (00:43:22):

People don't want to be tricked, but people do genuinely love being sold to. 

Stewart:

Yeah. Right. Superbowl ads, like you can show bowl ads. 

Magda:

Show me something that is going to improve my life. And show me how to use it.

Stewart (00:43:33):

I love it. Exactly. Exactly. I think it's important to be aware of the fact that you're, you know, that the medium is so based on authenticity and intimacy. I'm very aware of the fact that the majority of people consume my videos in their hands. It's so intimate. So you kind of just, you don't want to betray people and betray that trust and that intimacy that people have with you by trying to trick them.

Doug (00:44:00):

Wow. Someone could be in the bathroom right now listening to this. 

Stewart (00:44:02):

They could be. Exactly. And don't worry, the door's shut and the fan's on. No one can hear you let loose.

Doug (00:44:08):

<Laugh>. Yes. I just love the fact that you bet on yourself all the time. And I know there are people our age who are faced with this basic push-pull between what they're responsible for and what their opportunities are. If their kids are out of the house, if their parents are still healthy, there might be a glimmer to start being with people my age about that, about threading the needle in the Venn diagram to become a creative person and bet on yourself. That someone else is going to want to read this, subscribe to your Substack. How has your overall opinion of the work you do and your place in that world, how has that evolved since you started making these videos, making Vines, way back in the day?

Stewart (00:44:51):

I've learned that there are moments where I think I've created something amazing and it turns out that's the least successful stuff I do. And then there's times when I create things I think, I don't know, whatever, who cares just put it out there and people are like, this is amazing. Wow. 

Doug (00:45:08):

And it blows up, right?

Stewart (00:45:09):

<Laugh>? Yeah. Yeah. “You really thought about this. This is such a unique angle.” I'm like, I did not think about this. But yeah, I know it said that out loud. I go, thank you. That's the thing. I think especially when you get older, I think people feel like they have to fit into a certain model in their head and a certain paradigm or archetype in their head of what it means to be their age. And that has changed, you know, for I'm 53 and what it means to be 53 is light years away now from what it was when even my dad was 53 and then, and then even further away from when his dad was 53. It's not a case about being immature or being irresponsible about being self-centered. It's not about that at all. I think it's more a case of being like, I'm able to do more things now thanks to technology and the world and society and whatever, so why not? So also, who cares? That's the, also, that's the other big thing. I like the punk ethos a lot. I like that idea of like, just get up and do it. If you suck, try not to suck as much next time.

Doug (00:46:09):

Well that's, yeah. We should be clear. Stewart does come from a punk rock background, a musician background that's

Stewart (00:46:15):

Evident by looking at me. 

Magda (00:46:16):

You’re not wearing a snapback cap. 

Stewart (00:46:18):

That was a direct shot across the bow! But I am wearing a button up shirt from Costco. People always say, “but the Internet's forever.” Well, if it's terribly racist, misogynistic, violent, yes. These are concerns that are well warranted, otherwise you're just going to be one more idiot on the internet. And the problem you'll find pretty quickly when you make content for the internet is being found. Not people finding it, the internet's forever, but it's really hard to find.

Doug (00:46:44):

Same thing with podcast episodes. It's one of those things where I will see a huge spike in our listenership and our subscribers, just because people are discovering our back episodes. And that's the lovely thing about doing a podcast. It's one of those things where once you break ground somewhere, people are going to decide. They want to see what else you've done and they're going to go back and find you. And all of a sudden, you know, there's a whole spurt in your awareness and popularity.

Stewart (00:47:11):

Yeah. It's, life is marketing as a few people have said before. And that's, that's very true.

Doug (00:47:16):

Right. I just came across the Schwartzenegger quote, you know, “Early to bed, early to rise. Work like hell and advertise.”

Stewart (00:47:22):

<Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. 

Magda (00:47:23):

I was going to say, I think that it's a parabola, because remember in the very early days of the internet, you know, like 1996, 1998, it was almost like if you wanted to find something on the internet, even if you knew that it existed, just like trying to figure out how to find it, it was almost like playing Battleship. Like you knew there were battleships there and you just were like checking gaps. Like what were, did I search? There was that whole point in time when people would be looking for like, you know, a poodle and so they would type in poodles.com because that was the closest guest. And then we went into this phase where there was enough out there that people were realizing there had to be some sort of organized whatever, and that you could do marketing and it was kind of easier to find stuff. And now I think we're on the other side of the parabola. 'cause there's so much out there that if you just search for it, you're still going to get a whole lot of other stuff before you get to the thing that you actually want.

Stewart (00:48:25):

Yeah. Like the poodle thing is a good example. It's like in back in 98 or 96 or whatever, you'd look for poodles and there was maybe a hundred poodles online and now there's a hundred billion. So it's <laugh>, you know, it's, it's hard to find poodles. It's hard to find the poodle that you're looking for.

Doug (00:48:41):

Do you have a new book coming out? Is this, when is your press tour starting? I know you have some dates scheduled throughout the provinces. Yeah. But is this,

Stewart (00:48:47):

So the book, 

Doug (00:48:48):

Is this your first press stop for the Stupidpocalypse?

Stewart (00:48:51):

It's kind of been ongoing a little bit in the past month or so, which is nice. The book comes out officially in the US and Canada on September 19th. It's called “Welcome to the Stupidpocalypse: Survival Tips for the Dumbageddon.” It's a collection of essays that talk about politics in Canada and US and marriage and tech and social media and family and all that kind of stuff. I had said to the, the publisher's publicist was saying, you know, you could do a book signing and all that kinda stuff. I was like, well, how can I make money instead? How does that sound? And they're like, well, I mean, you're welcome to as long as you promote the book. And so I thought, well, let's do a show instead. So then Shannon and I are going to go to do these shows instead of book signings, which are ticketed events. They're happening so far. It's happening in Ottawa, Calgary and Winnipeg and Windsor, Ontario,

Doug (00:49:37):

Right across the bridge.

Stewart (00:49:39):

There right across the bridge. It's called “In Conversation with BrittleStar, moderated by his wife.” It's kind of a chat that talks about us, talks about the book, little bit of a comedy show. I mean, it is, I think that Shannon, Shannon hates to be on camera. However, I'm terrified to be in a room full of people unless I have the microphone. If I have a microphone on my hand, you're all done for. I'm Mr. Confident <laugh>. I can absolutely stay up there. I can kill four hours and be like, sure. Not a problem.

Doug (00:50:07):

<Laugh>. “I got a tight 240.”

Stewart (00:50:08):

Exactly. Exactly. <Laugh> Shannon is very similar to myself in that regard, so it should be a fun time. 'cause Shannon's, like I said, she's quite brave when she gets a mic in her hand. And she also really likes making fun of me.

Doug (00:50:19):

Well, you had great chemistry on the morning show thing. I mean, she definitely moderated you in that sense. That's a strong formula. The whole idea of, you know, Brittlerstar gets wacky and Shannon 

Magda (00:50:30):

I think that’s a lyric from a Billy Joel song. “She moderates me.”  Back in his days, like after he broke up with Christie Brinkley. That was one of his big hits, She Moderates Me.

Stewart (00:50:36):

Yeah. Such a good song. It was our wedding song actually. Shannon and I's Wedding Song. Oh, yeah, yeah. She Moderates Me. By Billy Joel.

Doug (00:50:44):

Now. So the essay's about, do they have a particular age range that they appeal to? Are they from the perspective of a 53-year-old man? 'cause I want to talk about finding markets our age. Because I think people don't realize how robust they are.

Stewart (00:50:58):

Well, I think that's just, that's key, I think especially working in social media, there's an assumption that, you know, it's eight to 13 year olds, or 18 to 24 year olds, and that's it. And that's obviously not the case. Like, there's a whole segment of society that's massive that is consuming all the same mediums, but just different content on those mediums, like TikToks and Instagram stuff and whatever. I think I've been fortunate to kind of find that kind. Having started my social media career at 43, I was already old in the eyes of the internet. And it wasn't until in the past, sort of, you know, five or so years that that brands and agencies and platforms have realized, oh, wait a minute, this isn't just an old guy doing funny old guy stuff for the benefit and enjoyment of young people who think they're never going to get old.

Stewart (00:51:44):

But this is actually someone who's creating content that is going to relate to those people who are, you know, 40 and up, 45 and up, 50 and up. I remember saying to someone recently, you know, 65 and older I kill on YouTube demographics. It's like, <laugh>. That's people who are watching the stuff, is that age group <laugh>. But of course, those people go on holidays, they buy cars, they, you know, they buy cottages. They have lots and lots of disposable income. Not everyone, of course, but a lot of them do. They're not sort of just getting started. They're trying to live their life as best they can. So it's very appealing in that regard. The essays in the book themselves, I mean, of course they're written from the perspective of me as a 50 something year old, because I can't avoid that.

Stewart (00:52:23):

I'm kinda like an actor, like in the sense of being an actor like Jack Nicholson: this is what you get. You know, I show up and this is me. But also I try to take a broader idea. Like, the Welcome to The Stupidpocalypse isn't about saying, look at these stupid people. It's more about me saying, we're all idiots and dear God, let's take a breath and a step back and let's not get too upset about this, this, this, this. Like, let's all realize the ridiculousness of the situation. Let's try to be nicer to each other. That's kind of the angle. 

Doug (00:52:51):

That's definitely on brand with the Brittlestar approach, which is, again, as the Internet's dad, you definitely have a vibe. Let's calm down. We can be funny about this, but let's just keep our heads about us and be adult-ish as we consider this problem.

Stewart (00:53:06):

Yeah, I mean, I hope so. I mean, I got worked up, you know, throughout the pandemic. There was one video I posted that I ended up, it did like crazy numbers right away when I was like, Nope, it's too angry. It's way too angry. I ended up pulling the video. I referred to myself recently to someone as the middle-aged white guy whisperer. And it's like, I hope I <laugh> other middle-aged straight white guys can look at me and go, oh, he's not freaking out over trans people, gay people, people of different races. It's like, no one's coming for his cargo shorts and his beer and his back deck. It's just, he's just making sure everyone gets a shot to have their own cargo shorts, beer and back deck. That seems fair. Yeah. That's kind of my M.O. so I'm glad you say that. 'cause it makes me feel like it's translating, which is good.

Doug (00:53:48):

And I wanted to ask about the name Stupidpocalypse, how much you workshopped that. That does have at least a slight implication of anger a bit. I think there's a frustration level. Are you going to lean into that or are you going to say, I know you're thinking that, that we're all, it's a dumb, again, and I'm pointing fingers.

Stewart (00:54:05):

There's an introduction to the book, which kind of addresses that, kind of frames it nicely right away, which says that we're all stupid, but we're all idiots. We all do dumb things. And that's just part of being human. And what you need to work towards is being aware of that and being able to pause and go, wait, am I being extra stupid and extra dumb right now? If I pull back a little bit, I'll get a better perspective of the situation. And maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm being rage-farmed. I think that's one of the things we've learned since 2016, is that social media has been weaponized to induce rage for the benefit of a small group of people. Those small groups of people aren't restricted to one political party because the platforms that know that if we're angry, we'll spend more time on things, weirdly.

Stewart (00:54:52):

And it is political parties who are, who know they can capitalize on that political parties of all stripes do it, some worse than others. So I think it's that idea of being like, I already know I'm an idiot, but is this extra stupid? I'm going to be smart enough to realize I'm stupid and I might be being played. And then to kind of make decisions, and act accordingly to that. It's like comments on social media now. Nice. Comments are nice, but comments are generally worthless to me because you've consumed the content. If you liked it. I'm so happy you've liked it. I don't need to know it.

Doug (00:55:22):

Hey man, a download is a download. 

Stewart (00:55:25):

Exactly.

Doug (00:55:25):

If you hate watched it, you still watched it.

Magda (00:55:40):

So I've been watching Days of Our Lives since I was, I don't know, 10. Okay. Something like that.

Stewart (00:55:43):

Yeah. Fair.

Magda (00:55:44):

Yeah. It's currently in season 58. It's been on for 58 years. It used to be on NBC on free TV at 1:00 PM Eastern, rain or shine, except for during the Olympics. 

Doug (00:55:56):

Is there a sponsorship that I'm not aware of. <Laugh>

Magda (00:55:59):

I wish there was. And so I had stopped watching 'cause stuff was happening for a while, and then back in May, I was like, oh, I got to catch up. Well, okay. Clearly I'm going to start with this year that I missed. And so I'm doing this thing where I'm watching a couple episodes every day and have just been posting on my personal Facebook page when stuff is happening. And, you know, it's all the same characters that have been on for years. So like, everybody who's 50 years old remembers watching it with their grandmother when they were eight or 12, or you know, when they were had a newborn and were just watching it. And it's the same characters. And so I've been sort of narrating like all of the changes, like the writers have recently discovered that people can be bisexual and that if they have more bisexual people in the story on the show, they can have more love triangles because more

Stewart (00:56:50):

'Cause everybody's fair game. Everyone's fair game. If you're bisexual <laugh>, it's like yes, absolutely. It's like the ultimate reality show or some of that “Love Is Blind” realizing that “Oh my god. Yeah. If we make it like same sex or bisexual, then everyone's, everyone's up for grabs. It's exciting.”

Magda (00:57:05):

Yeah, absolutely. And like, I think Days has always kind of been on the forefront of social issues. And putting people on the air. Like they had the first interracial couple on tv. And you know, they had the autistic people in love triangles before anybody was talking about that. And they had gay characters and all this stuff. But now I think now they're just like, “Ooh, ooh, ooh. All these combinations.” And of course, they still have to keep this data bank of like, who's actually related to who?

Stewart (00:57:38):

<Laugh> who?

Doug (00:57:41):

Well, that's for the chat boards, right? That's, you can keep all those

Stewart (00:57:44):

Exactly. Aren't they Brother and Sister

Magda (00:57:47):

<Laugh>. Right,

Doug (00:57:48):

Right. Our dual, yeah. 

Stewart (00:57:51):

Isn't that his mother? Yeah.

Magda (00:57:52):

Yeah.

Stewart (00:57:53):

<Laugh>.

Doug (00:57:54):

Well, that was, I remember when Lost came out, Lost was one of the first episodes that had a chat board online presence. And that's what gave birth to the book “Everything Bad Is Good For You.” The whole idea that the internet offers you more opportunities to interact with people. Bounce ideas off each other. Bounce your theories off each other. If you didn't get something, you could say, all right, who's he again? And you could research that and you could just be a much more enlightened consumer of things.

Doug (00:58:23):

Love the term.

Magda (00:58:23):

And when Damon Lindelof said that he had not sketched out the whole arc of the show.

Doug (00:58:30):

Which became sort of like, became painfully obvious. Yes.

Magda (00:58:33):

He just had the first season. And then he was just paying attention to what people were saying in the chat rooms. Like what? That was just demoralizing to me.

Stewart (00:58:41):

Yes, I know. Well, don't even get me started on the end of Lost. That was so disappointing. 

Magda (00:58:47):

It was horrible. It was bona fide horrible. And Doug and I were in the middle of the divorce and were not living together anymore. And so there was nobody in the apartment that I could talk to <laugh> about the ending. And I was not about

Doug (00:59:01):

We could talk about it now. Yeah. But yeah, we couldn't at the time. And then you

Magda (00:59:04):

For sure. I was not about to contact you. The only thing I wanted to contact you about when we were in the process of getting a divorce was actual schadenfreude-inducing political scandals. I mean, I remember at one point we were in the middle of this battle where we each thought we were trying to screw the other one over. And like, you know, all this kind of, you know, “well you can talk to my lawyer!!” kind of stuff. And I sent him this text in the middle of the day that was like, “Can we take a timeout on the divorce proceedings? Because we needed to talk about this Elliot Spitzer scandal.”

Magda (00:59:42):

Like, we talked about it. And it was like, remember in the Bugs Bunny cartoon where it's the sheep dog and they just clock in. 

Stewart (00:59:53):

Yeah. Clock in.

Magda (00:59:53):

It's like they’re friends and then they, they're on the clock and they fight.

Magda (00:59:57):

It was just like that. But yeah, I mean, it wasn't a political scandal, so I didn't want to talk to Doug about it, but that, I mean, I remember that last episode being just enraging. 

Stewart (01:00:07):

Yeah, exactly. And then you, so enraging. Lost, the last episode not only sucked, but it destroyed your marriage.

Magda (01:00:15):

<Laugh>. Yes.

Stewart (01:00:18):

That's, I mean, let's put

Magda (01:00:19):

A class action suit.

Stewart (01:00:20):

Thanks JJ.

Magda (01:00:21):

Against Damon Lindelof.

Doug (01:00:24):

Yeah. And Carlton Cuse. They'll both be hearing from our attorneys <laugh>

Stewart (01:00:28):

Home records.

Doug (01:00:41):

I love the term rage farming, by the way. 'cause It makes me think, all I could think about now is that Monsters Inc. has become a documentary. 

Stewart (01:00:49):

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. <Laugh>, that's totally it. <Laugh>,

Doug (01:00:53):

It's the Monsters are coming in through our computers. And basically getting their fuel from our outrage.

Stewart (01:00:57):

Our outrage. It's so, it's like What We Do In The Shadows. If you ever watch that show, which is a fantastic show. 

Doug (01:01:02):

Oh, yeah. I love that show.

Stewart (01:01:03):

And what's his face? 

Doug (01:01:05):

Very F word forward this season, I will say.

Stewart (01:01:07):

Oh, excellent. Fuck right. Or fuckin’ A. That's what I was trying to say. Sorry. Sorry. I hardly ever swear. I don't know how to do it.

Magda (01:01:15):

Well, you're Canadian, we've heard that about you. Disappointing.

Stewart (01:01:18):

Yeah.

Doug (01:01:18):

Fuck has that extra U in it. 

Stewart (01:01:21):

<Laugh>. But it's like the energy vampire in What We Do In The Shadows on social media going, this is great, this is fantastic. And that's exactly it. It's <laugh>. That's what you have to, I mean, you have to kind of just, I grew up across from a convenience store, beside a convenience store, beside another convenience store. There were three convenience stores and a grocery store within, I’m going to say for you Americans, a hundred yards from my house. And it's a very small community here. And it was unusual. And they all had Weekly World News. They all had National Enquirer. They all had like, all the gossip mags, and all that kind of tabloid papers and stuff. And I think you kind of have to treat social media like that. It's like, Ooh, this is a juicy story. I don't know if it's true or not, though. I'm not going to rely on this as news. I'm just going to be like, eh, maybe this is interesting, but I'm not going to get upset about Bat Boy returning or Bat Boy getting married or something. Right.

Doug (01:02:12):

Well, Men In Black said that was the best investigative journalism on the planet,

Stewart (01:02:16):

So. Exactly. Exactly.

Doug (01:02:18):

<Laugh>. So, well, speaking of social media, as I say, we talked about advertising and the whole point of you need to get your message out there. And you've been at this for 10 years and the platforms and the strategies have shifted beneath our feet throughout that time. You're active on a lot of platforms. So when you talk about your social media strategy, how has that evolved and what, if anything, have you learned from working with Gregory?

Stewart (01:02:41):

You can really invest a lot of time in trying to be platform specific and learning the ins and outs of algorithms and how to, you know, best time and place and format and length and ratios and all that kind of stuff. But then you just get really good at the platform and then the platform changes the algorithms and then you're starting all over again. I think the biggest lesson I've learned over the past 10 years, and Gregory I think it sort of goes by this as well, is being platform agnostic. Your brand is your brand and you should use these platforms as distribution points for your brand. For me, when I started out on Vine, I was fiercely loyal to Vine, and then Vine disappeared and I had 1.2 million followers and they just went away. And I had been hesitant to like, promote other platforms on Vine and hesitant to tell people like, Hey, follow me on Facebook, follow me on Instagram.

Stewart (01:03:28):

I just, I felt it was like a betrayal of Vine for me to do that. But of course, Vine didn't care about me. They didn't care about me at all. So I learned a lesson, a hard lesson from that account to be just like, the Brittlestar brand is separate. It's not a Facebook brand, it's not an Instagram brand, it's not a TikTok brand, it's not a Threads brand. I'm on those platforms to maintain my brand and to make sure stuff gets out to people, the widest amount of people as possible. But it's not about the platforms themselves.

Doug (01:03:55):

Do you have a favorite, do you have one that gives you the most engagement and the most ROI?

Stewart (01:04:00):

At this point, I mean, honestly still Twitter and I despise what's happened to Twitter over the past year in a bit. Yeah.

Doug (01:04:07):

That's the paradox we're all coping with. It's just, it is a

Stewart (01:04:10):

Powerful tool, but it's it's a phenomenal

Doug (01:04:12):

Run by a powerful tool. 

Stewart (01:04:12):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's an amazing platform.

Doug (01:04:15):

I just thought of that. 

Stewart (01:04:16):

It’s good. You should tweet that <laugh> and then get immediately suspected

Doug (01:04:20):

And get locked, locked out.

Stewart (01:04:21):

Get locked out immediately.

Doug (01:04:22):

He's apparently locking people out. If you make fun of him. If I ever get big enough to matter, I'm sure I'll get locked out. 

Stewart (01:04:27):

The only thing I hope that's come from the Twitter thing with Elon, is that they'll see behind the curtain, I think a little bit, I think we have to get past this idea that billionaires are going to save us. They're just people. 

Magda (01:04:38):

Well, and they think they're going to fight each other. What is this?

Stewart (01:04:41):

I, well, I mean, someone said, you know, the

Doug (01:04:43):

Elon had that three hour MRI, so I'm sure that's not going to happen now.

Stewart (01:04:48):

Whatever. Whatever. I don't waste time talking about those guys or morons.

Doug (01:04:52):

Yeah. Nor do I. So you still find X, Twitter, whatever they call it now, that's that's still a worthy thing to work on?

Stewart (01:05:00):

I think that contribute to, yeah, I think the scale might tip dramatically if Threads does desktop version and does better search. I think there's ways for Threads to suddenly tip the scale, but they're not there yet.

Doug (01:05:10):

That was a land grab, I think, you know, people set up their accounts to have them in case they needed 'em, but

Stewart (01:05:15):

Sure. Yeah. Exactly

Doug (01:05:16):

No one's there anymore for the moment. Anyway.

Stewart (01:05:17):

That's, it's pretty quiet. And it's a very different way it's structured is it's based on interaction, it's based on engagement. As someone pointed out, a repost of your post is worth nothing, but someone quoting your post is worth a lot more attention. Comments are way more valuable on Threads. Musk is so horrible that you think to yourself, yay, Zuckerberg, because I hate Facebook as well. <Laugh>.

Doug (01:05:40):

Yeah. That's a big lift right there, <laugh>. And it's like, well, if they did fight each other, then they'd be fighting each other. That would be something.

Stewart (01:05:48):

I know like Facebook has our, is my biggest reach. And the biggest follower count is on Facebook. But it's absolutely worthless to me.

Doug (01:05:55):

Yeah. And you had a huge following with the the morning show thing back in the day.

Stewart (01:05:58):

Yeah. Our live stream used to get 298,000 to 300,000 reach for every live stream we did. And that shrank down to 900. And that's when we decided we can't do this. Holy shit, we can't do this anymore. That's just not worth it doing anymore. So frustrating.

Doug (01:06:13):

Did you consider going to YouTube? 

Stewart (01:06:14):

We did. We tried YouTube for a bit. We tried Twitch for a bit, but the morning show thing was a kiosk in a mall and Facebook was the mall. And when we tried to move it to YouTube or to Twitch, it was like putting a kiosk at the edge of town. It's like, sure, we might get some people or people who know where to find it, but we aren't just milling around at the city limits. So it didn't work.

Magda (01:06:35):

Wow. Why did your viewership shrink on Facebook? Was it the Facebook algorithm?

Stewart (01:06:40):

Well, a couple of things happened. I mean, the algorithm was a big part of it. And they really started deprioritizing live streams in light of the Christchurch New Zealand massacre, which was all Facebook Live. So they suddenly felt that there was, it was hard to control or hard to police what was being broadcast. Now do I think they could have like looked at or opened it up to have to be reviewed, like, Hey listen, we are doing this morning show. We've been doing it for five years. It's a husband and wife. Right. And we rarely, you know, commit mass murders. So can we have a regular reach? Yeah.

Doug (01:07:12):

Well that requires more effort, which eats into the products.

Stewart (01:07:15):

Exactly. Exactly.

Magda (01:07:17):

Well, I think that's the thing about the Facebook Al algorithm that's so frustrating is that it would make sense if they were saying it's pay to play. Right? Like, if you pay to this professional level, then we'll show you to all your followers. And if you don't pay, then we'll show you to a certain percent. But there is no ability to actually reach all of your followers. Like, you could probably leave a bag of gold on Mark Zuckerberg's front step and he still wouldn't show you to all of your followers.

Stewart (01:07:49):

Yeah. I mean it's, and that's just, that makes sense. 

Doug (01:07:50):

So he'd put that on the stack of all the other bags of gold he has.

Stewart (01:07:53):

Exactly. I think it, yeah. With, with Facebook

Magda (01:07:55):

It doesn't make any sense from a capitalist perspective, from a socialist perspective, nothing. What, how, why are you building this big engine and then not actually using it?

Stewart (01:08:05):

I think it's, the problem is the way that it's sort of marketed and meaning like the market structure of it is problematic for creators because Facebook's focuses on keeping people stuck to the site. It doesn't matter who's creating the content, just any content. If that keeps people stuck to the site, that's good. Which is why I see so many compilations of like disaster videos and all that kind of stuff and car wrecks and all this kind of thing. And lots of, lots and lots of big boobs and all that kind of stuff. And maybe that's just my feed. I don't know. <Laugh> <laugh>, that was pretty telling. I don't actually, I don't see enough cat videos. I don't see enough big boobs. So Zuckerberg, if you're listening, if you could tweak that, it was frustrating. 'cause you're right. If you just say, if it was pay to play, like, Hey, I have 250,000 people.

Stewart (01:08:50):

How much does it cost me to get to those people? And they set that value at whatever, let's say hypothetically a thousand dollars, which of course it wouldn't be a thousand dollars, it'd be like closer to like $50,000 or more. Then that thousand dollars didn't become about 250,000 people. That became what the market decided that a thousand dollars was worth. So, for example, I did a video that explaining cCanadians to Americans video, it already had 35 million views. And the brand said, let's put $3,000 into boosting that on Facebook. And I was like, why? We've literally hit essentially every person in Canada with this ad. But they're like, you know, when we're going to spend this extra money to see if we really send it over the top. And it, that $3,000 bought them 400,000 additional reach, like less than half a million. And they already had 35 million and they spent additional $3,000 for nothing. So it's frustrating. It's very frustrating. And of course, with the live show, for us, there's no way to boost live streams as they're happening. You can boost them after you're done the broadcast, but not while they're happening. Which I understand, again, why you wouldn't want someone with deep pockets and psychotic tendencies to be able to spend $10,000 of their life savings to go do something terrible. So I get it.

Doug (01:10:02):

And the last thing I wanted to mention from the viewpoint of a creative, seeing what's going on with a writer strike and an actor strike and the stance that the producers are taking in terms of how much human creativity is appreciated and the onslaught of AI and how AI is replacing creatives in many ways. I know I've lost several gigs myself to people who want Chat GPT to write blog posts and things. So when you think about your life as a creator, how do you feel threatened by AI? And what do you think creators in general can do to offset its impact? 

Stewart (01:10:36):

I think a couple things. I think that the first thing to realize about the development of AI is that it's been going on for a long, long time. And that it's also to realize that it's progressing and improving at an incredible rate, exponential rate. And then finally, and the most important thing is it's not going to be stopped. There's no way we're putting that cat back in the bag. There's way too many upsides for the bottom line of too many people for that not to stick around. One of the things that creatives have to kind of really be aware of, there's two things. One is a piece of content, whether that be, and I say that in the most crass terms, like a blog post, a piece of music stuff. Stuff. Yeah. It's just content, right? It's just, it's, it's occupying time and space.

Stewart (01:11:26):

That's it. I think that that itself, AI is going to, if not already, devalue that tremendously. I think what it's not going to be able to devalue is, I haven't figured out the proper way to articulate this yet, but essentially backstory content, an article period is just an article. Doesn't matter. It could be good or bad to me or whatever. Who cares? An article written by Doug French is an article written by Doug French that's got a intrinsic value. And it may be word for word the same as something else 'cause, but it's got a value because I know where it's coming from. And there's a whole ethos and there's a whole perspective and outlook, and there's a whole backstory, at least that I know of, that as a consumer that makes, that gives added value, gives a little bit of x factor to the content itself.

Stewart (01:12:18):

That's a little bit airy fairy. But I think that's kind of important. It's like, I think anyone could, I think a and I could make a, probably make a, a video as good or funnier than I can make, but so can lots of people. But people like the videos that I make because I'm making them as I, when I did my podcast series, remember my son Owen, when he was producing it, I was like, I don't know if anyone's going to listen to this. And he said, no, people are going to listen to this 'cause you're doing it. It's not about the podcast, it's about you. You are doing it. That's, it's that human connection that people want to be a part of. That's what they're interested in. That's what's drawing them in. If you suck after that, then they're only going to be drawn in once. But if it's good and they have that ability to connect you as a human to this and this human experience that they're sharing with you, then that's a definite plus.

Stewart (01:13:00):

It's just our connection to the content and our connection to the creation of the content. Add something to it that I don't think AI is necessarily going to be able to replicate entirely. That said, you know, if you type in something to CHat GPT, it says “give me a monologue in the tone of Norm McDonald.” It does a pretty good job of doing that. However, we know it's not Norm that wrote it and it's different from a piece of comedy that Norm actually delivered himself. And I think that's kind of the value. And of course there's also the very very least, it's like any new tool, you're not going to lose your job to AI, you're going to lose your job to someone who's really good at AI, <laugh>, that type of idea. Yeah. 

Doug (01:13:37):

Right. I think that dovetails well with the idea that the advertising model is giving way to the subscription model. Because people are opting in and that way you get open rates and engagement up on the 60, 70% because people are there because they expressly want to be there. Have you found that with Substack at all? Have you found that with Substack, when people are tuning in to see you in particular, how Substack is refining your audience? 

Stewart (01:14:00):

I think a little bit. And I think there's also, what's interesting about Substack and Patreon is that people are just keen to be able to support. And if there's an easy way for them to support you, they will. They don't necessarily want anything extra special. They just want to be able to say, Hey, I appreciate this. Which isn't a great business model <laugh>, it's hard to rely on that. But at the same time it's also lovely because it's like, okay, well this is now people who are actively interested in consuming the content I'm making. It's not like, you know, when people used to get hired or hire me for brand campaigns on Vine or something, it was very much a media buy mentality of like, how many followers do you have? Great. We'll pay you this much money based on that. And now brands and agencies are much more like, who are your followers? What is your content? What do you do? And okay, that's going to be a much better ROI for us. And that's worth this much to this much. Numbers still matter, but it's also at the same time, it's more about tailoring that in and making sure you're selling to people who want to buy.

Magda (01:14:54):

I think we should wrap it. I mean, we've been talking for a long time. <Laugh> about ventriloquist, about which cats are smarter. <Laugh>.

Stewart (01:15:05):

Well,

Doug (01:15:05):

That's the nature of a conversation with Brittlestar just because there's so much wisdom. There's, you want to be very circumspect in terms of how you plummet. I really appreciate the time, Stewart. I'm so glad you have this new book coming out. For those of you listening, the the book Welcome to The Stupidpocalypse. What's the date it opens up again?

Stewart (01:15:22):

It's September 19th. 

Doug (01:15:23):

Available for presale now.

Stewart (01:15:25):

Available for presale now.

Doug (01:15:25):

September 19th. 

Stewart (01:15:26):

It arrives September 19th and in the UK September November 25th.

Doug (01:15:29):

What am I thinking here? I'm having a Mitch McConnell moment.

Magda (01:15:32):

<Laugh>.

Stewart (01:15:34):

I'm fine. I think every episode should end like this.

Doug (01:15:36):

Welcome to Awkward Silences with Doug and Magda

Stewart (01:15:39):

<Laugh>.

Stewart (01:15:40):

Are you in your fifties? That’s something. No, that's how you're ending. Yeah. That's your end script. Oh yeah. And actually that's good. Your scripted part can be me.

Stewart (01:15:52):

<Laugh>. <Laugh>. Right. <laugh>.

Doug (01:15:55):

Every podcast ends like the Sopranos <laugh>.

Stewart (01:15:57):

Exactly. <Laugh>.

Doug (01:16:05):

Anyway, listeners, thank you so much for tolerating Episode 14 of the When The Flames Go Up podcast. Our guest has been Stewart “Brittlestar” Reynolds, and you will find all the places you can find them, which is virtually everywhere. And we'll be back next week with another episode featuring a guest who has American healthcare like we do.

Stewart:

Awesome. Thanks so much guys. It was super fun.

Doug:

We'll see you next week. Bye-Bye.