MISCHKE: Doomsday Hiccup

Summary

Garage Logic (MISCHKE): Doomsday Hiccup – Episode Summary

Date: February 7, 2026
Host: Tommy Mischke (“Mishke”)
Podcast Network: Gamut Podcast Network

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Episode Overview

This episode of Garage Logic, led by Tommy Mischke, weaves together trademark humor with reflections on human resilience. Mishke ricochets from satirizing Valentine’s Day consumerism to pondering the symbolic Doomsday Clock, riffs on the world’s longest case of hiccups, and then connects with a listener, Tracy, for a candid, moving conversation about grief, mental health, and hard-won gratitude. The tone is an engaging mix of wit, warmth, and unflinching honesty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Valentine’s Day Satire & Relationship Tropes

[02:00–09:30]

• Mishke opens by lampooning breathless media coverage of Valentine’s Day, especially “36 Best Valentine’s Day Gifts That Will Make Him Fall in Love All Over Again.”
• He pokes holes in the logic of “falling in love all over again,” questioning how an already-in-love partner could “fall in love again” via gifts like a cord organizer or an electric shaver.
• Quote:

  “You’re madly in love … but you’re getting this gift so that he will fall in love with you all over again. What will that look like?” – Mishke [03:00]

• Lampoons consumer-driven emotions:

  “We really don’t understand emotions outside of buying products, do we?” – Mishke [05:20]

• Mocks magazine advice for rekindling romance (“Try holding hands and taking a walk”), launches into a bit about shouting at couples holding hands to report on their progress, and muses on the awkwardness of hand-holding as a youth.

2. The Doomsday Clock & Dark Humor on Existential Threats

[11:00–17:00]

• Mishke transitions from relationships to global doom, discussing the Doomsday Clock being set at 85 seconds to midnight – the closest ever.
• Explains the clock’s symbolism (midnight = global catastrophe) and the lack of global progress blunting existential threats: nuclear arms, climate change, misinformation, AI.
• Quote:

  “That’s like me setting an alarm for work and then dying in my sleep. It makes having set the clock a complete waste of time.” – Mishke [15:10]

• Suggests tongue-in-cheek that some mechanism should push the clock to midnight so there’s “closure” if the unthinkable happens.

3. Doomsday Hiccup: The Story of Charles Osborne’s 68-Year Hiccup

[19:30–28:00]

• Mishke uses the story (“when you’re feeling blue…someone once had the hiccups for 68 straight years, and it wasn’t you”) as a back-pocket gratitude check.
• Tells the true tale of Charles Osborne, who started hiccupping in 1922 after a farm accident and couldn’t stop until 1990.
  • 20–40 hiccups per minute; over 480 million hiccups.
  • Married, had eight kids, lived a relatively normal life despite the affliction.
• Riffs in song and comedy on folk remedies (being scared to cure hiccups), imagining poor Charles being startled throughout his life.
• Quote:

  “So the hiccups were only part of the problem. There was the lifetime of endlessly being frightened and scared and shocked and startled. That actually was worse.” – Mishke [25:15]

• Notes that after Charles’s hiccups stopped, one guy kept scaring him out of habit.
• The story becomes a comedic tribute to enduring the absurd hardships life throws at people.

4. Listener Call-In: Deep Dive with Tracy on Grief & Survival

[36:07–53:07]

• The show’s heart and gravitas unfold in a candid call with Tracy, a longtime listener.
  • Tracy jokes about Mishke being a “hall pass,” then reveals living with disabilities and a history of depression.
  • Conversation shifts to tragic loss: Tracy’s son died at 17.5 from an accidental overdose. She movingly describes the pain, the slow process of healing, and struggling with guilt and faith.
• Quotes:

  “When it hits the two year mark, you’ll feel better. And I thought she had 12 heads because I felt so awful. But right around the two year mark…I started to think…not ‘Oh my God, he’s gone,’ but ‘Oh my God. I had an opportunity to know that boy.’” – Tracy [40:59]

  “I watch True Crime and I hate it when these parents…start to cry and they look at the producers and they go, I’m sorry. You have a damn good reason to cry.” – Tracy [39:29]

• The two discuss the son’s mental health (misdiagnosed depression vs. likely undiagnosed bipolar), the pain Tracy’s daughter faced losing her brother (and subsequent struggle with self-harm and a suicide attempt), and how grief changed their lives.
• Mishke and Tracy banter darkly about using perspective (“things could be worse,” the Holocaust, and gallows humor as in Young Frankenstein).
  • Mishke relates a haunting Holocaust anecdote about a man deciding not to wake his bunkmate from a nightmare because “what could be worse than what he wakes up to.”
• Quote:

  “The thing that moves me every day: You don’t know how many times I look up at God and I say thank you so much because things could be so much worse.” – Tracy [47:05]

• The segment blends tears and laughter, with Mishke closing the conversation by playfully imagining the dreams of Tracy’s husband (Olivia Newton John and Bea Arthur cameos).

5. Gracious Closure & Reflection

[53:08–end]

• Mishke shifts gears, noting it’s been a year since he restarted (at Hubbard Broadcasting) and reflecting fondly on the comfort, nostalgia, and “old radio” feel of his current studio.
• Shares gratitude for listeners who’ve stuck with him and expresses hope to continue offering meaningful, companionable entertainment.
• Recaps his philosophy: radio/podcasts are for listening while living your life, doing other things – not just watching a screen.
• Ends with a nod to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (“So we beat on, boats against the current…”), humorously claiming he coined it, not Fitzgerald.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• “You fall in love, and then you’re in love, and you’re living your life, and you’re in love. You’re not out of love, and then you fall in love again.” — Mishke on gift-giving clichés [03:05]
• “We haven’t been able to detach our emotions from products.” — Mishke [05:20]
• “At the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists created the Doomsday Clock… Well, this past month…the clock was set closer to midnight than it ever has been… 85 seconds away from midnight.” — Mishke [11:20]
• “That’s like me setting an alarm for work and then dying in my sleep. It makes having set the clock a complete waste of time.” — Mishke [15:10]
• “Someone once had the hiccups for 68 straight years, and it wasn’t you.” — Mishke’s perspective-shifting mantra [19:40]
• “His whole life, for 68 years, he put up with that. So the hiccups were only part of the problem. There was the lifetime of endlessly being frightened and scared.” — Mishke on Charles Osborne [25:10]
• “When it hits the two year mark, you’ll feel better… But right around two year mark, I started to think… ‘Oh my God. I had an opportunity to know that boy.’” — Tracy on grief healing [40:59]
• “Things could be so much worse.” — Tracy, after detailing unimaginable loss [47:05]
• “That was the worst story I had ever heard.” — Mishke, on a Holocaust anecdote where nightmares were the only escape [50:48]

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Section Timestamps

• Valentine’s Satire & Consumerism: 02:00–09:30
• Doomsday Clock & Global Threats: 11:00–17:00
• Hiccup Story (Charles Osborne): 19:30–28:00
• Listener Call (Tracy/Grief): 36:07–53:07
• Personal Reflection/Studio: 53:14–End

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Tone & Takeaway

• Language & Tone:
  Mischke’s language is sharp, irreverent, and deeply humane. He blends jokes, philosophical musings, musical interludes, and unsparing honesty.
• For New Listeners:
  If you like a show that pivots from parodying holiday hype to reflecting on the state of the world, then plunges into sincere, vulnerable conversations about human suffering—then returns to humor and hope—this episode is a quintessential sampler of Mishke’s range.
• Lasting Message:
  No matter how grim things get, “things could be worse.” Through life’s hiccups—literal and cosmic—humor, human connection, and perspective are Mishke’s core remedy.

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Contact:
Call or text the show: 651-321-8949
Email: [e-mail]

Next Episode: Stay tuned for more stories, more laughter, and a little more gumption from Gumption County.

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

I'd like to speak with you if you have some time. Gather round, won't you Gather around your speaker. Just look for where the sound is coming at you right now. That's the speaker. Gather around that piece of technology. I gotta tell you something. My name's Mishki. I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but quite often on the show, relationships come up. I guess it's a dominant part of many lives. That's perhaps why. Or it may be that I just enjoy talking about it because a lot of times it's uncomfortable. And that provides a great, great opportunity for humor and fun. Out of discomfort often comes a lot of the joy in life for me. I have to make this job fun for me or I won't want to do it. There's nothing worse than getting up in the morning and not wanting to work. And yet you have this job. You gotta do it. Bills need to be paid, but you don't want to do it. Why? It's not fun. No, no, no, no. I cannot have that. We must keep this job fun. And it's sometimes fun to talk about relationships. Well, Valentine's Day, of course, is coming up shortly, and I keep reading in the news all sorts of stories with Valentine's Day themes. The latest one is, oh, boy, the 36 best Valentine's Day gifts that will make Him Fall in love all over again. Now, it doesn't say the 36 best Valentine's Day gifts. It adds, that will make him fall in love all over again. What? Wait a minute. First of all, how do you fall in love all over again? So you fall in love, and then you're in love, and you're living your life, and you're in love. You're not out of love, and then you fall in love again. That's like having a drink of water, and in the middle of the drink of water, you drink the water again. They don't say you've fallen out of love because if you've fallen out of love, there probably won't be a Valentine's Day gift anyway. No, you're madly in love. That's why there's a Valentine's Day gift. But you're getting this gift so that he will fall in love with you all over again. What will that look like? What does it look like when you're in love? So you're already feeling that, and then you fall in love while in love. It almost sounds like it might hurt. It's sort of like saying, great toys to buy for your husband to make him grow up all over again. Yeah, he gets to grow up all over again. He gets to be a boy and then grow up all over even though he already grew up. But he's going to grow up again because you're getting him this little toy. Does anybody really spend time thinking about this stuff before they throw these lines out there in the media? You said it was the happiest day of your life when your boy was born. Well, guess what? 36 best gifts to make him come out of the womb again. Give him this gift and he'll be born once more. You'll get to experience that once again. Sure, you'll scream. He's a big fella now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And he was breach, wasn't he? But give him this gift and watch him blast out of that birth canal once again. 36 gifts to make her go through menopause one more time. I'm getting a little carried away on this. I know, but the gifts themselves also bother me. Especially if. Especially if they're intended to make them fall in love with you all over again. How would these gifts do that? Here's what we're looking at here. A cord organizing travel case. Make sure all his tech stays organized with this rather ingenious cord organizer. Honey, this is gonna make me fall in love with you all over again. Whoa, here I go. I didn't even want to. I fell in love with you once. That was enough. But you got me the cord organizer. And if that doesn't work, here's another one they're recommending. The World Atlas of Coffee. Some book by James Hoffman. I have no idea who he is and no idea why your guy would want this book. Zero idea why anyone would want this book. Award winning barista and prolific YouTuber James Hoffman is specialty coffee's unofficial figurehead. I don't even know what that means. Specialty coffees. Unofficial figurehead. Honey, I've been wanting to fall in love with you all over again, and I think the ticket is by way of some specialty coffee. Unofficial figurehead. I don't quite know what I'm talking about, but somehow that person is gonna play a role in getting me to fall in love with you again. Then there's an electric razor here. If I had a nickel for every time a guy pulled one of those things out of a little box and all of a sudden made goo goo eyes at his gal. We really don't understand emotions outside of buying products, do we? We haven't been able. We haven't been able to detach our emotions from products. I got to thinking about this falling in love all over again, and I looked it up. Yeah, I just googled it. I researched falling in love all over again, and there were all sorts of suggestions in a women's magazine website for falling in love all over again. Listen to this brilliant idea. Try holding hands and taking a walk. Nothing gets the blood moving and creative juices flowing like taking a walk around the block. I'm gonna start yelling out the window when I see couples walk down the sidewalk past my house holding hands. I'm gonna start saying, hey, is it working? How far have you gone? Keep going. Do. Do another time around. Yeah, and the next time you come around, let me know. On a scale of 1 to 10, where we're at. I'm just doing some private research. Do your hands ever get sweaty? And do you ever pull your hand away because you want to wipe it on your pan leg? But then you feel that she might think you're falling out of love again? So you keep the hand there, but it's uncomfortable. I used to have that happen in grade school. We'd go roller skating, you know, with the girls, and we'd be going in a circle holding hands, and my hand would get sweaty, and I'd want to take it away, But I didn't want to signal that I didn't like her. I liked her just fine, but, golly, that was uncomfortable. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I'd scream. That always shook her a little bit. And, well, we never did get back to holding hands. She found another guy. Any who. Let's talk nuclear war. At the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists created the Doomsday Clock. I've been talking about the Doomsday Clock for decades. I've always been fascinated by the Doomsday Clock. I don't have a watch on right now, and there's not a clock on my nightstand next to my bed. But you give me the Doomsday Clock, I'll take that everywhere I go. Scientists, as I mentioned, created the old Doomsday Clock as a symbolic representation of how close humanity is to destroying the world. Well, this past month, nearly eight decades after first setting up this Doomsday Clock, the clock was set closer to midnight than it ever has been. We are, count them, 85 seconds away from midnight again, the closest this timepiece has ever been to midnight. Midnight represents the moment at which people will have made Earth uninhabitable. That's where we're headed, and we're closer than ever. Happy days are here again Fill up your glass with beer again we'll sing a song of cheer again when scientists mess with the clock when they start moving the hands of the clock, it's usually after a few drinks at the club. They draw straws to see which guy gets to actually move the hands of the clock. This year, it was Barney. Last year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the clock at 89 seconds to midnight, which was, at that point, the closest the world had ever been to the bewitching hour. That was after they had set it at 90 seconds to midnight in 2023. The reason they put it at 89 seconds last year, there was no progress being made in combating or regulating global challenges in any way, shape or form. Nuclear risks, the climate crisis, biological threats that are out there, advances in disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence. Bulletin scientists just said that combined with the spread of misinformation out there and disinformation and conspiracy theories put together just represent a major existential threat to humanity. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists president, humanity has not made sufficient progress on the existential risks that endanger every single one of us. And then he added, get me another scotch, will ya? I ain't doing this sober. So we're at 85 seconds to midnight. Last year, Bulletin scientists warned that countries needed to change course toward international cooperation and action on the most critical existential risks or risk global annihilation. The countries around the world said in unison in response. Go suck eggs. Rather than heed this warning, the atomic scientist president said, countries became even more aggressive, became even more adversarial, became even more nationalistic, went the opposite way. Conflicts have intensified with multiple military operations involving nuclear armed states. Folks, the last remaining treaty governing nuclear weapons StockPiles between the US and Russia just expired. It expired February 4th. For the first time in over half a century, there is officially nothing preventing a runaway nuclear arms race. Thus, we get 85 seconds to midnight. Misinformation and disinformation greatly impacts efforts to address all these threats and exacerbates every other impending disaster. We are in a mess. Or it will do until a mess comes along. The Doomsday Clock has never reached midnight. And former Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson, who now serves as senior advisor to the Bulletin scientists, has said she hopes it never does get to midnight. She says when the clock strikes midnight, that means there's been some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate event that has wiped out humanity. Wait a minute, Rachel. Forgive me for interrupting here. Who would be placing the hands of the clock at midnight? This sounds like a serious flaw in this whole clock business. Who would be around to put the hands of the clock at midnight? It's headed toward midnight now, but we'll never actually get to put the hands at midnight because no one will be here to do it. What a disaster this is. That's like me setting an alarm for work and then dying in my sleep. It makes having set the clock a complete waste of time. And who's going to turn off my alarm anyway when it goes off? Who's even going to hear it. What I'm saying is all of these years waiting for the clock to get to midnight, I would at least like to see it get to midnight if in fact we arrive at midnight, which would be the point at which humanity is wiped out. But I guess I'm realizing we're not going to be able to see midnight. That's like having a New Year's Eve party and never being able to hug and kiss when the new year arrives. Can we create a kind of spring loaded deal so that when the bombs go off they also kind of nudge the hands of the clock toward midnight just to get some sort of closure on this thing? Anybody out there dealt with Bradshawn Bryant? You ever gone to MinnesotaPersonal Injury.com found out how to make contact with these attorneys and then contacted them and laid out your case? How'd they react when they heard your case? Did they say, you got a good case there, camper Danny? Did they get you the compensation to make your life whole once again? Did they balance the scales of justice? 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[A]

I want to tell you, Josh Arnold is not Charles Schwab. Not some giant corporation. He isn't Merrill Lynch. He's just a brilliant guy locally who's been helping people for 40 plus years. Helping them get ready for retirement, helping them grow their IRA, their 401k, helping them build a nest egg they would not have built on their own. Because this is an area where an expert makes a difference. Josh Arnold can boost your wealth by optimizing asset allocation, reducing investment fees, rebalancing your portfolio, preventing emotional, impulsive decisions, helping you avoid costly mistakes that people make all the time because they don't know better. You think you have a strategy. This guy can show you how to turn a strategy into a golden road. If you call up Josh Arnold and you end up working with him, if he ends up being your guy, by golly, I'm taking you out to lunch. You get a hold of me. That's a promise. Josh Arnold can be reached at 952-92-556. 50 minutes on the phone with him is free. Call him and you won't need to hear any more insights from me. Investment services offered by Josh Arnold Investment Consultant, llc. A security and investment advisor. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All investments involve risk. Tommy Mischke is a paid endorser. Well, if you're feeling blue today, I got something to cheer you up. Any of you people having a bad week? Bad month? Bad day? Things not working out the way you hoped? Well, when you're feeling low, you just remember something. Tuck this in your back pocket and remember it whenever you need to. Someone once had the hiccups for 68 straight years, and it wasn't you. You tell yourself that when the chips are low, when you're up against it, when the brakes are beating the boys. You remember that someone once had the hiccups for 68 straight years. And you, my friends, you got not to be that guy. I try and tell myself that every single day. I did not have to be the guy who had hiccups daily for 68 straight years. No, that was Charles Osborne of Iowa from 1922 to 1990. They started on a lovely June day in 1922 on his Iowa farm. Old Charles was weighing a pig, a 350 pound pig. And he fell down and he hit his head and he damaged a blood vessel in his brain and he started hiccuping. From then on, he hiccuped 20 to 40 times a minute for close to 70 straight years. You were not Charles Osborne. You tell yourself that every day when you rise in the morning. I am not Charles Osborne. One day at the age of 96, Chuck's hiccups stopped suddenly. No rhyme or reason. They just stopped. After 68 years, Chuck died one year later at the age of 97. But, oh, what a fun year that must have been, huh? Hiccough free. Quite a party, I imagine. What did Charlie do between 96 and 97? I bet he just smiled, looked at the blue sky and said, where did Satan go? Yeah, chuck stopped hiccuping February 1990. Despite his rough life, though, he lived relatively normally. They say he married a couple times, had eight kids. Now, the kids didn't bring their friends around too much. You understand that? What's with your dad? It's a long story. I don't want to get into it. It involves a hanging pig. 350 pound hanging pig. What? I said I didn't want to get into it. Your dad's a freak. Well, you don't know the half of it. Me and my brothers and sisters, we listen in when Ma and Pa are getting intimate in the bedroom. And it is the weirdest kissing session you will ever come across. I mean, we don't even know what we're hearing. That's. That's creepy. You think that's creepy? We sneak into their bedroom in the morning after they head out to the fields, and we find the weirdest stuff. Rope, pig costumes. Doctors who worked with Charles Osborne figure that in his lifetime, he hiccuped 480 million times. 480 million times, said Chuck. Wish I got paid for every hiccough. It might be worth the hell if every hiccough that I ever had brought me a dollar bill. Then I'd weather this horror with a little more aplomb. But as it stands I spend most days screaming for my mom and cursing God and hating life and wondering how on earth I married me a wife. Perhaps she found my hiccups rather sexy. Cause she spent 40 years sitting right next to me. Now, if you went upstairs and snuck right into my bedroom, you'd probably ask me all about that crazy pig costume. I'm sure you're disturbed and your mind is surely reeling. You saw those ropes and chains all hanging from the ceiling. Blame it on my wife. She tells me what to do. She said it's her way of trying to get the hiccups, too. She wants to be my partner. She wants us the same. So she came up with that pig hanging game. You guys know about the old folk remedy for this, right? Your grandparents probably told you about it, or your uncle. Or maybe your brothers and sisters told you about it. You know the folk remedy where you just scare the person and all of a sudden their hiccups stop? We all know that. We've heard about that all our lives. You just scare the person with the hiccups, and their hiccups go away. I've done that hundreds of times. They figure it likely works by forcing a deep, sharp intake of breath that resets the diaphragm. They're not entirely sure, but that's the guess. Well, poor Chuck Osborne had almost everyone in his life at different times trying to scare the hell out of him. Sometimes up to 20 or more times a day. People from the town in Iowa where he lived. People from neighboring farms, relatives, other family members. Wherever Chuck went, people tried to scare the hell out of him. His whole life for 68 years, he put up with that. So the hiccups were only part of the problem. There was the lifetime of endlessly being frightened and scared and shocked and startled. That actually was worse. He'd go into a restroom, turn on a light, and find a pig carcass hanging from the ceiling. Or he'd go put on his pajamas at night in his bedroom. And his wife would leap out in a Freddy Krueger mask or something. Or his kids would tell him to come to their bedrooms and they'd throw a live python at his chest. Guys in town would hide in the backseat of his car and then jump up and grab his throat when he climbed into the driver's seat. The pharmacist would jump over the counter with an axe, chasing him through the town. It's a hard, hard life when you're Chuck Osborne. What's the good news? God. God says, chuck, you're Gonna Live to be 97. That's a good long run. What's the bad news? God, 68 of those years, you're gonna have the hiccups and have everyone you know trying to scare the hell out of you. But then one day. One day, Chuck. One day, one day, the hiccups will stop. Inexplicably, one February day in 1990, the hiccups will suddenly cease. You'll be 96 years old, Chuck. A burst of sunlight will come through the clouds. The sky will turn a magnificent blue. The birds will begin to sing. A rainbow will form. A choir of angels will sing in the sky. And you'll crack a cold one, Chuck. You'll crack a cold beer. You'll sit down, you'll take a sip, and you'll say, boy, was that weird. Were those 68 years unusual? Wow, that was certainly odd. And then your neighbor will yell, hey, Chuck, can you come help me? I got a pig I need to weigh. What are the odds of it happening a second time? Chuck, come on, help me weigh this pig. Bring your wife and the pig costume. The problem, though, when Chuck turned 96 and his hiccup stopped, one guy in town would not quit trying to scare Chuck. He had been scaring Chuck for decades, and he just enjoyed it too much to stop. So Chuck still spent the last year having a guy in a bear costume jump out of a hayloft when he was in his barn. Or Chuck would wake up to a live toad on his chin. He didn't really get the peace at the end that he might have. People would tell this guy Larry, hey, leave Chuck alone. He doesn't have the hiccups anymore. And Larry would say, I didn't even know Chuck had hiccups. No one ever told me. I just saw everybody scaring him and joined in. And it's been so damn much fun over the years. I'm going to keep doing it. I don't care what you guys say. Quit if you want to. I got about six other gags I haven't even tried out. Chuck, how long you gonna live. At American Pressure? They know no two businesses are alike. If you use industrial pressure washers at your workplace, you're probably using them in a different way from the three other people down the road. American Pressure wants you to consider that there's a better way to make a pressure washer system. Supercharge your production, simplify your workflow, expedite the process. American Pressure has a team that can show you the difference. With the setup they could create at your workplace. They're absolute pros. They can dive into your current setup, get a handle on what your goals are, and they can create a customized system that fits you better than what you have now. From full turnkey wash bays to factory installations with tailored solutions, they'll hook you up with everything you need and train your people on how to work it. Afterward, you'll say, why didn't I get a hold of these guys a couple years ago? It happens all the time. Make a phone call first. Find out if what I'm saying is possible. Talk to the people at American Pressure. They answer their phones. They're in Robbinsdale. They've been around since pressure washers have been around, and there's no one better. American Pressure Join me, John Randall, at the North American Banking Company Minnesota Golf Show, February 13th through the 15th. It's your chance to try out the newest clubs and equipment from the biggest names in golf. Improve your game with free lessons and clinics from PGA pros. And when you're done, relax at the 19th Hole Lounge with your favorite post round beverage. The $100,000 putt is presented by MSP Plumbing Heating Air committed to your comfort since 1918. Well well, welly welly well well. It's still free brewery over at Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing Heating and Air. Free brewery means you have a chance to win a free furnace. What do you have to do to win a free furnace? Do what you should have done earlier in the winter anyway. Get a $49 furnace tune up. Wake up and smell the coffee out there. Why aren't you getting tune ups regularly? It doesn't cost money. It saves you money. But you haven't figured that out yet. You've been too busy looking on your phone doom scrolling. Now this is your chance to enter to win a free furnace. You know how much furnaces are? Go get yourself a free furnace camper. Danny, are you nuts? All you got to do is get a $49 tune up and you enter to win a free Furnace from Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing Heating and Air. But this is only in February. That's both the good news and bad. The bad news is in March you'll think about this. It'll be too late. The good news is when it's this short of a period of time, not that many people are going to enter. You have a good chance of winning. Minneapolis St. Paul Plumbing Heating and Air earn a chance to get a free furnace. Well, I think it's time to spin the big listener wheel and find out who we can call. A lot of people have Put their name on the list, willing to take a phone call from old mishk, and I spin the big wheel, see where it lands, and I give somebody a call. I thought of something recently, though. Let me pause here. Before spinning the big wheel, I thought of a new way listeners could contact the program. Sure, we'll hang on to this approach of me calling you, but listen to my new plan. Listen to his new plan. What's he saying, Bob? I don't know. He's got some idea. This will be interesting. Listen up. I want to hear it say you want to call the program. You know, the way you would if I was a talk radio host. You want to call the program, but you say, wait a minute, I can't. Well, how about a workaround? You text me. Yes, you text me at 651-A-321-8949. That's a 651-A-321-8549. And much like with a call screener in talk radio, you say in the text what you want to talk about. Yeah, yeah. Right there in your text is what you want to talk about. It's like you're telling the call screener in the old talk radio days, and then the call screener either puts you up or he doesn't put you up. The call screener in this case would be me. I either make a call to you to talk about that or I don't. I don't know. Depends on how I'll be feeling. But suddenly we're talking about what you want to talk about. It's more like you're calling me now. So this is a new thing I came up with. Again, if you have wanted to call the program, but you say to yourself, I can't call the program. Mishke has turned it around where he calls me. I say, text me, as if you're talking to a call screener I'd like to talk to Mishke about. And if the call screener puts you through, I'll give you a ring. Is this brilliant or what? It's a way I figured out to get what you want to talk about on the program instead of it always being what I want to talk about. I'm just a guy. I'm not the arbiter of what's good to talk about and what isn't. Of course, I will be making that decision based on what I read on your text. 651321, 8949. In the meantime, back to the listener wheel. Let's spin it and see where it lands. Tracy. Let's give a call to Tracy's home. Wonder if she's all alone. I'm going to go call Tracy's home. I hope she answers the phone. Hello? Well, hello, Tracy.

[C]

Hey, Mishky. How you doing?

[A]

I'm Super D. Duper, as Barney, the purple dinosaur used to say. How about you?

[C]

Doing great. Really Better after you calling.

[A]

That makes me feel good that just a call can make you feel great. I mean, if I thought that was true with everyone. That's all I'd do every day, is call people.

[C]

Well, isn't that kind of what you do?

[A]

Might be. I haven't really analyzed my job.

[C]

I've analyzed your job over, I don't know, 30 years that I've listened to you. Now I put my little boy to bed. I'd go in the bedroom. And my wonderful husband would allow me to turn you on in the dark.

[A]

He'd allow you to turn me on in the dark?

[C]

Well, I don't know. Maybe you're one of my hall passes. I don't know. I thought it was John Cusack, but he's kind of unattainable.

[A]

John Cusack, wow. I get in line behind John.

[C]

He was in town here in August at the Uptown Theater. I really wanted tickets to see him. And I wanted to find out where he was staying. Because I was going to show up with nothing but a smile.

[A]

And your husband was okay with that as well? I'd sure like to hang.

[C]

Yeah. Don Kusak is my definite hall pass. He's still playing Olivia Newton John.

[A]

But your husband has Olivia Newton John for his hall pass.

[C]

That's all he's ever talked about. Have you never been mellow? He had the poster on his wall. He would listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he was looking at her.

[A]

He was listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, but looking at a poster of Olivia Newton John?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

What do you do with your life?

[C]

I'm disabled. I can't drive anymore.

[A]

I like to say, differently abled.

[C]

There you go. That's what I am, Differently abled.

[A]

Because what I like about that is it acknowledges that you are different. No, I'm kidding. It doesn't.

[C]

I've listened to you for 30 years, and you think I'm not different?

[A]

What's your disability?

[C]

I have several disabilities. Not the least of which is mental health issues, depression and anxiety.

[A]

That depression is just screaming through the phone on this call. Right through all your laughter.

[C]

Really?

[A]

I'm kidding. I can't tell you're depressed.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[A]

I had a guy call me up when I was dealing with depression one time. He was a quadriplegic and he called me up to cheer me up. He thought, you could cheer up a clinically depressed person simply by calling him and saying, hey, look at me, I'm a quadriplegic and I'm happy.

[C]

One time when I was on my way to the emergency mental health hospital because I couldn't stop crying, my cousin called me. She called me and she said, I know how you can stop crying. Put on mascara and then you won't cry.

[A]

Maybe if you're crying, you're crying for a reason and you should keep crying until you're done crying. I mean, why would anybody ever tell you to stop crying?

[C]

Yes, that's what we do in the West. I'm sorry to get really dark here, but I lost my son 19 years ago, okay? And I watch True Crime and I hate it when these parents come on and talk about their poor murdered child and they start to cry and they look at the producers and they go, I'm sorry. You have a damn good reason to cry. You don't have to apologize to me.

[A]

That's a good point. Sorry to hear about your son. 19 years ago would have put him at what age?

[C]

He was 17 and a half.

[A]

Lord have mercy, that is young. What do you think was the best thing you did for yourself in the ensuing years that helped you with that pain? Because some people, and I mean this, would have just wanted to hurl themself off a building roof.

[C]

I wanted to do that. Yeah. Everybody says it takes time and that's such a stupid thing to say, but it's true. I was seeing a grief therapist at the time and she kept telling me, when it hits the two year mark, you'll feel better. And I thought she had 12 heads because I felt so awful. But right around the two year mark, I started to think to myself, not oh my God, he's gone, but oh my God. I had an opportunity to know that boy. And I had a real struggle getting back together with God. And that's a real long story. But I finally realized my son was very emotionally handicapped. He also had a high IQ and was brilliant. I finally realized that God entrusted that fragile soul to me for as long as he could stay.

[A]

I'm assuming based on what you're saying, he took his own life.

[C]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It was an accidental overdose.

[A]

Accidental overdose.

[C]

I confronted him the night that it happened about suicide and he went on a rant about how he thought anyone who committed suicide was a coward, that it was an easy way out, and that he would never do that.

[A]

You had this conversation with him the night he died of a drug overdose?

[C]

Yes, I did. And then at the end of his rant, he paused and he looked at me and he said, besides, I could never do that to you, Mom. And we told each other we loved each other, and we hugged.

[A]

And he really just didn't know what he was doing with those drugs. Huh.

[C]

Well, he was manic at the time. He had been awake for five straight days. He was under the care of a psychiatrist and a therapist. And I had told that psychiatrist in every way I could about his mania. A day before Matt died, Matt walked to the library and came home with a grocery bag full of books, claiming he was going to read it before the end of the summer. Now, this was the 4th of July. He thought he was in a place of grandeur. He thought he could do anything. And we knew that was going on, and I had told every doctor I could. I wish we would have taken him to the hospital, but we just weren't wise enough.

[A]

So I'm assuming, and sorry to keep assuming things. I'm assuming he was diagnosed bipolar.

[C]

He was diagnosed depressed.

[A]

Well, he was in a manic. He was in a manic phase, though. That sounds like the other end.

[C]

And he'd been in manic phase many other times. He was never diagnosed as bipolar. And he was also on an antidepressant called Wellbutrin, which is great for depression, but if you have mania, it'll shoot it way up.

[A]

Boy, they missed that one.

[C]

Of course, this is all hindsight 20 20. We did not know that at the time.

[A]

Yeah, the thing about bipolar is, outside of schizophrenia, one of the toughest mental illnesses to treat and really makes depression look like a picnic. And that's coming from someone who has suffered with depression. Bipolar, the complexities involved in treating that and the ways in which the treatment can leave you where you don't have the manic or the depression, but you also don't feel great.

[C]

And then you have to add to it. He was 17 and a half years old, so his hormones were raging, and he thought he knew everything.

[A]

He thought he did for sure in the manic state.

[C]

Oh, yeah. I blame myself for this because unbeknownst to me, he was taking my medication. I did have a drug safe, but I had just bought it, so it didn't occur to me to put it in the safe. I Later found out from my daughter that he already knew the combination to the safe. But I am convinced that if it didn't happen that night, it would have happened another time. And my husband said immediately as he was sitting in the grass and they were inside checking the crime scene, he looked at me and he said, well, Lisi didn't take anyone else out. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, he could have been driving.

[A]

Well, that is a wild glass half full attempt there.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

How many kids did you have?

[C]

2. I have a daughter who is going to be 29 this year.

[A]

How did she come through it?

[C]

Not good. She was only 10 years old at the time.

[A]

Oh boy.

[C]

When she loses her brother suddenly like that, she basically loses her parents for a little while. It's unavoidable.

[A]

Did she ever in her life go to therapy?

[C]

She was in and out of hospital. She attempted suicide.

[A]

She attempted suicide a few years later after your son.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That would be for you absolutely terrifying.

[C]

Having already gone through was absolutely terrifying.

[A]

And was that her one and only attempt? She got help after that.

[C]

She was a cutter. We were in and out of different hospitals up until she hit her junior year.

[A]

So how would you describe her today in terms of her well being?

[C]

She's extremely guarded about anybody and everyone. And she's had three bad relationships, one of which was a guy who was basically friends with benefits. And she told him that and then he committed suicide. And then some jerk came and told her, oh, he was upset because you wouldn't be his girlfriend.

[A]

Man, the amount of pain that swirls around in some circles.

[C]

I know. And you know, Mishke, the thing that moves me every day. You don't know how many times I look up at God and I say thank you so much because things could be so much worse.

[A]

Couldn't you say things could be worse for pretty much everything except the single worst thing that could ever happen to somebody.

[C]

When we went to Grief Grove a week after my son died, there were two stories. One was a woman who had lost two of her three children to cancer. And she had lost her first husband, who was the father of all these children. While she was going to grave group for her husband's death, she met her second husband. And then a few years later, he slowly died of cancer. Okay, that's one story. The other story is a couple came up to us and they said, it's so matter of factly, they said our daughter was murdered in Texas and found in the trunk of a car. And we went to the X ray Execution of the man who did it.

[A]

I like to think that my show is here to cheer people up twice a week.

[C]

I'm so sorry. I knew. I'm.

[A]

I'm kidding. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm kidding.

[C]

I guess I'm just trying to teach people that when they get cut off in traffic and get so angry, things could be so much worse.

[A]

I always reach for the Holocaust myself.

[C]

That's an obvious one.

[A]

Well, the reason I go for that one is because I just don't think you can get much worse than that. I like to reach for the really, really bad ones that seem quite far removed from the current state of suffering I'm in. I bet on that one. You didn't have many guys in the camp saying, cheer up there, Morty.

[C]

Things could be worse.

[A]

If someone said that to me, and I'm Morty, I'm going to have to hit the guy.

[C]

I'm going to remind you of young Frankenstein. As they're digging the grave, Gene Wilder says, oh my God, this is awful work. This is awful work. Igor says, it could be worse. It could be raining.

[A]

As we continue to try and cheer up the listeners. You know what I thought was the story that was most effective in. In creating a sense in me of the abject horror of a concentration camp. I was a young guy and I was reading a story about a couple of people in a concentration camp, starving, being worked to death, emaciated. They were in their bunks and one of them had fallen asleep and was having just a God awful nightmare, a horrible nightmare. One of those nightmares that you can tell someone is having by how they're reacting in their sleep. And it's just misery. You have to wake them and give them a respite from this horror show they're experiencing. Well, he was going to wake the guy up and then it all of a sudden hit him. What could be worse than what he wakes up to let him have the nightmare. When I heard that story as a young guy, I think I thought about that for about two months straight. That was the worst story I had ever heard.

[C]

But there was grace in that story. The guy decided not to wake him up, right?

[A]

Because he said, it could be worse.

[C]

That's grace. That's called grace.

[A]

There's another thing I used to hear some old guys say when I was a kid. Old guys in the neighborhood, and it was different than it could be worse. This is what they used to say when all hell is breaking loose. They used to say, well, it can only get Better. In other words, it already was as bad as it could possibly be. And it's that that was cheering them up. They were cheered up by the fact that it was as bad as it could ever be. Now, if that can cheer you up, if you're actually cheered up by the fact that it could not be worse, well, then anything can cheer you up.

[C]

I love you, Mishke.

[A]

I wonder what the most wonderful day in the life of your husband was. I have a sneaking suspicion what it ties into the whole dream thing. Except his dream was on the other end of the spectrum. He was in a long nine hour slumber. A winter evening. The two of you were sleeping next to each other. And he had the most marvelous, marvelous dream. There was Olivia dressed like she was dressed in Greece, coming up to him and saying, hello, stud. Let's get physical. Physical. Let's get physical. And then you woke him. You woke him from that dream.

[C]

Yeah. Probably by snoring or something. Yep.

[A]

And he said, you're snoring. And you woke me from the most beautiful dream I've ever had in my life. And you know what you said to him? You said, it could be worse.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

And he went back to sleep. And Olivia Newton John was replaced by Bea Arthur. It wasn't quite as fun a dream after that. All right, Tracy, lovely visiting with you.

[C]

I love you, Mishki. And if you want to call again, feel free.

[A]

I love you, too. You be well.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Bye. Bye.

[C]

Bye.

[A]

Your mother asks you the same question four times in an hour. Or maybe your spouse can't remember where he or she parked, then can't remember that he or she even drove. This is happening at the Wellshire Memory Care center in Bloomington and Medina. A resident named Frank still laughs at terrible jokes. A woman named Marie still hums while she folds her laundry. Tom still knows every word to Sinatra. They don't make promises about stopping time at the Wellshire. They don't make promises about bringing anyone back. They're not in that business at the Wellshire. They're in the business of today. Today. Making sure it's clean, safe. That it doesn't feel like a hospital. That it's enjoyable. That there's laughter, that there's pleasure, that there's music, that there's engagement. Professional care from people who actually know what they're doing. Because this is all they study. Memory care. Their facility is for nothing else. The Wellshire Memory Care center of Medina and Bloomington. No, you can't fix this problem, but you can make one decent decision about it. That'll make it far less of a problem. Well folks, I'd like to pause here to mention that it is February and I began at Hubbard Broadcasting in February with this latest incarnation. This particular podcast began in February of last year. So I have put in a year here with the Hubbards after putting in many years years ago, one year in I have to say it feels more like the old radio days than ever in so many ways. I come down the same road to this same old building on University Avenue. I come into the old Outpost, this old studio here that looks nothing like any of the other studios that surround me. Whether the studio where Garage Logic is put together, or KS95 across the hall, or Score north and all their sports programming, or my talk a studio I can see down the hall, their on air light illuminated right now. No, I'm in the old Outpost. I wish I could show it to you. It's a lovely little studio at the far end of a dead end hallway. The walls are covered in old newspaper headlines, actual newspapers from the last 75 to a hundred years. I've got an old Philco radio, an old coat rack, an old fashioned telephone for making my calls. Looks just like the telephones from when I arrived here back in the early 90s. I've put in a year here at the old Outpost. People say to me sometimes, why do you hang out in the old Outpost? Why do you hang out in that old beat up studio? Well, the other ones have cameras. They're for people who like video as well. So much of this podcast world has gone to video. I rejected that from the get go. They talked to me about having video for my podcast and I thought, why the devil would I ever want that? Who wants to stare at this show? You should listen to it while you get something else done. Either trying to get to sleep at night or getting some laundry out of the way, or working in your garage, taking your dog for a walk, driving down the road. Always try to do something else while you listen. That's what this was always intended for. For my first days in radio, I always hoped people would listen while they're doing something else. Don't waste all your time just sitting in front of this thing. Get something done. Enjoy yourself in some other way. So if the show is awful, you haven't completely wasted your time. No, I didn't want cameras. I said give me the old Outpost. Give me that beat up studio right there that hardly gets used. Let me make it feel homey. I'm gonna be in here a lot. I want it to feel like the old days, and it does. So I've put in a year here with this podcast and I'm finally, finally fully comfortable here, I think. Took a while. The brain is a kind of muscle, and it hadn't been worked in the way I've needed it to work for this show in a long time. I'd have to go back to my CCO days a dozen years ago to get back to a time when I was working my brain like I have to work it for this show. So it took a while to get that muscle back in action. The first few months, I was only doing one show a week. Then when I got the muscle working a little bit there, I added a second show a week. Now, for over half a year, I've had that second show and I'm finally now settling in to the rhythm, the rhythm of it all. One year in here at Hubbard Broadcasting, I feel at home. I leave the little station here, take my quiet little back road to that same old house I was living in in the old days. It all feels so familiar. Walking these same old hallways, wandering out to my car under that giant transmitter tower. There's something kind of bittersweet two about knowing this is it. This is where the whole career wraps up. This is probably the last gig. This is where I finish it all, whatever that thing was that started with Don Vogel on a June day in 1992. So I continue on, beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. That's a little line I came up with. People say Fitzgerald wrote it. I don't know what they're talking about. Great Gansby. Who the hell's that? No, I beat on boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. And I do so with you for company. I want to thank you all for sticking with me this past year, and I hope I continue to produce the kind of work that makes you want to stay with me another year. If you leave, it's my fault. I didn't give you something that made you stick around. For those of you that do stick around, let's make this last run something to remember, shall we, for just a little while. If you want to get a hold of the program, you can email me mishkebard radio.com that's mishkebardradio.com if you want to text the program or leave a voice message. 651-3218-949651-32189. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you again next time.