Podcast Summary: Holmberg's Morning Sickness – December 8, 2025

Episode Theme:
A blend of darkly comic news, social commentary, and personal anecdotes anchored around medical mishaps, viral racism at Cinnabon, and a rant against modern conservation efforts. John Holmberg and his crew tackle odd and unsettling headlines with irreverence, discuss implications for transplant recipients, examine an incident of open racism in Wisconsin, and vent frustration about environmental policies in the shadow of global pollution.

Key Discussion Points & Segments

1. The Rabies-Infected Kidney Transplant

[04:02 – 17:35]

• Background: John brings up a recent news story he found while researching kidney health due to Brady's kidney issues.

• Story Details:

  • A patient received a long-awaited kidney transplant from a young, seemingly healthy car crash victim.
  • The donor kidney was unknowingly infected with rabies, leading to the recipient contracting rabies and dying 51 days after the surgery.
  • The donor had likely been bitten by wildlife, possibly while rescuing a raccoon, a detail the team mockingly fixates on.

• Morbid Humor and Organ Donation:

  • John and the team riff on the "grim waiting game" of organ transplant lists, joking about rooting for healthy accident victims.
  • Quote (John, 05:04):
    “All Brady’s doing when he gets cleared is rooting for people to die in car wrecks so he can get himself a kidney. That’s basically what people… deep down, that’s not what they talk about but…”
  • Mocked Scene: John envisions Brady as a “kidney fisherman” causing accidents to up his transplant chances.
  • The group jokes about inspecting donor bodies for bite marks, the future of 3D-printed kidneys, and the melancholy of waiting for "prime" organs.

• Transplant Realities:

  • Discussion on the logistics and ethics of transplants, including age-matching for organs, the perils of animal contact, and dark speculations about how donors become eligible.
  • Quote (John, 16:18):
    “They don’t have like a fridge full of frozen kidneys… That stuff’s gotta go right from the warmth of the corpse into the warmth of you.”

• Brady’s Childhood With Wild Animals:

  • Comically, Brady admits to keeping a pet raccoon as a child, narrowly avoiding rabies, further fueling their riffs on wildlife and disease.

2. Viral Racist Cinnabon Worker Incident

[19:18 – 37:12]

• Incident Overview:

  • The crew addresses the viral video from Wisconsin where a Cinnabon worker openly called Somalian customers the N-word multiple times and admitted to being racist during a confrontation.

• Lingering Questions:

  • John questions how such an interaction escalated from "Hi, welcome to Cinnabon" to repeated racial slurs, poking fun at Midwestern culture and customer interactions.
  • The show notes the victims kept their Cinnabon despite the abuse, debating the allure and power of the pastry.

• Comedy Through Absurdity:

  • Jokes about what would make someone keep eating after egregious behavior, the “N-word bun” versus the regular bun, and speculations about what happened off-camera.
  • Quote (John, 20:36):
    “The people recording that were getting called the N-word, they hung onto that Cinnabon for dear life… I’m more interested in the dude—never once did he put the package back.”

• Riffing on Racism in Service:

  • John and friends reflect on the layers of hidden racism in the service industry, how it surfaces, and absurd “solutions” for hiring processes (opposite-race antagonistic interviews, SNL callbacks).
  • Quote (John, 26:26):
    “I think all job interviews for low-level positions should be done by someone of the opposite race… Just see what she says.”

• The Power of Cinnabon:

  • They muse on whether the pastry’s taste would make people endure anything and compare it to other instances of problematic brands (e.g., Chick-fil-A).

3. Conservation, Global Pollution, and Rage Against the "Stop-Start" Engine

[42:08 – 47:54]

• Turn Against Environmentalism:

  • John shares a video he watched about Indian cities dumping trash directly into rivers, marveling at the massive scale and futility of individual conservation efforts.
  • Cites the “stop-start” feature in his Jeep—meant to reduce emissions—as symbolic of misguided, local environmental policy versus unchecked global pollution.

• Philosophical Turn:

  • Declares he is “done with conserving,” vowing to start openly littering to protest the futility.
  • Quote (John, 42:33):
    “If all of us were on the same page with the environmental stuff, we wouldn’t make a dent in what India and China are doing over there.”

• Mock Solutions and Political Rants:

  • Dreams up executive orders against minor green features, openly mocks “hippie granola” types, and envisions becoming the Valley’s premier litterbug.

4. Notable Segues and Comic Bits

Throughout Episode

• Miles to Nowhere Theme Song:

  • Praise for their show’s theme band, comedic riff on local band culture.

• Odd Celebrity News:

  • Brief aside on Richard Gere’s 20-year Oscar ban for speaking on Tibet, comparing it to Will Smith’s 10-year ban after his infamous slap.
  • Joking about celebrity speeches, Hollywood hypocrisy, and John’s dad pretending to be Jewish to dodge Vietnam service.

• Memorable Analogies and Recurring Bits:

  • Comparison of organ donation to Hollywood casting: “It’s like getting roles in Hollywood. They’re hard to get, and you’re really shooting for a few good ones.” [05:00]
  • Comparison of animal rescue to Disney movies, sardonic about helping wildlife and “stewing up” roadkill. [12:17]
  • Bright, irreverent group dynamic, riffing on sports lookalikes, local real estate, and menu debates (the “perfect” Cinnabon).

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Kidney Transplants:

  • “I demand teen kidneys.” – John, [12:28]
  • “So if you get to that point in a year and a half… go inspect the body is what I’m saying. Put a little Ed Gein move and just go, what are these bite marks? I don’t want this one.” – John, [07:55]

• On the Cinnabon Incident:

  • “How bad did that transaction go that it turned into that? All the dude wanted was a toasty cinnamon bun.” – John, [19:39]
  • “That’s how good Cinnabon is: a racist called you the N-word eight times, and you kept it.” – John, [22:08]

• On Conservation Futility:

  • “If I have it in the car, it’s going out the window on the freeway. Just watch out behind you. Ridiculous. And that’ll open some eyes.” – John, [42:40]
  • “330 million Americans all doing the exact right thing for the environment aren’t going to do anything as long as India is still a thing.” – John, [45:47]

Other Memorable Moments

• [09:14] – Imagined dialogue of Brady trolling hospital wards for transplant candidates.
• [37:12] – Jokes about trading racial slurs for free Cinnabon as social commentary.
• [47:42] – Decides to become an “open litterbug” as a protest against automotive stop/start features.

Overall Tone & Style

• Sharp, irreverent, and darkly comic, with frequent veers into gallows humor.
• Willingness to lampoon personal faults, societal tragedies, and systemic absurdities, offering biting satire as much as insight.
• Direct, conversational, often triggering belly laughs through outlandish hypotheticals and taboo-breaking.
• Underpinning the humor is a genuine curiosity about the world’s weirdness and a skepticism of easy answers.

Episode Takeaways

• Transplant realities are way more morbid and comedic than most know.
• Racism can appear in the most mundane places—and even then, the lure of Cinnabon might trump self-respect.
• Local conservation can seem laughably futile in the face of global pollution, sparking personal protests and rants.
• Holmberg’s Morning Sickness shines at finding unsettling truths amid everyday absurdities—and making sure everyone laughs, even if uncomfortably, along the way.