Aubrey Gordon, Jean Grae, and Rogê

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank – Episode Summary
Aubrey Gordon, Jean Grae, and Rogê
Aired: August 29, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this lively late-night-for-radio episode of Live Wire, host Luke Burbank guides us through a multi-segment show featuring conversations with acclaimed writer and podcaster Aubrey Gordon (Maintenance Phase), multi-talented artist and memoirist Jean Grae, and a musical performance by Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian singer Rogê (Hoshe). The episode centers on busting myths in health and wellness, reclaiming authenticity in life and death, and connecting with culture through music.

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Key Segments & Discussion Highlights

1. “Best News We Heard All Week”

[03:20–08:25]

Hosts: Luke Burbank, Elena Passarello, Jean Grae

• Grace Chambers, the 97-year-old park runner ([03:50])

  • Celebrated for completing her 250th 5K parkrun in Belfast, starting at age 88 post-surgery. Her resilience (“You got me this new valve. I guess I gotta go test it out.”) and the dedication of a bench in her honor were highlighted.

• The Dad Letter Project ([06:14])

  • Rosie Pollock revived her father Buzz’s hobby of letter-writing, spawning a viral letter-writing campaign where Buzz and other volunteers pen heartfelt, personalized notes to strangers (“He claims that he never gets tired of writing, but if he's sort of getting burnt out...he will get up the next day and pick the letter up where he left off because he's not phoning...he's really giving these things his best shot.” – [08:25], Luke Burbank).

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2. Aubrey Gordon: Debunking Wellness Myths

[09:45–27:28]

Guest: Aubrey Gordon

Podcast Origins and Mission ([10:29–14:30])

• Maintenance Phase is about “debunking junk science claims...in the name of weight loss, wellness writ large, and sometimes public health.” ([10:29], Aubrey Gordon)
• The show’s origin story included a pandemic-formed partnership between Gordon and journalist Michael Hobbs, both holding "low tolerance for nonsense" as their prime qualification. ([11:26])
• The necessity of fact-checking in health and wellness media, which is often missing compared to political or breaking news.
  • “Health and wellness, along with historically women's media, is often a place where fact-checking takes a real backseat...most of our 'science' comes from advertising.” ([12:31], Aubrey Gordon)

The Deep Dives ([16:23–17:18])

• Gordon describes immersive research for episodes: “This will have been a month on full-time research on Bulletproof Coffee...I wouldn't have thought that there was four weeks worth of research to do.”

GLP-1 Drugs & Wellness Fads ([17:18–22:25])

• On drugs like Ozempic/sema-glutide:
  • “The biggest issue is...there is infinitely more demand than supply for the actual molecule that is Ozempic. Novo Nordisk owns that molecule...So lots of places are saying that they're selling compounded semaglutide. Baby. We don't know what that is, but it's not Semaglutide.” ([18:37], Aubrey Gordon)
  • Critique of media and pharmaceutical hype, lack of access for diabetic patients, and dubious compounded substitutes.
  • Raises body image and fatphobia issues: “We don't actually care how much people weigh. We care about watching fat people suffer.” ([20:56], Aubrey Gordon)
  • Notes shifting goalposts around “acceptable” weight loss and societal schadenfreude around fat bodies.

Blue Zones Debunked ([23:03–25:58])

• Gordon on “Blue Zones”:
  • "The idea was to map out all the places...where people were living past 100 years," but some zones were debunked, with instances of pension fraud.
  • “...a lot of these places had relatively low life expectancies and were pretty poor areas...it just is a really tricky thing where you can go, sure, we can look at centenarians...or we can look at the massive body of research that we have on how to increase life expectancies overall.” ([24:38], Aubrey Gordon)

Gordon’s Personal “North Star” ([25:58–27:19])

• “Focus on the joy of taking care of yourself…” and avoid health misinformation by “paying for every ad-free option—because that's where just an overwhelming volume of garbage is...Ad-free YouTube, baby. It's the way to go.” ([26:53], Aubrey Gordon)

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3. Audience Participation: “How Would You Like to Be Celebrated After Your Death?”

[28:50–31:04]

Notable responses:

• “I want to be Weekend at Bernie’s to a Mariners game...prop me up, put some sunglasses on me, and let's see if we can fool the Jumbotron.” ([29:02], Jean Grae/Listener Brian)
• "All my loved ones have to adopt a pet from the animal shelter and name it after me." ([29:48], Jean Grae/Listener Danielle)
• “I want everyone to take a book off of my bookshelf and read it and hopefully keep it...” ([30:37], Jean Grae/Listener Anne)

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4. Jean Grae: “In My Remaining Years”

[32:25–43:58]

Guest: Jean Grae

• From her unpredictable childhood as a musician's daughter in the Chelsea Hotel (“It's your home no matter what it is...it gives you an understanding of how to deal with darkness real quick, that it doesn't have to be ever consuming, and that death is kind of a part...an inevitable part of life.” [36:02])
• Journey to hip-hop: originally focusing on production; rapping came after competitive encouragement—“My friend was like, you can definitely do it better than that. ...It was kind of a middle finger to all of that.” ([37:14], Jean Grae)
• The art of audiobook narration: “I had to write the book so that I could narrate the book...the audiobook narrating it was one of my greatest joys.” ([39:07], Jean Grae)
• The “Church of the Infinite You”: a self-empowerment project encouraging people to "find their superhero self...I hope that you come...that you don't come back...we are all here to save ourselves first and that is how we build bigger community.” ([39:52], Jean Grae)
• On her funeral wishes (from the book’s finale):
  • “No beatboxing and no gum chewing” (the former to be policed by “sharpshooters”), because “gum chewing could be mistaken for the beatboxing...the funeral should really be about me and not things that other people have ever wanted for me.” ([41:47]–[43:09], Jean Grae)
  • Vulnerability around death is “how we get to the real living of the life.”

Memorable Quotes

• “You know what it looks like to eat well...focus on the joy of taking care of yourself.” ([26:14], Aubrey Gordon)
• “That funeral should really be about me...especially on what I think is my most special day. I have had two weddings. They were not my most special days. But my funeral should really be about me.” ([42:16], Jean Grae)

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5. Rogê (Hoshe): Musical Performance

[46:39–51:19]

• Rogê discusses his passion for Bahia, Brazil, and introduces “Alienda do Abayetea,” a song about a mystical lake in Bahia, originally by Dorival Caymmi. ([46:42])
• Performance captures the mysticism and warmth of Bahian culture: “Abayete is a black lake with white sand around.”
• Energetic live set, highlighting his ongoing efforts to celebrate and modernize Brazilian cultural sounds.

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Notable Moments

• Aubrey Gordon’s “Beanfluencer” Keychain ([23:12]): “I love beans. I have a keychain that says Beanfluencer on it.”
• The perils of media advertising as a primary source of health info ([12:31], Aubrey Gordon).
• Jean Grae’s irreverent approach to memoir, audio, and self-determined ritual.
• Livewire’s welcoming, freewheeling audience rapport—laughter, real talk, and community.

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:20 — Best News: Parkrun & Dad Letter Project
• 09:45 — Aubrey Gordon interview begins
• 17:18 — Deep dive on weight loss drugs
• 23:03 — Blue Zones myth-busting
• 25:58 — Gordon on living well amid misinformation
• 28:50 — Audience question: posthumous celebration
• 32:25 — Jean Grae interview begins
• 37:14 — Grae’s music & production journey
• 39:52 — Church of the Infinite You
• 41:47 — Funeral instructions & meaning
• 46:39 — Rogê introduces/plays “Alienda do Abayetea”

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Tone & Takeaways

Live Wire’s tone is urbane, witty, and dryly compassionate—skewering diet culture and empty platitudes, while elevating joy, delight in music and beans, and the imperative to live truthfully. With sharp commentary and doses of absurd humor, the episode demystifies wellness fads, welcomes authentic self-celebration in life and death, and offers cultural connection through international music.

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For Further Listening & Reading

• Aubrey Gordon's podcast: Maintenance Phase
• Jean Grae’s memoir: In My Remaining Years
• Rogê’s music: Album Curryman 2

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Selected Quotes

• “We don’t actually care how much people weigh. We care about watching fat people suffer.” —Aubrey Gordon ([20:56])
• “My funeral should really be about me...and not things that other people have ever wanted for me.” —Jean Grae ([42:16])
• “Focus on the joy of taking care of yourself.” —Aubrey Gordon ([26:14])

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(Ads, show credits, and sponsor messages have been omitted for clarity as requested.)

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey there. Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we are talking to Aubrey Gordon, host of the podcast Maintenance Phase, which debunks health and wellness claims that are kind of questionable. And boy, does she have her work cut out for her these days. We're gonna talk about the Blue Zone diet. Also Semaglutide. Those are like Ozempic. And why you might wanna think twice before taking any medication that says it's a miracle drug. Then we are gonna talk to the writer and former Jean Grey about her new memoir, In My Remaining Years. She talks about a whole bunch of stuff in this book, including her very specific wishes for her own funeral. Then we're gonna hear some music from Latin Grammy nominated hoshe. Look, I would like to promise you that this episode of Livewire will cure all of your problems, but legally I can't say that. I can tell you though, it's gonna be a great one. So stun. Hey, y'.

[Aubrey Gordon]

All.

[Luke Burbank]

Each week on the Sam Sanders show, we ask big questions and offer hot takes about the pop culture we're obsessed with. Like, should we be allowed to talk at the movie theater? Are stadium concerts boring now? Is it time to stop making bingeable tv? Join me and a bunch of comics and journalists and celebrities as we make sense of the zeitgeist, or at least make fun of it. The Sam Sanders show. Wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.

[Elena Passarello]

This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at o d o o dot com. That's o d o o dot com from PRX.

[Jean Grey]

It's LiveWire this week, writer and podcaster Aubrey Gordon.

[Aubrey Gordon]

While current events stuff might get a little bit more of a fact check, health and wellness, one would hope, right?

[Jean Grey]

Like, one would hope humorous Jean Grey.

[Elena Passarello]

It's very difficult and to be like, hey, is anyone else having to shoot a puppet show in their house in the middle of a pandemic?

[Jean Grey]

With music from Roger and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, thanks so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone. Tuning in all over America. We have a lot of show to get to this week, so we might as well get to it. Of course, first we gotta kick things off the way we always do with the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show that there is, in fact, some good news happening in the world. We find it for you, and we present it here on Livewire. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?

[Elena Passarello]

Okay.

[Jean Grey]

Luke Burbank. Have you ever heard of parkrun before? Not parkour, but parkrun? No, me neither, until I learned about this cool best news event. Parkrun is this kind of tradition that's about 20 years old where every Saturday in various parks around the planet, people get together and run a 5K. And you get your times and you log your times, and it's kind of a cool way to sort of be social. It's like a running club, but if you engage in it, you're called a park runner.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Jean Grey]

And this is happening in Zimbabwe, Australia, America, Denmark. But it started in England. And in Northern Ireland, there is a woman who is maybe the most famous park runner in Belfast. Her name is Grace Chambers. She just completed her 250th park run.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Jean Grey]

And she's 97 years old.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow. I know. 97.

[Jean Grey]

She's a retired teacher. She started doing park running when she was 88 after she had major invasive surgery. And a member of her rehab team was like, hey, there's this cool thing where we get together when we run 5Ks at the park. And she was like, all right, just give me a couple weeks. So she started doing it, and there have been a few obstacles. She's broken her leg. But park run was shut down during COVID She often runs with her daughter. She's made several close friends, and she's kind of walking around these park runs in and around Belfast with celebrity status. At one point, an Olympic gold medalist named Kelly Holmes came to run with her. And she was running alongside Grace Chambers. And Grace was like, stop talking to me. You're messing up my time. Earlier this year, she had a valve replacement heart surgery. She only took one week off. She told the doctor, well, you got me this new valve. I guess I gotta go test it out. And she was back in the park as soon as she could. And the. The sort of icing on the cake is recently, once she completed her 250th run, the Orion park in Belfast has dedicated a bench in her name. It says, this is Grace's bench. The park Runner extraordinaire. And if anybody ever asks me to do a park run, I will. Probably taking a rest on that bench.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Did I tell you the last time that I did a 5k was many years ago? And through a clerical error, I got entered in the over 70 category, which I then won. Hey. So then I called the guy who got second place in the over 70 category, and I was like, you are the true winner of this 5K. And he said, well, that's great. Would you like to run a marathon with me? And we did. The guy's name, John DiLoretto, and he and I trained for a marathon and did a marathon together.

[Jean Grey]

Get that guy a bench.

[Luke Burbank]

The best news that I heard all week takes us to Ohio, where a woman named Rosie Pollock was recently reflecting on her childhood and one particular part of her childhood, which is that her dad, a guy named Buzz, loved to write her letters. Throughout her life, her dad wrote her something like 3,500 letters or so. These would be, like, if she was off at summer camp or if they were separated for any reason. And then as she moved into young adulthood, he would write her letters to congratulate her on various milestones. He would tell her how it was going in his grad school program. He was getting his PhD from Antioch. Sometimes he would write her a letter to talk about his favorite sandwich at Subway.

[Jean Grey]

Huh.

[Luke Burbank]

And so a little while ago, Rosie, who now has children of her own, noticed that her dad, Buzz, was just kind of seemed a little off. You know, he had finally gotten that PhD. His life was kind of slowing down in the way that it does when, you know, you maybe get a little bit further into your life. And she had this idea, she thought maybe something that would help him kind of get his vim and vigor back would be to write letters again. And so she made a TikTok, of course, because this is what we do nowadays, and basically asked people on TikTok, would you like to get a letter from my dad? And, like, immediately, 1200 people said, yes, please.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

In fact, so many people wanted letters from Buzz that basically they created this dad letter project, and they were able to get, I think it's three additional dads to volunteer for duty.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

So they've got this team of dads now. If you go to their website, the website is the dad Letter Project. Just Google that. And you basically fill out a form kind of explaining, like, what's going on with you, what you'd like the subject matter to be of the dad letter. And then one of these dads will straight up write you a full on letter, address it to you, and put a stamp on it, which they pay for and send you a letter.

[Elena Passarello]

I love that.

[Jean Grey]

It's also not that project where you say, please write my dad a letter, right? And then the dad gets 250 letters from all over the world. It's so active. It's like my dad give my dad a project so that everybody can learn about what a cool guy he is.

[Luke Burbank]

And Buzz takes it very seriously. He claims that he never gets tired of writing, but if he's sort of getting bur out on a particular day, he will stop mid letter. He will go home, he will go to sleep, he will get up the next day and he will pick the letter up where he left off because he's not phoning. I mean, he's literally not phoning this in, but also he's really giving these things his best shot. So thousands of people having their lives improved by getting a letter from one of these dads. That is the best news that I heard all week. All right, let's get our first guest on over here. Speaking of writing. She's an amazing writer who's built her career busting questionable health claims and anti fat culture, which it turns out is still happening all over the place, unfortunately. But gosh darn it, Alaina, if she doesn't make this all very fun and interesting while she's at it. She's the author of two books, including the New York Times bestseller you just need to lose weight and 19 other myths about fat people. When she is not writing, she is one of the co hosts of the wildly popular podcast Maintenance phase. This is Aubrey Gordon, who joined us at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Hi, someone. Hello. Voices emerging from the darkness.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, all right, all right, all right. Okay. I've literally never gotten that response. Eleven years of doing the show. Well, that doesn't count. Aubrey, welcome back to Livewire.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Hi. Thanks for having me. What a treat.

[Luke Burbank]

I am such a fan of maintenance phase. It's so smart and engaging and fun. It's just like the perfect amount of every kind of a thing. I also, not to brag, I host a couple of our podcasts, and my least favorite question is when someone says, what is your podcast about? So I'll ask you, Aubrey Gordon, what is your podcast about?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Maintenance Phase is a podcast that is about debunking junk science claims that are often sort of trotted out in the name of weight loss, sort of wellness writ large, and sometimes public health. So that's what we do.

[Luke Burbank]

We're debunkers and you're not.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Thanks.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not running out of material, huh?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Not anytime soon. Not anytime soon. No. Wellness farms. We're not running out of content. You know what I mean? Like, we got all kinds of stuff to think and talk about. Plenty of stuff that we, I think probably would rather not have to talk about, but here we are. Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

I love how smart you and the co host, Michael Hobbs are on these topics and also your kind of dynamic together. I'm wondering, like, what are your and Michael's qualifications for hosting a show like this? Is just having a very, like, good BS detector. Is that like the first core competency of doing this?

[Aubrey Gordon]

I think that our qualifications are low tolerance for nonsense. And I think that's pretty much it. Right. Like, we are a couple of guys. We're not healthcare providers ourselves. We are not researchers ourselves. But what we're trying to do is dig into the primary text of science rather than someone telling you about a report that they said they read when they saw a headline. And it might have been from the Onion or it might have been a TV ad for a weight loss drug, or it might have been something. Right? Like that all of this stuff, sort of our health and wellness information, while political information might get fact checked, while current events stuff might get a little bit more of a fact check. Health and wellness, one would hope, right? Like one would hope. I'm living in a dream world for a moment.

[Luke Burbank]

Allow that nobody wake up Aubrey Gordon. It's dangerous if you wake her up in this state. It's very dangerous.

[Elena Passarello]

New heart.

[Aubrey Gordon]

And I'm just waking up.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. Welcome to the snow globes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah. There are areas in media that are very rigorously fact checked or at least that aspire to or that we expect should be able to. And I think health and wellness, along with historically women's media, is often a place where fact checking takes a real backseat. And I think where a lot of us get our ideas about sort of what is common sense for wellness or for weight loss really just comes straight from advertising. Right. That's actually like one of the top sources of like quote, unquote, health and wellness information in our lives. And those are people who are trying to sell you things, right? Like that can't be your source for science, everybody. But it is one of our main sort of things that we think of as a source for science.

[Luke Burbank]

How did you and Michael Hobbs end up doing this podcast together?

[Aubrey Gordon]

He was a reporter for Huffington Post. Highline and had worked on a number of really phenomenal stories for for them. One that he was working on is an exceptional story called everything you know about obesity is wrong, which if you haven't read it, I just so strongly recommend it. It's exceptional. And he had called me a bunch of times to be like, can I quote you for this story? And I was like, no, I'm scared.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah. He's like, Mr. Fact Check. I was like, I don't wanna mess up.

[Luke Burbank]

Had you been writing and speaking so you were kind of out in the discourse on this?

[Aubrey Gordon]

I had been writing, but I was anonymous at that point, and I hadn't, like, shown my face publicly or whatever. And as it happened, a good friend of mine was doing a performance up in Seattle, and I talked to Mike and was like, I'm gonna be in Seattle. And he was like, cool, we're getting lunch. And I was like, I get there at like 5pm and I drive out at 9. And he was like, then we're having a late lunch, I guess. And we did. And we just sat and talked for a really long time and hit it off. And the next call I got from Mike was when the lockdowns hit, and he was like, seems like a good time to start a podcast. No.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Aubrey Gordon]

So that's what we did.

[Luke Burbank]

It's amazing. It is the absolute best case scenario because there were so many podcasts that were started during the pandemic.

[Jean Grey]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And so many of them were so forgettable. And yet you two really hit upon something.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Listen, we've already stopped talking about Dennis Quaid's podcast, the Denissance. You know what I mean? Like, what about, we lost so much already?

[Luke Burbank]

And by the way, RIP Jeremy Piven's podcast, how youw Live in J. Piven.

[Elena Passarello]

No, no.

[Luke Burbank]

Look at that.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Is that real? Is that a real thing?

[Luke Burbank]

Far too real.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

I think they had about eight episodes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Oh, no. I'm gonna listen to 100% of those. Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

We are talking to Aubrey Gordon, one half of the Maintenance Phase podcast here on Livewire. We have to take a very short break, but don't go anywhere much more in a moment. Stay with us. Hey, welcome back to Livewire, everybody. My name is Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello, a fine assortment of folks at the Alberta Rose Theater here in Portland, Oregon, and Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast. I'm curious what the sort of research and preparation is for an episode of the show Sense I have is that either you or your co host, Michael Hobbs kind of take the primary research role and then kind of unfold this story for the other person. But I mean, it seems like you are really, really putting in your time on, trying to learn everything you can about the topic. How involved is the research?

[Aubrey Gordon]

I will say I just postponed a record with Mike because I was like, I'm gonna be ready by this date, I promise. And then I was like, no, there's more research to do. So this will have been, by the time we record next week, this will have been a month on of just full time research on bulletproof coffee. The butter in the coffee guy. The butter in the coffee guy.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Do you remember, Bolton?

[Luke Burbank]

I was putting butter in my coffee for a while.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Were you doing it?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was a we.

[Aubrey Gordon]

People were like, it tastes great. And I'm like, I mean, I bet, like it's butter. I don't know why it wouldn't, but yeah. So there's been like a deep dive into that guy and like, I wouldn't have thought that there was four weeks worth of research to do. He says he was the first person ever to sell something on the Internet. And I'm like, I don't know how to confirm or disconfirm that extremely wild claim. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I was listening to an episode that you did about GLP1 drugs, specifically Ozempic, but I noted that it was back in, I think 2023. So it was a little while ago, maybe almost two years ago. There has been still so much more sort of prevalence of these drugs in the culture. And I'm just, I guess I'm curious what you see as the sort of like pros and cons of these. How do we say it? I was saying it wrong.

[Aubrey Gordon]

GLB1s.

[Luke Burbank]

Semaglutides.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Semaglutide. Semaglutide. It took so long for me to figure out how to say that. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think probably the best indicator of like, where we are now is the Hims and hers ad from the Super Bowl.

[Luke Burbank]

Uh huh. The people that were selling boner pills have shifted over to this alleged weight loss drug.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Look at you, doing the yeoman's work of a host, saying it so I don't have to look at you. I appreciate it.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, honestly, I was doing some amateur research on that whole subject myself, so was ready to go. Put me in, coach. But you're saying that the fact that this thing that's started off as a drug that was supposed to help manage diabetes has now moved into the arena of something that is being pitched purely as a way to modify your body.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yes. And I think perhaps the biggest issue there isn't that people are taking weight loss drugs like you do. You team, you want to take some weight loss drugs, go for it. You don't want to. You don't have to look at that. And the issue is there is infinitely more demand than there is supply for the actual molecule that is Ozempic. Novo Nordisk owns that molecule currently. So lots of places are saying that they're selling compounded semaglutide. Baby. We don't know what that is, but it's not Semaglutide because that is owned by Novo Nordisk and they are not letting it out. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

So the boner pill people lied to me.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Well, I know it's really hard to imagine that the people who are like, obesity is killing everyone. All the fat people are gonna kill all of us in that ad.

[Elena Passarello]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Were actually maybe playing that up a little bit. It's weird. So, like, that seems to me to be the biggest issue here is that we have mostly press that is fanning the flames of desire for these drugs and ramping up the excitement when they know that there's not enough supply to cover all of the diabetic people. So diabetic people can't get it. People who want it for weight loss can't get it. And now the available substance is a compounded version that is, like, not subject to the same level of scrutiny from the fda. I can't think of a time in my lifetime that this many people have been striving to get the same drug in the same moment. Like, that's wild. That's a wild place to be in. And I think it's really unfortunate that we have this system set up whereby private companies can just sort of print cash is what it feels like.

[Luke Burbank]

Not to mention something we're talking to Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast here on livewire. Something that came up in that episode which was you have this thing that's billed as, like, you know, the cure for obesity. Like, there's a magic pill. And then it immediately creates a question for people who are in larger bodies, like, why aren't you doing it? Like another. And it's. And you're citing a long list of things that preceded it. Whether it's fen, phen, whether it's ally. It's like another conversation that somebody is thrust into having about, like, why aren't they availing themselves of this?

[Aubrey Gordon]

The other thing that happens in addition to downplaying medical side effects is that we also move the goalposts on what kind of weight loss is acceptable. Right, right. That, like, one of the big sort of refrains that you will hear in the Ozempic conversation is like, that's the easy way out and you got to do it the hard way. And I think that what that reveals about us is that we don't actually care how much people weigh. We care about watching fat people suffer. That that is actually the request is like, I need to see you in pain while you're pursuing thinness. It's not acceptable to folks.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. So that fatphobia can follow a person through whatever their body looks like to where they're a person who now weighs less because of maybe taking one of these drugs, but they didn't do it correctly. They're still receiving the ire of somebody who's judging them in essentially the same manner.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. Which also encourages that person to exhibit more anti fatness toward fat people, to distance themselves, to be like, they're the bad ones. I actually did it, even if I didn't do it in quote unquote, the right way. So it's just a. It's a really complicated time to feel like. I think for a lot of folks, particularly thin folks, it felt like we had made a lot of gains in the body positivity world. And really all it took was one magic pill or magic injection to sort of share what I think a lot of fat folks knew, which was like, oh, guys, we're doing a lot of window dressing here. There isn't the sort of depth of change that would get people to start a conversation like this from a more critical or skeptical place.

[Luke Burbank]

I could talk to you for hours, literally. I have a very parasocial relationship with you as a maintenance phase listener. But I would be remiss if we didn't try to quickly get to the bottom of the whole Blue Zones situation, which it's been a wild ride if you know what these are. This was these parts of the world where people supposedly regularly live into their 1/ hundreds. And I'm the kind of person who's like buying a certain kind of bean thing from Trader Joe's. Cause TikTok said it's on the Blue Zone diet. But then there was a whole big piece that was like, actually, this is all bs.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah, there was.

[Luke Burbank]

And then there was the maintenance phase episode, which sort of came down somewhere in the middle. Do I have to throw these beans out from Trader Joe's, Aubrey?

[Aubrey Gordon]

No, I am a bean truther. I love beans. I have a keychain that says, a friend of mine who's a food blogger, Rebecca Eisenberg, has started calling me the Beanfluencer because I never stop talking about beans. So I now have a keychain that says Beanfluencer on it. It's fine. So the blue zones as a concept for folks who are unfamiliar, the idea was to map out all the places on the globe where people were living past 100 years. It wasn't, where is the life expectancy the longest? It wasn't, where do people have the fewest chronic health conditions. It wasn't any other measure. It was just, do you live past 100? How many of you are there? If there are a lot, it's a blue zone. And that got spun up pretty quickly by a guy named Dan Buettner, who wrote like a Blue zones cookbook and a couple of books and had a Netflix series about it. There was then a large scale debunking that got a bunch of traction that found that in one of those regions in a blue zone in Greece, a number of people were essentially just committing pension fraud. And that appears to be true. People were not living past 100. They were collecting checks from family members.

[Luke Burbank]

But as you and Michael point out, that was. That seemed to be sort of localized.

[Aubrey Gordon]

That was one of the blue zones.

[Luke Burbank]

Right.

[Aubrey Gordon]

I think the other thing that Mike brought up about this that I really appreciated was again, we got really hyper focused on this idea of like, there's something magical happening in places where more than usual people live past 100. But the flip side of that is that a lot of these places had relatively low life expectancies and were pretty poor areas. Right. So it just is a really tricky thing where you can go, sure, we can look at centenarians and act like that is a specially special thing, or we can look at the massive body of research that we have on how to increase life expectancies overall, whether or not people live to 100 and have to eat the special minestrone with the special beans from Sardinia. There are lots and lots of things that we can do right here, right now that aren't like this sort of party trick of like, where are the Most people over 100? Where is the guy from the Today show going to do his little smuckers? With a name like Smuckers, it's gotta be good. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But the larger idea is why don't we pursue policies that give more people better healthcare access so that more people are living a healthy life, not just randomly, there's like six guys, like chain smoking, who maybe got to 105.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Totally. Absolutely. Or maybe we're committing pension fraud. Who knows?

[Luke Burbank]

With so much of this stuff being exaggerated or unreliable. I'm curious for you, in your own life, what are your, like, what's your North Star like? What are your kind of principles that you think about that do feel true to you when so much of the stuff that's out there is a sales pitch?

[Aubrey Gordon]

I really think that most of it is just like, you know, what it looks like to eat well, you know what it feels like when you're cooking for yourself and you like what you're cooking. Focus on the joy of taking care of yourself. And Great. Thank you. And I think, as much as possible, honestly, the other big change. This is such a good question. I have not been asked this before and I'm thinking it through in real time. The other thing that I have done, honest to God, is every streaming service that I have that offers an ad free option, I will pay them for an ad free.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, that's profound.

[Jean Grey]

Yes.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Because that's where just an overwhelming volume of garbage is just like Hulu ads, where you're just like, oh, every commercial break is seven WeGovy ads back to back. Yeah, I'm good.

[Luke Burbank]

I never thought of that as being basically a self preservation for one's mental health to actually pay for the ad free version.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Ad free. YouTube, baby. It's the way to go.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, well, this and more can be learned if you tune into Maintenance Phase. Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbs. Great podcast, Aubrey Gordon.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Thank you so much.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Aubrey Gordon right here on Livewire. Her podcast, Maintenance Phase is available wherever you get that sort of thing. Hey, special thanks this episode to Carly Ruffalo of Portland, Oregon, and also Ian Paja. Carly and Ian are part of the Livewire League of extraordinary listeners, which means they are donating to the show each month, and that is really, really big. I don't know if you've been following the news, but we are not overfunding public radio these days. And so Ian and Carly's support just means the world to us. And it is a big way that we're able to keep Livewire going. So shout out Carly and Ian for helping. You are listening to Livewire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Of course, Each week on the program, we ask the Livewire audience a question. This week, we were inspired by our next guest's book, which includes a very specific list of things that she wants to have happen and not happen at her funeral. So because of this Elena, what question did we ask the Livewire audience?

[Jean Grey]

We asked them, how would you like to be celebrated after your death?

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, that's a big question. Elena has been collecting up those responses, and she's got them now. What are people saying?

[Jean Grey]

Well, Brian took my idea. Brian says, I want to be Weekend at Bernie's, which, of course, if you are under the age of 40, the whole premise is that these guys really need this piece of person who has been deceased to seem alive, and so they, like, take him on a roller coaster or whatever. Brian wants to be Weekend at Bernie's to a Mariners game. He says, prop me up, put some sunglasses on me, and let's see if we can fool the Jumbotron.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I am a lifelong Seattle Mariners fan, Elena, and I've been to many games where I wished I was deceased.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah, it's.

[Luke Burbank]

It's difficult to be a person who's both living and rooting for the Seattle Mariners. All right, what's another way in which one of our listeners would like to be remembered?

[Jean Grey]

Okay, well, this one from Danielle. I don't know if I'm sure about this one. Danielle says all my loved ones have to adopt a pet from an animal shelter and then name it after me. That way they could be constantly reminded of what a lovable pain in the ass I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow.

[Jean Grey]

I mean, it keeps your memory alive, but then you're going to say things like, oh, grandma just barfed in my shoe.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Danielle, not on the rug. Like, you know, I mean, it is perfectly on brand, though, if Danielle is kind of a lovable but annoying person. Yeah.

[Jean Grey]

If Danielle likes to chew up shoes and kill rats in the yard, you know, then great. Nice, Danielle.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, one more way that one of our listeners wants to be celebrated in the afterlife.

[Jean Grey]

I think this one is beautiful because it's a great way to remember someone, but it's also a great way to help them, the people who have to deal with all of the earthly goods that one leaves behind. Anne says, I want everyone to take a book off of my bookshelf and read it and hopefully keep it so then all those books don't have to be boxed and sent or anything like that. And then your library is just scattered all over the place, which is so beautiful.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. I mean, if you think about the books that you've read as being kind of. They become an essential part of you, I think. And so then to have that sort of redistributed throughout, presumably the lives of the people you love and knew. That's a very, that's a beautiful sentiment. Well, thank you to everybody who responded to our audience question. Of course. This is Livewire, and our next guest is a multidisciplinary artist, humorist, and one time rapper with over 25 years of experience in the entertainment industry, or even longer if you consider her childhood in the Chelsea Hotel. Her new memoir is titled In My Remaining Years and it reflects on her extraordinary life and it provides kind of a much needing, rallying cry for those of us who are still maybe trying to figure out their life in their 40s, or very late 40s, if you're me. Kirkus Review calls it a fierce, funny book that embraces life and all its imperfections with open arms. This is Jean Gray, who joined us at the Patricia Research center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon, recently. Take a listen. Hello, Gene. Welcome to the show. I saw a picture of you, you post on Instagram. I think it's you in like fifth grade. And I think underneath it's just written. I don't know if it was your handwriting or your teacher's. It was like goal. And you just wrote entertainer.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah, you know that, that fifth grade yearbook when everyone has to write in what they're going to be. And I was like, I'm not narrowing it down because I don't want to be wrong. And everyone was like, veterinarian. I'm like, tall order. I want to look back on this and be like, nailed it.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's really what a big part of the book is, I think, is you kind of checking in with yourself, looking back to some degree at your life, but really looking forward and just trying to assess, like, how has this been sort of going? When we catch up with you at the very beginning of the book, it's the pandemic. You're physically feeling very ill. Not from COVID but from some autoimmune stuff. And your marriage is kind of crumbling. And you're also, it sounds like supporting yourself by doing a puppet show from your living room.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah, that's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Luke, how did you end up there exactly?

[Elena Passarello]

All things converged at possibly the worst time ever. And the puppet show was actually something I'd been trying to work on for years. What I was calling an adult educational show called that's not how youw do that.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a good name.

[Elena Passarello]

Which was everyday faux pas. Like, you know, when you get off the escalator, don't just stand there. If I am in a store and I Hand you the money. When you give me the money back, can you please put it in my hand and not on the counter? And I always wanted to do it as a puppet show for nostalgia reasons, just because I grew up on Jim Henson and the Muppets and Sesame Street. And I think puppets are a good way to talk to people. Sometimes they don't want to listen to actual people. So the plan was to start shooting the show in April of 2020.

[Luke Burbank]

They remember.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah. Yeah, you guys remember? A little thing happened, but they asked me. The company then asked me. They're like, could you do this show at home? I was like, well, we don't have a home. We are about to move. But absolutely, I could learn how to make puppets and write six episodes and then build a home and then shoot my own show and edit my own show. And that did definitely contribute to the divorce.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, you talked in the book about you were seeking online therapy. Was it online or was it.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah, my first talk therapy. And I was like, I don't know what to do anymore. And also, it's very difficult to talk to your friends or anyone. Very easy to talk about something like divorce, but very difficult to be like, hey, is anyone else having to shoot a puppet show in their house in the middle of a pandemic?

[Luke Burbank]

Something that comes up in your biography a lot is the fact that you. Well, you were born in South Africa, raised in New York. Your parents were musicians, and you lived in the Chelsea Hotel. The famous Chelsea Hotel. And what you say in the book is that people always have some expectation about that, like, that you're gonna have crazy stories about Sid and Nancy. But, like, it was where you lived as a person growing up, and it was the way that a lot of places people live growing up, good things and bad things.

[Elena Passarello]

Yeah, I think it's. You know, it's your home no matter what it is. So it wasn't actually normal from the outside. And even kids I went to school with who lived in apartments or lived in lofts or lived around the city. And I do joke in the book that my mom used to try to use that statement when your kid comes home late at night and be like, what do you think this is, a hotel? And I was like, yeah, but I think it's the kind of childhood that gives you an understanding of how to deal with darkness real quick, that it doesn't have to be ever consuming, and that death is kind of a part. An inevitable part of life.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, I want to talk a little bit about your music career. If I understand. Right. You were interested in beat making and production before you actually started rapping over things. Like, do you think that made you a stronger musician because you had this kind of technical background? And would you have been happy just sticking with that? Like, did somebody talk you into actually doing the rapping?

[Elena Passarello]

Somebody did talk me into doing the rapping. And I did love kind of being behind the scenes more. And I think it was part of my general competitive nature after that. And, like, seeing all these guys do stuff. And I was like, well, I can do it better than that. My friend was like, you can definitely do it better than that. I was like, I should do it. I think that's what happens with women. Femme presenting people who are not looked at generally as competitive or technical. Kind of. We're just there, and we have to be grateful to be in the company of men. So it was kind of a middle finger to all of that. Like, okay, yeah, I can do that, but I can also do that too. And I know you guys need beats because otherwise it's just silent rapping, and nobody wants that.

[Luke Burbank]

If you were just listening and you heard Jean Grey, the inflection in your voice, that reminded me a little bit of the audiobook version of this book. I kind of bounced back and forth between the. The book copy and then the listening to it. It might be my favorite audiobook I've ever listened to in my life.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Thank you, Harvey.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, if just your delivery, the kind of sound effects that are worked in, it's just the right amount. And also, like, how much work did you put into the audiobook of this book?

[Elena Passarello]

I will tell you, all the work is not what anyone asked for, which is also generally what I kind of do for a living. It's the easiest way for me to explain it. One, I just say, I do what needs to get done. And two, I'm like, it's also nothing that anyone asked for.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, it came through, though.

[Elena Passarello]

They asked me who would be narrating the book. I was like, oh, the book is secondary. I had to write the book so that I could narrate the book. That's why it's. It's great. I love the book. I love a physical book. And also the book is there because I wanted to do the COVID of the book, which is great, but the audiobook narrating it was one of my greatest joys.

[Luke Burbank]

Can we talk a little bit about the Church of the Infinite? You?

[Elena Passarello]

Yes, we can.

[Luke Burbank]

This is the church that you've started.

[Elena Passarello]

Oh, my.

[Luke Burbank]

And services started here. By the way, thank you to all who celebrate. Tell me about some of the kind of principles of this, of this idea.

[Elena Passarello]

Church of the Infinite U started. Because it's really hard to do, like fight Club, like one on one when you meet people. You mean like legally and also. And also legally is a problem. I was kind of meeting people out in the wild and having connections and being like, what do you do? Why aren't you doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing? I'm going to come in and check on you. And I would complete strangers and then I would go back and check in on them, be like, did you do that open mic? Did you start painting again? So it started as a place non religious at all, a place for people to come and find their superhero self. Like, the idea was, I hope that you come to this church that we talk about some things that you feel comfortable enough sharing, that we have the choir sing and that you don't come back. I don't want to be a leader. I definitely did not want to be a cult leader. The ponytail was good, but I still didn't want to be a cult leader. I don't know, you know, the idea that we are all here to save ourselves first and that is how we build bigger community is, you know, taking care of yourself, making sure you're doing the things that you're really supposed to do. It's not necessarily pipe dreams and things don't have to be just fantastical and absurd because, you know, we're out here having to grind away at doing a capitalism every two seconds. Like, we just, we cannot get through in that way. There has to be some other outlet. So church was a weekly general reminder that you still need to do those things. Like, you have to. We have to.

[Luke Burbank]

As I mentioned at the start of the book, we catch up with you at a kind of a tough time. At the end of the book, I feel like it seems like things are moving in a positive direction, even though what you're spelling out is the exact details for your funeral and what should and should not happen there. Including no beatboxing and no gum chewing. Why are those not allowed at Jean Grey's funeral?

[Elena Passarello]

Well, the gum chewing, because it could be mistaken for the beatboxing.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's beatboxing adjacent.

[Elena Passarello]

Beatboxing adjacent. And I had already said that I had sharpshooters in place if anyone beatboxed. So if you're gum chewing, you know, if something happens, you could get taken out. Yeah, you could get taken out. But this Idea of perception and people controlling your narrative. And so I think the funeral is so particular because of all these years of being like, I don't think they understood when I'm like, hey, I'm a very particular person. I like the things I like, and that should be okay. And especially on what I think is my most special day. I have had two weddings. They were not my most special days. But my funeral should really be about me.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah.

[Elena Passarello]

And not things that other people have ever wanted for me. And the idea that mortality salience, you know, that we're all gonna die and that talking about it, that being vulnerable and honest is not a bad thing. It is how we get to the real living of the life, being like, it's okay. It's gonna happen. We can make it fabulous. Let's make sure. I will put it in a book and an audiobook, a really good audiobook so that when we get to the funeral and if some people are there, maybe some of you, you can be like, no, that guy is trying to beatbox. Jean said she did not want that.

[Luke Burbank]

I've got it right here. First, Jean, Chapter two, Thou shalt not beatbox. The book is In My Remaining years, Jean Grey. It's phenomenal. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. That was Jean Grey recorded live at the Patricia Research center for the Performing Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. You can check out Gene's book In My Remaining Years, wherever you get your books. All right, we gotta take a quick break here on Livewire, but stay where you are. When we come back, Brazilian singer songwriter Hoshe will play us an amazing tune. So stay with us. Welcome back to Livewire from prx. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello right over there. Okay, before we get to our musical performance from Hoshe this week, a little preview of next week's episode. We are going to be talking to the writer John Muallam from the New York Times Magazine. He has this great book of essays. It's called Serious Face. Now, here's one of the things that John writes about in this book of essays. Why, if you see a painting of a Spanish bullfighter and it looks exactly like your friend, don't take a picture of it and send it to them. We're also gonna meet chef and bar owner Jenny Nguyen, who opened what we think has gotta be the first ever sports bar that only plays women's sports on the TVs in the sports bar. It's called the Sports Bra. It was started here in Portland, Oregon, but they are now expanding nationally, which is very cool. And then we're going to hear some music from a friend of the program, the one and only Laura Veers. So that's all next week on Livewire. This is Livewire. Our musical guest this week is a Latin Grammy nominee who's been reimagining Brazilian pop music for over 20 years. He's released seven solo albums, even helped write the theme song for the 2016. His latest albums, Curry man and Curryman 2, celebrate the vibrancy of Brazilian culture while tackling the country's complex history. So that in his words, quote, we don't give in to sadness, to laziness, to lack of desire to move on with life, which, God, why does that feel like something that we here in America might need some help on these days? This is recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. What song are we going to hear?

[Aubrey Gordon]

Yeah, the song I born and raised.

[Luke Burbank]

In Rio, but have other, other place that I love. It's Bahia and I love Bahia. Warm water, good food and good mystic.

[Aubrey Gordon]

Bahia is very mystic.

[Luke Burbank]

And this song I recorded, that's my last album. This called Alienda do Abayetea. This song's from 1950s from Durival Kaimi.

[Elena Passarello]

And it talk about the mystic place in Vallejo. Abayete is a black lake with white sand around.

[Luke Burbank]

So this is a very special place.

[Elena Passarello]

Mystic place.

[Luke Burbank]

The and we called Alinda Dobayte. All right, this is Jose on Livewire.

[Elena Passarello]

Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Luke Burbank]

That was Hoshea recorded live at the Alberto Rose Theater in Portland. His album Curryman 2 is available right now. That is gonna do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Aubrey Gordon, Jean Grey and Hoshe. Special thanks also this episode episode to Hallie and Rick Seidel.

[Jean Grey]

Laura Haddon is our executive producer. Heather D. Michel is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Our technical director is Eben Hofer. Hazik bin Ahmad Farid is our assistant editor and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake and Aaron Tomaszco. C. Steinman was our production manager and Ashley park is our production fellow.

[Luke Burbank]

Valentine Keck is our operations manager and Ezra Veenstrate runs our front of house. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Sam Pinkerton, Eyal Alves, Ben Grace and A. Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Eben Hofer and Hazik bin Ahmad Fareed.

[Jean Grey]

Additional funding provided by the James F and Marian L. Miller Foundation Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Carly Ruffalo and Ian Paja of Portland, Oregon.

[Luke Burbank]

For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head ON over to livewireradio.org I'm Luke Burbank. For Elena Passarello and the whole Livewire team, thank you for listening and we will see you next week. Hey, if you appreciate the work that Livewire is doing to amplify riveting and unexpected voices to a national audience, and I gotta tell you, it's a big audience these days, please, please, please consider offering some monthly support by becoming a member of our League of Extraordinary Listeners. Here's how it works. Membership starts at just five bucks a month and there are great perks at every level, including a special shout out on the broadcast. Impress your friends by being shouted out on Livewire. It means the world to us and really does make it possible for us to do the show. So please, if you can, help, support us by visiting livewireradio.org memberships.

[Elena Passarello]

From PRX.