
This episode features science and humor author Mary Roach, stand-up comedian Janesh Rahlan, and music from singer-songwriter Amy Millan.
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Mary Roach
Hey there.
Luke Burbank
Welcome to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. This week on the show, we're gonna talk to popular science writer and humorist Mary Roach about the world of prosthetics, including the very earliest days of trying to do nose jobs. Also that time that she tried to get her leg hair transplanted. It's all explored in her new book, Replaceable youe. Then we are gonna hear some comedy from the very funny Janesh Rawlin, who who reveals his controversial opinions on milk. And also what his actual greatest weakness is. Not just the thing you tell people interviewing you for jobs. We're also gonna get some music then from Amy Milan from the band Stars and Broken Social Scene. She's got her first new solo album out in 15 years. All right, that's the plan. Just a heads up for the Mary Roach segment. Go ahead and finish whatever you're eating right now. Cause things are gonna get a little real on Livewire starting right after this. Foreign.
Jack Wilson
Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them. Like our recent episodes on Dante in Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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Livewire Announcer
It's LiveWire.
Elena Passarello
This week, writer Mary Roach.
Mary Roach
I called up my old travel buddy Steph, and I said, so, you know, the Caucasus mountains are beautiful this time of year, and there's a guy who makes a penis out of fingers. So let's go.
Elena Passarello
Comedian Janesh Rollin.
Janesh Rawlin
So that's what I decided. I was like, I'm gonna keep it honest. They asked me, they're like, what's your greatest weakness? I look them dead in the eye. I'm like, yo, I'm ticklish as hell.
Elena Passarello
With music from Amy Milan and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now, the host of Livewire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank
How exciting. Thank you, Elena Passarello. Thanks, everybody, for coming out to Livewire at the Alberta Rose Theater here in Portland, Oregon. Fabulous show in store for you this week. As you may or may not have noticed, the news of the world a little on the bleakish side. But that's where Livewire comes in, my friends, because we scour the globe and try to find some actual good news that is happening out there. And by God, we found some this week. It's a segment we call the best news we've heard all week. Lana, what's the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello
Okay, this news is in honor of one of our guests, Mary Roach. This is some pretty interesting and a little gross body part science.
Luke Burbank
Okay?
Elena Passarello
It involves an osteo, odontokeratoprosthesis. Osteo means bone.
Luke Burbank
Okay?
Elena Passarello
Donto means tooth, kerato means cornea, and prosthesis means fake.
Luke Burbank
Okay, so some pretend eye in your tooth. Yeah. What?
Elena Passarello
Yeah. Other way around, but not bad. Yeah. This is a story involving a gentleman in Canada named Brent Chapman. Twenty years ago, when he was 13 years old, he had an adverse reaction to a drug that left him sightless. And one eye and severe burns on his cornea in the other eye has not been sighted for the remaining portion of his life and has worked with the same doctor for 20 years and has had over 50 surgeries, still not recovering his sight. And there is this surgery that I just said the name of at the top. That surgery was invented in 1960 and had never been performed in Canada before. But his doctor, Dr. Maloney, was like, you know what, let's give it a shot. So they took one of Brent's canine teeth, they drilled a hole in it, they fashioned a prosthetic eyeball lens, which I believe is the correct anatomical term. And then they put it through his eye and into his cheek. And you want to use a tooth because it's very hard, it's very durable, it's resilient under lots of different circumstances. And it's the same cellular makeup as the body that it lives in. So it's going to accept like the eye and the cheek is gonna accept the tooth. And then they attach it to like.
A retinal nerve or something like that.
That has an aperture in it that allows it to be sensitive to light. And now Brent Chapman has, when he wears glasses, 2030 vision in that eye.
Mary Roach
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
From this tooth.
Elena Passarello
Yeah. But this is the best part of the story. Both the doctor and the patient said the moment that he put his glasses on and they looked at each other in the eye. These are people with a two decade long relationship of doctor. And they made eye contact for the first time and both were just tremendously moved. Like they were looking at each other in this new way. And now Brent says he's going to travel, he's gonna go to Japan and quote, I'm not gonna make everything about me anymore. Which is a darling, very Canadian thing to say, if you ask me. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
I also love that this was all 100% covered by Canadian healthcare.
Elena Passarello
Yeah, yeah. I think it cost him. It cost him one Tim Hortons coffee.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, exactly.
Elena Passarello
That's right.
Luke Burbank
The best news that I heard this week is also about people doing some real good in the world. There were some folks in Pittsburgh where you spent some formative years. This is back in like 2019, they noticed that doordash was becoming really popular. Doordash, where you can get food delivered to your house or whatever. And so they thought they would kind of make their own doordash esque app. They call it 412 food rescue.
Elena Passarello
412?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, the 412. That's an area code there in Pittsburgh. But instead of their app being the number one way for Luke Burbank's to get Taco Bell at 11 o' clock at night, that they will regret deeply the next day. Their app, 412 Food Rescue, connects people and organizations that have food that they can't sell for whatever reason. So, like food that maybe the cans got dented or something, there's aesthetic reasons, or the food is nearing its sell by date, or it's just been delivered to the wrong place or whatever. Connect those people with people who need food. It goes to this kitchen in the Millvale neighborhood in Pittsburgh. And since they started doing this, they have churned out about 600 meals a day.
Elena Passarello
Oh, my gosh.
Luke Burbank
70 million pounds of food over this time have been turned into 57 million meals. And this is the part that I didn't understand. It saved 30 million pounds of emissions from not having this food go to waste.
Mary Roach
Right.
Elena Passarello
Because you got to haul it out and put it in a landfill.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And then the other food that people need that would be replacing that has to get created. There's this whole kind of chain of events. This has become so popular now. It's spreading. It's spread to all these other places. Illinois, Arkansas, California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, Texas. They think that they're saving about 102 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions every year doing this, which is like over 4000 cars just being taken off the road every year.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Great.
Luke Burbank
Expected a stronger response to that from this Portland audience.
Elena Passarello
I feel like we were all thinking it.
Luke Burbank
That's it. That's a borderline erotic statement to people in Portland that we got 4,000 cars off the road. So if people want to find out, the sort of parent organization now is called Food Rescue Hero, they're all over the place. You can just Google that and see if there's one near where you are. If you're listening to this on the radio or if you're here in Portland to see if you can be part of this. I would say that I did a little looking into their program, because when I hear about food that's approached at sell by date, I think about some childhood trauma of my mom's system of going to the grocery store and approaching the dairy manager at the Safeway when all of the milk was expiring and asking them, can I make you an offer on this milk? And the dairy manager would say, I'll give it to you for free if you will leave the store immediately. And she'd bring home like 20 or 30 gallons of milk that was all expiring, which then would have to be frozen. And then the problem is when we run out of milk, it's time for school at 7am and we're, like, chipping away trying to, like, with an ice pick, chisel milk into the breakfast cereal. And I have it on good authority that they don't do that at Food Rescue Hero. They don't freeze any of the milk.
Elena Passarello
Yay.
Luke Burbank
So that right there, that's the best news that I heard all week. Our first guest is the author of eight New York Times bestsellers, including Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Gulp. Adventures on the elementary Canal, and now Replaceable Adventures in Human Anatomy, which has been called an amiably entertaining, endlessly intriguing stroll through the stuff of which we're made. And we are delighted to see what she is made of here on Livewire. Please welcome Mary Roach to the show. Mary Roach, welcome to Livewire.
Mary Roach
Thank you very much.
Luke Burbank
I've been a fan of your writing for years and years. So excited to get to finally interview you. I've heard that this book idea kind of came to you by way of the topic of NFL referees.
Mary Roach
Yeah, that's right. I had an email from a reader who apparently has read my oeuvre. Oeuvre. And she said, I really think that you need to write. Your next book needs to be about professional football referees. I have no idea why.
Luke Burbank
So this person had. Read again your oeuvre. My oeuvre?
Mary Roach
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
I don't know. This makes a lot of sense to write about Ron Torber and Ed Hockley. Those are two real NFL referees. That's fine. That's okay. I can do that all night. Why in the world would this person.
Mary Roach
You need to write a book about professionalism?
Luke Burbank
Well, get this person my email address, please.
Mary Roach
I will. Somebody needs to do it, please. Not me, but somebody needs to do it. But she was a lovely person, and we communicated back and forth, and she revealed that she's an amputee, an elective amputee. And I didn't know what that was. And that's somebody who wants their part to be removed because it doesn't work very well. And it's very hard to find a.
Luke Burbank
Surgeon to cut off something because this woman had.
Mary Roach
She had spina bifida as a kid, and her foot was twisted and she couldn't hike, she couldn't run. And she would see people with a prosthetic foot doing all of that. And she's like, why can't I have that?
Luke Burbank
Did that start getting you thinking about what prosthetics and things.
Mary Roach
Yeah, that was. I thought that was kind of interesting. You know, what does it take to convince somebody to cut off Your foot, if your foot has a, you know, it's a healthy foot, it just didn't work very well. And other people have resorted to shooting their foot. There was a guy who had, like, foot drop, which is when you're. You can't pick up your foot as you're walking, which is something you need to do. Otherwise you kind of shuffle and drag your foot and nobody would amputate. So he shot his foot and then he's like, well, now you can't tell me it's a healthy foot.
Luke Burbank
So.
Mary Roach
So that was effective. That was effective strategy.
Luke Burbank
What are some of the early examples of humans trying to kind of like replace or augment our bodies with non human stuff?
Mary Roach
The first one that I came across was noses. There's long been a demand for artificial noses because nasal mutilation, like hacking off somebody's nose, has been a punishment kind of throughout history and globally, because it was kind of a. It was a punishment, but it was also a deterrent. Like, the whole population would see that, you know, your nose has been hacked off, and it's not an appealing thing to have happen. And so there was a demand for rebuilding noses. And so, you know, like 1500 BCE, they were doing this thing where they loosen a flap of cheek or forehead and then like, flop it down onto the nose, but keep it attached to its original spot so there's a blood supply while the blood supply is growing in on the. Which, like, incredible that that was done without anesthetic. Without. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank
Or like you write in the book that, like, Tycho Brahe, the astronomer had lost his nose in a duel. Yeah, like in a fight as a young man. And so had like a brass nose that was often falling off at important moments.
Mary Roach
And I feel like Tycho Brahe was a pretty vain guy. So, you know, I think that the moment when the nose dropped off at a party must have been hard for Tycho.
Luke Burbank
It's amazing what he accomplished, considering I went back. When I was reading the book, I then went back and was googling, like, paintings and drawings of this famous historical figure, knowing that a lot of his life was spent trying to keep this nose kind of in place as he's observing the universe.
Mary Roach
I feel like based on those same paintings that you saw, I feel like he went all in with the mustache. It was literally wider than his ruffed collar. A very elaborate mustache to kind of distract you. My favorite artificial replacement nose was from 1894. An army surgeon named Frank Tedemor, who. And this was now we were working with primitive plastics like celluloid. And so it was lightweight. But how did. Instead of gluing it on, he suspended it from a pair of glasses. And in order to hide the line between the nose and the upper lip, there was a mustache attached. It was essentially a medical Groucho Marx glasses.
Luke Burbank
Say the magic word, you win $100.
Janesh Rawlin
Wow.
Luke Burbank
All right, Mary, we got to take a very quick break, but I have so many questions for you about your latest book. We're talking to Mary Roach this week on Livewire. The book is Replaceable, you, Adventures in Human Anatomy. Short break and then more Livewire in just a moment.
Livewire Announcer
Don't go anywhere.
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Luke Burbank
Welcome back to Livewire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon this week talking to Mary Roach about her latest book, Replaceable youe Adventures in Human Anatomy. For this book, you went to Chengdu, China. What were you trying to find out in Chengdu, China?
Mary Roach
I was visiting a super clean, that's a technical medical term, super clean pigsty, which is where they are raising genetically edited pigs so that the organs could be used for transplant in a human. I mean, that's been going on here. There are a couple companies here, but both of them ghosted me, did not respond in a welcoming way to my desire to come and hang out with the pigs in the super clean, designated pathogen free facility. I was just attracted to the whole idea of a pigsty that would be super clean.
Luke Burbank
Yes. And how do you like a very sort of type A pig?
Mary Roach
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
Felix Unger of pigs. Yeah. How is it exactly that the pig became the animal that we seem to use the most for trying to, like, grow body parts that we can use in the human body?
Mary Roach
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can kind of blame Hormel.
Luke Burbank
Because Hormel, they made it so delicious. People thought, well, could my heart be possibly made out of this bacon?
Mary Roach
Yeah. Hormel teamed up. There was the Mayo foundation and the Hormel Institute, which in fact still exists. But in the 40s and 50s, they wanted to come up with, like, a miniature pig, that they would be more manageable in a laboratory, because pigs, they're big and they're very loud. Pavlov, who preferred to work with dogs, he's quoted as saying, all pigs are hysterical. So they make a lot of noise. They're big. It's a hard animal to have running around in the lab. So they're like, let's make a miniature pig also. Then the organs will be the right size. See, that's critical for transplant. And the Hormel people are like, look, we're pretty good at breeding pigs.
Luke Burbank
You also went to the nation of Georgia to find out about a pretty remarkable idea for a penile implant.
Mary Roach
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was first trying to figure out what book I was gonna do, I was talking to someone who worked in actually a stem cell lab. But the conversation veered off in other directions. And she mentioned a surgery. She said, there's a surgeon. There's a paper I saw wherein a surgeon rebuilt a man's penis using his own middle finger. And I, of course, pictured the finger removed as is with the nail and installed just like that. Y and able to kind of like, you know, beckon.
Luke Burbank
That's honestly where I started with the chapter.
Elena Passarello
Right?
Mary Roach
Yeah, Yeah. I wrote letters in Google Translate. You can write a letter in Georgian. You can write a letter in Russian. I wrote all these letters, and the surgeon ignored me. And so I called up my old travel buddy Steph, and I said, so, you know, the Caucasus Mountains are beautiful this time of year, and there's a guy who makes a penis out of fingers. So let's go. So I just showed up at this clinic, Really, I did show up. And the woman there, you know, I'm like, I'm that person who keeps sending letters and I've come to see Dr. I've come all the way from America. And Dr. Kuznev was on vacation.
Luke Burbank
Oh, no.
Mary Roach
And I was like, yeah, but we've come all the way from America, you know, to which the proper response would be like, well, you're a couple of idiots. But she kind of the woman who was the, I guess the office manager, the receptionist, whatever she said. But, you know, we can go up to his office and I'll open up.
Luke Burbank
His computer and we rifle through his medical files. They haven't heard of HIPAA yet in Georgia. Yeah.
Mary Roach
So she found some files and in fact. Okay. Sadly, it's not quite as I envisioned, but in some ways it's better. Okay. Because. All right, so the finger was used for rigidity. I don't know why. The normal medical implants that are used for erectile dysfunction, but for some reason he wanted to use the finger for rigidity. So he did. And then he took some forearm skin, kind of wrapped it around and then molded it. It looked pretty real, I have to say, pretty good. But here's the best thing about it. It's apparently very strong because there was a slide that showed the penis and bent up like that and with a ceramic water pitcher hanging from it.
Luke Burbank
I'm listening. Wow. We're talking to Mary Roach here on Livewire this week about her latest book, Replaceable youe. All right, can we, as we're getting a little low on time here, talk about a subject near and dear to my heart as a middle aged man who is sometimes on television. Hair transplants.
Mary Roach
Yes.
Luke Burbank
When did we first get the idea that this was a thing that could even happen? What's the history of the hair transplant?
Mary Roach
There was a guy named Okuda, a Japanese physician, and he got very excited because he realized you could take. There's something called donor dominance. Wherever you take the hair from, that's how it's going to be. So if you take that and so for a transplant, if you take hair from back here on the sides and the back and that doesn't fall out because it's not sensitive to testosterone. So you could take, you know, a couple thousand hairs from back here, put them up here and they'll stay. So that was pretty cool.
Luke Burbank
I believe they're called follicular units.
Mary Roach
They're called follicular, but I can't.
Luke Burbank
Not that I've been Googling this.
Mary Roach
I can't say follicular unit. I was doing an audio book and I kept going, follicular. Follicular unit. Thank you. So. But the okuda papers were amazing because he was moving everything everywhere. He was, like, taking chest pubic hair, putting it up here, hair from up there, down here, pubic. But the thing is, when you do that, okay, you can. Because there's something called pubic alopecia where you go bald down there. But if you take head hair and you put it down there, it will take. But you'll have to trim it every few months. Likewise, if you take chest or pubic hair and you put it up here, and this is a quote from a paper, journal paper. It is difficult to style.
Luke Burbank
Is this then why you asked one of these doctors to transplant some of your. Was it head hair onto your legs?
Mary Roach
Yes, it was head hair. Because I wanted to be able to demonstrate when I went out on book tour, I want to be able to show people donor dominance. Okay. So I've donated some follicles to research. So I was in this hair transplant surgeon's office, and I'm like, while you're there up there, I have a little bald spot now, tiny, where they took the follicles out. I said, would you take a couple follicular units and would you put them on my leg so that by the time I go out on book tour, I will have luxuriant flowing.
Luke Burbank
A fall hair.
Mary Roach
Yes. Something I could braid. Sadly, they didn't take.
Luke Burbank
So they did the procedure.
Mary Roach
They did. They implanted a couple of follicular units and. Right here. Right here.
Luke Burbank
I mean, what a party trick. If you could have pulled that off.
Mary Roach
I know.
Luke Burbank
We're talking to Mary Roach here on Livewire Radio. Okay, Mary, one of the things that you used to do was you would post a medical dictionary word of the day on Twitter, which we thought was a very fun thing. And we kind of wanted to get in on the act, even though we don't have any formal scientific training or even informal scientific training. Yeah, yeah. But we do have some names for body parts, some slang names for anatomical terms that we have picked up in our favorite place to do research, random corners of the Internet. So we wanted to throw some of these slang terms for body parts at you and see if you might be able to decode. All right, what we're talking about. How about trilly bubs?
Mary Roach
Trilly bugs.
Luke Burbank
Trilly bubs.
Mary Roach
B U B S. Trilly bubs. This is a body part.
Luke Burbank
Yes. This is slang for a body part.
Mary Roach
Testicles are too big to be trilly bubs. I think testicles.
Luke Burbank
No, they're also known sometimes as trolley bags. I don't know if that's helping.
Mary Roach
Oh, trolly bite.
Luke Burbank
That does sound very testicular.
Mary Roach
It does sound like scrotal to me.
Luke Burbank
No, it's related to tripe. It's the guts. Scottish. In the late 16th century, they used to call the entrails of an animal the trilly bubs or the trolley bags. Okay, all right. How about luxury bones? Luxury bones.
Mary Roach
Luxury bones. Tusks.
Luke Burbank
I'm gonna give it to you.
Mary Roach
Teeth. Ding, ding, ding, ding.
Luke Burbank
That's right. All right, one point for Mary Roach. This started fairly recently on Twitter by a user named Dan Sheehan, who wrote, according to most health insurance companies, teeth are luxury bones that I must pay more to continue enjoying. So if you hear about someone's luxury bones, they're talking about their teeth. How about lug hole?
Mary Roach
Love hole?
Luke Burbank
Lug L, U, G. Lug hole.
Mary Roach
I thought you said love hole.
Luke Burbank
What if we gave you love hole and it wasn't sexual? We're just increasingly eroticizing these clues, and then we're scandalized that you think we're talking about. No, like lug. Lug hole.
Mary Roach
Okay, Lug hole. Well, how many holes are there?
Luke Burbank
You know, I mean, most people have two of these.
Mary Roach
Lug hole. But why? Nostrils?
Luke Burbank
No, not nostrils.
Mary Roach
No. Lug hole. Earring.
Luke Burbank
Ears.
Mary Roach
Ears.
Jack Wilson
Ears.
Luke Burbank
That's right.
Mary Roach
Okay, all right.
Luke Burbank
From Scotland. Lug is also a term.
Mary Roach
I'm not liking the Scottish ones.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, okay.
Mary Roach
Okay.
Luke Burbank
All right. You know what? No more Scottish ones. Wait, that's most of them. Hold on. How about brust. Varzen. It's not slang. It's just German. So if you speak a little German, you can figure it out. You're Bruce Brustwarzen.
Mary Roach
A breast. Breast. Nipples.
Luke Burbank
Nipples. Which in German translates to breast warts.
Janesh Rawlin
Ah.
Mary Roach
Wow. All right.
Luke Burbank
That's what they're calling them over there.
Elena Passarello
That's a downgrade.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah. How about suburbs?
Mary Roach
Suburbs? Suburbs.
Luke Burbank
Your suburbs.
Mary Roach
Your suburbs. Well, something distant. Your feet, higher your knees, other side.
Luke Burbank
Of the leg, and then higher your ass. Yes.
Mary Roach
Oh, all right.
Janesh Rawlin
Thank you.
Luke Burbank
Okay.
Mary Roach
Suburb.
Luke Burbank
It appears in 1878 in the Dundee Evening Telegraph. Okay, but this is a good one. This one. You Want to Hear 1878, Dundee Evening Telegraph describing an assault that happened with this language. A young man hit him a belt back of the ear, fetching him another on the nose, and planted such a kick in his suburbs as to send him headlong over an ash heap.
Mary Roach
And it was never used again that slang. Until tonight.
Luke Burbank
That's right. How about your commandments.
Mary Roach
Your Commandments.
Luke Burbank
Just commandments.
Mary Roach
Commandments. Commandments. You have 10 of them.
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
Mary Roach
You got 10 of them.
Luke Burbank
Yeah. So we're narrowing it down now. Fingernails.
Mary Roach
Oh, okay.
Luke Burbank
Tudor English. I know that's kind of close to Scotland, but don't get mad.
Elena Passarello
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
In tudor England, your ten commandments were your ten fingernails. Shakespeare alludes to it in Henry VI, Part 2. Could I come near your beauty with my nails? I could set my ten commandments on your face also. Everything sounds sexual tonight. This is awful. Everybody get your minds out of the gutter. Mary Roach, you've been an absolute sport. Thank you so much. The book is replaceable.
Janesh Rawlin
You.
Luke Burbank
That's Mary Roach, everybody, right here on Livewire. That was Mary Roach. Make sure you grab a copy of her book, Replaceable Adventures in Human Anatomy. Wherever it is that you get your books. Hey, special thanks this episode to Jim Perret of Northfield, Minnesota, and Beth Lewis of Beaverton, Oregon. Beth and Jim are part of the Livewire member community, and they are generously supporting our show with a donation each month. And we are so grateful for that support because it's how we're able to. To do this whole thing. So thank you, Jim and Beth, for supporting Livewire. You're tuned in to Livewire from prx. Of course. Each week on the show, we like to ask the Livewire listeners a question. And we were kind of inspired by our conversation with Mary Roach this week. So, Elena, what did we ask the Livewire listeners?
Elena Passarello
This is so good. If you could replace one body part with an upgraded model, what would it be?
Luke Burbank
I feel like this is just like asking for inappropriate responses, but I'm going to hope that the Livewire listeners were above all of that.
Elena Passarello
You know, I had the same feeling, but of all these responses, I think only one of them is PG13 rated, and all the other ones are general audiences. So we're in good shape. Thanks, guys.
Luke Burbank
All right, lay it on me. What's something that a Livewire listener would like to upgrade on their body?
Elena Passarello
Sid wants to upgrade their nose with a city mode filter that blocks out mystery smells on public transit.
Luke Burbank
My girlfriend has the most sensitive sense of smell of anybody that I've met. Like, we will walk into a room and she'll go, are you smelling that? And I rarely am. It's like very subtle, you know, and then it just feels like so much pressure on me to not ever smell bad in any department.
Elena Passarello
She's a bloodhound.
Luke Burbank
Precisely. So, anyway. Well, so far, so good. We'll keep going. What's another Body part upgrade that one of our listeners wants.
Elena Passarello
This is one that I need from Rachel. Rachel wants to install a Don't overthink this button right on the side of the head.
Luke Burbank
Yes, I've been working on that in two departments. One, I read a quote recently that said like no one has added a second to their life by worrying. I'm trying to remember that. And then box breathing.
Elena Passarello
Oh yeah.
Luke Burbank
Getting very into box breathing these days. I don't know why. Not because of the world falling apart or anything, but trying to use those to kind of short circuit some of that anxiety stuff.
Elena Passarello
Yeah. And then when Christmas time comes and things get really hectic, you could do a gift wrap. Box breathing.
Luke Burbank
Uh huh, yes, precisely. Very meditative. Okay, one more before we wrap things up. Something that one of our listeners would like to upgrade.
Elena Passarello
Elena, this one from Greg is amazing. Greg says I'd upgrade my appendix so that it finally does something useful. Maybe a wifi hotspot.
Luke Burbank
I like the idea of like I'm somewhere trying to find a signal and I'm looking at the list of I'm trying to find some free WI fi and it just one of them is called Greg's appendix.
Elena Passarello
Yeah, that's right.
Luke Burbank
But then I'm sure it's locked. I'm trying to guess the password. What would Greg use for the password to his appendix? Hey, thank you so much to everyone who responded to our question and did so mostly in an appropriate manner. We really do appreciate you. Thank you so much. You are tuned into livewire. Our next guest is a comedian who's open for everyone from Camille Nanjiani to Atsuko Okatsuka to Cedric the Entertainer. He's a regular at the Hollywood Improv and the San Francisco Punchline. And now we can add the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland to his resume. Let's take a listen to the very funny Janesh Rawlin here on Livewire.
Janesh Rawlin
Thank you guys so much for coming to this Portland establishment that isn't a strip club or a dispensary. That's been cool. Nice change of pace. But it's pretty neat walking around your city. It's fascinating. It's just boobs, weed and donuts. It's cool. I like that you let a 14 year old boy just design it. It's very nice. But thank you guys for having me. If you're not familiar with me, my name is Janai Shralen. My Starbucks name is Abdul Iqbin Saleem. And if you're wondering what's going on with this face, I am Half Indian. Both halves, technically. And it's a good time for us. By the way. I know there aren't any in here, but we're having fun, okay? If you're not Indian, think about it. We get people of color advantages. Like, we get to eat spicy food and dance, but we're also richer than white people now.
Luke Burbank
Huh?
Janesh Rawlin
How about that? You guys were so scared of Mexicans stealing your jobs, we snuck right in. And I blame the media, because the media had you guys worried. The media was like, you better build that border wall. You better secure that border wall. You guys forgot about the firewall. Dude, we're out here now. I'll tell you this. It wasn't always easy. I was born in India, and then when I was six, my family moved to Texas, okay? And after Texas, we moved to Ohio. So that's 0 for 2 if you guys are keeping score. But it was important for me to live in the south and the Midwest because I learned a lot of things that I couldn't have learned in other parts of America. You know, like, I got exposure to white culture in a way that, you know, I wouldn't have gotten. Like, I learned so much about, like, how much you guys love haunted houses. That's huge. Huge part of white culture is the love of haunted houses, which makes perfect sense because, like, life has to be pretty good for you to seek out for fear, doesn't it? No person of color wakes up is like, you know what today needs more adversity. But I've been in California for 10 years now. I've been on the West Coast. I moved to California to work in tech because that's my birthright, sir. And it was very fun. I worked for LinkedIn, which is the number one professional network, number two Indian dating website. And I enjoyed it. But it was hard for me to get that job, like, because I struggle with interviews, because I'm very honest in them. To a fault, I would say, because they'll ask questions like, what are your greatest strengths? That's an easy one, usually. But then they ask, what's your greatest weakness? That's a hard one, right? Because people say things like, oh, I care too much. I say yes to everything. But these are lies, right, sir? We know that's not the truth. So that's why I decided. I was like, I'm gonna keep it honest. They asked me, like, what's your greatest weakness? I look them dead in the eye. I'm like, yo, I'm ticklish as hell. Because that's real vulnerability. You understand? You're gonna give me company secrets. You're gonna be like, we got a strong NDA, but it's not stronger than a ggg. That's a Gucci. Gucci goo miss. That's what that is. I love being out in the West. It's fun. I like the West Coast. I like how progressive it is. But there's certain things that's been tough for me to get behind, like all the milk alternatives you guys love out here. I can't. I can't do it. I grew up in the south and the Midwest. I view milk the way Republicans view gender, okay? I'm like, God made two whole and chocolate. And the rest is a liberal agenda, okay? And I don't know why milk does this to me. I'm progressive on other issues. Like, I believe gender is fluid, but almonds better stay solid. I. I got an Ozempic prescription recently. I'm excited about that. Cause I didn't want to miss out on that class action lawsuit, you know what I'm saying? That's gonna be nice. I'm not gonna take it. A magic weight loss dog? Are you crazy? But I'll show up to court. Yeah, absolutely. I'll be like, you, Honor, I got eight nipples now. Like I said, I really do appreciate how progressive it is out here on the West Coast. I think that's something we can't take for granted, you know? Appreciate that, Cherish that. The rest of the country is going through it right now, you know, like, my wife is from Tennessee, and two years ago, they passed a bunch of anti drag laws out there, right? And they had goofy rationale. They were like, these aren't American values. It's not what the founding fathers would have wanted. The founding fathers would have hated drag queen. And it's like, dude, the founding fathers wore wigs, blouses, and blush every day. These were some baddies, okay? As far as I can tell, America was built by drag queens, dude, right? Like Portland. Their best friend was a guy named John Hancock. What are we even debating right now? You know? And they had such drag behavior. They got mad at the king, started spilling all of his tea, and then they had that Constitutional Convention. But we know the truth, right, sir, that was a week long drag brunch. They were hammered the whole time. Do you realize that you have to be drunk to come up with the Bill of Rights? You got it. That's not a sober man's activity. Just standing there like, okay, so rule number one, you can say, whatever, Benjamin, sit down. Don't touch My gun. Get your hands off my gun. You know what? Rule number two. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. I just think it's bizarre the way we look up to the Founding Fathers, because at the end of the day, these were men in their early 20s. Like, that's not a group known for decision making, you know? Like, we don't even let those guys rent cars. And I don't care how smart you think you were at that age, you were probably dumb. Dude, I was 23. I had a combination body wash, shampoo, cooking oil. You want me in charge of laws? And I think what I love the most about being out here is just how much you guys embrace every single identity. I think that's so huge. I think that's vital. Yeah. Appreciate that, dude. Because when I first moved to Texas, I remember all my classmates wanted the same thing. Everyone's like, I'm a real Texan. I'm a real Texan. That's why everyone wanted that one identity. And that could mean anything, right? Like, you. Like going to the rodeo. You're a real Texan. And when I was there, people would always ask me, like, hey, what type of Indian are you? Which some people find offensive. I personally don't think so, because Indian people ask each other that question routinely. Okay? Indian people walk up to me like, hey, man, what type of Indian are you? Doctor or engineer? And I'm like, I'm a comedian. And they're like, oh, yeah, he's Mexican. And in Texas, I didn't know what they were saying. I froze up, and they put me in ESL classes. All right. Yeah, English as a second language, which is a ridiculous concept in a state where people sound like that. But my class was great because it was me, 10 Mexican kids, okay? We were 11 brown kids in one room. Portland. We became the school soccer team by default. It was great. But what's messed up is I ended up learning more Spanish than English, but I still had an Indian accent. So I was going around school speaking Spanish in an Indian accent, like, hola. Como estas, Juan?
Mary Roach
Todo bien.
Janesh Rawlin
Okay. Todo bien. So after a year of living in Texas, I was walking around speaking bad Spanish and bad English, and that's when it hit me. I was like, man, I'm a real Texan too. Folks, you've all been amazing. Thank you so much. If you enjoyed this, grab a card, follow me on Instagram. I've beenjneeshran. Thank you.
Luke Burbank
That was Janesh Rawlin recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland here on Livewire, where we have to take a very quick break, but stay where you are. When we come back, we're going to talk to indie rock artist Amy Milan from the band Starz about her new solo album and her bit part on the TV show Degrassi Jr. High. Stay with us. More Livewire in a moment. Welcome back to Livewire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. Okay, before we get to this week's musical performance from Amy Milan, I got a little preview of next week's show for you. We are going to be talking to the writer and director Laura Chin about her book Acne, which looks at her life growing up in South Florida. She was a mixed race kid who was raised in the Church of Scientology. She also was, as the name of the book would indicate, battling some very oily skin. The book is gritty and also very funny. Can't wait for you to hear about it. Then we've got stand up comedy from one of our very favorites around here, Mohanad Elsheiki. He's gonna tell us the most embarrassing Uber ride ever, featuring him as the passenger who embarrassed themselves. And to round things out, we're gonna hear some music from Jenny Conley, one of the founding members of the Decemberists, off of her latest solo album. It's gonna be a fun and funny show for you next week on Livewire. So tune in for that this week. Our musical guest is Amy. She's best known as the co lead vocalist for the indie rock act Starz as well as her work with the band Broken Social Scene. She launched her solo career with Honey from the Tombs and Masters of the Burial, blending indie rock with country and folk influences. Now, after a 15 year hiatus from doing solo stuff, Amy has returned with a new album, I Went to Find you'd. It's a deeply personal record that explores the themes of loss and friendship and self discovery. Take a listen to Amy Milan, recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Hello there.
Janesh Rawlin
Hello.
Luke Burbank
Welcome to the show. You've released a ton of really great solo work, but you've also collaborated in these other groups like Starz and Broken Social Scene, and it seems like both of those groups came to you at some point. What do you think it is about your music or your personality or what is it that people always seem to want to have you come be part of the thing they're doing?
Amy Milan
I think everything that I've done has to do with friendship. I met Evan Cranley from Starz when he was 14. He's now my husband of 20 years. I didn't marry him when he was 14. It's not weird, I promise. Kevin Drew, I also met at camp when we were just babies. So we've all been friends. We all grew up together. And I think we just wanted to all hang out and just travel the world together. And lucky us, we got to.
Luke Burbank
Yeah. And have made some really incredible music through all of that over the years. What is it like for you when you're working on solo stuff versus that collaborative process? Because those bands are like as collaborative as it gets. It would seem. Just the way the music actually functions. You know, it's very non traditional in a lot of times. And then you go to writing music that's going to be like on this new album.
Amy Milan
Well, I started writing alone in university when I was sort of actually, Kevin Drew kind of broke my heart. Don't tell anybody. We got over it. We're really good friends now.
Luke Burbank
So you're married to one person from the band.
Amy Milan
Oh, listen, listen.
Luke Burbank
Over a different.
Amy Milan
It's crazy in there. Like, we don't. The book's going to come out one day, I promise.
Luke Burbank
Canadian Fleetwood Mac.
Livewire Announcer
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
It's this band.
Elena Passarello
Yeah.
Amy Milan
But. And we still actually. We didn't kick Lindsey Buckingham out of the band. We stayed together.
Luke Burbank
That's very Canadian of you.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
Amy Milan
We all forgave each other. We're all still best friends. But I was kind of like this sad girl university.
Livewire Announcer
Like, he's so mean to me. Why does he so mean to me?
Amy Milan
And I had to like keep writing that song over and over again. And then I. So I hadn't joined a band yet when I was writing sad songs. Skinny Boy, all bones, no lies. You know, that kind of thing. And then I actually, this record that I just put out is a full collaboration.
Mary Roach
I.
Amy Milan
Because I wasn't sad and lonely anymore. I didn't really know what to write about. And then my friend Jay McCarroll, who I met, we collaborated on this record completely. He wrote pretty much 98% of the music. And then I was like, oh, perimenopause. There's so much to talk about. Yes, it's really, really popular right now.
Luke Burbank
It is.
Amy Milan
I was like, damn, I wish I kicked in on that earlier.
Luke Burbank
It may be our age cohort, but I feel like perimenopause is a very, very hot topic.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
It's hot.
Amy Milan
It's hot right now.
Luke Burbank
Like literally as a pun. But I just beat it. It's definitely. It's definitely something that I'm. That I'm hearing about. And that we're talking about a lot. It seems a great topic for a record.
Amy Milan
Yeah, I mean, I turned cincuenta. I only say my age in Spanish now. Ever since I turned corenta.
Luke Burbank
That's what is.
Amy Milan
One of the things I decided was corenta. It was like way better than 40. So when I turned corenta, now I'm cinquenta uno. I'm close to cinquent dos. Thank you, Spanish for being so hot.
Luke Burbank
It does take the edge off.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Gorgeous.
Elena Passarello
Gorgeous Age.
Mary Roach
Yes.
Amy Milan
Wait, like people want to get dancing with the cinquenta, you know? So, yeah, I was moving through a lot of feelings.
Luke Burbank
One other thing, and I'm so sorry to ask this because you probably get asked about it a lot, but it is on your Wikipedia page, so obviously it's true. Were you really in an episode of Degrassi Junior High?
Amy Milan
I was where you played a pregnant teen. When I got pregnant, my boyfriend David wanted to help. It was his parents who were the problem. You know what his father said to me? He said, whatever you do is your own choice. I don't want my son involved. I don't even speak to David anymore.
Janesh Rawlin
And scene.
Elena Passarello
I mean, all the.
Amy Milan
Honestly, this is the crazy thing about aging and memory. I don't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember that monologue from when I was 13.
Luke Burbank
Phenomenal. A woman of so many talents. Well, let's hear the musical side of your talents. What song are we gonna hear?
Amy Milan
This is a song speaking of Degrassi in Toronto. This is a very Toronto song. It's about the neighborhood I grew up in and the little buds I met and kind of that feeling when you're 12 and you're like, what is happening? And why are grown ups so weird? So, yeah, I just. I hearkened back. I started making this record from now and then I kept moving back and back and back and back. And this is about my little childhood home. It's called Don Valley.
Luke Burbank
This is Amy Milan here on Livewire.
Livewire Announcer
Down my street a one way sign Headlights right through me was I Everyone giving away all I got I know you'll come to me Every time.
Luke Burbank
We.
Livewire Announcer
Tried we slipped away we held the.
Luke Burbank
Ground.
Livewire Announcer
Come back in waves Were we lost or found the memories, they come crashing down the. My best friend as a kid Had a rosebud and a stick they were perfect. Down my street the lonely kind Cemetery sightlines down valley highway signs getting high and high rises we slipped away.
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
We.
Livewire Announcer
Held the crown Come back in waves Were we lost or found the memory they come crashing down crashing down crashing.
Amy Milan
Thank you so much, Portland.
Luke Burbank
That was Amy Milan right here on Livewire, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater. Her latest album, I Went to Find you'd is available now and that is going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Mary Roach, Janesh Rollin and Amy Milan.
Elena Passarello
Lara Haddon is our executive producer, Heather D. Michelle is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Eben Hofer is our technical director, Hazik Bin Ahmad Farid is our assistant editor and Deja Vu Pollykonda is our production fellow.
Luke Burbank
Valentine Keck is our operations manager and Ashley park is our marketing manager. Tiffany Nguyen is our intern. Our house sound is by D. Neil Blake and our house band is Sam Pinkerton, Ethan Fox, Tucker Eyal, Al Alves and A. Walker Spring who also composes our music. This show is mixed by Eben Hoffer and Hazik Bin Ahmad Fareep.
Elena Passarello
Additional funding provided by the James F. And Marion L. Miller Foundation. Livewire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Jim Pierret of Northfield, Minnesota and Beth Lewis of Beaverton, 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 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.
Live Wire with Luke Burbank – Episode Summary
Episode Title: Mary Roach, Janesh Rawlin, and Amy Millan
Date: October 10, 2025
Location: Alberta Rose Theater, Portland, OR
Host: Luke Burbank
Announcer/Co-Host: Elena Passarello
This episode of Live Wire with Luke Burbank mixes science, comedy, and music for a lively, eclectic night. Renowned science writer Mary Roach joins the show to discuss her new book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, delivering plenty of eyebrow-raising and entertaining tales about prosthetics and body part replacements. Stand-up comedian Janesh Rawlin’s set riffs on culture, identity, and milk, while indie rock singer-songwriter Amy Millan performs and chats about friendship, collaboration, and her recent solo album.
Timestamps: 04:00–10:27
Timestamps: 11:19–31:20
Topic: Replaceable You – Human Prosthetics & Body Modification
Origins of the Book:
Earliest Prosthetics:
Genetically Engineered Pigs for Organ Transplants:
Roach visits “super clean pigsties” in China, where pigs are raised for possible human organ transplants.
Penile Implants by Finger Transplant (Georgia):
Roach recounts her hilarious, awkward search for a surgeon in Georgia who used a patient’s finger for penile implant rigidity.
Hair Transplant History & Experiments:
Body Part Slang Mini-Quiz:
Roach tackles obscure and amusing anatomical nicknames.
Timestamps: 32:24–34:36
Live Wire listeners answer:
“If you could replace one body part with an upgraded model, what would it be?”
Timestamps: 35:19–44:14
Timestamps: 46:29–53:53
For Listeners:
This episode is a delightful mix of fascinating science, clever comedy, and heartfelt music. Whether you’re interested in medical oddities, laughing about milk politics, or vibing with indie rock, it’s got something for everyone.