Liz and Brace kick off with chaotic banter before diving into a raw mental health conversation with Brad Phillips, whose Essays in Fiction dissects trauma through fragmented narratives like Proposal for a Medical Memoir—a brutal, essay-like dive into somatoform disorders. They dissect how the internet warps psychiatric realities, from TikTok’s viral "Tourette’s" trends to the blurring of functional disorders, while Liz admits her own vulnerability in addressing personal struggles. The episode exposes how art and addiction intertwine, framing instability as both a curse and creative fuel. [Automatically generated summary]
I have, like, I actually have one of the world's worst singing voices.
Like, I can't, I can't be in tune.
Can you do a little tune for me right now?
Let me see.
Yeah, I can do it.
Liz, I hear you calling.
But I can't come home right now.
Me and the boys are playing.
And we just can't find that sound.
Just a few more hours and I'll go record with you.
Oh, man.
Liz, I hear them calling.
Oh, Liz, what can I do?
Liz, what can I do?
I think that was pretty good.
That was pretty good.
Hello, everyone.
Hello.
That's Brace.
And I'm Liz.
And of course, we are joined by our very own Peter Chris Yarn Chomsky.
And this is Druidon.
Hello, everyone.
Kiss Edition.
We got another episode for you today.
Yeah, we got a freaky, funky little one, huh?
Yeah, I'm not even going to say anything.
We talk about every, you know what?
This is a wide-ranging discussion.
We talk about trauma.
We talk about addiction.
We talk about the internet.
We talk about art.
We talk about writing.
We talk about...
Selling.
Selling.
We talk about generations.
We talk about- We talk about mental health awareness.
Yes, this is kind of, you know what?
Low-key?
This is a mental health awareness episode.
Yeah.
It's a little out of pocket.
I like it.
Yeah, I liked it too.
I was a little nervous because I feel like I'm just so used to making other people aware of their mental health that to me, this was a bit of a change.
But no, this was, I feel, I had a good time doing this.
Yeah, so let's get into it.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have with us today inside the bunker Brad Phillips, an artist and a writer who wrote a book that I really liked called Fiction and Essays or Essays and Fiction?
The last one.
Essays in Fiction.
Well, they're both both words are in there.
Because you didn't like it that much.
Well, anyway, I'm not looking at the cover.
I know, yeah, I do have it with me because I was checking before we fucking recorded.
Hello, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for coming down here.
Thank you.
So I want to talk to you.
I brought you on the show, or bringing you on the show basically, because there's a couple of things in the book I found pretty curious.
One was, I think it's called Proposal for a Medical Memoir.
Yep.
It's an essay, or that one qualifies as an essay.
Yeah, they're all short stories.
Yeah, okay.
Well, it's an essay-like short story.
Okay.
And basically, it's about being nuts and all fucked up.
That's correct.
Would you say that that is the case?
I agree.
Yeah.
And there's a lot in it about what you call somatoform disorders.
Somatoform disorders.
Yeah.
Did you know about this?
Yeah.
I mean, we've kind of talked a little bit about them sort of on the show.
I feel like the TikTok.
Yeah, when we were talking about it.
Did you know about TikTok disorders and kind of like, I don't know how else to like, they're like basically internet-diffused, like psychiatric presentations of things like Tourette's.
Yeah.
But people who certainly don't have Tourette.
But then do they?
So we've kind of, that's like more like functional, I guess what you would call like functional disorders.
Yeah.
But we haven't really talked specifically about the phenomenon, which is like increasingly becoming, I don't know, this sounds like a very Trump thing.
More and more, being recognized more and more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know what's going on, but I don't, like, I don't look at TikTok.