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In this episode of Challenge Accepted, Thomas and Frank take on a unique challenge—exploring Game Changer, the wildly inventive game show from Dropout. Frank throws Thomas into the world of Game Changer by challenging him to three episodes from season six: The Newlywed Game, Sam Says 3, and Deja Vu. The duo breaks down the show's improvisational genius, behind-the-scenes magic, and the dynamic cast of comedians and performers that make it stand out. They also discuss the broader impact of Dropout as a company, its collaborative creative environment, and how it's redefining digital entertainment. Timestamps & Topics 00:00 - Introduction and Challenge Setup 00:13 - What is Game Changer and Why Dropout is Special 00:32 - Thomas's Initial Thoughts on Game Changer 01:02 - The Three Episodes Chosen for the Challenge 02:07 - Breaking Down The Newlywed Game Episode 07:10 - Behind-the-Scenes Insights on Dropout and its Evolution 12:50 - Exploring Sam Says 3: The Ultimate Improvisation Test 19:43 - The Role of Improv and Why It's So Entertaining 26:00 - Deja Vu: The Most Creative Game Show Episode Ever? 32:14 - The Complex Production Behind Deja Vu 39:00 - The Talent and Passion Behind Dropout's Success 42:42 - Why Game Changer and Dropout Deserve More Recognition 46:30 - Next Week's Challenge and Wrapping Up Key Takeaways Game Changer is unlike any other game show—contestants don't know the rules until they play. Dropout, the streaming platform behind Game Changer, was founded by CollegeHumor alumni and is redefining digital entertainment with a mix of improv-heavy and scripted shows. The Newlywed Game showcases personal and hilarious moments between contestants and their real-life partners. Sam Says 3 highlights the high-level improvisation skills of Dropout's performers, with a fast-paced rule-stacking format. Deja Vu is a masterclass in game show production, blending storytelling, improv, and cinematic elements. Dropout's work environment fosters creativity, collaboration, and support for its cast and crew. The improvisational nature of Game Changer mirrors the success of unscripted podcasts and content, making it a refreshing and unpredictable viewing experience. Memorable Quotes "I couldn't imagine coming up with a new game every episode. That's a level of creativity that's just insane!" – Thomas "Dropout is one of the most supportive creative companies I've ever seen. The way they treat their cast and crew should be the industry standard." – Frank "You think you're watching a game show, but Deja Vu turns into a full-blown narrative experience. The level of production is unreal." – Thomas Call to Action Did you enjoy our breakdown of Game Changer? Let us know your thoughts! Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify—it really helps us grow. Plus, tell us what Dropout show we should challenge Thomas to watch next!
In this episode of Survivor, the game heats up as classic mistakes resurface, strategic alliances are tested, and key players emerge. The West Coast broadcast was missing the first few minutes, but we recap everything you need to know! Mary finds herself on the outs, while Star's attempt at teamwork may have been her downfall. Meanwhile, Mitch thrives, proving himself in challenges, and Say's overconfidence comes back to bite. A shocking blindside shakes the tribe dynamics—who went home? Tune in as we break it all down!Timestamps and Topics:00:00 – Welcome to Outlast Podcast! Meet your hosts, Frank and Shirley.00:12 – Breaking down Season 48, Episode 2: "Humble Traits."00:30 – Classic Survivor mistakes return – why can't players keep secrets?00:55 – West Coast viewers missed the first few minutes – here's what happened.01:36 – Tribal tensions rise: Mary vs. Say.02:24 – Star's misstep: Did she trust too many people?04:45 – The Beware Advantage: A blessing or a curse?07:27 – Journey Challenge: Who walked away with an advantage?10:10 – The epic Immunity Challenge – Mitch shines!16:42 – Green Tribe's losing streak continues – Cedric takes it hard.18:52 – Tribal Council: A shocking blindside takes out a major player!21:49 – Listener feedback from Facebook – was the music too loud?27:02 – Hosts pick their favorites – who's looking like a future winner?Key Takeaways:Overconfidence remains the biggest downfall – players keep revealing their advantages!The Beware Advantage continues to create chaos, with trust issues growing across tribes.Mitch is emerging as a top competitor, performing well in both puzzles and physical challenges.Green Tribe is struggling with unity and losing back-to-back challenges.Say's gameplay may be putting a target on her back sooner than expected.Kevin, once a strong player, gets blindsided in a shocking turn of events.Memorable Quotes:“How many times do we have to make the same mistake before we learn?” – Frank“You don't necessarily need an enemy like that.” – Shirley on Star's social game“Mitch is thriving in this episode.” – Frank, predicting a fan-favorite status“This game is constantly moving forward. Someone's dreams have to get crushed for your own to move forward.” – Justin at Tribal Council“Kevin is out… poor guy. All he got was a hurt shoulder out of this whole thing.” – FrankCall to Action:If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave us a review! Follow us on social media and share your thoughts using #OutlastPodcast. Who are your top picks for this season? Let us know!Links and Resources:Website: GeekFreaksPodcast.com – Your source for all the latest Survivor news!Follow us on social media:Twitter: @OutlastPodcast1Instagram: @GeekFreaksPodcastFacebook: The Geek Freaks PodcastThreads: @GeekFreaksPodcastPatreon: Support us hereListener Questions:Want to be featured in the next episode? Send us your Survivor questions or predictions! Drop a comment on our social media or email us at [insert email].Apple Podcast Tags:Survivor, Reality TV, Podcast, Geek Freaks, Outlast Podcast, Survivor Recap, CBS Survivor, Survivor Strategy, Tribal Council, Survivor Season 48, Survivor Podcast
Episode Summary In this special episode of Challenge Accepted, Frank and Thomas, who is launching his deeply personal new project—Sick Burn Podcast. Thomas shares his incredible journey of survival after a plane crash that left him with severe burns on over 60% of his body. What started as a devastating tragedy became the foundation for an inspiring podcast that explores mental health, resilience, and humor in the face of adversity. They dive into how Sick Burn aims to find humor and growth in life's darkest moments, the power of community in recovery, and the lessons Thomas has learned from his remarkable guests. If you've ever faced struggles, felt stuck, or just want an uplifting story of strength and reinvention, this is the episode for you! Timestamps & Topics 00:00 - Introduction – Setting up for a unique episode 00:56 - Introducing Thomas – His journey into podcasting 02:08 - A Plane Crash & A New Purpose – Thomas's survival story 03:36 - The Origin of Sick Burn – From gaming to podcasting 05:52 - Humor as a Healing Tool – How laughter helps in recovery 07:25 - Commonalities in Recovery Stories – The universal belief in moving forward 10:54 - Losing & Rebuilding Independence – Overcoming life-changing fears 16:28 - Creating the Sick Burn Podcast – A podcast studio and big ambitions 20:37 - Balancing Darkness & Humor – Navigating tough transitions in storytelling 24:33 - Lessons from Guests – Learning about recovery, resilience, and community 28:54 - Mental Health & Growth – Takeaways for anyone facing struggles 31:12 - What's Next for Sick Burn – The future of Thomas's journey Key Takeaways ✅ Even the darkest moments can lead to growth – Thomas shares how he rebuilt his life from trauma. ✅ Humor and connection are powerful tools – Finding light in tragedy is crucial for recovery. ✅ Fear can be an illusion – Moving past hesitation opens doors to life-changing opportunities. ✅ Independence isn't about doing things alone – It's about finding a purpose and leaning on community. ✅ Mental health matters – Small steps toward healing can make a massive difference. Memorable Quotes
In this episode of "Challenge Accepted," Frank and Thomas review episode six of "The Acolyte." They dive into the aftermath of the epic battle, discuss character developments, and share their thoughts on the episode's pacing and plot progression. With shoutouts to special guest Aaron from Fandom Portals, they explore the highs and lows of the series and what they hope to see in the remaining episodes. Timestamps and Topics: 00:00 - Introduction: Frank welcomes Thomas back from the Batcave and kicks off the episode review. 00:08 - Initial Reactions: Frank and Thomas share their initial thoughts on the episode. 00:37 - Shoutout to Aaron: Acknowledgment of Aaron from Fandom Portals for stepping in last week. 00:52 - Episode Review: Frank and Thomas discuss their mixed feelings about the episode, comparing it to room temperature coffee. 01:55 - Character Development: Discussion on the development (or lack thereof) of characters like Osha and May. 03:54 - Plot Progression: Analysis of the episode's pacing and storyline progression. 04:46 - Chimera's Helmet: The significance of Chimera's helmet and what it reveals about his character. 06:00 - High Republic Era: Frank's thoughts on the High Republic era and the light whip's representation. 07:10 - Amandla's Performance: Frank and Thomas critique Amandla's acting in the series. 09:00 - Manny Jacinto's Role: Praise for Manny Jacinto's portrayal of Chimera. 10:50 - Jedi Council and Sith: Speculation on the Jedi Council's awareness of the Sith threat. 12:45 - Importance of Death in Star Wars: Discussion on how death is portrayed and its impact on the story. 14:17 - Episode Critique: Frank and Thomas critique the lack of character motivation and backstory. 15:38 - Future Episodes: Speculation on how the series will conclude and hopes for the final episodes. 18:09 - Community Engagement: Call to action for listener feedback and participation. Key Takeaways: The episode felt like a comedown from the previous one, lacking significant plot progression. Character development, especially for Osha and May, was minimal and left much to be desired. The portrayal of the light whip was underwhelming and disappointing for fans of the High Republic era. Amandla's performance was criticized for not meeting the expectations set by her co-stars. Manny Jacinto received high praise for his intense and methodical portrayal of Chimera. The importance of death in the Star Wars universe was highlighted, with a call for more meaningful character arcs. Frank and Thomas are hopeful but cautious about the series' conclusion. Memorable Quotes: "This episode very much felt like that room temperature coffee." - Thomas "Some people are just not destined to be good actors. Amandla is not a good actress." - Frank "You shouldn't be able to open your mouth about the acolyte unless you're putting in the time." - Frank
In this informative episode, Frank explores the crucial aspects of property research that truly define its worth. He emphasizes the need to dig deeper than surface evaluations, delving into neighborhood demographics and key indicators that impact long-term investment success. Frank offers a comprehensive guide to informed real estate decisions, from insurance premiums to environmental factors, aiming to ensure lasting investment success. In this episode, Frank delves into property research, highlighting its impact on investment value. He stresses thorough evaluation, including neighborhood demographics and rental data. Emphasizing independent property inspections, Frank aims to guide investors in making informed decisions, minimizing risks in real estate. Timestamps: 04:04 - Unveiling Properties with Google Maps 06:12 - Evaluating Rental Quality 07:50 - Navigating Public Housing Levels 10:28 - Avoiding Insurance Surprises 12:47 - Mapping Your Ideal Property 15:54 - Finding Ideal Tenants 17:38 - Unveiling Property Markets Quotes: Frank: “The more checks you do, the more security you're going to have.” Frank: “As soon as you start to compromise fundamentals you're compromising on your investment.” Frank: “Calculate all costs, including rates, water service fees, management fees, to understand the property's cash flow in your investment strategy.” Frank: “You always get good quality tenants in a good part of the suburb.” Frank: “Higher numbers of owned outright properties indicate a more stable market at both suburb and street levels” - CONNECT WITH FRANK --
Frank Viola is a bestselling author, conference speaker, blogger, and podcaster. Today, Frank shares how he found Christ, a moment when he experienced the overwhelming love of God, and an encounter with a demon. Frank shares that his calling is to those who want to experience Jesus more fully and he shares multiple stories from his writing. We also explore the idea of the dark night of the soul and how he understands it and whether he's experienced one. Frank's story reminds us that the Lord is active even when we can't directly sense him. Listen to Frank's story in your favorite podcast player now! Stories Frank shared: Exploring the deeper journey Growing up in New York and then moving to Florida The “two conversions” he experienced The awakening he had when he was 16 years old Sensing a call to ministry at 17 Encountering a demon and asking for help from his church Feeling like God is far away The distinction between the dark night of the soul and the dark night of the spirit What it's like to have a sense of God's presence Why you don't need to have a conversation with God for everything when you know him The value of coincidence in the Christian life The meaning of the word evangelical Great quotes from Frank: You can put yourself in a position to hear from the Lord. When you have the mind of Christ, you don't have to consult the Lord about everything that comes up. One of the ways God speaks to his children is coincidence. The flesh is nailed to the cross and that's where it ought to be in the life of the Christian. Resources we mentioned: Frank's website Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola & George Barna Insurgence by Frank Viola Jesus Speaks by Frank Viola & Leonard Sweet Hang On Let Go by Frank Viola 48 Laws of Spiritual Power by Frank Viola 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene When Christian Leaders Deny the Faith Ministry Mastermind Related episodes: Mike Bolton and the Power of Yes Sara Billups and Moving Toward Community Skye Jethani and Living Life With God The post Frank Viola and the Subtlety of the Kingdom of God appeared first on Eric Nevins.
INTRODUCTION: Frank M. Ligons, MS specializes in exploring the benefits, safety, and payment strategies regarding Ketamine treatment in addressing mental, physical, and addiction-related illness. His three years of ketamine treatment as apatient, combined with his medical background, give audiences harrowing andhopeful insights into this extraordinary therapy. After 25 years of suicidal thoughts and dozens of medications, Frank stumbled upon a psychiatric treatment he had never heard of: low-dose intravenous ketamine. Since all else failed, any treatment he hadn't heard of must be worth a try. After exhausting decades fighting for his life inthe conventional psychiatric medication system, ketamine removed those deadlyideations that claimed his grandmother's life when he was a young child. INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): · Special K YaY!!!· Medical & Doctoral Dependency · Origins Of Ketamine· Uses Of Ketamine Therapy· Military Implications· Treatment Resistant Mental Health Issues· What Is A K Hole?· The Failed War On Drugs· Addiction Risk Of Ketamine CONNECT WITH FRANK: Website: https://findketamine.comBook: https://amzn.to/3ZYUOzsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmligons/ CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: · Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs · OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o https://overviewbible.como https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible · Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ · Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com · Upwork: https://www.upwork.com· FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS · Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org· American Legion: https://www.legion.org · What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: · PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon TRANSCRIPT: Frank M. Ligons[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Frank Liggins is the author of the groundbreaking book, IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy for Depression. Why I Tried It, what It's Like, and If It Worked, baby. Yes. Now Frank is here with me today because he specializes in in exploring the benefits, safety, and payment strategies and everything else regarding Ketamine Treat.but the particular emphasis on how ketamine can be used for addressing mental, [00:01:00] physical, and addiction related illnesses. Now, after struggling with over 25 years of suicidal thoughts and all kinds of medication, Frank found his own way to ketamine treatment in that is what has saved his life today. So please listen in and close as we dish on.how this once taboo drughas now made a new name for itself.Hello, are you beautiful souls out there? And welcome back to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. I'm your host of Annan Hubert, and I got wi here with me today. My boy, Frank Liggins. Is that how we say that Liggins. Yes. Yeah, Frank Legged and he wrote a, a damn good book. It's called IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy for Depression.Why I Tried It, what it's like, and If it Worked. The best way I can describe this book is like a mixture between a high, how to guide and a medical memoir, and I've never seen this before. I think [00:02:00]it's absolutely fan fucking brilliant. And Frank, how are you today? Frank: I'm great and I'm glad to hear to be here and I'm very flattered by that intro,De'Vannon: Of course. So go right ahead and tell us about like your education. You have a very interesting degree and I want you to tell us about like your Frank: learning. Yeah, absolutely. I guess my most recent education is, is in, you know, medicine. I have a master's of science in, it's called biomedical Informatics.And one of the things that has been really helpful from having that background is me being able to read and sort through medical studies on my own and be able to report those to people in more of a down to earth De'Vannon: language. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the down to earth language because we always wanna be able to talk to people at the level where [00:03:00] they're at.No sense in having all this complex information, if we can't break it the fuck down, like Charlie fucking Brown and give it right in a way that they can fucking use. So, so, you know, you know, the title of this show is Sex, drugs and Jesus. So I, you know, we're gonna be talking about drugs, man, drugs and You know, normally, normally I would ask for like, some sort of client success story, but you know, you really are like your own success story in this, in this space here that we're working in. And. From, from one of the, one of the chapters in your book. One called, but I've tried it all. Mm-hmm. , you were going through this here in this chapter, you're telling us about how you had to take all this medicine as a kid, and then it's, it's followed you into college and you were saying about the side effects of the [00:04:00] medicine.Gave you like fatigue, chronic fatigue, O c d, depression, and, and then this chapter you were talking about how you hate having to take medicine, but the reality is, is that some people really have to be on something or they need to take something. And you said, and I quote, I resent being such a loyal pharmaceutical customer end quote,So talk to me about, because I feel like a lot of people are like this. I've seen people tilting bags of pills around and it's almost like people become a slave to medication. And so what are your thoughts on that? Frank: Sure. I mean, that's a good question because I think it's one of those things that I'm not sure that it gets enough talk or, or let's say it doesn't get enough talk upfront.You know, usually you go to the, you know, your doctor, they prescribe you something, you know, for your symptoms. But rarely [00:05:00] do you get the whole, you know, dictionary of the things that you may be dealing with right. As side effects. So you know, a lot of us find that. kind of too late. You know, you're, you, well you're already kind of hooked into the system.But yeah, I mean, I, I mean, for, for most people I know, including myself, that, that have needed like psychiatric medications. It, it, it's really a love and hate situation, you know? And frequently people will go back and forth, you know. , you're on it, maybe you get, you know, some relief, but then you get fed up with the side effects and then you try to cut back.But then you unfortunately discover that you know, you can't function at that level. And before you know it, you're like, me, I just was out of town and I have to carry like 20 pill bottles, like [00:06:00]in. and my sack as I go through security, and they look at me very oddly, because they're thinking, you know, what's a legitimate use of those?So many med, you know, prescription bottles. So yeah, I think it's a tough topic for everyone. I wish people were more open about it and felt more comfortable so that they could realize they're not.De'Vannon: I personally think some people take a psychological they, they, they garner a certain psychological. Pseudo comfort or I guess in their mind a true comfort for for going to see a doctor. Cuz a doctor is almost like, you know, you're not exactly gonna get like a spa treatment or anything like that, but anytime we're being tended to by another human being, there's cer certain sort of like pampered Yeah.Feeling that goes along with [00:07:00] it. And I really think some people. Like going to talk to the doctor, may don't have anyone else to talk to, but this person is there to quote unquote care for them. And it is still a form of affection. And, and so do you think that there's any sort of, look and we're not psychotherapists here, y'all, I'm kicking around what I feel like the spirit is revealing to me.I'm not, you know, this is, this is the, the, this is coming from within. and from I like it. So do you think there's any sort of like emotional need that people are feeling by going to these doctors and, Frank: yeah, I mean, I think that's an excellent question. And, and really one that no one ever asked me, people don't generally talk about, but yeah, I think there are two facets to that.One is, you know, there's a. , you know, when you're suffering in some way, there's a I think an instinct to wanna find some control over [00:08:00] that, to kind of take some steps to feel like you're not just floating into disaster. And so, you know, when you have a medical issue or a psychiatric issue, I think one of the things you're, you're just, you know, grasping for someone to say, I have some idea what's wrong with you, and I may be able to help.So I think. , there's, you know, just kind of that, you know, instinctual survival. And then I think also, like you alluded to is, you know, and this can vary I think, between providers. So like for instance, you know, when we talk about therapists, I've noticed over the years that therapists fall all over the spectrum.And in other words, there's therapists that are kind of almost just like your friend. You know, it's kind of like you just go, you talk about what happened that. and you know, they kind of absorb that or just kind of be a, you know, a sounding board. And then there are therapists that are like very, you know, action oriented who [00:09:00] have, you know, very specific plan.They want to teach you specific skills and they're basically like, Hey, you know, when you're ready to act on these skills, like you'll get results. But like, I, I'm other, otherwise us just talking about it isn't gonna help you. So, you know. But yeah, I, I, I mean, I think you're right. I know plenty of people all over the scale.I've been on the scale in various places. I just think you need to be honest with yourself because, you know, if you're going to a place that's just talking to you, but you're not making any progress, you know, that's, that could be problematic. De'Vannon: And I think that goes for. MDs, like general practitioners, medical doctors, and psychological doctors.Sure. Basically what Frank and I are saying is if you're going to these doctors and you're, you're not really getting healed and cured, then perhaps you should reevaluate and consider why you're [00:10:00] really going. Absolutely. Because switching the medication around, like they try to do what's at the va, the Department of Veterans Affairs, where I.You know, you go and sit in there, you talk to the doctor for 30 minutes and it's like, what drugs are you on? Shall we up the dosage or change it? Those are really the only questions they give a fuck about an asking you . So that's why you see veterans toting 20 pill bottles around and everything like that.It's common, yeah. Common at the va. And so we're saying, why are you going? There's people in my family who are like, . So regular at the doctor, they should have like a gold v i p card in their own fucking parking spot outside with their team on it. . But I'm like, is shit really getting fixed? Right? And so then that's where, that's where ketamine comes in.So right off the bat, what if somebody goes, well, is it ketamine a drug just like all the other drugs? What's the Frank: difference? Yeah, so Ketamine actually [00:11:00] was developed in the 1960s. And one like little piece of trivia that's interesting is it was designed to be an improvement on P C P. So , De'Vannon: hell yeah. Yeah.What's going Frank: on? ? With a medical, you know, facility had, you know, developed pcp. The thing is they found out there were a lot of side effects, right? So they start working on, you know, how can we, you know, get a sedative that we can use for surgery and such, and a pain reliever that people may not react as dramatically too.And so they came up with that in the early sixties and there was, you know, a lot of excitement about it because now. They had, you know, you know what we would, you know, call a, you know, a hypnotic sedative, [00:12:00] which you could use reliably on people that was, you know, very safe. You know, they're very, you know, few serious side effects, if any.They're, they're usually very brief and actually, while this was, you know, kind of growing in the surgical domain, it was getting a lot of attention. on the battlefield because in war situations and war time situations, you know, when you have you know, people literally out on a field, you know, being shot and injured in different ways, you know what's, what's something kind of easy, safe.That will meet the needs of us, like, you know, trying to help people right then, you know, how can we calm them down? How can we lessen their trauma in the moment? How can we you know, relieve pain? And so, you know, this ketamine comes along and, you know, all of a sudden, you know, the battlefield, [00:13:00] you know, medical community was like, wow, you know, this actually has a lot going for it.That's how it all started before the days of all the innovative uses we're using it for De'Vannon: now. So, so you're telling me it started on the battlefield before it made its way into like vets offices. Yes. Frank: Yes, exactly. Yeah. So a lot anesthesiologists and like battlefield, you know, trauma, medical personnel were using De'Vannon: at.right? Cause a lot of people know it as like horse tranquilizer, but you know, it has more implications than just dosing horses. And so, absolutely. Frank: Yeah. I'm, I mean, it's something that, you know, with the horses, it'd be the same thing, you know, with us, like, you know, when you need to operate on a horse, you need the the same benefits, right?You need them to be sedate. You need them not to [00:14:00] be like moving and kicking around. You know, you need them you know, not being in too much pain. And so, you know, they're just another mammal, right. Like us, so that makes sense. De'Vannon: It's interesting cause, you know, crystal meth thought it out that way. I think from the Japanese army if I'm, or military if I'm not mistaken.Oh, okay. Because they needed, and I can't remember which warrant, but they needed a way to keep the soldiers up and to make them. Oh, well, basically like they wanna throw themselves a sudden death, so they, so they manufactured, you know, you know, methamphetamine, you know, and then, You know, it kind of like spiraled from there.Like, oh, look at what we have here. You know, this actually feels kind of good and you know, and so the government has probably created most, if not all of these fucking drugs that they now want to call illegal. So I'm like, you did it, bitch. So just [00:15:00] illegal it now legalize it all and be done with it. Right, right.Ketamine, to my knowledge, is now legal across the United States. Frank: It's legal though by pres. . But yes, like anyone that has licensing, you know, privileges. And that's like every type of physician, right? Like, so that could be an MD psychiatrist, it could be, you know, an internist, a cardiologist. Anybody that can write prescriptions can write one for ketamine.De'Vannon: Okay? So what he's saying is this, this is regulated by the dea. It is, fuck the dea. I'm gonna say it again. Fuck the dea. But so that means that I cannot decide I wanna be a drug dealer again and go toting around jugs of ketamine or whatever. And that's unfortunately not man , but you, you can go, you can go to Oregon and get you some ketamine.I do believe that that's a part of their measure one then that they passed. Oh really? But it is still illegal to [00:16:00] sell or deal or whatever the fuck they're doing over in Oregon. But so. . So Ketamine, ketamine, ketamine. How is so you, so you tried ketamine. So let's talk about your personal success story with this.So you were the guy on all the drugs and stuff like that, the different 20 pills. Are you still on the 20 pills now? I'm on, Frank: trying to think what I'm on now. Probably, I think I'm probably on about six pills. About half of which are to counteract the side effects of like the first three pills, . So yeah, still quite a few.This, this is not a cure. I wanna be clear to people about that. Like, ketamine is not a cure. That does not mean that some people don't go for ketamine treatment. And then, you know, there's a long time before they need, you know, a booster or [00:17:00] something. But you know, ketamine is I like to think of it more akin to a rescue kind of medication, right?Because you have plenty of people that you know, have, you know, treatment resistant depression, right? Like people like me who tried every drug, you know, they've been everywhere. They've done everything. But you know, still they have a deep depression and you know, That can do anything from just make their quality of life miserable to, you know, put them in danger for suicide.And so often what happens at that time is, you know, you go to a psychiatrist, Hey, we'll try, you know, something else. You know, we'll make a good faith effort, but you know, it's gonna take two months, you know, if it works at all. And you know, you're in the most horrible state of your life. And it's just like, wow.You know, how am I. Plow through another couple months [00:18:00] and you know, with no promises at the end. What's exciting about ketamine is I literally, and this isn't uncommon after 25 years of those perent suicidal thoughts, I literally went in for my first treatment and those began to dissipate. And so it was.It was shocking. It was unbelievable. And that happens to about two thirds of people with treatment resistant depression. Hmm. De'Vannon: Yeah. Cuz they turn me onto exploring this and this Ketamine is in the hallucinogenic category too, by the way. People, so there're there's, that's, that's what your L s d, your psilocybin, you know, ketamine, all of them are kind of like, well they are classified the same.Because I was watching documentaries about like veterans with like a P T S D. Yeah. [00:19:00] And depression and all of that. And you know, You know, my, my boys, you know, some of us come back from the war, all kinds of fucked up, twisted, chopped, and screwed at every goddamn thing, and talking about treatment resistant mental health issues.Oh, yeah. Can't find anything to fix people who have come back from these wars. And so, and so the, so the military and the federal government have turned to like M D M A. You know, ketamine and stuff like that. And I saw, you know, where these veterans had, they just, like, after one treatment of that, those lar, those intense symptoms like they had went away and they did not return to them.Yeah, that's crazy. And so now, does that mean that they're off of everything? Not necessarily. And I, I would imagine for some people it does, and I don't how, how, how long, how much time that takes to do. But I mean, if you're living in constant chaos every day and this could like just take that from you while you've managed the minor things, I think it's worth it rather than to go in and kill yourself.Frank: Yeah. [00:20:00] Yeah. I mean, , it's I mean, one thing about it is like, You know, ketamine, you know, when you're under the influence of you're, well, you're in this session, one thing that happens, you know, often for people, whether it's depression or P T S D, is they develop a new perspective on their life and on their problems or on, you know, past traumatic events.And so that perspective frequently, is one of like new possibilities and you know, the, the idea of, oh, you know, there is a feeling outside of dread and and terror and, you know, sadness that I can feel. And with that perhaps I could take some next steps in my life, steps that I haven't felt up to and [00:21:00]wasn't sure if I would ever be able to.De'Vannon: That sounds good to me. I like that. , . That sounds Frank: good to me. Not bad, right? De'Vannon: Like too shabby at all? Not too shabby. I'd say . So, so ketamine therapy, when I went to go get it, it was like a fluid in, in like an IV pack. So, I have not seen this in street form, powder form. I don't know what other forms, but we're talking about like in like an official clinic now.Yeah. So you go in. I wasn't impressed with the bitch that did mine because she had me fucked up. And so I'm not gonna try this again in Louisiana because, because they're just too fucking basic down here in this state where I live. God, I know you're listening. Please send me back to Los Angeles where people make sense and they're not afraid to go hard and they get meSo I went in. Ready to hallucinate and shit. You know, I had my, yeah, yeah. Drive me up there. I'm all like, oh, I'm about to talk to [00:22:00] some ancestor. Yeah. And she did not give . I was trying, I felt nothing. I sat there with a thing in my arm and she didn't want to give me a lot, and she said she did some kind of fucked up calculation.By my standards professionally, you know, as a, as a medical professional. Cause I'm a licensed massage therapist and hypnotist myself. I understand why you would want to go into something. Yeah. With a high degree of caution. And so she does some sort of calculation based on body weight or whatever. So this shouldn't send someone into a K hole.I'm gonna ask you to describe what a keyhole is in a. But but I was like, at that time I was like 230, you know, pounds or something like that. I'm like, bitch, you need to crank up the dose here. This is a lot of weight to go around. And so I didn't feel, I felt like drunk and wooy. Yeah. I didn't feel, I didn't have any like, It was like $450 to go in there and not get what I came for.[00:23:00]Yeah. So I wasn't pleased with it, but I'm glad that you had, you know, some happy-go-lucky Smurf results. . Frank: Well, you know what I mean? It, it's a funny thing because the, like not everybody experiences like the hallucinogenic. and I would say it's probably, you know, a lot, you know, dose dependent. So like you said, I mean your story makes sense, right?You come in, you're a new patient, you get kind of the minimum standard dosage. So like you said, you know, what does that feel like? I mean, it's, for me, my first experience was, yeah, I just kind of felt kind of intoxicated. I mean, it felt good. Like I felt very. I kind of had a, you know, a feel good sensation, but I certainly wasn't like, hallucinating or felt like anything on that level, but I, but you [00:24:00] can experience a lot more of that at higher De'Vannon: doses.Well, I will have it done one more time in California, . Okay. Okay. I'm not doing this shit in Louisiana. If I, I could have taken $450 and went to go talk to homie on the corner, you could've and definitely had a fucking out-of-body experience. Oh yeah, yeah. You trying to do the right fucking thing and go to the legal clinic, everything, and I felt like I got got for my money.I feel like. Frank: But I understand that's It's a lot. It's a lot not to get, you feel like you're not getting the bang for your buck, man. Like, De'Vannon: understandable. So, so basically what y'all can take out of this is if you're gonna go get ketamine, be sure to talk to them about the dosage and find you somebody who's not afraid to take it up a bit.If you know that you have a high tolerance for narcotics and drugs and things like that. Mm-hmm. . So that's not a question that I asked him before I went. Maybe it could have been d. You know, [00:25:00]thought about it, but, Frank: and everybody's different. And like you said, like if you've had, you know, one thing I mentioned in a book is if, if you've had a lot of, you know, drug experience, like a lot of experience with various types of intoxication, I think that kind of changes like your, I mean, it, it, it, it oftentimes, I think it's a positive thing because,You know, whenever you're on a drug, particularly something like you haven't tried before, if you never spent a lot of time like being intoxicated, it can be frightening to feel like you're losing control. Right? So, you know, you're leaned back, you know, kicking in, kicking in this, you know, dark room, they got the IV hooked up and all of a sudden, you know, you kind of start to float away.Some people react very anxiously. to that. But I found on the other hand, you know, whatever, if you used to Drake and you're used to smoking, you used to, you know, whatever it is, you're like, Hey, I, you [00:26:00] know, could kind of roll with this. Like, this is a, this isn't the most challenging situation I've ever been in, De'Vannon: and I haven't done a lot of shit now.Frank: That's what I'm saying. So you're a soldier, man. I mean, literally like, you're, you're a veteran in this, you know what De'Vannon: I mean? So I need a double dose. The next time I go in, baby, Hey baby . The first time I did Shum, they took seven grams for me to, for even, it's hard to see anything hallucinogenic. And everybody that I talk to says three grams is like, they're on like the moon.I'm like, no, bitch. It took seven for the, for, for my rocket to even turn on. Oh, that's interesting. Frank: And so, yeah, you may. You may need someone that's, I mean, and it's true amongst practitioners. Some are more aggressive than others, you know? So like I've been in situations where I'm like, okay, you know, this is my, you know, third [00:27:00] treatment, whatever, can we bump it up by, you know, whatever.And you know, one practitioner will say, yeah, you know, we'll add, you know, five milligrams to that and another one they'll say, Hey, no, we'll, we'll add 10, we'll add 15. So you can definitely see a variance amongst the practitioners. De'Vannon: Okay. Now a lot of people have heard of a K hole. I've seen a person in the caho ones we were at this I would say big gay party that happens out in California and leave it at that.Okay. You know, I know he was on the couch, kinda like laying down, you know, aware, but not really. I wouldn't say he was in a state of panic. Nobody seemed to need to call 9 1 1. You know, nothing like that. So what the fuck is a K hole ? Frank: Well, a K hole, which I guess is kind of short for Ketamine hole, is a level of [00:28:00]experience induced by ketamine.which just generally is, is regarded as like extreme. It could be really frightening. It could be really it could be like almost religious, you know, it could be like transcendent. And so first I should say there's no. official definition, there's no like blood test or something somebody could give you and say, oh yeah, he was in a K hole.A K hole is kind of more of a subjective thing. Mm-hmm. , but usually it's used in a, I don't know if I wanna say a negative. It's, it's used as keyholes aren't usually things people seek out. Okay. Because usually by the time you get to that level of dosage, Some, some difficult things can happen. You can hallucinate [00:29:00] you can feel dread, you can feel one, one section of my book, I talk about one of the keyholes that I've been in a few times which I call Six Foot Under , which is where I kind of slowly throughout the session, feel like I'm like being buried alive and I'm kind of underground and everything's really quiet.I kind of have this visual sense of, of dirt kind of being thrown over me. Things are getting really calm and, but like as that, as that, you know, that experience develops if you're not used to it or if you've never encountered. That was very frightening because I, after a while, I started to feel like, whoa, you know, am I gonna be able to like wake up from this?Or like, is something. , you know, really serious happening. Like, am I gonna like die in my dream and like die reali? Like, [00:30:00] I don't know what was going on myself. So there are keyhole themes that people sometimes have and and some of them overlap. Like I, I've heard the Buried Alive thing before. But I've had other bizarre ones too.Like there's I'm trying to think. For me, they usually have to do with somehow. Being stuck or being somehow like incapacitated and, you know, we could do the, the arm share, psychologist, maybe you could tell me what that means. But yeah, overall though, I'd say K holds, they're not to be frightened of.Like they're not gonna hurt you. They're not gonna give you any lasting injury or anything basically. , you know, that's gonna be gone, you know, in a few minutes or whatever. Or you can call the nurse and they can really precipitate, you know, dropping that effect down. De'Vannon: So a keyhole is [00:31:00] not to be confused like an overdose?Frank: No. I mean, some people, I guess like an overdose I would say is, is kind of more of a medical, more of a fixed medical term, saying that you've hit like a level of toxicity. that's now like threatening your body in some way. This isn't necessarily that, but I guess you could pass through the K hole stage on your way to an overdoseSo it's not like something where you just want to be just, you know, sniffing K in your basement and pay no mind to the, you know, the dosage and what not. You're getting, like thinking that you. Having the keyholes, the worst that could happen. That's not the worst that could happen if you go too far.De'Vannon: Okay, so that is wanted to establish, you know that there is such a thing as an overdose, so you can do too much. The keyhole is not an overdose level and so [00:32:00] this is another reason why it's good to do it in a medical facility. and everything like that, so that like, as he said, they can precipitate it, you know, they can come there and put some other shit in your IV to pull you out of it.if they need to. Exactly. Exactly. Frank: You know, they'll throw you to lifeline if you need it, you know. But I guess like to your point of, you know, I guess expanding on that, you know, for my book I interviewed, you know, a recreational user. Of Ketamine to, to kind of get a sense of, you know, why they did it, what they got out of it, how they handled the safety aspects.And the thing about this, you know, particular person was that they were they were very detail oriented and very kind of systematic in their approach. So they actually like did research. , you know, they checked out the source, you know, they [00:33:00] you know, they, of course they started small, they tracked like all their dosages and when they would take them and over what period they would have different effects.So like, this person wasn't like, you know, The average person, this wasn't like a 13 year old, just like, oh, we got a bag of K, let's just start sniffing. I mean, this guy was like, he approached it, you know, basically like a physician. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why, you know, to him he reports, you know, having a lot of great experiences.things that opened him up. Like particularly like when it came to his emotions and he really nev, he never really had any trouble. So I mean, obviously I can't recommend that, but I can report that that's, that's what a real live recreational user explained to me.De'Vannon: That is, you know what? . [00:34:00] We all have our reasons to be there. , we all had our reasons. Yep. And people, you know, you know, we're like drawn to certain drugs, you know, I like, I tried like heroin, hated heroin. Can't can't, can des get as fuck away from me, the yuckiest shit on the earth. But homeboy can't get enough of fucking heroin.I try. I was, you know, a meth party girl. Really? So, Why it's no different than if you go to a fucking buffet and you like the Hawaiian rolls. Yeah, but you don't like the rye bread. You don't know why the fuck you are drawn to certain things fully because we don't know ourselves that deeply. Not, not to that level.Like we don't know why we prefer the color red over green. A lot of this shit is decided before we're born. Right. And so I'm saying all that to say this is why we don't judge people children . So, so you know, you have your vice, people have theirs. You know I never, I never [00:35:00] tolerated when I was a drug dealer, ran my trap house that like the cocaine users who wanted to judge the heroin addict or the, or the person who wanted to smoke cigarettes and felt ashamed even though we were shooting up meth of my life.I am like we, we gotta get some shit right in our heads. People , , like literally a drug house full of every fucking narcotic known to mean syringes. Pipes, porn. And then somebody pops out a pack of Marl bros. Like, is this cool? Like, I don't wanna be offensive. Right? Right. Frank: Like, I think we can accept that, you know, we De'Vannon: could find space for Marlboros.Right. To like the crack pipe and the meth pipe. I think you'llFrank: no doubt, no doubt you, it's gonna be alright.No, you're right. You bring up a good point though. I mean, let's face it, like, one of the things that hopefully will happen is, you know, the government loosens up some of these, you know, restrictions on the research and then [00:36:00] ultimately on the use we'll learn more. , which things are useful to particular people so that you don't kind of have to go through like the smorgasboard and have, you know, maybe a bunch of experiences you don't want.You know, maybe one day it will be more enlightened where it's like, all right, you know, they, this person should, you know, just smoke some tree. This person needs this other thing. This person just needs a microdose of something else. Maybe. Maybe that's the De'Vannon: future. . I don't see why it wouldn't be, cuz half of those drugs have natural origins and roots, be it cocaine, heroin, L s D, you know, weed.Of course all of that shit starts from a plant. Yeah. And so the pharmaceuticals you get in pill form, you know, they try to say a lot of those have natural based products. They start from plants and it's true. And when they go mix all kinds of other shit in there as well. So I don't find that much difference between cocaine.[00:37:00]An appeal from the doctor cuz it's half plant and half synthetic. So what, right. . So you know what, what way? And so, right, right. . So right now, Frank and I are clapping back at this whole war against drug fuck, fuck you Republican presidents for, for starting this bullshit ass war that you knew was just about.Throwing people in jail, you put the drugs on the streets, made 'em illegal, you know, after you made your money off of it. Well, you still continue to make money off of it to this day, . Yeah, in my opinion, I have no sources to quote on that. I have read things, seen and heard many things, and you're fool think the government doesn't benefit from crime.And and so the people who run the government more precisely, can you, do you think a person can become addicted to Keta? Frank: I definitely think somebody could become addicted. I guess, you know, perhaps like a, a deeper question would be, [00:38:00] is that like gonna be a biological addiction or more of a psychological addiction?So, so on the first, you know, on the level of psychological addiction, I mean, You might say anything could become psychologically addicting, right? I mean, even going to stretching it to the point of what you're saying about getting pampered, you know, by visiting different types of practitioners. I mean, you could develop, you know, kind of a I, I, I don't know, like it is kind of like it could be a crutch, right?There's probably at some place in the spectrum where, , you know, something comes from just being a crutch to actually being like a useful, progressive type of therapy. So psychologically I think you certainly could, because y you know, generally speaking, you know, you feel good, you feel relaxed. I mean, you feel better than you do or you did coming in.So I, I think that's, you know, a factor [00:39:00] on the biological level. The way things are now, because you have to, I mean, unless you are getting it from the street the way things are now when you need to go to a clinic or you're in a clinical study or something, I think it would be very hard to become addicted in that scenario biologically, just because you're only getting, you know, so much and with a certain frequency.So, you know, for me, for instance, I usually go about once a. and, you know, do I look forward to that month? Or that next treatment? Yeah. I look forward to it. I mean, especially if like, I've had a difficult month or, you know, I, I feel like, whoa, you know, it really is time for a booster. I look forward to that.you know, whether that's like, do I feel drawn to it? You know, like, I'm gonna break in your house or try to, you know, sell your tv, you know, to get it. [00:40:00] I've never felt anything like that. But I will say that one thing you may find really interesting, and I, I believe I touched on this in the book, is that starting as far back as the eighties in Russia, there was a physician who.Using Ketamine to actually break people's addictions. So he was doing some work with I think heroin addicts, and I wanna say also alcoholics. And what he found based on that work is something that's actually still being used today. There are clinics now that specialize on deploying ketamine to break addiction.And so that's kind of fascinat. De'Vannon: You're damn right. And that reminds me, it's another thing I saw in those drug documentaries I was watching with they were using M D M A and maybe psilocybin two to break addictions. Okay. Yeah. And I was also going to say like [00:41:00] the addiction, a, the addiction risk is no more than say, same addiction risk when these doctors are pro prescribe you things that have addict.Qualities to them anyway. So they're prescribing you. People get addicted to pills from their doctors, then they start going, oh yeah, from doctor to doctor to get the shit. Anyway, so I'm saying like there's no more risk with ketamine than it is with the shit you're getting from the doctor anyway. Frank: So, yeah, I mean, practically speaking, like when you look at the opioid epidemic, right?Mm-hmm. I mean, there are a whole, there are, you know, , I'm not sure what the current number of people is that, that, that are hooked on opioids. But I mean, like you said, it's a good point. I mean, if you're, if you know, how can we com be concerned about one and, and not the other, that's like, you know, literally like a tidal wave of deathDe'Vannon: Right. And I think it's so cool. to use one drug to counteract another. But I mean, you see [00:42:00] that all the time. Just like we were saying, if somebody were to fall into a ca hole, they would put just a different drug into your system. Yeah. To counteract that. So if you're addicted to meth and you use M D M A or ketamine and or shrooms to overcome it, it's the same damn thing.You use one drug to counter counteract the other . Frank: So yeah, you can get yourself in in quite stuck in a circle of. It can be very frustrating, you know? Because let's face it, for most of us, the ideal is just to feel great and not have to take anything else. You know, it's just like, Hey, I woke up, I felt great, and I'm good.You know, that will be nice. I don't have to put anything toxic in my body, you know? I don't have to worry about, you know, drug tests or DUIs or anything, De'Vannon: you know? Hell yeah. We don't need drug test DUIs or the $10,000 that goes with DUIs, [00:43:00] right? , yes. People. If you get a DUI or dwi, I driving under the influence of NT thing, alcohol, weed, whatever.Be expect to pay at least $10,000. Okay. Imagine how much more drugs than alcohol you could have with $10,000 than . Fucking, okay, so the pain is the motherfucking police. Call a fucking Uber or get a friend. Don't get behind the wheel of a goddamn car when you Right, right. We have more to do with 10 grand than to give it to the fucking legal system.Absolutely. Frank: You can buy, you can ride a lot of Ubers for 10 Gs. Man, De'Vannon: look. Uber Luxe. V i p. Okay. . You can beat the Benzs honey. You can beat BenzsSo does your book have information on, you know, besides like what Ketamine is and, and all of the risks involved and things like that, does it tell people like how to talk to their doctors or where they can go to [00:44:00] get the treatment or any kind of thing like, Frank: Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, and I'm sure, you know, you're so familiar with kind of all these ins and outs, you know when, when when you've been introduced particularly to a drug, you've heard of a drug, but you've heard of it like in a illicit context or like a street context, usually people are afraid then to ask their doctor.So if you just say to someone, Hey, you know, , you know, Frank, you know, he is been having these ketamine treatments. He's doing great. You know, there's a lot of, you know, blockage in, in people's minds like, wait, wait a minute, is that, you know, is Afro horses I heard that's just for the club. Or I, you know, isn't that illegal?Or like, where does that all stand? And so you know, in the book, I walked through, you know, people through like, here, you know, what's the legality? You know, what's, you know, what are you asking your doctor? You know how do you know if you may [00:45:00] be someone that you know, this, you know this treatment would be appropriate for?And the nice thing, you know, these days is that, you know, as these clinics has o have opened up, You can call or, you know, sit down for a consultation really easily and, and, you know, you can bring your medical records and talk all the ins and outs. You know, can I, you know, still, you know, tri Ketamine, if I'm on X drug, you know, can I, you know, if I'm bipolar, is it safe for me or will it make me man?So I, I walk you through a number of those questions and really, I just want people to know that this is perfectly legal. There are many clinical studies behind it, and the, the number of those is just exploding. You have nothing to be ashamed of. And you're probably gonna meet a lot of people and along the way, whose lives have been [00:46:00] changed or even.De'Vannon: Mm-hmm. . And then I wanted to point out, Frank's website is called Find ketamine.com. On there you have information about like how to pay for treatment. It's, it's a, it's a very changing landscape in terms of what insurance is gonna cover and what they're not. It's different for different states. So find the ketamine.com is Frank's websites, so you can go there.He has a kick ass blog that covers a lot of the topics we've talked about today that are also in the book. And on your website you can also book like sessions with you to talk and stuff like that. Can you tell me about what people can actually utilize your website for? Sure. Frank: Absolutely. There are, I, I've tried to make the, you know, information as available as possible.So, you know, almost all the information I have out there is free. I, you can buy like some, what I call them as just information packages on my site where I give. , you know, like particular [00:47:00]reports on something or I even have one that includes videos, like of some of my own treatments. , which is very, you know, relaxing and reassuring when you can actually see the process someone's going through.You can see that they didn't go crazy. You know, I didn't jump out of the chair. You know, I didn't start screaming. Everything was, everything was cool. So I have some of those packages available and then of course you can also contact me. I try to just kind of help people however I can. or we can schedule something, you know, more detailed sometimes also, like I will speak to, you know, groups of physicians or at a conference, something like that.De'Vannon: something like that. We want something just like this. , right? Okay. And there you have it folks. So you know where to go. Find ketamine.com. You can get his Frank's book [00:48:00] there. You can reach out to Frank directly, you can read through his blog. I find his website to be very thorough. It's like, it, it is because when, when I, before I went to get my ketamine done, I was searching all over the internet and I didn't know about his website.You know, and it was like a lot of scattered information and I really found that fine ketamine.com pulled it all together. Had I known about you before I went to go see this bitch to get this fucked up treatment, I think that my treatment would've been more rewarding and I could have got ahead of the game because you think.The lowest package on your side is like $9 and 99 cents, and the most expensive one is 49 99. That bitch charged 450, so I would've rather have paid you the 9 99 to get some fucking head smarts about absolutely because people, I want you to be aware that in this just there's probably gonna be some vulture as doctor out there taking advantage of people.I'm not trying to put fear in you, but true that's not labor under the delusion that everybody's intentions are going to be pure. So absolutely I trust Frank because he is giving you shit for free on his website [00:49:00] and more than enough information for you to work with. But also if you want to go deeper, then there, that's there too, because the man's gotta eat and pay his bills, so, so I fucked with Frank, but I don't fuss with that bitch I went to for my ketamine treatment.No, no, no ma'am. I don't fucks with her. I don't talk to her. No ma.Frank: Man, that that sucks. You had that experience, man, like I'm really hoping your next one is the opposite. De'Vannon: Oh, yes, it will be in California. My homeboy Demi Wild, he hosts the hookup Horror Stories podcast, and he lives over in Los Angeles. I haven't even told him this yet, but like at some point when I visit LA again, I'm gonna snatch his little cute ass up and he's gonna go with me to the Ketamine clinic and babysit me.So, yes, there you go. That's Demi. If you're listening, we're gonna do this Ketamine date, honeyFrank: It's good to take someone with you. You know what I mean? [00:50:00] I, I think that's nice, especially if it's like your early on in your ketamine journey. Sometimes it just feels relaxing. Actually, I know a physician who takes his wife with him and she just holds his hand through the treatment and he said it just makes all the difference in the world.So he feels very connected. He feels very like open emotionally, and it's very calming and reassuring. De'Vannon: Mm-hmm. . Calmness and reassurance. Well, I speak, yes, sir. I speak that Blessed Assurance all over everyone in the world whose ears are open and listening to this broadcast. No doubt. Frank's LinkedIn Frank m Ligan is gonna be listed in the show notes, Frank m Ligans with an S.So that's pretty much all that I had. Was there anything that you wanted to say or bring up or Frank: talk about? Well, I mean, one thing I just wanna say is I, I really appreciate, you know, the work you're [00:51:00] doing in terms of, you know, there's so much and, and I don't know, I guess it depends how conservative people are, but I mean, for me, I, I, I'm a big proponent of, you know, kind of breaching those you know, topics that are, you know, off a little to the left or things that people are generally embarrassed about or people, cuz I just find.You know, it's like an illusion, right? Like there are so many of us that fit into these different, you know, categories or have these different challenges, but when nobody's out there really discussing it, you could feel very isolated. Mm-hmm. , you know, and I'm sure, as you know, I mean, so I just wanna say like, when I I didn't, I didn't you know, reach out to you just at random about you having a podcast.I thought to myself, sex, drugs in Jesus. Like, this is a [00:52:00] man that's willing to put it all on the line and really, you know, talk to the people that may not have anyone else to, to talk to. So I, I just respect that man. Appreciate it and it's just been great being here with you. De'Vannon: Well, thank you. I appreciate those kind words immensely.And so y'all, his name is, Lis, his website is find ketamine.com. You could find him on LinkedIn. And this show will be coming out soon. Thank you so much for coming on, Frank. I wish you champagne wishes and ketamine dreams . No Frank: doubt. No doubt. Hey, thanks very much.De'Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the Sex Drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at SexDrugsAndJesus.com or [00:53:00] wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.My name is De'Vannon, and it's been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is gonna be all right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncFy1zRA9HM 28 DAYS LATER Written by Alex Garland CLOSE ON A MONITOR SCREEN: Images of stunning violence. Looped. Soldiers in a foreign war shoot an unarmed civilian at point- blank range; a man is set on by a frenzied crowd wielding clubs and machetes; a woman is necklaced while her killers cheer and howl. Pull back to reveal that we are seeing one of many screens in a bank of monitors, all showing similar images... Then revealing that the monitors are in a... INT. SURGICAL CHAMBER - NIGHT ...surgical chamber. And watching the screens is a... ...chimp, strapped to an operating table, with its skull dissected open, webbed in wires and monitoring devices, muzzled with a transparent guard. Alive. Behind the surgical chamber, through the wide doorframe, we can see a larger laboratory beyond. INT. BRIGHT CORRIDOR - NIGHT A group of black-clad ALF Activists, all wearing balaclavas, move down a corridor. They carry various gear - bag, bolt cutters. As they move, one Activist reaches up to a security camera and sprays it black with an aerosol paint can. INT. LABORATORY - NIGHT The Activists enter the laboratory. CHIEF ACTIVIST Fucking hell... The Chief Activist takes his camera off his shoulder and starts taking photos. The room is huge and long, and darkened except for specific pools of light. Partially illuminated are rows of cages with clear perspex doors. They run down either side of the room. In the cages are chimpanzees. 2. Most are in a state of rabid agitation, banging and clawing against the perspex, baring teeth through foam-flecked mouths. They reach the far end of the lab, where on a huge steel operating table they see the dissected chimp. FEMALE ACTIVIST Oh God... The dissected chimp's eyes flick to the Activists. Blood wells from around the exposed brain tissue. Tears starts to roll down the Female Activist's cheeks. CHIEF ACTIVIST (to Female Activist) Keep your shit together. If we're going to get them out of here... The Finnish Activist is checking the perspex cages. FINNISH ACTIVIST I can pop these, no problem. CHIEF ACTIVIST So get to it. The Finnish Activist raises his crowbar and sticks it around the edge of one of the doors - about to prise it open. At the moment, the doors to the laboratory bang open. The Activists all turn. Standing at the entrance is the Scientist. A pause. The Scientist jumps to a telephone handset on the wall and shouts into the receiver. SCIENTIST Security! We have a break-in! Get to sector... A hand slams down the disconnect button. SCIENTIST ...nine. The Chief Activist plucks the receiver from the Scientist's hands, and then rips the telephone from the wall. A beat. 3. SCIENTIST I know who you are, I know what you think you're doing, but you have to listen to me. You can't release these animals. CHIEF ACTIVIST If you don't want to get hurt, shut your mouth, and don't move a fucking muscle. SCIENTIST (BLURTS) The chimps are infected! The Activists hesitate, exchanging a glance. SCIENTIST (continuing; stumbling, FLUSTERED) These animals are highly contagious. They've been given an inhibitor. CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? SCIENTIST Chemically restricted, locked down to a... a single impulse that... CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? The Scientist hesitates before answering. SCIENTIST Rage. Behind the Activists, the bank of monitors show the faces of the machete-wielding crowd. SCIENTIST (desperately trying to EXPLAIN) In order to cure, you must first understand. Just imagine: to have power over all the things we feel we can't control. Anger, violence... FINNISH ACTIVIST What the fuck is he talking about? 4. CHIEF ACTIVIST We don't have time for this shit! Get the cages open! SCIENTIST No! CHIEF ACTIVIST We're going, you sick bastard, and we're taking your torture victims with us. SCIENTIST NO! You must listen! The animals are contagious! The infection is in their blood and saliva! One bite and... FEMALE ACTIVIST They won't bite me. The Female Activist crouches down to face the wild eyes of the infected chimp behind the perspex. SCIENTIST STOP! You have no idea! The Scientist makes a desperate lunge towards her, but the Chief Activist grabs him. FEMALE ACTIVIST Good boy. You don't want to bite me, do you? The Female Activist gives a final benign smile, then the Finnish Activist pops open the door. SCIENTIST NO! Like a bullet from a gun, the infected chimp leaps out at the Female Activist - and sinks its teeth into her neck. She reels back as the chimp claws and bites with extraordinary viciousness. At the same moment, a deafening alarm begins to sound. FEMALE ACTIVIST (SHRIEKING) Get it off! Get if off! The Finnish Activist rips the ape off and throws it on to the floor. The infected chimp immediately bites into the man's leg. He yells with pain, and tries to kick it off. 5. Behind him, the Female Activist has started to scream. She doubles up, clutching the side of her head. FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! Jesus! Help me! SCIENTIST We have to kill her! FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! I'm burning! CHIEF ACTIVIST What's... SCIENTIST We have to kill her NOW! Meanwhile, the Female Activist's cries have become an unwavering howl of pain - and she is joined by the Finnish Activist, whose hands have also flown to the side of his head, gripping his temples as if trying to keep his skull from exploding. CHIEF ACTIVIST What's wrong with them? The Scientist grabs a desk-lamp base and starts running towards the screaming Female Activist... ...who has ripped off her balaclava - revealing her face - the face of an Infected. She turns to the Scientist. SCIENTIST Oh God. She leaps at him. He screams as they go tumbling to the ground. The Chief Activist watches in immobile horror as she attacks the Scientist with amazing ferocity. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Another ACTIVIST makes his way down the corridor towards the lab. ACTIVIST (HISSES) Terry? Jemma? 6. No answer. ACTIVIST Mika? Where are you? He reaches the door to the lab, which is closed - and... ...as he opens it, we realize the door is also soundproofed. A wall of screaming hits him. He stands in the doorway - stunned by the noise, and then the sight. Blood, death, and his colleagues, all Infected. ACTIVIST Bloody hell. The Infected rush him. FADE TO BLACK. TITLE: 28 DAYS LATER INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON Close up of Jim, a young man in his twenties, wearing pale green hospital pyjamas. He has a month's beard, is dishevelled, and asleep. We pull back to see that Jim is lying on a hospital bed, in a private room. Connected to his arms are multiple drips, a full row of four or five on each side of his bed. Most of the bags are empty. Jim's eyes open. He looks around with an expression of confusion. Then he sits up. He is weak, but he swings his legs off the bed and stands. The attached drips are pulled with him and clatter to the floor. Jim winces, and pulls the taped needles from his arm. JIM Ow... His voice is hoarse, his mouth dry. Massaging his throat, he walks to the door. 7. INT. COMA WARD - LATE AFTERNOON The door to Jim's hospital room is locked. The key is on the floor. He picks it up and opens the door. Jim exits into a corridor. At the far end, a sign read: COMA WARD. There is no sign of life or movement. Jim walks down the corridor. One of the doors is half-open. From inside, there is the sound of buzzing flies. INT. HOSPITAL WARDS - LATE AFTERNOON Jim moves as quickly as he can through the hospital, still weak, but now driven by adrenaline. All the wards and corridors are deserted. Medical notes and equipment lie strewn over the floors, trolleys are upended, glass partition doors are smashed. In a couple of places, splashes of dried blood arc up the walls. He reaches A&E. On one wall is a row of public pay phones. He lifts a receiver, and the line is dead. He goes down the line, trying them all. In the corner of the A&E reception is a smashed soft-drinks machine, with a few cans collected at the base. Jim grabs one, rips off the ring-pull and downs it in one go. Then he grabs another, and heads for the main doors. EXT. HOSPITAL - LATE AFTERNOON Jim exits and walks out into the bright daylight of the forecourt. The camera begins to pull away from him. JIM Hello? Aside from a quiet rush of wind, there is silence. No traffic, no engines, no movement. Not even birdsong. EXT. LONDON - SUNDOWN Jim walks through the empty city, from St. Thomas's Hospital, over Westminster Bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, down Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square. 8. A bright overhead sun bleaches the streets. A light drifts litter and refuse. Cars lie abandoned, shops looted. Jim is still wearing his hospital pyjamas, and carries a plastic bag full of soft-drink cans. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD/CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks. Night has fallen. He needs to find a place to rest... He pauses. Down a narrow side street is a church. He walks towards it. The front doors are open. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks inside, moving with the respectful quietness that people adopt when entering a church. The doors ahead to the main chamber are closed. Pushing them, gently trying the handle, it is obvious they are locked. But another open door is to his left. He goes through it. INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Jim moves up a stairwell. Written large on the wall is a single line of graffiti: REPENT. THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH INT. CHURCH - GALLERY LEVEL - NIGHT Jim moves into the gallery level, and sees, through the dust and rot, ornate but faded splendor. At the far end, a stained- glass window is illuminated by the moonlight. Jim pads in, stands at the gallery, facing the stained-glass window for a moment before looking down... Beneath are hundreds of dead bodies. Layered over the floor, jammed into the pews, spilling over the altar. The scene of an unimaginable massacre. Jim stands, stunned. Then sees, standing motionless at different positions facing away from him, four people. Their postures and stillness make their status unclear. Jim hesitates before speaking. 9. JIM ...Hello? Immediately, the four heads flick around. Infected. And the next moment, there is the powerful thump of a door at the far end of the gallery. Jim whirls to the source as the Infected below start to move. The door thumps again - another stunningly powerful blow, the noise echoing around the chamber. Confused, fist closing around his bag of soft drinks, Jim steps onto the gallery, facing the door... ...and it smashes open. Revealing an Infected Priest - who locks sight on Jim, and starts to sprint. JIM Father? The Priest is half way across the gallery JIM Father, what are you... And now the moonlight catches the Priest's face. Showing clearly: the eyes. The blood smeared and collected around his nose, ears, and mouth. Darkened and crusted, accumulated over days and weeks. Fresh blood glistening. JIM Jesus! In a movement of pure instinct, Jim swings the bag just as the Priest is about to reach him - and connects squarely with the man's head. JIM Oh, that, was bad, that was bad... I shouldn't have done that... He breaks into a run... INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Down the stairwell... 10. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT ...into the front entrance, where the locked door now strains under the blows of the Infected inside. JIM Shit. EXT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim sprints down the stone steps. As he reaches the bottom the doors are broken open, and the Infected give chase. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim runs - the Infected have almost reached him. A hand fires up a Zippo lighter, and lights the rag of a Molotov cocktail. As Jim runs, something flies past his head, and the Infected closest to him explodes in a ball of flame. Jim turns, and sees as another Molotov cocktail explodes, engulfing two in the fireball. He whirls, now completely bewildered. WOMAN'S VOICE HERE! Another Molotov cocktail explodes. The Infected stagger from the blaze, on fire. WOMAN'S VOICE OVER HERE! Jim whirls again, and sees, further down the road... ...Selena, a black woman, also in her twenties. She wears a small backpack, a machete is stuck into her belt - and she holds a lit Molotov cocktail in her hand. ...Mark, a tall, good-looking man - throwing another bottle. It smashes on the head of the last Infected, bathing it in flame... The burning Infected bumps blindly into a car. Falls. Gets up again. 11. Blindly, it staggers off the road, into a petrol station - where an abandoned car has run over on the pumps. The ground beneath it suddenly ignites, and the petrol station explodes. EXT. SIDE STREET - NIGHT Selena and Mark lead Jim into a side street. JIM (DAZED) Those people! Who were... who... MARK This way! Move it! Jim allows himself to be hurried along. EXT. SHOP - NIGHT Selena stops outside a newsagent's shop. The shop's door and windows are covered with a metal security grill, but the grill over the door lock has been prised away enough for Selena to slip her hand through to the latch. INT. SHOP - NIGHT Inside, most of the shelves have been emptied of confectionery. Newspapers and magazines litter the floor. The magazine covers of beautiful girls and sports cars have become instant anachronisms. At the back of the shop, a makeshift bed of sheets and sleeping bag is nestled. This has obviously been Selena and Mark's home for the last few days. INT. NEWSAGENT - NIGHT Jim, Mark and Selena enter the newsagent's and pull down the grill. MARK A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They each get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the barman says, you can't leave that lying there. The man says, it's not a lion. It's a giraffe. 12. Silence. Mark pulls off his mask and turns to Selena. MARK He's completely humorless. You two will get along like a house on fire. Selena, who has already taken off her mask, ignores Mark. SELENA Who are you? You've come from a hospital. MARK Are you a doctor? SELENA He's not a doctor. He's a patient. JIM I'm a bicycle courier. I was riding a package from Farringdon to Shaftesbury Avenue. A car cut across me... and then I wake up in hospital, today... I wake up and I'm hallucinating, or... MARK What's your name? JIM Jim. MARK I'm Mark. This is Selena. (BEAT) Okay, Jim. We've got some bad news. Selena starts to tell her story, and as the story unfolds we see the images she describes. SELENA It began as rioting. And right from the beginning, you knew something bad was going on because the rioters were killing people. And then it wasn't on the TV anymore. It was in the street outside. It was coming through your windows. We all guessed it was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. 13. Something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities, it was already too late. The infection was everywhere. The army blockades were overrun. And that was when the exodus started. The day before the radio and TV stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that. JIM Where are your families? MARK They're dead. SELENA Yours will be dead too. JIM No... No! I'm going to find them. They live in Greenwich. I can walk. (heading for the exit) I'm going to... to go and... SELENA You'll go and come back. JIM (pulling at the grill) Yes! I'll go and come back. MARK Rules of survival. Lesson one - you never go anywhere alone, unless you've got no choice. Lesson two - you only move during daylight, unless you've got no choice. We'll take you tomorrow. Then we'll all go and find your dead parents. Okay? EXT. TRAIN TRACKS - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark walk along the Docklands Light Railway in single file. Ahead is a train. Behind the train, as if spilled in its wake, are abandoned bags, suitcases, backpacks. Mark drops pace to let Jim catch up. 14. MARK How's your head? Fucked? No reply. MARK (gesturing at the city) I know where your head is. You're looking at these windows, these millions of windows, and you're thinking - there's no way this many people are dead. It's just too many windows. Mark picks up a handbag from the tracks. MARK The person who owned this bag. Can't be dead. Mark reaches in and starts to pull things out as they walk, discarding the personal possessions. MARK A woman - (car keys) - who drove a Nissan Micra - (teddy) - and had a little teddy bear - (condoms) - and carried protection, just in case. Marks tosses the condoms behind him. MARK (DRY) Believe me, we won't need them anymore than she will. He hands the bag to Jim and walks ahead. Jim pulls out a mobile phone. He switches it on. It reads: SEARCHING FOR NETWORK. The message blinks a couple of times. Then the screen goes blank. Jim looks left. He is now alongside the train. The inside of the windows are smeared with dried blood. Pressed against the glass is the face of a dead man. 15. Jim drops the phone and breaks into a run - running past Mark and Selena. MARK (HISSING) Hey! EXT. GREENWICH COMMON - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark jog across Greenwich Common. Jim gestures towards one of the streets on the far side of the green. JIM (LOW VOICE) Down there. Westlink Street. Second on the left. EXT. WESTLINK STREET - DAY The street is modest red-brick semi-detached houses. They stand outside Number 43. Jim waits while Selena scans the dark facade. SELENA If there's anyone in there who isn't human... JIM I understand. SELENA Anyone. JIM I understand. Selena shoots a glance at Jim. Jim is gazing at the house. MARK Okay. EXT. BACK GARDEN - DAY Jim uses the key under the flowerpot to open the back door. INT. HOUSE - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark move quietly through the kitchen and the downstairs of the house. 16. Surprisingly, everything is neat and tidy. Washed plates are stacked by the sink, newspapers on the table are neatly piled. The headline on the top paper reads simply: CONTAINMENT FAILS. They reach the bottom of the stairs. Selena gestures upwards, and Jim nods. They start to ascend. At the top of the stairs, Selena sniffs the air, and recoils. Jim has noticed it too. His eyes widen in alarm. MARK (WHISPERS) Wait. But Jim pushes past and advances along the top landing, until he reaches a door. By now the smell is so bad that he is having to cover his nose and mouth with the sleeve of one arm. Jim pushes open the door. Inside, two decomposed bodies lie side by side on the bed, intertwined. On the bedside table are an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of red wine. Mark appears behind him. Jim stares at his parents for a couple of moments, then Mark closes the door. INT. BATHROOM - DAY Jim sits on the toilet, alone. He is crying. In his hand is a piece of paper: "Jim - with endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up." The paper crumples in his fist. INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark sit in the living room, on the two sofas. Jim looks dazed, uncomprehending. Selena watches Jim, her expression neutral. SELENA They died peacefully. You should be grateful. JIM I'm not grateful. Jim's words hang a moment. Then Mark talks, simply, unemotionally, matter-of-fact throughout. 17. MARK The roads out were all jammed. So we went to Paddington Station. Hoping: maybe we could get to Heathrow, maybe buy our way on a plane. My dad had all this cash, even though cash was already useless, and Mum had her jewellery. But twenty thousand other people had the same idea. (A MOMENT) The crowd was surging, and I lost my grip on my sister's hand. I remember realizing the ground was soft. I looked down, and I was standing on people. Like a carpet, people who had fallen, and... somewhere in the crowd there were infected. It spread fast, no one could run, all you could do was climb. Over more people. So I did that. I got up, somehow, on top of a kiosk. (A MOMENT) Looking down, you couldn't tell which faces were infected and which weren't. With the blood, the screaming, they all looked the same. And I saw my dad. Not my mum or my sister. But I saw my dad. His face. A short silence. MARK Selena's right. You should be grateful. SELENA We don't have time to get back to the shop before dark. We should stay here tonight. Jim nods. He isn't sure what he wants to say. JIM My old room was at the end of the landing. You two take it. I'll sleep down here. SELENA We'll sleep in the same room. It's safer. 18. EXT. LONDON - DAY TO NIGHT The red orb of the sun goes down; the light fades. As night falls, London vanishes into blackness, with no electric light to be seen. Then the moon appears from behind the cloud layer, and the dark city is revealed. INT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim is on the sofa. In the moonlight, we can see that his eyes are open, wide awake. Selena is curled on the other sofa, and Mark is on the floor - both asleep. The house is silent. Jim watches Selena sleeping for a couple of moments. Then, quietly, he gets off the sofa and pads out of the living room, down the hall to the kitchen. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT Jim enters, standing just inside the doorway. He looks around the room. On one wall, a faded kid's drawing of a car is framed. Above the counter, on a shelf of cookery books, an album has a handwritten label on the spine: "Mum's Favorite Recipes". Jim walks to the fridge. Stuck to the door is a photo of Jim with his parents, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. Jim is on his mountain bike, wearing his courier bag. FLASH CUT TO: Jim, sitting at the kitchen table as his Mum enters, carrying bags of shopping. Jim walks over to the bags and pulls out a carton of orange juice, which he pulls straight to his mouth and begins to gulp down. His Dad walks in from the garden. JIM'S DAD Give me a glass of that, would you? JIM (draining the carton, and giving it a shake) It's empty. CUT BACK TO: 19. Jim touches the photo, their faces, lightly. Jim is facing away from the back door, which has a large frosted-glass panel. Through the glass panel, unseen by Jim a dark silhouette looms against the diffused glow from the moonlight. Through the kitchen window, a second silhouette appears. Then there is a scratching noise from the back door. Jim freezes. Slowly, he turns his head, and sees the dark shapes behind the door and window. A beat - then the door is abruptly and powerfully smashed in. It flies open, and hangs loosely held by the bottom hinge. Standing in the doorframe is an Infected Man. Jim shouts with alarm as the Man lunges at him - and they both go tumbling to the floor. At the same moment, the figure behind the kitchen window smashes the glass, and an Infected Teenage Girl starts to clamber through the jagged frame. The Man gets on top of Jim, while Jim uses his arms to hold back the ferocious assault. A single strand of saliva flies from the Man's lips, and contacts Jim's cheek. JIM (SCREAMS) Help! Suddenly, Selena is there, holding her machete. The blade flashes down to the back of the Man's neck. Blood gushes. Jim rolls the Infected Man off, just in time to see... ...Mark dispatch the Girl half way through the kitchen window. The Girl is holding Mark, but her legs are caught on the broken glass. Mark jabs upwards into the Girl's torso - she stiffens, then slumps, and as Mark steps back we see he is holding a knife. Jim hyperventilates, staring at the corpse on the kitchen floor. JIM It's Mr. Bridges... Selena turns to Jim. She is hyperventilating too, but there is control and steel in her voice. 20. SELENA Were you bitten? JIM He lives four doors down... Jim turns to the Girl sprawled half way through the window. JIM That's his daughter... SELENA Were you bitten? Jim looks at her. Selena is still holding her machete at the ready. JIM No... No! I wasn't! SELENA Did any of the blood get in your mouth? JIM No! SELENA Mark? Jim turns to Mark. He is standing in the middle of the room. Stepped away from the window. The Girl's blood is on his arm - and he is wiping it away... ...off the skin... where a long scratch cut wells up fresh blood. A moment. Then Mark looks at Selena, as if slightly startled. MARK Wait. But Selena is swiping with her machete. Mark lifts his arm instinctively, defensively, and the blade sinks in. Selena immediately yanks it back. MARK DON'T! Selena swipes again - and the blade catches Mark hard in the side of the head. Mark falls. 21. Jim watches, scrabbling backwards on the floor away from them, as Selena brutally finishes Mark off. Selena looks at Mark's body for a couple of beats, then lowers the blade. She picks up a dishcloth from the sink counter and tosses it to Jim. SELENA Get that cleaned off. Jim picks up the rag and hurriedly starts to wipe the Infected's blood from around his neck. SELENA Do you have any clothes here? JIM (fazed, frightened of her) I... I don't know. I think so. SELENA Then get them. And get dressed. We have to leave, now. With practiced speed, Selena starts to open the kitchen cupboards, selecting packets of biscuits and cans from the shelves, and stuffing them into her backpack. SELENA More infected will be coming. They always do. EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim and Selena exit the front door. Jim has changed out of his hospital gear into jeans and a sweatshirt. He also has a small backpack, and is carrying a baseball bat. EXT. LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk: fast, alert. But something is not being said between them... until Jim breaks the silence. JIM (QUIET) How did you know? Selena says nothing. Continues walking. JIM (INSISTENT) How did you know he was infected? 22. SELENA The blood. JIM The blood was everywhere. On me, on you, and... SELENA (CUTTING IN) I didn't know he was infected. Okay? I didn't know. He knew. I could see it in his face. (A MOMENT) You need to understand, if someone gets infected, you've got somewhere between ten and twenty seconds to kill them. They might be your brother or your sister or your oldest friend. It makes no difference Just so as you know, if it happens to you, I'll do it in a heartbeat. A moment. JIM How long had you known him? SELENA Five days. Or six. Does it matter? Jim says nothing. SELENA He was full of plans. Long-distance weapons, so they don't get close. A newsagent's with a metal grill, so you can sleep. Petrol bombs, so the blood doesn't splash. Selena looks at Jim dispassionately. SELENA Got a plan yet, Jim? You want us to find a cure and save the world? Or fall in love and fuck? Selena looks away again. SELENA Plans are pointless. Staying alive is as good as it gets. Silence. 23. They walk. Jim following a few steps behind Selena. A few moments later, Jim lifts a hand, opens his mouth, about to say something - but Selena cuts him off without even looking round. SELENA Shhh. She has seen something... A line of tower blocks some distance away, standing against the night sky. In one of them, hanging in the window of one of the highest stories, colored fairy lights are lit up, blinking gently. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk through the smashed glass doors of the tower block. It is extremely dark inside. Selena switches on a flashlight and illuminates the entrance hall. It is a mess. The floor is covered in broken glass and dried blood. The lift doors are jammed open, and inside is a dense bundle of rags - perhaps an old corpse, but impossible to tell, because the interior of the lift has been torched. It is black with carbon, and smoke-scarring runs up the outside wall. Selena moves the flashlight to the stairwell. There is a huge tangle of shopping trolleys running up the stairs. Selena gives one of the trolleys an exploratory tug. It shifts, but holds fast, meshed in with its neighbor. Then she puts a foot into one of the grates, and lifts herself up. Shining her light over the top of the tangle, she can see a gap along the top. JIM Let's hope we don't have to get out of here in a hurry. She begins to climb through. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena move steadily and quietly up the stairwell, into the building. Reaching a next landing, they check around the corner before proceeding. Through a broken window, we can see that they are already high above most London buildings, and on the wall a sign reads: LEVEL 5. 24. SELENA Need a break? JIM (completely out of breath) No. You? SELENA No. They continue a few steps. JIM I do need a break, by the way. Selena nods. They stop on the stairs. Jim slips off his backpack and sits, pulling a face as he does so... SELENA What's up? JIM Nothing. She gives him a cut-the-crap expression. JIM I've got a headache. SELENA Bad? JIM Pretty bad. SELENA Why didn't you say something before? JIM Because I didn't think you'd give a shit. A moment, where it's unclear how Selena will react to this. Then she slips off her own backpack. SELENA (going through the bag) You've got no fat on you, and all you've had to eat is sugar. So you're crashing. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot we can do about that... 25. Selena starts to produce a wide selection of pills, looted from a chemist. SELENA ...except pump you full painkillers, and give you more sugar to eat. She holds up a bottle of codeine tablets, and passes it to Jim. SELENA As for the sugar: Lilt or Tango? JIM (CHEWING CODEINE) ...Do you have Sprite? SELENA Actually, I did have a can of Sprite, but... Suddenly there is a loud scream, coming from somewhere lower down the building. Jim and Selena both make a grab for their weapons. JIM Jesus! SELENA Quiet. The scream comes again. The noise is chilling, echoing up the empty stairwell. But there is something strange about it. The noise is human, but oddly autistic. It is held for slightly too long, and stops abruptly. SELENA That's an infected. Then, the sound of metal scraping, clattering the blockade. SELENA They're in. INT. SHOPPING TROLLEY BLOCKADE - NIGHT Two Infected, a Young Asian Guy and a Young White Guy, moving with amazing speed over the blockade. 26. INT. STAIRS - NIGHT Jim and Selena sprint up the stairs. Behind them, we can hear the Infected, giving chase, howling. They pass level eight, nine, ten... Jim is exhausted. SELENA Come on! JIM (out of breath, barely able to speak) I can't. Selena continues, and Jim looks over the edge of the stairwell, to the landing below... ...where the two Infected appear, tearing around the corner. INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHT Selena sprints up the stairs... and Jim sprints past her, in an amazing burst of energy and speed. They round another bend in the stairwell... ...then both Jim and Selena scream. Standing directly in front of them is a Man In Riot Cop Gear - helmet with full visor, gloves, a riot shield in one hand, and a length of lead pipe in the other. The Man lunges past both of them, barging past, where the Infected White Man has appeared at the stairwell. The Riot Gear Man swings his lead pipe and connects viciously with the White Man's head. The White Man falls backwards against the Asian Man. Both fall back down the stairs. The Riot Gear Man turns back to Jim and Selena. MAN Down the corridor! Flat 157! Jim and Selena are stunned, but start to run down the corridor. The Asian Man is coming back up the stairs. Jim looks back over his shoulder in time to see the Riot Gear Man deliver a massive blow to the Asian Man's head. 27. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Jim and Selena run towards Flat 157. The door is open, but as they approach, it suddenly slams shut. JIM AND SELENA (hammering on the door) Let us in! GIRL (O.S.) Who is it? SELENA Let us in! The door opens a fraction, on the chain. The face of a girl appears. She is fourteen, pale, solemn-faced. GIRL Where's Dad? Jim looks back down the corridor. At the far end, the Man appears. He is holding the limp body of one of the Infected - and he tips it over the balcony, where it drops down the middle of the stairwell. MAN (CALLS BACK) It's okay, Hannah. Let them inside. The door closes, we hear the chain being slipped off, then it opens again. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim and Selena enter past the pale-faced girl. The flat is council, three-bed, sixteenth floor of the block. It has patterned wallpaper, and nice but boring furnishings. It is lit by candles. The entrance hall leads straight to the living room, which has French windows and a small balcony outside. On one wall, a framed photograph hangs, which shows the Man standing beside a black taxi cab. Next to him is a middle aged woman - presumably the Man's wife. Hannah sits at the cab's steering wheel, beaming. Another photo, beside, show Hannah sat in the seat of a go- kart. The Man follows Jim and Selena inside. 28. MAN Come in, come in. They follow the Man through to the living room, and Hannah recloses the front door, which has an impressive arrangement of locks and dead-bolts. INT. FLAT - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT In the living room, the fairy lights hang in the window, powered by a car battery. Lit by their glow, the Man goes through a careful ritual of shedding his gear, helped by Hannah. First, he lays down the riot shield. Then he puts the bloodsmeared lead pipe on a small white towel. Next, he removes his gloves - and places them beside the bar on the towel. Then he folds the towel over the weapon and gloves, and puts it beside the riot shield. Finally he removes the visored helmet. Jim and Selena watch him. They look pretty rattled, not really knowing what to expect. After the Man has finished shedding his gear, he turns. MAN So... I'm Frank, anyway. He extends his hand to Jim and Selena. Jim hesitates very briefly, then shakes it. JIM I'm Jim. SELENA Selena. Frank beams, and suddenly he seems much less frightening and imposing. If anything, he is just as nervous as Jim and Selena. FRANK Jim and Selena. Good to meet you. And this is my daughter, Hannah. (turning to Hannah) ...Come on, sweetheart. Say hello. Hannah takes a step into the room, but says nothing. FRANK So... so this is great. Just great. It calls for a celebration. 29. I'd say. Why don't you all sit down, and... Hannah, what have we got to offer? HANNAH (QUIETLY) We've got Mum's creme de menthe. An awkward beat. FRANK Yes, her creme de menthe. Great. Look, sit, please. Get comfortable. Sit tight while I get it. Frank exits. Selena, Jim and Hannah all stand, until Selena gestures at the sofa. SELENA Shall we? Jim and Selena take the sofa. Hannah stays standing. FRANK (O.S.) Where are the bloody glasses? HANNAH Middle cupboard. FRANK (O.S.) No! The good ones! This is a celebration! HANNAH Top cupboard. Another short, uncomfortable pause. Hannah looks at Jim and Selena from her position near the doorway. Her expression is blank and unreadable. JIM This is your place, then. Hannah nods. JIM It's nice. Hannah nods again. Frank re-enters. Frank is beaming, holding the creme de menthe, and four wine glasses. 30. FRANK There! I know it isn't much but... well, cheers! EXT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT The moon shines above the tower block. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim, Selena and Hannah all sit in the living room, sipping creme de menthe. Frank is disconnecting the fairy lights as he talks, and pulling the curtains closed, rather systematically checking for cracks along the edges. FRANK Normally we keep the windows covered at night, because the light attracts them. But when we saw your petrol station fire, we knew it had to be survivors... So we hooked up the Christmas tree lights. Like a beacon. Finished with the sofa, he sits on the armchair. SELENA We're grateful. FRANK Well, we're grateful you came. I was starting to really worry. Like I say, we haven't seen any sign of anyone normal for a while now. JIM There aren't any others in the building? Frank shakes his head. SELENA And you haven't seen any people outside? Frank's eyes flick to Hannah. FRANK We haven't left the block for more than two weeks. Stayed right here. Only sensible thing to do. Everyone who went out... 31. SELENA Didn't come back. FRANK And there's two hundred flats here. Most of them have a few cans of food, or cereal, or something. SELENA It's a good set-up. FRANK It isn't bad. He puts a hand on Hannah's shoulder, and gives it a squeeze. FRANK We've got by, haven't we? INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT
About FrankFrank Chen is a maker. He develops products and leads software engineering teams with a background in behavior design, engineering leadership, systems reliability engineering, and resiliency research. At Slack, Frank focuses on making engineers' lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive, in the Developer Productivity group. At Palantir, Frank has worked with customers in healthcare, finance, government, energy and consumer packaged goods to solve their hardest problems by transforming how they use data. At Amazon, Frank led a front-end team and infrastructure team to launch AWS WorkDocs, the first secure multi-platform service of its kind for enterprise customers. At Sandia National Labs, Frank researched resiliency and complexity analysis tooling with the Grid Resiliency group. He received a M.S. in Computer Science focused in Human-Computer Interaction from Stanford. Frank's thesis studied how the design / psychology of exergaming interventions might produce efficacious health outcomes. With the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Frank developed health interventions rooted in behavioral theory to create new behaviors through mobile phones. He prototyped early builds of Tiny Habits with BJ Fogg and worked in the Persuasive Technology Lab. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from UCLA. Frank researched networked systems and image processing with the Center for embedded Networked Systems. With the Rand Corporation, he built research systems to support group decision-making.Links: Slack: https://slack.com “Infrastructure Observability for Changing the Spend Curve”: https://slack.engineering/infrastructure-observability-for-changing-the-spend-curve/ “Right Sizing Your Instances Is Nonsense”: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/right-sizing-your-instances-is-nonsense/ Personal webpage: https://frankc.net Twitter: @frankc TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key, or a shared admin account, isn't going to come back and bite you? If not, check out Teleport. Teleport is the easiest, most secure way to access all of your infrastructure. The open source Teleport Access Plane consolidates everything you need for secure access to your Linux and Windows servers—and I assure you there is no third option there. Kubernetes clusters, databases, and internal applications like AWS Management Console, Yankins, GitLab, Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, and more. Teleport's unique approach is not only more secure, it also improves developer productivity. To learn more visit: goteleport.com. And not, that is not me telling you to go away, it is: goteleport.com. Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking, databases, observability, management, and security. And—let me be clear here—it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build. With Always Free, you can do things like run small scale applications or do proof-of-concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free, no asterisk. Start now. Visit snark.cloud/oci-free that's snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Several people are undoubtedly angrily typing, and part of the reason they can do that, and the fact that I know that is because we're all using Slack. My guest today is Frank Chen, senior staff software engineer at Slack. So, I guess, sort of… [sales force 00:00:53]. Frank, thanks for joining me.Frank: Hey, Corey, I have been a longtime listener and follower, and just really delighted to be here.Corey: It's one of the weird things about doing a podcast is that for better or worse, people don't respond to it in the same way that they do writing a newsletter, for example, because you receive an email, and, “Oh, well, I know how to write an email. I can hit reply and send an email back and give that jackwagon a piece of my mind,” and people often do. But with podcasts, I feel like it's much more closely attuned to the idea of an AM radio talk show. And who calls into a radio talk show? Lunatics, and most people don't self-describe as lunatics, so they don't want to do that.But then when I catch up with people one-on-one or at events in person, I find out that a lot more people listen to this show than I thought they did. Because I don't trust podcast statistics because lies, damn lies, and analytics are sort of how I view this world. So, you've worked at a bunch of different companies. You're at Slack now, which, of course, upsets some people because, “Slack is ruining the way that people come and talk to me in the office.” Or it's making it easier for employees to collaborate internally in ways their employers wish they wouldn't. But that's neither here nor there.Before this, you were at Palantir, and before this, you're at Amazon, working on Amazon WorkDocs of all things, which is supposedly rumored to have at least one customer somewhere, but I've never seen them. Before that you were at Sandia National Labs, and you've gotten a master's in computer science from Stanford. You've done a lot of things and everything you've done, on some level, seems like the recurring theme is someone on Twitter will be unhappy at you for a career choice you've made. But what is the common thread—in seriousness—between the different places that you've been?Frank: One thing that's been a driver for where I work is finding amazing people to work with and building something that I believe is valuable and fun to keep doing. The thing that brought me to Slack is I became my own Slack admin, [laugh] when I met a girl and we moved in together into a small apartment in Brooklyn. And she had a cat that, you know, is a sweetheart, but also just doesn't know how to be social. Yes, you covered that with ‘cat.' Part of moving it together, I became my own Slack admin and discovered well, we can build a series of home automations to better train and inform our little command center for when the cat lies about being fed, or not fed, clipping his nails, and discovering and tracking bad behaviors. In a lot of ways this was like the human side of a lot of the data work that I had been doing at my previous role. And it was like a fun way to use the same frameworks that I use at work to better train and be a cat caretaker.Corey: Now, at some point, you know that some product manager at Amazon is listening to this and immediately sketching notes because their product strategy is, “Yes,” and this is going to be productized and shipping in two years as Amazon Prime Meow. But until then we'll enjoy the originality of having a Slack bot more or less control the home automation slash making your house seem haunted for anyone who didn't write the code themselves. There's an idea of solving real world problems that I definitely understand. I mean, and again, it might not even be a fair question entirely. Just because I am… for better or worse, staggering through my world, and trying—and failing most days—to tell a narrative that, “Oh, why did I start my tech career at a university, and then spend time in ad tech, and then spend time in consulting, and then FinTech, and the rest?” And the answer is, “Oh, I get fired an awful lot, and that sucked.”So, instead of going down that particular rabbit hole of a mess, I went in other directions. I started finding things that would pay me and pay me more money because I was in debt at the time. But that was the narrative thread that was the, “I have rent to pay and they have computers that aren't behaving properly.” And that's what dictated the shape of my career for a long time. It's only in retrospect that I started to identify some of the things that aligns with it. But it's easy to look at it with the shine of hindsight and not realize that no, no, that's sort of retconning what happened in the past.Frank: Yeah, I have a mentor and my former adviser had this way of describing, building out the jankiest prototype you can to prove out an idea. And this manifested in his class in building out paper prototypes, or really, really janky ideas for what helping people through technology might look like. And I feel like it a lot of ways, even when those prototypes fail, like, in a career or some half baked tech prototype I put together, it might succeed and great, we could keep building upon that, but when it fails, you actually discover, “Oh, this is one way that I didn't succeed.” And even in doing so, you discover things about yourself, your way of building, and maybe a little bit about your infrastructure, or whatever it is that you build on a day-to-day basis. And wrapping that back to the original question, it's like, well, we think we're human beings, right, we're static, but in a lot of ways we're human becomings. We think we know what the future might look like with our careers, what we're building on a day-to-day basis, and what we're building a year from now, but oftentimes, things change if we discover things about ourselves, the people we work with, and ultimately, the things that we put out into the world.Corey: Obviously, I've been aware of who Slack is, for a long time; I've been a paying customer for years because it basically is IRC with reaction gifs, and not having to teach someone how to sign into IRC when they work in accounting. So, the user experience alone solved the problem.Frank: And you've actually worked with us in the past before. [laugh]. Slack, it's the Searchable Log for all Content and Knowledge; I think that backronym, that's how it works. And I was delighted when I had mentioned your jokes and you're trolling [a folk 00:07:00] on Twitter and on your podcast to my former engineering manager, Chris Merrill, who was like, oh, you should search the Slack. Corey actually worked with us and he put together a lot of cool tooling and ideas for us to think about.Corey: Careful. If we talk too much, or what I did when I was at Slack years ago, someone's going to start looking into some of the old commits and whatnot and start demanding an apology, and we don't want that. It's, “Wow, you're right. You are a terrible engineer.” “Told you.” There's a reason I don't do that anymore.Frank: I think that's all of us. [laugh]. An early career mentor of mine, he was like, “Hey, Frank, listen. You think you're building perfect software at any point in time? No, you're building future tech debt.” And yeah, we should put much more emphasis on interfaces and ideas we're putting out because the implementation is going to change over time, and likely your current implementation is shit. And that is, okay.Corey: That's the beautiful part about this is that things grow and things evolve. And it's interesting working with companies, and as a consultant, I tend to build my projects in such a way that I start on day one and people know that I'm leaving with usually a very short window because I don't want to build a forever job for myself; I don't want to show up and start charging by the hour or by the day, if I can possibly avoid it. Because then it turns into eternal projects that never end because I'm billing and nothing's ever done. No, no, I like charging fixed fee and then getting out at a predetermined outcome, but then you get to hear about what happens with companies as they move on.This combines with the fact that I have a persistent alert for my name, usually because I'm looking for various ineffective character assassination from enterprise marketing types because you know, I dish it out, I should certainly be able to take it. But I found a blog post on the Slack engineering blog that mentioned my name, and it's, “Aw, crap. Are they coming after me for a refund?” No, it was not. It was you writing a fairly sizable post. Tell me more about that.Frank: Yeah, I'm part of an organization called Developer Productivity. And our goal is to help folk at Slack deliver services to their customers, where we build, test, and release high quality software. And a lot of our time is spent thinking about internal tooling and making infrastructure bets. As engineers, right, it's like, we have this idea for what the world looks like, we have this idea for what our infrastructure looks like, but what we discover using a set of techniques around observability of just asking questions—advanced questions, basic questions, and hell, even dumb questions—we discover hey, the things that we think our computers are doing aren't actually doing what they say they're doing. And the question is like, great. Now, what? How can we ask better questions? How can we better tune, change, and equip engineers with tooling so that they can do better work to make Slack customers have simple, pleasant, and productive experiences?Corey: And I have to say that there's a lot that Slack does that is incredibly helpful. I don't know that I'm necessarily completely bought into the idea that all work should happen in Slack. It's, well, on some level, I—like people like to debate the ‘should people work from home? Should people all work in an office?' Discussion.And, on some level, it seems if you look at people who are constantly fighting that debate online, it's, “Do you ever do work at all?” on some level. But I'm not here to besmirch others; I'm here to talk about, on some level, what you alluded to in your blog post. But I want to start with a disclaimer that Slack as far as companies go is not small, and if you take a look around, most companies are using Slack whether they know it or not. The list of side-channel Slack groups people have tend to extend massively.I look and I pare it down every once in a while, whenever I cross 40 signed-in Slacks on my desktop. It is where people talk for a wide variety of different reasons, and they all do different things. But if you're sitting here listening to this and you have a $2,000 a month AWS bill, this is not for you. You will spend orders of magnitude more money trying to optimize a small cost. Once you're at significant points of scale, and you have scaled out to the point where you begin to have some ability to predict over months or years, that's what a lot of this stuff starts to weigh in.So, talk to me a bit about how you wound up—and let me quote directly from the article, which is titled, “Infrastructure Observability for Changing the Spend Curve,” and I will, of course, throw a link to this in the [show notes 00:11:38]. But you talk in this about knocking, I believe it was orders of magnitude off of various cost areas within your bill.Frank: Yeah. The article itself describes three big-ish projects, where we are able to change the curve of the number of tests that we run, and a change in how much it costs to run any single test.Corey: When you say test, are you talking CI/CD infrastructure test or code test, to make sure it goes out, or are you talking something higher up the stack, as far as, “Huh, let's see how some users respond when, I don't know, we send four notifications on every message instead of the usual one,” to give a ridiculous example?Frank: Yeah, this is in the CI/CD pipelines. And one of these projects was around borrowing some concepts from data engineering: oversubscription and planning your capacity to have access capacity at peak, where at peak, your engineers might have a 5% degradation in performance, while still maintaining high resiliency and reliability of your tests in order to oversubscribe, either CPU or memory and keep throughput on the overall system stable and consistent and fast enough. I think, with spend in developer productivity, I think, both, like, the metrics you're trying to move and why you're optimizing for it at any given time are, like, this, like, calculus. Or it's like, more art than science in that there's no one right answer, right? It's like, oh, yeah—very naively—like, yeah, let's throw the biggest machines most expensive machines we can at any given problem. But that doesn't solve the crux of your problem. It's like, “Hey, what are the things in your system doing?” And what is the right guess to capitalize around how much to spend on your CI/CD [unintelligible 00:13:39] is oftentimes not precise, nor is this blog article meant to be prescriptive.Corey: Yeah, it depends entirely on what you're doing and how because it's, on some level, well, we can save a whole bunch of money if we slow all of our CI/CD runs down by 20 minutes. Yeah, but then you have a bunch of engineers sitting idle and I promise you, that costs a hell of a lot more than your cloud bill is going to be. The payroll is almost always a larger expense than your infrastructure costs, and if it's not, you should seriously consider firing at least part of your data science team, but you didn't hear it from me.Frank: Yeah. And part of the exploration on profiling and performance and resiliency was, like, around interrogating what the boundaries and what the constraints were for our CI/CD pipelines. Because Slack has grown in engineering and in the number of tests we were running on a month-to-month basis; for a while from 2017 to mid 2020, we were growing about 10% month-over-month in test suite execution numbers. Which means on a given year, we doubled almost two times, which is quite a bit of strain on internal resources and a lot of dependent services where—and internal systems, we oftentimes have more complexity and less understood changes in what dependencies your infrastructure might be using, what business logic your internal services are using to communicate with one another than you do your production.And so, by, like, performing a series of curiosity-driven development, we're able to both answer, at that point in time, what our customers internally were doing, and start to put together ideas for eliminating some bottlenecks, and hell, even adding bottlenecks with circuit breakers where you keep the overall throughput of your system stable, while deferring or canceling work that otherwise might have overloaded dependencies.Corey: There's a lot to be said for understanding what the optimization opportunities are, in an environment and understanding what it is you're attempting to achieve. Having those test for something like Slack makes an awful lot of sense because let's be very clear here, when you're building an application that acts as something people use to do expense reports—to cite one of my previous job examples—it turns out you can be down for a week and a majority of your customers will never know or care. With Slack, it doesn't work that way. Everyone more or less has a continuous monitor that they're typing into for a good portion of the day—angrily or otherwise—and as soon as it misses anything, people know. And if there's one thing that I love, on some level, seeing change when I know that Slack is having a blip, even if I'm not using Slack that day for anything in particular, because Twitter explodes about it. “Slack is down. I'm now going to tweet some stuff to my colleagues.” All right. You do you, I suppose.And credit where due, Slack doesn't go down nearly as often as it used to because as you tend to figure out how these things work, operational maturity increases through a bunch of tests. Fixing things like durability, reliability, uptime, et cetera, should always, to some extent, take precedence priority-wise over let's save some money. Because yeah, you could turn everything off and save all the money, but then you don't have a business anymore. It's focused on where to cut, where to optimize in the right way, and ideally as you go, find some of the areas in which, oh, I'm paying AWS a tax for just going about my business. And I could have flipped a switch at any point and saved—“How much money? Oh, my God, that's more than I'll make in my lifetime.”Frank: Yeah, and one thing I talk about a little bit is distributed tracing as one of the drivers for helping us understand what's happening inside of our systems. Where it helps you figure out and it's like this… [best word 00:17:24] to describe how you ask questions of deployed code? And there a lot of ways it's helped us understand existing bottlenecks and identify opportunities for performance or resiliency gains because your past janky Band-Aids become more and more obvious when you can interrogate and ask questions around what is it performing like it used to? Or what has changed recently?Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by something new. Cloud Academy is a training platform built on two primary goals. Having the highest quality content in tech and cloud skills, and building a good community the is rich and full of IT and engineering professionals. You wouldn't think those things go together, but sometimes they do. Its both useful for individuals and large enterprises, but here's what makes it new. I don't use that term lightly. Cloud Academy invites you to showcase just how good your AWS skills are. For the next four weeks you'll have a chance to prove yourself. Compete in four unique lab challenges, where they'll be awarding more than $2000 in cash and prizes. I'm not kidding, first place is a thousand bucks. Pre-register for the first challenge now, one that I picked out myself on Amazon SNS image resizing, by visiting cloudacademy.com/corey. C-O-R-E-Y. That's cloudacademy.com/corey. We're gonna have some fun with this one!Corey: It's also worth pointing out that as systems grow organically, that it is almost impossible for any one person to have it all in their head anymore. I saw one of the most overly complicated architecture flow trees that I think I've seen in recent memory, and it was on the Slack engineering blog about how something was architected, but it wasn't the Slack app itself; it was simply the [decision tree for ‘Should we send a notification?' 00:18:17] and it is more complicated than almost anything I've written, except maybe my newsletter content publication pipeline. It is massive. And I'll throw a link to that in the [show notes 00:18:31] as well, just because it is well worth people taking a look at.But there is so much complexity at scale for doing the right thing, and it's necessary because if I'm talking to you on Slack right now and getting notifications every time you reply on my phone, it's not going to take too long before I turn off notifications everywhere, and then I don't notice that Slack is there, and it just becomes useless and I use something else. Ideally, something better—which is hard to come by—moderately worse, like, email or completely worse, like, Microsoft Teams.Frank: I tell all my close collaborators about this. I typically set myself away on Slack because I like to make time for deep, focused work. And that's very hard with a constant stream of notifications. How people use Slack and how people notify others on Slack is, like, not incumbent on the software itself, but it's a reflection of the work culture that you're in. The expectation for an email-driven culture is, like, oh, yeah, you should be reading your email all the time and be able to respond within 30 minutes. Peace, I have friends that are lawyers, [laugh] and that is the expectation at all times of day.Corey: I married one of those. Oh, yeah, people get very salty. And she works with a global team spread everywhere, to the point where she wakes up and there's just a whole flurry of angry people that have tried to reach her in the middle of the night. Like, “Why were you sleeping at 2 a.m.? It's daytime here.” And yeah, time zones. Not everyone understands how they work, from my estimation.Frank: [laugh]. That's funny. My sweetheart is a former attorney. On our first international date, we spent an entire day-and-a-half hopping between WiFi spots in Prague so that she could answer a five minute question from a partner about standard deviations.Corey: So, one thing that you link to that really is what drew my notice to this—because, again, if you talk about AWS cost optimization, I'm probably going to stumble over it, but if you mention my name, that's sort of a nice accelerator—and you linked to my article called Why “Right Sizing Your Instances Is Nonsense.” And that is a little overblown, to some extent, but so many folks talk about it in the cost optimization space because you can get a bunch of metrics and do these things programmatically, and somewhat without observability into what's going on because, “Well, I can see how busy the computers are and if it's not busy, we could use smaller computers. Problem solved,” versus, the things that require a fair bit of insight into what is that thing doing exactly because it leads you into places of oh, turn off that idle fleet that's not doing anything is all labeled ‘backup,' where you're going to have three seconds of notice before it gets all the traffic.There's an idea of sometimes things are the way they are for a reason. And it's also not easy for a lot of things—think databases—to seamlessly just restart the thing and have it scale back up and run on a different instance class. That takes weeks of planning and it's hard. So, I find that people tend to reach for it where it doesn't often make sense. At your level of scale and operational maturity, of course, you should optimize what instance classes things are using and what sizes they are, especially since that stuff changes over time as far as what AWS has made available. But it's not the sort of thing that I suggest as being the first easy thing to go for. It's just what people think is easy because it requires no judgment and computers can do it. At least that's their opinion.Frank: I feel like you probably have a lot more experience than me, and talked about war stories, but I recall working with customers where they want to lift-and-shift on-prem hardware to VMs on-prem. I'm like, “It's not going to be as simple as you're making it out to be.” Whereas, like, the trend today is probably oh, yeah, we're going to shift on-prem VMs to AWS, or hell, like, let's go two levels deeper and just run everything on Kubernetes. Similar workloads, right? It's not going to be a huge challenge. Or [laugh] everything serverless.Corey: Spare me from that entire school of thought, my God.Frank: [laugh].Corey: Yeah, but it's fun, too, because this came out a month ago, and you're talking about using—an example you gave was a c5.9xlarge instance. Great. Well, the c6i is out now as well, so are people going to look at that someday and think, “Oh, wow. That's incredibly quaint.”It's, you wrote this a month ago, and it's already out of date, as far as what a lot of the modern story instances are. From my perspective, one of the best things that AWS has done in this space has been to get away from the reserved instance story and over into savings plans, where it's, “I know, I'm going to run some compute—maybe it's Fargate, maybe it's EC2; let's be serious, it's definitely going to be EC2—but I don't want to tie myself to specific instance types for the next three years.” Great, well, I'm just going to commit to spending some money on AWS for the next three years because if I decide today to move off of it, it's going to take me at least that long to get everything out. So okay, then that becomes something a lot more palatable for an awful lot of folks.Frank: One thing you brought up in the article I linked to is instance types. You think upgrading to the newest instance type will solve all your challenges, but oftentimes it's not obvious that it won't all the time, and in fact, you might even see degraded resiliency and degraded performance because different packages that your software relies upon might not be optimized for the given kernel or CPU type that you're running against. And ultimately, you go back to just asking really basic questions and performing some end-to-end benchmarking so that you can at least get a sense for what your customers are doing today, and maybe make a guess for what they're going to do tomorrow.Corey: I have to ask because I'm always interested in what it is that gives rise to blog posts like this—which, that's easy; it's someone had to do a project on these things, and while we learn things that would probably apply to other folks—like, you're solving what is effectively a global problem locally when you go down this path. It's part of the reason I have a consulting business is things I learned at one company apply almost identically to another company, even though that they're in completely separate industries and parts of the world because AWS billing is, for better or worse, a bounded problem space despite their best efforts to, you know, use quantum computers to fix that. What was it that gave rise to looking at the CI/CD system from an optimization point of view?Frank: So internally, I initially started writing a white paper about, hey, here's a simple question that we can answer, you know, without too much effort. Let's transition all of our C3 instances to C5 instances, and that could have been the one and done. But by thinking about it a little more and kind of drawing out, while we can actually borrow a model for oversubscription from another field, we could potentially decrease our spend by quite a bit. That eventually [laugh] evolved into a 70 page white paper—no joke—that my former engineering manager said, “Frank, no one's going to [BLEEP] read this.” [laugh].Corey: Always. Always, always. Like, here's a whole bunch of academically research and the rest. It's like, “Great. Which of these two buttons do I press?” is really the question people are getting at. And while it's great to have the research and the academic stuff, it's also a, “Great we're trying to achieve an outcome which, what is the choice?” But it's nice to know that people are doing actual research on the back end, instead, “Eh, my gut tells me to take the path on the left because why not? Left is better; right's tricky friend.”Frank: Yeah. And it was like, “Oh, yeah. I accidentally wrote a really long thing because there was, like, a lot of variables to test.” I think we had spun up 16-plus auto-scaling groups. And ran something like the cross-section of a couple of representative test suites against them, as well as configurations for a number of executors per instance.And about a year ago, I translated that into a ten page blog article that when I read through, I really didn't enjoy. [laugh]. And that template blog article is ultimately, like, about a page in the article you're reading today. And the actual kick in the butt to get this out the door was about four months ago. I spoke at o11ycon rescources which you're a part of.And it was a vendor conference by Honeycomb, and it was just so fun to share some of the things we've been doing with distributed tracing, and how we were able to solve internal problems using a relatively simple idea of asking questions about what was running. And the entire team there was wonderful in coaching and just helping me think through what questions people might have of this work. And that was, again, former academic. The last time I spoke at a conference was about a decade earlier, and it was just so fun to be part of this community of people trying to all solve the same set of problems, just in their own unique ways.Corey: One of the things I loved about working with Honeycomb was the fact that whenever I asked them a question, they have instrumented their own stuff, so they could tell me extremely quickly what something was doing, how it was doing it, and what the overall impact on this was. It's very rare to find a client that is anywhere near that level of awareness into what's going on in their infrastructure.Frank: Yeah, and that blog article, right, it's like, here's our current perspective, and here's, like, the current set of projects we're able to make to get to this result. And we think we know what we want to do, but if you were to ask that same question, “What are we doing for our spend a year from now?” the answer might be very different. Probably similar in some ways, but probably different.Corey: Well, there are some principles that we'll never get away from. It's, “Is no one using the thing? Turn that shit off.” That's one of those tried and true things. “Oh, it's the third copy of that multiple petabyte of data thing? Maybe delete it or stuff in a deep archive.” It's maybe move data less between various places. Maybe log things fewer times, given that you're paying 50 cents per gigabyte ingest, in some cases. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot to consider as far as the general principles go, but the specifics, well, that's where it gets into the weeds. And at your scale, yeah, having people focus on this internally with the context and nuance to it is absolutely worth doing. Having a small team devoted to this at large companies will pay for itself, I promise. Now, I go in and advise in these scenarios, but past a certain point, this can't just be one person's part-time gig anymore.Frank: I'm kind of curious about that. How do you think about working with a company and then deprecating yourself, and allowing your tools and, like, the frameworks you put into place to continue, like, thrive?Corey: We're advisory only. We make no changes to production.Frank: Or I don't know if that's the right word, deprecate. I think… that's my own word. [laugh].Corey: No, no, it's fair. It's a—what we do is we go in and we are advisory. It's less of a cost engagement, more of an architecture engagement because in cloud, cost and architecture are the same thing. We look at what's going on, we look at the constraints of why we've been brought in, and we identify things that companies can do and the associated cost savings associated with that, and let them make their own decision. Because it's, if I come in and say, “Hey, you could save a bunch of money by migrating this whole subsystem to serverless.”Great, I sound like a lunatic evangelist because yeah, 18 months of work during which time the team doing that is not advancing the state of the business any further so it's never going to happen. So, why even suggest it? Just look at things that are within the bounds of possibility. Counterpoint: when a client says, “A full re-architecture is on the table,” well, okay, that changes the nature of what we're suggesting. But we're trying to get away from what a lot of tooling does, which is, “Great. Here's 700 things you can adjust and you'll do none of them.” We come back with a, “Here's three or four things you can do that'll blow 20% off the bill. Then let's see where you stand.” The other half of it, of course, is large scale enterprise contract negotiation, that's a bit of a horse of a different color. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really do appreciate it. If folks want to hear more about what you're up to, and how you think about these things. Where can they find you?Frank: You can find me at frankc.net. Or at me at @FrankC on Twitter.Corey: Oh, inviting people to yell at you at Twitter. That's never a great plan. Yeash. Good luck. Thanks again. We've absolutely got to talk more about this in-depth because I think this is one of those areas that you have the folks above a certain point of scale, talk about these things semi-constantly and live in the space, whereas folks who are in relatively small-scale environments are listening to this and thinking that they've got to do this.And no. No, you do not want to spend millions of dollars of engineering effort to optimize a bill that's 80 grand a year, I promise. It's focus on the thing that's right for your business. At a certain point of scale, this becomes that. But thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I appreciate it.Frank: Thank you so much, Corey.Corey: Frank Chen, senior staff software engineer at Slack. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment that seems to completely miss the fact that Microsoft Teams is free because it sucks.Frank: [laugh].Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
Hank: “Look at that hair.” Frank: “You look at the hair.” Hank: “I'm looking at the hair.” Frank: “Yeah, I'm not looking at the hair.” Hank: “She got pretty hair.” Frank: “Mm-hmm.” Would you trust Hank and Frank to protect the citizenry from the children turning everyone into crispy critters? Join your faithful Grue-Crew – […]
Hank: “Look at that hair.” Frank: “You look at the hair.” Hank: “I'm looking at the hair.” Frank: “Yeah, I'm not looking at the hair.” Hank: “She got pretty hair.” Frank: “Mm-hmm.” Would you trust Hank and Frank to protect the citizenry from the children turning everyone into crispy critters? Join your faithful Grue-Crew – […]
The NoteWorthy concert series is presented by WDAV in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity Alliance . The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community building music. Grammy Award winner Greg Cox, who blends hip-hop, R&B and Gospel in his music is joined by two veteran classical musicians from our area, violinist Jane Hart Brendle and violist Matt Darsey to talk about being a part of the concert series. Greg Cox Jane Hart Brendle Matt Darsey Transcript: Frank Dominguez : This is Frank Dominguez for WDAV’s Piedmont Arts. On Wednesday, May 26th at 7:30 p.m., WDAV continues the NoteWorthy virtual concert series presented in partnership with the FAIR PLAY Music Equity [Initiative]. The series brings together gifted Black and brown artists from the Charlotte music scene with classical musicians for some genre-blending, community-building music. Next up, we’re thrilled to offer a concert headlined by a GRAMMY Award winner and overall renaissance man. Greg Cox blends hip-hop, R&B, and gospel in his music and infuses it with his own Southern soul. He’ll have recording artist A$H. as his special guest, and they'll be joined by two veteran classical musicians from our area, violinist Jane Hart Brendle and violist Matthew Darsey. Greg, Jane, and Matthew are joining me now via Zoom to talk about their NoteWorthy program. Welcome, everybody! Greg Cox : Hey, Frank! Frank : Greg, I’ll start with you. We often distinguish classical musicians from artists in popular music like you by talking about the rigorous training classical musicians get in conservatories and the like, but then looking at your background, it strikes me that you came up in a fairly rigorous family conservatory of sorts and learned a lot from touring with some pretty top-notch gospel musicians. So, tell us a bit about your musical journey. Greg : Yeah, so starting in church is definitely something that I was fortunate to experience. Not much lesson - they just throw you in the fire there. When you’ve got musicians who are top notch since age 12, you're going into some proteges, some child legends. In Black church, you learn! You learn how to literally score what the preacher is preaching. It’s like scoring a movie as he’s going. And then touring with my dad, and touring with a few other artists, you bump into some of the best musicians in the world. So I wouldn't say I'm up there with them, but what I would say is we can eat lunch at the same table and hang out. If there was anyone who - you don’t have the money to throw your kids into phenomenal teaching (or) rigorous training, just drop them off at church. They’ll be fine. Frank : And when you consider how many wonderful musicians have come from the Black church tradition in this country and the influence its had on all sorts of genres, there’s definitely something there. Greg : There’s something the water, man. There’s something in the atmosphere. Blends of jazz, blends of blues, blends of old Negro Spiritual songs - it’s very, very unique music to learn how to play, and I’m very, very fortunate. Some of the best ever, right? Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Jennifer Hudson, the best vocalists ever come from the church. So it’s just something in the water and something in that community. Every week, it’s growing. So even if it's not as formal, you definitely learn things you can’t learn anywhere else. Frank : Jane, I've had the pleasure of hearing you play in a variety of concerts, including a Klezmer-infused program the Charlotte Symphony presented about music of the Holocaust, so I know you’re versatile, but I'm not sure I ever imagined you collaborating with a hip-hop artist like Greg Cox. What was that like? Jane Hart Brendle : It was so much fun! It was really way beyond what I imagined. I had so much fun, and Greg was so easy to work with. He just made it - it felt so natural to play. He just told us what he needed, and he had the parts written out, and it just felt great. Frank : And Matthew, even though you're a trained classical musician, I sort of expect you to be adventurous because I know you have a passion for contemporary music - and did that focus help you in any way for approaching this collaboration with Greg? Matthew Darsey : I think it does. You know, when you play a lot of contemporary classical music, your ears have to adjust to a different way of hearing music. And when you're playing in a genre that you're not really used to, your ears have to work fairly differently as well. The harmonic language isn't necessarily the same as it is in Brahms. So, in a certain sense, I’ve even trained my ears out of the classical years because I'm used to playing atonal music or music that doesn't really fit in with what we’re used to from Western classical music. So, when you're coming to someone like Greg, who’s so intuitively exacting in what he wants, it was just incredible. You sort of just - you almost lose control, or not lose control, but you let go of that really analytical part of your brain and just ride the wave that he gives to you, because it's such a powerful wave that if you just give in to it, then it sort of lays itself out there for you. Frank : Greg, talk about that a little bit. What was it like for you knowing the background of these musicians and coming together with them to work with them? Greg : Ah, man. Absolutely magical. So, classical musicians are literally like ninjas to me. Where do they hang out? Where do they, like... what do they eat? It's like when you go to a Broadway show and you try to go down and talk to (the orchestra), they just disappear. Like it’s a smoke bomb, and they’re just gone, or they’re in the lobby in the hotel. So, I've always wanted to have friends who were in that world. So, to be thrown into this environment, and to see that, “Oh, crap! They're human, they're just in different pockets.” It’s a different pocket. You figure out where they hang out at. “Oh, they’re at the Panera Bread!” “Oh, I need to go over to this side of town to see where they’re hanging out at.” So, it was beautiful to kind of pull back the curtain on that cultural demographic, and I was very fortunate to have the introduction that I did have through this organization. And they got it! I was very nervous going into it because I was like, “I hope I can speak their language.” (I had to) be overprepared. We had a little funny story of - the printer didn’t work. And sheet music without a printer, forget that. But thankfully, they had iPads, and they understood my chicken scratch and my little notations of what I was trying to communicate to them. They weren’t hard to work with at all. They didn’t use their knowledge to puff up, to make me feel inferior. They welcomed me. They spoke my language, and it was a humbling, humbling experience that I wish more musicians would get to experience. Frank : You mentioned that you were a GRAMMY winner. How did that accolade come about? What were you involved with that resulted in that? Greg : There’s this icon by the name of Kirk Franklin who just decided - woke up one day with his team and decided to have me be a part of this amazing, phenomenal album Long Live Love. I’m on a song called “Strong God” that he wrote and produced and had me feature as a vocalist in 2020. That album won for Gospel Album of the Year; therefore, I'm a part of that album and contributed to it, so anyone who is a part of the album gets a GRAMMY. It’s like going to the NBA and playing with LeBron (James). You gotta know that if you’re on LeBron’s team, you’re going to get a ring. You know what I mean? So I got a ring because LeBron was in the game. And I might have shot a few 3’s, I might have passed LeBron the ball a couple times, but it definitely was, on the back, carried by the LeBron James, Kirk Franklin. Frank : Jane and Matthew, when we were talking about the attitude you you brought to this project, I couldn't help but think back, because I've been in this classical music radio business for so long, to times when classical musicians in orchestras were perhaps a little more unbending - you know, who weren’t quite as open to collaborations like this in the past - and that seems to have really changed in recent years, I guess because there's new generations of classical musicians in orchestras. Am I right about that? Would you confirm that perception? Matthew : I think that's a very big trend right now. Especially, you see it with a lot of the younger composers that are coming up. Caroline Shaw, for instance, does a lot of genre bending. She’s from Raleigh, I think, too. And I think it's a really beautiful thing for the field because, for so long, classical music has been so very structured within its Western European roots. And you of course see that with the music itself, in terms of the Classical era music, was obviously very, very structured within its own form, but then the social structures of it have been very narrow as well. And then there’s something that I think that we’re - it's almost like if we’re afraid if we expand that, then classical music disappears, which I think is a very paradoxical way of going about it, because if you build a wall up around something, then it's no longer - then it it does disappear, because there's nothing to let it thrive. So I think that it's a really beautiful thing for Western European music to really open up itself to exploring what it can do with and for other genres, because if you don't grow, you're going to die. And so there’s a lot of really great younger performers that are breaking that mold, because we grew up with being very affected by music that wasn't necessarily, you know, classical music. And then we're wanting to combine all of that into something that is more personal to us, maybe, and not so much meaningful to the older generation, or the ones that came before us, but it's still a very powerful way for us to express ourselves as a musician in the 21st century. Jane : I think that we have definitely - in the recent years, we have started to branch out and look for many new ways to include all sorts of music, and it’s been a great adventure, and I’m so glad that it's finally open. It feels like it’s opening up, and it’s not just a token here and there: “Let’s play this piece by a woman composer because she's a woman composer.” It’s just opening up, and it doesn't matter anymore. We're just including all people and all types of music. That’s what it feels like. Frank : Greg, I'm going to give you the last word here. Hearing the three of you speak, I know I'm looking forward to hearing you all perform. What else can you tell listeners to this conversation to whet their appetites for the program you’ve prepared? What should they be expecting? Greg : They should be expecting White Sexual Chocolate. That's what they should expect. That's the name of the band that I gave them, and they put beautiful, sugary, milk white chocolate on my music, and it definitely embellished all the songs - every song that I perform normally. I feel really good about (the performance). They just added a different sauce. Frank : Do you think you'll - having done this now, do you think you'll consider doing something like it again, either in the recording studio or when in-person performing becomes commonplace again? Greg : I’m changed forever through this experience. I've always wanted to be involved with film, watching Disney growing up, (and) seeing Randy Newman, who is my favorite composer, just compose the crap out of string arrangements and provoke emotion in that way, I always wanted to be a part of it. So my next album actually is going to be very, very influenced by this experience (with) classical string playing throughout the entire album now. So it’s very much now a fiber, a part of who I am through this experience. I’m very affected by it, and very thankful for the organization again. Frank : I am so looking forward to hearing how that turns out, and I'm really excited for you. My guests are the performers for the next virtual concert in the new NoteWorthy series from WDAV and FAIR PLAY Music Equity Initiative, singer-songwriter and rapper Greg Cox, Charlotte Symphony violinist Jane Hart Brendle, and violist Matthew Darsey. The concert streams on Wednesday, May 26th at 7:30 p.m. You can get more information and find a link to the Facebook Live event at noteworthyclassical.org . Thank you all for speaking with me. For WDAV’s Piedmont Arts, I’m Frank Dominguez.
For All Abilities – The Podcast Henry Furler Part One For this episode of For All Abilities: The Podcast, I got to talk with one of my very favorite people. I interviewed my son, Henry Furler! Henry and I talk about the life threatening medical problems (including epilepsy, dysautonomia, autoimmune disease, autoimmune encephalitis) that he has faced throughout his life and how he has succeeded despite all the challenges. To connect with Henry, please follow him on LinkedIn (Henry Furler) or email him at jhenryfurler@gmail.com. Please subscribe to For All Abilities – The Podcast! Please follow me on Instagram @forallabilities, LinkedIn (Betsy Furler) and on Facebook (For All Abilities). Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening! Betsy Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they’ll thank you for it! Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com Follow me Twitter: @betsyfurler Instagram: @forallabilities Facebook: @forallabilites LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler Website: www.forallabilities.com Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody, welcome to the for all abilities podcast. This is your host Betsy Furler. And I'm so glad you're here. This podcast talks about the amazing things people are doing with brains and bodies that may be different from the norm. Often we talk to people when they're diversity and today I have a very, very, very special guest with me. I know I always say that my guests are special and they all are but today is the most special of all. Special guests. I have my son Henry Furler. With me today. Hi, Henry. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to be here. Henry, I want you to tell my audience about your life as a little boy. So tell us what you were like as a little boy. And we can weave in areas of your diagnosis. So, all start, I guess by telling the audience that you were sick from the moment of conception. I had a very rough pregnancy. And when you were born, you had a hard time and had a blue spell when you were about 24 hours old. Where you stopped breathing. We were still in the hospital. And you also had to be re hospitalized for three weeks because you couldn't gain weight, then you had apnea then you had seizures at about three months. And but you are an amazing, very smart baby, despite all of your medical challenges, so why don't you take it from where you remember and about three or four years old. The other thing my audience has to know is that Henry has an amazing memory. And he remembers things even from when he was really tiny. So tell the audience about what you were like as a little boy. Henry Furler 2:26 I remember being very energetic and loving to learn new things. And I remember a lot but it's usually usually specific thing, little memories, little memories. Betsy Furler 2:42 What were your favorite things to do when you were like really little like two to four years old. Henry Furler 2:47 I liked to go to museums and go out to places where I could learn new things I loved watching Arthur on TV and watching other PBS Kids shows that most kids Wouldn't be watching. Um, we watched a lot of Forensic Files on Discovery Channel. A, you can explain why we watched. Betsy Furler 3:14 We watched a lot of Forensic Files when we're in the hospital and he also loved Ancient Egypt. Henry Furler 3:18 Yes, I did. I've loved history and social studies since I was little and that has influenced my future. career path. I'm currently getting a degree in anthropology from the University of Houston at Clear Lake. Betsy Furler 3:35 So, um, you were in the hospital a lot, even as a very little kid. What do you remember about being in the hospital when you were little? Henry Furler 3:45 I remember that it wasn't. It wasn't fun. But, um, the nurses and the people who would come to visit me tried to make it more interesting and I remember being in the hospital as a, I guess you could describe it as more of a joyous experience. I remember when I was little, I had one at one point I had an ID in my foot. And I would be taken around in a little wagon and we would go around the hospital and they had little play areas. And, um, I remember at one point, my dad brought window markers to the hospital, and we would draw on the windows in my room and have the, the window that went out to the hallway. Betsy Furler 4:40 So a lot of people think kids are really scared in the hospital, but you were usually not scared there when you were little. Henry Furler 4:46 No, I've had a lot of experiences in the hospital and even when I was little. If kids have been in the hospital a lot, they may still be scared of the doctors in the hospital, but I was never scared of the hospital. Betsy Furler 5:02 And you may not remember but I started teaching you when you were two to know which medications you were supposed to be taking, and kind of what they looked like and what the names were. So you were able to tell the nurse if they gave you the wrong medicine. So that was really different than most little tiny kids on the hospital. Henry Furler 5:21 That's something that I still do. I always ask the nurses to show me the medicines and to show me what they brought to the room doing the ibig. Actually, I think I don't have to ask them because they always show it to me beforehand. So Betsy Furler 5:37 So what kind of school did you go to an elementary school? A lot of people think that if you have lots and lots of seizures and other medical issues that you have academic problems. So tell my audience a little bit about your academic experience. Henry Furler 5:50 When I was in elementary school, I'm in kindergarten, I went to a normal school. It wasn't Specifically gifted and talented but I was classified as gifted and talented there. And then starting in first grade, I went to a gifted and talented and IB primary years program, school that was very diverse and taught about a lot of different things that focused on how we can connect things in the world. And I feel like my education there was more. I'm trying to think of how to explain it. I'm thorough, even though we didn't focus on specific, fixed subjects all the time. So the things that we would focus on would be themes or topics, and we would focus on those for a few weeks. And the normal subjects like math, science, social studies, and English would be woven in to that. So there was no like math time or science time, there was there were themes and we would weave those subjects into that. Betsy Furler 7:12 So in elementary school, you may not know this, but you were classified as special ed as well as gifted and talented, near classified as special ed because of your, your medical issues. So tell the audience what kind of accommodations you got in elementary school, if you remember. Henry Furler 7:29 I don't really remember you thinking any accommodations other than the extended testing time for standardized tests. I don't even know if I had that in elementary school. Betsy Furler 7:40 You did, but you didn't really need it. But what you needed was small group testing, more so if you had a seizure or something happened that you didn't disrupt a whole group of kids and you only disrupted a few kids, so it was easier for them to manage. You also had extended time for assignments and preferential seating although I don't know that you really Even needed that our class our class say Henry Furler 8:04 that our classes were very small anyway, the largest class I remember having an elementary school, I think was maybe 22 students, which is much smaller than a lot of elementary school classes these days, which can go up to 3032, or maybe more, which is, I think, is Betsy Furler 8:25 very big for an elementary school class. So you continue to have seizures and had some really severe allergies that caused you to go into anaphylaxis. And so, one time he had to have an ambulatory ECG, which to my audience, that means it's a test that looks at your brainwaves, and they put on all the electrodes on your head and if it's ambulatory, it means walking around. So it's something that you can go about your daily life with. Now, most people when they do ambulatory, Eg they just stay at home. But did you stay at home with your ambulatory ECG? Henry Furler 9:03 No, I was in second grade and I went to school every day that I have the ambulatory ECG on. A lot of the kids were actually very intrigued by the ambulatory ECG, they didn't make fun of me or anything. My school was very accepting of every pretty much everything they would ask me and I would explain to them that it was looking at my brain and how my brain was working. Betsy Furler 9:31 Do you remember that every year we talk to your class about your medical problems? I do. Um, Henry Furler 9:40 it got a lot more complicated to explain those things to the class as as time progressed, because we would find out more and more things. And I believe we stopped doing that when I started Middle School. Betsy Furler 9:57 And the the greatest thing about that That and why I can encourage other parents to do that is because your friends that you went to elementary school with to this day are some of your best advocates and friends and one of them even went to college with you when you lived in the dorm. And she was so aware of everything that was going on with you. And I was so concerned and such a great friend. So let's talk about Middle School a little bit. So after elementary school and you were so taken care of at River Oaks Elementary, I know, there was one time that I had to be a little firm with them because they wanted to take away your special ed dead designation, because you were so smart. But I wouldn't let them do that because you remained having the medical problems and we never knew what was going to happen or how much school you might have to miss. And we needed to preserve that. So you couldn't get kicked out of the magnet program. So what happened in Middle School. Henry Furler 11:01 When I start right before I started Middle School, I'll start with this. I started having a lot of anaphylaxis ik reactions, which were eventually attributed to something called colon ergic. urticaria, with anaphylaxis, and I missed a lot of days of actually, it only happened a few times before we started on the prescription medicine to work with that, but a few times I had anaplastic reaction that school and I had to be taken to the emergency room. Betsy Furler 11:33 And that's called an Arctic Arctic area with anaphylaxis is basically a, an A anaplastic reaction, or a severe allergic reaction to your own sweat. So he would sweat and then he would swell up and have an anaplastic reaction. Henry Furler 11:50 There's an episode of The Simpsons where Milhouse lists a lot of things that he's allergic to. And at the end, he says, and I'm allergic to my own tears. And just so you know, that can actually happen. So, Betsy Furler 12:05 yeah, so so you had all of those allergy things going and then in sixth grade you had a video eg that I thought was going to show you weren't having seizures. And it turns out you were having seizures every 10 minutes, but they were small, what they call petite mall or ops on seizures. So you had those in sixth grade but I don't think they affected you too much at school right? Henry Furler 12:30 No, I did very well in sixth grade. I didn't have to go to PE because of the cool energetic urticaria but um, which now I kind of regret going to PE not going to PE I feel like that's an experience for children in school all by itself. But my son terrible for some people. Um, but yes, I did very well throughout middle school. I'm trying to think of other things to say about sixth grade. Uh, it was good. Um, yeah, I think that's it. There's not a lot of, Oh, I had a lot of teachers that I really loved. We still keep in touch with a lot of them that that I met throughout my middle school experience. Betsy Furler 13:24 Yeah, your middle school was great and it was also a gifted and talented magnet with IB. Henry Furler 13:30 The middle years program starts in Betsy Furler 13:32 sixth grade. And in seventh grade though, we tell my audience what started happening in seventh grade. Henry Furler 13:40 I started having a lot more seizures when I was in seventh grade, um, maybe about once a week, and they were they were the grand mal seizures, but they would happen so fast that it looks like they were what would be called by some people drop seizures, Betsy Furler 13:58 right and you have to start with wearing a helmet because you had a couple of concussions. Henry Furler 14:02 I started wearing the helmet in eighth grade, maybe about halfway through eighth grade. And what was Betsy Furler 14:08 it like wearing a helmet in middle school? Henry Furler 14:11 Oh, people with the school loved it. They wouldn't make fun of me but they'd give me they'd asked me about it just like when I had the ambulatory eg and they'd give me stickers to put on the helmet and it was fine. Betsy Furler 14:25 And everybody signed it like they would sign a cast. Henry Furler 14:27 Yes, they did. We got metallic Sharpie markers and they would sign it and it was a skateboard helmet. When you think of someone with seizures wearing a helmet, you may think of those a soft kind of like, entire foamy entire head covering helmets, but my dad insisted that we get a cool skateboard helmet. And the doctors that proved that. They said that that would be just as good as the foam helmet. And we did that. Betsy Furler 15:02 So at this point, we didn't really know what was wrong. We had thought that you had a fatty acid oxidation defect, when you're really little, and then we thought it was another disorder of metabolism. And that never could none of that could be proven. So, around that time we went to the Cleveland Clinic, we'd already been to the Mayo Clinic, which you enjoyed right. And, and he saw our wonderful doctor, Dr. Buckley at the Mayo Clinic and then we followed him to Pittsburgh Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and then in about eighth grade, we went to see Dr. COVID Dr. Marvin dito Vich at the Cleveland Clinic, and once you tell my audience about that experience, so Henry Furler 15:51 we went to see this doctor at the Cleveland Clinic and he sat with us for about six hours. I think that's Seven and a half, I think, Okay. And about halfway through the appointment. He had gone to the restroom or something. And he walked in and he said, I know what's wrong. And we were so excited. And he said, Henry is an alien. And then we're like, Unknown Speaker 16:19 yes. He said, it's the only Betsy Furler 16:21 POS that's the only logical explanation for this. Henry Furler 16:26 And we were like, yeah, that has to be it. And then um, that's the rest of the appointment was pretty normal, but he ordered a skin biopsy. And we did the skin biopsy the same day that we were leaving on the airplane, which is not a good time to do a major procedure like that. And they did it without any anesthesia Betsy Furler 16:55 entered two samples. Henry Furler 16:57 Yes, they did. Betsy Furler 16:59 So the first one was wasn't as bad because you didn't know what was coming. Yes. So after we saw Dr. Neto Vich we really hung on to the alien thing. And we decided that I'm the alien. My husband is an earth lane. And Henry is half alien half Earth ln, and that's why he has so many medical problems. We decided that he was right that Dr. nitobe, which was right, and that was the only possible explanation. So Henry, I think we're going to stop here. And for now, and we'll grant it we're going to do a part two. Henry Furler 17:33 Okay, Betsy Furler 17:34 so if you want to contact Henry and, Henry, I always do this at the end of my podcast. So tell tell the people with the best contact for you as Henry Furler 17:44 well. If you want to contact me, you can email Betsy Furler 17:47 so and your email Henry Furler 17:49 It is jhenryfurler@gmail.com Betsy Furler 17:59 so Thanks, Henry for being on this part one, and in it and then we'll do a part two with the rest of the story. Thank you audience for tuning in. As always, I appreciate it so much, please like rate review this podcast on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. And please tune in next time for the rest of this story of Henry. Good bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the for all abilities podcast. This is Betsy Furler, your host and I really appreciate your time listening to the podcast. And please subscribe on any podcast app that you're listening to a song. If you'd like to know more about what we do in our software that helps employer support their employees with ADHD dyslexia, learning differences in autism, please go to www dot for all abilities.com You can also follow us on Instagram. And you can follow me on LinkedIn at Betsy Furler f as in Frank You are le AR Have a great day and we will see you soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Next Level Podcast Kevin Kauffman & Frank Klesitz Frank Klesitz has been an innovative thinker from a very young age. He has learned the art of niching down and focusing on client customer service. Stay in Better Touch with Your Database Kevin: Welcome Frank. Tell me about your business and what it is today? Frank: We are coming up on our 10 year anniversary with Vyral Marketing. I started with one client after graduating college in Omaha, Nebraska. (Describes the in-depth services provided now to his many clients by creating an online presence with video and follows up call from his call center to potential customers who have clicked and watched the videos). I learned Lead Generation through following the MREA model. (In depth discussion on Lead Generation, 33 Touch, and building a database.) In developing my own database and 33 Touch as a personal trainer, I found real estate agents who were not following the model – so I created a system for them and that essentially is the business. I read lots of sales books and learned that you must identify people's needs first by following the Trust, Need, Help, and Hurry model. I learned people in sales skip the Trust and Need parts so I doubled down on the Trust and Need and grew my business that way. Kevin: You niched down and literally created a mega team as a teenage personal trainer. As Realtors, we think our job is to sell real estate but essentially our job is to get employed; find someone to hire us to sell or buy real estate. You got very clear on who the hungry crowd was in the personal training profession. Frank: I learned to scale a professional service at 18 years old. I fell in love with the database concept of 33 Touch and the idea of attracting not chasing. Those concepts were very strong to me and that's how Vyral was born solving the very specific need of staying in touch with the database. Kevin: I love that you have an actual experience of what it is like to have a real estate team. You have your own real estate agents as clients and getting us to make calls is sometimes be ‘a LARGE task'. Frank: There are 3 types of calls: Outbound, Inbound, and Customer Service. The Outbound calls are your Rainmakers: FSBOs, Expireds, Withdrawns. Inbound calls are Buyer Lead Generation and Lead Conversion calls. The last one, Customer Service calls, are ones hardly anyone does. Kevin: Weekly Customer Service calls will change the game; I have heard this twice in the last 24 hours. Frank: The trend is towards Customer Service, calling your database. The contact rates we are experiencing are at 26% of people who answer the phone and one in nine (3%) who call back. Kevin: That's phenomenal. It shows how many appts I need a month to convert to business. (Vyral sends videos of you to your clients, then follows up with calls. Discussion on how important video is as it builds a relationship with the viewer. It creates a psychological connection with people because the brain cannot know if the face is real or on a computer.) Kevin: Let's talk about your lab of high performing Realtors. What have you noticed that most agents are not aware of? Frank: Never lose focus on how many people you speak to every week. Get into an environment where you are comfortable making calls, it's the most important activity you can do, agents need the engine of the database. Ask for subscribers – permission to get the email address. Kevin: It's about the follow-up, which is the wealth builder. How is it that you don't have a cellphone??? Frank: Personally, for me – I hate social media. And I love reading books. I got married 4 years ago and my life was literally on the phone from the minute I woke up until I went to bed. Checking calls, emails, texts and answering all in real time. My entire day was spent in reading an electronic screen. One day, I flipped out and said I can't live like this anymore. I got rid of all technology – TV, wifi, games, and cellphone. Eventually, they crept back into my life except the cellphone. It forces me to be an exceptional manager. Kevin: I want to take a minute to thank you for the gifts (3 books) you sent me because it's important to note that it elevated you in my mind even though we had never met. In closing, what are 3 pieces of advice you can give our listeners for kicking more ass and making a better life? Frank: You can't do it all by yourself. You get it done through people so you must hire good people. I have a very structured week. Every morning for 30 minutes we have an office huddle on zoom – this cuts down on the office chatter. I meet with my team every Thursday for 5 hours; it's a time to relax and brainstorm. I have career night where I invite potential hires who want to apprentice and learn marketing. Kevin: That's great. How can people find you? Frank: Go to our website where your can download the Marketing Plan or call for a strategy session. https://www.getvyral.com/ Book Recommendations: Permission Marketing by Seth Godin No BS Sales Success in the New Economy by Dan Kennedy Youtility by Jay Baer – Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype BIO In college I started an in-home fitness training service I ran until the market imploded in 2008 and we lost all of our clients. Didn't really know what I was doing, but I tried!Then, after I discovered I enjoyed the marketing side of the business more than the exercise itself, I decided to start a marketing firm. Well, about 7 years and many mistakes, failures, and "learning opportunities" later we have a healthy company! Check us out and watch a few of my videos. I have learned a lot along the way and I'm happy to share how to build a profitable service company that helps your clients, employees, and your family with predictable, stable income. I'm on LinkedIn because I want to do business with people I like and enjoy being with; so if you think we can work together and create something meaningful, hit me up.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers. Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe Fontenot. Gary: We're the host of the Answering the Call Podcast. Joe: This is the podcast where we talk to people who are answering God's call. Gary: It's a real treat today to have Frank Turek, the Apologist. Joe: Frank is a nationally-known name. He was one of the speakers at our recent Defend Apologetics Conference so this is the first in a series of podcast that were filmed or recorded rather at the conference. And so he's going to talk about the philosophical breaking point of atheistic arguments. Gary: He's very good at this, and I caught his lecture at Defend. It was wonderful. Joe: It was, and I got to sit in on the podcast that Marilyn actually interviewed him, and it was solid. Gary: Let's hear from Frank. Joe: Let's do it. Marilyn Stewart: I'm just kind of go through some of these and see if they're okay with you. Frank Turek: No, you can just ask them, don't worry about it. Let's just do it. Marilyn: Okay. Well I really planned on two, but I'm sure we can go... I might interrupt, Frank: You can interrupt me. Whatever. Just have a conversation. Marilyn: Alright, sounds great. Frank: I'm I close enough to this? Producer: You're good. Frank: It's Mardi Gras, let's throw beeds. Marilyn: You can't make me laugh too much- Frank: Why not? Marilyn: I was in tears there a couple of times. Okay, are we ready? Producer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Marilyn: Frank we are glad to have you on campus with us this week for defend, and you've given us a lot to think about, but I wanted to address atheism for moment, and your book I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist with a Dr.Geisler- Frank: Dr.Geisler, that's right. Marilyn: We have heard pretty often that many atheists are atheists because of some trauma or emotion that they emotionally reject Christianity. And you made the statement that many of them are on a happiness quest, not a truth quest. Marilyn: And you said the only way to find happiness is straight through the truth. I wanted to give you chance to talk about that. I thought that was very interesting, how can we use that as we were talking to atheist? Frank: Well, I think when you're talking to somebody, if they're not a Christian, you might want to ask them, why are you not a Christian? And a lot of times you're going to hear responses that don't strike at the heart of Christianity. Like for example, they might say, well, there's too much evil in the world. Well, that doesn't mean Christianity is false. Frank: The entire reason Christianity exists is to resolve the problem of evil. That's why Christ came to take evil upon himself so we could be reconciled to him. Or an atheist might say, "Well, evolution is true." Say for example, even if it's true, it doesn't mean Christianity is false, right? Marilyn: Right. Frank: It'll give us problems with biblical inerrancy and the Old Testament but doesn't mean it Christianity's false, doesn't mean God doesn't exist. In fact, even if evolution is true, you need God, why? Because you need a being to create the universe set up the universe, set up the laws of nature that if evolution is true, drive evolution. Frank: So even if it were true, you don't get rid of the need for Christianity. I very rarely hear people say, "The reason I'm not a Christian, because I think there's a better explanation then the resurrection for the evidence that we have." Whoever says that hardly anybody. I think you should ask them why you're not a Christian first. Frank: Then I normally ask them and I do this a lot on college campuses where atheists come to I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist presentation, I'll ask them, "If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?" And many of them will be honest and say, "No." They don't want it to be true, they don't want there to be a god. Why? They want to be God, they want to be god of their own lives. Hey, half the time I do too, don't you? Marilyn: Sure. Frank: It's natural you don't want God to exist. I don't know if it was Nietzsche or Russell or one of those old atheist who said, "The biggest problem I have with God is I'm not him." Right? Marilyn: Says it all right there didn't it? Frank: No, I can't say this is true of all atheists don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, many of the ones I run into they admit it's a volitional problem, It's a moral problem, It's an emotional problem It's not an intellectual problem, It's not like there's not enough evidence out there. And I think God has given us enough evidence to know that Christianity is true, but He's also left enough ambiguity that if you want to go your own way- Marilyn: You can make that choice. Frank: He is not compelling you to follow him. In fact, that's what hell is, it's separation from God. He doesn't compel you to follow him, He separates himself from you. Marilyn: So, we can give the evidence, some may not accepted. Frank: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Marilyn: But it's a matter of addressing the head as well as the heart. Frank: Yes. Marilyn: Unpack that a little bit more about if you're talking to an atheist, and you understand that there's a lot of anger there, a lot of hurt. Do you have any other specific pointers about dealing with that? Frank: Turn or burn doesn't work. Marilyn: Right, Yes. Frank: So that's not going help, no. I think you just got to love the person and maybe not even talk about Christianity at that point because if they have a visceral reaction to it, it's not helpful to bring it up. Frank: But I can almost guarantee you this, if you love that person enough at some point something's going to happen in that person's life and your phone's going to ring and that person is going to be on the other end because when something happens, they're not going to call they're atheist, buddy- Marilyn: That's exactly right. Frank: Atheist buddy is going to say, "Well, these things happen where there's no rhyme or reason, we just dance to our DNA, there's no purpose to life, fuck up." No. You'll be one that can then at that point say, "Well, there's a reason for this and Christ came to ultimately take our pain and suffering away and you can have that taken away and your sins forgiven by trusting in him." Marilyn: It was a powerful story that you told a few minutes ago, a true story about a Christian who did the unthinkable and at least he claimed to be a Christian and abused a little child. It does just make us angry at this person who did such a thing. Marilyn: It makes us wonder like they do, why did God allow this one thing to happen? We need help us Christians understanding that one horrible thing to a child and then we also need to help those who are rejecting Christ because of that action. Do you have anything you'd like to say more to that? Frank: Well, see there's always two answers to the problem of evil. There's the philosophical answer and then there's the pastoral answer and since I'm from New Jersey, I don't have the pastoral answer. There are people way better than me at compassion and reading people well and really comforting them. Frank: I give the more philosophical answer, I tell people when I ... Yesterday we had a breakout session If God were evil basically. I pointed out that the answers I'm going to give, if you're going through difficulty are probably not going to resonate, they may annoy you. Frank: But I think the first step toward recovery is to intellectually recognize that while you might not know what the reason for this happening is, God has a reason even if you never figure out what that is, this side of eternity. Marilyn: Now that's very interesting because yesterday we did a podcast with Gary Habermas, and he deals with a lot of people who have doubt, who are suffering, and he says kind of the same thing. Frank: I think the way out of suffering is some intellectual muscle that you put your theology to work, that you remind yourself of scripture that God doesn't leave us, He doesn't forsake us, that we can trust him, that He doesn't lie, that He all good. Marilyn: It's kind of a good reminder, I think to us as Christians that we do have to think properly to understand these really difficult situations and then to help anybody else. Frank: Right. In fact, Gary does a great job talking about cognitive therapy and Philippians 4, think on these things, the first thing you have to think about is things that are true and that's the first step out of there. But let me just say one other thing about evil Marilyn, that is it doesn't disprove God it actually shows God does exist. Marilyn: Yes. Frank: Because none of this would be evil unless there was good and good wouldn't exist unless God exists because God is the standard of good. If evil exists, I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive but if evil exists, God exists because God is the standard of good by which we would even know what evil was. Frank: You can always ask the question, "Why did God allow this evil to occur?" And there are many answers to that. One of course is free will, If God interfered with us doing evil all the time, we wouldn't be free creatures at all. This wouldn't be a moral universe we'd be robots. Marilyn: Sure. Frank: He allows evil to take place because He can get the greater good of love by giving us free will, but He can redeem evil even if we can't see why God would possibly allow say, an awful child abuse or something like that. Frank: We might not be able to see any good coming from it now, but it could be that ultimately God can recompense that individual, not only here but in eternity. Infact I think the writer of Hebrews talks about a better resurrection, whatever that means, it means something and about enhancing our capacity to enjoy God in heaven. Frank: But also the idea that there's the ripple effect out there, that one event can ripple forward and does ripple forward to affect trillions of other events. Marilyn: I tell you that heartbreaking story as you shared and I thought if nothing else, it should be a reminder to us of how serious our sin is, how that ripple effect that our sin has and that we answer to the Lord. Marilyn: You did mention this morning that if there is no God, there is no justice because I believe if I heard correctly that she was unable, this victim was unable to really testify on the stand and so as I understand it, the man walked free. Frank: The man's free and everyone knows he's guilty and he's never going to get justice here on earth if she doesn't testify. Marilyn: Yes. Frank: He'll only get justice in the afterlife if there is one. Marilyn: So without God, there is no justice. Frank: There is no justice, there's no standard of justice and there's no justice done because there's nobody with the authority and the knowledge and the power to make something just ultimately. Marilyn: Now that kind of brings me to another question that I jotted down, we have also talked about Islam this week in some podcasts. Marilyn: My question is why does it have to be a good God that is the basis for our sense morality? That every human feels this deep sense of right and wrong and why can't it be Allah? Why does it have to be a good God that really gives us that sense of morality? Frank: Because as Muslim scholars will admit that Allah is arbitrary according to them that his nature isn't good, whatever he does is good. Kind of a mild example of that would be in the Gulf War, when the allied forces hit the Iraqis with overwhelming force, some of the Iraqis were surrendering to CNN camera crews why? Because Allah must want us to lose now it's a very fatalistic whatever Allah does is good, not is Allah good? Frank: Now if Allah isn't good, there must be a standard beyond Allah that is in order to judge what is good and what isn't good and that standard is God's Yahweh's nature. Ultimately you have to arrive at an unchanging source of goodness and justice and righteousness and that standard is what we mean by God. Frank: In theology, you well know here at New Orleans seminary, you know there's a difference between essentialism and voluntarism, I don't know if our podcasters may have heard this but essentialism is that goodness is grounded in God's nature. Voluntarism is that God is arbitrary and does whatever he wants regardless of any nature. Well, as Christians er are essentialists we believe that God's nature is goodness and that's where the buck stops, so to speak. Marilyn: Interesting, now on Allah, I wonder if this goes back to the old philosophical dilemma. Is it good because Allah says it is good? Frank: Yeah. That's called the Euthyphro dilemma that Plato brought up and it's why I should bring that up Marilyn because I get it a lot on college campuses. People will say, "Well, is God good because he does it or does he do it because God's good?" Frank: And this is supposed to be a dilemma for the Christian who goes, "Well, look, if God does it because he's good, then he must be looking at a standard beyond him and if it's good because God doesn't think Allah is arbitrary, why you need God for good then?" Right "God's not doing anything he's looking at a standard beyond him or he's just arbitrary and making it up" Frank: And they think it's dilemma, but it's not a dilemma, this is what's called a false dilemma. A true dilemma is A or non A. Marilyn: Right. Frank: This is A or B. Well maybe there's a C, In other words, maybe there's a third option here and there is. The third option is not that God is arbitrary or not that God looks at a standard beyond him, the third option is God is the standard, right? Marilyn: Yes. Frank: If God has to look at a standard beyond him, then God is not really God. The standard beyond him is and so it's not a dilemma. The Euthyphro dilemma is not a dilemma there's a standard beyond or the standard is God not a standard beyond him. Marilyn: When I ask you about this question that Christians face quite a bit or this challenge of, don't judge me. You talked about Matthew 7 or where someone will say, "Who are you to judge?" Or "The Bible says judge not." Marilyn: You mentioned this last night about Matthew 7 and you said, "It's not that we're not to judge, but they were to judge correctly." I wanted to give you a chance to talk about that a little bit. Frank: First when someone says, "Don't judge." They're actually judging you. It's a self defeating claim to say, don't judge. It's like saying, "I can't speak a word in English." It's doing what you say you should do so Jesus doesn't just stop after he says, "Judge not." he says, "Judge not lest you be judged by the same standard you judge others you'd be judged by that standard, so before you try and take the speck out of your brother's eye, you hypocrite take the log out of your own eye." Frank: He's not telling you not to judge, he's telling you to take the speck out of your brother's eye, which involves making a judgment. He's simply saying, "Get that problem out of your life so you can better help your brother." So it's not a command not to judge, it's a command on how to judge. Frank: Everybody makes judgments, atheists make judgments, they judge there's no God, the Bible is wrong, you're wrong if you're a Christian, all these things, they're judgments. The question isn't whether or not you can make judgments, the question is, are your judgments true? Frank: In fact, the next verse after that, I think if I remember correctly, Jesus either says don't throw your pearls before swine Or it says something about dogs. He's making a judgment about certain things, so everybody's making judgments. The only question is, are your judgments true? Marilyn: I think that's a real important point for Christians who are trying to share with other people to understand and you went through quite a few challenges last night and you said, "Turn these on their head, turn it back." Give us a couple of examples. Frank: Turn the claim on itself, this is the most important thinking skill you can have. In the book, I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist we call it the road runner tactic. It reminds us of Wile Coyote and Road Runner like Road Runner stops short in the cliff and Wile Coyote goes over the cliff and he's hanging in mid air until he realizes there's no ground to stand on well, that's exactly what you do when you turn a claim on itself. Frank: Somebody says there's no truth you say, "Is that true?" You're claiming it's true, there's no truth. Somebody says, "Don't judge." Then why are you judging me for judging? Somebody says, "There are no absolutes, are you absolutely sure?" Someone says, "All truth comes from science." Frank: You say, "Does that truth come from science?" No, it doesn't. You should doubt everything, "Should I doubt that?" I mean, you can't know anything, "How do you know you can't know?" These are relativism and postmodernism or just they're intellectually vacuous. It's logically self defeating. Frank: Once you get good at turning a claim on itself, you can avoid a lot of error and that's important because if you start believing error, reality will hit you in the face ultimately you're going to get hurt. Marilyn: And it's a great skill for every Christian learn just if nothing else, it puts a back on them, gifts that Christian a moment to kind of collect themselves and make them answer the question. You may not have a snickers bar, but if you learn this skill, that gives you just a moment to kind of back up and not be on the defense all the time. Marilyn: All right, let's see. You said so many good things but I loved what you said this morning about miracles, that sign of the great king. You talked about that when a king wanted to send a message, he would send a messenger that, when he signed a document, he did it with a seal of a ring. Tell me about how miracles are really a sign of a great God that we serve? Frank: The purpose of miracles in the scriptures anyway is to show that somebody speaks for God. The great periods of miracles in the Bible and there aren't many of them actually, people think miracles are occurring all the time in the Bible, they are not actually occurring very often. They are occurring about on average, once every eight years. Marilyn: I believe he said 230, 250 something- Frank: 250 over so to make the math easier, just check it from Abraham to Jesus and that's 2000 years, it's one miracle every eight years. And they're there to say, "Listen to this person." God is going to pour out miracles on Moses so the Israelites listened to Moses and Pharaoh listens to Moses. Frank: God's going to pour out miracles on Elijah and Elijah goes there trying to prevent Israel from going into apostasy. God is going to pour out miracles on Jesus and the apostles because they have a new message that people need to understand and know that this is from God that's why miracles are done. Frank: They're never done to entertain, they're never even done for the personal benefit of the miracle worker. For example, Paul says, "Pray for Timothy" Or pray for so and so. Timothy, take a little wine for your stomach because, well, look, if Timothy has a problem why don't you just heal him? Frank: It's never done for the personal benefit, God can heal him directly don't get me wrong. I'm just saying when the apostles and others in the scriptures are doing miracles, they're doing miracles to show everybody that they speak for God and that's why we ought to believe in what they say. Frank: This new revelation needs new confirmation, this new sermon needs a new sign, it's kind of like a miracle is like a seal from the king who sends you a message that seal says, "This is from the king." Marilyn: I think that's a great picture, I think that really communicated the message very well. Now, you asked this question and in my mind I got it wrong. You asked, "What was the greatest miracle?" And I was thinking resurrection. Frank: Yes. Marilyn: But you said, "No, it's in Genesis 1:1." That's interesting, I'm going to have to give that some more thought but tell me- Frank: Let me say technically you're correct. Marilyn: True. Frank: The resurrection is the greatest- Marilyn: Good, I like to be right. Frank: Because when we think of miracles, we think of acts of God inside the universe technically, the creation of the universe is an act of God, but it wasn't inside the universe it was the creation of the universe. Frank: If you want to be technical but in terms of the amount of power that it would take to create the universe that appears to be greater than say to resurrect Jesus from the dead. Marilyn: True. One of the things that I wondered about that might be helpful as we're talking to people is that that is accepted across the board in scientists that there was a big bang, that there was a moment when everything came into existence and that, that might even be helpful as we're sharing that here we had the greatest miracle ever right here at the beginning. Science sees that from there, everything else is easier to accept perhaps. Frank: That's right. If Genesis 1:1 is true and the atheists are admitting the data for Genesis 1:1 they don't think it was God, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that a space matter in time had a beginning, whatever created space matter in time can't be made a space matter of time. Frank: The cosmos must be spaceless timeless was in a material, powerful, intelligent, personal to create the universe out of nothing those are the attributes of God. It's hard to avoid that conclusion and if God does really exist, then obviously miracles are possible. Frank: I see as Lewis said, if God exists ... How did he put it? He said, if God exists, must we believe in miracles? Indeed, you have no security against it, that is the bargain. Marilyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Frank: If God exists, he can intervene in the universe anytime he wants. And the question is why does he intervene? It appears when it comes to the Old Testament, he's intervening to show people that these people speak for me, listen up. Marilyn: I don't know if we can underestimate just how powerful the big bang is for our case because and by the way, you pointed out just how old I am and Bob and everybody else when he had us raise our hands this morning. Yes, I do remember the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Frank: Yes I raised my hand too, but I was only two. Marilyn: But as we talk about the big bang, I remember when I started I taught school many years ago and taught science and those textbooks back in the 80s were still saying that many scientists believe that the universe was eternal. Frank: Really in the 80s? Marilyn: Yes. Frank: Wow, it takes- Marilyn: It takes a long time for textbooks to change over and- Frank: Wake up. Einstein knew it through the theory of general relativity, he knew that the universe and time, that space time and matter are co relative, he knew that back in like 1916. Marilyn: Oh yes. It takes a long time, especially in schools, but they were still talking about universe eternal maybe expanding contracting universe and I could see it right there. So I would point it out to the kids. I said, "But here's an option, and they're talking about it, it has significance." Frank: Well, you can even lay the science aside. Because I was actually with a Muslim philosopher many years ago who came up with what some call the column cosmological arguments that time had to have a beginning in other words, today never would have gotten here. Frank: Regardless of the Big Bang, regardless of science and all this, we know time had to have a beginning. If time didn't have the beginning today, wouldn't have never arrived because you'd always have to live another day before you got to today because there's an infinite number of days before today. Frank: Now, whatever created time must be timeless, and if you're timeless, you don't have a beginning, which means whatever created time is eternal, I.e God is eternal. So you could lay all the scientists aside and still arrive at the beginning of the Genesis 1:1. Marilyn: Sure. You mentioned that last night, and this is one of the reasons everybody loves your talks. We are out of time, I do appreciate it very much- Frank: We are out of time? I thought we had infinite time. Marilyn: We have infinite time, we're not even yet to today's. Frank: All right. Marilyn: But thank you so much for all you do and for being with us today. Frank: My pleasure. And if people want to know more about this Marilyn, they can go to our website, crossexamined.org and we're on YouTube @crossexamined.org and we have Facebook, cross examined.org Frank: And we do a lot on the college campus so people can watch the Q and A or the entire presentation including the Q and A from our college campus if they feel like our Facebook pages because we stream it on Facebook and we stream it on our website as well. When is this podcast coming out? Marilyn: Joe will have to be the one to answer that and we'll let you know and we'll send you the link because we want others too and we want you back for defend. I'm sure you will be. Frank: Oh, sure. Marilyn: And we'll do some more podcasts how about that? Frank: Absolutely. Well, if this comes out at the end of January, at Ohio state, people can watch it. And then we're at Winthrop university and several others, so they can check our calendar, crossexamined.org and see those. Marilyn: All right. Thanks so much.
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Summary: The lads wrap up semester 6 with all the stuff, you, the fans sent to us throughout the semester as we drink champagne and a few beers. We'll see you after the semester break! In the Studio: Dan Ken Critter Jess Cocktail du Jour: 1. Champagne Royale Champagne and a splash of Chambord 2. Black Velvet (cue the music): Make a black and tan with a stout and bubbly! Quote du Jour: Jim Bennett: I've been up two and a half million dollars. Frank: What you got on you? Jim Bennett: Nothing. Frank: What you put away? Jim Bennett: Nothing. Frank: You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shitbox, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you! Jim Bennett and Frank - The Gambler Intro/Outro music from Haggis Rampant’s new album, “Burly!”
Howdy Doody! News (00:12:20): 3²: Performances of Bob Gunton (00:40:45): Tim's: "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" "Patch Adams" and "24"/Theater Performances Matt's: "Demolition Man" "Broken Arrow" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" The Flicks (00:57:30): "Grey Owl" SLS Cast Rating: 2 Matt's Rating: 2 Tim's Rating: 2 "Gandhi" SLS Cast Rating: 4.5 Matt's Rating: 4Tim's Rating: 5 "The Congress" (2013) SLS Cast Rating: 3.75 Matt's Rating: 3.5 Tim's Rating: 3.75 NEXT WEEK! Segment Three: I'm the Only One Who Liked It The Flicks: "Frank" "You're Next" and "Johnny Mnemonic" Until Next Time Cinephiles... -RSS Feed (All music within the podcast is copyrighted 2010 - 2014 by Cries of Solace and is used with permission. Additional copyrighted material used under Fair Use for the purposes of [including, but not limited to]: criticism, comment, and news reporting.)