EPISODE 10 - halloween
Guest: tracy clayton

Season 1 of Mad Chat concludes with the one and only Tracy Clayton (living legend and former co-host of “Another Round”), who joins Sandy to defend a problematic fave holiday—Halloween. Along the way they talk costumes, pitfalls of being open about anxiety and depression on Twitter, and how E.T. kinda just looked like a loaf of bread.

SOME SUGGESTED RESOURCES FROM SANDY

• Here’s Tracy’s Sexy Steve Harvey costume and her Prince one; here’s my Log Lady.  

• Here’s Tracy’s tweet about the Sexy Steve Harvey costume times when you don’t look as bad on social media as you’re actually feeling (if you’re curious, check out the whole thread, though as we say, there’s some heavy stuff) 

• Here’s the awful Halloween display I saw on a front stoop in Brooklyn

• Speaking of gender and Halloween costumes, here’s my essay that touches on that topic, for them. 

• Speaking of trying to not say words like “insane” and “crazy”, here’s my essay about that from Gay Magazine

• Speaking of apologies and how to give them, here was an excellent Still Processing episode

• Reminder that our third Mad Chat Book Club pick is We’ve Been too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, edited by L.D. Green and Kelechi Ubozoh. If you’re interested, pick up a copy and begin reading (it’s got numerous essays, articles, poems and so forth) and we’ll have our discussion sometime next year. I recommend it generally but especially if you’re looking for more points of view on madness/mental health written by people with first-hand experience. This is also an excellent resource (if you’re a mental health professional, for example) looking for more ‘data’ and ‘backup’ for the sorts of ideas you’ve been encountering on this podcast.

  
  This concludes Season 1! We’re taking and a break and will return with Season 2 next year! More exciting news hopefully forthcoming! Thanks for listening! If you love the show, please take some time to tell your friends/followers & rate/review us wherever you’re listening. The show is entirely independent for the time being and therefore entirely reliant on word of mouth. We appreciate your support! In the meantime, send us an email if you’ve got thoughts about what we’ve made so far, stuff you’d love to hear discussed on the future episodes, or just any question (and maybe someday we’ll answer it on the show). We’ll be on social media during the hiatus and maybe there’ll even be some surprises, so stay subscribed. Chat with you in 2020!

TRANSCRIPT

TRACY CLAYTON: Okay so this is also a costume I was very proud of because of the creativity. Like I actually sewed — I sewed, like, two little oval things onto a skirt. But I sewed it.

SANDY: Wow.

TRACY: I know! I know. So I was Mickey Mouse, right? But I was — and then this is the first and last unironic sexy costume I ever did.

SANDY: Right. And we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

TRACY: Yeah. We’ll get there.

SANDY: We’re saving it (BOTH laugh). I’m burying the lede. I wanted to start this conversation with that, but we are — I’m holding back. 

TRACY: Great job. Great job. So I was Mickey Mouse, right? And —

SANDY: Yeah. That’s still pretty weird. You were sexy Mickey Mouse?

TRACY: Yeah (laughs). So I think — here’s how it happened. So I was like, you know —

SANDY: (in Mickey Mouse voice) I’m a boy! (BOTH laugh)

TRACY: What made me the most mad is everybody thought I was a — I was Minnie Mouse, just because I was a girl, and I was like, “Fuck all of y’all.” 

SANDY: Yeah. You were like, “Mickey can be sexy, too.”

TRACY: Right. Do you not see the — the red — the white ovals on the — the skirt that I’d made. This is my first unironically sexy costume. And then there was another one. But I think I chose them all based on, like, how can my hair be incorporated in this. So with Mickey Mouse I was like, well, I can do, like, two big curly Afro puffs, and those will be my ears. I had just, like, a very, like, plain, basic, black, long-sleeved t-shirt, ‘cause it was cold that year. Cleavage, obviously, because how else will anyone know that I’m a sexy version of the thing that I am. I found, like, a red mini skirt. And you know it’s got the two little white ovals for, like, the overall buttons or whatever. 

SANDY: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

TRACY: So I got some white felt, and sewed the little ovals on, and I was like, “I’m Martha Stewart now, you can’t tell me anything.” Then fishnets, because of course — you’re not sexy unless you have the fishnets. And then I went and I got some really cheap, like, hugely tall platform heels, and I spray-painted them yellow, ‘cause his shoes are yellow.

SANDY: That’s tricky.

TRACY: Right? 

SANDY: That’s tricky.

TRACY: I was so proud. 

SANDY: I think that’s good. 

TRACY: I had, like, the little tail. Crowning glory is that, yes, I was Mickey Mouse — colloquially I was known as Vicky Mouse. (SANDY laughs). I was like, “I’m a genius. Nothing will be better than this, ever.”

[MAD CHAT THEME MUSIC]

SANDY: This is Mad Chat, a podcast where we unpack what our pop culture is telling us about madness and mental health. I’m your host, Sandy Allen. And today I am so freaking excited about my guest — the one and only, the god — Tracy Clayton is here to talk about, honestly, kind of like the most problematic fave holiday, in my opinion: Halloween.

TRACY: Yep. It’s a doozy.

SANDY: Tracy, welcome to Mad Chat.

TRACY: Thank you so much for having me!

SANDY: I’m very pleased that you agreed to do this. So Halloween has been kind of, like, one of the big focus points that I’ve thought about again and again and again as I’ve thought about mental health, how people learn about mental health, kind of all the messages that we’re picking up on various TV shows and in movies, or kind of, like, in the discourse around this celebrity or that celebrity or, you know. And — and Halloween is kind of one of those — it — it comes up again and again and again that I see horror stuff, haunted houses, you know, scary movies, costumes, amusement parks, anything in that realm that is taking up psych patients, you know, psych, like, treatments, like, you know, electroshock machines or straitjackets, and sort of the real — it seems like joy that a lot of people get from kind of taking psychiatric-related imagery and making it into something scary is just this — this thing that, because I’m kind of tuned in to, like, whatever frequency I’m tuned into here, where I just paid attention to schizophrenia for a lot of years and, you know — Halloween is this, over and over and over, it seems like a very common thing is just kind of taking up these topics, which I think should not be treated at horror tropes, and really just happily doing that. And I’ve not noticed a real cultural recognition of that fact, you know? There’s been, as far as I can tell, very little pushback if someone wants to really lean heavily on a sort of, like, underlying idea that, oh, a psych patient is a monster, for example. Or a psych treatment is a sort of torture, you know. So it — it did make me think, and we were just talking about this, about Halloween in general, what it is — and so that’s kind of [5:00] where I want to start is just thinking about Halloween and — and — and what’s your relationship with Halloween? Like, when you were a little kid, did you look forward to this holiday, or did you, like, kind of hate that everybody had to dress up to beg for candy? (BOTH laugh)

TRACY: I’ve never thought of it about dressing up and begging for candy — from strangers!

SANDY: I mean, that’s the whole thing. Like —

TRACY: Like, that’s — yeah, that’s hilarious.

SANDY: To kids! They’re like, hey, this is your job. You have very few jobs, but there’s one — you gotta dress up.

TRACY: And if you don’t do it, well, you don’t get any candy. What a — you know what, partially a shitty holiday. Am I allowed to say shitty?

SANDY: Oh, yes. 

TRACY: Okay.

SANDY: Please say all the swears.

TRACY: Okay. Fuck Halloween! Fuck making your kids beg for stuff. That being said, I did enjoy looking forward to going to beg for candy in the streets. But also as a kid no one knew this then, and I guess I technically don’t know that I came out of the womb with anxiety disorder, I’m assuming so, like, looking back there’s a lot of things —

SANDY: The world probably helped, too.

TRACY: I’m certain it had a hand in that. But you know, I was scared of a lot of stuff. And I was also raised in a house where — you know, holidays, fun stuff, you know, like, we — we did those things if me and my brother and, like, my friends had an interest in them. Which of course we always did, because look, it’s a holiday, you get to dress up and be like the people on TV. But the thing that I hated about Halloween was, like, the — the really gruesome, like, masks and, like, the werewolfs with the — the fangs dripping blood and stuff, like, that’s not — that’s not fun.

SANDY: Scary stuff.

TRACY: It was terrifying stuff. And I also grew up in a household where my family — love them, I don’t say this to be a negative thing, it just kind of is what it is —

SANDY: Your family do listen to this show, for sure.

TRACY: Do not put it past my mother (BOTH laugh). I think she’s got a Google alert out there, ‘cause she’ll be like, “What was this thing —”

SANDY: Have they told moms about Google alerts? Terrible.

TRACY: I know! When I find out who did it (BOTH laugh), we’re gonna have some words. But they’re jerks — like, in a — in a — in an acerbic, you know, I’m teasing you kind of way, which has helped me in the long run because when I do have the confidence to be like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so witty and so quick,” like, I had to be because to not cry in the house every day with really funny, witty, acerbic trolls, I had to, you know? So, steel sharpened steel in that respect, but — and this is a thing I’ve been thinking about recently — there’s also that — excuse me — there’s also that dynamic of, you know, they tease because it’s fun to them, they tease because it’s something like, “Ha ha, I got you upset” — like, whatever that dynamic is. Then they would do the thing, like, when I’d get upset and they’d start to feel bad for having made me upset: “Oh you’re so sensitive. Why are you so sensitive?”

SANDY: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

TRACY: And then — do you know how disorienting it is for a child, like, you’re — you’re punishing me for feeling the way that you just made me feel. Like, I asked you to stop several times. I told you it’s not funny, you know? And like, now I feel bad for having feelings and emotions and being afraid of these things. And my most specific memory of this as it relates to Halloween is my brother, my big brother — he’s eight years older than me — one of the funniest and smartest people I know, also just one of the biggest jerks, like (SANDY laughs) — you know what, I halfway hope he hears this one day (BOTH laugh), ‘cause I’ve been talking about this in therapy, so, like, since that has been coming to light. But like, I mean, like, it really messes with, like, your ability to trust people with your emotions and your safety. Though he would tease a lot, not just me, like, there’s kind of a time limit at family functions, like, okay, Trav’s good for maybe an hour on a good day and then everybody’s like, all right, you gotta go or I gotta go or we gotta start drinking, you know? But so he teased me all the time, especially during Halloween, and there was this one Halloween where I was — I think Halloween was like over, you know, like I went out, I was trick or treating, and I’m in my living room, minding my black-ass business. I’ve got my candy, I’m watching some, like, happy Halloween movies, and here comes my brother, in the dark, with one of those, like, horrible masks on. And the thing is, the mask was in my house because some other random little boys on the street were teasing me with it, and I didn’t like it, and it made me cry. So here I am, in my house, safe — my brother finds the mask, and he’s just like walking up really slowly. And even though I can hear his giggle — he has a really weird, like, high-pitched (imitates brother’s laugh) when he’s doing some — some horrible shit. So I know it’s him, but I was just frozen. And I couldn’t do anything. And I was like, if I can’t move, I’m gonna die. It — I know it’s not a real werewolf, but maybe it is, I don’t know. And like, that’s one of those memories that just, like, sticks to me when it comes to Halloween. And I am not one of those people [10:00] who enjoys fear.

SANDY: No, I don’t either.

TRACY: Possibly because I wake up with fear every day (laughs).

SANDY: Yeah, I mean, you and I have the same diagnosis.

TRACY: Yeah! You know?

SANDY: I identify with a lot of that, and I think that sense of, like, not wanting to court fear, of, like — one time I went to a Halloween, like, house — like a haunted house as an adult with my friends. They were like, “What’s wrong with you? You’ve never been to a haunted house?” And I was like, “Why would I ever go to something like this?” And we went to a haunted house, and I was so scared. 

TRACY: It’s awful!

SANDY: I was not doing well. (TRACY laughs). I was having a bad time. I was — I was holding onto my friend so hard I was hurting her. And — and everyone thought it was funny, and I was like, there’s nothing funny about fear to me.

TRACY: There’s not. It’s not enjoyable. It’s not a thing — and I have a friend who — I swear, I love her so much. Her name is Janelle. Janelle is the biggest just, like, Halloween, just, fan — to a degree where I’m like, you know, you’re an adult, I don’t know that you should be taking a week off Halloween (SANDY laughs) to watch your favorite Halloween movies.

SANDY: I respect that.

TRACY: So do I! But I just think it’s so interesting, like, her connection to this thing, like, of all the things to feel comforted by it’s the scary season.

SANDY: Did you — did you like the dressing up part of Halloween? Would you, like, go to school wearing a costume or go out trick-or-treating wearing a costume? Did you have a favorite costume that sort of, like, sticks out in your mind?

TRACY: So I did like to dress up (laughs). We were not always the most original, and I think that my mom — basically, I was the same thing for several years in a row. 

SANDY: Okay.

TRACY: ‘Cause it’s like, you know what, vampire worked last year. We still got some fake blood this year. You like vampires! It’s fine! And I did, you know, vampires were like one of the things where it was just, like, well, you know, I’m fairly sure they don’t exist in real life. So I can enjoy them. Yeah. But other than —

SANDY: Werewolves less so.

TRACY: Nah. (Laughs). I don’t know —

SANDY: I see the delineation that’s been drawn. 

TRACY: And it could be like, I was always into the lore more so than, like, the actual vampires. I loved Brim Stokers — Strokers — Stokers.

SANDY: The — the Dracula.

TRACY: That guy. Yeah.

SANDY: The —

TRACY: That Dracula. You know and like, the vampire can’t come in unless, you know, you invite them in, and they don’t have a reflection. Like, that was the stuff that was interesting to me. 

SANDY: So you were a vampire.

TRACY: Yes. At least one year I was a high school graduate because my brother had graduated high school and had the cap and gown.

SANDY: (Laughing) I love this.

TRACY: And my mom was like, “Oh, don’t you want to be a graduate?” I was like, “Yeah, some day.” I was like — I was not in double-digit ages yet.

SANDY: Elementary school.

TRACY: So like, between 7 and 9 — yeah, yeah.

SANDY: That’s great.

TRACY: So that was a couple years, I think.

SANDY: Oh I’m sure adults love that.

TRACY: Easy peasy. Plus she’s like, I’m getting more uses out of this. 

SANDY: That seems like I’m getting candy, look at me here with my future college —

TRACY: I have dreams and ambitions. (BOTH laugh). Here, have more food —

SANDY: Sugar! Take the sugar. America.

TRACY: But I would like to confess, because I do feel like this is a safe space — this is way back when I didn’t know any better, assuming that no — well, clearly no one knew any better because this was my costume for possibly the longest run, this was my costume again ‘cause it was easy. I — (starts laughing)

SANDY: I’m so excited. I don’t even know — I have no idea what you’re gonna say.

TRACY: I was the — what was then known and now known as — and frowned upon — as a “hobo,” quote unquote.

SANDY: Ahh.

TRACY: And I was that because I had uncles —

SANDY: Yeah yeah yeah.

TRACY: — with big old clothes, you know. I had like a Sprite bottle in like a brown paper bag (laughs).

SANDY: This is like a costume trope. 

TRACY: Yeah!

SANDY: I think this is a like a thing that kids — is — in E.T., isn’t there a kid who dresses up like a hobo. I think it made an impression on me as a kid, I was like, that’s a thing.

TRACY: I think E.T. might’ve scared me as a kid, I don’t remember.

SANDY: Oh, well it’s terrifying. 

TRACY: He was scary!

SANDY: That’s a really scary movie. 

SANDY: I mean, I regard a lot of movies that I don’t think are technically movies as very scary, but —

TRACY: I mean, he kind of looked like a — a toe mixed with a loaf of bread, and he was just talking to people, and they was cool with this, like (laughing) — lots didn’t make sense to me. Nobody explained anything. I was like, I think I’m alright.

SANDY: So this hobo costume is definitely one of those things that you look back on and go like, “Ugh.”

TRACY: Yes, I went, “Eugh.” 

SANDY: Yeah.

TRACY: You know? I remember I was given, like, the five o’clock shadow with charcoal and I do remember — I remember feeling proud about the costume, or at least its quality, because everybody thought that I was a little boy, and I was like, “Ha ha! We did it! We hooked it up!” And then I remember —

SANDY: Gender’s an easy scam.

TRACY: Isn’t it?

SANDY: It takes very little (BOTH laugh). 

TRACY: Facial hair? Oh!

SANDY: People are like, “Ohh!”

TRACY: I know. I don’t know how you’re twelve years old and you managed to grow —

SANDY: A man is here! (BOTH laugh)

TRACY: — hair by now, but you know? Easy peasy. So I say all that to say, I did enjoy the dressing up part, I did enjoy [15:00] going out to get candy, ‘cause I liked candy. Was also terrified of all of the horror stories about, you know, people are gonna put razor blades in your apples, and first I was like, who’s giving out apples on Halloween? Because the rest —

SANDY: It’s a crime.

TRACY: You should not be able to do that. But like, I don’t know if this was a thing where you grew up — I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, which nobody would think of as being, like, urban or like, you know — it was the hood. We were on The First 48 — it was a true crime show, it was really terrible — shout-out to Louisville! But like, there were all these rumors about, like, you know there’s an evil clan, you know, and they, like, live around the corner and like, they come out and they, like, kidnap kids, and you gotta be careful, and don’t go out alone, and blah blah blah. So I’m simultaneously out living my future dream as a graduate, just trying to get some candy. 

SANDY: Slash hobo.

TRACY: Slash hobo, slash vampire. And I’m also expecting to be murdered, kind of. You know? And it was just a very strange and confusing — it was a confusing time, because I — there was so much — there was stuff that I enjoyed about it, but possibly more that I did not enjoy about it.

SANDY: Yeah. It could be stressful. I feel like Halloween for — I feel like for kids it’s a very high-pressure, you know, sort of —

TRACY: It is.

SANDY: — like, the costumes can, I think, get very competitive or — I mean, I just remember as a kid going to elementary school kind of like you’d have your costume, I mean, and I was always kind of making up really weird things that weren’t costumes. Like one year I was jogging dog. (TRACY laughs). In third grade I was wearing a jogging outfit and a dog mask.

TRACY: (Laughing) Wait —

SANDY: Like, what is that? Like, why didn’t anybody be like, “That’s not a thing.” Like — where did we get a jogging outfit, you know? The questions that one has now, looking back.

TRACY: Do — was this your idea? 

SANDY: No idea. (TRACY laughs). No idea. I’m gonna guess not. I think I was, like, maybe seven or eight, and I think it was maybe, like, there was a dog mask but not really, like, the remainder of the dog costume. So it was like, well, here.

TRACY: Creativity. 

SANDY: Yeah, we’ll just do a little spin on it. So I would say, like, none of the things I was for Halloween were ever very scrutable. I don’t think I was ever anything an adult was like, “Oh, I can tell what this is.” And I think that’s true of all my Halloween costumes, including as an adult.

TRACY: I think for me especially so as an adult.

SANDY: Yeah, so we — we met working at BuzzFeed. One of the things about working at BuzzFeed that was I think unusual was that it was a place where on Halloween there was an incredible amount of Halloween costume. Just, I mean — I don’t even know how to explain it, ‘cause there’s such creative people. I mean, and this was a few years ago, so now, who knows.

TRACY: I’ve got some theories, but that’s another show.

SANDY: But you know, it was just, like, such fabulously creative people —

TRACY: Also very young people.

SANDY: Yes. And who some of whom had clearly put in, like, way too much time. I mean, that was I think what would stress me out was I would, like, commute as the Log Lady. I love — I did love, like, having, like, my bag and the log on the train (BOTH laugh), because you’d get to work and you’d be like, oh, I’ve — I did it, but, you know, not like these folks — these folks did it, you know? Like, where did you — you like, build a thing? You like, you know —

TRACY: Yeah! How did you learn to do monster make-up?

SANDY: But I remember you because you had I think — well, you had a few very iconic costumes. Your Prince costume —

[“KISS” BY PRINCE PLAYS]

SANDY: — like, it was wonderful. Like, I guess, do you want to tell us about how that costume came together and just, like, what it’s been like for you as an adult to kind of, like, I don’t know, change your relationship with Halloween a little bit, or kind of, like, make it something that you are just, like, looking forward to?

TRACY: Yeah, so, as I get older and I’m like, oh, first of all, I should not be a hobo anymore ever, and also I don’t have to be, like, a scary thing and like, Halloween can be whatever I want it to be, I was just like, okay, I do — I do enjoy, like, being creative and making things and taking, like — I don’t know, something that’s just, like, normal or ordinary or whatever and just, like, kind of doing it in a different way. I also really enjoy just being cute on Halloween. So I was like, how — what costume would allow me to do all these things that I love?

SANDY: Wait, did you ever go through like a sexy, like a not an ironic sexy phase but like, were you ever, like, in your, I don’t know, late teens, early twenties, twenties and kind of just be like, oh I’m a sexy ladybug. Did you ever have, like, that — I’m a sexy angel? 

TRACY: (Laughs) I was a sexy Marge Simpson.

SANDY: Oh god.

TRACY: And I think I had, like, you know those foam — when you had to make, like, the solar system projects, those foam balls. I took some of those and, like, put them on my head somehow and, like, pinned the rest of my hair over it, which, I felt like a genius then, but then I saw the pictures and I was like, I just look a mess. I just look confusing and just, you know. [20:00]

SANDY: Halloween is — I — part of it is that, like, that illusion almost that I feel like gets created even when someone’s not really doing a costume well, it’s like when anyone can be like, “Oh, that’s what you are! That’s so cool!” And that feeling of, like, people — I also, I do like — and this is kind of back to the BuzzFeed thing — I do like that it can bring out the side of people that’s like, super weird or, you know, super specific, or like, someone kind of, like, really reveals something about themselves — you know, in a choice that they’ve made. There is no single Halloween costume that I feel like has made more of an impression on me in my lifetime — and the reason that I feel like I wanted to talk to you about Halloween, kind of more than anyone else on earth — I’ve seen this costume I think in a few different contexts, actually. I feel like — but the — the sexy Steve Harvey I think really changed, like, culture.

TRACY: Really?!

SANDY: I think so.

TRACY: (Laughing) Please tell me more.

SANDY: It brings me so much joy still. Why don’t you just like, talk me through how this came about. ‘Cause I mean I think, like, kind of deep stalking you on Twitter in terms of your — your Tweet about this, it seemed like you had actually been wanting to do this costume for some years before it actually came about. Like, it was really — like, you built toward it.

TRACY: It was in the making. It was several years in the making. So as I got older, and as I became more learned a person, I really came to resent how people really started to criticize people who enjoyed being sexy versions of whatever person. And I’m just like, well you know we can’t do this any other day of the year because we’d get shamed for it, we’d get assaulted for it, we’d get whatever. Let us have this day, you know? Let us wear what we want, display our bodies as we want, in the name of it being a joke, if nothing else. And so then I was just like, you know what, I’m very pro-slutty costume, sexy costume, whatever you want to call it. But I also like funny things, and it’s, you know, a sexy angel is like, yay, you did it, you’re allowed to do it. But I’m just like, you know, I just wanted — if I’m gonna continue with the sexy costume thing, I want it to be a completely needless thing that should not be sexy at all, that already is not sexy, maybe you disagree, maybe you have feelings about Steve Harvey before (SANDY making disgusted sounds) — your face! Side bar, have you seen the pictures of him shirtless and oiled up?

SANDY: No. No.

TRACY: Okay. We have to talk about that later, because there is a better sexy Steve Harvey costume out there than mine.

SANDY: Oh wow.

TRACY: I know, right? 

SANDY: Oh wow.

TRACY: I know! I know.

SANDY: That’s so surprising (TRACY laughs). 

TRACY: I will give credit where credit is due, though.

SANDY: Well I want — but give yours credit. Describe to the people, in case there’s anyone who never saw this costume or photos of this costume, like, what — what did you do?

TRACY: (Laughs) Sounds like I’m being asked to confess to a crime. Well, so I had played a version of Steve Harvey — I do a really awful impression of Steve Harvey that I love because it’s purposefully awful.

SANDY: Right. And that’s probably what I’m remembering, I’m like, I remember a — I remember Another Round live show where that character came out, and I — it was like at the Bell House or something —

TRACY: It was at the Bell House.

SANDY: — and I think it was one of those things where the whole show was so completely kidnapped by that character.

TRACY: It was! ‘Cause it was so absurd.

SANDY: It’s like now that you were onstage as this character, like, there was like a rift in the time-space continuum —

TRACY: Somebody divided by zero.

SANDY: — where everything would just be beholden to the gravity of — it was so marvelous.

TRACY: It was a lot. And it was a lot because it was so bad. Like I have all this hair. Steve Harvey is bald. We had ordered, like, the little bald cap things — tried to get brown, it was green for some reason. We didn’t understand that you had to have, like, makeup to make it stay on your head. So we just ended up putting my hair in a ponytail and it was — it just looked like green deflated cone heads. I’ve got this mustache and I’m inhaling the fibers and it was just ridiculous. And I was like, what is the most ridiculous thing that I know kind of, like, how to create that doesn’t need to be a sexy anything. And I mean, I had the Steve Harvey suit, which was just, like — just like a man’s suit from, like, Ross or something. So I had that and I was like, okay, how do you make Steve Harvey sexy? How do you do it? So I just went to — again to like some little store down the street in Flatbush. I got a grey miniskirt, already had the fishnets from Mickey Mouse years ago — yes I kept them, just in case.

SANDY: And they were like, “We’re here, waiting!”

TRACY: Finally!

SANDY: You want to be sexy again?

TRACY: My moment is back. And just like I think random — random, like, [25:00] high-heeled shoes or whatever.

SANDY: I would watch the Pixar about —

TRACY: (Laughing) About the pair of fishnets in the closet?

SANDY: We were sexy Marge, and then — someday.

TRACY: But now it’s like she doesn’t love us anymore.

SANDY: Sarah McLachlan song (starts to sing “Angel”).

TRACY: Would also watch that. So the thing that really got it for me was, you know, is the accessories, and like the other touches that, like, are going to drive home that I am Steve Harvey and not just somebody’s uncle in a —

SANDY: Sexy uncle.

TRACY: Somebody’s sexy and inappropriate uncle.

SANDY: Classic costume.

TRACY: Hmm…

SANDY: Suddenly — it is October.

TRACY: It is. It is.

SANDY: Do you have an idea already for this year?

TRACY: I do. 

SANDY: Okay. Is it already, like — is it already with you? Like, have you — have you realized it? We’ve got, like, some weeks left as we record here.

TRACY: Yeah. You know what I do every year is I’ve got this great idea and I’ve got months to get it together, and the week before I’m like, oh shit, I have to be Whitney Houston tomorrow, how do I do it? So that’s kind of where I am now, I’ve got great ideas, just procrastinating until the happening.

SANDY: That’s how you do it. Well apparently not for some of the people we used to work with, ‘cause that’s what would really surprise me, like, yeah you, like, put time into this.

TRACY: It felt like after the — ‘cause there was a — a costume contest.

SANDY: A contest, yeah.

TRACY: Right, like, after the winners were announced it’s like everybody was like, okay, let’s get started on next year, you know? And I was like, I don’t want to breathe for a second?

SANDY: Like, October again?

TRACY: Really! Why? So the — the touches on the sexy Steve Harvey costume: the mustache, which I already had from being Steve Harvey in the live shows. I went out and I bought this really big, exaggerated microphone with like a big, glittery microphone top — I don’t know what you — I should know what it’s called, I work in audio. But you know.

SANDY: Microphone.

TRACY: Yeah! I think they’re called microphones. (BOTH laugh).

SANDY: I would call that a microphone.

TRACY: Let’s go with that. We’ll fact-check later.

SANDY: It probably has a better name. Mic top.

TRACY: Mic top. I like mic top. I printed out, like, some Family Feud cards, or I already had them. And then I was like, well my hair, what do I do for my hair? And what I decided to do was I wanted to slick it back as much as possible, which I have a big head for one, there’s a lot of hair up there, and also, like, it’s very textured, it’s very, very curly, so like I had to — I had to do a practice run of my hair the week before ‘cause I was like if I can’t get the hair right, it’s not gonna work, ‘cause I lost the — the green bald cap. 

SANDY: Oh yeah, I was like I thought we solved this!

TRACY: Yeah, not great.

SANDY: No I mean, it was a solve.

TRACY: Yeah, it worked then.

SANDY: Yes. 

TRACY: So what I did was I slicked it back as much as I could, like, so much gel and, like, tied it down so it was just like, very, very slick. And I just got two wig caps I think they’re called, but like the stockings you put on — I found some that were quote unquote “flesh tone,” and my winter color was just about the same color, and I was like, you know what, there’s no sense in letting this outfit go to waste, I’m just gonna put on about two or three wig caps. And this is it!

SANDY: Yeah. But the effect was very clear, it was sexy Steve Harvey. It — it read immediately.

TRACY: It did what it needed to do. I went to I think Franklin Park that night, and the crazy — wait, I remember an anxiety attack that night.

SANDY: Well that’s what I was gonna ask. I wanted to bring up this Tweet, ‘cause I thought it was a good encapsulation of something that I think you have done well in a variety of media, whether it was, you know, Another Round, or your work on BuzzFeed more generally, or just, you know, your work on Twitter. You said, I’m curious, if you’re comfortable doing so, post a picture of you that you shared on social media where you were actually having a really — a really tough time in life, even though you look perfectly fine in the picture. And then you had a shot of yourself as sexy Steve Harvey, and you said last Halloween I debuted my best costume ever, I had two big anxiety attacks before coming to the point of taking this pic, and my chest was tight all night.

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny that — I’m just remember that. I can’t remember exactly what happened. I know that one of them was because something was not going right. And I want to say that it was in relation to the costume, and I probably had worried myself, since I waited ‘til the last minute, I had probably, like, worried myself, like, I gotta get this, I gotta get that, and I gotta go to Midtown to do this, and I gotta do all of that and I don’t like going places outside, and [???]. And so —

SANDY: Outside’s the worst.

TRACY: Why do we have to do that?

SANDY: Why do we have to go there?

TRACY: The Internet exists.

SANDY: I know.

TRACY: I think we can fix this.

SANDY: Case closed. (BOTH laugh).

TRACY: You’re right. So that happened and, like, I remember — I remember that I had, like, gotten it together, I was going out to meet some friends, like, maybe three or four friends. And another friend of mine was going to be — he was Bruno Mars, he was the best Bruno Mars he could be, bless his heart, he did what he could — and we both live in Flatbush so, like, he was kind of, like, helping me, I’m just like, you know it’s just not going right, and blah blah blah. But I had been so proud of pushing through it, and like I’d got my costume together. [30:00] And we’re in the Uber and we’re going to Franklin Park, I remember we were going to, and I had forgotten something — it was either, like, the card or the microphone or something, and I was just like, after what I just went through, I’m gonna have my whole costume, and that’s it, or I’m just gonna, like, collapse and cry all night. And he was like, well, you know, I don’t think that anybody else would care, you know, but they’ve been waiting for a while already. And I was like I understand but I can’t explain it, like I just, I gotta go back and get it. And I was like, you go ahead, y’all have fun, take all the pictures, get everyone drunk on my behalf. But I was like, I just have to do this. And I went back home, and I was just like, I can’t believe I went all the way back home to get these Family Feud cards, why am I like this, it’s so tough, but now — and at that point I was like, I don’t want to leave again, you know? But I was like my friends are out there, I gotta go. So I did it. I went out and I hammed it up as best I could, and I went home and probably collapsed, ‘cause I don’t think I got as drunk as I wanted to that night. So I probably went home and just kind of, like, fell apart. But I think it’s part of just like what — like it’s, I don’t know — I don’t know how to describe it, like, if I can push through an anxiety thing, not being able to push through it again or another anxiety thing makes me feel like a failure, I think. And it was just like, okay, do I want to stay home and have a tight chest or do I go out with my friends who are coming out, like, because I like Halloween more than anybody else does, you know? So it was tough. And I was like, well I gotta take these pictures and you know because people need to see the costume. And I did it, I managed it, but I felt shitty much of the night.

SANDY: Isn’t that something? And then you — when you made the decision to kind of, like, reveal that, like when you decided to be like, hey, this is actually what was going on here, do you remember kind of, like, what you were thinking about, or maybe just more generally, like, how do you think about when to share of yourself in this way. Like, how do you navigate that, how have you kind of built up — ‘cause I think this is probably something you figured out how to do over time in terms of being honest about some of what you’re going through as a way of — I mean, it helps to some degree.

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah. It does. That’s a good question. Recently I’ve noticed that when I do — when I do share a lot, or when I ask people to share with me or invite people to share with me, it’s honestly because I’m struggling and it helps me in my own healing to know that I’m not alone, or that whatever I’m going through is helpful to somebody, you know, like something good has to come out of this somewhere. But I feel like now that I’m, like, crawling out of the crypt that is my depressive disorder, which was a fun gift that the universe thought I needed a few years ago, I do think more about what I share and what I don’t. Like, I never, like, shared anything because I felt like I had to. But now I’m just like, you know, you don’t have to share this and it’ll be fine, you know, like, you don’t have to share so much. Because there are times I think where I’m just like, oh, this is a good idea, it might help somebody, it might help me. But I’m also, like, you don’t have to, you know? So that’s a thing that I’m learning to sort of like suss out now, but nine times out of ten I’m going through some shit and I’m just, like, am I the only one, can somebody else relate, is this just happening to me, how do I, like — how do I get out of focusing on my own, like, I don’t know, pain or issue or frustration. And that particular post I didn’t expect it to get as big as it did at all. 

SANDY: Yeah, a lot of people really responded to this call for, like, photos where you’re not as happy as you look.

TRACY: Yeah, and like people were so, like, so candid. Like, a lot of stuff I was just like — I wanted to reach out and be like, you know you didn’t have to say that out loud if you didn’t want to, you know? Because I just felt responsible somehow for pulling that out of them.

SANDY: It can be intense, being someone who’s made a call like that, and then you get everything back. 

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah, and some of the stories were just like, some people were just like, you know I took this picture in a state park and I was gonna, like, jump off a bridge afterward. And it’s just like, wow, you know. Wow. But what happened — what inspired that was I had gone on disability from BuzzFeed because I was not well towards the end of my tenure there and my insurance decided to stop insuring me — I don’t know what the word it is. My coverage — they canceled my coverage —

SANDY: Fuckers.

TRACY: Yes. Yes. They were being themselves.

SANDY: Just fuckers.

TRACY: Yeah, and they decided that I was cured because they saw some pictures of me on social media — there were two in particular, one was at a wedding, another I was on the beach someplace in like Mexico at some resort on vacation. I was like, okay, I hear you. My therapist told me to do both of those things.

SANDY: They looked at your photos? That’s awful.

TRACY: And apparently it’s a very, very common thing, and it’s just like, [35:00] nobody knows. And like, I remember the conversation that I had with this lady who — oh, if I remember her name, and if I ever see her face and find her in the streets — ohh, a tongue-lashing at least, ‘cause I don’t know if I can fight. I’ve never been in a fight. But just like her — her tone, I was just like, well what do you, I don’t understand, what are you talking about. Like, this — this is part of my healing, you know? Like, you don’t know this because you don’t know me as a person, but like, I use social media to work through stuff. And she was like, well, you know, we’ve been — they also looked at my Twitter timeline and like you’ve been talking about starting a newsletter, which I’ve been talking about starting a newsletter for years, you know what I mean?

SANDY: Also it’s — it’s 2019, everyone’s talking about starting a newsletter. 

TRACY: Exactly. 

SANDY: It’s the only thing we do.

TRACY: What else — what else is there?

SANDY: This is so fucked. And I think it’s like, so this tweet you sent here, I mean, part of what you’re getting at is how it’s so not possible to judge the state of someone’s mind based on a photograph, which seems obvious, but what you’re — what you’re talking about is no, in fact, people are making those decisions based on something as shallow as a photograph.

TRACY: Mhm, yeah. And like, I just remember the tone, she was like, you did this — we looked at your social media, as if she had like a trump card or something, and I was like, do you have it open right now, because let me walk you through these pictures. This picture where I was on the beach, I had just had a fight with my mother that morning because it was my birthday and she had said something that didn’t sit well with me, I set a boundary, she got upset. I cried. Like does it matter that I’m on the beach crying, or does it matter that I’m on the beach because if you can put on pants and go to a beach then you can put on pants and go to work miserable I guess is the sentiment behind it. But it just — it really upset me because it also suggests absolutely no knowledge of how social media works, like, people are miserable all the time and they curate their timelines so that they don’t look miserable all the time.

SANDY: Well, or how, you know, something like anxiety works. 

TRACY: Yeah, exactly.

SANDY: I mean it, like, this — this story about being in this, you know, best costume of your life, which I think it, like, it’s a great feeling when you’re like — I mean, when we were at BuzzFeed, one year I was Log Lady from Twin Peaks and I think for me it was one of my, like — I felt so proud of that costume. And I, you know, it’s like that feeling of like this is, like, my best costume I’ve ever put together, and —

TRACY: Yeah. Also I was able to do a thing, which isn’t always easy to do.

SANDY: But you’re still there, you’ve got, you know — you’ve had an anxiety attack or two, you’re, like, feeling that still in your breathing, it’s like, that — that person is judging you over the phone, I mean their job is to fuck you over, right? Like, that’s the problem is we shouldn’t have insuranced involved — like, everyone should have access to therapy, etc., there shouldn’t be some —

TRACY: Point blank.

SANDY: — for-profit company standing in the middle of that, but I mean, that — that’s the system we have. And it’s just like, that person’s job is to misunderstand the nature of how something like a propensity to have panic attacks works.

TRACY: Absolutely.

SANDY: Or a propensity to have spells where you’re so low you can’t get up, you know, like or — when you’ve got a challenge that is, like, getting worse getting worse getting worse, is too much to deal with, like, that thing, that happens. It’s like sometimes it’s every single day it’s a brand — it’s like, the idea that we have a system that’s rooted around, oh, do you have it or not, which is very silly, it’s like we’re all gonna have the challenges we have going forward. Like, maybe you’re gonna figure out a way to, like, deal. Maybe there’s gonna be some willstrong thing you do for yourself, like, yeah you find some — some answer for yourself that really helps you continue to get through, but like, it’s such a frustrating story. And it’s also just like, it’s the reality that — that’s — that those are the people who are making these decisions, like that’s —

TRACY: Right! Suzanne from Arkansas or wherever who has, like, not taken my medical history, you know? Hasn’t — also I just — I just — I just think there’s so much shady stuff going on, because they were just insisting my doctor wasn’t sending over this, sending over that, and I’m just like, she is, like, I’m copied on the emails, like what are you — what are you doing, what are you talking about? And it’s just —

SANDY: Stuff like this stands in the way of mental health.

TRACY: Yeah, it really does.

SANDY: You know, it’s like this kind of thing — it’s so frustrating. I mean this system makes no sense, and then I think what that does in turn to someone who’s already needing help is it just compounds the problem.

TRACY: It’s so discouraging.

SANDY: I mean I think one of the things you’ve spent a lot of time talking about and I think really, like, modeled, you know, is just like, how much it is, like, kind of a constant battle, like the sense of kind of like having to constantly renegotiate well how am I gonna, you know, like — not just, like, how am I gonna be in general but just like, how am I gonna get to the next thing? You know that sense of like, going back to the party. I mean, I don’t know, I’ve had — I’ve had panic attacks, I mean I think more through my adult life. I think I know what they are now, you know, like, I don’t know when I would’ve learned that that’s — knowing that I think helps because [40:00] especially when it’s an occasion where it’s really severe and it sort of overtakes in a just, like, oh, gotta cancel all the plans way, like there’s nothing else that’s gonna happen for hours now, you know?

TRACY: It’s lost, it’s a lost cause.

SANDY: This is what we’re doing. And that sense of like, what’s happening externally — ‘cause I was — when I was reading this, you know, the thread that you’d had with the sexy Steve Harvey photo, I was thinking about one of the worst panic attacks I’ve ever had, and it was definitely one of those ones where if you had seen a photo of me that day, when the next day you’d say oh this person’s fine, they’re happy. You know, oh they’re on their book tour, they’re so happy —

TRACY: They’re upright, they’re outside.

SANDY: This must be the best, you know? And I — I mean that was like one of the scariest nights of my life, you know what I mean? And so I think that that contrast between what people are actually going through or what’s happening behind closed doors or what’s happening in a bathroom stall or whatever versus what we’re putting out there, and like, that is something that I think, you know, this effort to sort of be candid about social media — you know, be candid about mental health on social media does combat that.

TRACY: Yeah.

SANDY: I mean, it is one of the ways. That person who read your timeline, hopefully they also saw plenty of tweets about mental health. Like, ‘cause it’s — it’s very much something that I think you’re — you’re putting out there and you’re encouraging others to kind of follow in your footsteps.

TRACY: I do try. I do consciously try to do that now. Like, now that I’m in a place where, you know, I can say, you know, I don’t need to share this particular thing maybe to feel better, but it could be helpful for some other people. Like, that’s a call that I’ve got, like, the energy and the clarity to make more intentionally more often. But I mean nobody is gonna post a video or a boomerang of them crying in a closet, you know what I mean? 

SANDY: No, and if you do, then people are gonna act like you’re —

TRACY: “Oh my gosh, you’re crazy.”

SANDY: Or you want attention, or, you know — and I think I sometimes run into that sort of — that conundrum of wanting to be like, oh, this is what’s actually going on. And then what appears to be going on and wanting to kind of, like, make that chasm less profound. But sometimes it’s not possible to, like, let people know what’s going on. Sometimes it’s like, to do so would be even more injurious to yourself.

TRACY: Yeah, seriously. Because also, like, once you put that part of yourself out there, like once the story is out, you can’t police it, you know? Like, you can’t — and depending on how many people it reaches, you can’t, like, email everybody and be like, hey, this thing that you were like thinking or, like, whatever, this is incorrect, let me tell you my whole life story. So it’s at once, like, empowering but then scary. Because once it’s out there, it’s just like, out there. And I worry all the time, I’m just like, I’m probably so annoying, people are tired of hearing me talk about anxiety and this that and the third. And sometimes that does, like, get to me and I’m just like, I don’t — I don’t go, well let me post happy things, I just don’t post, you know what I mean? So it’s — it’s a lot. It’s like a snow globe of frustration. 

SANDY: I mean, for what it’s worth, I think you’re one of the people who I feel a lot of, you know, I think just — when I read sometimes what you’re posting about anxiety, for example, I just am like, okay, you know, like, I am not the only one. And I think it can be very easy to fall into the like, I am the only one hell pit.

TRACY: I still do that.

SANDY: I do, too. I mean I really do, too, I’ll be like, I’m the only one who’s caught in this terrible — you know, my head is this just sinkhole of, you know — of self, just, berating and, you know, all of it. And just the amount that that can completely overtake you. And in my line of work, like, writing about mental health, which I don’t even know I ended up doing this on some level, ‘cause I definitely didn’t go into it writing about myself or wanting to sort of share of myself, it’s very much like something that sort of has followed. And it’s interesting, like, right now in even saying that I have, you know, I’ve been diagnosed before with a generalized anxiety disorder, which means what it does, but it’s like, I’ve never said that to anybody. Like I don’t write about that. I think I kind of hold that a little closer ‘cause — ’cause ‘cause ‘cause, I don’t know. Like, I have —

TRACY: ‘Cause you don’t know who will hurt you once they’re welcomed into that, like, space.

SANDY: There’s that. There’s that, and just not really knowing where to fit it in. And also I think a lot of people perhaps with my work have presumed that I don’t have personal experiences because I wrote a book about a relative. Like, I wrote a book about a relative, so they assume oh, well, you’re — you’re fine, and then — and I’m like, oh, here’s my whole life story. Here’s all my trauma, and it’s like —

TRACY: Can we —

SANDY: Like, do you want to hear all about it? Like it’s — and it’s like you don’t want to necessarily, like — I mean that, I think that conundrum of you don’t want to treat everybody to the worst shit that ever happened to you.

TRACY: Yeah. That is real. That is real. Because it also, like — it involves you reliving the worst things that have ever happened to you on former level. And like, it doesn’t — at least I haven’t hit a point now where like, I don’t — [45:00] I think for me a lot of people feel like, you know, like — I don’t know, not that I’m, like, fine every day, but, you know, that like I got it, like I got a handle on it, you know? Like, when things happen, I can just, like, pull out my tope — toping cools? (BOTH laugh). 

SANDY: Pull out your toping cools. You’ve got it!

TRACY: Exactly! That’s the title of my self-help book that I know have to write. Toping Cools by Tracy Clayton. Oh shit. But yeah, I think they assume that like —

SANDY: I really hope you just get sent like a contract from, like, whoever did, like, Amy Sedaris’s At Home book just sends you a contract right now.

TRACY: I hope so. I’m certain they’re listening. This is great, I have a new career focus. That’s fantastic.

SANDY: Toping cools. 

TRACY: So yeah, they think I can just pull out all my toping cools, and you know like even if I have like a tough time I’m generally fine, I’m generally okay, which is not always the truth. Like, I go through days that are bad enough that, like, I feel — like, I still feel shame, I still feel — like when you were talking about how you kept and keep your diagnosis close to your chest, I did the same thing with my depression. Like, I was diagnosed as depressed a full year before I even tweeted it on Twitter. And as somebody who tweets everything on Twitter, I was terrified to do that, because it just felt like — like anxiety was like cool, everybody had anxiety, you know. But like, I don’t know, the depression just felt like a failure to me, and it felt even more like a failure because I knew that I was buying into the stigma and the same, but like, even as good as you get with this stuff, you’re still human, and it’s still hard, and like, you’re not — you’re not teflon, you know? I get ashamed of — I kind of like exist in shame, usually for one reason or another, you know? 

SANDY: Yeah, same.

TRACY: I look goofy running for this bus, like, oh my gosh, I’m so ashamed.

SANDY: I’m the worst.

TRACY: Exactly, exactly. 

SANDY: Me running for the bus.

TRACY: Right! And everybody in the world saw it, even though there was nobody on the street. Everybody saw it. 

SANDY: It’s — a lot of the examples I feel like you give, and like this is really real, it’s like they’re small things, seemingly — it can be in context it’s a small thing. But it’s like last night I was trying to pull up some theater tickets and the thing wouldn’t load and I was like, what if I didn’t buy them, what if I didn’t buy them, what if I thought we were here — and I totally — and it wouldn’t load and it wouldn’t load and it wouldn’t load. I gotta go outside, I had to, like, tell people, like, hi, I have to go back outside. And it turned out I just already had the tickets, like they weren’t pick-up. And I was like, wow. But I really, I felt a kind of like a pressure rising that was so swift and — and like before I’d noticed, I was totally freaking out, and, you know.

TRACY: Yeah. And I think it’s irritability, like, when you’re nervous about something, when you are in a heightened emotional state, which is a helpful phrase that I heard my therapist say once, and I was like, well this makes perfect sense. If you’re generally anxious all the time anyway, then you already start on kind of like a five. And then, like, if you’ve had, like, a day or a time or, like, as that frustration builds and builds and builds you get more irritable because you don’t have the energy and like the proper blood flow to your brain to be logical about stuff. And then it gets to the point where it’s just like, okay, if one more thing happens, I’m done. And that thing is usually, like, my Internet went out while I was watching the basketball, and no I’m crying in my living room. Like, why does this always happen to me? I’m just trying to be happy. It sucks. 

SANDY: It — it can suck. It really can suck. I think I’ve — I’ve spent too much time thinking about all this, and I don’t end up with much, like, at the end, you know, like I think having hung out way too much in this headspace of sort of, like, what’s this all about, or what should we do about all of this, or what are big takeaways? And I feel like I don’t actually come out with very much, but one thing I do often come back to is that what you’re talking about, feeling, for example, a sort of self-recrimination or kind of, like, self-imposed shame around even wanting to say, oh, I’ve got a depression diagnosis, or oh, I’m feeling really low, or I’m really depressed, like, whatever way someone wants to say it, like, that, you know — that kind of stigma, that is something that we’re getting from a culture that I think so easily vilifies psych patients, crazy people. Like, I think that that is there, that that sort of the — the ease with which people this time of year will just vilify mental health stuff, and it becomes horror. And I don’t know, I was curious, like, what I was talking about at the top, like, were there any stories that leapt to mind for you of, like, instances where you’ve sort of, like, seen psychiatry stuff used in a Halloween way? It’s okay if you don’t actually have an example, but I was wondering if you did have an example of kind of putting those things together in, like, [50:00] horror movies or anything like that.

TRACY: Yeah. I don’t know that I do. Like, looking back, like, I just remember, like, a whole lot of, like, psycho killer costumes. You know, like, or just like a psycho version of anything. Oh like, what are you? Oh I’m a psycho fisherman. Okay, why. You know? What is — what is —

SANDY: Psycho jogging dog.

TRACY: Why? You know like, how? How and why?

SANDY: Dogs need to get exercise. Light exercise. Not like a full run.

TRACY: But I think it’s only recently that I’ve been — and I think it’s because of my addiction to true crime — I have noticed fairly quickly I think that men are the worst true crime hosts, white ones in particular, because it’s always for them — like you can tell who — you can usually suss out who has no experience with not only, like, the stigma of mental health and stuff, but just like with the stigma of anything, you know what I mean? Like, when they’re trying to be, like, funny — like, you have to be careful when you joke about murder and mental health and rape and you know, make sure that you’re punching in the right direction, and they never ever are. There’s this one podcast in particular that got actually a lot of backlash recently, I don’t know if you want to name it, I’ll name it: it’s Sword and Scale. The host is a piece of shit. We had it out on the timeline.

SANDY: I’ve never heard of it.

TRACY: We had it out in real life. If you want.

SANDY: I’ve never heard of it, but we do officially have beef with them.

TRACY: Yeees! 

SANDY: I’m very excited, yeah, it’s good. We needed some good podcast beef. So it’s great.

TRACY: Oh my gosh, let me tell you the story.

SANDY: What’d they do?

TRACY: So, what happened was, this is like when I’m first getting into, like, true crime podcasts, right. And this particular show was very dramatic, right? And it was dramatic in a way that I didn’t really notice the things that kind of hooked my eyeball, a little bit like well, you know, you should qualify this statement a little more, and you should maybe not act like all murderers have a mental problem, or that all people with mental problems hurt other people. And he —

SANDY: Yes. Yes, it’s such a lazy stereotype.

TRACY: It’s so lazy. 

SANDY: It’s not founded in fact, and it just makes everything worse for everybody who needs help.

TRACY: For everybody who needs help, and it also does nothing to help erase the stigma, you know? Like, and all of this guy’s stories were like, you know, when you’re on the bus, you’ll never know if the person sitting next to you is, like, hearing voices and could pull out a machete and blah blah blah. And in the beginning people were like, hey, I like your show, but just want to let you know that you know people with mood disorders and mental health issues are more likely to be the victims of violence and not the perpetrators of violence, and maybe have a show where the perpetrators are not, like, schizophrenic, which is like his thing, you know. Like it was just like —

SANDY: Oh, charming. Yeah, we do have beef. 

TRACY: Mhm, mhm. So he asked the question once on — on his general timeline, and at this point, like, I hadn’t really interrogated it a lot ‘cause I’m just like, you know — you put up — it’s a problematic show, but it didn’t really hit me how problematic it was until I started interacting with the host, who called himself the Tom Brady of podcasting.

SANDY: Ew.

TRACY: Yeah, kinda says it all. So he asks this question, he was like, “Do you all really want more diversity in — like racial diversity — in true crime stories?” Right? I answer in earnest, ‘cause I’m assuming that he really wants an answer to this question.

SANDY: Ew, oh god.

TRACY: And I respond, I take a lot of time, I’m very, you know, I explain a lot of stuff. And I’m just like, “Well yeah, I know it sounds crazy to say, you know, we need more, like, black stories or brown stories represented in true crime, but we do and here’s why, because it — it sets up this dichotomy where the only stories that we care about are the ones where there’s a little girl white victim. And when all of the perpetrators and the criminals are big bad black people, you know, it helps to uphold a lot of really awful things that people already think about black people. And you know it matters, like, people like true crime because they — true crime allows you to feel sympathy for the victims and survivors. And, you know, you could do something really powerful and tell the stories of people of color who have had, like, really awful things happen to them and present them as normal people, because then, like, when you’re listening to a podcast, like, you don’t even have to mention the race or whatever, but it’s just like set up a situation where someone can feel sympathy for someone who is not white. That could be so powerful. And so I explained that, and his response was, so you really want more stories about black murderers, blah blah blah? And I was like number one, you didn’t read anything I said. Number two, how dare you?

SANDY: He’s not having a real engagement with this.

TRACY: He did not want a real answer. He wanted somebody to agree with what he’d already decided [55:00] in his head, because apparently people were like, you know, you should, like, fix this and diversify it a little bit. I wasn’t one of the ones who was doing it. But then, so we have this conversation on the timeline, and he slides in my DMs. And he gets so self-righteous. And he was like, he said, oh but he was like, can you please call your dogs off, blah blah blah? I’m like, first of all, you oughta go apologize to them for calling them dogs.

SANDY: That is fucked up!

TRACY: Exactly. And then I was like, um, I haven’t sent anybody on you. They saw your words, and they’re responding to them.

SANDY: They’re responding to your tweet, you racist fuck.

TRACY: Right. Exactly. And then I was like, I’d had enough because, like, I had brought a lot of listeners to his show because I was doing like a — I talk about true crime all the time.

SANDY: Yeah. You like true crime. I don’t understand, I have to be honest. But you like it.

TRACY: Honestly, I love it. Possibly a little too much.

SANDY: It’s good. You’ve got something you love, like, go for it.

TRACY: It keeps me — it makes me feel safe, oddly. 

SANDY: Yeah. I just listen to, like, really, like, nerdy kind of like podcasts that are like science about, like, the history of the brain or something. Like that’s all I do. It’s just so boring. I don’t listen to anything fun or — I’ll be like, oh I have to go on a trip, I’ll just bring like three 500-page books, just the weirdest choices. So anyway, this man is in your DMs.

TRACY: He’s in my DMs, and he’s so righteously indignant because I have sent my dogs after him, and blah blah blah. And I’m just like, I didn’t send anything to anybody. But I was like, while you’re here, how dare you speak to me this way? I gave you an honest answer to a question that I thought you were asking in earnest. And I was like, it’s fucked up, racially this is fucked up, blah blah blah. And then he said — all I remember is — it was like this paragraph of something and he was like you use race as a trump card and you beat people over the head with it and you push people away, blah blah blah.

SANDY: You know who does that? White people.

TRACY: Hello! 

SANDY: Yeah, like that’s the whole system. Okay.

TRACY: Yeah, yeah. So he got really in his feelings and went back and forth. Then once he realized he fucked up he was like, okay well can we just hug it out, blah blah blah. And I was like no, no, you were rude to me, and you owe me an apology.

SANDY: You called people dogs.

TRACY: Exactly. And you spoke horribly to me in my face, in my electronic face, in my electronic living room, we can’t do that. And so he apologized in the DMs, and I was like mm-mm, you disrespected me in public, you will apologize in public or you won’t do it at all. Half-assed it and I was like all right, you’re dead to me. And I was like, everybody fuck this podcast, it’s done. And now he’s been dropped from so many networks.

SANDY: Oh!

TRACY: Yeah! He’s a piece of shit and now everybody knows it.

SANDY: See?

TRACY: Yay, happy endings do happen.

SANDY: You have power in this — in this town.

TRACY: That felt good.

SANDY: The digital town of podcasting.

TRACY: Podcastville.

SANDY: But I mean I think that there’s something that you’re — you’re — that story makes me think of that I often think about which is, like, intersectionality is one of those buzz words, or it’s one of those terms that gets used too much. And I think often when I think of intersectionality I think of the fact that prejudice is intersectional, where, you know, people who are going to make schizophrenics into monstrous murderers with a lot of ease are — I’m not shocked if he’s also a racist and he’s also a misogynist, or he’s also a homophobe or he’s also a transphobe. It’s like —

TRACY: He’s all of the things.

SANDY: It’s like often someone who’s kind of carrying — ‘cause it’s like, well what do all these things have in common? Well, you’ve decided ahead of time what a person is, or that a person isn’t a person if they aren’t a person like you. And it’s like, it’s so boring. It —

TRACY: Yes! It’s lazy.

SANDY: And it often travels in packs like that, to take his dog metaphor. You know I think the fact of, like, a certain kind of — I mean, this is an example of it, but like, this White House loves, loves to shit on crazy people, right? Like, that’s one of their fave things. But they’ve got lots of other fave things, like they like to shit on black and brown people, they like to shit on women — it’s like — LGBT — it’s like yes, they think that — it’s a good — it’s at least a — it reminds me that, yes, all of these things are related, as long as we allow ourselves to believe in some sort of archetype of this scary, mentally ill person who’s beyond, you know — they’re not worthy of sympathy or of empathy or of, you know, kind of, like, you’re not gonna tell their story leaning away from but into stereotype.

TRACY: Yeah. Exactly.

SANDY: And I think, like, Halloween costumes are — are an example of that, of I think we do with Halloween, we take things, we reduce them to kind of their essence, or we kind of figure out — and you know I think that’s why when I run into a straitjacket, like, one time in Brooklyn — I think it was last fall — I was walking down, it was like in, like Carroll Gardens — brownstones, like where people have pretty front, you know, stoops, and they — some of them really overdo it, [1:00:00] you know? And there was one of those where they’d really overdone it, all this Halloween shit moving, spiderwebby, ghost stuff. But the thing in the center was this, like, life-size figure in a, like — in a chair with electrodes on his head —

TRACY: Oh my god.

SANDY: — who was like, grimacing —

TRACY: Oh my god this sounds horrible.

SANDY: — and he was, like, animatronic, and he was wearing, like, sweatpants and I — I stopped in the street and was like, oh my god, like, that — I mean either — okay, it could’ve been an electric chair, and it was executing an inmate, that’s one interpretation. But I’m pretty sure it was an electroshock machine and it was a psych patient. And it was like, either way that’s fucked up, but in general why is this okay? Why do you think this is okay? Like, what on earth is going on? And I guess I’ve been thinking about Halloween the last few years I think white people have started to notice, like, it’s bad to put on black or brown face, for example.

TRACY: Finally.

SANDY: A little bit. 

TRACY: They’re getting there. 

SANDY: Some people.

TRACY: Some of them.

SANDY: The prime minister of Canada has learned — but it’s like there does seem to be a little bit of at least a wider cultural recognition that maybe certain things that were once perceived as being okay —

TRACY: Are no longer okay.

SANDY: Are no longer okay. 

TRACY: Yeah. And I think it’s because change, unfortunately, can be painfully slow. Especially when, like, the — the culture that we grew up in has normalized looking at all of these things in this way, you know? Like you’ve got — I also didn’t watch horror movies, because it was just like scary and I didn’t want to do it —

SANDY: Yeah, I watched, like, one horror movie once and it still fucks me up.

TRACY: What was the horror movie?

SANDY: Oh, I watched The Ring. 

TRACY: Oh my gosh. The Ring is the movie where I was like, all right, I’m out. I’m tapping out.

SANDY: I’m still — if a telephone rings, I’m like we’re all gonna die.

TRACY: When I finished watching The Ring, I was at my uncle’s house with my college roommate in Lexington, Kentucky. And as soon as the movie went off, do you know that the phone rang?

SANDY: This happened to me and my friends, too. Where the phone rang —

TRACY: Oh my gosh, how are we alive?

SANDY: — like a friend’s mom called and we were all like, “Ahhh!”

TRACY: I was like — I really thought it was gonna be my last night on the planet. But I feel like there’s so many stories — also there are so many horror movies that are, like, composites of actual real life horrible, like, murdery serial killers. Like Hannibal, the “It puts the lotion on its skin” —

SANDY: Silence of the Lambs.

TRACY: Yes, yes. There you go. In part based on, I think, Ed Gein, possibly Gary Heidnik. Ed Gein I think was the one who, like, actually, like, was trying to make a suit out of a woman’s skin. And I mean like, these are not common cases of people who are not okay in the head, you know what I mean? And not nobody knows that because of the movies and because of, like, even the phrases that we use like, oh, have you had your meds today? You’re acting a little crazy. I saw a clip from a reality show a couple days ago, from I think it’s Blac Chyna’s reality show, it made me so sad. I think it was her and her mom, her mom seems to be a raging bitch, and she’s — they’re having a fight, and her mom’s just like, you need therapy, you need a therapist. And like, the way she spat it at her, and I’m just like, this is not an insult. Everybody needs therapy. Also, you are calling your daughter a bitch, and she’s the one who needs therapy, like, you know what I mean? Just the way that we use the lingo and interact with things that we don’t know anything about. How many people have gone to therapy, not enough.

SANDY: What would’ve happened if Jason had gotten therapy?

TRACY: Could’ve been alright, you know? He could have started like a —

SANDY: How many horror films could have been averted if we just had universal therapy?

TRACY: I think we found the message and we know how to save much of the world. But it’s so normalized, like, and it’s even hard for me. Like I’m trying really hard not to use the word crazy, insane, etc. It’s hard. It’s so hard, and I know it’s gonna take a long time for me to snap out of it.

SANDY: Like any linguistic change, it’s a matter of habit and —

TRACY: Yeah, it’s like ingrained in your bones, you know? And it’s — it takes a long time to recognize that like, hey, this thing that I thought was okay my entire life is now not okay. Now I have to, first of all, figure out my uncomfortable feelings about me having done this not okay thing for so long, and having trouble doing it, and now it’s gonna take a long time to, like, fix and correct it. And I think it’s this — round-aboutly, this thing with blackface. 

SANDY: Yes.

TRACY: That should’ve been not okay a long time ago.

SANDY: Absolutely.

TRACY: You know what I mean? And it’s just like a slow crawling burn across the Sahara, on your knees, and it’s just gonna take forever.

SANDY: But that little, you know — that little action of I think, you know, one of the reasons it’s kind of fun to try to remove insane and crazy from one’s vernacular, for example, is it does really shine a light on how much speech is automatic or, you know, [1:05:00] how much actually you’re not really thinking about your choices, and I think, you know, it — it took me a few years to kind of phase those words out, I still mess up, I’ll have a moment where I will say — and like, my husband will like look at me like “What’d you do?!” — which is fair. I’ll be like oh, whoops! But like I will also — I mean, I mess up my own pronouns in my head once in a while, or in my dreams once in a while, you know what I mean? Like —

TRACY: That has to be confusing.

SANDY: It’s very hard to change a habit, especially a linguistic habit, but it’s like —

TRACY: ‘Cause it’s so — such an old habit.

SANDY: Yes.

TRACY: The words that we use.

SANDY: They’re there, and I think that that sort of the way that a sort of, like, a white person who’s very upset that they can’t, like, reprise their racist costume anymore, whatever, that person. Or that person who’s now embarrassed about a choice that they made in the past or whatever. It’s like, well, kind of like the person who was, you know — has their feathers ruffled by the idea of a trans person asking for new pronouns or — it’s like, any change like that, you know, it really is a matter of, you know, putting in a little bit of effort. Like being slightly willing to grow. And how it does seem like there is I think if you’re in therapy, for example, I do think you’re maybe gonna be more open to the idea that yeah, change takes work, things are — and then there’s maybe people who’ve never been in therapy who are like, oh, I can’t change, change is impossible, I don’t wanna. Or just that sort of childishness.

TRACY: And so y’all need to stop being so sensitive.

SANDY: I know.

TRACY: You see, that’s the thing about it. It’s just, it’s so frustrating.

SANDY: That idea of being called sensitive for showing reaction to, you know, I really identify with that, and I think it’s one of those — and it’s, obviously, I think there’s a lot of gender shit there, too, you know, being like a little girl and you’re crying and you’re a girl who’s crying. And you are being, you know, emotional or whatever it is. And like, you know, that kind of stuff is so pervasive and I think it is part of where, you know, some, like — if we could have a change around that, even just the — not just around whether or not people can be candid about their diagnoses, but just about their emotional life, you know? There’s so much we are trained to just shut down or shut out or pretend like things aren’t happening the way they are.

TRACY: Having to, like — being told and taught to not feel your emotions is horrible because you’re supposed — feelings are called feelings because you’re supposed to feel them because that’s your body saying something’s off, something’s not right, you know? And it’s a thing that encourages empathy. And so when you’re telling somebody who’s telling you, like, hey this hurt me, this is my boundary, and because you feel so bad about having crossed a boundary with somebody that you care about, or you don’t want to be looked at as this awful person, so you get defensive and you double down, ‘cause you can’t be like, you know what? You’re right, I was also taught not to feel my feelings, or whatever. Which I think again comes back to, like, the stigma and destigmatizing everything, which is why I’m so glad that, like, this show exists and that there are people on Twitter who [???] being like hey I don’t feel great today, like even that is enough to, like, start chipping at that big-ass mountain of a mountain. But it gets discouraging to me to think about how much work has to be done before we can get to a point where people are like, you know, maybe I’ve been wrong. 

SANDY: Yeah. It’s so hard to get —

TRACY: It’s so hard.

SANDY: And it does seem, you know, I think that, like, the example of Halloween costumes is a good — it brings out some of the, like, kind of most intractible side of people, you know? Sort of like people not wanting to change that sense of — it’s like, I often think about, you know, people who are kind of really devoted to this president, for example, and I’m like, is it just because if they were to look in the mirror for a second they would see how horrific it is to you’re just committing to the bit, like an abuser commits to — you know.

TRACY: I really think it is.

SANDY: And it’s like, the rest of us are kind of standing here being like, we see you though. And I think with stuff like someone really leaning on, you know, that trope of the murderous psychopath, there’s — it’s like, I feel the same way. I’m like, if you were to let yourself look at the truth of what you’re doing right now, even a little bit, which is you’re taking a group of people who are very socially vulnerable — people diagnosed with schizophrenia, I mean, that’s one of the most socially vulnerable people, groups of people in this society. And you’re turning them into villains against kind of logic and data, like, there’s not actually as much there as one — one would suppose based on the pop culture. And you’re doing it to what, feel better about yourself? To feel like you’re sane and you’re normal and you’re not gonna murder anybody? It’s like, I don’t know, like, that sort of thing, like, someone who judges someone for being forthcoming about their own mental health, for example, it’s like, that’s one of those spaces where I have very little patience for people.

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that it’s because people don’t want to feel like they’re bad people, and for someone to tell you like, hey, this word that you’ve been using is not great, it’s not right, the way that you portray these kind of people is not right, this podcast and the way that you do it [1:10:00] is not right. I think people get so instantly defensive because nobody wants to be seen as a racist, nobody wants to be seen as transphobic. Well there are things that you can do to reverse that. Also, you — like, we’re — we’re all affected by this, you know? Like the quote unquote “well ones” the quote unquote “unwell ones,” like, you know, like, the way that you were taught to thought is wrong, and you are — it’s poisoning you as it’s poisoning me in a different way, but you know like being called out on your shit is not somebody being like, well, you’re a terrible person and your entire family fucked up and you were raised wrong and you just, like, you shouldn’t be on the earth anymore. And I think that’s how people take it, you know what I mean? And if people just know that it’s all right to be wrong, it’s okay to repeat toxic things that you were not taught were toxic. But once you know they’re toxic, then you have to do something about it.

SANDY: Yes! And it seems like your story I think the good example of something that comes up a lot in our society right now which is just like people need to be taught how to apologize. Men need to be taught how to apologize. Like, what that actually is and like, and I think it’s like any of us who have ever received an apology know the difference between a real one and a fake one, and it’s like, just one of those basic things, it seems like a lot of this really does come from kind of stepping — I mean it seems like part of the problem in my estimation is that myth of the sane person. Because I just — I don’t think such thing exists, which isn’t to say that every person should have a diagnosis, it’s like, no, but I do think there’s this sort of this sense that we have that some people are better than others because —

TRACY: Yeah, more stable.

SANDY: — or because they don’t, yeah exactly, there’s no such thing, ‘cause you don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, bro. Like, something really unforeseen could happen to you at any age, it doesn’t matter what’s happened to you so far, it doesn’t matter what you think your family history is or what your genes, it’s like no, the nature of madness, so to speak, is that it’s human. And some people are much more in the thick of it, and some people have no option but to see that reality, and I think that, you know, letting go of that sense of some monstrous other, you know, I think that that’s become one of my obsessions.

TRACY: Yeah. A thing that I have been trying to do more often is remind myself that other people go through this stuff, too. Because, like, a lot of times my therapist has to be, like, you know I’m just like, oh I had a tough day, you know, I woke up and I wasn’t feeling great and so then I couldn’t get this thing done, da da da. And a lot of times it feels like a failure, and I feel like I have to start over. And she’ll just very gently be like, well, you know, everyone has bad days. And I’m just like, bitch, you right. Like, why do I forget that, you know, like, you don’t have to have anxiety disorder to know what anxiety feels like. You don’t have to have depression to be depressed sometimes, you know, but I mean we’re made to feel that way because of the black and white, and the dichotomy around it, and it’s so frustrating.

SANDY: Yeah. The — Halloween overall, yea or nay? Do we have a verdict? We’ve gotten into a little bit.

TRACY: For me in general, yea. However, I do know someone who refers to, and has for a while, referred to Halloween as blackface Christmas, ‘cause it’s when all the whites are like, yup, it’s time! It’s the most wonderful time of the year. So there’s also, like, I like participating in it, but I don’t like having to gird myself for all the horrible stuff I’m gonna see.

SANDY: Absolutely!

TRACY: Yeah.

SANDY: Yeah, that’s part of the problem of this holiday. And I love this holiday in some respect, and I think as a little kid I looked forward to it ‘cause I liked dressing up, I liked sort of getting to be something else was appealing to me, for some reason. But the permission that it gives so many people — I mean, when I lived in my twenties in Iowa City, Iowa it’s like a big college town where there’s just, like, thousands and thousands of blackout undergrads. The kind of shit you’d see on Halloween was so appalling and just, like, the amount of, like, just really clear, like, terrible behavior that was kind of being generally encouraged and, I don’t know, it definitely made me, like, less of a fan of the holiday overall. 

TRACY: For sure, for sure. And also, like, we had similar things on my campus, I went to the whitest school in the world. And like, it didn’t even have to be Halloween for them to put on offensive shit, like, they had something called Old South Week where they dressed up like Confederate soldiers and da da da, and like even in the correction of that — you know, it’s such a normal thing to me, I’m just like — but even when the campus corrected it, they didn’t educate the people on why they could not do it, you know, it’s just like, you know, it’s a sensitive thing, we can’t do it on campus anymore, do it on another whatever. So they don’t know why it was wrong. They don’t know that, like, a black person seeing somebody dressed as a Confederate soldier, even though I was not alive back then, sure, I’m still kind of triggered, you know what I mean? I watch documentaries, you know? And so there’s not — there’s no commitment, especially on college campuses, I think, to really teaching [1:15:00] why this stuff is wrong. Like yeah, ban it, have them not do it in view of other people, but tell them why. Otherwise, we’re just too sensitive, and the PC police are out again.

SANDY: Yeah, they think they’ve lost something. Like, someone who thinks, like, oh, like I can’t say insane and crazy now, and they think that’s a loss to them. And it’s like as long as you are — I think it’s like as long as you’re without history, right, like, if you’re a white person and you’re putting on some regalia of that era and you’re doing so thinking it’s fine, the only explanation is you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about — you have no sense of the history you’ve — you’ve been taught some version of it that totally elides the truth. And it’s like, and I think with the sort of, like, the stereotyping of psych patient-related stuff and Halloween, it seems like it’s a similar thing, where there’s just a real absence of information around what the reality is of this history, you know, what the experience has been for people who’ve been institutionalized in this country, now and in the past, like, what the reality of something like a straitjacket is. Like, the moment you really start to think about what a straitjacket is, and when that’s getting used, and I mean, maybe you’re someone who has been confined, you know, maybe you have been on the receiving end of forced psychiatry. Like, that stuff is not funny at all, it’s not fun at all, it’s the very opposite of that. It is triggering. And it’s like, it does seem like this holiday gives a level of permission that can e very high to just, people breaking out symbols that they don’t know what they’re doing.

TRACY: It’s Halloween, man. It’s just a joke. Because now everybody can be like it’s just a joke, and not just comics who are not aging well. You know like, everybody gets to do that. 

SANDY: Ah, man. I can’t believe that some comics still get to say things. It’s tough.

TRACY: I rewatched Dave Chappelle’s last special. 

SANDY: The Sticks and Stones one?

TRACY: Yes. And I did it because I wanted to see how my friend who had not seen it yet, how — what the critiques would be. And within five minutes, like, it’s kind of victimy, it’s very transphobic, it’s da da da. 

SANDY: I heard that. 

TRACY: It’s really bad. It’s really awful. And like, the amount of whining that this rich-ass man does because there’s possibly one thing on the earth that he should not joke about because it has actual physical consequences for people who live on this earth, I’m just like, how do you not get the disconnect between you telling awful trans jokes and trans women being murdered? And for somebody to be so, you know, of the community — these are your sisters, these are black, trans women who are being murdered en masse, and for you to just double down to the point of not even trying to hear the other side — he’s smart, he’s too smart, this is just him being crotchety and afraid of having to change.

SANDY: Gender, I mean, I think it is one of those — and being someone who, you know, I get called gentleman and ma’am about equally if I’m in the public sphere — I think gender is one of those points where I think there can be inside of people intense intractability and intense desire to not acknowledge where you are within the greater kind of system and that sense of, like, just doubling down on your prejudice because you don’t want to look at the light at all. I mean I think — I’m probably not the only person thinks this — but like, Dave Chappelle has some gender shit going on, like he’s very obsessed with trans people, I mean I think I felt the same way about Louis CK, like there’s a lot of comedians who I — or it’s just simply that this is what they have perceived as being a punching bag, you know, like, and maybe crazy people, that sort of like, category, that is another, like, punching bag. You know and maybe what’s happening is trans people maybe we’re less of a safe kind of object of a joke now, you know? Like, it’s less funny to just make fun of someone for — but I don’t know, I mean like, I walked in on a group of neighbors of mine, I think it was like last — it was maybe going over for Hannukah or something, and I walked in on a group of people and the laughter around some story where “and he’s now she” — and you know, I just like walked in on that scene and was like, wow.

TRACY: Also how lazy.

SANDY: And it was like, you think this is funny? 

TRACY: It’s the lowest-hanging fruit.

[INTERSTITIAL MUSIC]

SANDY: Our last segment on Mad Chat is called what’s helping today, and what we’re each gonna share is just a little something or a big something, but whatever it is that’s — that’s helping you today, just make today possible, or recently, something that’s been — something that’s been helpful to you recently. Do you want to go first? What’s helping today?

TRACY: Yeah, I’m gonna have to talk myself through it, because I’m having a week. I have been without my anxiety medicine for way too long, and I mean, I don’t — I think it’s because I’m like able to go outside and be in the world again, like I had missed a psych appointment and usually I’m at home so I’m like, hey doc, you wanna get started a little bit early this week? Like what’s going on. But I’ve been like back in the studio and interviewing again, so I’ve fallen off and fallen behind. And my — [1:20:00] oh my gosh, the things that have just broken me down this week, I had the worst night’s sleep last night, and as soon as I had fallen asleep my radiator started doing the New York thing.

SANDY: The like (imitating radiator sound) tk tk tk tk?

TRACY: Yes. Yes.

SANDY: Like something’s in your building.

TRACY: I got up and I started pacing and I was just like I can’t believe this is happening, I can’t believe this is happening. So tough week there. I think what is helping me is my clothes.

SANDY: I like it.

TRACY: Like, that’s a thing that I, number one, I’m not used to doing, like, having to get up and put on clothes to go outside, because like between not working and the agoraphobia, I’ve just been in my PJs chilling for months on end.

SANDY: Yeah, me too.

TRACY: But I remember Heben saying on Another Round and someone else, I can’t remember who, but I think Audie Cornish also said this, but Heben’s just like you know when you see me looking great, I’m probably having a tough today, because you need some kind of armor, you need some kind of something. And that had — I’d had experience with that here and there, but like, lately and this week in particular it just gives me something else to focus on. Also I happened to have washed my hair before the spiral happened, so I was like, all right, I had a place to start, you know, like, what can I do to make my hair look even better with the rest of me? So last night, like, I laid out an outfit, which I never do, and it’s just because I was up pacing, and I needed something to do, I needed something to do. And I spent time looking for a lipstick that I thought was gonna look nice with my shirt and you know, it made getting out of the house so much easier, ‘cause I didn’t have to have a panic attack about it before. So —

SANDY: Yeah, firefighter method. Where they like, have their boots with their — you know, they like, a firefighter will have their boots with their pants, like, with so they can just leap in, which I’ve always thought is very smart.

TRACY: Oh, that’s so smart! I’m a firefighter.

SANDY: But I mean the idea of kind of being prepared, it is a really good trick, when you know that you might, like, ‘cause I often will get in my own way, and there are certain things you can do several hours in advance better than right up at that moment where you have to actually get out of the house.

TRACY: Yeah, and it also, like, helps to motivate me go outside and get out of the house. ‘Cause there, like — there have been days where I’m just like, okay, if I just sit here here, I’m just gonna, like, be in my head, and it’ll be a spiral. What can I do while I’m here? Oh, also, I’m learning to do my own gel nail manicure.

SANDY: Yeah! Your — I mean, your outfit looks fabulous, but your nails I’ve been really noticing. 

TRACY: Thank you so much!

SANDY: They look really good.

TRACY: Thanks. I randomly bought a $50 kit off of Amazon, which is another thing that usually helps, not my pockets, but I’m just like, I’m just gonna buy stuff and then forget what I bought so when it comes it’s great. But —

SANDY: That’s like — that’s like I think the closest as adults that we come to pure joy, is when we buy things that we don’t — like, we don’t remember on the Internet, then they show up at your own house —

TRACY: It’s just like oh my gosh —

SANDY: Me in the past was so nice.

TRACY: I bought a new set of knives and I was like, yes, past me! I needed these! (BOTH laugh). 

SANDY: Who did that? I like these! 

TRACY: That’s exactly what’s been helping me.

SANDY: Oh that’s great. 

TRACY: So yeah. Because I will stay in the house all day unless I feel cute and then I’m like, well somebody oughta see it.

SANDY: Somebody oughta see this. 

TRACY: Somebody oughta see it.

SANDY: I did my nails, so, you know, I want someone to compliment these. 

TRACY: Yeah.

SANDY: That’s great. 

TRACY: So that’s what’s helping this — this day, today.

SANDY: On this day — what’s helping today, I am in New York City right now, and one of the reasons I came down here was that yesterday I met my surgeon, I’m gonna be getting top surgery in, like, five weeks, and —

TRACY: That’s soon!

SANDY: I know, and it’s been — I mean it’s been in the works for a long time, this kind of thing takes a really long time to get together, it’s just like — insurance fuckery, very high. They’re like, oh, trans people? We’re gonna apply some extra scrutiny. I mean, it’s really funny, they’re very much like, are you a real trans? Like —

TRACY: Right. Because your social media says —

SANDY: You’re saying you don’t want boobs, but we need lots of backup. And I’m like, I said I don’t want boobs to my doctor, do you know how hard it was to say something like that to my — anyway. It is outrageous.

TRACY: I hate that you have to go through that. 

SANDY: Yesterday I had an 8AM appointment in Manhattan, and I, like — which just felt very early — but I met this surgeon and I, like, for months thought I was kind of going with this other doctor, and it turned out he’d never done the procedure before, which was really sketchy, and I was like, oh crap. And so I had to find someone else, and it was really — I was really afraid that, oh, what if I don’t actually like this person, or whatever, and then — or it still might not work out with insurance, but long story short, I met her yesterday. And she was so badass. I was just like, oh, I trust you to do anything. I was — I was — I — this is a big thing, but it was like I really felt it. And I already really just during the appointment was so blown away by her, she just had this intense calm and clear expertise, and she just knew what she was doing, and I just was like, oh my — I just felt like my whole life has changed because I happen to be in your office right now. And then toward the end of the appointment she sort of stood up in this way and I realized she was wearing leather pants.

TRACY: Oh! [1:25:00]

SANDY: And my husband and I talked about it afterward, and we were very much like, did you see the leather pants? Like, we were like — we did, we already thought she was so cool, but then it was like, wow, you’re like, wearing leather pants at 8AM, you know? Like, that’s — I love it. Yes, so that’s what’s helping today. I met my surgeon.

TRACY: And you feel safe with them —

SANDY: And — and she wears leather pants, and, you know —

TRACY: God damn.

SANDY: — that’s a choice. That’s a commitment. What’s that like through the day, you know? I feel uncomfortable wearing anything, let alone — (TRACY laughs). Tracy, thank you so much for being on Mad Chat today.

TRACY: This was a ball, I had so much fun.

SANDY: I’m very grateful to you for all that you share about yourself. I mean, a lot of your work, I mean, specifically Another Round I think was — is still my favorite podcast of all time, and I think that what you both did in a large way was just share yourselves as a way of allowing other people to realize ah heck, I’m not totally alone with this and that and you know. I was one such podcast listener. So thank you for what you do.

TRACY: Thank you.

SANDY: Yeah, I think that’s it. I think now we just go home and make our Halloween costumes for the next year.

TRACY: Hell yeah! Okay, I’m gonna tell you what I’m thinking about being, but I’m not sure that I want to broadcast it, this is just like a — so I want to be —

SANDY: It’s an exclusive.

TRACY: Exclusive. I want to be —

SANDY: Well, it’ll come out on Halloween, so when it comes out —

TRACY: Oh, okay. Okay, so, here’s my plan. Will it happen? Tune in next time, I don’t know. But my favorite —

SANDY: You’ll have to look at social media.

TRACY: Dun dun dun. So my latest Halloween obsession is David S. Pumpkins on SNL.

SANDY: Mhm, yes — oh I meant to say at the top, happy David S. Pumpkins season.

TRACY: Thank you! And same to you. Same to you. I watch it just about every day. What, I mean Tom Hanks just being a joy and not being, like, terrible in a Halloween sketch. It’s possible. It is so possible. So I’m like okay, I want to be some version of David S. Pumpkins. I also want to stay committed to my, you know, people can bear as much as they want, be a sexy version of whatever, at least on this day.

SANDY: Are you saying you’re gonna be sexy David S. Pumpkins? 

TRACY: Close. I’m saying I’m going to be Tracy S. Rumpkins. (Laughs).

SANDY: Oh man. Exclusive. Mad Chat exclusive. It’s huge.

TRACY: I don’t know how it’s gonna happen, but I’m gonna work on it. 

SANDY: That’s great. All right, thank you.

TRACY: Thank you! Thank you so much. 

[MAD CHAT CREDITS MUSIC] 

SANDY: Mad Chat is produced by Lee Mengistu. Whenever somebody says to me, hey, Mad Chat sounds amazing, I say to them, hey, thank you, that is 100% not me, that is Lee Mengistu! I met Lee a year ago on the Internet, and we began the conversation that became this show. I could never have made it without her. Thank you, Lee for everything, for your ear, for your craftsmanship, for your devotion to this project. She also created our theme song with her sister, vocalist Ruthie Williams. I don’t know about you, but our theme song is stuck in my head all the time. A huge thanks to Rachel Charlene Lewis for coming aboard and managing our social media. Please join Rachel online for more conversation about this episode, and whatever else. We’re @madchatshow on Twitter and on Instagram. Tell us #whatshelpingtoday — what’s helping you today — and Chris Ritter may illustrate it. Thank you Chris, for those gorgeous illustrations, and the show art, and of course the Mad Chat logo. Thank you Alex Cornacchia for transcribing our episodes and updating the website with the latest show notes, my recommendations of other things to read and listen to related to this episode. As ever, find all that and information about our guests at madchatshow.com. Thanks today to Justin Wilcox at the wonderful Brooklyn podcasting studio. Thanks in general to my podmothers Julia Furlan and Eleanor Kagan, and my unpaid intern and husband Rob Dubbin. I am Sandy Allen, author of A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story About Schizophrenia. You can learn about me and my work at hellosandyallen.com. If you’ve been interested in this podcast, I really think you should check out my book. It’s about all this, it’s super fun to read, it’ll change your whole head. I wrote it ‘cause my uncle Bob made me. It’s a whole thing. Learn more about it at a-k-o-m-p dot info, akomp.info. It’s a paperback, it’s an audiobook that I recorded in part, it’s an ebook, and it’s now out in French. I would say the title, but I cannot pronounce it. Last, but very much not least, thank you to you, my listeners. I cannot thank you enough [1:30:00] for checking out this show and for sticking with us so far. Thanks for your emails and your messages and your lovely posts. If you love Mad Chat, if you’re learning from and feeling fortified by these conversations, I would be very grateful to you if you’d do whatever you can to spread word. Tell your friends, tell one friend who you think might be particularly interested, or just take a second right now and rate and review the show on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. Right now! Before you move. All right, I’ve been making this show entirely independently for its first season. I think I just wanted to prove we could do it, that we could make a show that was about, you know, quote unquote “mental health” that wasn’t a downer and wasn’t ignorant and wasn’t stuck in some of the same siloes that I’ve observed these conversations tend to be stuck in. Instead a show that brings people in and allows them to see the pop culture they’re already consuming with more discerning eyes. I want to make a second season of this show, but I will need to figure out another way to fund it. So if you are a podcast network, or you have a big pile of money that you’d like to give me to continue to make this show, you know, get in touch! Send me an email: madchatshow@gmail.com. Send me a note. Send me a pigeon. All right, I’m gonna take some time off, have surgery, and be extremely offline. Keep following Mad Chat on social media, though, especially because you’ll be the first to hear about our second season. If you’ve got thoughts about what we should chat about during season two, send us a note. I’m gonna have a lot of time to do nothing with my hands and watch television. This has been the first season of Mad Chat. Thanks for listening. Chat with you again in 2020. 

[MAD CHAT CREDITS MUSIC] 

[CLIP FROM DAVID S. PUMPKINS SKETCH]

DAVID S. PUMPKINS: How’s it hangin’? I’m David S. Pumpkins. (Music plays). Any questions?