Emery Emery: I am not Jewish
Drew Marks: You are not?
Emery: No.
Drew: Then why's your mom in Florida?
Emory: I would be much more successful in entertainment
Emory: Mom, can you hear me?
Emery: Mom?
Red shirt: And what's my excuse?
"It looks like she went away."
Emery: Mom, can you hear me?
Heather: She moved- she went away from the mic for a minute.
Emery: Mom?
"Wow."
Emery: Mom? Can you hear-
"Yes?"
Emery: Where were you? I couldn't hear you for a minute and you couldn't hear me.
Mom: "No."
Mom: "I couldn't-"
Emery: Ok, had you left? Were you leaving or something?
Mom: "Nope."
Emery: Ok, we're about to roll here. Here we go, ok?
Mom: Ok.
Emery: Ready?
"Yeah."
Emery: I'm ready when you are.
"Sorry, can I- Sorry guys. Can I just switch out the batteries real quick?"
"In, in there?"
"Yeah."
Emery: We're 3 minutes late starting, guys.
So, we're gonna go ahead and roll. We have an intro to do. You just do that and just try and be quiet, ok?
Here we go. Hit it.
[music plays]
Emery: Hello, and welcome to Skeptically Yours where thinking is free. Today's episode brought to you by The Big Bang.
Heather: Boom.
Emery: Sitting next to me is my co- host and producer, Heather Henderson."
Heather: Hi, everybody.
Emery: You know Heather from the Facebooks, on the intertubes and from the award winning broadcast Ardent Atheist.
You can find links to our guests' websites, join our Twitter and Facebook feeds, subscribe to our premium full length 90 minute episodes and our email at skepticallyyours.net
Heather: If you'd like to take part in the live chat moderated by Joe Swam go to the YouTube page called Ardent Atheist podcast which we also use for Skeptically Yours and chat us up.
Emery: Do it or you'll disappoint your parents.
Heather: Why would anybody's parents care if their kids chat in the Skeptic tank?
Emery: Parents are all judgy like that, that's why.
Heather: But, you're just making that up. No one cares about who's chatting during our show."
Emery: I care.
Heather: If you really care your daughter chats on the Skeptic- Do you really care if your daughter chats on the Skeptic Tank?
Emery: No. No I don't actually, you jerk.
Heather: That's what I thought. Guess my ???? anything they want between the ??? of Dr. Phil
Emery: If you're a listener who has ever been duped by anything that has been debunked on Snopes, welcome! Your ordeal is over.
We're coming to you live from E&H studios in Studio City, California. In the studio city today we have Al Lubel, Fred Stoller and Drew Marks as well. On Skype, we have my mom.
You know these folks from the world of reason.
Heather: And show biz!
Emery: And show biz, yeah. That's true.
Emery: Mom, mom was in show biz.
Heather: Mom was in show biz. She was a singer.
Emery: Hi, mom.
Mom; Hi, honey.
[all laughing]
Drew: I was ready to step in.
Emery: Thank you very much. Drew has his own podcast.
He knows how it goes.
Was the neighbor just shouting through my door during this recording?
Drew: She was.
Heather: Well, the door was open. It was left open.
Emory: What was she yelling?
Heather: Can I shut the door?
Emery: Yeah, well shut the fucking door. Jesus God! We all have headphones on. I have the worst neighbors.
Drew: Do you, really?
Yeah. Truly psychotic. You can actually find- on YouTube you can find, not that neighbor that was just yelling, but another neighbor who had passive aggressively, after I had turned on a vacuum one evening and woke her up at 1:30 in the morning...
[others laughing]
Emery: ...gone downstairs into the garage which is right below-
Heather: [laughing] I'll just forget about that part.
No, no. Don't worry about it. You know what? When you- when you live next door to people, on occasion you might have a sound that bothers them.
The next morning you go, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I fucking turned that vacuum on to suck up some stuff by the computer. I- I'm sorry."
Drew: At the risk of showing my age, you have a Gladys Kravitz?
Emery: Much worse than a Gladys Kravitz.
Nobody would be stupid enough to call themselves Mr. Kravitz with this woman.
Anyway, she ends up in her garage sweeping angrily, listening to the radio at top- blaring it and singing with it. Yeah.
Red shirt: Wow
Emery: So I go down, because I'm a filmmaker, and I slide under the SUV in the parking lot there.
And I set up a camera and I film the woman. And you can see that up on YouTube.
Search on YouTube for Emery crazy neighbor and you'll find it.
Heather: Awesome!
Al Lubel: So she was doing that to annoy you, the next day or that night?
Emery: That night. No, I was in bed at 2- I went to bed about 2 o'clock. I'm laying there ready to sleep and then I hear all this downstairs.
And I- listen I knew what it was. I mean, the minute I heard it I knew what it was.
Al : But it's not possible at all that maybe she was going to do that anyway?
Emery: [laughs] Yeah, no.
Heather: That's funny.
Fred: He's a skeptic.
Emery: Right! Nicely done, Al.
She's never, ever done it before so there's no reason to assume at 2 in the morning she would be down there sweeping up angrily.
Al: But it is possible.
Emery: No, it's not possible. She went down there to fuck with me.
Al: Oh, I see. Ok.
Emery: Watch the video. You be the judge.
Heather: You can tell.
Drew: He's trying to stay on, on task here.
Emery: Yeah, I have- listen, one thing about this show: no task. Listen.
First of all, one of the- we really have one topic. Usually, have a couple. But today's topic-
We're going to talk about whether or not therapy is good or bad. Is, is it negative or is it positive?
We're going to take a skeptical view of therapy.
Al: Can it also be neutral.
Emery: [laughing] Yes. I know how this is going to go Al.
I know exactly how this is gonna go.
it could be neutral. I think it's gonna be a complex answer.
Not to try and presuppose, but I really think the answer to therapy is complex.
Some people get a lot from it. Some people get nothing from it. Some people get a little from it.
Fred: So it's a nebulous thing. There's a million nebulous things like acting coach, life coach, feng shui...
And I said to the late Warren Thomas, 'Therapy's ok if let's say you touch little- sorry.
[Emery adjusts Fred's mic for better sound]
Fred: ...touch little children or shot your brother or you, you pee in the street.
[laughter]
Fred: He goes, 'I have all three,' you know.
Emery: [chimes in] He has all three!
Fred: But, yes- But, you know, my analogy- it's like acting class.
it's good to go for a few months or a year to get a foundation
but you don't want to be a permanent student or a permanent patient.
And any time you see on Dr. Katz this nebulous stuff, you know, written in a script.
It just- I don't know it just seems like this general malaise of life that you've gotta-
You become dependent on these people.
They're all lunatics.
They all- you'll hear stories that they touch patients or have them sit on laps.
Not all of them.
[laughter]
Fred: I don't know. It's just, it- you know, to the dentist you get a tooth fixed. You don't keep going.
When we did- I don't want to name names- when we did your art in Atheist, this other guy was on it.
Emery: Name his name! I can't remember who you're talking about. Do you remember?
Fred: He's a good guy.
Emery: All right. Go on.
Fred: His religion was therapy.
Like people wanna be convinced something is the savior.
'Oh, I want to have the kid. If it wasn't therapy- Therapy showed me this.'
[laughter]
Drew: It all depends on the individual, though. Some people need that crutch and some don't. it's like religion or anything else.
Fred: It's religion. That's what I'm saying.
It's like people wanna think something's the answer. So I think-
I think it's like astrology. Again, i wish I had more thesaurusesness than nebulous but it's science. It's the opposite of science.
[laughter]
Al: But you're using Dr. Katz as the example?
[more laughter]
Fred: I'm saying, whatever you see on like Bob Newhart or Dr. Katz
Whenever they-
Drew: I love how all the people you quote are, are made up, though.
[laughing]
Fred: I'm making my point, that it sort of- like people write filler into a thing.
Therapy is no different when something- some fictional character would say "Well, you need tp like yourself.
Or you need to really take a timeout or' I'm not saying it's the worst thing but it creates a dependency-
Al: have you gone.
Fred: Yes.
Al: How long have you gone for?
Fred: I went to one guy in- when I was a kid.
He would tell racist jokes-
[laughter]
Emery: Maybe the problem here is you don't know how to pick a therapist.
Fred: Actually I ended up using in standup one of his jokes.
Like he would do a joke-
{continued laughter] All right, you're fucking the line up. He goes, "Superman-
There's a black guy on a ledge and Superman goes, 'hey jump.'" And the guy jumps.
And the joke was Superman sure hates niggers. So that-
Drew: That's a horrible joke!
[laughter]
Fred: And I didn't like that and he's going "You're fucking so uptight."
And I end up actually using a version of that where Superman would go "Hee, hee, hee."
Drew: Right, but you were a kid so I'm assuming your parents chose this therapist for you.
Fred: Well, I think therapy is like parents-
where you don't know your parents are awful warped because you think this is, this is what the norm is.
Drew: [chimes in] this is what the world is. Sure.
Fred: Yeah, so my- actually I saw another therapist that would set me up on blind dates, go eat with me...
I swear to God. He was the Comedian Shrink, he was known as. So, you know, and he would, he would try to write scripts
and send it to other former patients and go "C'mon, don't read the first draft."
[laughter]
Emery: i think you're a victim of the Truman Show.
You must be living some reality that isn't real.
And people are sending you to shitty therapists or something.
Fred: Well, I- Again, I just-
Al: You used his joke on stage?
[laughter]
Fred: No, no, I didn't use-
Emery: In addition to not getting better, you're a thief!
Al's just obsessed with the fact that your therapist is a writer.
Fred: No, no. My version of that joke- No I didn't really-
I said, if there really was a Superman I forgot- he would- I forgot.
But the tag was "I got you. hee, hee."
Al: I'm assuming this would be your closer.
[continuing laughter]
Fred: I don't remember. I think I did use it- No.
Emery; Go find the joke. Is it posted anywhere? Did you record it?
heather: This was s long time ago.
Fred: I'm so old that-
Emery: How old are you?
Drew: Come on! [laughing]
Fred: Everyone when they do standup goes, "This is my first set at Uncle [made up name]."
They weren't videotaping.