Ever been to a group meditation? How did you feel? Third eye open and a blissful permagrin? Or awkward and self conscious? Fugues is back with a new talk show that measures gullibility and skepticism using a powerful scale. This new spectrum is defined by Larry David, Woody Harrelson, Betty White, Bill Murray and cats (not the musical). Gabe and his Inner voice co-host discuss the neurological and psychological mental phenomena activated during a Brooklyn meditation retreat. Find out what a Burger King Whopper has to do with our experience of time, and why getting picked last on the dodgeball court explains our cultural divide. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series.
Ever been to a group meditation? How did you feel? Third eye open and a blissful permagrin? Or awkward and self conscious?
Fugues is back with a new talk show that measures gullibility and skepticism using a powerful scale. This new spectrum is defined by Larry David, Woody Harrelson, Betty White, Bill Murray and cats (not the musical).
Gabe and his Inner voice co-host discuss the neurological and psychological mental phenomena activated during a Brooklyn meditation retreat.
Find out what a Burger King Whopper has to do with our experience of time, and why getting picked last on the dodgeball court explains our cultural divide.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series.
--
Written and produced by Gabriel Berezin
Original music by Santiago Arias-Rozo
Opening and closing music by Monuments (featuring Grant Zubritsky (bass), Robby Sinclair (drums) and Bryan Murray (saxophone), Gabriel Berezin (guitar))
Script editing by Melissa "Monty" Montan
Logo design by Justin Montan
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References:
ANNOUNCER: The following program is taped in front of a studio audience and is a production of Fugues Media. Listener discretion is advised.
IG: Hi and welcome to “Assholes,” the show that examines…our inner assholes.
IV: We need to work on that tagline.
IG: I’m your host, Gabriel Berezin.
IV: And I’m your co-host, Gabe’s inner voice. The one he thinks is the asshole in our relationship.
IG: C’mon let’s face it, I’m the nice guy.
IV: We’ll see about that.
IG: You wanna tell everybody what we do here on “Assholes?"
IV: Thanks Gabe, so if you’re familiar with the Fugues podcast, you’d know that a fugue on this show refers to a period of time of focused attention. For instance, for those of you listening in your car or doing mindless tasks with your earbuds on, you are in a podcast-listening fugue right now.
IG: And these fugues are a good way to…”freeze-frame” an experience, to examine not just what we’re thinking, but why we’re thinking it.
IV: See that’s a better tagline!
IG: Thank you! A fugue is also the story of that moment - so in the following episodes, we’ll be sharing a series of fugues contained in one particular event I attended a few years ago.
IV: What event was that?
IG: We’ll get to that, but first let’s start with a segment on Assholes we call “State Your Hate.”
Announcer: State Your Hate
IG: “State Your Hate” is how we share our bias on today’s topic, but it also…an advance apology.
IV: For what?
IG: Well, the event we’ll be describing is basically a meditation retreat.
IV: So…
IG: Let’s just say I have a thing for events like this
IV: Like a crush?
IG: More like an anti-crush.
IV: And you say I’m the hater.
IG: I mean, we both find group meditation and wellness retreats a little…
IV: Lame?
IG: I was gonna say.. kinda…irritatingly positive.
IV: Okay, so…lame.
IG: I don’t wanna say lame, because that’s just an opinion, and I think a lot of people derive good things from these events.
IV: Like what?
IG: A sense of community, inner peace? I’m not gonna begrudge anyone that.
IV: Truth (snaps fingers)
IG: What are you doing?
IV: Snapping my fingers, isn’t that a thing people do at inner peace retreats - instead of clapping?
IG: See, this is what I mean, you’re being an asshole
IV: No i’m not!
IG: You’re being sarcastic.
IV: (pause…and then sarcastically) No i’m not.
IG: See that was sarcastic
IV: Truth
IG: So this is just to say, for our listeners, if you are a regular retreat goer or you just really liked 9 Perfect Strangers on Hulu, this isn’t an attack on this cultural practice, it’s more of a deconstruction, like a reverse engineering of the mental phenomena the organizers of this event may…or may not be…maneuvering for their participants.
IV: Yeah, and no telling where we’ll come down on this thing. What was it called again, this retreat?
IG: Mediclub. Their instagram page says they - quote “come together to meditate, collaborate & talk about things we don’t usually get the space to discuss.”
IV: And this is run by the same organizers as The Big Quiet, right?
IG: Yeah, The Big Quiet’s website describes it as ‘a mass meditation movement for all people.” They gather tens of thousands of in huge venues.
IV: What, like…Madison Square Garden?
IG: not like….literally Madison Square Garden.
IV: It begs the question, as someone who doesn’t really meditate…why did we even go to this ?
IG: Well, I guess two things. One, I was enrolled in a playwriting course at The Barrow Group Theater, and I was working on a script about a cult leader, and this felt like good research.
IV: Ooo, tell us about the play!
IG: mmmm…no…
IV: Chicken…so you went into this thing as kind of a…spy.
IG: Partly…and…the second thing is that I wasn’t in the best place mentally/emotionally at the time, and the event took place on my actual birthday.
IV: Why’s that matter?
IG: Well, at some point in my 30s, birthdays started making me…depressed, so I was hoping maybe I’d learn something.
IV: So you a spy, but you were also kinda open to the experience?
IG: Yeah, I guess.
IV: Good, so that will define our ASS Scale.
IG: Yes - where “ASS” stands for Asshole Sucker Spectrum.
IV: (aside) Again with the phrasing.
IG: So on one side is the most extreme version of a small-minded, skeptical, maybe even paranoid asshole. The asshole side.
IV: Yeah, this person can be pretty…punchable, and they probably see life through a narrow keyhole.
IG: But they also know how to spot bullshit and…they can be charming. So…imagine Larry David, or Bill Murray.
IV: Who’s on the other side of this scale?
IG: The Sucker. So let’s say Rose from Golden Girls. She’s curious, says “yes” to most things. She tries before judging. She doesn’t hold her preconceptions too tightly.
IV: She may also be too trusting and gullible so she can get fooled or manipulated easily.
IG: Right, so she has the potential to be a sucker.
IV: Yeah
IG: So let’s run a test right now with our studio audience by applause.
IV: Okay, based on what we’ve heard of Gabe’s opinion of wellness retreats, where does he fall on the ASS scale? Is he open-minded Rose from Golden Girls?
[STUDIO AUDIENCE: middling applause, less rousing]
IV: Or is he a skeptical Larry David asshole?
[STUDIO AUDIENCE: middling applause, slightly rousing]
IG: Kind of led the witnesses there, counselor, but whatever, they’re clearly leaning closer to Larry David.
IV: Well I concur…should head to Mediclub to hear some fugues?
IG: Let’s go!
NARRATOR:
I arrived early to Mediclub after purchasing my 37-dollar ticket online. Not cheat for a 75-minute event.
It was a concrete loft space with very high ceilings on Dobbin street and Berry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
The place was half-full of earlybirds drinking free KOMbucha
Not in the mood for small talk, I snuck around the corner to Sprtizenhaus, a German beer garden, and drank two glass boots of lager (which actually broke the rules explained in Mediclub’s confirmation email, which asked its retreat-goers to arrive completely sober - oh well…).
Anyway, I returned about thirty minutes later with a happy beer buzz, to find the place brimming with people, many of whom had already taken their seats,
which by the way, were laid out in the shape of a concentric circle, with rows of chairs arranged like Trivial Pursuit pie pieces that flared out from a ring in the center.
Between the pie pieces of chairs were aisles for the featured speakers to enter and exit. Pretty clever design.
So I got myself a complimentary Kombucha, and it wasn’t half bad actually, didn’t smell or taste like barf at all...
…and I found a seat in a row of young, beautiful hipsters.
The formal...program, I guess we could call it, began with two incredibly attractive people walking to the center to address the audience. He was tanned, wearing a denim shirt, with short black hair and a perfectly messy beard. She was wearing a colorful pant-suit with red hair and bright red lipstick. They were very cheery, and easy, and joked with each other as they spoke.
Then they handed it off to the emcee, one of the main organizers of the show-
a tall, bearded, handsome man, named Jesse Isreal. He made some announcements, which mostly consisted of co-branding opportunities for the performers and the kombucha dealers.
As a part of getting loose he asked us to
I turned to my right to find a young woman wearing a brown patterned dress that matched her skin tone, and asked if she’d like to go first.
She was soft spoken, but she seemed excited to share her vision. She’d start with oysters - she loved oysters. And then her next course would be spaghetti with tomato sauce, and then onto salmon and rice.
I had to ask - would you really be able to eat all this on your deathbed? I feel like it’s gotta be a small menu ya know?
Really I meant that as a joke, but I’m pretty sure it sounded obnoxious, and before she could defend herself, Jesse, the emcee, called our attention back to the full group.
Still, she felt badly she didn’t get to hear mine, so she leaned over and asked about it, and I paused to give it some real thought, and then it became obvious. I know exactly what i’d request…
A warm, fresh Whopper from Burger King.
ANNOUNCER: “Assholes” is brought to you by Fugues Media, and Burger King.
Burger King - getting you closer to your deathbed meal the more you eat it.
Coincidentally, Burger King jumped on the wellness bandwagon when they recently changed their slogan from “have it your way” which I’m pretty sure meant…youcould…put tomatoes on your burger or…not…to “be your way,” which I guess means…follow your dreams…or something?
Anyway, just kidding by the way, Burger King is definitely not a sponsor, but I may add their chicken dicks to my deathbed meal
IV: you mean chicken fries?
IG: Welcome back to “Assholes” I’m your host, Gabe Berezin, and with me...literally as always..my inner voice.
IV: (mouth full of whopper) Hey Gabe, thanks for having me.
IG: What are you doing?
IV: Finishing my Whopper!
IG (now also with mouth full): mmm…God, it’s good. (crumpling wax paper) This really would be my deathbed meal.
IV: Mine too, and it makes me wonder. Why this prompt?
IG: Yeah it’s clearly not about the food.
IV: Seems like a quick way to..tap a certain mental phenomenon.
IG: Right, future thinking. Just this question sent us all into “imaginary future” fugues.
IV: Humans exist in a pretty unique cloud of perceived time.
IG: Constantly flipping around in our pasts with memories, and speeding ahead to our imagined futures.
IV: Apparently it’s very common for wellness retreats to challenge their participants to think about their own death.
IG: Yeah, what’s with that?
IV: It projects your possible future into your present mind. The academics call it “prospection.”
IG: Why that word?
IV: (gossipy) Like when Rose’s mother in Titanic wants her to marry Cal, b/c he’s rich..
Ya know, he has good prospects for the future.
IG: You love Titanic.
IV: YOU love Titanic...
IG: So prospection is a simple way of making you imagine what you need to change now.
IV: Right, what you’d be proud of when you look back on your life from a future perspective.
IG: While eating a whopper, yeah.
IV: It’s a smart way to start an event like this - it forces you into that..future retrospective image of your life.
IG: Yeah, imagining a deathbed meal is a pretty harmless way to do it…but… there’s definitely an unhealthy obsession with death in the wellness/self-help industry.
IV: You’re thinking of the Guru podcast.
IG: (excitedly) about James Arthur Ray - God, I wish I understood why thinking about sociopathic or psychopathic cult leaders makes me so giddy.
IV: Probably its own episode, but this guy was completely out of control - his paid participants entered extreme-heat sweat lodges. Here’s him talking about it…
IG: A different person that’s not alive anymore.
IV: Not symbolically?
IG: In reality. Three people actually died in one of those sweat lodges.
IV: yeah According to the podcast, he fled the scene as soon as he found out.
IG: And eventually went to jail for negligent homicide. And if you were wondering - after serving his jail sentence, he’s back out there doing these retreats again.
IV: Oh boy, here we go…
IG: What?! Sorry, but the second I hear anything about death visions, I’m seeing red flags, ya know?
IV: Sure, but we weren’t exactly in a sweat lodge, and our lives weren’t in any danger..
IG: (shrugging) True.
IV: Maybe we’re entering slightly paranoid asshole territory here?
IG: Okay fine, no damage done so far. Just a deep hankering for Burger King.
IV: So let’s turn to our studio audience to find out where Gabe falls on the Asshole to Sucker Spectrum - Is he a bit of a sucker - like Woody from Cheers, aka Rose from the Golden Girls?
[AUDIENCE: Quiet, smattering of applause.”]
IV: or he in an asshole like Bill Murray, aka, Larry David
[AUDIENCE: Bit raucous, some hooting and hollering.]
IG: Whatever.
IV: You definitely jumped to some paranoid conclusions about this harmless exercise.
IG: Alright alright, let’s go back to Mediclub
NARRATOR
After our host, Jesse Israel brought everyone back to, he handed it off to a pair of Turkish brother-sister twins - I know they were Turkish…because they announced this. She was high fashion - bleach blonde hair, all white, pant/suit with a plunging neckline. (female pantsuits are apparently a common Mediclub outfit)
Her twin, a gay man, had long curly black hair with some blonde highlights, and was dressed in all dark-grey denim.
They began a guided meditation, but it was not particularly meditative - they had some problems with the microphone and they were both a bit…anxious, even without the mic problems..
I was kinda surprised, they weren’t more prepared, it just seemed…unrehearsed. Their spiel was long and rambling - but also uncomfortably honest, sharing private details of their lives - her struggles with her self-image and bulimia, and his suicidal thinking.
They spoke of how much they lean on each other in times of trouble, which they said was most of the time…the audience gave a nervous chuckle.
And then the next part caught me off guard...
Addressing the whole audience, they asked us to raise our arms to the sky, and then pull them down to our wastes vertically in one swift motion.
And as our elbows reached our waists, we’d say ‘AH” out loud.
It started messy at first - but people definitely locked in quickly.
Nowe have a room filled with 200 people screaming “AH…AH….AH….AH….AH
For fear of being the odd man out, i did start doing the arm movements, but quickly stopped once everyone started moving as one, like a school of fish.
A friendly woman to my left, noticed my discomfort, and nudged me with her bouncing elbow. She leaned over and whispered while still flailing her arms up and down, still in lockstep with everyone else.
“it’s okay if you don’t wanna do it,”
Which I actually appreciated, she was being nice, but I just smiled and nodded, and sat with the awkwardness.
I imagined myself walking down the street outside this event, passing by this space, wondering “what the FUCK must be going on in there?”
…And that “odd man out” feeling was familiar...
I took a quick spin back in time, 23 years ago to Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut, about 115 miles from Greenpoint, at a fraternity recruitment dinner.
It was known as “The Hall” - it wasn’t a traditional hazing frat you’d see in the movies like Old School, Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds - well maybe it was like nerd frat a little bit…
It was less shaving greek letters into chest hair, and more about poetry readings before dinner written by literary greats like George Eliot and Geoffrey Chaucer. All of which went way over my head, because, hey, I was a neuroscience major, I didn’t read that stuff.
I don’t remember much aside from the fact that we were in candlelight and I just didn’t know how to act…or at least react.
Though the movie hadn’t come out yet, it had a distinct Eyes Wide Shut vibe - I was waiting for everyone to put masks on or something.
I remember looking around and thinking...
Get me outta here.
The what the fuck feeling of that moment 23 years prior and this moment at Mediclub felt almost identical.
IG: Hello and welcome back to “Assholes.” What do you think, Inner Voice? Both those moments, at the stupid fraternity dinner and the paramitary exercise at mediclub put me in kind of a self-induced ostracism fugue there.
IV: I know you felt like the odd man out, but that exercise seemed perfectly fine to me.
IG: (taken aback) That can’t be true.
IV: I was uncomfortable too. But if we’re trying to be objective, what’s the difference between this and people…doing the macarena or line dancing at a bar?
IG: Oh, you like line dancing?
IV: Have you ever done it?
IG: Neither of us have!
IV: Well i’m sorry, but it looks fun! Anyway it’s really not for us to say what’s right or wrong in this situation.
IG: Well it felt wrong.
IV: Of course it did, you were excluded.
IG: I guess
IV: Look you have no problem excluding others, but you - Cannot - Deal with it - When it happens to you.
IG: Truth.
(snaps fingers)
IV: You’re never doing…hey, quit it, that’s my joke. You’re never doing what the large group is doing!
IG: (defensive) Not all the time!
IV: Name a time then.
IG: I dance at weddings, like when the band plays Shout, I’m the first guy on the ground during the “little bit quiet now” part.
IV: I wish you could see how dumb you look when you do that.
IG: So this is what they call the “out group” at the universities that study this stuff?
IV: Yeah, being excluded sucks so much, scientists have been isolating the neurological effect of exclusion for years now.
IG: Why? Why study it?
IV: For one thing, it helps large companies like Google and Citibank prioritize inclusion efforts, to prove scientifically why it sucks to be a woman or…say…
Na gay black man in a conference room full of white, allegedly straight men.
IG: Gotcha.
IV: You know what, let’s do a quick mental experiment. Let’s say we shrunk you down to 8 year-old Gabe, and put you on a playground. Two other kids are captains picking their respective Dodgeball teams.
IG: (pitched higher voice) okay.
IV: And we’ll also shrink your childhood best friend, Abe, down to kid-size too.
IG: Oh man, we’re Gabe and Abe again - this is fun!
IV: Not really, in this situation, you got picked last, and just a few minutes into the game, Abe took a dodgeball to the nose.
IG: Oh shit.
IV: The studies basically say that getting picked last, and getting hit in the face - is the same as far as your brian is concerned.
IG: So if we each had a brain scan, like an MRI, and we looked at the results, we wouldn’t be able to tell who got hit in the nose and who got picked last? Really?
IV: I dunno that they’d be indistinguishable, it just means that social rejection is very similar to physical pain in the brain. Many of the same areas light up.
IG: What areas are those?
IV: The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula.
IG: I’m not gonna remember that am I…
IV: no…
IG: So we can probably say (hey can we put my…post-puberty voice back?)
IV: Why, you still don’t have any pubes.
IG: What?
IV: You were saying?
IG: I was saying (oh, thank you - clears throat), we can probably say there is a kind of, quote-unquote, “pain” of being excluded.
IV: Yeah.
IG: Though personally i'd rather get picked last (by people that clearly can't detect dodgeball talent when they see it), than taking a dodgeball to the face.
IV: Same - still, it's an interesting idea that it “hurts” to be outside the "norm."
IG: Feel like I’ve been on the other side of that. Like The Wave, at a baseball game. I hate when people don’t do it.
IV: Yeah, but think about it, it’s fun for you, but there’s always people not…in the mood.
IG: Like the people that bring needlepoint to baseball games?
IV: They’re allowed to do that! They don’t have to partake.
IG: I know it’s…just a bummer
IV: Maybe you should make them shotgun a beer and...shave their eyebrows.
IG: I’m not hazing anyone, it’s just a bummer when it’s not everyone
IV: I assume that’s how the other people felt at Mediclub when you opted out of their group synchrony exercise.
IG: (pause) You’re annoying me.
IV: Good! Seems like a perfect time to gauge our studio audience on the ASS scale.
IG: Aw shit…
IV: So is Gabe on the open-minded, Rose/Woody, so-called “sucker” side on the ASS scale??
AUDIENCE: meandering applause
IV: Or is he leaning towards the (hypercritical) Larry David, asshole side?
AUDIENCE: screaming applause
IG: So what’s my score so far?
IV: Hmmm…good question - if the ASS scale is between 1 and 10, where a 1 is a gullible sucker Rose/Woody, and 10 is full tilt paranoid, skeptical-of-everything Larry David asshole - and based on a totally unscientific tally of fake studio audience applause…you’re baseline is around…a 6.
IG: A 6. That doesn’t seem bad.
IV: Yeah, but after your “future thinking” fugue, you went a bit further towards Larry David at around a 7.
IG: Cuz I was being paranoid about the death stuff?
IV: Yeah, you went right down a cult leader wormhole with that charlatan, James Arthur Ray.
IG: Okay, fair enough, and the outsider fugue during the weird physical exercise thing?
IV: About an 8.
IG: Oof, okay so baseline is a 6, and after those two fugues, pushed it to a 7.5.
IV: Yeah, you’re definitely making Larry David proud. Congratulations.
IG: Well, we are indeed assholes here at Assholes
IV: Speak for yourself.
IG: Thanks for joining us for those of you in our made up studio audience
IV: And the real life people too.
IG: We’re just getting started here at Mediclub, so keep an out for Part 2 coming up soon. And remember, sometimes it’s okay to be an asshole.
IV: Yeah, but not all the time…
IG: Yeah, but sometimes it’s useful though…
IV: Can we just take this offline.
IG: Yeah, we’re gonna have a little chat with your manager.
IV: Oh really? You’re gonna…call the manager…okay Karen…
IG: That’s uncalled for…
Announcer:
Assholes is brought to you by Fugues Media, all rights reserved. Distribution of this material is strictly prohibited. Services rendered and promotional fees provided by the following: Burger King (just kidding).
Narrator:
Hey, it’s uh…me again. There’s additional resources in the show notes where you can learn more about James Arthur Ray and the Guru podcast, which I’m sure he’s no fan of, there’s also extensive research around prospection, and if you really wanna geek out, you can read up on the neuroscience studies that compare social rejection in physical pain in the brain.
Fugues is written and produced by me, Gabriel Berezin
Original music is written by Santiago Arias-Rozo
Script editing by Monty Montan.
Logo design by Justin Montan.
See you in the next fugue…