Episode 645
Ian Karmel & Dr. Alisa Karmel, Zainab Johnson, and Meklit
Comedian and writer Ian Karmel pairs up with his sister Dr. Alisa Karmel to unpack the book they co-authored T-Shirt Swim Club, about growing up fat in a world made for thin people; stand-up comedian Zainab Johnson riffs on being one of 13 children; and Ethio-jazz artist Meklit performs the title track off her new EP "Ethio Blue." Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello talk sibling rivalry.
Ian Karmel & Dr. Alisa Karmel
Comedian and Writer; Counselor
Ian Karmel is an Emmy Award-winning stand-up comedian, actor, and writer based in Los Angeles. He was the head writer for The Late Late Show with James Corden and was one of the founding writers in the show's 2015 re-creation. His stand-up has been featured on Conan, The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, Netflix's The Comedy Line Up, and as a part of Just for Laughs: New Faces in 2013. His debut comedy album, 9.2 on Pitchfork, was released in 2015. Ian also hosts the weekly podcast All Fantasy Everything, where funny people and experts come together to fantasy draft pop culture. He played an instrumental role in Portland's comedy renaissance and was voted Portland's Funniest Person in their inaugural contest. His debut memoir, T-Shirt Swim Club, co-written with his sister Alisa Karmel, explores the daily humiliations of being fat and why it’s so hard to talk about something so visible. Kirkus calls it “a comic and philosophical exploration suffused with hard-won wisdom and charming wit.” Website • Instagram
Alisa Karmel holds a doctorate in psychology and two masters, one of clinical psychology and the other of nutrition. She provides counseling for weight-centric concerns including issues related to fatness, obesity, and being overweight, such as body acceptance; health behavior improvement; depression; anxiety; trauma; and other mood disorders. Website • Instagram
Zainab Johnson
Stand-Up Comedian
Zainab Johnson is a stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. Zainab’s comedy is based on her unique point-of-view, which was shaped growing up in Harlem as one of thirteen siblings in a black Muslim family. After getting a degree in Education and Math and taking a job as a teacher, she quickly learned that she had a different calling. Zainab is currently a regular on the Amazon Original hit series Upload from Greg Daniels, one of the hosts for Netflix's 100 Humans, and “Dr. Hanniel” in the brilliantly written web series Avant-Guardians. Her first late night stand-up appearance was on NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers, and she later had breakout appearances on HBO’s All Def Comedy and NBC’s Last Comic Standing. She has performed at the JFL Comedy Festival in Montreal first as a "New Face of Comedy,” then as one of Variety's “Top 10 Comics to Watch", and most recently on the longest running JFL show, Just For The Culture. Her first hour-long special, Hijabs Off, is now available to stream on Amazon. Website • Instagram
Meklit
Ethio-American Singer and Composer
Meklit Hadero, an Ethio-American vocalist, mixes the sounds of East Africa and the Bay Area so smoothly that Silicon Valley should use her process to make a super blender. Her latest album When the People Move, the Music Moves Too was called “compelling and wholly her own” by Afropop. A singer-songwriter with a love of collaboration, she’s also a TED Senior Fellow whose talk (“The Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Sounds”) has been viewed over 1.2 million times. Meklit is also the host of the podcast Movement, where she tells stories of global migration through music. Get ready to get down with Meklit. Website • Instagram
Show Notes
Station Location Identification Examination (SLIE) [00:02:13]
This week’s station shoutout goes to KYPZ-FM 96.1 of Fort Benton, MT.
Best News [00:04:55]
Elena’s story: “German Zoo Honors Little Lynx’s Wish to be Free After Repeat Escape Attempts”
Luke’s story: “After Days Lost at Sea, They Needed a Pastrami Sandwich”
Ian Karmel & Dr. Alisa Karmel [00:10:45]
The siblings’ collaborative memoir: T-shirt Swim Club.
Live Wire Listener Question [00:33:10]
What’s the most ridiculous argument you’ve had with a sibling?
Zainab Johnson [00:36:03]
Zainab performs her stand-up set in front of a live audience.
Meklit [00:47:41]
Meklit plays the title track from her latest EP, Ethio Blue
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Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in August of 2024. We hope you like it. Now let's get to the show. Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going great. Are you ready for another round of the game that is absolutely sweeping the nation? "Station Location Identification Examination".
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I think so.
Luke Burbank: This is where I quiz Elena on a place in the country where Live Wire is on the radio, and she's got to guess where we are talking about. This place is considered the world's innermost port, as it is the most upstream navigable port on the Mississippi River system. Maybe. Maybe a little more west than you would imagine when you hear Mississippi.
Elena Passarello: I don't know.
Luke Burbank: Okay. Well, I'm sure this is going to help. Of course, you know, Shep, the herding dog that showed up at a railway station in this town in nineteen thirty six and watched as his deceased master's casket was loaded onto the train and the left and the dog waited there for the next five and a half years.
Elena Passarello: So we've got a river and a railroad, and we're farther west of the Mississippi.
Luke Burbank: Then you might think.
Elena Passarello: So what are we think? What are we doing here? Are we doing like a Saint Louis situation.
Luke Burbank: Or we're kind of going more big sky or keeping the sky real big?
Elena Passarello: Bozeman, Montana, close.
Luke Burbank: Fort Benton, Montana, which is home to public radio station KYPZ, where we are on the radio as part of the Yellowstone Public Radio Network. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX. It's Live Wire! This week authors Ian Karmel and Dr. Alisa Karmel.
Ian Karmel: You kind of can't talk about the hurricane while you're in the hurricane, right? It's mostly just trying to survive and you're like, grab that board and nail it against that window, right? Hand me that T-shirt. I'm going to put it on. Nobody's going to know I'm fat in the pool.
Elena Passarello: And comedian Zainab Johnson.
Zainab Johnson: When I post things about being Muslim, I'll get, like, you know, hate from, like, other Muslims online. Like, you're not Muslim. You don't even cover your hair. I'm like, well, this is a wig. So technically.
Elena Passarello: With music from Meklit and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer. Elena Passarello. And now the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in from all over the country, including Fort Benton, Montana. We have a really good show in store for you all this week. Of course, we've got the answer to our listener question that we've posed, which was: What's the most ridiculous argument you've had with your sibling or siblings? We're going to give you those answers coming up in a moment. First, though, we've got to kick things off with the best news we heard all week this week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news that you heard this week?
Elena Passarello: This is I love this story. It takes place in Germany, which is probably not a country that you associate with an animal known as the Lynx. Turns out that the Lynx used to be quite prolific throughout Germany, Bavaria, etc.. They're the largest cat in Europe, but they were hunted to local extinction about 100 years ago, and now there's like fewer than 200 in Germany. There's a program that's affiliated with the Nuremberg Zoo to change that and reintroduce a plentiful amount of lynx into the ecosystem. And one of the links that the Nuremberg Zoo bred was born in in the Nuremberg Zoo last year. His name is Chapo, which is Mexican slang for Shorty. I also once did a report about a rat named Chapo four out of one magazine. So I was very excited. And this rat also had very similar escapist tendencies. So Chapo, which is about a year old, was sent to a breeding center in the woods. And like, the first thing he did was just hopped the fence. He was like, who's out? I don't want to do this anymore. And they brought him back. And then he basically spent the first couple of weeks that he was in this enclosure trying to find ways to get out. But this is the thing that's cool that I think is kind of the best news. They knew from his disposition when he was born in the zoo that he might not be a zoo animal. He might be a really good candidate for reintroduction. So from his birth, they had minimum contact with him. They only fed him game. They kept him in a relatively large enclosure. So when they realized this thing about him that he wouldn't even really be able to work in captivity in a in a breeding center, they were able to release him relatively quickly in July. They've let him go with a GPS collar around his neck into a forest in Saxony, where three other Lynxes had recently been released and were thriving. So now the number of lynxes in Germany, Carpathian Lynxes in Germany has gone from 190 to 194.
Luke Burbank: Wow. Chapo showing the chops to survive in the wild.
Elena Passarello: That's impressive. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I saw a story out of Houston, the greater Gulf of Mexico area that I thought was pretty heartwarming. It starts with Nathan and Kim Maker. They are a married couple. They live in Edmond, Oklahoma. They are scuba divers as well. And they love to go down and scuba dive in the Gulf of Mexico. And a couple of years ago, they'd gone down to Houston to do this. And they went into a restaurant called Kenny and Ziggy's Delicatessen Restaurant and Bakery. And this is because Kim Maker is a fan of the show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And she wanted to get a black and white cookie because she had seen it on the show. And they had at this at Kenny and Ziggy's, which is kind of a traditional Jewish deli. So they they have their big plan. They're going to do their dive and then they're going to celebrate with a pastrami sandwich at this deli in Houston. So they're diving there underwater. A current. Grabs Kim and Nathan and pulls them away from the group that they're with and away from the tether that they're supposed to be following to get back to the boat. By the time they surface, there's a huge storm in the Gulf of Mexico and no scuba diving boat.
Elena Passarello: This is not where I thought this story was going. Good Lord.
Luke Burbank: They are floating in the Gulf of Mexico, the two of them, for 39 hours. By the way, there are Coast Guard crews looking for them. There are helicopters. Nobody can find them. And there was a spotter flight that was it was almost done. They said, we're going to do one more loop. This was in like the 39th hour. And they just went to this one area they hadn't been before. And Kim had her diving light and she was flashing S.O.S. to this this rescue flight, which actually saw them and got down to them or at least was able to get help out to where they were and they were saved. They were surprisingly okay. I mean, they had, you know, some exposure issues and potential hypothermia. But like they were after like a day in the hospital, they were sort of all right, all right. Enough to go to the deli where they were really looking forward to getting their pastrami sandwiches.
Elena Passarello: Their black and white cookies.
Luke Burbank: Their black and white cookies, their pastrami sandwiches. They ordered like their favorite thing, which is the matzo ball soup, of course, the triple decker sandwich and a slice of cheesecake with extra pickles. It's also pretty cute because the guy who owns this deli, Ziggy Gruber, is a third generation deli man. His grandfather started one of the first Jewish delis up in in Manhattan. And he, of course, was very excited that these two folks were there. They started getting recognized. And he said that when they tried to pay for the pastrami. Sandwich. He had his waiter tear up the bill. He said, Listen, if you've gone through that, you deserve a sandwich.
Elena Passarello: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I feel like that should be their new slogan. Kenny and Ziggy's. You deserve a sandwich. But anyway, that's got to be the best tasting pastrami sandwich anyone's ever had in their life, right after going through all that.
Elena Passarello: Yes. The marvelous Ms. and Mr. Maker.
Luke Burbank: That's right. That's a good one. Yeah, exactly. So the survival of the Maker family is the best news that I heard all week. All right. Let's invite our first guests on over to the show. They are the kind of siblings that your parents might trot out to demonstrate how maybe comparatively unaccomplished you and your siblings are. Like maybe how if you only applied yourself or, you know, worked a little harder, you too could like, go to med school or be the head writer on a late night talk show. I say that because that is exactly what these two siblings have been doing to make matters even worse. They've also collaborated now on a really well-received book. It's called T-Shirt Swim Club, which explores their lives of being fat in a world that was built for thin people. Take a listen to this. It's our friend Ian Karmel and his sister, Dr. Alisa Karmel, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Hello. You two. Hello. Welcome to the program, Alisa. Welcome to the show for the first time.
Alisa Karmel: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: I'm just curious. Whose idea was the idea of collaborating on the book? It seems like the kind of thing that might be said at Thanksgiving after, like, two extra lines. That's right. We should totally do some kind of book project. But then you followed up on it. How did this actually come about?
Ian Karmel: I remember walking around my back yard on the phone with you and being like, We had both. You know, we grew up fat. We still I still consider myself that. I think, yeah, we're fat people, alright [Alisa: We are fat people, that's right], but we, we were even fatter and we had, you know, I need to lose weight for medical reasons. I was healthier. I got to a healthier weight. Alisa also, I mean, for the same reason and we were talking, we were just like, this is a pretty, you know, you're a doctor. I'm a stand up comedian. It's a pretty interesting way. We dealt with our childhood traumas of being fat. Me by becoming a comedian, her by doing the opposite of that. And and we were just talking on the phone. It was like, I think we might have something to say here. I think we should write a book. And so ultimately was my agent's idea. Yeah, absolutely.
Luke Burbank: Alisa, did you feel like because Ian had already processed his trauma into comedy, you had no choice but to process your trauma into a totally different life?
Alisa Karmel: I mean, it's like I'm still processing it, right? I mean, I think it's a lifelong experience, which is the important part, right? Is to be able to acknowledge what's going on now, what's going on and how you want it to look different. And I think those conversations that we were having, that conversation in particular, which I also remember really highlighted that having hope and support and connection through that fatness and through that experience actually makes it a lot better because it can be lonely.
Luke Burbank: I think you write in the book, Ian, that you didn't talk about it a lot as kids, but how did weight show up in your relationship in the household?
Ian Karmel: I think the wonderful thing about our household is that it didn't really it was kind of the one place on the planet where we didn't have to contend with that, where there wasn't any real shame based around eating or anything like that. It was like kind of the one place in the world where it didn't suck to be fat.
Alisa Karme:l I also didn't realize that we were dealing with it at the time, which was kind of fun to find out. While we wrote this book as while we were having some similar experiences and we weren't talking about it, let's talk about it now. And so I think writing the book was us finally talking about it.
Luke Burbank: Wow. Like 30 years later.
Ian Karmel: Or 30 years later.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, that's it's like kind of an intense revelation to have in adulthood that you were both kids, young people feeling these feelings and not connecting over it.
Ian Karmel: I mean, not to overly dramatic use like an overly dramatic metaphor here, but you kind of can't talk about the hurricane while you're in the hurricane. Right? It's mostly just trying to survive and you're like, grab that board and nail it against that window. Right. Hand me that t-shirt. I'm going to put it on. Nobody is going to know I'm fat in the pool, I guess it's that kind of thing. So you're just like trying to deal with every fire as it comes. And it wasn't until we got a little space, the pandemic happened. So there was just some quiet to like sit there and finally think about like, man, that really kind of shaped every aspect of our lives. And then you also start to look at like how being fat is portrayed in media and in popular culture. Even with this like increasing wave of body positivity and body neutrality. But you still look around and like, is a fat guy growing up as a kid, right? It was fat bastard Eric Cartman. And you know, you get a little weight from that. You think, that's the 90s, it's going to be better. And now, you know, like in the last like five years, what is it? It's like TLC, Schmaltz watch documentaries like My 600 Pound Life or It's The Biggest Loser, where we care about these fat people as long as they can help us sell accuracy, right? Like, That's right. And then last year, it's like it's Brendan Frasier, God bless him, a wonderful actor, someone who's dealt with body issues himself, but is still putting on a fat suit to win an Oscar. You're either the butt of the joke or you're an object of pity in talking to each other and living our lives as fat people, we were like, That's not the truth. There's a lot of joy and there's a lot of wonderful messiness. And there is also areas where it's good to have empathy and there aren't like sad and unfair things. But writing this, it's hard to speak for you if I am here. But like, we wanted it like this, this dream of having a fat doctor right Would you can like as a fat person you dream of like going to the doctor and the doctor is fat and they're like, I get it. You know what I mean? And like, we wanted to come too close as close to that as possible. I think being like, Hey, we've been there, we understand it. Here is somebody who has shared your experience but done so with like understanding, but also humor, empathy and the advice of somebody with a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Dr. Alisa Karmel and also stand-up comic Ian Karmel. Boy, it really drops off fast. [Ian: It's huge] I mean, I got to say Ian's name first. Next time.
Ian Karmel: It's a huge drop off. Yeah. Dr. Alisa Karmel and man who took seven years to graduate from Portland State University. He ended up. Yes, we did it. Yes, we did it Beaverton.
Luke Burbank: And they have now collaborated on the new book, T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories From Being Fat in a World of Thin People. We got to take a very quick break, but much more with them in just a moment here on Live Wire. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. And we're talking we're talking to Ian Karmel and Dr. Alisa Karmel about their new book, T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories From Being Fat in a World of Thin People. The the way that this book is kind of set up is it's a memoir piece from you, Ian, about your life. And then. Dr. Karmel. It's you kind of taking a more clinical approach to it because of your training and your background to describe different elements of of life as a fat person and how we tend to treat fat people in society. So you've got the kind of anecdotal, anecdotal side. You've got kind of the scientific side. What I'm curious is when you were younger, how would you have wanted people to just relate to you? Like what would have made your life a little better?
Alisa Karmel: Yeah. For me, just out in the world, whether it was at school or, you know, on the street or whatnot, not being looked at strangely as if I was some alien being a fat person. Like it was always this. When they would see me, whether, you know, it was a teacher or a friend, I mean, you name it, it was always that judgment. And then they would get to know me, medically speaking. I had a lot of discrimination appointments. Again, suddenly, directly get on that scale, those eyes from the providers, you know, let's get a weight today. And then all of a sudden we're talking about something that had nothing to do with my visit. So I wish that those experiences didn't happen. But I also think that there's opportunity to improve those, which is what I write about. Yeah. So.
Ian Karmel: Yeah, I just think like, I mean, basic humanity, I think. I mean, it's there's no way to stop it from happening at all. Like, especially when you're a kid, you know, like it's such an insecure time for children because like, they will latch on to whatever insecurity you have and exploit it because children are terrified. Right? They're running around terrified and they're like, someone's going to notice me. So I better latch on to make fun of this person first. And fat people wear their insecurities on their outside of their body, right? I mean, you can't help but notice that it's right there. You know, the thing for people to latch on to. So. I don't know. I think like body neutrality is like is the thing that I keep coming back to where it's just like, don't mention it at all.
Luke Burbank: But what if I have a great diet that I think you should try?
Ian Karmel: Oh that's good, actually.
Luke Burbank: What if I have a friend who had some real success with a particular. I mean, that I should probably share with you, right?
Ian Karmel: That one, sometimes you do get. [Alisa: Let's talk.] Yeah, Sometimes you do get that. And I mean, nobody knows how to lose weight more than a fat person because we've heard every single diet that has ever existed.
Luke Burbank: Well, I was wondering, could you give me a quick rundown of the various diets that both of you took on in your lifetime?
Elena Passarello: Worthwhile.
Ian Karmel: My God, we we did like we did like a childhood Weight Watchers, which was like Cub Scouts for Weight Watchers, that we did something like that. I've I've done like an all juice diet, the fat sick and nearly dead juice reboot where I was touring as a stand up comedian. So I was like putting a juicer through security at the airport. And they were like, Why?
Luke Burbank: And so if you're at your actual kitchen, those are impossible to wash. I'm imagining you in a Hampton Inn. Somewhere in Des Moines.
Ian Karmel: Swear to.. You know, a motel next to I-5 in that building playing a club in Tacoma, but trying to wash the blades of juice and then going on stage and cramping because my body's been like, we've had nothing but cucumber for 72 hours. Yeah. I think we I mean, we've tried everything. I tried Atkins, which that was more fun, but also didn't work. The thing about diets, I think. I mean, what is it you always say?
Alisa Karmel: It's that the diets fail, not the people.
Luke Burbank: Okay. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Alisa Karmel: Yeah, well, diets aren't personalized. That's what's tough. I mean, they they give you some prescription of this is what you need to do and this is how you need to do it. Go figure it out. And sometimes there's a coach or sometimes there's somebody who can, you know, try and help you or way you have once a week, but they're not with you through the stressors. They're not with you to identify what why you are eating. It's not addressing the reason. It's just addressing the food, which we all know how to eat. We really know how to eat. Most of us know how to eat. That's something you learn. It's basic, but it's more complicated than that. And the diet industry doesn't really speak to that intentionally.
Ian Karmel: And also, any diet works as long as you're on. If I want to just keep drinking green juice, I you know, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. It'd be like holding on to a dandelion spore talking to you.
Luke Burbank: I think you be pushing up daisies. You literally wouldn't be here on the planet.
Ian Karmel: No, I wouldn't. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: So you think. You're of the opinion and you both have really had a lot of personal experiences that the industry doesn't necessarily want people to actually have success with these things because then I guess there's nothing for them to keep selling you.
Alisa Karmel: Yeah, they, they like those customers. They got to keep them coming. And if you do it right, then you don't need them anymore.
Luke Burbank: I don't want to put either or both of you in a in an awkward spot. But I am curious, because of the book and because of the topic, if you have thoughts on semaglutides and like Ozempic and Wegovy and things like that.
Alisa Karmel: I think it's a tool. They're new tools. So I think that there's still a lot to be known, a lot to be figured out. There's still research happening currently, but I think that if you can use the tool in the way that it needs to be used, then it's it's an option. The issue is that a lot of folks are using them without understanding the risks and without understanding how to use them properly and what it requires lifestyle wise, which is the same thing for diets. So I think that they can be really helpful for folks, but I think they need to understand what's going on before they just jump on board and kind of blindly say, this is my next diet.
Ian Karmel: Yeah. I also want to say nobody has to lose weight. And you can be fat and you can be fat and healthy and you can be there's you can be healthy and all sorts of different weights. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And I think that's also a very important thing to point out. We didn't write a diet book and we want to write a book about about being fat and what that feels like and things, you know, people reading it, hopefully either knowing there's other people have gone through it out there or maybe people reading it being like, I didn't realize this. I didn't realize this is what people were going through, the way I feel about like Ozempic or any of those other drugs is like, I mean, I so I like listen, I keep 420 pounds when I was at my unhealthiest and I was also drinking to excess and I was doing drugs and, you know, I was treating...
Luke Burbank: A real triple threat. I was a real triple threat.
Ian Karmel: A real triple bypass threat. Yeah. And I you know, I was I was really I was very, very unhealthy. And when you weigh that much weight and you go into the doctor and the conversation is starting at bariatric surgery, they're like, so let's just operate under the assumption that that's what we're going to be doing, you know, in six months or a year or whatever. It can feel hopeless. Like the doctor can say, Hey, you need to lose 200 pounds. And I'm like, great, I'll climb Mount Everest. And while I'm up there, you know what I mean? I'll invent like some sort of ultra compression software that makes me a billionaire at the same time, that feels equally likely. So if you're the kind of person who needs to lose that like, or would like to lose that much weight for your blood pressure or, you know, the impact on your heart, that kind of thing. I think a drug like that can be wonderful. My fear with anything, whether it is a quick fix diet, like all juice or ozempic. Or anything like that. Is you are, like Alisa said, not dealing with the underlying issues of why you seek comfort in excess eating or in eating things that are unhealthy for you. For me, a big part of it was anxiety and I could go on. I was epic and it was epic. Would not treat my anxiety or the fact that I find comfort in eating right. So if you go on it, it works. As long as you're on it the second you go off it, you haven't addressed any of those underlying issues. Those still exist. So it becomes a lifetime pharmaceutical, which, listen, if it's that or blood pressure medication and you would have given me that choice five, ten years ago, maybe I would have taken those empty. I happened to go the blood pressure medication route, and I'm currently on it now. But like, you know, I think it's just a matter of. Are you doing this in concert with learning the origin of your disordered eating? If that is indeed what it is.
Luke Burbank: It's Live Wire Radio for PRX. We're talking to Ian Karmel and Dr. Alisa Karmel about their new book, T-Shirt Swim Club. This is not a weight loss book, and this is not an interview about like losing weight or how to lose weight or anything like that. I am curious though, Ian, particularly for you, because you you are somebody who we're going to the world in one sort of body and that you changed it pretty radically. And I'm curious what your experience is like comparing the two versions of moving through the world.
Ian Karmel: There are so many more kinds of pants than I knew about, and there's some pitfalls there. I have a pair of, like, pants covered in like, palm trees and coconuts, and I bought, like right after I lost the weight. And I was like, This is the guy I am now. And may the pants or any other kind of thing. The person I am like, didn't change, you know, like I do. Weirdest. When I look in the mirror, I see the same dude, you know, and I and I said.
Luke Burbank: You almost called this book, What? Forever fat.
Ian Karmel: Yeah. Because I think you are. I think that's the relationship You have that relationship with yourself and with your and with your health and with your eating for the rest of your life. There's not some number you hit on the scale and confetti pops out and they're like, you can eat pie again. Like, that's not any. It's the relationship you have the rest of your life. The way it weirdest changed for me was up on stage doing stand up comedy where I had, you know, developed a defense mechanism of making jokes as a fat kid on, you know, at recess forever ago and turned that self defense mechanism into a career. And then all of a sudden, I was on stage after having lived 35 years as a fat person, telling jokes about fat people. And I'm like, Why aren't they laughing? They used to laugh, right? No. Did people become good? You know, do people not laugh? And fat people, unemployed Americans, like a Twilight Zone episode. But then I got offstage after this one show down in L.A. and this woman came up to me and she was like, Hey, I don't think you should tell jokes like that anymore. And, you know, I talk, you know, she like, kind of had followed me for my career. And she was like, I know how you think they're coming up. And like, your audience doesn't see that person anymore, which was such a strange thing for me because I still feel like that person inside, I can't erase that 35 years of lived experience. And that's been a weird part of like the maintenance phase after, you know, quote unquote of losing weight to so mostly the pants and stand up comedy.
Luke Burbank: And and I want to mention for people that can't see you and you're a very fashionable person.
Ian Karmel: Thank you very much
Luke Burbank: It's reasonable that you might take a few swings and misses on pants.
Ian Karmel: Boy, so big cuts to big Shohei Ohtani. You're just like. Sure. Absolutely. No. Could I have I bought like a cream? I think this is what the interviews about. But just like a people sort of like harikrishna at the airport cream almost like jumpsuit kind of thing. I wore I wore a once and then I saw myself in the match and I. My God, that was it. That was I think that was rock bottom for me, weirdly, like it wasn't the drugs, the alcohol or anything like that. It was seeing myself dressed like George Harrison at an ashram.
Luke Burbank: Alisa, I'm wondering for you as as a doctor and somebody who is very tuned into the mental and emotional side of weight for people, how do you talk to people about their bodies in a way that doesn't make them feel like their bodies have to look a certain way?
Alisa Karmel: Yeah. I mean, driving that point home takes quite a bit. It just depends on where folks are with their body is. A lot of people really want to accept their body, but they don't think they can until it's a certain way. And whether that's the weight or a size or just some part of their appearance, it's very attached to that. So we do a lot of work of detaching from that. What are other ways that you can embrace your worth? What are other ways that you can evaluate yourself that are actually more meaningful than your parents and also love yourself as a fat person? Like it's actually an awesome person. You know, like let let's talk about that and really helping people identify what they like about themselves despite all the hate that they feel.
Luke Burbank: I read a lot of books for this job. Yeah, but I have to say, this book has the greatest dedication of any book that I have ever read in the history of library. And could you read it? I have to have it right here.
Ian Karmel: Somebody said "Awe", like they're about I mean, you're not about hear something sweet. Alright.
Alisa Karmel: I'm glad you're reading it.
Ian Karmel: I'm dedicated to all the fat kids. It gets butter. Better. Sorry. Better. It gets better.
Alisa Karmel: That's it.
Elena Passarello: Yes.
Luke Burbank:This is Ian Karmel and Dr. Alisa Karmel. The book is T-Shirt Swim Club. It's a great book. Everybody go get it. Thank you for coming on, Live Wire. That was comedian Ian Karmel and his sister, Dr. Alisa Karmel. Their new book, T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories From Being Fat in a World of Thin People, is available now. This is Live Wire, as we like to do. Each week we have asked the listeners a question because we're talking siblings. On the show this week we asked, What is the most ridiculous argument you've had with your sibling or siblings? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello: Okay, so this one is from Heather. Heather and Heather's sibling have an ongoing war, apparently about the big salad that's made to sort of send across the table at family dinners. Heather says, I like tomatoes and hate cucumbers, and she's vice versa. I once angrily dumped a huge bowl of tomatoes into the salad and in retribution, she immediately dumped in a huge bowl of cucumbers. So they're just fighting each other over salads?
Luke Burbank: Yeah, over very common salad ingredients.
Elena Passarello: And they're making the salads more delicious in their combat, which I appreciate. If I was another member of that family, I'd be like, great.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I'd pick a fight with someone who likes to put, you know, like parmesan cheese on a salad. Yeah. Just keep making it so that to get back at everyone, everyone's just adding more delicious ingredients to the salad throughout the meal.
Elena Passarello: Right. Like high quality balsamic vinegar, right?
Luke Burbank: Yeah, exactly. What's another silly argument that someone's had with a sibling?
Elena Passarello: This one's great. From Sarah. Sarah says, My sister and I fought ruthlessly in all caps over who could be Baby spice. I'm assuming they were much younger. This is in the 90s. Sarah said she always tried to make me be Ginger. And then when Ginger left the Spice Girls, she said I couldn't sing with her anymore. Well, you know, when you grow up with no siblings, you have to be all five Spice Girls.
Luke Burbank: That explains a lot about you.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it really does.
Luke Burbank: I'm just imagining you in your room. The big All of the Spice Girls. Okay. Another family dispute with a sibling that really is not that big of a deal.
Elena Passarello: This was great from Jane. Very simple. Jane says when there were three siblings, the arguments are all about the wishbone.
Luke Burbank: Do we still do that in this modern social media era? Or because that was a big thing when I was a kid, you know, it's like the you would wait and then to get your hands on that wishbone.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I hope it's still a thing. I mean, what do you do if you're eating a tofurkey.
Luke Burbank: Doesn't have a wishbone. They need to work on that.
Elena Passarello: That's a good idea, actually.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Seriously, that somebody should do that. Make a plant based wishbone to go in the plant based turkey so that we can get the full experience. Well, thank you to everyone who wrote in a response to our listener question this week. We've got one for next week's show coming up at the end of today's program. So stay with us for that. In the meantime, our next guest's comedy draws on her pretty unique life experiences growing up in Harlem as one of 13 siblings in a black Muslim family. You've heard her on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me you've seen her on TV on Late Night with Seth Meyers and Last Comic Standing. She's also an actor and a series regular on the Amazon hit Upload from Greg Daniels and her very first one hour comedy special hit Hijabs Off is now available on Amazon Prime Video. Take a listen to Zainab Johnson on stage at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon.
Zainab Johnson: Thank you. Hi Portland. I do have a special call to Hijabs Off, I named it that because I know I'm always talking about like, I'm Muslim. And when I post things about being Muslim, I'll get like, you know, hate from like, other Muslims online. Like, you're not Muslim. You don't even cover your hair. I'm like, Well, this is a wig. So technically. My name is Zainab. It that kind of gives it away because Zainab is like a very Arabic name, like super. So it's it's interesting to me because it just is sound is just a two syllable name, but people mispronounce it all the time. Like sometimes it's something like it makes sense, like Dana, you know, or Zena. Right. But sometimes it's like Zenboo-to which words you get those letters from, right? The thing about it is, because I don't cover up any more and you know, I present is just like a black woman. You know, sometimes when I meet Middle Eastern men, they want to tell me about Zainab because Zainab is such an esteemed name. The prophet's wife is her name was Zainab. You know, Zainab is the reason Muslim women have to cover up. And so they want me to know. Zainab, do you know Zainab? Do you know Zainab? They tell me their family history. My mother's name is Zainab, my first, my second, my third wives name is. Do you? I'm like, Yes, Mohammed, I know. Drive the Uber. Come on. I got to get to the airport. Coincidentally, one of my younger brother's name is Mohammed. We have different last names. Actually. My name is Zainab Johnson and my younger brother's name is Abdul Rahim. His name is Mohammed Abdul Rahim. Same parents. I probably should say this. My parents had 13 kids. I know my mom's vagina, right? I mean, it deserves something more than us, you know, like, I mean, it's like I say, and people are. Well, I didn't even do it. I'm like, Yeah, my mom has 13 kids, and they're like, I'm like, It wasn't even me. But okay, I feel like my last little brother, my mom was just sweeping the floor and he came out. I just picked him up and kept sweeping. But as much as you know, we have the same two parents, which I brag about, like even as a kid, like I knew that that was like a, you know, a thing to be proud of. Like, even when I got teased in school, they'd be like, you know, did you get an egg on a test? I'd be like, No, but I know my father, so. But the reason why these same two people had, you know, gave birth to 13 of us and we have different last names is because I'm one of the first six. And my dad's last name is Johnson. And my parents, although Muslim, they were converted. And so they decided after the six kids to like they should, you know, that we should all have Muslim Islamic last names. And as much as we all had. Johnson At first my parents were like, You know what? Let's go down to city hall. Unless, you know, get our kids names changed in My mom went down to city hall, told the clerk, Hey, we're Muslim. We'd like to change our kids names. And a clerk was like, That's great. It's going to be $1 million. How Muslim are you? My parents were like, You know what? We'll just name the new kids, the Muslim. Hey. And so that's how one of my younger brothers ended up with Mohammed Abdul Rahim, which is a weighted name. He never flies anywhere. He eats like a boat to London and just magic school busted across the Atlantic. It's rough. I realized it because, like, you know, we this is normal for us. This is how we grew up. And so an experience made me realize how weighted of a name he has. Some years ago I was trying to Western Union him $100 and we got flagged by the U.S. Treasury. They had shut my checking account down. They had made us submit paperwork in, like, notarized stuff to prove that our Mohammad Abdul Rahim wasn't the Mohammad Abdul Rahim that the U.S. doesn't do business with. And I was so shocked because I thought terrorism cost more than $100. You know, I thought you need the oil money, but I guess just canola. I am not. I get this question, especially now as I as I get older, people are like, you know, are you going to have, you know, a lot of kids like your parents do? It's like, no, of course not. At this point, it's too late. You know, I, I, I will not have 13 I, I won't have one either. I think 13 is better than one. Is there a lot of pressure on the kid? You know, it's a lot of pressure on a kid. A lot of pressure on a parent. You know, imagine you have one kid. Only one kid. That kid is a murderer. Right. It's up now. You just tomatoes, Mama. You know, it says you have 13 kids and only one is a murderer. You think? Good, right? Anybody just to call out your murderer you like? Wait, We got four doctors. It seems like we're saving more lives than we're taking with my parents. Do have a good variety. They have a comedian. They have an engineer. We have a teacher. We have a lawyer. We have a gold digger. My sister. She loves her husband's money. She loves it. My sister's husband is actually a doctor. And because he's a doctor, my sister thinks she's a doctor. Which that math does not matter. I don't know. I think that's like gold digger math. And she introduces herself as, like, Dr.. Mrs.. Yeah. Imagine. Ms.. I'm the sister of the doctor. Mrs.. I was so afraid because one one day we want to fly in just like TV. I didn't even think this happened, but it happened on a very short flight for us where they were looking for a medical professional. And my sister. Was ambitious. I have never punched my sister in the chest so hard. I was like, Sit down. As much as we have like a really good variety. The thing that we don't have as a gay kid. I know I was shocked because I mean, here's the thing. Regardless of how anybody feels about it, we got the numbers right. It's just statistically right. We don't have to think about it in any other way. Just statistically, one in every five Americans is gay, one in every five. We got 13. You do the math. We have two, right? We have two and we have two in a bisexual. Right? Technically. We don't know who it is, though. I wish it were me. We don't. And the thing about it is we you get you know, you get every time a closet door opens, we're like, looking. And it's like, you just getting a coat? Oh okay. Yeah. I'm Zainab you guys, thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Zainab Johnson right here on Live Wire. Her comedy special hit Hijabs Off is now available on Amazon Prime Video. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello right over there. We've got to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we're going to hear some Ethio jazz from San Francisco's one and only Meklit. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, here with my pal Elena Passarello. Okay. Before we get to our musical guest, a little preview of what we are doing on the show next week and it's kind of a biggie. We are launching a new limited series podcast on January 1st. It is called Damp January. You know, kind of like a dry January, which is when people give up booze and stuff, but we're not actually giving up the booze. This one is damn as the name would indicate. What it is, is a series of interviews with authors and comedians and podcasters, folks like Moshe Kasher, Gary Shteyngart, Nora McInerny, all folks who have different kinds of relationships to and with alcohol. So next week on the radio show, we are going to play you an excerpt from the very first episode of Damp January, where I talked to my actual mother, Susie Burbank, to find out like what her deal has been with drinking in her life, and also kind of like what my family history is. Spoiler alert, not great. We're also going to be talking to Adam Gopnik on the show, not about drinking, but about his book, the real work on the Mystery of Mastery. And we are going to have some music from one of our all time faves, Dessa. So make sure you tune in for that. This is Live Wire from PRX. Our musical guest this week mixes the sounds of East Africa and the Bay Area in her work. She's also a TED senior fellow whose talk, the unexpected beauty of everyday sounds has been viewed over 1.2 million times. Her latest EP, Ethio Blue, is available now. Take a listen to Meklit recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the show.
Meklit: Well, I feel very welcome. Thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: It's so. It's been a little while. This this new album, if I understand right. You wrote it.
Meklit: A little while ago. Yes, that's true.
Luke Burbank: How what was the time between the writing of it or the creation of it and putting it together as an album and putting it out?
Meklit: Well, I wrote most of the songs in 2019 when I was very, very, very pregnant and even recorded when I was pregnant. And, you know, people used to tell me like, don't have a record when you're pregnant because the baby will be pressing on your lungs. But no. It was all freedom, you know. Really? Recording? Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I've been hearing you on on the world. I've been hearing this project that you have called Movement, which is a podcast or a radio show. A live event. It sounds like you're really kind of getting a little close to our scene, which I feel slightly threatened by all the talk about movement and kind of what that.
Meklit: There's room for all of us. Movement is, is really thinking about immigration, migration and music and the music that immigrant communities are innovating. And it's really thinking about different ways of developing narratives of migration. Like a lot of times when we talk about immigration, we focus on either narratives, specifically of a border crossing or these points of trauma. And it's not that we want to ignore those or look away from them, but we believe that by really centering on the cultural power that is coming out of immigrant communities, we can make spaces for us to experience, like our ways of knowing, our ways of being and being able to put those ways of being in relationship to each other. So we uplift the songs and stories of immigrant migrant and refugee musicians. And I the my my like my underground tagline for it is the bumpin soundtrack to a radically diverse world. Nice.
Luke Burbank: Nice. Well, speaking of soundtracks, let's hear a song. What are we going to hear?
Meklit: We are going to hear the title track of my new EP, Ethio Blue, accompanied by the genius Cobron Behaney.
Luke Burbank: All right, this is Meklit on Live Wire.
Meklit: [Meklit performs "Ethio Blue]
Luke Burbank: That was Meklit right here on Live Wire. Make sure you check out her latest EP, Ethio Blue. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests Ian Karmel, Alisa Karmel, Zainab Johnson and Meklit.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Leona Lindemann and Eben Hoffer are our technical directors and our House Sound Is by Daniel Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Sam Tucker, Ethan Fox Tucker, Ayal Alves and A Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we like to thank members Jon Bach Hearst, Portland, Oregon and Alisha Harris of Oakland, California. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
