This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:03] Tonya Pinkins: I'm Tonya Pinkins, and this is part two of my conversation with playwright Blaine Teamer on managing the new normal of life with idiopathic hypersomnia.

[0:16] Tonya Pinkins: Talk about this fog. Are you saying that when, you know, I mean, I've read a lot of your writing. You're a brilliant writer. Are you writing on Adderall or are you writing from the fog too?

[0:29] Blaine Teamer: Um both. Both. I just um, you know, whenever it, whatever, whenever the idea or something comes, um, and I would say, you know, with the I would say it has to be both. I mean, it may just be a little segment of something or um a line or an idea. Um, but you know, it's very easy just to kind of jot some some notes down, and then when I'm feeling better to kind of construct it, um, to kind of come back to it.

[1:02] Blaine Teamer: And it's so funny because we had a long conversation about um frame, like the the frame of a work. And um I think that's why I'm so I still get into like the frame and the structure. Um, because I need that kind of um that that structure to be able to kind of like come back to something and start it and finish it.

[1:29] Blaine Teamer: And I oftentimes I really have to learn because also what happens is is that there is, you know, if you're not sleeping, there's cognitive impairment. So a lot of times I will forget or not remember how to write the structure of a play.

[1:48] Blaine Teamer: And I have to, each time I do something, I have to learn it from scratch, which sounds crazy.

[1:54] Tonya Pinkins: Well, that sounds like that would make me want to kill myself. Like, is it like starting to walk again? Like starting to like you're learning again?

[2:02] Blaine Teamer: Yes. Are you kidding me? Mm-mm.

[2:05] Blaine Teamer: So each time I, and so what I what I used to do is I used to write a lot of different like, you know, I would write a book, or I would write a play, or I would write a television script. And each time I went back to do the other one, I had to re-learn how to do it.

[2:24] Blaine Teamer: So that's why I've kind of stuck to the play format now. And I try to kind of um stay within that because I I really would not know how to write a book.

[2:36] Tonya Pinkins: But we we have to tell people they have to read your book, Shady. It's hysterical.

[2:40] Blaine Teamer: You can buy it on Amazon.

[2:42] Blaine Teamer: You can buy it on Amazon, yes. So I would have a so for me to try to do that again, I would have to really study the whole process and structure of how to write a book all over again.

[2:54] Blaine Teamer: Um I couldn't just do it from I'm just gonna start writing the story. Um, but you know, I really get attached to like the frame of things, and with the play, there is a structure.

[3:05] Blaine Teamer: And so I a lot of times I'll I'll even do things like I I was probably sending, I was sending you a cell documents, and I was just like, just plug in the information in the Excel document, and then your story will kind of come.

[3:16] Tonya Pinkins: You're like, what are you talking about?

[3:18] Blaine Teamer: Exactly. No, no, no. I mean, I I yeah, I asked you to share with me your frame, and and then I would try to fit my story ideas into the frame, and yeah, my mind doesn't work that way.

[3:32] Blaine Teamer: So I could see your frame, but for me, that's always been the challenge for me with writing because I went to writing school and twice, and and I I feel like for me, oftentimes structure is what will make my writing not good.

[3:48] Blaine Teamer: Because I'm a good student, and so I can do your structure. And so I've got a lot of really, you know, boring stories with great structure.

[3:58] Blaine Teamer: But the characters don't breathe, and they're not very alive, and the dialogue's not very good. But the structure happens, like all the things that are supposed to happen here and there and all of that, that's there.

[4:08] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[4:10] Tonya Pinkins: Right, right, right. Uh so yeah, so I but I I totally uh that's what I the only way I can kind of do it.

[4:20] Tonya Pinkins: It must be because somehow you have synthesized your understanding of human nature and relationship must be so embedded in you that then you can put that into a structure.

[4:33] Blaine Teamer: Whereas for me, I think as an actor, I live in the sensuality of the memory of every moment. So when I'm writing, I wanna I want to linger in every moment and the detail of this.

[4:46] Tonya Pinkins: And you know, people often say my scripts are too prosaic that there's too much of a novel in them, but that's what I enjoy in the writing process is the detail.

[4:55] Blaine Teamer: That's what you get to do as an actor, you get to dwell in detail. So I need to do that, and then maybe go back and carve out a structure out of this massive detailed thing that I have, but I need to to live in the sights and the sounds and the tastes and the smells when I'm writing.

[5:13] Tonya Pinkins: Right, right.

[5:14] Blaine Teamer: And I think it's and I think it's because you're coming from it, possibly from the uh actor, actress perspective, into it.

[5:24] Blaine Teamer: And for me, it's always interesting to write because I don't have that, and so I'm really trying to like come at it from a I have to come at it from a different angle.

[5:34] Blaine Teamer: And so it's always interesting to hear when people interpret the work. Um, because for me, all those nuances and things are in there, and it's really about how the actor decides to kind of interpret it, because two people can interpret lines in completely different ways, and you pull out something, they can bring to light some two totally different aspects of it.

[6:03] Tonya Pinkins: Totally.

[6:04] Tonya Pinkins: And and so as a writer, I'm not always going to be in the room or uh have privy to being asked uh to give input.

[6:14] Blaine Teamer: So I'm really trying to, I'm really trying to put in there, because everything, honestly, everything that I am writing is based upon things that I've seen or experienced or listened to or heard.

[6:26] Blaine Teamer: And it's always really interesting when people, you know, we've been in situations together where people are doing the work and they're like, I don't understand this, like I don't get it.

[6:35] Tonya Pinkins: And you're like, if you just play yourself, you'll be fine.

[6:42] Blaine Teamer: That's why I asked you to do it. If you can just read it and project, you'll be fine, you know, and it's and I don't know if if particularly, it's interesting because I don't know if what I'm doing is actors get the opportunity to always do.

[7:00] Blaine Teamer: And I'm really just writing people that I know. Like when we did, we did um when we did it in Los Angeles, box seats in Los Angeles, um, was it Fran?

[7:11] Tonya Pinkins: Francis Fisher.

[7:14] Blaine Teamer: Uh was playing the mother. And when she walked in, she was like perfect. It was like that who that woman is in real life, that is who this mother is.

[7:24] Blaine Teamer: Because she was hip, she had on like this leather biker jacket, and you know, these tight little I mean, she was high, she was like popping.

[7:31] Blaine Teamer: And reading the script, because it's a mother who's of a certain age, when she first did it, she played it like, you know, an older Catherine Hepburn.

[7:42] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[7:43] Blaine Teamer: I thought, you know, and then she got it, and she's like, oh, okay, now I get it. This is really kind of like the women that I know are me, and she played it that way.

[7:55] Blaine Teamer: So um, I'm I'm not writing like the stereotypical thing that a woman who's 60 would be doing. But I'm seeing those women. I live in Los Angeles, so I see those women all the time, and you would never know that they were 60.

[8:10] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[8:11] Blaine Teamer: And like there's you can't get your grandma, your your mother to take care of your children because the mothers in Los Angeles, they are not, they're not grandmoming.

[8:17] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[8:18] Blaine Teamer: They're not grandma. Don't call me grandmom.

[8:22] Blaine Teamer: So you know, and I work in the entertainment industry, so I see these women who are in the leather jackets, in the yoga classes, in the, you know, in the stilettos, in the tight leggings.

[8:32] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[8:32] Blaine Teamer: So that's what I'm writing.

[8:34] Blaine Teamer: And uh I know that you had said someone had said that um that they wouldn't do people that age wouldn't do a sex video.

[8:45] Tonya Pinkins: I don't know if you remember that, but one of the comments that you got back was someone said that uh the characters were too old to be doing a sex video.

[8:53] Blaine Teamer: And I thought about like, no, I know people who are that age who have do sex video.

[8:58] Blaine Teamer: Doing the sex videos. That's when you're doing the sex video.

[9:01] Tonya Pinkins: Hey.

[9:02] Blaine Teamer: I don't have a reputation to ruin. I can't get pregnant. I don't care what you think about me.

[9:08] Blaine Teamer: I bet those senior citizens' homes have a lot of sex videos going around.

[9:12] Tonya Pinkins: That's why that coronavirus is spreading through there.

[9:14] Blaine Teamer: Oh my God.

[9:15] Blaine Teamer: I know it's like the reality of what we live in, and then what it's like this cognitive dissonance because it's like there's this thing that we reality, we know that people in retirement homes are still having sex and more sex than young people.

[9:29] Tonya Pinkins: More sex than they were before.

[9:31] Blaine Teamer: Yes. But you know, when create in a creative woman, people write those stories, that's not what they are writing about.

[9:40] Tonya Pinkins: Or they don't want to believe in that.

[9:42] Blaine Teamer: I'm sorry, what?

[9:43] Tonya Pinkins: I said they don't want to believe in that.

[9:45] Blaine Teamer: They don't want to see their mothers, their grandmothers in having those lives.

[9:49] Tonya Pinkins: But honey, my 80-year-old friends tell me they are having the best sex of their lives.

[9:53] Blaine Teamer: I'm like, I guess I'm gonna have to wait 20 years.

[9:56] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[10:00] Tonya Pinkins: Well, you know, that's something to look forward to, isn't it?

[10:02] Blaine Teamer: It's sure is something to look forward to.

[10:06] Tonya Pinkins: I'm so sad I was gonna go to the House of Love this month and they canceled.

[10:10] Blaine Teamer: Oh, what's the House of Love?

[10:12] Tonya Pinkins: It's you know, a sex positivity club.

[10:14] Tonya Pinkins: It's gonna be my first time. My my my son went to school in Berlin last year, and he would go to porn sexual, and so he's already had those experiences.

[10:22] Blaine Teamer: I have never been to anything like that because I was too square growing up.

[10:26] Tonya Pinkins: Oh wow.

[10:28] Blaine Teamer: I'll have to ask you what that is.

[10:29] Tonya Pinkins: Porn sexual?

[10:31] Blaine Teamer: Yeah.

[10:31] Blaine Teamer: It's a place where people get up, they wear a lot. If he said they wear a lot of flatex and plastic, and you you have to you have to dress to come into the club.

[10:40] Blaine Teamer: Like I had to send in a photo of what I was gonna be wearing in order to even be given the right to buy a ticket.

[10:47] Blaine Teamer: And um then you go to a club and there's places for dancing, and there's places for sex, and there's places for every kind of sex or every kind of activity that you want to be involved in, and you can just watch or you can participate, but it's it's very much a consent is um mandatory there.

[11:04] Blaine Teamer: You even have to ask permission to speak to someone. Like if you don't say, May I speak with you, you can be banished from the club.

[11:12] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[11:14] Tonya Pinkins: Wow.

[11:15] Blaine Teamer: Yeah.

[11:16] Blaine Teamer: You know what's interesting.

[11:17] Blaine Teamer: I um when I graduated from college, I came to California, and my first job was as a treatment advocate for a um gay and lesbian um organization that uh we were funded to work with people who were HIV positive in South Central.

[11:37] Blaine Teamer: And so I was like right out of Pennsylvania, came to Los Angeles, and my boss at the time, like really kind of thrust me into this black, gay, and lesbian culture of Los Angeles during the 90s, and I was sent to places like that, or like um bathhouses or sex clubs or whatever, to kind of like um, you know, of all things give out information.

[12:03] Blaine Teamer: So I wasn't the most popular thing to do there. Um, but I just got access to so many different like worlds or like what you just kind of described, and it was kind of like normalized, like it wasn't like a big a big thing. But the I think one of the great things about having that job is is that um I think you had asked me about a while back about you know, would I try alternative therapies? And working for that organization at the time, um, you know, having this issue, um, I began to search out all different types of alternative therapies and complimentary therapies for my clients. And um, so I was trying acupuncture, I was trying mushrooms, I was trying anything that would kind of um that I felt like the client could use and that I could try that was okay for me to try.

Exercise, yoga, meditation. So I was doing this like 20 some odd years ago, and you know, psychotherapy, um, so anything I could bring, you know, go out, find and bring back to the client and say, hey, this is something that you may be interested in trying. And I think I've kind of learned through that that you really have to be an advocate for yourself, and you really have to um know what's going to, you know, learn about your body and know what's going to work for you, because you will go into different, you know, all the different places that I've been to for different types of therapies, um, everybody has the answer. And now, after you know, this year of like really kind of getting into it and learning what the disorder actually is, even now when I'm going to sleep specialist, um they are not specifically familiar with IH yet, because the research is just coming out.

So they are treating it as if well that well, you don't have sleep apnea, you don't have narcolepsy, uh so uh we don't, you know, you you have IH, but we don't really know what to do for it. And and sometimes it doesn't even get that far. Like if I go to other doctors, they're like, Well, what are you even here for? Like, why are you seeing it? It's like you're more of an expert than the supposed experts.

[14:37] Blaine Teamer: Exactly, because they are working within their box. And um, at one point last year, I was um I was trying to get into a sleep study at UCLA, and it was gonna take a very long time to get into that sleep study. And so in the meantime, I was going to do a try to do a clinical trial because they were testing out some new drug. And what I had done at that point was I would have all of my medical information I carry in a binder, and it's all kind of laid out, and it's um based upon the year, the the speciality, and because a lot of times I would go and the doctor would say, Well, have you had a blue butty blue test? And I was like, Well, I don't, well, which test is that? I don't know. I think I did, I'm not quite sure. And so I said, No, I'm gonna bring all that information in. So if they ask, I can say, Well, yep, this is a test, this is when I had it. But what I found is is that none of the doctors will look at that information.

[15:31] Blaine Teamer: What do you mean? They, well, first of all, you have to think that you're in a you're you're going in for an appointment, and you it's at most maybe 15 minutes that they give you. So they are taking down their notes, and they're they're kind of listening to what you're saying, and they're taking the notes based upon that. Um, and they don't really have time. I mean, they may thumb through it, but no one is really kind of laying it all out and going, um, oh, you have a pituitary tumor, oh, you have this sleep disorder, oh, you have like this happened. So how what's the connection between all of these different things? There's no holistic approach. No one was taking a holistic approach until I went to the clinical trial, and the doctor had to go through every page, and then he said, Oh, well, what about this pituitary tumor?

Which I had forgot about because I had I I had been diagnosed with it a couple years prior. And so he said, Well, you really can't go any further in this until you find out the status of the tumor. So none of my doctors have been had brought it back up. So I did go, I did get it, it had grown, um, it was secreting, and I had to get on medication for it, so I couldn't get in the study. Um, but after that, no one really kind of said, okay, well, how how how would that impact all these other pituitary is like controlling every hormone in the body. Every it controls everything. So um, but you know, the endocrinologist, he's working within his own box, and so he's not working with the pulmonologist, and the pulmonologist is not really working with the neurologist.

[17:23] Blaine Teamer: And um I I it was you know another full cycle moment was I was trying to see a neurologist in Pasadena when all this started. I couldn't get an appointment, so you know, that got put aside, and flash forward, I started seeing another neurologist who was not familiar with the disorder, but was not able to help me. Because what was happening was I was having cognitive impairments. What's that? What how did that look? Um, well, you go and you take this very long, long test, and I had to take it over a couple of days because I couldn't stay awake through the entire thing. And they test your ability to do different tests, like your your mathematical abilities, your ability to remember things, your ability to put things in order. And there were some things that I just couldn't, I wasn't able to do.

[18:20] Blaine Teamer: Now, are you doing these tests on Adderall or are you doing them Adderall free? Well, that's interesting because the interesting thing about the Adderall is that there's like two aspects. If I don't take anything, I just am like a zombie. I can barely make it to the appointment. Like I'm a completely different person. Like I wouldn't even be able to answer the person's questions. If I take the Adderall, I seem somewhat normal if you ask me the questions within a certain amount of time. So, you know, I I everyone says that I present really well. You present really well. But what I do is I edit. So I don't answer the phone when I'm in these states, like I don't go out when I'm in these situations.

And um, so when people see me, I'm usually like on a high dose of medication, but it has to be like really kind of timed really well. And a lot of times what I would also do is that I would have my husband come to with me to a lot of these appointments because what I realized is is that I'm communicating to these doctors, and something is not getting through. Like something is not, they're not understanding. So I'm thinking, well, maybe I'm not articulate, maybe it's I'm I'm I'm not making any like I couldn't understand like what the disconnect was. So having my husband come, who's also a lawyer, if I left out something, he would fill it in, you know, or he would, you know, fill in pieces of the story.

And even with that, Tanya, I would see the notes, and it was something completely different than what we had discussed. It was something, and then you know, those notes, which would be incorrect, would then get passed to the next doctor. And then so whatever I was telling the next doctor, they would really kind of ignore and go by what the other doctor's notes were.

[20:19] Blaine Teamer: And you've tried to even get the notes corrected, like and and that's been a challenge. That trying to get the notes corrected is like trying to have passage in the passages in the Bible corrected. I went through this, I went to the mayo clinic, and um the doctor listened, and when I got the notes back, there were just some things that were different than what we had said. And so when I went back to try to figure out well, what do I have to do to get these corrected? It just it was this whole kind of crazy process where I I was told I had to make the corrections, send it back, then they would decide. And then they would send it to the doctor, and the doctor would make a decision, and then they would let me know from that point.

And um, when I spoke, I did that. And when I spoke to the one person, I said, Well, did you read the original notes? She said, Well, no, he said everything was fine. And I said, But did you read the notes? Can you just take a look at can we read it together and see what the notes say? And then so doing that, she was like, Oh wow, I do see what you're talking about. Yeah, because it was like misspellings and bad grammar, and right. And and she was like, Well, you know, we don't really want to question the doctor. So I'm like, well, what was the point of this whole process of me trying to do this? You know, so it just becomes like I have to decide how much energy I'm going to exert in my day on a particular thing. You know.

[22:02] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, and we've already gone over the amount of time we said we're gonna do, so we're gonna wrap it up with three questions.

[22:08] Blaine Teamer: Okay.

[22:09] Tonya Pinkins: Who are you? What's needed, and how do you serve?

[22:15] Blaine Teamer: Hmm. Oh my um, I think I am a person who is on an evolution, who is really trying to, you know, taking what life is giving me and trying to see how it can help me evolve and be a better person and can so I can continuously grow. And the thought of not growing kind of um is frightening to me.

[22:45] Blaine Teamer: Um, what was the what was the second question?

[22:47] Tonya Pinkins: You you no, you I want to stick with that because you said you want to come back to this stuck, getting stuck, getting stuck, and so, like you want to grow through this illness too.

[22:55] Blaine Teamer: I yeah, I am really trying to like I am on a new page of this illness where I do not know what the future is going to be. Um, and that can be scary sometimes, a lot of times, because I don't know what tomorrow is going to look like, but I am embracing a new normal. And one of the things that I said in 2020 was was that I'm not just going to accept whatever a doctor is telling me, or just what anyone is, I'm not just going to give anyone the benefit of the doubt anymore. I'm really going to trust my gut more and ask more questions.

[23:32] Blaine Teamer: And if something doesn't feel right, kind of speak to that, and not just kind of give my power over to someone in a lab coat anymore.

[23:41] Blaine Teamer: Um, or someone behind a desk. Um we know these people will just say anything because they think you just like, oh, I'm an authority, so I can just say anything. Oh my gosh, Tonya, they are telling us anything. And I used to be like, you know, maybe I'm just stupid. Maybe I'm not that smart. Like, maybe I don't know. Maybe it's me. And my husband is an attorney. He's very, very, very, very smart. And so having him in the room, it's like, okay, if he's saying this doesn't make any sense, and I'm saying this doesn't make any sense, then maybe this person just doesn't know what they're talking about. And we've been in situations like that where we're being told something, and we just look at each other going, that is so not the truth.

Like, you so do not know what you're talking about. But it's said with such an adamant belief, yes, conviction. So peremptory. Yeah. So you're like, well, maybe I my name isn't Blaine. Maybe it is something different. I'm not quite sure. So you question yourself, and I'm not going to keep on doing that. So that's part of my evolution as well. And as far as not trying to get um, I think those things made me get stuck, you know, a lot. And so I really have to kind of trust my instincts and my gut and that voice, that really kind of practical voice that speaks.

[24:57] Blaine Teamer: Yeah, I mean more for me having my surgery last year after six years of seeing 13 endocrinologists and seven surgeons until I found someone, you know, when they were telling me I could die at any moment. And I was like, yeah, I'm just not gonna skep that until I find somebody who I'm comfortable with to do this. So what is needed? Um I think people I think uh empathy. I think empathy is so needed, and that is gone. Um, I think um it it it breaks my heart that the notion of political correctness is gone and that was made out to be a bad thing, and now we're seeing how without it it's such a harsh uh place to kind of be in.

[25:48] Tonya Pinkins: Well, I'm gonna challenge that political correctness because I think making people feel bad for not being politically correct is a problem too. You know, I've always felt more comfortable with a southern racist than a northern liberal because a southern racist is is honest and clear, and a northern liberal is sort of performing tolerance and repressing things. So you know, uh political correctness for its own sake, I I'm not for but good manners. You know, certainly if I'm in a room with people and I have a different philosophy from them, I can get through an evening with them and I don't have to argue my philosophy. I can just sit and listen and learn. I don't have to pick a fight with them.

[26:31] Blaine Teamer: Right. Well, let's call it the let's call it that then. That seems to be missing. Good manners.

[26:35] Tonya Pinkins: Good manners, yes. Um, and I think too, with both sides, it's um people getting stuck and not being willing really willing to able to hear the other person's side and um understand it and have any type of empathy for it. Like there's that there's that piece that's just kind of missing right now, and I don't know how we get that. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that with the internet and with the algorithms that all of us are getting such very specific information that our worlds are so specific that you might be upset about something that I don't know anything about because that's not in my feed.

[27:21] Blaine Teamer: Yes, you know.

[27:22] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. Um, I remember someone was telling me, Oh, I'm I'm all for Clover Sure. And I was saying, well, Clobershire, the NAACP is asking her to step down because of her record as a prosecutor, and they're like, I never heard of any such thing. Or I was talking to someone and saying MAGA was uh, you know, kind of a white supremacist trope, and maybe not use it in this group, and they were like, MAGA is wonderful, and you know, forget you for being offended. And it was like, okay, I'm just gonna step out of the group. Right. Because, you know, we clearly live in different worlds, and if we aren't even gonna honor the fact, well, it offends me, let's not put it in this group where it offends me, then I just have to leave because you got the right to love it, and so the only thing I can do is step on out.

[28:04] Blaine Teamer: Right. And so that's what I'm talking about, that piece, whatever you want to call that. You know, I called a political record, but we can call it something different, but it's just like not having not being even curious to know, well, why are you offended by that? Or why are you so why are you so adamant that that's the best thing for everyone? Or is it the best thing for everyone, you know? Um, and that element is not there anymore. Curiosity or compassion for someone else's uh situation.

[28:38] Blaine Teamer: It's so it's so amazing that you know, we're in such this um chaos right now with the with the coronavirus going on. Um, but there have been so many things that have impacted people's lives and taken people out that people have not got excited or but it seems like oh, this could impact me personally. So we need to really kind of do something or be uh crazy about it. Um, but there are all these things that are going on around us that people just kind of just if it's not impacting you directly, people just have no concern about, even if you're connected to a person who it is connected to directly.

[29:23] Tonya Pinkins: Do you know what I mean?

[29:24] Blaine Teamer: Yeah, even if you if you have a friend who is impacted negatively by something, you you just cannot be concerned about it because it's really not affecting you. I think it's a hard thing right now. Like I was really weepy this morning over the fact that I'm so fortunate that I live in New York and there's a grocery store a block away, and all of these privileges that I have, and the fact that, you know, no matter what we see on the news, we're not seeing anything about all of the undocumented immigrants who risk getting deported if they were to go in for testing, if they are to get sick. Um, not only, you know, do they have to risk infecting lots of other people because they can't they can't come and get help because of the risk of being deported.

Um the homeless people, the people who can't go to shelters because the shelter is an infection place, and these are all invisible people who we don't we don't hear anything about them. They are voiceless, they are invisible. And um, if we don't take care of them, because we don't take care of them, they actually can make it more dangerous for all of the rest of us.

[30:33] Blaine Teamer: So we exactly, exactly. So it's all like the karma of it is all coming in play. Yeah, you know, it's like we thought we could ignore all of this, right? You know, but now it's like you can't. You can't carry everybody, everybody, and there's enough and there's enough resources and out there available that everyone can be taken care of, and we need to get we what we need is to get into the reality that that's the truth. There is enough for everyone.

[31:06] Tonya Pinkins: I do agree with you. There is enough for everyone, but it's that strange thing that happens that I say, you know, there's so many artists who are giving away their product because there are people who will never be able to afford your product, but they will be able to be the word of mouth for your product because they get it for free. And then there are people who don't want something unless they can pay for it. And so, you know, there's gonna be both of those audiences, and you cater to both of them.

[31:33] Blaine Teamer: Right. Right. Right, right, right.

[31:35] Tonya Pinkins: And my last question go ahead.

[31:37] Blaine Teamer: Well, what do people need so much toilet paper for?

[31:39] Tonya Pinkins: You know, we're out of toilet paper.

[31:41] Blaine Teamer: I know. What is that about? Because you can always just wash your ass with some water. You know, you can use a damn towel and some soap. Like, what is that? I don't know. It has some like other use, and nobody's telling me what the other use is for. I have to tell you that I'm a toilet paper obsessed person anyway, so I just always keep a good hundred rolls in the house because I just don't like to. I don't like you get to the toilet and you like you're all comfortable because it's like my throne. Like I get there, I relax, I you know, I'm meditating, that's where I do my meditation. And if there's no toilet paper, I'm gonna be enraged. So I I I always have a lot of it. But I don't understand what's happening now.

[32:22] Blaine Teamer: I guess that's how I'm gonna serve. I'm gonna have to loan some toilet paper out to people. I'm gonna have to keep a roll out.

[32:30] Tonya Pinkins: And how do you serve, Blaine? How do you serve?

[32:33] Blaine Teamer: You know what? That's so amazing because as I was having this epiphany about my what my new normal is and moving forward, I thought, you know, how can I I want to be able to help people, and how can I do this with my new normal? And then I swear that day, I got a call from you saying, I want you to be on my podcast and uh to talk about idiopathic hypersomnia. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is would be I said, you know, this would be so wonderful to be able to kind of um because you know, people it's a small population, but people don't know they have it, and it and it may be more people have it than they realize, and but testing is very difficult, it's very expensive, and so to kind of bring a little bit of awareness to it and uh let people know that there's a community of people out there.

There's a place uh online they can go to the Hyper uh Hypersomnia Foundation. And there's tons of information and resources and up-to-date studies and research that's going on. And on Facebook, um, there's uh Idiopathic Hypersomnia community where people discuss what medications that they're using um to help get them through it and to help manage. So um I hope I can serve that way. And I hope my work um for people who do get to hear it or see it, that there's if nothing else, people laugh because it's meant to be funny, but that if you listen deeper, there's always some deeper meaning in it that I'm trying to get people to um connect to and to understand, but using humor to do that. So I think I serve that way.

[34:15] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you, Blaine, so much.

[34:20] Blaine Teamer: I love you, Tonya Pinkins.

[34:21] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, I love you too, Blaine Teamer. And uh, yeah, you're listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network. I'm Tonya Pinkins.

[34:36] Tonya Pinkins: Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show Where You Can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales, edited by Derek Gunther, music by Anthony Norman, available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit BPN.fm forward slash YCST.