“We swear because we care” is the motto for a podcast I hadn’t heard of until a few months ago. Not long after that, I was ecstatic to learn that the guys over at the Watch Your Mouth Podcast had accepted the OMF (Open Medicine Foundation) as their charity du jour. Or 10 jours I guess. Watch Your Mouth is a Swearity. What’s a Swearity you ask? Good question. As far as I know, Watch Your Mouth is the only Podcast that converts F bombs and other fun swear words spoken throughout the episodes into dimes (one curse word equals one dime) At the end of the semester all the dimes to dollars are donated to a charity of their choosing at the start. I think the idea for this podcast is not just smart and innovative conceptually, but as an added bonus, it’s great in real life! Which is always, you know, a plus.
I was surprised and insanely excited that this semester, thanks to the introduction and urging of my *special friend Matt via his support of MECFS advocacy, that the guys at Watch Your Mouth agreed to make the OMF their swearity of choice. I felt gifted with a huge boost of gratitude and hope. Especially because Magical Matt agreed to match whatever amount they accumulated this semester. And then Magical Matt’s dad agreed to do the same thing. All good news. All awesomeness. Gratitude out the wah-zoo.
The podcast follows a format involving a speciality drink/recipe (Fuck yeah! Alcohol helps swearing!) nostalgic video games, past and current movies, but maybe most entertainingly— just three funny dudes doing a lot of benign shit talking and bounce house humor that all circles back around to something coherent. Listening it’s hard not to laugh out loud and feel like you’re in on the conversation with likeminded people who call out bullshit but keep it lighthearted and fun.
Matt and I sat in on a show so they could learn a little more about the clusterf*ck (ten cents!) of MECFS, which they repeatedly pronounced as one word: “Meekifs”— because they’re funny like that and it’s fun to say. Also, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis doesn’t exactly slide off the tongue. Along the same vein, they pronounced the OMF just as it sounds, so in the episode when you hear “omff” and “meekifs”, it’s not a bird hitting the outside of the windows or random sounds in the background, they’re real, made-up words out of the abbreviations.
Chances to partake in things like this give me hope and some kind of psychological boost, even if seemingly small when compared to other efforts. But I don’t think there’s really any such thing as small when it comes to Meekifs. It’s all about bringing light to this thing that’s existed like a damn vampire in the shadows for decades. It’s what Unrest has done, Forgotten Plague, and similar projects (aside from outright protests) that lifts this situation from the echo chamber of the MECFS world to the outside world—transitions it from something that no one may have ever heard of (but usually has some preconceived notion about) to at least something they’ve confronted with some truth or personal experience behind it. All of it helps open peoples eyes who wouldn’t normally have seen or heard of this thing. The more people who don’t know, who wouldn’t ordinarily know, and then become aware, is invaluable and hugely helpful in how we will turn this thing around. And I do believe, whole heartedly, it will be turned around, and the situation we’re in is going to change immensely.
The guys at WYM podcast, Critter, Ken, and Dan, were welcoming, irreverent, down to earth and basically made jokes, laughed about life, old movies and video games, current movies, and Barefoot Contessa. And these are all basically things I enjoy doing. It was my first time on the “radio format” and I probably didn’t do the best job, but I tried. I just wanted the word to get out there, in as many outlets outside the MECFS community (who is fully aware of the clusterf*ck, since they’re living it) as possible. And this was one way it would happen, so I am insanely happy they went out on a limb to discuss something they and very few people know about, let alone can pronounce. And to also donate their dimes, which turn to dollars quickly because Critter looooves the F word, and that all means Cha Ching! for the OMF. Which means dollars for science. Fuck yeah! I did my best to curse a lot too. So if bad words offend you, remember, every shit, asshole, f-bomb (I believe Ken may have at one point referred to “hands” as “dick-grabbers”? I think it counts) and others are all going to an organization that at the end of the day is fighting for answers for millions of people who have very, very few. All donations go to research, and that’s something any asshole (10 cents) can get behind.
My head feels cloudy and I don’t feel I’m expressing myself as easily as I sometimes can, but I want to express my deep gratitude to Matt, for bringing up the idea to the Watch Your Mouth dudes, who are hilarious and virtuous cursers. My gratitude for WYM accepting the idea, and for welcoming me on the show without ever having met me to talk a little bit about the disease and the “omff” was big. I had a lot of fun doing the show, but mostly I just felt insanely grateful to be there, to be saying the words “Mekiffs” over air waves that might reach people who would otherwise never know about this whole thing.
Thank you for taking the OMF on as your swearity charity for the semester, and taking an interest in something you knew nothing about, and also we can fairly say, couldn’t really even pronounce. Maybe one day we’ll have a disease name that is more worthy and accurate for what it actually does and takes, and is also easy to say: like Shit Turd Disease. But for now, Meekifs is fine by me. And whatever the hell else you want to call it. It all means a lot, and I genuinely enjoyed listening to the show, even before it was my turn to go on the air. Not live, thank God. Ken is quite the editor, so we have him to thank for smooth transitions and omissions that were junk, including me simply introducing myself, which was just a jumbled idiotic cloud of shit. Head palm! Anyway, here is the episode, and OMF, this one’s for you.
http://wympodcast.com/2018/05/episode-124-me-cfs-explained/
You can find and listen to the episode and more on the above link or find it in iTunes or on your podcasts app on your phone. It’s easy. Easy peasy. I’m tired.
Health, Happiness, Fuck Yeah! I can say it because it’s money!
FibroM.E.-Awesome 