Kevin Turner Considers Using Steroids

With Jordan continuing his battle with a kidney stone, The Downbeat's Kevin Turner joins the show.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Welcome into dir Fag Culture Hour.I am TC Fleming. This is ninety
seven one the Freak And for thosetuning in just to hear Jordan, I
have terrible news. He continues tostruggle with kidney stones. The first surgery
unsuccessful. He is one of thesmallest canals that medical science has ever seen,

(00:37):
and the second surgery is being attempted. But as that all goes on,
we've got Kevin Turner filling in.Yeah, I'm sorry everyone, Nah,
this is an upgrade. It's realweek day talent. I don't know.
I mean, I've never thought ofmyself as that, but we got
to get Jordan some help here.Yeah. Although maybe it is kind of

(01:00):
a cool human trick to have oneof the smallest canals, I don't think
it's that cool, I think.I mean, I guess you wouldn't want
to have a huge canal either.I don't know that either. I mean,
yeah, I think I would wantto have a huge canal. I
think it's usually it's probably a goodthing. I remember one time, I
the other males in my area wouldbe able to feel it, they would

(01:21):
sense it. Yeah, yeah,and then they start overcompensating. Yeah,
I remember one time I went toa insert your favorite testosterone center here,
and you went through a testosterone centera long time ago. It's because it's
at the time I was probably stillbalancing figuring out why I don't sleep well
and uh, you know why Ijust cannot lose a pound or you know

(01:47):
what is narcolepsy, trying to figureall that out. Yeah, with all
due respect, you seem to havea weird system. Endocrine system. It
is a terrible endocrine system. It'sand they told me they took a school
of some sort, and not lookingdown or anything, I don't think I
have one of the all time greatendocrine systems. Well, and you know,

(02:07):
honestly, some of those things,I just look genetics. What are
you gonna do about it? Yeah, you know, some of these things
are just probably in your family.Yeah, but I remember they took a
test or a score and they werelike, holy lord, that is like
the lowest score we've ever seen.I just never want to hear that.

(02:27):
And I was like, so Ihave like no tea at all. I
think it does make sense because I'mnot really looking for a bar fight.
I mean, yeah, like Iwant my sports teams to win games.
And stuff and you know, highfive and fist bump. But I don't
think I'm necessarily kicking down doors andchopping down trees or anything. Yeah,
I was like, am I onthe verge of like estrogen? Like's what's

(02:51):
happening here? Doctor? Am Ia woman? But I learned a lot
about myself that day, and I'vealways remembered, Hey, I don't have
much tea, So do they giveyou tea? They gave me tea,
Okay, nice and it worked.You should do some tea. I've been
I've been thinking long and hard aboutgetting into steroids. They sound great.
They do sound great. The benefitsound great short term. One of the

(03:14):
podcasts I listened to Two Bears oneCap with Thom Sager and Bert Kreischer.
Both of them have gotten onto testosteroneand they're the most effective pitchmen for testosterone.
You can imagine, Oh my gosh. They just make it sound like
a real paradise. I think anyonelistening, women included would be like,
I think I should probably start doingsteroids. I mean, it wasn't baseball,

(03:35):
and it's most fun, no doubt, when everyone was cheating. Yeah,
although I like it, steroids areawesome. I think steroids. I
would like to know. So thisis the thing about steroids. I don't
I wouldn't want to do it alonebecause the group activity. Yeah it'd be
cool. Yeah, Like I getit how it's spread in the Rangers locker

(03:55):
room in the nineties, like justmunch of bros and dudes shooting each other
up. What do you got likeone guy doing it? I always thought
that was like I got Lance Armstrong, like he's kind of on his own.
That's no individual sport for the mostpart, although they did have a
team, like a lot of drugs, the social context matters and how sad

(04:17):
it is. Yeah, we're alsotalking about professional athletes there too. It's
like, what's like your mailman's doingsteroids? I think you right ours mine.
I mean he's young enough he doesn'tneed to, but I think that
he's pretty active. Guy. Isthere an age two where he's like,
yeah, you shouldn't do like you'retoo old? I mean Bert as well,

(04:40):
you're supposed to do it more asyou get older. Yeah, okay,
that's like it's I think there's justmainly just like get back to feeling
like you used to because your bodyslows down and sometimes somebody slow down too
much, and we can help outa little bit with this. And then
once you're on it, though,you can't quit, right. I don't

(05:00):
know if that's true. You mightbe thinking of ozempic. Oh yeah,
that's a different one. Yeah.Yeah, And I don't know. I
don't know what happens if you quitsteroids. I presume that there are,
in fact some consequences, But wheneverI hear people talk about it, I
don't really hear those mentioned. Ijust start to imagine the beautiful life I
could have. I was shooting upall the time. It feels like a
bad thing to quit cold turkey.Yeah, yeah, I suspects so your

(05:24):
skin probably starts sagging. That's theway it was. Then just don't just
keep shooting, Yeah, just keepit going? Why not once you start
like you wanted to do it?Yeah, and why you want to stop
feeling awesome? Not me? Ifyou kept doing it, then you probably

(05:45):
are good with it. Yeah.Yeah, it's I feel like every every
potential molecule you come across, Uh, it's it's gonna be a good couple
months. And then if anything inyour life is worse after that, time
wears off. I don't know.I feel like I've learned my lesson.

(06:08):
I don't need to keep. It'slike the one hit, like that take
steroid once. Okay, you takesteroids one time? Are there people out
there just like I didn't like it? And then it's like, well,
how do you know you didn't likeit until you've seen some results. So
it's definitely not like a one hittertype of thing. I feel like,
if you think it once, you'dprobably like it. Yeah, you'd probably
like it. You'd probably trick yourselfinto it and feeling it, whether you're

(06:31):
seeing a results or not. AndI don't even know what results are in
this incidence. I think it's muscles. I see it. They have never
stressed the muscles stuff. It's likeenergy feel sharper, Like you have more
energy, Like your brain works better. And that's the thing that like,
like, I don't know, Idon't know about you, and I hope
that, like I don't feel likeI'm at an age where and I think

(06:54):
that we're the same. I'm thirtysix, Yeah, I'm thirty five,
Okay. I was not under theimpression that a steep mental decline started in
your mid thirties. I thought forties, probably fifties before I started to worry
about this a lot. But overthe last five or six years, I
can't remember anything ever, and Iwas I was not ready for this.

(07:20):
I certainly feel like I've made badchoices trying to, you know, in
like not going for stuff it's goingto like help your memory the most.
But whenever I hear someone say likemy brain is sharper, I just assume
that they mean, like I canknow what happened yesterday, and I'm like,
boy, I would love to getback to knowing what happened yesterday.

(07:44):
Yeah. I think so, Likeshort term memory is terrible for me as
i've gotten older. Yeah, Istill got pretty good mid to long term.
Yeah, I do notice that feelingof I don't know if it's like
you get super tired and you're brainletgoes to mush. Oh yeah, and
that that just happens when people getexhausted. Yeah, I think that's fairly

(08:07):
normal. But yeah, until lastcouple of years is when I started feeling
that yeah at night, and Iwas like, oh my god, it's
it was it's scary whenever you firstthrown up against it. So if I
could just take steroids and stop that. I don't know, man, I
really want to take steroid. It'dbe interesting how much are steroids going to
cost. I've assumed that anytime likesomething medical comes up, I just waved

(08:33):
those away by being like, insurancewill cover it. I don't have insurance,
by the way, Yeah, butI assume that it will cover it.
Yeah. I I don't know,man, I have so many insurance
battles from my pill that I taketo basically stay alert, ye without just
passing out in the middle of theday. What do you take? It's

(08:54):
called the daffodil. Yeah, that'swhat I was hoping you would say,
that's the Bradley Cooper drug, right, is it? That movie was the
Bradley Cooper movie where he's smart?You know what I'm talking about? Do
I need to see this movie?It's like, who else was in it?
It's a pretty it's kind of earlycareer Cooper. It's not a big

(09:18):
budget, so, like, Idon't think there's anyone else in it.
I'm trying. I think that theword smart is in the name. I'm
highly interested because trying to find iton these This is a point what I'm
talking about, like five years ago. I would have had no problem at
all recalling what the Bradley Cooper likeI and I remember the feeling of looking

(09:39):
at other people struggling with stuff likethat and being like, oh man,
that's it sucks for them that they'redumb like IMT I used to be at
the top of the mountain very recently, and I'm at the bottom, and
I know what the people at thetop are thinking of me. I would
see this one I work Limitless?Is the movie Limitless? What year do
we have there? Twenty eleven?Who else is in that movie? Bush?

(10:03):
Why you got it pulled up?Yeah? I mean because I really
think that it's no one. Yeah. Abby Cornish is the oh Robert through
the hero. He has to bea small role. I recall him having
a very small role. And BradleyCooper is smart in this one. Yeah.
He starts to take him a daphaneland he just goes off. Wow.

(10:24):
Uh, I think that it's agreatly exaggerated I would, I mean,
I would hope so, just becauseI haven't just gone off ye,
Like for me, it's just likeif I if I I mean, I'm
supposed to take it every morning.But because I am already having adrenaline in
the morning from six to ten.Like, if I can make it till

(10:48):
eight without taking the pill, thenI'm good. It's supposed to last for
ten hours, okay, and it'snot always true, but yeah, you
know, it allows me to youknow, keep my driver's license. And
yeah, I may or may nothave had a street pharmacist hand me one
off label one time. Yeah,well it's off. I mean it's a
it's a side of a providial whichyou can, you know, get generic

(11:13):
brands of that somehow. But it'sjust not the same because I've had to
resort to that when you having youknow, just having like insurance disputes.
Yeah, because that's something that wehave to do in our country. I
thought that Mark Cubans solve this.Well, he did. He solved up
for a few I think. Idon't think he got done for Madeffanel.

(11:33):
Yeah, it seems like whatever hewas doing I was, I was strongly
in favor. I think it's agood idea. I think so too.
I would also like to know moreand I should just go to his website
and type in Medeffanel and find out. Yeah, hey, gotta be saving
a lot of money on this.Yeah, but I found my work around
was I got a neurologist. Okay, and my neurologist is pretty awesome.

(11:56):
I want to talk to a neurologists. Yeah, there are see if they
can help me with the fact thatmy life is falling apart. I mean
that's a therapist you might be lookingfor. No, I mean like it's
all starts with the brain doesn't workanymore. Yeah, no, no,
that's if I even wentn't thought therapist, I wouldn't remember what they said the
next day. So what what yearscould it possibly be? Yeah, that's

(12:18):
true. Yeah, therapists to wouldbe hard to remember. Like, you
have a lot of patients coming inhere, yea, how do you keep
everyone's story straight? They take notesconversations I've had when I've gone in the
past, I've watched the person likeread the notes and kind of like seem
like the recognition come back, youknow what I mean. Yeah, that's

(12:41):
kind of the Oh yeah, yeah, that guy. That's the only reason
they take the notes. Then.I always imagine they're taking the notes because
they've got some solution they're working on. No, no, no, no,
no, I think they're just tryingto make it so that they don't
say, who are you again?Did you watch Shrinking on Apple TV?
No, I'm somewhat interested, butit wasn't at the top of the list.
It's a good I think it's verygood. It's got your you know,

(13:03):
Bill Lawrence vibe as a guy who'snot what all those stuff is he
made. He made Scrubs okay,which I loved Scrubs, but I don't
know that would hold up well twentyyears later. Yeah, I can't imagine
recommending it to a young person.But he also did ted Lasso, which
I didn't really love ted Lasso.I'd say I hate it. I my

(13:28):
ted Lasso take is like I thoughtseason three was garbage. I didn't really
love season one, but there weresome things about season two that I liked,
and I just stuck with it becauseI had time to at the time.
But now it's like, oh mygod, if I there's no way
i'd have time for that. Shrinking. I enjoyed a lot, but I

(13:48):
really like Jason Siegel and Jessica Williamsis great. Even Harrison Ford is weirdly
pretty good. And the way theydo that show is pretty outstanding and but
the thing is it does have alot of those ted lasses like emotional,
like you know they're going to tryto get you, don't trying to pull

(14:09):
on your heartstrings a little bit.And I don't like when shows do that.
But I can tell when they're aboutto do it, and if you're
gonna do that to me, Ijust wanted to hit me. I don't
want it to be like, hey, this is a part of what I
do. Yeah. Yeah, butit's worth it. It's worth watching,
and I think it's actually one ofthe best new TV shows of the year.

(14:30):
Is that not that I can namethe name new TV shows this year?
Right? Yeah? I don't.I don't know about the steroids stuff.
So I have a bunch of questions. I wrote down a long list
of questions for you because this ismy this is my big opportunity to talk
to Kevin. Yeah, and alot of them center around I just always

(14:52):
am fascinated by your childhood and onlyTexas. Are you comfortable answering questions about
your childhood and family Texas? Uh? So? I the one. I
didn't even have this one written down. This is just popping up wondering because
a lot of it's just you know, I grew up a couple hours away,
but I suspect that our experiences werevery different. Yeah, and so

(15:18):
you know, by the time Iwas in high school, you know,
I didn't go to like a regularhigh school, to one of those bad
kid ones, so we didn't havelike a football team. But I certainly
remember my brother talking about these kindsof things. And then it was very
easy for me to imagine the kidswho I played football with in eighth grade.
Like I can tell you, youknow, I have an idea of

(15:39):
which ones this applied to that itseemed like all of them, Like in
two thousand and four, two thousandand five in Texas, it's my impression
that pretty much everyone playing football wason steroids. And I guess I just
like and everyone I've ever talked tothat's also from the suburbs has like,

(16:00):
you know, done a big nodand being like, oh yeah, but
I didn't know what the only experiencewas there. How many did you you
played football? Right? I did, but I don't tend tight end a
little bit of wide receiver. OnceI once I got you know, old
enough, and I felt like Ihad leverage, I I said, I'm

(16:22):
not going to do tight end becausein our offense, to tight end was
more of a blocker. Sure,and I was like, I want to
be wide receiver. And then Ileveraged that that's a longer story. Probably
we've got steroids. No, definitelyran in some kids a little further west
though that you were like, yeah, they're definitely on steroids. These kids

(16:42):
are cyborgs and and baseball as well, but not in football. What's odd
about only I didn't run this.Uh, I run across this a lot,
just meeting people, I mean everyoneI met once I moved to Denton
and then to Dallas. People talkabout their high school experiences and obviously both
of ours were very unique. Butlike we didn't have like marijuana and all

(17:04):
me Like, you couldn't find dirtweed. Really, it was just beer,
man, that's it. Like therewasn't that makes sense? Maybe some
meth. See that's the thing.Like meth being more easily available than marijuana
sounds like an apocalyptic society, itdoes, But it's like, like that's

(17:25):
not going to work out for youguys long term. No, no,
not at all. Like I justremember, like marijuana was not prevalent in
high school at all. Yeah,and I graduated in six that's crazy.
It just wasn't. I mean,it makes sense, you know, Like,
and I bet that it varied quitea bit down to town because I'm
sure that it's it's easy to imagineone guy being good for it. Like

(17:48):
you know, if one dude hasa steady connection, you know, he's
got a cousin that lives in theflu he goes out there every week,
Like then it's you know, yourtown. Like he's just coming back with
a couple ounces and everyone's good.I mean, they wouldn't take that much
weed by volume to get all ofonly that's the older brother, the older

(18:10):
cousin. Yeah. Yeah, Soif you if you grew up in it,
you know, maybe in Knock Cityat the time, someone knew someone
and they probably had all kinds ofweed. Maybe, but I tend to
think it might be the I mean, Knock City smaller than any Yeah,
but but maybe they maybe theyre someonein Abilene only was close to Wichtall Falls

(18:30):
and Graham, and I think that'swhere you would maybe get it. But
I just remember my boy saying closeto Graham is crazy. Graham. Graham's
like, well, yeah, it'sthat's so fair. It's like, jeez,
they were at four A school backthen, but they're probably three A
now. Yeah, and it seemedlike big compared to everything else, But

(18:52):
hey, you're right, it's reallynot that big. Okay, forty minutes
south of Wichtall Falls, which alot of people only know because the Cowboys
went to training camp there. Yeah. Yeah, Like I wonder how many
people would know what which Doll Fallswas if the Cowboys didn't spend two hot
summers there and and you know,after the Jimmy Johnson era. Yeah,
it is a wild apart man,It's a wild part of the world.

(19:15):
It's it's really fascinating to be though. How like, how many people I've
met were like very surprised when I'vetold him, like, no, we
didn't have a weed like it.It wasn't like around what what what is
the what? Like? What doyour parents do? So? Why why
did you guys live there. Idon't mean to say I don't want any

(19:36):
of this to be like, youknow, I respect all ways of life.
I'm I'm curious. I hope itcomes across that I'm not like,
you know, uh, like treatingthis like some kind of a circus side
show thing. I just I justwant to know. I just I'm just
interested. No, it's fairy andlike, uh, I've always been fascinated

(19:56):
by people who you know, hadclass with, you know, or graduated
with a thousand people. You know, my my, you know, my
dad was born there. My momwas born in Archer City, which is
where I was born in Archer Cities, fifteen minutes north of all Me and
my dad worked at a place calledAir Tractor, which sounds crazy. In

(20:21):
fact, one time David Letterman madea joke and he had a drawing of
a tractor flying in the air becausesomeone who worked at Air Tractor was on
like in the audience. And theybuild like crop dusters, just like you
know, these plants spray, butthey also build like fire bombers, so
we gotta go spray these cocaine plantsand or whatever. And then my mom

(20:45):
worked at a bank growing up,but she ended up working there as well,
and now my brother works there.Okay, I mean it's a it's
they're two big industries. So isthere like a plant, Yeah, this
is a big air tractor plant normallyyep, wow, multiple two or three
of them actually, Okay, andthere's another like a big industry in towns.
Curprise, it's not a bigger citythen, just three thousand people.

(21:07):
A lot of people commute there.Some people like work in which they live
in which she falls, and theydrive to only to work, you know,
so they have feel like they're alittle bit in this city. Yeah,
but I have enough housing either oryou want to move there. We
have industry, we don't have housing. I bet that if there was a
good opportunity to build some houses,you could probably do that. I can't
imagine that, Like the land isjust being it's all in use. It's

(21:30):
a lot of it's owned by people. Well, you know, just offer
them more money. That's fair.That's like, there's not what subdivision builders
do all the time. They gotall the jobs in the world there,
Like, if you want to go, do it like they have it.
Yeah. Tower is a place theybuild like stadium seats and things like that.
Yeah. So yeah, I gotmany more questions about only I got

(21:52):
questions about your life. And thenalso I watched The Quarterback on Netflix.
Maybe we can play some cool audiofrom that. That's next. The ninety
seven one, The Freak