Love Conquers Alz
Love Conquers Alz
TEACE SNYDER: Filmmaker/Artist - Exploring Human Connection and Voluntary Euthanasia
Can human connection and dignity survive in a profit-driven healthcare system? On this episode of "Love Conquers Alz," we are joined by the talented artist and filmmaker Teace Snyder, who introduces his thought-provoking film "Hold Me." The film explores the emotionally charged and controversial topic of voluntary euthanasia, focusing on a woman whose job is to comfort individuals in their final moments. Teace shares the poignant inspiration behind the film, highlighting the ambiguous professional role of a "holder" and how the film raises essential questions about human connection, grief, and end-of-life care. Our conversation with Snyder sheds light on the delicate balance between personal choice and ethical implications in these profound moments.
Our discussion expands to the broader issues of systemic neglect and the isolating experiences of the elderly and sick in our healthcare system, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw parallels to solitary confinement and critique the pervasive influence of money in healthcare, particularly within the hospice system. Through a candid examination of systemic corruption and the hidden influence of the nursing home lobby, we aim to inspire grassroots movements and honest conversations. Our goal is to foster empathy and prioritize human dignity in a system too often driven by profit. Join us as we navigate these complex topics with hope and a commitment to meaningful change.
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When the world has got you down. Alzheimer's sucks. It's an equal opportunity disease that chips away at everything we hold dear, and to date there's no cure. So until there is, we continue to fight with the most powerful tool in our arsenal Love. This is. Love Conquers Alls A real and really positive podcast that takes a deep dive into everything Alzheimer's the good, the bad and everything in between. And now here are your hosts, suzy Singer-Carter and me, don Preece.
Susie Singer Carter:Hello, I'm Suzy Singer-Carter.
Don Priess:And I'm Don Preece, and this is Love Conquers Alls. Hello, Susan.
Susie Singer Carter:Donald, good morning. Yes, how are you?
Don Priess:Good morning, is it morning? No, I guess it's morning somewhere.
Susie Singer Carter:I don't know, it's always morning. Is this like? I don't know? I feel like we've gotten into a rut of talk show morning show, chit-chat show like morning show, chit chat.
Don Priess:Banter, how's the weather? We really should have mugs. We should have coffee mugs.
Susie Singer Carter:We need coffee mugs.
Don Priess:I don't know, Maybe, a contest. We can have a contest.
Susie Singer Carter:That's what I just said.
Don Priess:Do a game I just said that. You know what we really need is a studio audience.
Susie Singer Carter:What do we need?
Don Priess:We really need a studio audience.
Susie Singer Carter:That would be fun. Then it's no longer a podcast. Well, we do really.
Don Priess:Yeah, the dogs, but their ability to applaud is horrible. It's terrible, it's really bad.
Susie Singer Carter:No, it's actually very depressing. So what's happening? What's new with you? What's new? Tell us something good.
Don Priess:As if you don't know, let me think Nope, nothing, Don't have anything good. No, that's not true. We reached a milestone in the documentary which is we've? Got all of our clips and stuff cleared by the fair use attorneys. That's. That's a celebration. After, is that interesting to everybody? I wonder if it's interesting I don't think so, I don't know but maybe it is.
Susie Singer Carter:I mean, let me just break it down. It's like, basically, when you do a documentary that's an uh, somewhat of an expose you have to have insurance so that you don't get sued. And if you do get sued by some disgruntled thing, organization or or person that doesn't like what you've said, um, you're protected. But in order to get that, you have to go through what's called a fair use attorney, who will scour every frame of your project and make sure that whatever you're using has fair use, or you've licensed it, or that you have releases and that you're not breaking the law in any way. But that is such a tedious job and expensive, I might add.
Don Priess:Yeah, Plus, they have to corroborate everything we say or anything anybody says in our documentary. That needs double corroboration. So yeah, that's a thingboration, you know. So yeah, and the word's hard to say too. The word is hard Corroboration.
Susie Singer Carter:Yeah, yeah you do so that's another thing. But at the end of the day it lets you know that our documentary, when you see it, is the real deal.
Susie Singer Carter:It's been vetted at least twice so rock solid everything is rock solid, as they say yeah, so that's. That is exciting because that lets us get to the next step, which is to finally do all the clips that are in there, get to stay and now we can do our final mixes and and color and and sound mix and then, um, yeah, get this thing out there, as you know.
Don Priess:So, uh, all you distributors out there, come a calling, because we need. I have one other thing I wanted to talk about too.
Susie Singer Carter:So over the weekend we got to visit um, a dear friend of ours who was in our movie my mom and the girl liz Liz Torres, who is an actress that played the caregiver to the character of my mom, who is played by Valerie Harper the amazing Valerie Harper and Liz now I won't say where, but she is in an assisted living and it's so interesting because now the person that was playing a caregiver is now someone who is needing care. But it was so nice to visit her and spend a couple hours with her and she's still like a pistol in a holding court with her bright red lipstick and if you go to my Instagram you'll see pictures of her. So it's so amazing and she's such a powerhouse and, yeah, she's just uh, so she's not on tv, but she's, she's basically has her own show at the assisted living.
Don Priess:So there's basically a camera on her at all times all times. It was so much fun in her mind, and it is a show and I highly recommend it.
Susie Singer Carter:If you, if you I mean if you if you haven't been to you know nursing home or or assisted living, or you have someone that you know that's there's, I I highly recommend having a visit. It is you will walk out feeling so good. First of all, the people that you're going to visit will be so happy. Second of all, everyone will think you're 20 years old. You'll feel really great. Everyone's so grateful that you're there. If you sing, they're going to tell you you sound just like Barbra Streisand. You will feel like a million bucks.
Don Priess:I'm just saying Even I sound like Barbra Streisand. Yeah, even I sound like.
Susie Singer Carter:Barbara Streisand yeah, even Don does. Everyone's so appreciative and you'll feel great just because you've connected with people that really are amazing human beings, that have histories and you have these great conversations. And we happen to go, because a friend of mine is out of town for six weeks and her dad is that the same facility and he's turning not he's 99, he's turning 100 this month and we had like amazing conversations with him.
Don Priess:Right, he was absolutely and and, on top of it, with the two of them, even though they live in the same place. They didn't know each other. Now, now they do, and at the end they're like oh, we are now friends, so now they have that.
Susie Singer Carter:So, boy, we're great, we are good, we like us, we're terrific. He was such a player. He was like at the end, he goes to Liz, I will be seeing you later and he will, and he will. I'm telling you they're going to have a good time. So, anyway, I just highly recommend that. I miss it, because I used to go all the time when my mom was alive and I would go, and you know it really is. It'll make your day. So just do it, just do it. Anyway, we have a good guest today. We'll make your day, so just do it, just do it. Anyway, we have a good guest today.
Don Priess:We have a filmmaker, we have a great guest.
Susie Singer Carter:We have a colleague with us.
Don Priess:We do An exciting one.
Susie Singer Carter:Shall I tell you about him, a colleague with a heart of gold, a colleague with a heart of gold, absolutely, I'll tell you a little bit about him right now.
Don Priess:T Snyder is a writer, director, producer, editor, actor, illustrator, a self-proclaimed anti-establishment aficionado and host of the podcast Conspiracy Synergy, and now he is raising public awareness for his feature film Hold Me, a story of a woman whose job it is to embrace and console people as they are voluntarily euthanized. A fictional tale that's stirring conversation about hospice, palliative care, doctor-assisted dying and especially the gravity and importance of end-of-life care. It's a fascinating and timely topic, and we can't wait to dive in more. So let's say hello to Tease Snyder. Hello Tease.
Don Priess:How do, you do.
Teace Snyder:Thanks for having me on.
Susie Singer Carter:Hello Nice to have you. I mean, it's so funny to say we can't wait to dive in to talk about assisted suicide. If you asked me about that like five years ago, I'd be going yeah, okay, bye, I'm going to free people shopping now. Okay, but there you go.
Don Priess:And now it's a party.
Susie Singer Carter:And now it's part of the zeitgeist, and now you're bringing it even more into the zeitgeist. What motivated you to do a movie like this?
Teace Snyder:So I've been writing for a very long time.
Teace Snyder:I started writing my first novel when I was 10.
Teace Snyder:It's not any good, nor, for that matter, my first four or five of them, but what my work has always centered on in one shape or another, is controversy.
Teace Snyder:And it focuses on controversy because I feel as if the purpose of art in our lives is that it allows us to approach things that are otherwise too painful to bear, and so, when it comes to the greatest controversies that we're saddled with, both as individuals and as a society, what we're very much in need of are storytellers who present that information to us in a lens that is palatable and digestible, so that we can step back from the movie magic side of things and say wait a minute, there's a lot really broken and wrong with our reality.
Teace Snyder:That's really the importance of storytelling, and so it was a film that I originally had the idea for when I was spooning with my girlfriend at the time and I got a vivid flash from an anthropology textbook of people who had been buried in volcanic ash. That was what they had done in their last moment together is that they'd held each other, and I thought of how beautiful an idea that would be to tell the story of someone whose job it was to do that, and so for me, it was not necessarily oriented at that point in my life by first-hand caregiving, but more just a pause in considering what it is that people who do that in their lives go through, and then to create a catalyst of conversation that spoke to it.
Susie Singer Carter:Interesting. It's like it's yeah. Well, that's what I think is. What you need is a basic curiosity as a storyteller, right? So your curiosity to to see how that would play out, that's, you know, it's like pompeii. You see, I guess that's what you're talking about all those families that you would find, of people cuddling and, you know, being frozen in time, as it were, when they were dying, like that. I, we watched your film, watched it last night and found it really fascinating and thought is this real? Are there people that are holders? I mean, are there actual people out there that that's their job description? I am a holder, but I'm guessing that's not the case or, but I'm guessing that's not that's not the case.
Teace Snyder:Well, that would actually be a spectrum. If you got into the the terminology that would be used in New York there's a woman who will have naps next to you, just like a stranger who has naps, to the idea of a person who's willing to be close in your comfort. One of the correspondence that I received in the time when I was emailing people from the film was an individual who had done this in a professional capacity, uh, as a nurse, on multiple occasions. Uh, so insofar as the terminology of someone who holds people that it's grown such a a common uh notion that we now have it as like a resume. For I don't think we're at that point yet, but in in the broader kind of just spectrum of people wanting human connection and then turning to the appropriate avenue to try and afford that to them in very tender and vulnerable moments of their life, maybe it does exist somewhere, but we're not at the point where it's everywhere and that's where we kind of are in the conversation that surrounds Dr Assisted Dying.
Susie Singer Carter:Right, let me just backtrack, just so we make it clear what the movie's about a little bit. Just in a nutshell, give us the logline of what it's about.
Teace Snyder:Sure. So first of all, the film is available online for everyone to watch for free at holdmethemoviecom. So holdmethemoviecom, so holdmethemoviecom.
Teace Snyder:And the film Hold Me is about a woman whose job it is to hold and console people who are being voluntarily euthanized.
Teace Snyder:It's set in a fictional place in the United States, so that I don't get too bogged down by the regional bureaucracies and instead can kind of speak in a way that is evocative of whatever personal unresolved grief an individual has in watching it or whatever just unresolved kind of conversational threads are tied to themselves that they've yet to explore and can explore in watching it. So it's one of those things where the film itself is very much about the mother and daughter relationship as it approaches end of life care and they haven't really been talking to each other and they haven't really been completely honest and present and it's sort of just like going through the the introductory fledgling steps of having more visceral and vulnerable conversations right, I mean I, I I found it interesting that you know, I didn't know where you were going to go with this story, like I knew what it was about, I knew the area and that there was, you know, there was a bit of the.
Susie Singer Carter:There still was a bit of the bureaucracy, you know, sprinkled in in terms of, you know, the kind of covertness of this voc, this vocation, as it were, as opposed to it being there, seemed to be something nefarious attached to this, this, this vocation that this woman was doing and that you know, and I'm wondering what made you, what made you bring that into the story in terms of the funding of her job more or less Seemed to have some nefarious ties, or am I wrong?
Teace Snyder:No. So a lot of the way that I structured the film is using the unconscious assumptions of the viewer and a lot of what they feel sort of not provoked, but that the suggestion of something elicits from them. Anytime that you're watching a film, an active participant in watching that film are your assumptions, and so that applies to everyone. So what I do, knowing that people are going to have their own assumptions about a particular presentation of something, even if there are a multitude of different interpretations for the correct answer, simply by leaving it slightly ambiguous, I can then make it so that it makes for a more lush and engaging conversation. After the fact, my intention as a filmmaker is actually to be targetedly ambiguous, such that I'll allow something to kind of go out there near an idea, but I won't hammer it home. I'll leave it to you to say I got this impression because of this, but I won't hammer it home. I'll leave it to you to say I got this impression because of this, and for whomever is viewing the film, that's not wrong.
Teace Snyder:For yourself, it's gravitating towards the idea that this seems to be a for-profit venture. If it's a for-profit venture that is removing people from end-of-life care, then that's something where there's a nefarious or for-profit motive there. You could also view it in the other side that the reason that they get paid the things that they get paid for providing the service that they do is that it's entirely donation-based. So it's up to the people who are turning to them for that service what they do or do not pay them. So I don't say that one way or the other. In the film I sort of just paint this picture around the characters and then I say, whatever your assumption is, run with it, and then view the film through that lens and then have a conversation about someone else and we'll see where it starts and where it ends.
Don Priess:And I thought that was a strong suit of the film is that it allowed you to. You know, I didn't know, as you the filmmaker, what your opinion was on assisted suicide, if it was a good or a bad thing, because it just was. And I think that was a strong suit because it did allow us to make you know how I'm going to watch it very differently than somebody who you know and I'm still not even sure you know, because I think there's. I think when somebody is suffering and they want to and that's their choice, that's great. There are pitfalls also along the way, you know, like when is it actually their decision? Who's actually making the decision? Is it family and what? What are your, what are? What are you? Tease the person? What are your viewpoints on assisted suicide?
Teace Snyder:Oh yeah. So when it like I, I've had family members who have gone through the process. Uh, depending on where you are uh in the world, it's a wildly different legislative or bureaucratic assembly that is either rushing to your side to offer you things, or it's the cultural expectation that you'll go through that period of time with your family. So it's hugely, hugely different everywhere around the world for every different person, depending on their circumstances. I think that, in so far as my opinion goes, there are certain thresholds that can be reached where there is absolutely no quality of life whatsoever, and you can understand that at a certain threshold, someone would want to go early.
Teace Snyder:I do not think that, given the way in which the medical establishment has been created, that it's something that should be afforded to them. Nor, for that matter, it's something that we should afford the majority of our time when it comes to the conversation, because we should be trying to talk about how we can keep people's quality of life there rather than how we can move them closer and closer to the idea of simply being pushed off of a convenient ledge in a society that no longer wants them around. So it's one of those things where, in an interpersonal capacity. We should have mercy. We should have the ability to recognize when that threshold has been reached.
Teace Snyder:But we should not be leaning towards a medical establishment which is largely a for-profit motive, telling us who or who should not live. That's why the film is set in this ambiguous mold, because when you get into the large bureaucratic conversation, it is every different tier of society, all the way from the poor, impoverished person who needs someone there with them, all the way up to the rich ceo who doesn't care and sees it as nothing but profit margins. And so by telling a story in the ambiguous lens that allows us to then talk about it after the fact, without me as a filmmaker touching on any of that, we as viewers can touch on all of it right, right, no, you, of course you're, you're, you know, treading into our, our territory, with my, with, you know, no country for old people, because that's what happened to my mom.
Susie Singer Carter:She was basically being pushed out the door, they. But you know, and that before she was ready to go, and you know that's a business model, that is is very, um, you know, uh, embraced here, you know, and it's, it's embraced by our, by our corporate and the industry side, but, but the but the public doesn't really know what. So, but just getting back to your film, about, you know, the, your protagonist, the holder, who I, you know it was interesting because she and I know that you know the way that you set it up this is my perception is that she needed, she needed the money, and this was something she could do, although it did have a very, you know, it had a very impactful effect on her emotionally. You know, it was, it was, it wasn't great and it was like and, and maybe that's due to the fact that you know there are there, it is, it is so such a covert thing and not really embraced, you know, and so, and also it's a it's I found I love. I'm trying to articulate this better hold on. Let me bring it back here. She she is choosing to do this, which was very generous of her soul and her generosity. The actress was able to really show her generosity of spirit at those really tender moments like you coined it as the person's dying for her to really embrace them. So they felt held and comforted.
Susie Singer Carter:And yet you saw the toll it took on her, because death is death and we don't really talk about it and we don't really understand it and we don't want it, we don't like it, I don't like it. I was there with my mom, but I don't really understand it and we don't, we don't want it, we don't like it, I don't like it. I was there with my mom, but I don't like it and it is a very. It's a very, you know it.
Susie Singer Carter:Transition is is as beautiful as birth and I think it's very sacred. And I'm glad I was there. I didn't want to be, but I'm glad I was. And so I think that your film, at its very minimum core, in the big broad strokes, it brings attention to this topic that we hate to talk about, and I think that for me the pain was watching her and the residual effect of your protagonist and what it did to her emotionally, um, and I think that that that is why people her very, her very emotional baggage that she was carrying from that is why we don't look at it, because we don't want that, because it hurts, correct?
Teace Snyder:yeah, so really fantastic insights and, uh, insofar as you having the personal experience for contextualizing how you viewed the film and what it is to take on that caregiver role and to be present with people at the end of life, even if you don't like it, you do it and you're glad that you did it, because that is a side of death that we have tried to whitewash from the things that we view in this world. One of the greatest connections you can make with another person is being with them in that transition. It's something that we've removed from ourselves and we don't feel connected to, but it's a huge, visceral, fundamental part of our connection while we're here in this world together. So the industries themselves have created a synthetic kind of womb that we push people into, as if that's the transition into the next realm. But really, if you look at like tibetan or egyptian books of the dead, that preparing for death used to be something which was a much more prevalent part of our lives and that's been removed. So the idea of allowing someone to be present in that and it really does speak to the metaphor that you alluded to in that we don't really talk about it and so her being in that position in that sort of covert medical provider and yet not really providing medicine, more trying to keep people out of the machinations of the medical machine.
Teace Snyder:Well, is that mercy? Well, they don't have to go through the painful process of remaining in that system anymore. So maybe that's mercy and it becomes just this long, complicated stretch of things. But as far as what she's going through, it's just painful because you don't have anyone to talk to about it. And if you're going through something like that and you're going through it alone, that makes it so much worse. So it really is just speaking to the idea that in a Western cultural climate, we don't feel as if we can really speak openly about our grief. It's like oh, that's your grief. No, it's something that's meant to be shared.
Susie Singer Carter:And if we came back to a point where that was something that we could embrace, then maybe we'd start to change that and that kind of world that we want would more and more be there, right, right, yeah, it's very complicated because I think that again I'm going back to your character, hannah, because I think that she really she framed, she was a great representation of all of our fears, you know, and for people that are brave because I'm brave, but I know that, like her feeling of just being, it's just and it's so hard because it is a very solitary experience and it shouldn't be.
Susie Singer Carter:That's the thing, it shouldn't be, because it is a difficult, it's letting go is really difficult, um, and and that, and even though that she was a stranger to these people, right, I think we saw that during COVID, that that was very much illuminated during COVID for people that were living in long-term facilities.
Susie Singer Carter:Many people died without their family members there, which was a tragedy, and so a lot of frontline providers were there trying to be substitutes for family members, holding up telephones and then holding their hands to people that were dying because they couldn't have their loved ones there. And I think you know there's a we talk about the silver linings. That was a silver lining because we really that it was very, very amplified that that that idea of dying alone, and how awful it is to be alone in that, in that transition. No one should if they don't have to, and and what a tragedy that was, what a just an awful tragedy like. It's heartbreaking to think about people being afraid or not having their loved ones there. It just despicable really, but that that is a huge issue, you know, and when you, when you make it clinical and it's anything but clinical, it's like calling a nursing home a facility, because it's anything but a home yeah.
Teace Snyder:so we've created industries that are for profit out of things that are supposed to be deep, tender contours in our hearts, that are supposed to create a way of living. So by not having the way of living that you're describing by de facto, we fall into the system that is isolating people at end-of-life care and, if you think of like from the prison industrial complex, that is solitary confinement being torture. If you think of the medical industrial complex, we are so negligent that we have allocated people to what is torturous. So that's just two different sides of our neglect in a broader societal lens and it requires talking about it.
Susie Singer Carter:A hundred percent. You're taking the words right out of my mouth. I've said the same exact words, that it is as bad as solitary confinement was what they were doing to my mother and I was there every day and I said was what they were doing to my mother and I was there every day and I said you don't do this to someone who you know convicted of murder. I mean, they get better, you know, and even then we know you just said you know, in terms of our criminal industrial complex, that is equally as bad. But I mean, here's these people that are having. They are not criminals, they are. The only crime is getting old or sick and that's their crime. And now they're being tortured for it. And it is torture. What's happening? Like my mom was tortured and I was there.
Susie Singer Carter:And it's interesting, you know, when I make posts and people that don't understand it because they haven't been there, been through a nursing home situation, long-term care, they'll say, well, why don't you take your mom out of there? Well, where are you gonna take her? Our system doesn't pay for home care. I'm not a doctor or a nurse. Now most people their acuity get it gets worse and worse when they're in a nursing home because they're not being cared for. And now you can't really you. You need to. You would need to be in the 1% in order to actually care for somebody with quality care in your home. So you are stuck. There is, you are stuck and you are stuck in this system. That is a lose-lose period.
Teace Snyder:Yeah. So the way that you described that it perfectly encapsulates the situation is that you'd have to be a part of the 1% in order to actually get the care from such an institution or service providers or anything, in order to actually have it measure up to the portrayal that um, mainstream movies and kind of just like the assumptions that we have. Oh well, that service exists to provide that service. No, that service to exist to extinguish our connection with other people so that that service can be more profitable, with the expectation that we then shuffle people into it. It's a back and forth kind of pendulum swing that was created deliberately because people find themselves being trapped by that assumption. That means, come time that it's actually the reality, they're trapped. So it's one of those things where the longer it's a stagnant conversation, the more it becomes an inevitable consequence.
Teace Snyder:That puts future people in that situation, which ties into the conversation about doctor assisted dying, because if you're looking at medical mandates or the degree to which you're receiving reimbursal programs as the determinant of what care is or is not provided, you can look at a film like how to Die in Oregon and one of the things that was presented in that, and this is a documentary, so it talks about euthanasia in Oregon. One of the people who had been diagnosed with cancer was interested in getting treatment for the cancer, but they sent him a not really a brochure, but basically a sales pitch for doctor-assisted dying instead. So that's a really scary situation when we have a propagandized version of reality that is told by the people who prop up these organizations, who then when you're in there it feels like a trap and oh, by the way, you might be offered incentives to off yourself prematurely. That's a nightmare and it's painted like it's some kind of pleasant Wilbur shirt.
Susie Singer Carter:Wow, it's just so depressing. What you're saying just mirrors, you know, our hospice system. Hospice is big business. We talk about that now in our documentary. It is, you know. It's that's why they were pushing my mom into hospice before she was necessary, because they it's it's very cost effective. They get, they get the biggest reimbursements and they do the let and they don't have to do anything because all they have to do is keep them comfortable, which they don't even do.
Don Priess:I mean they keep them comfortable with drugs, with here's some morphine, here's some fentanyl. Now we don't even have to take care of you because you're just lying there, which also takes away that end end of life experience with whoever. If you have family members, you you cannot have that connection anymore because you're just in a drug state in the guise of making them more comfortable. Yes, there's times when people are in pain. You don't want them to be in pain, you don't want them to be in pain. But when it's just chemically tethering them and putting them out, then you cannot have that beautiful end-of-life experience. It's impossible and that's where things are. It is euthanasia, as one of our interviewees in our documentary says. It's slow-motion euthanasia and that needs to change.
Susie Singer Carter:But it's all it's all money-based, but it's all based on it's all follow the money and that's, and, and you know, and I am, and it is. I am a I am not a conspiracy, conspiracy theorist at all.
Susie Singer Carter:I am like pollyanna girl but I'm I am not, and I never have been like I'm the girl that was like, oh, this person's having a bad day or this facility, there's something wrong here or I'm not communicating, right, whatever the case may be. But I I'm also not stupid and I also have done, you know, a tremendous amount of research on this and working with the top people that have been doing this for 50 years. Folks, right, 50 years this, this model, has been in business, and and that's only since it's been talked about it. It's been around forever, you know. But the but the point is, is that it what you're saying, does exist. That is absolutely what drives this industry, you know, and and it is always money, it is always money, and there are good, there are good actors, but they can't do their job and they're hated as bad because everyone's bad.
Don Priess:You know, the good actors have it tough. They hate this more than any, as more than anybody, because they're like wait, wait. All hospice isn't bad, we're not not all bad, but when the majority is, that's a problem.
Teace Snyder:So it's such important points across the board, insofar as differentiating and delineating between the verbiage of conspiracy theorist versus a person who eventually reaches a point of understanding the depth of corruption, that you recognize that it is a for-profit conspiracy and that for-profit conspiracy if you get into like the I believe it was Cambridge study that basically said that the United States is an oligarchy. You can look at the number one medical or the number one reason for financial bankruptcy in the United States is medical debt. If you look at the 2016 third leading cause of death is medical malpractice. You can look at pharmaceutical prescriptions falling as an offshoot of that. If you factor in the astroturf industry which I'm not talking about fake grass there, I'm talking about the industry that exists to keep you from understanding what the reality of these systems are.
Teace Snyder:And when you add up all of these different variables, what it is is something that sources back to the Flexner Report in the early 1900s, and there were two of those that were conducted at the same time, and it was by the Flexner brothers. One of them was to determine the future of education and the other was to determine the future of how we thought of medicine. So that's when you start to shut down medical schools in order to see them fall under the framework of a particular diagnostic of what we think of medicine as that, being the allopathic model. It becomes less holistic, less naturopathic, less homeopathic and, most of all, less human. It becomes more about life over limb, triage care kind of thing. So that's when you understand that Rockefeller medicine men are the oligarchic underpinnings who are also social engineers that see those sorts of systems into existence so that they can have a monopoly over them, so long as they're deeply entwined with insurance, reimbursals, all these other kind of like seemingly separate sides of the medical system, but they're so interwoven that there is no separation. So when it's so interwoven that there is no separation, it becomes less conspiracy theory and more bureaucratic, oligarchic reality of the various different convergence of the systems in which we live.
Teace Snyder:And I've been studying that for like 15 plus years and it's interdisciplinary. And I'll put it this way I spent nine years of dotting my i's and crossing my t's to understand how broken it actually is. For nine years straight, I refuse to accept how corrupt the world actually is. It's like house of cards on netflix. That's nothing compared to the reality of the situation that we're in, and so that's one of those things where we can sit there aghast in the utmost terror that we found ourselves here, or we can be honest and have the conversations that we need to have in order to make the world better, and your documentary and my film are both projects designed to do just that.
Susie Singer Carter:Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that you know we get questioned a lot is like well, is this like a gloom and doom situation with your documentary, you know? Are we going to? Are people just going to want to go and, just like you know, hang themselves afterwards? You know, and I don't think so.
Susie Singer Carter:I think what I, what I hope it does, is that it wakes everybody up and that they go. Like you know, when my manager finally got to see the our first cut, we didn't show anybody and he was like, oh my God, I had no idea what you were putting together. And he said all I can think of is what's going to happen to me. What's going to happen to me, and that's what we hope that everybody goes, what's going to happen to me. Because, you know, we are all my mom in this lifetime. We are all my mom this lifetime. We are all my mom. This is not her story, this is all of our stories and we will all, unless we're the 1%, we'll be either caring for someone like this or being cared for, and you don't want to do either. They're both horrible. I don't recommend it. I don't. I don't recommend it. I don't. I don't recommend it to anybody Not fun, not good, Nothing to learn there, nothing to get. It's awful. But so now that we've deciphered that it sucks, what do we do about it? Tease.
Teace Snyder:So a lot of what's happening right now is a byproduct of the convergence of synthetic environments that we are made to lift in our entire life, growing sicker and sicker as we do so, less and less connected, more lonely and, in essence, just machinations, or, if not, like human extensions of the machine, as in to say, we're supposed to put our life second and our purpose in society first. Pulling a quote out of Rockefeller Medicine Men they defined health as the ability to work. That's their definition of health the ability to work. We need to stop thinking of things like that. First of all, we need to remove ourselves from the immersion in work that then puts who we are as a person second. Immersion in work that then puts who we are as a person second. And then, when you think, who you are as a person, it's not just you, it's also who you're connected to, it's who your friends and family are, it's the longevity, well-being, resilience of your community. So if you're going to step back from work and prioritize you, that means you're also going to need to prioritize the people who are important to you, and very quickly, what comes into view is that this isn't one thing that any of us are charged with doing or one thing that any of us are charged with understanding. It is the consequence of the reality, of the very complicated situations in society that we exist in. It's a transition process, which means that there are going to be more horror stories that we are faced with, that we are encumbered by the emotional weight of. That's not going to go away. If anything, that's going to get worse. I'll tell you right now. Looking at the economic situation and the byproduct of these systems, chances are this is going to get harder before it gets better, but in that we will come together. What that looks like specifically is going to be different for everybody.
Teace Snyder:Whatever your personal skill sets are is something that you have to offer the world. Some people are better at being empathetic, better at being there with someone when they're in a vulnerable moment. Offer that to the world and automatically you've helped change things for the better, the way that they're actually supposed to be. The more in which we rely on the definition of health as work, the more in which we sell our lives to work in those systems, the more in which those systems will gradually break us down until we're not even human beings. We've just been replaced by machines. So it's one of those things where it's a highly nuanced and deeply personal answer to that question. It's something that you'll know the answer to when you're in the situation and then build up to that. Just try and remove yourself a little bit more every day from the machine, because it's not there to help you and when you need help most, it's going to be a person that you turn to right, right, so.
Susie Singer Carter:So let's talk about the macro of it, though. So, you know, in terms of how do we, how do you know there and we're talking about this film as a movement and not just a movie, right? So how, as a you know, do you think that, you know, the collective conscious can be shifted enough to become the collateral, to become the not the collateral, but to become the currency of, of this movement, in terms of can we, you know, can the currency of humanity, of a public, of a collective conscience, be strong enough to counter this industrial complex that we're up against?
Teace Snyder:oh, that's such a great question. So, like, um, the answer is yes, uh, the unfortunate side effect, or the. I'll put it this way you have to be honest about the reality, and this is something that people do not want to do because it's so bad and it's so painful and it's so, uh, inconvenient, and we just oh, I just want to go have fun, I just want to do the, the live, the version of my life that the advertisers told me I was going to live, and it's like you don't get it. That is a delusion that was created to poison the reality.
Teace Snyder:So we're looking at kind of just this stark moment in our trajectory of history of do we have the courage to look at things the way that they are? And that's one of those things where, the more in which you do that with yourself, with others, not in like a rude way or a cruel way, but that's the determinant of whether or not we then are successful in changing things. You have to be honest about the problems if you're going to be realistic about the solutions, and these films are built around. Where we're at right now is people still aren't up to the point of being honest yet. We got to get them there before we can go anywhere.
Susie Singer Carter:Right, right. So let's you know, let's, let's for just for fun, for funsies, right. So let's you know, let's, let's for just for fun, for funsies. Let's say, you know, people come away from watching our films and go, yeah, fuck, yeah, let's do this right, let's do this. I'm down with it. I'm mad. Let's do this. We're going to go out and make signs and we're going to tell you know, governor Newsom, that he's full of shit and he shouldn't be. You know, he's taking money from the most notorious people and we're not, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Do you think that that? Do you think in this, in this environment, that we can do that like a Black Lives Matter, like a Me Too movement, like an LGBTQ? You're shaking.
Teace Snyder:No, no, no, no no, no, the reason is because, if you look at the way in which major protest movements are largely once again astroturf, they're things that are put to the forefront of the dialectic that we all then entertain to keep us at a point of stagnation so that we reinforce the current monopoly that is held in each of these separate regions. To give you an example, 95% of the news media in the United States is owned by the same six corporations. So that gives you a sense of say that you're a legitimate grassroots movement who wants to go out there and make headway against a monopoly that currently exists. Chances are they have a namesake in the media infrastructure so that your message will never get heard and your messengers will be demonized or tarnished as a result of trying to speak out on behalf of the well-being of other people. So, in essence, what we're looking at is a full spectrum dominance kind of problem. Full spectrum dominance is terminology that's used to describe the weaponization of our way of life. Simply, by going out and conducting yourself the same way that you previously have, you fit functionally as a cog within the machine To be different in the way in which you think, act, and then go out and expect other people to engage changes things.
Teace Snyder:So we need to change, we need to orient ourselves in that direction. But here's the catch Someone isn't coming to save us, and in all of the versions or stories that we've been told whether it's a movement that's building from the ground up, or whether it's some hero like in the Senate or something like that there's the idea that there are those people who are there to save you. Instead, it's more of trying to reach a point of health within the community. Now, that's really difficult to do when you're being targeted by for-profit systems that are painting a gaslit version of reality to then inhibit your efficacy in basically investing in the community. So it's one of those things where we need to talk to each other, not necessarily go out there and create a movement that is then amplified by the establishment. We need to come to a base level of understanding between us and only then do things change, because we refuse to listen to the lies anymore, and that's slow and painful and it's different for all of us.
Susie Singer Carter:Oh my God, so depressing, no.
Don Priess:But it comes from information too, meaning that if people don't know, they can't talk among themselves. They need to know. So things like your movie, our movie, that's information, Because Susie didn't know. When she stepped into this pile of crap, she had no idea that this even existed. And so, even if it doesn't create a movement, it can create an awareness that somebody can then say okay, I at least know where I'm at and I can navigate this at least better. Maybe it won't be perfect, but better.
Teace Snyder:So Dawn or go ahead. Susie no.
Susie Singer Carter:I'm just going to say that that doesn't see. That's not good enough for me, because what happens is like, while we may know better and, by the way, the first thing that Rick Moncastle, our partner, who you know is a former US attorney federal prosecutor was, is a former us attorney federal prosecutor who took down purdue pharma and abbott labs for off marketing depakote to nursing home, who went after federally, went after um nursing homes for fraud but never saw any change, like the first thing you know he said when I I had him on my podcast I said what can we do? And he said it has to come to the community. It has to. That's what you're saying exactly. But here's the thing when you've got this, you know industrial complex of of, you know medical system that is just rooted, deeply rooted, like roots to china, like at some point you have to lean on it and that's and, and so my naivete was like no, we have to shame our politicians and say we are your constituents, we're not going to vote for you. We know what you're up to. You took a million dollars from Shlomo every month to keep his so that he could have his franchise in California that didn't even have a license because he had so many wrongful death suits against him and he's flying around in his private jet while you're taking, you know, payoff money. We need like the.
Susie Singer Carter:I just feel like they, people with lofty goals, like our governor Sorry, I need a bodyguard at this point, but you know, the thing is is that he, he needs to be outed. He wants to be president and he needs us. He, he needs to be outed.
Teace Snyder:He wants to be president and he needs us. So do you think I'm naive speak? Oh yeah, no, the the reality. This is about the thing that it took me nine years to come to realize. So what we're actually in is in a slow motion war. That's kind of what this looks like, and it's the gradual um diminishing of the uh, american I'll call it that in essence, speaking to what the founding fathers were fighting on behalf of the idea of life, liberty, freedom, all that kind of stuff, that's something that has been systematically and multi-generationally targeted in order to dissipate the longevity and efficacy of the nation as a whole.
Teace Snyder:So we're in the middle of a war, and this is a war that has been going on for a very, very long time, and it's full spectrum dominance.
Teace Snyder:Once again, that's a terminology that is a war term. It's when your very way of living is then weaponized, and so that's an example of going out there and simply participating in the oligarchy with the expectation that the superficial salesmen that were given politicians, literally anyone that you believe in, be it Democrat, republican, whatever they still exist within the same system. And because they exist within the same system, it is that system which is designed to inhibit them and then obfuscate our ability to engage with them. So as long as that exists in a continuation, we're in a state of perpetual war. Only we won't think of it as war because it's been branded and painted as if there are saviors. It's so much worse than than thinking that we can go to the various different lobbyists or the people who have been paid off by those lobbyists, regardless of partisanship, and think that it's going to change the fact that it's an oligarchy. The problem that we're faced with here is that this is an oligarchy pulling the strings through propaganda of how reality is painted, but reality is very different.
Susie Singer Carter:Got it.
Teace Snyder:So let's dumb it down and say do you not think that we have any power at all to pull the curtain back on Oz and just say this is what's really going on, folks to pull the curtain back on Oz and just say this is what's really going on, folks, yes, you do have the power to do that, but that's not going to change that Oz is always going to be Oz as long as we remove ourselves from firsthand participation on a community level. If we step away from participation and basically hand the keys over to someone else, they're going to come up with some excuse or story to create Oz all over again. So we do have the ability to go out there and create catalysts for conversation that then bring about awareness that then, in time, changes the system that exists around all of us. That is a very real thing that we do all need to be doing Insofar as expecting the system as it is to change the situation that we're in. No, it was a system that was created to put us in this situation.
Susie Singer Carter:Right. So we, you know, and I'm sure you know this we talk. We, you know this comes out in our documentary we, there is a very strong nursing home lobby. They're not dissimilar to the NRA, to the pharmaceutical, and they're extremely strong because they're under the radar. People don't think that there is a nursing home lobby, but there is a nursing home lobby and they're extremely strong because they're under the radar.
Susie Singer Carter:People don't think that there is a nursing home lobby, but there is a nursing home lobby and they're not lobbying for the nursing homes, they're lobbying for the industry and they've embedded themselves in our legislation. They have seats at the table, they are deferred to as experts. They make decisions that are not in our benefit. They are for the industry benefit, the benefit of the industry. So you know we have traditional advocacy. You know you'll have policy. You know I mean I just got off the phone with a big, big organization that's very, very Hollywood forward, and you know they're like yeah, well, you need a call to action and there needs to be policy, and it's like all that stuff, it's nothing is performative, it's all performative.
Teace Snyder:Yeah, you know it's like let's have a meeting and talk about the meeting. Yeah, oh, you're so. You're so far ahead from most people who have those conversations, because most people only know how to receive the sales pitch that the movie that they saw telling them about the sales pitch told them it was going to look like. And if you're in there literally figuring things out like, wait a minute, this is just a meeting to talk about the meeting. There's nothing being done here. This is just trying to pander to our feelings so we can feel as if we've accomplished something being here, correct?
Susie Singer Carter:Done that. Wrote a letter. Wrote a letter.
Teace Snyder:That level of skepticism. You got to get to that point before you can look at the reality of skepticism. You gotta get to that point before you can look at the reality. And the scary thing is when you're in most of the room talking to most of these lobbyists. They don't know anything, they just care about their paycheck, they care about their bonus, their bottom line, and then everything is just whatever comes out of their mouth in order to insulate that. And they try and make it cushy enough to placate the morons who just get what they wanted and then they run out of the room. But but they don't change anything. If we're talking about real change, it's real pain, and real pain is looking at the situation we're in. This is war. It's a slow motion war against the entire technically world, but it's using the bureaucratic machinations as the pretense by which you silence people in a period of time where they're most vulnerable.
Susie Singer Carter:Yeah, yeah, what he said, what he said brutal it's brutal.
Teace Snyder:It's so painful.
Susie Singer Carter:I understand people I, people don't want, and I understand it too. Listen, I, I, I am, I am a hundred. You know this is, I'm a walking empathy, like I am a nerve of empathy. That's me. I feel people's pain, I feel it, I know it, I know I understand the not wanting to deal with it and not wanting to look at it. And it is so overwhelming and so complicated, like you've been looking at this for years. I've only been looking at this for years.
Teace Snyder:I've only been looking at this for two years and I am okay, right and I am gutted I am gutted by it I'll give you a bit of advice coming from a war correspondent, because a big part of what I do in the, the shows that I host and the interviews that I do, uh, cross aboard people who are, in essence, dealing with the upper echelon most trauma that you could possibly engage to a point where they disassociate, they can't handle it. And so this is advice coming from a war correspondent who was previously stationed in palestine years prior, and what she was going through just trying to get someone into an ambulance. And it was one of those things where they were just shooting at the people who were doing their farming just for fun, because it's a way of terrorizing them. No one of them got hit and they get loaded into an ambulance and Ava Bartlett is the woman's name and she was crying in the ambulance and the person who was in there with her kind of looked at her, not in a mean way, but it's like Ava, if you're going to do this for a living, you can't cry about it.
Teace Snyder:It's kind of just like you reach that point of you're going to be in a war zone. You need to be honest about the fact that you're in a war zone. That's why, susie, where you're coming from from that interpersonal side, you didn't know you were going to a literal war, a literal war that relies on your empathy, as if it's some sort of shortcoming or some sort of failing that makes it so that you won't click into the reality. What the reality is is that it's going to be a threshold of horror the likes of which you could never possibly articulate, until you come to understand that this is a slow motion war that has been levied against the entire population, and it's not going to go away, it's going to get worse. So that's one of those things where, once you understand that you're a war correspondent, maybe that verbiage can.
Susie Singer Carter:It's an interesting way to frame that.
Susie Singer Carter:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, you're so right. And I, you know, my whole life as a filmmaker, starting as an actress, and you know, and writing and producing and directing is to protect my heart, because that is my superpower. You know that is my superpower. You know that is my superpower, that's what I, you know, and I feel like you know, if you don't tell stories with heart, then they're just news reports, you know. And so I protect it and I don't want to lose it. I don't want to get hard, I don't want to be nihilistic and just say that's the way it is and let's just throw all caution to the wind, because life sucks and the world is shit. I don't want to believe that. I just don't want to believe. I just feel like we've been through a lot of wars but we can come out the other side and so that, yeah, or go ahead, finish your point there no, I'm oh.
Teace Snyder:I didn't mean to cut you off well, no, it's just because I very much agree with the point that you're making, which is that ultimately so, if you get into the verbiage that conspiracy theorists use and there's kind of like connotations to each of these things in each respective realm from which people will use them, but I'll just use it in the general sense. The idea of red pill being the matrix notion of you wake up to a much darker reality than you thought you were in, as opposed to the blue pill, which is choosing to just stay passive and unaware and not actually realize that things are that bad. Then there's the idea of black pill, which is that you take a pill that's so black that you're never coming back. Everything is doom and gloom and it's just a nightmare. Oh my God, what do we do with that?
Teace Snyder:A lot of people, and this is a sequence of pills. You're supposed to take the red pill to realize that something's not right. You're supposed to take the black pill to realize how bad things actually are, but you don't stop there. Next, you take the gold pill, and the gold pill is that, even though things are that bad, screw that, I'm going to fight back, I'm going to do the right thing, I'm going to stand up and I'm going to be the hero who finds the light in the middle of darkness, because that inspires the courage that everybody needs. So that's an important part of the progression. This isn't a situation that we're just going to bounce out of.
Susie Singer Carter:It's something that we're going to fight for our entire lives so the latter that you just said is that is is that not just a another way of of? Just you know what am I trying to say? Like, like you know, medicating ourselves, for lack of better word, you know, just because we know how bad it is? So it's just another, it's just another way. You can either go oh, it's complete, I'm completely nihilistic, screw life and it's awful. Or I'm going to be the hero, which is sort of you know, I, that's my, that's what I'm doing.
Susie Singer Carter:I'm put on my cape and I'm, you know, I'm standing, I'm putting on my cape, I'm still going to put on my cape and I'm going to, and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to say I'm going to be the megaphone and I'm going to amplify this message and I'm going to do whatever I can. But am I doing that? Is it selfish? Am I just doing it because I can't deal with the fact that it is so awful and that, you know, and am I giving people false hope? Maybe that's what I'm trying to say?
Teace Snyder:So if you do it for the right reasons in the wrong way, you're giving people false hope. If you do it for the right reasons in the right way, you're not. So really, this is about understanding the reality of the situation and then the entrepreneurial creative vestige by which you go about working. Because I like to say, you know, we all know that the term persistence is key. I like to think persistence is key, but tenacity is a lockpick. To think persistence is key but tenacity is a lockpick.
Teace Snyder:So understand morality, adhere to morality. Do not sell out and become one of the people you hate in trying to address the very broken system. That's important, but it is a. This is the thing like people don't get when you really enter into real politics. You're not talking about politicians. You're talking about how do we, as communities, escape these broken systems that are so broken that they're going to kill us and torture our loved ones, and that's one of those things where it's a lifelong journey.
Teace Snyder:This is painful and excruciating for all of us to realize that it can take years, if not decades, to change any of these things, and a lot of times that change only comes when things get so bad that the people who didn't want anything to do with it, find themselves in a position where they have to confront it. And that's the thing that I'm most just torn up about all the time is that if you go out there and you tell someone about this, they don't care, and if you go out there and you show it to them, they don't care. And if you go out there and you show it how it affects their friends and family, they'll come up with an excuse. It's not until it actually applies to them in their last moment, where they genuinely need anything else, that they care, and that's the thing that kills me.
Susie Singer Carter:Yeah, no, it's so true and it's, you know, there's so much justification and we've just really, you know, we've, we've, we've just pound, we've been pounded by ageism and ableism and and made to think that that it is okay. It's okay to say, well, they were 89. They were 89. Come on, oh, so they should be tortured because they're 89? You know, who cares if they were 89? Maybe they liked their life, maybe they wanted to live to 99. Who are you to tell them what to do? Who are we to say when someone needs to die, they're loving their life and and that, and that is your god-given right, and I'm not religious, but that's your god-given right, your human given right to navigate your life. You have one life right and so, um, but, but ageism has given everybody the excuse to look the other way, to say you know, they're old, they're you know.
Susie Singer Carter:It's like there was the movie called Worth I don't, it was with Michael Keaton as well, which he was also in a dope sick, but it was about the 9-11 tragedy and the insurance companies trying to figure out who got what from the insurance company and what the worth of each person was, which, at the end of the day, was like how, what is going on? Like the people you know, the family members. Like what are you talking about? So, wait, that person's worth more than my husband. Like, wait, how is? How are you evaluating it? And that's what we're doing. At the end of the day, is we're evaluating people by their worth to society, their age, their we lost him.
Susie Singer Carter:So we just lost connection with Tease, which sucks because it was such a great conversation. He tried to come back on. We saw him and heard him, but he couldn't see us so he was typing away. So he did leave a very beautiful sign off.
Teace Snyder:Thank you for having me on. It's great chatting with you. It's a tragically broken system and the film that I've made to help encourage a deeper conversation about that is Hold Me, and it's available for free for every one of on holdmethemoviecom. If you want to support it, you can buy a ticket and just throw a few dollars my way. That would be greatly appreciated, but if not, that's okay. The most important thing is to share it and to use it to help expand the conversation that we're unfortunately all in and are going to be staying in. So thank you all very much, so much for listening, for being a part of such an important conversation.
Susie Singer Carter:Anyway, we really enjoyed that conversation. It was really inspiring and very thought-provoking, thought-provoking, that's it. Yeah, it was I mean.
Don Priess:I don't want our listeners. I was going to ask him if he could give us anything, so our listeners didn't hire someone to hold them, as they put a pillow over their heads after listening to this.
Susie Singer Carter:No no, no.
Susie Singer Carter:I think that he was being very honest and I think that it's something that we need to understand. What we're up against and there's no way to sugarcoat it and that doesn't mean that we can't do anything. That's what I was getting to with him is that we do have currency in the community as a community. So I do believe that and I get that he believes that too, and I think that he has been in this arena and just immersed in it for far longer than you and I, and so he has a great his vernacular and his perception of it is solid, it's rock solid. But I don't think he's off. I think he's right. I think there was a lot to be said about what he was saying and I and I I I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd like to have a part two with him and get to and get to the you know, the calls to action. I think that he has a lot up his sleeve and we didn't get to do it, so ha no that's.
Susie Singer Carter:that's going to pull you back to our uh take two anyway. But at the end of the day, we are not nihilists. We do believe in the world and people and love, and that's why we do this podcast, right, don?
Don Priess:Yeah, and that's because love is powerful, love is contagious and love conquers all. We thank everybody for watching and listening today. If you like what you see, like it, share, subscribe, do all those fun things.
Susie Singer Carter:Yes.
Don Priess:Remember, we are still yeah, still trying to raise finishing funds for our documentary no country for old people, and anything that anyone can do or pass that word along would be very, very helpful. Appreciate it, yeah.
Susie Singer Carter:You can go to no country for old peoplecom and there's links there you can watch. You know there's like trailers and sizzles and all kinds of things and in the show notes you will have information to T Snyder's movies and his writing and his contact, his podcast. Everything will be there and we hope to have him back again and continue the conversation. Everything will be there and we hope to have him back again and continue the conversation.
Don Priess:Until then, go visit people at nursing homes and assisted living. You'll love it.
Susie Singer Carter:Okay, bye everybody, you'll feel great. Take care, bye-bye, bye.