 I can't wait. We're going to test it. Start with the fader low. Bring it up. Welcome to Danger Signals. Full title, Danger Signals on the advantages of a nervous breakdown. Short from the fuller title, Danger Signals on the advantages of a nervous breakdown or a few neurotic symptoms. Short from the fuller title, Danger Signals on the advantages of a nervous breakdown or a few neurotic symptoms on certain men under 40 years of age. We decided to cut that last section in order to not unduly, even accidentally, even unintentionally add to the already disproportionate amount of attention given to men under 40 years of age. Certain men under 40 years of age. And so it became Danger Signals on the advantages of a nervous breakdown or a few neurotic symptoms. And then we decided to cut that middle section on account of it sounding sort of wishy-washy, perhaps, or unscientific. It sounded sort of like something that might be unkindly offered in a scribbled note by a lazy or overworked doctor in lieu of any real diagnosis. Any real diagnosis, leaving you to take the bus home once more, unsolved and without solution. And so it became Danger Signals on the advantages of a nervous breakdown, which we shortened, as you'll notice from your program, folded neatly in your lap so it's no wrestling, thanking you in advance for no wrestling. We decided to shorten it again once more when it came time to pay due attention to the arguably insignificant elements of marketing and demographic and an overstaturated under-interested audience base. Because according to our focus group, which is comprised largely of strangers and volunteers, as it must be said for a full disclosure, our focus group felt that Danger Signals might be, could be, must be sexier. Which is, of course, the grand aim of all things. That's why I'm very matching underwear under this outfit that was selected for me. So that's why when I turn around later to face the blackboard to draw a absolutely scientifically accurate image of the human brain in chalk on chalkboard with two hands, a two-inch stick of box-fresh chalk in each. When I turn around to complete this frankly astounding act, which doesn't take an hours of practice, hours of practice for weeks and months and years. When I turn around to successfully complete this act of scientific entertainment, your eyes will be drawn down, down towards my ass, towards my two tight skirt that was provided in the dressing room this morning. It's sexy. Everything is entertainment. I'll stop talking soon because that's unnecessary. It's distracting, unnecessary and not sexy. Distracting from the story, which is a story about men, about certain men and about the things they do. Welcome to Danger Signals. Walter Freeman Biography by Jack Alhide refers to the notable proponent or father of the American lobotomy as a medical maverick. Now a maverick is an unorthodox or an independent minded person. It's also a baby calf. When Walter Freeman was a baby calf, he grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and answered the name of Walter Freeman II. Walter Freeman I was his father and for all intents and purposes, if not a loser, then certainly not a hero, a GP, a family doctor, someone who dealt with common colds, not grades. Walter Freeman I doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Now Wikipedia would be invented for centuries after Walter Freeman's birth, but it is important to live each day, as though it one day might be recorded and scientifically distilled to a series of zeros and ones for board college students or underprepared theater makers working to deadline. Walter Freeman I, though father, whose name was actually William Williams Keane. William Williams Keane. William Williams was the first American brain surgeon and at various times, and through the employ of six American presidents. Six. Who can even name six presidents? Please don't try this. This is a crack out of space. Walter Williams, William, William's Keane, William's Keane, categorically not a loser, has a Wikipedia page. Walter Freeman II, who we will now refer to as Walter Freeman or maverick or mav, grew up with a keen awareness of what it meant to be a loser and what a man must do to have a Wikipedia page, which is, incidentally, a website created and edited largely by men whose taken largely as fact content is updated and generated by 87% men, which, according to the New York Times, is attributed to women's general unapparent willingness to, quote, open to very difficult and high conflict people, even misogynists. Walter Freeman studied medicine and doctoring and science and sometimes passed as it is one to do when we're learning a real skill. He began to dress like a shillman and wear all sorts of funny hats. He carried a cane, he didn't leave. He started to think about his appearance, he thought about and with the brain, he thought about what it would be to be a man. And so we decided to move to D.C. and join the neurological department of the hospital. He saw what was being done and not being done. He thought about being male and a hero and having a Wikipedia page. He thought about being a man who solves more than the common cold. He wanted to do something. And while he was doing all this thinking, he also learned to draw a scientifically accurate and inhuman brain on chalkboard with two hands and no looking. It was impressive! It was also a little, you know, besides the point and not necessary, but it was attention-grabbing and attention-holding. And that is probably something you should know about a man who wears all kinds of different hats and carries a cane he doesn't need and wanted to leave a real big mark on the world. Do a lack of ambition! Also thinking about the brain. Now we're not going to spend too much time in a gasmonez and a count of them being Portuguese and a Portuguese drug user probably. And this is being an American show about American heroes and American fathers. It's fair to say, to mention in passing, in fact at least, that Mr. Monez, Sr. Monez was, if not the father, probably, then perhaps the grandfather of the modern lobotomy. The William Williams Keen to our own very much loved Walter Freeman. The first man, Mr. Monez, to take a small instrument similar perhaps to an apple core for the bakers in the audience? Or a tiny spoon for the amateurs among us. He would take that small instrument, that tiny spoon, and use that instrument, that sharp tiny spoon to cut and sever and scrape inside the brain. And to cut away and out the bad bits. It's a beautiful instrument, the lucatone. Similar perhaps to an eyelash curler for the ladies in the audience? Mr. Monez did this cute little apple cutting peel to 40 or so patients to start at first, to start with, you know, 40 brains. And he said, yeah, it went alright, okay, alright, nothing to complain about, really. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't it? Nothing to complain about? Truthfully, truthfully, in truth, if truth be told, Sr. Monez was not the sole inventor. The grandfather, not the only grandfather of the modern USA American lobotomy, through the invention of the European leucotomy, which Freeman would later encounter, rebrand, remarket, and sell as his own American made to the target markets of his choice and opportunity. Because he too, Monez too, was influenced by another source. Yes, thank God, American source, Sir John Fulton of Yale University. Oh, to hold for applause, which I will not disobey. Sir John Fulton, who was not, in fact, a sir at all, but it can be for the purposes of this presentation, and also to add greater weight to his ax, which simply amount to the scientific stabbing of a monkey, two monkeys, Becky and Lucy. Give it up for Becky and Lucy. Becky, Becky and Lucy, everybody. If you're expecting actual monkeys, there are no monkeys, there will be no monkeys. This is an academic context where there are rules and boundaries and you are expected to use your own imaginations, use your own goddamn prefrontal reasoning to not need to, not expect to not be handed everything on a plate, every monkey on a plate. There will be no monkeys today, and certainly not these monkeys, Becky and Lucy, who passed some short time following Archduke John Fulton's various experiments in cutting and trimming and inserting foreign objects into organic matter and wiggling, wriggling around, dumb and blind in the dark. Becky and Lucy, who had their skulls drilled clean by an absolute hero of a man in fresh clean scrubs and a smiling face with eyes that I don't like looking right up past the left corner of the photo, Becky and Lucy, who should have been grateful, really, must have been grateful if gratitude and sincere and meaningful gratitude can even be felt by a stupid, lawly female chimp, should be grateful to Lord Mayor Senior John Fulton for rescuing them, for saving them, bringing them out into the light of day, reprieving them from their previous behaviors, their unacceptable behaviors there, which included, once again, to Wikipedia, rolling and shitting on the floor. What the fuck, Becky? What in the actual fuck, Lucy? I mean, really, really, girls, ladies, really. Don't you know that that is the worst, the most unruly, the most unacceptable behavior on the book, rolling and shitting and running around like animals in a cage? That's why we can't refer to you as the grandfathers or godfathers or ancestors of savage, modern medicine, even if it was your sweet brains that were sliced. We can't. I'm sorry, ladies, don't look at me like that because my mind is made because you rolled and shit and probably got cranky at the time of the month and your brains were passive, not active. They were receptive receivers. They were the object to be pierced, but not the object. So then, afterwards, after Senior Dauphin Fulton had the grace, the good grace, the goodwill, the godlike intellect, an aptitude to cut you open with a pizza slice with extra olives. After that, after you had time to recuperate time, to calm down time in the afternoon for your movies and your soaps, didn't you feel much, much, much, much, much, much better? Lucy Pressman, another fucking man who wrote a fucking book, referred to it as a cult of happiness for you, Becky. Lucy, I don't know about you because your narratives were not recorded. You became a secondary female character, a best friend to Becky. An ugly, plain, best friend to Becky, the newly minted member of the... Fuck! Any of...