Depresh Mode with John Moe

Latest Episodes:

E (from Eels) Talks Art, Persistence in the Face of Tragedy, and Cookie Monster Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

“Me no cry because cookie is finished,” Cookie Monster once said. “Me smile because cookie happened.” Eels has been a band for 35 years and just dropped their 16th studio album, with the Cookie Monster-inspired title Cookie Happened. In that time, Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) has been the only constant, writing and perform songs that can be, at times, deeply moving, sly funny, and just about everything in between. E joins us to talk about the mental health component of his life and of his music. Along those lines, it doesn’t take long to arrive at Electro-Shock Blues, Eels’ 1998 album informed by the death by suicide of his sister, the sudden death of his father some years before, and the terminal cancer diagnosis of his mom. He tells us that while depression has been a constant visitor over the years, the hard times have taught him a kind of determined persistence. E also mentions that despite Cookie Monster inspiring the album title, the cover has a green skeleton dunking a basketball. He offers no explanation, nor did we seek one.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Showbiz! For Murray Hill, it’s an Industry, Memoir, and Mantra Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Audiences know Murray Hill as the hilarious pencil-mustachioed guy who looks like a Catskills comedian. Much of that identity was deliberately formed after an abusive childhood where he was raised as a girl and sure didn’t feel like one. He grew up, broke hard with the past, named himself for the Manhattan neighborhood he landed in, and became a cabaret star. Which is great! But that trauma also meant alcoholism, a mental breakdown, and ultimately effective treatment.

Murray Hill’s new memoir is Showbiz!: My Life as a Middle-Aged Man.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Andy Frasco Is Figuring Out Who He IS When He’s NOT a Good Time Rock & Roll Frontman Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Andy Frasco has been hard at work since the age of 13. As an adolescent that meant booking shows, helping out at record labels, running a flag football business. When he was 19, he took his carefully saved Bar Mitzvah money, bought a van, skipped college, and went on tour with his band. Now 38, he’s basically been on that tour ever since, using big energy and charisma to provide the funk and fun with Andy Frasco & The U.N. for big audiences all over. But the Andy we meet in this interview is at a crossroads. His best friend recently passed, he has a new EP of emotionally vulnerable songs written to his younger self, and he’s taking six months off to try to get a grip on his depression, his grief, and his identity off the concert stage. It’s a wonderful conversation for anyone who has wondered whether that’s really you at work or just a character you’re playing.

hank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Gabrielle Moss On Midlife Plot Twists and Just Not Talking To Your Mom Anymore Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

Midlife doesn’t need to be a point of crisis, says author Gabrielle Moss. You don’t need to make dangerous choices, blow things up, take a spiritual trek through Nepal, or buy a red convertible. Her new book, Mid-Life Plot Twist, co-written with Lindsay Goldwert, explores how to set boundaries, re-evaluate relationships with work and money and love, and get on a better track. Gaby arrived at this wisdom through personal experience and she tells us of a childhood spent in that one scary house on the block, parents who got in screaming fights with waiters, and generally living in both chaos and depression. Healing from an alcohol dependency and an ADHD diagnosis helped Gaby understand both her past and her habits and with the help of therapy she got things turned around. Gaby has mended things with her father, who has undergone his own journey of self-improvement, but she has cut off contact with her mother, whose toxicity still boils.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Mental Illness Before and After Pregnancy with Dr. Kara Zivin, Who Has Been There Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

There has been a great deal of press coverage of the Lindsay Clancy case lately. What the world needs more of is first-hand experiences of severe mental health problems both before and after a baby is born. Dr. Kara Zivin is a researcher and professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan. While pregnant with her son 15 years ago, she experienced a profound depression that turned suicidal. The severity of her illness and the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) she ultimately received to address it has meant that memories around the new baby (now in high school and doing great) are spotty at best. Dr. Zivin’s story, detailed in her book, Persevered: A Memoir of Maternal Mental Health, points at the complexity of trying to identify, treat, and manage a mental health crisis for women in America. She also tells us how she’s been taking in the news about other maternal mental health situations.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Singer Nicole Atkins Doesn’t Recommend Insomnia, Alcoholism, Falling Down Sinkholes Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

The acclaimed singer and songwriter Nicole Atkins is pretty adept at reading clues that something is wrong. After she’d fall asleep on a Saturday and wake up on Monday, she knew it was time to get more aggressive about addressing her insomnia. Years before, a fall down an actual sinkhole made her realize that drinking had become a pretty big problems. On Nicole’s new album Drama, her first in five years and produced by Wilco’s Pat Sansone, she offers many songs that began as mumbled voice memos recorded in the throes of debilitating insomnia, which has since improved with a pretty simple adjustment. She shares that story, tales of growing up in a hard-drinking “party house”, and she calls out one particular hotel in Knoxville that had a dangerous sinkhole and were then total jerks about it. We also get to hear some brand new music from Nicole.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

AI Chatbots Destroyed His Reality. Dr. Jeremy Heffner Explains Why He Believed Them. Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

Dr. Jeremy Heffner was a highly educated, high achieving surgeon. Not the kind of person one would expect to slide down an AI chatbot-generated rabbit hole, lose touch with reality, and give credence to the bot’s suggestion that he was one of the three smartest humans ever. But that’s what happened. The bots also told him there was a 70% chance AI would end the world and only Jeremy could save it. His experience, chronicled in his new book, Proof of the Impossible. Jeremy joins us to talk about the PTSD treatment he had received before this untethering, the long climb back to reality, and why he still uses AI chatbots.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Best of Depresh Mode: Cameron Esposito on Comedy, Rehab, and Bipolar Disorder Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

Cameron Esposito has many titles: hugely successful standup comedian, actor in television and film, writer, podcast host. After a recent rehab stay led to a mental health diagnosis, she has realized that she’s also a person with bipolar disorder, type II. Cameron has a new special, Four Pills, that’s part stand-up comedy and part reflection on the circumstances that led to this discovery as well as thoughts on what life as a treated person for bipolar will mean going forward. Cameron Esposito joins us for a very funny and deeply personal conversation about mental health, medication, comedy, and the road ahead.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Cat Grief is Real. So is Human Grief. We’re Underestimating and Misunderstanding Both. Aug 24, 2026

Show notes

Bay Area journalist s.e. smith thinks the high school goths were right: we should be talking about death all the time. It’s underdiscussed for something that will literally affect us all. And in that silence, they say, things get worse: the topic becomes less approachable, inevitable periods of grief can become more chaotic and disruptive, and the actual pain of losing your person or cat or dog can become harder to process. s.e. went out and talked to dozens of death-related people - death doulas, psychologists, funeral directors - to see what we could do about this topic to find some peace to rest in long before we actually have to rest in peace. They offer some insight, also, into the ways capitalism tries to steal your grief and leave you more messed up as a result.

Then we check in with friend of the show Emily Nagoski, author of hugely acclaimed book about sex Come As You Are. She tells us about her recent bout of agoraphobia and how she did her best to fight it off so she could see a Bigfoot musical.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Oh, It’s Autism, Mary H.K. Choi Learned at 43. Okay, She Thought, That Explains a Lot. Aug 17, 2026

Show notes

Mary H.K. Choi compares living with her brain to just not understanding the operating system on a computer. She didn’t know if this was a result of trauma and neglect in her childhood, the experience of being parentified as a child, grief after the death of her father, or what. So she spent decades of effort and piles of dollars to figure it out. She did cognitive behavioral therapy, internal family systems therapy, “heroic doses of psilocybin under the watchful gaze of a shaman”, and anything else she could try. Finally, under the burnout and fear from covid, her functionality began to fall apart and she looked into the possibility of autism spectrum disorder as a possible culprit. And ding ding ding goes the slot machine, first a self-diagnosis from online resources and then a confirmed clinical diagnosis. Looking back now, she sees some of the clues, including a lack of empathy for others and the act of “performing competency”, that make more sense now. Mary offers insight on the long path to figuring out one’s mind and what she’s doing now that she has some answers.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Depresh Mode with John Moe

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected