Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm doubly busy Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Nicole, as we open up a Friday
Speaker 2: night edition of Nightside. My name's Dan Ray, and I'm
Speaker 2: here all the way until midnight. It is now November first.
Speaker 2: Halloween is over, ladies and gentlemen. Let's now start thinking
Speaker 2: about turkeys and Thanksgiving and all of that we got.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna be talking about turkeys of Thanksgiving tonight.
Speaker 2: We will get to that at some point later this month.
Speaker 2: But we have an interesting, really good show lined up
Speaker 2: for you tonight, so I hope you'll stick with us.
Speaker 2: We have four interesting guests coming up with at nine o'clock,
Speaker 2: we will have a debate, not a debate, a conversation,
Speaker 2: a discussion, if you will, on two points of view
Speaker 2: on question number four, and that is the question that
Speaker 2: deals with the legalization of psychedelics here in the state
Speaker 2: of Massachusetts, one of the five ballot questions you'll be
Speaker 2: if you are going to be voting on Tuesday, if
Speaker 2: you've voted already, that you will have to consider. I
Speaker 2: have considered it. And then later on tonight we're going
Speaker 2: to talk with one of my I have three favorite polsters,
Speaker 2: Dave Paleologus obviously, Spencer Kimball, David at Suffolk, Spencer Kimball
Speaker 2: at Emerson, and John Zogby. John has been doing this
Speaker 2: for about forty years. We'll see what he thinks. As
Speaker 2: we enter the weekend before the election of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: and then in the twentieth hour tonight, got a special
Speaker 2: treat for I'm going to ask people to call in
Speaker 2: if you are having some anxiety over whether or not
Speaker 2: your candidate is going to win the presidency on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Whether you're a supporter of Vice President Harris, a former
Speaker 2: President Trump, and you are committed to that person, but
Speaker 2: you're not confident they're going to win, you know, call in.
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're gonna do sort of a group session
Speaker 2: here which we're going to try to make everybody get
Speaker 2: the anxiety level down a little bit. We'll deal with that.
Speaker 2: I'll explain that a little bit later on tonight, but
Speaker 2: first we're going to start off, as you know this weekend.
Speaker 2: One of the other things this weekend, besides worrying about
Speaker 2: the presidential election, we have to worry about moving the
Speaker 2: clocks backwards. We get an extra hour of sleep. But
Speaker 2: one of the byproducts of moving the clocks backwards something
Speaker 2: called the seasonal effective disorder. And with us is doctor
Speaker 2: Michelle Deblosi. She's the chief of inpatient Psychiatry Tufts Medical Center.
Speaker 2: Doctor Deblase. Some days I think I need you, I
Speaker 2: have to call you off here. But with everything that's
Speaker 2: going on, I think all of us need some help.
Speaker 2: At this point, let's talk about seasonal effective disorder. This
Speaker 2: is actually something that affects a lot of people and
Speaker 2: affects them dramatically. First of all, welcome to Night's side,
Speaker 2: and please explain to people who have never heard of it,
Speaker 2: and I think most of them audience, have heard of it.
Speaker 2: What exactly do you mean by seasonal effective disorder?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3: This is really a great honor. So in terms of
Speaker 3: seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 2: It's actually doctor, but it's my honor to have you
Speaker 2: trust me. They call you to say, Doc, I need
Speaker 2: some help here. Remember I'm always.
Speaker 3: Happy to help, always happy to help. So seasonal effective
Speaker 3: disorder does affect a fair amount of people. You know,
Speaker 3: I think for most of us, we tend to get
Speaker 3: kind of like the seasonal blues. You know, when it's
Speaker 3: like late fall, early winter, it's kind of less sunlight,
Speaker 3: it's darker outside, it's darker earlier, it's cold out. You know,
Speaker 3: we start to kind of feel like a little bit down,
Speaker 3: maybe like isolating a little bit more. But for some
Speaker 3: people this can be really severe. So and that's what
Speaker 3: we call it seasonal effective disorder, where people actually get
Speaker 3: a true depressive episode, like they're not sleeping while they
Speaker 3: you know, lose interest in things they used to enjoy.
Speaker 3: They feel really down, really sad, and so you know,
Speaker 3: it can be a really tough time of year for
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: So what causes it? Is it the lack of sunlight?
Speaker 2: Is there a chemical reaction or or merely a psychologue
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say merely, but obviously if it's a chemical reaction,
Speaker 2: that's even I think medically more serious than if it's
Speaker 2: a psychological reaction.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I mean I don't think we know exactly what
Speaker 3: causes it, but there are several theories, you know, one
Speaker 3: of which is that with the decrease sunlight this time
Speaker 3: of year, we actually have less access in our brains
Speaker 3: to our feel good foremone which is called serotonin so
Speaker 3: that's one contributing factor. The other thing is, you know,
Speaker 3: with sunlight, we get more vitamin D in our bodies,
Speaker 3: and so with less lunch sunlight, there's less vitamin D
Speaker 3: that's available to us, and that can kind of worsen
Speaker 3: our mood. And then kind of this third theory is
Speaker 3: that with less only our bodies actually are going to
Speaker 3: be producing more melatonin, which is something that some of
Speaker 3: us take us supplement at night to help us sleep,
Speaker 3: but it can make you just feel more like sluggish
Speaker 3: and down. So those are kind of like the leading theories,
Speaker 3: but I do think there's probably also a psychological component.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of people kind of like isolate,
Speaker 3: don't go outside a lot, maybe don't spend as much
Speaker 3: time with people, and so that can kind of worsen
Speaker 3: the symptoms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the symptoms for some people can be really tough.
Speaker 2: Probably the person who I know was impacted by it
Speaker 2: most severely was the former first Lady of Massachusetts, Kitty Ducaccus,
Speaker 2: Governor Michael Decaucus's wife. And I don't know if you're
Speaker 2: a familiar or even if you were living here back
Speaker 2: when Governor Ducaccus was the governor, but after his time
Speaker 2: as governor and as a Democratic presidential candidate in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight, Missus Ducaucus spoke pretty openly about having been
Speaker 2: impacted this way by this, and I actually did a
Speaker 2: piano discussion with her in Worcester with her and with
Speaker 2: Governor Decaucus. So tremendous impact on her and on the
Speaker 2: Dacaccus family. And that's when it was driven home to me,
Speaker 2: this was about twenty twenty five years ago, that this
Speaker 2: is not something that's in someone's head. This is a
Speaker 2: real This has a real impact on different people, and
Speaker 2: on Missus Dacaccus it really adversely impacted and she had
Speaker 2: to fight through it. And Governor Dedcaccus was very supportive
Speaker 2: of his wife and understood early on that this was
Speaker 2: not just a mood swing. This was something that could
Speaker 2: be predicted the with the onset of less daylight. And again,
Speaker 2: the daylight doesn't change, It just swishes on Sunday. As
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know, it's not as if we lose
Speaker 2: it hours of daylight. It just gets rearranged on our schedule,
Speaker 2: and that is what kicks it off. I believe in
Speaker 2: a lot of people if I'm wrong here, and I've
Speaker 2: put out some bad information. Please correct me.
Speaker 3: No, you know, you're absolutely right, and you know there's
Speaker 3: a whole range of severity, and some people do get
Speaker 3: really sick from this and can be really crippling, So
Speaker 3: it's important to be aware of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is something that is there other
Speaker 2: than sort of like just feeling down or feeling blue.
Speaker 2: Is there any way that people can on their own
Speaker 2: figure out Hey, is it the timing of it? Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it sort of certain certain activities that you no
Speaker 2: longer want to put How can people sort of self
Speaker 2: diagnose and realize that maybe they need to talk to
Speaker 2: someone about this, because I think you have to almost
Speaker 2: sense that you got an issue before you pick up
Speaker 2: the phone and get in touch with someone to help
Speaker 2: you out on something like this. What are some of
Speaker 2: the obvious signs that most people would be able to recognize.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think you mentioned a few of
Speaker 3: the symptoms. I think the biggest thing is when you
Speaker 3: start to feel like you just aren't like yourself anymore,
Speaker 3: Like you're you're not wanting to like get out of bed,
Speaker 3: You're not wanting to do things you used to like
Speaker 3: to do, like go out with friends or doing activities
Speaker 3: you kind of lose interest. But the biggest signs of
Speaker 3: a depressive episode are also going to be objective measures.
Speaker 3: So I mean things like changes in your appetite like
Speaker 3: either eating like way too much or just like not
Speaker 3: being interested in eating anymore, or you know, sleeping a
Speaker 3: lot less, like having trouble sleeping or like over sleeping
Speaker 3: you know into mid afternoon. You know, things like that
Speaker 3: are going to be a sign that something might be,
Speaker 3: you know, seriously wrong. And certainly if it gets really
Speaker 3: severe in terms of your mood where you're feeling totally
Speaker 3: hopeless or you're having thoughts about ending your life, like
Speaker 3: you absolutely need to get help immediately.
Speaker 2: Such good advice, Such such good advice. Doctor Michelle de Blassie,
Speaker 2: Chief of Impatient Psychilgy Psychiatry a Tough Medical Center. Is
Speaker 2: there any program or books that you'd like to refer
Speaker 2: people to. I mean, oftentimes people either have written a paper,
Speaker 2: written a book, or there's a program that people can
Speaker 2: reach out to. Sometimes it's the information that you're provided
Speaker 2: that's most important. I just want to give you an
Speaker 2: opportunity if there's any way, any any way you want
Speaker 2: to refer people to to get more information about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a really good you know question.
Speaker 3: I do think in this situation there is a lot
Speaker 3: of information, you know, on the internet, just just basic
Speaker 3: websites can kind of give you sort of the layout
Speaker 3: of what it could be. So I don't have anything specific.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much, but your time tonight was
Speaker 2: really invaluable. And if there are people who in the
Speaker 2: next few days or even now are beginning to feel
Speaker 2: this way, I use the word feeling blue, which covers
Speaker 2: a variety of feelings and conditions, pay attention to it
Speaker 2: and seek some help. Doctor Michelle de Blasi really enjoyed
Speaker 2: the conversation with you. Thank you very much for making
Speaker 2: an understandable even of someone like me. I appreciate it
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you have a great night. Thank you you toube.
Speaker 2: I enjoy the weekend. When we get back, we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about a new cookbook filled with recipes from
Speaker 2: the city's most legendary chefs and restauranteurs, A Taste of
Speaker 2: Boston co written by Jenny Johnson along with Billy Costa.
Speaker 2: You know them from Nessen's Dining Playbook. And also they
Speaker 2: have a show here at WVZ every Saturday Night Food
Speaker 2: for Thought. We'll be talking with Jenny on the other
Speaker 2: side of the news break here on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Back on Nightside. I'm delighted to welcome a very familiar
Speaker 2: name and a very familiar voice, very familiar personality. She's
Speaker 2: an author of Food Personality broadcast, co host of the
Speaker 2: weekend WBZ show called Food for Thought, and also co
Speaker 2: host of Nesson's Dining playbook Jenny Johnson. Jenny, welcome to
Speaker 2: Night's Side. So glad to have you here.
Speaker 3: Dan, It's so nice to be with you.
Speaker 2: You have written a book called A Taste of Boston,
Speaker 2: and I think that you and Billy Costa, who is
Speaker 2: your co author of the book here, are particularly situated,
Speaker 2: well situated. This is the definitive cookbook of the city
Speaker 2: we love. Tell us how you come up with the idea,
Speaker 2: and tell us it's just out. Tell us how people
Speaker 2: can get it. It sounds like a great book for
Speaker 2: holiday gift giving and for bringing to people's homes. If
Speaker 2: you're going to Thanksgiving dinner. This is something people should
Speaker 2: should be aware of. Tell us, tell us how it
Speaker 2: came to be, and tell us what it contains.
Speaker 3: You're right, Dan, So, Billy and I have been working
Speaker 3: together for twenty just this month actually, and in anticipation
Speaker 3: of that, we wanted something to sort of celebrate twenty
Speaker 3: years of promoting hospitality in Boston and really New England.
Speaker 3: And you know, television shows and radio shows that we do,
Speaker 3: we spend a lot of time on them, and then
Speaker 3: they air and then they're over, you know, And I
Speaker 3: think we both had this desire to have something really
Speaker 3: tangible to hold in our hands, to be able to
Speaker 3: promote the industry that we love so much. So we
Speaker 3: launched a Taste of Boston cookbook. It has sixty of
Speaker 3: Boston's chefs, It has sixty recipes, and then it has
Speaker 3: sixty stories. Because you're right, we are kind of uniquely
Speaker 3: situated in a place where these chefs are not just
Speaker 3: people that we have admired from afar. These are not
Speaker 3: just chefs that we have watched build their careers over
Speaker 3: these twenty years. But the majority of these chefs are
Speaker 3: some of our closest friends, and so we have sort
Speaker 3: of the unique opportunity to tell some of those stories
Speaker 3: that you certainly might not know, and gives them a
Speaker 3: little bit more color and tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: more about who they are as humans.
Speaker 2: So I assume the book is readily available, but give
Speaker 2: us a couple of just ideas of who the chefs
Speaker 2: are and how complicated the recipes are. For example, I'm
Speaker 2: going to get out of the vibe. I'm going to
Speaker 2: go find one of these books and get them myself,
Speaker 2: because I'm not a good cook, and I'm hoping that
Speaker 2: some of the recipes are things that I'll be able
Speaker 2: to follow along working on my shift. I'm always looking
Speaker 2: too often, am I having a can of soup at
Speaker 2: five o'clock at beach? Because you're really you know, you
Speaker 2: got four hours you kind of have a big meal.
Speaker 2: But it would be great to be off in a
Speaker 2: book like that that you can put together pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Do you have recipes for the gourmet chefs as well
Speaker 2: as people like me who have a tough time growing Yeah, hamburger.
Speaker 3: I think that's the great part about this book is
Speaker 3: we broke it up into breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert,
Speaker 3: so very simple. All of the you know, different meals
Speaker 3: that we enjoy so well. Some of them not gonna
Speaker 3: lie little bit complicated. You really got to put your
Speaker 3: your chef's hat on for some of them. Most of
Speaker 3: them are very approachable. So what's really interesting is you're
Speaker 3: seeing some of the most well known Boston chefs, everyone
Speaker 3: from Lydia Shire to Ken Oranger to Michael Schlau, you know,
Speaker 3: to Jeremy Seoul. You're seeing Joanne change in here on
Speaker 3: the sortoon, some of our favorite you know, and very
Speaker 3: sort of at this point historic because they're so steeped
Speaker 3: in the culinary world of Boston chef. And then you
Speaker 3: have some newer names Aaron Miller, Jose d'Arte, Michael Lombardi,
Speaker 3: but all chefs that have really honed their craft here
Speaker 3: in Boston, and so they totally range. The other day,
Speaker 3: Billy and I for a dining playbook our television show,
Speaker 3: we made Cottage Cheese Pancakes by Anthony Caterano. He's a
Speaker 3: chef at Presa and has some other chefs in the city,
Speaker 3: and it was really fun and very kind of bizarre.
Speaker 3: You know, you might like cottage cheese, you certainly love pancakes,
Speaker 3: but you haven't thought of putting those two together. It
Speaker 3: was very simple and it was very fun.
Speaker 2: Something that I firstly considered I personally considered chocolate chip
Speaker 2: pancakes a health food. Now I don't know if I'm
Speaker 2: categorizing that correctly, but I could do that one, that's
Speaker 2: for sure. I actually love sometimes some nice I make
Speaker 2: pancakes for my dinner at five o'clock at night.
Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with breakfast for dinner, Dan, nothing at all.
Speaker 2: I know. I just want to I just want to
Speaker 2: make sure that I'm not breaking any rules here. But
Speaker 2: I'm here for the most part by myself during the week,
Speaker 2: and so it's I can do whatever I want.
Speaker 3: Well, well, do you have a sweet tooth?
Speaker 2: Oh? Please? I have thirty two sweat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that's good. Well, I want to tell you
Speaker 3: if there's this one that is so I fight it
Speaker 3: very unique. There are unique flavors, but it's a pistachio
Speaker 3: Terry Misdew And there's something about the flavor of the
Speaker 3: pistachio that took this team sew to a completely different level.
Speaker 3: This was mother and son actually, so Kathy Sidell and
Speaker 3: Ben Sidell, and they have restaurants all over This is
Speaker 3: from actually Salty Girl. They also own Stephanie's in the
Speaker 3: Back Bay, but we made that and it was so
Speaker 3: rich and well, not overly rich, so like perfectly rich
Speaker 3: and creamy, with this tang that you're just not used
Speaker 3: to in terraormists do. And then you know Joann Shang,
Speaker 3: who I mentioned, does kind of the classic Boston quam pie,
Speaker 3: but does it in her own unique way. And so
Speaker 3: it's kind of nice to be able to think, how
Speaker 3: would I be able to make Joean Shang's recipe. She's
Speaker 3: so famous with multiple flowers all over the city and beyond,
Speaker 3: and yet you have that recipe in this book. And
Speaker 3: I one thing I want to say is one of
Speaker 3: the greatest things about this is also how you see
Speaker 3: the overlap between these chefs. Okay, so you think of
Speaker 3: your chef and you think of that restaurant that you love.
Speaker 3: What you might not know is that a lot of
Speaker 3: these chefs are very close friends, and they are all
Speaker 3: friends who support one another. They support the nonprofits that
Speaker 3: they support. They do a lot of philanthropy within our city,
Speaker 3: a lot of supporting our hospitals or education centers and
Speaker 3: our nonprofits in the area. And so you are through
Speaker 3: the story, you're really able to get sort of the
Speaker 3: richness that is so much of the camaraderie that is
Speaker 3: this industry.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that there's a lot of cities that claim,
Speaker 2: you know, New Orleans, they talk about the great New
Speaker 2: Orleans cuisine, and you know Chicago, the great steak places
Speaker 2: in Chicago, and of course New York City. But I
Speaker 2: think Boston's right up there. And I think that you
Speaker 2: and Billy over the years have really made people aware
Speaker 2: of that twenty years on television. Who there's probably no
Speaker 2: other city that has some a couple like you guys
Speaker 2: who have done so much with it for the dining industry,
Speaker 2: and so it's only appropriate. So the book is called
Speaker 2: A Taste of Boston. It's a cookbook filled with recipes
Speaker 2: from cities most legendary chefs and restaurant toys. You got
Speaker 2: a forward written by Mark Wahlberg, as I understand that's correct.
Speaker 5: We do.
Speaker 3: Mark has known Billy for a lot of years, and
Speaker 3: I at one point was an extra in one of
Speaker 3: his movies here, and he's just been a big supporter,
Speaker 3: and we've also been a big supporter of his brother Paul.
Speaker 3: We were close with his mom and what's nice about
Speaker 3: be forward? Did you hear Mark talk about how much
Speaker 3: he loves food? We all love food, and I think
Speaker 3: this is a nice celebration of both the city that
Speaker 3: you love and a lot of different culinary flavors from
Speaker 3: the chefs that you us.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's so great. I'll be looking forward to
Speaker 2: watch the Dining in Essence Dining playbook. Yeah, even more closely.
Speaker 2: I always enjoy the personality that both you and Billy
Speaker 2: have because you make it fun to watch, and you're
Speaker 2: a great guest, and we'll have you back. And how
Speaker 2: can people get this? I'm assuming it's available? Thank you?
Speaker 3: Yes, so it is available on Amazon. You just go
Speaker 3: to a Taste of Boston cookbook on Amazon. It's also
Speaker 3: available on Meet Boston dot com slash Cookbook where you
Speaker 3: can learn a little bit more about it. And it
Speaker 3: is as you said on the top, it's a great
Speaker 3: gift for the hostess event that you're going to this
Speaker 3: holiday season, and a great gift for anyone who loves
Speaker 3: food and who loves Boston.
Speaker 2: Sounds great. Give me I stepped on your line there.
Speaker 2: I know Amazon, you know is easy. What was what's
Speaker 2: the other website you were sending people to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Amazon, of course is probably the easiest. But you
Speaker 3: also can go to meet Boston dot com slash cookbook,
Speaker 3: where we give a little bit more color and flavor
Speaker 3: to everything that's inside the buck.
Speaker 2: Okay, and when you say meet to Boston, you mean
Speaker 2: meet Boston.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 2: All right. I just want to make sure. I want
Speaker 2: to get anybody lost on the internet. That's but sure.
Speaker 2: Jenny enjoyed it so much, Please say I had to
Speaker 2: Billy cost it for me.
Speaker 3: He's a I definitely will Dan, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having on talk soon.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, all right, we come back. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about it more. Well. I think it's a serious topic.
Speaker 2: And that is, believe it or not, beginning Monday night, actually,
Speaker 2: I guess Sunday night. The beginning Monday night, the evening
Speaker 2: commute is going to become a little more dangerous because
Speaker 2: we will lose daylight savings time and it's going to
Speaker 2: get darker. About an hour earlier. You're going to be
Speaker 2: talking with Triple A senior spokesperson, Mark shield Drop, just
Speaker 2: to kind of make you a weird what's going on?
Speaker 2: And I think it's going to be an important conversation,
Speaker 2: right here on night Side WVS Boston ten thirty and
Speaker 2: your AM dial. You can always get the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 2: if you haven't any trouble picking us up. And by
Speaker 2: the way, I had a lovely I hope. A couple
Speaker 2: in Montreal sent me a lovely text today, not a text,
Speaker 2: an email. Suzanne Sizzek up in Montreal. She said that
Speaker 2: her husband and I listened. My husband and I listened
Speaker 2: to your excellent show daily from Montreal. Congratulations on hosting
Speaker 2: a fair, honest and enlightening talk show. No easy feat
Speaker 2: I'm sure so thank you so much, Susanne. I hope
Speaker 2: you're listening, and I certainly will answer your email over
Speaker 2: the weekend. But in the meantime we'll step aside and
Speaker 2: we'll be back. We'll step aside for the news at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the Arron, and we're going to be
Speaker 2: back with another great guest here Nightside on November first.
Speaker 2: November first, think about that. November one, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Four, it's night Side with Dan Ray. Hey, Dan Boston's
Speaker 1: news Radio. Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you
Speaker 1: Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2: Big weekend coming up here. This is the first weekend
Speaker 2: of November. Today being November first, as have reminded you
Speaker 2: a couple of times, and one of the big events
Speaker 2: in the weekend, besides all the football games and things
Speaker 2: like that and outdoor events as we hang on to
Speaker 2: some of this really fine fall New England weather, one
Speaker 2: of the big events of the weekend is going to
Speaker 2: be that theoretical one hour extra sleep that all of
Speaker 2: us will get Saturday night Sunday morning when the clocks
Speaker 2: are rolled back and we leave daylight Savings time and
Speaker 2: we move back into Eastern Standard time. That sounds great,
Speaker 2: but there's a problem, and that is that the evening
Speaker 2: commute is going to become a little more dangerous as
Speaker 2: we all of a sudden go from driving in relative
Speaker 2: daylight to now driving in darkness, particularly in the evening commute.
Speaker 2: With us is Mark shield Drop, senior spokesperson for Triple
Speaker 2: A here in New England, and Mark, I guess there
Speaker 2: are some statistics that back you up on this, that
Speaker 2: this can be a little danger added to the to
Speaker 2: the commute, the evening commute in the next few days
Speaker 2: of early next week at least.
Speaker 4: Welcome back, hey, Dan, and thanks for having me. And
Speaker 4: you're right, the numbers are pretty interesting really as soon
Speaker 4: as we set the clocks back, we see a pretty
Speaker 4: decent increase in the number of crashes in that five
Speaker 4: pm hour. So that's you know, peak commute time, that's
Speaker 4: when people are coming home it's suddenly dark. So we
Speaker 4: saw thirty eight percent increases in crashes in Massachusetts last
Speaker 4: year alone, and when we look at pedestrian crashes, it's
Speaker 4: really troubling. There was one hundred and fifty nine percent
Speaker 4: increase in pedestrian crashes in the five pm hour when
Speaker 4: we compare November to October. So basically, you know the
Speaker 4: time change.
Speaker 2: Okay, so is this a function of that all of
Speaker 2: a sudden we're driving in in the morning and things
Speaker 2: happened dramatically changed. If anything, that's got a little lighter
Speaker 2: depending upon what time you commute into work. But when
Speaker 2: you're coming home you walked into you get in your
Speaker 2: car and you realize, hey, it's a little different than
Speaker 2: it was on it last Friday last week, And is
Speaker 2: that people are not paying attention? Have they not cleaned
Speaker 2: their windshields? What can we do to mediate this situation
Speaker 2: to make it a little safer for everybody drivers and pedestrians.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you're starting to list off a lot of
Speaker 4: the factors that come into play, and I think we're
Speaker 4: in the habit of driving in daylight after the evening commute,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, it's dark. We're not used to it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: The reality is we have way less experience driving at
Speaker 4: night by the time we get to the same are
Speaker 4: because it's been light, you know, most of the day.
Speaker 4: So there's that adjustment period where we kind of realize like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: I need to make sure my lights are on. I
Speaker 4: gotta be a little extra careful, and I'm whipping around
Speaker 4: that corner because I'm not going to see that pedestrian
Speaker 4: right away they're trying to cross the street. So there's
Speaker 4: definitely that the glare is a factor. People are getting
Speaker 4: a little blinded, and from the headlights that are coming
Speaker 4: on your windshield, if it's a little grindy on the inside,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, it's a little bit tougher to see.
Speaker 4: The other factor is, and I'm not a sleep expert,
Speaker 4: but sleep experts do say that after the time change,
Speaker 4: even though we think we're getting an extra hour sleep
Speaker 4: in the morning over the weekend, the reality is circidian
Speaker 4: rhythms can be affected, and we can find ourselves drowsy.
Speaker 4: And we've done some research at Triple A where we
Speaker 4: ask folks, you know, how drowsy do you feel, and
Speaker 4: a lot of them say, I don't feel too drowsy.
Speaker 4: But in these studies that we've done, they're actually moderately
Speaker 4: to severely drowsy. So people don't realize how tired they
Speaker 4: really are. So I think this is the kind of
Speaker 4: thing that just kind of catches up with you when
Speaker 4: you're behind the wheel, it's a cool night, you've got
Speaker 4: the heat on, you're heading home, you've got a long
Speaker 4: day of work, and your eyelets are a little heavy,
Speaker 4: and next thing you know, you're not off for a second.
Speaker 4: So I think that has a lot.
Speaker 3: To do with it.
Speaker 2: So, without drilling down too deeply in the stats that
Speaker 2: you've kept, are we talking about an uptick in minor
Speaker 2: fender benders, which of course is bad, But are we
Speaker 2: talking about something more serious than that? And you know,
Speaker 2: fatal crashes again, I hope it's the latter for the former,
Speaker 2: not the latter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, crashes of all types at five pm
Speaker 4: and many roads in Massachusetts, Look, they're not going to
Speaker 4: be moving too fast because of the traffic. So that
Speaker 4: does kind of reduce the number of fatal crashes that
Speaker 4: we see on the highways. You know, most of the
Speaker 4: really bad fatal crashes on our roadways happened really in
Speaker 4: the overnight, in the very early morning hours, in dinner
Speaker 4: as the fatalities. But we are worried about pedestrians, especially
Speaker 4: pedestrians at that five PM because there's a lot of
Speaker 4: people walking around and that's when people they had that
Speaker 4: evening routine, you know, they walk the dog before they
Speaker 4: come back in and cook dinner. You know, so maybe
Speaker 4: instead of taking that walk at five pm, if you
Speaker 4: have the ability, if you're home already, maybe move it
Speaker 4: to like three point thirty, get it a little bit earlier.
Speaker 4: Change you routine up so you're not out when drivers
Speaker 4: are on the road in that newfound darkness. We think
Speaker 4: that drowsy driving crashes are severely under reported too. So
Speaker 4: last year, just the entire year in Massachusetts, there's a
Speaker 4: total of three and twenty two crashes where police checked
Speaker 4: the box it said drowsiness or a driver falling asleep
Speaker 4: was the cause of the crash. There were nine fatalities
Speaker 4: in those crashes. I think those numbers are way higher.
Speaker 4: You know, when we wake up in the morning and
Speaker 4: you see that story of that single car crash at
Speaker 4: five in the morning, that beard off the roadway and
Speaker 4: police aren't really sure what happened somebody. You know, it
Speaker 4: turns out they weren't impaired on alcohol, but you know,
Speaker 4: that person sadly had passed away, so we can't ask
Speaker 4: what happened. Those are drowsy driving crashes in many cases,
Speaker 4: but we just aren't able to actually record it as
Speaker 4: such because we can't really tell if someone fell asleep.
Speaker 4: So this is a big issue overall. And it happened
Speaker 4: to me. I've started to drift off on the road
Speaker 4: and thankfully my car beated at me blink keep the
Speaker 4: cyst kicked on, and that really kind of rattled me awake.
Speaker 4: But that was a big, stark reminder for me. As
Speaker 4: somebody goes and you know, tries to practice what he preaches,
Speaker 4: it can happen to anyone and it comes up on
Speaker 4: you quickly.
Speaker 2: Well, I can let me tell you, I worked for
Speaker 2: a long time the early morning news and television of
Speaker 2: the Channel four, about eleven years, and you were up
Speaker 2: at three o'clock a quarter three in the morning. You
Speaker 2: might have been coaching, you know, hockey the night the
Speaker 2: night before at nine o'clock at a rink, and instead
Speaker 2: of getting six hours sleep, you got four and a half.
Speaker 2: And that would be the day. Particularly, I knew, like
Speaker 2: in the spring, you'd be driving back from stories and
Speaker 2: it's sunny out and it's you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the warm weather has hit sometime in April, and I
Speaker 2: can remember a couple of days actually realizing, okay, you
Speaker 2: just you just nodded off and now you're yeah, twelve
Speaker 2: thirty one o'clock, and boy, if that doesn't if that
Speaker 2: doesn't shake up. But these these crashes that you're talking about,
Speaker 2: which you are eminently predictable, and these accidents, there are
Speaker 2: people who are listening to us right now who if
Speaker 2: everybody just was a little more careful, particularly the first
Speaker 2: week or so, once you get back, and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it reminds me of Mark when there's a
Speaker 2: first snowstorm and it's like one inch of snow or
Speaker 2: two inches of snow. The whole city gets tied up
Speaker 2: because nobody remembers how to drive in the snow. A
Speaker 2: couple of months later, we'll have a ten inch snowstorm,
Speaker 2: No problem. Everybody's doing perfectly. So just next week, people
Speaker 2: be a little careful and beer in mind what Mark
Speaker 2: had to say. A lot of very sobering statistics that
Speaker 2: you're brought up for us tonight, Mark, and hopefully they'll
Speaker 2: be some people out there who will take it to
Speaker 2: heart and just be a little more careful. Look, take
Speaker 2: another look before you pull out of the because the
Speaker 2: other person might be not paying attention, either when you
Speaker 2: pull out of a parking space or you pull out
Speaker 2: of a parking garage. Make sure there's not some little
Speaker 2: kid floating around on a bike, because you know it's
Speaker 2: all of us have done, have been driving and at
Speaker 2: some moment, oh my god, I wish I had seen
Speaker 2: that earlier. So just to realize that next week is
Speaker 2: going to be a little bit of a danger area,
Speaker 2: get that extra hour of sleep, Enjoy the extra hour
Speaker 2: of sleep, whether it helps you or not. But next week,
Speaker 2: be especially careful. Mark. As always, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us much.
Speaker 4: Dan, appreciate you getting the traffic safety message out for Yeah, he's.
Speaker 2: So borant, because guess what it could be me walking
Speaker 2: across the street and someone Yeah I could This is
Speaker 2: This is self protection for all of us. So thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us, particularly on a Friday night. Hope
Speaker 2: you had a good Halloween. Don't need too much. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: thanks man. All right, when we get back on the
Speaker 2: other side, we're going to talk. Look, politics is we're
Speaker 2: in the midst of the political season here, hopefully it'll
Speaker 2: be over by Tuesday night, Wednesday morning and all of that.
Speaker 2: But we're going to talk with a relationship expert who
Speaker 2: will answer the question is politics a dating deal breaker?
Speaker 2: I suspect that politics has never been a greater dating
Speaker 2: deal breaker than it's been in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: We'll talk with Laurel Houston right after the break here
Speaker 2: on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everybody, and we are we're going
Speaker 2: to mix dating with politics. Could be a bad mix
Speaker 2: with us. It's Laurel Houston. She's a relationship expert, and
Speaker 2: the question is is politics a dating deal breaker? When
Speaker 2: I was dating back in the day, when I was
Speaker 2: a single guy, politics were really not a factor. But
Speaker 2: my sense is they're becoming a much more important factor.
Speaker 2: Laurel Houston, Welcome to Nightside. How are you good?
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for joining us. So my question is, look,
Speaker 2: we all know that the temperature, the political temperature, has risen.
Speaker 2: We're a badly divided nation right now. A lot of
Speaker 2: people on both sides of the equation, are of the spectrum,
Speaker 2: are not tolerant of people who have different viewpoints? And
Speaker 2: has it impacted dating relationships? I'm sure it has tell
Speaker 2: us how.
Speaker 5: Oh very much so. And I think one of my
Speaker 5: favorite things to tell people right at the beginning, whether
Speaker 5: it is your dating partner, your parent, whoever it is,
Speaker 5: when I start this conversation about politics, religion, money, whatever
Speaker 5: it is, will this conversation help build the relationship or
Speaker 5: will this conversation build resentment? Because if you start the
Speaker 5: conversation with that in mind, that tells you more than
Speaker 5: you need to know than what the conversation is actually about.
Speaker 5: Am I trying to build connection? Am I trying to
Speaker 5: find common ground? Or am I trying to persuade and manipulate?
Speaker 5: And course, because when we are in relationships and it
Speaker 5: is not about building relationships, that's when it just builds
Speaker 5: resentment and more often than not. That happens a lot
Speaker 5: when politics come into it, because we're trying to build connections.
Speaker 2: Ideally, you would like to think that people would fall
Speaker 2: in love because they like each other's values and they
Speaker 2: have common interests and all of that, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: if there's some differences in politics, so be it. But
Speaker 2: politics has become such a hot button issue. I'll play
Speaker 2: devil's advocate for a second. Isn't it better just to
Speaker 2: get it out of the way and say, Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm this, You're that it's never going to work. Really
Speaker 2: nice to meet you and move on. Or is it
Speaker 2: better to to build that relationship and hope that when
Speaker 2: all of a sudden there is a presidential election and
Speaker 2: you find out that your new best friend, you're someone
Speaker 2: who might become your life partner, is just diametrically opposed
Speaker 2: to virtually everything you believe in. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: Hobson's choice, isn't it. Oh?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And that's why having these conversations are actually very important.
Speaker 5: But far too often we steer away from these conversations
Speaker 5: because what we're actually asking when we have these conversations
Speaker 5: is whether we agree or disagree. Do you still want
Speaker 5: to be in my life? Do we still want to
Speaker 5: have a relationship once the conversation is over? And so
Speaker 5: I think these conversations are far more important than we think.
Speaker 5: They only come up once every four years, but these
Speaker 5: should be common in ongoing conversations. We need to know
Speaker 5: where you see on, what your values are, and are
Speaker 5: we in alignment with it together?
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me ask you this. You study this.
Speaker 2: I don't, although I study it five nights a week
Speaker 2: here because I'm doing a show that has a lot
Speaker 2: of politics in it, and I get people on each
Speaker 2: extreme who are tough to deal with because they're so
Speaker 2: committed to this set of beliefs and their core values
Speaker 2: that they don't even want to have They just want
Speaker 2: to make a speech on my show. And I tell people,
Speaker 2: let's have a conversation, okay, whether you agree with disagree.
Speaker 2: So here's my question. I don't think again, back in
Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties, even though there were you know,
Speaker 2: divisive political issues and divisive political figures, I don't think
Speaker 2: that the political differences had so interacted with your personal relationships.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was almost it was put to the side.
Speaker 2: What percentage of people do you think at this point
Speaker 2: on either side of the political spectrum just are so,
Speaker 2: you know, intent with their beliefs that they could not
Speaker 2: have a normal personal relationship with someone from the other
Speaker 2: side of the political spectrum. Is there been any studies
Speaker 2: done on this that you know, twenty percent of the
Speaker 2: people have saying, look, I want nothing to do with
Speaker 2: anyone who would disagree with me politically.
Speaker 5: So that's actually interesting. You're actually pretty close as twenty
Speaker 5: four percent. They have them studies on them, and it's
Speaker 5: more than just most of people don't cite that it's
Speaker 5: a political point of view. They say what you said earlier,
Speaker 5: it's a value based point of view, and so it's
Speaker 5: not necessarily whether they are right wing, left ring, republic democrat, whatever.
Speaker 5: It's more of identified this as one of my core values,
Speaker 5: and so if you can't accept this political value, they
Speaker 5: actually take it as a because you won't accept this
Speaker 5: political value, you're also rejecting part of my core value
Speaker 5: and personality. So one of the things that they're finding
Speaker 5: now is that people are taking opinions far more personalized.
Speaker 5: Instead of it being a statement, you have a lot
Speaker 5: of people who take it as a criticism instead of
Speaker 5: a comment. And they take it very that they internalize it,
Speaker 5: and so it is a big thing. And that's why
Speaker 5: with these conversations, they're important conversations that even if and
Speaker 5: no one likes to hear me say this, but even
Speaker 5: if the conversation makes you go, this isn't going to
Speaker 5: work out for the best, that's really important information to have.
Speaker 5: And sometimes these conversations just lead you to another conversation
Speaker 5: that helps you find common ground that you didn't know
Speaker 5: you needed to find. So they're very valuable conversations to
Speaker 5: have as long as they're done respectfully.
Speaker 2: When I think of values, I think if if if
Speaker 2: a couple meets and they talk about values, I think
Speaker 2: it's for me. Values mean, you know, what's your relationship
Speaker 2: with your family, if you if you still have family,
Speaker 2: how important is it for you to be able to
Speaker 2: you know, be in touch with your siblings, with your
Speaker 2: you know, your parents, if you're lucky enough that they're
Speaker 2: still alive. Because some people might say, look, I've really
Speaker 2: had a bad situation, and I mean there's values there.
Speaker 2: How much how much do I want to do to
Speaker 2: help other people? And uh, how how many times a
Speaker 2: year do I want to travel? How much am I
Speaker 2: somebody who wants to save some money, or am I
Speaker 2: somebody who just wants to go paid? You know, those
Speaker 2: are sort of the economic values and the social values.
Speaker 2: But when you get into the political values, I just
Speaker 2: see that as a huge minefield and one step and
Speaker 2: the whole thing blows up. I don't know.
Speaker 5: So, and that's very much it can be. Those conversations
Speaker 5: very much can be if you have These are the
Speaker 5: things that I've noticed when they become explosive, is the
Speaker 5: person you're having a conversation with someone who sees manipulation
Speaker 5: and coercion as part of a regular relationship. So that's
Speaker 5: kind of a I'm not even having this conversation with
Speaker 5: you because it's not a conversation. It's a manipulation, and
Speaker 5: I'm trying to get you on their side. I will
Speaker 5: say this though, a lot of people when they bring
Speaker 5: these up, it's because they really deep down or asking
Speaker 5: will we connect deeper through this or is this something
Speaker 5: that's going to break us? A part A simple My
Speaker 5: husband and I love to travel. He travels one way,
Speaker 5: I travel another way. So we find the common ground.
Speaker 5: We love to travel. We're going to go places we
Speaker 5: want to go together. When you bring politics in it,
Speaker 5: and you bring up economics into it, and you bring
Speaker 5: all of the very divisive parts that make up the
Speaker 5: different political parties, that's when, all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 5: not about traveling, it's not about politics, It's about can
Speaker 5: we still find common ground together?
Speaker 2: You know, Laura, La, I wish I had more time.
Speaker 2: We're coming up on our nine o'clock news. Maybe love
Speaker 2: to have you back and take some phone calls from
Speaker 2: people as well, if that's possible, maybe after the election.
Speaker 2: Is there a book that you could refer people to.
Speaker 2: Have you written a book on this at all? Or
Speaker 2: you have a biology I have not.
Speaker 5: I have not written a book that's published yet. It
Speaker 5: is with my editor right now actually. But a great
Speaker 5: place to find me. I'm on YouTube and all of
Speaker 5: our social is a great place to find where I
Speaker 5: talk more intently on relationships, how to navigate them communication.
Speaker 2: Great. Okay, so it's Laurel like Laurel Wreath l A
Speaker 2: U R E L Houston like the city of Houston.
Speaker 2: But no, oh so it's h U S T O
Speaker 2: N like the like the great movie producer John Houston. Right, yeah, yeah, great,
Speaker 2: thanks Laurel. I'm gonna have my my folks reach back
Speaker 2: and maybe get you to come in. We'll do an
Speaker 2: hour and we'll take some phone calls from people. I think,
Speaker 2: I think would have a great time. I think it
Speaker 2: would be a fun hour. Okay, thanks so much for
Speaker 2: joining us. Okay, Happy election, Happy Election Day. Thanks Laurel.