After spending half of this Check Your Brain episode talking about the DabbleVerse and Stuttering John Melendez, Tony Mazur reads a New York Times opinion piece on why the Epstein files should have never been released. Tony disagrees, believing everything should be released, but it's true that a story like this may be too layered and nuanced for the average person to grasp. If their takeaway is "yeah, but Trump is in the files," they're not a serious person. They're a partisan who roots for one team over another.

For decades, families gathered in their big ol' vehicles and enjoyed a nice night out at a chain restaurant. The purpose of these chains is, no matter where you're located, you'll have generally the same food and experience at a reasonable price. However, by the 2010s, chain restaurants became pariahs, and many have either filed for Chapter 11 or have closed up shop completely. Check Your Brain's Tony Mazur talks about the death of the chain restaurant, how it wasn't just Millennials and their avocado toast that killed them, and how these closures represent an erosion of the Middle Class.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

Each month or so, Tony Mazur and Chad Zumock sit down for a retro show, where they riff on pop culture fixations from years, and even decades, past. Among several other topics, they chatted about video movie rentals and even called the last standing Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. They also discussed comics in 2026, James Harden, and the rise and swift fall of the Two Coreys.

Chad is doing his thing behind a paywall at Patreon.com/WorldWarZ.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

Super Bowl 60 wrapped up, with the Seattle Seahawks downing the New England Patriots 29-13. But no one is talking about the game itself, it’s everything else. Football is entertainment, a diversion, but sometimes these diversions are divisive and driving people away. Check Your Brain’s Tony Mazur recaps the Super Bowl and, like a similar 2023 podcast of his, the waning love of sports.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

Over the weekend, a new batch of Jeffrey Epstein emails were released, after nearly a year of the Trump administration and other ConInc. pundits saying they didn't exist. In these emails, Epstein calls non-Jews the derogatory term "goyim," that very powerful people were in contact with him until his death, and that PizzaGate may have been real. Check Your Brain's Tony Mazur also talks about the heavy influence Israel and its lobby has on our politics and culture, as shown a plenty in these emails.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

Around this time five years ago, Tony Mazur launched the Check Your Brain podcast. In this episode, Tony not only talks about the state of his own podcast, but podcasting in general. Is it even a thing anymore? He also gets a bit personal as to why he began this podcast, the ups and downs the last half decade, and how much longer he wants to keep it going.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

Cody Perez is the lead singer of the band Amerakin Overdose, and he has also dipped his toes in the water of podcasting. He joined Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast to talk about a shared enjoyment of theirs, which is nu metal, the genre of hard rock with some metal and rap styles that was popular around the Y2K days. Cody also talked about how musicians like himself have embraced AI, rather than run away from it.

Check out Amerakin Overdose's new single "Nothing (Without You)", featuring Jonny Santos, formerly of Spineshank.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.

A couple of weeks ago, Check Your Brain podcast host Tony Mazur visited Las Vegas, a town that has numerous people believing to be either dying or dead. In this episode, Tony talks about his experience on the strip, whether it's dead or not, and what a destination city such as Vegas or Atlantic City need to do in these changing, modern times.

Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has all of the above, as well as bonus podcasts per week. Visit Patreon.com/TonyMazur.

Tony is also on Rumble! Go find his video podcasts over there for free.

Cover art for the Check Your Brain podcast is by Eric C. Fischer. If you need terrific graphic design work done, contact Eric at illstr8r@gmail.com.