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The Bad Gigs and the Bad Choices
5 Plays10 months ago
Salman soliloquizes on the ABA and Autism Speaks controversies and other Bad Gigs.
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Transcript
Introduction and Comedy Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
I grew up confused about my culture and identity and felt out of place most of the time until I found comedy, which forced me to be honest with myself and I realized mostly I'm just an expat brat.
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to my show.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm Salman Qureshi.
00:00:15
Speaker
All right, people, this is another glorious week we're looking at.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm...
Insights from a Stand-up Gig
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm currently recovering from a gig last night, as are the laws of stand-up comedy.
00:00:29
Speaker
Eventually, you do a gig where you doubt everything you've ever written.
00:00:34
Speaker
And I had one of those last night.
00:00:37
Speaker
It's been a while, so it was a bit challenging.
00:00:42
Speaker
Because normally I'll find something, but I was just not to make excuses and stuff, but to make a good excuse.
00:00:48
Speaker
I wasn't feeling too well, so I didn't push myself.
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Speaker
And the result was a gig that luckily most people wouldn't remember.
00:00:58
Speaker
I was the comic
Handling Bad Performances
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Speaker
there, and that's the beauty of bad gigs, you know.
00:01:02
Speaker
because if you're not famous they'll forget who did that bad gig and you've got another chance of impressing audiences again with another gig where they're like hey I've never seen you before you're really good yeah that's what you gotta do but just so you know I gotta give you a little glimpse into what it was like last night so I'm gonna take you back there recreate one of the moments and so you can feel what I feel
00:01:32
Speaker
Yo, people, what's up?
00:01:33
Speaker
All right.
00:01:34
Speaker
Like, here's a joke and here's the punchline.
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Speaker
So that was where it went.
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Speaker
Silence.
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Speaker
A lot of silence.
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Speaker
And I had a lot of time for thoughts in my head to go over...
00:01:59
Speaker
great philosophical questions in my life and in my environment.
00:02:03
Speaker
And I guess from that perspective, it was good.
00:02:08
Speaker
I think a little dent in everyone's confidence is probably not the worst thing in the world, right?
00:02:15
Speaker
You don't want people walking around thinking they're gods.
00:02:18
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm very grateful though.
00:02:24
Speaker
I think at some point
Ego and Audience Reactions
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Speaker
in my life, I managed to evolve into someone who isn't heartbroken about bad gigs and truly accept that that's part of the thing that's going to happen.
00:02:40
Speaker
I never blame the audience.
00:02:42
Speaker
It's easy to blame the audience.
00:02:43
Speaker
It's easy to blame things that happened before you in the show, whatever and stuff.
00:02:49
Speaker
I think at the end of the day, I just kind of go, maybe my jokes weren't right for that audience and maybe I didn't do the best I could have done.
00:02:59
Speaker
And if I did, then there's there's some learning I still got to do.
00:03:05
Speaker
And that's I'm not just saying that because like I'm some really nice guy who's dedicated to his art form and and wants to see the good in everything.
00:03:15
Speaker
But I like to think I am.
00:03:16
Speaker
But besides that, I think you got to be practical by stuff, man.
00:03:21
Speaker
Ego is such a big problem for artists.
00:03:24
Speaker
I especially I've always said this in stand up comedy.
00:03:27
Speaker
It's just you can't do it.
00:03:29
Speaker
Like, I don't know how anyone can have a super ego because there's always you one bad gig away, man.
00:03:35
Speaker
Unless maybe you become an A-lister and you got like these arenas where the fans just, you know, they're just there.
00:03:45
Speaker
They're cheering you on regardless.
00:03:47
Speaker
At some point, you'll see your reviews for your special.
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Speaker
And I'm sure
Parenting an Autistic Child
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Speaker
you'll be like, oh, that didn't get great reviews at all.
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Speaker
I don't know.
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Speaker
And how do you know if it was right or wrong or your ego is coming in the way of like considering it awesome or it actually did have problems in your material wasn't that great?
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Speaker
Questions all artists ask themselves or is it just me?
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Speaker
I don't know.
00:04:13
Speaker
All right, more real life stuff.
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Speaker
Okay, I'm just for those of you who've never listened to my episode before, my podcast before, you won't know that my kid is autistic.
00:04:24
Speaker
He was diagnosed when he was two years old.
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Speaker
He's almost six now, just a few months away.
00:04:29
Speaker
And what I found was like when you discover something like that, you go through a tailspin of emotions and everything.
00:04:37
Speaker
And also, the good thing is a lot of people are super helpful with advice and coming forward and stuff.
00:04:43
Speaker
Because, you know, it's a whole new angle you got to look at when parenting, something most people aren't thinking about when they're having their kid.
00:04:53
Speaker
And so...
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Speaker
Like most new parents I came across, something called ABA.
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Speaker
I think it stands for Applied Behavior Something Application maybe.
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Speaker
God, I should know what it means.
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Speaker
And everyone's like, this is the gold standard or seemingly it seems like that.
00:05:12
Speaker
It's the gold standard.
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Speaker
Everybody's got to do it.
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Speaker
It works best.
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Speaker
It really helps autistic kids and stuff.
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Speaker
And so you go along with it.
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Speaker
And it ain't cheap.
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Speaker
Yeah.
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Speaker
So it's a lot of hours.
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It's expensive.
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But you're just like, I got to do this for my child.
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And it's not so much about the money.
00:05:31
Speaker
Spend whatever I have on if it gives him a better life like any other parent would, I think.
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Speaker
But most parents, there are parents out there who
Critiques of Autism Therapies
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Speaker
wouldn't.
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Speaker
we're not judging you where uh... we think you just do you don't need to judge you would you're judged uh... uh... it's not judging if it's real i don't know anyway so i do this and we get on this plan for the a b a stuff and uh... it's been a couple of years we see some things change in our kiddo uh... so that good uh... but then i come across these threads right and people are talking about uh... this thing called autism
00:06:09
Speaker
Society?
00:06:10
Speaker
No, I want to get this name right.
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Speaker
Hang on.
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Speaker
Hang on.
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Speaker
All right.
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Speaker
It's called Autism Speaks.
00:06:15
Speaker
And I had to pause there to really check in if I've got the name right because I didn't want to speak about the wrong organization.
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Speaker
Autism Speaks is quite like it's been around for a while.
00:06:28
Speaker
And again, when you're new, it pops up and you look at it and you kind of go, okay, this looks right.
00:06:33
Speaker
And then so through that, we also got into ABA.
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Speaker
Which is, again, a lot of other people said.
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Speaker
And then you come across, you do a little bit more research.
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Speaker
There were a couple of things about the way the therapy is done that didn't sit well with me.
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Speaker
But I thought maybe this is what he needs.
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Speaker
And I'm like, shit, I could be one of those parents who would have allowed electric shocks back in the day because I thought that's what he needs.
00:07:00
Speaker
And that kind of shook me a bit.
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Speaker
And I went, I got to look at this stuff properly.
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Speaker
And I came across these threads where they were speaking against Autism Speaks.
00:07:10
Speaker
So I commented and I went, what's the problem with there?
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Speaker
And I noticed some people were saying things against ABA.
00:07:18
Speaker
So I commented and then there was a flood of comments and replies.
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Speaker
Very nice comments.
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Speaker
people just like being gentle about it, but really going to town about these two things.
00:07:32
Speaker
So the whole problem with autism speaks is that they're kind of shady in some ways.
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Speaker
That's what it comes across.
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Speaker
Their framing of autism is horrible.
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Speaker
And they kind of, you know, their foundation, when you look at the history, it's a little
00:07:51
Speaker
Like I'm like, oh, shit.
00:07:52
Speaker
Like even currently they're like like 28 board members or something and no one maybe one person is like autistic, but they don't attend the meetings.
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Speaker
So you get the picture.
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Speaker
It's a it's a charity where a lot of the money goes into paying the salaries rather than, you know, actually working at a solution or whatever.
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Speaker
And you just kind of go, all right, you know, like a lot of charities, you got to do a little research and check in what this is.
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Speaker
And it ain't pretty.
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Speaker
So that was one problem.
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Speaker
But then it sent me into a rabbit hole about ABA.
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Speaker
And here's the thing.
00:08:23
Speaker
ABA seemingly can be very good.
00:08:26
Speaker
And I still don't know.
00:08:27
Speaker
I haven't made up my mind yet.
00:08:28
Speaker
I'm trying to figure this out.
00:08:30
Speaker
But I am leaning towards like cutting that bit out and relying on some other things.
00:08:35
Speaker
But ABA, the first shocker was that the person who came up with ABA, they were also responsible for gay conversion therapy.
00:08:47
Speaker
And already I'm like, oh, my God, this has Hitler vibes to it, you know, the founding of it.
00:08:53
Speaker
And I think they did use electric shocks back in the day.
00:08:55
Speaker
So I
Concerns and Alternatives in Therapy
00:08:56
Speaker
was like, oh, my God, like it's basically concentrated so much on behavior.
00:09:04
Speaker
And not the emotional needs of the kid or the person.
00:09:08
Speaker
And that's a problem because it's here's the thing that caught my eye the first time I looked at it and I've done some dog training and I've studied it.
00:09:17
Speaker
And I looked at it and I was like, this is so much like dog training.
00:09:21
Speaker
So a lot of chunks of it is like dog training.
00:09:25
Speaker
And it made me feel a little upset.
00:09:27
Speaker
I'm like, is this how I want my kid like being educated?
00:09:30
Speaker
And then the number of hours, you know, when I sit back, I'm like 40 hours a week is a lot, man.
00:09:35
Speaker
I can't do.
00:09:36
Speaker
That's what they recommend.
00:09:37
Speaker
I don't think we ever made my kid as I do that.
00:09:40
Speaker
But it was like, all right, well, so this thing, the amount of hours is just, it's more than a work week.
00:09:50
Speaker
It's like a work week for adults, for grownups, man.
00:09:54
Speaker
And toddlers don't go through that much.
00:09:55
Speaker
So I started feeling a little queasy about these things.
00:09:59
Speaker
The problem now is ABA has evolved into the people delivering it mean well.
00:10:06
Speaker
And the therapists who do it with Zan, I love them.
00:10:09
Speaker
They care so much for him and they want his well-being.
00:10:13
Speaker
So it comes from a good place.
00:10:15
Speaker
And it really is to the naked eye and to me, to someone who doesn't have any background in this, it comes across.
00:10:23
Speaker
Actually, hang on.
00:10:24
Speaker
I do a lot of training work.
00:10:25
Speaker
So there's some aspects of it that I go, this is...
00:10:28
Speaker
I wouldn't want to train people like this.
00:10:30
Speaker
I had to throw that in.
00:10:32
Speaker
But to most people, right?
00:10:34
Speaker
It's completely new.
00:10:34
Speaker
And the autism world is new to me.
00:10:38
Speaker
I looked at it and I went, okay, who's complaining about it?
00:10:43
Speaker
And this is the part that shocked me, right?
00:10:45
Speaker
It's the people commenting against it strongly.
00:10:49
Speaker
were autistic people.
00:10:51
Speaker
And they were saying, like, it's horrible.
00:10:55
Speaker
It's torture.
00:10:58
Speaker
It's degrading.
00:10:59
Speaker
It's humiliating.
00:11:00
Speaker
It's stressful.
00:11:03
Speaker
And you know what?
00:11:04
Speaker
I want to lean towards believing the victims.
00:11:07
Speaker
And so many of them saying that made, like, it just made me sick to my stomach, you know?
00:11:12
Speaker
Because I was like, if I didn't come across this, would I have ended up
00:11:16
Speaker
mucking about my son so much that he grows up resentful to me and or, you know, just just a shell of himself because it's it's it's a weird thing to do.
00:11:27
Speaker
I don't know.
00:11:28
Speaker
It's it's trying to you know, one way to understand is like you're trying to get this kid who's a square through a circle peg hole and it's just too big.
00:11:40
Speaker
And so you start like shaving the sides and breaking it up.
00:11:45
Speaker
to make it fit into the circle that we know of, you know, that most of us are circles.
00:11:50
Speaker
And that bit hit me hard, man.
00:11:54
Speaker
You know, there's some aspects.
00:11:55
Speaker
And again, as a parent, some aspects of the ABA have really helped us at home.
00:12:01
Speaker
But I just kind of like I'm in this mind of like, does this work?
00:12:07
Speaker
Is it worth my sanity to put my kid through this, you know?
00:12:11
Speaker
And that's no way.
00:12:13
Speaker
The other thing I was saying about it was this, that it was to the naked eye, to someone who doesn't know, you can't tell because it doesn't look harmful in any way.
00:12:22
Speaker
And like I said, therapists are really lovely and they mean well.
00:12:26
Speaker
So you're kind of like, this is just kind of, it's like tough gymnastics or physiotherapy after an injury.
00:12:32
Speaker
You got to do it.
00:12:33
Speaker
And a lot of the autistic people that commented, the neurodivergent folks were like,
00:12:41
Speaker
yeah, but it's like you're trying to fix a disease and I'm okay.
00:12:44
Speaker
I just have a different pattern of thinking.
00:12:47
Speaker
It's not like some of the other issues at hand.
00:12:50
Speaker
And the fact that they're saying all that made me go, whoa, maybe that's what I've been trying to do.
00:12:58
Speaker
And there are repercussions for ABA.
00:13:00
Speaker
One of the biggest dangers that I read up on and a lot of people spoke about as well.
00:13:06
Speaker
So it's coming from a lot of
00:13:09
Speaker
sources and like I said a lot from the victim side and there was this it was uh it was the fact that it it takes away the belief that your own emotions are important because the because the therapist will just make you do the stuff and how you feel and how you do certain things it doesn't matter we just want you to behave in a certain way so kids learn to mask and
00:13:30
Speaker
And more scary was the fact that they learned to go, well, my needs aren't important.
00:13:37
Speaker
Grownups, I'll just listen to this person instead.
00:13:39
Speaker
And that's why a lot of them get abused.
00:13:43
Speaker
That freaked me out completely.
00:13:45
Speaker
And I've seen that in a more grown up child.
00:13:49
Speaker
He's about 13 years.
00:13:50
Speaker
And in fact, his mom just dropped the note saying that, oh, you know, we're going through this phase where he looks to me for approval for everything.
00:13:59
Speaker
And when I read this, that comment came back to my mind.
00:14:02
Speaker
And I was like, wow, that is what we've done.
00:14:05
Speaker
And that's why they get abused, because they just go along.
00:14:08
Speaker
They don't know how to.
00:14:10
Speaker
like speak up for themselves anymore after this.
00:14:13
Speaker
And that's again one of the biggest fears of this therapy.
00:14:17
Speaker
So the only thing, one of the things my wife said that made me think was like, well these people who are commenting and stuff, would they have been able to reach this place without ABA?
00:14:29
Speaker
And by that, for those of you who don't have like any experience with autism,
00:14:34
Speaker
It's like my kid's nonverbal.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so far he speaks a bit.
00:14:41
Speaker
But and I well, it's kind of like he's not completely non nonverbal, but I've seen people who are and there's this whole thing of like.
00:14:51
Speaker
Well, would they be able to learn enough without some level of ABA to help them sit through?
00:14:59
Speaker
For example, again, with my kid, he would never sit at a table to sit and learn and concentrate.
00:15:04
Speaker
And he does so now.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
I don't know.
00:15:10
Speaker
Maybe a little bit of it is needed.
00:15:12
Speaker
But then there are alternatives that people have been talking to me about, like OT.
00:15:17
Speaker
Another parent told me that OT, this is occupational therapy.
00:15:22
Speaker
And that's considered much better.
00:15:26
Speaker
He said, if I could go back, I'd do less ABA and more OT.
00:15:30
Speaker
He didn't mention anything about ABA being bad,
Parenting Reflections and Decisions
00:15:32
Speaker
so I don't know if it was just a general issue.
00:15:35
Speaker
overview from him, like a general, you know, kind of comment, or whether he didn't speak to me about the ABA side.
00:15:42
Speaker
But he said that and, and then obviously speech therapy, so I'd rather spend money and time on those two, and see how that goes.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's very, it's very difficult, because you know, you finally think you're on a path
00:15:56
Speaker
on a path to get the right thing going for your kid.
00:16:01
Speaker
And then, you know, my wife's probably distressed because I'm like, no, I don't know about this anymore.
00:16:06
Speaker
I don't know if we should do this.
00:16:08
Speaker
And she's like, man, we just had a plan going and stuff.
00:16:10
Speaker
And I've kind of disrupted it.
00:16:13
Speaker
But obviously, at a deeper level, she's as concerned as I am about this.
00:16:17
Speaker
And so this is another whole new journey that's going to kick off now because I decided to read stuff online.
00:16:25
Speaker
You know, it's terrible.
00:16:29
Speaker
Man, like parenting is so hard and on top of these things, on top of these things and stuff, it's tricky.
00:16:38
Speaker
That's where I stand.
00:16:38
Speaker
I wanted to share this because if you know any better, then please do reach out to me and talk to me about this because I would...
00:16:47
Speaker
Love to hear from people in person.
00:16:51
Speaker
If you don't, if you didn't know anything about it and you have people around you who do it, be gentle about how you say it, because like I said, even us, we were having a hard time going ABS such a thing.
00:17:03
Speaker
And I saw even on the comments, most of the people defending it were neurotypical parents.
00:17:08
Speaker
And mainly because, you know, they said, yeah, our life is better.
00:17:11
Speaker
It has helped the family and stuff.
00:17:13
Speaker
And I go, I get that point, too.
00:17:15
Speaker
And I hear it.
00:17:16
Speaker
And, you know, you're looking for some kind of way to address something.
00:17:20
Speaker
Some things are difficult.
00:17:21
Speaker
They might have a tantrum and you don't know how to handle it versus like a neuro typical kid.
00:17:29
Speaker
So don't.
00:17:30
Speaker
The worst thing you can do is like go up to them, go and.
00:17:32
Speaker
ABA is horrible.
00:17:32
Speaker
You should never do it.
00:17:33
Speaker
Maybe just get them to start reading some stuff as well.
00:17:36
Speaker
And most parents are concerned enough to go, all right, I should look at some alternatives as well.
00:17:41
Speaker
And it's horrible that this is one of the problems.
00:17:45
Speaker
Everything just becomes mainstream and marketed so well that you just go along with it because you don't.
00:17:51
Speaker
What do you do, man?
00:17:52
Speaker
No one's born knowing this stuff and we have to discover it.
00:17:56
Speaker
And alternatives aren't marketed as well either.
00:17:58
Speaker
That's one of the other things is how much ABA is thrown out there.
00:18:04
Speaker
It's an American-led thing.
00:18:05
Speaker
From what I know, the UK didn't have ABA not too long ago.
00:18:09
Speaker
You had to find a private person.
00:18:11
Speaker
And they didn't have ABA for the longest time, but now it's being introduced.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I wonder if that's a horrible thing creeping in over there as well.
00:18:21
Speaker
UAE is very ABA based as well, unfortunately.
00:18:23
Speaker
Like that's what you hear everywhere.
00:18:25
Speaker
The Dubai Autism Center, which is a great center.
00:18:28
Speaker
It also does rely on ABA therapy, though.
00:18:31
Speaker
So I'm just looking at all these things going, where do you restart and re-begin and re-educate?
00:18:39
Speaker
And yeah, like I said, be gentle.
00:18:41
Speaker
If you know someone, please do start educating them about it.
00:18:44
Speaker
Hey, in a couple of episodes, I might be like, hey, false alarm.
00:18:47
Speaker
It's all good.
00:18:48
Speaker
But I genuinely think it's not going to be one of those things, mainly because
00:18:54
Speaker
Like I said, I'd rather believe the victims and the amount.
00:18:57
Speaker
I haven't had one autistic kid come up in any comments or anywhere online going, you know what, that's what helped me and changed my life.
00:19:06
Speaker
And that's the part that makes me go, yep, I think we got to get rid of this shit.
00:19:14
Speaker
All right,
Closing Remarks and Feedback Request
00:19:16
Speaker
this is a bit of a different episode.
00:19:18
Speaker
I still hope it was fun for you.
00:19:21
Speaker
It was me just, you know, speaking out my mind right now because I, ah, anyway, I hope you enjoyed the episode and I'll see you in the next one.
00:19:30
Speaker
I got to get going.
00:19:32
Speaker
Take care of yourself and I'll catch you in the next episode.
00:19:35
Speaker
Thanks for joining us on another adventure with the expat brat proudly brought to you by capper productions.
00:19:40
Speaker
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00:19:48
Speaker
Don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
00:19:50
Speaker
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