“If we can erase some of the stigma around [depression and suicide],” says podcast host John Moe, “that person can have at least a better shot at treatment and avoiding this kind of fate.”

Malte Mueller/fStop/Getty Images

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Malte Mueller/fStop/Getty Images

“If we can erase some of the stigma around [depression and suicide],” says podcast host John Moe, “that person can have at least a better shot at treatment and avoiding this kind of fate.”

Malte Mueller/fStop/Getty Images

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Humorist Lightens Depression’s Darkness By Talking (And Laughing) About It: Though John Moe’s podcast, ‘The Hilarious World of Depression’ centers on mental illness, the conversations are funny. Humor “can bust me out” of a dark place, he says, the way platitudes never would.

LA Punk Band X Returns With Go-For-Broke Urgency In ‘Alphabetland’: X’s first album 35 years takes its place alongside the best work they’ve ever done. The music on Alphabetland is the sound of X snatching back its past in order to fuel the music of its future.

A ‘Home Baked’ Childhood: When The Family Business Is Marijuana Brownies: Growing up in San Francisco in the ’70s, Alia Volz’s family ran a booming weed-laced brownie business. “I had this understanding of my family as an outlaw family from the very beginning,” she says

You can listen to the original interviews and review here:

Humorist Lightens Depression’s Darkness By Talking (And Laughing) About It

LA Punk Band X Returns With Go-For-Broke Urgency In ‘Alphabetland’

A ‘Home Baked’ Childhood: When The Family Business Is Marijuana Brownies