Check Your Brain

The city of Pittsburgh hosted the 2026 NFL Draft, where over 800,000 football fans made the trek to the Three Rivers town. Prior to the draft, Alleghany County bragged about their efforts to clean up the city, but the question Tony Mazur poses in this week's Check Your Brain podcast is, why can't cities be this nice the other 362 days a year? Why can't urban areas remain pleasant on days when a fo...

Gord Magill is a long-time trucker from Canada, and is now a podcaster and author. His new book End of the Road - Inside the War on Truckers is available now. He talked with Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast about the "Competence Crisis" on the roads, the unfettered immigration and how it's affecting the trucking industry, the Freedom Convoy of 2022, and if/when AI and automation will rep...

In this solo episode of the Check Your Brain podcast, Tony Mazur goes through the archives of how pop songs are intended to sound timeless, as they are mainly used to sell products. He also explores why, in the Napster/LimeWire universe, artists may be purposely putting out mediocre crap because they know they will barely see a dime in royalties.   Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets y...

Laura Stack is a mother, activist, and Founder & CEO of Johnny's Ambassadors. Her son, Johnny, committed suicide at just 19 years young after becoming psychotic from high doses of THC. Laura joined Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast to talk about her son, who was not psychotic before the THC, nor did her family have a history of psychosis; in fact, Johnny was an athlete and a 4.0 stude...

After 41 years (and 20 in its current location), Tony Mazur's home comedy club, the Funny Stop, is no more. In this solo episode of the Check Your Brain podcast, Tony looks back at his time there, why it meant so much to him, and why it closing isn't anything like other businesses that have closed up shop.   Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, a...

Ryan Hoppe is a radio personality, originally from Chicago, now living in Tampa, Florida, with a brief stop in Cleveland, Ohio. He made a return appearance on the Check Your Brain podcast with Tony Mazur, this time inside a Tampa shopping mall, to talk about the ever-changing medium that is radio, where both gentlemen began their careers. They talked about the viability of radio in 2026, shared ol...

Zak Ford is a lifelong baseball fan from the Bay Area, specifically the human interest side of the game. That is why he is the author of the book Called Up, which chronicles 109 different players' stories of getting the call up to the big leagues. He has another book coming out in 2026 about the final moments of players' careers. He discussed both books with Check Your Brain's Tony Mazur, as well...

Adam Nutter is a former NYPD officer who later became a comedian and a podcaster. He once again joined Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast to discuss a variety of current events, while giving them some background and perspective. Adam and Tony shared their thoughts on the Iran War and the Zionist propaganda network headed up by Mark Levin, Laura Loomer, and Ben Shapiro. They also touched on...

Six years ago on March 11th, 2020, the New Normal kicked off. The world we knew on, say, March 10th no longer existed. The way the politicians and pundits flood the public with war propaganda (as seen with the recent Iran strikes), the same tactics were used during the Covid years. Instead of a Middle Easterner, the enemy we needed to fight was a spooky, invisible virus.   In this annual episode,...

Here is a bonus episode of the Check Your Brain podcast with Tony Mazur.   Six months ago today, we lost Charlie Kirk to the biggest political assassination in most of our lifetimes. What has improved since then? Have goods and services become more affordable? Has the Trump administration continued their outreach to the young people? Has the American Dream returned to sight? The answer to all is n...

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 "y...

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...

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 thin...

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...

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 he...

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....

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, rat...

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 j...

In this episode of the Check Your Brain podcast, Tony Mazur pays tribute to Scott Adams, who lost his battle with cancer this week at the age of 67. Tony talks about how Adams was a visionary and not just a cartoonist, how he did a mea culpa over the Covid vaccine, and how he managed during his 2023 cancelation.   Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND au...

Ruzvelt Stevanovski is the owner of Harpos Concert Theatre, a historic music hall in Detroit, Michigan. Prior to owning Harpos in 2017, he was the proprietor of Blondies in the 1980s, another venue where Michiganders could see up-and-coming metal acts of the time, and later resurfacing off Fort Street in the 2000s. Ruzvelt sat down with Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast in his Harpos offi...

Each year, Tony Mazur hosts a "year in review" episode of the Check Your Brain podcast called Tony's Top Topics of 2025. It was a year of good news wrapped in bad news, and vice-versa. From deportations and lampooning the DEI industry, to unafforability and political violence, 2025 had it all.   Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND audio, and $10 has al...

In this very special episode of the Check Your Brain podcast, Tony Mazur and Chad Zumock watch a "classic" presentation of Diff'rent Strokes. Yes, it's the one that sticks out, from 1983 starring Gordon Jump of WKRP in Cincinnati fame.   This is only a portion of the episode. The full thing is up on Chad's Rumble.   Be sure to subscribe to Tony's Patreon. $3 gets you just audio, $5 gets video AND...

The football season is nearing its climax, while others are glued to cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies. Either way, one is inundated with commercials featuring a white guy being awkward, stupid, corrupt, or downright evil. From food to sports betting to insurance companies, the white man is the main target virtually every time, and there's no end in sight. Tony Mazur covers many recent examples on...

Lisa De Pasquale is an author and commentator, and a proud member of Generation X. In fact so proud, she wrote a handbook for the generation that now bonds middle age with senior citizens. She joined Tony Mazur's Check Your Brain podcast to talk about not only Gen X, but the differences between the six generations walking the earth (but mainly the core four). They also got into the "Boomer Questio...

Wallace Thompson is a 19-year-old from Maine and the author of a book, The Field Game Field Guide, where he talks about how childhood games such as Tag and Capture the Flag can shape a child's foundation. He joined Tony Mazur on the Check Your Brain podcast to discuss the contents of the book, as well as the struggles and "red pills" his generation faces, including the dating scene, AI, and how to...