If you’re part of the 20 percent of Americans who work out regularly, move along. Nothing to see here. But if you’re in the 80 percent who wish they were healthier but find the road to fitness bumpier than a herd of turtles trying to get off a treadmill, you’re in the right place, because former New Times Arts Editor David Vienna has written a book just for you.
Pretty Sure You’re Fine: The Health and Wellness Guide for Hypochondriacs, Overthinkers, and Worrywarts is filled with practical advice on how to get your rear in gear without getting down on yourself when results are slow in coming. As Vienna writes, “You don’t have to go from lazing on the couch to flipping a tractor tire in the gym parking lot overnight … or at all, really.”
This is Vienna’s fifth book after Calm the F*ck Down, Anyone Can Be President, Drinks for Mundane Tasks, and Are We There Yet? He started as calendar editor for New Times’ sister paper in Santa Maria, the Sun, before coming to New Times, where—he recently reminded me—he used to be my “boss.” After working at The Tribune as a feature writer “for about a minute,” he and his wife headed to Los Angeles with their twin boys, where he’s been pursuing his screenwriting dreams.
While still in SLO Town, he wrote More Than Stars, a feature film that debuted at the SLO International Film Festival as well as the short film The Happy People. He also wrote Watergate and Other Solid Gold Hits, a play produced at the SLO Repertory Theatre. He’s had a popular and successful “daddy blog” called The Daddy Complex about raising his boys, which included Fighting with Babies, his puppet web series featuring fictionalized conversations between a father and sons. He’s also responsible for the horror podcast Barren, which landed in the Top 30 on Apple Podcasts’ Top Fiction and Amazon’s Trending Fiction charts. What else is he up to these days?
“I stepped away from The Daddy Complex for a bit, but I returned to it a year or so ago. So, it’s still going, but it has evolved from a parenting humor site into a free-form microblog where I just post whatever strikes my fancy, parenting-related or not. Heartfelt confession? Sure. Photo of a child stuck in a home aquarium? You bet. Gif of a flag that says “fuck you” flapping in a digital breeze? Posted.
“I put Fighting with Babies to bed years ago when I realized not everyone loves puppet content as much as I do. I still have the puppets, though, and used the orange one to do some random anti-Trump posts during his presidency. That seemed a more appropriate topic for a character that only works when someone’s hand is jammed up its butt.”
How does he describe his books?
“All of my books are ‘humorous nonfiction,’ which is a genre I believe didn’t exist before I started writing. I haven’t checked if that’s actually true, but I’m just going to run with it.
Calm The F*ck Down is based on a post of mine that went viral. It basically pushes parents’ fears about raising their baby to an absurd conclusion, then explains why that’ll never actually happen. I feel it’s appropriate that my first book has the word ‘fuck’ in the title.
“Anyone Can Be President is kind of like an activity book about presidential politics, which teaches you how to run for the job and do the job when you’re elected. It ends with a Choose Your Own Adventure-style ‘presidential scenario.’ By the time it came out, the section on presidential impeachments was grossly out of date.
“Drinks for Mundane Tasks is a send-up of all those books about pairing cocktails with classic literature or yoga poses or hiking trails or blah, blah, blah. But, it’s not all satire—all of the cocktail recipes are real. It was fun to research. … What I remember of it, anyway.
“The idea for Are We There Yet? came from a flowchart I made for my site about kid behavior—getting out of bed at night or something. Writing it was a challenge because I had to write it visually, and my brain doesn’t work that way. It’s my kids’ favorite book of mine.”
What about Pretty Sure You’re Fine? It’s funny as heck, but it’s also full of surprisingly good advice for someone who’s trying to address the physical and mental well-being, and it’s even fact-checked by two experts: Yancy Berry, a personal trainer certified through the American College of Sports Medicine and the Equinox Fitness Training Institute, and an addiction recovery specialist; and Cyndi Sarnoff-Ross, a licensed psychotherapist with three decades of clinical experience and a member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.
“Yeah, Yancy’s got a positive outlook on everything. And Cyndi is delightfully pragmatic. She also fact-checked Calm the F*ck Down. They both offer solutions and ideas that are easy to incorporate into their clients’ lives.”
A lot of Vienna’s work seems mostly about entertaining his readers, but this one seems determined to impart important information and inspire people who really are serious about improving their health.
“With my first couple of books, I was just hoping people found them funny. But, when I saw people talking about how much Calm the F*ck Down actually helped them, I thought maybe I should lean into that. Of course, I had to wait for the right topic to inspire me.
“When I had the idea for Pretty Sure You’re Fine, I realized I could do the same thing I did with that first book but pump up the helpfulness. Not to sound corny, but it could be entertaining and informative. So, that’s what I set out to do. And my editor, Jamie Thompson, was great about making sure I didn’t go so far chasing a good fart joke that I left the facts behind. Ha! I said ‘behind.’
“My hope for readers of Pretty Sure You’re Fine is that they learn that they can trust their instincts most of the time, unless their instinct is to do a bunch of black tar heroin and steal a school bus,” he said. “I hate when people take advantage of others in distress. That’s part of the reason why Calm the F*ck Down is kinda snarky. I saw all of these ‘gurus’ and ‘experts’ trying to make a buck off of new parents, who are legitimately terrified they’ll screw up. The same thing happens with health and wellness. There are countless fads, diets, quick fixes, exercise equipment, celebrity spokespeople—all claiming to be the one thing you need to be the best version of yourself.
“It’s almost all bullshit.
“So, I didn’t just say, ‘Hey, this is bullshit.’ I let people know they might be fine the way they are, but if they want to improve, I explain why that other stuff is bullshit and what readers can do on their own to work on their self-care,” Vienna said. “I also tried to take some of the pressure off of the idea of bettering yourself. It can seem like an insurmountable feat, so I show how readers can make it more, y’know, surmountable.
“And all of it is wrapped in humor, the spoonful of sugar to help it all go down, even if that sugar blows your calorie intake.” Δ
Contact Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 3-13, 2022.