Lookner Channel Live Stream About Being Sick

There’s a new live stream video out from Steve Lookner of the Lookner channel on YouTube. It’s entitled “I’m Sick”:

Steve is in Boston, and he says he’s sick. He thought he was getting sick the day before, but now is definitely sick. He says he has a cough, runny nose, pains, digestive problems, exhaustion, and “a little bit of everything”, but will be doing a live stream anyway.

He mentions that he often gets sick when three things happen: 1) he travels, 2) he’s very busy, and 3) when the weather is cold. All three things have happened to him recently.

Because he’s sick, he isn’t visiting his relatives, to avoid getting them sick, too. Somebody in the live chat suggests he try some chicken soup. He talks about some sugar-free Ricola cough drops he got.

Steve is still waiting for live streaming to be enabled for his phone. He also talks about how his mother made some Thanksgiving stuffing a few days early.

In the live chat he’s asked about why he has to watch his weight. He explains that 5 or 6 years earlier he went for an annual checkup, and the doctor looked at his vitals and noticed that Steve had gained 20 lbs in a year for no obvious reason at all. Some tests didn’t find anything wrong, so it looked like his metabolism had slowed down. Steve says he had to change his diet, and couldn’t eat the same things he had been eating. He had to give up caffeine and desserts, and tries to avoid pizza, white bread, white rice, and fried food.

Steve also says he used to like drinking pop for lunch, and thinks he might have been addicted to caffeine. He would get headaches if he didn’t get caffeine. He’s happy that he gave it up, saying he sleeps better, and has fewer highs and lows. He does miss pop, though, along with clam chowder and ice cream.

He talks about how he usually uses hand sanitizer on the plane while flying. He also says he can’t visit his dad who is currently in a care facility, because he doesn’t want to get anyone where sick. When he’s sick he says he needs more sleep, but being sick makes sleep harder. He talks about how he doesn’t like to take certain medications, because they make him feel knocked out and tired.

Steve moves on to talking about how he wanted to do the live stream somewhere else, but YouTube hasn’t enabled live streaming from his phone yet. He says he doesn’t want to do all of his videos in front of a green screen. He wants to go out and film elsewhere. Steve gets on the topic of the t-shirts he wears. He likes solid color Old Navy shirts. For some reason he finds that gray and black colored shirts are not as comfortable to him as navy blue ones are, possibly due to being made out of different fabrics. He says that gray is never as soft as blue, and wishes that the gray and black shirts were more comfortable.

A viewer suggests he do live call-ins. Steve says he can’t, because he doesn’t know who would be calling in, and he can’t stream calls while live streaming. It would be more technically complex, too. He starts coughing, and asks the viewers to vote in the live chat whether or not he should use a cough drop while talking on the live stream. The viewers vote yes, even if there are annoying noises. He says that he never eats on air. He did it once, and it was a disaster. He also says he doesn’t like tea, and tends to drink water.

Steve gives a monetization update. The channel needs 4,000 watch hours before it’s enabled, and earlier it was at 2,600 watch hours. He hopes he will soon be able to apply for monetization. He responds to some viewer comments from the live chat.

He talks about a news story he had covered earlier on Agenda-Free TV, involving a police standof with a veteran in New York. The chat room discussion got very heated at the time. So he’s considering doing news reports on Agenda-Free TV, and then immediately after doing a post-show show on the Lookner channel. He was going to do it, but was too sick. He’s surprised about how much attention that story got, though. Steve says he would do late-night chat streams if he knew viewers would donate. He says he has limited resources, and has to put a focus on things that will help cover his expenses.

A viewer asks in the live chat what Steve would be doing for a living if he wasn’t making content for his Agenda-Free TV and Lookner channels. He says he doesn’t know. Before RSBN, he was in grad school for philosophy, working on getting a PhD. They would pay him to attend, and he’s give teaching help. He wasn’t sure what he would do with a PhD if he got it, and was about a year away from getting it. He says he has two master’s degrees in philosophy, with one of them coming through the PhD program.

Steve is also asked if he would get back into comedy writing. He says he doesn’t know, and might talk about it in another live stream. He used to be a TV show writer, but says that as a writer you don’t always have a lot of control when writing for a show. He likes the freedom of his own channels.

He also talks about taking seven or eight months to write and publish some comedy books when he was in grad school. It was a fun experience to create things, he said. He had wanted to write a book, so he did it. His personal favorite of his own books is “The Fault in Our Pants”, a parody of “The Fault in Our Stars”. He says he liked it because he wrote a parody about a book that he didn’t think would typically be parodied. Another of his own books that he likes is “The Lightning Fart”. He describes it as having the strongest plot underlying it. His friend made the cover for the book, and got him an agent. The agent’s son read the book and liked it, so the agent tried to get a book company to buy it, but none would. Steve says he might do a favorite books stream sometime.

One of the viewers suggests in the live chat that Steve make a “hot toddy”. Another suggests that he eat some pineapple. Steve says that he did buy some earlier, and may have some. He thought about streaming from bed while being sick, but doesn’t have live streaming enabled yet from his phone. He says that he doesn’t usually have time to sit and watch TV, but he did it for the first time in a while while sick. He also says that doing the live stream helps keep him distracted from being sick! Steve asks the viewers about personal steam inhalers, and gets some other suggestions from the viewers about how to inhale steam.

I think that this was an interesting stream. I think it helped the audience to get to know Steve better. And I hope he starts to feel better again soon!

• Karl