The Smoke Break

By: Zane Thomas Zoë Schwartz & Taylor Barrett
  • Summary

  • The Smoke Break, hosted by Zane Thomas, Zoe Schwartz, and Taylor Barrett, is a mental health and comedy podcast recorded in Portland, Oregon. Since 2020, they’ve been having candid conversations with comedians, musicians, performers, and other community members that help to make things like medication, psychosis, trauma, diagnoses, recovery, and loss feel normal. With their personal lived experience, working in the mental health field, and being comedians/creatives themselves, they balance the vulnerability of personal stories with some ridiculous jokes and wild laughter.

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Episodes
  • Episode 127: "Bravery & Procrastination” (ft. Aaron Fairchild)
    Feb 18 2025

    On this week’s episode of “The Smoke Break”, we really got to know artist, musician, and storyteller Aaron Fairchild.

    We started out our time together talking about bravery—how each of us have had to be brave through tough things, where we got our bravery from, and how Aaron approaches it in his beautiful middle-grade graphic novel he’s finishing up, coming out later this year! (Don’t worry, we’ll remind you when it comes out so you can buy all buy it.)

    Next up we finally got around to talking about procrastination… how it’s gotten in our way, but more importantly, how we’ve managed to trick our brains to getting the important things done anyway.

    Lastly, we ended the day talking about the concept of “never being late to the party”—whether that means starting a new career, picking up a new skill, or changing our mind about something—we all get to things when we get to them, and have to offer some grace to the people who took a little longer.

    Episodes drop every Monday @ 6pm on ALL platforms! Thanks for listening.

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    43 mins
  • Episode 126: “Coping & Fixed Mindsets” (ft. Arthur “Lucky” O’Brien)
    Feb 11 2025

    On this week’s episode of “The Smoke Break”, we had the honor of hanging out with Portland clown and all around sweetheart Arthur “Lucky” O’Brien.

    We started by tackling the assumption that using humor to handle tough stuff is an “unhealthy” way of coping, which—get this—it’s not.

    Next up we explored the idea of “fixed mindsets”—how people often view themselves as being inherently good or bad at something, like being funny or not, and how actually….people can change.

    Lastly, we talked about finding your identity through performance and entertainment—how we came to do things we do, and how much of our identity is wrapped up in it, which can be complicated!

    Episodes drop every Monday @ 6pm on ALL platforms! Thanks for listening.

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    45 mins
  • Episode 125: "Self-Preservation & Humanization“ (ft. Ally J Ward)
    Feb 4 2025

    On this week’s episode of “The Smoke Break”, we had the honor of hanging out with the iconic Portland comic Ally J Ward.

    We kicked it off by talking about imposter syndrome, which is apparently basically a universal experience, and what we do to try and counteract it.

    Next up we got into the idea of Self-Preservation as a more realistic version of “self-care” that isn’t co-opted by capitalism, and what each of us are focusing on to make sure that we aren’t burning out in these very tough times.

    Lastly, we talked about Humanization. In a world that likes to dehumanize folks all the time, it was awfully nice to think about how to further humanize the people around us.

    Episodes drop every Monday @ 6pm on ALL platforms! Thanks for listening.

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    45 mins

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