good evening from los angeles, i am tavis smiley, tonight a person look at chronic fatig fatigue syndrome. then musician and activist chuck dee and tom morello discussing their new cds. we are glad you are joining us, all of that is coming up in jaus moment. ♪

♪ and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ♪ thank you. ♪ jennifer brea was about to marry the love of her life when she was struck by a disease that let her bedridden. the film opened in select cities this week. i want to welcome jennifer and her husband, my long time friend. first a clip from the documentary "unrest."

>> that's my husband, omar, i met him when i was 25. >> we were both at what vahavar getting our phds and three months later, i knew i wanted to marry him. i mean sure, we all know nothing lasts fort worth. i just thought i would have more time. and then one day i got a fever of 100.47 degrees. i got better but something was not right. >> jennifer, take me back to that day and tell me more what happened. >> we had been traveling together and i came zbak had a high fever and i thought it was

the flu. i expected that i would get better. when my fever broke, i was so dizzy and when i tried to stand up, i would walk in the door frames. i got better of the whole first year and i would get inspection after inspection and every time i went to the doctor, he will run his pass and he said it was normal. it was only when i became completely bedridden that i started to refer to a specialist. i was diagnosed of conversion disorder of a modern day term of hysteria. they told me it was all in my head. >> when they're telling me it was all in your head and feeling all over your body. how did you juxtapose of how you

are feeling based on what they're saying. >> it was hurtful. i have to go and gather evidence and try it out for myself and so i walked home from my neurologist's office that day and noticing the pain in my legs and feeling how hard it is to walk and i kept on thinking maybe this is not real. the symptoms are real but they have no cause. i walked home and by the time i got home, i collapsed and i was in bed for four months. >> how do you respond? i am talking to you, i am saying there is no biological connection to it. how do you respond to people who look at you, those doctors saying, generjennifer, it is al your head and it is mind over

matter. >> i think that's something i want to believe and so i'm siting on this chair and my legs are up. i have a condition called pause. >> easy for you to say. >> you have to practice. >> pause is my heart have a hard time pumping the blood from my brain. for me, a lot of evidence and there is dreams of science showing abnormalities and brain imaging and mitochondrial. it takes a long time for scientific evidence to be translated to clinical process. doctors are given these tools and they have a test that they have and it is very hard when a patient comes in with a set of symptoms that a doctor has not been trained, you know, how to recognize and when they're in medical schools and when tests

came back normal, they have to understand the gap of what they are seeing and what the patients are telling them. that's something hard for physicians to do. so you are not bedridden today, you are out of the house and looking gorgeous, you are sitting on the couch with your husband. something is working, give me some sense of the journey you have been onto at least get to this point and on a scale of one through ten, well, you say you are in terms of your strengths and capability? >> i think i am about a four which maybe misleading. the magic of makeup. also, i have recovered a lot of my cognitive pucfunction. if i were to walk more than 50 or 100 feet, i would collapse from the floor. it is misleading. i can do a lot of the work that i love again because i have regained some of that brain functions but i still have not

settled deficits so i have not read a book in six years. i used to be a reader so i would not be able to go back and do the kind of research that i am doing. i am on the path of film making and visual story telling. i think what i would say is that and this is sort of a mission that i am on is there is so much that science does not get understand and we know a small fraction of what there is to know and we don't know the cause and led alone how to treat them. we have to listen more to what patients tell us. >> they say omar, love conner a conner -- love conquers all things. i know people have been married and something traumatic happens and the marriage does not survive it. you could have said it, i love you sweetie but this is not what

i signed up for, i do not want to spend the rest of my life and since we just got into this and enduring how long it takes. talk to me about this notion that we hear and in practice of your life of love conquers all things. >> part of what makes us work is we are lucky to have each other. i feel faand see her fading befe my eyes and it is scary. we are going to be able to figure it out. we were people who kind of had the adventure spirit and this is going to be a new challenge for us and we are going to figure it out and it is been really hard but we bit by bit have made progress and have been able to steal each other so if my

optimism is weighing a little, she's able to back me up and vice versa. i would not say love conquers all but it has been a bedrock that has carried us through tough times and strengthens our bond. we are closer together now than we were when it started. >> how do you lose yourself to someone and never lose your own way. how do you -- we have known each other for three years and you are there supporting my dreams and we were partner in a number of things. i have always known you as an entrepreneur and you got your phds and of course, that's when you met. how did you look after her and not lost your own way. >> that's hard, being a care giver is really demanding at the level of her sickness.

i suddenly having this mom soupr power. i have to have medicines ready and all right, that takes work and being a professor is really demanding, too. >> i was pushed to my limit but i also, it is like my heart is bigger for this experience and there are moments where i don't know, i am listening to experiences of people coming back from who are soldiers and their wives talking about carrying for them, i have this deep empathy for that experience. i am grateful to have a bigger heart, it is not the journey that we imagine for ourselves but it is one that enriched us and for which and as hard as it is been, there is a lot to be grateful. >> i suspect and i could be wrong and you can tell me jen, i suspect there are times you feel

sorry for yourself but help me understand how you handle perhaps feeling sorry for omar that you got him into this mess that he has to look after you and babysit you and feed you and medicate you and in your own head, i know -- i am rambling here because i want to be gentle. >> i do, neither of us signed for this. a lot of the grieve is for him because i love him sooc much. the worst feeling in the world is feeling the person that you hurt most. i know this is something that happens to happened to us that we did not choose. my own is jeopardizing his dreams and as well as my own. before we got married, i first

felt ill, i knew something was seriously long before we got married, we were engaged and i said many times to him that you adopt ha don't have to do this. when you asked me to married you, we were signing a vision of our life, you know, traveling the world and having fun and being free and having a family and all that. you don't have to sign up to do this. he said to me, you know, are you kidding? i waited my whole life basically and we really have waited our whole lives for each other. there is this sense of, you know, i am getting better and it is really slow but i improved year over year through treatments and drugs that helped and it is slow but regardless, he's kind of learned that what matters is what you have together and even though our lives are smaller in some ways, there are much pressure and meaningful and not to say that i don't want to get better

tomorrow but i wish this but i feel that there is been surprising, you know things that have come out of it and both in the chance that makes us be on this mission bringing to life. and are not well enough to show in person. >> let me ask this question, i will let you go first, jennifer. is having a family out of the question given what's happening here number one. and number two, is this it? if it never gets better, if this is it? can you take it to check out or can you be happy for the rest of your life if this is it? >> it is a question and we'll find a way to have a family some way. people do. people with disableabletiilitie

chronic conditions have families. we'll find a way. i know omar is going to be a great dad and i cannot wait to be a mom. it is all it is. it is incredible. everyday i wake up and i get to be with him and i could not ask for anything more in my life. truly. >> i knew when i married -- >> before i heard her speak, i read a column she had written and was like sparked by the voice that i saw in this article. i knew from early on this person who i was smitten with was creative and bringing things into the world. i thought i was marrying a writer and it is like this, it is all this inspiring film. it was not what i signed up for in the sense that i had no idea how that would play out but what a gift to be apart of something that is both for us like, you

know, a constant source of joy each day and also in the kind of individual projects like the films, something that's doing work in the world and helping people feeling sane and who have otherwise felt invisible. so it is a sense of mission about the work and our lives together which is deeply -- >> we should all be so lucky. >> the film is called "unrest." jennifer and omar's story, ongoing, congratulations on the project. >> thank you. up next, musician chuck dee and tom morello. stay with us. chuck dee and tom morello. they joined forces with "public

enemy" and be real and form a task force. they call themselves profits of rage. they are out with their debut album before our conversation, first take a look at a clip from their latest single, "hail to the chief." ♪ we all hail to the chief who came by the name of a thief ♪ we all hail to the thief ♪ ♪ >> i guess this did not surprise me when i read this online some where. this is the video that you two had an issue with? >> yeah, one of which, we had four videos.

if you are making art that somebody cannot complain about, you are not making interesting art. >> what cracks me up is that you can turn to youtube -- i can make a bomb or something or the worst things in the world. >> what rational do they give for not -- >> we don't want people woke. >> especially united states of citizens. >> is that what it is? >> a lot of complaints of right wing and leverage them. our fans fight back and all the videos are on and you can see them all unedited. what is the role of the citizen artists today in this moment? >> i think the role of a citizen artist is differ in a way. these are dangerous times and

demand dangerous music. that's why we put this band together and we have legaciy tht we are very proud of. this is a band that's looking into the future of 2017 and beyond. the role is to reflect the times and try to change the time. this rule is not going to change itself, that's up to everyone, where they work and go to school and in the country of the community and standing up for what's right because things are not right. >> are you frighten of of the future? >> my hope is the trump's pregie creating more just into the country. it sharpens the contradictions in a way that we are able aiming for the world that we really m want and not just shoving down our throats. >> you caught up -- call it trus

regime and not administration. why? >> in amy lifetime, we are a dangerous moment in the country's world history and the rise of this kind of populous racism. we are indeed notify somethiof zr qui and quickly. >> what does it mean for you to be citizen artist at this moment? >> we are not american artists, we are not usa artists. we travel around the world. especially at this time right now who's saying what about where we come from, it would behoove us as musicians and artists and speak as we believe and issue at hands and urgency

of music making a better change for a bet every place. we have the teen yonure. and it maybe took a combination, these are super individuals, brad and dj lloyd and be real and yeah, you can get out of yourself to make these changes. >> the music, there is never frizzle and never been a successful progressive social movement without a great sound track. everyday we see how music like ours and others can both steal backbones of those who are apart of the systems. i think those are important things to do in this troubled time. extensive hate comes to sight down and story and style. those also are the element that

is we use as musicians nowadays and sight and sound and story and styles to count as effect. yeah, we had these experience and ability and feeling to say at least what we believe and the bottom line is okay, performance art. we are going to be in front of people to convince them that we are fear less of what we say and we are going to plablazing the stage and performance that did that. >> we don't mind our chocolate m mixing with our peanut butter. >> we don't like our music mixed with politics. we'll get to that. that's all over the news lately. >> how do you respond to people that come too see you and chuck, they want to be entertained. they don't want to be politicpo.

>> the only people that say that are people who disagrees with politics. >> there is no political litmus test. once you are at the show, the message is in the posh pit. i cannot come to the store and not hearing i heard somebody echoing me. we are at a crucial team in this history and i think you should not just ghettorize it. history is not something that happens. history is something that you make. if you stand on the sideline of history, someone else is going to make it and i don't touch those son of [ bleep ] to quote

the president. [ laughter ] >> it is important to for artists to get the couch. when you have an artist that does a lot of talking, let the artist to get the couch to speak what's on their mind and finally you see what's happen zg letting t the cat out of the so called bag. >> no, i think i should say this with my microphone now that i got social media and now that i got these commercial endorsements, maybe i can have a slice for the hood or another slice for the earth. maybe i can have a slice for opinions. maybe i can say something to help a little bit more than i think i would. it is outrageous to think that you should ignore or flush your first amendment right down the toilet because you pick up a guitar or football. i am not going to dance and play

for you, i got ideas or convictions to be apart of who i am no matter what. >> can you exercise and share those through your artistry? >> i am not worried about that. i am more interested in justice than unity. >> if injustice is occurring, it must be confronted and if someone who are comfortable with that injustice and they are afended by the music, they should be offended by the music so there is a chance for them to wake up or being on the other side of the history. >> i am a culturalist and saying that you have friends all around the world, yeah, i got pals. people inside this country who are sick to be fit on their ways and not only go anywhere but being fit of any narratives to come into this system. >> i am getting started with

chuck dee and morello. >> we'll talk about this more tomorrow night of chuck dee. shephe shepard faherty, he did the poster on this. >> with more with them tomorrow nig night. we'll see you tomorrow night and thanks for watching and as always, keep faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavissmile tavissmiley @pbs.org. join me next time with chuck dee and tom morello, i am tavis smiley, that's next time, we'll see you then. ♪

♪ and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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