Crude Conversations

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 4 on the list is with Dan Coffey, one of the youngest competitors at King of the Hill. Coffey’s experience and recollection of King of the Hill is unique, in that he was just a teenager when he went. He was a senior in high school when he first competed in the event. He says it was surreal, he was up there in the C...

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 5 on the list is with Brooke Geery. In 1997, Brooke started an online snowboard publication called YoBeat. It began on an AOL message board with 2 megabytes of free space and grew into an internationally recognized website. She says that it was a satirical site that gave a voice to people who snowboarded rather tha...

The Teen Climate Communicators program is hosted by the Anchorage Museum and offers activities and conversations around the past, present and future relationships between people and the land. Those involved, learn about how climate change is affecting Alaska’s diverse landscapes by hearing from Museum and community experts. Climate change is an ongoing conversation—one that is constantly evolving....

In this episode, Cody talks to Alaskan author Seth Kantner. Seth was born and raised in Alaska, among the animals and the wilderness, and his writing reflects that. It draws from personal experience, often dealing with themes that involve animals, the environment and living off the land. He says that when he was a kid, his family was entirely attached to the seasons and food from the land. Both de...

In this episode, Cody talks with three Alaskan comedians: Matt Collins, Kass Smiley and Dayman Wright. Dayman is still pretty fresh, with three years in the Alaska stand-up scene, while Matt and Kass have been doing it for over a decade. Doing anything for that long, you gain knowledge and experience. Like knowing that comedy in Alaska—and live entertainment in general—mimics the city’s economy. I...

Joining this conversation are artists Stuart Hyatt, Dan Mills and Christina Seely. Stuart uses sound to understand our relationship with the natural world. Dan uses maps in paintings and collages as a way to explore ideas of historic and current events, including issues like colonialism. Christina uses photography to address the complexities of both built and natural global systems. All of their w...

Brian Brettschneider is a climatologist and a research scientist. He collects data and analyzes it. And within that mountain of data, he believes many of the secrets of the world exist. But extracting meaning from all that information is a big challenge. It takes time, education and technology.  With its many research institutions located in arctic environments—including universities and weather s...

In this one, I talk to veterinarian Dr. Michelle Oakley, who stars in the National Geographic reality television show “ Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet .” The show follows her and her family around as they administer veterinary care to domestic and wild animals. Many of Dr. Oakley’s most memorable moments have involved her family. From close encounters with a massive Kodiak brown bear to a rotting rumen in...

In this episode of Chatter Marks, Aaron Leggett explains the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA. ANCSA was established on December 18, 1971, and is a landmark policy for many reasons. As a result of the act, Alaska Natives retained 44 million acres of land and about 1 billion dollars to settle Indigenous land claims in Alaska. It also divided the state into 12 regional corporations and...

Journalism has been part of Julia O’Malley’s life since elementary school, where she remembers carrying around a notebook to keep track of what her classmates were doing. Then, in high school, she wrote for her school newspaper. But her love for cooking goes back even further. In fact, one of her first memories is of being 2 or 3 years old and mixing blueberries and milk in her toy kitchen. The di...

In this one, Cody talks with Roman Dial, an academic and a long-time explorer of Alaska’s natural world. Since the 1970s, he’s been out there—in the backcountry and in the wilderness—in search of that next thrill or moment in nature. He actually says that there’s a difference between the backcountry and the wilderness. While the backcountry has trails and is near a road or a town, the wilderness h...

In this one, I talk to Mitch Kitter, the co-owner of The Studio, a photography studio in Anchorage, Alaska that specializes in high school senior photos. He also works in cybersecurity and recently completed his MBA at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He’s 34 years old, and in the winter of 2019 he was diagnosed with leukemia. The only indication that something wasn’t right were frequent nosebl...

Dr. Amy Christianson is the host of Good Fire , a podcast that explores the social, cultural and ecological importance of fires. For thousands of years, Indigenous people have used fire to improve their environment and their community. More recently, however, because of colonialism and the centralization of power, many of those traditional practices have been made illegal, forcing them to stop or...

In this episode of GLOSS, or the Gorgeous Ladies of Snowboarding and Skiing—an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media—I talk with professional snowboarder Madison Blackley. Madison found her way into snowboarding by way of Volcom’s Peanut Butter and Rail Jam competition. Fresh out of high school, she won the competition at Brighton in 2007. From there, she made it to the finals, where she g...

Kirk Gallardo is the Education Interpretation Manager at the Anchorage Museum. His job has many aspects, including outreach, research and curriculum creation. His education is in linguistics, and that also comes into play. He says that understanding language is an ongoing endeavor that involves considering how it influences identity and culture. Being able to speak and communicate with one another...

In this episode, Cody talks with stand-up comedian Jessica Singleton . She’s always been funny, even as a kid. That’s something her mom recently reinforced—that she’s always had comedic timing and that she could always find the humor in everything, regardless of how traumatic it got. When her family moved from Mississippi to Alaska, she was in 6th grade. She was forced to leave her friends behind...

Artist and sculptor John Grade's work exists in the intersection of art, education and advocacy. Influenced by the environment and human impact on it, there’s a specific attention paid to the idea of impermanence. He often destroys his art as part of its showing or exhibition because art, like life, is temporary. Both are a journey that rarely turns out how you’d expect. So, it’s important to embr...

Photographer Jovell Rennie's ingenuity and talent continues to define both his personal and professional ambitions. His drive is influenced by his parents and his upbringing. When he was young, his mom passed away suddenly, leaving him and his dad to navigate life without their cornerstone. Jovell was a quiet, independent kid and his dad had a hands-off parenting approach—he was very present, but...

In this episode of GLOSS, or the Gorgeous Ladies of Snowboarding and Skiing—an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media—Cody talks with snowboard pioneer Tina Basich. Tina was among the first women in snowboarding who redefined what it meant to be a female pro-snowboarder. This meant making constant decisions to push against conforming to a man’s world. Because what you do in the present dete...

In this episode, Cody has a conversation with his longtime friend Ryan Earp. He’s a recovering alcoholic and addict, and continues to share his story of recovery. It’s a story that starts out in high school and ends in jail and rehab. It’s about how substance abuse eventually takes you to a dark place that you never thought it would get to. He says that it was family and friends that eventually he...

In this episode, Cody has a conversation with tattoo artist Deb Yarian. Deb started tattooing in New York in 1979. Back when tattoo culture was reserved for outsiders, or what Deb calls “carnival people.” The tattoo culture then was predominately male, and women usually found their way into the culture through a man, because men were the gatekeepers. More recently, those barriers have been broken...

Illustrator Ted Kim is known for his unique art style, which includes complex and imaginative scenarios. These scenes have a tendency to depict hope and optimism. He says that this happened naturally—motivated, in part, after he got in the habit of watching documentaries that explored traumatic social issues and events of catastrophic, global failure. His art became his safety net, his method of i...

In third and find part of Outrun Your Demons, Ryan Earp roadtrips his way from Alaska to LA with hopes of pursuing his dream of becoming an actor, but some bad habits have plans of their own. This episode originally came out in 2016, and Ryan has since turned his life around—he’s clean and sober, happy and recently married.

In Part 2 of Outrun Your Demons, Ryan Earp takes another stab at the road to L.A. This time, he brings his buddy Mike Caldarola along. Back in Ft. Nelson, he reunites with some old friends and makes some new ones. This episode originally came out in 2016, and Ryan has since turned his life around—he’s clean and sober, happy and recently married.

Before Crude Conversations existed, Alaska journalist Ammon Swenson produced a podcast called CrudeCast. It lasted for about four episodes, and among those episodes was a three part series called Outrun Your Demons. In it, Ammon tells a story many of us can identify with. It involves our friend Ryan Earp—a guy with a heart of gold, but at the time had a tendency to get in his own way. This episode...