Reads and Weeds

Thanks to Kevin Suboski for recommending this one and for being completely honest about his thoughts on the book. Did we love it? It's complicated. Do the 'insights' hold up? It seems they do! Let me know what you thought about this one. Thanks to Redemption brand Mafia Funeral strain for helping Shelly through this one. Big big love out to the cannabis activists and criminal justice reform commun...

September is here and that means that we are excited about the 3rd annual Entheofest taking place on the diag at the University of Michigan on Sunday, September 17th at 1:11 pm. Entheofest is a free speech event celebrating sacred plants and fungi and facilitates creating a base of equity in this growing industry. There will be live music, speakers, and community. We will once again have a table t...

This episode was recorded live on May 20, 2023, at the Detroit Women of Comedy Festival at the Independent Comedy Club in Hamtramck. Thanks to the hilarious and mighty Melanie Hearn and her perfect dog Foxy for joining me and thanks to that wonderful mid-day audience that showed up! What a fun vibe to discuss Two-Boy Weekend. Don't let those cute book covers fool you! The Wakefield twins of Sweet...

I am so grateful to Dr. Dan Piccolo(dear old friend and percussionist) for recommending this book and to Ross Huff(dear old friend and trumpet player) for joining us on the read. Two big ideas stuck with me from this book. One is that creating music is dependent on the tension between understanding the basics of a deep tradition AND constantly improvising to create something new. Two is the intima...

Hey there! You're having STRONG FEELINGS......and maybe, hopefully...... you are being mindful and trying to decide what to DO with these FEELINGS. Well, life coach Jackie Wallace and psychotherapist Elizabeth Reed want you to start writing that shit down to start dealing with it. Shannon Trudell is back.....yaaaay....and this very PRO THERAPY group is having a great time talking about this journa...

Special HashBash week promo! The wonderful hardworking Josey Scoggins joins me to talk about her favorite books, the great work the Redemption Foundation is doing, and the Treasure Hunt you can join to support both Sons and Daughters United and the Great Lakes Expungement Network. Come roam around Ann Arbor with us trying goodies and sending help to people that need it.

I am so grateful that Robyn Gilleran and Sarah Grogan totally get me and laughed when I mailed them this book out of nowhere the night after they first met at a comedy show. I had a feeling these two awesome moms would have a blast together and also have exactly the right commentary on this important work of literature about child-rearing in the animal kingdom. If you are a mom that sometimes take...

I love how Fredrik Backman creates the messiest most human humans and lets them have the most real awkward fraught sweet moments your heart can stand. I laugh/cried through 'A Man Called Ove' almost 10 years ago and laugh/cried through Anxious People too. What could be better than to chat about this with one of my favorite kindred messy humans, Emily Petersmark, the rockin singer songwriter from M...

Thanks so much to Amber Asbury for recommending Worth the Fight and for connecting me to Matthew Simpson. Thank you Matt for sharing your experience of facing the darkness and finding the light in service. More of this, please! Visit Amber! www.nirvanacenter.com/ Keep in touch with Matt! worththefightbook.org Magic n’ Microdosing Mastermind: January 10th 2023 cohort www.nltrans.org/mm-mastermind M...

I love dogs and I love books and I love promoting the work of friends so this was just so fun. Meet Wembly the Pug, lovingly based on first-time author David Shoup's pal of 18 years, Elvis. Elvis is gone but his adorable spirit lives on in the courageous Wembly. Shout out to Antonella Fant also for the precious illustrations. I love it so much. Hope you do too!

Claire is back! It is the day after the midterm elections and we are relieved that our rights were protected by Michiganders. Maryland and Missouri voted for cannabis legalization. Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota rejected it. I'm trying a new recording setup and smoking tiny joints and we have a great spontaneous conversation about everything from feng shui to gun safety and try to catch...

After some light-hearted Kanye bashing and wonky editing, I settle into a great conversation with Hyped up Live Co-Producers Tony 'TMoney' Green and Yorg Kerasiotis, along with author Jackie Wallace to discuss Jackie's new book 'Behind the Wall'. The title is alluding to alll the stories that happen BEHIND that wall of gold records you see. If you would have told me over 25 years ago that I would...

I recorded this one live at Detroit Specials Used Books store with owner Dora Badger and two cats! Animals are welcome here. In fact, a portion of all sales from both the physical and online stores goes to animal rescue organizations in Detroit. I am not a regular fantasy reader and initially struggled with Hairston's language. Thanks, Dora for shifting my perspective and making it feel so much mo...

We aren't reading a book this episode. We are reading and discussing actual legal questions posed to Nick Leydorf, Comedian at Law'. Melissa and her 6-month-old golden doodle are hosting me in the garage where Melissa rolls the fattest joints in the land. Check out Nick's new album 'Free Consultation' available Oct 14th. You can pre-order now through the link @comedianatlaw OR come party with us a...

How does the title of this book make you feel? Are you UNCOMFORTABLE? Are you CURIOUS? ANNOYED? And why? That is kinda the whole point of this book. Annie Grace is just leading you through a mindfulness exercise around this ONE topic. No judgment. No shame in the process. Just observation and questioning of potentially long-held beliefs. This questioning has been a huge part of my life. Can you re...

First of all, dancer and author Kristi Lynn Davis is a DELIGHT and this book made me so happy. We are silly show people and it makes sense to us to buy groceries at 2am and have prop accident scars that we are proud of. She takes the reader with her from a small dance studio in Michigan to New York then all over the world and back obeying her call to that show biz life. We cram in choreography on...

I couldn't believe we hadn't read any Shel Silverstein on the show yet! And now that we have, I am mad that I didn't get to hang out with him as a friend. Would this writer of children's books and country songs AND stoner poetry be my friend? OF COURSE HE WOULD HAVE! WE WOULD HAVE LAUGHED SO MUCH! First time guest and fellow 'bookfield' veteran Lester Crafton is on! He educates me on solar energy...

You might already know TJ Zindle from his first band Last Conservative or more recently from shredding guitars in his sister's band Erin Zindle and the Ragbirds, BUT I'm excited to talk to him about his songwriting! Go ahead over to Bandcamp and get his NEWEST album 'Now Let Go', the follow up to 2017's 'Hold On With All Your Might'. What a great follow up name right? That's a good start. But then...

It was so interesting to revisit The Great Gatsby 100 years after the time it was set in. Was Fitzgerald's snapshot of America post Spanish flu jazz age that much different from post Covid America? Are rich couples still getting away with murder? Are lovesick people still doing things for the most bizarre of reasons? Are people still partying too much on Long Island? Yes and Yes and Yes. But it is...

Early in this discussion about Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Mary Dettling called it Shakubuku, which was referenced in the 1997 John Cusack movie Grosse Pointe Blank as 'a spiritual kick to the head.' It's a Buddhist term meaning roughly 'break and subdue' in which the resistance of another is broken by forceful argument. And I get it. It is a mind shifter, especially if you grew up wanting to be a '...

You wouldn't know it by how silly we start, but this conversation with my friend Ray Reyes is about to get really heavy. His is the first story in Mike Hain's compilation of near death experiences published in 2021. It is May and outdoor cannabis farms are being planted. Thanks Island Farm for the delicious Shiraz preroll! There is throat singing in an ambulance. We disucss House Bill 5512(look it...

"In Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as 'the younger brothers of creation'. We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn. We must look to our teachers among other species for guidance." I had the pleasure of talking about this book with Sarah Nunez Bida and Luna Alexander. It is art and science and history and love of all living...

Oh boy! Breaking news from a midwest elementary school prompted an emergency minisode! This writer is a budding activist if I've ever heard one. Bravo. The writing is direct, on message, and passionate. Paul Gordon is back with me, lending his voice to the dramatic re enactment of this journalistic piece. He ALSO has a new podcast you should go follow on Instagram called 'Diamond Dustups-stories o...

I'm back with the second half of the delicious interview with Erin Zindle-multi instrumentalist front woman of the Ragbirds and confessed pure songwriter at heart. In this half we explore writing from a place of pain, how badass her band is,(shout out to Loren Kranz on drums, Shannon Wade on bass, and TJ Zindle on guitar), and writing as a self fulfilling prophecy. We talk about how the process sh...

Well this was just wonderful. In this episode I sit down with my lovely longtime friend Erin Zindle to talk about songwriting. Erin is the multi instrumentalist frontwoman of the band the Ragbirds. I have loved her music for so long because it speaks right to me, makes me want to dance, makes me want to pray, sometimes to cry. Erin also teaches private songwriting lessons and taught for years at I...