Detoxicity: By Men, About Men, For Everyone

Sean Wolcott is a technology professional and musician based in Arizona. He is the product of a blended family, and is also now a member of a blended family himself. He and I speak about the circumstances that led to both of those situations, and how having a stepdad of a different race cemented his progressive worldview. Sean discusses his parenting strategy, raising three young men, and fills us...

Mike Duquette ( Instagram ) is the founder of the music reissue website The Second Disc and is also a music industry and culture journalism veteran. Full disclosure, Mike is also one of my best friends, and a big component of this episode is the up and down (mostly up) arc of our relationship. Mike talks about being a sheltered young person and growing into his self-awareness. He gives major props...

This episode's interviewee is Michael Fortes. Michael is a writer/culture journalist, admin professional, and a collector of physical media (he has 8-tracks, y'all!) Michael and I met years ago while writing for Popdose . Our conversation covers Michael's love of his home in the melting pot that is the Bay Area. It covers a somewhat challenging childhood in New England where he endured bullying an...

This episode finds me talking to Dom DiMaria , an NYC musician who, by day, helps house New York City's homeless population. Those are two professions you don't often find side by side, and Dom talks about the ups and the downs of working for the public, which includes a previous life as a street canvasser. We also talk about Dom's suburban Catholic upbringing, and what it takes to carve out one's...

Garrett Gonzales was the second guest on Detoxicity, and he returns for the milestone Episode 100. Garrett is an entrepreneur, a husband, a dad, and runs Fight Game Media , which produces content (including podcasts) related to boxing, MMA and wrestling (with other sports and pop culture occasionally sprinkled in). He's been a friend of mine for 20 years, and we have a lot of history to draw on du...

Jared Pease is a musician and a music teacher, originally from Richmond Virginia, now based in New York City. Our conversation covers quite a bit, personally and professionally--from Jared's ongoing journey as an adoptee to watching a close family member suffer with addiction issues. We also talk about the perception of whether being a musician is a "real job" and discuss stress relief through pla...

Tom Tenney is the co-founder and executive director of Radio Free Brooklyn . He is also an actor, a community organizer, and a professor. In our episode, Tom discusses his bipolar diagnosis and how treatment has changed his life. He talks about growing up as kind of an outcast as a punk kid and a theater kid in conservative early '80s Catholic Massachusetts and how that shaped his worldview. Tom i...

Michael LoBue is a veteran musician and touring professional. Currently, he's on the road with veteran rock band Little Feat. I met Michael through a support group for music industry employees (shout out to my friends at Backline ), and not only did we have an instant connection, we quickly realized we lived barely a mile from one another in Brooklyn. He was an early candidate for a Detox episode,...

Shayne (Shoef) Cohen is a Syracuse, NY-based artist and the host of a podcast called TSS Office Hours. He is also an accomplished chef, having worked in kitchens across the country for the last decade or so. During our conversation, we chat about how service workers are often under (or un-) appreciated. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Shoef and I also talk relationships, growing up poor wi...

My guest on this episode goes by the pseudonym "Richard Gentle" (while I usually don't welcome guests who are willing to share their true identities, I'm making an exception here). He is Midwest born and based, and currently works in higher education. Richard comes from humble beginnings, and was often teased for and warned against his aspirations. We discuss that in depth, as well as his decision...

What's the dream for you? Do you think that status and money can buy you happiness? Is a six-figure paycheck and a jet set lifestyle your ultimate goal? While I'm not saying those aren't good goals to have, there are plenty of people who have reached what they thought was the mountaintop, only to realize that what they really wanted wasn't there.   Such is the case with this episode's guest, Jared...

This podcast is, among other things, about mental health. And there's plenty of good advice one can get from a clinical perspective. There's plenty you can get from a human experiential perspective. But those perspectives don't have to be mutually exclusive, and that's proven by this episode's guest, Dr. Ali Mattu . Dr. Mattu hosts a wildly popular YouTube series about mental health and anxiety, a...

Jay Kumar has been a professional in the journalism world for over three decades. He's been podcasting for more than 10 years. I guested on Completely Conspicuous (one of his two shows) way back in 2012 , and again in 2015 . In addition to being a podcast pro, Jay is also a second-generation American who has lived in two of the three North American countries. He talks about culture shock (maybe no...

Grant Palmer is an educator and academic based in Southern California. Our conversation starts with music, which is only fitting because music is how Grant and I connected. From there, we uncover a somewhat turbulent young life marked by several medical mishaps. As with most of Detoxicity's guests, self-discovery and enlightenment is the name of the game here. Grant discusses how he intends to use...

Honesty can sometimes have real-world consequences, so when a guest requests anonymity, I'm happy to grant it. My guest for this episode is known as " White Hart Josh ". He's based in New England--the tiny town of Providence, RI, to be exact. Josh and I explore quite a bit during our conversation. Freemasonry makes its way into the DetoxPod lexicon, as Josh discusses the society he belongs to. He...

In this episode of Detoxicity, I have the pleasure of sitting down with Glen Phillips . Glen has been touring and releasing records for over three decades, as a solo artist and as the frontman and principal songwriter for the band Toad the Wet Sprocket. During our conversation, Glen discusses how he felt as an incredibly sensitive young man, he extols the virtues of community-based singing, and ta...

Remember Episode 85 , which I recorded in Mexico at the Desire resort? Well, a lot of people who were on that trip with me have interesting journeys to talk about, and over the next few weeks and months, you'll be hearing their stories, starting with this one!   Brandon James grew up in rural Indiana, with all of the conservatism that a rural Indiana upbringing might imply. Yet there was always a...

Martin X. Henson is an activist and organizer who makes his home currently in Boston, MA. Martin founded and is the executive director of an organization called the BMen Foundation , which helps provide safe spaces and mental health support for Black men. During our chat, Martin talks about what led him to work as an advocate and activist, discusses the occasionally dicey relationship between Blac...

This episode's guest is Nick Kizirnis (AKA Nicky Kay), a musician and software engineer based out of Dayton, OH. Nick's thirty year journey through music and his journey as a designer are pretty divergent, but we cover both topics during our chat. In addition to finding out how Nick fell in love with music and what performing and listening to music does for his mental health, we discuss Nick's att...

As some of you know, I occasionally co-host a podcast called Life on the Swingset , which is about progressive sexuality and alternative relationships. Several of the podcast regulars, including Dylan Thomas and Ryan Bentham, have appeared on Detoxicity multiple times.    Each year, the Life on the Swingset crew ventures down to Mexico to spend a week in paradise at the Desire resort. The Swingset...

For this episode, I had the privilege of talking to writer, director and author John Callas . Over four decades in the entertainment business, John has worked with "A" list actors, directed over 80 episodes of "Bobby's World", the classic animated series, and won a VMA for Best Concept Video for Glenn Frey's "Smuggler's Blues".   John recently published a memoir called "When The Rain Stops" , in w...

For this episode, we’re gonna travel out to Colorado to meet up with Ron Doyle . Ron is the creative director of Waterday Media , a multimedia production and communications company that specializes in everything from web development to podcast production.  Ron and I came into contact with one another via podcasting. He’s the producer of The Grawlix Saves the World , one of my favorite podcasts the...

My guest for this episode of  is Mitchell Leonard , a composer and producer originally from Arizona now making his home in Brooklyn. We actually started our conversation before he got the chance to properly introduce himself, which hopefully you consider a good sign for your listening experience. From an artistic perspective, Mitch and I talk about the fallacy of it being too late to start over an...

Marcus Mims is a songwriter, producer and vocal coach originally from the Detroit suburbs, now based in the...New York City suburbs? What are we calling North Jersey now? He's also known as Journal. Anyway, there's a big difference between the Big D and the Big Apple, and Marcus learned a lot about that difference when he made his move to the NY area. That adjustment isn't the only challenge that...

This episode is going to deviate a bit from Detoxicity's normal format. Most episodes so far have featured me interviewing someone (or, on rare occasion, someone interviewing me). When I started talking to Luke Nielsen , who makes his living as an art teacher and football coach in Iowa, we ended up structuring this episode more as a mutual interview. So I quiz Luke about what it's like to grow up...