Everything & Anything...and a bit gay Podcast

It's Friday, which means it's time for The Gay Bit — and this week, Zach is doing a full-on opinion dump on the things he absolutely cannot stand. If your podcast week wasn't gay enough, buckle up. Zach kicks things off with his deeply held conviction that tank tops are the enemy of civilization. Sweaty underarms, deodorant balls, and terrible fit — he's making the case that the world would be a b...

Are gay men lonelier than ever — and why won't anyone admit it? In this week's This Is Everything , Zach gets brutally honest about the loneliness epidemic hitting the LGBTQ+ community, the apps that promise connection and deliver bots, the "shit friends" we finally stop tolerating after 50, and why cutting toxic people out of your life might be making you lonelier even when it's the right call. F...

Jordan Rainer — country singer, preacher's daughter, and four-chair-turn phenomenon from Season 26 of The Voice — joins Zach for one of the most honest conversations you'll hear about coming out late in life, leaving religion behind, and reclaiming your identity through music. Jordan opens up about growing up in a Southern Baptist household in Altus, Oklahoma, where who she really was "was not saf...

Nic Dantes is a New York-based actor, singer, dancer, and songwriter with an IMDB page, a growing social following, and a talent pool deep enough to make anyone feel like an underachiever. In this episode of Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay , Zach sits down with Nic for a wide-ranging conversation about building a career in entertainment as an openly gay man — from his childhood auditions for k...

What was it like to be gay in San Francisco in the 1970s — when the city was wide open, Harvey Milk was your neighbor, and an entire community was inventing what it meant to be queer? Chuck Forrester lived it. He came out at 28, moved from Wisconsin to the Castro, and found himself in the middle of one of the most extraordinary moments in LGBTQ+ history — one that would soon be transformed forever...

Madonna is BACK — and she's never been better. On this week's Gay Bit, host Zach Randles-Friedman celebrates the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor 2 , Madonna's highly anticipated new album dropping just before the Fourth of July weekend. Zach shares his lifelong love affair with Madonna — from hearing her songs as a fifth-grade safety patrol in Miami, to plastering every inch of his bedroom...

What happens when we die? Can our loved ones really reach us from the other side? Spiritual counselor and intuitive coach Laura Hoorweg joins Zach for a wide-ranging, mind-expanding conversation about life after death, mediumship, soul families, and what it truly means to evolve as a soul. Laura shares her extraordinary out-of-body experience at 15 that changed everything she believed about life a...

We're flipping the table today. No guests. No interview. Just Zach, a microphone, and a very long list of verified, documented, reported facts — because an informed community is a powerful community, and silence is complicity. In this solo episode, Zach walks through the full record of what the orange convicted felon has done since January 20th, 2025. Not opinion. Not rant. Everything cited from n...

📋 Show Notes Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay Episode: The Questions That Exhaust Us There's a particular kind of tired that comes not from overworking or overextending — but from decades of explaining your existence to people who feel entitled to interrogate it. In this solo This Is Everything episode, Zach Randles-Friedman names that feeling out loud: exhaustion. And then he does something m...

Episode: Martha Jo Atkins — The Language of Dying What does it feel like to be with someone as they leave this world? Death doula, psychotherapist, and end-of-life specialist Martha Jo Atkins has spent 35+ years answering that question — and she joins Zach for one of the most profound conversations this show has ever had. Martha Jo has been present for more than a thousand deaths. She's watched pe...

SHOW NOTES Episode Title: Psychic Medium & Pet Communicator Medium Mari on Signs, Grief & the Gift She Was Born With Episode Summary: This week Zach sits down with Medium Mari — a Boston-area psychic medium, animal communicator, and licensed clinical social worker — for a conversation that goes deep into the world of spirit, intuition, and healing. Mari has spent decades bridging two worlds: the c...

My Anti-Aging Secrets: Skincare, Botox, Micro-Needling & What Actually Works It's The Gay Bit — where Zach packs all the gay into one episode. This week, he's pulling back the curtain on his full anti-aging routine: the supplements, the devices, the spa treatments, and yes — the salmon sperm. In this episode: Zach breaks down everything he does to fight aging at 53 — from his 18-pill morning suppl...

This episode is about what it actually looks like to bet on yourself when you have almost nothing — and win. Danielle P.M. Johnson moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles in July 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, having left behind an abusive marriage and carrying a dream that most people would have talked themselves out of. She arrived at midnight with rolling suitcases and no plan beyon...

Jacqueline & Japheth | A Girl and a Gay What happens when a metropolitan girly from New York and LA meets a Nashville-born gay man at a summer party — and they become instant best friends? Magic. Content. And a whole lot of tea. Zach sits down with Jacqueline and Japheth, the creators behind the TikTok account A Girl and a Gay , for one of the most wide-ranging, real-talk conversations the show ha...

Episode Notes: Let's be real — the gay community has a complicated relationship with age. And Zach is done pretending otherwise. In this episode of This Is Everything , Zach reflects on the journey every gay man eventually takes: from the invincible 20-something who thought 35 was ancient, to the 53-year-old still showing up, still looking good, and still absolutely judging the 21-year-olds walkin...

Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay Episode: Billboard-Charting Musical Theater Composer Billy Recce Billy Recce is a queer composer, lyricist, and songwriter whose work spans Broadway development, off-Broadway productions, pop, and cabaret. He's a two-time MAC Award winner, Jonathan Larson Grant finalist, and William Finn Award winner — and his songs have been performed by Bernadette Peters, Mand...

Episode Notes: David's coming-out episode remains one of the most talked-about on the show — and it's still changing lives. David came out to his family at 52 and hasn't looked back. Sherry, one of Andrew's lifelong friends from Long Island, calls herself "the queen of gays" and is fully here for David living his truth. So is Kim. The whole crew showed up for him. David is now dating someone with...

Dr. Lee Phillips has built a wildly unique career sitting at the intersection of clinical expertise and comedy. With a doctorate in psychology, a master's in social work, and a growing social media following fueled by his razor-sharp takes on gay dating and public confrontations, Dr. Lee is a voice the LGBTQ+ community didn't know it needed — until now. In this episode, Zach and Dr. Lee cover: How...

Doreen Mary Bray is a psychic medium, herbalist, therapist, mystical guide, and spirit communicator who has been in contact with the spirit world since birth — literally since the moment she was delivered. In this episode, Doreen shares stories spanning decades of work: freeing earthbound spirits, performing exorcisms, healing through herbs, and teaching thousands of students to access deeper stat...

Episode: This Is Everything — Queer People Contain Multitudes Welcome to the first installment of This Is Everything — Zach's new weekly segment on Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay that goes a little deeper, a little wider, and a lot more personal than the Friday A Bit Gay episodes. This week, Zach opens with a thesis he's been carrying for a long time: queer people contain multitudes. Not grou...

Dr. Bradley Nelson — chiropractor, author, and founder of Discover Healing — joins Zach to reveal how trapped emotions silently sabotage our health, relationships, and ability to love. From crushing chest pain that vanished in seconds to a woman who found her childhood sweetheart living around the corner for eight years, Dr. Nelson shares remarkable stories that will completely change the way you...

Are you actually happy — or just really good at staying distracted? In this week's Gay Bit, Zach gets real about the difference between being busy and being fulfilled, the noise we use to drown out our own thoughts, and why slowing down might be the most radical thing you can do right now. Zach explores how full calendars, constant plans, and social media highlight reels can mask a deeper emptines...

Tim Bair is the author of Ever Near , a memoir and spiritual account of his ongoing relationship with his late wife Marilyn, who passed away from gastric cancer in 2017. Beginning just one week after her death, Tim began hearing Marilyn's voice — first audibly during a walk, then through what became a practice of writing letters together. That collection of letters, now numbering over 400, forms t...

Peggy is the author of Surviving the Family Kingdom: A Memoir of Growing Up in a Mom's Cult, Escaping and Reclaiming a Life , available now on Amazon. A psychotherapist of more than 20 years specializing in trauma, she sat down with Zach to talk through her extraordinary story — from the violent men and instability of her early childhood, to the gradual systematic indoctrination that began around...

Grant Ginder is the author of six novels, including The People We Hate at Weddings (adapted into the 2024 film starring Kristen Bell and Ben Platt) and his latest, So Old, So Young — a story that drops in on six college friends across five parties over twenty years. A University of Pennsylvania grad and former Washington speechwriter, Grant now teaches in the MFA program at NYU. In this episode: W...