Fascinating Nouns

Greg DeSanto is the current Executive Director of the International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center.  Before that, he spent 10 years touring with the Ringling Bros. circus, and has accumulated a total of 38 years as a professional clown.  His road to becoming a professional clown was as strange as you would think.  In this episode, Greg tells me about his desires to be a stage performer, ho...

I am guessing some of you reading this had NO IDEA that local newspapers still exist.  Others may have no idea what a newspaper even is.  Admittedly this is a dying industry, and yet, local family owned newspapers are more important than ever before.  Small towns are unique for their ability to connect entire communities.  I don’t know everyone in Los Angeles, but I knew everyone in my homet...

What do Ghostbusters, The Fly, The Blob, and Xenomorphs have in common?  They are all covered in slime!  In this bonus episode, Susanne and I discuss how slime is portrayed in movies and how this came to be.  Here is a teaser:  It has a lot to do with the human disgust response why we are revolted by all things glistening.

Biological slime, the goo that is produced purposefully by a creature, is both the most disgusting AND the most versatile substance known to man.  For example, a snail produces a slime that is slippery so that it can gracefully glide across the sidewalk, but that same substance also acts as a glue that keeps the snail attached to the surface.  A hagfish produces a slime so thick and fibrous that i...

Thanksgiving has become the forgotten holiday, that thing that is sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas.  Even though it is a little late, we are going to give Turkey Day it’s due by discussing it’s most defining characteristic (after turkey of course):  PIES!  Michael Krondl tells us the origins of three distinct favorites:   Apple, Pecan, and of course Pumpkin!  You will never l...

Dessert is a funny thing:  It is typically the last course of a meal, is usually a delicious sweet treat, usually made of sugar, and always completely devoid of nutrients.  It is also a very modern invention, having been invented in the past few hundred years or so.  Today food historian Michael Krondl is going to walk us through a brief timeline of dessert, and then tell us about treats that are...

When I think of small talk, my mind immediately goes to thoughts of my grandma, who loves to discuss the weather.  This line of questioning seems at best unnecessary, at worst it is a complete waste of time.  This is not so!  Debra Fine is the master of small talk, and she insists that proper small talk leads to everything. You have to start somewhere, and small talk is the way people get to know...

Like all uncool grown-ups, I believe that the music of my generation was the best.  I happened to have lived my formative years in the 90’s, so it is all Gangsta Rap and Grunge Rock.  I also only listen to popular music.  I never had interest in any independent rock scene, it just wasn’t my thing.  So this week, I wanted to explore what was going on in rock right under my nose!  Bruce...

Fantasy has never been more popular. Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and even the Harry Potter series has made sword and sorcery commonplace. For the sci-fi fans out there, the Star Wars movies are filled with Jedi lightsaber battles, complete with the same parries, thrusts, and disarms found on the medieval battlefield. It is so ubiquitous that any kid will pick up a stick or long cardboa...

In the intro for the show, we talk about having the “Weird, Wild, and Wacky” on the program, and this week we literally have two of the three. This week, we celebrate Halloween but discussing The Weird West, which is a genre of storytelling that is basically The Wild West crosses with either supernatural and/or sci-fi elements.  Ray guns at the O.K. Corral, vampires in Deadwood, or tim...

If you like paranormal television programs, then Carl Kolchak is a name you should know.  Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a made-for-TV movie in the 70’s that introduced the world to a investigative reporter who would stumble across crimes with a supernatural cause.  It was later turned into a series, and while only lasting one season, it inspired several modern classics like The X-Files, Twi...

What do you get when you take rye and ferment it with yeast, concentrate that yeast urine into a liquid, take that liquid and stick it in a burned barrel for two years?  If you said ‘whiskey’ you would be correct!  Yes that golden brown drink of the wild west is basically old barrel juice, but a very influential juice indeed.  This week I discuss the historical significance of whiskey...

The 1950’s and 60’s were a strange time in American culture as it related to human behavior.  Behind the scenes, you had the MK Ultra experiments trying to unlock the secrets to mind control.  More publicly, you had Dr. Phillip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram conducting social science experiments designed to show the extremes in human nature, and how we can be manipulated by the subtle so...

Jon’s journey to becoming a critical thinker was pretty unique.  Just before turning twenty he impulsively stabbed a man, which earned him 27 years for Attempted Second Degree Murder.  While in prison, he got deep into litigation as he tried to overturn his conviction.  He researched his own appeals, filed suit against his lawyer for ineffective counsel, and even sued the department of corre...

If you have a pulse, chances are you have eaten a snack food that was covered in a nuclear orange, cheese flavored powder.  You have probably also eaten the BBQ drenched, pork ribs-shaped meat patty known as the McRib.  These two items are actually the culmination of who bits of advanced technology:  Dehydrated cheese and restructured meat.  Learn more about your two favorite food items in this bo...

If you are an average American, you are extremely familiar with energy bars, frozen food, and soup in a can, but do you know where each of these technologies originated?  If you said “The military because they helped design our food”, you would be correct!  You are also great at reading because that is the title of this episode.  So why is the military interested in food?  Well it turn...

What happened to Gary after the bike ride?  Was it all champagne and congratulatory handshakes?  For a while yeah, but his body had been doing one thing all day for 40 days and it took a toll.  Listen as he recounts what happened in the weeks that followed his ride.

At 58, Gary Wietgrefe heard a story in a bar about a 70 year old who biked all the way from South Dakota to Alaska.  Always seeking a challenge, he kept this in his mind and finally accomplished this feat when he was 65!  We discuss his 2997 mile journey, including why he choose North Pole Alaska and not THE North Pole, how he avoided bear attacks but not wild dogs, and why biking 2997 miles and n...

Given that Stephen King’s career spans 6 decades and hundreds of stories, chances are you have read one in your lifetime.  You might even have a favorite.  His horror stories usually have a supernatural element to them, but that does not make them exempt from scientific scrutiny.  Author Meg Hafdahl is known as a fiction writer, but along with her co-author Kelly Florence, decided to look at...

We have discussed real life superheroes a lot lately, but in this bonus episode we discuss the original:  The Fox.  Dave Hoekstra was recruited by The Fox while he was in high school, and for a summer he fought the good fight against greedy corporations that were polluting the famous Fox River.  Listen as Dave tells his Tale of the Fox

This episode is very timely, as I just visited Slab City for my birthday.  Why is this important?  Because Slab City is the last true free place in America!  You can pull up an RV, and live life off grid along side several other like-minded individuals.  In this episode, Dave Hoekstra discusses his book “The Camper Book”, which chronicles his adventures traveling across the U.S. in his...

Are you in control of your actions?  If you want to do something, you just do it right.  Can you decide to do something you DON’T want to do, or is this technically impossible?  Does Free Will actually exist, or is it just a delusion to make sure humans have a sense of purpose?  Dr. Vyse and I discuss this in this bonus episode.

Delusions, are they healthy?  Is it normal to actively believe in a reality that is not accurate?  Does simply changing how you view the world alter your success?  These are just some of the questions I discuss with Dr. Stuart Vyse, author of “ The Uses of Delusion “.  It turns out that delusions are a normal part of everyday life.  Do you have a lucky charm?  That is in irrational bel...

When we are children, nothing is more important to us than our friends.  We are either spending all of our time with them, or trying to figure out how to make more.  As we get older, and spare time becomes more and more rare, we may find ourselves neglecting all but our most inner circle.  Lydia Denworth believes this may be a mistake.  In her book “Friendship”, she outlines the physic...

In this bonus episode we Tom and I attempt to fill in some of the gaps we left in our main podcast, including how Mack Brazel ended up on the radio in search of a $3000 reward, and how the entire town of Roswell watched as the Army drove a tarp-covered space craft right down main street because it was the most direct route to the base.