Lost in America

On July 8th Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated with a homemade gun. Today we have Japanese comedian Momo Takamori on the show from his home in Osaka to talk about Abe's legacy, gun laws in Japan and his country's growing comedy scene. Lost In America is hosted by us AKA  Turner Sparks  and  Michael Ira Kaplan . This episode is also brought to you by all 41 of our Pa...

Turner and Kap went to El Salvador last week to turn the Lost In America Podcast into a TV show, it was pure madness, and today they hop on the mics to tell you all about it. They played with a Congressman's He Man figures, they almost got arrested by disgruntled Policia, they ignoed the State Department's warning and went deep into San Salvador's "Red Zone", and they lived to...

Ukrainian comedian Anton Tymoshenko joins the show from his home in Kyiv, Ukraine to talk about his upcoming comedy tour of Ukrainian bunkers, the current morale of the Ukrainian people and how he thinks this war will end. Follow Anton on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/anton_tymoshenko , and donate to Anton's preferred charity that is helping Ukrainians defend themselves against the Rus...

Colombian comedian Paulo Hernandez gives us a quick history of Colombia's Narco Wars from 1958-2016 and explains why his country now decided to elect their first leftist President in recent history. Lost In America is hosted by us AKA  Turner Sparks  and  Michael Ira Kaplan . This episode is also brought to you by all 47 of our Patreon subscribers. Join them in supporting the pod for $5/ month...

We get the  World's Smartest Podcast Network  gang of Professor Andrew Heaton and Andrea Jones-Rooy, Ph. D. back for another whirlwind roundtable where we solve all the world's problems in an hour. This week we open by asking "Is the oil crisis fixable in the short term?". Then we ask "Should golfers be held to a higher standard than the US government?" as the Saudi-backed...

The Philippines has elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the country's disgraced dictator by the same name, as president of the country. How did it happen and what does it say for the future of strong-men leaders worldwide? Filipino comedian Chino Liao is here with all of the answers. Check out Chino's podcasts  Class Clown  on Spotify and  The Wrestling Wrestling Podcast  on Patreon. Lost...

Sri Lankan comedian Malinda Perera tells us what Sri Lanka's options are now that they have defaulted on all of their loans, and how they got here in the first place. This is a wild tale involving empty cricket stadiums, defunct airports, civil war and China. Malinda Perera is a Sri Lankan comedian currently based in Dublin, Ireland. He will be touring Europe all this summer. Find all dates by...

Hungarian comedy legend Litkai Gergely joins us to explain the rise and reign of Hungarian strong-man Prime Minister Viktor Orban. PM Orban was just reelected in April to a third 4-year term, although he currently finds himself on shakier ground than ever as he can't survive without the financial support of the EU and the oil and gas support from Russia. Our guest Litkai Gergely not only found...

On March 27, 2022, sixty two people were murdered in El Salvador in gang related killings. In response, President Nayib Bukele declared a state of emergency and has arrested over 22,000 suspected gang members (in a country of just 6.5 million people). While President Bukele now has more power than is comfortable and he has arrested many non-gang members along the way, still 91% of Salvadorans supp...

Comedian Misha Kalhin joins us from the 18th floor of his Kyiv, Ukraine apartment to catch us up on his life since we last spoke on March 9th, 2022. Misha is doing well, his family is doing well and he says life is returning to normal in Kyiv as shops reopen and people take back to the streets. Alongside all of this, Ukraine (with the help of the United States) has begun to see this as an offensiv...

We get the  World's Smartest Podcast Network  gang of Andrew Heaton and Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy back for another whirlwind roundtable where we solve all the world's problems in an hour. This week we tackle "When American brands pull out of Russia, does it effect anything?", "Should the Supreme Court justice hearings be televised?", "What does Florida's Don't Say G...

American comedian Jorge Castellanos joins us from his home in Shanghai, China to discuss the hardcore lockdown he has been in for the last 13 days. He and his wife cannot leave their apartment, they cannot open the door and they are encouraged to not open the window all in the name of stopping the spread of Omicron variant in their city. With every restaurant and grocery store in the business clos...

Russian comedian Oleg Denisov joins us from his temporary home in Germany (he has left Moscow for now) to give insight into what the Russian people are hearing, seeing, thinking and believing when it comes to the war in Ukraine. He also gives us insight into how hard the sanctions are hitting the country, the overall effects of the Ruble's collapse and why close to 100,000 Russians have fled R...

Ukrainian comedian Anton Tymoshenko joins the show from his temporary home, an underground hookah bar in Kyiv. He has been living there since the war started a month ago with 15-20 other friends and strangers, who all found refuge and safety in the form of a closed down bar. Today Anton talks about his struggle to live a normal life during the war, how he has used his large social media following...

Just six months ago the Polish government was seen as an uncooperative actor by the European Union and an authoritarian state by the western world. Today they have become the media darlings of the world as they have welcomed 1.3 million (and counting) Ukrainian refugees to their country. They've given these refugees social security, temporary residence and shelter from Putin's war. Today w...

It's been 10 days since Misha Kalhin in Kyiv, Ukraine was on the pod, which is 10 years when you are sitting in the middle of a war. We have him back today to answer all of our questions including "How is the morale of the Ukrainian military?", "What is Zelensky telling the people to keep spirits up?", "With Chernobyl leaking and biochemical weapons rumors, what will it tak...

Get Tickets to Turner's Live Album Recording on March 11, 2022 at the Friars Club in New York City Here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/turner-sparks-live-comedy-album-recording-friars-club-march-11-2022-tickets-224940572307 Buy them for yourself if you are in NY or for your friends if you can't make it. And even if you can't come, please post about the show on your social media. Thanks...

Shafic Gawhari is the managing director of Moby Media Afghanistan, a company that owns Afghanistan's #1 TV network TOLO TV. He joins us from his home in Kabul, Afghanistan to tell us how he is putting his TV network back together in a Taliban-controlled country, and what daily life is like in Kabul six months after the US exit. Shafic proudly tells us how TOLO TV transformed the culture of Afg...

Misha Kalhin checks in from his high-rise apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine to give us a full update on the war with Russia from his vantage point. We talk hand-to-hand combat, air raids, bomb shelters and the current mood of the Ukrainian people. For regular updates on the war, and to see his wonderful stand-up comedy follow Misha on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/misha_kalhin_standup/ Lost I...

Canadian comedian Todd Van Allen joins us from his home in Ottawa, aka ground zero for the Canadian trucker protests of the last three weeks, to explain the whole ordeal and tell us what it was really like on the ground with these guys. Todd weaves a dizzying tale of how it went from a small group of truckers not wanting to get vaccinated, to a peaceful, if not noisy, takeover of major Canadian ci...

We get the  World's Smartest Podcast Network  gang of Andrew Heaton and Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy back for another roundtable, this time live and on location at the Friars Club in NYC. In the span of one hour we fix the problem of "Who should host the Olympics in the future when every host country loses money on it?", "Should Prince Charles' wife Camilla become Queen even though mo...

Chinese comedian Tony Chou joins the show from his home in Beijing to give us a report on what it's like to be in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics. He also talks in detail about the covid-protocols he goes through on a daily basis to leave his apartment complex, ride public transportation and enter any building, and what happens to someone when they do test positive for covid in China. Fin...

Belarusian comedian  Misha Kalhin  checks in from his new home in Kiev, Ukraine to answer the questions "What is Putin's end goal with Ukraine?", "What does Putin want from the West?" and "Why does Putin keep attacking Misha?" Follow Misha Kalhin at  http://mishakalhin.com/ . Lost In America is hosted by us AKA  Turner Sparks  and  Michael Ira Kaplan . Get Tickets to Tu...

Balkan comedy legend Pedja Bajovic joins us from his home in Croatia to try to explain why Bosnia & Herzegovina has three Presidents and why one of them wants to take his third of the country and join Serbia. We talk a lot of genocide, Dayton, Ohio and of course Vladimir Putin. Enjoy! Watch Pedja's English language special "The Balkan Brain" here: https://www.comedydynamics.com/cat...

Kazakh comedian Nazerke Amirova joins us to explain the post-Soviet history of Kazakhstan, the battle for power currently happening between the current dictator and the former dictator, and why Vladimir Putin and Russia are the big winners no matter what. Follow Nazerke on Instagram @Nazluvslucky here: https://www.instagram.com/nazluvslucky/ Lost In America is hosted by us AKA  Turner Sparks  and ...