Men: An Explanation Podcast

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about Baseball. Tom is having cosmic experiences with it while fall asleep to Northwoods Radio Sleep Baseball . And he’s wondering about the abstractness of it, the beauty in its weirdness, the storytelling of it all. Tim has the history, and the love of it, and strong memories of loving it and giving it up. Thanks for listening! Timestamps 00:00 Tom has been expe...

In this episode, Tom and Tim start with Henry Darger- the kind of artist you’re supposed to not want to be, and get to Picasso, the kind you’re supposed to want to be! We unpack it a little, and might come back to this. Ends with a reading from John Berger’s The Success and Failure of Picasso Thanks for listening! 00:00 - Henry Darger 01:28 - Mythic Henry Darger is not who you want to be 3:00 - Th...

In this episode, Tom and Tim start with Kurt Cobain, and talk again about the process of making things. Listening to things, cobbling things together, steal from things, inspiration, and all that stuff. And an anecdote about Gene Kelly and also Magic the Gathering. Thanks for listening! Timestamps 00:00 - Preface to the 2019 edition of Kurt Cobain biography, about Kurt's record collection 3:20 - T...

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk more about fame and inner worlds and creativity . It ends with a reading by Tim from Wallace Stevens’ letters. Thanks for listening! 00:00: When parents and teachers only have their kids/students to unburden themselves onto; Tim tells the story of a friend’s friend 04:46: Tim asks why he’s writing poetry and stories, when he’s surrounded by music all the time; Mr....

In this episode, Tom and Tim mostly talk about the kids these days with their Greek Mythology and altars and dice, and about Therians, and Furries, and other ventures into new and old religion. It ends with a reading by Tim from Dave Grohl’s biography, about a vision of Kurt Cobain on the road. Thanks for listening! 00:16 Tom talks about middle-schoolers who, inspired by Percy Jackson books, have...

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about the shared internal world, the lack of an internal world, the internal demented world, and spiritual experiences with Bigfoot. Lots about Tom’s crush on Christina Listens and how they love the same things, and then even more about Bill Clinton and other politicians. And storytelling and religion and Bigfoot. Timestamps 0:00 Tom on diminished minor 7ths. 3:45...

In this episode, Tom and Tim talking about the urge to build and build, and to engineer and surpass. Whether building enormous cauldrons, building the highest skyscrapers ever, or building bridges to far off lands, or the biggest, non-sensical novel in the world, men always want to surpass what has been done before! Timestamps 00:00 Tom talks watching engineering videos with his elderly father-in-...

This episode Tom describes 5 days of intense interaction with ChatGPT, in a business training which felt more like therapy or a mushroom trip. After 10 minutes he was locked in. Tim and Tom talk about the messiness of human experience. Tom details all the AI videos he’s been watching, and then in the reading corner, he reads small excerpts from his hours of ChatGPT interactions. Enjoy! Loose times...

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about peer pressure, starting with Air Jordans, fake Air Jordans, about parenting through peer pressure (for parents and children both), music, and how being cool even affects our writing and art making. The episode finishes with Tim reading “Mrs. Silly” by William Trevor. Enjoy! Loose timestamps, for you all who like to skim around. 0:00 - 5:00 - Peer Pressure an...

Tom and Tim talk a lot about KINGS, starting with King Richard at the local medieval faire, and moving throughout the eons to include the previous King of Morocco and then Charles I, Elizabeth II, Saddam Hussein and more. Finishing with a bunch from Al Pacino’s autobiography, including seeing / meeting Brando early in his career, and then Pacino’s several performances of Richard III. Enjoy! Timest...

In this episode, Tom and Tim discuss, in depth, caring for elderly men whose purpose and faculties have essentially left them. What are we learning as caregivers in this experience? What materiality are we feeding? What purpose is there to this ritual and situation? Welcome listeners! - For fascinating stories and insights about serving the end of life. TIMESTAMPS for you all 00:45 Two eventful we...

This one goes deep. Tom talks about watching, in real time, a family member’s final days. Tim and Tom agree the topic is how to live life as if these moments- where real emotion and real connection- matter more than “day to day life".” Tim brings up the movie Equus and The Bacchae we both talk about the religious impulse that follows the moment our imagination and emotions connect and how that can...

Hi there! In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about loneliness, and easing it with AI friends. And the need for community and the seminal Post-Apocalyptic novel Earth Abides, and then Tim and Tom decide to start a bowling alley. A gentle and wise conversation. Enjoy! Timestamps! 00:00 - Tim talks about his old idea of loneliness 02:25 - Tim's revised thoughts about loneliness, after reading this art...

Hi everyone! Here is our podcast, episode #7. Tom wanted to talk about Taylor Swift, and how she’s the only hope for humanity against the scale of destruction we’re up against, but Tim brought up Walt Whitman’s words during the last 4 years of his life and we talked about that before we got to Taylor. They are both classic Americans, in the same lineage, even, and probably love this country more t...

In this episode, we talk about early creative days, including teachers and spaces where this felt safe and nurturing. Then we all talk about Tennessee Williams, , Nick Cave, Homer, Nina Simone and Lauren Weinstein and how they take out the garbage. Tim reads from the biography of Tennessee Williams by John Lahr. Here are some timestamps: Episode 6 rough timestamps 00:30 - Early experience of being...

In this episode, we talk about biographies. About reading biographies that inspire, biographies that keep up from living our own lives, biographies we should have avoided, biographies we should have read, and then not living your own life like it’s a biography. Tim talks about Van Gogh, Tom talks about Steve Martin, Klaus Kinski and Ted Hawkins. Give it a listen! We are graced with the voice of El...

In this episode, we talk about doing things badly, and about exploring the edges of the spaces that we’re supposed to stay inside, both in digital and analog worlds. Tom worries about AI, complains about business people, swoons over human voices reading to him and then Tim reads from The English Patient. We are graced with the voice of Ell Potter in this (and future episodes). Go visit the Ell’s t...

In this episode, we talk about the drawbacks of being curious, introspective people searching for meaning. We talk about strange people, lonely people and a bunch more. Tim reads the ending of The Stranger. Here are some timestamps: 00:30: What are the drawbacks of being curious, introspective people searching for meaning?01:00: Tom’s answer (being overpowered)05:00 related, Tim on Mary Wollstonec...

In this episode, we talk about creative origins. Tom veers off into wanting a grand unified theory of everything, for any topic, and we talk about storytelling, how much it has created the time we’re in now. Wondering if people ever got along. This episode hits its peak I think, with Tim’s reading from Jean Guéhenno, an writer/activist/diarist who kept an amazing diary during WWII from German-occu...

Here is our podcast, episode #1. It doesn’t even have a title. Tim may post it with a different title. We joke in the first moments that the podcast might be called “How to not be an incel a*****e” but really we just go on to talk about what moves us deeply in this world. And at least for me, at least, how it contradicts what I sometimes feel impulsively. Here are some timestamps: 00:00 How we did...

Dear friends, This blog/substack will be taking a detour; it will become a sort of podcast, in collaboration with my friend Tim Miller, whose podcast about myth, poetry and story saved my pandemic and has been a life line to real feelings in a time when everything seems As a preface to that podcast, as yet unnamed, and unrecorded (but perhaps beginning here next week?) I am beginning to read aloud...