MikeyPod

Here it is!  The first podcast from the road. Tiffany and Todd Ballou are the founders of The Chicken Rescue in Alvin, Texas. We talked here about their history and how they moved all these chickens to Texas from Peoria. If you like to check out the photos I took at the sanctuary (I’m quite proud of them) here they are on Flickr . I’m currently in a hotel in Fort Stockton, TX and...

Here it is!  A very special episode of MikeyPod, recorded live at the Kraine Theater for the Queerly Festival  on June 26, 2017. It was tempting to edit the imperfections out of this recording, but I resisted the urge and decided to leave it as is. I hope you enjoy these “live” moments like I do! Thanks to all the artists who performed! Please check out their websites be...

This week’s guest is my pal Andy Tabar, founder of the vegan fashion brand Compassion Co . and co-host of the fantastic podcast, The Bearded Vegans . Andy and I have been internet friends for longer than I can remember, but I became especially interested in his life when I realized that he is living out of and running his business from a van! With my tour coming up, it was a perfect time to...

I met Eban Crawford back in the early EARLY days of podcasting. We’re talking, like, 2005 or so. Since then we have found so many more interests in common, producing electronic music with Ableton Live, growing beards, and veganism, among other things. I’ll be working with Eban in a few weeks at Moogfest presenting his No Permission Needed: Create  workshop, so I figured it was hig...

Walker Lukens  is an Austin-based musician who Free Press Houston called “one of the best songwriters in Texas.” Walker has long inspired me with his commitment and perseverance as an indie musician. He just released a new EP and it, like all of his music, is simply fantastic. I’ve been wanting to bring him onto the podcast again, and this new release gave me just the e...

Jeff McIlwain’s music has been providing a buoyant soundtrack for my life (and long runs!) for a number of years now. In my excitement about his latest release as Lusine , I reached out to his label, Ghostly International , to set up an interview and they kindly obliged. Jeff and I chat here about the path that led him to success as an electronic musician, his fondness for manipulating...

Lisa Ebersole is the writer, director and star of  37 Problems , a raunchy new comedy series about fertility and growing up. Ebersole plays a struggling 37 year-old screenwriter who finds out she has one egg left. Suddenly she has to get a guy to fertilize the egg, freeze the egg, or do nothing and live a different life than she imagined. The series is smart, raunchy, and...

There are few artists who inspire and thrill me like Christopher Willits . His oceanic, shimmering music is a perfect representation of the kind and open human he proves himself to be each time I talk with him. We chat here about his soundtrack work on the new film The Art of Listening , in which he is also a subject. Christopher’s work has a decidedly meditative quality,...

Emmett Jack Lundberg is the creator of the fantastic  Brothers , the first narrative series about a group of transgender masculine friends.    Emmett and I talked about the history of the show, and then dug deeper into a discussion about gender roles and how we are each affected by them. I really enjoyed discussing our shared experiences as transgender and cisgender men, a...

Ben Rimalower ‘s solo show,  Bad With Money , made such a big impact on me when I saw it at The Duplex  that I tracked him down on Facebook the moment I got home to send him the greatest fan letter of all time. Ben’s work hits the perfect combination of poignant, hilarious, and courageous in way that makes for perfect theater. I loved chatting with Ben abo...

Daaimah Mubashshir and I first met in Houston in the mid-nineties. An always-present friend, we ran in the same circles, worked together as servers at a popular restaurant, and even explored spirituality together as angsty yet passionate twenty-year-olds. More than that, though, Daaimah was (and remains) a tremendous influence on my creative life. She was the first to introduce me to Julia Cameron...

I met Ariel Hyatt soon after I started this podcast in 2006. She was one of the first publicists to realize the potential that podcasting had for independent artists, so she was quick to start promoting her artists to music podcasters like me. Ariel has been a fierce entrepreneur for 20 years and runs Cyber PR, a boutique PR company based right here in Brooklyn, NY. Her agency places clients on bl...

Steven Fales and I have been talking forever about chatting on the podcast, and we finally got around to it this week. A well established playwright and solo performer, I met Steven when I was just on the verge of summoning the courage to start creating my own solo work. Discovering his successful Mormon Boy Trilogy  and passion for creating and performing was a real point of inspiration for me. I...

Eliot Glazer first hit my radar with his Shit New Yorkers Say video which went viral back in 2012. He’s an LA-based writer and performer who currently serves as an Executive Story Editor on New Girl starring Zooey Deschanel. He has  served as creative consultant and recurring character on Comedy Central’s Broad City, and has contributed to Billy on The Street, Difficult People and Odd...

This is Joi Ito’s third visit to the podcast and each time I interview him, I am perfectly charmed and inspired. Joi’s bio is pretty awe-inspiring, most recently as the Director of the MIT Media Lab and co-author of the book Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future. Joi suggested we live stream our interview on Facebook, so this interview has an interesting spin not yet heard on this...

I’ve got two great guests for you on the podcast this week! First I talk with longtime vegan and social justice advocate Christopher Sebastian. Christopher and I talk about intersectionality and two of his articles: A Seven-point Plan to Disrupt White Supremacy and U.S. American Exceptionalism, and A Guide for Confronting White Fragility When Having Discussions About Race. I have a tremendou...

I am so excited about this new connection I have with South African musician Nate Maingard. I came across him sort of peripherally via this video from Patreon, and then we had a mini-conversation in the comments of a Patreon post which then led me to his Patreon page where I fell in love with his work and his great spirit. Nate has been playing guitar, writing songs and appearing on stage since 19...

I am so grateful and proud to know a spectacularly glittery person like Micah Bucey. He’s Associate Minister at historic Judson Memorial Church here in New York City where he has shepherded many artists (like me!) into the performing world. His kindness and insight seems unlimited, and I am just so pleased to have him as my guest on the podcast this week. Micah and I chatted a bit about wher...

When I got obsessed with watching Vine videos a few years ago, Jason Nash was one of the first people I started to follow. There are a ton of brilliant creators on Vine, each crafting great stories in these little 6 second looping videos. Jason’s humor and self-awareness about being an old guy famous on an app populated largely by millennials was especially appealing to this o...

Sawyer Nunes is a 14 year old musical powerhouse. Not only does he hold two Broadway credits for Matilda and Finding Neverland, but just last week he released his first EP, “Songs I Wrote In My Room.” Sawyer wrote and arranged all the music, played all the instruments, engineered the recording, and mixed and mastered the whole project as well. In his bedroom. No big deal, right? Sawyer...

Thanks to my diligent sister, I found my way to Joe’s Pub a couple of months ago to see Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One Lady Rape About Comedy . It was a fantastic thought provoking show that also inspired me pretty deeply in terms of how I approached some of the material in my recent show. Adrienne is an award winning choreographer, dancer, and stand-up comedian who has perfo...

I ran across the new web series Everything’s Okay last week (via Shark Party Media) and fell immediately in love with it. The very next day I found myself conducting an interview with its creator,  Ace Salisbury, which I share here for your listening pleasure. EVERYTHING’S OK is an episodic series best described as a ‘post-apocalyptic cardboard punk’ adventure. Its first episode debut’ed as...

This week, I was thrilled to talk with legendary drag icon, Lady Bunny, about her new show, Trans-Jester, which is running now at the (also legendary) Stonewall Inn. It was so much fun to talk with Bunny about her work, and our currently somewhat sensitive culture. Bunny’s long history as a drag queen gives her a unique perspective on the language that we use to describe ourselves that I can...

In celebration of the 11th anniversary of this here podcast, I present to you the first ever MikeyPod Live! I had a blast putting this together for The Queerly Festival at The Kraine Theater. This podcast was the thing that got me off my ass and up to New York City, it’s given me an excuse to talk to some really outstanding artists and activists and it’s just super fun to share wi...

Joshua D. Fischer joins me on the podcast this week to discuss his book, Meet the Regulars, which features stores and portraits of the everyday and famous people who frequent Brooklyn’s hottest (or most underrated) hangouts. Joshua and I talk about his work with the book, gentrification, and one of my favorite topics: how to cope with big city living without succumbing to misanthropy. Joshua...