Out Of The Blue Podcast Series

A photoshoot with wild horses in Linton, North Dakota becomes an unlikely mirror. Watching strangers earn a horse’s trust one slow, patient gesture at a time, I recognized a structure I’d been living inside for years, since I was wrongfully accused, since the trial, since I had to decide, over and over, whether to answer cruelty with rage or with something harder to sustain. This one includes the...

What happens when truth gets replaced by agreement? I start with an odd dream I had last week, a monologue to a stranger, and work through the political situation in NYC, and end up somewhere personal. Agreement isn't truth. And silence isn't neutral. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.outofthebluepodcast.com/su...

I had an odd dream last night that lingered well into the day. I was having a conversation with a guy. I don’t know who he was. Young. Colored hair, tattoos, tackle box hardware on his face. We were deep into it, and I went into a monologue. “It’s not enough to have truth on your side. For crying out loud, even saying it is a cliché. It’s not that you believe something is true, it’s that you think...

The Monday I was released from jail, in June 2018, was an odd and distorted day. I was in a psychological fog, I hadn’t slept. When I was processed into the jail, I was told that “vegetarian isn’t a medical condition” and so I mostly picked over the meals, but mostly didn’t eat in lockup. Being released was uneventful. After posting bond ($100K), I was taken back to my little cell until everything...

“What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. His soul is the issue. Instead of pursuing the woman and trying to get her alone, away from her husband, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.”...

*This was originally published in Available Light - My blog about things that don’t require an argument. A seven hour drive from Minneapolis drops you into the flatlands of North Dakota, agribusiness country, where the landscape asks nothing of you and gives little back. I made the trip to photograph a herd of Nokota horses for the Nakota Horse Conservancy, a breed once nearly wiped out and still...

I couldn’t listen to it. My conversation with Penn Jillette dropped into the podosphere last week. It was a long conversation about what I went through from 2018 to 2022. Heavy things. And I talked a lot. I tried, but I couldn’t listen to it. I’ve been telling these stories for a couple of years now and every time I do, I feel divided. To talk about my own life feels selfish. Indulgent. I don’t wa...

Every morning, after I’ve read the news, much of it depressing, I feel the need to write. Since my blog launched in 2024, I’ve written consistently, and over the past year my output has doubled. Add research, reading, and production time, and my work on Out of the Blue is a full-time occupation — admittedly, not a lucrative one as of yet. The themes I write about are something like stones from a r...

In 2018, I was wrongfully accused of rape. The accusation was false. I had no criminal record, no history of violence. But the moment I was arrested, my career vanished, my savings were destroyed, and I became a pariah. For four years, I fought the charges. In 2022, a jury deliberated for only minutes before finding me not guilty. But by then, the damage was catastrophic and irreversible. This Sub...

In July 2018, Carr Hagerman wrote in his journal: "Who am I now that all my work has been destroyed? I've disappeared." He didn't know yet how much worse it would get. In this episode of Out of the Blue , Carr takes you inside the bail hearing — the frozen clock, the indifferent prosecutor, the $100,000 that changed everything — and maps the financial and psychological wreckage that follows a wron...

(This is an edited episode that originally streamed in March 2025, as episode 6.) In 2018, police arrived at my home with an arrest warrant for two counts of Federal Sexual Misconduct. The accusation was false. The evidence would eventually prove it. But none of that mattered as I was processed and locked in a concrete cell. This isn’t a story about heroic resilience or finding silver linings. It’...