Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

The Parallax Views countdown to Halloween continues as we revisit the life and times of the actor most associated with Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi, w/ the world's foremost Bela Lugosi scholar Gary D. Rhodes. Previously joined us to discuss Lugosi's cinematic career from his runaway success and rise to superstardom courtesy the Universal Studios classic Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) to his later yea...

The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as we turn our attention to the horror movies archetypal villain: the boogeyman. The cinematic boogeyman that haunt our nightmares comes in a variety of forms from classic monsters like Frankenstein's Creature, the Wolf Man, and Dracula to fictional serial killers (often with a supernatural twist!) like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Fredd...

The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as the 13 O'Clock Podcast's Jenny Ashford returns to discuss her new game design venture Giallo Games, based on the 70 Italian horror/thriller movies of the 60s-80s, and spooky cases from her three volume book series The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the 20th Century. We begin the discussion by talking about...

On this edition of Parallax Views' #HalloweenPodcastMassacreSeries, "The Historian of the Strange" Robert Damon Schneck shares with us macabre and ghoulish tales of autoerotic asphyxiation, man in black attacks, homicidal preachers, and... bigfoot porn? Robert Damon Schneck is the author of The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America (later re-issued as The Bye...

The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as we delve into the infamously mysterious disappearance of a young woman at a scandalous hotel with journalist Jake Anderson, author of Gone at Midnight: The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam. For the unfamiliar, Elisa Lam, a Canadian student with a history of mental health struggles, disappeared while visiting L.A. in January 2013. Lam was stayi...

Parallax Views initiates the #HalloweenPodcastMassacre, a series of episodes devoted to celebrating the Halloween season, by highlighting the brand new horror movie The Good Things Devils Do, a wild ride of gory vampire hijinks set appropriately on All Hallows' Eve, with the film's director Jess Norvisgaard and director of photography James Suttles. Boasting a a cast headlined by a trio of horror...

On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made of the religious right's political power in America, especially in light of President Donald Trump's nomination of the ultra-conservative Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of the recently deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court. Ginsburg along with Trump administration officials like Attorney General Bill Barr have a great deal of su...

On this edition of Parallax Views, it's often been said that U.S. war in the Middle East are fought not to protect America from Weapons of Massa Destruction, terrorist threats, or to spread democracy but rather for the cynical purpose of gaining access to natural resources, specifically crude oil. "No more blood for oil!" cried many an antiwar protester and pro-peace activist during the the George...

On this edition of Parallax Views, how did we get to this moment of social uprisings and the repressive states, represented by ICE immigration detention centers and rising authoritarianism around the globe, that color the present? Sociologist William I. Robinson provides a theoretical framework for understanding how 21st century tumult came to be in his new book The Global Police State. Robinson a...

On this edition of Parallax Views, the Weather Underground have been variously described, depending on one's perspective, as radical activists who opposed the Vietnam War or, more pejoratively, terrorists. Bill Ayers was one of the leaders of the Weather Underground in those tumultuous days and has written about his experiences in his memoir Fugitive Days. He joins us on this edition of Parallax V...

In light of John McAfee recently being detained in Spain and facing charges leveled at him by the United State IRS we present this interview w/ McAfee that may serve to shed light on his psyche. On this edition of Parallax Views, an equal parts wild and tense conversation with the founder of McAfee associates (the creators of McAfee Antivirus), bitcoin bull, Presidential candidate, international f...

On this edition of Parallax Views, the ultra-conservative Catholic order Opus Dei has come under scrutiny due to the nomination of the devout Catholic Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court after the passing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Although Barrett is connected to similar order known as the People of Praise, Opus Dei has come up due to the connections of Attorney General Bill Barr and The Federalist...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Robbie Martin of Media Roots joins us to discuss his recent podcast series on the history of Freemasonry in America as well as his thoughts on the QAnon phenomena. In Robbie's estimation, QAnon seems to be a political, or perhaps even intelligence, operation. But to what end? Find out on this edition of Parallax Views! Among the topics covered: - Is the history o...

On this edition of Parallax Views, sometimes it is necessary to examine the historical past to understand our present. For example, the current moment of rapidly increasing economic inequality that has colored the opening salvo of the 21st century appears to have a great deal in common with the "The Gilded Age" of the 19th and 20th centuries. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Hiltzik, auth...

On this edition of Parallax Views, we welcome a guest that has an inside track within the beltway. Namely, Ret. Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson. For the unfamiliar, Col. Wilkerson served as the Chief of Staff under Secretary of State Colin Powell during the George W. Bush administration. He also served 31 years in the U.S. army and teaches as an adjunct professor of government and public policy at the...

On this edition of Parallax Views, 2016 Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein is trending on social media after Ruth Bader Ginsberg's passing as many claim she acted as a "spoiler" against Hillary Clinton. As a result, they argue, Donald Trump will now be able to nominate another conservative Justice into the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Green Party continues to run the own Presidential c...

On this edition of Parallax Views, we revisit the subject of Steve Bannon, who was recently arrested along with his business partners Andrew Badolato, Brian Kolfage, and Timothy Shea were arrested on charges related to fraudulent skullduggery in relation to their "We Build the Wall" campaign. In this conversation we turn away from the legal controversies to discuss the ideas that undergird Bannon'...

On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made of the scandal-ridden Presidency of Donald Trump. But how deep does the rabbit hole go and do the sordid saga of Donald Trump have a prequel in the form of his time as celebrity businessman? For 30 years, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston of the DCReport (and author of the books The Making of Donald Trump and It...

On this edition of Parallax Views, Playboy's White House correspondent Brian Karem recently pressed President Trump at a White House briefing if he'd accept a peaceful transition of power on the chance that he is defeated by his Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden. Trump, refused to give a clear answer as concerns grows that sitting President in the White House will not accept the results of the...

From Today's Double Feature Episode - Charles Hugh Smith on Deutsche Bank's "Age of Disorder" Report (Request Was Made to Break the Episode Into Two Parts; I'm Happy to Oblige) Charles Hugh Smith of the  Of Two Minds blog , which ranked at #7 on CNBC's list of the top alternative financial websites, and author of A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet joins us to discuss...

From Today's Double Feature Episode - Scott Stedman and Sophie Pierce on OnlyFans Skullduggery (Request Was Made to Break the Episode Into Two Parts; I'm Happy to Oblige) Journalists Scott Stedman and Sophie Pierce of  Forensic News  join us to discuss their recent work detailing allegations of fraud, theft, and other corruption by the newly popular modeling website OnlyFans and its mysterious own...

Time Stamps for the Interviews: Scott Stedman and Sophie Pierce Interview - 04:28 Charles Hugh Smith Interview - 53:30 Part 1: Sophie Pierce and Scott Steadman on OnlyFans fraud allegations - https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/scottsophie/ Part 2: Charles Hugh Smith on Deutsche Bank's "Age of Disorder" report - https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/chsmith/ A Parallax Views Two-for-One Double Featu...

On this edition of Parallax VIews, Wade Davis is one of the world's foremost anthropologists and ethnobotanists. He's traversed the globe covering topics like Haitian Voodoo in The Serpent and the Rainbow, the wisdom of ancient in The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters to the Modern World, the World War I era British expedition to Mount Everest in Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and...

On this edition of Parallax Views, much attention has been given to the issue of fake news and its permeation of the United States and Western Europe. However, it is worth keeping in mind that the infodemic is not a uniquely U.S. or even Western European dilemma. In fact, the problem exists in Eastern Europe as well. Academic and journalist Maria Cernat of The Barricade joins us to discuss the ris...

On this edition of Parallax Views, we get a "State of the Media" address from the veteran muckraking journalist Ken Silverstein of Washington Babylon . Ken has a lot of criticism for the approach of the press in the era of Trump, even though he himself has a great deal of contempt for Donald Trump and the way the current sitting President has attacked journalists over the course of the past four y...