Since You Asked: Uncommon Advice from Cary Tennis

It's been almost two years since I did a podcast here at the Since You Asked podcast station, and geez I've been paying Buzzsprout every month all this time, anyway, here in this rather casual talky-type podast there's a song, and I talk a little about my passion for music and songwriting and how it goes here in Castiglion Fiorentino. Not really a Since You Asked column, this is not...

May 12 to 22, this year, 2022, I will be hosting another of our fabulous writing workshops here in beautiful Castiglion Fiorentino at lovely Le Santucce. The Amherst Writers and Artists method we use in the workshops has been a godsend to thousands around the world who want to have a richer, fuller experience writing. Whether you write to sharpen and enlarge your experience of life or you do it fo...

The moment  has come to tell our unvaccinated friends and relatives the truth: Their refusal to be vaccinated is killing people. It is morally wrong. The moment has come to get in their faces, to reveal ourselves passionately, how deeply we care about this, to plead, to beg, to negotiate, to use whatever strength we have left to do our part to help mankind stop this pandemic.  Like it or not, each...

Today I respond to the below comment from someone who identifies himself as " Ugly hunchback ," posted on last week's column , as though it were a question.  It expresses suffering for which I propose an antidote. The author of the comment was apparently alerted to this column by my 2006 Salon.com column on suicide which after 15 years still attracts fresh readers and comments as re...

Hi Cary, I have huge trust issues and it’s affecting my relationship with my partner of 3 years. My trust issues have stemmed from my childhood for many different reasons and to top it off, last year I found out my step dad had been abusing me. My partner has never given me a reason to not trust him. He says he has his morals and knows deep down he has never done anything wrong. His dad cheated on...

In 2004 I was finishing up an article for Salon.com about George W. Bush and the upcoming presidential election, when I thought I was having a heart attack. I hit “send” and then I dialed 911. I called my wife from the ambulance. I spent the night in the hospital. Tests showed I was not having a heart attack. I was having a panic attack. That whole episode got me thinking: Maybe I was a little too...

Hi everybody this is Cary Tennis, it’s Thursday, April 22, 2021 and I’m exhausted. I gotta tell ya. What a week. What a few weeks. Living in Italy but I’m watching CNN and the news constantly and I gotta tell ya, I’m full of hope for the possibilities of police reform in the United States and I’m also just emotionally exhausted.  And I have to tell you it’s not just the political situation in the...

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said this Friday about the fight for voting rights: "Hope is a little different from optimism. Hope is the recognition that, yeah, we are in a serious fight for what is good, what is true, what is righteous, and evil is well financed and determined. I understand that. But you know, as bad as this bill is, and it's terrible, it would be worse if it were not...

Dear Cary, I hate my family of origin.  I recently discovered that I grew up in a mostly narcissistic family, with a narc mother who subtly but persistently projected her own guilt and shame and anger about her situation onto us, her six children.  ... As children, we knew we were poor, were ashamed about it, and felt something was terribly messed up about this situation.  As a result, we - especi...

David Talbot, founder and former editor in chief of Salon.com, has a  new site called TheDavidTalbotShow.com ,  and he asked me to write for him a piece about my stay in the hospital in Arezzo and my crazy adventures recovering from Covid-19. You can read that piece on his site , where you can find the full, unexpurgated tale of my incredibly strange delusions and hallucinations, the result of the...

This is not an advice column. This is commentary. Robert Aaron Long, 21 years old, of  Woodstock, Georgia, was arrested Tuesday in the murders of eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent working in massage parlors. Initial media reports indicated that he claimed he did it because he was a sex addict. Sex addiction is not a trivial matter. But right now his claim feels like a distracti...

Dear Cary, I’ve loved the same boy since I was a teenager, knowing that for lots of reasons we would never end up together. Our love has endured and we’ve had decades of meaningful time together for its own sake, without the pressure of everyday partnership. The pandemic has brought us far closer to one another, but, in doing so, has led me to a painful realization: I never let go of my teenage ho...

Hi Folks! Wow, was I insane! This week's podcast dives deep into the fantastical delirium I experienced in the intensive care unit of San Donato hospital in Arezzo, Italy. I'll be publishing a longer prose version soon and will let you know when that is available. But for now, take a listen to this. It's pretty wild! I mean, I was living in a completely unreal world, and as I gradua...

I was still thinking about the reasons senators would find it impossible to act on their conscience when it comes to decisions that might threaten their chances of reelection, and I just thought, well, the job should have less perks, be less of an ego trip, more of a sacrifice, like the armed services. The operative word being  service. Support the show

I wrote this song a few weeks ago and sang it to my wife on Valentines Day.  Support the show

It's been a crazy couple of weeks but it just occurred to me that all I need to do to get more questions for the column is invite people on social media to send me questions! And also, I almost forgot, also starting up an online Finishing School session! Support the show

This podcast is an exhortation to keep your guard up during the next few weeks as conditions improve  and the temptation will arise to relax on the coronavirus protocols, and also just a kind of rambling commentary on Italy, on myself, and on the future of the column, that is, an advice column without letters is not an advice column, it's just commentary. And though today is gorgeous and I&ap...

I am watching the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump and so my podcast asks, "How do you reach a point where your conscience is overwhelming and you must make the leap? How do you get to that point? How do you get to that point? How could these senators get to that point, where the conscience ... blooms, where all the fear subsides, and the conscience floods the spirit, floods the mind,...

In Castiglion Fiorentino, in the beautiful Tuscan hills, I’m looking out across the continent, I’m looking out at the country that I love, that I was born in, the country that my father fought for and my uncles fought for, my grandparents fought for, I’m looking out, and I cry for my country. I cry for the people suffering, I cry for the people who suffered for four years under this fool of a mani...

On a lighter note, my friends, let’s talk about Foods That Are Good for the Kidneys!  Having been out of the hospital for six weeks now, having spent five weeks in the hospital with Covid-19 and another disorder which was life-threatening—I was critical, I was near death for a while—I’m back and it’s just dawning on me now, as I read the medical reports, that  I had acute renal failure, and so I h...

Do you feel like life will never return to normal? Does the future seem like a dim, unending nightmare of isolation? Do you fear that the habits we have acquired will forever dampen the bright spontaneous spirit of social life? Does despair feel like the only realistic response to world conditions? Today's podcast is a 25-minute one-take piece in which I range fairly widely, and in a very per...

Right-wing violence, insurrection, irrational fury: President Trump stirred the flames. But he didn't create the pain and disillusionment underneath it all.  Why are so many Americans in pain? Why are so many Americans angry? What is underneath it all? Support the show

How to balance our grief about the pandemic with the desire for happiness and normalcy? How to remain whole and vital and strong when the world seems to be falling apart? Where is the line between staying informed and obsessive news-watching?  I ponder these things and offer some tips in this third episode in a series of podcast-only "Since You Asked" posts. Support the show

I continue to heal from my hospitalization, and realize what there is in this moment to be thankful for  ... regardless of how  crazy the world has gone ... Support the show

Hello Friends, This is a short podcast-only edition just to let you know that I am now home after five weeks in the Italian hospital, that I am recovering slowly, expecting to be good as new eventually, but also thinking it's time to make some changes. --CT Support the show