Something (rather than nothing)

Greg Larson was a starry-eyed fan when he hurtled headfirst into professional baseball. As the new clubhouse attendant for the Aberdeen IronBirds, a Minor League affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, Larson assumed he’d entered a familiar world. He thought wrong.  He quickly discovered the bizarre rituals of life in the Minors: fights between players, teammates quitting in the middle of the games, d...

This is a special episode with SRTN Producer and Editor Peter Bauer! This episode is quite the happening. It was recorded live at Warbling Creek Studios in the storied lands of Eugene, Oregon. Peter and I talked about the podcast, about music and philosophy. We reflect on the show, where it came from and where it is going. Peter is a painter, an adventurer, a musical talent, a producer and editor....

Randy J Byrd was a toddler in his playpen comfortably snuggled between two 15-inch subs that blasted the likes of Ozzy, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. Randy’s mother loved heavy music and never said he could not listen to something. Thus a Metalhead was brought into being. Randy is a photographer for the fantastic doom/metal service Doomed and Stoned which serves the varied local worldwide doom and s...

Buddy Nestor is an abstract painter who strikes a strange new chord with portraiture. Using photographs he takes of beautiful women, he creates grotesque, distorted creatures, their features uncomfortably recognizable within the melting forms, slashes and swirls of Buddy’s abstraction.“These physical and psychological images are my attempt to capture the true nature of humanity. They are spiritual...

Metra Mitchell received her early training at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY where she earned her Bachelor's of Fine Art in Painting and Minor in Art History on a full art scholarship in 2006. She later was awarded a teaching assistant ship from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, MO where she pursued her Masters of Fine Arts in Painting and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2008.Metra...

For this episode of Something (rather than nothing) we engage with the talented music artist and activist Laura Hopkins. Hopkins discusses her classical piano training, writing songs, growing up around music, playing guitar and creating some ‘louder’ music. Hopkins exquisite work with the band Death Parade straddles wide emotional terrain and floats into space only to be brought back in and ground...

Ghost Frog are four humanoids from planet Earth who started to make strange sounds together in the winter of star date 2013 in Portland, OR, USA. This interstellar transmission captured the words of Humanoids Quinn Schwartz and Karl Beheim. They play heavy psychedelic stoner grunge that combines doomy riffs with punk energy and otherworldly melodies while exploring themes derived from sci-fi/ horr...

Ever since she was a little kid drawing ghosts and graveyards at her desk in her parents’ basement, MELISSA ALFORD wanted to be an artist. Always a fan of the weird and the macabre, she discovered her love of sequential art through artists like Gary Larson and Charles Addams. Melissa went on to get her BFA in sequential art from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and has worked as a freelance...

"New perspectives can spring up from within the most insignificant everyday moments. A private photograph, a newspaper article or even a still frame of a movie can be the medium for another dimension. All these are raw materials for me, which I gradually release from any unnecessary feature that traps them into the optically compatible world. My aim is for my images to have a universality that goe...

Jainam Jhaveri is a graduate in business management and degreed in software programming. Jainam started working when he was fifteen years old and worked in multiple corporate companies in fields like content writing, marketing and sales, software programming, administration work. In 2015, his father passed away and he took over the family business. Jainam says:"Somehow I randomly came to know abou...

Turkish artist, İlay Karabay Solaklı graduated from economics and spent her former years working in corporate companies and government institutions. Realizing that this lifestyle isn't satisfactory enough for her she decided to follow her childhood passion, which is painting.   The self-taught artist mostly uses acrylic and nail polish in her paintings. She believes that paintings should give peop...

Vincente DiSanti Founder / Producer / Director WOMP STOMP filmsVincente DiSanti moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and has since worked in several aspects of the film industry including live-action, feature animation, story development, voice acting, visual FX, commercials, and much more. A jack of all trades, Vincente is best known for his directorial work on Never Hike Alone (2017), Never Hike in the...

Ken Volante has been asking questions of SRTN guests for awhile. In this special episode, Rachel Lally, podcast host of Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other returns to ask the SRTN host the baffling questions he usually advantages himself of.  Ken Volante is a labor activist. Volante is originally from Pawtucket, RI which is known as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. He has...

Geoff Finan was the Writer in Residence for Dublin City Council for the Dublin North West area in the summer of 2018 and again in 2019 and is currently lecturing in the National College of Art and Design on the module ‘Voices From The Margins’. Last year he had the honour of writing the 100 year commemorative poem celebrating the first Dáil in Ireland, titled ‘January 1919’. Geoff was recently com...

Mary Cappello is the author of six books of literary nonfiction, including Awkward: A Detour (a Los Angeles Times bestseller); Swallow, based on the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection in Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum; and, most recently, Life Breaks In: A Mood Almanack. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, on NPR, in guest author blogs for Powells...

NIKKI LYNETTE is a performer, writer, and visual artist whose individual style is equal parts hip hop, alternative, and pop. A Chicago native, she fuses mental health activism into her performances and has created a lane for her music that is uniquely her own. A proud independent artist, her self-produced tunes are currently featured in popular shows on Netflix, Hulu, Showtime and more. Lynette’s...

Holly Campbell is a life-long, self-taught artist born and raised in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Primarily using acrylic, ink, and watercolor, her work is often described as whimsical - with a focus on feminine energies, body positivity, and "dream-scapes". Since 2016, she has worn a multitude of different hats as an artist. She has spent many hours volunteering for local art organizations such as...

Ben Westhoff is an award-winning investigative journalist who writes about culture, drugs, and poverty. His books are taught around the country and have been translated into languages all over the world. His new book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic is the highly-acclaimed, bombshell first book about fentanyl, which is causing the worst drug...

Alicia Angel is a New York City based songwriter, singer, visual artist, and activist. She has co-written over 35 songs for Emmy nominated and award winning hit preschool shows including Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer" and "Dora and Friends: Into the City" as well as songs for “Sesame Street,” Sesame Studios, and Universal Kids’ “Snug’s House.” She has written songs for artists in China and Taiw...

Jakub Ferencik is a philosopher and an author. Ferencik's new book 'Up in the Air: Christianity, Atheism & the Global Problems of the 21st Century' formed the basis for our critical discussion. You will enjoy this deeper dive into philosophy and the inquiry into our present difficulties in connecting humans to productive, up-building discourse. Jakub and I dig into space/time, art, epistemolog...

S.A. Lawrence-Welch  (she/her/hers|they/them/theirs) S.A. is a Métis / Néhiyaw (Plains Cree) Indigenous Advocate, Organizer, Speaker, Activist, Artist & Writer. Their main focus of work has been on the lasting damage the Residential School System, Indian Boarding Schools & The 60’s Scoop left on First Nations people. They are an advocate for community gathering and cultural connection as a...

HARDLINERAY makes smart, high energy art of a noticeably singular and unique hand. Ray is of noteworthy talent. I loved doing this episode. To learn about Ray check out these words from his Folks Press (Portland) feature:"When all is said and done, however, what keeps Ray sane is comics. Comics, comics, comics. In part, the sanity comes from being skilled. A fellow illustrator had this to say abou...

DIRTY PRINCESS is a mischievous alchemy of Francesca, Mikayla , and JewlzThese women appear as a dark obscurity that rose into the spotlight in early 2018.Dirty Princess have encapsulated crowds with fuzz guitars, banshee-like vocals, and stand up drums. Their music is a field of energy you can feel starting at your toes and ending in the tips of your hairs. Wild and Alive rock n' roll will NEVER...

Claire Peaceful Deer Lady Zwicker is an Anishinaabe woman from Lake Simcoe Territory / Williams Treaty Territory in Ontario, Canada. "I am currently writing my thesis for my Masters of Education around Indigenous Survival, Revitalization & Self-Determination. I am a big advocate for Indigenous Youth and believe they are the future. I am also a beginning educator and have worked in Vietnam, my...

Cathy Camper is the author of Lowriders in Space, Lowriders to the Center of the Earth and Lowriders Blast from the Past, with a fourth volume in the works, Lowriders to the Rescue, all from Chronicle Books. She has a forthcoming picture book, Ten Ways to Hear Snow (Dial/Penguin), release October 13, 2020, and also wrote Bugs Before Time: Prehistoric Insects and Their Relatives (Simon & Schust...