The Healing Club

Stefani D returns for more talk of romance, sadism, depravity and more! We mostly eschew conversation that touches upon a certain subject/person who shall remain unnamed. We also don't talk about a lot of other things! I was reading the Yukio Mishima novel The Temple of Dawn and related some of its characters' spiritual and moral decline to my own life of quiet desperation and so on. Stefani at on...

Josh Stokes from the celebrated and famous HARD FRIED HISTORY podcast joins the Healing Club (ack)(bad podcast name)(thumbs down) to talk about songs people play at the strip club and different things people think about the new Dave Chapelle standup comedy special. We discuss the novels of Yukio Mishima and the music of Moneybagg Yo. This is a very important podcast with a very good message.

This is an episode about comedy, police violence, and everything in between! I met Ian John for the first time on the day we recorded this together,  and it worked out! I think we really connected! Antonio Aguilar is always a great guest! He's known Ian for almost a decade! They started comedy together in Madison, Wisconsin! Good stuff! Great talk!

I mispronounce the name of the movie during the rambling intro and that's all this episode has to do with the 1953 Federico Fellini masterpiece. Radu Bondar stops by to help me brighten my sad day with some stuff about things happening at a Best Western motel--some memory I don't care to preserve. Anyway, this is a good time capsule and a fun conversation with one of the best comedians in Houston....

This was a fascinating conversation about rape, trauma, race, comedy, improv, and creativity. Tre is so effortlessly funny and graceful with his timing and sharp observations that I didn't think it was too important to edit out anything at all. Comedy gold. One hundred per cent hilarious. Go see Tre perform wherever you can before he leaves for New York. 

Hopefully this one will go down in history as my masterpiece. I was so funny and so honest, so real and so true...  meanwhile, both guests were there: Julie Talbert and Justin Massengale are two of the funniest people in Houston and I got to talk to them. This was a pleasure to record and a value to the planet. This podcast adds value to the human story. You're welcome. 

Jordan Brady returns. We talk about movies, music, friends, high school, children, politics, artificial intelligence and so on. The conversation tries to be lively and then fully takes on a life of its own. I read a bunch of my tweets at the beginning of the episode and sandwich a standup recording in somewhere near the middle. Jordan is as funny and clever as he was last time. Really good! 

Antonio returns to the Healing Club to talk about Napoleon and pronouns, letting go and accepting death. It's one of our most fun filled episodes! Antonio books a lot of shows at The Secret Group and has a presence on stage that is undeniable. Good or bad, it is always undeniable. This was a mostly silly, light-hearted episode. LIke! And Subscribe! 

Arielle Isaac Norman stops over to talk disease, love, comedy, death and everything in between on this amazing episode of The Healing Club. We each performed standup at the first ever Laredo Pride Festival last June. Arielle has lots of other credits. Look them up. I introduce our episode with music reviews and delve into details about my family vis a vis how it compares to the people at my curren...

I cut the conversation in half and put the second half before the first half. I think it works. David McQuary is a comedian, writer, actor, animator, and music nerd. He has written for the Onion and placed in the finals for Funniest Person in Austin. We've known each other for years and we like a lot of the same stuff. 

On this episode I spoke to a friend of mine and her mom, together. I also misspoke and announced I'd be moving. Turns out I'm not moving. We delve into serious topics: abortion, rape, trauma, violence. I try to listen and learn. It's a fun time. 

At one point we talk about the movie Halloween 3. Beth Alder is on the Comedy Bathhouse show on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Houston at The Secret Group. This will be one of the last opportunities for Houston audiences to see her perform live before she moves to Pennsylvania to become a lawyer. If you like this podcast, you might like that show on Tuesday. 

Houston comedy favorites Victor Ramos and Tess Vergult return to talk about competitiveness, attempting to be funny, and how to maintain a constructive self-image in the face of challenges or failures. It's a free form shit-storm of good vibes and musical cues. 

Professor Chuck Jackson talks to me about Flannery O'Connor's novels and stories. We try to understand what the people in these stories have to say about today's popular delusions, anxieties, and sensibilities. We also share stories about our gay relationships and gay truth journeys as gay men. Happy Pride Month@Gay! 

Warren Wright and I discuss the movie A FACE IN THE CROWD, starring Andy Griffith. We spit some comedy shop-talk, we describe our jobs in the service industry, and we open up about our respective terrifying daily anxieties. It's a fun time and a great experience! 

On this podcast, I have a thrilling conversation with my alienist and spiritual healer. This qualified person helps me uncover a terrible memory from when I was nineteen. Trigger warning: profound sexual trauma. This is still mostly funny, but pretty awful? Yeah. Horrifying and real. Also sad. Comedy! Entertainment! Improv!

My apologies to the people on the eleven or twelve podcast recordings I've yet to put out, but I felt it was important to leap-frog this one through the line because it features the three of us talking together on the eve of The Secret Group's grand re-opening weekend. We are, all three, on at least one of the BEST COMICS IN HOUSTON showcase events this coming weekend (May 28-29). Get out there an...

This is a really talky, learn-y episode in which returning guest and town favorite Megan Goode and I discuss the books HATRED, by Berit Brogaard and CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE, by Sarah Schulman. We also talk about the movie NOBODY (in theaters now) and the musical artist Madonna. I settle some issues that have come up on other episodes: issues about a certain person who remains unnamed. 

Makeup episode! The other episode with Eddy Aviles and Victor Tran was "too hot to handle," so this one has the same intro and reading as that one (the one I took down a couple of weeks ago). Hopefully I'll have Eddy on again soon, but at least I was able to get Victor back to have a fun/safe conversation about comedy. Really good! 

We did a lot of laughing at ourselves on this one. Some serious issues broached, but not really. A mostly humorous, not so special, good time podcast that won't change anything or anyone. I read a little story in the middle about being in the Army in 2002. Kyle Clinton is a sweet guy with a good sense of humor. 

This is an entertaining podcast with stories of open mic failure, success, violence and mayhem. Brian Gendron talks about his religious beliefs and his passion for organizing events like THE RIOT, the popular standup showcase which takes place every Thursday and every other weekend at Rudyard's British Pub in Houston. Good time. Great talk. Go to those shows. 

This is a fear and trembling episode with harsh logic and terrible implications. My conversation with Jordan Brady of Holy Worm (and some other Houston bands such as Deep Cuts and Lisa's Sons) goes awry and runs afoul. Spare yourself the terrible time you will have if you waste your life enduring the sound of this awful podcast. Don't subscribe.

Community Shower podcast creator and host Drew Hollway joins The Healing Club again in a great podcast that tells the truth about life, love, embarrassment, America, the troops, and everything in between. Lots of bad jokes and negative energy. Terrible stories of death, depression, and attempted suicide at the end. Gloom pervades the episode like farts. Not an easy listen. Not for everyone. 

It's good to be together with my old friend Drew Haught. This podcast was a joy to record and a pleasure to experience. It's mostly talk about old jobs, old friends from the Houston comedy and music scenes, and stories of old fights I had with my ex-boyfriend Greg. Nothing serious. Fun vibes. 

We make one passing reference to a movie I watched at least a hundred times in my childhood, one passing reference in the midst of talk about familial birthrights and dark issues from around the earth as someone blows a leafblower for an hour next to my window. It's a great episode with a reading from jokes from the roast of Scotty Peterson in 2015 at Boondocks in Houston. Good stuff.