The Sport of Life: Chats w/ Comedians, Filmmakers, Sports Figures, Musicians, & Intellectuals

Former jazz pianist and boxing manager Charles Farrell chats with Trey Elling about (LOW)LIFE: A MEMOIR OF JAZZ, FIGHT-FIXING, AND THE MOB . Questions include: How did Charles get into music, gambling, and hustling as a kid? (01:56) Why John Coltrane is the only musician he ever saw in person who scared him, and how did it impact his music? (06:57) What did teenaged Charles do when Janis Joplin tr...

Neuroscience expert and storyteller Ginny Smith chats with Trey Elling about OVERLOADED: HOW EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE IS INFLUENCED BY YOUR BRAIN CHEMICALS . Questions include: How do sea slugs help us better understand human memory? (02:40) Why is dopamine not necessarily the pleasure chemical? (06:30) What causes some people to urinate themselves when scared? (10:29) Why do we sleep? (25:37) Ho...

Former mayor of Cleveland, US congressman, and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich chats with Trey Elling about THE DIVISION OF LIGHT AND POWER . The book chronicles Dennis' political rise in Cleveland, fueled by his desire to keep the city from selling its municipal electricity system to a private interest. The fight led to many powerful enemies and more than one attempt on his life...

For the second episode of our NO BOOKS REQUIRED series, Trey Elling chats with Mike Leach, aka 'the Bill Murray of college football'. Questions include: Does Mike like Zoom calls? (01:42) Is he ever asked about his 'fat girlfriends' quote? (02:47) How does Gardner Minshew impress him? (09:07) Why did actor Jim Caviezel visit him in Starkville during the spring? (15:56) What does Mike's plan for ex...

Wildlife biologist, National Geographic journalist, and bestselling author Doug Chadwick chats with Trey Elling about FOUR-FIFTHS A GRIZZLY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON NATURE THAT MIGHT JUST SAVE US ALL . What has the human population explosion of the past fifty years done to plant- and animal life? Just how genetically similar are we to other creatures? Why are grizzlys, elephants, and colony insects s...

The Daily Show 's CJ Hunt & Roy Wood Jr join Trey Elling for episode #2 of Docs on Pod to discuss their documentary, THE NEUTRAL GROUND . The film, directed by Hunt and executive produced by Wood, chronicles the multi-year fight that led to the removal of several statues in New Orleans that honored Confederate figures. During that time, Hunt explored the strong feelings on both sides of the is...

New York Times bestselling author and science/psychology/human behavior journalist Claudia Kalb chats with Trey Elling about SPARK: HOW GENIUS IGNITES, FROM CHILD PRODIGIES TO LATE BLOOMERS . Did you know that Picasso and Yo Yo Ma discovered their brilliance in childhood? Or that the bubonic plague factored into Sir Isaac Newton's coming of age in his early 20s? Or how Julia Child's "middle-agedne...

Lawyer, political commentator, and author Daniel Levin chats with Trey Elling about PROOF OF LIFE: TWENTY DAYS ON THE HUNT FOR A MISSING PERSON IN THE MIDDLE EAST . The book describes Daniel's attempts to locate someone who went missing in war-torn Syria, one of the most dangerous and hopeless places on the planet, as well as those heroes and villains he met along the way. Daniel and Trey talk abo...

For episode #1 of our 'No Books Required' series, we're joined by Dr. Maya Shankar. Maya is a cognitive scientist, former Obama White House senior advisor, and the host of the new podcast, A SLIGHT CHANGE OF PLANS . Maya chats with Trey Elling about why she decided to enter the podcasting realm, learning about situations that inspired change from people like Kacey Musgraves, Tiffany Haddish, and T...

Personal trainer and Mind Pump podcast co-host Sal Di Stefano chats with Trey Elling about THE RESISTANCE TRAINING REVOLUTION . Why is steady-state cardio an inefficient form of exercise? How does resistance training improve hormone levels, depression, and anxiety? Are doing reps to failure and working out until you're really sore actually bad strategies? What is intuitive eating? Sal and Trey dis...

University of British Columbia philosophy professor and bestselling author Edward Slingerland chats with Trey Elling about DRUNK: HOW WE SIPPED, DANCED, AND STUMBLED OUR WAY TO CIVILIZATION . Did you know that alcohol production may haven pre-dated and even inspired early agricultural practices? Or that the right amount of alcohol allows us to become more creative, cultural, and communal? Speaking...

Historian and bestselling author Rutger Bregman chats with Trey Elling about HUMANKIND: A HOPEFUL HISTORY . Over the past few decades, many scientists have become much more optimistic on human nature. Did you know that a real life version of the fictional book Lord of the Flies happened in the 1960s with drastically different results? Or that the Stanford Prison Experiment was not the pure process...

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose chats with Trey Elling about FUTUREPROOF: 9 RULES FOR HUMANS IN THE AGE OF AUTOMATION . Why does Kevin consider himself a sub-optimist on the future of artificial intelligence and automation? How is AI quickly replacing the "Michael Scott" middle-management types? Kevin answers these questions and shares details from each of his nine rules for humans.

Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, two-time NBA champ, 11-time All Star, and Olympic gold medalist Chris Bosh chats with Trey Elling about LETTERS TO A YOUNG ATHLETE . In this book, Chris offers guidance to young people on what it takes to achieve greatness. The guys discuss 'finding your why', keeping your ego in check, not letting wins or losses linger, and much more.

Washington Post columnist and CNN political correspondent Josh Rogin chats with Trey Elling about CHAOS UNDER HEAVEN: TRUMP, XI, AND THE BATTLE FOR THE 21st CENTURY . How did previous administrations' missteps on China pave the way for Trump's erratic handling of the CCP? What aggressive takeover strategy did Chinese president Xi Jinping detail in 'Document 9'? Who is the Bingo Club? How have Gene...

Pulitzer Prize winner Glenn Frankel chats with Trey Elling about SHOOTING MIDNIGHT COWBOY: ART, SEX, LONELINESS, LIBERATION, AND THE MAKING OF A DARK CLASSIC . What was the story behind the Midnight Cowboy book that the film was based on? Why did a then-conservative Hollywood allow something so risque allowed to be made? What drew director John Schlesinger to the project? Were Dustin Hoffman and J...

American Chemistry Society executive producer George Zaidan chats with Trey Elling about INGREDIENTS: THE STRANGE CHEMISTRY OF WHAT WE PUT IN US AND ON US . What makes a food highly processed? How and why humans begin to preserved food? What does aphid excrement have to do with one of the first sugar-added treats humans enjoyed? How are cigarettes and e-cigs similar and different? Is there such a...

Marion Nestle joins Trey Elling to discuss LET'S ASK MARION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE POLITICS OF FOOD, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH , including: the rising cost of whole- versus ultra-processed foods, how agriculture, Wall Street, and food regulation fueled the US obesity epidemic in the early 1980s; why glyphosate is still allowed to be sprayed on crops, whether technology can help fix our food...

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay chat with Trey Elling about CYNICAL THEORIES: HOW ACTIVIST SCHOLARSHIP MADE EVERYTHING ABOUT RACE, GENDER, AND IDENTITY--AND WHY THIS HARMS EVERYBODY , including: the three major phases of postmodernism over the last 50 years, why the movement rejects science, the definition of 'Theory', the ins and outs of specific Theories, what will become of postmodernism by 2...

Niko Vorobyov chat with Trey Elling about DOPEWORLD: ADVENTURES IN THE GLOBAL DRUG TRADE , including: writing on the subject as someone who sold and served time for dealing, hanging with Columbian guerilla soldiers, China's Opium Wars, the Japanese Yakuza, Cosa Nostra's role in the worldwide heroin trade, why El Chapo is revered in Sinaloa, the origins and hypocrisy of America's War on Drugs, how...

Frontman Greg Graffin chats with Trey Elling about DO WHAT YOU WANT: THE STORY OF BAD RELIGION , including: how the band got together, hearing their music on the radio for the first time, learning from the failure of Into the Unknown , the importance of the album, Suffer ; playing in East Germany prior to the Berlin Wall coming down, the timelessness of Stranger Than Fiction , learning from Ric Oc...

Filmmaker Oliver Stone chats with Trey Elling about CHASING THE LIGHT: WRITING, DIRECTING, AND SURVIVING PLATOON, MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, SCARFACE, SALVADOR, AND THE MOVIE GAME , including: what his mom and dad were like growing up, fighting in Vietnam, learning from Scorsese at NYU, SCARFACE as an "inside-the-park homer," the chaos of making SALVADOR, the depths of PLATOON, his beloved 49ers, and more.

The man they call "The Captain" joins Trey Elling to share some stories from F*CKING HISTORY: 111 LESSONS YOU SHOULD HAVE LEARNED IN SCHOOL , including: Mark Twain's important contribution to the modern bra, what Graham crackers were originally intended for, the badass legacy of Stagecoach Mary, the unique method Thomas Edison and his wife used to trash-talk people at parties, nachos as an inventi...

Stuart Ritchie chats with Trey Elling about SCIENCE FICTIONS: HOW FRAUD, BIAS, NEGLIGENCE, AND HYPE UNDERMINE THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH , including: what publishing a scientific paper looks like in its purest form, the various ways that process breaks down, tips for reading scientific papers, spotting the good from bad, and much more.

Nicholson Baker joins Trey Elling to discuss BASELESS: MY SEARCH FOR SECRETS IN THE RUINS OF THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT , including: a question about the Korean War that sparked this ten-year project, the genesis of the CIA and US military developing biological weapons and their rationale for doing so, cruel experiments performed on animals and whether they tested things on an unknowing Americ...