This Body Podcast

This week: Why I don’t negotiate with the Grim Reaper. Real Yoga, Buddhist death rituals, clinging, surrender, why Lululemon belongs in your Roth IRA, and the evolution of This Body into Body Language. Also: Rick Rubin wants you to bet on Polymarket, Trader Joes bags are the poor man’s Birkin, and saying goodbye to two beloved pets in one week. i said, Goddamn! Substack for the readers CLICK! This...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit sofiamella.substack.com A necromance for the ages. Continuing my journey through the cult section of the 1990s video store, this week I’m diving into Gift — the bizarre, hypnotic 1993 film vehicle from Jane’s Addiction. A Santería wedding. Sex with a corpse. Drinking blood. Shooting drugs. Buckle up, because This Rock ’n’ Roll Will Kill...

It's time to take a sentimental journey to the video store. Our first pic from the cult section is Gus Van Sant's game changing second film, Drugstore Cowboy (1989). Join me as I re-watch with the eyes of a world weary adult, vs the teenaged gaze I first cast on this black comedy about a gang of junkies who rob drug stores, because that's where the drugs are. What did kids internalize about heroin...

The Epstein War, El Mencho’s Blue Balls, and America’s Next Top Model I recorded this from my studio apartment in Los Feliz, in the lobotomizing sunshine of psychedelic Southern California, and despite my suntanned brain tissue. I have thoughts . Thoughts on the BAFTAs disaster during Black History Month. Thoughts on the BBC censoring “Free Palestine” while airing something they absolutely should...

Berlin, 1924.Hyperinflation. Maimed soldiers. Cocaine cabarets. Early gender-affirming surgery. Queer films screening publicly. Magnus Hirschfeld arguing homosexuality is innate, not criminal. In this episode of Blue Movie , we trace how the sexual laboratory of the Weimar Republic burned bright and brief — and how its collapse under Adolf Hitler reshaped the future of pornography. During WW2, att...

🪷🪷🪷 David Lynch's legacy is forever entwined with the practice of Transcendental Meditation. He was gleefully evangelical about it, describing the practice as a dive within, to the bottom of the ocean of consciousness. But what exactly is TM? Who invented it? How is it different from other forms of meditation? Allow me to enlighten you. 🪷🪷🪷 Join Patreon! 🪷🪷🪷 Email thisbodypodcast@gmail Fo...

Fergie’s big pimpin’ with Epstein and the files; Ketamine, then and now. 💊 🪿The geese take revenge on the late Great Gandolfini; and a journey through my old ipod 📱 from 20 years ago. JOIN PATREON - YOUR SUPPORT KEEPS THIS SHOW INDEPENDENT AND SENDS REAL MONEY TO REAL CAUSES 🧊 ICE OUT🧊 Patreon.com/thisbodypodcast ☎️ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscriber...

Before OnlyFans, before the internet, there were French postcards. Blue Movie from This Body traces the hidden history of pornography and its impact on desire, labor, and culture. From French erotic postcards to stag films, Warhol’s downtown New York, Deep Throat, VHS vixens, and today’s OnlyFans economy, this series asks: how did we get here, and what has porn done to our bodies and fantasies? JO...

Happy New Year, Night People. January is a holy month for our community, marking the first anniversary of David Lynch's passing, his birthday, Bowie's birthday, and 10 years since the Black Star passed; and now, one year since the LA fires. Let us reflect. Come with me, wont you, on a journey into the unexamined shadows of the Black Lodge, and it's opposite, the White Lodge, a place where wisdom a...

Merry Christmas from the FBI! This year we lost a real one (another one), Assata Shakur. Freedom fighter, political refugee, mother, and MOTHER . From growing up under Jim Crow, to the Black Panthers, and on to the Black Liberation Army - from COINTELPRO to Cuba, this episode is about hope in times of chaos. Assata’s story is crazy, it’s unbelievalbe no one has made a blockbuster out of it yet. Re...

Welcome back to Night Blooming Jasmine . Join me as I visit the myth of Annie Blackburn — a woman written as a narrative fix, then transformed by David Lynch into something spectral and essential. From the convent shadows to Miss Twin Peaks, Annie becomes a guide, a sacrifice, a hinge in Cooper’s fate, and an echo of older myths: Ariadne, Persephone, Psyche. Join Patreon here! Check out The Tao of...

***Listen to the full episode and whole series on PATREON*** It’s 2001 in Y2K Hollywood — a world of TV stars, Maxim covers, and after-hours in the Hills. A young woman, Ashley Ellerin, is murdered by the man who would become known as the Hollywood Ripper. Around her, a new generation of idols is rising — and one predator is hiding in the shadows, while another hides in plain sight. This episode t...

What does it costs to live inside a fantasy built by men? On this episode we prod that viper’s nest. David Lynch loved Kubrick’s film adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita, so much so that he conjured his own Dolores Haze with Laura Palmer. JOIN PATREON We move between fantasy and wreckage. Between Desire, danger, and the American girl—through the eyes of genius. So put your heart shaped glasses on, pop...

To hear the full episode subscribe HERE The Black Dahlia murder shocked postwar America and ignited a media frenzy that reduced her to pulp headlines and grotesque speculation. The LAPD’s bungled investigation faded into silence, until the incest trial of George Hodel thrust the Dahlia’s specter back into the spotlight. In episode 3 of This Body , we trace a line from Elizabeth Short’s depersonali...

:-) ALL. Enjoy the FREE PATREON BONUS , and JOIN HERE for the next installment xox Elizabeth Short’s life began with abandonment—and ended as a grotesque surrealist tableau, her body transformed into a nightmare that still haunts Los Angeles. But she wasn’t the only girl destroyed by the darkness of mid-century Hollywood. In this episode 2 of The Black Dahlia , we trace the fractured childhood of...

Enjoy the Teaser and Listen to the Full Episode on Patreon >> Here or on Substack >> here! Elizabeth Short’s life began with abandonment—and ended as a grotesque surrealist tableau, her body transformed into a nightmare that still haunts Los Angeles. But she wasn’t the only girl destroyed by the darkness of mid-century Hollywood. In this episode 2 of The Black Dahlia , we trace the fra...

Welcome back Peaks Freaks! Support the pod on PATREON! In Twin Peaks, heaven is not eternal. Angels appear and vanish, offering only brief mercy in a violent world. This episode of Night Blooming Jasmine follows Laura Palmer, Dale Cooper, and the fleeting visions of grace that haunt David Lynch’s universe. Also: Mary Magdalene, the Upanishads, The Dweller On The Threshold, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, L...

A free taste of Patreon - JOIN HERE The Black Dahlia murder remains unsolved 78 years later, and Los Angeles has never stopped dreaming about her. Elizabeth Short's story is the story of Hollywood itself. A city that projects it's dark fantasies onto the female body like film on screen, and devours what it gazes upon. A place where beauty and brutality are bound together. We follow the threads tha...

Welcome back Peaks Freaks! In this installment of Women in Trouble , we enter The Surreal Housewives of Twin Peaks . From Nadine to Sarah, to Shelly to Norma, we explore how Twin Peaks gives space to women at every stage of life — their pain, resilience, shadow selves, and survival. Along the way: rescue fantasies, menopause, family trauma, and what Bravo’s Real Housewives can teach us about visib...

A midsummer night’s tease from deep inside the Mojave desert. Join PATREON for the full kit & kaboodle. This week: Dante’s Inferno, The Black Dahlia murder, and morphine’s long journey from poppy du jour to Dilaudid, heroin, and beyond! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sofiamella.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of Night Blooming Jasmine , we open the file on Women in Trouble —beginning with the blonde of all blondes: Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe and Laura Palmer—two luminous blondes devoured by image, myth, and men. Join ny séance through Hollywood shadows, Twin Peaks fog, and the ache of girls who became symbols.. Paid Patrons get the upcoming Black Dahlia / George Hodel hellscape epis...

Episode 3, in which we explore maps, disorientation, cursed geometry, and the dangerous liaisons of the dead girls of Twin Peaks. What does it mean to live — or die — in a place where the map fails you? Also - the transformation of Dr Jacoby, Ben Horne's failed attempts at redemption, the evolution of Bobby Briggs, plus the psychic self-defence of Marina Abromovic. We look at the Highway of Tears,...

Omfg, it's July. I do a mid year check in on the state of the nation, extol my love of fan noise, stoke the flames of my complex trauma... It's Lucinda Williams' memoir, Cardi B’s revenge arc, and why Paula Abdul's Rush Rush video is Keanu Reeves' finest hour. ONLY ON PATREON This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sofia...

Join Patreon 🐊 Omfg, it's July. I do a mid year check in on the state of the nation, extol my love of fan noise, stoke the flames of my complex trauma... It's Lucinda Williams' memoir, Cardi B’s revenge arc, and why Paula Abdul's Rush Rush video is Keanu Reeves' finest hour. Only On Patreon! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus epis...

A Satanic rocket scientist, the esoteric history of Pasadena, splitting the atom, and the rip in time that ushered in the Scarlet Woman, and ancient evil - Judy herself. Is BOB just the evil that men do, and can he have a birthday? Welcome back to Night Blooming Jasmine . Join me, wont you, as we ask these questions. In Loving Memory of Rebekah Del Rio 1967 - 2025 🤍 HELP THOSE IMPACTED BY THE LA...