Your Dark Companion Podcast

Watching one movie a night sounds relaxing. Watching eleven a day sounds like a cry for help. This episode of Your Dark Companion finds Mike Rhyner and Grubes welcoming back James Faust, Artistic Director of the Dallas International Film Festival, as DIFF gears up for its 20th anniversary. From the brutal realities of screening thousands of submissions to the delicate art of choosing films that wo...

They’re called The Cars, but there’s no engine, no steering wheel, and no gas involved — just songs that still take people places. In this episode of Your Dark Companion, Mike Rhyner and Grubes welcome author and musician Bill Janovitz to talk about his book Let the Stories Be Told, a deeply researched, clear-eyed look at one of the most influential — and quietly complicated — bands of the late ’7...

Mike Rhyner welcomes a new voice into the Sunset Lounge universe — and it’s one that knows more about dirt than just about anyone alive. Howard Garrett, better known as the Dirt Doctor, joins the show to talk about his transition from decades of terrestrial radio into the podcast world, and the unlikely path that led him there. What starts as a conversation about gardening quickly turns into a dee...

Covering sports in Dallas isn’t just about games — it’s about managing chaos, fan outrage, front-office dysfunction, and the occasional once-in-a-generation disaster. In this episode of Your Dark Companion, Mike sits down with Sean McFarland of the Dallas Morning News to talk about what it’s actually like covering Texas sports from the inside. Sean walks through his path from New England to North...

The Cowboys’ season is officially over, the Super Bowl will once again proceed without them, and somebody has to explain how we got here. So Mike Rhyner, Grubes, and Joseph Hoyt of the Dallas Morning News sit down to do exactly that — calmly, rationally, and with just the right amount of disbelief. This episode breaks down a Cowboys season that somehow featured one of Dak Prescott’s best years and...

Welcome to the Best Of 2025 of Your Dark Companion — a beautifully chaotic time capsule of how this show somehow survived lightning strikes, live disasters, questionable fashion choices, deeply honest conversations, and more than a few moments where someone probably should’ve said, “hey, maybe don’t say that.” This episode is part victory lap, part therapy session, part sports bar conversation tha...

Recorded in March of 2025 at the EarthX Conference, this episode of Your Dark Companion features one of the most singular minds Mike Rhyner has ever sat across from. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter is best known as a legendary guitarist for Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers—but that’s only the beginning. Over the course of an expansive, thoughtful conversation, Baxter walks through a life that connects jazz...

It’s the last live hang before the holidays, and Your Dark Companion does what it does best: wanders happily from topic to topic, trips over nostalgia, and somehow lands on donuts, Rubik’s Cubes, World Series box scores, and the existential sadness of aging rock stars. Mike, Grego, Shoopy, and Kevin (Expo) settle in at Dudley’s for a loose, laugh-heavy, very OG holiday episode. Shoopy drops a majo...

Mike Rhyner and Grubes welcome Cliff McClelland, the creator/producer/head mad scientist behind A Creature Was Stirring—a PG Christmas zombie-apocalypse movie for kids, filmed mostly in Garland (because of course it was). Cliff explains how COVID, teaching theater at Richardson High, and accidentally growing a “surprisingly legit Santa beard” led to one big question: What does Santa do when the wo...

Mike Rhyner and Grubes welcome Kirby Warnock—Texas music historian, documentary filmmaker, former Buddy Magazine guy, current West Texas ranch resident, and (because why not) candidate for Pecos County Judge, aka “the law west of the Pecos.” From there, it turns into a love letter to the era when Dallas actually had a real music scene (yes, kids, before the algorithm), with deep dives into Kirby’s...

Mike, Grubes, and the Live at Five crew welcome back the grooviest cat in Dallas music history: Tim DeLaughter of Tripping Daisy and The Polyphonic Spree. They get into what it really takes to move an army of robed weirdos around the world, why a 28-person band actually “moves like a small band,” and how a nightmare power outage at David Bowie’s Meltdown Festival somehow turned into the Spree’s bi...

Mike and Grubes welcome back Elizabeth Whatley and introduce Nigel X, the team breathing life back into South Dallas’ legendary Forest Theater. From a liquor store-turned-headquarters to an $80-million-plus renovation and a week-long grand opening in November 2026, this episode digs into what it really takes to save a historic Black arts institution—and why it matters for seven generations to come...

Mike welcomes two new residents of the Sunset Lounge universe: Signal 51 Chronicles hosts Jake White and John Henry, a former Fort Worth narcotics sergeant and a twice-laid-off Star-Telegram journalist who somehow turned bar stories into a true crime podcast. They break down what “Signal 51” actually means, why Fort Worth PD radio codes make for good show titles, and how a cop and a writer went fr...

Mike and Grubes kick off December with a lightning strike, a World Series flashback, and the age-old question: are we even gonna make it to (and through) Christmas? Then they welcome a very different kind of guest into the YDC mothership: Ed O’Keefe, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation. Ed takes the guys from Grand Forks to the Badlands, explaining why Teddy Roosevelt’s s...

Your Dark Companion, Mike Rhyner sits down with an all-star culinary and sports lineup: Texas Rangers insider Evan Grant, Dallas restaurant oracle Sarah Blaskovich, and Chef Eric from Dudley’s, who showed up armed with enough food to start a small cult — and possibly overthrow a Chili’s. Things escalate quickly. We’ve got Evan trying his first deviled egg EVER (history is made), Mike refusing ever...

Tonight on Your Dark Companion, Mike Rhyner and Shoopy welcome local legend, chaos coordinator, music scene archaeologist, and human wildcard Kevin Fox — better known as Expo. This episode has everything: Stories from a life lived at full volume, the kind of Dallas music history that never made the press releases, and maybe just a little therapy disguised as a conversation. Mike tries to understan...

On this episode of Your Dark Companion, Mike and Grubes attempt to start a normal show… so naturally the entire tech setup revolts, Billy Martin Jr. disappears into the Riverside void, and we end up with six and a half minutes of chaos, Titanic on recorder, and a heartfelt discussion on moldy elementary school instruments. When Billy finally makes it back from the digital afterlife, we get an incr...

Two voices every DFW sports fan knows drop into the Lounge—broadcaster Dave Raymond, the man behind the Texas Rangers’ mic, and former pitcher turned talk radio lightning rod Mike Bacsik. In this episode, Mike Rhyner and Grubes go deep into baseball storytelling, broadcasting highs and lows, and the weird paths that lead from the mound to the booth. They swap tales of iconic calls, clubhouse chaos...

Mike Rhyner, Grubes, and Big Rob (the last Day-One OG) pull back the curtain on the Dallas Mavericks Maniacs—how a “beefy guys” audition turned into 24 seasons of pure arena joy, a thousand-game milestone, and a community machine logging hundreds of events a year. From lightning-strike cold opens and a nod to the Edmund Fitzgerald anniversary to boy-dazzled shirts, human-bicycle routines, player c...

Mike finally went to Las Vegas. Yes, for the first time. At age 75 and change. And guess what? The man liked it. So this episode is basically: Vegas stories → The Sphere melting everyone’s brain → Jackson Browne healing childhood wounds → mobster restaurants → Flamingo time travel → Fremont fever → the one guy at the airport who had seen some things → and a full debrief on the show-stopping Eagles...

Mike and Grubes welcome back the Kessler Theater’s own Jeff Liles—human jukebox of Dallas music lore and owner of the best black-leather-pants origin story this side of Valley View Mall. From a lightning-strike cold open at Dudley’s to the Sex Pistols turning the Longhorn Ballroom into glorious chaos, Jeff dishes on ShowCo lasers, counterfeit Zep tickets, Ramones vs. Pistols setcraft, and why Bron...

Mike fires up Your Dark Companion with a literal lightning strike, then welcomes Dallas lifers Ward Richmond and John Pedigo to talk about Ward’s new album, Big Addict Energy—a brutally honest, oddly hilarious chronicle of high-functioning drinking, rehab math, and rebuilding a life that actually fits. We bounce from Lakewood and Deep Ellum war stories to the therapist who called her shot (“alcoho...

Mike Rhyner sits down with Rick and Ryan Holden — a father-son polygraph team whose client list ranges from federal agencies to murder suspects to people just trying to clear their names — to pull the curtain back on the world most of us hope we never have to visit. They walk Mike through how a real polygraph actually works (and why “lie detector” is the wrong term), why the machine itself isn’t m...

Mike Rhyner and gang unveil a new wing of the the Sunset Lounge: The Sunset Soccer Club with Tyler Kern—a show built to make the world’s game make sense before the 2026 World Cup steamrolls America like a well-timed counterattack. Rob Ervin tags in to talk fandom, promotion/relegation, and why Bundesliga is the most fun word to say out loud. From Dallas hosting more Cup action than anyone, to how...

Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker joins Mike Rhyner and Woodsey (Ben & Woods Show, San Diego) for a lively, honest, and at times hilarious look into baseball, leadership, and life in the big leagues. Skip talks about his path from player to manager, lessons learned under Tony La Russa, and what it takes to build a real clubhouse culture. The guys dig into the Rangers’ rollercoaster season,...