Beezy Listening

"I wanted to be a senator; I didn't want to sleep with one."

Trigger warnings and content warnings abound, but I believe this interview is a must listen.

As of right now, there has been a total blackout of this story from all major news outlets (NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, NY Times, WaPo). It is absolutely Orwellian to me.

As such, I am publishing Katie Halper's full interview with Tara Reade on my feed. Please listen to this brave woman who has come forward to talk about the sexual assault she experienced at the hands of Joe Biden. Please consider subscribing to "The Katie Halper Show", and supporting Katie on Patreon for doing this important work. She also has an interview with another Biden accuser, Lucy Flores.

I also highly recommend everyone go back and listen to my interview with author Christopher Johnston (Episode 45), and his book Shattering Silences. That book highlights the successful new approaches taken by sexual assault investigators and caregivers. The lynchpin of that approach: Believe Survivors.

Lastly, a few important supplemental links for this story:

Time’s Up Declines to Fund Joe Biden #MeToo Allegation (The Intercept)

A sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden has ignited a firestorm of controversy (Vox)

Katie Halper on Twitter

On today's episode I interview local delegate and organizer for the Bernie campaign, Devorah Phillips. We chat about what led her to becoming a Bernie Sanders supporter, our recollections of the 2016 campaign, the lessons learned and ongoing frustrations with the primary process, and what a delegate does and how to become one.

Most importantly, we discuss the benefits of canvassing, not just for the candidate, but for yourself and your neighbors

Go to events.berniesanders.com to join the movement, take our government back from the wealthy, and make some history.

Today I’m going to do something a little different, which might draw in some new listeners, but that’s not the point. The point is for the weeks remaining before the Ohio primary on March 17th, I am going to devote this podcast to advocating for Bernie Sanders.

Listeners will know that I’ve taken quite a long stretch between episodes recently. A big part of the hiatus has to do with my Bernie journey, going from donor and online-only supporter to an active volunteer that makes calls, performs data entry, and finally this weekend door-to-door canvassing.

Initially, I thought I’d make this episode all about my longer Bernie journey, how I first became aware of him, and what his candidacy means to me. Instead, I decided I’d kick things off by talking about the my first weekend canvassing.

Find a Bernie event near you: http://events.berniesanders.com/

Today my guest is painter, musician, and all around creative person, Atomic Houdini. 

The podcast is still officially on break, but I wanted to chat with Atomic Houdini about his upcoming art show / release of his album Dandelion Fireworks. He’ll be displaying fourteen paintings based on each song from the album, the first five of which you’ll hear in this episode.

That show will be going up on Saturday, February 29th at Negative Space from 4:30 to 7:30. For more info, click here.

An improvised attempt to explain the present state of and future plans for the podcast. 

If I had to put it into bullet points:

Happy 2020! 

:party-hat: :mushroom-cloud: :fire: :fire:

I believe the official slogan is "Worst Year Ever"

I first saw Justus performing a couple weeks ago at the McFarland Manor November show. On today's episode, I chat with him about his creative process, how he became "big in Algeria", his terms of success, and the lessons he's learned navigating Spotify's playlist algorithm.

Justus has a new track Risky debuting today, December 11th, on Spotify. Listen thru until the end of the episode to hear it, and be sure to add it to your playlists if you dig it!

Follow Justus Online:

Today I’m bringing a new thing to the show with my guest Shawn Wickens, who will forever hold the distinction of being the first comedian on the podcast. I met Shawn about twelve years ago, back when I was going through my improv comedy phase. He happened to be passing thru Cleveland a couple of weeks ago on his way to play a show in Louisville, Kentucky, and swung by the house to catch up.

We chat about the improv scene circa 2007-8, how he came to found the Bad Theater and Film festivals, and his latest endeavor co-hosting The Stoner Morning Show with fellow comic Lex Morales, which just kicked off its own podcast this week! Be sure to check out stonermorningshow.com for all the 411 about this 420-themed show.

This show is ad-free, and that’s all thanks to my Patreon supporters. I recently updated some of the benefit tiers, and anyone donating $3 or more per month is supposed to get a shoutout on the show’s footnotes for that month. Since it’s Thanksgiving this week, and I’m way overdue on the shoutouts, I’d just like to take a moment to thank my first two BZ Backers: Michael Hornsby (this months winner of the swag giveaway) and Michael McFarland (a former guest and incredible musician, artist, and producer). And lastly, my boss at Blackbird Digital Pat Walsh, who kicked in $12 month to earn himself a BZ Producer credit, and includes a plug.

It’s not even hard for me to talk up Blackbird as an agency. I’ve been a web designer and developer for over twenty years, working at over a dozen international and local agencies, and Blackbird is far and away my favorite. Blackbird combines award-winning web design, acute knowledge of technology, and marketing savvy to help your organization. We specialize in developing for WordPress and HubSpot, but never shy away from working in something new if necessary. The sites we build are always set up with self service in mind, so you won’t have to come back and request help every time you want to make changes. To learn more visit Blackbird.digital, and if you sign on as a client, I'll probably be the one coding your site!

If you would like to become a supporter, just click here!

Today my guest is writer Christopher Johnston, and we’re discussing his book “Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice”.

Chris also has a new play with Playwright’s Local, Live Bodies for Sale. The show premieres tomorrow Friday November 22, and will run until December 15th. You can find more information and tickets at playwrightslocal.org.

Additional links:

My guest today is actor and musician, Ben Paul Williams. I first met Ben about 10 years ago at a little open mic in Astoria Queens. We chat a bit about his stage career, the recent pull he’s been feeling to getting back to performing original music, and play a little catchup since the last time we spoke.

So suffice to say, Ben has been one of my favorite people for quite a while. If you are in the Milwaukee area or have friends thereabouts, be sure to catch Ben at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn this Sunday, November 24th. After that, keep an eye on https://www.benpaulwilliams.com/ for more shows.

Today my guest is Cal Folger Day, a singer-songwriter that’s a bit hard to pin down genre-wise, but if I had to slap a label on her, it’d probably be “Avant Folk”, similar the band Cutleri, who I had on earlier this year.

Cal is based out of Dublin, Ireland, but I met her around 2010 back when we were both living in New York City. We chat a bit about her early days in the thrall of classical music, her time in NYC, the differences between Ireland and the US, and her latest endeavor writing and performing “verbatim pop operas”, which I didn’t even know was a thing until I started doing background for this interview.

I highly recommend checking out this audio documentary by “The Lyric Feature”. It chronicles the process of creating one of these operas “The Woods and Grandma”, which is based on stories of Lady Gregory, Yeats and George Bernard Shaw as told by the Gregory granddaughters Anne and Katherine.

Just a reminder that this Wednesday November 13th is the deadline to sign up as a Patreon supporter at any level for a chance to win a signed copy of “Snow White Zombie: Apocalypse” by Brenton Lengel, my Halloween guest. This is the latest patron perk that I’m calling these “Swagstakes”, where once a month I choose a supporter at random to receive some swag from a guest.