Conversation For Adults

Not sure what to say about Sandra. We met when I was on my book tour and somehow have managed to stay in touch ever since. She comes over and we sing, we dance, we laugh. Men, politics, sex and barbershops - this conversation goes everywhere.

Rich is a good dude whom I've come to dig a lot - he's a teacher and artist. He qualifies as a "virtual stranger" because we only know each other professionally. We talk about the Cleveland art scene, barroom brawling, getting his hot wife back, and epidermolysis bullosa, which is kinda like osteogenesis imperfecta (aka "Mr. Glass" disease), but not.

Gina P. returns to discuss the cat-sitting hustle, defend Kim Kardashian, and kinda give the finger to Lena Dunham. Gina tells me about making out dressed as the McDonald's "Hamburglar," her choice in men, and economic compatibility. She meets my cat and I give her something special.

Lady Skill was a DJ and definitely one of the original fly girls in Cleveland's hip-hop heyday. She came by and we talked about integrating Cleveland Heights, jumping rope, when Cleveland was an influential music city, and the evolution of rap radio and rap music in general.

Michael Oatman, classic guest on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" and award-winning playwright and reformed journalist, filled Langston Hughes' shoes at the world-famous Karamu Theater. Unlike other guests, we've known each other a long, long, long time. We talk about marriage, I roleplay as political garbage man and firestarter Eric Brewer. We rap on white people, gays, Cosby and the cult of black disbelief, rumors about my penis, Trump and conservative blacks, "The Dutchman," and how casting a white man as Martin Luther King Jr. in his Kent State production of Katori Hall's epic "The Moutaintop" killed his career.

Cody Boyce is a super-sweet kid from Trump Country, Ohio, and also the boss of Crate Media, the podcasting agency that co-produces this show. By "kid", I mean Cody is the same age as my oldest son. Truth to tell, he's a grown-ass man with a tiny, smokin'-hot wife, amazing ambition and good home training - he brought beer, after all. I am a client, but we'd never met until I invited him over. Cody came by the pad and we talked about the business of podcasting, his life as a hip-hop producer, The Trump Effect, beer, Star Wars, freemasons, his people, and particularly his father, Craig "Ace" Boyce.

Johnny Coggins is not blood, but he is family to me: I can't remember a time he and his brother LeBron didn't live down the street from my maternal grandmother. I didn't know Johnny was gay until I bumped into him during my 4-year DJ residency at Numbers, a gay bar in Cleveland, back in the mid-90s. We sat down at the loft and I ask him if his brother ever learned his ABCs. I tell him about the protest around having a straight DJ (me) at a gay bar. We talk about why a drag queen with a Lamont Sanford mustache makes (queer) sense, white-flight and classism in Cleveland, his father's barbecue business, and homophobia(?). Also, Johnny and I talk about that time Janet Jackson (imposter) grabbed my package, men having sex on the sink in the men's' room, leaving steaming piles of "chocolate passion" on the floor while i'm trying to piss (ijs), and how while working in a gay bar for four years, I only got hit on a handful of times. I mean, I'm kinda handsome - wtf?! Our conversation is not intentionally about his sexuality, but it comes up a bit, and he lets me ask stupid questions. Johnny, the gay uncle I never knew I needed, patiently explains it all, and more.

Photographer Greg Murray takes dog pictures, and he's brilliant. We talk about his life as a big brother in Philly, his first pet, my robot cat, and how he got a whiff of my underwear. Also, a preview of his amazing book "Peanut Butter Dogs," which will make you smile so hard, it'll hurt.

Deena Nyer Mendlowitz is a fine writer and comedian living her best life with mental illness. Deena and I talk about Jewish life, Kosher foods, her improv show "Mental Illness and Friends", and her bisexual ex-husband and parenting partner. We talk about the 28 minutes it took to buy a gun to kill herself with. Also, about waking up with sperm in her hair, my experience with PTSD, and EDMR and her loss of memory of her son and everything else that counts while doing The McMurphy - also known as Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), aka shock treatment.

Alex Sukhoy of Creative Cadence and I have a great chat about the 90s, her return to Chicago, being a good parenting partner, and she becomes the first guest who I (unintentionally) make cry by flippantly mischaracterizing a very sacred Jewish ritual and birthright.