Conversation For Adults

Kevin Harris is the fifth person infected with COVID-19 in Ohio. Live from quarantine, we talk about “colorblind” white people -- the most dangerous people on the planet. We share stories about our kids, the difference between white vs. black Baby-Mommas, Oprah and his kidnapped children, and his prison bid for a $483M Ponzi scheme. Oh yeah -- we talk about fighting COVID-19 and how this could help him with the ladies. A true prince among men who’s lived three life’s worth of adventure, Kevin Harris may have the best worst luck in America.

Resources:

• Instagram: @kevinharris_majestic
• Facebook: Kevin Harris on Facebook 
• YouTube: Kevin Harris: Coronavirus Warrior
• Twitter: @kevmaj1
• Email: [email protected]

Let’s Talk:

• Website: conversationforadults.com
• Instagram: @conversationforadults
• Facebook: facebook.com/conversationforadultswithjimiizrael
• Twitter: @convoforadults

Conversation for Adults is a production of Crate Media

Tyisha Blade is a freelance journalist and daisy-fresh college-graduate celebrating her birthday with CFA. Recovering from a house fire, we sip whiskey and talk about the fire, fixing family and figuring out who’s to blame for R. Kelly. Oddly, when we met, I thought she’d been hitting on me, but her Black Girl Magic rightly pulls the wig off my ego with pomp and aplomb.

Resources:

• Read Tyisha’s work at www.clevescene.com/author/tyisha-blade & muckrack.com/tyishablade

Let’s Talk:

• Website: conversationforadults.com
• Instagram: @conversationforadults
• Facebook: facebook.com/conversationforadultswithjimiizrael
• Twitter: @convoforadults

Conversation for Adults is a production of Crate Media

Eris Eady, “Non-Binary, Bisexual, Black Femme of center writer, artist and advocate operating under the auspice of Black Womanhood & the glory it brings” is the cape-less superhero you’ve been waiting for. While she hides her lollipop, we talk about re-homing a cat, marriage and divorce, resisting the binary, and my lame, white woman-esque politics. And I get educated on why being an LGBTQ ally — if that’s your thing — just isn’t enough. She drops a poem too, FTW.

Resources:

• www.eriseady.com
• Read: “Journey To Whole: Excerpts, Essays and Exhales”
• Read: “BRUH: poems to pay for alimony”
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/eriseady
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/eriseady
• Twitter: twitter.com/eriseady

Let’s Talk:

• Website: conversationforadults.com
• Instagram: @conversationforadults
• Facebook: facebook.com/conversationforadultswithjimiizrael
• Twitter: @convoforadults

Conversation for Adults is a production of Crate Media

Aaron Sechrist, best known as Pants (alternately, okPants), is an artist, illustrator, graphic designer, and actor. His art is bold, simple and everywhere -- album covers, beer cans, t-shirts, magazines and restaurants-- alluding to a psychedelic anime slash graffiti edge paired with clean, principled design sensibilities.  But beyond the art, Pants is a sweet guy: a working artist in a working man’s town.

We talk about what “good design” really means, not shitting on Wendy’s napkins, art school girls, not getting hit on when you’re not happy, getting laid (or not) in Mike Tyson’s mansion, the subliminal racial metaphors of the movie “Gremlins,” and the thanklessness of fatherhood.

Full disclosure: okPANTS’ work hangs in my living room, home office AND the shitter, FTW, plus he’s responsible for CFA’s podcast cover art, which is why it looks so dope.

Resources:

• Check out his art: www.okpants.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/okpants
• Twitter: twitter.com/okpants

Conversations for Adults is a production of Crate Media

Cleveland born and raised, @deanrufus is a nationally-known and respected OG who helped craft the sound of Black radio in the 80s and 90s. Currently the eponymous owner of The Dean Rufus House Of Fun, a fixture in Hingetown for the past eleven years and music lover, as the voice of 108 WDMT and the master of the mix behind the Clubstyle show back in the day, Dean Rufus gave the Midwest a sound of its own. 

Mostly a recluse, Dean came out to talk about family secrets, what brought him to his eclectic mix of hip-hop, soul, funk, new wave and disco for mainstream radio, falling in and out of love with radio, sex drugs and Cher and offers me a free bottle of Fuck Water.  OK.

Resources:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/deanrufus
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/The-Dean-Rufus-House-Of-Fun-178933882134861

Conversations for Adults is a production of Crate Media

A 2016 graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, Amber Ford is a photographer with an eye for portraiture (what she describes as “collaborative engagement between photographer and sitter.”) We conversate* about Cleveland, black art in white spaces, why Instagram doesn’t make you a photographer, her biggest artistic risk, and the nude pictures of me that sold for lots and lots of money.

*Conversate is not a word

Resources:

• www.ambernford.com
• Instagram: @ambern.ford
• Read: “AMBER FORD WANTS TO CONVERSATE*”

Let’s Talk:

• Website: conversationforadults.com
• Instagram: @conversationforadults
• Facebook: facebook.com/conversationforadultswithjimiizrael
• Twitter: @convoforadults

Conversation for Adults is a production of Crate Media

Kedarrow Brown, aka Yofreeka, was Cleveland's premier drag queen before drag became a Rupaul, cable TV thing. We talk about house music, the time the gays protested me, how he was gay, growing up gay in rural Ohio, and how Yofreeka - the black drag queen with a Lamont Sanford moustache - was born. Also, I discover "shade."

This is part two of the conversation with Lathan Bennett - this one recorded live at Professional Polish, his barbershop on Larchemere in Cleveland. We talk watches, shoplife, white people and women in the black barbershop (and why they have no business there), the difference between plaids and argyles, and the straight razor shave. Also, I nearly get shot, kinda. This isn't a public radio play - this is authentic barbershop banter. Square biz.

Lathan Bennett is a father, veteran, and barbershop co-owner; he cut my hair from 2013 to 2016-ish. This two-parter evokes the conversation like the kind we had back in the day: we talk about the barber hustle, the projects, divorce, racism during his military service, excavating and interrogating manhood as the product of single mothers, Kim Kardashian's secret, drug dealers, hood chicks = good chicks, and "young, dumb and full of cum." Also, baby-mamas and the family courts vs. The Good Guy.

Fayola Shakes is a writer and journalist from Cleveland and I'm a big fan of her work. We talk about her Jamaican roots, writing in search of the truth, her Tinder date, and handling family with mental issues. Also, Anthony Sowell and that curious implant some Cuban men put on their penis.