e-travels with e. trules

This season, I'd like to start thinking about travel in a new way.Time and place, Maties. Because I think there's something profound and universal about a good travel story, connecting us more deeply to a unique place at a specific time, to ourselves, and to the other people we meet along the way. At the end of this episode, I'll recall a tribal tale from the outback of Northeast Borneo in East Malaysia.... where you'll hear how Rungus tribesmen dealt with love, jealousy, and revenge back in the days of animism and black magic shamans.

http://erictrules.com/episode24

Ho! Ho! Ho! And Happy New Year! Having just passed the 1 YEAR ANNIVERSAY of my podcast, I am announcing GOOD NEWS — the release of "e-travels with e. trules" on SPOTIFY! To celebrate, I'm releasing the 4th and final BONUS EPISODE – between Season 1 and Season 2. It's my interview from this past Fall with Joshua Rivers, also known as "The Podcast Guy", and host of "Podcasting Experiments from the Creative Studio".

http://erictrules.com/episode23

It's the 1 Year Anniversary of the Podcast, so today to celebrate and to tickle your travel podcast fancy, I'm releasing a BONUS episode, my guest interview with Jeremy Collins, host of "Podcasts We Listen To".

Jeremy contacted me from Capser, Wyoming, where is a UPS driver, as well as the creator of "Podcasts We Listen To", a popular podcast and the largest podcast-based group on social media, with over 16,000 members on Facebook.

It's one of the great hings I love about podcasting: everybody has a place at the table. It doesn't matter where you live or what you do. All you need is a microphone and a passion to have your voice heard.

Mike Siegel, Comedian and Host of the Travel Tales Podcast: "What do you think travel has taught you about yourself, people in general, and about America?"

Trules: "How much time do you have?"

http://erictrules.com/episode21

In between Seasons 1 & 2, the podcast offers a BONUS EPISODE of Trules' guest interview on the "Travel Stories Podcast", with host, Hayden Lee.

http://erictrules.com/episode20

Here it is... one of kind.... a travel story not about... me! Along with excerpts from Season 1, and final travelogue.

"Tear" is about a 15 year old Chicano boy named Alejandro Chavez, my "mentee", and the bus trip he took across the US-Tijuana border in 1995.

Alex, as he like to be called, told me this story, and I've tried to capture it here. I think it's a love story about the distance between cultures and countries, in our modern age of... President Trump and all the challeges of immigration. I also think it's a bitter-sweet and appropriate ending to the End of Season 1 on the "e-travels with e. trules" podcast.

http://erictrules.com/episode19

These words from my guest in this Episode, Debra Ehrhardt, solo performer and native of Jamaica:

"Your saying 'no' to me is just a way of my saying, ok, how can I get 'yes'?"

"In America, there is no class system; they see you as you are."

"When a man is involved in a child's life, it makes such a difference."

"People who travel are so much more interesting than those who stay in their tiny little city."

http://erictrules.com/episode18

This episode finds Trules chugging up the Mighty Mekong River, on a flat-top, tin-roof, diesel-puffing dinosaur, from northern Thailand to southern Laos, metaphorically and musically searching for mad Mr. Kurtz, from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", and of course, more recently adapted by Francis Ford Coppola into his film, "Apocalypse Now", where Kurtz is notoriously played by mad Marlon Brando.

http://erictrules.com/episode17

Trules speaks with one of Los Angeles' true musical and theatrical treasures, Morlan Higgins. Be serenaded with Morlan's mandolin, learn about his acting with Pulitzer-Pfrize winning playwright, Athol Fugard, and hear about "the river of life"

http://erictrules.com/episode16

Amsterdam, Christmas 2013

As ex-heavyweight champ, Sonny Liston, always said,

"Life... a funny thang".

It comes and goes -- in cycles. When we're in an "up" cycle... feeling good about ourselves and our lives, it seems nothing can go wrong. We're invincible. When we're in a "down" cycle... of loss, transition, fear, it seems that nothing can go right. We're unworthy.

Me? I'm more like Chicken Little, always expecting the sky to fall... than like Mary Poppins, always ready to fly away into her next optimistic adventure.

But on this trip, I talk about "perfect moments"... you know those evasive, ephemeral life experiences that you so seldom capture. Those things that my solo performance predecessor, Spalding Gray, always yearned for, but never found.

Anyway.... this episode is about Amsterdam and perfect moments.

Or... "perfect enough"...... if you are in the right place at the right time... with the right attitude.

Please listen to Episode 15, "Amsterdam, the 'Perfect City':

http://erictrules.com/episode15