Finneran's Wake

Barry Brown is an author, cowboy, horse breaker, bull rider, and rodeo competitor to whom the nickname, “The Bionic Bull Rider” has been, I think, very fittingly applied. 

Barry began competing as a bull rider at the tender age of 15. Despite its perils, he fell in love with the sport, in which he continued to participate (either as a competitor or a judge) for the next four decades of his life. 

During the course of his long career, he broke just about every bone in his body.

Fittingly, he received the nickname, “The Bionic Bull Rider” after he underwent an unprecedented surgery to repair a fractured sternum (with which he competed, unmended, for many years). 

I was honored to have him as a guest. 

On a scorching hot summer day, Barry was attired in proper cowboy garb: tall black leather boots, thick denim jeans, a long-sleeve Wrangler shirt, black neckerchief, and trusty cowboy hat. As he sat there fielding silly questions from me, absorbing the heat of the hot sun, he was completely unperturbed. 

He was as patient, stoic, thoughtful, and gentlemanly a man as I’ve had the pleasure to meet. 

He manifested, in the best possible way, the true “Cowboy attitude” to which I’ll be working on conforming myself in the coming months. 

In the meantime…

Be sure to check out my Instagram page for shorts from this and prior episodes: @danielethanfinneran https://www.instagram.com/danielethanfinneran/

Twitter: @DanielEFinneran

Website: finneranswake.com

Send emails to [email protected]

My sister project, PNEUMA, on which I put out sleep stories, meditations, mindfulness content: @pneumabydanielfinneran  

Pneumameditations.com

Be sure to subscribe to this channel if you enjoy the conversations. Share them with family and friends. 

Purchase Barry’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Bionic-Bullrider-Barry-Brown/dp/0979091918/ref=sr_1_4?crid=12HGBFR562WIH&keywords=barry+brown&qid=1687097647&sprefix=barry+brown%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-4

Tell me in the comments below: Do you think America can rediscover its “Cowboy/girl Swagger”? How can you implement the “Cowboy Attitude” in your daily life? 

I can tell you this much: I’m going to begin by purchasing a proper hat! 

With affection,

Daniel 

Reid Mitenbuler is an author, a journalist, and an Air Force veteran. 

His latest book, Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, An Epic Journey, A Lost Age tells the untold story of the twentieth century’s most interesting man.

Peter Freuchen was a Danish explorer, globetrotter, novelist, journalist, actor, and game show contestant. 

An imposingly large man (he stood over 6 '5”) with a wildly unkempt beard and a stiff wooden leg, the very image of Freuchen invites curiosity. Wanderlust, Reid’s latest excellent work, explores the life of an explorer in which you’re bound to get lost!  

In this episode, Reid and I discuss: 

The arresting image of Peter Freuchen; His three wives and their influence on him; His expeditions to the Arctic; Discovering the “top of the world’; Interactions with the indigenous Inuit people; The diet of the Inuit and their sexual practices; Bohemianism, within and out Europe; Freuchen’s eclectic politics; Nazism and Bolshevism; The virtues of being contrarian; The “Explorer’s Spirit”; The golden age of animation; The evolution of cartoons; Popeye and South Park; What is Whiskey?; The History of Whiskey in America; The Whiskey Rebellion; Alexander Hamilton v. Thomas Jefferson; How to be an author and publish a book; The writing process; and MUCH more! 

Visit your local bookstore (or the links below) to get your hands on Reid’s three fine books: 

Wild Minds: The artists and Rivalries that Inspired the Golden Age of Animation

https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Minds-Rivalries-Inspired-Animation/dp/0802129382/ref=sr_1_3?crid=143A2QGLQ68GP&keywords=reid+mitenbuler&qid=1687294732&sprefix=reid+mitenbuler%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-3

Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey

https://www.amazon.com/Bourbon-Empire-Future-Americas-Whiskey/dp/014310814X/ref=sr_1_2?crid=143A2QGLQ68GP&keywords=reid+mitenbuler&qid=1687294811&sprefix=reid+mitenbuler%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-2

Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, An Epic Journey, A Lost Age

https://www.amazon.com/Wanderlust-Eccentric-Explorer-Epic-Journey/dp/0358468329/ref=sr_1_1?crid=143A2QGLQ68GP&keywords=reid+mitenbuler&qid=1687294811&sprefix=reid+mitenbuler%2Caps%2C97&sr=8-1

You can visit Reid at his website: 

https://reidmitenbuler.com/

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My Stuff: 

Check out my Instagram page for shorts from this and prior episodes: @danielethanfinneran https://www.instagram.com/danielethanfinneran/

Twitter: @DanielEFinneran

Website: finneranswake.com

Send emails to [email protected]

My sister project, PNEUMA, on which I put out sleep stories, meditations, mindfulness content: @pneumabydanielfinneran  

Pneumameditations.com

Be sure to subscribe to this channel if you enjoy these conversations. Share them with family and friends. 

And please! comment below: Favorite whiskey? Most interesting explorer? What are your choices?

Alas...

How quickly (and imperceptibly!) the years accrue! 

Before you know it, you're departing your second, and entering your third (or fourth, or fifth…) decade of life and wondering, as you pass another milestone, celebrate another birthday, and add another number to anno domini: 

"How should I tailor my fitness regimen to my (advancing) age?" 

In this episode, resident fitness guru and recurring guest, James Flood, outlines exactly what you should do in each decade of life to maximize your health and wellbeing. 

On what exercises should you focus at the age of 25? 

How much time for recovery is needed when you’re 39? 

Should you continue deadlifting with a barbell when you’re 62? 

No matter the decade in which you find yourself, the information in this episode will prove valuable. 

I hope that you find it enjoyable as well! 

Be sure to check out my Instagram page for shorts from this and prior episodes: @danielethanfinneran https://www.instagram.com/danielethanfinneran/

Twitter: @DanielEFinneran

Website: finneranswake.com

Send emails to [email protected]

My sister project, PNEUMA, on which I put out sleep stories, meditations, mindfulness content: @pneumabydanielfinneran  

Pneumameditations.com

Comment below! 

What training mistakes did you commit when you were younger? 

How are you approaching your training at this point in your life? 

How do you envision yourself in your next decade of life? 

A huge thanks to my father for enduring the sultry Florida heat and filming this video. Thanks Dad!

The beard is back! 

Recurring (and undeniably burly) guest James Flood joins me to discuss the five most important things you can do outside the gym in order to optimize your performance once you re-enter.  

In brief, he advises you to focus on: 
1. Hydration (with electrolytes)
2. Nutrition
3. Sun exposure
4. Cold exposure
5. Sleep

Or if, like me, you prefer alliteration: 
1. Salt
2. Sustenance
3. Sun
4. Shiver
5. Sleep 

Focus, my friends, on these five simple things not only to improve your performance in the gym, but to enhance your overall state of health and wellbeing. 

With the arrival of Summer, there’s never been a better time to start! 

Comment below with aspects from your own routine, from which we can all learn. 

James and I are always eager to implement new and interesting techniques with which you've had success! 

(*Apologies for the sound quality. We will be using TWO microphones next time!)

James Charney is a psychiatrist, cinephile, professor, and author. 

His latest book, “Madness at the Movies” examines the mental disorders by which Hollywood’s most infamously deranged characters (Travis Bickle from Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver”; Norman Bates from Hitchcock’s “Psycho”) are afflicted. 

The book, written for a popular audience, is an extension of a beloved course (also entitled, “Madness at the Movies”) that he taught at Yale University for many years. 

A physician by training, Dr. Charney is not only a lover of movies, but a faithful student of their history and a discerning judge of their merit. As you’ll see, his knowledge of film history is encyclopedic, and his passion for the art is infectious! 

It was an absolute honor to speak with him and I can’t wait to watch all of the films he recommended! 

In this episode, Dr. Charney and I discuss: 

His exposure to the cinema at a young age; The importance of the movie theater in the 1950s (contrasted with its unimportance today); The communal experience of attending the theater; Being traumatized by horror films as a boy (and how that became the genre to which he later devoted much of his professorial career!); The greatest duos in film history; The best action films in the modern age; How action sequences are edited; How to keep the attention of an audience; How to watch and (really) appreciate a film; Musicals, then and now; If we are at a low ebb of creativity; Why we should all go back and watch “the classics”; How to become fully cultured in the arts; Where to view the oldies; Television v. Movies; The Sopranos; Succession; Breaking Bad; Aristotle and Fred Astair; Katherine Hepburn and Gene Kelly; and MUCH MORE! 

Links to Dr. Charney’s stuff: 

His book, "Madness At The Movies": 
https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12732/madness-movies

https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Movies-Understanding-Illness-through/dp/142144562X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14X4H0ELCJS0M&keywords=madness+at+the+movies&qid=1685473991&sprefix=madness+at%2Caps%2C363&sr=8-1

Criterion Channel
https://www.criterionchannel.com

Mubi
https://mubi.com

Dr. Charney's brilliant wife, Diane Charney (a professor of French literature at Yale) also has a book available for purchase! 

Check it out here: 
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Men-Diane-Joy-Charney/dp/1736020617/ref=sr_1_5?crid=172KUXEKE3JVK&keywords=Letters+to+men+of+letters&qid=1685541306&sprefix=letters+to%2Caps%2C3733&sr=8-5

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As for me…

I can be reached at [email protected]

Website: finneranswake.com

Instagram, on which shorter clips from my longer episodes (along with other sundry things) are posted: Daniel Ethan Finneran

Twitter: DanielEFinneran

MY WELLNESS, MEDITATION, AND **SLEEP AID** CHANNEL! 

You have to check this out! 

Pneumameditations.com 

Youtube: @pneumabydanielfinneran

Available on all podcast streaming services. 

Just search, “Pneuma by Daniel Finneran”. Listen and share with friends! 

Please comment below with thoughts and suggestions! 

With affection,
Daniel 

Welcome to Finneran’s Wake – where the ART OF CONVERSATION lives. 

Here, no topic is untouchable, no idea inadmissible, and no one too heretical to be heard. 

As the great French essayist Montaigne once said, “To my taste, the most fruitful and natural exercise of our minds is CONVERSATION. I find the practice of it the most delightful activity in our lives”. 

It certainly is the most delightful activity in my life. I want it to be so in yours as well. 

To that end, I humbly welcome you to my channel.

Here, we'll exercise our minds together. Here, we'll practice this delightful activity as friends. We'll engage, now and forever, in the art--the highest and most human art--of conversation! 

With affection,

Daniel

I realized, while reflecting on the last few conversations of which I partook, that I twice made reference to one special book: 

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. 

Kundera, a Czech-French author who is (at the time of this posting) an incredible 94 years of age, is an extraordinary man. Twice expelled from the Czech Communist Party, he’s a reform-minded liberal bohemian (in the best sense of the word) to whom my friend and prior guest, Noah Charney, introduced me. 

In his 1984 masterpiece, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Kundera employed his capacious intellect and the full force of his literary talent to create an unforgettable book–of which I STRONGLY encourage you to purchase a copy! 

The book begins with a contemplation of Nietzsche’s terrifying doctrine of “Eternal Recurrence”, by which I’ve always been fascinated. From this doctrine (or its alternative!) comes the “lightness” of being–the meaninglessness that attends to a life whose fleeting moments are brief, vanishing, and never to happen again. 

Nietzschean philosophy permeates the work, but Kundera also explores political, sexual, cultural, and autobiographical themes. 

A man of the Left, his criticism of the Left is shockingly candid, incisive, and deep. The “Grand March”, in which he himself participated as a young man, is still going on today. Indeed, it’s likely never to end. 

And his idea of “Totalitarian Kitsch” aptly describes the strange advertisements and messages (I’m talking to you, Bud Light and The North Face!) with which our social media feeds are now awash. 

Check your local library or bookstore for a copy of Kundera’s work. 

This is the version I rented (and then purchased) from Amazon: 
https://www.amazon.com/Unbearable-Lightness-Being-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061148520/ref=sr_1_2?crid=BDHTWBV0CEMW&keywords=milan+kundera&qid=1685325408&sprefix=milan+kundera%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-2

With affection,
Daniel

Svetlana Slapšak is an author, editor, anthropologist, philologist, expert in gender studies and the history of the Balkans. 

Born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1948, she now resides and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

Svetlana is the type of person to whom I could talk for hours: the breadth of her experiences is exceeded only by the depth of her reading (which, I assure you, is unfathomably DEEP, indeed!)

In this conversation, Svetlana and I discuss: 

Her upbringing in post-War, Soviet-controlled eastern Europe; Being raised by her grandmother and mother; Her early exposure to Western literature; Her “run in” with the Secret Police; Stalin’s children; Marxism; Communism; Feminism; Platonism; The Greek tragedians and comedians; Sexual politics in Ancient Greece; Athens v. Sparta; Aristophanes; Transgenderism; A (classical) Feminist’s view of biological men competing against biological women; Abolition of commercial sport; Cultural colonialism; Nationalism; the Balkans; Shakespeare; and MUCH MORE! 

Look out for Svetlana’s forthcoming book on Slavic Myths, to which I’ll post a link once it’s in publication. 

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As for me, 

I can be reached at [email protected]

Website: finneranswake.com

Instagram (on which shorts from my longer episodes and other sundry things are posted): Daniel Ethan Finneran

Twitter: DanielEFinneran

MY WELLNESS, MEDITATION, AND **SLEEP AID** CHANNEL! 

You have to check this out! 

Pneumameditations.com 

Youtube: @pneumabydanielfinneran

Available on all podcast streaming services. Search, “Pneuma by Daniel Finneran” 

Glenn Ellmers is an author, journalist, political scientist, and fellow at the Claremont Institute. 

The late Harry Jaffa–of whom Glenn was a student–is the subject of his excellent 2021 book, The Soul of Politics (of which I strongly urge you to buy a copy!) 

His forthcoming work, The Narrow Passage, will be released in the Summer of 2023. 

Glenn is a true renaissance man; he can write and speak as fluently about Aristotle and Machiavelli as he can Shakespeare and barbells. 

In this episode, Glenn and I discuss…

What it means to be a political philosopher in a decidedly UN-philosophic age; The difference between a Statesman and a Politician; Where to find the former; Examples of great statesmen in history; Favorite works and characters from Shakespeare; Living in West Virginia v. Washington DC; The “Deep State”; The Durham Report; The failures of the FBI; The appeal of Nietzsche; The role of young men in America; The Daniel Penny subway incident; If Trump really is the answer; Plato’s allegory of the cave; The Cave beneath the cave; and MUCH more! 

Glenn can be reached through the Claremont Institute’s website: 

https://www.claremont.org/scholar-bio/glenn-ellmers/

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As for me, 

I can be reached at [email protected]

Instagram (on which shorts are posted): Daniel Ethan Finneran

Twitter: DanielEFinneran

Website: finneranswake.com

MY WELLNESS, MEDITATION, AND SLEEP AID CHANNEL! 

Pneumameditations.com 

Youtube: @pneumabydanielfinneran

Available on all podcast streaming services. Search, “Pneuma by Daniel Finneran” 

#politics #aristotle #conservative #trump #shakespeare 

Dan Willingham is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author of many celebrated articles and books.

His latest work, Outsmart Your Brain, offers invaluable advice for the student whose goal is to maximize his or her fullest learning potential.

But you don’t have to be a student–enrolled at a prestigious university or an expensive high school–in order to benefit from his wisdom;

We can ALL afford to become better learners, more discerning readers, and more intelligent people–and Professor Willingham is here to show you how! 

In this episode, Dan and I discuss: 

How to read for deeper comprehension; The “SP3R” technique; Active v. passive reading; The use of Highlighters, and if they actually help; Writing notes in the margin or at the end of a book; The use of electronics to aid memory; Various types of procrastination; Ways to combat procrastination; How to establish and stick to habits; Why he calls memory the “residue of thought”; Why we remember trivial things, but not significant ones; Following one’s passion v. purpose; Finding purpose in difficult settings; Whether or not rereading is worthwhile; Important advice to America’s students; and MUCH MORE! 

I hope that you enjoy this episode! 

Thank you so very much for tuning in. 

Links to Dan’s stuff: 

His personal website: http://www.danielwillingham.com/

Twitter: @DTWillingham 

TikTok: daniel_willingham

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DTWillingham

His latest book, Outsmart Your Brain, available for purchase here: https://www.amazon.com/Outsmart-Your-Brain-Learning-Hard/dp/1982167173/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3VAJRS34JBI9L&keywords=daniel+willingham&qid=1684269299&sprefix=daniel+will%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-2.

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My Stuff: 

Finneranswake.com

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: Daniel Ethan Finneran (on which I post short clips from episodes)

Twitter: @DanielEFinneran

PNEUMA!! 

My Wellness and Meditation channel: @pneumabydanielfinneran 

Pneumameditations.com 

Check out Pneuma to listen to the Internet’s most soothing voice.  

With affection,

Daniel