Head On Fire

Dan Savage has done a lot of things in his life. He founded both the It Gets Better project and the Hump porn festival. He popularized the Campsite Rule of relationships. He made Rick Santorum’s name a dirty word. And he’s been one of the country’s foremost sex, dating, and relationship advice columnists since the creation of Savage Love in 1991. He’s a pioneer of podcasting, a former drag queen, and he is my guest today. We discussed sex, advice, and sex advice.

Email: [email protected]

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

With spring right around the corner, many people are thinking about cleaning their homes and turning to social media for tips and tricks only to suddenly learn we all seem to be doing everything wrong. That's where Melissa Pateras, the lesbian queen of Laundrytok and author of the new book A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home, comes in. She told me all the secrets of folding a fitted sheet, the magic of swapping your fabric softener for vinegar, and whether any of those homemade washing powder recipes actually work.

Email: [email protected]

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524

Jinkx Monsoon (she/her) is a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner, Broadway breakout star, and soon to be villain on the beloved British sci-fi series Doctor Who coming to Disney+ in 2024. The self-proclaimed “internationally tolerated” drag icon has taken over the entertainment industry as an award-winning stage actress, acclaimed vocalist, stand-up comic, and theatre sensation. 

Jinkx first garnered an international fan base following her win on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 (2013), and continued her winning streak on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 (2022) where she was crowned “Queen of All Queens,” winning the competition against all previous winners. In January 2023, Jinkx made her highly-anticipated Broadway debut as Matron “Mama” Morton in Broadway’s longest-running musical, Chicago. Jinkx's monumental and extended 10-week run broke box office records, achieving the highest selling non-holiday week in the show's 26 year history (as reported by Playbill). Following the run, she went on to sell out theaters across 45 North American cities with her first ever concert tour titled "Jinkx Monsoon: Everything at Stake" from June through August 2023. Jinkx closed out 2023 with the 6th annual "The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show" tour which sold out the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles and traveled for 8 weeks across the U.S., UK and Canada. 

Jinkx has toured the world performing her original cabaret shows with music partner Major Scales, including highly-acclaimed shows like The Ginger Snapped, The Vaudevillians (which became a hit Off-Broadway sensation) and their most recent production, Together Again, Again (2022).  As a recording artist, Jinkx has released three critically-hailed albums of original music written by Major Scales including her most recent The Virgo Odyssey (2022), The Inevitable Album and The Ginger Snapped. 

No stranger to film and TV, Jinkx has voiced characters for such animated shows as Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (playing the beloved character Lemongrab), Steven Universe, Mighty Magiswords, Bravest Warriors. She has also appeared on the CBS cop drama Blue Bloods and the Netflix original AJ and the Queen. Jinkx has been the subject of two documentaries: Drag Becomes Him, and The Queens. She is an award-winning stage actress, having won the Gregory Award for her portrayal of Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and most recently, The MAC Award for her show The Ginger Snapped, co-written with Major Scales.

email me: [email protected]

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524

Kyne Santos uses social media to teach math subjects that range from simple addition and subtraction to more esoteric concepts about impossible objects or quantum mechanics. And he does it in drag. Because sometimes Kyne puts on a wig, drops the surname and becomes the Canadian Drag Race superstar alum Kyne who teaches us how math can be a living, breathing, interesting subject that both enriches and entertains. 

Kyne's new book, Math in Drag, comes out March 5, 2024.

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524

2023 was great and terrible. There were technological marvels, horrible television, phenomenal movies, brilliant books, and more author drama than you ever thought possible. Come around the dumpster fire as Meg Elison and I build the year its funeral pyre. 

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

Bonnie Klopfer is an actress and comedian whose videos have been loved by millions of people around the world. She’s a stand up regular in LA and makes content online about finding the funny in mundane things, including a breakout series of shorts about product packaging. Find her here: https://linktr.ee/boobieklapper

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524

We are often told to ignore anger, to repress anger, that anger has no value in a polite society. Anger gets us in trouble. Anger removes our ability to think rationally. Anger is always bad all of the time and we should never, ever feel it.

Or, at least, that's what we've been told.

Some researchers wanted to test that theory, and turns out it might not be true. 

Dr. Heather Lench is a professor specializing in affective science, personality processes, and social & personality psychology. She recently led a team of researchers in publishing a paper that tells us what anyone who has ever washed the dishes after a fight knows: anger might make us more productive and better at problem solving. We might actually get more accomplished if we do it out of spite. 

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

Hannah Robinson has been an editor at some of publishing’s biggest houses. HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster—where we met—and now Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette. She primarily works with non-fiction, which is a massive slice of the publishing pie that seems to get all but ignored on social media. We had a discussion about what the job of an editor is, what it isn’t, and whether they’re the scary gatekeepers aspiring authors make them out to be. 

And because I couldn’t resist, we talk a bit about the making of The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft and why certain things did and didn’t make the cut. 

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

Jerry Saltz is one of the last real critics, the kind of critic that matters, whose voice is held in high esteem both by the art world and by the artists who make the world go round. He’s been the senior art critic for New York Magazine since 2006. He also happens to be one of, if not the most, widely read critics in the world—possibly outranked by his wife. He is a former long-haul truck driver, a failed artist, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, and he is my guest today. We had a far reaching discussion about what makes good art, the democratization of critique, and whether he really is just a professional hater.

Follow Jerry on Instagram here.

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

My guest today is Diana Helmuth. She is an award-winning author of a book about hiking who decided to take a page, or several, out of the books of people who I look up to: AJ Jacobs, Mary Roach, Elizabeth Gilbert. Authors who spent time approaching a field as a complete novice in order to learn everything they could about it, to see how it might change them, to see what we can learn about ourselves through the challenge of transforming some integral part of our lives. Her project? The Witching Year, a book about becoming a witch and finding a bit of magic in a modern world. 

Social links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod

Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod
Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod

Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod