Naked Diner

Galen is a certified CFI Secular Celbrant in Illinois and blogger of Across Rivers Wide at Patheos (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rivers/) where he writes about interfaith dialog. We discuss his journey from growing up religious to non-belief and the uniqu challenges of maintaining a relationship when one person in the couple changes beliefs.

Also, this is our 2nd episode of the Naked Diner #SwearJar to benefit and raise awareness for livethroughthis.org suicide prevention advocacy. Please consider heading on over there and checking out the site and stories of suicide survivors, it’s powerful stuff. Maybe even consider making a donation yourself.

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/schux-famicom/id757234799

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A lot going on this week gang.

1) Andy and I are starting out on #swearjar inititative for Dese’rae L. Stage’s Live Through This Campaign. Because we believe in it. We didn’t make her a huge amount of money this week ($3), but that’s fine because we are doing this until late-ish December. Go to the site. Experience what it’s about.

2) Skepticon 2016! Our first segment is with Lauren Lane and all about why you should try, if you can, to get your ass to Missouri for Skepticon 2016.

3) our interview guest for the week: Amber Pechin (peach-in … like the fruit), a delightful ex-mormon stand-up comedian who we met when she opened for Ian Harris (who did our great intro bump for this very episode and thanks for that Ian!).

I think you’re going to like this one.

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Jeff Stevenson wrote the book “Fortney Road: Live Death, and Deception in a Christian Cult“

Big ups to friend of the show Ian Harris for his fantastic Christopher Walken impression Intro!

A lot of people don’t understand the kind of weird shit that went on in the Jesus movement in the ’60s and ’70s, A LOT more poeple don’t understand this kind of thing still goes on in something like 5,000 communities in the U.S. every day right-the-fuck now. Fortney Road is an important book pointing out how easily a very media savvy group can hide despicable behavior despite critical success.

You can purchase Jeff’s book at: http://amzn.to/2cLLCWX

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/schux-famicom/id757234799

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3 …3  … 3 guests in one episode this week on the show gang!

No kidding, this week Andy and Jack host Dan Mazur, Jordan Stillman, and Troy Minkowsky from Boston Comics Roundtable.

Andy and I recognize we’ve been doing some pretty heavy episodes lately, and we really do thank you for loving them the way you’ve been doing (and oh there will be more). But one cannot live on philosophers, political analysts, or anything else alone. So this week we get to talk about independent comic books! It’s very fun.

The Boston Comics Roundtable brings Boston cartoonists and writers together to collaborate, workshop and socialize. Comic creators of all skill levels are welcome at their weekly meetings in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, or join the discussion at their Google Group.

Also, they have a great new anthology just coming out: the uber successfully kickstarted Boundless Volume 1, which is a comic anthology all about Science! And we know you naked diner patrons love yourselves some science. So Enjoy!

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com

 

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Bonus Show!

Since September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and it’s National Suicide Prevention Week, and tomorrow September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day it’s a fitting time to have Dese’Rae back in the Diner to remind everyone about her passion project Live Through This. Dese’Rae was last on the show back on Episode 21 to talk about Live Through This and this week in the bonus show we hear all about her more recent exploits.

We’re also taking the opportunity to announce that beginning with episode 48 of the show, and throughout Autumn, Andy and Jack will be participating in a podcast Swear Jar campaign to help raise a little money for Live Through this and hopefully help raise some awareness for suicide prevention advocacy as well because we are both generous and profane. Check out the episode for more!

Dese’Rae is a suicide survivor and photographer by trade, so her activism project Live Through This documents, visually and in their own words, the lives and stories of suicide survivors. It’s a really cool thing about a topic we all too often sweep under the rug as a society. You should check out all her stuff and consider donating to the project via Patreon (http://patreon.com/livethroughthis), the #STAY t-shirt campaign (http://bit.ly/stayblk), or straight up traditional PayPal donations (http://bit.ly/lttdonate).

You can find more Dese’Rae online at http://livethroughthis.org her Twitter (https://twitter.com/deseraestage) or the Live Through This project Twitter https://twitter.com/lttphoto

If you’re feeling suicidal, please talk to somebody. You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (veterans press 1) or Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. If you don’t like the phone, check out http://www.crisischat.org or http://www.crisistextline.org. If you’re not in the U.S., you can go to http://iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ for a link to crisis centers around the world.

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com

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Paul Fidalgo is the co-host of the Thinkery Podcast (like bakery, but with thoughts) and Director of Communications for the Center for Inquiry.

We don’t talk to Paul about CFI related stuff at all this episode; I thought there might be some of that but it never materialized. Why? Well, all 3 of us are what you might call political junkies, and it’s Labor Day in an election year. So basically now is the time where everyone else starts to pay attention to politics as hard as we’ve been paying attention for the last 18 months or so. This week Andy and Jack have an amazing sit down with Paul to talk about politics. This is a bit of a deep dive on why Americans vote the way they do, why America is the way it is, why we have the choices we have, and basically how we ended up where we are.

You might remember that Paul was a guest on the show before back on episode 16 when we talked about the merger of CFI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation … and Shakespeare … and Amazon’s return policy. I like Paul because he offers the depth and breadth of a genuine person who isn’t tied down to just talking points and beats that he feels the need to hit. So listen to this episode, because Paul is a good guy.

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com

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Massimo Pigliucci is is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College and former co-host of the Rationally Speaking podcast. Earlier in the summer I watch a video Massimo did on Stoicism and Dying with dignity that really got me thinking about death and mourning from a secular perspective, and after a summer of scheduling hiccups we were able to sit down and talk about Stoic philosophy, mortality, and the fast approaching Stoicon and Stoic Week

Not going to lie gang, it isn’t every day somebody with Massimo’s bonafides agrees to come on the show, so we were really pretty psyched to have him on and I really think you’re going to enjoy the heck out of this week’s episode.

If you want to find more from Massimo his websites HowtobeaStoic.org and platofootnote.org are generally brimming with philosophical goodness. Do check him out because he’s really done A LOT more than I can do justice in the short space I’ve got here.

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We’ve had Brian on the show before back in ep. 25 and back then he was just set to go host a Nobel symposium in Germany.

Well … not only did Brian go to Germany to hang out with Nobel laureates he also took the time to go to CERN … y’know … that place with the Shiva statute where there was a fake human sacrifice last week? Yeah there  (sure it’s one of, if not THE, most advanced research facility in the world … but let’s focus on how spooky people’s hoods are when they’re intentionally trying to mess with people). Honestly, if you don’t think the Shiva bit wasn’t trolling … get a grip.

But never mind that because we have Science Comedian Brian Malow making his second appearance in the diner and dang he has some great stories about his adventures from home to Germany, to CERN, to the vatican astronomical observatory and back. You need to hear this one!

Brian Malow is Earth’s Pre­mier Sci­ence Come­dian (self-proclaimed).  He has per­formed for NSF, AAAS, JPL, NIST, ACS, AGU – and many other acronyms.

Brian has made sci­ence videos for Time Magazine’s web­site and is a con­trib­u­tor to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s radio show.  He gives work­shops and pre­sen­ta­tions to train sci­en­tists to become bet­ter speak­ers.

Music by: Schux Famicom

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An oddly serendipitous number for this episode. 42. This episode is about Michael Reaves and the script he wrote for a movie called Blood Kiss.

I say that because Blood Kiss, for all the trials and tribulations it’s had trying to get made, is definitely set to star Neil Gaiman, y’know .. Sandman, MirrorMask, American Gods … yeah that one. I suffer over this because as much as I love Mr. G as much today as I did the one time I managed to briefly meet him as an idealistic but insecure teenager back in 1997 (look I have proof) …

This isn’t about him.

Yes, it’s our 42nd episode. And yes, of course, Neil Gaiman wrote what I (and I’m sure many others) consider the definitive biography on Douglas Adams. There’s just no getting around that. But this episode is about Blood Kiss.

I say this in all seriousness: Ignore all that business about Neil Gaiman. He’s great, but this isn’t an episode about Neil Gaiman’s potential foray into acting. This is an episode about a great story, by a great writer named Michael Reaves which will hopefully get made into a movie that we can all enjoy. It’s an episode about a Noir Vampire story, set in 1940’s Los Angeles, written by someone who (if you’re about my age, and grew up with American TV) wrote a lot of amazing things that you remember fondly from childhood and probably helped make you who you are today.

This week I sit down with producers David Raiklen and Sarah Char, with some digitally assisted Q&A from Michael himself, about a movie they’re trying to get made called Blood Kiss.

It’s about Blood Kiss.

So listen to us talk about the movie in all it’s wonkish production nerd glory. Get excited about the movie. Tell your friends about the movie. Help get the movie made.

This is our episode about Blood Kiss. Enjoy.

I should also mention that next week we have THE Science Comedian Brian Malow returning to the show for a very fun time discussing his hosting of a Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany and exploring CERN, and the week after that we have the brilliant Massimo Pigliucci discussing Stoicism and how to deal with life in general.

I don’t mean to brag, but we’ve had a pretty good month.

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Callie Wright is co-chair of the LGBTQ Humanist Alliance, an adjunct of the American Humanist Association. and basically awesome. Andy and I had a great time talking with Callie about intersectionality and sleep apnea and genuineness and all kinds of other good stuff so you should totally listen to this episode. It’s good. Then you should also check out her podcast Gaytheist Manifesto http://gaytheistmanifesto.secularmediagroup.com

Also, you may have noticed … new music. The new music is courtesy of my good friend Schux Famicom. You’ll be hearing more of that.

As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com

And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory.

Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com

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