One Step Beyond

In an earlier life, Henk Rogers brought the computer game Tetris to the world, as you will know if you saw the movie Tetris. Following a near-fatal heart attack in 2005 just after selling a different company for over $100,000,000, he is now bringing his renowned determination, business acumen and innovative thinking to environmentalism. Mission #1: to eliminate our use of carbon-based fuels.

For this final episode of Season 2, Henk talks with Tony about why we have to do this, how his home state of Hawai'i is already doing this, how he moved to New York to ensure other states and countries follow suit, and why he won't rest until we succeed. He then talks about Mission #2: Making a back-up of human life. And yes, we also talk about Tetris.

Please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/one-step-beyond-henk-rogers-vs-the for links to Hank's ventures, other interviews with him, and for an explanation for the end of this show's road. At least for now.

Thanks to Lance Gould at Brooklyn Story Lab for setting up the interviews for the last two episodes.

Thanks for listening.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hard to find someone who doesn't appreciate the elephant, the largest land mammal on earth with the biggest brain, and the longest gestation period, an animal known for its sense of family, its empathy, its memory, and for being damn cuddly to boot. Yet we humans consistently sanction the murder of (primarily African) elephants for (primarily) their ivory, at a rate faster than new elephants are born, and we capture Asian elephants to use for hard labor or so-called "entertainment." Through deforestation and other destructions, we have also decreased their natural habitat in Asia by up to 95%. As a result, where there were 100,000 Asian elephants in Thailand alone only 50 years ago, there are now just 4,000, out of a population of only 40,000 Asian elephants across the entire continent. One out of every three of these Asian elephants is in captivity.

Patricia Sims has documented the plight of captive Asian elephants across two documentaries, Return To The Forest (2012) and When Elephants Were Young (2016). Both films were narrated by William Shatner, and the first led Sims to launch World Elephant Day, which takes place on August 12 every year. Speaking from her home in British Columbia, Canada, Sims talks to One Step Beyond host Tony Fletcher about why these beautiful animals are a "keystone species," about the complex historical reasons so many are kept in captivity, and about programs that seek to return captive elephants into their natural habitat, so that they can once again be free to roam, maintaining the ecosystems on which we all rely.

Please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/everyone-loves-elephants-so-how-do for full YouTube videos/links etc. as listed below.

Links:

World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day YouTube channel

Return to the Forest

When Elephants Were Young

The Elephant Queen

Tony and Noel Fletcher's Vlog on their "Government Elephant Ride" in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, 2016 is here

Ze Franks on "True Elephant Facts" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvOr1-P6XR8

https://unitedforwildlife.org/news/10-amazing-elephant-facts-need-know

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant

For more information on this and Tony's other podcasts, and to subscribe for weekly culture updates and a long-form weekend article, visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony interviews Catskills resident Jamie Kennard about his recent undertaking of 500 5ks in 500 days – across multiple sporting disciplines, and all of them outdoors – as a means of coping with the loss of his wife Tracy to a particularly rare and brutal cancer at the age of 47. Jamie and Tracy had been together since they were 16, and married for the last 20+ of those 30 years.

Compared with her suffering and her fighting spirit, Jamie’s own determination to ski, hike, bike, run, canoe and even surf 5k a day minimum seemed… minimal. On One Step Beyond, he talks of how the undertaking nonetheless grounded him, guided him, led him to a surprising love of running, and about the so-serendipitous-it-is-almost-cosmic circumstances surrounding the conclusion of his 500th and final consecutive 5k-plus.

Jamie may have been new to running, but he’s certainly no stranger to the Great Outdoors. Back in 2014, he and his brother became the first and currently still the only people known to have ski’d all 35 of the Catskill 3500ft peaks, though as part of his foray into film-making and photography, he is following former OSB guest Julie MacGuire on her own quest to become the first woman to see through this incredible feat.

For full shownotes, with photos and videos, and to sign up for regular updates on this and host Tony's other shows and writings, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/midweek-update-20-love-life-loss

Theme song "A Word That Doesn't Rhyme" by The Dear Boys. Listen to the whole song here.

Sign up for free to the "Wordsmith" newsletter at tonyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe for further information about this episode, news of Tony's other podcast, a Midweek Update with recommendations for shows, reading, websites, videos, books and more, and a weekly long-form article.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do we travel? Does travel make us happier? Smarter? Braver? Or, given the current climate crisis, why should we travel? What's the difference between a tourist and a traveler? And what's a Digital Nomad and why does that term make some people cringe?

These and many other key, core questions are answered by Nathan James Thomas, editor of the Intrepid Times, and author of Travel Your Way and Untethered, and Dr. Andrew Stevenson, a Professor of Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of the new book The Psychology of Travel, alongside host Tony Fletcher.

Some of the subjects, people and places covered in this episode:

• "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles
• The sugar ants of the Northern Territory in Australia
• The joys of buying a brown paper bag in Mexico
• Flight shaming and why it's a red herring
• Nathan's travels through China, South America, Central Asa and why he now lives in Poland
• Andrew's cycling tours through Malaysia, Corsica, France and England
• Researching educational psychology in Guatemala
• Why countries like Iran are not the scary, evil, ominous places they are presented as.
• Running in Sandakan, Borneo and Yuksom, Sikkim, India.
• Why walking can be an act of rebellion
• How to spell "eudemonic," what the heck it means, and why it won't give you a hangover.
• Do long-term travelers tend to come from unsettled family homes - or have they all just broken up with a partner and want to get the hell out of dodge?
• Why encountering people from different cultural groups is a proven way to reduce prejudice...
• ...But why we need to encounter them on equal terms.
• Why staying home can be as bad for the environment as getting on a plane and seeing the world
• Monks in Myanmar, and Marmite in Malaysia.

Nathan James Thomas' books Travel Your Way and Untethered are available through:

https://exislepublishing.com/product/travel-your-way/

https://exislepublishing.com/product/untethered/

The Intrepid Times is https://intrepidtimes.com and @IntrepidTimes across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Dr. Andrew Stevenson's book The Psychology of Travel is available through

https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Travel/Stevenson/p/book/9781032104799

and he can be found through https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/research-centres/hpac/staff/profile/index.php?id=829

Theme song "A Word That Doesn't Rhyme" by The Dear Boys. Listen to the whole song here.

Sign up for free to the "Wordsmith" newsletter at tonyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe for further information about this episode, news of Tony's other podcast, a Midweek Update with recommendations for shows, reading, websites, videos, books and more, and a weekly long-form article.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Freedman and Philip Vondra are outdoorsy New Yorkers with a book just published entitled Beer Hiking New York: The Tastiest Way to Discover the Empire State.

Colin Renton is an outdoorsy Scotsman with a book recently published entitled The Wine Runner: My Year of Hard Yards and Vineyards. 

Host Tony Fletcher (an outdoorsy half-Scot and half-English Brit who also has USA citizenship) talks with Jason and Colin about the joys travel both near and far, about running and hiking and… you guessed it, about beer and wine.

Along the way, the three discuss:

• The similarities between craft beer and craft wine, the stewardship of the land and how the taste of that land ends up in the can or the bottle… it’s terroir, people.
• How Colin set about running 12 races in 12 countries in 12 months, visiting 12 wineries and bringing home 12 bottles of wine.
• How he set on this ambition with the goal of running his first marathon at age 60
• How Jay and Philip set about choosing just 33 great hikes and breweries in a State that has hundreds of each.
• Why the first hike in the book starts from Port Authority Bus Terminal in the middle of Manhattan.
• Why there is only one brewery in Manhattan but tons in Brooklyn.
• Why high-ABV IPAs are so popular in New York but why there is much to the State’s beer-making culture than that.
• The different types of hikes that are available to everyone in New York.
• The multitude of running options across Europe that are either hosted by, or run through, vineyards.
• Why Colin chose to avoid the obvious regions within France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Portugal…
• …And why he included runs and wineries from England, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Belgium.The greatest hike on Colin and Philip’s doorstep that they never knew of.
• The best Belgium beer in New York.
• How climate change is affecting wine making (and running) all across Europe. And how Colin sought to minimize his carbon footprint with his travels.
• Why it’s okay to choose not to drink alcohol – and why it’s okay to enjoy alcohol.

Beer Hiking New York: The Tastiest Way to Discover the Empire State is published by Helvetiq

Jason Freedman can be found at Instagram.com/gunksrunner

The Pain Cave podcast he hosts with Philip Vondra is https://www.gunksrunner.com/paincave

The Wine Runner: My Year of Hard Yards and Vineyards is published by Polaris.

Colin can be found at https://twitter.com/ColinRenton1

Theme music this episode is ‘A Word That Doesn’t Rhyme’ by The Dear Boys. 

One Step Beyond Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/onestepbeyondpodcast/

Sign up at tonyfletcher.substack.com for a weekly newsletter with recommendations across all media and for updates on this and Tony Fletcher's other activities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Turtles! Volcanoes! Caiman! Monkeys! Museums! Fumaroles! Scuba Diving! Swimming Holes! And Sunsets! 

Paula is back as co-host for the first time since the Season 1 finale as she and Tony discuss their recent travel to Costa Rica, not only from an environmental and cultural perspective, but also from their uniquely different personal perspectives. Paula had not traveled outside the USA in 35 years, whereas Tony spent almost a whole year backpacking round the globe only back in 2016. Similarly, Tony is something of an (ageing) adrenalin hound who went scuba diving and running the volcanos, while Paula had reasons to want to take it just a little less hectic.

Some of the topics discussed in this episode:

• All the great reasons to visit Costa Rica in the first place: is just 0.04% of the earth's land surface but contains 5% of its species; 33% of it is protected land; Atlantic and Pacific Coasts both readily accessible; no standing Army.
• How much advance planning should go into a foreign trip and how much should be left to finalize "on the ground".
• Choosing to travel by public transport with occasional taxi/Uber/Didi rather than being like most North Americans and renting a car.
• Opting to stay primarily in Air BnBs.
• Advantages of traveling in the rainy season
• Choosing to avoid the main tourist destinations of Arenal Volcano and Manuel Antonio National Park, going instead for:
• San José: not the world's loveliest capital city but a veritable gold mine of museums
• Traveling to Tortuguero on the northern Caribbean coast and what to do when you miss your connecting bus
• The 6am canoe trip into the waters of the Tortuguero National Park and the multiple fauna and flora seen on that trip
• The turtles of Tortuguero: the cosmic experience of watching green sea turtles lay their eggs and return to the ocean, all while (Tony and Paula were) stumbling round the beach at night holding hands with strangers. (More on sea turtles here)
• Alajuela, Costa Rica's second biggest city, and its hero Juan Santamaria, who helped achieve victory over William Walker's pro-slavery Filibusteros in 1856, and for whom the local museum (a former army barracks) and nearby international airport is named.
• The cloud forest of Poás Volcano
• The beautiful "white city" of Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste in the north-west.
• The vast and vastly under-visited Rincón de la Vieja National Park outside of Liberia, with its active volcano and multiple hiking trails. These include Las Pailas which has close-ups of fumaroles and hot springs, and the steep exposed hike to the Hidden Waterfall, which Tony was the only one to take that day.
• How Costa Rica is using geothermal energy from its (six) active volcanos to supply 15% of the country's energy.
• The charming and peaceful Playa Hermosa
• Scuba diving from nearby Playa Coco
• Food and drink
• The national expression of "Pura Vida"
• Conclusions

Music in this episode: "A Word That Doesn't Rhyme" by The Dear Boys

Subscribe to tonyfletcher.substack.com for updates on this and Tony's other podcast, plus news of events, new releases, recommendations and a weekly long-form article.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the late 1990s, Michael Dorame was a house music fanatic living in San Francisco, who became addicted to the drugs that kept him dancing all night long in the clubs. After OD'ing twice in three weekends, he found release, relief and redemption in the sport of rock climbing. Now, with producer Aaron Fong and celebrated outdoor sports cinematographer Chris Alstrin, Michael has made a film, Rock-A-Holic, about his story and that of two other former addicts, Ben Polanco and Maureen O'Reilly.

On this episode of One Step Beyond, Michael joins host Tony Fletcher to discuss his life story, those of Ben and Maureen, the allure of drugs and alcohol, the addictive personality and whether it's genetic, and their ultimately much safer addiction to rock climbing. He is joined by director Chris who talks more about the technical aspect of the sport, and the making of the movie. If you are like Tony - interested in rock climbing but never tried it - consider this a perfect primer.

Additionally, if you've ever been to the far side of drugs or alcohol in what you initially thought was pursuit of a good cause - especially something initially wholesome, like dancing in clubs - this will possibly strike a (musical) chord, and show that there can always be light at the end of the tunnel. And if you just enjoy a story with a happy(ish) ending, you'll get it from Michael (and Maureen and Ben).

Warning: Drugs are discussed during the conversation, in detail. But so is dancing. And climbing. And other outdoor pursuits.

Rock-A-Holic Official Trailer - Youtube - https://youtu.be/ce-bVulGvHc

Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/RockAHolicTheMovie

Michael Dorame Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockaholic2023/

Chris Alstrin's Professional Reel - https://alstrincinema.com/home

Follow One Step Beyond:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Tony's other podcast, the [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available via https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodes

Theme song is 'Yes Men'' by The Dear Boys: https://linktr.ee/thedearboys

Logo by Mark Lerner. Photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.

If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review.

And please sign up for free weekly articles by Tony Fletcher, along with news of podcast bonuses, Tony's other writing, broadcasting, events, books and more: http://tonyfletcher.substack.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for a free weekly article, links to Tony's other podcasts, writings, music and more at tonyfletcher.substack.com

Is Travel Good For The Planet?

This question is tackled by our return guest, the environmentally-focused, award-winning travel writer Shafik Meghji. In a conversation that includes the subject of Shafik's recent book, Crossed Off The Map: Travels in Bolivia, and host Tony Fletcher's upcoming journey to Costa Rica, the pair discuss:

• The difference between travel and tourism
• The "brownfield rainforest" at Canvey Wick outside London, and the "temperate rainforests" of Wales
• Why Bolivia is "on the frontline of so many defining issues that will shape all of our lives wherever we are in the world in the years to come."
• How Lake Pupil, a lake the size of Luxembourg, dried up in barely two years.
• How the Amazon rainforest comprises 1/3 of Bolivia and traveling through it can help indigenous communities
• The natural beauty of Bolivia's rural landscapes and its fascinating cities
• How the migrant indigenous city of El Alto overtook the population of neighboring La Paz in just two decades.
• Costa Rica's remarkable biodiversity, its eco-tourism, and its 'unparalleled' wildlife.
• Shafik's recommendation for the perfect travel spot

You can find Shafik at shafikmeghji.com/ and at instagram.com/shafikmeghji/

Read his article on the brownfield rainforest of Canvey Wick

and his piece on the Lost Rainforests of Britain

More info on his book is at

http://www.shafikmeghji.com/#/crossedoffthemap/

The newspaper articles Tony references in the outro are:

On Lithium Mining

On Deep Sea Mining

Follow One Step Beyond:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Tony's other podcast, the [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available via https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodes

Theme song is 'Delaymania' by Noel Fletcher.

Logo by Mark Lerner. Photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.

If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review.

And please sign up for free weekly articles by Tony Fletcher, along with news of podcast bonuses, Tony's other writing, broadcasting, events, books and more: http://tonyfletcher.substack.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this Episode, host Tony Fletcher is in conversation with his old London friend Richard Heard about the latter's recent Great American Road Trip from Chicago to New Orleans, setting out to trace the Story of the American Blues. Covering 1300 miles in 10 days, Richard and his American road partner also visited the Stax Museum of American Soul in Memphis, took in revered Country revue show the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, attended Jazz Fest in New Orleans, traveled through the Robert Johnson Crossroads in Clarksdale, and saw the destruction wrought by a recent tornado in Rolling Rock, Mississippi. As Richard says, "Once I lifted the bonnet [translation: the hood] on the road trip, I thought, 'This is not just about music, this is a really really interesting part of American culture and social history which I didn't really know a lot about.'"

Subjects include:

• Planning an American Road Trip around music
• Choosing the right travel partner
• Focusing on four cities: Chicago, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans
• Learning about The Great Migration
• The Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, with Isaac Haye's gold-plated Cadillac, the Soul Train disco ball, the recreated sloping studio - and a history of Black American Music from Gospel on through.
• The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the Stax songwriters wrote many of their hits.
• Seeing Buddy Guy jump on stage to jam at his Buddy Guy's Legends Club in Chicago - on the first night of their road trip.
• Why doing the Tourist Trail in these cities is no bad thing
• The best live music of the whole journey
• Frenchman Street in New Orleans, with a live music bar every 20 yards
• The Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville
• The magic of Sun Studio in Memphis
• Driving Highway 61 from Memphis to New Orleans, via the Blues capital of Clarksdale.
• Planning a return journey: Detroit, Cleveland and so much more

Short videos from Richard's trip can be seen at: https://www.instagram.com/rh64.2022/

Tony Fletcher's books on:

Wilson Pickett

Eddie Floyd

Music from the Streets of New York, 1927-77

One Step Beyond Socials:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

E-mail us at [email protected].

Tony's other podcast, the [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available via https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodes (Richard was a guest on the first episode)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you have ever traveled, and if you have ever been able to string a sentence or two together in writing, you have probably thought of becoming a travel writer. After all, who wouldn’t want to get paid to travel? On this episode of One Step Beyond, Shafik Meghji, co-author of 40 travel guidebooks, sole author of the acclaimed new book Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia, and a prolific freelance travel writer for many esteemed print and web publications, pulls the cover off the Guide Book business and tells us how he managed to make a career out of writing about travel. It took patience, persistence, rejection, circumstance, luck, serendipity, a lot of hard work and no shortage of talent.

We talk about Shafik’s background in sports journalism, the lingua franca that is football, and about getting robbed at the Macarana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro (Tony, not Shafik); we discuss Shafik’s belated gap year to South America and India that made him reevaluate his life choices, and we discuss how the well-worn paths that were his Guide Book work gradually transitioned into a road much less traveled, as Shafik’s reputation now allows him to choose more and more of his own subjects. We discuss the famed travel experiences everyone should enjoy – Macchu Picchu, Goa, Carnival in Rio, but also the one-of-a-kind experiences that can’t be put into words for a guide book, like finding a great place for yoghurt behind a table in Kathmandu (or a hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint in Mangalore). We visit Tierra del Fuego, the islands at the end of the earth, and we discuss how Shafik has increased turned his attention into writing about this intersection of globalization, travel, and the environment, focusing on the climate emergency and how travel can impact negatively and enlighten us positively regarding the fragile future of our planet

There was lots we did not get talk about, however, and so we will have Shafik back on One Step Beyond in the near future, to talk about Bolivia, Costa Rica, the rainforests of Wales, the biodiversity of the Essex Estuary, and the state of travel journalism in a world of social influencers and affiliate bloggers. At least I hope we will. In the meantime, please visit Shafik at his web site shafikmeghji.com and be sure to follow through to the Articles section to read some of his superb journalism. You can also find Shafik on IG at https://www.instagram.com/shafikmeghji/

E-mail us: [email protected]

Socials:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Tony's other podcast, the [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available via https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodes

Theme songs are 'Yes Men' by the Dear Boys. (That’s the loud one.) https://linktr.ee/thedearboys And Delaysmania by Noel Fletcher. (The quiet one.)

Logo by Mark Lerner. Photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.

If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review, and feel free to follow the acast.supporter link below to buy us a coffee!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.