SnarkMonkey

Comedian Ian Bagg comes in the Cage to talk growing up in The Great White North, eh, mine blasting, Last Comic Standing and what it's like to work with a monkey. This man's brain don't work like the rest of us (in a good way) so you gotta check him out...

People like Dr. Mark Whitten are why I started this podcast. In the context of botany, Mark is the real deal. He started his academic career studying the interaction between orchids from genera such as Stanhopea, Catasetum, and Gongora and the orchid bees (Euglossini) that utilize them for the complex perfumes they produce. Today Mark is working on the USA-China Biodiversity Project which has him scouring the Appalachian Mountains for disjunct flora shared by these two continents. I have had the honor of being able to interact and learn from Mark over the last few weeks and I would be remiss if I didn't get him on the podcast. This was a fascinating conversation that you are certainly going to enjoy!

Christopher Titus digs into the nitty-gritty of evolving as a comic, the two kinds of edgy, how NOT to take a meeting with a TV exec, his unabashed love of Prince...in a fast, funny, dark, very Titus-y conversation...

A visit to The Field Museum in Chicago is always an adventure. You never know who you might run into. On a recent visit I had the honor of sitting down for a chat with one of the herbarium collections managers, Christine Niezgoda. She has dedicated her career to herbarium work and it was a wonderful experience to be able to pick her brain a bit. This episode was produced in part by Gregory.

"Save the rainforest." It is probably the most pervasive meme in environmentalism. It means a lot of different things to many different people, but what does it mean in practice? How do we save the rainforest? This week's guest is working on exactly that. Dr. Corine Vriesendorp is the director of the Andes-Amazon Project for The Field Museum. Their multifaceted approach is highlighting the need to conserve these biologically diverse areas while at the same time, empowering and engaging local communities and governments by helping preserve their quality of life. In total they have managed to protect over 9 million acres of pristine rainforest in countries like Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. This is one episode you do not want to miss!

It's standing-up comedian and Never Not Funny podcast host Jimmy Pardo in the MonkeyCage talking radio, music, the music business, some monkey business and much, much more...

Say liverwort to some random person on the street and you are going to get some funny looks. Say it to the right person, however, and brace yourself because you are about to enter into a world hundreds of millions of years in the making. Liverworts represent something akin to the earliest stages in terrestrial plant evolution. Despite their diminutive stature, the world of liverworts is endlessly fascinating. For this reason I was very excited to sit down for a conversation with this week's guest. Laura Briscoe is a Research & Collections Assistant at The Field Museum who specializes in liverwort biology and her work focuses on cataloguing and describing liverwort diversity. Her research takes her to a small island off the coast of Chile where liverwort diversity far outnumbers that of vascular plants such as trees. This was one of the most fascinating conversations I have ever had and I really think you are going to enjoy it.

Kira Soltanovich is a super funny lady whose stand-up special You Did This To Me (while 7 months pregnant) is streaming now. We catch up with Kira now and, despite being sleep-deprived, she brings the Snark!

Field season has arrived for many of us. Others have been in the field for weeks by now. Whether you study plants, fish, or geology, field work brings with it a sense of fun and adventure. It also comes with its own set of challenges. In celebration of the life of a field technician, I invited some of my friends and colleagues to tell us stories from the field. Some are funny and others end in a trip to the hospital. Regardless of the challenges, we wouldn't trade this lifestyle for anything. Join us this episode for some tales from the field!

Nina Tassler - former President-then-Chairman of CBS Entertainment - comes in the MonkeyCage to talk about how she became one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, how she said "yes" to most of your favorite TV shows (how Geena Davis figures in all this) and about her great new book...