The Archaeologist of My Souls : 1 in 8.3 Billion

Yes, this actually happened.

Yes, it's as chaotic as it sounds.

No, I will not apologize. (I already did. To Sister Boom Boom. Who laughed.)

San Francisco, 1990s. Drag royalty. A misunderstanding involving territorial instincts, too much meth, and my complete inability to read a room.

This episode is about the absurdity that happens when trauma meets drag culture meets a 20-something who thought he understood the rules.

Spoiler: I did not understand the rules.

But the story is fucking hilarious.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

Another near-death moment.

By this point in my life, survival was less a triumph and more a pattern I couldn't explain.

Why did I keep making it through when the math said I shouldn't?

This episode is about the moments death showed up, looked me in the eye, and walked away.

I didn't understand it then.

But now I do.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

Strangled to unconsciousness. Twice. By the same person.

The statistics say 68% survive the first time. If it happens again, your odds drop to 46%.

I beat both.

This episode is about the violence that should have ended me—hands around my throat, the world going black, waking up on the floor wondering if this time was the practice run or the real thing.

And somehow, somehow, I still have jokes about it.

Because when death keeps showing up and you keep not dying, you start to wonder: what the fuck am I still here for?

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

The DJ dropped "Finally" and every gay man in that San Francisco warehouse lost their fucking minds.

CeCe Peniston singing about the moment we'd all been waiting for. The moment when someone looks at you like you're the answer to a question they've been asking their whole lives.

Gary turned around. Red curly hair. Dark eyes. That look.

I flew back to Boston, quit my life, and moved cross-country for a man whose last name I didn't even know.

"Call me Gary," he'd said. Which should have been my first red flag.

But I was 27 and stupid and thought mystery was sexy instead of what it actually was: a warning label written in neon.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

A gloved finger pointed at me across the street like a summoning.

Like an idiot, I went.

Bruce was 30. Former Calvin Klein model. Cocaine dealer. And somehow carrying the entire history of European luxury in his head — Louis XIII cognac at $4,000 a bottle, which Dom Pérignon vintage paired with which caviar, cloistered nuns spinning silk from New Guinea silkworms.

This was 1982. No internet. No Wikipedia. How did he KNOW this?

What followed was a 5-year education in excess, danger, beauty, and something I'm only now beginning to understand.

He died of AIDS. I didn't.

It took me 40 years to figure out why I was spared.

This episode is that answer.

I've faced rapists, addiction, strangulation, betrayal. 

None of them broke me.

A Swedish woman humming while doing dishes? Absolutely destroyed me.
Her name was Vera. She gave me a felt troll. I kept it for 40 years — not because it was special, but because it was proof. 

Proof that love without violence exists.

This is how one quiet woman in a kitchen showed a damaged child the capacity for true, unconditional love.

⚠️ Real story. Real survival. I'm still here. This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. It also full of profound love, transformation and hope. Listener discretion advised.

I was 5 years old, holding a kitchen knife, doing math.

If I kill him first, does the pain stop?

My mother was in the hospital—skull cracked open, recovering. Bill Miller was wanted for arson, attempted murder and sexual assault. He was living with us. 

So I calculated. Cold. Precise. The way a kindergartener shouldn't be capable of calculating.

I didn't do it.

But the fact that I could tells you everything about what was coming.

72% of boys who experience this don't make it to 25.

I'm 61.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. But it also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

My father called my mother "good white pussy." He tried to burn our house down with my pregnant mother inside.

This was Tuesday afternoon in my family.

When violence is your inheritance and chaos is your curriculum, you learn that normal is a lie people tell themselves. You learn to read a room in seconds. You learn which kind of silence means someone's about to die.

This episode is about the family traditions no one puts in scrapbooks.

The ones that teach you survival before you learn to tie your shoes.

Link in bio 🎙

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. It is also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

1962. Before my mother could enter America, she had to prove she wasn't a lesbian. This is how the American Dream started. Episode 1 live now.

My mother survived being born a scandal, immigration to America, and married a black man in 1962. She didn't stay dead.

This is Sylvia. The Blonde Warrior. The woman who taught me that survival isn't about being unbreakable—it's about breaking and still getting up.

Everything that comes after—the chaos, the violence, my 1 in 8.3 billion odds—starts with understanding her.

Because you can't understand how I survived the impossible without first meeting the woman who showed me it could be done.

Link in bio 🎙

#TheArchaeologistOfMySouls #ArchaeologicalDNA #1in8point3billion #ImmigrantStory #SwedishAmerican #1960s

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. It is also full of profound love, transformation, and hope. Listener discretion advised.

I asked an AI to calculate my statistical probability of surviving my life. It said: 1 in 8.3 billion.

Essentially impossible.

Childhood sexual abuse. At 5, I attempted to murder my mother's rapist. AIDS epidemic San Francisco. Severe alcoholism. Alcohol. Meth. Coke. Sex. Brother murdered. Strangled twice. 28 deaths witnessed by age 30. 

I shouldn't be here.

But I am. And I've seen some shit.

This 19-episode memoir podcast is about more than survival. It's about what happened when I pressed play on a 35-year-old cassette tape and heard voices I'd never heard before—my own voices, broadcasting love at frequencies I couldn't access until now.

This is about Archaeological DNA. About how your past holds layers of meaning you haven't tuned into yet. About how love can travel backward through time.

This is the excavation of an impossible life.

Content warnings: This podcast contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse, addiction, violence, death, and trauma. It also full of profound love, transformation and hope. Listener discretion advised.