Six Degrees NYC

Happy July 4th! Its our very special 2018 Six Degrees travel-themed episode, in honor of all of your summer travel plans! And who better to talk passports, frequent flier miles, and emergency G & T's in a Uganda wildlife preserve than our guest, travel writer Andi Bartz? We grill Andi on her favorite places in NYC and abroad, and hear a little bit about her brand new novel The Lost Night. Plus, our very own Alap finally tests us with The Word! Happy traveling!

Bloomberg reporter Max Albertson is the next guest to join our Six Degrees summer lineup, and he talks with us about all things fraud: Banks, power, brokers, The Power Broker, and that time he was almost kicked out of Donald Trump's office. Also, why are there cock-a-roaches hissing at us, and when does the famous murder scene from Psycho! happen in Pulp Fiction? Plus, everyone's favorite games are back when Max goes head to head with us in Are you more New York than us? and tells all in Rapid Fire!  But first, first, first, and first... The Word.

Six Degrees is back from spring break! We celebrate our return with filmmaker James Lester, whose recent documentary "Getting Naked: A Burlesque Story" just finished making its rounds on the festival circuit, and is now gearing up for its summer release! (Hint: look out for it on Starz in October). We ask the hard hitting questions, as usual, like is his wife mad at him for making a movie about naked women?  Then Jimmy takes on Alap in our brand new trivia game Are you more New York than us? (maybe?), and gives us his best 90s Yonkers/Upper East Side memories in Rapid Fire. But first, Cleveland!

We take a break from hosting others and get a little selfish, as we turn the mikes on ourselves, taking turns answering the hard questions in our Rapid Fire only episode. Find out our favorite New York moments, places, and memories, our biggest accomplishments, and who we want to play us in the movies of our lives. Then we're off to spring break -- See you in June! 

After winning his SECOND NCAA championship, Villanova Wildcats' assistant coach Kyle Neptune stopped by the studio to bring us Alap’s favorite thing (free gear), and tell us how it feels to be a winner.  As usual, we ask the hard questions, like: Are standing treadmills the best way to avoid cramps on the bench?  But first: up in the sky, its Laomedeia!

Six Degrees tackles the small and uncomplicated topic of race relations with our guest, co-founder of Project Inkblot and Lower East Side native Jahan Mantin; as you can imagine, it’s not all cookies and unicorns.  Who has the responsibility when it comes to conversations about race? How do we manage to talk constructively about diversity? Is humor a tool or a hindrance? According to Jahan, you might be more confused when we’re done... but that’s a good thing. Also, Alap manages to work in his subway celebrity once again, we have a run-in with Carmel car service (666-6666, the number 6!), and the most heartwarming bagel story you’ve heard this week. But first, 30 years later, and parents still don’t understand.

Want to know our favorite STDs? The world’s most horrifying diseases? “Mackenzie FitzGerald”, doctor and assistant professor of infectious disease at [prestigious NYC hospital], talks to us about all things terrifying. We learn how to avoid hypochondria (hint: see episode title), when not to slap people, and why Ben chooses to live in filth. We wonder, is the size of the dog that bit you positively correlated to the pleasure of the sexual experience you just had?  Did Ben catch asthma from Alap? Also, does it smell fishy in here, or is that just crystal blue persuasion? Ultimately, we hear a real New York doctor’s hopes and dreams, and discover that Web MD is never, ever our friend. But first, "Mackenzie" gives us chapstick that doesn’t prevent AIDS.

Musician and visual artist David Bronson’s artistic range is legit impressive—from drawing exceptional comics and making  great sounds with his mouth, to producing his 2015 album Questions with actual artists from the the album that inspired it (David Bowie’s Young Americans). We talk about his connection to a roster of music industry legends, his “tappy brother”, and why his anosmia might cause him to eat bacon AND sit unperturbed next to a pile of human vomit in an empty subway car. He asks deep questions (is the internet “good”; how about humanity?), and gives deep answers: anyone can do anything if they want it bad enough. But first, we match pitch.

Buzzfeed editor Emmy Favilla wrote a book! She's clearly not phubbing around. We sat down with the Brooklyn-born author of A World Without Whom to talk about what “phubbing” even means, the evolution of language (thanks to the—lowercase “i”—internet), grammar lies told by spry, elderly typing teachers, and reasons (OR reasons why) the em-dash is so elegant and the en-dash should die. We discover that Andrew Keegan is still hot, but has no followers on twitter (gasp!) and that he might be in a cult. Also, we'd prefer to be sour cream people (people with generally sour dispositions who are super into cream) than sour-cream people, thank you very much.

If our podcast can make it here, it can make it anywhere—and so can University of Kentucky basketball-legend, Ramel Bradley. We track him down to talk Brooklyn, the appropriateness of the (many) rules in college and professional basketball, and the realities of playing overseas. Apparently, being famous is lit, Michael-Jordan-Stephon- Marbury-Lebron-James is the single greatest NBA player who ever lived, and prostitution bribes are a problem everywhere, possibly even in the field of professional photography. Who knew? But first, and most importantly, we make him give us presents.