Tell Me About Your Father

Erin & Elizabeth talk with Gen-X icon Ione Skye (Say Anything, River's Edge, Zodiac), the actress and author of the NYT-bestselling memoir SAY EVERYTHING. Ione's father is the 60s folk wizard and Sunshine Superman, Donovan. But while Donovan did claim Ione's brother Dono as his own, he referred to Ione since birth only as "the girl," only meeting her for the first time when she was by that point a famous teenager. Ione tells us about how his abandonment affected her early romantic relationships with musicians (Anthony Kiedis, Adam Horovitz), what her husband Ben Lee has taught her about consistency, love and fatherhood, and how the road from rejection to reconciliation is paved with self-protection.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tellmeaboutyourfather.substack.com

Erin talks with Laurie Woolever, the author of the new memoir Care & Feeding, out this week from Ecco/HarperCollins. Laurie was Anthony Bourdain's assistant from 2009 until his death by suicide in 2018. She coauthored the cookbook Appetites and World Travel with him, and is the New York Times bestselling author of Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography. Care & Feeding is an extremely honest portrayal of Laurie's personal and professional coming of age as a high-functioning addict (to alcohol and excess) in the anything goes era of the food gods of NYC; her first job in the industry was as the assistant to the maniacal Mario Batali for a few years in the early 2000s. Laurie also talks about her actual father, John, whose lifelong caregiving of her mother amidst chronic illness taught Laurie a thing or two about how the care and feeding of others can and must extend to the self. 

It's our annual TMAYF Academy Awards special, in which we examine the ten Best Picture nominees through the lens of literal and symbolic fatherhood. Joining us, as always, is the founding cousin of the TV recap, Vanity Fair's chief critic, and co-host of the Little Gold Men podcast, Richard Lawson. Together, Matt, Erin, Elizabeth, and Richard chat about dadly silver screen topics, including tyrannical father figures who loom large even in their absence, the seemingly shifting depiction of male mentorship, and, of course, the enduring influence of totalitarian dads, be they popes, oligarchs, or wizards. We also get into the Anora of it all, whether it's time for Timothee to put away childish things, and hear Richard's winner predictions. Hit play!

On this episode, Erin & Elizabeth talk to animal intuitive Phoebe Hoffman, one of the stars of the new documentary about NYC psychics, Look Into My Eyes (currently on Max). The film hints at Phoebe's colorful life growing up with her divorced father Stanley, who Phoebe lived with in a studio apartment in Manhattan throughout her teenage years, when she dropped out of LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in 9th grade. Stanley, an English teacher who nonetheless played fast and loose with the concept of mentoring, was compared to Philip Roth in 1974 when his debut novel was published, but his literary dreams ended with a gig writing forScrew magazine. As Phoebe chain-smoked the Marlboros her dad procured for her, she skipped school to watch John Waters movies on repeat, all while longing for boundaries, apologies, and parenting. A botched stint in therapy with Stanley led to Phoebe finding a way to lovingly detach from her dad, and led to an unlikely new purpose in life: pet psychic. Phoebe tells us about an otherworldly experience with a horse changed everything, what's up with animals as the conduits of our dead loved ones, and whether our pets love us as much as we love them. 

It's the end of 2024 and the time has come for TMAYF's 788th Daddy Awards, which recap the year in masculinity and spotlight the actions of notable fathers and daddies who made our listeners ask themselves, how did we get here, and when will it end. Our shortest ep of the year features all new categories like the Holding Space Award, that recognizes people who have inspired us to wait longingly, sometimes desperately for them, not unlike a father who works late because he hates coming home. And who will win Most Divorced Dad of 2024? (Hint: it's Ben Affleck), which follows the I Can Fix Him award that honors a hot man under 40 right on the cusp of potential and disaster. There's also gongs for the most Dylan-y of Bob Dylan's tweets, Canadian animals dads, and RFK Jr.'s brain worm. See you next year, next month, promise (unless we die)! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

This Thanksgiving holiday, Erin pays tribute in the form of a eulogy for her late friend, mentor and stepfather, Terry Orvis, who died in August after a long illness. It's a collaborative approach, as Erin includes conversations she and Terry recorded in 2020 after he was diagnosed with dementia, and tells the story of a complicated, brilliant artist, architect, misanthrope, sports fan, Dylan-head, sailor, poet, cook, friend, husband and father of children lost and found. Erin and Terry met when she was in high school when she was invited to her best friend's divorced dad's Thanksgiving day, where they began a conversation that would go on to last 35 years, especially once Terry met Erin's mom, Paige. If you need a break from the bullshit, listen to this, tell the people you love why you love them, ask them why they love you, press record.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Peyton Dix, writer, social media strategist, and hilarious co-host of the eminently watchable new pop-culture podcast Lemme Say This, has been on Elizabeth's Tell Me About Your Father guest shortlist for a while, and the day has finally come! Peyton joins her to discuss her comedian dad, their occasionally complicated relationship, and the ways in which their dynamic, as she puts it, has helped her learn to speak two languages: "problematic Black father and English." We also discuss some of her favorite pop culture dads, from the too-hot-to-be-cringe Ethan Hawke to the steadfastly supportive Dwyane Wade—and even America's brother by way of Malibu, Chet Hanks. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Welcome to our first ever presidential election ep not about Biden, wherein we break down the (daddy) issues of the core 4 candidates in the way only TMAYF can or will. Some fun facts about our candidates' formative lives: Kamala's father - named Donald - did not congratulate her on being named VP in 2020, and did not attend the inauguration. According to Donald Trump's psychologist niece Mary, his father Fred was a sociopath, who, "short-circuited Donald's ability to develop and experience the entire spectrum of human emotion." JD's father - also named Donald - never claimed him, and Tim Waltz's dad was a humble HS teacher who died when Tim was just 19. Plus, we parse Michelle Obama's punk AF speech the other night in Kalamazoo. Please vote. Love ya. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In this episode, Erin talks to Cleveland writer Indira Samuels about her Jamaican immigrant dad, Lionel, and their unique bond, cemented by watching television together up until the day Lionel died in 2014. Like so many dads we talk about on this show, Lionel was a man of few words himself, especially when it came to the big stuff like his daughter's teenage pregnancy, her acceptance to a prestigious university, her robbery and assault, or his illness. But what he could share with his youngest daughter before his death in 2014, was a love of storytelling through the syndicated sitcoms and game shows of the 80s. A favorite of them both: The Golden Girls (Lionel saw himself as a Sofia, but Indira thinks her dad was very much a Blanche) and Jeopardy, the show that taught her the most about her father by his trivia answers. We also talk about testing the taste of men through tv, the messiness of Bob Eubanks, Jerry Springer's on-brand game show called Baggage, and processing grief through mourning Alex Trebek. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Emmy nominated writer, comedian, producer and podcaster, Erin Gibson talks with Matt about growing up in Texas with a father who was, deep down, an actor and writer, but who was put through a military academy, fought in Vietnam, and who became an engineer and never saw his natural talents come to fruition. She recalls, three years after his death, what it was like to be by his side for his final month as he fought a losing battle with cancer, and how his death taught her not to be afraid of death and to take more chances.  Click here to follow this podcast on Instagram Click here to support this podcast on Spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Matt Phillp talks with Komail Aijazuddin, author of Manboobs: a memoir of musicals, visa, hope, and cake, about what it was like to grow up Muslim, fat, and queer in Pakistan - with no ability to hide any of those characteristics. He talks about the process of extricating himself from the oppressive silence of his family and from Lahore and what it was like to discover that the America he'd seen through pop culture was nothing like the real thing.  Click here to follow this podcast on Instagram. Click here to support this podcast on Spotify --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Elizabeth talks with journalist Tricia Romano, author of the new oral history The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture. Tricia, who was a contributing writer at the Village Voice for nearly a decade covering New York City's nightlife and club scenes in the early 2000s, spent six years and hundreds of hours interviewing the newspaper's former staff, dating back decades to its founding in 1955 by Norman Mailer, a psychotherapist, and an editor. Tricia discusses the white macho roots of the publication and its eventual evolution to include female, queer, and Black writers who helped the Voice redefine itself. She also talks about the Voice's prescient coverage of Donald Trump and his father Fred Trump, and the paternal influence that a complicated editor there had on her own life. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In this episode, Erin and Elizabeth talk with Margaret Wappler, author of A Good Bad Boy: Luke Perry And How a Generation Grew Up, which was excerpted in Vanity Fair. The "Bad Boy" refers to Luke Perry's character on Beverly Hills 90210, Dylan McKay, a Gen-X James Dean with a tender heart. A Good Bad Boy is a dual biography of Luke Perry and Margaret as a teenager mourning her father's death. Margaret regales us with tales of Luke's heroism, like defending Tori Spelling from her abusive boyfriend and waking Jason Priestly from a coma. We also discuss the art of the masculine identity drag show that is the WWE, which Luke admired and his son proudly performs in under the names "Jungle Boy" and "Scapegoat." Luke Perry was a good man, an acclaimed dad, and a mensch in an industry known for its hubris. We salute him this Father's Day month, five years after his loss. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

It's our PRIDE episode! Recorded a few days before her new song, SPRKL, dropped - Christian country music star and drag queen Flamy Grant talks candidly about her journey out of the evangelical southern church in which she grew up and became a worship leader, through her parent-sanctioned ex-gay therapy, and eventually out the other side as a gay man and drag queen who sings about the experience.  She talks about the estranged relationship she has with her father and how she places him in perspective in her life, about what she does to stay fortified as she takes her detractors head-on via social media, and what's giving her life this Pride.  Follow Tell Me About Your Father: https://www.instagram.com/tellmeaboutyourfather Follow Matt Phillp: https://www.instagram.com/mattphillp Follow Erin Hosier: https://www.instagram.com/erinhosier Follow Elizabeth Thompson: https://www.instagram.com/bizzyt Visit https://www.tellmeaboutyourfather.com  Subscribe to Tell Me About Your Father on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tell-me-about-your-father/id1504751145 Subscribe to Tell Me About Your Father on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ygvpIg8BTp64jKXRal9rb?si=9fda4b3075cd4dd9 --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Tim Alberta joins Ravi Gupta to discuss his new book, “The Power, the Glory, and the Kingdom." The book takes an in-depth, personal look at the birth and rise of America's evangelical movement and explores how deceit, scandal, and fear have contributed to the wreckage it stands on today. Subscribe to Lost Debate on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lost-debate/id1591300785 Follow The Branch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebranchmedia The Branch website: http://thebranchmedia.org/ Subscribe to Lost Debate on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7xR9pch9DrQDiZfGB5oF0FFollow The Branch on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebranchmedia/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this Memorial Day weekend episode of Tell Me About Your Father, Matt talks with former Obama staffer and school principal and current co-host of both the Majority 54 podcast and the Lost Debate podcast, Ravi Gupta, about growing up with  a democrat mother and an increasingly right wing father and how the conflict between them often took form in political debate. He talks about what it was like to travel with his father to the village in India in which his father grew up for the first time since his father moved to the US decades ago, how he's managed to find a way of engaging with his father despite their extreme political differences, and gives advice on talking with hostile right wing people who just want to “own the libs”.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Matt talks with Alex Steed, producer and co-host of the podcast You Are Good - a feelings podcast about movies -  about choosing to live with his father in rural Maine at 12 years old - a dynamic he describes as “a 12-17 year old living with an old man as a roommate,” how his childhood led him to become a “chaos goblin” and how he worked through that, and how nursing his father through cancer helped him to let go of his fear of death. He talks about what was behind changing the name and focus of his podcast Why Are Dads? to You Are Good and explains who his dad is when it comes to Los Angeles, the upcoming election, and in the film Lake Placid. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Elizabeth and Erin chat with indie rock icon Miki Berenyi of the '90s band Lush about her critically acclaimed memoir, "Fingers Crossed," hailed by Rolling Stone and Rough Trade as one of the best autobiographies ever. Miki opens up about her unique upbringing by her eccentric Hungarian sports journalist father and her Nazi-sympathizer grandmother, the turbulent London post-punk scene, and the highs and lows of being in a band that influenced so many musicians, including Kurt Cobain. In this interview, Miki tells us about the agonies and ecstasies of life with a boundary-less, hard-partying, single dad at the helm, and the perils of being treated like an adult when you're six. She also shares the shocking family secrets uncovered in her memoir, which Miki didn't know about until the end of her father's life. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

It's our annual Oscars episode with Tell Me About Your Father pal Richard Lawson, chief critic of Vanity Fair, discussing all the dad themes in this year's Academy Award-nominated films. We've got J. Robert Oppenheimer as the father of the atomic bomb in "Oppenheimer", a perma-wounded mad professor dad named "God" in "Poor Things," a philandering dead father whose shadow is cast across "American Fiction," and another dead dad who provides solid proof that writers should almost never be married to each other in "Anatomy of a Fall." Plus "Killers of the Flower Moon," snubs galore (Zac Efron in Iron Claw, you deserved more) and some quick Barbie discourse - we know when to say Kenough! Roll out the red carpet and smash play. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Who was this year's Best-Worst-Late Father-of-the-Year? Who was the best animal dad? Which saviors of culture are in line to clinch the Patrick Swayze Memorial Award for Excellence in the lifelong practice of Holistic Hotness? From Elon and King Charles to the best of this year's celebrity memoir tell-alls, the celebrity dads of Tik Tok, and the finest incomprehensibly verbose headlines of the Daily Mail - we sum up the dad-moments that made this year special with the 787th Daddy Awards. It's the father-centric podcast industry biggest awards ceremony of the year! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Matt Phillp talks with culture writer Marcie Bianco, author of Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom about her childhood growing up working class in South New Jersey with a father who, as she puts it “erased himself” and how that foundation informs her perspective on society and politics today.  They talk about how her family dynamic shifted when she got a sports scholarship to Harvard, a moment that changed her life forever, how she learned to defend herself at an early age against her father's violent outbursts, and what it means to throw off the shackles of systemic oppression and create a life of your own making.  Given how bleak it is to truly look at systemic, white patriarchal oppression - another manifestation of father-centric culture if ever there was one - and how it continues to play out in myriad ways for anyone who isn't a straight white man, Marcie's take on culture and her book are both fundamentally hopeful, even if she initially struggled to find that sense of hope. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

This is our third episode, since the launch of TMAYF, dedicated to the life story of Britney Spears. Erin and Elizabeth discuss her long-awaited memoir The Woman in Me, and look back at the cultural mood that led to the pop princess tragically being held prisoner by a legal conservatorship that gave her father Jamie the right to control her person and her fortune for 13 years after she had a nervous breakdown in 2008. We unearth a Daily Mail article from 2008 entitled "The Day I Saw Britney Spears' father pull a knife,' by a journalist named Sharon Churcher that highlights - 15 years ago - just how unfit Jamie Spears was to take care of anyone. We discuss the legacy of alcoholism, mental illness, and misogynistic abuse across the Spears family tree, and the sadly enduring trope of abusive patriarchs-as-managers in Hollywood. Later, we also hear from Matt and writer Marcie Bianco - whose new book Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom is the perfect chaser for this story. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In this episode, we are joined by Leta McCollough Seletzky, author of the recent book, “The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr." Seletzky's father, Marrell "Mac" McCullough, appears in the famous photo of Dr. King seconds after he was shot at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. In the photo, King lies in a pool of blood, surrounded by aides urgently pointing in the direction of the gunshot, while Leta's father kneels at his side, applying pressure to his wound. Upon discovering in her teens that Mac was undercover for Memphis Police that day, Leta's book unpacks his complex life—from spying on Black activists and the racism he endured from white colleagues to the 1998 polygraph test he was subjected to as part of a DOJ investigation. Her conversation with Elizabeth details her work to help piece together her father's legacy and tell his story, long shrouded in secrecy, seeking a complete understanding of the man whose life was forever marked by that pivotal moment in history. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

For the season 4 finale and 2023 Pride episode of Tell Me About Your Father, Matt spoke with comedian, TV and film actor, and Emmy award-winning writer Bryan Safi. As the co-host of three weekly podcasts, "No Autographs Please," "Ask Ronna," and "Attitudes!" formerly known as "Throwing Shade," Bryan is as much a master of comedic improv as he is a shrewd cultural critic, and political commentator. The child of Syrian immigrants on his father's side, Bryan grew up gay in a deeply conservative household in El Paso, Texas in which his mother suffered from ongoing mental health challenges and his father - who also had a tough father - was extremely difficult to connect with. Listen as Bryan talks about how he eventually extricated himself from his parents' home, moving first to New York and then Los Angeles where he's built a successful career, how he now maintains a relationship with his parents despite their political differences, and how and why he's grateful for some of the things his father taught him. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Gretchen Cherington, author of the 2020 memoir "Poetic License," discusses her complicated relationship with her late father, Richard Eberhart, a Pulitzer-prize-winning poet and former U.S. poet laureate. Growing up surrounded by literary titans, Gretchen idolized her father but experienced a disturbing shift in their dynamic during her teenage years. She eventually revealed the truth about her father's inappropriate behavior at a public event nearly five decades later, receiving unexpected support from her father's friends and hearing from other women who had similar experiences with him. She also delves into her father's relationship with his own intimidating father, Alpha LaRue Eberhart, a Hormel Foods executive, and the strange embezzlement scandal chronicled in her newest book, "The Butcher, the Embezzler and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry." Throughout the episode, Gretchen explores the effects of abuse and secrecy, the power dynamics that enable abusers, and the lifelong journey of healing. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In part 2, Erin and Elizabeth, look at the Roy family's connections to the Murdochs and Kennedys, before diving deeper into Successoin's final season. We look more at Siobhan, and Tom as her masochistic dog to kick, the legacy of NRPIs in a family where love goes to die, and the ceaseless game of “stop hitting yourself” that is getting a narcissist parent to grant you the memory of “the slant of the light.” We also hear from New York magazine contributor Hunter Harris, who profiled the Succession cast for a 2021 cover story and has written extensively about the show for Vulture.com as well as in her incredible Hung Up substack newsletter. Harris breaks down the connection between Tom Wombsgans and Chris Licht, the recently fired doofy CEO of CNN --whose year-long tenure at the network was a hamster wheel of failure--as well as the weak-willed self-centeredness of the number one boy, and number one loser, Kendall. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In part one of our two-part exegesis on Succession, Erin and Elizabeth parse the incredible storytelling at play on this show, including the emotional and psychological underpinnings of the motivations and machinations of each slime puppy in the Roy pack, and the daddy issues at the root of this razor-sharp comedic satire about an American family by a sensitive British creator, Jesse Armstrong. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Actor, director, and bestselling author Andrew McCarthy talks to Erin about Walking with Sam, his new memoir about making the 500-mile-long trek across Spain on the Camino de Santiago with his 19-year-old son. This episode is excerpted from their live conversation at the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Cleveland on May 15th. Andrew opens up about reconnecting with his father after a 30-year-estrangement, the ongoing art of talking about sobriety and divorce with his children, and the surprising, sometimes counterintuitive parenting lessons he's learned along The Way.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

A day after Britain crowned its third Charles as King in 1200 years, Matt and Erin spoke with author Komail Aijazuddin about what it was like growing up gay in Lahore, Pakistan with a father who was the honorary consul to the UK, what it was like being taught how to be a British gentleman at a British-style school in Pakistan, and how he once curtsied for the Queen. Komail talks about how the brutal fallout of British imperialism still resonates across the globe and what the future may hold for the British monarchy.  We discuss the pettiness and tone-deafness of the coronation itself, and how the themes of class and race in the UK are mirrored in the US.  It's the perfect conversation to give you a little rational distance from all the fawning coronation coverage.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Rockstar Melissa Auf der Maur (Hole, The Smashing Pumpkins) joins Erin and Elizabeth to talk about her professionally provocative father, Nick, a legendary journalist, leftist politician and “unofficial mayor” of Montreal for three decades, where he pinched butts and influenced culture until his death at age 54. Twenty-five years later, Melissa regales us with stories about her unconventional coming of age, which saw her joining Hole to tour the world at age 22, Nick's paternal bond with Courtney Love, the education her relationship with her hard-drinking bon vivant dad provided her with navigating "big personalities" later in life, and that time she had it bad for her father's gravedigger and then recorded a smoldering metal song about it with Glenn Danzig. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Noted radio DJ Nic Harcourt joins Elizabeth to talk about his difficult relationship with his late TV news anchor father, his own struggles with fatherhood, and putting in the work to rebuild his relationships with his kids. Listen as Nic talks about “blowing up” his life and marriage and the subsequent work he has done to be closer to his children, the acceptance and empathy he now has for his father – who came with his own wounds and was, as Nick has since realized, “just this guy” – and his acceptance for “life on life's terms.” If you've ever been a life detonator, or are the child of a parent who reached for the TNT, this episode might be for you.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

What do you say when someone close to you has lost everything? Colin Campbell, author of FINDING THE WORDS: Working Through Profound Loss With Hope And Purpose talks with Erin about losing his two teenage children, Ruby and Hart, who were killed by a drunk driver in a car crash in 2019, leaving him and his wife Gail grappling with their own identities as parents. Colin shares how we can show up for each other in times of acute tragedy and avoid the platitudes we tend to lean on when we don't know what to say, finding laughter and embracing joy again through creative work and ritual, and what his kids taught him about the meaning of life.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tell-me-about-your-father/support

This week, we're highlighting Elizabeth's May 2021 interview with the writer and cultural critic Rebecca Carroll, whose memoir "Surviving the White Gaze" details a childhood with white adoptive parents that left her feeling disconnected from her identity as a Black woman. This episode features a new intro, in which Elizabeth reads from some of Carroll's February 2023 essay on her life since the book came out. In short, her parents have threatened to sue her and she's got Dinesh D'Souza haunting her Twitter replies. Despite this, Rebecca continues to bravely talk about her experience as a transracial adoptee, the ways that white people still get to dictate what a family looks like, and the family of choice she's created as an adult. You can read Rebecca's update here: https://wearethemeteor.com/still-surviving-the-white-gaze/ Original episode description: In her new memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, author and cultural critic Rebecca Carroll describes with heroic honesty and compassion, an upbringing seated in an adoptive family whose whiteness prevents them from facing their failings, in a country unwilling to do the same. Listen as Rebecca talks to Elizabeth about navigating overt and covert racism, her difficulty connecting with both her birth and adoptive fathers, and marrying a man who would celebrate and support their son's Blackness, always. Just a note: This episode includes a discussion of sexual abuse and eating disorders. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair's chief critic and co-host of its awards podcast Little Gold Men, joins us for our annual Oscars episode to discuss father themes in this year's nominated films. From the chest-beating patriarchs of Avatar 2 to the unhappily married backdrop dads of Everything Everywhere All At Once to the leering father-daughter Lifetime body horror of The Whale, we're cheering and jeering Hollywood's best attempts at capturing "dad stuff." We also get into the sexual predation and abusive careerism of a female protagonist in Tar, the drama of male friendship in The Banshees of Inisherin, the daddy longing of Marilyn, and the lineage-poisoning effects of PTSD in All Quiet on the Western Front. Then it's on to Richard's official winner predictions (crib them if you want to sweep your Oscars pool) and tips for approaching Cate Blanchette at a party without fully disassociating and being sucked into a nearby air vent. We're Petra's father and we urge you to hit play. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Presidential historian Alexis Coe, author of the New York Times bestseller “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington,” joins Elizabeth for a special Presidents' Day edition of Tell Me About Your Father to discuss what we get right and wrong about the legacy of America's first dad. Alexis is the first female historian to write a biography of Washington in over a century, and her work dares to roll its eyes at the male biographers, or “Thigh Men of Dad History,” as she calls them, who have preceded her. These Thigh Men have exclusively told Washington's story in 1,000-page tomes read by dads everywhere, spending hundreds of pages focused on Washington's masculinity, rhapsodizing over his bulging quadriceps and his battlefield accomplishments. Coe, however, brings Washington into fuller focus as a fatherless boy left to fend for his family at 10, a devoted "helicopter" stepfather, and a charismatic leader who was reluctant to be president. Listen as Coe tells us about Washington's early life and marriage, the “trial and error” approach he brought to the office, and the lingering untruth that he freed his slaves upon his death, a fact historians at Mount Vernon wringing their hands over. today --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

How do you connect with a father who is so emotionally stoic that the only thing you can really talk to him about is the weather? On this episode, Matt talks with George Azar, author of the forthcoming My Gay Church Days: Memoir of a Closeted Evangelical Pastor Who Eventually Had Enough, about how diving head first into political and religious conservatism was one way to connect with his dad. He even became a pastor in the process. And it worked, too. But then, when he came to terms with his own sexuality, everything had to change. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Matt talks fathers with two queer Asian food professionals: cookbook author and graphic designer Frankie Gaw (author of "First Generation") and Yuhe Su, the talented chef behind the professional home kitchen Daddy's Got Chopsticks, about the ways in which they maintain a connection with their fathers through recipes from their respective childhoods. They talk about the importance of scallion pancakes, Olive Garden, pig's blood, masculinity, coming out, and the symbolic power of Antoni from Queer Eye. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

We're using this sleepy week between Christmas and New Year's to honor and shun a cavalcade of celebrity fathers and men, from dicks to dictators and zeroes to heroes. Listen as the glamor unfolds with appearances by Meghan Markle, King Charles III, and Don Draper, as we recognize and alienate Daddy Awards veteran offenders including Alec Baldwin, Woody Allen, Ted Cruz, and the Supreme Court, as well as new low achievers, including Elon Musk, Johnny Depp, horses, and lions. We also honor Beto O'Rourke's righteous anger, the best plastic surgery of the year, fish dads who do the work, and give out our annual award for holistic hotness to the dads and men who put their asses into it in 2022. Thanks for spending this year with Tell Me About Your Father. We love you and will return in January with new episodes. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

AJ Daulerio, writer, and creator of the excellent recovery newsletter The Small Bow, returns to Tell Me About Your Father for a second time to discuss our recent episode on Shia LaBeouf. That episode, which also focused on Shia's fellow recently canceled peer Armie Hammer, examined Hollywood's need to quickly forgive famous men who have done bad things. (Shia was sued by ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs in 2020 for sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress. Their trial is slated for April 2023.) AJ was especially interested in coming on to discuss our take on a two-hour interview Shia gave to fellow actor John Bernthal for his "Real Ones" podcast, wherein he manically talks about being a recovering addict, liar and abuser, all while balancing new roles as a husband and father. AJ, who also became a husband and father very soon into his sobriety nearly 7 years ago, could relate to some of the cringier aspects of Shia's obsession with what Shia calls "e-masculine" behavior, a hyper-awareness of the “defects of character” (to use recovery speak) that have always been synonymous with men behaving badly. But AJ also thinks it's rare and significant that Shia is making an effort to get to know himself and the roots of his anger and self-loathing. AJ tells us how he's continuing to change as a person since his own public trial (the most important First Amendment case of the internet age in 2016) and why it's his tendency to want to help other men who are undergoing a similar public shame. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Effervescent, thoughtful king and GayVN award-nominated porn star Cody Seiya joins us on the latest edition of our current events talk show, DADDY ISSUES. In the first half of the episode, Cody describes how art and anime offered solace from his difficult relationship with his late father and his upbringing as a Chinese American Jew in the Reagan-esque hell of Orange Country, California. He also discusses his plans to become a father, and how father themes show up in his own art. Then it's on to the news in the second half, where we cover the Club Q tragedy in Colorado Springs and Iran at the World Cup, as well as the brutal paternal legacy of Britney Spears, Tiffany Trump's farty wedding, Elon Musk's pitiful relationship with his daughter, and Yuletide empress Mariah Carey's tribute to her late dad. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In this episode, Erin and Elizabeth talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Kathryn Schulz, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the new bestselling memoir Lost & Found - in paperback 11/22 - which has been longlisted for The National Book Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal, and has been called a best book of the year by NPR and the New York Times. Lost & Found grew out of “Losing Streak,” a New Yorker piece that was anthologized in The Best American Essays about the paradox of loss—from keys, to memories, to dads; and the joy of finding something—from language, to love. Between love and loss, we find that the "and" of life matters too. Kathryn tells us about her larger-than-life father Isaac, an attorney and Renaissance man who came to the US as a child and Jewish refugee, spoke at least 5 languages fluently, taught, philosophized, mentored, and generally spread the love to his family and all who knew him, and died in 2016. In a wide-ranging conversation, Kathryn talks about the boredom of grief and the beauty of sorrow, her future wife's first meeting with her dad so soon after their own accidental love story, and what surprises her about the intersection of the scientific and the spiritual. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On today's special Halloween episode of Tell Me About Your Father, Matt sits down for a real psychic reading with medium Victoria Laurie who reaches into the primordial ether to get in touch with his deceased father, Ross. Featuring unedited excerpts from the session, the episode is a moving, funny, and unexpectedly pragmatic conversation between Victoria, Matt, and what purport to be the spirits of his father and late maternal grandmother. Matt and Victoria touch on the survival of consciousness after death, what the other side might be like, and, in particular, what insights his father - who died suddenly in 1982, at 35, while running in a marathon - has to impart to his eldest son. Then, in the second half of the episode, following the session, Erin and Matt talk with Victoria, who is also the co-host of the Psychic Eye Mysteries True Crime Podcast and New York Times Bestselling author of the Psychic Eye Mysteries novel series, about what it's like to be a psychic who can commune with the dead, how anyone can learn to connect with deceased relatives, and how being a medium impacts her understanding of life and death. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this special double episode of Tell Me About Your Father, hosts Erin and Elizabeth take a graphic look at familial curses, generational trauma and the rules of inheritance as they relate to addiction, abuse, and American men in power. We're looking at two actors in the news right now—satiric “actual cannibal,” Shia LaBeouf, and actual alleged cannibal, Armie Hammer—both facing multiple credible accusations of sexual assault and battery, abuse, and violent behavior. Neither has been charged with crimes (this year), though a civil suit bought by Shia's ex-girlfriend, musician FKA Twigs, is upcoming. LaBeouf recently discussed the allegations at length, and much more, on an episode of actor Jon Bernthal's Real Ones podcast. Meanwhile, a new documentary series on Discovery+ called House of Hammer exposes the dark and disturbing side of Armie's family going back four generations. Both Shia and Armie are currently attempting to rehabilitate their lives and careers, which include well-placed comeback ascension narratives since their alleged crimes were revealed just 1.5 years ago. Both men are fathers themselves at age 36. Shia grew up on food stamps; Armie comes from incredible wealth. Erin and Elizabeth look at how the nature vs, nurture debate plays out when it comes to grown men who abused their power and followed similar paths of chaos as the fathers they hold in conflicting esteem. Why is it different for Hollywood men behaving badly in public than it is for women, whose careers tend to fall apart over their addictions, even as they fall victim to the crimes perpetrated by men who so often get pass after pass? Why do we as a society have a tendency to race to forgive men/fathers their trespasses, even as they continue to trespass against us? Note: This episode is long. And upsetting. Trigger warnings for discussion and descriptions of sexual assault are included throughout to allow listeners to skip ahead. Additional time codes are below: PART 1 / Shia LaBeouf 0:00-3:00 Intro 3:00-25:19 Shia LaBeouf's childhood and history of arrests, plagiarization, and abuse allegations from FKA Twigs 25:19-31:51 Don't Worry, Darlin' 31:51-57:59 Revelations from Shia's Real Ones interview 57:59-1:05 Shia's newfound devotion to Catholicism, new movie, and whether true rehabilitation is possible in Hollywood PART 2 / Armie Hammmer 1:05-1:11:22 Intro 1:11:22-1:27:00 Armie's career, January 2021 "downfall," and abuse allegations 1:27:00-1:52:45 The Hammer family tree and revelations from House of Hammer 1:52:45-2:10:38 Jeffrey Dahmer vs. Armie Hammer, Robert Downey Jr.'s outreach, and Hammer's ex-wife Elizabeth Chambers is the opposite of Camille Cosby 2:10:38-2:12:35 What our own dads have in common with serial killers besides their astrological signs 2:12:35-2:20:35 In summation! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

In a gold-plated return to the airwaves, our current events show “Daddy Issues” is back from its summer hiatus with a special super-sized catch-up edition of all the celebrity dadly dysfunction we must discuss as we enter into pumpkin season. Matt explains the British monarchy in the wake of mummy HM Queen Elizabeth's death, and the saga of Britain's new divorced dad, now known to his sons, William and Harry, as King Charles III. Erin unpacks the British cultural obsession with the body language cues of the senior royals as they try to keep their emotions inside like so many tampons, and Elizabeth presents new and myriad ways in which the Musk Men still stink. She also takes a sobering look at Jonathan's Depp-ression, Alec Baldwin's Instagram Live with Woody Allen that failed worse than Hilaria's birth control, and the whole gang discusses Armie Hammer's sojourn into the Caymen Islands hospitality industry and Robert Downey Jr.-guided recovery, as well as new dad Shia LaBoeuf's too-soon appearance on Jon Bernthal's podcast “Real Ones.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this episode of Tell Me About Your Father, writer Brandi Larsen tells Erin about her late father Eric Kleinert, an appliance repairman and volunteer firefighter whose unsolicited life lessons transcended the textbook they published together in the early 90s when she was just 15 (turning them both into authors, and not for the last time). Eric was a walking, talking #1 Girl Dad and Wife Guy t-shirt who saved lives like it was no big deal and preferred to give his daughter the spotlight (unless he was pushing his toy poodle, Rudy, in a stroller at the mall with the love of his life, Eileen, Brandi's late mom). Brandi opens up about the day her parents told her she was adopted, what she found out about her biological father when she went looking, and reflects on the quiet heroism of everyday superdads. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this episode of Tell Me About Your Father, Jenna Perry tells Erin and Matt the story of how she spent her entire childhood unwittingly on the run as her con-man father moved his fundamentalist family from state to state (and church to church). But long before her father's lies had expanded to the point of fracture, even as a small child, Jenna had him pegged as an evil man who only masqueraded as a man of God to get what he wanted. Eventually, her hypervigilance, growing disappointment, and anger toward him led to a memorable escape with a violent if poetic confrontation. Listen as the daughter of a psychopath grapples with her own belief in a God whose name will always default to Our Father, and learns to find faith in herself. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

When the comedian and actress Alyssa Limperis was 25 years old in 2015, her dad was diagnosed with a stage four glioblastoma tumor in his brain. It's an aggressive form of cancer that is almost always lethal and her father, Jim, a vivacious sheet metal salesman who was athletic, strong, and almost supernaturally optimistic, would be dead in a year. When he died, she immediately got to work to help herself process the grief, writing a one-woman stage show called No Bad Days—now its own hour-long comedy special streaming on Peacock—about watching him slip away and how deeply his death changed the course of her life and who she would become. Listen as Tell Me About Your Father co-host Elizabeth talks to Alyssa about No Bad Days, the uniquely terrifying destabilization that comes with losing a parent in your twenties (a time when you're technically an adult, but come on), waiting for the “movie goodbye” from him that never came, and how she tries to carry on her dad's love of life in everything she does. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

To celebrate 4th of July, Matt speaks with Jason Kander, veteran, author, former Secretary of State for Missouri, and the first millennial elected to statewide office, about his new memoir, Invisible Storm: a Soldier's Memoir of Politics and PTSD, co-written with his wife, Diana. Jason discusses how he approaches fatherhood post-therapy, and what he learned from his own father, grandfather, and great uncle, the iconic Broadway composer John Kander. He also talks about who, in politics, is probably most desperate for their father's approval, and how President Obama helped him name his son, True. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this week's episode of Tell Me About Your Father, we speak with author Keith Gessen about his new memoir “Raising Raffi,” a collection of essays on the first five years of fatherhood to his first-born son, Raffi, now 7. Gessen, the author of the novels “All The Sad Young Literary Men,” and “A Terrible Country,” is a founding editor of n+1 magazine and regular contributor to The New Yorker, and the husband of the writer Emily Gould. Listen as he tells us about being raised by a Russian father who isn't a hugger, learning to reckon with being a dad who sometimes yells, and defining what it means to be a second-generation “Bear Dad.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

On this special Father's Day-themed episode of Tell Me About Your Father, Erin talks to her old friend and real-life dad of two, Brad Listi, the author and host of the much-loved literary podcast Otherppl with Brad Listi, where he has epic conversations with legendary writers. In his new autobiographical novel, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything, Brad has written a love letter of a book to his children, in which he writes candidly about fatherhood and all of its moods - elation, fear, hope, excitement, ambivalence, guilt, and grief; all the terror and all the love. Brad shares how Buddhism and a spiritual practice which includes a midlife psilocybin mushroom trip with a playlist curated by Johns Hopkins, influence his approach to parenthood. It's a moving conversation that reflects the specific challenges of raising a child with disabilities, negotiating middle age, and defining what it means to be a good man, a good parent, and a good writer (we think the answer for all is telling the truth). Be Brief and Tell Them Everything is the book title, Otherppl is the podcast, and Brad Listi is the man. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support

Joel Kim Booster, comedian, actor and writer of the just-released Pride and Prejudice-inspired gay romantic comedy Fire Island, joins Matt and Elizabeth this week for Daddy Issues! Joel, who also stars in the film alongside Saturday Night Live's Bowen Yang, tells us about what Jane Austen and Regency-era England has in common with the impenetrable wealth and whiteness of Fire Island, portraying gay culture and sex for a mass audience via a Fox Searchlight production, and casting Conrad Ricamora as a perfectly dickish yet lovable Darcy. Joel also talks about losing his father to Covid last year and the unrelenting writer's block and depression that settled in as he grieved. His perspective on the importance of creating a family of choice with supportive friends will resonate with anyone whose bio-families are disinterested or ambivalent about their careers, as Joel's were, despite his success. Later in the episode, it's on to discussing daddy issues in the news, including Johnny Depp's terrifying fans, Hunter Biden's sugar brother, Travis and Kourtney's homophobic wedding priest, Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson's new movie, and a celebration of a new kind of fish dad. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tell-me-about-your-father/support