Podcasts about Christmas

Welcome aboard for another crazy episode! Today on the train we step into a familiar world…or should we say .. Worlds? A couple episodes ago we did some mass disappearances and you know we love some true crime so today we sort  of combine the two. You see, for the mass disappearances episode there was one case that kept popping up. Now this was interesting to us because we've had that particular case on our list of shows to do for some time now. We figured this would be a good time to go ahead and finally do it. Today we are talking about the disappearance of the Sodder children.  The incident happened on Christmas Eve in 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. George and Jenny Sodder lived with 9 of their 10 children. At the time, the oldest son was off fighting in WW2. The night of the incident, Jennie was awoken three times.   First, at 12:30 a.m., she was awoken by a phone call during which she could hear a woman's voice she didnt recognize asking for a name she didn't know, as well as glasses clinking in the background. Jennie told the caller she had reached the wrong number, later recalling the woman's "weird laugh". As she did, she noticed that some of the lights were still on and the curtains hadn't been closed, two things the children normally did when they stayed up later than their parents. Marion had fallen asleep on the living room couch, so Jennie assumed the other children ,who had stayed up later, had gone back up to the attic where they slept. She closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and returned to bed. She then went back to bed only to be startled by a loud bang and a rolling noise on the roof. She soon dozed off again and finally awoke an hour later at around 130, to see the house engulfed in smoke. She found that the room George used for his office was on fire, around the telephone line and fuse box.   Those are pretty much the facts that can be proven for the most part. Everything else…well it's strange to say the least.   George and Jennie made it out of that fire, as did Sylvia, just a toddler at the time. Also two of their teenage children, Marion and George Jr, made it out. 23 year old John rounded out the kids that made it out alive. Or did he? John said in his first police interview after the fire that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings sleeping there, though he later changed his story to say that he only called up there and did not actually see them. The children remaining inside were Maurice 14 , Martha 12, Louis 9, Jennie 8, and Betty 5. According to accounts, Marion, ran to the neighbors house to call the fire department because their phone was not working. A driver on the nearby road had also seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern; they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there turned out to be broken. It was Christmas Eve and I've read that the police chief sent everyone home to their families. She couldn't get an answer so another neighbor went to find the fire chief and let him know what was happening.    While this was going on, George, who climbed an outside wall, barefoot, to get to the attic and Jennie tried desperately to save their other children. This is where some of the strange things happen. First off neither of the Sodders trucks would start, despite having worked perfectly during the previous day.. Then their ladder was found to be mysteriously missing. Because of the family not being able to get help from the neighbor and their trucks oddly not starting when they tried to leave to look for the fire chief, help didn't arrive until 8am, almost 7 hours later. The fire department is just 2 miles from the home. The fire department was low on manpower due to the war and relying on individual firefighters to call each other. Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. Because he was fucking drunk; partying at a local pub, celebrating Christmas Eve. Oh, and one of the firefighters was Jennie's brother, their children's uncle.   The fire was initially blamed on faulty wiring, even though the Sodders claim there had never been any kind of issues with the electrical wiring before. In fact, A visitor to the house, seeking work, went around to the back of the house and warned George that a pair of fuse boxes would "cause a fire someday." George was puzzled by the observation, since he had just had the house rewired when an electric stove was installed, and the local electric company had said afterwards it was safe.   During the investigation something happened that makes this case the crazy thing that we are talking about. 5 of the Sodder children allegedly perished in the fire but the body's were never found. The fire chief told them the fire had cremated the bodies. Jennie asked a crematorium worker if that was possible, the worker told Jennie that bones remain even after bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees for two hours. The Sodder home only took 45 minutes to burn to the ground. So we did a little fact checking about this and there is a lot of argument about whether a house fire can burn bones to ash, but, it seems like those who have degrees and a bunch of letters after their name all agree that a house fire typically will not burn hot enough to get rid of bones. Also another thing we found is that even during cremations bones do not actually turn to dust. In fact after being incinerated at usually between 1800-2000°f, for about 2 hours, the bones are the only thing left. Now, the bones are not the same, granted, as with all the heat, it destroys the structure of the bone but does not turn it to ash. The ashes you receive are actually the bones of the deceased that have been put into what is essentially a big mixer, to pulverize them into dust. So enjoy that thought.    At any rate, due to what the experts said, the family did not believe that the other children simply burned up in the fire. They believed something else happened to the kids. But what else could have happened?   What else would lead one to think something possibly nefarious happened? Well according to some reports, some strange things happened in the lead up to the fire. One strange thing that happened was that in the months before the fire a "ominous drifter, hinted at doom '' We're assuming it was like Friday the 13th…the guy just points and goes…you're all dooooooomed, doomed! Whatever happened it sounds funny.    A few weeks earlier, not too far out from the incident, an angry insurance salesman berated George, telling him that his house was going to go up in smoke and his children would be destroyed as a retaliation for his criticisms of Mussolini in the mostly Italian immigrant community. Actually he said "the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini." If it was a sales tactic, it definitely needs work, otherwise, it's oddly specific! Also a bus driver came forward and spoke of how she saw "fireballs" being thrown into the roof of the house, could that be the noise she heard?   In the weeks before Christmas that year, George's older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway through town, its occupants watching the younger Sodder children as they returned from school.   What about the man who cut off the telephone lines at the Sodder residence? Someone witnessed him taking away a block and tackle used to remove car engines during the fire. He admitted to the theft but answered that he had no part in starting the fire; he had just wanted to cut off the power lines but instead clipped the telephone line. He was let go, and no records exist identifying him or questioning why he wanted to cut lines to steal a block and tackle.    Then on top of that you have the incidents on the night of the fire. There was the phone call and then the noise on the roof and she woke up to smoke in the house. Put all that together, and one could see where people may start to form some theories that this was more than just a tragic house fire.  You know we love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next folks…well at least Moody does.    Not only that, sightings of the children started almost immediately. For starters, locals reported seeing the 5 children in a car that was driving past and watching the fire. Then the next morning a woman operating a truck stop claimed she saw the children come in for breakfast with 4 Italian speaking adults.  Once pictures began to circulate, more sightings came in. a woman said that she saw four of the children (where was the fifth?) in the company of four adults at a hotel in South Carolina.  Which could lend credence to the truck stop story, which also mentioned 4 adults.    Armed with all these facts, George and Jennie went back to the police and demanded to have the fire further investigated. But the police refused, claiming that the coroner's inquiry determined that no crime had been committed.   This is when George and Jennie decided they would continue the search on their own.   George would constantly go and dig through the rubble trying to find something. At one point his searching seemed to find the first evidence of the children. He found what appeared to be an internal organ and also some small pieces of bone. They were sent for testing and the tests revealed that the "organ" was a cow's liver, and that the bones were from someone older than any of the missing children. The small bone fragments that were unearthed were determined to have been human vertebrae. The bone fragments were sent to Marshall T. Newman, a specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. They were confirmed to be lumbar vertebrae, all from the same person. "Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years", Newman's report said. "The top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused". Thus, given this age range, it was not very likely that these bones were from any of the five missing children, since the oldest, Maurice, had been 14 at the time (although the report allowed that vertebrae of a boy his age sometimes were advanced enough to appear to be at the lower end of the range). Also the bones show no sign of being affected in any way by the fire. It was speculated that the bone fragments were mixed in with some dirt brought in to help fill in the basement. Later, Tinsley supposedly confirmed that the bone fragments had come from a cemetery in nearby Mount Hope, but could not explain why they had been taken from there or how they came to be at the fire site. The Smithsonian returned the bone fragments to George in September 1949, according to its records; their current location is unknown.  As far as the liver, it is said that a private investigator found out that the liver was put there by the fire chief at some point in hopes the family would find it and accept the idea that the kids perished in the fire.  George sometimes made his own sightings. On one occasion, George saw a magazine photo of a group of young ballet dancers in New York City, one of whom looked like his missing daughter Betty. He drove all the way to the girl's school, where his repeated demands to see the girl himself were refused.   The investigation and its findings attracted national attention, and the West Virginia Legislature held two hearings on the case in 1950. Afterwards, however, Governor Okey L. Patteson and state police superintendent W.E. Burchett told the Sodders the case was "hopeless" and closed it at the state level. The FBI decided it had jurisdiction as a possible interstate kidnapping, but dropped the case after two years of following fruitless leads.   After this second official investigation ended, George and Jennie continued their search.   George followed up on many leads on his own including heading to St Louis where a woman claimed Martha was being held in a convent but nothing came of that. Another woman in Texas claimed that she overheard two other patrons making incriminating remarks about a fire that happened on Christmas Eve in West Virginia several years before. Again nothing here proved significant.    At one point George heard that a relative of Jennies who lived in Florida had children that looked exactly like his had. He went down there to check it out and only when the relative was able to prove the children were his that George would leave it alone.         In 1967, George went to the Houston area to investigate another tip. A woman there had written to the family, saying that Louis had revealed his true identity to her one night after having too much to drink. She believed that he and Maurice were both living in Texas somewhere. However, George and his son-in-law, Grover Paxton, were unable to speak with her. Police there were able to help them find the two men she had indicated, but they denied being the missing sons. Paxton said years later that doubts about that denial lingered in George's mind for the rest of his life.   That same year the family would receive something pretty crazy. A photo showed up in the mail one day. The photo showed a man that appeared to be around his early 30s with strikingly similar features as their son Louis had had.    Written on the back of the photo was this:               Louis Sodder I love brother Frankie Ilil boys A90132 or 35   Interesting…. Very interesting.    The photo was in an envelope postmarked central city Kentucky. There was no return address.    The Sodders hired a private detective to go to Central city and try and track down where this letter came from and follow this lead. The private detective headed to Central city and guess what he fucking found….. well no one will ever know because after he left he was never heard from again. He never reported back to the Sodders and they were unable to ever locate him. Did he disappear with their money or was he made to sleep with the fishes?   Unfortunately, this took a pretty heavy toll on George. He said in an interview the following year that the lack of information had been "like hitting a rock wall—we can't go any further". "Time is running out for us", he admitted in another interview around that time. "But we only want to know. If they did die in the fire, we want to be convinced. Otherwise, we want to know what happened to them".   George would pass a year later in 1969 believing that his children were never killed in that fire and they were still out there someplace.    After this the rest of the family would continue to search and publicize the case. The only one that would not get involved was John. John believed that the family should accept what happened and all move on with their lives. Jennie stayed in the family home and built a fence around it and added rooms. She wore black for the mourning for the rest of her life and tended the garden at the site of the former house.    These are basically the facts as we know them. Since there's not much in the way of actual forensic evidence in this case, there's no way of telling for sure what happened as far as the children's bodies being burned. Obviously the investigation was quick, taking only 2 hours, and there wasn't a ton of forensic detective work back then. Plus DNA testing wasn't a thing. And just in general investigating wasn't generally as thorough as it is these days.   The surviving Sodder children, joined by their own children, along with older Fayetteville residents, have theorized that the Sicilian Mafia was trying to extort money from George and the children may have been taken by someone who knew about the planned arson and said they would be safe if they left the house. They were possibly taken back to Italy. If the children had survived all those years and were aware that their parents and siblings had survived too, the family believes, they may have avoided contact in order to keep them from harm.   Sylvia Sodder Paxton, the youngest of the surviving Sodder siblings, died in 2021. She was in the house on the night of the fire, which she said was her earliest memory. "I was the last one of the kids to leave home", she told the Gazette-Mail in 2013. She and her father would stay up late, talking about what might have happened. "I experienced their grief for a long time". She believed that her siblings survived that night, and assisted with efforts to find them and publicize the case. Her daughter said in 2006: "She promised my grandparents she wouldn't let the story die, that she would do everything she could".   George and Jennie passed out flyers and put up a billboard on route 16 in Fayetteville. The Sodders purchased the billboard in 1952. It featured black-and-white photographs of each missing child and an account of the fire with a $5000 reward that was increased to $10,000. It was taken down shortly after Jennie's death in 1989. It read:  “After thirty years, it's not too late to investigate. So what happened to the children if they didn't die in the fire? Well there's a few  theories but nothing solid.   One of the biggest questions is how someone could abduct 5 children with nobody being woken up. Well truecrimefiles.com say of that question:             "One of the most puzzling questions is how the actual alleged abduction took place. How did the kidnapper(s) get the five children out of the house, considering that the eldest sister was asleep on the sofa in the living room and the parents were asleep in a bedroom less than 20 feet away? Surely at least one of the children would have made some noise had a stranger (or even someone known to the family) come into the house and taken them away. There is at least one scenario that may have happened that would solve this specific puzzle. One of the chores the two boys were told to do was to attend to the family's handful of farm animals.”   On a side note, Marion, the oldest daughter, had been working at a dime store in downtown Fayetteville, and she surprised three of her younger sisters—Martha, Jennie, and Betty—with new toys she had bought for them. The younger children were so excited that they asked their mother if they could stay up past what would have been their usual bedtime.   At 10 p.m., Jennie told them they could stay up a little later, as long as the two oldest boys who were still awake, 14-year-old Maurice and his 9-year-old brother Louis, remembered to put the cows in and feed the chickens before going to bed themselves.    ”It is possible that all five of the children left the house to perform these chores (the three girls went along to watch) and were taken once they were outside and away from the house."   But an even bigger question would be why would someone do this. Many people believe that it had to do with George's and his background.    George immigrated from Italy and changed his last name from Soddu to Sodder upon arrival. Nobody really knows why he came to America or the circumstances behind his immigration. He would never discuss the issues and whenever it was brought up he would change the conversation. So that's kind of strange. Also George owned a coal trucking business, and at that time the coal industry was under a lot of pressure from the mafia. That plus his little known about past, have lead many people to speculate about mafia involvement in the crime.    Another theory suggests the kids were abducted by an illegal child-selling agency similar to Georgia Tann's with help from the local police. And remember that insurance guy George argued with, the guy that warned that their house would burn and the children would vanish. He was also a member of the coroner's jury which ruled the fire accidental. Leading many to suspect foul play.   For those of you wondering, For more than 20 years, Georgia Tann ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, where she and an elaborate network of co-conspirators kidnapped and abused children to sell them off to wealthy adoptive parents at a steep profit. This is too crazy a story to not talk about a little here because if there was a network similar to this operating in that area, it seemed like another plausible theory.    Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was born in 1891 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Named for her father, a powerful judge, she hoped to follow in his footsteps and practice law. Instead, her domineering father forbade it, and she instead pursued a career in social work — one of the few socially acceptable positions for a woman of her means.   She first went to work in Mississippi, but she was soon fired for inappropriately removing children from impoverished homes without cause. She made her way to Texas, where it's believed she adopted her daughter, June, in 1922. Later, in 1923, she adopted Ann Atwood Hollinsworth, a woman believed to be Tann's longtime same-sex partner. It was common at the time for same-sex couples to use adult adoption as a means of transferring property or inheritances.   Tann then moved on to Memphis, where her father used his political connections to secure a new job for her as executive secretary at the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children's Home Society in 1922.   By 1929, she had staged a takeover and named herself executive director.   Tann's scheme coincided with a sharp increase in families looking to adopt kids In the 1900s and 1910s, formalized adoptions were fairly rare, but in the 1920s adoption began to be marketed as a shortcut to societal improvement. According to one ad from the National Home Finding Society, adopting would "reduce divorces, banditry, murder, and control births, fill all the churches and do real missionary work at home and abroad, exchanging immigrants for Americans and stopping some of the road leading to war."   At the time, the theory of eugenics — that is, the controlling of the reproduction of genetically "inferior" people through sterilization — was popular. The movement claimed that people of better genetic endowment were subject to greater infertility. It became important in adoption not just to get babies but to get the best babies. A campaign to explain the superiority of adoption was launched.   This new outlook, along with the popularization of baby formula, helped Tann's baby-trafficking business grow. Suddenly, nonnursing mothers could easily and affordably feed their babies. The demand for adoptable infants rose, especially among busy, successful women.   Tann was calculated in her approach and targeted the rich and famous, who paid premium prices for their adopted children. Actors, authors, and entertainers, including Dick Powell and June Allyson, Lana Turner, Pearl S. Buck, Smiley Burnette, and New York Gov. Herbert Lehman, all adopted Tann babies. In 1947, Joan Crawford adopted twins, Cathy and Cindy, from Tann.   Stealing children wasn't a small side business. During the 21 years Tann ran the Children's Home Society, it's believed she made more than $1 million from taking and selling children — about $11 million in today's money. And she didn't do it alone.   Tann's extensive child-trafficking operation required connections, and she quickly linked up with E.H. "Boss" Crump, who ran a powerful Tennessee political machine. Crump offered Tann protections in exchange for kickbacks.   To kidnap and traffic her victims, Tann paid off a network of social workers, police officers, doctors, and lawyers. Some kidnapped children from preschools, churches, and playgrounds for her. Kidnappers preyed on poor children and families who didn't have the means to fight back. Tann's coconspirators were authority figures — people not to be contradicted — so children often went with them willingly. Sometimes, Tann would approach families and offer medical or other help. Tann would tell parents she could get their children into a clinic at no cost, but if they came along as well they'd be charged a large bill.   In the era before internet and with few phones, Tann relied on her network of spotters. They alerted Tann to children on riverbanks, in shantytowns, or walking home from school. She drove up in her big black car and offered them rides.   Tann was also in cahoots with a local judge who helped procure children, specifically from impoverished single or widowed mothers. One of her most high profile coconspirators was Judge Camille Kelley, who presided over the juvenile court in Shelby County, Tennessee, for 30 years.   "She had a stooge down in the welfare department when someone would apply for assistance, this person would get their name, and get in touch with Camille Kelley," Robert Taylor, an investigator, said in a 1992 interview with "60 Minutes."   In 1950, Taylor, a local lawyer, was asked by newly elected Gov. Gordon Browning to do an in-depth investigation into Children's Home Society and Tann. "Camille Kelley would send a deputy out to pick them up and award custody to Georgia Tann," he added.   Tennessee law required children to be adopted in state for a fee of $7, about $75 in today's money. But Tann moved her "merchandise" at $1,000 per head — $10,000 today. When the state finally investigated, the report on the Children's Home Society, the Browning report, found that Tann conducted "private" adoptions and pocketed up to 90% of the fee. She would gouge prospective parents on everything from travel costs, to home visits, and attorney's fees.   The report also detailed how children were then spirited away from the Home Society in the middle of the night to avoid detection by authorities who weren't in the know or others who might ask too many questions. Her "nurses" had regular circuits to New York and California, though she shipped to all US states and Great Britain.   Elaborate backstories were added to stolen children's files to make them more "marketable." Their files said they came from "good homes" with "very attractive" young mothers. Fathers were described as "intelligent" and often in medical school.   Tann also knew how to capitalize on opportunities in the adoption market. Few agencies adopted to Jewish families, and Tann saw her chance. A few pen strokes turned a Southern Baptist child into a baby from a "good Jewish" family. As the Children's Home Society scandal was exposed, the scenario played out in the adoption records over and over again.   If parents, biological or adoptive, asked too many questions about children, Tann threatened to have them arrested or the child removed. She was known for "repossessing" children whose adoptive parents couldn't make full payments on time. And she wasn't above blackmailing customers for more money later.   Often she would return to adoptive parents months later and say relatives of the child had come around asking for a baby's return. But for a hefty fee she had lawyers who could make the situation go away.   Homes for unwed mothers, welfare hospitals, and prisons were targeted. Doctors, working with Tann, told new mothers their babies had died during birth. Those children were "buried" at no cost to the families.   Other mothers were coerced into signing their children away while still under sedation from labor. Tann preyed on women's desperation, their poverty, and their sense of shame.   "If they were unsedated and tried to hold on to the babies after the baby was born, then Georgia Tann would step in and say, 'Well, you don't want people in your home town to know about [your pregnancy], do you?'" Robert Taylor, a lawyer who investigated the Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal for Gov. Gordon Browning, said in his 1992 "60 Minutes" interview.   By the 1930s, as a result of Tann's scam, Memphis had the highest infant mortality rate in the US.   Archives at the Benjamin Hooks Library, in Memphis, reveal some of the cruelties children were subjected to. Babies were kept in sweltering conditions, and some children were drugged to keep them quiet until they were sold. Other children were hung in dark closets, beaten, or put on starvation rations for weeks at a time. Drug addicts and pedophiles were hired to watch over them.   According to "The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption," sexual abuse was a common occurrence at the home.   Tann was brutally unsparing in her cruelty. Former Home Society employees revealed to Taylor that if an infant was deemed too weak, it might be left in the sun to die. If a child had a congenital disability or was considered "too ugly" or "old" to be of use, Tann had people get rid of them. Many were buried on the property, though about 20 children were buried in an unmarked plot of land within Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.   In the 1940s, Tann developed a new publicity stunt.   "They would raffle 20 or 30 babies off every year in the 'Christmas Baby Give Away' in the newspaper," Wingate said. "How did anyone ever think that was all right?"   For $25 a ticket — about $350 today — purchasers could buy as many raffle tickets as they liked.   Tann pocketed thousands of dollars that ticket holders assumed went to the Home Society, and had to give away just a fraction of her "merchandise" in the process.   Tann's baby-selling scheme carried on unabated for over two decades. But in 1949 things took a turn. Tennessee elected a new governor, Gordon Browning. Weakened, E.H. Crump, Tann's crony, lost his hold on Memphis politics.   On September 12, 1950, Gov. Browning held a press conference during which he revealed Tann and her network managed to amass more than $1 million from her child-selling scheme — again, nearly $11 million in today's money.   But Tann was never held accountable. Three days later, she died at home after slipping into a mysterious coma from untreated uterine cancer.   On November 11, 1950, Judge Camille Kelley, who had worked so closely with Tann, quietly resigned. It took until late November or early December to find safe homes for the remaining children. Somewhere in the waning days of 1950, the doors to the Tennessee Children's Home Society were closed for good.   No one was ever prosecuted for their roles in the black-market baby ring.   Holy fuck…. So we know that was a tangent but you got a 2 fer here with that crazy tale, and again the reason we went into the  details on this are because there is speculation that the Sodder children could have been victims of a similar scheme. I mean.. If it happened on that scale in one place who's to say it didn't happen here as well. https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-about-kidnapping/ranker-film

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On this episode: The ”Poddin' Next Door" crew opens with LGBT issues, YSL RICO, the GOAT Kendrick Lamar album review, Streaming Loophole, and much much more… Listen on most Digital Streaming Platforms. Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Google…… Follow + Subscribe: Instagram - @poddinnextdoor YouTube - Poddin' Next Door

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Ministry is challenging. Pastors are present for any challenging circumstances that can come up in our lives. In this episode of Everything Just Changed in our series Bait & Switch: The State of Pastors and How Ministry Just Changed, we look at five ideas that could play a role in pastoral burnout. Our goal with these ideas is to bring people together and start the conversation to prepare us for upcoming storms instead of waiting for them to come to us.To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Twitter. You can connect with the EJC community in the Everything Just Changed Facebook Group and share with us what just changed for you. We'd love to hear from you! Don't forget to subscribe to the EJC Newsletter here. Resources:38% of U.S. Pastors Have Thought About Quitting Full-Time Ministry in the Past YearThe first Christmas as a layperson: Burned out by the pandemic, many clergy quit in the past yearOur Pulpits Are Full of Empty Preachers

The long-awaited Polly Feitelberg Interview has finally arrived, as a reward for hitting 100k subscribers on Youbue. We sit down with Polly Feitelberg (Feits' mom) and get to the bottom of why Feits is the way that he is and what her take is on all of his stories such as e. coli Christmas, skipping every Monday of school, joining Barstool, and much more. As for the regular episode: - KFC talks about attending his first father-daughter dance and the how he cried multiple times throughout the night - We rank the top 5 worst states - Video Voicemails - secondary characters - driving a stranger 5 blocks - being a Goy ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 12:03 - Father Daughter Dance 20:59 - Top 5 Worst States 55:33 - Video Voicemails 1:09:23 - Polly Feitelberg Interview 00;08;42;00 - Gametime 00;45;54;25 - Priceline 01;00;45;02 - Manscaped 1:08:32 - 3chi ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gametime: Download the Gametime app at https://barstool.link/GametimeApp and redeem code KFC for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Manscaped: Get 20% off + free shipping with the code KFC at https://barstool.link/ManscapedBSS Priceline: Visit https://barstool.link/Priceline for the best deals that will help you get the most of your trip. Revitalyte: Pick up Revitalyte Black Label today in-stores or online at https://store.barstoolsports.com/products/revitalyte-black-label

Ep: 121 Anthony Bidulka discusses why it was time for him to return to crime fiction, his co-founding a leadership retreat for LGBTQ+ youth, and what it's like to have a geographic location named after him.  As if that's not enough, somehow the sneaky devil turned the tables on Brad and the guest interviewed the host. Podcast Website:www.queerwritersofcrime.comSign up for the show's newsletter:https://tinyurl.com/qworcrimenewsletterCheck out blog posts by guests on the website:https://www.queerwritersofcrime.com/blog/Chip in and help support this podcast:buymeacoffee.com/queerwriters   Disclosure: To cover the cost of producing Queer Writers of Crime, some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, Brad will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.Get a Kindle Paperwhite:https://amzn.to/3KCfUuOGoing to Beautiful by Anthony Bidulka:https://amzn.to/3LRUwmHAnthony's website:anthonybidulka.com In 1999, with three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and following a successful career as a CPA, Bidulka dove headfirst into his lifelong dream of being a fulltime writer.Bidulka's books have been nominated for Lambda Literary Awards, Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence, Saskatchewan Book Awards, and a ReLit award. Flight of Aquavit was awarded the Lambda Literary Award for Best Men's Mystery, making Bidulka the first Canadian to win in that category. Anthony has dedicated his career to writing traditional genre novels in an untraditional way, developing a body of work that often features his Saskatchewan roots and underrepresented, diverse main characters. He tells serious stories in accessible, entertaining, often humorous ways. Anthony has sat on the boards of local, national, and international organizations. He is currently chairman of the University of Saskatchewan Alumni Achievement Awards committee. He has also received the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Nation Builders Award and, along with his husband Herb, named Citizen of the Year for their home city of Saskatoon (the first same sex couple to be recognized). For his promotion of Saskatchewan through his books, co-founding Camp fYrefly Saskatchewan (a leadership retreat for gender and sexually diverse and allied youth), and volunteer and philanthropic efforts in the community, Anthony was recently honoured by the selection of a two-part park in Saskatoon to be named Bidulka Park and Bidulka Park North.Anthony and his husband live on an acreage near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. When he isn't writing or busy volunteering on boards, Bidulka loves to travel the world, collect art, walk his dogs, obsess over decorating Christmas trees (it's a thing) and throw a good party.Brad's Website:bradshreve.comSupport Requeered Tales:requeeredtales.comKindly give to The Trevor Project, a much-needed charity focusing not only suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, but also helps to get answers and information to support them and connect with an international community of LGBTQ youth aged 13 - 24.thetrevorproject.org

Highlights:     “Within minutes of the shooting, the Democrat mouthpiece of the legacy media went into their all-out-hysteric mode, their woke radical mode, and started printing some of the most inane and vile headlines imaginable.”“Maybe, just maybe, the legacy media is going to have to revisit their embarrassing coverage or the lack thereof of that horrific murderous rampage last Christmas, because it's being reported that the name of one of the victims of the Waukesha massacre was on the rifle used by the shooter in Buffalo! We'll see, in light of such a revelation, if the legacy media cares to reconsider their original lackluster coverage of Waukesha.” “While blue states have largely been unsuccessful in passing gun control laws after a mass shooting, red states have been very successful in passing laws that significantly loosen gun laws so as to empower citizens to defend themselves. So, all of this hysteria by the ultra-left legacy media only ends up backfiring.”“Many Democrats are gun owners, and they don't want laws that penalize gun owners, period!” Timestamps:     [02:15] The shooting in Buffalo and how one far-leftist tried to gaslight the connection of the suspect to the Azov Battalion [04:05] On some of the more vile headlines from the legacy media which are in stark contrast to their almost total silence on the Waukesha killings[07:48] On the renewed calls for massive gun control and why it's all blowing up in the left's faceResources:  Get your own MyPillow here. Enter my code TURLEY at checkout to get a DISCOUNT: https://www.mypillow.com/turleySupport this channel. Get Your Brand-New PATRIOT T-Shirts and Merch Here: https://store.turleytalks.com/Ep. 970 RINOs Are PANICKING As PATRIOTS Taking Over GOP!!!It's time to CHANGE AMERICA and Here's YOUR OPPORTUNITY To Do Just That! https://change.turleytalks.com/PatriotSwitch.comBecome a Turley Talks Insiders Club Member and get your first week FREE!!: https://insidersclub.turleytalks.com/welcomeFight Back Against Big Tech Censorship! Sign-up here to discover Dr. Steve's different social media options …. but without censorship! https://www.turleytalks.com/en/alternative-media.com Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review.Do you want to be a part of the podcast and be our sponsor? Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture!If you would like to get lots of articles on conservative trends make sure to sign-up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts. 

Almost every Etsy seller has the same goal: to increase Etsy sales. This is a business that can be done at home and it's easy to get started, but many Etsy sellers struggle to find success. Luckily for our guest, April Spayd, she found a strategy through our Etsy Accelerator which involves utilizing SEO that increased her Etsy Sales by four times in just 30 days! Let's take a closer look at what she did and how you can do the same thing too. As a military spouse, April is passionate about helping people find the perfect gift for their loved ones who are currently deployed, promoted, recruited or those who are retired in the military. In her Etsy shop you can order Leather Military Green Book Covers, Personalized Wallets, as well as Custom Military Insignia and Accessories to give someone from a military background on important events including special occasions such as birthdays or Christmas. What you'll Learn How focusing on your products is more important than focusing on just getting things in your store How Etsy Accelerator has made April's business more profitable How to properly manage your Etsy store and listings  " If you're not willing to make the changes, then you're really not going to grow anyway." - April SpaydConnect with April Spayd April's Etsy Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JsOriginalLeather (Js Original Leather) Resources for Handmade Sellers on Etsy https://www.facebook.com/groups/2174517459511712 (Join our FREE Facebook Group), Etsy Sales & Marketing Strategies for Handmade Sellers https://www.jenny-hall.com/offers/HrgJqmzP/checkout (Get the SEO Mini Masterclass), and Learn how to write SEO, titles and tags to increase your shop visibility and sales. Here's a https://linktr.ee/jennyhallstrategist (FREE SEO Video Training)! Grab your https://www.loom.com/share/88995676e7274640b4718a42c8e22c8b (FREE Etsy Profit Pricing Calculator) - Watch the video first to see how to use it!

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Starting in June, paid subscribers will receive podcasts three days before free subscribers.WhoJackson Hogen, Editor of Realskiers.com, author of Snowbird Secrets, and long-time industry jack of all trades: ski designer, binding and boot product manager, freestyle competitor, retail salesman, risk management lecturer, ski instructor, marketing director, resort feature writer, OLN and RSN television host, extreme camp ski coach, Desperate Measures co-creator, four-time Warren Miller screenwriter, and research and development chief.Recorded onMay 9, 2022Why I interviewed himA long time ago, ski writers used to write about ski instruction. They were quite good at it. A couple years back, I recounted the value of these dispatches to me as a novice skier in the 1990s:I met skiing like a lawnchair meets a tornado, flung and cartwheeled and disoriented and smashed to pieces. I was 14 with the coordination and dexterity of a lamppost. The mountain was merciless in its certainty of what to do with me. It hurt.I tried again and was met like an invader at the Temple of Doom, each run a stone-rope-and-pulley puzzle I could not solve – a puzzle that invariably ended with me smashed beneath a rock.When two years later I tried a third time I had grown into my body and could without turning or otherwise controlling myself descend the modest hill on most runs intact. The following Christmas I asked for skis and got them and the fabulous snowy north unrolled with purpose and mission before me.Now I just had to learn how to ski.This was a bigger problem than it sounds like. No one in my family skied. None of my friends knew how to ski either – at least not well enough to show me how to do it. Lessons were not happening. If you think a 17-year-old who makes $4.50 an hour bagging groceries is going to spend the equivalent of a week’s pay on what is essentially school on snow when school is not in session, then you have either never met a 17-year-old or have never been one. As it was, I could barely afford the lift tickets and gas to get me to the hill.What I could afford was ski magazines. And ski magazines in the nineties were glorious things, hundreds of pages long and stacked with movie reviews and resort news and adrenaline-laced 14-page feature stories.And there was ski instruction. Pages and pages of it in nearly every issue.This seems arcane now. Why not just watch a video? But this was the mid-nineties. There was no YouTube. Hell, there was barely an internet, and only the computer-savviest among us had the remotest idea how to access it.My first ski magazine was the December 1994 issue of Skiing. It cost $2.50 and it looked like this:The volume of ski instruction in just this one issue is staggering. A nearly-5,000 word piece by venerable ski writer Lito Tejada-Flores anchored a 19-page (!) spread on the art and importance of balance, which was in turn prefaced by a separate front-of-the-mag editorial outlining the whole package. An additional eight pages of ski instruction tiered from solid-green beginner to expert complemented this. And all this in an issue that also included a 13-page high-energy feature on roaming interior BC and 10-page write-ups of Squaw Valley and Whiteface.Each month I bought Skiing, and most months I also bought Ski and Snow Country. I also bought Powder but even then Powder could not be bothered with ski instruction. The instruction wasn’t the first thing I read but I always read it and I usually read it many times.This was a process. Ski instruction articles are often dense and deliberate and usually anchored to numbered photographs or drawings demonstrating movements and technique. Think of it as drill instruction in extreme slow motion. It wasn’t all useful but what was useful became essential.I doubt anyone knows how to write about ski instruction with this kind of clarity and detail anymore, just like no one knows how to build a covered wagon anymore – it is a lost art because it is now an unnecessary one.But this is how I learned how to ski. And because this is how I learned and because I re-read each of the pieces that resonated with me so many times, this written instruction formed the indelible framework around which I still think about skiing.Read the rest:I would like to retract one part of the above essay: “it is a lost art because it is now an unnecessary one.” Re-reading the articles referenced in the piece above, I admire the clarity with which each of these writers dissected the process of skiing trees or bumps or steeps. There is no equivalent, that I am aware of, in the realm of instructional ski videos. And there is a simple reason why: videos can show you what you should be doing, but the visual hegemony makes their creators overlook something even more important: what you should be feeling, and how you should be reacting as you feel those things.There is at least one remaining master of this craft: Jackson Hogen. He understands how to talk about aspects of skiing other than the fact that it’s rad. Snowbird Secrets is a written masterclass for the wannabee expert, the one who’s maybe dropped into the double blacks laced off the Cirque Traverse and survived to the bottom, but knows it wasn’t their best work. Examples:From Chapter 4 – On Anticipation:Your upper body stays ahead of the activities going on underfoot, as though your head and shoulders were in a time machine that is forever stuck on transporting you a few milliseconds into the future. As mental anticipation morphs into the events that both end it and redeem it, physical anticipation allows for the happy confluence between the two states. Anticipation feels like a form of time travel for if you do it well, it shifts you into the future. You take care of business before it happens.Chapter 5 – On Being Early:The single biggest differentiator between the advanced skier and the true expert is the latter’s ability to get to the next turn early. There are several components to being early, each of which moves in concert with the others. The upper body must continue its constant projection down the hill and into the turn, the existential lean of faith that is a prerequisite for performance skiing. The uphill hand cues a shift in weight to the ski below it by reaching for the fall line. And the uphill ski begins to tilt on edge early, at the top of the arc, supporting your hurtling mass as it navigates gravity’s stream.Chapter 12 – On Hands and Feet:Every element that makes up the entirety of the skier is linked to every other, but nowhere is the bond greater than between hands and feet. The primal importance of hand position is never more evident than when your feet fail you. …Even when you’re not about to eat it, your hands tell the rest of your body what to do while your feet are busy making turns. Your torso is attuned to your hands’ bossy attitude; it will always try to follow their lead. So keep them forward, point them where you want to go and don’t get lazy with the uphill hand. Generations of skiers have been taught to plant the pole on the inside of the turn, so that hand often is extended, as if in greeting, to the fall line, while the uphill hand takes a nap somewhere alongside the thigh. Until you are a skier of world-class capabilities, you cannot afford sleep hands. The uphill hand that you’ve left in a mini-coma will be called upon in a trice to reach again downhill; it should be in an on-call position, not on sabbatical. It should be carried no lower than it would be if you were about to draw a sidearm from a holster. You’re engaged in an athletic endeavor, so try to look like it.You can tell how good someone is at writing about skiing by how self-conscious you feel as you read it. I’ll admit I clicked over to photos of myself skiing more than a few times as I made my way through Snowbird Secrets (I’d also recommend having the Snowbird trailmap handy). Great ski books are as rare as a Mountain Creek powder day. But great books on ski instruction are less common still, and this one’s worth your time:Instructional writing is not the point, however, of the Real Skiers website. It is, primarily, a gear-review and recommendation site. But there is no intelligent way to discuss ski gear without a foundational understanding of how to ski. It would be like trying to play hockey without understanding how to skate. The site, like Hogen’s knowledge, is voluminous, layered, cut with a direct and relentless wit. And it’s a tremendous resource in the online desert of ski media. As Hogen says in the interview, “I’d tell you that there are other places you could go to get the same information, but there isn’t.”What we talked aboutThis year in skiing; Mt. Rose; replacing the Snowbird trams; learning to ski at Bromley in the ‘50s; the evolution of sanctioned in-bounds air at ski areas; air as a natural part of good skiing; opening year at Copper Mountain; the life of a product sales rep; the early days of Snow Country magazine with industry legend John Fry; making bindings interesting; the novelty and courage of honest ski reviews; today’s “consequence-free environment for total b******t” in ski media; “there is no more complicated piece of footwear designed by man” than a ski boot; don’t ever ever ever buy ski boots online; the art of boot-fitting; the importance of custom footbeds to ski boots; how to keep warm in ski boots; how to pick skis; whether you should demo skis; the difference between skiing and ski testing; whether you should build a quiver; make friends at the ski shop; picking a binding; why you should avoid backcountry or hybrid bindings; thoughts on setting DIN; “nobody should take anything from the highest levels of the race world and applying it to alpine, regular skiing”; recounting every mistake that prefaced my spectacular leg break at Black Mountain of Maine in February; the problems created by grip-walk boot soles; how often we should be waxing and tuning our skis; the lifespan of skis and boots and how they break down over time; the importance of being present while skiing; ask for the mountain’s permission; Hogen’s incredible book, Snowbird Secrets; the writer’s trance; what makes Snowbird special and whether it has any equals; the mountain has already won; thoughts on Taos; the influence of population growth and the Ikon Pass on Little Cottonwood Canyon; the easiest path down the hill is a straight line; how to use your hands and feet while skiing; and the benefits of a Real Skiers subscription.   Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewNot to be too self-referential, but I’ll again quote myself here. Specifically, my February post recounting the gear failure at Black Mountain of Maine that led to my three-months-and-counting couch sentence:On my final run of the season we swung skier’s right off the lift, seeking shade, tracked-out snow for easier turns. We found them in Crooked glade. Emerged on black-diamond Penobscot. Ungroomed. Snow heavy in the sunshine. A little sticky. As though someone had caulked the hillside. Try this or more glades? Let’s try this. It was my 13th run of the day. My 460th of the season. It was 1:22 p.m. I let my skis run. Gained speed. Initiated turns. I was leaning into a right turn at 18.9 miles per hour when I lost it.I don’t really know what happened. How I lost control. I know what didn’t happen: the binding on my left ski – 12-year-old Rossies I’d bought on spring clearance at Killington – did not release. Amazing pain in my leg. My body folded over backwards, bounced off the snow. A rattling through the shoulder where I’d had rotator cuff surgery last summer. I spun, self-arrested. Came to a stop on a steep section of trail, laying on my left side, my leg pinned into bent-knee position.I screamed. The pain. I could not get the ski off. I screamed again. Removed my helmet. Let it drop. It spun down the hill. Adrenaline kicked in. A skier appeared. He helped me take my ski off. DIN only at 8.5 but the binding was frozen. Finally it released. I tried to straighten my leg. Couldn’t. I assumed it was my knee. Isn’t it always a knee? More skiers arrived. Are you OK? No, I’m in a lot of pain. They left to get help. Patrol arrived with snowmobiles and sleds and bags of supplies. Michael came walking back up the hill.Everything after, rapid but in slow-motion. Does that make sense? Gingerly onto the sled, then the stretcher, then the Patrol-shack table. EMTs waiting. Amazing drugs incoming. Off, with scissors, my ski pants. Removing the boot, pain distilled. Not your knee – your leg. Broken bones. Did not penetrate the skin. Into the ambulance. Rumford Hospital: X-rays and more pain meds mainlined. A bed in the hallway. From the next room a woman, emphatic, that she don’t need no Covid vaccine in her body. All night there. The staff amazing. I would need surgery but there were no surgeons available until the next day. A room opened and they wheeled me in. In a druggy haze they splinted my leg. A train of drunks and incoherents as the bars emptied out. Sleep impossible.Here’s what I didn’t include in that essay: the moment, last August or September, when I’d dropped my skis for a tune at Pedigree Ski Shop in White Plains. “We just need your boots for a binding check,” the clerk had told me. Said boots, stowed at that moment in my closet in Brooklyn, were unavailable, forgotten in my hastening to beat rush-hour traffic. “I’ll bring them when I come back to pick up my skis,” I said. I didn’t. I hadn’t planned on skiing on those Rossies. But at some point in the season, I blew an edge on my Blizzards, couldn’t find a replacement pair, reached in my roof box and there were those old skis.So I’ve had a lot of time to think about that decision chain and how careless I’d been with my own safety, and how to reset my approach so I minimize the chances of a repeat. After nearly three decades of skiing without a major injury (and just two minor ones), I’d gotten arrogant and careless. I’d like this ski season to be the last one that ever ends early. But what else could I do besides remember my boots next time?I’ve been reading Hogen’s site for a few years now. I hadn’t been in explicit need of gear prior to blowing that edge, but he’s an entertaining writer and I enjoyed the regular emails. I figured he was the best-positioned thinker to guide me (and hopefully all of us), into better gear choices and maintenance over the next several years.There was one more thing, one that transcends the empirical realms in which I normally dwell: the notion of mountain as entity. From Snowbird Secrets Chapter 3, On Vibrations:… Hidden Peak is riddled with quartz. Quartz is a crystalline structure, and no ordinary crystal at that. Like all crystals, it not only responds to vibrations, it emits them. Quartz has piezoelectric properties that allow it to store electromagnetic energy and to conduct it. This mountain pulls a pulse from your energy stream and sends it back with interest, but it also skims off a transaction that it stores in its gargantuan energy vault.“So what does the mountain do with all this energy?” Jackson asks, before answering his own question:As it turns out, everyone has a story for how they came to discover Snowbird, but no one knows the reason. Some have the vanity to think they picked the place, but the wisest know the place picked them. This is the secret that Snowbird has slipped into our subconscious; deep down, we know we were summoned here.I’m skeptical but interested. Snowbird is special. No one who has skied there can doubt that. It is different. Incomparable. It is one of the few places where I ever feel genuinely scared on skis. But also reverential, awed, a little miffed and disbelieving the whole time I’m skiing. It’s something else. And I’ve never really been able to figure out why, other than the 600 inches of snow and relentless terrain and location within bowling lane distance of a major airport.Whether or not you’re willing to consider this anthropomorphization of the ski area, Hogen’s call to humility in its presence is inarguable. From Chapter 19, On Gratitude and Asking Permission:Everyone can learn humility before the mountain. Nowhere is this more important than at Snowbird, where if you don’t approach the mountain with the appropriate measure of humility, the mountain will be more than happy to supply some.My final run of the season was on an open trail, ungroomed buy modestly pitched. I was tired, my turns lazy. I wasn’t really paying attention. I wasn’t respecting the mountain. And while that mountain was quite a different thing from Snowbird, it had no issue reminding me that my carelessness was a mistake.Questions I wish I’d askedDespite the fact that this was one of the longest podcasts I’ve ever recorded, we didn’t get to half the questions I’d prepared. I wanted to discuss the devolution of ski shop culture in the maw of the internet, the decline of the industry trade show, the unconstructive nature of a competitive mindset to recreational skiing, the history of Real Skiers, the evolution of ski and boot technology over the past several decades, and how fortunate we are to be alive during this singular epoch in which we can reach the hazardous summits of our most forbidding mountains with a 10-minute lift ride. Hogen also made several interesting comments that would have been worthy of follow-up, from his nomination of Greg Stump to the National Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame to what he sees as the decline of certain professional ski organization’s institutional integrity. I’ll save it all for next time.What I got wrongI referred to the boot-fitter I’d used in Hunter as “Keith from Sun and Snow Sports.” The boot-fitter’s name is Keith Holmquist, but the name of the shop is, in fact, The Pro Ski and Ride.Sun and Snow Sports is the name of the ski shop I frequented when I lived in Ann Arbor. You can visit their site here.Why you should follow Real SkiersI will admit that I am very bad at winnowing the best gear from the multitudes. I get overwhelmed by choice. This is one reason I don’t buy gear too often: if what I have works, then why change? And it’s why I know enough to use a boot fitter when I do finally decide an upgrade is in order.But maybe what I have – and what you have – doesn’t “work” so much as function. And that’s not the same thing as functioning optimally. Most of us could probably make better choices. And to do that, we need information. Good information. It may seem that the fecundity of the internet precludes the imperative to seek out the hyper-specialized knowledge of a professional. But the vast majority of ski and boot advice is garbage, as Hogen fearlessly reminds us. From a recent Real Skiers post:My methods for capturing skier feedback may not be succeeding to the degree I would like, but at least I’m trying. Most arms of mainstream media that choose to pose as ski experts no longer possess even a patina of credibility. To name two particularly odious examples of advertising posing as editorial, Men’s Journal published a top-10 “Most Versatile Skis of 2022” that was wall-to-wall b******t, assembled purely to incite a direct sale from the supplier. Whatever quality might be shared by their ten selections, “versatility” isn’t even a remote possibility. I could vilify each selection for its exceptional inappropriateness, but instead I’ll just mention that the “writer” admitted that their tenth selection hadn’t even been skied by whatever panel of nitwits they assembled to manufacture this fraud.The second slice of inanity that deserves your contempt is a ruse by Popular Mechanics titled, The 8 Best Ski Boots for Shredding Any Slope. Despite a long prelude about boot selection and how they “tested,” intended to establish a tone of credibility, when they finally got around to picking boots, the editors responsible for this transparent hoax cobbled together an incoherent jumble with but one goal: based on their nothing-burger of a review, the reader is expected to buy his or her boots online, preferably on Amazon. It’s hard to think of a worse disservice to the ski-boot buying public than this inane exercise.At least that’s what I thought until I was invited to peruse The Ski Girl. I can’t say how desperately incompetent all the advice dispensed on this site is, but I can assure you the people assigned to write about skis are the opposite of experts. I’ll let this one example stand as indictment of the whole shebang: someone so well-known she goes simply by the moniker “Christine,” selected as the best ski for an intermediate (woman, one presumes) none other than the ultra-wide Blizzard Rustler 11. It would be hard to make a completely random choice and do worse. There is NOTHING about this model that is right for an intermediate. Period. It’s not merely wrong, it’s dangerous, for reasons that I’m certain would elude “Christine.” On top of it all, she has the witless gall to add, “Every ski review here comes recommended, so you really can’t go wrong.” This is emblematic of everything that’s wrong about what remains of ski journalism. A gross incompetent merrily goes about dispensing advice unblushingly, so the site can collect a commission on a direct sale THAT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN.Please note that The Ski Girl hasn’t taken down its moronic buying suggestions, suggesting a smug certainty that there will be no serious consequences for its gross negligence. Such is ski journalism today. That sort of raw honesty, that anti-stoke, that unapologetic calling out of b******t, is so rare in today’s ski media that I can’t even conjure another instance of it in the past 12 months. Skiing needs more of this, more blunt and informed voices. At least there’s one. Get in on it here by subscribing to the Real Skiers newsletter (as with The Storm, there are free and paid tiers):The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 53/100 in 2022. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer. You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Picture it, Christmas everyone is getting along and starts planning that BIG FAMILY Disney Vacation! Sure there's 18 of us, what could go wrong? Be sure to listen for our tips and learn from our mistakes!

You know him. You love him. We have Lee Fields with us this week! We talk with him about his time co-founding MxU, church production trends and a mountain of antics and random opinions on (but not included to) cowboy boots and jet skis. 0:53 Toby's dad should literally  be dead after this story9:45 We introduce MxU's Lee Fields 13:10 Lee sits next to Justin Bieber (celebrities at church) 21:10 We FINALLY transition over to MxU's origin story and purpose34:48 Bootstrapping in the early days of MxU 36:22 Who originally raised the bar in the church production world? 39:25 Where will the next church tech trends come from in the production world? 43:10 The church setups Lee's enjoyed the most over the years45:00 Lee's approach to learning new Tech concepts50:10 Disaster story: Losing the PA during Bayside's Christmas service 54:02 “Who said it” about Lee Fields 58:55 Lee builds his dream production gear setup 1:01:30 Tech Takeaway on vocals and hard conversations PlugsGet MxU's training videos. Join us at an MxU live event this Fall! Resources for your Church Tech MinistryDoes your church have used gear that you need to convert into new ministry dollars? We can make you an offer here. Do you need some production gear but lack the budget to buy new gear? You can get Certified Church Owned gear here.Connect with us: Follow us on FacebookHang out with us on InstagramSee all the ways we can serve your church on our WebsiteGet our best gear sent to your inbox each Monday before it goes public via the Early Service

Ernest Borgnine lived to be 95 years old. 95 sweet sweet years on this earth. Do you know how he achieved that? By masturbating. A LOT! HEAR ALL ABOUT BORGNINE BEATING HIS MEAT ON THIS NEW EPISODE OF DEATH BY DVD! Have you heard DEATH BY DVD PRESENTS : WHO SHOT HANK? The first of its kind (On this show, at least) an all original narrative audio drama exploring the murder of this shows very host, HANK THE WORLDS GREATEST! Explore WHO SHOT HANK, starting with the MURDER!  A Death By DVD New Year Mystery  WHO SHOT HANK : PART ONE  WHO SHOT HANK : PART TWO  WHO SHOT HANK : PART THREE  WHO SHOT HANK : PART FOUR  WHO SHOT HANK PART 5 : THE BEGINNING OF THE END WHO SHOT HANK PART 6 THE FINALE : EXEUNT OMNES                             The Death By DVD SENTINEL remix theme by LINUS FITNESS-CENTRE

Jeff Beck left the Yardbirds in 1966, and recorded several singles in 1967.  In 1968 Beck released his first solo studio album, Truth, which would come to be regarded as one of the first heavy metal albums released.  It would also feature a number of talented artists in his band called The Jeff Beck Group, including Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, and Mickey Waller on drums, all of which would go on to achieve stardom as rock soloists and/or musicians in other groups.Beck started this group as a means to expand his guitar interests, and the album reflects a lot of diversity.  There are traditional covers and blues songs, heavier rock numbers and instrumentals, and of course a lot of guitar effects.  The tracks for the album were recorded very quickly - within two weeks - and the album would go to number 15 on the U.S. charts.Jeff Beck has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice - once for his work with the Yardbirds, and once for his solo work.Wayne brings us this 60's rock album, and friend of the show John Lynch joins us in Bruce's absence for this episode. GreensleevesThe song that starts side two of the album is a classic - a Tudor classic!  Greensleeves dates back to 1580.  This traditional song would find its way into the Christmas season as "What Child Is This?" with different lyrics.You Shook MeAmerican blues musicians Willie Dixon and J.B. Lenoir penned this song that Jeff Beck covers. Led Zeppelin also covered this song on their first album which appeared 5 months after Beck's album.  John Paul Jones is on the Hammond organ for this one.Beck's BoleroThis piece is considered one of the great Rock instrumentals, and brings in some high caliber session musicians - Jimmy Page on 12-string guitar, Jon Paul Jones on bass, and Keith Moon on drums.  Moon had contractual issues at the time and was credited on the album as "you know who."  I Ain't SuperstitiousAnother traditional blues song, this one was originally written by Willie Dixon.  This really shows off Rod Stewart's vocal chops and Beck's fuzzy guitar work.  These effects are done well before the vocoder was available, but Jeff Beck creates a nice facsimile of a vocoder on his own. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:The main theme from the motion picture “Hang 'Em High”This Clint Eastwood western made its appearance in 1968.  It was the first production from Eastwood's own The Malpaso Company.STAFF PICKS:Jackson by Johnny CashBruce was out, so guest John Lynch brings us a classic from Johnny Cash, which also features June Carter on duet prior to their marriage.  The song was recorded in 1967 and debuted in 1968.  They would win a Grammy for the Best Country & Western Duet.  The song is about a husband wanting to go to Jackson because of all the women, and the wife wanting to go to Jackson to laugh at the husband for making a fool of himself.Hitch It To the Horse by The Fantastic Johnny C.You might think Brian's staff pick is from James Brown, but the Godfather of Soul wasn't the only one doing soul funk fusion in the late 60's.  Johnny Corley came out of a gospel vocal group in Philadelphia, and was persuaded to sing secular songs by producer and songwriter Jesse James.  This is from his sole solo album, “Boogaloo Down Broadway.”Mr. Businessman by Ray StevensRob's staff pick is a serious song from Stevens, who would become better known for his comedy songs.  This track from his third album cautions Mr. Businessman to take care of the important things in life rather than focusing all his time on his career.Journey to the Center of the Mind by the Amboy DukesWayne brings us a psychedelic hit from a 19 year-old Ted Nugent in his original group.  This song sounds more like the Moody Blues than the Motor City Madman, but it is a sonic blast.  Nugent was 15 when he formed the Amboy Dukes.  The Amboy Dukes were invited to perform at Woodstock, but they declined because Nugent "didn't like hippies or the promoter." INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Soul Limbo by Booker T and the M.G.'SYou can't go wrong with a little instrumental limbo to finish off this 60's podcast.