Podcasts about Christmas

This week we literally cannot get over the gaslighting that's happening with Jeffrey Epstein. Tin foil hats are staying on until further notice. We also dive into the Annabelle doll haunting (and…murder??), a man begging to be cursed by satanists and witches, a Christmas present that ended up being a severed toe, and a TikTok cult growing in real time. Like we said…tin foil hats ON. 

Jim Hill and Lauren Hersey are back with a full dose of Disney merch, from the long-awaited debut of the Starlight Dream the Night Away parade to a viral collector toy that's creeping its way into the parks. Lauren breaks down everything she's learned about La Boo Boos (and their knockoff cousins), while Jim connects the dots between Disney's 1950s television strategy and why your Christmas ornaments now cost $80. Also in this episode: What to expect from Disney's first nighttime parade in a decade Meet Whimsy: the LED-faced character pulling the finale float Why Main Street is now a runway for fashion-obsessed toy monsters A closer look at the $29 popcorn bucket ornaments and $80 vault collection set The real reason Disneyland's Opera House almost became a TV studio Walt Disney's early embrace of television—and how it changed everything From collectibles to castle corridors, this episode is packed with surprises and nostalgia. Unlocked Magic Unlocked Magic, powered by DVC Rental Store and DVC Resale Market, offers exclusive Disney & Universal ticket savings with TRUSTED service and authenticity. With over $10 MILLION in ticket sales, use Unlocked Magic to get the BIGGEST SAVINGS. ⁠Learn More Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Something I try to instill in my children is a good work ethic...

Watch on Philo! - Philo.tv/DTHIt's photoshoot time! Everyone is out there waiting including Alicia and Gail. Gail is like last night, I let Alicia down. Not today! Kerry and her daughters are there and I'm pretty convinced Alexandrea doesn't wanna be there. Rob tells his girlfriend Donna about meeting Paul and Andrew on the ship but obviously doesn't tell her about what they talked about. Cut to Paul trying to get Tyler and Kimberley in on the wedding ceremony. So they show everyone getting like 7 seconds to take a picture with everyone. Hynes is down there just goofing off. Rob and Donna come in and Paul is like ROB - making him look awesome in front of Donna. Paige gives Tyler a bracket with her name in it which is wild. Afterwards, Alexandrea was like you should make another bracelet with your number in it. Gail and Alicia meet Betty Hynes who is just the best. They ask her “is Tyler the same on screen and off” and Betty says “he's the bad boy for Hallmark for a reason”. Betty is a star, Paige and Alexandrea are hanging out, and she tells her about moving back to California and how she is nervous to tell mom. Remember Nate and his grandmas? Nate is just soaking up people telling him happy birthday, and I can't stress this enough - it's not his birthday. They're shopping at the hallmark store when Erin Cahill walks up and Erin is like Nate you're the best, happy birthday. And they bond over their mutual love of their grandmas, and Erin buys them everything they have in their hands! Lori and her sister talk about how to get their Christmas screenplay in front of someone at Hallmark. Donna is in the gym now and of course Nikki DeLoach is there. What are the odds?! And they bond. She talks about her brain surgery, Nikki talks about a rabbi she really likes. It's sweet. Gail and Alicia are hanging out and Alicia is like hey I booked us an ATV excision in the Bahamas. Gail is not thrilled by this. But she agrees to give it a shot. Rob and Donna get together for drinks with Kerry and her daughters and it's a whole thing. They bond over surgeries and then Donna and Kerry's daughter go to the bar and  Rob tells Kerry his plan and she says her daughter will do Donna's makeup. Plan is really coming together! The script sisters magically bumped in Benjamin Ayers and Sarah Drew and she pitched them the script and they love it. She asks if they will read it and they just kinda stare at each other. Gail gets on the ATV and chickens out. So Kerry and her daughters go to swim with the pigs which is run by Shane Gillis doing a Bahamian accent. Afterward, Paige tells her mom she wants to move to California. She's not thrilled. And then episode ends with Rob, ring box in hand on the beach of the Bahamas, getting ready to propose. 

Explicit- Comedian Leonarda Jonie. Women Are Retarded - Part 2 There's an epidemic of ugly women on the internet calling men ugly. The "Call Her Daddy" Podcast is out here giving women all kinds of terrible advice and leading them to their own destruction. Watch this video at- https://youtu.be/ntbOe3eIXDs?si=24TevIDIsEUo0lU3 Leonarda Jonie 260K subscribers 223,147 views Jul 1, 2025 TOUR: LEONARDAISFUNNY.COM Ft. Worth, TX | July 12 Bay Area, CA | July 1 Seattle, WA | Aug. 15 Portland, OR | Aug. 17 Tampa, FL | Sept. 6 Orlando, FL | Sept. 13 Miami, FL | Sept. 20 Minneapolis, MN | Oct. 3 Buffalo, NY | Oct. 4 Pittsburgh, PA | Oct. 5 Houston, TX | Oct. 25 Austin, TX | Oct. 26 --------------------------------------------------------------------  Help Support ACU. Check out our ACU Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ACUPodcast   HELP ACU SPREAD THE WORD!  Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Also Rate us on any platform you follow us on. It helps a lot. Forward this show to friends. Ways to subscribe to the American Conservative University Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FM Player Podcast Addict Tune-in Podcasts Pandora Look us up on Amazon Prime …And Many Other Podcast Aggregators and sites ACU on Twitter- https://twitter.com/AmerConU . Warning- Explicit and Violent video content.   Please help ACU by submitting your Show ideas. Email us at americanconservativeuniversity@americanconservativeuniversity.com   Endorsed Charities -------------------------------------------------------- Pre-Born! Saving babies and Souls. https://preborn.org/ OUR MISSION To glorify Jesus Christ by leading and equipping pregnancy clinics to save more babies and souls. WHAT WE DO Pre-Born! partners with life-affirming pregnancy clinics all across the nation. We are designed to strategically impact the abortion industry through the following initiatives:… -------------------------------------------------------- Help CSI Stamp Out Slavery In Sudan Join us in our effort to free over 350 slaves. Listeners to the Eric Metaxas Show will remember our annual effort to free Christians who have been enslaved for simply acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Savior. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this Christmas, join us in giving new life to brothers and sisters in Sudan who have enslaved as a result of their faith. https://csi-usa.org/metaxas   https://csi-usa.org/slavery/   Typical Aid for the Enslaved A ration of sorghum, a local nutrient-rich staple food A dairy goat A “Sack of Hope,” a survival kit containing essential items such as tarp for shelter, a cooking pan, a water canister, a mosquito net, a blanket, a handheld sickle, and fishing hooks. Release celebrations include prayer and gathering for a meal, and medical care for those in need. The CSI team provides comfort, encouragement, and a shoulder to lean on while they tell their stories and begin their new lives. Thank you for your compassion  Giving the Gift of Freedom and Hope to the Enslaved South Sudanese -------------------------------------------------------- Food For the Poor https://foodforthepoor.org/ Help us serve the poorest of the poor Food For The Poor began in 1982 in Jamaica. Today, our interdenominational Christian ministry serves the poor in primarily 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Thanks to our faithful donors, we are able to provide food, housing, healthcare, education, fresh water, emergency relief, micro-enterprise solutions and much more. We are proud to have fed millions of people and provided more than 15.7 billion dollars in aid. Our faith inspires us to be an organization built on compassion, and motivated by love. Our mission is to bring relief to the poorest of the poor in the countries where we serve. We strive to reflect God's unconditional love. It's a sacrificial love that embraces all people regardless of race or religion. We believe that we can show His love by serving the “least of these” on this earth as Christ challenged us to do in Matthew 25. We pray that by God's grace, and with your support, we can continue to bring relief to the suffering and hope to the hopeless.   Report on Food For the Poor by Charity Navigator https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/592174510   -------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer from ACU. We try to bring to our students and alumni the World's best Conservative thinkers. All views expressed belong solely to the author and not necessarily to ACU. In all issues and relations, we hope to follow the admonitions of Jesus Christ. While striving to expose, warn and contend with evil, we extend the love of God to all of his children. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Our Stranger Things rewatch continues with one of the most unforgettable—and chilling—episodes of the series.In this episode, Kit, Andy, and Steve review Chapter Three: Holly Jolly, where the mystery surrounding Will's disappearance takes a supernatural turn. Joyce makes a desperate attempt to reach her son using a string of Christmas lights, convinced he's trying to communicate from somewhere beyond. Meanwhile, Eleven grows closer to the boys as we learn haunting truths about what she's been through. And as Nancy investigates Barb's disappearance, she stumbles onto something dark lurking just beneath the surface of Hawkins.00:00:00 - Introduction:Welcome to a new episode of Streaming Things, where we dive deep into the world of streaming content!00:03:43 - Stranger Things MadLibs Word Search:Steve solicits Kit and Andy for words to create a MadLibs story.00:05:51 - Overall Thoughts:Our hosts share their initial impressions and overarching thoughts on today's movie/TV episode.00:15:49 - Scene by Scene Recap:Join us as we break down the episode or movie scene by scene.01:17:42 - Chocolate Puddings:The hosts list their top 3 moments of the episode.01:25:47 - Easter Eggos:The hosts name any easter eggs from the 80s they were able to pull from watching this episode.01:33:56 - Eleven out of 10 Performance:The hosts recognize the talent they think delivered the best performance of the episode.01:35:34 - Step Into the Nina:Steve plays clips from the podcast's original coverage for Kit and Andy to react to.01:43:18 - Stranger Things MadLibs Story Reveal:Steve reads the MadLibs story that Kit and Andy helped create.Video Version of this Episode: YouTubeBuy Tickets to Our Live Show: HEREFollow Us on Social MediaStreaming Things PatreonStreaming Things InstagramFollow Kit LazerTikTokInstagramYouTubeFollow SteveInstagramFollow AndyInstagramVisit Our WebsiteCheck Out Our MerchSend Us Mail:Streaming Things6809 Main St. #172Cincinnati, OH 45244 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One hundred months of subscription boxes. It feels almost unreal to say that out loud. That I've curated 100 different subscription boxes over the past 8 ½ years. And yet… here we are. When I look back at where it started, I can still picture myself stressing over every tiny detail of that very first box. My “Lilly Pulitzer-inspired” box, packed in a plain brown craft box I stamped by hand. During the early days of my subscription box, more always felt better, so I just kept adding things, forgetting all about profit margins, and hoping my customers would be happy. Fast forward to today? My process, my confidence, and my profit margins look completely different. That first year, I thought adding more products would make the box feel more valuable. But over time, I learned the magic is in the experience. The way the boxes make my subscribers feel. Instead of thinking that more is better, I choose one wow-worthy item and curate the rest of the box around it. And the packaging? Let's just say we've come a long way from those stamped boxes and logo tape. When I reached 100 subscribers, I finally ordered my first custom boxes in my signature turquoise. A few years later, we gave The Monogram Box™ packaging the full glow-up it deserved. Out of those 100 boxes, some stand out more than others, for better and for worse. There was the box where FedEx left their truck door open, and my boxes ended up all over a busy road in my town (yes, really). The “Oh My Gourd” box that I thought was funny, but many of my subscribers didn't. Lesson learned - give them what they want! And the custom-designed green Christmas sweatshirt that subscribers still talk about – and still wear – years later. Every one of those moments taught me something. How to plan further ahead. How to problem solve and pivot. How to listen (really listen) to what my subscribers wanted, even when it wasn't what I expected. Today, we plan boxes 6–8 months in advance. I still start with one main item and build the rest of the box around it. And yes , I stopped packing boxes myself after about 45 of them when we moved into the Warehouse (the team kindly told me I was… in the way). And my favorite hack? An automatic paper folder for packing slips. A little thing, but it saves so much time every month. You'd think by our 100th box I could predict exactly what my subscribers will love. But they still surprise me. Sometimes it's the smallest detail that gets the biggest reaction. So what keeps them coming back month after month? The seasonality. Their style needs change, so the box does too. The surprise. That feeling of opening something unexpected every month. The connection. They know I care about their feedback and use it to make each box better. If you're sitting at box #3 or #33 right now and wondering if you're on the right track, let me tell you: you are. And if you haven't launched yet, this advice is for you, too! Consistency matters more than perfection. Growth happens when you keep showing up, even when no one's cheering you on yet. And more than anything, remember: building a sustainable subscription box business is a long game. One box at a time, you're building something bigger than you can see right now. So keep going. Your 100th box is closer than you think. Join me for this episode as I share the story of my first 100 subscription boxes and how the lessons they've taught me can help you reach your 100th box and beyond. Join me in all the places:     Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website  Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join the waitlist today!

We are Traci and Ellie, two bookish friends who read in any spare minute that we have.  This week, we are celebrating Christmas in July! To shop the books listed in this episode, visit our shop at bookshop.org.   Care to join us on Patreon with even more content?  We would love to have you join us at From the Bookstacks of Literally Reading! Literally Reading:  Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau (Traci) Three Days in June by Anne Tyler (Ellie) Crack the Book Open: In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren (Traci) The Christmas You Found Me by Sarah Morgenthaler (Ellie) The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (Traci) The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand (Ellie) Always in December by Emily Stone (Traci) A Winter in New York by Josie Silver (Ellie) The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter (Traci) Holiday Romance by Catherine Walsh (Ellie) A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams (Traci) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott  (Traci) Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak (Traci) Faking Christmas by Cindy Steel (Ellie) Ten Blind Dates by Ashley Elston (Ellie) Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison (Ellie) I'll Be Home for Christmas by Jenny Bayliss (Traci) Good Spirits by B.K. Borison (Ellie)  

Alberto Belli sits down with me to talk about his fatherhood journey. He shares some new parenting experiences since we talked last time on the podcast. After that we talk about his latest movie, Dora And The Search For Sol Dorado. He talks about putting his spin on the beloved Dora the Explorer franchise. Lastly, we finish the interview with the Fatherhood Quick Five.  About Alberto Belli Alberto Belli is a computer science engineer whose love for storytelling turned him into a director. He moved from Mexico to LA. There he got his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. In addition, he received the prestigious John Huston directing merit scholarship. His latest project is the reboot of the Dora And The Search For Sol Dorado live-action movie for Paramount. His previous movie, Disney's The Naughty Nine, is a Christmas action/adventure film. It was nominated for 3 Emmys (including outstanding fiction special and VFX). His eclectic work, including commercials, TV episodes, and movies, has been recognized at Oscar-qualifying film festivals, including SXSW, HollyShorts, and Cannes Lions. Make sure you follow Alberto on Instagram at @abelli. In addition, check out his new film, Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado at Paramount+ and Nickelodeon. About Dora And The Search For Sol Dorado Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado, is on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon. The world's greatest explorer and her friends will trek through the perilous dangers of the Amazonian jungle in search of the ancient treasure of Sol Dorado to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Dora, who returns as a 16-year-old, is played by Samantha Lorraine. The cast also includes: Jacob Rodriguez as Diego, Dora's 17-year-old loyal cousin and jungle-exploring partner; Mariana Garzón Toro as Naiya, Diego's bold and no-nonsense coworker; Acston Luca Porto as Sonny, Naiya's younger brother with boundless energy and curiosity; Daniella Pineda as Camila the Crusader, a legend in the world of archaeology and Dora's childhood hero; and Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, as the voice of Boots, Dora's monkey sidekick and best friend. The film is directed by Alberto Belli.  About The Art of Fatherhood Podcast  The Art of Fatherhood Podcast follows the journey of fatherhood. Your host, Art Eddy talks with fantastic dads from all around the world where they share their thoughts on fatherhood. You get a unique perspective on fatherhood from guests like Bob Odenkirk, Hank Azaria, Joe Montana, Kevin Smith, Danny Trejo, Jerry Rice, Jeff Foxworthy, Patrick Warburton, Jeff Kinney, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Kyle Busch, Dennis Quaid, Dwight Freeney and many more.

Join us for a fun and heartfelt conversation with New York Times bestselling author Meghan Quinn about her newest romantic comedy, Till Summer Do Us Part. This steamy and laugh-out-loud contemporary romance has everything we love from a Meghan Quinn book: witty banter, heartfelt emotional beats, and characters who feel real. We talk about what inspired this story, how Meghan mapped out a romance on a strict timeline, and why therapy plays such an important role in the plot. Plus, she shares her process for creating strong, relatable FMCs, her favorite romance tropes (and which ones she avoids), and the risks she took that made this book so special. If you're a fan of rom-coms, contemporary romance, unforgettable heroines, and Meghan Quinn's signature humor and heat, this episode is for you. And don't miss the sneak peek of her upcoming Christmas rom-com, Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal! Sponsor: Task Rabbit: Tackle your to-do list today and get 15% off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or on the Taskrabbit app using promo code BOOKTALK. Babble: We want you to learn another language, so we're teaming up with Babbel to gift you 55% off subscriptions - but only for our listeners - at Babbel.com/BOOKTALK. Share your thoughts for a chance to be featured! Submit them at ⁠⁠⁠booktalkforbooktok.com⁠⁠⁠ for a future mini-episode or exclusive Patreon discussion. Support the Show: Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/booktalkforbooktok⁠⁠⁠ Merch: ⁠⁠⁠Etsy Store⁠⁠⁠ Follow Us on Social: Instagram: @BookTalkForBookTok TikTok: @BookTalkForBookTok YouTube: @BookTalkForBookTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, dudes? Come live your fantasy in Beverly Hills.Come on and make your dreams come true. William Bruce West from Remember That Show? and West Week Ever and Chad Young from Horror Movie BBQ are with me to do that, and talk about the 1987 cartoon Beverly Hills Teens Christmas episode "Miracle at the Teen Club!"In this two-part episode from Dec. 17-18, 1987, Buck attempts to throw a big Christmas party. Unfortunately, Larke and Troy decide to go caroling and to give toys to needy children, making the party a bust. Only a few of the teens show up, and they all get snowed in at the Teen Club due a cheap snow machine. In order to pass the time, they tell Jillian and Chester their version of Dickens's "A Christmas Carol.” Of course, they cast themselves as the characters, with Buck as Scrooge. Radley, Switchboard, and Nikki are the Ghosts, and they show Buck the errors of being über-wealthy. In true Scrooge fashion, he donates a huge sum of money to the orphanage.Surfing ghosts? Check. Travel via landline? Got it. Bah, hummingbird? Bah, hummingbird?!?! So grab your checkbook, hop in your oversized limo, and carol along to this "Miracle at the Teen Club" episode of a Beverly Hills Teens Christmas! Horror Movie BBQFB: @HorrorMovieBBQTwitter: @HorrorMovieBBQIG: @horrormoviebbqGive us a buzz! Send a text, dudes!Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!

Sponsored by Harford County Living When Tanya Gioia's husband got sober five days before Christmas, she thought the hardest part was over—but the real journey had just begun. In this heartfelt conversation, Tanya shares how she navigated life as a wife, mom, and coach while rebuilding trust, setting boundaries, and finding strength through faith. This powerful episode is a must-listen for anyone touched by addiction, codependency, or seeking hope in life's toughest moments. Guest Bio:  Tanya Gioia is a Christian-focused addiction relationship coach dedicated to helping women support loved ones battling addiction. Drawing from her personal experience as a wife of a recovering addict and her own journey of healing from codependency, Tanya empowers women to rediscover their identity, set healthy boundaries, and build resilient families. She is also the host of the Faith Over Addiction podcast. Main Topics: ·         Tanya's family story and her husband's journey to sobriety·         Life on a Colorado farm with kids, animals, and addiction struggles·         The reality of codependency and how it affects relationships·         How faith, community, and positive self-talk played a role in healing·         The importance of boundaries and self-worth in recovery·         Helping children navigate family addiction dynamics·         The role of therapy, EMDR, and spiritual growth in personal healing·         Why women need to reclaim their identity and voice·         Tanya's coaching programs, podcast, and future plans  Resources mentioned: ·         Stephanie's website: https://www.tanyagioia.com/·         Episode Sponsor: Harford County Living·         Supporter: Real Life Prosthetics·         Supporter: Full Circle Boards·         Supporter: Send us a textSupport the showRate & Review on Apple Podcasts Follow the Conversations with Rich Bennett podcast on Social Media:Facebook – Conversations with Rich Bennett Facebook Group (Join the conversation) – Conversations with Rich Bennett podcast group | FacebookTwitter – Conversations with Rich Bennett Instagram – @conversationswithrichbennettTikTok – CWRB (@conversationsrichbennett) | TikTok Sponsors, Affiliates, and ways we pay the bills:Hosted on BuzzsproutRocketbookSquadCast Contests & Giveaways Subscribe by Email

Ep.196 is here! Come listen as we talk about another trick taking game by Taiki Shinzawa; No Loose Ends. We tell you all about the game before diving into a topic about how small changes make new games. We end the show by telling you two movies that didn't hold up! It's a fun episode, so be sure to like, share, and subscribe! Game: 12:23 Topic: 27:22 Question: 39:25 Game Mentions: Sail!, Ghosts of Christmas, 9Lives, Charms, Inflation, Tower Chess, Cinderella's Dance, Pin Combi Trio, Planet Etuc Support: If you would like to help us improve our product, here's where you can do that! www.patreon.com/MalthausGames podpledge.com?p=3D8L1M1V4S7F8... ko-fi.com/malthausgames Sound Attributions: Something Elated by Broke For Free, Downloaded from freemusicarchive.org/music/Bro... Edits: Cut to length and Faded in. Heavy Happy With Drums by Ryan Cullinane, Downloaded from freemusicarchive.org/music/Ryan Cullinane/Heavy Happy With Drums – Beat Driven Productions – Heavy Happy With Drums Edits: Cut to length and faded out. Crowd in a bar (LCR recording) by Leandros.Ntounis, downloaded from freesound.org/people/Leandros... Edits: Cut to length, added vocals and own recorded drink making sounds. Vinyl_record_needle_static_01.wav by joedeshon, downloaded from freesound.org/people/joedesho... Edits: Cut to length, added to music and raised volume level. Hidden Wall Opening by ertfelda, downloaded from freesound.org/people/ertfelda... Edits: Adjust volume and cut to length added jungle sound and voice. Yucatan jungle.mp3 by folkart films, downloaded from freesound.org/people/folkart%... Edits: Adjust volume, cut to length, added door sound and voice. Footsteps, Concretem A.wav by InspectorJ, downloaded from freesound.org/people/Inspecto... Edits: Cut to length, adjusted volume, added jungle sounds and voice. Fantasy Sounds Effects Library, Ambience_Cave_00.wav by LittleRobotSoundFactory, downloaded from freesound.org/people/LittleRo... Edits: Cut to length, faded in, adjusted volume and added footsteps, jungle sounds, stone door, and voice. Game Show Theme Tune by FoolBoyMedia, downloaded from freesound.org/people/FoolBoyM... Edits: Cut to length, added vocals, adjusted volume. Audience, Theatre Applause.wav by makosan, downloaded from freesound.org/people/makosan/... Edits: Added music, added voice, cut to length and adjusted volume

This episode first appeared all the way back in 2021, and here's what I had to say about it: Have you ever had someone try to coax you out of the closet by asking the seemingly innocent question ‘is there anything you want to tell me?'? Do you remember the anguish and pain of simply muttering the 3 or 4 words needed to just confirm their suspicions? Well, if you have, I have a feeling you'll love this week's episode. I'm talking to comedy writer and actor Lisa Haas about her very first trip to the lesbian bar Three Sisters in Denver, Colorado in the 80s. We talk about how depressing a lesbian bar can be on Christmas eve, the awkwardness of coming out support groups, and what signal your sister might be trying to send you when she offers to buy you a plaid shirt! Listen to Lisa's podcast ‘IN HEAT: A Lesbian Comedy' wherever you stream podcasts, and follow her on Instagram.

When Steven's dad, Allen, disappeared, he left behind more than his children-he left a legacy of loss and family secrets. Though working just miles away, Allen gave up his kids for adoption. He was soon replaced by another man, one with his own four children, whose strict rules and explosive temper made home a place of fear rather than refuge. Steven spent decades wrestling with the wounds of abandonment and abuse, burying his pain so deep it became "the feeling of no feeling." A forced move to Florida, a brutal fist fight, and a grisly car crash pushed Steven to life's edge resulting in a move to Israel, where he discovered that "self-help" meant he would die a failure unless he learned to help himself. Pretend They Are Dead: A Father's Search for the Truth (Christmas Lake Press, 2025) is a gripping memoir of survival, trauma, and resilience-told with raw honesty, filmic detail, and defiant humor. Steven grew up rejected: Two men claimed to be his father but neither proved to be a dad. Determined not to repeat the past, he become an unwavering presence in the lives of his own five children. His story will both shock and inspire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Jesus showed that kind of love for us...

Send us a textIf you've followed the podcast from the beginning, you might notice a theme. We aren't fans of D&D.Sure, we started with the OGL Scandal and ever since then we have made fun of, complained about, and down right called out Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and Dungeons and Dragons. But, that's just business, right? We must actually like D&D I mean everyone does. It's the grandaddy of all roleplaying games.Nope we hate D&D.Just ask us.Of course, we have talked about the business moves like firing all of their employees right before Christmas or licensing their products to predatory online gambling sites. I'm sure you get that, but outside of the big business moves and the licensing crap why don't we like D&D?Well, we've got reasons and on this episode Mike, Christina and I are going to lay it out for you.Mike, when did you realize you hated D&D?[Kick to Mike]Christina, you didn't start with D&D, so how long did it take you to realize you hated it?[Kick to Christina]

hear the whole thig there:www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast 

Watch on Philo! - Philo.tv/DTHNikki Crandon is a BIG deal pop star and she's working on her upcoming Christmas album, sounding fine I guess. It's Thanksgiving day and Chris is heading over to his parents house for Thanksgiving with his 2 kids and he's feeling pretty sad cuz his wife is dead. His daughter Sophie seems totally fine with the fact that her mom is dead though, so that's good. They turn on the Thanksgiving football game and guess who's singing the national anthem? Nikki Crandon! Chris comes in and sees her on tv and gets weird. Sophie really wants to go see the Nikki Crandon Christmas concert on Christmas Eve  and everyone is weird about it so Sophie is like what the heck? He finally tells the truth - they went to high school with Nikki and she was his first love. And it's pretty clear he still has feelings for her. So the kids decide that they're going to sneak off to NYC for a meet and greet and tell her that their dad is still in love with her. At first, Sophie fumbles the opportunity but she turns around on her way out and belts out MY DAD IS CHRIS MARSHALL AND HE IS STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU! Nikki decides to give the kids a ride home and goes to say hi to Chris. And at first, he fumbles the opportunity (like father, like daughter). But before she drives off, he runs out and asks to get dinner. So the next day, she shows up to his basketball game and they go get a burger and it's going fine. The night ends with her asking him why he left her and he said he didn't wanna get in the way of her career taking off. Good enough for her and they kiss big ones. The next day, this picture is everywhere. Her manager wants her to call it off but she's not having it. Chris calls her and they agree to get dinner at a 5 star resteraunt. The dinner does not go well. First, the record exec shows up and gives him a wad of cash. Then when she's in the restroom, her movie star ex-boyfriend shows up. Chris realizes, once again, that he's just not right for her and her career, so he leaves. She shows up to his house and gives them tickets to her Christmas eve shows. He says they're not gonna go but after a pep talk from his mom, they all show up. He sneaks back stage and after the show, he gets on stage and professes his love. She comes back on stage and they kiss big ones and he asks if she wants to go steady. They kiss some more as the crowd cheers. 

TW: This episode discusses sensitive topics related to alcohol use, addiction, and mental health. Are you searching for how to stop drinking without calling yourself an alcoholic? That's the question Coaches Bill, Lisa, and Pam answer in this episode, as they courageously share their journeys of finding freedom from alcohol. Coach Bill explains how This Naked Mind helped him quit drinking without adopting the label of "addict," while Coach Lisa reflects on how The Path offered her a safe, supportive space to learn about herself and stop judging her relationship with alcohol. Tune in as they explore how self-compassion, curiosity, and community can help you create the life you deserve. In this episode, Coach Bill + Coach Pam discuss: Choosing This Naked Mind because it showed him how to stop drinking without calling yourself an alcoholic Seeking a program that uplifted him and showed him his inherent power. The profound shift from despair to helping others find freedom. Practicing grace, compassion, and kindness towards himself in the process. Overcoming fear with curiosity to examine what was "underneath the drinking." The beauty of connecting with others in the This Naked Mind community. The realization that The Path shows you the way to feel your inherent awesomeness. Moving from a mindset of perfection to one of continuous progress. …and more In this episode, Coach Lisa + Coach Pam discuss: Feeling truly "seen" for the first time by This Naked Mind content. Finding security and safety within The Path program, realizing she wasn't alone. Learning to stop judging herself and building self-trust. How alcohol forced a conversation that led to designing a life she's excited to wake up to. The understanding that her "anxiety" was her inner wisdom desperate to be heard. The profound feeling of hope and possibility on her first alcohol-free Christmas morning. The truth that there's "no VIP line to freedom" – every step matters and consistency builds self-trust. …and more Coach Bill is a certified Naked Mind Senior Coach who turned his personal struggle into his life's mission. Starting his relationship with alcohol at 16 to cope with trauma and lack of community support, Bill spent 40 years trapped in cycles of negativity and dependency before finding freedom through This Naked Mind on December 27, 2021. He believes there's a better way than traditional recovery methods and specializes in helping LGBTQAI+ individuals explore their unique path to alcohol freedom through honest self-exploration in a completely safe, judgment-free environment. Learn more about Coach Bill: https://thisnakedmind.com/coach/bill-masters/ Coach Lisa is a Certified Senior This Naked Mind Coach and Designing Your Life Coach. After breaking free from daily drinking in 2018, she now helps high-achieving women overcome anxiety and disconnection through intentional, alcohol-free living. Lisa's coaching blends science-backed mindset work with practical life design strategies, guiding women to create lasting change and authentic joy. With over two decades of leadership in international sport, she brings a grounded, compassionate presence to clients navigating burnout, reinvention, and self-discovery. Learn more about Coach Lisa: https://thisnakedmind.com/coach/lisa-kwiatkowski/ BetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month at ⁠⁠http://BetterHelp.com/NAKEDMIND|BetterHelp.com/NAKEDMIND⁠⁠ Quince: For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to ⁠⁠http://Quince.com/naked|Quince.com/naked⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Hungryroot: Get 40% off your first box + a free item for life at ⁠⁠http://Hungryroot.com/mind|Hungryroot.com/mind⁠⁠ with code mind Shopify: Start your $1/month trial at ⁠⁠http://Shopify.com/mind|Shopify.com/mind⁠

John Zmirak- Trump Is Whipsawing His Base, Sending Contradictory Signals, Amnesty for Sweatshop Farms & Hotels Tempts a Prodigal America to Stay in Its Pigsty   The Eric Metaxas Show  Jul 08 2025   Other Episodes Big Bad John joins us to discuss his article Amnesty for Sweatshop Farms & Hotels Tempts a Prodigal America to Stay in Its Pigsty   Article mentioned- Trump Is Whipsawing His Base, Sending Contradictory Signals https://stream.org/the-brew-trump-is-whipsawing-his-base-sending-contradictory-signals/   Find All of John Zmirak Articles at- https://stream.org/author/johnzmirak/   John Zmirak is a Senior Editor of The Stream. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1986, then his M.F.A. in screenwriting and fiction and his Ph.D. in English in 1996 from Louisiana State University. He has been Press Secretary to pro-life Louisiana Governor Mike Foster, and a reporter and editor at Success magazine and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. His essays, poems, and other works have appeared in First Things, The Weekly Standard, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, FrontPage Magazine, The American Conservative, The South Carolina Review, Modern Age, The Intercollegiate Review, Commonweal, and The National Catholic Register, among other venues. He has contributed to American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought. From 2000-2004 he served as Senior Editor of Faith & Family magazine and a reporter at The National Catholic Register. During 2012 he was editor of Crisis. He is author, co-author, or editor of twelve books, including Wilhelm Ropke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist, The Grand Inquisitor and The Race to Save Our Century. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First. Zmirak can be found at https://stream.org/author/johnzmirak/   John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”   John Zmirak's latest book: No Second Amendment, No First  by John Zmirak  Available March 19, 2024 Today's Left endlessly preaches the evils of “gun violence." It is a message increasingly echoed from the nation's pulpits, presented as common-sense decency and virtue. Calls for “radical non-violence” are routinely endowed with the imprimatur of religious doctrine.   But what if such teachings were misguided, even damaging? What if the potential of a citizenry to exercise force against violent criminals and tyrannical governments is not just compatible with church teaching, but flows from the very heart of Biblical faith and reason? What if the freedoms we treasure are intimately tied to the power to resist violent coercion?  This is the long-overdue case John Zmirak makes with stunning clarity and conviction in No Second Amendment, No First. A Yale-educated journalist and former college professor, Zmirak shows how the right of self-defense against authoritarian government was affirmed in both the Old and New Testaments, is implied in Natural Law, and has been part of Church tradition over the centuries.   --------------------------------------------------------------------  Check out our ACU Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ACUPodcast   HELP ACU SPREAD THE WORD!  Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Also Rate us on any platform you follow us on. It helps a lot. Forward this show to friends. Ways to subscribe to the American Conservative University Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FM Player Podcast Addict Tune-in Podcasts Pandora Look us up on Amazon Prime …And Many Other Podcast Aggregators and sites ACU on Twitter- https://twitter.com/AmerConU . Warning- Explicit and Violent video content.   Please help ACU by submitting your Show ideas. Email us at americanconservativeuniversity@americanconservativeuniversity.com   Endorsed Charities -------------------------------------------------------- Pre-Born! Saving babies and Souls. https://preborn.org/ OUR MISSION To glorify Jesus Christ by leading and equipping pregnancy clinics to save more babies and souls. WHAT WE DO Pre-Born! partners with life-affirming pregnancy clinics all across the nation. We are designed to strategically impact the abortion industry through the following initiatives:… -------------------------------------------------------- Help CSI Stamp Out Slavery In Sudan Join us in our effort to free over 350 slaves. Listeners to the Eric Metaxas Show will remember our annual effort to free Christians who have been enslaved for simply acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Savior. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this Christmas, join us in giving new life to brothers and sisters in Sudan who have enslaved as a result of their faith. https://csi-usa.org/metaxas   https://csi-usa.org/slavery/   Typical Aid for the Enslaved A ration of sorghum, a local nutrient-rich staple food A dairy goat A “Sack of Hope,” a survival kit containing essential items such as tarp for shelter, a cooking pan, a water canister, a mosquito net, a blanket, a handheld sickle, and fishing hooks. Release celebrations include prayer and gathering for a meal, and medical care for those in need. The CSI team provides comfort, encouragement, and a shoulder to lean on while they tell their stories and begin their new lives. Thank you for your compassion  Giving the Gift of Freedom and Hope to the Enslaved South Sudanese -------------------------------------------------------- Food For the Poor https://foodforthepoor.org/ Help us serve the poorest of the poor Food For The Poor began in 1982 in Jamaica. Today, our interdenominational Christian ministry serves the poor in primarily 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Thanks to our faithful donors, we are able to provide food, housing, healthcare, education, fresh water, emergency relief, micro-enterprise solutions and much more. We are proud to have fed millions of people and provided more than 15.7 billion dollars in aid. Our faith inspires us to be an organization built on compassion, and motivated by love. Our mission is to bring relief to the poorest of the poor in the countries where we serve. We strive to reflect God's unconditional love. It's a sacrificial love that embraces all people regardless of race or religion. We believe that we can show His love by serving the “least of these” on this earth as Christ challenged us to do in Matthew 25. We pray that by God's grace, and with your support, we can continue to bring relief to the suffering and hope to the hopeless.   Report on Food For the Poor by Charity Navigator https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/592174510   -------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer from ACU. We try to bring to our students and alumni the World's best Conservative thinkers. All views expressed belong solely to the author and not necessarily to ACU. In all issues and relations, we hope to follow the admonitions of Jesus Christ. While striving to expose, warn and contend with evil, we extend the love of God to all of his children. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

I'm joined by a very special guest—my daughter Kailyn—as we recap a whirlwind Disney weekend full of sun, snacks, and some serious theme park hustle.Kailyn hadn't stepped foot in the 4 Walt Disney World parks since Thanksgiving of 2023—and before that, Christmas 2022. But rewind a bit further, and she was basically raised at Disney. As a longtime Annual Passholder, she spent years visiting once or twice a month with us, until both kids eventually hit that wall a lot of families know all too well: Disney burnout. So they let their passes go, took a step back… and just like that, a new chapter began.But this past weekend, we opened the book again. On Thursday, it was off to Typhoon Lagoon for a splash-filled day of water slides, waves, and lazy rivers. Then we cleaned up and headed to Disney Springs for shopping and dinner at Wailulu Bar & Grill. (Spoiler: we'll be talking about poke bowls, fish, and tattoos.)And then came Friday—a 16-hour park day that took us to EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom and packed in 20 attractions. We're talking thrill rides, strategy, food fuel, and some genuine moments of rediscovering the magic.You'll hear Kailyn's honest take on what it was like coming back after nearly two years away, how the parks felt different, and what moments reminded her why she used to love it in the first place.This is a special one for us—a dad-daughter Disney trip with laughs, nostalgia, and a whole lot of fun.MEI-Travel – Expertise. Ease. Value.No matter where you want to go, our trusted partner MEI-Travel, will handle the planning so you can focus on the memories. They offer free vacation planning services and have nearly 20 years of experience creating memorable vacations. Visit MEI-Travel for a fee-free, no-obligation quote today!Follow Us on Social MediaFacebook GroupFacebook: @MainStMagicTwitter: @MainStMagicTikTok: @MSMPodcastInstagram: @MainStMagicVisit Us Onlinewww.MainStMagic.comwww.MainStreetShirts.comGet Dining Alerts!Find last-minute and hard-to-find Disney dining reservations with MouseDining.com! Get text and email alerts when popular theme park dining reservations open up. Get last-minute seating! Get the next table! Set your alerts now! Get the next reservation!Visit our Partnerswww.MSMFriends.comThanks to TFresh Productions for our theme song

Carter's attempting a glitchless, no potions run of Two Chunks And A Hunk today. Jordan can't quite differentiate between the dream and reality. Doz uncovers the secrets of sequential nomenclature. And Matthew? Thank you, let's go.It's week three of Summer Of Love: Sixual Healing, and you there boy, what day is it?? Is it Christmas? No, it's the day we talk about Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past. In this episode: Extra Credit, The Top Tens, Ghosts Of Girlfriends PastSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/two-chunks-and-a-hunk/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

  Thank you for tuning in to Episode 301 of the Down Cellar Studio Podcast. Full show notes with photos can be found on my website. This week's segments included:   Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins Brainstorming From the Armchair Crafty Adventures Knitting in Passing KAL News Events Life in Focus On a Happy Note Quote of the Week   Thank you to this episode's sponsors: Fitness by Mara   Off the Needles, Hook or Bobbins   Same as It Ever Was Hat Pattern: Same as It Ever Was by Sarah Jordan ($6 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Yarn: Hypnotic Yarn Plush Sock (Yarnable Box January 2025) in the Intergalactic colorway Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm) Ravelry Project Page 94 grams of yarn Stash Dash: 376 meters   Kim's Trenta Ball Band Pattern: Ball Band with a Twist by Jennifer Lassonde. $2 Crochet pattern available on Ravelry & LoveCrafts Hooks: G (4.25 mm) Yarn: Loops & Thread Classic Cotton in Royal Blue and Aqua Ravelry Project Page Modified from the original Ball Band pattern to fit this larger sized cup. 38g/ 58 meters   Felici Granny Stripe Blanket Yarn: Knit Picks Felici in Colorways: Punky, Whatits Galore (50g), Space Disco, Carrot Cake, Base Jump, Game Over, Secret Garden, Fiesta Pattern: Granny Stripe by Attic 24. Free crochet pattern on Attic 24 website. Hook: I (5.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page 7 colorways with 100g, 1 with 50g. Size: 11.64 skeins-  582 grams 2316.4 meters   Stash Dash Total for this Episode: 5,291 meters   On the Needles, Hook or Bobbins   Let the Mystery Unravel 2023 Blanket of Calm Pattern: Blanket of Calm by Casapinka (free crochet pattern) Yarn: Woolen Women Fibers- Let the Mystery Unravel subscription + Cascade Heritage Sock yarn in the Forged Iron Colorway Hook: 3.25 mm (D) Ravelry Project Page You can find my Let the Mystery Unravel Unboxing Video on YouTube in this Playlist All of the 9 block squares now have been seamed and have their 3 round gray border. Border- undecided.   716 Splash Pad Socks Yarn: 716 Knit Sock Set  in the 716sock base in the colorway: It needs to be ok with getting on a boat with Levar Burton and never coming back. Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page About the yarn: stripe of black, stripe of bright poolside colors (orange, yellow, peach, greens & aquas . Cast on June 1 for SPP Kick off. Jenna of 716 also sent me the mini skein set which is part of her SPP Exclusives. What should I do with my minis?? Progress: Cuff and heel are in contrast aqua. Approaching 1st toe (will also be aqua)   Granny Stripe Top Yarn: MC= Woolen Women Fibers 80/20 Sock in the Watermelon colorway. CCs= Hedgehog Fiber Sock in Harvest Colorway + Legacy Fiber Artz minis from advent calendars Hooks: F (3.75 mm) to cast on & D (3.25 mm) for body Pattern: none Ravelry Project Page Progress: I crocheted a few inches but its coming out too large. I will likely rip back and restart.   Dirty Crayon Box Socks Yarn: Fiber Stash Strong Toes Sock (80% SW Merino/ 20% Nylon) in the Dirty Crayon Box Colorway Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Picked back up old WIP- started October 2024. Nearly to heel of sock 1   Over the Rainbow Socks Yarn: Cashmere & Coconuts MCN Sock yarn in the Somewhere Over the Rainbow colorway Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page About the colorway: Yarn- gift from Kris on Mom's 1st heavenly birthday. Part way through the leg of sock 1   Woolens & Nosh 2024 Advent Socks #2 Yarn: Woolens & Nosh SW Targhee Sock Pattern: OMG Heel Socks by Megan Williams ($5 knitting pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Ravelry Project Page Passed heel on second sock (contrast heel)   Same as it Ever Was Hat Yarn: fingering weight yarn from stash (no ball band); maybe MCN base Needles: US 2 (LOOK UP NEEDLE SIZE MM) Pattern: Same as it Ever Was by Sarah Jordan $6 knitting pattern available on Ravelry Ravelry Project Page About the yarn: all different shades of gray with blips of a mustardy/rust and turquoise 8g for the crown increases   Bayside Shirt Pattern: Bayside Shirt by Briana Luppino ($9 pattern available on Ravelry) Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) Yarn: Handspun Yarn from 2 bumps from Wild Air Farm Shetland & Pygora- Melody & Cadence + 4 ounce braid from Jakira Farms 85/15 Polwarth/Silk (Ravelry Project Page for handspun) Finished in 2023. Size: 32" bust Ravelry Project Page   Brainstorming   The Traveler by Andrea Mowry ($9 knitting pattern available on Ravelry & the Drea Renee Knits website) Started stalking in October 2024. Esp love Knitty Natty's (check out her Ravelry project page here) This may be my favorite version:a handspun Traveler knit by Emily Curtis. Check out her Instagram post. Click here for a post about the handspun yarn   Log Cabin Blanket Sue and Chelsea from Legacy Fiber Artz are making the Log Cabin Square by Julie Harrison (free crochet pattern)  Ravelry Pattern Page. I've had this pattern in my favorites for more than 2 years. I was looking for the Julie Harrison pattern and came across this Ravelry pattern by hookloopsarah which features a log cabin layout that's more of a background color with 4 pops of color that seem to leap up from it. Love this idea!   From the Armchair   One-Hit Wonder by Lisa Jewell. Amazon Affiliate Link. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach. Amazon Affiliate Link.   Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases.   Crafty Adventures Watercolors are still keeping my creative attention. Loving it!   Knitting in Passing   On a July 3 MBTA ferry commute, I sat with a crocheter. We talked about our projects and fav LYSs. I showed her how simple magic loop knitting is. Laura brought socks to her client David when she got back to NY. He sent me a photo asking if they were Cashmere because they were so soft and noting how great they looked with the pants he had on. Then I got a pic of his foot under his desk at work the next day. (Ravelry Project Page) On July 7, a man chatted with me on the Red Line about memories of his mother, sisters and daughters crocheting. Emelyn has been wanting to crochet again but is feeling rusty. On July 4th I reminded them how to single & half-double crochet. Last weekend, they started a star project so we worked with DC and how to work corners and getting used to reading a pattern.   In My Travels Splash Pad Party Registration is open View Stats and/or Verify Registration here. Check out our Sponsor List Splash Pad Official Rules Enter your FOs using the Summer Celebration Form. Then come over to this Ravelry Thread to share pics and let us ooh and ahh with you! Submit something incorrectly? Need help? Fill out this Support Form & we'll be in touch.   Splash Pad RAVELRY Links Start Here Thread Pro Shop Exclusive Items Thread Coupon Codes Thread Questions Thread   Tune in to hear if you won a participation prize!   Events Stash Dash hosted by the Knit Girllls- May 29th-August 30th Summer Bingo with the Craft Cook Read Repeat Podcast . Get your Bingo Card on Instagram. Sock Week hosted by Knitty Natty- July 20-27 Goal is to complete 1 adult sock during Sock Week Summer Spin In hosted by Marsha & Kelly of Two Ewes Fiber Adventure. May 31- September 1. All spinning and making with handspun yarn counts. Preparing fleeces also counts. Let's go! Flock Fiber Festival in Seattle, WA- August 8-10 Fiber Revival in Newbury, MA- August 16th   Life in Focus   July 2- half way day   25 in 2025 List Donate Blood at least 4 times (January, March, May, ) - on track Go shopping for plants with Dan 4 times in the year (my Christmas gift from him) - not yet Buy new ski boots- DONE Go camping- DONE Kayak 2-5 times- DONE Do at least 5 walks with others- DONE Take 2-5 yoga classes (outside of the house)- not yet Do at least 30 lessons in Mondly- not yet Spend a day at Raffa Life- scheduled for September Record 2-5 things I'm grateful for each day before bed (more days than not counts)- I've fallen off. Looking forward to getting going again. Read all of Simple Abundance (ideally daily or close to)- not loving it. some parts are more religious than I expected... may pop back in, but I've gotten out of this. Read at least 60 books- all books count (even poetry etc)- 28 books by end of June. It's possible! Get at least 2 massages at Oasis - DONE See 2-5 movies in the theater (Paddington in Peru) Knit 2-5 garments for me - 1 done, # WIPs Finish and enjoy my Christmas Granny Square Blanket- on pause until after Stash Dash Crochet at least 5 toys- DONE Use my spinning wheel at least once a month (January-April done, I think I forgot to spin in May and June. Going to get back in. Will still be better than most years! Have a crafty day with Emelie- talked to her mom about this. Knit a slouchy hat for myself- not yet Try out 3 new to me podcasts (Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, White Lotus official podcast, severance official podcast, Cramped) - DONE Watch White Christmas with Jenny & Kara (bringing the tradition back) -- talks have begun! Buy a firebox and put important papers inside (working with Dan on list of things to put in it)- not yet https://www.thenokbox.com (Debbie, deafelis recommended) Create a list of things to pack in case of an evacuation - not yet https://www.thenokbox.com/  Purge at least 20 items of clothing/accessories/shoes- DONE   On a Happy Note Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge (with brunch beforehand) July 4th pool day Ending an awful workday with drinks outdoor at Trillium, then apps and more drinks and picking up Laura to take her home on the Ferry watching 3rd of July fireworks. Making our rainbow sunglass photo! July 5th secondhand shopping, lunch with Megg and Laura + ice cream (of course) Rewatching Gilmore Girls Line dancing at the beach + seeing a really cool rainbow Dinner outdoors with Dad, Millie and Dan. 2 pool party day last weekend. Shout out from Kelly in the Two Ewes Fiber Adventures podcast. Thank you! Seeing a young buck in the driveway   Quote of the Week Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them. TREVOR NOAH   ------   Thank you for tuning in!   Contact Information: Check out the Down Cellar Studio Patreon! Ravelry: BostonJen & Down Cellar Studio Podcast Ravelry Group Instagram: BostonJen1 YouTube: Down Cellar Studio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/downcellarstudio Sign up for my email newsletter to get the latest on everything happening in the Down Cellar Studio Check out my Down Cellar Studio YouTube Channel Knit Picks Affiliate Link Bookshop Affiliate Link Yarnable Subscription Box Affiliate Link FearLESS Living Fund to benefit the Blind Center of Nevada Music -"Soft Orange Glow" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/ Note: Some links are listed as Amazon Affiliate Links. If you click those, please know that I am an Amazon Associate and I earn money from qualifying purchases.  

Across the country in late June and early July, mulberry trees fruit, producing tasty berries enjoyed by humans, birds, and squirrels alike. You'll often see evidence of this on sidewalks in suburban neighborhoods stained purple by the fallen berries. But if these mulberry trees are hanging over water, fish are able to enjoy the fruits of their bounty as well. On today's episode we join guide Luke Annear of Freshwater Flats on an unnamed river in Southern Wisconsin in the search of carp and catfish. If you've ever wanted to catch a carp on the fly, and particularly on a mulberry fly, you can find Luke Annear on Instagram @freshwaterflats or on his website www.freshwaterflats.com. Many thanks to Patagonia and their improved Swiftcurrent waders for helping make this possible. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode.

Is it too soon to start making Christmas plans?! Kramer thinks so.

Send us a textIs “Drink Responsibly” Just a Marketing Scam? What if the phrase “drink responsibly” isn't about safety—but about shifting blame? In this eye-opening episode of the Sober & Lit Podcast, Ruby and Susan peel back the glossy layers of alcohol marketing to reveal what's really behind that familiar tagline. Why does the alcohol industry promote moderation while knowing there's no safe level of alcohol, according to the World Health Organization? Who benefits when drinking is glamorized and normalized in everything from college ads to Christmas dinner?With Ruby's 20 years inside the wine business, and both hosts' experience helping women break free from drinking, this conversation dives into media manipulation, coping culture, and the myth of moderation. They explore how alcohol ads target us young, how “responsibility” gets weaponized, and how the sober curious movement is finally flipping the narrative.If you're ready to challenge the status quo, rethink your relationship with drinking, and embrace an alcohol-free lifestyle that's vibrant, joyful, and empowered—this one's for you. P.S. You may have noticed we changed the name of our podcast to Sober & Lit.  It's still us — Ruby and Susan — showing up each week to share real talk for women exploring alcohol-free living in all its messy, magical, and empowering glory. The only thing that's changing is the name. Everything else — the stories, the insights, the laughs, and the support — is staying exactly the same! Listeners have said that our podcast has helped them get alcohol free! So we created Feel Lit 21, a way for you to press your reset button and take a 21 day break from alcohol. It's a great place to start! Embrace 21 days without alcohol that feels lit! Click here to find out more: https://feellitpodcast.com/FeelLit21 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and ask us any questions you have about breaking free from wine or living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Connect with the Podcast Hosts:Susan Larkin Coaching https://www.susanlarkincoaching.com/ Ruby Williams at Freedom Renegade Coaching https://www.freedomrenegadecoaching.com/Follow Susan: @drinklesswithsusanFollow Ruby: @rubywilliamscoachingIt is strongly recommended that you seek professional advice regarding your health before attempting to take a break from alcohol. The creators, hosts, and producers of the The Feel Lit Alcohol Free podcast are not healthcare practitioners and therefore do not give medical, or psychological advice nor do they intend for the podcast, any resource or communication on behalf of the podcast or otherwise to be a substitute for such.

  The Redding Encampment, Connecticut's first State Archaeological Preserve, is located in Putnam Memorial State Park. Understanding of the Revolutionary War has emphasized the battles, maneuvers, and war meetings; but far more time was expended during the long periods of winter encampment. The winter months were a brutal test of individual fortitude, unifying command, and local support. In the journal Joseph Plumb Martin kept at the time, he wrote, “We arrived at Redding about Christmas or a little before and prepared to build huts for our winter quarters. And now came on the time again between grass and hay, that is, the winter campaign of starving.” Compared to Valley Forge or Morristown, the archaeological evidence supports the poor conditions described by Martin. The site remains intact and is a relatively unknown archaeological gem, administered by Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Our publisher Dr. Kathy Hermes chats with Ellery Leary, the official park historian of Putnam Memorial State Park and a member of the Friends & Neighbors of Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding, Connecticut.  They studied history and art history, and they hold an MA in archaeology. They also served as a consultant on a National Park Service Battlefield Interpretation Grant obtained by Cris Radio to create an app with a downloadable audio tour for Putnam Park and a website that tells the stories of people of color at the Redding Encampment. We discuss the importance of Putnam Park as a historical site, the experiences of the soldiers and camp followers, and the efforts at historic preservation of the site.  Visit the websites, Dr. Kathy Hermes, et al, Forgotten Voices of the Revolutionary War: People of Color and the Redding Encampment, 1778-1779 at https://forgottenvoicesrevwar.org/ and Cris Radio, Forgotten Voices of the Revolutionary War, which offers audio recordings of narratives and documents. https://crisradio.org/voice/forgotten-voices-of-the-revolutionary-war/ For more about Abimelech Uncus, see: www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/abimeleck-uncus   ---------------------------------------------- Like Grating the Nutmeg? Want to support it? Make a donation! 100% of the funds from your donation go directly to the production and promotion of the show. Go to ctexplored.org to send your donation now.   This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Kathy Hermes and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com. Follow GTN on our socials-Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.   Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!  

What's your favorite summer fruit...

You are in for a real treat on this episode. My guest this time is Greg Schwem. Greg is a corporate comedian. What is a corporate comedian? You probably can imagine that his work has to do with corporations, and you would be right. Greg will explain much better than I can. Mr. Schwem began his career as a TV journalist but eventually decided to take up what he really wanted to do, be a comedian. The story of how he evolved is quite fascinating by any standard. Greg has done comedy professionally since 1989. He speaks today mostly to corporate audiences. He will tell us how he does his work. It is quite interesting to hear how he has learned to relate to his audiences. As you will discover as Greg and I talk, we often work in the same way to learn about our audiences and thus how we get to relate to them. Greg has written three books. His latest one is entitled “Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff”. As Greg says, “Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, ‘woe is me,' self- serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. Greg offers many interesting observations as he discusses his career and how he works. I think we all can find significant lessons we can use from his remarks. About the Guest: Hi! I'm Greg Schwem. a Chicago-based business humor speaker and MC who HuffPost calls “Your boss's favorite comedian.” I've traveled the world providing clean, customized laughs to clients such as Microsoft, IBM, McDonald's and even the CIA. I also write the bi-weekly Humor Hotel column for the Chicago Tribune syndicate. I believe every corporate event needs humor. As I often tell clients, “When times are good, people want to laugh. When times are bad, people need to laugh.” One Fortune 500 client summed things up perfectly, saying “You were fantastic and just what everybody needed during these times.” In September 2024 I released my third and most personal book, Turning Gut Punches into Punch Lines: A Comedian's Journey Through Cancer, Divorce and Other Hilarious Stuff. Don't worry, it's not one of those whiny, “woe is me,” self-serving books. Instead, it's a hilarious account of me living the words I've been preaching to my audiences: You can always find humor in every situation, even the tough ones. You can pick up a copy at Amazon or select book stores. Ways to connect with Greg: Website: www.gregschwem.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/gregschwem LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/gregschwem Instagram: www.instagram.com/gregschwem X: www.x.com/gregschwem About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Hi everyone, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we are going to definitely have some fun. I'll tell you about our guests in a moment, but first, I want to tell you about me. That'll take an hour or so. I am Michael Hingson, your host, and you're listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And I don't know, we may get inclusion or diversity into this, but our guest is Greg Schwem. Greg used to be a TV reporter, now he's a comedian, not sure which is funnier, but given some of the reporters I've seen on TV, they really should go into tonight club business. But anyway, Greg, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. I really appreciate you being here and taking the time   Greg Schwem ** 02:04 Well, Michael, it is an honor to be included on your show. I'm really looking forward to the next hour of conversation. I   Speaker 1 ** 02:10 told Greg a little while ago, one of my major life ambitions that I never got to do was to go to a Don Rickles concert and sit in the front row so that hopefully he would pick on me, so that I could say, Yeah, I saw you once on TV, and I haven't been able to see since. What do you think of that? You hockey puck, but I never got to do it. So very disappointed. But everybody has bucket list moments, everybody has, but they don't get around to I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. Well, the other one is, I love to pick on Mike Wallace. I did a radio show for six years opposite him in 60 minutes, and I always love to say that Wallace really had criminal tendencies, because he started out being an announcer in radio and he announced things like The Green Hornet and the Sky King and other shows where they had a lot of criminals. So I just figured he had to be associated with criminals somewhere in his life. Of course, everybody picked on him, and he had broad shoulders. And I again, I regret I never got to to meet him, which is sort of disappointing. But I did get to meet Peter Falk. That was kind of fun.   Greg Schwem ** 03:15 Mike Wallace to Peter Falk. Nice transition there. I know.   Michael Hingson ** 03:21 Well I am really glad you're with us. So why don't we start? We'll start with the serious part. Why don't you tell us, kind of about the early Greg schwim and growing up and all that sort of stuff, just to set the stage, as it were,   Greg Schwem ** 03:34 how far back you want to go? You want to go back to Little League, or you want to   Speaker 1 ** 03:37 just, oh, start at the beginning, a long time ago, right? I was a   Greg Schwem ** 03:41 very strange child. No, I you. You obviously introduced me as a as a comedian, and that is my full time job. And you also said that I was a former journalist, and that is my professional career. Yes, I went from, as I always like to say, I went from depressing people all day long, to making them laugh. And that's, that's kind of what I did. I always did want to be I majored in Journalism at Northwestern University, good journalism school. Originally, I always wanted to be a television reporter. That was as a professional career I was, I dabbled in comedy. Started when I was 16. That is the first time I ever got on stage at my school, my high school, and then at a comedy club. I was there one of the first comedy clubs in Chicago, a place called the comedy cottage. It was in the suburb of beautiful, beautiful suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, and they were one of the very, very first full time comedy clubs in the nation. And as a 16 year old kid, I actually got on stage and did five minutes here and five minutes there. And thought I was, I was hot stuff, but I never, ever thought I would do it for a living. I thought comedy would always be just a hobby. And I. Especially when I went to college, and I thought, okay, Northwestern is pretty good school, pretty expensive school. I should actually use my degree. And I did. I moved down to Florida, wrote for a newspaper called The Palm Beach post, which, don't let that title fool you. It's Palm Beach was a very small segment of of the area that it was, that it served, but I did comedy on the side, and just because I moved down there, I didn't know anybody, so I hung out at comedy clubs just to have something to do. And little by little, comedy in the late 80s, it exploded. Exploded. There were suddenly clubs popping up everywhere, and you were starting to get to know guys that were doing these clubs and were starting to get recognition for just being comedians. And one of them opened up a very, very good Club opened up about 10 minutes from my apartment in West Palm Beach, and I hung out there and started to get more stage time, and eventually started to realize at the same time that I was getting better as a comedian, I was becoming more disillusioned as a journalist in terms of what my bosses wanted me to report on and the tone they wanted me to use. And I just decided that I would I would just never be able to live with myself if I didn't try it, if I didn't take the the plunge into comedy, and that's what I did in 1989 and I've been doing it ever since. And my career has gone in multiple directions, as I think it needs to. If you're going to be in show business and sustain a career in show business, you have to wear a lot of different hats, which I feel like I've done.   Michael Hingson ** 06:40 So tell me more about that. What does that mean exactly?   Greg Schwem ** 06:43 Well, I mean, I started out as a what you would pretty much if somebody said, If you heard somebody say, I'm a comedian, they would envision some guy that just went to comedy clubs all the time, and that's what I did. I was just a guy that traveled by car all over the Midwest and the Southeast primarily, and did comedy clubs, but I quickly realized that was kind of a going nowhere way to attack it, to do comedy unless you were incredibly lucky, because there were so many guys doing it and so many clubs, and I just didn't see a future in it, and I felt like I had to separate myself from the pack a little bit. And I was living in Chicago, which is where I'm from, and still, still exist. Still reside in Chicago, and I started to get involved with a company that did live trade show presentations. So if you've ever been on a trade show floor and you see people, they're mostly actors and actresses that wear a headset and deliver a spiel, a pitch, like every, every twice an hour, about some company, some new product, and so forth. And I did that, and I started to write material about what I was seeing on trade show floors and putting it into my stand up act, stuff about business, stuff about technology, because I was Hawking a lot of new computers and things like that. This was the mid 90s when technology was exploding, and I started to put this into my stand up act. And then I'd have people come up to me afterwards and say, hey, you know those jokes you did about computers and tech support, if you could come down to our office, you know, we're having a golf tournament, we're having a Christmas party, we would love to hear that material. And little by little, I started transitioning my act into doing shows for the corporate market. I hooked up with a corporate agent, or the corporate agent heard about me, and started to open a lot of doors for me in terms of working for very large corporations, and that's pretty much what I've been doing. I stopped working clubs, and I transitioned, instead of being a comedian, I became a corporate humor speaker. And that's what I do, primarily to this day, is to speak at business conferences. Just kind of get people to loosen up, get them to laugh about what they do all day without without making it sound like I'm belittling what they do. And also when I'm not doing that, I work about eight to 10 weeks a year on cruise ships, performing for cruise audiences. So that's a nice getaway.   Speaker 1 ** 09:18 It's interesting since I mentioned Don Rickles earlier, years ago, I saw an interview that he did with Donahue, and one of the things that Don Rickles said, and after he said it, I thought about it. He said, I really don't want to pick on anyone who's going to be offended by me picking on them. He said, I try to watch really carefully, so that if it looks like somebody's getting offended, I'll leave them alone, because that's not what this is all about. It isn't about abusing people. It's about trying to get people to have fun, and if somebody's offended, I don't want to to pick on them, and I've heard a number of albums and other things with him and just. Noticed that that was really true. He wouldn't pick on someone unless they could take it and had a lot of fun with it. And I thought that was absolutely interesting, because that certainly wasn't, of course, the rep that he had and no, but it was   Greg Schwem ** 10:16 true. It is, and it doesn't take long to see as a as a comedian, when you're looking at an audience member and you're talking to them, it, you can tell very quickly, Are they enjoying this? Are they enjoying being the center of attention? A lot of people are, or are they uncomfortable with it? Now, I don't know that going in. I mean, I you know, of course. And again, that's a very small portion of my show is to talk to the audience, but it is something particularly today. I think audiences want to be more involved. I think they enjoy you talk you. Some of these, the new comedians in their 20s and 30s and so forth. Them, some of them are doing nothing, but what they call crowd work. So they're just doing 45 minutes of talking to the audience, which can be good and can be rough too, because you're working without a net. But I'm happy to give an audience a little bit of that. But I also have a lot of stuff that I want to say too. I mean, I work very hard coming up with material and and refining it, and I want to talk about what's going on in my life, too. So I don't want the audience to be the entire show, right?   Speaker 1 ** 11:26 And and they shouldn't be, because it isn't about that. But at the same time, it is nice to involve them. I find that as a keynote and public speaker, I find that true as well, though, is that audiences do like to be involved. And I do some things right at the outset of most talks to involve people, and also in involving them. I want to get them to last so that I start to draw them in, because later, when I tell the September 11 story, which isn't really a humorous thing. Directly,   Greg Schwem ** 12:04 i know i Good luck. I'm spinning 911 to make it I don't think I've ever heard anybody say, by the way, I was trapped in a building. Stick with me. It's kind of cute. It's got a funny ending. And   Speaker 1 ** 12:20 that's right, and it is hard I can, I can say humorous things along the way in telling the story, but, sure, right, but, but clearly it's not a story that, in of itself, is humorous. But what I realized over the years, and it's really dawned on me in the last four or five years is we now have a whole generation of people who have absolutely no memory of September 11 because they were children or they weren't even born yet. And I believe that my job is to not only talk about it, but literally to draw them into the building and have them walk down the stairs with me, and I have to be descriptive in a very positive way, so that they really are part of what's going on. And the reality is that I do hear people or people come up and say, we were with you when you were going down the stairs. And I think that's my job, because the reality is that we've got to get people to understand there are lessons to be learned from September 11, right? And the only real way to do that is to attract the audience and bring them in. And I think probably mostly, I'm in a better position to do that than most people, because I'm kind of a curious soul, being blind and all that, but it allows me to to draw them in and and it's fun to do that, actually. And I, and   Greg Schwem ** 13:52 I gotta believe, I mean, obviously I wasn't there, Michael, but I gotta believe there were moments of humor in people, a bunch of people going down the stairs. Sure, me, you put people get it's like, it's like when a bunch of people are in an elevator together, you know, I mean, there's I, when I look around and I try to find something humorous in a crowded and it's probably the same thing now, obviously it, you know, you got out in time. But I and, you know, don't that's the hotel phone, which I just hung up so but I think that I can totally see where you're going from, where, if you're if you're talking to people who have no recollection of this, have no memory where you're basically educating them on the whole event. I think you then you have the opportunity to tell the story in whatever way you see fit. And I think that however you choose to do it is there's no wrong way to do it, I guess is what I'm trying to get at.   Speaker 1 ** 14:55 Well, yeah, I think the wrong way is to be two. Graphic and morbid and morbid, but one of the things that I talk about, for example, is that a colleague of mine who was with me, David Frank, at about the 50th floor, suddenly said, Mike, we're going to die. We're not going to make it out of here. And as as I tell the audience, typically, I as as you heard my introduction at the beginning, I have a secondary teaching credential. And one of the things that you probably don't know about teachers is that there's a secret course that every teacher takes called Voice 101, how to yell at students and and so what I tell people is that when David said that, I just said in my best teacher voice, stop it, David, if Roselle and I can go down these stairs, so can you. And he told me later that that brought him out of his funk, and he ended up walking a floor below me and shouting up to me everything he saw. And it was just mainly, everything is clear, like I'm on floor 48 he's on 47/47 floor. Everything is good here, and what I have done for the past several years in telling that part of the story is to say David, in reality, probably did more to keep people calm and focused as we went down the stairs than anyone else, because anyone within the sound of his voice heard someone who was focused and sounded okay. You know, hey, I'm on the 44th floor. This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping. And it it helps people understand that we all had to do what we could to keep everyone from not panicking. And it almost happened a few times that people did, but we worked at it. But the i The idea is that it helps draw people in, and I think that's so important to do for my particular story is to draw them in and have them walk down the stairs with me, which is what I do, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Now I'm curious about something that keeps coming up. I hear it every so often, public speaker, Speaker experts and people who are supposedly the great gurus of public speaking say you shouldn't really start out with a joke. And I've heard that so often, and I'm going give me a break. Well, I think, I think it depends, yeah, I think   Greg Schwem ** 17:33 there's two schools of thought to that. I think if you're going to start out with a joke, it better be a really good one, or something that you either has been battle tested, because if it doesn't work now, you, you know, if you're hoping for a big laugh, now you're saying, Well, you're a comedian, what do you do? You know, I mean, I, I even, I just sort of work my way into it a little bit. Yeah, and I'm a comedian, so, and, you know, it's funny, Michael, I will get, I will get. I've had CEOs before say to me, Hey, you know, I've got to give this presentation next week. Give me a joke I can tell to everybody. And I always decline. I always it's like, I don't need that kind of pressure. And it's like, I can, I can, I can tell you a funny joke, but,   Michael Hingson ** 18:22 but you telling the   Greg Schwem ** 18:23 work? Yeah, deliver it. You know, I can't deliver it for you. Yeah? And I think that's what I also, you know, on that note, I've never been a big fan of Stand Up Comedy classes, and you see them all popping up all over the place. Now, a lot of comedy clubs will have them, and usually the you take the class, and the carrot at the end is you get to do five minutes at a comedy club right now, if that is your goal, if you're somebody who always like, Gosh, I wonder what it would like be like to stand up on stage and and be a comedian for five minutes. That's something I really like to try. By all means, take the class, all right. But if you think that you're going to take this class and you're going to emerge a much funnier person, like all of a sudden you you weren't funny, but now you are, don't take the class, yeah? And I think, sadly, I think that a lot of people sign up for these classes thinking the latter, thinking that they will all of a sudden become, you know, a comedian. And it doesn't work that way. I'm sorry you cannot teach unfunny people to be funny. Yeah, some of us have the gift of it, and some of us don't. Some of us are really good with our hands, and just know how to build stuff and how to look at things and say, I can do that. And some of us, myself included, definitely do not. You know, I think you can teach people to be more comfortable, more comfortable in front of an audience and. Correct. I think that is definitely a teachable thing, but I don't think that you can teach people to be funnier   Speaker 1 ** 20:10 and funnier, and I agree with that. I tend to be amazed when I keep hearing that one of the top fears in our world is getting up in front of an audience and talking with them, because people really don't understand that audiences, whatever you're doing, want you to succeed, and they're not against you, but we have just conditioned ourselves collectively that speaking is something to be afraid of?   Greg Schwem ** 20:41 Yes, I think, though it's, I'm sure, that fear, though, of getting up in front of people has only probably been exacerbated and been made more intense because now everybody in the audience has a cell phone and to and to be looking out at people and to see them on their phones. Yeah, you're and yet, you prepped all day long. You've been nervous. You've been you probably didn't sleep the night before. If you're one of these people who are afraid of speaking in public, yeah, and then to see people on their phones. You know, it used to bother me. It doesn't anymore, because it's just the society we live in. I just, I wish, I wish people could put their phones down and just enjoy laughing for 45 minutes. But unfortunately, our society can't do that anymore, so I just hope that I can get most of them to stop looking at it.   Speaker 1 ** 21:32 I don't make any comments about it at the beginning, but I have, on a number of occasions, been delivering a speech, and I hear a cell phone ring, and I'll stop and go, Hello. And I don't know for sure what the person with the cell phone does, but by the same token, you know they really shouldn't be on their phone and and it works out, okay, nobody's ever complained about it. And when I just say hello, or I'll go Hello, you don't say, you know, and things like that, but, but I don't, I don't prolong it. I'll just go back to what I was talking about. But I remember, when I lived in New Jersey, Sandy Duncan was Peter Pan in New York. One night she was flying over the audience, and there was somebody on his cell phone, and she happened to be going near him, and she just kicked the phone out of his hand. And I think that's one of the things that started Broadway in saying, if you have a cell phone, turn it off. And those are the announcements that you hear at the beginning of any Broadway performance today.   Greg Schwem ** 22:39 Unfortunately, people don't abide by that. I know you're still hearing cell phones go off, yeah, you know, in Broadway productions at the opera or wherever, so people just can't and there you go. There that just shows you're fighting a losing battle.   Speaker 1 ** 22:53 Yeah, it's just one of those things, and you got to cope with it.   Greg Schwem ** 22:58 What on that note, though, there was, I will say, if I can interrupt real quick, there was one show I did where nobody had their phone. It was a few years ago. I spoke at the CIA. I spoke for some employees of the CIA. And this might, this might freak people out, because you think, how is it that America's covert intelligence agency, you think they would be on their phones all the time. No, if you work there, you cannot have your phone on you. And so I had an audience of about 300 people who I had their total attention because there was no other way to they had no choice but to listen to me, and it was wonderful. It was just a great show, and I it was just so refreshing. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 23:52 and mostly I don't hear cell phones, but they do come up from time to time. And if they do, then you know it happens. Now my one of my favorite stories is I once spoke in Maryland at the Department of Defense, which anybody who knows anything knows that's the National Security Agency, but they call it the Department of Defense, as if we don't know. And my favorite story is that I had, at the time, a micro cassette recorder, and it died that morning before I traveled to Fort Meade, and I forgot to just throw it away, and it was in my briefcase. So I got to the fort, they searched, apparently, didn't find it, but on the way out, someone found it. They had to get a bird Colonel to come to decide what to do with it. I said, throw it away. And they said, No, we can't do that. It's yours. And they they decided it didn't work, and they let me take it and I threw it away. But it was so, so funny to to be at the fort and see everybody running around crazy. See, what do we do with this micro cassette recorder? This guy's been here for an hour. Yeah. So it's it. You know, all sorts of things happen. What do you think about you know, there's a lot of discussion about comedians who use a lot of foul language in their shows, and then there are those who don't, and people seem to like the shock value of that.   Greg Schwem ** 25:25 Yeah, I'm very old school in that. I guess my short answer is, No, I've never, ever been one of those comedians. Ever I do a clean show, I actually learned my lesson very early on. I think I think that I think comedians tend to swear because when they first start out, out of nerves, because I will tell you that profanity does get laughter. And I've always said, if you want to, if you want to experiment on that, have a comedian write a joke, and let's say he's got two shows that night. Let's say he's got an eight o'clock show and a 10 o'clock show. So let's say he does the joke in the eight o'clock and it's, you know, the cadence is bumper, bump up, bump up, bump up, punch line. Okay, now let's and let's see how that plays. Now let's now he does the 10 o'clock show and it's bumper, bump up, bump up F and Okay, yeah, I pretty much guarantee you the 10 o'clock show will get a bigger laugh. Okay? Because he's sort of, it's like the audience is programmed like, oh, okay, we're supposed to laugh at that now. And I think a lot of comedians think, Aha, I have just discovered how to be successful as a comedian. I will just insert the F word in front of every punch line, and you can kind of tell what comedians do that and what comedians I mean. I am fine with foul language, but have some jokes in there too. Don't make them. Don't make the foul word, the joke, the joke, right? And I can say another thing nobody has ever said to me, I cannot hire you because you're too clean. I've never gotten that. And all the years I've been doing this, and I know there's lots of comedians who who do work blue, who have said, you know, who have been turned down for that very reason. So I believe, if you're a comedian, the only way to get better is to work any place that will have you. Yeah, and you can't, so you might as well work clean so you can work any place that will have you, as opposed to being turned away.   Speaker 1 ** 27:30 Well, and I, and I know what, what happened to him and all that, but at the same time, I grew up listening to Bill Cosby and the fact that he was always clean. And, yeah, I understand everything that happened, but you can't deny and you can't forget so many years of humor and all the things that that he brought to the world, and the joy he brought to the world in so many ways.   Greg Schwem ** 27:57 Oh, yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And he Yeah, he worked everywhere. Jay Leno is another one. I mean, Jay Leno is kind of on the same wavelength as me, as far as don't let the profanity become the joke. You know, Eddie Murphy was, you know, was very foul. Richard Pryor, extremely foul. I but they also, prior, especially, had very intelligent material. I mean, you can tell and then if you want to insert your F bombs and so forth, that's fine, but at least show me that you're trying. At least show me that you came in with material in addition to the   Speaker 1 ** 28:36 foul language. The only thing I really have to say about all that is it? Jay Leno should just stay away from cars, but that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 28:43 Oh, yeah, it's starting to   Greg Schwem ** 28:47 look that way. Yeah, it   Michael Hingson ** 28:49 was. It was fun for a while, Jay, but yeah, there's just two. It's like, Harrison Ford and plains. Yeah, same concept. At some point you're like, this isn't working out. Now I submit that living here in Victorville and just being out on the streets and being driven around and all that, I am firmly convinced, given the way most people drive here, that the bigoted DMV should let me have a license, because I am sure I can drive as well as most of the clowns around here. Yeah, so when they drive, I have no doubt. Oh, gosh. Well, you know, you switched from being a TV journalist and so on to to comedy. Was it a hard choice? Was it really difficult to do, or did it just seem like this is the time and this is the right thing to do. I was   Greg Schwem ** 29:41 both, you know, it was hard, because I really did enjoy my job and I liked, I liked being a TV news reporter. I liked, I liked a job that was different every day once you got in there, because you didn't know what they were going to send you out to do. Yes, you had. To get up and go to work every day and so forth. So there's a little bit of, you know, there's a little bit of the mundane, just like there is in any job, but once you were there, I liked, just never known what the day would bring, right? And and I, I think if I'd stayed with it, I think I think I could have gone pretty far, particularly now, because the now it's more people on TV are becoming more entertainers news people are becoming, yeah, they are. A lot of would be, want to be comedians and so forth. And I don't particularly think that's appropriate, but I agree. But so it was hard to leave, but it gets back to what I said earlier. At some point, you got to say, I was seeing comedians making money, and I was thinking, gosh, you know, if they're making money at this I I'm not hilarious, but I know I'm funnier than that guy. Yeah, I'm funnier than her, so why not? And I was young, and I was single, and I thought, if I if I don't try it now, I never will. And, and I'll bet there's just some hilarious people out there, yeah, who who didn't ever, who just were afraid   Michael Hingson ** 31:14 to take that chance, and they wouldn't take the leap, yeah,   Greg Schwem ** 31:16 right. And now they're probably kicking themselves, and I'm sure maybe they're very successful at what they do, but they're always going to say, what if, if I only done this? I don't ever, I don't, ever, I never, ever wanted to say that. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 31:31 well, and there's, there's something to be said for being brave and stepping out and doing something that you don't expect, or that you didn't expect, or that you weren't sure how it was going to go, but if you don't try, then you're never going to know just how, how much you could really accomplish and how much you can really do. And I think that the creative people, whatever they're being creative about, are the people who do step out and are willing to take a chance.   Greg Schwem ** 31:59 Yeah, yeah. And I told my kids that too. You know, it's just like, if it's something that you're passionate about, do it. Just try it. If it doesn't work out, then at least you can say I tried   Speaker 1 ** 32:09 it and and if it doesn't work out, then you can decide, what do I need to do to figure out why it didn't work out, or is it just not me? I want   Greg Schwem ** 32:18 to keep going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.   Speaker 1 ** 32:21 So what is the difference between being a nightclub comedian and a corporate comedian? Because they are somewhat different. I think I know the answer. But what would you say that the differences between them? I think   Greg Schwem ** 32:33 the biggest thing is the audiences. I think when you when you are a nightclub comedian, you are working in front of people who are there to be entertained. Yeah, they, they paid money for that. That's what they're expecting. They, they, at some point during the day, they said, Hey, let's, let's go laugh tonight. That's what we really want to do when you're working in front of a corporate audiences. That's not necessarily the case. They are there. I primarily do business conferences and, you know, association meetings and so forth. And I'm just one cog in the wheel of a whole day's worth of meetings are, for the most part, very dry and boring, maybe certainly necessary educational. They're learning how to do their job better or something. And then you have a guy like me come in, and people aren't always ready to laugh, yeah, despite the fact that they probably need to, but they just they're not always in that mindset. And also the time of day. I mean, I do a lot of shows at nine in the morning. I do shows after lunch, right before lunch. I actually do very few shows in the evening, believe it or not. And so then you you have to, you kind of have to, in the while you're doing your act or your presentation or your speech, as I call it, you kind of have to let them know that it is okay. What you're doing is okay, and they should be okay with laughing. They shouldn't be looking around the whole time wondering if other people are laughing. You know, can I, can I? Can I tell you a quick story about how I drive that point home. Why not? Yeah, it's, I'll condense it into like five minutes. I mentioned that I worked on that I work on cruise ships occasionally, and I one night I was performing, and it was the first night of the cruise. And if anybody's ever been on a cruise, note, the first night, first night entertainers don't like the first night because people are tired. You know, they're they're a little edgy because they've been traveling all day. They're they're confused because they're not really sure where they're going on a ship. And the ones that have got it figured out usually over serve themselves because they're on vacation. So you put all that, so I'm doing my show on the first. Night, and it's going very well. And about five, six minutes in, I do a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. And from the back of the room in total darkness, I hear hat just like that. And I'm like, All right, you know, probably over served. So the rule of comedy is that everybody gets like. I was like, I'll let it go once, yeah. So I just kind of looked off in that direction, didn't say anything. Kept going with my active going with my act. About 10 minutes later, same thing happens. I tell a joke. Everybody laughs. Everybody shuts up. Hat now I'm like, Okay, I have got to, I've got to address the elephant in the room. So I think I just made some comment, like, you know, I didn't know Roseanne Barr was on this cruise, you know, because that was like the sound of the Yeah. Okay, everybody laugh. Nothing happened about five minutes later. It happens a third time. And now I'm just like, this is gonna stop. I'm going to put a stop to this. And I just fired off. I can't remember, like, three just like, hey man, you know you're you're just a little behind everybody else in this show and probably in life too, that, you know, things like that, and it never happened again. So I'm like, okay, mission accomplished on my part. Comedians love it when we can shut up somebody like that. Anyway. Show's over, I am out doing a meet and greet. Some guy comes up to me and he goes, hey, hey, you know that kid you were making fun of is mentally handicapped. And now, of course, I don't know this, but out of the corner of my eye, I see from the other exit a man pushing a son, his son in a wheelchair out of the showroom. And I'm just like, Oh, what have I done? And yeah. And of course, when you're on a cruise, you're you're on a cruise. When you're a cruise ship entertainer, you have to live with your audience. So I couldn't hide. I spent like the next three days, and it seemed like wherever I was, the man and his son in the wheelchair were nearby. And finally, on the fourth day, I think was, I was waiting for an elevator. Again, 3500 people on this ship, okay, I'm waiting for an elevator. The elevator door opens. Guess who are the only two people the elevator, the man and his son. And I can't really say I'll wait for the next one. So I get on, and I said to this the father, I said, I just want you to know I had no idea. You know, I'm so sorry. I can't see back there, this kind of thing. And the dad looks at me. He puts his hand up to stop me, and he points to me, and he goes, I thought you were hysterical. And it was, not only was it relief, but it kind of, it's sort of a lesson that if you think something is funny, you should laugh at it. Yeah. And I think sometimes in corporate America, my point in this. I think sometimes when you do these corporate shows, I think that audience members forget that. I think very busy looking around to see if their immediate boss thinks it's funny, and eventually everybody's looking at the CEO to see if they're like, you know, I think if you're doing it that way, if that's the way you're you're approaching humor. You're doing yourself a disservice, if right, stopping yourself from laughing at something that you think is funny.   Speaker 1 ** 38:09 I do think that that all too often the problem with meetings is that we as a as a country, we in corporations, don't do meetings, right anyway, for example, early on, I heard someone at a convention of the National Federation of the Blind say he was the new executive director of the American Foundation for the Blind, and he said, I have instituted a policy, no Braille, no meetings. And what that was all about was to say, if you're going to have a meeting, you need to make sure that all the documentation is accessible to those who aren't going to read the print. I take it further and say you shouldn't be giving out documentation during the meeting. And you can use the excuse, well, I got to get the latest numbers and all that. And my point is, you shouldn't be giving out documentation at a meeting, because the meeting is for people to communicate and interact with each other. And if you're giving out papers and so on, what are people going to do? They're going to read that, and they're not going to listen to the speakers. They're not going to listen to the other people. And we do so many things like that, we've gotten into a habit of doing things that become so predictable, but also make meetings very boring, because who wants to look at the papers where you can be listening to people who have a lot more constructive and interesting things to say anyway?   Greg Schwem ** 39:36 Yeah, yeah. I think, I think COVID definitely changed, some for the some for the better and some for the worse. I think that a lot of things that were done at meetings COVID and made us realize a lot of that stuff could be done virtually, that you didn't have to just have everybody sit and listen to people over and over and over again.   Speaker 1 ** 39:58 But unless you're Donald Trump. Up. Yeah, that's another story.   Greg Schwem ** 40:02 Yes, exactly another podcast episode. But, yeah, I do think also that. I think COVID changed audiences. I think, you know, we talked a little bit earlier about crowd work, right, and audiences wanting to be more involved. I think COVID precipitated that, because, if you think about it, Michael, for two and a half years during COVID, our sole source of entertainment was our phone, right? Which meant that we were in charge of the entertainment experience. You don't like something, swipe left, scroll down, scroll, scroll, scroll, find something else. You know, that kind of thing. I'm not I'm not entertained in the next four or five seconds. So I'm going to do this. And I think when live entertainment returned, audiences kind of had to be retrained a little bit, where they had to learn to sit and listen and wait for the entertainment to come to them. And granted, it might not happen immediately. It might not happen in the first five seconds, but you have to just give give people like me a chance. It will come to you. It will happen, but it might not be on your timetable,   Speaker 1 ** 41:13 right? Well, and I think that is all too true for me. I didn't find didn't find COVID to be a great inconvenience, because I don't look at the screen anyway, right? So in a sense, for me, COVID wasn't that much of a change, other than not being in an office or not being physically at a meeting, and so I was listening to the meeting on the computer, and that has its nuances. Like you don't necessarily get the same information about how everyone around you is reacting, but, but it didn't bother me, I think, nearly as much as it did everyone else who has to look at everyone. Of course, I have no problems picking on all those people as well, because what I point out is that that disabilities has to be redefined, because every one of you guys has your own disability. You're light dependent, and you don't do well when there's dark, when, when the dark shows up and and we now have an environment where Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb, and we've spent the last 147 years doing everything we can to make sure that light is pretty ubiquitous, but it doesn't change a thing when suddenly the power goes out and you don't have immediate access to light. So that's as much a disability as us light, independent people who don't   Greg Schwem ** 42:36 care about that, right? Right? I hear, I agree, but it is but   Speaker 1 ** 42:41 it is interesting and and it is also important that we all understand each other and are willing to tolerate the fact that there are differences in people, and we need to recognize that with whatever we're doing.   42:53 Yeah, I agree.   Speaker 1 ** 42:57 What do you think about so today, we have obviously a really fractured environment and fractured country, and everyone's got their own opinions, and nobody wants to talk about anything, especially politics wise. How do you think that's all affecting comedy and what you get to do and what other people are doing?   Greg Schwem ** 43:18 Well, I think Pete, I think there's, there's multiple answers to that question too. I think, I think it makes people nervous, wondering what the minute a comedian on stage brings up politics, the minute he starts talking about a politician, whether it's our president, whether it's somebody else, you can sense a tension in the room a little bit, and it's, it's, I mean, it's funny. I, one of my best friends in comedy, got to open for another comedian at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago, and I went to see him, and I'm sitting way up in the top, and he is just crushing it. And then at one point he he brought up, he decided to do an impression of Mitch McConnell, which he does very well. However, the minute he said, Mitch McConnell, I you could just sense this is Carnegie freaking Hall, and after the show, you know, he and I always like to dissect each other's shows. That's what comedians do. And I just said to him, I go. Why did you decide to insert Mitch McConnell in there? And I, and I didn't say it like, you moron, that was stupid, yeah, but I was genuinely curious. And he just goes, well, I just really like doing that bit, and I like doing that voice and so forth, but, and it's not like the show crashed and burned afterwards. No, he did the joke, and then he got out of it, and he went on to other stuff, and it was fine, but I think that people are just so on their guard now, yeah, and, and that's why, you know, you know Jay Leno always said he was an equal opportunity offender. I think you will do better with politics if you really want. Insert politics into your act. I think he would be better making fun of both sides. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And I think too often comedians now use the the stage as kind of a Bully, bully pulpit, like I have microphone and you don't. I am now going to give you my take on Donald Trump or the Democrats or whatever, and I've always said, talk about anything you want on stage, but just remember, you're at a comedy club. People came to laugh. So is there a joke in here? Yeah, or are you just ranting because you gotta be careful. You have to get this off your chest, and your way is right. It's, it's, you know, I hate to say it, but that's, that's why podcast, no offense, Michael, yours, is not like this. But I think one of the reasons podcasters have gotten so popular is a lot of people, just a lot of podcast hosts see a podcast is a chance to just rant about whatever's on their mind. And it's amazing to me how many podcast hosts that are hosted by comedians have a second guy have a sidekick to basically laugh and agree with whatever that person says. I think Joe Rogan is a classic example, and he's one of the most popular ones. But, and I don't quite understand that, because you know, if you're a comedian, you you made the choice to work solo, right? So why do you need somebody else with you?   Speaker 1 ** 46:33 I'm I'm fairly close to Leno. My remark is a little bit different. I'm not so much an equal opportunity offender as I am an equal opportunity abuser. I'll pick on both sides if politics comes into it at all, and it's and it's fun, and I remember when George W Bush was leaving the White House, Letterman said, Now we're not going to have anybody to joke about anymore. And everyone loved it. But still, I recognize that in the world today, people don't want to hear anything else. Don't confuse me with the facts or any of that, and it's so unfortunate, but it is the way it is, and so it's wiser to stay away from a lot of that, unless you can really break through the barrier,   Greg Schwem ** 47:21 I think so. And I also think that people, one thing you have to remember, I think, is when people come to a comedy show, they are coming to be entertained. Yeah, they are coming to kind of escape from the gloom and doom that unfortunately permeates our world right now. You know? I mean, I've always said that if you, if you walked up to a comedy club on a Saturday night, and let's say there were 50 people waiting outside, waiting to get in, and you asked all 50 of them, what do you hope happens tonight? Or or, Why are you here? All right, I think from all 50 you would get I would just like to laugh, yeah, I don't think one of them is going to say, you know, I really hope that my opinions on what's happening in the Middle East get challenged right now, but he's a comedian. No one is going to say that. No, no. It's like, I hope I get into it with the comedian on stage, because he thinks this way about a woman's right to choose, and I think the other way. And I really, really hope that he and I will get into an argument about to the middle of the   Speaker 1 ** 48:37 show. Yeah, yeah. That's not why people come?   Greg Schwem ** 48:40 No, it's not. And I, unfortunately, I think again, I think that there's a lot of comedians that don't understand that. Yeah, again, talk about whatever you want on stage, but just remember that your your surroundings, you if you build yourself as a comedian,   48:56 make it funny. Yeah, be funny.   Speaker 1 ** 49:00 Well, and nowadays, especially for for you, for me and so on, we're we're growing older and and I think you point out audiences are getting younger. How do you deal with that?   Greg Schwem ** 49:12 Well, what I try to do is I a couple of things. I try to talk as much as I can about topics that are relevant to a younger generation. Ai being one, I, one of the things I do in my my show is I say, oh, you know, I I really wasn't sure how to start off. And when you're confused these days, you you turn to answer your questions. You turn to chat GPT, and I've actually written, you know, said to chat GPT, you know, I'm doing a show tonight for a group of construction workers who work in the Midwest. It's a $350 million company, and it says, try to be very specific. Give me a funny opening line. And of course, chat GPT always comes up with some. Something kind of stupid, which I then relate to the audience, and they love that, you know, they love that concept. So I think there's, obviously, there's a lot of material that you can do on generational differences, but I, I will say I am very, very aware that my audience is, for the most part, younger than me now, unless I want to spend the rest of my career doing you know, over 55 communities, not that they're not great laughers, but I also think there's a real challenge in being older than your audience and still being able to make them laugh. But I think you have to remember, like you said, there's there's people now that don't remember 911 that have no concept of it, yeah, so don't be doing references from, say, the 1980s or the early 1990s and then come off stage and go, Man, nobody that didn't hit at all. No one, no one. They're stupid. They don't get it. Well, no, they, they, it sounds they don't get it. It's just that they weren't around. They weren't around, right? So that's on you.   Speaker 1 ** 51:01 One of the things that you know people ask me is if I will do virtual events, and I'll do virtual events, but I also tell people, the reason I prefer to do in person events is that I can sense what the audience is doing, how they're reacting and what they feel. If I'm in a room speaking to people, and I don't have that same sense if I'm doing something virtually, agreed same way. Now for me, at the same time, I've been doing this now for 23 years, so I have a pretty good idea in general, how to interact with an audience, to draw them in, even in a virtual environment, but I still tend to be a little bit more careful about it, and it's just kind of the way it is, you know, and you and you learn to deal with it well for you, have you ever had writer's block, and how did you deal with it?   Greg Schwem ** 51:57 Yes, I have had writer's block. I don't I can't think of a single comedian who's never had writer's block, and if they say they haven't, I think they're lying when I have writer's block, the best way for me to deal with this and just so you know, I'm not the kind of comedian that can go that can sit down and write jokes. I can write stories. I've written three books, but I can't sit down and just be funny for an hour all by myself. I need interaction. I need communication. And I think when I have writer's block, I tend to go out and try and meet strangers and can engage them in conversation and find out what's going on with them. I mean, you mentioned about dealing with the younger audience. I am a big believer right now in talking to people who are half my age. I like doing that in social settings, because I just, I'm curious. I'm curious as to how they think. I'm curious as to, you know, how they spend money, how they save money, how what their hopes and dreams are for the future, what that kind of thing, and that's the kind of stuff that then I'll take back and try and write material about. And I think that, I think it's fun for me, and it's really fun to meet somebody who I'll give you a great example just last night. Last night, I was I there's a there's a bar that I have that's about 10 a stone's throw from my condo, and I love to stop in there and and every now and then, sometimes I'll sit there and I won't meet anybody, and sometimes different. So there was a guy, I'd say he's probably in his early 30s, sitting too over, and he was reading, which I find intriguing, that people come to a bar and read, yeah, people do it, I mean. And I just said to him, I go, and he was getting ready to pay his bill, and I just said, if you don't mind me asking, What are you reading? And he's like, Oh, it's by Ezra Klein. And I go, you know, I've listened to Ezra Klein before. And he goes, Yeah, you know? He says, I'm a big fan. And debt to debt to dad. Next thing, you know, we're just, we're just riffing back and forth. And I ended up staying. He put it this way, Michael, it took him a very long time to pay his bill because we had a conversation, and it was just such a pleasure to to people like that, and I think that, and it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing for me to do, because I think people are on their guard, a little bit like, why is this guy who's twice my age talking to me at a bar? That's that seems a little weird. And I would get that. I can see that. But as I mentioned in my latest book, I don't mean because I don't a whole chapter to this, and I I say in the book, I don't mean you any harm. I'm not trying to hit on you, or I'm not creepy old guy at the bar. I am genuinely interested in your story. And. In your life, and and I just, I want to be the least interesting guy in the room, and that's kind of how I go about my writing, too. Is just you, you drive the story. And even though I'm the comedian, I'll just fill in the gaps and make them funny.   Speaker 1 ** 55:15 Well, I know that I have often been invited to speak at places, and I wondered, What am I going to say to this particular audience? How am I going to deal with them? They're they're different than what I'm used to. What I found, I guess you could call that writer's block, but what I found is, if I can go early and interact with them, even if I'm the very first speaker, if I can interact with them beforehand, or if there are other people speaking before me, invariably, I will hear things that will allow me to be able to move on and give a relevant presentation specifically to that group, which is what it's really all about. And so I'm with you, and I appreciate it, and it's good to get to the point where you don't worry about the block, but rather you look at ways to move forward and interact with people and make it fun, right,   Greg Schwem ** 56:13 right? And I do think people, I think COVID, took that away from us a little bit, yeah, obviously, but I but, and I do think people missed that. I think that people, once you get them talking, are more inclined to not think that you're you have ulterior motives. I think people do enjoy putting their phones down a little bit, but it's, it's kind of a two way street when I, when I do meet people, if it's if it's only me asking the questions, eventually I'm going to get tired of that. Yeah, I think there's a, there has to be a reciprocity thing a little bit. And one thing I find is, is with the Gen Z's and maybe millennials. They're not, they're not as good at that as I think they could be. They're more they're they're happy to talk about themselves, but they're not really good at saying so what do you do for a living? Or what you know, tell me about you. And I mean, that's how you learn about other people. Yeah,   Speaker 1 ** 57:19 tell me about your your latest book, Turning gut punches into punchlines. That's a interesting title, yeah, well, the more   Greg Schwem ** 57:26 interesting is the subtitle. So it's turning gut punches into punch punch lines, A Comedian's journey through cancer, divorce and other hilarious stuff.   Speaker 1 ** 57:35 No, like you haven't done anything in the world. Okay, right? So   Greg Schwem ** 57:38 other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln. Yeah, exactly. See, now you get that reference. I don't know if I could use that on stage, but anyway, depend on your audience. But yeah, they're like, What's he talking   Speaker 1 ** 57:50 who's Lincoln? And I've been to Ford theater too, so that's okay, yes, as have I. So it was much later than, than, well, than Lincoln, but that's okay.   Greg Schwem ** 57:58 You're not that old, right? No. Well, okay, so as the title, as the title implies, I did have sort of a double, double gut punch, it just in the last two years. So I, I got divorced late in life, after 29 years of marriage. And while that was going on, I got a colon cancer diagnosis and and at this end, I was dealing with all this while also continuing work as a humor speaker, okay, as a comedian. And I just decided I got it. First of all, I got a very clean bill of health. I'm cancer free. I am finally divorced so and I, I started to think, I wonder if there's some humor in this. I I would, I would, you know, Michael, I've been on stage for like, 25 years telling people that, you know, you can find something funny to laugh at. You can find humor in any situation. It's kind of like what you're talking about all the people going down the stairs in the building in the world trade center. All right, if you look around enough, you know, maybe there's something funny, and I've been preaching that, but I never really had to live that until now. And I thought, you know, maybe there's something here. Maybe I can this is my chance now to embrace new experiences. It was kind of when I got divorced, when you've been married half your life and all of a sudden you get divorced, everything's new to you, yeah, you're, you're, you're living alone, you you're doing things that your spouse did, oh, so many years. And you're having to do those, and you're having to make new friends, yeah, and all of that, I think, is very humorous. So the more I saw a book in there that I started writing before the cancer diagnosis, and I thought was there enough here? Just like, okay, a guy at 60 years old gets divorced now what's going to happen to him? The diagnosis? Kind. Made it just added another wrinkle to the book, because now I have to deal with this, and I have to find another subject to to make light of a little bit. So the book is not a memoir, you know, I don't start it off. And, you know, when I was seven, you know, I played, you know, I was, I went to this school night. It's not that. It's more just about reinvention and just seeing that you can be happy later in life, even though you have to kind of rewrite your your story a little   Speaker 1 ** 1:00:33 bit. And I would assume, and I would assume, you bring some of that into your ACT every so   Greg Schwem ** 1:00:38 very much. So yeah, I created a whole new speech called Turning gut punches into punchlines. And I some of the stuff that I, that I did, but, you know, there's a chapter in the book about, I about gig work, actually three chapters I, you know, I went to work for Amazon during the Christmas holiday rush, just scanning packages. I wanted to see what that was like. I drove for Uber I which I did for a while. And to tell you the truth, I miss it. I ended up selling my car, but I miss it because of the what we just talked about. It was a great way to communicate with people. It was a great way to talk to people, find out about them, be the least interesting person in the car, anyway. And there's a chapter about dating and online dating, which I had not had to do in 30 years. There's a lot of humor in that. I went to therapy. I'd never gone to therapy before. I wrote a chapter about that. So I think people really respond to this book, because they I think they see a lot of themselves in it. You know, lots of people have been divorced. There's lots of cancer survivors out there, and there's lots of people who just suddenly have hit a speed bump in their life, and they're not really sure how to deal with it, right? And my way, this book is just about deal with it through laughter. And I'm the perfect example.   Speaker 1 ** 1:01:56 I hear you, Oh, I I know, and I've been through the same sort of thing as you not a divorce, but my wife and I were married for 40 years, and she passed away in November of 2022 after 40 years of marriage. And as I tell people, as I tell people, I got to be really careful, because she's monitoring me from somewhere, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it, so I got to be a good kid, and I don't even chase the women so. But I also point out that none of them have been chasing me either, so I guess I just do what we got to do. But the reality is, I think there are always ways to find some sort of a connection with other people, and then, of course, that's what what you do. It's all about creating a connection, creating a relationship, even if it's only for a couple of hours or an hour or 45 minutes, but, but you do it, which is what it's all about?   Greg Schwem ** 1:02:49 Yeah, exactly. And I think the funniest stuff is real life experience. Oh, absolutely, you know. And if people can see themselves in in what I've written, then I've done my job as a writer.   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:03 So do you have any plans to retire?   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:06 Never. I mean, good for you retire from what   1:03:09 I know right, making fun of people   Greg Schwem ** 1:03:12 and making them laugh. I mean, I don't know what I would do with myself, and even if I there's always going to be I don't care how technology, technologically advanced our society gets. People will always want and need to laugh. Yeah, they're always going to want to do that. And if they're want, if they're wanting to do that, then I will find, I will find a way to get to them. And that's why I, as I said, That's why, like working on cruise ships has become, like a new, sort of a new avenue for me to make people laugh. And so, yeah, I don't I there's, there's no way. I don't know what else I would do with   Speaker 1 ** 1:03:53 myself, well and from my perspective, as long as I can inspire people, yes, I can make people think a little bit and feel better about themselves. I'm going to do it right. And, and, and I do. And I wrote a book during COVID that was published last August called Live like a guide dog. And it's all about helping people learn to control fear. And I use lessons I learned from eight guide dogs and my wife service dog to do that. My wife was in a wheelchair her whole life. Great marriage. She read, I pushed worked out well, but, but the but the but the bottom line is that dogs can teach us so many lessons, and there's so much that we can learn from them. So I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to create this book and and get it out there. And I think that again, as long as I can continue to inspire people, I'm going to do it. Because   Greg Schwem ** 1:04:47 why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't I exactly right? Yeah, yeah. So,   Speaker 1 ** 1:04:51 I mean, I think if I, if I stopped, I think my wife would beat up on me, so I gotta be nice exactly. She's monitoring from somewhere

Recently, I attended a Quilt Fest at the Pioneer Hall in Freeman, South Dakota. There were 155 quilts displayed, and the featured quilter was a 94-year-old resident of the Salem home. Throughout her life, she has been involved in the making of hundreds of quilts, and love has turned the patterns into works of art. As I stood there by the Christmas quilt, the wedding ring quilt, and many others, there were many warm thoughts that flashed through my mind. In the many quilts I have given away in my lifetime, I have included this poem entitled "Warm Thoughts.""Love is a quilt. A quilt is love, both love and quilt should be soft enough to comfort you, bright enough to cheer you, generous enough to enfold you, light enough to let you move freely, strong enough to withstand adversity, durable enough to last a lifetime and given gladly from the heart." Perhaps we can even say that God's love is a quilt - bright enough to cheer you and generous enough to enfold you and comfort you. An unknown author has written these thoughts on "Another Comforter." "Overnight visits to Grandma's house were a whole new world. Grandma turning the crank on the butter churn, kneading yeasty homemade bread, ironing on the board placed between two chairs with a flat iron heated on the old wooden stove. Then bedtime came with the long truck up the stairs, strange noises, dark shadows. But grandma would always say, there's an extra comforter on the foot of the bed. What a haven. Just pull that comforter up over my head, and strange noises were shut out. Lurking shadows disappeared. No bright flashes of lightning could be seen, no cold chill could penetrate its warmth. But most of all, every hand stitched piece of that comforter radiated grandma's love and care. And grandma reminds me of God, not only did he send his son for our redemption, He went one step beyond and sent another comforter, a haven for every need, shelter, for every storm, light for our darkest days, healer of our deepest sorrows, and the warmth of his very own love.” A Quilters Song, "Oh, give me a scrap bag filled to the brim with bright bits and pieces. So according to when I might make a rainbow or some butterfly wings, a mountain, a sunset and number of things, I thank you, dear Lord, and make quilts be your praise for the stitches and patches that brighten my days." Barbara Kraun. More Warm Thoughts: Oh Lord, make the scraps of my life something useful. Stitch into my life your own design and use me as you will. May you have many warm thoughts in the good ol summertime! Warm Thoughts from the Little Home on the Prairie Over a Cup of Tea written by Dr. Luetta G. WernerPublished in the Marion Record on July 22nd, 1999Download the Found Photo Freebie and cherish your memories of the past.Enjoy flipping through the Vintage Photo Book on your coffee table.I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode! Please follow along on this journey by going to visualbenedictions.com or following me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcast,Spotify,Stitcher, and Overcast. And don't forget to rate and review so more people can tune in! I'd greatly appreciate it.Till next time,Trina

Send us a text This week on Love on the Pod, we're heading back to 1999 with A '90's Christmas—Hallmark's newest time-travel holiday movie starring Eva Bourne as Lucy, a modern woman who mysteriously wakes up in her childhood home on Christmas Eve. With her 2025 life on pause, Lucy gets a second chance to reconnect with her late grandparents, rethink the self involved future she's been chasing and maybe even rekindle a spark with her high school crush. We're diving into the sweet emotional arcs and nostalgic throwbacks. Is this movie a cozy time loop of holiday heart—or just stuck in the past? Let's find out together.  Support the showThank you for listening to this episode of Love on the Pod! Subscribe, Rate, and Review: Don't miss an episode—subscribe to Love on the Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review us! Shop Our Merch: https://www.loveonthepod.com/category/all-productsConnect with Us: Email: loveonthepod@gmail.com Instagram: @LoveOnThePod Visit Our Website: For show notes, episodes and more, visit https://www.loveonthepod.com. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll discuss another holiday favorite. See you next time!

This Week on Next on the Tee Get ready for one of the most fun and insightful episodes of the season! In Part 1 of this week's show, I'm joined by two incredible guests who bring a mix of laughs, life lessons, and game-changing golf knowledge. First up is PGA Professional and Top Mental Performance Coach Joe Bosco. Joe came highly recommended by top instructor Jeff Smith, and after spending time with him, I can see why. Joe is not only a short game guru—he's also a certified hypnotherapist, and in this episode, we dive into what hypnotherapy is, how it works, and how it can help you improve your game and your recovery. (Spoiler alert: I even went through a session myself to help with my ankle surgery recovery!) Joe also shares some techniques and strategies for sharpening your game with your scoring clubs, making this a segment one you'll want to bookmark and come back to. Then, fan favorite and 1989 Open Champion Mark Calcavecchia returns for another round of great stories and off-the-cuff laughs. We hear about the infamous Christmas card from him and Brenda featuring a streaker at The Open, his encounter with a water cooler that nearly took out his mom, and how JC Snead taught him—and by extension, me—what the “Through Line” is and why you don't walk in it. We also talk about his practice rounds with Tiger at the 2000 Open, wins at the 1993 and 1995 Argentine Open, and why he believes All in the Family and Green Acres deserve more love. This one's packed with entertainment and insights from tee to green and beyond. Don't miss it!

Teka is pregnant when she is kidnapped by a woman that tries to steal her unborn baby. Robert is a field geologist working in Alaska, while collecting samples he is mauled by a grizzly bear. Debbie is shot by her boyfriend's irrational drunk brother on Christmas.Apartments.com - To find whatever you're searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.PDS Debt - Get started with your free debt analysis in just 30 seconds at PDSDebt.com/survived!Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Indispensables: How the Marblehead Regiment Saved Washington's Army The Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series

"Real Estate Taxes Have Become a Ponzi Scheme of Biblical Proportions”. Crucial Info Recommended by ACU. Mitch Vexler: "Real Estate Taxes Have Become a Ponzi Scheme of Biblical Proportions Watch this video at- https://youtu.be/R4ryTgcQr48?si=88Y6mVzNlEK5Sog2 Peak Prosperity 555K subscribers 8,126 views Premiered Jul 3, 2025 #donaldtrump #usanews #news Join the #1 resilience community today! https://peak-prosperity.com/ImReadyNow Use coupon code PEAK20 for 20% off a membership today! Curious about Peak Prosperity? It's time to dive in! Join us for a journey of learning and empowerment. Access over 4.5 hours of free foundational lessons and much more. Start your path to understanding and action today. Take action now! https://peak-prosperity.com/TakeAction Join the #1 resilience community today! https://peak-prosperity.com/ImReadyNow Use coupon code PEAK20 for 20% off a membership today! Schedule a free no-obligation discussion with the eQRP team here: https://eqrp.com/chris-martenson/ - Be sure to tell them you were referred by Peak Prosperity and get a $1,000 discount. Want a much steeper discount? Become a member of Peak today! Got Bullion? Click here to talk to our friends at GoldCore: https://Peak-Prosperity.com/GoldCore To obtain your free, no-obligation financial review and plan with Paul's firm, just click this link and fill out the simple form: https://www.peakfinancialinvesting.com/ Learn more about Luke Gromen and his organization here: https://peak-prosperity.com/fftt-tree... Order THE CRASH COURSE here: https://peak-prosperity.com/CrashCour...   --------------------------------------------------------------------  Help Support ACU. Check out our ACU Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ACUPodcast   HELP ACU SPREAD THE WORD!  Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Also Rate us on any platform you follow us on. It helps a lot. Forward this show to friends. Ways to subscribe to the American Conservative University Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FM Player Podcast Addict Tune-in Podcasts Pandora Look us up on Amazon Prime …And Many Other Podcast Aggregators and sites ACU on Twitter- https://twitter.com/AmerConU . Warning- Explicit and Violent video content.   Please help ACU by submitting your Show ideas. Email us at americanconservativeuniversity@americanconservativeuniversity.com   Endorsed Charities -------------------------------------------------------- Pre-Born! Saving babies and Souls. https://preborn.org/ OUR MISSION To glorify Jesus Christ by leading and equipping pregnancy clinics to save more babies and souls. WHAT WE DO Pre-Born! partners with life-affirming pregnancy clinics all across the nation. We are designed to strategically impact the abortion industry through the following initiatives:… -------------------------------------------------------- Help CSI Stamp Out Slavery In Sudan Join us in our effort to free over 350 slaves. Listeners to the Eric Metaxas Show will remember our annual effort to free Christians who have been enslaved for simply acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Savior. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this Christmas, join us in giving new life to brothers and sisters in Sudan who have enslaved as a result of their faith. https://csi-usa.org/metaxas   https://csi-usa.org/slavery/   Typical Aid for the Enslaved A ration of sorghum, a local nutrient-rich staple food A dairy goat A “Sack of Hope,” a survival kit containing essential items such as tarp for shelter, a cooking pan, a water canister, a mosquito net, a blanket, a handheld sickle, and fishing hooks. Release celebrations include prayer and gathering for a meal, and medical care for those in need. The CSI team provides comfort, encouragement, and a shoulder to lean on while they tell their stories and begin their new lives. Thank you for your compassion  Giving the Gift of Freedom and Hope to the Enslaved South Sudanese -------------------------------------------------------- Food For the Poor https://foodforthepoor.org/ Help us serve the poorest of the poor Food For The Poor began in 1982 in Jamaica. Today, our interdenominational Christian ministry serves the poor in primarily 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Thanks to our faithful donors, we are able to provide food, housing, healthcare, education, fresh water, emergency relief, micro-enterprise solutions and much more. We are proud to have fed millions of people and provided more than 15.7 billion dollars in aid. Our faith inspires us to be an organization built on compassion, and motivated by love. Our mission is to bring relief to the poorest of the poor in the countries where we serve. We strive to reflect God's unconditional love. It's a sacrificial love that embraces all people regardless of race or religion. We believe that we can show His love by serving the “least of these” on this earth as Christ challenged us to do in Matthew 25. We pray that by God's grace, and with your support, we can continue to bring relief to the suffering and hope to the hopeless.   Report on Food For the Poor by Charity Navigator https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/592174510   -------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer from ACU. We try to bring to our students and alumni the World's best Conservative thinkers. All views expressed belong solely to the author and not necessarily to ACU. In all issues and relations, we hope to follow the admonitions of Jesus Christ. While striving to expose, warn and contend with evil, we extend the love of God to all of his children. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

Len Testa and Jim Hill look at Disney's latest surveys, hotel rumors, and Halloween Horror Nights announcements—then plunge into the second half of their deep-dive on Pirates of the Caribbean. This time, Jim reveals how Disney navigated a real-life guest frenzy over Captain Jack Sparrow, the surprisingly expensive costume drama that followed, and the face character chaos that nearly derailed New Orleans Square. Plus, early plans for a pirates-themed restaurant, and how Dead Man's Chest almost broke the box office and the parks. Why a cleared canal near Magic Kingdom might be future hotel space Christmas party dates, Festival of the Holidays updates, and DJ Dance Pants How Disneyland kept guests from mobbing Jack Sparrow face characters The $60,000 costume that sparked a parade of cease and desist letters A scrapped pirates dining experience that had Jack eating off your plate Also: Warner Bros. surveys some Vegas-worthy IP ideas, Morrissey or Horror Night house?, and why Robin Williams' mime days live on in Disney animation trivia. SHOW NOTES Support Our Sponsors DVC Resale Market Thinking about joining Disney Vacation Club or selling your contract? DVC Resale Market is the leader in the secondary market, with over 70,000 satisfied DVC members. Their expert team of 21 former DVC Cast Members brings unparalleled knowledge and experience to every transaction, making buying or selling DVC simple and stress-free. Learn More DVC Rental Store Dreaming of deluxe Disney accommodations at a fraction of the cost? The DVC Rental Store connects guests with incredible savings on Disney Vacation Club resorts. Whether you're a DVC member looking to rent your points or a guest looking to stay in style, the DVC Rental Store offers a seamless process for both. Don't forget—they also offer exciting point swaps for unforgettable experiences like cruises and adventures! Learn More Be Our Guest Vacations Planning your next Disney vacation? Be Our Guest Vacations is a Platinum-level Earmarked travel agency with concierge-level service to make every trip magical. Their team of expert agents plans vacations across the globe, from Disney and Universal to cruises and adventures, ensuring you have the best possible experience without the stress. Learn More Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Len Testa and Jim Hill look at Disney's latest surveys, hotel rumors, and Halloween Horror Nights announcements—then plunge into the second half of their deep-dive on Pirates of the Caribbean. This time, Jim reveals how Disney navigated a real-life guest frenzy over Captain Jack Sparrow, the surprisingly expensive costume drama that followed, and the face character chaos that nearly derailed New Orleans Square. Plus, early plans for a pirates-themed restaurant, and how Dead Man's Chest almost broke the box office and the parks. Why a cleared canal near Magic Kingdom might be future hotel space Christmas party dates, Festival of the Holidays updates, and DJ Dance Pants How Disneyland kept guests from mobbing Jack Sparrow face characters The $60,000 costume that sparked a parade of cease and desist letters A scrapped pirates dining experience that had Jack eating off your plate Also: Warner Bros. surveys some Vegas-worthy IP ideas, Morrissey or Horror Night house?, and why Robin Williams' mime days live on in Disney animation trivia. SHOW NOTES Support Our Sponsors DVC Resale Market Thinking about joining Disney Vacation Club or selling your contract? DVC Resale Market is the leader in the secondary market, with over 70,000 satisfied DVC members. Their expert team of 21 former DVC Cast Members brings unparalleled knowledge and experience to every transaction, making buying or selling DVC simple and stress-free. Learn More DVC Rental Store Dreaming of deluxe Disney accommodations at a fraction of the cost? The DVC Rental Store connects guests with incredible savings on Disney Vacation Club resorts. Whether you're a DVC member looking to rent your points or a guest looking to stay in style, the DVC Rental Store offers a seamless process for both. Don't forget—they also offer exciting point swaps for unforgettable experiences like cruises and adventures! Learn More Be Our Guest Vacations Planning your next Disney vacation? Be Our Guest Vacations is a Platinum-level Earmarked travel agency with concierge-level service to make every trip magical. Their team of expert agents plans vacations across the globe, from Disney and Universal to cruises and adventures, ensuring you have the best possible experience without the stress. Learn More Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask David: Chasing, Commitment Problems Sadness as Celebration Is Autism Increasing?  The answers to today's questions are brief and were written prior to the show. Listen to the live discussion for a more in-depth discussion of each question. Today's live podcast discussion with Rhonda, Matt, and David was very energetic and hopefully inspiring for all of you! Today's questions. Aurora asks about a dating problem—the guy I'm dating doesn't want to “commit.” What should I do? Ana asks: I'm 48 now, and about 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with infertility—a devastating moment for someone who had dreamed of becoming a mother since childhood. Through therapy, prayer, and especially your book Feeling Good, I've done deep healing. I truly feel at peace most of the time. My life is full and joyful. But I've noticed that certain dates—especially Mother's Day and Christmas—still bring sadness. Not overwhelming or constant, but a familiar ache that surprises me even now. I use my CBT tools and move through it, but part of me wonders: should I be “over this” by now? Brittany asks: Is autism really on the increase? The following questions will be included in the next Ask David podcast. We did not have time to include them today. Ollie asks: How do you motivate a procrastinating patient to do the hard work of facing the task they've been putting off? Owen asks: Should I complete a full Daily Mood Log each day? Owen asks: Is it okay to copy the positive reframing from a previous DML when relevant? Zainab asks: Is friendship a basic human need?   1. Aurora asks about a dating problem—the guy I'm dating doesn't want to “commit.” What should I do. Hi Doctor Burns, I have been dating a guy exclusively (both only seeing each other) but he doesn't bring up wanting commitment to being in a relationship. He wants to see me in all his free time but tends to plan dates last minute if he does and assumes we will hang out at his place when we get together. He knows I'd like a relationship but said we are working towards that and that it's putting unnecessary pressure when I mentioned it. I'm not sure how long to wait and asking directly for what I'd like (him planning dates in advance) doesn't really help as he quickly got defensive and I then went to using the five secrets. Any advice? Thank you for everything you do, I love your books and podcast so much. They have truly changed my life. You and Rhonda make me smile every day that I listen. If you do by chance use my question would you not include my name? Aurora David's response Yes we can address this during an Ask David. It's great timing since we just had several podcasts on dating questions, Quick answer, and we'll go deeper in the podcast, but it sounds like you're being a bit too available and letting him use you and take you for granted. Remember the Burns Rule: “People ONLY want what they CAN'T get, and NEVER want what they CAN get!” So being more unavailable, letting him know you have other plans (which may simply be not to see him at the last minute), all the while being sweet. When he says he is not interested in a commitment just now, you can use the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, and play the role of “shrink,” not “available lady.” Ask him about that, express curiosity, encourage him to talk. These methods (5 secrets) are an art form, spelled out pretty clearly in Feeling Good Together. Pressing him for a commitment is guaranteed to drive him away. You want HIM to be the chaser, and YOU to be the chased. Also, a Daily Mood Log on thoughts that make you anxious about him, and working toward letting go of “needing” him. Warmly, David Aurora responds to David This is amazing Dr. Burns, thank you so very much! I am so humbled you took the time to read my email, use my questions, and give such a helpful reply. And yes how about the name Aurora! Thank you and Rhonda. Your work has truly changed my life and I am so deeply grateful for all you do. Aurora   2. Ana asks about living with infertility. Hi Dr. Burns, I hope you're well. I had the honor of corresponding with you and Dr. Rhonda last year about my relationship with my mother, and I'm still so grateful for your generosity and the space you gave me on the podcast. Today I write about a different part of my story. I'm 48 now, and about 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with infertility—a devastating moment for someone who had dreamed of becoming a mother since childhood. Through therapy, prayer, and especially your book Feeling Good, I've done deep healing. I truly feel at peace most of the time. My life is full and joyful. But I've noticed that certain dates—especially Mother's Day and Christmas—still bring sadness. Not overwhelming or constant, but a familiar ache that surprises me even now. I use my CBT tools and move through it, but part of me wonders: should I be “over this” by now? Or is it normal that something so deep still stirs, even after years of healing? I sometimes question whether I'm simply very good at coping (I'm an Enneagram 3—always performing strength) or if there's still more I need to process, like the moment both of my sisters-in-law announced their pregnancies during the darkest part of my grief

July brings parades, BBQ meat, burning in the sun, and even Christmas, so we got a guest involved in all of that and then some. John Law grew up around art and pranking which led to a grouping of amazing life stories. From the Cacophony Society, to meat parades, to creating Burning Man and Santacon. We barely scratched the surface of this free spirit and his amazing life. Come listen to some amazing stories.   We also talk about Scott's squirrel visitor,  Mike rescues a bird, we revisit an old beloved character, and play a game involving unique festivals around the world. Have a listen!

Can Bitcoin REALLY hit $300K by Christmas?! Altcoins like, SUI, Hbar, ALGO and XRP are soaring.  With market momentum building, institutional inflows rising, and ETF-driven hype at full steam, many analysts now believe $300,000 BTC is possible by the end of the year.

What if you could double your church's attendance this Christmas … just by doing what other growing churches already do? In this second installment of our special Christmas planning series, Rich Birch unpacks three real-life examples from churches that didn't leave Christmas up to chance—and saw incredible results. These churches represent different regions and contexts, […]

What's up, dudes? It's the Hallmark Ornament Premiere, so I've got the Anthony Caruso from ‘Tis the Podcast and Vinnie Brezinsky from Huey and Bax here to talk the 1989 Hallmark Dreambook—all 32 pages of it! That's right! We get into baubles and finials and cameos! Oh my! We talk our personal collections and which ones from 1989 we own! Spoilers: I have the entire Norman Rockwell cameo set from 80-89! Or do I? Guess you'll have to listen to find out! Peanuts, Paddington, and Rodney Reindeer ornaments make appearances, too! And have you joined the Hallmark Keepsake Ornament Collector's Club yet? Have you decorated your wreaths and garlands with keepsake ornaments? Do you even own a pair of white satin gloves? So bust out your tree and ornaments, put on the Time Life Treasury of Christmas, and travel back to 1989 with this episode!‘Tis the PodcastFB: @tisthepodTwitter: @tisthepodIG: @tisthepodcastGive us a buzz! Send a text, dudes!Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!

Gisela Chavez's then 4 year old daughter Arianny was experiencing flu like symptoms during the 2024 Christmas season and finally after her fever spiked to the 104-105 range Gisela took Arianny to Advovcate Children's Hospital not too far from Chicago, where she was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Arianny's diagnosis was given just after her 5th birthday in January of this year, and she has completed 6 months out of a treatment protocol that still has 2 years to go. 

This week Matt deep dives into the history of the sexy Christmas song "Santa Baby" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on New Dad Gaming, Trevor shares his new dad gaming cubby setup, complete with a Switch Lite gifted by his nephews and an ingenious use of the Quest 3 as a giant PS4 screen. Jeff returns to Death Stranding to prep for its sequel, and the dads compare small cozy games vs. massive open-world grinds. Also discussed: A beautiful dad poem about painted nails and princess parties Dad Beers of Summer featuring Zywiec and Trouble in the Fields Why NHL 2017 might still be the best hockey game The challenge of teen kids forgetting to eat Plans for a future Christmas game swap

[DISCLAIMER: tried something new with editing, so this one might sound louder and different.] Christmas is coming early for SuperPod Saga! To celebrate, Aaron, Kate, and Dre each bought each other some sweet games on Steam. But due to budget constraints at SuperPod HQ, we had to stick with a budget of $1 or less per game. OH, AND GERRY RETURNS.

Ruth's faithful love reflected God's faithful love...

After leaving Uppercross, Anne's time at Kellynch Cottage with Lady Russell is brief. They receive a visit from Mary and Charles, back from Lyme with updates on Louisa and Captain Benwick. The captain certainly sounds smitten with Anne, but he's too shy to travel to Kellynch to call on her, much to Anne and Lady Russell's disappointment. They spend a cozy and chaotic Christmas with the Musgroves, and then it's off to Bath, the prospect of which is as dreadful to Anne as it is welcome to Lady Russell. As Anne's time in one place concludes and a new one begins, let it help you conclude your day and move into a night of peaceful and restorative slumber.-----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

Dale Earnhardt and Cale Yarborough surely won't be exchanging Christmas cards in 1980. The three-time champion has had quite enough of the overzealous sophomore from Kannapolis, but as the season comes to a close, he continues to stand in the way of crown number four for Cale and the Junior Johnson team. Dale and the Osterlund team are going to have a difficult day in Atlanta, and his late race effort to gain his lap back will bring his rivalry with Cale to its absolute breaking point. The two exchange blows in the media, and the points margin stands at 29 as they head to Ontario, California for the season finale. Before making the trip out west, Dale is going to ink a sponsorship deal that he will become synonymous with for most of the 1980s: Wrangler Jeans. With a major brand behind him and his future secured in a five-year deal with Osterlund, the sophomore needs to go into the last race of the season and perform. Wouldn't you know it, Dale and Cale lock up the front row for the race at Ontario, and the dash for the 1980 championship is on. Will it be four-time championship glory for Cale, or can Dale Earnhardt become the first driver in NASCAR history to win a championship in his sophomore season after being crowned Rookie of the Year?