Naked Diner

Jeff Stevenson wrote the book “Fortney Road: Live Death, and Deception in a Christian Cult“ Big ups to friend of the show Ian Harris for his fantastic Christopher Walken impression Intro! A lot of people don’t understand the kind of weird shit that went on in the Jesus movement in the ’60s and ’70s, A LOT more poeple don’t understand this kind of thing still goes on in something like 5,000 communities in the U.S. every day right-the-fuck now. Fortney Road is an important book pointing out how easily a very media savvy group can hide despicable behavior despite critical success. You can purchase Jeff’s book at: http://amzn.to/2cLLCWX As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/schux-famicom/id757234799 amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

3 …3  … 3 guests in one episode this week on the show gang! No kidding, this week Andy and Jack host Dan Mazur, Jordan Stillman, and Troy Minkowsky from Boston Comics Roundtable. Andy and I recognize we’ve been doing some pretty heavy episodes lately, and we really do thank you for loving them the way you’ve been doing (and oh there will be more). But one cannot live on philosophers, political analysts, or anything else alone. So this week we get to talk about independent comic books! It’s very fun. The Boston Comics Roundtable brings Boston cartoonists and writers together to collaborate, workshop and socialize. Comic creators of all skill levels are welcome at their weekly meetings in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, or join the discussion at their Google Group. Also, they have a great new anthology just coming out: the uber successfully kickstarted Boundless Volume 1, which is a comic anthology all about Science! And we know you naked diner patrons love yourselves some science. So Enjoy! As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com   amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Bonus Show! Since September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and it’s National Suicide Prevention Week, and tomorrow September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day it’s a fitting time to have Dese’Rae back in the Diner to remind everyone about her passion project Live Through This. Dese’Rae was last on the show back on Episode 21 to talk about Live Through This and this week in the bonus show we hear all about her more recent exploits. We’re also taking the opportunity to announce that beginning with episode 48 of the show, and throughout Autumn, Andy and Jack will be participating in a podcast Swear Jar campaign to help raise a little money for Live Through this and hopefully help raise some awareness for suicide prevention advocacy as well because we are both generous and profane. Check out the episode for more! Dese’Rae is a suicide survivor and photographer by trade, so her activism project Live Through This documents, visually and in their own words, the lives and stories of suicide survivors. It’s a really cool thing about a topic we all too often sweep under the rug as a society. You should check out all her stuff and consider donating to the project via Patreon (http://patreon.com/livethroughthis), the #STAY t-shirt campaign (http://bit.ly/stayblk), or straight up traditional PayPal donations (http://bit.ly/lttdonate). You can find more Dese’Rae online at http://livethroughthis.org her Twitter (https://twitter.com/deseraestage) or the Live Through This project Twitter https://twitter.com/lttphoto If you’re feeling suicidal, please talk to somebody. You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (veterans press 1) or Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. If you don’t like the phone, check out http://www.crisischat.org or http://www.crisistextline.org. If you’re not in the U.S., you can go to http://iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ for a link to crisis centers around the world. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show";

Paul Fidalgo is the co-host of the Thinkery Podcast (like bakery, but with thoughts) and Director of Communications for the Center for Inquiry. We don’t talk to Paul about CFI related stuff at all this episode; I thought there might be some of that but it never materialized. Why? Well, all 3 of us are what you might call political junkies, and it’s Labor Day in an election year. So basically now is the time where everyone else starts to pay attention to politics as hard as we’ve been paying attention for the last 18 months or so. This week Andy and Jack have an amazing sit down with Paul to talk about politics. This is a bit of a deep dive on why Americans vote the way they do, why America is the way it is, why we have the choices we have, and basically how we ended up where we are. You might remember that Paul was a guest on the show before back on episode 16 when we talked about the merger of CFI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation … and Shakespeare … and Amazon’s return policy. I like Paul because he offers the depth and breadth of a genuine person who isn’t tied down to just talking points and beats that he feels the need to hit. So listen to this episode, because Paul is a good guy. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Massimo Pigliucci is is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College and former co-host of the Rationally Speaking podcast. Earlier in the summer I watch a video Massimo did on Stoicism and Dying with dignity that really got me thinking about death and mourning from a secular perspective, and after a summer of scheduling hiccups we were able to sit down and talk about Stoic philosophy, mortality, and the fast approaching Stoicon and Stoic Week Not going to lie gang, it isn’t every day somebody with Massimo’s bonafides agrees to come on the show, so we were really pretty psyched to have him on and I really think you’re going to enjoy the heck out of this week’s episode. If you want to find more from Massimo his websites HowtobeaStoic.org and platofootnote.org are generally brimming with philosophical goodness. Do check him out because he’s really done A LOT more than I can do justice in the short space I’ve got here. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

We’ve had Brian on the show before back in ep. 25 and back then he was just set to go host a Nobel symposium in Germany. Well … not only did Brian go to Germany to hang out with Nobel laureates he also took the time to go to CERN … y’know … that place with the Shiva statute where there was a fake human sacrifice last week? Yeah there  (sure it’s one of, if not THE, most advanced research facility in the world … but let’s focus on how spooky people’s hoods are when they’re intentionally trying to mess with people). Honestly, if you don’t think the Shiva bit wasn’t trolling … get a grip. But never mind that because we have Science Comedian Brian Malow making his second appearance in the diner and dang he has some great stories about his adventures from home to Germany, to CERN, to the vatican astronomical observatory and back. You need to hear this one! Brian Malow is Earth’s Pre­mier Sci­ence Come­dian (self-proclaimed).  He has per­formed for NSF, AAAS, JPL, NIST, ACS, AGU – and many other acronyms. Brian has made sci­ence videos for Time Magazine’s web­site and is a con­trib­u­tor to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s radio show.  He gives work­shops and pre­sen­ta­tions to train sci­en­tists to become bet­ter speak­ers. Music by: Schux Famicom amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

An oddly serendipitous number for this episode. 42. This episode is about Michael Reaves and the script he wrote for a movie called Blood Kiss. I say that because Blood Kiss, for all the trials and tribulations it’s had trying to get made, is definitely set to star Neil Gaiman, y’know .. Sandman, MirrorMask, American Gods … yeah that one. I suffer over this because as much as I love Mr. G as much today as I did the one time I managed to briefly meet him as an idealistic but insecure teenager back in 1997 (look I have proof) … This isn’t about him. Yes, it’s our 42nd episode. And yes, of course, Neil Gaiman wrote what I (and I’m sure many others) consider the definitive biography on Douglas Adams. There’s just no getting around that. But this episode is about Blood Kiss. I say this in all seriousness: Ignore all that business about Neil Gaiman. He’s great, but this isn’t an episode about Neil Gaiman’s potential foray into acting. This is an episode about a great story, by a great writer named Michael Reaves which will hopefully get made into a movie that we can all enjoy. It’s an episode about a Noir Vampire story, set in 1940’s Los Angeles, written by someone who (if you’re about my age, and grew up with American TV) wrote a lot of amazing things that you remember fondly from childhood and probably helped make you who you are today. This week I sit down with producers David Raiklen and Sarah Char, with some digitally assisted Q&A from Michael himself, about a movie they’re trying to get made called Blood Kiss. It’s about Blood Kiss. So listen to us talk about the movie in all it’s wonkish production nerd glory. Get excited about the movie. Tell your friends about the movie. Help get the movie made. This is our episode about Blood Kiss. Enjoy. I should also mention that next week we have THE Science Comedian Brian Malow returning to the show for a very fun time discussing his hosting of a Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany and exploring CERN, and the week after that we have the brilliant Massimo Pigliucci discussing Stoicism and how to deal with life in general. I don’t mean to brag, but we’ve had a pretty good month. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Callie Wright is co-chair of the LGBTQ Humanist Alliance, an adjunct of the American Humanist Association. and basically awesome. Andy and I had a great time talking with Callie about intersectionality and sleep apnea and genuineness and all kinds of other good stuff so you should totally listen to this episode. It’s good. Then you should also check out her podcast Gaytheist Manifesto http://gaytheistmanifesto.secularmediagroup.com Also, you may have noticed … new music. The new music is courtesy of my good friend Schux Famicom. You’ll be hearing more of that. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Schux Famicom – 7th Avenue. Full album available at https://schuxfamicom.bandcamp.com amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Conrad does a podcast called Kakos Industries, http://kakosindustries.com, which is a radio fiction style show where they promise to Do Evil Better. It’s funny, a little dark, and sometimes controversial. You should totally check it out. Conrad is an artist, filmmaker, and a creator of audio fiction from Phoenix, Arizona. Conrad graduated from ASU’s Film and Media Production program summa cum laude. His thesis film The Atheist was official selection at the 2012 Cinequest Film Festival which you can totally check out here: https://vimeo.com/42188311 Andy and Jack sit down with Conrad to discuss podcasting, film making and a lot of other fun stuff. You can follow Conrad on his site, or on twitter at https://twitter.com/ConradMiszuk As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Steve Hill is a comedian, real-estate appraiser, former enlisted marine, former prison guard, atheist, Satanic Temple LA organizer, and recently ran for California State Senate in CA district 21. He didn’t win but for an openly atheistic Satanist had a really strong showing. We talk about all that as well as race relations, poverty, community activism and more. Steve is a pretty intense guy and this episode is a whole mess of fun and interesting wrapped together. Buckle in gang, it’s a goodie. Steve is on the speakers list at this year’s upcoming Gateway to Reason 2016 You can find out more about Steve on his Facebook or  on Twitter @stevehillcomic in the intro Jack mentioned a video … here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTPyFtPee0E As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

If I had to pick a word to describe this episode it’d be blasphetastic. We decided to call it quits when we realized we were going to start making jokes about Zoraster. If you don’t read MoCartoons you really should at https://mocartoons.com and you should definitely follow Mo on the tiwtters at https://twitter.com/Speak_Easy_Mo/ and help him get more followers than Stephen Anderson. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Abby Hafer is a speaker, writer, and humorist. She also teaches human anatomy and physiology at Curry College. She is the Author of “The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not“. Jack and Andy sit down with Abby to talk about the politics surrounding the anti-evolution so-called ‘science’ of intellegent design (creationism). She also tells us all kinds of really cool stuff about some lesser known animals and, in fact, some things you might know know about us humans too. Big-fun smart talk this week gang. Strap in. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing and http://zxh-creative.com And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Answers in Genesis openned their “Ark Encounter” theme park today. Dan Arel of Patheos, and author of Parenting without God was there to for the protest along with a slew of Atheist Activists like Aron Ra, Dave Silverman, David Smalley from Dogma Debate … just a bunch of good folk protesting against government money being spent on religious indoctrination. Dan has written for CounterPunch, CommonDreams, AlterNet, Time Magazine, On Faith, Salon, and many others. He maintains a full-time blog on the Patheos Network called Danthropology and writes a column of the same name for American Atheist magazine. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Sarah, erstwhile proprietor of Panels by Geek Gal http://www.panelsbygeekgal.com, is a true nerd and hoo-wee did we have a lot of fun this week getting our geek on. We know we’ve been hitting the serious topics pretty hard lately and I’ve got to say it was really nice to just have a straight-up literary discussion about comic books, urban legends, and geek culture to give us some breathing space before we jump back into politics or religion again (which I assure you we will, I’ve seen our calendar). Besides it’s the 4th of July, you don’t want a big heavy thinky show, do you? Nah. So we made you this, which we think is just the thing to pair with a hotdog or burger to jumpstart your geeky BBQ conversations about whether Wolverine would beat Batman in a fight or if the Baba Yaga and Krampus summer together in the Mediterranean. Big fun! So happy Independence Day and check out Sarah at her site and over at her twitter As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. Music: Justin Mahar-The Grind under a CC BY 3.0 license. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";

Back in February Co-Host Andy and I had W. Kamau Bell on the show. This was long before Trump was the Republican nominee, and if you’d listened to Kamau maybe he wouldn’t be. Kamau said [about Trump]  “white people, come get your boy” Now, if you’re in the atheist community at all you probably saw, or at least tangentially heard about, yesterday’s interaction between Patheos’ BarrierBreaker Martin Hughes and YouTube’s The Amazing Atheist. Martin called TJ out on one of TJ’s videos, and TJ responded at length. To be honest, in my time in the online atheist community … I’ve watched a lot of TJ’s videos. Sometimes his rants are spot on. But since I’ve been doing interview shows with all kinds of people I’ve learned enough to know that my opinion is definitely warped by my position in society. [come get your boy] So when all this stuff between Martin and TJ touched off … we did our thing. And, since Co-Host Andy has close ties over at Patheos, we set up a half hour with Martin for immediate release. I’m not saying TJ is a bad guy. From what I’ve seen I kinda like TJ as a person. But I just think he’s coming from a place in all this that’s too … frankly, up his own ass. I’m not going to say “Check your privilege” or “Stop whitesplaining” or anything like that, because I don’t think that kind of thing actually helps. I guess what I mean is … shunning and isolating doesn’t help. Let’s have a real conversation about this stuff. So here is our half-hour impromptu bonus show with Martin Hughes from BarrierBreaker reacting to TJ’s reaction to his blog post. As always you can find Jack at: https://twitter.com/ledflashing And Andy At: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/ or https://twitter.com/laughpurgatory. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "zxcr-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "manual"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_title = "From Guests of the Show"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "f8f2941afc01beac7b0a804f20960bae"; amzn_assoc_asins = "1449479677,0982853718,B005FYCGIK,B00TA2IB7I";