Superheroes dominate cinema and pop culture, and they have for a while now. Sure, there's been a shift in movie theater attendance post-COVID pandemic, but people still show up for superheroes. I wondered why, so I asked an expert on the subject why he thinks caped crusaders and teams of mutant misfits capture our imagination. Find @BlerdWithoutFear over on his YT channel! Social links: https://bydonmartin.com/social-media Buy Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire: https://bydonmartin.com/verity-v...
Jul 08, 2025•1 hr 15 min
The internet has become a place where we all perform for one another, where authenticity is both something to aspire to and something to be wary of. I sat down with Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey to discuss the role of the content creator, how it differs from an influencer, and what it means to exist on social media these days. Find Franchesca on her website at: https://www.franchesca.net/ Pre-order Where Did Everybody Go?: https://bydonmartin.com/where-did-everybody-go%3F Pre-order Verity Vox ...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 4 min
If you are someone who has complained that every new piece of media is a sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, or a studio banking on pre-existing IP (intellectual property) to bring in audiences, this is the episode for you. We are kicking off 2025 with Nadira Goffe, a staff writer at Slate, who helps us contextualize this moment in pop culture as well as looking back at a time when media felt like "hope-ium". Links, books, and more at https://bydonmartin.com/...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr 37 min
Grab your wieners, your marshmallows, your bad haircuts, and toss them all on the funeral pyre of 2024. Robyn Valentine , co-host of the Coffee & Cauldrons podcast and author of Magickal Tarot & The Apprentice Witch, joins me to review the highs, lows, personal triumphs, and things we'd love to leave behind as we BURN 2024 DOWN to prepare for a bright new year ahead. Hopefully. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: htt...
Dec 24, 2024•1 hr 58 min
Ella Harrison is the author of The Book of Spells . She has a degree in anthropology and uses her social media platform to educate and entertain audiences on the topics of folklore, folk magic, and the history of holiday traditions. If you've ever wondered about figures like Krampus or Perchta, this is the show for you. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@head...
Dec 10, 2024•1 hr 5 min
They say all politics is local, but that's difficult to believe when every single topic of conversation at our dinner table seems to have national stakes. From the books on our kids' shelves to who reads those books to them to the statues in our parks to who is allowed in our parks, every issue large and small feels like it's operating on some grand scale. It's hard to gain perspective, hard to know what information to trust, especially when some of our politicians are telling us not to trust wh...
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Thanks to the Make America Healthy Again movement, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation on the rise about food, "chemicals", and whether what we eat is safe. Thankfully, Erin the Food Science Babe is here to help. Subscribe to Erin's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/FoodScienceBabe Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 5 min
The mantel of the witch is one that has been worn by people for all sorts of reasons. There are those who don the black hat for political purposes, as a feminist symbol, or a way for those who find themselves on the margins of society in one way or another to reach for the power they otherwise could never hope to have. Then there are the people call themselves witches because they cast spells and divine the future and talk to the dead. And still there are others conjuring up new titles or resurr...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 37 min
Dr. Sam Montano is no stranger to combating conspiracy theories regarding emergency management. She’s been doing it since Hurricane Katrina. She holds a BS in Psychology, as well as Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Emergency Management and teaches the subject at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Her book Disaster-ology came out in 2021. I sat down with her to help parse fact from fiction on what FEMA is, the politicization of climate disasters, and how emergency managers are preparing for the next...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 5 min
A.J. Jacobs is a New York Times bestselling author known for his immersive, year-long experiments, including The Year of Living Biblically , The Know-It-All , and his latest book, The Year of Living Constitutionally . Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-f...
Oct 01, 2024•57 min
By all accounts Victoria Aveyard is both an outlier and also as close to the Hollywood version of becoming an author as it gets. While the average age for a debut novelist is around 36, Victoria’s debut novel—Red Queen—was published shortly after graduating from college and went on to become a massive, runaway success. And so did all of the rest of her novels. In fact, every one of Victoria’s novels has been a New York Times bestseller, and she even made it onto the coveted Bestseller Series lis...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Charlie Sprinkman developed the app Everywhere Is Queer , which is quickly becoming one of the best, most comprehensive lists of queer owned and operated businesses. Whether you’re looking for a travel agent, a craft store, a bakery, or a horse ranch, the Everywhere is Queer app is helping people realize that supporting queer owned and operated businesses in person and online might be easier and closer to home than people realize…just in time for you to divert those Brr month shopping dollars to...
Sep 03, 2024•53 min
Danny Hieber earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his B.A. in linguistics and philosophy from the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Prior to and during graduate school he worked for Rosetta Stone ’s Endangered Language Program to create language-learning software with Native American communities. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonf...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr 20 min
Chris Copeland has worked on some of your favorite things. Invincible, The Witcher, Young Justice, and he made his directorial debut for Dreamworks on the series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. He’s had a long career that began here in Chicago as a nerd who loved superheroes and now gets to help bring them to life. We talked about how a storyboard artist is one of the first people to visualize what a writer has written, how animation kept Hollywood alive during a time of crisis, and how you kn...
Aug 06, 2024•1 hr 31 min
Roberta Blevins left the MLM world in 2017 and spent all of her time since then educating the public on the dangers involved in joining these barely legal pyramid schemes. She was a key witness in the case against Lularoe and was featured in the documentary LuLaRich which showcased how the billion dollar clothing company misled thousands of women. These days Roberta educates people via her podcast and social media platform titled Life After MLM where she helps people unpack the history, legality...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 27 min
Clare Brown is a satirist and author of the new audiobook New Nigeria County. Her social media platform is famous for flipping gender and racial stereotypes while both educating and inviting her audience to laugh. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.co...
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Even if you don’t play video games, Jennifer Hale is still probably one of your favorite actors…you just didn’t know it. As of this recording she is just shy of 500 acting credits on IMDb including numerous roles in the Star Wars universe, Mortal Kombat, DC, Marvel, Disney. Even Biker Mice from Mars…remember that? She’s been in DuckTales and Rick and Morty and The Little Mermaid and the Big Bang Theory and the PowerPuff Girls and Scooby Doo and Melrose Place. She’s been Ivy in Where on Earth is ...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Maggie Tokuda-Hall is a children’s and young adult author who writes stories that help kids of all types see themselves on the page as the main character. She also writes books that help parents and kids have age appropriate conversations about the world we live in. One of those books, Love In The Library, became the centerpoint for exposing a longtime issue with a major children’s publisher and book distributor about the practice of quietly asking authors to censor themselves in exchange for vi...
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 17 min
Dr. Althea Need Kaminske is a cognitive psychologist who teaches at the Indiana University school of medicine interested in the application of human memory research to educational settings. She also helps run The Learning Scientists, an international group of cognitive psychologists who engage in science communication about the science of learning. Her new book, The Psychology of Memory, came out earlier this month. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram....
May 28, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Matthew Keith is a Barbie collector, photographer, and doll expert whose work has been featured in The Los Angeles Time, NewNowNext, and on a social media feed near you. Find him at https://www.dollsonthebrain.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Buy me a Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/headonfirepod Subscribe to the ...
May 14, 2024•58 min
Chaya Milchtein is known to the internet as the Mechanic Shop Femme. She uses her platform and her new book Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership— to make every facet of car ownership less terrifying—from the day you decide to purchase to doing your own regular maintenance and care—and she’s showing folks in the margins of society who are typically left out of these spaces that we belong in the shop and showroom too. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.in...
Apr 30, 2024•51 min
Kevin Maxen is a strength and conditioning coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s also the first male coach in major American men’s professional sports to publicly come out as gay. I sat down to talk to him about what it takes to train some of the world’s best athletes, divorcing yourself from outside criticism, and whether the NFL is finally becoming more welcoming to the queer community. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitte...
Apr 16, 2024•47 min
Dr. Maya C. Popa is a poetry educator, a poetry critic, and a poet in her own right. She is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, a professor of poetry at NYU, and her most recent collection, titled Wound is the origin of wonder , was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of Poetry and has been featured in The Washington Post , The Irish Times, The Harvard Review , and Booklist. I sat down with her to talk about the state of poetry education, why poetry gets such a bad rap, as well as...
Apr 02, 2024•58 min
Dan Savage has done a lot of things in his life. He founded both the It Gets Better project and the Hump porn festival. He popularized the Campsite Rule of relationships. He made Rick Santorum’s name a dirty word. And he’s been one of the country’s foremost sex, dating, and relationship advice columnists since the creation of Savage Love in 1991. He’s a pioneer of podcasting, a former drag queen, and he is my guest today. We discussed sex, advice, and sex advice. Email: contact@headonfirepod.com...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 18 min
With spring right around the corner, many people are thinking about cleaning their homes and turning to social media for tips and tricks only to suddenly learn we all seem to be doing everything wrong. That's where Melissa Pateras, the lesbian queen of Laundrytok and author of the new book A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home, comes in. She told me all the secrets of folding a fitted sheet, the magic of swapping your fabric softener for vinegar, and whether any of those homemade washing powder recipes ...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Jinkx Monsoon (she/her) is a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner, Broadway breakout star, and soon to be villain on the beloved British sci-fi series Doctor Who coming to Disney+ in 2024. The self-proclaimed “internationally tolerated” drag icon has taken over the entertainment industry as an award-winning stage actress, acclaimed vocalist, stand-up comic, and theatre sensation. Jinkx first garnered an international fan base following her win on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 (2013), and continued h...
Feb 20, 2024•54 min
Kyne Santos uses social media to teach math subjects that range from simple addition and subtraction to more esoteric concepts about impossible objects or quantum mechanics. And he does it in drag. Because sometimes Kyne puts on a wig, drops the surname and becomes the Canadian Drag Race superstar alum Kyne who teaches us how math can be a living, breathing, interesting subject that both enriches and entertains. Kyne's new book, Math in Drag, comes out March 5, 2024. Social links: Instagram: htt...
Feb 06, 2024•47 min
2023 was great and terrible. There were technological marvels, horrible television, phenomenal movies, brilliant books, and more author drama than you ever thought possible. Come around the dumpster fire as Meg Elison and I build the year its funeral pyre. Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Buy me a Ko-Fi: https:...
Dec 26, 2023•1 hr 40 min
Bonnie Klopfer is an actress and comedian whose videos have been loved by millions of people around the world. She’s a stand up regular in LA and makes content online about finding the funny in mundane things, including a breakout series of shorts about product packaging. Find her here: https://linktr.ee/boobieklapper Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreo...
Dec 12, 2023•1 hr 18 min
We are often told to ignore anger, to repress anger, that anger has no value in a polite society. Anger gets us in trouble. Anger removes our ability to think rationally. Anger is always bad all of the time and we should never, ever feel it. Or, at least, that's what we've been told. Some researchers wanted to test that theory, and turns out it might not be true. Dr. Heather Lench is a professor specializing in affective science, personality processes, and social & personality psychology. Sh...
Nov 28, 2023•38 min
