Be prepared for an excellent MBSing episode full of campfires, merit badges, and Eagle Scouts with my friend Adam. He loves how much he learned as a scout, the time he got to spend with some of his best friends and father, and all the nights spent around a campfire (that he built) cooking for and otherwise entertaining his troop. It doesn’t surprise me to learn that the BSA was a very formative aspect of young Adam’s life as he’s only ever treated me and the audiences I’ve seen him entertain wit...
Jan 20, 2016•1 hr 43 min
Caitlin's going to the [theatre] and she's gonna get married [in October], so she took this opportunity to express her love for wedding planning and how much that interest shifted when she had to think about the reality of getting the details nailed down for her own. From saving pages of Martha Stewart magazines in college to carefully curating four different Pinterest boards today, Caitlin has scoured plenty of sources for wedding options and has a good grasp on what she wants, doesn't want, an...
Jan 13, 2016•1 hr 17 min
His Name is Grant, and he wants wants Everybody to grab a seat and take in some sweet musical vids (actually, No Scrubs allowed). From the time of daily Daly fixes to the gift that was YouTube, music videos have shaped how Grant consumes music, spends time with friends, gets ready in the morning, and views musical artists' artistic desires. We cover everything from angry white boy anthems from Limp Bizkit to the soft, sad jams of Grimes and TLC. I love the insight that on at least some level, a ...
Jan 06, 2016•1 hr 16 min
Leah Frires brought some much needed soul to MBSing with talk about her love of all things Motown. We spent time talking The Temptations, Steve Wonder, Diana Ross, and plenty of others PLUS we chatted about the cool bands her parents have been members of over the years that kept Leah passionate about music. I try to uncover how watching a modern version of The Temptations crushed Leah's spirit, but she was just too taken by them. We may meander here and there, but talk about how the Motown music...
Dec 30, 2015•1 hr 50 min
It's an MBSing holiday special as I welcome back Kevin Budnik 100 episodes later to talk about a very specific, festive corner of his original topic, cartoons. We cover a lot of ground (Catdog, As Told By Ginger, The Wild Thornberrys, Fairly Odd Parents, etc.), but we spend the most time dissecting Rugrats Chanukkah and the Christmases of Doug, Hey Arnold, and Rocko. My favorite part is not the nostalgia but how we view these specials as adults and the lasting themes they have for us. Kevin's go...
Dec 23, 2015•1 hr 37 min
Jacob Eugene Horn grew up not ON a farm, but surrounded by farms in small town Wisconsin. His helping his neighbors over the years before he struck off for Chicago the day he graduated from college inspired a passion that evades his life. Between a Master's program in Sustainable Urban Development, jobs with the Chicago Park District and Windy City Harvest, and a general interest in and passion for knowledge of zoning laws and urban farming, Jacob's making Chicago a greener place. What a nobel p...
Dec 16, 2015•1 hr 48 min
Shawn and Steve share an interesting and important bond: a fascination with the ongoing phenomenon that is Garfield. As almost lifelong comic fans, they can both recognize the broad appeal The Garf had early in their lives that got them hooked and the gratitude they have for his role as an entry point as consumers and producers of comics. We spend time exploring the business acumen behind Jim Davis's creation and curation of the Garfield brand and trying to find a comparable character (or set of...
Dec 09, 2015•1 hr 33 min
Mark Logsdon has been a father for almost six months. Meanwhile, I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning. We talk a lot about the tangible and intangible ways your life and the way you interact with the world changes when you have a child. We hear the birth story, some trials that have already had to be overcome, and how overall Mark's capacity for love has increased every day. Having a kid has forced Mark to recognize what is important to him. I wish the best of luck to Mark, his amaz...
Dec 02, 2015•1 hr 56 min
Dave Maher has been interested in reading self-help lit since before he feels he'd even established a sense of self to help. Early interest in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Bible started him down a road of reading about ways to improve his spiritual, mental, and creative health. Three or four years ago, Dave found himself totally embedded in a search for a return to spiritual rituals (like the church-going days of his youth) and a transition from one creative medium to another ...
Nov 25, 2015•1 hr 13 min
Arnie Niekamp wants you to watch television shows he likes, but he's apprehensive about blanket recommendations of inconsistent shows. Some of his favorite television is wrapped up in shows that have ups and downs (Fringe, Twin Peaks, X-Files...), and we all know how hard it is to get into a new show that starts slow AND how hard it is to turn one's back on an old favorite. We explore episodic TV vs. serial stories, how hard it is to make a good sitcom pilot (or hell, first season), and the meri...
Nov 19, 2015•1 hr 14 min
Mary-Kate and Moira might as well have some sort of blood oath as they are such sweet friends and cocreators, and it was a true joy to chat with them about why they feel drawn to vampire stories. From strong female blood suckers (Carmilla, Dracula's Daughter) to lamer lady vampire loves (I'm looking at you, Twilight), these two bad asses can't get enough of the exploration of what makes vampires, and in turn humans, tick. Check out their work with The Otherworld Theatre company (where Mary-Kate ...
Nov 11, 2015•1 hr 30 min
Expect a good episode from Eileen Tull as we unpack why she gets wrapped up in anticipation of things like a new Star Wars film or a first date with a guy she met online. Rest assured she's already got [three separate sets of] tickets for The Force Awakens and plenty to talk about where Harrison Ford is concerned (that factors into the dating stuff, too). Turns out if you have sky high expectations for someone you only know a checklist of things about and are trying to compare him to a Hollywood...
Nov 04, 2015•1 hr 40 min
Katie [Bell] and I get all witchy with it as we discuss her mad [eye] love of Harry Potter. We share a mutual favorite book (Goblet of Fire), which Katie tells me is the pivotal book of the series - the others mirror one another in themes and storylines (1 and 7, 2 and 6, 3 and 5). She learned this from an entire course on Harry Potter she got to take as a student at Columbia College. Dope. She also covers how the series taught her the importance of representation in media and conquering one's f...
Oct 28, 2015•1 hr 42 min
I could easily make a list of ways Joke Laughstein is a total bundle of giggles and joys, but I'd rather let him show you with his own bevy of lists. These lists, that he visits and maintains on at least a daily basis, run the gamut from ridiculous ideas to self betterment to consumption recommendations. Joke's seriously silly attitude for projects and life in general make him a wonderful guest only topped by a dog wearing roller blades (<--- an actual entry from one of Jake's lists). Demetri...
Oct 21, 2015•1 hr 30 min
For Caitlin Costello, St. Patrick's Day has more significance than plastic hats and green beer. The holiday means corned beef and potato dishes with her huge family at her grandmother's house in Notre Dame, IN. They all lived close enough to the stadium that their addresses were Notre Dame, not South Bend. She never stood a chance against falling in love with her family's Irish roots. Hearing about how the holiday has changed in her life since she came to school in Chicago (to defy her Notre Dam...
Oct 14, 2015•1 hr 28 min
Meaghan Strickland spent every summer of her youth bouncing around from basketball camp to basketball camp due to her dad's position as a high school/college basketball coach. Her own journey as a player from childhood through her high school days was always colored by his insistence on mastering the fundamentals, so we pass stories back and forth of our summers: hers being bball camp-learned skills, mine being getting (mostly cross-) cast in numerous community theatre productions. We most certa...
Oct 07, 2015•2 hr
Alex Cox, Deputy Events Manager at Cards Against Humanity and cohost of the Roboism podcast, came on MBSing to talk of her love of all the little robots in her life. From R2D2 to Siri and an MIT robotics lab to Ex Machina, we cover a lot of AI and Sci-Fi robot ground all within a discussion of gender, feminism, and general altruism and humanity as it relates to robotics and the empathy that makes us humans. Thanks to Emporium Arcade Bar for sponsoring and The Chicago Podcast Cooperative for coor...
Sep 30, 2015•1 hr 32 min
Time for some spooky scary movie talk with dear friend Lee Russell. Lee and I have taken the stage together in the Annoyance Theatre's send up of slasher movies, Splatter Theatre, for three years now, and in this ep we get to really break down the source material. From Nightmare on Elm Street to It Follows, Lee has grown up with horror films from a probably too early age and is willing to get into the why of his love for them. The emotions and drive behind these scary stories intrgue him more th...
Sep 23, 2015•1 hr 35 min
John Hartman's love of The Smiths was kindled in college but really seems to have reached its pinnacle in recent memory: John tells stories of finally catching a Morrissey show that wasn't cancelled, getting pranked by the MD at Second City who slipped a song from the morose, Manchester band into a show, and connecting with other huge fans of the band via comedy. John speaks on how the dark humor of Morrissey's lyrics his affected his own comedy and how he's come to appreciate The Smiths as arti...
Sep 16, 2015•1 hr 15 min
Becca Brown has been attending concerts since she was five or six watching Carlos Santana with her father and realized that was an actual thing people could do for a living: be a performing rock musician. (Yes, she IS young enough that this was around the time of Santana's collaboration on "Smooth" with Rob Thomas, and yes we DO both unironically enjoy that song.) From here through more concerts (Elton John) and more exploring of strong women in rock (Janis Jopin), Becca solidified that she want...
Sep 09, 2015•1 hr 38 min
Your friendly neighborhood Brandon Shockney swung by MBSing with some sweet Spider-Man knowledge in tow. From the uber '90s animated series to the current Ultimate Spider-Man comic series with Miles Morales to the next remounting of Spidey's story on the big screen, Brandon and I explore what it is about Spider-Man that makes him an accessible hero. I learned a ton about the different iterations of the character while Brandon humored my critiques of the more recent additions to the Marvel film u...
Sep 02, 2015•1 hr 41 min
When TBox told me he planned to discuss gasoline, I was all, "whaaaaat?" Then he outlined his work history with various responsibilities at refineries and rigs, and I was all, "coooooool!" A couple science nerds get to break down the chain that creates gasoline and other products from crude oil and the work that goes into getting that "devil jizz" out of the ground. TBox and I exist in the middle of a lot of very specific Venn diagrams, and this ep was a delight to relish in the details. Stick a...
Aug 26, 2015•1 hr 21 min
Brendan Dowling stopped by MBSing to weave tales of mystery and intrigue. We covered the books, television, and film he grew up with and continues to enjoy all in the vein of whodunits (The Westing Game, Marple, and Clue, to name a few), and I love the insight into what draws him to the genre and how it feeds into his life as a performer. Some personal highlights include that Brendan knows he's immediately interested in something if it's set at a boarding school, that he developed a love for a P...
Aug 19, 2015•22 min
MCAmy (AKA Ms Sumpta if ya nasty) joined me for a second time (I LOST THE FIRST ONE. AN MBSing FIRST. SHE TALKED ABOUT THE WHITE SOX AND IT WAS A GREAT EP, TOO) to talk her love of everyone's favorite hip hop group featuring three Jewish dudes from NYC. After laying down the truth on how the Boys' gear change around '94 to clean up their lyrics turned her into a feminist, Amy breaks down the origins of her all-female Beastie Boys tribute band, She's Crafty. Yeah. You read that right, and it's th...
Aug 12, 2015•1 hr 29 min
Tim Swindle of Utter Nonsense stopped by for brunch talk, and we had the best time exploring our favorite things about everyone's favorite weekend meal. From preferences on how we like everything cooked to what we like to drink to how we like to socialize, we cover a lot of ground [coffee]. Probably not the best idea to listen on an empty stomach. In the last year, Tim turned a penchant for providing entertainment for his brunch guests into a party-perfect card game called Utter Nonsense. As of ...
Aug 05, 2015•1 hr 27 min
Jon Pernisek knows all things Wizard of Oz, and we had a delightful time talking a heap of silly adaptations of the book that mostly just rip off or repurpose the iconic 1939 film. While Jon has an appreciation for things like The Wiz, Return to Oz, and Wicked, he can also recognize when things are LAZY or BAD, so we have fun lambasting some projects that were probably doomed from the start. The Wizard of AIDS, 50 Shades of Oz, and a Thanksgiving special where Dorothy meets a mince meat pie in O...
Jul 29, 2015•1 hr 45 min
Tyler Paterson is a more than a guy sharing an urban legend around a campfire. Though he and his family do enjoy this pastime, they're only telling stories of their own experiences. Tyler has experienced constant unsettling dreams and various unexplainable events with ghosts in his life, and as a result he has essentially academically studied ghosts and used his experiences as inspiration for multiple supernatural romance ebooks published under a pen name and a published novel of his own called ...
Jul 22, 2015•1 hr 33 min
Rosie Moan was a sexy little baby. Wait. No. Um. Rosie discovered her own sexuality at a fairly young age and has never looked back. Fueled by curiosity and a slightly hippy, open upbringing, she has never had much of an issue removing the stigmas from sexual pleasure, partners, patterns, etc., and we had a great time discussing our own experiences with sexuality as well as bigger picture steps forward in accepting everyone's sexuality because in the end who gives a shit we should all just be ha...
Jul 15, 2015•1 hr 48 min
Chicago expat Katie Wadsworth has spent the last year in Dallas, Texas, living with her parents and girlfriend as she went to school to become an EMT to save money for a big move to LA. I had the best time Skyping with her as she covered what the year has been like back under her parents' roof, how she looks back on the time she spent in Chicago, and the anxieties and excitement of picking up and moving forward to LA. Her older sister has twin toddlers, and all three of them lived in her parents...
Jul 08, 2015•1 hr 29 min
Liz is SO WISE and full of great advice and the desire to listen and bestow advice. She's also totally willing to admit that some of that desire comes from a place of voyeurism, which is part of why she loves devouring advice columns. We chat about the idea that all advice is autobiographical, most of it is timeless, and a vast majority of good advice points out things you already knew about the situation but were not willing to face on your own. Liz is also an expert on discerning punishments f...
Jun 30, 2015•1 hr 39 min
