🇺🇸 United States Episodes

Clifford Bleszinski, aka Cliffy B, is a video game designer, and former design director for the game development company Epic Games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Birbiglia is a comedian, writer, actor, and director, and his latest special "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend" is available now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Phil Demers is a former Marineland employee turned truther, also known as the Walrus Whisperer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brody Stevens is a stand-up comedian and actor, currently starring in his own show on Comedy Central, "Brody Stevens: Enjoy It!". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gene LeBell is an American martial artist, instructor, stunt performer, and professional wrestler. He has also worked on over 1,000 films and TV shows and has authored a number of books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greg Fitzsimmons is an American stand-up comedian. He also hosts his own podcast "FitzDog Radio" available on Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. is a psychologist, speaker, and author of New York Times best seller "Sex At Dawn". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tom Rhodes is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and TV host. Currently he hosts his own podcast available on Spotify called Tom Rhodes Radio. Bryan Callen is an actor, stand-up comedian, and host of his own podcasts: The Bryan Callen Show and The 10-Minute Podcast, with co-hosts Will Sasso and Chris D’Elia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lorenzo Hagerty is a former attorney, corporate CEO, and US Naval officer. He currently hosts the popular podcast "The Psychedelic Salon". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lorenzo Hagerty is a former attorney, corporate CEO, and US Naval officer. He currently hosts the popular podcast "The Psychedelic Salon". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeremy Stephens is an MMA fighter currently fighting in the UFC's featherweight division. Eddie Bravo is a jiujitsu black belt, music producer, and author. He also hosts his own podcast called "Eddie Bravo Radio". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Graham Hancock is an English author and journalist, well known for books such as "Fingerprints Of The Gods" & "Entangled" and also a new fiction book called "War God" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ana Kasparian is a producer and co-host of "The Young Turks" and also teaches journalism at Cal State Northridge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Hadfield is a retired Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space. He also authored the New York Times Bestseller "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Justin Foster is a stand-up comedian and also hosts his own podcast, called "Foster the Podcast". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is currently only available as audio. This podcast was recorded during the production of "Joe Rogan Questions Everything" which originally aired on SyFy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Producer Sarah Koenig's mother lives by a set of rules about conversation. She has an actual list of off-limits topics, including how you slept, your period, your health, your diet and more. You don't talk about these things, she says, because nobody cares. This week we try to find stories on these exact topics that will prove her wrong. Sarah's mom, Mrs. Matthiessen, doubts that the staff of This American Life can find great stories about her conversational no-nos. (7 minutes)Act One: Okay, so we admit, that this story that a woman named Ninon told Sarah at a dinner party isn’t strictly about menstruation, but we're going to beg indulgence because it has all the key ingredients of a good menstruation story. (7 minutes)Act Two: Dr. Steven Bratman has spent a lot of time around people with extreme and unusual diets. He tells Ira Glass that for some of them, it's not about losing weight but about becoming more pure. Dr. Bratman is the author of Health Food Junkies. (7 minutes)Act Three: Deborah Lott comes from a family that obsesses over health. And when they all get together for dinner, their banter goes on overdrive. She recorded their last dinner party, and assures producer Brian Reed that this is a typical dinner for them. Deborah recently completed a memoir, Tell Me I’m Still Breathing: A Memoir of an Anxious Childhood. You can find more of her work at her website. (10 minutes)Act Four: Dr. Cady Coleman is a NASA astronaut who has spent more than 4300 hours in space. Our senior producer Julie Snyder asked her what it's like to sleep while orbiting the earth. (3 minutes)Act Five: A group of people have a dream club that meets twice a month to talk about their dreams. Sarah and her mom join one of their meetings. (7 minutes)Act Six: Chris Garcia and his dad were driving home, listening to oldies, sharing a bag of chips. A totally familiar scene for them. They’d driven this route probably hundreds of time, but something odd was happening in the car, so Chris started recording their conversation on his phone. He tells producer Nancy Updike what happened.Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Dan Carlin is an amateur historian and former radio talk show host. He now hosts two popular podcasts available on Spotify: "Common Sense" and "Hardcore History". Daniele Bolelli is an Italian author, professor, and martial artist. His books include "Create Your Own Religion" and "On the Warrior's Path". His podcast called "The Drunken Taoist" is available on Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maynard James Keenan is a singer, songwriter, producer, winemaker, and actor, best known as the vocalist for Grammy Award-winning rock band Tool, Puscifer, and A Perfect Circle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stories of when things go wrong. Really wrong. When you leave the normal realm of human error, fumble, mishap, and mistake and enter the territory of really huge breakdowns. Fiascos. Things go so awry that normal social order collapses. Prologue: Jack Hitt tells the story of a small town production of Peter Pan in which the flying apparatus smacks the actors into the furniture, and Captain Hook's hook flies off his arm and hits an old woman in the stomach. By the end of the evening, firemen have arrived and all the normal boundaries between audience and actors have completely dissolved. (4 minutes)Act One: Jack Hitt's Peter Pan story continues. Jack is the author of several books, including Bunch of Amateurs. (19 minutes)Act Two: A medieval village, a 1900-pound brass kettle, marauding visigoths, and a plan to drench invaders with boiling oil that goes awry. From Ron Carlson's book, The Hotel Eden: Stories, read by actor Jeff Dorchen. Ron Carlson's newest book is Return To Oakpine. (9 minutes)Act Three: The first day on the job inevitably means mistakes, mishaps, and sometimes... fiascos. A true story, told by a former rookie cop. (13 minutes)Act Four: Journalist Margy Rochlin on her first big assigment to do a celebrity interview. It was 1982. The interviewee was Moon Unit Zappa, who'd just released "Valley Girl" with her father Frank. She'd only been interviewed once. Midway through the interview: fiasco! Margy chokes on some coffee, which pumps out of her nose. Moon's mother administers the Heimlich Maneuver. And after that, everyone's so relaxed that Margy gets an interview that becomes her first syndicated article and a big scoop for her paper. When a fiasco destroys social boundaries, it can bring people together. (7 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.