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...

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: [email protected] Social links: Instagram:...

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: [email protected] Social links: Instagram:...

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...

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:...

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...

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...

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...

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:...

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...

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...

Hannah Robinson has been an editor at some of publishing’s biggest houses. HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster—where we met—and now Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette. She primarily works with non-fiction, which is a massive slice of the publishing pie that seems to get all but ignored on social media. We had a discussion about what the job of an editor is, what it isn’t, and whether they’re the scary gatekeepers aspiring authors make them out to be.  And because I couldn’t...

Jerry Saltz is one of the last real critics, the kind of critic that matters, whose voice is held in high esteem both by the art world and by the artists who make the world go round. He’s been the senior art critic for New York Magazine since 2006. He also happens to be one of, if not the most, widely read critics in the world—possibly outranked by his wife. He is a former long-haul truck driver, a failed artist, and a Pulitzer Prize winner, and he is my guest today. We had a far reaching...

My guest today is Diana Helmuth. She is an award-winning author of a book about hiking who decided to take a page, or several, out of the books of people who I look up to: AJ Jacobs, Mary Roach, Elizabeth Gilbert. Authors who spent time approaching a field as a complete novice in order to learn everything they could about it, to see how it might change them, to see what we can learn about ourselves through the challenge of transforming some integral part of our lives. Her project? The...

Alicia Simpson is a registered dietitian and the Executive Director for Pea Pod Nutrition, a nonprofit dedicated to the nutritional health of Georgia families. She holds a Master’s degree in Nutrition from Georgia State University and a PhD in public policy. For years she worked as a professor teaching these issues to college students, but for the past several years she has made it her mission to provide this vital information to children and families. I sat down with Alicia to have a...

From best-selling novels like "Mexican Gothic" to blockbuster media hits like "The Last of Us," it seems like everyone is buzzing about fungi these days. Think of it as your houseplant's weirder, spongier, and creepier cousin. Fungi have a significant role in decomposition, which adds to their eerie reputation. However, they can also serve as food, a recreational drug, a source of medicine, and even a multi-story residence if you happen to be a Smurf. As we delve deeper into the world of...

When you think about what the ocean sounds like, what does your brain conjure up? Maybe the gentle ebbing and flowing of tides? Maybe you think of marine life? Perhaps the songs of whales or that clicking sound dolphins make. But what about the snapping of air bubbles created by thousands of shrimp in tide pools? What about the ambient noise of both the shallow and deep parts of the ocean? Have you ever considered those, and, more importantly, have you ever considered that what the ocean...

Matthew Blake, better known as Flamy Grant, is a shame slaying, hip swaying drag queen from the Bible Belt who also happens to be a gospel singer. Her debut album Bible Belt Baby came out in 2022 and largely flew under the radar until she came under fire from a conservative preacher that decided to make her the target of an online hate campaign. The campaign backfired. Big time. Instead of sending the drag queen’s gospel album off into obscurity, he put a massive spotlight on it which sent it...

Bonnie McKee is a singer, songwriter, director, actor, and world class DIYer. She's written numerous number 1 hits for artists like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Cher, and Katy Perry. She's also a pop star in her own right, having released the album Trouble, the EP Bombastic, and the single American Girl among many, many other indie hits. After a decade of writing smashes for everyone else in the music business, she's making a return behind the microphone with her much...

As a lifelong geek I will preach the good word of all things niche and nerdy to anyone who will listen and even some who won’t. I’m the kind of person who strongly believes that a good story can change your entire outlook, that a well-crafted game can be a balm for the soul, and that superheroes can save you even if they aren’t real.  But there are a lot of aspects of geek culture that are still seen as far-fetched, laughable, even dangerous by authority figures, especially when it comes to...

This show is all about overlooked or misunderstood fields, and in 2023 I can think of no more misunderstood field than that of gender affirming care. It is the boogeyman of every conservative talking head and your transphobic aunt’s Facebook feed. There is so much misinformation floating around social media and YouTube, oftentimes masquerading as fact-based or presented by experts.  So I wanted to talk to an expert.  Dr. Ashley Brandt is a board certified OBGYN with a fellowship in gender...

David Archuleta began winning singing contests while many of us were learning how to ride a bike. He won Star Search at the age of 12. When he was 16 he auditioned for American Idol, and by the time it was all over he’d come in second, got a recording contract, and was whirled into a studio to create his debut album and smash single ‘Crush’ at the age of 17.  In the blink of an eye he was suddenly in a cohort that featured the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, and was duking it out...

We are in an era of remakes and reboots and revivals and retellings of stories that were just remade and rebooted and revived and retold less than a decade ago. An era of cinematic universes whose stories sometimes don’t feel like they go together, characters that seem to suddenly change in power and personality. Sometimes it can be enough to make even the most chill movie goer wonder where all the new ideas are.     But, this isn’t anything new in storytelling. The greek myths are pretty...

Ryan La Sala is a bestselling, award winning author of multiple queer books. His horror novel, The Honeys, is a love letter to queer folks who thought Clueless and The Craft should have had a crossover film. It was named the best book of 2022 by NPR, New York, public library, school library, journal Barnes & Noble, and publishers weekly. He’s currently serving as executive producer on the film adaptation, but he took time out of his busy schedule to have a chat with me about writing in...