Episode 95 - Michael Z.

Here endeth the exercise.  This is - i believe - my last episode of The Drunkalogues.  It's been a great experiment.  I'm thankful to all my guests and listeners for participating in this exploratoin of stories about addiction and recovery.  For the last episode, my friend Paul Kolsby - a writer and producer on Ozark - interviews me. 

Whenever I think of incomprehensible demoralization, I think of this episode... just the bafflement at the inability to stop and the inability to imagine a life without it.... but he makes it throughhhhhh!!!!  

Sometimes, it's amazing to me that with all my privileges and advantages I've still struggled to make it through this life. And yet my next guest is a guy who really had none of that - absentee parents running from their own mess inflicting their trauma on their poorskids. And somehow he found a way through - a way that was aided and abetted by drug and alcohol abuse - but a way nonetheless. He has two books out now The Wisdom of the Rooms and The Twelve Steps: A Modern Hero's journey which the kirkus review called unexpectedly gripping. Won't you please welcome, Michael Z.   Buy his book here:  https://a.co/d/itIECxR

When I was an assistant at William Morris my boss would sometimes hire this masseuse - Steve - to come into the office and give everyone neck and shoulder massages. And he would laugh that my session was always a kind of wrestling match. "Nick, relax," he'd say. "This is meant to be enjoyable!" This next interview feels a little bit like that. We wrestle for a rhythm that works, but somehow get there in the end. My next guest was a drug dealer for decades, ran a recovery film film festival, founded the experience strength and hope awards and has a new book out, now: High From Cannabis to Clarity. Won't you please welcome Leonard Lee Buschel.

Kaila Yu used to tell people that she was born in Tai Pei, she was actually born in Lawence Kansas and moved to Southern California at a young age where she was reared by her tiger mom parents until she discovered ecstasy and cocaine in Socal's rollicking rave scene of the early aughts. She dropped out of UCSD and became an import model making money as a pinup girl in the underground world of street racing. She eventually got sober and worked every twelve-step program under the sun before finding her footing as a writer. She's just written a new memoire published by Penguin Randomhouse called- "Fetishized - A reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism and Beauty" which explores how media, pop culture, and colonialism as well as her own behavior have contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women. 

This was one of my very fist insterviews, and I really didn't know what to expect. Every interview back then felt so fraught - like there was so much at stake.  As you can see, this one was pretty intense! It's starts out with some fun stuff about Terrence Trent Darby and Shawn Michael Howard's earlly career and then takes a turn... here are the original notes (which I beleive my guest dictated): Shawn Michael Howard - Actor, Voice Over Artist, Believer.

I made this podcast just as the pandemic was starting to let up.  What a joy it was to be back in the same room with a guest... even though most of my intervies now happen online regardless... Patrick O'Neil's new book "Anarchy at The Circle K" - chronicling his life as a tour manager for punk rock bands like The Dead Kennedys - is out now.  He is also a teacher and a substance abuse counselor. But before all that -- he was a bank robber -- responsible for a series of hold ups in the bay area with a gang of guys known as the "Men In Black."  This episode is such a powerful exploration of the slippery slope that is addiction as well as the capricious nature of grace. You can support this podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/thedrunkalogues

It's gotta be tough to live in the shadow of a famous sibling - your identity always somehow tied up in theirs.  It got especially complicated for my next guest, because his famous brother, Chris Farley, died of a drug overdose and then he found himself guarding his brother's legacy through the Chris Farley Foundation - a non-profit dedicated to the prevention of substance abuse -  while he was enduring his own struggle with alcoholism at the same time.  Despite being surrounded by recovery experts, he came to recovery in his own personal way and is now the director for community outreach for recovery.com - an organization that helps connect patients with a recovery path that is right for them.  Won't you please welcome Tom Farley.   you can check out recovery.com here...   Recovery.com  

Joe Hart is the balm you need in these fractious times! here are the original notes! I've wanted to interview Joe Hart from the moment I started making this podcast as he has always exuded a powerful empathy for everyone around him even when things in his own life were clearly not going his way.  He grew up in New York in a house his dad built with his own hands and eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. And it was only after enduring a series of confouning drunken mishaps out on the road with a touring company that one of his colleagues came to him and suggested, "you don't have to live like this."  It reminds me there's help and there's grace everywhere.

I have a new podcast.  It's a storytelling podcast.  It's called Mortonopoulis.   You can check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mortonopoulis/id1798342136 or visit it on substack where it exists as an essay writing exercise. https://substack.com/@mortonopoulis?utm_source=user-menu Lemme know what you think!! Peace.