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Episodes from RISK!
Into the Mystic
This one goes deep. "Into the Mystic" first aired in February 2014, and it brings together three accounts of the uncanny from three storytellers who had no map for what they were experiencing. Christine Lee, an Episcopal priest, has spent years navigating the gap between the faith she teaches and the faith she actually feels. When a parishioner with a seriously injured knee agrees to be prayed over, Christine finds herself in the stairwell of her church, watching something she cannot explain. (Content note: emotional abuse, child psychological abuse) Lulu grew...
Brutal Authority
Guest-host Taj Easton is in the chair this week, presenting these two stories on the long shadow of patriarchy with a particular attentiveness, repeatedly asking the same leading question: Are straight men okay? Cassidy Krug arrives at Stanford a diver of moderate ambition, then spends nine years being screamed at by a coach whose legendarily ruthless style drives her to the Olympics. Fifteen years after retiring, she still isn't sure whether what got her there was abuse, or maybe exactly what she needed. (Content note: domestic violence) Thomas Brazzle grows...
Fascination
This one goes back to February 2014: a live RISK! episode built around the theme of fascination, meaning the things that get under your skin and won't let go. Ryan Britt was a self-appointed porn expert at age 10, thanks to his father's very open magazine policy and to a darkroom box labeled "Do Not Open" that turned out to contain something far more interesting than photographic paper. Adam Wade spent years nursing a Rick Moranis complex, right up until a chance encounter at a pharmaceutical convention gave him an unusual opportunity to put...
Patreon Picks #6
Two storytellers, two very different ways of inheriting the past. Shauna McGarry throws a Halloween party with her newly single roommate, hoping for a fresh start after a breakup. A drunk coworker zeroes in on the roommate, her little brother in a Charlie Brown shirt enters the mix, and the night expands into something Shauna has been watching her whole life: the strange, exhausting game of male presumption that nobody asked to play. (Content note: Holocaust, genocide) David Zellnik arrived in Vienna for the first time as a dual US-Austrian...
Live From NYC Podfest 2014
Originally recorded live at NYC Podfest in January 2014, this is one of those classic RISK! episodes where the theme, confession, actually delivers on its promise. Kevin Allison opens with a story he has told for years, then stops midway to admit he has been leaving out the best part. What he adds reframes everything. Alex Edelman turns a power strip at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport into a secret-collecting operation, until a soldier from Ramstein Air Force Base shares something that neither of them can easily walk away from. Chemda recounts her first time getting...
What the Body Keeps
Two stories about what the body holds onto and what it eventually gives back. Ali Mac took a job in crypto after two years of Nazi death threats courtesy of Fox News. At the Miami Bitcoin Conference in 2022, she finds herself escorting her boss down a hallway and comes face to face with Tucker Carlson, broadcasting live, sitting very low, blissfully unaware of what is about to happen to him. (Content note: death of a partner) Gordon Blitz has been with his partner Scott since 1973, through an...
The Best of Mother’s Day Stories #4
Two mothers' days that look nothing alike, but hit just as hard. Jobim Santos grew up watching his mother Linda lose her battle with ALS piece by piece, from cane to wheelchair to hospice bed, all while praying at church each week that she would just live long enough to see him turn 13. She didn't quite make it. What he didn't expect was that grief would take another 13 years to fully arrive. (Content note: domestic violence, murder) Amy Brooks got a phone call one Monday morning about a blue-eyed three-year-old...
The Best of RISK! #35
This episode brings together two of the most gripping conversations in the show's recent run: a man who survived an extended stint in a Philippine jail on fabricated charges, and a medical student whose addiction and grief turned out to be more entangled than she had ever let herself understand. (Content note: accusations of sexual assault, child abuse, false imprisonment) Scott McMahon went to Manila for a construction job, ended up befriending a Belgian neighbor, and got pulled into a nightmare when that neighbor's wife turned the Philippine justice system against him...
I'm Okay, You're Okay
From the RISK! archives, this January 2014 episode gathers three storytellers around a theme that sounds simple and turns out not to be: actually being okay with yourself. Joel Kim Booster grew up as a gay Korean adoptee in an evangelical family, and it wasn't until he fell for a man who specifically desired him because of his race that he realized how thoroughly someone else's rejection had shaped his sense of his own worth. Dylan Brody has been performing the postmortem on his own victories since fifth grade, and it took competing in a full-contact...
Pop Obie’s Vibrator
Guest-hosted this week by Taj Easton, stepping in for Kevin to present a story by LeCount Holmes Jr., now Taj’s surrogate pops. (Content note: explicit sexual activity involving a minor) LeCount Holmes Jr. grew up with a father who told him he loved him, hugged him, cried in front of him, and believed that teaching his son how to love a woman was one of the most sacred things a father could do. This is the story of that education, of what was passed down through three generations of loving men, and one of th...
The Best of Adventure Stories #3
Two RISK! stories pulled from the archive, and both are worth your time. "The Best of Adventure Stories #3" is funny and unsettling in equal measure, sometimes within the same story. Winter Tashlin was 16 years old, at a Jewish summer camp in New York, and desperately wanted one good day. The plan was the Empire State Building and a performance of Les Mis. He has Tourette syndrome, the city is unforgiving, and the day keeps getting worse. Meanwhile, Marshall York drove solo across the American West, pitched a tent alone in the Grand...
Weirdos
This episode is a love letter to people who are magnificently, irrepressibly, sometimes accidentally weird. Larry Dorsey Jr. opens with the true account of his first day teaching standup comedy at Northern California's top improv venue. He has TAs, a curriculum, a strategy. None of it survives contact with a visibly high student who, roughly fifteen minutes into class, pulls out his ding-dong and just starts going, putting Larry in an impossible position. And Tuesday Thomas moves to LA fresh from a divorce, meets Alexis Arquette within her first week, and ends up at a film premiere...