S02 EP09 Singing, Strumming Drama Therapist | Nicole Brucato Cooley

S02 EP09 Singing, Strumming Drama Therapist | Nicole Brucato Cooley

Based in the Tahoe Lake region of California, Nicole Brucato Cooley is a drama therapist, singer, musician, yoga teacher, and a real renaissance woman after my own heart. Nicole shares stories from her private therapy practice that have lead her to have many insights about the simple medicine of physical embodiment, human connection and the power of play. She also plays "Wayfaring Stranger" for us at the end! Bonus: Astrological Weather Report from Vedic astrologer Donny Boots.

LISTEN HERE | Nicole’s private practice— Green Room Healing Arts | Nicole’s Tahoe-based blues band— Bluesberry Jam | Purchase a copy of Nicole’s Drama Therapy Review article HERE

S02 EP08 Donny Boots | Poet + Vedic Astrologer

2.08 Donny Boots | Poet + Vedic Astrologer

Donny Boots is an Irish-American poet and Vedic astrologer who grew up in Queens, and happens to be the first Artist-in-Residence at The Nest. Donny sits down with me on a fine fall afternoon to talk about his training under a Taoist tea master in Oakland, his path to discovering his Celtic roots by studying Jyotish astrology and the King Arthur mythology that's present in the current new moon.

Donny Instagram— contemporary aliens | Donny’s Website— donnyboots.space | LISTEN HERE

S02 EP07 Field Notes– End of Summer

LISTEN S02 EP07 Field Notes– End of Summer

This is a very raw update on The Nightmare We Are Living from my little corner of the world-- reporting on the end of summer from the wild fire zone of Northern California. Hoping this helps all of you out there! This episode is just me talking into my phone while I water the marijuana plants. No script, filters or polish. Just me, talking to you. I'm keeping it real out here, ya'll, hope you are too. Follow the LOVE!

S02 EP06 The Difference Between Artists + Influencers

LISTEN Episode 2.06 The Difference Between Artists + Influencers

This episode is about understanding the difference between an Artist and an influencer. For many years, influencers have occupied the space in popular culture and the Collective Imagination that is typically held by real Artists. Real Art transforms the creator and the audience, it comes into being through a collaboration with its locality— using everything and anything that is available— it’s a collaboration involving materials, labor, planning, creation and distribution— using all of your local resources— in your town or in your profession. And then it grows from there. In the way that Prince can thank the underground Minneapolis music scene for his origin— we all start somewhere small and local. Grass-roots style.

The best Art— meaning the Art that endures throughout history— is organic, as opposed to manufactured. Mistaking influencers for Artists is very dangerous for the health of the Culture. It’s the equivalent of mistaking corporate fast food for a farm-raised, home-cooked meal. I’m emphasizing the difference to help us understand what it is we’re missing in our souls right now, too. I want to us re-calibrate our senses and re-train ourselves to actively seek out irreplaceable, authentic passion— the radiating energetic vitality and alive-ness that is real and makes your loins swell! Our job now is to find and cultivate that passion in ourselves AND others. Whatever your dream is, now is the time to go for it. There is no “better” time. There is only now.

If not now, when? If not us, who? LISTEN HERE

Pair this episode with the recent New Yorker article— What the “Creator Economy” Promises—and What It Actually Does — By Kyle Chayka

The essay form of this episode is available in the BLOG section.

S02 EP05 My Approach To Shadow | Solo Episode

EP 02.05 My Approach To Shadow | Solo Episode

As life still twists and turns, trying to find a rhythm worth dancing to, I’m sending another Emergency Broadcast out to all the Artists, Pioneers, Dreamers and Adventurers out there who are helping me make this new Renaissance that the Culture needs. It ain’t gonna be easy. In my own life, I’m only sticking around for situations that allow me to be my FULL self and I’m sticking to it. Many will fall away. They may return later, but integrity is essential right now. This is a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME RISE-TO-THE-OCCASION SITUATION.

So, I’m sending you some deep insider wisdom to help you see where you’re going out on the wild frontier. In this episode, I explain my approach to doing shadow work...which, if you know me at all...you know damn well, that it's just as fun and weird as I am! I was feeling like there is too much heavy stuff on the internet about shadow work being "dark"-- like it's some intense, scary confrontation. But being in the dark just means that it's not visible. So, I explain some of my ways in and the benefits of taking the time to learn this language-- so you can better integrate the wisdom of your dreams, intuition, imagination, shadow AND even your inner child-- into your conscious, waking life.

Don’t you love this photo!? I took it in a little medieval town called Český Krumlov, in Southern Bohemia in the Czech Republic— this is a huge clay Golem sculpture from a wax museum! So good. LISTEN HERE

S02 EP01 SEASON 2 OPENER | SOLO SHOW

LISTEN S02 EP01 | Season 2 Opener | Solo Show

Welcome back and you are welcome. Season 2 opens with a dense-yet-rambling missive from yours truly. You don't know how hard it was for me to start talking publicly again, whew! But I'm busting through the fog-- filling you in on what I've been doing these past 6-7 months, loading you up with my favorite esoteric/spiritual ideas and getting us back on the same page...talking about living an artistic life in this crazy old world! So, dive in! It’s good to be back.

Sound Design: Frederick Lewis Music: “Caridad” by my absolute fucking favorite Gato Loco…who has scored many of my stage shows and also ELF COLORED GLASSES!!!!! Find them!

S02 EP04 VIRTUAL BREAK-UPS + CULTURE AS SOIL | SOLO SHOW

LISTEN S02 EP04 VIRTUAL BREAK-UPS + CULTURE AS SOIL | SOLO SHOW

Dang. Life has been hard lately, hasn't it? I'm right there with you. This episode is about the anguish I'm having breaking up with my online spiritual teacher of 4 years, who doesn't know me at all. Because that's the world we live in. But I got to the limit this type of learning, it stopped working and has left me feeling lost. As I try to extract the lessons from it, I reflect on what it means to be a teacher, how culture can be thought of as soil for our consciousness and the work of real Artists of composting the shit and shadow of humanity in the underground so that beautiful things can grow. LISTEN HERE

S02 EP03 PAINTER + GURU | KIM MANFREDI

LISTEN S2 Ep03 | Kim Manfredi 

Kim Manfredi is a prolific oil painter and one-time yoga guru who recently opened a public art studio in Palm Desert, CA. Many years ago, Kim founded a large yoga community in Baltimore, where she introduced yoga to thousands of people and trained hundreds of teachers, including Trixie! Recorded in-the-flesh in March 2021, this was the first time the teacher and student had seen each other since 2012. On this episode, Trixie and Kim catch up in real time and Kim recounts her COVID experience, her journey from engineering major to finding art and yoga and they explore some of the ways spirituality and creativity intertwine.

Kim’s Website Kim’s Instagram Listen Here Co-produced by Beatrix Burneston and Kyrst Hogan | Sound Design by Frederick Lewis

S02 EP 02 AUTHOR + FOLK SINGER MICHAEL PATRICK FLANAGAN SMITH

  LISTEN HERE Season 2 Episode 02 | Interview with Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith

Recorded days before of the debut of his first book— THE GOOD HAND— this is a great conversation with my friend, Mike, about his page turner of a memoir about a year he spent working on an oil field in North Dakota. A thankless, dangerous job that introduced him to a whole cast of flawed and lovable characters, all breaking their bodies and spirits for 14-16 hours a day in punishing weather. Co-worker deaths were common, either from the dangers of the job itself, or from the drugs/booze/violence that were abused as a result. All of this madness was justified in the pursuit of oil, which, we learn, has way more of a choke hold on us than we realize. He gives us a macro and micro look at the true price of oil— you will be kept awake counting all the things you own that are made with petroleum! Writing and living his hero’s journey at the same time, while channeling his heroes, anchored in the wisdom of folk music, and really doing what artists do best— hurling themselves into life like the ocean hurls itself at the shore! This book is a posctcard sent from a gritty and real mytho-poetic life, written about with some cut-to-the-bone honesty. Sit close to the speakers so you don’t miss a single breath of it! A juicy conversation with a fellow capital ‘A’ Artist on the path— the author of the brand new, Great American book titled, THE GOOD HAND— Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith.

Mike’s website + book info HERE | Download ‘The Great Away Album’ for free HERE

S01 EP02 Renaissance Man + Outsider Artist | Dan Van Allen

S01 EP02 Renaissance Man + Outsider Artist | Dan Van Allen

 Dan Van Allen is a self described Renaissance man and outsider artist who has created immersive environments ranging from tree houses and pagodas at art festivals, to an Inter-Tribal Pow Wow, to the 3 row houses he bought in the 80s and turned into a living museum of the bizarre! Dan sat down with Trixie to discuss furniture restoration, making time instead of money and about Baltimore’s current cultural Renaissance. Song: “Old World” by The Modern Lovers

SHOW NOTES

Check out Dan’s work on Sowebo Arts HERE

Arabbers Preservation Society HERE

Song: “Old World” by The Modern Lovers HERE

DAN’S ARTIST STATEMENT

“My work concerns the relationship between man and his environment. Rather than explore new uses for the latest industrial products I find it more relevant to explore uses for the massive waste inherent to our consumer society. In the past a large portion of my work has been made to create my own environment and includes interiors, art cars, boats and neighborhood parks. A tendency towards surrealism and mythology is a result of my striving to satisfy my innate desire to express the personal and collective unconsciousness, what I see as the spiritual world. My work is usually not intended as a commodity on our limited arts market place. My income for the most part comes from restoration. As a photographer I am interested in documenting the work of myself and others in a natural environment, exotic art, architecture , costumes...etc. I present these as slide travelogues. My paintings are designed as partially finished paint-by-numbers. “ -Dan Van Allen

S01 EP01 Vancouver Triple Threat Burgundy Brixx

S01 EP01 Vancouver Triple Threat Burgundy Brixx

Vancouver based bad ass, Burgundy Brixx (aka Kyrst Hogan) is a triple threat with a long career spanning all of North America! Born in Wisconsin, trained in Boston, she went to New York and worked with the Rockettes as a singer for many years before her frustration with the Broadway “machine” lead her to the DIY punk rock world of burlesque. After a decade in NY, she expanded her empire west to Vancouver to independently produce her own blockbuster shows with her husband for the past decade under the named Kitty Nights. Burgundy was in town for Trixie’s first show in Los Angeles, called “Moondust," in which Burgundy hilariously played Hera, the scornful wife of philandering husband / brother, Zeus. The two of them sat down in Griffith Park, over looking the city of LA while discussing life, art and finding happiness. LINK TO PODCAST HERE Burgundy’s Website: www.burgundybrixx.com | http://www.kittynights.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/burgundybrixx/