Shit that Pissed me Off – 2/12
Dallas Judge Says He Will Not Perform Same-Sex Marriages Due to Religious Objection
I literally have no problem with a religious leader refusing to perform same-sex marriages. I mean, I do because it is time to realize that love is love and the God you believe in is a homophobic jackass. But they have a right to make those calls based on their interpretation of the Bible or Koran or whatever.
A judge is elected to perform a legal job and part of that job is marrying people. As prescribed by law. Which he is supposed to fucking uphold. Impartially.
If you want to be a judge who isn’t impartial, you need to climb the food chain. Like this dude.
He claims the state Attorney General gave him permission to make this call based on an opinion that suggests he doesn’t have to perform the ceremony if there is someone else who can do it. However, he is still practicing discrimination because he’s totally cool with performing “traditional” marriages.
I call bullshit. Just do your fucking job. If you don’t want to perform the “wrong” kind of marriage, don’t do them at all.
Geeks Without God Talks Games
Andrew Hackard is Molly’s cousin. He lives in Austin and sent in his five answers to our podcast many months ago. He visits town on business every now and again and we’ve tried to have him as a guest a few times.
This trip, we finally managed to get him down to the basement studios for a podcast.
Hack (as he is known to his friends and I’m now calling myself a friend) works for Steve Jackson Games as their Munchkin Czar so naturally we didn’t talk about Munckin.
Rather, we talked about other games including slew of new games I played at Omega Spring. I love talking about games almost as much as I love playing games. Maybe more because when I talk about games, I’m not losing.
Hack also got to ask us five questions this week and that is always a lot of fun.
If you’d like to listen: here’s where to go!
Geeks Without God Talk About Atheism and Comedy
When we were off at Die Laughing, we snuck back to my hotel room for an hour to record an episode of Geeks Without God with Ben San Del.
Ben did a stand up show at the Minnesota Fringe a couple years ago and he spent a fair amount of time in that show talking about his atheism. I found it interesting that a comedian was so up front about that particularly divisive issue and have been wanting to get him on our podcast for a while.
The stars finally aligned and we had a great conversation with Ben about how he tailors his show depending on where he is performing and when he uses the soft touch to introduce skepticism into his comedy.
It was a long time coming, but I think the episode was worth the wait.
Geeks Without God Gets Cosmic
Last week Molly, Nick and I sat down to record an episode about “Cosmos” old and new. I’m almost sorry we didn’t wait another week because there was a lot to talk about in the most recent episode.
That was probably a risk we took by recording before the series concluded. I’ve been impressed with the way Tyson injects skepticism into every episode. He talks about how science finds answers rather than assuming that conventional wisdom is correct.
Like the classic “Cosmos,” which I also re-watched for this episode, the host is in love with science. I’m sure that some would say science is their religion but that isn’t it. They love the laws of the natural world and they love how each new discovery leads to something new. Tyson is a natural successor to Sagan.
So yeah, this episode is kind of a love fest for “Cosmos.” But what can I say? “Cosmos” deserves it!
I you love the show (or hate it), listen in!
Geeks Without God Spins Yarn at Die Laughing
Die Laughing was an amazing experience for a lot of reasons but one of them was the opportunity to record a couple of live episodes. Audience feedback really makes the podcast so much more fun.
This week’s episode features local comedian Elizabeth Ess. She wanted to talk about the Hobby Lobby case now before the Supreme court and we were happy to oblige. We spent a long time talking about the details of that case and making jokes.
There were also a lot of interruptions as we tried to reach our fundraising goal. I thought I was going to cut the interjections out but in listening to the raw file, it actually was kind of fun. Hopefully listeners will agree.
I edited a few things – mostly conversations with people in the back of the room – but for the most part, the episode is as originally recorded.
So hey, if you want to hear us talk about religious liberty and head shaving, this is the episode for you!
I Don’t Know If I Can Make Anyone Die Laughing But I May Just Die Trying!
This weekend, Fearless Comedy will be putting on Die Laughing, a fifty hour comedy marathon. Right now, it looks like we might get hammered with a massive snow storm as the event starts but that doesn’t matter. We’re going to make this show happen.
The good news is that the entire event will be streaming so you can watch it even if you decide to cower in your home. And I’ll be doing a lot of performing that weekend. Here’s a schedule if you are just going nuts wondering when I’ll be on stage again.
Friday, April 4th, 7:00 PM – Big Fun Radio Funtime
We’ll be doing encore presentations of two of our favorite scripts and then Geoffrey Brown and I will perform 30 minutes of original Citizens’ Band tunes! We’ll also introduce our weekend long songwriting challenge.
Friday, April 4th – 10:00 PM – Vilification Tennis
There will be insults a-plenty and Duck Washington will debut as our newest cast member! Also, Kelvin Hatle will present his brilliant “News from Lake Vilbegone.”
Friday, April 4th – 11:00 PM – Geeks Without God
We’ll be recording a live podcast featuring comedian Patrick Bauer. The topic will be Tarantino movies. Pop culture reference!
Saturday, April 5th – 4:00 PM – PowerPoint Karaoke
I’ll be sitting in judgement on comedians who are making up a presentation from scratch! Is it far that I judge them? Yes it is fair! For I am ME and I SHALL wield petty power!
Saturday, April 5th – 8:00 PM – 12:00 AM – Hosting
I won’t be the star of the show but I’ll be introducing them!
Sunday, April 6th – 1:00 AM – Geeks Without God
Our second live podcast will feature Elizabeth Ess! We are going to talk about Hobby Lobby and birth control. Should be totally filled with comedy about knitting. There is also a decent chance I’ll be bald at this point.
Sunday, April 6th – 2:00 PM – Judging a Book By It’s Cover
I’ll be hosting this silly game in which contestants must describe the plot of a book based only on the cover illustration.
Sunday, April 6th – 6:00 PM – The Dregs
The Dregs will be doing our music and comedy thing with a special challenge to help raise money. Song choices go to the highest bidder!
Sunday, April 6th – 8:00 PM – Fearless Lab
A completely random hour of Fearless Comedy! And I’m the host! If Geoffrey and I get paid to write any songs, we’ll be performing them during this final hour of the marathon! It’ll be awesome! I’m using all exclamation points because I’ll probably be hopped up on Five Hour Energy Drink at this point in the weekend!
Geeks Without God Talks About Puppets
This week’s guest on Geeks Without God is Gordon Smuder. I’ve known Gordon for years as we were both teenagers at the Renaissance Festival together. More recently, he has gained notoriety as a puppeteer as well as a puppet maker. Many local friends will know Gordon from Transylvania Television but he has a lot of new projects going on right now and we got to talk about them all.
Not only did Gordon talk to us about puppets, he gave us puppets! That makes him only the second guest who has bribed us with individual swag!
I’m head writer on a new project Gordon is working on and we talked about it a lot on the podcast. There isn’t a website or anything for it but there will be something fairly soon. At least I hope so because the whole project is pretty cool.
Listen to the episode to hear more about it!
Alphabetical Movie – The Magnificent Seven
Not only did I watch this film for the Alphabetical movie project recently, I watched it again for A Reel Education!
That provides me with a wonderful springboard to talk about A Reel Education, which is by far my favorite podcast to record.
Every couple of weeks I get to sit down with Jena Young and Melissa Kaercher, watch a movie and then talk about it. How is that not the best idea for a podcast ever? I’m not saying that it is the best idea from a “everyone wants to listen to this podcast” standpoint.
Rather, it is the best idea from a “boy do I enjoy spending my time this way” standpoint.
Geeks Without God Tries to Decide if We are Arrogant
A few weeks ago, we had our friend Mark Lazarchic on Geeks Without God to talk about why he doesn’t like to say he’s an atheist. His argument was primarily focused on the fact that atheists sound arrogant when they say they don’t believe in god.
We come back to that assertion in this episode because I genuinely wondered if it was more arrogant to say that there is no god than it was to say that you were positive god existed and further, you knew exactly what god was thinking.
To me, the reason it is considered arrogance is because a lot of people believe in god. If you stand up and say you don’t, you can either be perceived as courageous or arrogant. I think it depends, in a large part on the beliefs of the person to whom you are stating your opinion.
So are atheists any more arrogant than anyone else? I know what I think but you could always listen to this week’s episode and decide for yourself!
Geeks Without God and Comics
This week’s episode of Geeks Without God is with friend and CONvergence co-founder Christopher Jones. I don’t know how it came to pass that so many of the co-founders of the convention are not religious but it is entirely possible we were able to do what we did because we had Sunday mornings free.
I can’t take credit for that. Molly said that.
Anyway, Chris has been a professional comic book artist for his entire adult life and so we spent most of the episode talking about his career in the comic industry and he even told us about a very cool project that he’s got coming up.
I haven’t gotten to see enough of Chris since he and I left the CONvergence board. It was nice to have him in the house again. Enjoy the episode!
Grail Diary 