Mishka Shubaly Podcast

the science of woo w/ Renee Watt

I met Renee Watt briefly at a storytelling event in Phoenix with my great friend Andy Baker. Then we adjourned to a gay strip club and talked about DMT and multiverses and shapeshifting, as one does. I *officially* don't believe in, well, basically anything she does (astrology/ horoscopes/ psychic readings/ tarot) but when I was down the well last summer, I was desperate enough to feel better that I sought out her help. Surprise, surprise, my hour long tarot reading with her was incredibly helpful and I knew when I finally got this podcast off the ground that she would have to be one of the first guests. 

 

Renee Watt got her first tarot deck at 10 years old, when a family friend exposed her to the practice. Not long after, she stumbled upon the occult section at a used book store, which catapulted her into the vast world of witchcraft and esoteric practices. Since then, she’s built a career from the mystical information she collected over the years, working as a professional writer, teacher, psychic, witch, and astrologer. Her words can be found at Astrology.com, Horoscope.com, Paranormality Magazine, The Newsette, and Shondaland.com.  Renee’s astrological and spiritual expertise has been featured in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Bust, Coast to Coast with George Noory, and many more! You can find her on Instagram @RainbowGlitterStar, and in podcast land, by checking out her projects “Witch Doctorate” and “The Glitter Cast.” For more information on her practice, be sure to visit RainbowGlitterStar.com .  

Mark Lanegan/ Brian Wilson/ ”Trouble Boys” editor Ben Schafer of Hachette Books

I met Ben Schafer in the process of working on Mark Lanegan's book with him. I have a lot of resistance to meeting publishing/ music industry/ entertainment industry folks because it always feels so ingenuine, like "I will pretend to be your friend until it no longer serves my business interests, at which point I'll pretend you never existed." From our first meeting, I recognized that Ben was, like me, just an earnest fan of Lanegan's work. We talked about how great Lanegan's voice and writing was, how excited we were for the book, sobriety, then finally just life in general. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, despite my best efforts to the contrary, Ben and I became friends very quickly and have stayed in close touch for the last couple of years. Yes, of course, we talked about the loss of Lanegan, but I tried to ask him some hard questions about publishing and his role as editor. 

 

Ben specializes in music, popular culture, biography, memoir, and popular science, with a
particular soft spot for American counterculture. He has acquired several New York Times
bestsellers, including Unrequited Infatuations by Stevie Van Zandt, The Portable Atheist edited
by Christopher Hitchens, Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr, and I Am Brian Wilson by Brian Wilson.
Based in Los Angeles, Ben published the definitive two-volume history of L.A. punk Under the
Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World by John Doe (of X) and music publishing veteran
Tom DeSavia. He is also the editor of the international bestseller Why Does E=mc2 by Brian
Cox and Jeff Forshaw, and an all-time classic memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave
Van Ronk with Elijah Wald, the inspiration for the Coen Brothers movie Inside Llewyn Davis.
Prior to joining Hachette Books, Ben was Executive Editor at Da Capo Press for 17 years and
held editorial positions at William Morrow and HarperCollins.

hugging large cozy men with Dante Powell

"I'm a huge Black dude, I'm strapped... leave me alone so I can enjoy the people I love." -- Dante Powell

 

One of the good things about yielding your life and sanity to the road/ comedians/ comedy for a couple of years is that it has allowed me to become a bigger fan, to become a better fan, to become a deeper fan. I met Dante a couple of years ago at the Bird City Comedy Festival and it gave me an opportunity to experience his art over a timeline as it has rapidly evolved. Put another way: this guy has gotten really good, really fast. I hate the phrase "good vibes only" with all of my being but be warned, there are truly despicable amount of good vibes in this episode. 

 

Dante Powell, where do we even start. Okay, he is a stand up comedian. Good start. He is based in Des Moines, Iowa but grew up in Bernice, Louisiana. His work has been featured on SiriusXM radio, NPR, and kweliTV. His comedy album “The Squirrels Get Fat” debuted at #1 on the iTunes/Amazon comedy charts. What else is there? Oh, he has been a regular at many of the comedy venues you frequent. Clubs, bars, theaters, he does them all! Thank you for reading this bio.

mourning Mark Lanegan with Brassland founder Alec Hanley Bemis

I met Alec in... Jesus, 2001? Ironically, we met partially in the context of me grieving a friend who had passed. We met again through music. He had started a record label in order to put out the music by a new band from Ohio called The National. I was managing Baby Dayliner, who wound up on Brassland. But our way into the conversation today is Mark Lanegan. When Lanegan's memoir 'Sing Backwards and Weep' published, Alec read it and plunged into Lanegan's music during the pandemic. We cover a lot here but honestly, you need to listen to this podcast because Alec is such an earnest fan of music, even after working in the industry for more than 20 years. Being a fan is deeply cool. Remaining a fan is even cooler.

 

Alec Hanley Bemis is a writer, producer & curator of creative projects, primarily in music. In 2001, he co-founded the Brassland label with Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. For that work, he has been covered by The Irish Times, The Guardian, Print Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. In his first career as a writer & journalist, he was published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bookforum and LA Weekly on topics ranging from Beck to backyard wrestling. Once a month or so he posts algorithm-free music playlists to his mixtape delivery service AHB’s Goodies: http://alechanleybemis.substack.com Learn more at http://brassland.org and http://alechanleybemis.com

Baja Blasted with Lydia Loveless

I caught up with singer/ songwriter Lydia Loveless while I was going up on a purloined Baja Blast and she was coming down from shrooms. We talk about the struggle to produce vs the struggle to be happy, Patreon vs foot porn, the specific love hangover after you end a relationship, guitar nerds vs musicians, the road vs true love… we talk about a lot. I’ve been a big fan of Lydia’s for a long time, please give this is a listen and then spin all of her records. 

Scott Kummer from Ten Junk Miles

Scott Kummer is a lawyer, an ultrarunner, a race director, and a podcast host, but maybe in reverse order? Scott was a fan who became a friend. We talk about running and sobriety and podcasting and getting molested as kids. 

 

Hear much much more of Scott at https://www.tenjunkmiles.com

In memory of Mark Lanegan

Of course, the best podcast I will ever do is about Mark Lanegan. May you find the peace in death you never found in life.

God’s Plan with Sari Beliak

Today I caught up with my grief buddy, Sari Beliak. We yuk it up about her book deal going south, her getting hit by a car, her father's death last year, loss, fury and weeping behind the wheel. Honestly, I swear, you need this conversation. Things aren't always as dark as they seem.

 

Sari Beliak is a writer and comedian from Phoenix, AZ. She is a senior contributing writer for The Onion and a regular contributor to sites like The Hard Times and Reductress. She was a finalist for NBC's Late Night Writer's Workshop in 2020 which was an otherwise totally normal and chill year. Please follow her on Twitter at @thecrassceiling

 

Thank You & I’m Sorry with Jake Flores

Still in beta testing-- hopefully my voice sounds better? Let me know what you think!

THIS IS NOT A PODCAST w JT Habersaat

This is just an open therapy session I recorded with my old friend JT Habersaat to talk about how and why I'm not recording a podcast.