Everything & Anything...and a bit gay Podcast

They met at a New York coffee shop, both quietly working on music, and didn’t speak for an hour. Eight years later, singer-songwriter John Coons and adult performer and former Broadway music director Jonah Wheeler are touring the country as self-described “adult cabaret clowns” with their new show, Double InDUMBnity. In this episode, Zach talks with the couple about building a creative partnership inside a romantic one, from a song that took a year and a half to finish to the Monday-night cabaret bootcamp at Club Cumming that got them started. They explain what people get wrong about cabaret, what people get wrong about kink, and why the show leads with dumb jokes but keeps leaving audiences in tears. They also get candid about Jonah’s move into adult film during the pandemic, how John made peace with it (with the help of a Mary Poppins Returns–themed party), and the assumptions people make about each of them as a result. Plus: drag queens on bicycles in Provincetown, seven weeks of shows in Puerto Vallarta, a fake infomercial of filthy 1940s gay standards, and the one person they’d love to see in the audience. NYC: The Green Room 42 Tickets (October 23): https://thegreenroom42.venuetix.com/showdetails/gAjapBDBnL0zxWLfpFdz/pHwSfqHpUIW2s8dHppPy Palm Springs: Toucans in Palm Springs, CA (November 5): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/toucanstikilounge/2426108

A sleepless night turned into this week’s This Is Everything, where Zach asks himself the question he’s never fully answered on the mic: when did I know I was gay? From a Brady Bunch-inspired fifth-grade movie date to wearing gym shorts under oversized jeans every day to avoid the junior high locker room, Zach walks through the years he spent questioning, denying, and slowly figuring it out. He talks about his three very different friend groups in Miami, the friends who had his back, the teachers and parents who seemed to know before he did, and the grandparents he wishes had known. He shares how Andrew’s grandparents embraced him like family, what it was like coming out at 20 and stepping into South Beach during the AIDS crisis, and why he went from wishing he wasn’t gay to being deeply grateful that he is. Plus: whether he’d ever invite his old high school bullies on the show, and an idea for a new coming-out series.

Astrologer, tarot reader, and Reiki master Karina La Puma has spent more than 40 years studying how we create our own reality. She joins Zach to talk about her new book, Awaken Magnetic Creation: Manifesting Your Dreams, part of her series A Toolkit for Awakening. Karina explains the core idea behind magnetic creation: you don’t get what you want, you get what you are. She shares how she used it to draw in her life partner after meeting him at an online “spiritual singles” event, why you should focus on the essence of what you want instead of the who, what, when, where, and how, and how a “witch wound” kept her finished books unpublished for years. She and Zach also talk about Reiki (including Zach’s own experience with his aunt), quantum and shamanic healing, a simple breath practice she calls embodied radiance, meditation tips for busy minds, and the astrology behind today’s spiritual awakening. The episode closes with Karina pulling a tarot reading on the future of the podcast. Order Karina's Book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1878203193?lv=shuf&channelId=520&plpRedirect=mhFallback

What if religion didn’t need belief at all? Zach sits down with Dr. Joshua Pritikin, a psychological counselor and Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner in Oregon who holds a PhD in quantitative psychology. He’s the author of Religion Unburdened by Belief: The Way of Open Inquiry. Joshua explains how IFS “parts” can help define altered states. He gives Zach a simple tweak to his transcendental meditation practice to quiet a racing mind. He also takes us inside the Santo Daime ceremonies he has attended for four years. The conversation covers psychedelics and safety, bad trips, the war on drugs, and what might happen when we die. In this episode: What Internal Family Systems is and how “parts” show up in everyday mixed feelings Defining altered states, and why the usual definition is fuzzy A notepad trick that can make meditation feel effortless How Santo Daime ceremonies use group singing to keep participants present Blending vs. unblending, and why it’s key to avoiding a bad trip Zach’s experience with ketamine therapy and grief after losing his father Joshua’s views on prohibition, harm reduction and psychedelic medicine His step-by-step path: talk therapy, then meditation, a CBD/CBN blend, then psychedelics Content beliefs vs. process beliefs, and why the book asks readers to hold content beliefs loosely Consciousness, near-death experiences, 5-MeO-DMT and the afterlife Links: Book website (contact info and promo video): https://unburdened.biz Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Unburdened-Belief-Open-Inquiry-ebook/dp/B0GT24Z79H Estrela Counseling: https://estrelacounseling.com Feedback or guest ideas: [email protected]

This week’s Gay Bit goes a little bit everywhere, and that’s the point. Zach is back in his psychic medium and near-death experience era, and it has him thinking about the things he blurts out mid-interview, like his dream of being cryo-frozen and launched into space so aliens can find him a million years from now (backup plan: a seed pod under a big tree). From there, he gets real about how this show changed what he believes about death, why he now fully believes in reincarnation, the signs his father and grandmother have sent him, and why he talks out loud to his guardian angels every night instead of praying. Then it’s on to marriage: his husband Andrew, the self-narrating, always-singing chatty Kathy; a tense dinner with a friend in from Dallas; and Zach’s theory that Andrew’s problem with loud gay dinners has nothing to do with the gays and everything to do with being out-talked by them, especially after a table full of loud Long Islanders. Plus: the birdseed bill, the cardinals and blue jays on the feeder cam, a banana-loving groundhog he’ll miss all winter, Charlie the cat, and Heidi, the fiercely protective Saint Bernard who once knocked out a kid’s front tooth. In this episode: Space burials, tree pods, and what Zach wants when he dies Why talking to psychic mediums changed his views on the afterlife Signs from loved ones and talking to guardian angels at night Andrew, the chattiest husband in Massachusetts Are the gays really too loud at dinner? Backyard birds, a groundhog, Charlie the cat, and Heidi the Saint Bernard New guest episode drops Sunday. Subscribe, and leave a five-star review so more people can find the show. Have thoughts or feedback? Email [email protected] Intro music by Six Foot Five.