Everything & Anything...and a bit gay Podcast

A Baptist preacher who’d never held a gun walks into the FBI Academy, and 24 years later walks out a different man. On this episode of Everything & Anything…and a Bit Gay, Zach sits down with Eric Robinson, author of Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI, for a conversation Zach admits he might have turned down a few years ago. Eric spent years as a youth pastor, assistant pastor, and founding pastor of his own church in Western New York, where he gave his congregation a “flinch test” to make sure everyone who walked through the door felt welcome. But two years of daily stress headaches pushed him out of the pulpit. He preached his last sermon on Easter Sunday 2002, entered the FBI Academy the next week, and went on to work drugs, Chicago gangs, public corruption, and 15 years on SWAT. Then his oldest child came out as trans. Then his middle child. Then his youngest came out as gay. Eric talks about the moment that broke him free from the “love the sinner, hate the sin” thinking he’d held onto for decades, and why he calls unconditional love the bare minimum for a parent. In this episode: Why Eric reached out to a former congregant 25 years later to apologize The “flinch test” he used to build a more welcoming church How chronic stress headaches led him from ministry to the FBI, and stopped the day he was accepted What investigating gang members, a $20 million fraudster, and child predators taught him about human nature Why many LGBTQ+ people are wary of the FBI right now Watching the white supremacist group Blood Tribe target an LGBTQ+ barbecue in Toledo, and why prosecutors couldn’t act Finding a “flow state” on high-risk SWAT raids His oldest’s coming out, and the freedom of letting go of judgment Telling his FBI colleagues about his trans kids and banning Fox News from the break room Zach’s own coming-out story with his father, and his brother’s 8 a.m. phone call How Eric thinks about faith, the Bible, and his old sermons today Connect with Eric Robinson: Website: https://preachertobreacher.com/ Instagram: @_eric_robinson LinkedIn: Eric Robinson (FBI) Book: Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI (Weaving Influence) Connect with Zach: https://everythingandanythingpodcast.com/ @TheRealZachRE on all platforms Intro music by Six Foot Five.

Is LinkedIn secretly the hottest dating app out there? On this week’s Gay Bit, Zach Randles-Friedman ends the week super gay with a campy deep dive into the world’s most “professional” social network, where the job posts are depressing, the headshots are suspiciously gorgeous, and the scammers never sleep. In this episode: The LGBTQ+ Professionals group: Why Zach and a friend trade screenshots of impossibly hot “just introducing myself” posts, and whether some of these men are AI (spoiler: one wasn’t) Zach the matchmaker: The time he slid into a stranger’s LinkedIn DMs to set up his friend Greg, and why an open relationship in another city was a dealbreaker Equinox Seaport flashbacks: Feeling like a 4 among perfect 10s at 5:30 a.m., plus the mystery of barefoot and shirtless gym guys LinkedIn’s sad era: Layoff posts, overshare culture, AI-polished resumes, and why LinkedIn is starting to feel a little too Facebooky Vetting your date: Only about one in five people say they use LinkedIn mainly for job hunting — many are using it to check whether that “Fortune 500 CEO” from the bar is legit Spam folder safari: 1,317 unread spam emails, domain buyers, fake delivery notices, and the long-lost prince Wrong-number texts: “Grace” thinks she’s texting Zach’s husband Andrew, and a surprise Australian call that turns out to be an MLM pitch The big idea: A blind-date matchmaking app — answer a questionnaire, get matched, meet at a coffee shop in Somerville without ever seeing a photo Plus: Google yourself after this episode. You might be surprised.

Why does everyone ghost? Why do dating apps feel like a hamster wheel? And is there still a way to find real, lasting love in the LGBTQ+ community? Zach sits down with Dr. Frankie Bashan, clinical psychologist, certified sex therapist, and founder of Little Gay Book, one of the nation's leading LGBTQ+ matchmaking agencies. Since 2009, Dr. Frankie has combined her psychology training with a lifelong knack for setting people up, building a matchmaking service with an 80–85% success rate. They get real about the state of modern dating: ghosting, gamified apps, AI-filtered photos, scam profiles pushing you to WhatsApp, and why so many people keep swiping in search of someone "a little bit better." Dr. Frankie shares how the matchmaking process actually works, why feedback within 24 hours changes everything, her take on open relationships and polyamory, and the most meaningful transformations she's seen in her sex therapy practice.

What happens when a Real Housewives editor decides to kill off the Housewives himself? Timothy Hedden has spent 25 years behind the scenes of reality TV, cutting Real Housewives of Atlanta, New Jersey, and Potomac, plus Mob Wives. Now he's channeled all of it into his debut novel, Dead Housewives of Philadelphia, a campy, dark-comedy murder mystery out today. And this is his very first podcast interview. Timothy's path to the edit bay was anything but direct: a would-be actor kicked off the set of Law & Order, a fur salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue, a stand-up comic, and a 38-year-old production assistant at the Food Network before working his way from audience coordinator to editor. He opens up to Zach about meeting the Housewives, why the shows have become so formulaic, and why the women on screen are far more than the characters they play. He also shares, with remarkable candor, his life as a long-term HIV survivor: diagnosed in 1988, a drug trial that saved his life, the moment he told his mother, and why a run-in with a young guy at Pride pushed him to write his award-winning essay The AIDS Dinosaur. In this episode: 25 years in reality TV and meeting Kenya Moore, Phaedra, Teresa, Dolores, and more Why Dolores is the inspiration for one of the book's characters Mob Wives, Big Ang, and the night Timothy and his husband ended up on camera From Food Network PA to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to Housewives editor The prime-time shoot that made him quit producing Meeting his husband of 20 years after a dramatic gym transformation Writing as a dyslexic author, and his first novel that almost got published Living with HIV since the '80s and the life insurance policy he bought to cover his own funeral The drug trial at Rockefeller University that saved his life PrEP, condoms, and what younger gay men don't understand about the epidemic Inside Dead Housewives of Philadelphia: Bailey, Skylar, a séance, and a ratings stunt gone wrong His dream cast, and why Kenya Moore should play Erin Running into Andy Cohen after a week of editing his footage Why reality stars are real people, and why we all need a page-turner right now Links: Dead Housewives of Philadelphia: https://deadhousewives.com/ Timothy Hedden:https://www.instagram.com/heddenwrites/ https://heddenwrites.com/ Buy the book an Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HH8XG8HV

In this solo This Is Everything episode, Zach Randles-Friedman takes on the exhaustion so many people are feeling right now. He talks about doom scrolling and a news cycle that feels like a horror show. He covers a job market where AI-polished applications flood every listing, grocery prices that jumped his weekly Instacart order from $200 to $312, and a McDonald's hot fudge sundae that now costs $6.99 on DoorDash. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Zach reacts to Senator Tuberville's "furry pilots" claims, to rhetoric targeting trans people, and to calls for violence against queer people. He also explains why he believes the November midterms matter so much. Through it all, he finds signs of hope: strangers being a little kinder, a TikTok plant auction that brings him joy, and the comfort of good friends. He closes with simple ways to feel better, including limiting screen time, volunteering, FaceTiming with a heads-up, sending voice notes, guarding your social battery, and getting help when you need it. It's a candid reminder that if you're in a funk, you're not alone. Intro music by Six Foot Five.