RISK!

Guest-host Taj Easton is in the chair this week, presenting these two stories on the long shadow of patriarchy with a particular attentiveness, repeatedly asking the same leading question: Are straight men okay? Cassidy Krug arrives at Stanford a diver of moderate ambition, then spends nine years being screamed at by a coach whose legendarily ruthless style drives her to the Olympics. Fifteen years after retiring, she still isn't sure whether what got her there was abuse, or maybe exactly what she needed. (Content note: domestic violence) Thomas Brazzle grows up desperate for his ex-Marine father's approval, but the man abandons his family after Thomas intervenes on his mother's behalf during a vicious assault by his father. Thirty years later, at his mother's funeral, his father reappears, and Thomas is stunned to find he's still desperate for the approval of a man who brutalized his mother, abandoned them all, and is now a stranger to him. Leave your reactions and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/brutal-authority  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in New York City on June 9, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This one goes back to February 2014: a live RISK! episode built around the theme of fascination, meaning the things that get under your skin and won't let go. Ryan Britt was a self-appointed porn expert at age 10, thanks to his father's very open magazine policy and to a darkroom box labeled "Do Not Open" that turned out to contain something far more interesting than photographic paper. Adam Wade spent years nursing a Rick Moranis complex, right up until a chance encounter at a pharmaceutical convention gave him an unusual opportunity to put it to use. (Content note: eating disorder) Brad Lawrence was 15, overweight, and utterly transfixed by a softcore film called Felicity — until a different movie sent him down a dangerous path of self-reinvention over a single summer. Lulu left a long, sexless marriage at 44 and spent the next several years making up for lost time, culminating in a nerve-racking attempt to fulfill a very specific fantasy at a kink convention class in Astoria. Full episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/fascination-cre516  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in [CITY] ([MONTH & DAY]) or [CITY] ([MONTH & DAY]) ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two storytellers, two very different ways of inheriting the past. Shauna McGarry throws a Halloween party with her newly single roommate, hoping for a fresh start after a breakup. A drunk coworker zeroes in on the roommate, her little brother in a Charlie Brown shirt enters the mix, and the night expands into something Shauna has been watching her whole life: the strange, exhausting game of male presumption that nobody asked to play. (Content note: Holocaust, genocide) David Zellnik arrived in Vienna for the first time as a dual US-Austrian citizen, his father having fled the city as a Jewish child in 1939. At a food festival, he ends up in a charged, flirtatious conversation with a tall blond Jewish convert that spins into a debate about Israel, Zionism, and who gets to claim a people's history. Share your reactions and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/patreon-picks-6 Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on June 9, 2026, in New York City! ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two stories about what the body holds onto and what it eventually gives back. Ali Mac took a job in crypto after two years of Nazi death threats courtesy of Fox News. At the Miami Bitcoin Conference in 2022, she finds herself escorting her boss down a hallway and comes face to face with Tucker Carlson, broadcasting live, sitting very low, blissfully unaware of what is about to happen to him. (Content note: death of a partner) Gordon Blitz had been with his partner Scott since 1973, through an informal wedding, years of infidelity Gordon never told anyone about, and the terrifying early years of the AIDS crisis. "Bonded" follows Gordon through an HIV test, a week of waiting, and the long, complicated road of caring for the man who put him at risk. Leave your reactions and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/what-the-body-keeps Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices