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The Speech Guys

by The Speech Guys

We're your newest old friends. Grab a seat around our fire and pour your favorite whiskey (if you're 21!). Let's catch up over life's nagging questions that have never gone away.Speeches or speech topics you want us to cover in an episode or series? Send your requests to Mike at [email protected]!

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Episodes

  1. "Stop Wasting Your Life" Blessed Fulton Sheen | Speeches By Illinoisans

    Ross kicks off a new speech series that has only one rule--don't talk about Fight Club. Just kidding. Here's the one rule--your speech has to be by an Illinoisan. What better choice than one of the arguably holiest Illinoisans, Blessed Fulton Sheen? Speech excerpt comes from this link:...

  2. "Rebellion", Ivan Karamazov | Speeches By Brothers

    The Speech Guys revisit Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1880 novel, The Brothers Karamazov, for the final installment of the Speeches By Brothers speech series.

  3. "Easy Company War Recollections", E Company, 506th Infantry Regiment Veterans | Speeches By Brothers

    Matt hosts and Mike joins. Easy Company veterans were highly-trained paratroopers who served in some of the most dangerous circumstances of World War II, including the night before D-Day at Normandy. (Production note: Please be patient with Matt's audio quality as it goes in and out periodically.)

  4. Liam McDonald | Biking for Babies

    In June, Liam McDonald bicycled 3,400 miles from California to Delaware as part of an expanded vision for Biking for Babies Summer Rides. Here, Recruiting and Marketing Director of Biking for Babies, Sarah Wiese interviews him about his incredible ride. "It's one thing to do something hard. It's…

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  5. "Haunted By Waters" Norman Maclean | Speeches By Brothers

    Mike's brother, Dan, introduces. Ross and Matt chime in on Mr. Maclean's speech, dramatized in the 1992 film, A River Runs Through It, as well as the 1976 book. The speech clip comes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3yZEqITfDw

  6. "Our Last Name" Father Rob Johnson | Speeches By Brothers

    Another speech straight from the Johnson Family tree posts up in the Speech Guys' studio. Ross's older brother, Father Rob (Three Dogs North Podcast), gave this speech at his fall 2015 wedding.

  7. "Concerning Hobbits" Bilbo Baggins | Speeches By Small Towners

    It's the last Speech(es) By Small Towners--best enjoyed with a Bud Lite, Miller Lite, or Coors Lite at your local American Legion or Knights of Columbus Hall.

  8. "It All Turns on Affection" Wendell Berry | Speeches By Small Towners

    The gang's all here. Get cozy. Warm that affectionate heart of yours and learn how to be a Sticker... or Boomer... or a Sticker-Boomer... and look on at Port William with us. The speech was presented April 23rd, 2012 for the Jefferson Lecture as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities....

  9. "Labor's Millennium" Jonathon Baldwin Turner | Speeches By Small Towners

    I-L-L... I-N-I! The Speech Guys explore the University of Illinois origin story in the words of one of its founders, Jonathon Baldwin Turner. JBT envisioned a class of farmer shaped by experience and informed by agricultural science. Dave Biver, U of I graduate, Freeburg area native, and farmer...

  10. "Dixon, Place on the Rock River" President Ronald Reagan | Speeches By Small Towners

    The Speech Guys find a reason to hang with Ronnie Reagan again--and it's a good reason as they're embarking on the first speech series of the 7th season. Speeches By Small Towners. Reagan gave this speech in Dixon, Illinois on February 6th, 1984.

  11. "The Word Became Flesh" Pope Benedict XVI | Speeches After the Straussian Moment

    The whole podcastin' gang is here to close out season six. The task at hand? Weave together Christmas (excuse me, Advent!) and the Straussian Moment (do we even know what that is yet after four episodes?). Ross lines it up with a speech by Pope Benedict from 2010 and Mike, Landon, and Matt take...

  12. "They Need Us To Be Present" President Barack Obama | Speeches After the Straussian Moment

    75% of the Speech Guys report for podcasting duty. Ross is out hunting. Matt, Landon, and Mike go hunting for great ideas about President Obama's 2010 Father's Day speech. Come on and climb inside and see if they found any. As usual, the Speech Guys are best served with a cold drink. Episode...

  13. "Blood Will Be Shed" Bane Dorrance | Speeches After the Straussian Moment

    Landon, Ross, Mike, and Matt wander through the cultural wake that is Bane's speech outside the Gotham City Stock Exchange in the 2012 Dark Knight Rises. 1993. Institutions. Scapegoats. Predictive programming. How evil manifests. Really... 1993! Plus... Is Bane's speech more likely to come from...

  14. "The Straussian Moment" Peter Thiel | Speeches After the Straussian Moment

    The Straussian what? Huh? Put on your listening ears and thinking cap as the Speech Guys go way back and all over... the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, 9/11, and everything that came after. Imagine this episode as like a field of wildflowers... sure, there's some weeds…

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  15. Last Words of the First Nations, Black Hawk | Speeches from the Old West

    The Speech Guys go back to the beginning with words by the first westerners--in this case, Black Hawk, after the Sauk and Meskawi lost possession of land in northern Illinois and Wisconsin in 1832. Fact check: Mike comments on the distinction between the Sioux and Lakota. The "Sioux" refers to a...

  16. "Fill Your Hands, You Son of a..." & Other Western Quips, Rooster Cogburn | Speeches from the Old West

    It's the whole Speech Guys gang on call to discuss "Fill Your Hands, You Son of a B****" (Rooster Cogburn, True Grit), "I'm Your Huckleberry" (Doc Holliday, Tombstone), and a couple more questionable applications of the cowboy ethos as John Wayne portrayed in The Cowboys ("Old School Speech...

  17. "If You Do Not Succeed..." John Paul the Great | Biking for Babies

    Biking for Babies Executive Director, Nikki Biese, joins Kevin, Mike, and Jimmy to discuss John Paul the Great's 1993 World Youth Day address in Denver. Thumbnail comes from https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/contributors/john-paul-ii-knowing-suffering-from-inside/.

  18. "My Thirty-First Year..." Captain Meriwether Lewis | Speeches from the Old West

    Mid life comes a little later now since Meriwether Lewis' day. The whole Speech Guys crew chat about Lewis' August 18th, 1805 journal entry from the Corps of Discovery expedition when he turned 31. Securing horses from the Shoshones and getting a few dozen guys across two-thirds of the country...

  19. "If You Want Equal Justice..." John Paul the Great | Biking for Babies

    Kevin sits in for Sarah Wiese to get prepped for his MC role at the 2025 finishing event at Saint Joseph's parish in Manchester, Missouri on Saturday, July 19th. Jimmy and Mike sit alongside as they revisit a few old memory gems from Kev's first ride in 2011 and discuss John Paul the Great's 1987...

  20. "And We're About To Do This" | Biking for Babies

    (Most of) the Speech Guys take a break this episode. They lend their platform to Biking for Babies--a mission-oriented bicycled ride that Mike Schaefer and Jimmy Becker started with John Paul Deddens as students at the University of Illinois in 2009. Sarah Wiese, Biking for Babies' Director of...

  21. Pope Leo XIV(!) & "The Fastest Nun in the West" Sister Blandina Segale | Speeches from the Old West

    Sister Blandina Segale (1850 - 1941) was a missionary Sister of Charity who built the first school district in Colorado, served such legends of the West as Billy the Kid (really!), Native Americans, and the Hispanic population of the Southwest. The Speech Guys read and discuss one of many letters...

  22. "The Fulfillment of This Scripture Is Today" Jesus of Nazareth | Speeches at the Start of Something

    It's Landon and Mike discussing Jesus' entry onto the Christianity scene when he reads the prophet Isaiah, as described in Luke 4, and portrayed by Jonathon Roumie in season 3, episode 3 of The Chosen. Audio from this clip comes from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyHp0TovnUQ&t=560s...

  23. "Using Machinery under Capitalism" Karl Marx

    The Speech Guys went camping one week earlier. I guess that's why Mike is a little tired. Thumbnail image comes from https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/history-of-child-labor-in-the-united-states-part-1.htm.

  24. "Running... An Absurd Pastime" Bill Bowerman | Speeches at the Start of Something

    In the 1970s, Steve Prefontaine lit a fire under the bellies of runners that has never gone out through his American distance track records--largely formed by the coaching and spiritual ethos of University of Oregon cross country and track coach and Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman. The Speech Guys...

  25. "Make Your Bed" Admiral Wendel McRaven | Speeches at the Start of Something

    John Zegar introduces the podcast episode. Matt, Mike, Landon, and Ross discuss the 2014 speech from the University of Texas-Austin commencement ceremony presented by Admiral McRaven. Thumbnail image comes from laviolettefoundation.org/news/2022/11…ovember-30th.

  26. "Timshel" Samuel Hamilton & Adam Trask | Speeches By Dads

    It's the final episode of the fourth season of the SGs and they discuss the dialogues performed by John Steinbeck's characters from the 1952 novel, "East of Eden", along with the Genesis story of Cain and Abel that informs them. Primary content comes from chapters 22 and 24 of the book.

  27. "Lucy" Father Mike Schmitz | Speeches By Dads

    This episode is rated PG-13 for a "graphic" clip from the film Calvary (2014) which contains one bleeped out instance of f**k, gun violence, and reference to clerical sexual abuse. The clip is approximately four minutes and begins at approximately the 50 minute mark. Landon, Ross, Matt, and Mike...

  28. "Act Like You've Been There Before" Doug Johnson | Speeches By Dads

    Doug Johnson introduces the cast and recalls, with Ross, the (micro)speech he gave to his son before his first football game in the twilight of the 20th century in Springfield, Illinois. Ross and Doug might not remember if he scored, but they remember the speech. And now, you will too. Thumbnail...

  29. "Terrifying Virtue" Maximillian Robespierre | Speeches That Got Someone Killed

    Landon, Mike, Ross, and Matt close out the "Speeches That Got Someone Killed" quad. Some political candidates might be a threat to America's democracy, but this episode isn't--unless you think a Speech Guys oligarchy could make American great again. Full text of speeches discussed can be accessed...

  30. "We're More Popular Than Jesus Now" John Lennon | Speeches That Got Someone Killed

    Mike, Landon, Ross, and Matt consider how John Lennon's interview in March 1966 with London's Evening Standard influenced Mark David Chapman and the legacy of Christianity, the Beatles, and musical counterculture that persists today. The speech can be read here:...

  31. "Disbelief, Sadness, & Unyielding Anger" President George W. Bush | Speeches That Got Someone Killed

    Fact Check: Landon references a comment made by Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, that "eight trillion dollars was lost track of", and speculates that the attack on the Pentagon was to obviate the federal government of responsibility toward that amount. See this addressed here:...

  32. "Sermon on the Mount" Jesus of Nazareth | Speeches That Got Someone Killed

    How does the Sermon on the Mount help the Speech Guys pursue a worthy spiritual frontier? Listen in as Ross, Matt, and Mike cheer for the arrival of Faye Frye and consider what might set Jesus of Nazareth a story worth believing in.

  33. "There Is Only One Man... Charles Kane." Citizen Kane | Speeches From Oscar-Nominated Films

    Does art inspire life or life inspire art? Landon, Ross, Matt, and Mike team up for Orson Welles' 1941 campaign "to rid the politics of this State of the evil domination of Boss Jim Gettys". The thumbnail image comes from theasc.com/articles/realism-for-citizen-kane.

  34. "For Forty-One Million, You Built a Playoff Team" John Henry | Speeches From Oscar-Nominated Films

    Listener discretion: "a**" is used several times throughout the episode Is paying for runs really what America's baseball heart beats for? The Speech Guys and special guest, Theus Brown (BAJ and BROWN Podcast), discuss the contemporary consequences of the "moneyball" model via the dramatized…

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  35. "The Park Bench" Dr. Sean Maguire | Speeches From Oscar-Nominated Films

    "You think I know the first thing about being an orphan because I read Oliver Twist?"... Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) begins to tear down the intellectual and academic walls that Sean (Matt Damon) built up around himself in this famous speech from the 1997 Oscar-nominated film, "Good Will...

  36. "It Is... Impossible to be a Woman" Gloria Gomez | Speeches From Oscar-Nominated Films

    This episode is rated PG-13 for language and discussion of sexuality. Anne Marie rejoins as guest host to discuss the good, true, and maybe not so universally accurate observations of women and men in Gloria's speech to lift Barbie out of the existential doldrums. Thumbnail image comes from...

  37. "He Died a Richer Man Than You'll Ever Be" George Bailey | A Speech Guys Christmas Special

    Merry Christmas from the Speech Guys! Talk, think, and laugh about your favorite holiday fare... fruitcakes, George and Mary Bailey, and the real life Hallmark tradition that took place each season at Johnson's Market. Read the November 2019 article on Ross's family grocery business from the New...

  38. Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech 1986, Elie Wiesel | Speeches From the 1980s

    In 1986, author and Holocaust-survivor, Elie Wiesel, was awarded for his humanitarian work on behalf of the Jewish community and other historically-oppressed groups. The Speech Guys discuss the legacy of those words, particularly in light of heightened tensions between Israel, Hamas, and...

  39. "I'm Afraid, Alright?!" Rocky & Adrian Balboa

    Apollo Creed helped Balboa get his body ready for the Heavyweight title against Clubber Lang. But his wife and partner, Adrian (Talia Shire), had to retrain his heart. "I'm afraid alright! For the first time in my life, I'm afraid." Bonus content: Matt's Brooklyn-styled Rocky impression

  40. "Like Tears in the Rain" Roy Batty | Speeches From the 1980s

    Who said AI was a new conversation we should be having? Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) were paving the way for the rest of us all of the way back in 1982. Mike's the speech-picker. Matt and Landon tag along for a trip to the future in... 2019. Or would that be the past?...

  41. "The Challenger Disaster" President Ronald Reagan | Speeches From the 1980s

    The Speech Guys try to imagine a world just before the dawn of their births as they step back into the 1980s with President Reagan's speech following the space shuttle Challenger explosion on January 28th, 1986 over Cape Canaveral.

  42. "The Apology of Socrates" Socrates (Plato) | Speeches By Prisoners

    Mike, Landon, Matt, and Ross finish out the Speeches By Prisoners series with Socrates' speech before his Athenian jury considering whether or not he ought to be executed for crimes of "corrupting the youth" and not properly worshiping the traditional gods of Athens.

  43. "Stillwater & Still Friends" | Mike & Landon's Friendship Origin Story

    The Speech Guys share a common collegiate origin along Illinois' Interstate 74. Here, Landon and Mike recall their coming together merely months before Mike's University of Illinois graduation in spring 2015. The moral of this episode? You never know what treasures are in store until your car is...

  44. "A World Split Apart" Alexander Solzhenitsyn | Speeches By Prisoners

    In 1978, Russian exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave the commencement address to Harvard graduates. Unlike most commencement speeches, it painted Western culture in macabre, depressing descriptions of its decline in courage, legalism, direction of freedom and the press, socialism, loss of will,...

  45. "I Am Prepared To Die" Nelson Mandela | Speeches By Prisoners

    It's the second episode of the Speeches By Prisoners series and the Speech Guys contemplate the stoicism and devotion to ordinary life Mandela seemed to demonstrate as a South African political prisoner from 1964 to 1990. Listen to the full speech Mandela gave before his 1964 trial here:...

  46. A Companion Chat To "Becoming Jesus" | Mike & Chris

    Mike and Chris keep sippin' their whiskies after the other Speech Guys leave for an extended chat of related topics from the "Becoming Jesus" episode of the Speeches By Prisoners speech series. The interview referenced in the episode of Denzel Washington can be accessed with the URL below:...

  47. "Becoming Jesus" Jake Shuttlesworth | Speeches By Prisoners

    The Speech Guys lace up their high tops and unpack the first aid kit to talk about wounds... father wounds, that is. Jake Shuttlesworth's speech to his son, Jesus Shuttlesworth, played by Ray Allen in the 1998 Spike Lee film, "He Got Game", serves as their conversational muse. Chris guest hosts.

  48. "God is Dead" (The Parable of the Madman) Frederick Nietzsche | Speeches By Losers

    Episode Rating: 13+ for instances of language ("bulls***", "a**hole") at approximately 2 and 58 minutes, respectively Wipe that melancholy off your face and think wistful thoughts one last time as Mike, Landon, Matt, and Ross tread one more time through Speeches By Losers... this time, Frederick...

  49. "When Breath Becomes Air" Dr. Lucy Kalinithi | Speeches About Loss

    Episode Rating: 13+ for a few instances of mild language and a few brief references to sex within the context of marriage Welcome to episode #37 of the Speech Guys! (Yes, we keep our episode number secret because... just because.) Matt's the speech picker and Dr. Lucy Kalinithi is the…

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  50. "Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise" Chuck Noland | Speeches By Losers

    (This episode is rated 16+, best-suited for audiences 16 years and older, as it discusses sex in the context of an ending romantic relationship. This content begins around the 45 minute mark. The Speech Guys pondered General Lee's model for being a good loser in war. But what about being a loser…

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

We're your newest old friends. Grab a seat around our fire and pour your favorite whiskey (if you're 21!). Let's catch up over life's nagging questions that have never gone away.Speeches or speech topics you want us to cover in an episode or series? Send your requests to Mike at [email protected]!

HOSTED BY

The Speech Guys

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does The Speech Guys have?

The Speech Guys currently has 85 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is The Speech Guys about?

We're your newest old friends. Grab a seat around our fire and pour your favorite whiskey (if you're 21!). Let's catch up over life's nagging questions that have never gone away.Speeches or speech topics you want us to cover in an episode or series? Send your requests to Mike at...

How often does The Speech Guys release new episodes?

The Speech Guys has 85 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

Where can I listen to The Speech Guys?

You can listen to The Speech Guys on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts The Speech Guys?

The Speech Guys is created and hosted by The Speech Guys.
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