PODCAST EPISODES

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022: Find your carnival ride

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Carnivals, fairs, and amusement parks are some of the more interesting and enigmatic curiosities devised by the human brain. What do we do? We go through the grueling process of loading up young kids with all their various accouterments for the 30 to 40-minute trip to the fairgrounds on a steamy August day. Then, we brave excruciating lines, crazy cutbacks, stomach-churning dips and valleys, wade through the pickpockets and hawkers, and navigate a crushing, sweating, sea of humanity with its nauseating array of organic odors. And that’s just in the parking lot.

021: The Whip-poor-will Story

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This is the podcast version of a story I've been telling for the past 39 years and counting. It happened to me at the foot of "Booger Mountain," a small peak located in the foothills of Western North Carolina, near Taylorsville. The mountain was named after the spooks, boogers, and haints that were reputed to occupy the area, possibly due to the mysterious disappearance of a 19th-century farm family and/or the sacred Cherokee Indian grave site situated near the peak. I spent many summers in the old, barnwood farm house, and yes, spooky things DID happen. This was one of them, and my favorite.

020: The Top 10 Movie Moments That Make This Tough Guy Weep

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I'll admit it. The older I get, the more weepy at movies I get, and you may be surprised at some of the ones that get me the most. I bet they get you, too, Big Tough Dad. If I touch a nerve, you've gotta let me know in the comments...

019: Bigfooters — Don't Stop Believin'!

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Bigfoot believers are eternal optimists in a cynical world. We like to believe in unbelievable things because...well...it's fun. And life is too short.

018: The Top 10 things I'm offended, shocked, and/or outraged by 2.0

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It seems that the way we're supposed to live in the 21st century is in a perpetual state of offense, shock, and outrage. So here are my pet peeves, mister!

017: I wanna be Dick Proenneke when I grow up

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The Alaskan naturalist and outdoorsman, Dick Proenneke, has been one of my heroes since I first watched the documentary, "Alone in the Wilderness," some 15 years ago. He was the quintessential guy's guy, the fellow that all of us soft, 21st century Doofus Dad wusses wish we could be.

016: It's official: I'm rich!

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Thanks to an odd combination of extremely profitable overseas investments (I didn't know I made) and a slew of wealthy overseas relatives (I didn't know I had), I'm now absolutely disgustingly rich, according to the many emails I've been receiving lately. Let me tell you about it.

015: The Top 6 ways to cope when your teenager drives solo for the first time

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Sending your newly legal teenager out alone and behind the wheel of a hurtling death machine is sobering, to say the least. Here's how to cope.

Ep. 014: My Top 5 Driving Idiots (Plus 1)

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These are the drivers that are responsible for inching me toward road rage, which isn't a good look for anyone. Are you one of these? Please say no...

013: Why "Jaws" is the greatest dad movie of my generation

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In this podcast episode, I dig into what makes Steven Spielberg's astounding movie, "Jaws," a classic — for dads specifically, for me personally, and for the world at large.

012: My Top 10 truths about winter storms in the South

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If you live in the South, you know that the phrase "winter storm" carries a much different meaning than it does in, say, Minnesota. Let's discuss.

011: My Top 10 Reasons Why Bohemian Rhapsody might be the Greatest Rock Song Ever

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Sure, you've heard people discuss "Bohemian Rhapsody" before. But you've never heard ME discuss it. It's time Queen got the Doofus Dad treatment.

010: Talking is hard

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This episode, "Talking is hard," isn't really dad-related. It's just me deconstructing the odd challenges of speaking into a microphone, specifically for voiceover work and audiobooks. You might find it interesting, who knows?

009: Doofus Dad's Foolproof Guide for Setting Up a Home Office

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PODCAST: This is Chapter 1 of my upcoming book, "Doofus Dad's Foolproof Guide for Working from Home," which doesn't yet have a release date because I haven't gotten around to writing all the other chapters. In light of our current worldwide conundrum driving millions of folks into home offices, I figured I'd better hurry up and release Chapter 1 so that people would have plenty of skewed and tongue-in-cheek information as soon as possible.

008: The Curse of the Common Name

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If you are blessed with a cool name — Gordon Lightfoot, Ernest Hemingway, or Tiger Woods, for example — life is all downhill the moment you're born and the world is your oyster. But try slugging through life when sharing the same dull name as every practically everybody else, like Mark Johnson. I've decided, however, to beat the system and become THE Mark Johnson.

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