Head On Fire

Apr 16 2024 233

Head On Fire Podcast artwork

What’s the best chapstick for a dead body? How much do marketers really know about us? Is there such a thing as a “minimalist table?” Join author Don Martin every other week on Head On Fire, a search for answers to life’s biggest and smallest questions. He interviews experts in overlooked fields about subjects you either think you already know everything about or have never considered. From how morticians can turn you into a coral reef to the best way to investigate a cult, he asks the questions you didn’t even know you wanted answers to.

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What's it like being Out in the NFL? with Kevin Maxen

Apr 16 2024 46 mins

Kevin Maxen is a strength and conditioning coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He’s also the first male coach in major American men’s professional sports to publicly come out as gay. I sat down to talk to him about what it takes to train some of the world’s best athletes, divorcing yourself from outside criticism, and whether the NFL is finally becoming more welcoming to the

How do you fall in love with poetry? with Dr. Maya C. Popa

Apr 02 2024 58 mins

Dr. Maya C. Popa is a poetry educator, a poetry critic, and a poet in her own right. She is the poetry reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, a professor of poetry at NYU, and her most recent collection, titled Wound is the origin of wonder, was named one of the Guardian’s Best Books of Poetry and has been featured in The Washington Post, The Irish Times, The Harvard Review, and Bo

What makes good sex advice? with Dan Savage

Mar 19 2024 78 mins

Dan Savage has done a lot of things in his life. He founded both the It Gets Better project and the Hump porn festival. He popularized the Campsite Rule of relationships. He made Rick Santorum’s name a dirty word. And he’s been one of the country’s foremost sex, dating, and relationship advice columnists since the creation of Savage Love in 1991. He’s a pioneer of podcasti

Are we cleaning everything wrong? with Melissa Pateras

Mar 05 2024 62 mins

With spring right around the corner, many people are thinking about cleaning their homes and turning to social media for tips and tricks only to suddenly learn we all seem to be doing everything wrong. That's where Melissa Pateras, the lesbian queen of Laundrytok and author of the new book A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home, comes in. She told me all the secrets of folding a fitted shee

Why is drag important? with Jinkx Monsoon

Feb 20 2024 53 mins

Jinkx Monsoon (she/her) is a two-time RuPaul’s Drag Race winner, Broadway breakout star, and soon to be villain on the beloved British sci-fi series Doctor Who coming to Disney+ in 2024. The self-proclaimed “internationally tolerated” drag icon has taken over the entertainment industry as an award-winning stage actress, acclaimed vocalist, stand-up comic, and theatre sensatio

Why is math a drag? with Kyne Santos

Feb 06 2024 46 mins

Kyne Santos uses social media to teach math subjects that range from simple addition and subtraction to more esoteric concepts about impossible objects or quantum mechanics. And he does it in drag. Because sometimes Kyne puts on a wig, drops the surname and becomes the Canadian Drag Race superstar alum Kyne who teaches us how math can be a living, breathing, interesting subject tha

Burn 2023 down! with Meg Elison

Dec 26 2023 100 mins

2023 was great and terrible. There were technological marvels, horrible television, phenomenal movies, brilliant books, and more author drama than you ever thought possible. Come around the dumpster fire as Meg Elison and I build the year its funeral pyre. Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://

What is comedy? with Bonnie Klopfer

Dec 12 2023 78 mins

Bonnie Klopfer is an actress and comedian whose videos have been loved by millions of people around the world. She’s a stand up regular in LA and makes content online about finding the funny in mundane things, including a breakout series of shorts about product packaging. Find her here: https://linktr.ee/boobieklapper Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfire

Can anger make us better? with Dr. Heather Lench

Nov 28 2023 38 mins

We are often told to ignore anger, to repress anger, that anger has no value in a polite society. Anger gets us in trouble. Anger removes our ability to think rationally. Anger is always bad all of the time and we should never, ever feel it. Or, at least, that's what we've been told. Some researchers wanted to test that theory, and turns out it might not be true. Dr. Heather Le

Why are editors so scary? with Hannah Robinson

Nov 14 2023 80 mins

Hannah Robinson has been an editor at some of publishing’s biggest houses. HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster—where we met—and now Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette. She primarily works with non-fiction, which is a massive slice of the publishing pie that seems to get all but ignored on social media. We had a discussion about what the job of an editor is, what