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Based in the Tahoe Lake region of California, Nicole Brucato Cooley is a drama therapist, singer, musician, yoga teacher, and a real renaissance woman after my own heart. Nicole shares stories from her life and private therapy practice that have lead her to have many insights about the simple medicine of physical embodiment, human connection and the power of play. She also plays "Wayfaring Stranger" for us at the end! Bonus: Astrological Weather Report from Vedic astrologer Donny Boots.

Donny Boots is an Irish-American poet and Vedic astrologer who grew up in Queens, and happens to be the first Artist-in-Residence at The Nest. Donny sits down with me on a fine fall afternoon to talk about his training under a Taoist tea master in Oakland, his path to discovering his Celtic roots by studying Jyotish astrology and the King Arthur mythology that's showing up in the current new moon.

This is a very raw update on The Nightmare We Are Living from my little corner of the world-- reporting on the end of summer from the wild fire zone of Northern California. Hoping this helps all of you out there! This episode is just me talking into my phone while I water the marijuana plants. No script, filters or polish. Just me, talking to you. I'm keeping it real out here, ya'll, hope you are too. Follow the love!

This episode is about understanding the difference between an Artist and an influencer. For many years, influencers have occupied the space in popular culture and the Collective Imagination that is typically held by real Artists. Real Art transforms the creator and the audience, it comes into being through a collaboration with its locality— using everything and anything that is available— it’s a collaboration involving materials, labor, planning, creation and distribution— using all of your local resources— in your town or in your profession. And then it grows from there. In the way that Prince can thank the underground Minneapolis music scene for his origin— we all start somewhere small and local. Grass-roots style. The best Art— meaning the Art that endures throughout history— is organic, as opposed to manufactured. Mistaking influencers for Artists is very dangerous for the health of the Culture. It’s the equivalent of mistaking corporate fast food for a farm-raised, home-cooked meal. I’m emphasizing the difference to help us understand what it is we’re missing in our souls right now, too. I want to us re-calibrate our senses and re-train ourselves to actively seek out irreplaceable, authentic passion— the radiating energetic vitality and alive-ness that is real and makes your loins swell! Our job now is to find and cultivate that passion in ourselves AND others. Whatever your dream is, now is the time to go for it. There is no “better” time. There is only now. If not now, when? If not us, who?

In this episode, I explain my approach to doing shadow work...which, if you know me at all...you know damn well, that it's just as fun and weird as I am!  I was feeling like there is too much heavy stuff on the internet about shadow work being "dark"-- like it's some intense, scary confrontation. But being in the dark just means that it's not visible. So, I explain some of my ways in and the benefits of taking the time to learn this language-- so you can better integrate the wisdom of your dreams, intuition, imagination, shadow AND even your inner child-- into your conscious, waking life.

Dang. Life has been hard lately, hasn't it? I'm right there with you. This episode is about the anguish I'm having breaking up with my online spiritual teacher of 4 years, who doesn't know me at all. Because that's the world we live in. But I got to the limit this type of learning.  As I try to extract the lessons from it, I reflect on what it means to be a teacher, how culture can be thought of as soil for our consciousness and the work of real Artists of composting the shit and shadow of humanity in the underground so that beautiful things can grow.

Kim Manfredi is a prolific oil painter and one-time yoga guru who just opened a new public studio for her art in Palm Desert, CA. Many years ago, Kim founded a large yoga community in Baltimore, where she introduced yoga to thousands of people and trained hundreds of teachers, including Trixie! Recorded in-the-flesh in March 2021, this was the first time the teacher and student had seen each other since 2012. Trixie and Kim catch up in real time and Kim recounts her Covid experience, her journey from engineering major to finding art and yoga and they explore some of the ways spirituality and creativity intertwine.

Recorded days before of the debut of his first book— THE GOOD HAND—  this is a great conversation with friend, folksinger, playwright and fellow Artist, Mike, about his page turner of a memoir about a year he spent working on an oil field in North Dakota. 

Getting this old engine started up again-- it may be stuttering and sputtering as she comes back to life, but give her a chance...she'll get there! Wait...am I talking about myself or the podcast? Both, of course! Welcome back and you are welcome. Season 2 opens with a dense-yet-rambling missive from yours truly. You don't know how hard it was for me to start talking publicly again, whew! But I'm busting through the fog-- filling you in on what I've been doing these past 6-7 months, loading you up with my favorite esoteric/spiritual ideas and getting us back on the same page...talking about living an artistic life in this crazy old world!

Part 2 of the Lucha Vavoom series. Trixie talks to Will Flores about how he came to be a professional wrestler as part of 2 duos-- the Crazy Chickens and Los Luchas. Will talks about his early days training in a mechanic's garage, all the places his career has taken him, and how to go from being the butt of the joke to coming out on top.

The Renaissance is ON, ya'll! In this episode, we talk about choosing your own adventure, the steps I took to lift out of the depression, what the mushrooms told me and I review what my plan is for this creative time we have been gifted. We're in this together, gang!

Special surprise episode with Ryan Leslie Fisher! We cover the origin story of this wildly talented actor, singer, comedian and up-and-coming cabaret superstar. Originally from Toronto, Ryan went to college for acting and parlayed his passion for LGBT activism into projects such as the irreverent comedy web series, Enemies of Dorothy. In Los Angeles, he has been the compère for a residency of Carnivale Cabaret in Hollywood, as well as the immersive-theater-meets-spy-musical, Crimson Cabaret. He has been in countless plays, films, writes/produces/acts in his own web series and just did his first nude sex scene. Ryan and Trixie talk about all that, the meaning of life and their own joint collaboration, the Cabaret Collective.

Part 1 in a new mini-series focusing on the beloved Los Angeles show, LUCHA VAVOOM! A high-energy mash-up of Mexican lucha libre wrestling with wild burlesque and outrageous comedy that has massive shows 4 times a year at the Mayan Theater in DTLA. This episode we meet one of the co-founders, Liz Fairbairn, who fell in love with the sport when a luchador flew out of the ring and landed in her lap during a match. Previously, she managed the heavy metal gore band GWAR (look them up if you don't know who they are) in Richmond, VA. Liz has made a 17 year career as the impressario of high glam sexo y violencia with Lucha Vavoom, as well as designing/fabricating outrageous costumes for the film industry and art world. Check out http://luchavavoom.com

The Muppets, Sesame Street, Dark Crystal, Howard Stern...just a few names on the long list of Tim Lagasse's contributions to the professional puppet world. Tim talks about his early days gobbling up books on puppetry as a kid to his intensive degree at University of Connecticut to his impressive career in film/tv in New York and LA. He is a true master of puppets and Tim's dedication to his craft and to following his dream delivers inspiring lessons for us all. Reading: From Maria Popova's Brain Pickings Newsletter "13 Life Learnings from 13 Years of Brainpickings" | Music: "Caridad" by NYC favorite, Gato Loco.

This is part 3 of 4 in the mini-series about Los Angeles Puppet People, a multi-talented community of professional artists working in television, film and on stage. This episode is with Rachel Burson, who is the current president of the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. She works with puppeteers such as the Swazzle Brothers on shows such as Kidding and Crank Yankers, while being the ambassador of all things puppet for the Guild!

Alex Evans is the executive director and head puppeteer at the historic Bob Baker Marionette Theater. While studying film making in college in NY, Alex came to LA and spent a semester interning with an aging Bob Baker, who passed away 4 years ago. In the time since his death, Alex has helped the theater navigate a huge move from Echo Park to Highland Park and transition to operating as a non-profit organization, while leading an ambitious schedule of shows packed with puppet programming. This theater is one of my favorite things about living in LA! How a full time marionette theater still survives in our tech-obsessed culture is no small feat! Featured song: “The Boys (and a Bottle)” by Tokyo Lucky Hole.  

Part 1 in a new series on the Los Angeles puppet community, meet Molly Fite and Jared Ramirez! Two friends and collaborators who met while receiving their puppet training at Jim Henson Studios and soon after created the monthly show, When Puppets Are Your Only Friends. They are both also employed as puppeteers at the legendary Bob Baker Marionette Theater. We discuss the details of their training, the magic of entertaining kids, and all the reasons why hating clowns is lame. Featured Reading: from Berlin Cabaret by Peter Jelavich | Featured Song: Debris of Love by Julia Haltigan

While I was at Burning Man a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to camp alongside the team responsible for launching a monstrously impressive white, light-up, fire-breathing dragon art car, named Elektra. Peter Platzgummer was the project manager for the creation of this desert beast which took 2 years to make and involved over 40 artists, designers and fabricators. Peter has a PhD in Political Economy and now manages large scale art creation for a company called Engineered Artworks out of the Bay Area. | Featured song in this episode is "Storms" by Vancouver based Louise Burns.

This is part 4 of 4 of the Baltimore Summer Series! Susan Lowe is an icon in Baltimore. Born on a tobacco farm in South Carolina, Sue received the best in art education and both attended and taught at Maryland Institute, College of Art. She was part of John Waters’ original group of friends that became the muses of his earliest films, who became knows as “Dreamlanders,” named after his production company. Trixie and Sue sat down in her Baltimore rowhouse and studio for a candid talk about growing up in South Carolina, her star turn as Mole McHenry in John Waters’ Desperate Living and transforming the loss over her grandson’s death from cancer into a series of new paintings. Featured song is “Snow” by Baltimore’s Abby Mott. Featured reading is from The Nine Muses by Angeles Arrien.

Michael Muller is the author and illustrator of a series of books called The Adventures of Mirabelle, inspired by his Boston terrier. The two of them travel the country to book shops and events to promote all seven books and lots of fun Mirabelle themed merchandise. Michael sat down with Trixie to talk about how he went from first grade school teacher to gallery owner to fanatical dog parent and how the illustrated life of Mirabelle grew organically out of people coming to visit her at the gallery. This is part 3 of 4 in the Baltimore Summer Series. Featured song on this episode is "Magic & Loss" by Michael Patrick Smith.