Smart Me Up Dennis DiClaudio

Blue Steel spent years working in the trenches of DC politics and has somehow managed to escape with both her humanity and her sense of humor intact. In this episode, she and I pole vault off of Charles Blow's Rescue Plan for Black America into all sorts of topics. A lot of them concerning race and politics. A fair number not. Pretty chill, fun conversation considering the subject matter.
Follow Blue Steel on Twitter: @BlueSteelDC
 

Jamie Schler is an author, baker, jam maker and hotelier living in Chinon, France. In this conversation, we talk about how kitchen life kept us both sane these past few years, and she explains what it's like running a 17th Century hotel during a 21st Century plague. Oh, and she also reveals her secret association with the Project Mercury spaceflight program.
Find her online: @lifesafeast
Pick up her cookbooks: Orange Appeal and Isolation Baking
Sleep under her roof: Hôtel Diderot

Jessica Ellis, the writer/director of the soon-to-be-released independent film What Lies West, takes time out of her daily routine of sheltering in place from a raging pandemic to b******t with Dennis about getting your stuff out there in the world.
Later, trusted comrade Michael Ewing pops in to talk about Ultimate Frisbee or something.

Michael Hearst is a musician, composer, author, and all around good guy living in Brooklyn with his wife and son. Due in equal parts to his talent and chillness, he's well-known, well-liked, and well-respected among many well-known, well-liked, and well-respected people. You may not know his name, but there are decent odds that some of your favorite artists do. He might even have brunch with a few of them.
He's one-half of the band One Ring Zero and the author of the forthcoming Unconventional Vehicles: Forty-Five of the Strangest Cars, Trains, Planes, Submersibles, Dirigibles, and Rockets EVER.

For the introductory episode, Dennis decides to play it safe and interview his good friend Darci "Kittenpants" Ratliff. She reveals her gnostic means of following through on stuff she wants to do and tries to rename the podcast. Later, he's joined by another close friend, Michael J. Ewing, who delivers bad news about the prospects of Dennis fixing his annoying voice. Finally, Emiliano DiClaudio-Escobar illuminates a secret subsection of the DC Universe.