Neighbors

Todd Michael Rogers got married young, and it was bad. It was the kind of bad that Todd describes as "Lifetime movie bad." He became unhappy and isolated. It was in that space where he started pouring his energy into creating a one-player card game called Spell Saga. When your life is in shambles, what happens when you follow your creativity honestly?

This is a story about a ritual. A Chinese tea ceremony. It's used as a means to connect — with the past, with people, with another land. Joshua Drake Wu invited me into his home to experience the joy of Chinese tea. I learned a lot of surprising things about tea, hospitality, and my neighbor. Make yourself a cup of your favorite leaf and listen. Also in this episode are the rituals of two of my podcasting colleagues, Jonathan Hirsch of ARRVLS and Vannessa Lowe of Nocturne. They are two great shows you should check out. Special thanks to Jason Goforth and Dan Burns for some of the music in this episode.

What happens when you try to help someone out, it goes well, but then they end up right back where they started? Jakob channels his inner Sisyphus and goes to the Parthenon to interview strangers about when helping seems futile. Neighbors contributor Tasha A F Lemley brings us a story of a street chaplain who helps one man recover from addiction and injury only to find that he's back to his old ways.

This episode is more of a meditation than a story. When Barclay was 25, he traveled the country in a van. Out under the open sky he bought an astronomy book, looked up, and had his sky stolen from him. He wasn't ready for what he saw. Close your eyes and soak up this very meditative edition of Neighbors.

Bobby Hopkins wakes up one day and decides to change his life. Within two years, he's entering his first 100-mile ultramarathon. I go along as part of his crew to help him along the way. Will Bobby finish? Will I do a good job crewing? Also, a special release of Service Unicorn's "Water Color War Paint."

Neighbors is once again live from my backyard. 10 storytellers poured their hearts out. 5 of them are featured in this episode. In this episode: Blake Farmer, reporter at WPLN in Nashville, tells a story of being a rockstar in the Philippines. Hal Humphreys, private investigator, talks about what it feels like to lose your freedom. Tasha Lemley, co-founder of the street newspaper The Contributor, reminisces about an encounter with fame. Josh Spilker, writer and across-the-street neighbor from me, reads from his e-book about our neighborhood.

After a five-week road trip across beautiful America, I'm back. I'm bringing you a story I did from before I was gone. It's called "Bringing Wes Home": The tale of a family who took their son's body and prepared it themselves. If you've never heard of a home funeral, this will enlighten you and bring tears to your eyes at the beauty that this process can provide.

On March 22, 2014, I held Neighbors Live! in my backyard. It was a very neighborly time. Neighbors favorite Thomas McKenzie told a story that will blow you away.

If you live in Nashville you've probably heard a lot of flood stories from the May 2010 flood. This one stood out to me as a true example of neighbors being neighbors. Jeff Jones the owner of the local Dairy King shares his story about surviving the flood and quite literally moving further down the road.