It's spooky season. Decorations are up, costumes are out — and Chucky's keeping watch over the studio. He was my favorite as a kid. I even had a Good Guy doll I slept with, then mutilated as a teen: shaved his head, drew tattoos on him, and eventually set him on fire while chanting, "Ade due Damballa, give me the power I beg of you!" Ha.
I've also got a new co-host: Headly Wilson. Headly, say hi to the people… Yeah. He's not a great co-host. Doesn't say much.
One programming note: I'm NOT live on TikTok while recording anymore. Hundreds of people pop into the live but they don't stay, and I think it's because I can't engage with them mid-recording. So I'm going live before and after recording instead — trying that for a few weeks to see if things improve.
17 Podcasts, Zero Interest in Fear Headlines
This week I listened to 17 podcasts — and a lot of them are running the same shock-and-fear playbook: the Cornell 7, AI safety panic, war on the horizon. I'm bored with it. So instead, we're talking about the genuinely interesting stuff: what's happening with Gypsy Rose right now, getting motivated by LL Cool J, laughing at John Cena eating a puke burger, and my top 5 podcasts I rarely mention here.
Quick reminder of the rules: I don't rate or review podcasts, and I couldn't possibly cover everything happening out there. I'm a truck driver who listens to a lot of them each week. I find the themes that interest me, do some further research or add my own introspective thoughts, and record it all here — partly in hopes it's interesting to you, and partly because this is how I learn best: listen to it or read it, write it, teach it, boom, it's solidified.
It was a brutal week at work, by the way. My boss was out of town, so I did both our jobs — long days, early starts, late finishes, running all over the warehouse. I really thought I wouldn't get any podcasts in. But I queued them up each morning, put an earbud in, and still knocked out 17. Pretty good.
62 Miles in October
My wife and I are doing 62 Miles in October for the American Cancer Society — minimum 2 miles a day, walking, running, elliptical, whatever it takes. This week was hard to fit in the extra miles, but between those and my regular step count I'm already at 65.95 miles for the month according to Samsung Health. The goal is to raise $500 and I'm still a ways off, so if you want to support the ACS, the donation link is in the episode description. Everyone knows someone who's suffered from cancer — every little bit helps.
Old Business: The WeWork Deep Dive
Zero feedback so far on Episode 7, but I'll say it: that WeWork deep dive was the first episode where I hyper-focused on one subject the whole way through, and honestly I felt like it was my best yet. I spent real time on the script, the audio and video were clean. I briefly considered doing a deep dive every week — but I don't want to force it. This show is about where my headphones take me. Sometimes that's several directions, sometimes it all comes together, sometimes I fall down a rabbit hole. That deep dive may have been the first, but it won't be the last.
Related: I started watching WeCrashed on Apple+ — Jared Leto as Adam Neumann, Anne Hathaway as Rebekah. Really good, highly recommend. Even my wife set aside Ted Lasso to watch it with me and now hounds me for the next episode. In episode 2, they spend every penny building the first WeWork location — Miguel doing all the manual labor while Adam runs around securing a lease on location two before location one is even finished. It really pisses Miguel off. Fun connecting my research to what's on screen.
Notable Mentions
Diary of a CEO had two great guests. Dana White — the UFC and Power Slap guy — gave a super interesting interview mostly about his life, his businesses, and his worldview. They also had Shawn Ryan, who hosts his own huge podcast. He's clearly going through something traumatic: he did another round of ibogaine — which helped him tremendously the first time — but this time he had what I'd call a bad trip. He says he literally went to hell and thinks a demon followed him back. He's been seeing unexplainable things, going to exorcisms, and feels called to make his podcast more Christ-focused, including a year-long series on every book of the Bible. I'm interested to see where it goes for him, and I hope he recovers.
The Mel Robbins Podcast had Dr. Michael Eisenberg, a Stanford urology professor who leads their male reproductive medicine program. Great info on testosterone — when to boost it and how boosting it when you don't need it can actually be harmful — plus erectile dysfunction talk. Mel got giggly over the tagline: "If you have a penis, we can make it hard."
Podcast of the Week: John Cena Ate the Puke Burger
What Now? with Trevor Noah — the John Cena episode, "I Ate the Puke Burger." Cena is such a humble, insightful guy: slept in his car outside the gym to bodybuild, wrestled his way up, built an acting career — and he's so easygoing about all of it. He told this funny, kind of vulnerable story from his wrestling days that I replayed on the show.
It reminded me of my party years — late teens, early twenties — when I definitely ate some questionable things while intoxicated. The one I actually remember: we were outside smoking, I set my beer down, picked it back up, took a big swig — and immediately started throwing up all over the patio. Everyone's screaming, the homeowner's pissed. Turns out I'd grabbed the wrong can — same brand as mine — the one everyone had been using as an ashtray. Mouth full of ashes and cigarette butts. I was forgiven once everyone figured it out (and after I helped clean up), but for a long while I was the "butt" of the joke. "Kevin, give me your beer, I need to put my cigarette out." Ptsh… buttholes.
The Gypsy Rose Rabbit Hole
I almost fell into another rabbit hole this week: Gypsy Rose Blanchard is back in the news because her husband, Ken Urker, has died.
I said almost, because it turns out I knew way more about this story than I realized. Quick run-through: Gypsy was born in 1991, and her mother Dee Dee portrayed her as catastrophically ill from early childhood — leukemia, muscular dystrophy, seizures, asthma — wheelchair, feeding tube, endless medications and procedures. Almost none of it was true. Gypsy could walk. Doctors have described Dee Dee's behavior as consistent with Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Dee Dee controlled everything: no normal school, no social life, lied about Gypsy's age.
In 2015, Gypsy — who'd secretly gotten back online and met Nicholas Godejohn on a Christian dating site — helped arrange for him to travel from Wisconsin to Missouri, where he stabbed Dee Dee to death while Gypsy waited in the house. Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and got 10 years; Godejohn got life. Her story exploded through documentaries like HBO's Mommy Dead and Dearest.
While incarcerated, Gypsy started corresponding with Ken Urker, who'd seen the documentary. They got engaged in 2018, broke up in 2019. Meanwhile she married another correspondent, Ryan Anderson, in 2022 while still in prison. When Gypsy walked out of Chillicothe Correctional Center on December 28, 2023, she went home with Ryan — then separated three months later, reconnected with Ken, and by July 2024 announced she was pregnant with his child. Their daughter Aurora was born December 28, 2024.
And now, less than two years later, Ken Urker is dead. October 1, 2026, age 34 — found unresponsive at his home in Raceland, Louisiana, on his birthday. The sheriff's office says it's under investigation with no evidence of foul play so far. Gypsy believes he overdosed but doesn't know if it was intentional. Deputies reportedly found drug paraphernalia — syringes, a spoon, a brown powdery substance — plus a syringe and handgun on the nightstand. His family says he'd been making depressed comments. Gypsy's been arguing cyberbullying played a role and is pushing for "Kenan's Law" against online harassment. (Kenan is Ken's full name.)
Okay — tin-foil hat on. This is too soon and there are too few details to say anything definitively, but the timeline feels weird: Ken splits from Gypsy after she gets drunk and trashes the bedroom; he threatens to take their daughter; his sister posts a cryptic poem; the family says he's depressed; on his birthday he goes live driving in the dark; Gypsy sends a disappearing audio message; then he's found dead with conveniently placed suicide-typical items next to him. It feels almost too clean. Too staged. And then she runs to TMZ pushing the bullied-to-death narrative and a new law? It's WEIRD. It's too soon!
And listen — Gypsy is smart. She planned a murder before. She manipulated a boy into doing it, stood by playing the innocent bystander, and learned from her mistakes: last time the social media messages tied her to the crime. This time? That disappearing audio message gives her a location-stamped alibi. It's too perfect…
OR — has Ryan finally enacted his revenge? OH WAIT — GYPSY GOT RYAN TO DO IT!
Ha. Okay, okay. I'm just having fun. New boot goofin'. Don't run with any of that — these are real people, I don't know anything about them, I'm not being judgmental. I've just listened to way too many true crime podcasts. Or… the right amount?
Tin-foil hat off. It's probably a suicide. Their poor daughter is without a dad now — that's real. I hope for her sake Gypsy had nothing to do with it. And cyberbullying is real; people need to knock that crap off. But I'll be keeping a close eye on this one. There's more to learn here, and I'll fill you in as it unfolds.
LL Cool J: You Can Decide to Be Better
Cooling the jet engines now. LL Cool J is making the podcast rounds promoting a new show, and man — the guy is so cool and easygoing, but also deeply insightful. Fun stories about the early Def Jam days (apparently Rick Rubin wouldn't "produce" his albums — they'd say "Reduced by Rick Rubin"). But between the stories, he dropped some real life advice. Here's what stuck with me from his Joe Rogan Experience appearance:
"You can decide to be better."
Not that it's easy. Not that everyone starts from the same place. But at some point, you need the self-awareness to look at yourself and say: okay, this is where I am. These are my strengths, these are my weaknesses, these are the things holding me back — and what am I going to do about it?
I loved the amateur vs. professional analogy. The amateur says, "I want to be where you are." The professional says, "Okay — but you're going to have to sacrifice. You're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to fail. Some days you won't want to do it, and you'll have to do it anyway." And the amateur's response is, "Yeah, but that's easy for you to say — you're already a professional."
We see the result, not the years before it. We see the guy in shape but not the mornings he didn't want to get out of bed. We see the successful business but not the failed ideas. And we think, that's easy for them — they're already there. But that's backwards:
"They became the person who could do it by doing the things that were uncomfortable before they were the person who could do it."
We want the result without the process. We want the mountain without the climb. And I loved the other line from that clip: when you dream of roses, you get thorns. That's the deal. If you say you want to climb Mount Everest, you don't get to complain that it's cold. That's the mountain.
The second clip took it further — about how we tell ourselves we're past that stage. "I'm too old." "I'm 40." "I'm 50." When you say that, what you're really saying is: I don't have to compete anymore. I don't have to try. I don't have to risk failing. And that's comfortable — because if you decide you're done trying, you can't fail.
But you're still alive. If you're still here, there's still another chapter. Why would we put an expiration date on that? I loved the phrase:
"Dreams don't have deadlines."
We put deadlines on dreams because we think life follows a schedule. By 25, this. By 30, that. By 40, established. By 50, slowing down. But who decided that? Who said you missed your window? Maybe you didn't miss it. Maybe you're just finally ready to walk through it.
And the question worth sitting with: what would your life look like five years from now if you decided not to give up? Five years are going to pass anyway. You'll be five years older whether you pursue the thing or not. So why not find out? You don't age out of growth. You don't age out of curiosity. So if there's something you've been telling yourself you're too old for — maybe the real question isn't "am I too old?" Maybe it's: "What would happen if I stopped using my age as an excuse and just gave myself permission to try?"
My Top 5 Podcasts
Closing out with the five podcasts I watch every week but rarely feature here:
1. Bad Friends — Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino. Two completely different, sometimes clashing personalities, hilarious banter, Monday morning drops. Great way to start the week. 2. Brooke and Jeffrey in the Morning — Seattle radio show on 50+ stations, repackaged as a daily hour-long podcast. Phone taps, Laser Stories, Shock Collar Trivia, the Loser Line. A full hour of laughs every weekday. 3. How I Built This with Guy Raz — newer find, quickly fell in love. The advice-line episodes with small business callers are gold for me as I figure out how to grow this podcast. 4. Ray William Johnson: True Story — I've been a fan since his "=3" YouTube days. Daily 9-10 minute true crime and pop culture stories with his signature animations. I queue the whole week and listen to an hour of them back to back. 5. 48 Hours — yes, I listen to true crime. I held off since starting this show because I didn't want to accidentally make another true crime podcast. But 48 Hours does it best — old crimes, new crimes, deep-dive miniseries.
That concludes the pod for the week of October 4th–10th. Please like and follow — it's the best way to support the show. Share it with someone you think would enjoy it. And comment — I do read them.
I'm Kevin T., wishing you a safe but oh-so-creepy October… or sober October, if you do that… or like me, 62-mile October for cancer (please donate — link's in the description).
Thanks for tuning in. See you next week in my headphones.
Show notes
- Main topics: Gypsy Rose Blanchard / Ken Urker death; LL Cool J life advice (Joe Rogan Experience); John Cena puke burger story (What Now? with Trevor Noah); Kevin's top 5 podcasts
- Notable mentions: Diary of a CEO — Dana White interview; Diary of a CEO — Shawn Ryan on ibogaine, spiritual warfare, and a Christ-focused pivot; Mel Robbins Podcast — Dr. Michael Eisenberg on testosterone and men's health
- Old business: Episode 7 WeWork deep dive (no feedback yet — Kevin calls it his best); started watching WeCrashed on Apple+
- Personal: boss out of town = brutal work week, still hit 17 podcasts; 62 Miles in October for the American Cancer Society ($500 goal, donation link in episode description); no more TikTok live during recording (going live before/after instead)
- Top 5 podcasts: Bad Friends; Brooke and Jeffrey in the Morning; How I Built This with Guy Raz; Ray William Johnson: True Story; 48 Hours
- Full list of 17 podcasts: in the episode description on YouTube
- Episode 8 script: Kevin scripted the full episode — no AI transcription needed this week
- Closing: like, follow, share, comment — "a safe but oh-so-creepy October"