Can't Save the World on a Full Bladder with Sam Pyo

Can't Save the World on a Full Bladder with Sam Pyo

Sam Pyo spent a flight from Athens to Rome (with Peter present) convinced the man behind him was a terrorist. I told him he wasn't. Then Italian authorities arrested the guy in the Rome airport, in front of both of us, holding his mug shot on a piece of paper. We recorded this in a trailer in the woods in Grayling, Michigan, and it's mostly about a documentary shoot in Greece where nothing turned out to be what it looked like. Sam and I filmed the Footsteps of Paul documentary with Lon Solomon across Greece, Turkey, and Rome. Along the way we met a man named Paris who told us he was one of the most successful singers in all of Greece and who now runs a beach hut that three people know about. We met a driver named George — the second George — who takes you to a gas station, doesn't buy you coffee, and wants to talk to you about Monopoly and Bitcoin. We spent a night in Thessaloniki marveling at how much fun Greeks are, right up until the Greeks started chanting for the Florida Gators. Also in here: an airport where I had no tickets, a producer who limited me to three questions for the entire ten-day trip, an American flag suitcase, a game of Subway Surfers, and Sam standing at a urinal in Rome wondering whether God was calling him to be a hero. Sam has never listened to a podcast. Seemed like the right guest.

You Have to Give Two Weeks at a Driving Range with Tom Pounder

Tom Pounder was Peter's youth pastor at Cedar Run Community Church starting in 2003. He's still one of Peter's closest friends, which is what this episode is actually about — when did the kid you were trying to keep out of trouble become the friend you grab sushi with every month? Tom and Peter go deep on the Seinfeld-inspired driving range break-in (which Tom, it turns out, worked at), the infamous Boston mission trip Peter wasn't on but everyone won't stop talking about, the night they got a Christian band to play a New Year's Eve party that turned into weeping worship, and the time someone called the church to try to get Tom fired. Tom shares his story too — how a mission trip to Alabama building a barn for abused and abandoned teenage girls changed his life, why he wasn't smart enough to be a computer major, what it was like being a divorced pastor with four young daughters, and what cleaning out his late dad's house in Gettysburg taught him about his brothers. Also discussed: whether Brady Shearer is Canadian, why a church stage somewhere in Peter was lucky enough to grow up with in his youth group. Huge in Nairobi, as always. Episode 8. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atleastitsagoodpodcast [https://www.instagram.com/atleastitsagoodpodcast] Follow Peter on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vonkahle Follow Tom on X/Twitter: https://x.com/tapounder?lang=en [https://x.com/tapounder?lang=en]

I Was Highly Successful Twice with Adam Henry

Adam Henry had 31 jobs before he turned 26. Now he's a sheriff's deputy training new recruits and he's hoping this one sticks. Adam is a friend from book club. We've known each other for years and I still learned more about him in this conversation than I had in all that time combined. We get into all of it - the Christmas tree farm, the overnight call center, getting his tie cut in half on his first car sale, going to kindergarten twice ("I was highly successful twice"), and somehow ending up wrestling a drunk driver awake in his own barn at 6 in the morning. Along the way there's a lot: his dad fighting a fisher cat at midnight with a grilled cheese in his hand, my chicken farming, a turkey that faked her own death, a $10 mini horse Adam paid for on Venmo, the police academy that has a few fake stores, and a long debate about how each of us would want to be found dead in a way that would keep police guessing for decades. Mine involves a pie. His involves a Christmas tree box. Also: how Adam built a men's book club through Craigslist ads, used bookstore solicitation, and a Twitch Discord. The 12 Days of Christmas as a labor analysis. And the Backstreet Boys vs. 98 Degrees ad-lib debate that closes the episode. Have a listen. And shoutout to Nairobi.

Therapy: All Made Up with Claire von Kahle

Peter's little sister Claire is a licensed therapist — which means this episode was always going to turn into a session. Within the first two minutes, they're debating whether an Instagram therapist named Shannon knows what her handle looks like to the rest of the internet. From there it's childhood chaos (the Von Kahle kids once taped every doorway in the house and called it Tape Day), their dad's emoji-only birthday texts, and the question Peter probably should've thought harder about before asking on mic: "What is a therapist?" Claire explains therapy speak, calls Peter a suppressor to his face, and shares the story of walking into her own therapy session already crying and telling her therapist "I'm fine." Peter opens up about his five-year-old son Royal's anxiety — including the lunch where Royal looked up from his pizza and asked, "Hey, if mama dies, I don't need to go to school anymore, right?" They also cover EMDR (invented by a woman watching birds in Central Park — "we're making it all up, but it works"), IFS and parts work, the hermit crab graveyard, why therapists are always working themselves out of a job, and the tension between faith and feelings. Peter was prom king. Claire was better at basketball. They end on a conversation about names that's quieter and more honest than either of them expected.

With Former NFL Cheerleader Melanie Tatum

Melanie Tatum was a Baltimore Ravens cheerleader - not once, but twice - and she never tells anyone. I'm not even sure how I found out about it. She was a gymnast her whole life who thought she had no chance of making an NFL cheerleading roster but wanted to give it a try. So she taught herself to fly. Went to grad school. Then she taught herself to dance. And she made the cheer team both times on her first try. This episode is a conversation about a world most people know nothing about: what NFL cheerleading actually looks like from the inside. Melanie talks about the tryout process — hundreds of people show up, and at the end they send you down a hallway where your number is either on the wall or it's not. She talks about game day — rolling a full-size suitcase through Baltimore from Fed Hill in matching outfits six hours before kickoff, getting ready in a locker room with metal lockers and a laminated name tag on a magnet to make it feel homey. She talks about the pay, the rules (if a player gets on your elevator, you get off), and why she has a take on the cheerleader pay debate that might surprise you. Then the conversation goes somewhere neither of us planned. Melanie talks about losing a pregnancy, losing her spot on the team, and trying to figure out what God was doing in all of it. It's honest and real and it's the heart of the episode. We also talk about Baltimore, doing the Ray Lewis dance at her wedding, high school prom kings and homecoming court, and an unexpected shoutout to Switchfoot. This is At Least It'll Be a Good Story. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atleastitsagoodpodcast [https://www.instagram.com/atleastitsagoodpodcast] Subscribe to the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW4wuIX4axfG8eMbrmrWgGw [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW4wuIX4axfG8eMbrmrWgGw]