Daddy Unscripted Podcast

In episode 61, I had a life-altering conversation with Rob Gorski, creator of "The Autism Dad". Life-altering is an appropriate and not exaggerated description of our discussion. I, of course, am hopeful it has anywhere close to that effect and meaning for at least some of you.As I said in my intro: Rob is one of those people that, to me, are deserving of the title "hero". Truly. Rob's ability to overcome some of the challenges he and his family are faced with is the stuff heroes are made of. Their "normal" day-to-day is extremely unique. And, I'm sure Rob would scoff at me for saying that or maybe politely thank me for it. But, the things Rob does that seem so amazing to me, he would probably just shrug and tell me how it really is just his life. And... that's what makes it heroic to me.I truly feel very humbled after speaking with Rob. Hearing these stories about how much his family overcomes daily. How much they have overcome already. It also inspires me to know that I can do so much more, in so many ways.

In episode 60, Will Henson tells us all about the adventures of his life. These are not just his adventures, but those of his Dad and his Mom during his youth, as well.Will came to the podcast via Episode 56's guest Jon Loomis. So, a special thanks to Jon for leading such a great man to Daddy Unscripted.When Will first emailed me, I couldn't have been more surprised by some of the things he quickly mentioned about his childhood. His parents' research of bats and mentioning to me that he was catching bats in Jamaica had me extremely interested, to say the least.Spending much of his life on the east coast, Will tells some great stories of adventuring about from his childhood. He talks about being quite the nerd in High School, which I really associated with. It's not too hard to believe that a young Will decided to just up and move to Alaska.As someone who, at times, was not afraid to try very new things and places in life, I am so massively inspired by Will's fearless life. We talked a bit about what it's like

Another episode that Twitter gets a lot of the glory for bringing me yet another fantastic guest. I am not one to spend my time in just one arena. I think that goes for pretty much all aspects of my life. True, when I get into something I really get into that something. But, I throw my net pretty wide.For some years now, I have been extremely interested in the things that are not right in front of my face. That meant looking outside of mainstream media and network news. This opened my eyes to a lot of the things that are starting to get a little more light shed on them lately.I shake my head as I type this. How is it possible we are still talking about racism? And as I type that sentence, I feel like it makes me appear ignorant. I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel with this post. I'm not trying to write something to have it go viral. Now, that would be ignorant. But, a big part of me wants to scream out: "HOW IS RACISM STILL SO PREVALENT?!"As a person who happens to be white (I credit that phrase to Amanda

In Episode 58, former major league baseball player David Newhan tells some remarkable stories. He fought through his minor league journey and when his shot for making a big league roster arrived, he made it impossible for them to put him back on the bench. When he had a horrific accident nearly 10 years ago, he fought, quite literally, for his life with that very same tenacity.In October of 2016, Episodes 19 & 20 of the podcast featured my conversations with hall of fame baseball writer Ross Newhan. Yes. You're making the right connection there: Ross is David's dad. When I sat with Ross, the hope was always that he and David would become a Father/Son package on Daddy Unscripted at some point. That time has finally arrived.David had unique access to professional baseball players from a young age. He was born into a home with two baseball-loving parents and his interest in baseball never wavered. While his dad was working over the long and grueling seasons, David was busy bettering himself as a young baseba

Episode 57 features Michael Shields, editor in chief of Across The Margin (in its written and Podcast format). Michael not only has his "Beyond The Margin" podcast on the Osiris Podcast Network; he also is a part of the Welcome To The Party, Pal podcast and the God, Ween, Evan podcast. Yeah... I thought I was busy, too. Michael finds time for all of this, somehow, as well as for being a Dad!Michael and I have wanted to sit down and do an episode for my podcast for a long time now. Somehow, I even ended up recording with someone he sent my way (Evan Kaufman) before I actually recorded with him! Finally, we made it work, and we probably could have talked all night.I can definitely sense a difference in these conversations when they are done with other people who talk with people on a podcast. I think that became instantly obvious with Michael and me, as we were kind of all over the place from the moment we started recording.To say Michael's stories were unique would be a massive understatement. The story he tel

For Episode 56, Jon Loomis, one of the founders of Baseballism, talks about his Dad, his childhood, his early relationship with his wife, being a Dad and what led to the creation of Baseballism as we know it today.For you fans and regulars of the podcast: you know about my love for baseball. I haven't been as direct, however, about my tremendous respect for well-run and unique companies/brands. So, diving into the people behind Baseballism to inquire about good guests for the podcasts wasn't a reach. I'm always impressed and grateful when things come together like this from my "cold calls" for guests.Jon couldn't have been a better find for the podcast. His childhood history was really interesting and unique. I mentioned this at the end of the episode: his life could have gone a completely different way so easily. While his Dad was a JAG in the military (yes, just like that tv show you may remember), Jon spent his early youth in Naples, Italy. At about the age of 6, his parents moved them back to Am

Episode 55, the final episode of 2018, features Ryan Dempster as my guest. I am not going to be presumptuous about your knowledge of who that is. So, here's some details before we get too far.Ryan is a former MLB pitcher. He came up through the Florida Marlins organization and eventually went on to play for the Red, Cubs, Rangers and Red Sox. His longest stint was that of 8 seasons with the Chicago Cubs and he finished his career with the Boston Red Sox.Not just because of my ridiculous passion for the Red Sox, but let me tell you a little more about his grand finale as a major leaguer. His final season was in 2013. That's the year of the Boston Marathon Bombings.We covered a lot of ground in this episode. Ryan told about his Dad and Mom's history, how they met and what kind of man his Dad was before Ryan and his brothers entered the world. His respect for the hard work his Dad put in to provide for their family was clear and obvious, and it sounded well-deserved. Currently, a retired fire chief, his Dad

Episode 54 is my conversation with Brando Rich, co-founder of "Cash or Trade". If you enjoy going to concerts, you should definitely check Cash or Trade out (either via their website or their app on your smartphone).Brando and I took a long walk down his life's road before we got to where he is today. He told a lot of stories about his childhood in the Northeast. I really enjoyed the tales that went beyond teenage mischief about himself and his brother. As teenagers, their love for music and concerts whisked them away on some pretty wild adventures. Oh, by the way, his brother Dusty is the other co-founder of Cash or Trade. Brando told the story of their aha moment that led to the creation of Cash or Trade. It's remarkable to me that a couple of guys who got the shaft trying to get tickets to a big Phish show were driven to create something as radical as Cash or Trade: an idea based around creating a community of people committed to selling and buying tickets at face value. And those people are you and m

In Episode 53, you'll get to meet the hilarious Evan Kaufman. Evan is another fellow plate-spinner, like me, tackling numerous projects all at once and laughing in the face of fear of new(ish) parenthood whilst doing so. You might even say he guffaws at it. People may look at you funny if you do. But, go ahead. Try it anyway.We really tackled a lot of different topics in this conversation. We kicked right in with a discussion about the early phases of a baby and the common difficulty of the bond with dad during those early times because of the "blank slate" that young baby can represent.We joked a little about the difference between us and our wives with what we choose to binge watch or even watch in bed before bedtime. Evan and I, similarly, watch dark stuff and things that dig into our souls a little. I won't speak for his wife, but my wife would much rather re-watch a light sitcom for the 20th time than delve into something that may prove to be a little heavy or suspenseful. My wife is still trying to eras

Episode 52 is my conversation with Chris Plowman. Have you gotten tired of hearing me say how I met my guest on Twitter? If so, hold on tight... because I met Chris on Twitter. Shocking, right?I am definitely not unique in the fact that a lot of my childhood involved collecting and trading baseball cards. I have immensely fond memories of riding the public bus with my brother for sometimes close to an hour to get to a (somewhat) local card shop to flip through old cards for any wanted gems of favorite players. We would usually leave with at least as many individual cards or "wax packs" of cards that our minimal allowance would yield us.My son was born in 2012. Around the time of his 1st birthday in 2013, I decided to start collecting cards again. I thought it might be neat to get a full set of Topps baseball cards for every year of his life and present them to him when he is maybe 12 years old or so. It just so happens that my beloved Red Sox won the World Series that year. So that really helped push me

Episode 51 is the second half of my conversation with fellow podcaster, fellow Dad, fellow music and sports fanatic: Brian Brinkman. Brian makes up one half of the team that brings you the Beyond the Pond podcast. If you haven't heard checked out that podcast yet and you love music, you should make sure to make your way over to them.Beyond the Pond is a partner podcast with Daddy Unscripted in the Osiris Podcast network. Shortly after the Osiris network officially launched, Brian and I started the conversation about our desire to connect for these episodes. I can't believe it took us this long... but I couldn't be more emphatic in telling you that this was absolutely worth the wait.Brian is yet another guest that shares my intense passion for both sports and for music. This episode taps into a lot of that. We talk about how important both of those are to many people and the why and how of both of them tapping into something deeper between humans. Between strangers, even. I am not shy about talking about how m

Episode 50 is the first half of my conversation with fellow podcaster, fellow Dad, fellow music fanatic: Brian Brinkman. Brian makes up one half of the team that brings you the Beyond the Pond podcast. If you haven't heard checked out that podcast yet and you love music, you should make sure to make your way over to them.Beyond the Pond is a partner podcast with Daddy Unscripted in the Osiris Podcast network. Shortly after the Osiris network officially launched, Brian and I started the conversation about our desire to connect for these episodes. I can't believe it took us this long... but I couldn't be more emphatic in telling you that this was absolutely worth the wait.Brian has a very close relationship with his Dad... from his time as a youth to today. He describes pretty fully how much the two of them share a lot of the same interests and passions in life. This conversation almost makes me want to start a scorecard detailing Fathers & Sons that have great relationships that share interests in a signif

Episode 49... so close to 50 and it's a mini-episode. Father's Day is always a perfect opportunity for me to sit and get a little personal. Father's Day and Thanksgiving always bring that out of me on the podcast and it should allow those of you with shorter timeframes to listen to an episode a great chance to get an actual full episode in a single sitting!This is my 3rd Annual Father's Day episode. And I'm getting closer to the mark of 30 years of Father's Days without my Dad around to celebrate them with. And this is officially my 10th Father's Day with "Dad" as part of my title or job description or lifestyle. I'm thrilled about that!For those of you who may have missed my previous Father's Day episodes, let me bring you up to speed -- though, you really should go back and listen to those, too -- My Dad's last Father's Day was during my Senior year in High School. The doctors had very recently diagnosed him with brain cancer. I was 17 and that was the last time I would be able to praise him according to th

Episode 48 is the long-awaited second half of my conversation with Chris Lizotte. I'll repeat what I started Episode 47 with as my description of Chris, that he is known as and for a great many things by a great many people. He is a successful Christian music artist --Wait! Where are you going?! I say the words "Christian music" and you want to leave this episode behind already? Well, you'll be missing out. This is another great episode filled with a lot of laughter, deep conversation and we got really close to tears as well. Or, maybe that was just me.Again, I took these episodes with Chris as a direct challenge to make them extremely listenable for people of any and all faiths. Chris is an incredibly humble man who has done a lot of great things with his talents and gifts. We originally met about 25 years ago when a band I was singing in (yes... you read that correctly) opened up a couple/few times for Chris at various local spots.This episode doesn't exactly start right where the previous episode left

Episode 47 of the podcast is here. There aren't many episodes I'm not excited about releasing, let's be honest. And there are many that I am even more excited about just the conversation and recording with my guest. This episode (and the next) have all of that and more. Because, this man is one amazing man... one that I am proud to call my friend and feel not only honored to know and be able to spend time with, but I am incredibly blessed by it, too. Yes. I just used that word: blessed. Don't @ me.Chris Lizotte is known as and for a great many things by a great many people. He is a successful Christian music artist --Wait! Where are you going?! I say the words "Christian music" and you want to leave this episode behind already? Well, you'll be missing out. This is a great episode filled with a lot of laughter, deep conversation and we got really close to tears as well. Or, maybe that was just me.I took this episode (and the next forthcoming one with Chris) as a direct challenge to make them extremely listenab

Episode 46 of the podcast is one I've been holding onto for a while now. Another great guest that I waited for the Osiris Pod Network to launch. So, here it finally is: a groundbreaking, inspiring and relentless conversation. My podcast is fairly different from Order of Man, which Ryan created a few years ago. But, this episode with him as a guest finds a pretty solid middle-ground between our two platforms.I'm not going to say that Ryan and I are complete opposites, because we aren't. Ryan, however, is an extremely manly man. I said it more than once to Ryan: I really looked forward to this conversation because of how much it would expand my own way of thinking to hear his viewpoint.We went back into Ryan's past a bit to start, as per usual. The stories he had to tell are a new facet to this podcast. Ryan did not really have his biological father around during his entire youth. His Dad chose alcohol over his family, as Ryan put it. Unfortunately, not too much after that, his step-Dad took the exact same path

Episode 45 of the podcast is one I’m excited to bring to all of you. I was thrilled to receive a favorable response quickly after I originally reached out to James Breakwell. When I stumbled onto his Twitter feed some months ago, I felt a kindred spirit connection right away.James is probably known to a lot of people by his Twitter handle and website name: Exploding Unicorn. He has been plugging away at bringing the reality and levity of being a parent to other parents via the internet for quite some time now. He typically does not pull punches on his posts and allows the humor and goofiness of his kids fully shine through.Already very successful with his own true life experiences, he went on to create a new character that grew into massive popularity as well: Very Lonely Luke (under that same username). The account caught the attention of Star Wars fans globally, even as much as attracting Mark Hamill to talk about it. I’m only the tiniest bit envious of that part of the accomplishment.We did a dive into Jam

Episode 44 of the podcast is the second half of my conversation with Tom Keeley. If I was a fancier type guy who maybe also lived in England, I would probably describe Tom as a rather lovely fellow. He really was a fantastic bloke (look at me being even more British-y!) and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.A lot of you may already know that Tom is the guitarist in the band Thursday. Now, I will be honest here. Thursday isn’t the type of music I would normally seek out these days. There would have been times in previous times of my life that I may have been a little more apt to do that. However, in my steadfastness to research guests and to avoid being that host that says to an author: “I loved your book!” without having read a page of it, I have listened to quite a bit of Thursday. And, legitimately, I am honestly looking forward to seeing them in concert later this year.During this section of our extended conversation together, Tom talks a lot about the early genesis of his foray into music and being a

Episode 43 of the podcast is the first half of my conversation with Tom Keeley. If I was a fancier type guy who maybe also lived in England, I would probably describe Tom as a rather lovely fellow. He really was a fantastic bloke (look at me being even more British-y!) and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.A lot of you may already know that Tom is the guitarist in the band Thursday. Tom was led to me by previous guest, RJ, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Although my immediate thought when I looked up Tom and his band was, honestly: “This is not really my type of music these days…” I was reminded fairly quickly that this podcast is not at all just about me and what I like. That was a quite welcome reminder. What can I say? I’m human.Tom got extremely honest in this episode and didn’t seem to really hold back or pull punches about his childhood. As much as some of the positive stories started to pile up about his experiences with living with his Dad and with his Mom, the fact remains: it isn’t always the s

Episode 42 of the podcast is another of my smaller episodes that doesn’t involve a guest. This episode was born from my desire to further explain the whole point of this podcast. Why does it exist? Why do I keep putting all of this time and energy into it? There is more than this text in the actual podcast episode that accompanies this. But, here is the gist of it for you:We’ve become fantastic documenters, haven’t we? Armed with our smartphones. Within the last decade, we’ve become well-equipped to document events, big and small and all of the little moments in between.You see it so often now, when someone is telling a story to someone else: whether it’s a wedding or a vacation or even just the night before. We pull out our phone and show someone all of the photos we took or just direct them to our Instagram or Facebook.But, we’re always moving forward with the documentation. We’re recording all of these things, taking all of these photos. Piling it all up. Adding onto our camera roll… daily or weekly. At so