FULL EPISODE: Straight Take On Gay Hockey - February 4, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
unfiltered discussions unexpected guests no topic is off limits from sex and relationships to the human condition personal anxieties and so much more the only talk show of its kind in the world
What unique role do fungi play in forest ecosystems after wildfires?
hello and welcome lots to cover lots to learn tonight here are some of the topics we'll hit on the evening's program okay against my better judgment i watched the gay hockey show with my partner with my girlfriend it feels weird calling it that but it is it's the gay romance show heated rivalry and we watched it and in about 10 minutes time i'm going to get interviewed me and my girlfriend on this show by my friend Caitlin Greene, I know very complicated, on what it's like for a straight couple to watch this steamy romance. This should be, in a word, ridiculous. Then after that, the year 1518, hundreds of people start dancing nonstop in the streets of Europe. No music, no party, some literally to death.
Sounds absurd, right? Well, it happened. Halfway through the hour, you'll learn what history's bizarre dance play can teach us about modern panics. As you can see, tonight's show, a mix of stupid and educational.
How does a straight couple perceive the gay hockey show 'Heated Rivalry'?
I wouldn't have it any other way. Let's jump in. Fungus, you gotta love it. So when I heard some mushrooms don't just survive wildfires, but in fact wait for them, sleeping underground, burying, and then eating charcoal, the after effects of a burn, I knew we had to learn more about it. And that's why Sydney Glassman, a microbiology professor at the University of California, Riverside, is here to talk about fire-loving fungi. Or is it fungi? I don't know. Sydney?
I like to say fungi, but either way works.
Welcome to the show also.
What historical lessons can we learn from the dancing plague of 1518?
All right. Thanks for having me.
Okay. Before we get to like genes and enzymes and cells, can you paint a picture for us? What happens to a forest right after a wildfire? I always imagine that like the forest was ruined. That's it. Life ends. I know that I'm wrong.
Okay. Yeah. So it depends a lot on the severity of the fire, but let's say you have a high severity stand replacing fire where all trees die. So, which is our most trees die. So a lot of trees will die. It produces a ton of ash. A lot of nutrients are released. You have a higher pH, a ton of nutrients. The wood is now turned into pyrogenic organic matter or charcoal and And then the upper layer of soil with all the bacteria and fungi is mostly dead.
How can virtue contribute to a more meaningful life?
However, there are microbes that are in deeper layers in the soil that can move up and or there are things that like have spores or like resistant propagules that could survive high temperatures that might have survived. And then there's things that basically were not there before the fire, but are able to bloom after the fire in absence of the competitors and other things that were there before. So there's this bloom of microbes that do really well after fires. This has actually been known about for over 100 years. There was a paper in 1909 that described these fireplace fungi. And they're these orange cups that can sometimes make like a carpet of fungi across the soil. Like it can all be carpeted in these orange cup fungi if you have a really hot fire.
Okay, and so this stuff just waits underground waiting for a fire. I always thought forest fire bad, Smokey the Forest Bear trying to prevent us from forest fires or whatever Smokey did. Hope he wasn't smoking.
What patterns of narcissism are observed across different countries?
That's bad for your health. But like it turns out fires are like not only completely natural, they kind of need to happen for our ecosystems to be balanced.
Yeah. So in California and other Mediterranean ecosystems, fires are definitely natural and things are adapted to them. And there's whole books written about the plants and their adaptations to fire. For example, they have underground tubers. They have thick bark. Some plants even have cones that require heat in order to release their seeds. So they actually require heat in order to reproduce plants. So there's whole books on this.
How can parents transition from authority figures to consultants for their children?
We know a lot about plant adaptations to fire, but plants are all associated with microbes as well. And these fungi and bacteria also have adaptations to fire.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:24
2
What unique role do fungi play in forest ecosystems after wildfires?
0:24–1:19
3
How does a straight couple perceive the gay hockey show 'Heated Rivalry'?
1:19–1:51
4
What historical lessons can we learn from the dancing plague of 1518?
1:51–2:33
5
How can virtue contribute to a more meaningful life?
2:33–3:28
6
What patterns of narcissism are observed across different countries?
3:28–4:00
7
How can parents transition from authority figures to consultants for their children?
4:00–4:28
8
What are the implications of telling 'little white lies'?
4:28–1:20:10
Speakers
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