Help Us Out With This: Recent Episodes
Paul Boyé & Nick Schaefer
A podcast about passions, hobbies, and pursuits. If your heart is in it, nothing is off-limits. Maybe you’ll be inspired to pick up something new, or learn something you didn’t know a half-hour ago.
Ruby May Valentine joins Nick and Paul to talk all things Minecraft, the ridiculously popular and ever-replayable game of crafting and creepers. Ruby takes us through getting started with a fresh Minecraft "seed," the game's basics, cool stuff like redstone engineering, and eventually turns Nick into a convert.
Recorded July 22, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Ruby Valentine (YouTube: Ruby Valentine) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Snakes on planes, snakes on trains, snakes on podcasts...who's going to do something about all these snakes?!
Tanner Harvey could. The professor and doctoral candidate joins Nick and Paul to talk about venom, deceptive zoo gift store plushies, and letting a snake chew on your hand for 15 minutes for a YouTube video (which we do not recommend).
Recorded June 14, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Tanner Harvey // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
You remember books, right? Those hardcover or paperback collections of pages with words on them. No doubt you've read one or two in your time on this lovely planet. Well, Nick and Paul's guest on today's episode has probably read closer to one or two thousand works of literature — books, poems, you know it — and has a particular penchant for the American-produced corner of the bookshelf.
Trevor Strunk of the No Cartridge podcast joins the show to tell us how America's published works help tell its story even through fiction, the best ways to stay on top of contemporary lit, and lament bad Amazon book reviews.
Recorded May 16, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Trevor Strunk (No Cartridge) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
It's hard to describe Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats." We could try, but we figured it was probably better to have a theater pro come on and do it far better than we ever could. Anika Chapin of Goodspeed Musicals helps us digest it all; from the insane character names, to that infamous 2019 movie adaptation, to figuring out how to appreciate stories through the eyes of a child, we go deep into Jellicle Theory.
CW: Mention of rape as part of a character back story
Recorded May 3, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Anika Chapin (In the Spotlight Podcast) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Under the sea, everything's better down where it's wetter, take it from Tom Quigley. Tom joins the show to give us the scoop on sea slugs, underwater life as Pokémon, the majesty and importance of coral reefs, and the different ways you can keep yourself...warm...in a wetsuit.
Recorded April 15, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Tom Quigley (Twitter) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Dr. Kate White — a literal, bona fide expert! — joins the show to talk about how we learn and understand language, how changes in technology both help and hinder that process, and just how big of a messy melting pot American English is these days.
Recorded March 31, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Dr. Kate White, Assistant Director of Language Learning Services, Temple University (Bio) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Brian McElhaney, SNL writing alum and one half of the comedy duo BriTANicK, joins Nick and Paul to pull some podcast magic out of a hat (or microphone) and talk about why magic is still secretive, how the greatest magic tricks cause us to question our reality, and why we want to be fooled and lied to.
Recorded March 14, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Brian McElhaney (@bjmcelhaney, britanick.com) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Vaccines are pretty amazing things. And they're in the news a lot these days! But getting people to actually take vaccines, especially in less developed nations and areas of the world, can often be a true challenge.
Lauren Braun, co-founder of the Alma Sana Project, joins Nick and Paul to talk about what it's like starting and running a non-profit from the ground floor up, and how Alma Sana's bracelet system helps doctors and patients stay on a regular vaccination schedule in countries across the world.
Recorded February 1, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Lauren Braun (almasanaproject.org & lauren@almasanaproject.org) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Snakes painted on sides of heads. Comparisons to Alexander the Great and Michael Jordan. Things this wild and outlandish can only come from the world of...darts?
Nick and Paul are joined by actor and noted darts buff Dan Radcliffe to learn a bit about "The Power," Fallon Sherrock, and how to make a darts match sound like an epic moment in history.
Recorded February 2, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Dan Radcliffe (IMDb), Photo via Bustle // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com Instagram: @helpusoutwiththis Twitter: @helpusoutwthis
Cricket is one of the toughest things in the world for Americans to understand, next to taxes and traffic circles. So, we did what any reasonable person would do and invited a real, verifiable Englishman on to help us out.
On this stuffed episode, Tim Sorrell (@Swisslet) does his best to tell us how cricket is actually played in a way even Americans can understand, and why these 5-day-long matches can actually be really riveting throughout. It'll really bowl you over! Ha!
Recorded January 24, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Tim Sorrell (@Swisslet) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Self-Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
Further Reading: espncricinfo.com
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com
Jeff Wood of troutandfly.com stops by to tell us a bit about fly fishing, playing tricks on salmon, how fishing is kind of like being a scientist, and how to avoid casting your lure into someone's face.
Recorded January 4, 2021 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Jeff Wood (troutandfly.com) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity
Further Reading: "First trout" on r/flyfishing
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com
Former Best Man and current college baseball savant Michael Baumann from The Ringer joins us on a deep sea dive to go through a brief history of underwater warfare. Some discussion of how subs are shaped like éclairs also included.
Recorded December 13, 2020 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Michael Baumann (The Ringer) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity //
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com
The wonderful Erin Darke of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Dietland, and Good Girls Revolt joins us to talk about her hometown Detroit Lions, how a lot of losing can actually build you and breed camaraderie, and the priceless value of snagging a fantasy football title.
Recorded December 18, 2020 // Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer // Guest: Erin Darke (IMDb) // Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/) & Mixkit // Produced with Zencastr and Audacity //
helpusoutwiththis@gmail.com
Help Us Out With This, Episode 0
A quick primer on what this show is, and why we're doing it.
Recorded December 2020 Hosts: Paul Boye and Nick Schaefer Music: Pete Scalzitti (http://brontosor.us/)