RISK!

From April 2014, five people finding a way out.

Sean Crespo signs up for a sleep deprivation study to escape the worst summer job in Boston, then spends ten days plotting one act of privacy. Kate Greathead, dumped and displaced, discovers she can cry on the subway every night and nobody will stop her.

(Content note: suicidal ideation)

Jeff Simmermon loses a testicle to cancer and gains an imaginary black bird that whispers to him at night about how the loneliness will never end. John F. O'Donnell, in the middle of a manic episode in 2008, decides he alone can stop the neoconservatives from crashing the internet.

Jean Ann Le Bec, married in 1966 to a man who naps all day, goes back to college on Open Admissions and finds a women's group, a room worth occupying, and Mona.

Leave your comments and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/freedom-cre525

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Two people confront what it means to stay bound to someone who keeps letting them down.

Tuesday Thomas, a trans woman in LA with a lifelong pull toward unavailable men, meets a charming match on a dating app. The chemistry is undeniable, right up until he looks her in the eye and warns her not to Google him. Her response becomes a very funny, surprisingly pointed argument about honesty and what commitment is really worth.

Then David Hu comes home to the Bronx for Father's Day 2021 and finds his father, deep in dementia, suddenly and frighteningly ill. Amid COVID lockdowns and an overwhelmed nursing home, he and his mother face impossible choices about how to care for a man who is slipping away.

Leave your comments on these stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/let-him-go

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on Tuesday, September 8th, 2026

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Marilyn Gilchrist is a professional dog trainer, and "Who Am I Now" is her conversation with Michael Shikashio, lifted from his podcast The Bitey End of the Dog. Kevin Allison sets it up and returns at the end with his own thoughts. This is a companion episode to Still Dog People: Two Truths, released earlier in the week.

(Content note: graphic dog attack)

An hour into a routine welfare check on a foster dog, Marilyn stood up to leave. The dog grabbed the lead, she dropped it exactly as she had twice already that afternoon, and every muscle in the dog went tense. The weeks after taught her that the wound in her leg was the smaller problem. She had built a career and a self on being good with dogs, and now she could not be in a room with one she did not know.

Leave your comments plus find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/still-dog-people-who-am-i-now

You can find all of our Conversation Stories at risk-show.com/conversationstories

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC on Tuesday, September 8, 2026

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For the first of two Still Dog People episodes this week, John LaSala guest-hosts with his wife Kate LaSala, a professional dog behavior consultant.

(Content note: graphic dog attack on a child)

Jill Karliner watched her four-year-old twin sons head into the neighbors' backyard to play with the big kids. Minutes later, she heard a scream that changed how her family would live with dogs. In the years since, she has come to hold two truths that don't quite fit together.

Kate joins John afterward for a wide-ranging discussion, drawing on her work in fear and aggression cases and her role as a companion animal end-of-life doula.

Leave your comments plus find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/still-dog-people-two-truths

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🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on September 8, 2026 in New York City

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💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

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A classic RISK! episode from March 2014. Three live storytellers, three very different voices in the head.

Vicki Tollemache spent her teens as the careful kid orbiting a wilder crowd. The summer before she turns 16, she decides to get her first kiss over with and arranges a late-night meeting with a boy she barely knows. The kiss becomes something she spends years trying to forget, for reasons she only understands much later.

Kevin Allison hits the bottom of a lost decade with no career, no money, and no plan. He picks up a book about taking dictation from God and starts a notebook of his own, never sure whether the answers are wisdom or just his own voice talking back.

Mollena Williams admits she's an alcoholic and lands in detox, where a four-foot hyena climbs out of the floor and refuses to leave.

Leave your comments and find music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/mixed-feelings-cre523

Be Part of RISK!

🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in New York City on September 8th, 2026

✍️ Pitch your story⁠

❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠

💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to kevin@risk-show.com

📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠

🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠

🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices