Paul Giamatti’s CHINWAG with Stephen Asma
🚨 LIVE CHINWAG TAPINGS ANNOUNCED 🚨 CHINWAG is coming to a city near you! Los Angeles on Tuesday May 14th ➡ https://chinwagpod.fm/losangeles Portland on Thursday May 16th ➡ https://chinwagpod.fm/portland Seattle on Friday April 17th ➡ https://chinwagpod.fm/seattle 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ 🎟️ === ABOUT THE SHOW ====== chin-wag: to have a chat, a friendly conversation. Actor Paul Giamatti and Stephen Asma, author and philosopher, join forces for a freewheeling series of conversations that dive deep (like, really, really deep) into the wilderness of the mind. Featuring prominent guests from diverse fields, Chinwag is esoteric in the best way possible, as Paul and Stephen delve into anything and everything: Are we living in a simulation? What’s the most perfect sentence in literature? Is Bigfoot interdimensional? Science, the occult, philosophy, magic mushrooms… it’s all fair game! Unexpected, hilarious, and maybe even profound — Chinwag is all about having a really, really good chat. New episodes drop Wednesdays for free here: Apple: http://apple.co/chinwag Spotify: https://spoti.fi/49ja5iJ Make sure to follow us @chinwagpod 👉🏼 YT: https://www.youtube.com/@chinwagpod IG: https://www.instagram.com/chinwagpod/ Tik: https://www.tiktok.com/@chinwagpod Website: http://chinwagpod.fm For Treefort details 🏄♂️ on over to: Site: https://treefort.fm Twitter: https://twitter.com/TreefortMedia Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/treefort.fm/ Send your stories, Qs, or thoughts to 📧 questions [at] chinwagpod [dot] fm =========
Episodes
April 26, 2024 • 27 mins
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We’re diving back into the Chinwag Mailbag!
Billy C. wants to know how Paul would like to see UFOs portrayed in films. Should paranormal encounters be big and fantastical, or what about - no special effects at all? Then, Paul’s got some obscure film recommendations and of course, Betty and Barney Hill, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky make an appearance.
Next, Chip writes in with a st...
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April 24, 2024 • 47 mins
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Paul and Stephen welcome brilliant writer and comedian Alex Edelman for a deep chinwag on spirituality, religion, improvisation, and paranormal leanings.
Listen as they dive right in with why the CIA should use Baby Shark in its interrogation program, the importance and virtue of repetition in the process of joke writing, the Socratic method in comedy, and how AI and Chat GPT will affect the future of humor. The conversati...
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April 19, 2024 • 26 mins
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We’re diving into the Chinwag Mailbag!
Paul in Australia writes to Paul and Stephen with a topic of biblical proportion! He brings to Chinwag the theory known as Paleocontact, which states that our ancient ancestors experienced contact with other non-terrestrial civilizations. Do ancient texts support the idea that paleocontact goes back to the Bible?
Then, Chinwag listeners have asked, so behold, a peak at Paul an...
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April 17, 2024 • 65 mins
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Paul and Stephen are thrilled to talk Bigfoot with acclaimed actor Jesse Eisenberg who stars in the fantastic new movie Sasquatch Sunset.
Sasquatch Sunset is an unprecedented look at a year in the life of a family of Sasquatches, as they forage, mate, and hope to find others like them in the forest. What do Sasquatches do in private, and how do our stories and beliefs about Bigfoot relate to the thoughts of our ancestors?...
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April 12, 2024 • 23 mins
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The origin story of Paul and Justin Theroux’s friendship, formed 30 years ago while messing around backstage and onstage in a depressing Chekhov play.
Justin’s memory is razor sharp and deep, and he shares the moment Paul first experienced fame after his breakout appearance as Pig Vomit in Howard Stern’s Private Parts. Also, theaters are spooky places and Justin reminds Paul of the eerie ghost (with a woman’s enormous b...
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April 10, 2024 • 67 mins
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Paul and Stephen are joined by Paul’s old friend, perpetually youthful actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux.
Learn all you ever wanted to know about the Oakwoods temporary housing in LA from former inhabitants Paul and Justin. Then rattlesnakes in Runyon Canyon, coyotes in Central Park, and how the Lindbergh kidnapping made pitbulls popular and led to Petey the dog on The Little Rascals.
Stephen and Justin...
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April 5, 2024 • 15 mins
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On this Bonus-Wag, Paul and Stephen ask Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris about his ground-breaking invention of the Interrotron camera and how it takes the viewer closer to a documentary subject.
Also, what John le Carré says in Errol Morris’s film The Pigeon Tunnel that makes Stephen wonder if being a spy is similar to being an actor. And what separates a good actor from a bad one? All this and the Errol Morris...
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April 3, 2024 • 61 mins
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Paul and Stephen are excited to meet Academy Award-winning Director and avid book collector Errol Morris.
Stephen’s funky blue lighting and Paul’s floatation tank-talk mark the start of this Chinwag and in just a few short turns, the conversation goes from the idea of the bodhisattva in Buddhism to the weirdness of Florida, in particular Vernon, FL (aka “Nub City”). In typical Waggy fashion, they’re on to a shared rever...
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April 1, 2024 • 1 min
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Mark your calendars and set your comedic compass for April 19th
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the Chinwag ride of Paul Giamatti,
On the nineteenth of April, in twenty-four;
Hardly a wagger is immune to the hype
Who is present that famous day and year…
- Stephen Asma
Prepare for a night of hilarious tales and witty banter that'll have you laughing from land to sea. Secure your tickets asap for a comedy voyage...
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March 29, 2024 • 13 mins
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Paul and Stephen talk about Stephen’s trip to Norway and his readings from an 8th Century book of spells found in the floorboards of an old church.
Is Iceland or Norway known for delicacies like rotten shark? They’re not sure, but still not fans (of the shark meals). And listeners out there, do you want to hear Paul and Stephen explore Berserkers? Let us know! Also, if your genetic analysis says you’re part Viking, you’r...
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March 27, 2024 • 54 mins
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Paul puts Stephen in the hot seat for Part 1 of this rigorous round of “Ask the Philosopher!”
This is not just your basic Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. You’ll learn the importance of Pythagoras, besides that theorem you learned in grade school (with an obligatory mention of passing gas). Then, hear about the mindf*ck of Zeno’s paradox, famed thinker and nudist Diogenes, all about cynics, roots of empirical thinking, Roman...
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March 22, 2024 • 21 mins
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Paul and Stephen have a few more questions for resident Octopus expert, author, philosopher and biologist, Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith.
When does consciousness emerge in the evolutionary process and does it exist in every bit of matter - even a grain of sand? Then, do Octopuses have language and what is its function? And controversial questions abound on whether animals dream, the role of memory, and what commonality of ...
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March 20, 2024 • 66 mins
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The Octopus is fascinating and mysterious, and as Paul and Stephen discover, a cephalopod that offers incredible lessons in consciousness, intelligence, awareness and being. The octopus might also be the closest we have to studying the alien mind.
Peter Godfrey-Smith is an author, Professor of Biology, philosopher of science and skilled scuba diver who’s looked right into the eyes of many an octopus, and they’ve observed h...
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March 15, 2024 • 21 mins
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Paul and Stephen dig into our Chinwag mailbag for this SETI-inspired question (that’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence to any novice listeners). The Drake Equation is explained and let’s just say there’s A LOT of math involved.
It’s been 60+ years since last estimates were made on the odds of finding intelligent life in the Milky Way, and Chinwag listener Rick B. wants to know, how long could a civilization broad...
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March 13, 2024 • 35 mins
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The sea is deep, but it’s no match for Paul and Stephen’s boundless appetite for aquatic mysteries.
Follow them as they dip into the strange world of three famed squids: The Giant Squid, the Colossal Squid, and the Bigfin Squid (a BigFoot squid, really??). Then, other Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs) like humboldt squids, giant albino crabs, boat-attacking-squids (!), megamouth sharks, whale sharks, and the myth of a ...
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March 8, 2024 • 15 mins
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We love our loyal Chinwag listeners and we love your letters! Keep ‘em coming and we may respond to them on the air!
Miss B Havin wrote to Paul and Stephen and shared a message she received in a recurring dream about Paul. Does Paul understand the message therein? What does water represent in a dream, and what’s the least lucky month of the year? Put your ears on this Bonus-Wag and find out!
Paul Giamatti is an award-winn...
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March 6, 2024 • 61 mins
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Paul and Stephen wade through the deep waters and history of such aquatic mysteries as Atlantis and The Bermuda Triangle.
Listen in as Stephen details Plato’s telling of Atlantis, with all its craven needs, imperialist ambitions and loss of virtue. The weird link between Atlantis and UFO/paranormal activity is legend, but did you know of the lasers in Atlantis and its connection to The Bermuda Triangle? It’s also a thing!
...
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March 1, 2024 • 15 mins
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Paul and Stephen have a few more questions for the "Long Island Medium," Theresa Caputo.
Listen in to hear how she learned to interpret the messages she receives from departed souls and spirits? How Catholics respond to her abilities, and do demons and negativity in the spirit world get her down? And does she fear losing her gifts? T his bonus is Medium-well! Get it? Dig in Waggers!
Paul Giamatti is an award-winning a...
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February 28, 2024 • 34 mins
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Recorded live from the (possibly haunted) Marines’ Memorial Theatre in San Francisco at Sketchfest 2024 with special guest, comedian, writer, and host of the Beautiful/Anonymous podcast, Chris Gethard.
Chris heard about a lot of brushes with the paranormal during his time at Weird NJ, and he relays one of the spookiest stories imaginable about a band of silent, menacing cows leading the way to a flannel-clad BigFoot lying ...
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February 23, 2024 • 26 mins
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Paul, Stephen, and comedian Christ Gethard answer the weirdly awesome questions from our live audience at Sketchfest 2024.
Have you noticed conspiracy theories have gone from “fun” to “crazy”? You have? Perfect segue to Chris’s rumored involvement with Pizzagate and the real reason behind that fake (but really creepy!) satanic ritual on The Chris Gethard Show with Will Ferrell (uh, ratings!?).
Paul fields a doozy of...
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