Every now and again, Jeff breaks away from telling his own stories to tell someone else’s. In this episode, you'll hear from former Presidents of the USA front man Chris Ballew. Interwoven with music from all three phases of his long career, Chris tells of his early rock star days, an encounter with the biggest pop star in the world, and a close call that might have prevented him from getting the best career advice he ever received.

Jeff Hoyt has never met a darkened theater in which he couldn’t fall asleep. For whatever reason, live theater makes his lids grow heavy. It’s usually only for a few minutes, which is fine when you’re ten rows back. But then there was the time Jeff and his teenage daughter found themselves way too close to the action, forcing Jeff to make this episode his first stop on this season’s Hoytus Interruptus Apology Tour.

If there’s one thing about young love, the time spent apart can be excruciating. It’s really hard to go your separate ways when you’re only just getting started. So, when Jeff & Cindy started dating over fifty years ago, their first summer apart was a particularly tough one for Jeff. But then, along came music to save the day! A progressive, symphonic rock band from England gave Jeff something to hold onto during the longest summer of his life.

This episode is meant to be enjoyed with headphones. Turn it up! And many thanks to Annie Haslam of Renaissance for giving Jeff the OK to paint this story with the band's music.

The Wikipedia page for Amanda Knox has 5,000 words devoted to the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, her subsequent wrongful incarceration and conviction, followed by her acquittal, release, re-conviction, and ultimate exoneration.

As for Amanda's life since returning home from Italy a decade ago to live the rest of her life? Well, that gets just 216 words.

Therein lies the yawning gap in her story that I try to fill during this extended conversation with Amanda, who still to this day deals with death threats and hateful attacks on social media. But she has also moved on to plant roots, build a family and fight the good fight on behalf of the wrongfully convicted.

(And special thanks to Rob & Naomi of Moody Little Sister and to Pete Droge for the music heard in this episode!)

Between seasons of my podcast, I'm posting interesting conversations with fascinating people, starting with Amanda Knox.

It's been a decade since Amanda came home to Seattle after serving 4 years of a 26-year prison sentence for a crime she did not commit.

Putting down roots took some time but she went back to school, got married, had a child and now lives right here on our island.

Here's a tiny slice of my hour-long conversation with Amanda that goes up on the interwebs this coming Tuesday.

(Music in this trailer by Moody Little Sister - thanks Naomi & Rob!)

If there's any one thing that is certain about living on this island, it's that everyone has an interesting story about how they wound up here. To wrap up Season Two of Hoytus Interruptus, here's our Vashon origin story.

Big thanks to our island friends Pete Droge and Elaine Summers for providing the music in this episode. 

Happy holidays to you and yours. I'll be back with more stories and new ways of telling them in Season Three sometime after the new year.

This week's episode is embarrassing. (But don't those make the best stories?) It's a tale that includes illicit substances (or at least they were at the time), driving under the influence and a lovely smattering of additional cringe-worthy moments...

...all played out in the presence of a Future World Leader.

For reasons about to become obvious, I didn't share this story with our kids for a time, at least not while they were immersed in their school's DARE program. Wouldn't have been a good parental look. Now that the statute of limitations has expired, and with permission from Brent (my good friend and former business partner), here's a story that's funny now...

...but was pretty dumb in the moment.

This episode marks a return to a  style I employed about 15 years ago in the original iteration of Hoytus Interruptus. I call it "lyrical storytelling." The idea is to let the musical under-bed dictate pace and push, even re-writing the story as needed to bend it to the rhythm and feel of the music.

Many thanks to good friend Chris Ballew for letting me poke around inside his "Sampladelic" collection to find just the right grooves for this story about communing with monkeys.