Their Own Drum

Danny Funt spent five years reporting on the sports gambling industry from the inside out. His book, Everybody Loses, The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling, published by Simon and Schuster, is the most thorough piece of journalism I've seen done on this subject. It is also one of the best books I've read in a long time.
I came to this conversation as a clinical mental health therapist who specializes in gambling addiction treatment, with a personal history with sports betting and a family member with over thirty years in recovery. 
We talk about how the leagues went from vehemently opposing gambling to becoming its biggest proponents, why there was so little reporting on any of it, what responsible gaming actually looks like from the inside, and where all of this is heading. Danny is a brilliant reporter and a great conversation. I think you're going to want to read the book when you're done listening.
Buy the book: Here!
Danny on X: https://x.com/dannyfunt
 

Jason Narducy has spent more than four decades playing music, as a frontman, as a sideman, as a collaborator, and now, as an author. He's the songwriter and frontman of Split Single, and has been the touring bassist for Bob Mould since 2005. He's filled in for Superchunk, toured with Sunny Day Real Estate, and recorded with Mike Mills, Britt Daniel, and Jon Wurster, among others. Last December he published Mostly the Van, the first volume of a planned trilogy of stories from a life spent largely on the road.
But what I find most interesting about Jason Narducy is something harder to put a title on. It's the quality of attention he brings to the people and moments around him. The way a story about taking your daughter to a music festival becomes something that says everything about what music is actually for.
Jason Narducy joined me to talk about finding music as a kid, what it means to spend a career doing the thing you love on your own terms, and what it looks like when the people you've raised start finding their own version of what you found.
Purchase Mostly The Van
Songs of Protest, Sounds of Freedom @ Evanston Space
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends play R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant

Steve Dolinsky has won more James Beard broadcast journalism awards than any other local TV reporter in the country. He's the founder of Pizza City Fest, the author of Pizza City USA, and the culinary director at Levy. 
Before all of that, he was a kid who grew up in a kosher home in St. Cloud, Minnesota with almost no access to interesting food, and he thinks that might be where it all started. We get into that origin story, how he accidentally fell into food television at exactly the right moment, and why he's spent 30 years telling the stories of the immigrant family in the strip mall over the steakhouse that doesn't need the press.
Episode 15 of Their Own Drum.
 
Pizza City USA- https://pizzacityusa.com/
Pizza City Fest 2026- https://pizzacityfest.com/events/chicago/

Over 20 years ago, I was 13 years old at the Skokie Public Library watching my favorite author do a reading and signing. That author was Darren Shan, and the book was Lord Loss. I still have that signed copy.
Darren is the author of over 70 books, including the beloved Cirque du Freak and Demonata series, and has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. He is widely regarded as the Master of Children's and Young Adult Horror. 
In this conversation, we talk about what horror can teach children about grief and death that other genres can't, how he snuck the most graphic scene he's ever written past his editor with one small change, what it felt like to have Cirque du Freak rejected by 20 publishers before it became a global phenomenon, and why he thinks writer's block is just laziness. We also get into his books as a form of self-help, the moral core underneath all the darkness, and what it means to him that his readers come from every corner of the world.

In this episode, Alyx Effron, Founder of Collectors MD, shares his own lived experience with the collecting world, breaks down why these environments can be so uniquely difficult to recognize as harmful, and explains how Collectors MD is working to fill a gap in the recovery space that has existed for far too long.
They cover the psychology behind box breaks and why they sit somewhere between collecting and gambling, how technology has removed the friction that once kept impulsive spending in check, the role of algorithms in shaping, and sometimes distorting collector behavior, and what guardrails actually look like for people navigating these spaces.
Whether you collect, love someone who does, or work in recovery, this one is worth your time.
Find more about Collectors MD at collectorsmd.com and check out their National Call to Action petition under News and Announcements.
Collectors MD

I had the honor of sitting down with music producer Sean O'Keefe. The first place I ever saw Sean's name was written next to the words "produced by" on my favorite album of all time, Fall Out Boy's 2003 debut record, Take This to Your Grave. Sean played a vital role in not only that record, but an incredible amount of music that changed people's lives, including my own.
It was surreal getting to have this conversation. Sean is a brilliant creative mind and one of the kindest souls you'll ever meet. I can't wait for you all to hear this one.

I had the honor and privilege of sitting down with the beautiful and brilliant David Koechner. We talked about growing up in the small town of Tipton, Missouri, the years he spent getting his comedy and acting reps right here in Chicago, how a combination of his upbringing and early political aspirations shaped a lifelong, deeply socially conscious worldview,  and so much more.
I am so excited for you all to hear this one.
David is performing at the Den Theatre in Chicago May 22nd & 23rd. Get your tickets TODAY!
Tickets → dentheater.com
Tour info → david-koechner.com/tour
Also — David’s is making music you need to hear.
Find him → instagram.com/sargento_official

Dr. Robin Gurwitch was a young psychologist in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995. Less than a mile from the Murrah Federal Building, she felt the blast, and within hours was on the ground helping families navigate something nobody had a playbook for.
That day set the course for the next thirty years of her career. A Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Duke University, Dr. Gurwitch has spent three decades responding to mass violence, natural disasters, and acts of terrorism around the world, and has become one of the leading voices in disaster mental health and trauma care for children.
In this conversation she talks about what we've learned since Oklahoma City, how children process collective trauma differently than adults, why talking to your kids about scary events is always better than silence, and the free community training  she's bringing to cities across the country. It's a heavy topic delivered with remarkable warmth. 

On Episode 9 of Their Own Drum, I sat down with Kyle Cubr, the Senior Operations Director at The Music Box Theatre. 
Kyle Cubr has worked at Chicago's beloved Music Box Theatre for over a decade, climbing from front of house to Senior Operations Manager. But before any of that, he was a kid from Brighton, Michigan who saw Jurassic Park at age three and never forgot it. 
In this episode, Kyle talks about choosing his neighborhood based on proximity to a movie theater, the wildly unexpected detour touring Europe with Rodriguez, and what it felt like to finally program the Godzilla festival he'd been pitching for six years. Plus: the state of independent cinema, the Music Box's exciting expansion, and why Gen-Z might just save the moviegoing experience.

Pat Healy is one of my guys. If you've been listening to this show, you probably already know what I mean by that. 
Pat grew up in the Chicago suburbs, ended up at Illinois State University, stumbled into a Steppenwolf internship, and just never stopped working. Over the course of three decades he's shared the screen with DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep, and worked with Scorsese, Spielberg, PTA, and Werner Herzog. But the stuff that first made me fall in love with his work? Cheap Thrills, Compliance, The Innkeepers- smaller, independent films where he got to do what I think he does best: play a real, fully complicated human being.
We talk about the craft, the grind, therapy, the Chicago work ethic, and what it felt like to be on set with Martin Scorsese. Pat is as thoughtful and genuine as they come. I think you'll feel that by the end of it.