The Chris Grace Show

Excerpts from our first set of interviews.

Show Notes

We're launching soon and I wanted to give you a preview of some of the great conversations to come, featuring clips from Dan Heath, Chris Turner, Stacy Horn, William Lindus, Laser Webber, and Harrison Greenbaum. You can email me at chrisgraceshow@gmail.com, and please like, review, rate, and tell your friends and family to subscribe!

What is The Chris Grace Show?

Comedian, actor, musician, and software engineer Chris Grace interviews the most interesting people that he can find. In a world of narrowcasting, granular demographic analysis, and algorithmic content pre-determinism, why not treat yourself to a good old-fashioned conversation?

Chris Grace: [00:00:00] It's the Chris Grace Show. I'm Chris Grace. Thank you so much for subscribing to the show. This is episode zero, little bit of a preview of some of the incredible interviews that I've been conducting over the last couple of months to get ready for the show. We are launching in a couple weeks and I'm so excited to have you on board so you can hear all the great stuff that I learned from these amazing guests.

It's an eclectic mix of people cuz my interests are eclectic. This show does not have a narrow. Uh, really the only thing these guests have in common is that they are someone that I'm interested in talking to, and I think by talking to them, hopefully you'll get something out of it as well. Uh, I'm so excited.

My first guest is a guy that I went to junior high and high school with, but now he's an accomplished author. Uh, he's an authority in the world of business. Uh, Dan Heath, he wrote a book called Upstream, also another New York Times bestseller called, made to Stick. [00:01:00] Others, and I was so excited to talk to him.

Um, he's in the world of Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, that sort of genre, and asked him sort of what his goals were as a writer in that field.

Dan Heath: What all of us in this weird little neighborhood are trying to do is just kind of help you do something in your life or in your business better. And, and so we're trying to find what's the research that we can bring to bear to.

Uh, give you some insight or, or give you a tip about something and what are the best stories we can muster to, to kind of showcase the use of those things? And, and so, um, you know, ultimately the test of whether I've written a good book is not, whether it's enthralling or, uh, it, it's whether it helped you with something like helpful is at the top of my aspirations as an author.

Chris Grace: I also got a chance to speak to Stacey Horn, uh, an author. She wrote, damn, nation Island, unbelievable, uh, imperfect harmony. But most of all, she wrote a book called [00:02:00] Cville that really affected me because it was about how she started an internet salon in New York City and I actually ended up joining that online forum.

I was in it for years, still am part of it. Uh, but I asked her in her book, imperfect Harmony, she described, uh, what it's like to. Being a choir, like an amateur choir with other people and how that can connect you to other people in a way that you don't get in any other part of life.

You know, when you are singing with other people, you know, it, it's

Stacy Horn: I mean, if you ne if you've never sung in harmony, I, it's very hard to communicate this, but it's just really the, the best feeling in the world. There's like maybe one thing in the world that's equal. Yes. And you are not thinking about anything like in terms of what are the politics of the person next to you or, or, or, or anything about [00:03:00] race, religion, any, anything that might get in the way, um, of, of the being completely connected to another human being?

Any biases or prejudice you might have. You just wanna make that feeling continue.

Chris Grace: And I got a chance to speak to some of the funniest people that I know. Uh, Chris Turner, he's a hilarious comedian. He's a freestyle rapper. I met him at Eder of Fringe. He's performed in London, Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas.

He's a regular at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. And I asked him what it's like, uh, does he have to prove anything when he goes out there as a white guy who's a freestyle rapper?

Chris Turner: Like the first couple of times you perform together, there might be a kind of like, huh, who's this guy playing at rap? Is he just playing at rap?

Is he just like, Hey, look at me. Um, and then they see that you are talented and that you clearly enjoy it. Cause I don't think, you know, you're not [00:04:00] freestyle rapping if you don't appreciate rap, cuz it is so. It's such a lyrical thing and I think there's that whole thing of, you know, nineties hip hop is the best hip hop cuz it's the most lyrical and Nas is the best because his lyrics are amazing.

Chris Grace: Uh, nineties hip hop is the best hip hop, by the way. Best I'll confirm Hip hop. Yeah, I'll confirm that. .

Chris Turner: Yeah.

And I've got another regular from the Comedy Cellar. Harrison Greenbaum, a great, great comedian, a great magician. Uh, I asked him what it was like when he got to perform in front of Norm McDonald and, um, didn't get quite the response he wanted.

Harrison Greenbaum: What happened in the room and what aired on the show were very different. Um, so there was a, there was a little bit of a frustration because what people were reacting to was not what really happened at all. Um, the, the short version of it is, so we had, uh, last comic standing. I do my set. Um, it went really well.

[00:05:00] Um, people were, uh, they had to basically be stretched from clapping. It was kind of cool. I was like, oh my God, this is, this is great. First two judges, they love it. Uh, Roseanne is going crazy. Uh, I'm like, this is great. Norm goes on a diet tribe about religion. I had not, did not know he was a born again Christian.

Uh, nobody had told me and Norm was the last one. And Norm St was, and still is a comedic hero of mine. Like, I just, I love his standup. I love, I love his sensibility. Um, That was unchanged by the fact that he, he was critical of this set.

Chris Grace: I've also got some cultural hot tips for you. William Linus, film critic from Austin, Texas stops by to give us his top 10 movies of 2022.

Uh, one movie I'm very excited to see is Decision to Leave Park Chan Woos new movie. Uh, he talked about that for a little bit.

William Lindus: It's almost like a ship's passing in the night style, like romance, um, type film. Um, not too far off in terms of just sort of like the mood that it gives you [00:06:00] as something like in the mood for love, um, but with also this like mystery crime.

You know, who done it, element sort. In the background of it as well. Um, you're wondering if these two people are moving in the same direction or if they're moving in opposite directions because they're chasing two very different things. And, um, the movie never makes it easy for you. Uh, the movie never makes it, um, um, plain to see kind of what's gonna happen.

And by the time you get to the end of the movie, it, it definitely hits with this sort of like the weight of everything that you just saw. And. These two characters just went through to get to where they were at.

Chris Grace: So excited to see that movie. And, uh, just to end our little episode, zero preview, uh, got a little clip from my interview with Laser Webber.

Uh, laser created a musical called Teaching a Robot to Love. That was the hit. Of the Hollywood Fringe in 2022, and I asked him what it was like, uh, creating something like that where, uh, [00:07:00] your personal inner life starts to find itself on the page as you're writing it.

Laser: Um, it it, it started more as a show about Mary, the creator and about how.

About trying to teach somebody to be a human when you yourself don't know how to be a human , which, which it still is that like kind of the, you know, the neuro divergent brain of like how, how, how I analyze the world, right? And how I really wish, in a lot of ways I was a brain in a box because be having a human body and having to interact with other humans is so hard.

Um, and that was the, the initial concept of the show. Um, but as I was writing it and. I was writing it during the pandemic and, and, um, I was going through a transition. I got top surgery and I was, you know, coming out. I, I was, I identified as non-binary for four years before I came out as a trans man. And, and it, you know, I have been very lucky with.

[00:08:00] Um, the amount my family and friends have accepted me and, and stuff, but it's also, it is a ha I've had a few people, uh, where it has been a challenge and, and those songs started coming out. Through this robot.

Chris Grace: So there you have it. I hope you are sufficiently teased. I can't wait for you to hear the full conversations that I had with these people.

The show launches in a couple weeks. You can email me at chrisgraceshow@gmail.com. The show is edited by Eric Micho. Uh, the opening music is. Easy cooking by Boom Opera, and I was looking around for closing music and I sort of just had to use this because of the name. This song is called Chinese Hip Hop by Alexander Rufi.

So, uh, , thank you so much for listening. This has been the Chris Grace Show. My name is Chris Grace. You'll be hearing from me very soon.[00:09:00]