Human F*ckery
If you waited by the TV for new episodes of “Are You Afraid of the Dark” each weekend or wasted study hall reading the weird parts of the encyclopedia, this one’s for you SPECIFICALLY. “Human F*ckery” pits a doctor of psychology and an investigative journalist against one another in a battle of wits, research, and creative storytelling. Each episode the curious pair get assigned a topic. Then, they go spelunking through history’s colon in an effort to find the most jaw-dropping, unbelievable, and utterly bonkers examples of that topic buried in the dark history deposited by our collective ancestors. What’s the point? To captivate, occasionally horrify, and accidentally educate a rotating panel of judges—including you, the listener—into crowning one of our hosts the winner. This irreverent showcase for darker narratives buried in the historic trash heap was the winner of 2021’s Best of the Beat Award here in New Orleans, which means it’s enjoyed by people besides the hosts’ parents.
Human F*ckery
"Thomas Kinkade: The Painter of Light"
He was hailed as “The Painter of Light,” a titan of pastoral landscapes which glowed whimsically from the windows of malls and Disney stores across America in the 1990s. But inside Thomas Kinkade, the famed born-again Christian artist behind one of the most commercially successful art entities ever created, lurked a darkness even he couldn’t cover with layers of shining lacquer. His tragic story of worker exploitation, belligerent self-destruction, and nostalgia gone awry was carefully hidden behind a wall of corporate money for decades but emerged from the shadows after Kinkade’s sudden and unexpected death back in 2012. It’s a piece of forgotten American art history so bent Teams Edward and Kimberly had to drop their monthly storytelling competition and join forces to share it with y'all correctly. If you’ve ever felt disillusioned with The American Dream, skeptical about so-called “Christian artists,” or creeped out by those relentlessly-cheery Christmas villages glowing in Hallmark stores every winter, hit play and listen as the veneer dissolves into truth far stranger than fiction. Featuring original music by Sergio Gonzalez Pagan.