Sleeping with Celebrities

The universe is full of all sorts of alien creatures, we just know it. Problem is, they’re far away and, like us, possibly too stupid to invent really cool spaceships in order to visit. That’s why the book Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials was written and illustrated, earning a devoted following that includes Elliott Kalan. The book is a massive compendium of all sorts of aliens culled from sci-fi. Elliott is a former head writer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Mystery Science 3000 and one of the hosts of Max Fun’s podcast The Flop House. Join Elliott as he enumerates many of his favorite aliens and offers analysis from his toddler son as to which aliens are mean, which ones are nice, and which aliens are so nice that he went to their birthday parties held in treehouses. You may fall asleep even before learning that some aliens are just green smears.

Order your copy of Elliott Kalan's book, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense, wherever books are sold.

Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you’d like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?

Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.

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John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

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Join | Maximum Fun

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinsleeping

You are reading something that was written in paragraph format, with complete sentences, grammar, nouns, and verbs. That’s not how Ryan Miller of the beloved band Guster likes it. Ryan enjoys lists. Likes reading them, creating them, and relying on the whole idea of ordered verticality. He tells us about the extensive playlist of songs he always keeps handy for his kids, how this list has been around for many years, how it has seen some editing with certain artists losing favor and being dropped, and how there is no Guster on that list. Ryan also fills us in on which bands and artists are really nice people so you can listen to them with confidence. Ryan doesn’t tell us which bands and artists are real jerks (he says there are very few of them) because that might cause you to lose sleep. Take an ordered approach to dozing off with our Ryan Miller episode.

Listen to Ryan Miller's "Best of the Best - Nines and Dimes" on Spotify.

Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you’d like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?

Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.

Follow the Show on:

Instagram @sleepwcelebs

Bluesky @sleepwithcelebs

TikTok @SleepWithCelebs

John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

_________________________________________________________________________

Join | Maximum Fun

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinsleeping

You have to be a slight J.R.R. Tolkien nerd to watch the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film series. They’re long, there’s three of them, and it helps to know your hobbits from your elves. You have to be even more of a fan to read the dense, lengthy Tolkien books. But then there’s Glen Weldon, co-host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, who has read everything Tolkien many times over including The Silmarillion. That’s the book Tolkien died while writing with extensive arcana of the world of Middle Earth. Here’s the part in the description where I would give you examples but it’s so deep, so thickly layered, such extreme Tolkienness that I kind of zoned out just listening to Glen take this deepest of dives. “The book is structured as a history, with sections on the creation of the world, the gods (Valar), the history of the Elves and Men, and the downfall of Númenor, all centered around the conflict with the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, and the rebellion of the Elf Fëanor,” says Wikipedia, and who am I to disagree? The detail, combined with Glen’s avuncular NPR voice ought to conk you out before you can say, “Celebrimbor.”

Listen to Glen Weldon on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour wherever fine pods are cast. Get your copy of Glen's books, Superman: The Unauthorized Biography and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, where books are sold.

Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you’d like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?

Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.

Follow the Show on:

Instagram @sleepwcelebs

Bluesky @sleepwithcelebs

TikTok @SleepWithCelebs

John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

_________________________________________________________________________

Join | Maximum Fun

If you like one or more shows on MaxFun, and you value independent artists being able to do their thing, you’re the perfect person to become a MaxFun monthly member.

Go to www.maximumfun.org/joinsleeping for our one-stop portal to becoming a member and supporter of Sleeping with Celebrities.

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinsleeping

When you’re a Norwegian musician, you get used to hearing a lot of the band A-ha, the biggest ever to come out of the Nordic country shaped like an arm from the elbow down. And that’s fine with Sondre Lerche, the most popular Norwegian solo musicians of all time. Sondre adored A-ha by rarely gets to share all his knowledge. Until this bedtime, that is. Sondre also reads the names of 15 fjords in their authentic pronunciations and also teaches our Norwegian-American host how to accurately pronounce his own middle name and the names of his parents, in both Bergen and Oslo dialects.

Listen to Sondre Lerche's new single, "Follow the River," on Sondre's YouTube channel or on the streaming service of your choice. Sondre's upcoming album, Acrobats, is out August 21st.

Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you’d like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?

Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.

Follow the Show on:

Instagram @sleepwcelebs

Bluesky @sleepwithcelebs

TikTok @SleepWithCelebs

John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

_________________________________________________________________________

Join | Maximum Fun

If you like one or more shows on MaxFun, and you value independent artists being able to do their thing, you’re the perfect person to become a MaxFun monthly member.

Go to www.maximumfun.org/joinsleeping for our one-stop portal to becoming a member and supporter of Sleeping with Celebrities.

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinsleeping

We have to imagine that the life of an NPR White House Correspondent does not consistently feel relaxed, homey, sentimental, and warm. But you know what does? Field of Dreams, the 1989 Kevin Costner movie about an Iowa farmer with a field overrun by baseball ghosts. Danielle Kurtzleben, a White House Correspondent for NPR, is from Titonka, Iowa (population 491) and has probably seen the movie eleventy squillion times. She can quote large portions of the dialogue and proved it in our interview by reciting James Earl Jones’ “They will come” monologue in her most sonorous NPR voice. You’ll be asleep soon. By the way, do baseball ghosts sleep? Are there bunk beds out in the corn fields? Am I overthinking this?

Subscribe to Danielle Kurtzleben's Substack, Very Professional Journalizing, by going to daniellekurtzleben.substack.com.

Hey Sleepy Heads, is there anyone whose voice you’d like to drift off to, or do you have suggestions on things we could do to aid your slumber?

Email us at: sleepwithcelebs@maximumfun.org.

Follow the Show on:

Instagram @sleepwcelebs

Bluesky @sleepwithcelebs

TikTok @SleepWithCelebs

John is on Bluesky @JohnMoe

John’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hilarious World of Depression, is now available in paperback.

_________________________________________________________________________

Join | Maximum Fun

If you like one or more shows on MaxFun, and you value independent artists being able to do their thing, you’re the perfect person to become a MaxFun monthly member.

Go to www.maximumfun.org/joinsleeping for our one-stop portal to becoming a member and supporter of Sleeping with Celebrities.

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinsleeping