Backfire

Summary

RISK! – Episode: "Backfire"

Date: April 14, 2026
Host: Kevin Allison

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Overview

This episode of RISK!, titled "Backfire," features two powerful, wildly different, and deeply personal stories about unintended consequences and the surprises that life (and our younger selves) can deliver. Host Kevin Allison sets the stage for these “jaw-dropping true stories," first with a confessional ride through ’90s internet culture and the evolution of online humor from Nate Runkle, and then with Kelly Dunham’s warm and incisive coming-of-age tale from Christian missionary boot camp.

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Key Discussion Points & Story Summaries

1. Nate Runkle – "Are Men Necessary?"

[02:48 – 18:14]

Main Themes:

• Early internet culture and "edgelord" comedy
• Going viral before viral was a concept
• Shame, growth, and reckoning with a problematic legacy
• Intention vs. impact in online content

Story Breakdown:

• Nate's Teenage Self:
  At 18, Nate describes himself as a goofy, nerdy, and "horny af" college-bound guy deeply into edgy comedy and the crude humor of the day (e.g., Bloodhound Gang).

  • “I was very much into movies. I was very much into TV shows, music, comic books, animation... And the biggest defining trait... was probably the fact that I was... horny af. I was a big hornball.” [02:53]

• The Website:

  • To parody the misogynistic ways men discussed women online, Nate creates "Cartoon Girls I Want to Nail," using over-the-top sexual jokes about female cartoon characters (Harley Quinn, Velma from Scooby Doo, etc.).
  • The aim: Make friends laugh with absurd, shock-value content.
    • “I would say, ooh, Harley has such a sweet ass. I would love to get my hands on it... trying to make my friends laugh. That’s really all it was about.” [03:55]

• Unexpected Viral Success:

  • The site goes from 100 views (mostly Nate's own refreshes) to over a million hits after Ween’s Iron Mike shares it.
  • Nate receives a flood of fan mail, including from women, like fans of Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid.
    • “A lot of you really want to fuck Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. And, guys, look, I get it. He’s fuckable.” [05:51]

• Escalation and Abandonment:

  • Attempts to up the ante and update the site with more outrageous content, but eventually loses interest.

• Fame Turns Sour:

  • Years later, finds himself quoted and dissected in Complex Magazine, Maureen Dowd’s book Are Men Necessary?, and even in The Washington Post—none see the joke, only the offensiveness.
  • Online forums and acquaintances express disgust.
    • “Nate, I like you and I think you’re a good dude, but this is gross. This is really creepy, and I don’t like it.” [11:47]

• Introspection and Ownership:

  • Realizes that regardless of intent, “it just matters how it’s received.”
    • “I started to learn that it doesn’t matter what your intent is when you put it out there on the Internet, because it just matters how it’s received.” [14:29]
  • Cites Steve Albini’s view on generational miscalculations about inclusion being a finished battle.
    • “We thought all of the hard fought battles of inclusion... were all won. We thought that was all in our past. But as we’ve all learned, it didn’t go away. It was just laying dormant for a really long time.” [15:39]

• Ownership of Mistakes:

  • Emphasizes owning up to past mistakes and listening rather than pushing back against criticism.
    • “Yeah, you said some fucked-up shit. Own it… all you’re proving [by fighting] is that you are an asshole.” [15:11]

• Full-Circle Moment:

  • Tells his wife why he owns multiple copies of Are Men Necessary?
  • Her final comment:
    • “Do you think we could still make money with this?” [17:54]

Notable Quotes:

• “If you don’t know that I’m joking, this is gross and very creepy.” [12:14]
• “Take a look around at who’s laughing with you and who’s not. It’s really telling.” [16:22]

Memorable Moment:

• Realization that a conversion camp meant to curb her lesbianism gave her power tool skills that became quintessentially, ironically "useful" in queer life.

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2. Kelly Dunham – "From Grace to Grubby"

[20:01 – 31:40]

Main Themes:

• Evangelical upbringing and summer missionary camp in the 1980s
• Identity, conversion efforts, and queer resilience
• The unintentional empowerment of queer kids via “reform” programs

Story Breakdown:

• Teenage Faith and Tomboy Vibes:

  • Unlike her peers, Kelly is a zealous, "banana pants" born-again Christian—prompted by her also zealous (and likely fearful) mother.
    • “I was a big banana pants, very zealous born again Christian.... But I also was a big banana pants tomboy and that made her very sad, or at least scared, probably scared.” [20:10]

• The Lord’s Boot Camp:

  • Receives a glossy brochure for missionary boot camp—$1,200 required. Church community enthusiastically supports her fundraising.
    • “I got together the $1,200 pretty easily with the support of all these folks who really were getting behind this venture.” [21:43]
  • The camp is severe: moldy tents, armadillos running by at night, “God’s bathtub” (essentially a swamp shared with alligators).
    • “To wash our clothes by hand with water we pumped from a sulfur well, which is basically like washing your clothes in a fart.” [22:43]

• Gendered “Training":

  • Daily gender-divided sessions: Boys learn “God’s Gentleman” (find a Christian wife), girls attend “From Grubby to Grace” (grooming, makeup).
    • “There was an entire chapter on makeup which started with a quote... ‘If the barn looks better painted, why not paint the barn.’” [24:56]

• Irony of "Conversion":

  • Learns to use tools and muscles—returns home physically stronger and with a classic 80’s rat-tail haircut.
  • Decades later, realizes the camp was a budget conversion (reparative therapy) camp—something she discovers only as an out queer adult searching online.
    • “I was convinced for 20 years that it was completely my idea. I mean, that’s almost fair play to you, homophobic parent. Fair play to you.” [30:34]

• Final Twist:

  • The skills intended to reform her sexuality became quintessential in the queer community.
    • “The summer that was meant to stop my progress as a lesbian just made me exceptionally good at picking up other lesbians. And for that, I do not owe my mom a scolding, but rather I should send her a thank you note.” [31:24]

Notable Quotes:

• “We washed our clothes by hand with water that we pumped from a sulfur wells, which is basically like washing your clothes in a fart, right?” [22:44]
• “Home Depot is our grinder.” [31:10]
• “She sent me to a conversion camp where I went willingly. And I raised all my own money to go there. And I was convinced for 20 years that it was completely my idea.” [30:38]

Memorable Moment:

• Realization that her mother’s “skillful” manipulation actually backfired in the best way:
  • “That summer made me exceptionally good at picking up other lesbians.” [31:28]

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Timestamps for Key Moments

• [02:48] – Nate Runkle’s story begins

• [04:10] – Creation of "Cartoon Girls I Want to Nail"

• [05:51] – The site goes viral

• [11:47] – Other online writers express disapproval

• [14:29] – Nate’s realization about intent vs. effect online

• [15:39] – Steve Albini quote about generational misjudgment

• [17:54] – Wife’s humorous punchline

• [20:01] – Kelly Dunham’s story begins

• [21:43] – Fundraising for missionary camp

• [22:44] – Sulfur well/living conditions

• [24:56] – Makeup lesson quote: "If the barn looks better painted, why not paint the barn"

• [30:38] – Realization about the camp’s purpose

• [31:10] – “Home Depot is our grinder”

• [31:24] – Thanking mom for the backfire

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Notable Quotes

• Nate Runkle [14:29]:
  “I started to learn that it doesn’t matter what your intent is when you put it out there on the Internet, because it just matters how it’s received.”

• Kelly Dunham [31:10]:
  “Home Depot is our grinder.”

• Kelly Dunham [31:24]:
  “The summer that was meant to stop my progress as a lesbian just made me exceptionally good at picking up other lesbians... I should send her a thank you note.”

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Tone and Style

• The tone swings from raucous, confessional humor (Nate’s story is self-deprecating, explicit, and quick with asides for comedic effect) to warmly satirical and observational (Kelly’s account is rich in vivid visuals, gentle jabs at evangelical quirks, and the kind of rueful insight only time and self-acceptance bring).

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Conclusion

"Backfire" is a classic RISK! episode filled with raw vulnerability, irony, and the long, complicated shadow of our past selves. Nate Runkle’s episode is a vital account of what happens when a joke outlives its context—how moral standards and public interpretation can outpace intent. Kelly Dunham’s story, meanwhile, masterfully inverts a tale of attempted conformity into queer empowerment, making powerful statements about resilience and self-discovery.

Whether you experienced awkward maturity moments in the ’80s, ’90s, or now, this episode is as funny as it is meaningful—a testament to the circuitous, often redemptive nature of personal growth.

Transcript

[Kevin Allison]

On this episode of Risk, you'll hear

[Kelly Dunham]

new muscles that I had from physically building God's kingdom.

[Kevin Allison]

And you'll hear a lot of.

[Nate Runkle]

You really want to fuck Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid.

[Kevin Allison]

And you'll hear me, Kevin Allison, on the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to.

[Unidentified Female Speaker (Carvana Ad)]

Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.

[Nate Runkle]

So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[Richard Sarrett]

I'm Richard Sarrett. Join me on Strange Planet for in depth conversations with the world's top paranormal investigators, alien abductees, Bigfoot trackers, monster hunters, time travelers, and more.

[Unidentified Speaker (Mars Terraforming Story)]

The handler one day told her this whole thing about how they've been terraforming on Mars, and they're building a colony, and they're recruiting specific people of specific bloodlines and specific talents and skill sets to go onto the planet.

[Richard Sarrett]

On Richard Cerrit's Strange Planet, we're redefining reality. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kevin Allison]

Hello, folks, this is Risk. This is an episode we're calling Backfire. And this is Curtis Cole behind me. Now, folks, the next online storytelling workshops I'm teaching start on April 22 and May 31. I'll say more about those at the end of the episode, but you can always email me about my online storytelling workshops at [e-mail] now, we have two of our favorite storytellers on the show today, part of the Risk family. In a little bit, we'll be hearing a story from Kelly Dunham. But to start things off, something from Nate Runkle that was recorded when Risk was last in Philadelphia last year. Holy shit. That was such a great night in Philly. Here is Nate now with a story we call Are Men Necessary?

[Nate Runkle]

All right, so as an online content creator, I've been trying to make a stab at an online footprint by trying to go viral. All right? And I've been wildly unsuccessful at this, and I've been starting to think that maybe. Maybe the reason I'm so unsuccessful at going viral is because I kind of already maybe went viral in the early days of the Internet before going viral was a thing. Let me take you back. It's 1995, all right? I'm 18 years old, graduating high school, and I'm headed off to college. And let's just paint a picture of what an 18 year old Nate was like. I was super goofy and I was a big nerd, unlike I am today. I was very much into movies. I was very much into TV shows, music, comic books, animation, that kind of thing. And the biggest defining trait of me at 18 years old, I would say, was probably the fact that I was. Was horny af. I was a big hornball. I was full of hormones and I didn't know where to direct it. I was ready to blow at any point in place in time, in any direction. I also was really into comedy. And the kind of comedy I gravitated towards was kind of like edgy edgelord comedy, all right? The kind of stuff that is very un. PC and at the time, you know, times were a little different. That was kind of. That was the comedy of the day and that was what I gravitated towards. You know, one of my. One of my favorite bands at that time was the Bloodhound Gang. And the Bloodhound Gang had songs like Kiss Me where it smells Funny and I wish I was Queer so I could get chicks, or the lap dance is always better when the stripper is crying, okay? These are the kind of things I gravitated towards because we talked differently back then. You know, you couldn't get. They always say you couldn't get away with that now, but I don't know, I just think that we hold each other accountable now for things that we say, even in jest. We just really talk differently. And more so than that, we talked about each other differently because the way the guys used to speak about women was a lot different, especially on those early days on the Internet. It was like the wild, wild west, okay? And the way the guys talked was so obscene and so misogynistic and so objectifying. And I'm not going to pretend like I didn't partake, all right? I just. That's how guys talked is what I always thought. But I still found it very, very absurd. And so I thought, what if I make a website where I talk about women the same way that guys talk about women on the Internet? But the women I talk about are cartoon characters. And so cartoon girls I want to nail was born, okay? On this website, what I would do is I would put up a picture of a cartoon character, say Harley Quinn from The Animated Series. And I would say, ooh, Harley has such a sweet ass. I would love to get my hands on it. And I did these dumb things, and I put it up there to make my friends laugh. That's really all it was about. But each time I wrote a new passage, I tried to go a little more and a little more extreme. So then it was the baroness from GI Joe who. Who I said had a mouth that just said, violate me. And then who else did we have on there? The sorceress from he man, who I said, I wish I could place my power sword in her castle, Grayskull and show her that I have the power. Or Velma from Scooby Doo. Yes, Velma. I was very, very dismissive of Fred for spending so much time with Daphne when clearly Velma was hiding the best set of tits under that sweater. And, ooh, would I love to get my head underneath that skirt so I could taste her Scooby Snacks. Like, wow, Scoob. Okay, so it was very extreme. It was very. Just trying to make my friends laugh. And I had a little web counter at the bottom of the website, and it had like 100 views or something like that, which was probably eight of my friends. And 92 times I refreshed it to laugh at my own. My own jokes. But, you know, after a while, I got a little bored and I stopped updating it, and I just kind of forgot about it. I failed out of college. And then like a year or so later, after getting back in, I was talking to a friend, and he was like, hey, remember that cartoon website you had? Is that still around? And I was like, oh, I wonder if it is. Let's check it out. And so I loaded it up, and that little web counter that at one point said 100 was now way over a million views. I had no idea why, because I did absolutely nothing with it for over a year. Had over a million views. Here's what happened. The band Ween, you know, local favorites here, they had on their website a guy named Iron Mike. And Iron Mike had an ezine, and in his e. Zine, he would share web links that he found funny. And he shared cartoon girls I want to nail. And from there, it took off. I was getting website awards. I was showing up in top 10 lists of, like, favorite comedy websites. And I was getting all kinds of emails from all over the world. And specifically people telling me what they wanted to do to their favorite cartoon character. Now, mind you, not just dudes, women as well. And I have to let you know that a lot of you really want to fuck Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. And, guys, look, I get it. He's fuckable. I would do it, too. But anyway, so I had all of this newfound success, right? And I thought, well, now I got to start updating it, and I started trying to up to Annie. So I did a thing, a big, huge post about the Sailor Scouts from Sailor Moon. And in it, I started talking about how Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus were edited out of the US Syndication because they were lesbians and how representation matters and we should bring that to the US because there is nothing like following the moral compass of a guy who wants to fuck Minerva Mink from Animaniacs. You know, I just kept. I kept going and I kept making these bigger and bigger posts, and I kept trying to go more and more extreme, and. But again, much like Kevin, I have ADHD and I get bored very quickly. And so I abandoned the website. I thought nothing of it, and I let it go until a few years later, I'm about to get on a train, and I stopped at a newsstand. A newsstand is a place that used to sell magazines and newspapers. Magazines and newspapers are like websites in physical form. Anyway, so I stop at this newsstand, and I buy an issue of Complex magazine. On the COVID Michael Imperioli and Snoop Dogg. All right? And I'm leafing through on the train, and there's a section of the webpage or the magazine about websites that made this guy laugh. And I start reading about this guy who wants to fuck Chitara from the Thundercats. And I'm like, hey, that sounds like, holy shit, it's me. I'm in Complex magazine. I've made it. And I get off the train and I'm all excited, and I run home and I jump on this message board that I used to post on that was run by this guy who was a screenwriter who went on to write some of the highest grossing animated films of all time, unrelated to this story, but. So I was like, you won't believe it. I just found my website in a magazine, Complex Magazine. And I feel famous right now. I feel like a big deal. And someone on the message board goes, well, what's the website? Can we see it? And I go, sure. And so I share it, and the writer, the screenwriter replies, and he goes, nate, I like you and I think you're a good dude, but this is gross. This is really creepy, and I don't like it. And then all these other people started piling on. And for the first time in years, I went back and I reread what I had written about a lot of these characters. And it started to sink in because with time and with growth, I started to realize that, like, if you don't know that I'm joking, this is gross and very creepy. And so I kind of withdrew. And, like, my biggest professional moment at that point then became my biggest moment of shame. Like, I wanted to hide from it and I wanted it to go away. And I thought it did, because that website used to be hosted on GeoCities. And for those of you who just chuckled, I know you know what GeoCities is. For those of you who don't know, GeoCities was this free web hosting platform, and you could just put up a website. Anybody could build a website. And it went away at one point because they went under and all of the pages got deleted. But much like anything else on the Internet, nothing truly goes away. And so a few years after that, I'm working in a bookstore. A bookstore is where they used to sell books. Books were these physical. Okay, you get the joke. Anyway, so I'm working in a bookstore, and I get a text message from a friend of mine, and she goes, you know your old cartoon website? And I go, oh, fuck, yeah. She goes, I think Maureen Dowd is writing about it in her book Are Men Necessary? And I don't know if you know this or not, but Maureen Dowd is the New York Times columnist who. Who broke the Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton scandal, okay? So I go, well, that's obviously not true. There's no way Maureen Dowd is writing about me. And we happen to have a copy in the store. So I go and I open it up to the page she's on, and there it is, a full page excerpt from my cartoon Girls. I want to nail website and commentary from Maureen Dowd talking about this really weird guy who wants to do things to cartoon characters who are not real. Fuck. She didn't get the joke. Or even if she did, she didn't find it funny. And so I get paranoid and I'm like, well, where else is this? So I Google my name and I Google cartoon girls I want to nail. First of all, don't do that. The Internet has very much changed since you could find my website and gross. But anyway, so I do it and I find another one. I find an article about Dan DeCarlo. Dan DeCarlo is the guy who created Josie and the Pussycats. And this article was in the Washington Post, and it says, I bet Dan DeCarlo didn't imagine a website like Cartoon Girls I Wanna Nail where this gentleman talked about what he wanted to do to Josie and the Pussycats, the Washington fucking Post, Maureen Dowd, Complex magazine. There was no escaping this. It's all I want. Like, I became super paranoid and I would Google myself so much. And I don't know why I'm talking about that in the past tense, because I still, to this day, Google myself a lot. Because I was concerned, because no one seemed to understand that I was just trying to make people laugh. And everybody was really, truly offended by what I had said. And I started to learn that it doesn't matter what your intent is when you put it out there on the Internet, because it just matters how it's received. And someone once said to me, can you point to where the joke is? And I was like, well, the joke is, ah, that's it right there. And so I Googled myself for quite some time and nothing came up. Until a few years ago, I found a website called oh My God, My Wife Is German. And it was this guy's kind of journal about being married to a German woman. And he dedicated an entire page to people who inspired him to become a writer. And there was a full page tribute to me and the Cartoon Girls I Want to Nail. And he was talking about how I went for it, and it taught him how to just push through and not worry about what anybody else thought and don't worry about if you offend anybody. And he was right. I did just go for it. But he was way off the mark. Because at no point did I want to offend anybody. I wanted to make them laugh. But here's the deal, and you may have heard this a lot. You know, when you make a joke and you're about to try to defend. Defend yourself, and you take a look around at who's laughing with you and who's not, it's really telling, you know, because all of the people that I love and respect were telling me that they were grossed out. They thought it was creepy. You know, they. They didn't find it funny. And then I started to think about who the people would be that would find it funny. And I started thinking about, like, the manosphere, right? Guys like Dave Portnoy with barstool sports and stuff like that. You know, on a very extreme end, someone like Andrew Tate, right? And I started to realize, like, the importance of owning. Owning your own mistakes in your past. And I think that's what is one of the things that People truly haven't really grasped with like this concept of cancellation and stuff like that, which is like, yeah, you said some fucked up shit. Own it and say, you know, understand, listen to people and understand why it was offensive and don't push back, don't focus, fight, because all you're proving is that you are an asshole. It's true. You know, there is this Twitter thread by the late, great Steve Albini where someone was trying to take him to task for all of the edgelord shit that he said in interviews and in songs and stuff like that. And he had this really astute observation where he said, you know, as a generation, we miscalculated because we thought all of the hard fought battles of inclusion and stuff like that were all one. We thought that was all in our past. But as we've all learned, it didn't go away. It was just laying dormant for a really long time. And, you know, you kind of got to. You kind of got to take a step back and like I said, take a look at who's laughing with you and take a listen to who you're hurting, you know, I got married a few years ago and my wife and I were sitting at the dinner table one night and I guess she had been looking at her bookshelf and she goes, why do you own so many copies of Are Men Necessary? And so I had to tell my wife about the cartoon girls that I want to nail. And as I was telling her more and more about it, I could see the look of disgust and disappointment on her face. And I told her about Maureen Dowd and I told her about Washington Post and Complex magazine. Oh my God, my wife is German. This guy's a fan. And I talked about all the millions of people who used to visit the website, all the emails I used to, all the awards. And I saw this look in her face kind of change as she looked at me and said, do you think we could still make money with this? Thanks.

[Kevin Allison]

This is Risk. This is Roy Spiegler behind me now. And we just heard from Nate Runkle, who has two podcasts. Yo, that's my John. And Too Old, Too New with Nate and Bruce. You can find Nate Runkle online at yothatsmyjohn on pretty much all the socials. Folks, if you love Risk, if you really care about what we do and want to be sure we keep doing it, you can help us reach more people. That's essential. And help shout down the haters by writing us reviews and giving us five star ratings on Apple Podcasts. Spotify or podchaser. Those good reviews are so helpful, so important. Also, you can help keep Risk running by joining our patreon like Henry Schneiderman and Lynn Vide. Now we give a little shout out just like that to anyone giving $25 or more per month. And Henry and Lynn, we so deeply appreciate it. It is so very needed for our continued survival. Now next up, that story from Kelly Dunham. You know, when I was first working on this episode, I got a little teary the other day thinking how far back we go with Kelly, who was first on the show in 2012. But here she is now in 2026 at the most recent Risk live show in New York with a story we call From Grace to Grubby.

[Kelly Dunham]

When I was a teenager and everyone else was drinking Zima, it was the 80s, and learning all the dance moves to Madonna's Like a Prayer and giving each other what I now know were pretty mediocre blowjobs. In the back of folks borrowed Camaro. Me, I was going to church three times a week. I was wearing a T shirt that said no surfing in hell unironically. And I was asking complete strangers on the bus, excuse me, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Also quite unironically, I was a big banana pants, very zealous born again Christian. And that made my zealot banana pants born again Christian mom very happy. But I also was a big banana pants tomboy and that made her very sad, or at least scared, probably scared. One spring afternoon my sophomore year, I came home and on the kitchen table there was a folded glossy brochure for something called the Lord's Boot Camp Missionary training. And my mom had written on a post it note, newfangled post it note, it was the 80s. She wrote, this sounds like something you'd love. Exclamation point, exclamation point. And I opened it up and it was pictures of all these smiling teenagers, you know, using saws and hammers to build God's kingdom and probably asking each other, excuse me, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? And I thought, this is something I would love. I would absolutely love this. So once I decided I was going to do it, I only had like two months to raise the $1,200 participation fee, which really seemed like very daunting at first. But then somewhat inexplicably, every adult at my church really, really threw all their effort behind me and they let me borrow the commercial popcorn maker so that I could sell popcorn to the folks who are on their way to the beach from church, which is a very Florida activity. They baked stuff for me so that I could sell it on Wednesday nights before Bible study. And they even on Saturday afternoon let me open up and do like a little like car wash for donations on Saturday afternoons in the church parking lot. And I got together the $1,200 pretty easily with the support of all these folks who really were getting behind this venture. So on the brochure it said that the Lord's boot camp was no pamper camp. And when I arrived at the Lord's boot camp, I found, boy howdy, they were not kidding. We slept in something called. I mean, they were calling them pup tents, but they should have called them cow tents because they had so much mildew on them. They looked like a golden Guernsey cow. You know, they were just covered in black. Do you guys think I die in this story? You know I don't die in this story, right? Tender straight people. Oh. And about halfway through boot camp, they had to put our tents up on these, like, wooden structures because armadillos kept like bands of armadillos kept running through the tent sites, which wouldn't seem like it would be that disturbing, cause they don't really make that much noise. But you get like 100 armadillos in one place. And it actually does cause quite a commotion. So they would run underneath us at night. And so the place. So to wash up or to wash our. We washed our clothes by hand with water that we pumped from a sulfur wells, which is basically like washing your clothes in a fart, right? And the place where we were supposed to wash up, which they called unironically God's bathtub, was just a little area of the swamp that they had put a dam in. So it just made a little pond. And then attached to the pond was a tiny drainage ditch. In the tiny drainage ditch lived two full grown alligators. We mentioned this to our leaders. Even in the 80s, this seemed like a safety violation, right? And I remember my leader, he was standing there holding his bible and he was like, really? Do you think these alligators are going to eat 500 teenagers? I don't think any of us thought 500 teenagers, but doesn't like even one. Seemed like kind of a lot. Every morning we would get up and run the Lord's boot camp missionary training obstacle course. And it was full of unironically biblically named obstacles that they said would help us develop the personality characteristics that we would need to be able to serve The Lord. On the mission field, for example, the first obstacle was called the Children of Israel's luggage. It was made up of retired missile boxes, you know, decommissioned wooden missile boxes that were filled with sand and then nailed shut. And then the names of the books of the Bible were written on the outside in paint. And you'd arrive with your team and they'd be in a big huge pile and somebody was in charge of yelling out Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers. And then you scrambled to put them together in the order of they found in the books of the Bible. There was also. The slough of Despond was one of the other obstacles which you were supposed to grab a rope and swing across. I was about the height I am now. Never was there a swinging across. In fact, at some point I just gave up. I didn't even grab for the rope anymore. I just walked across the slough of Despond and we ran that. It's like between five and six o'clock each morning. I know this was the Florida humidity, so I just essentially never dried off, you know. And they said they were going to teach us how to physically build God's kingdom. And so they taught us how to use a hammer and how to tie rebar. And I learned how to mix cement by hand. So obviously I was having kind of a great summer, right? It was a whole summer of being a tomboy, except for somewhat inexplicably, every afternoon at 4pm they divided us up by gender and we had to go to one of two classes. The boys went to something called God's Gentleman and the girls went to something called From Grubby to Grace because alliteration right now my confidential informant from the boys side said that mostly it was about how to attract a Christian wife, and mostly it seemed like picking the right activities was the most important thing. Like, for example, sports were a good idea and theater, not so much. Grubby to Grace was mostly about grooming. And in fact, there was an entire chapter on makeup which started with a quote from the Lord's boot camp founder, Bob Land. The quote went as such, if the barn looks better painted, why not paint the barn. Now, except for those inexplicable, and now that I say it out loud, somewhat misogynistic afternoon classes. I was having a fantastic summer and I returned home with a newfound zeal and also a new haircut. So we had been washing our hair with Fels Naphtha soap in this swamp water the whole time. And so, you know, six weeks into that, I couldn't even get a comb through it. So somebody from my team very kindly took a pair of scissors and trimmed off almost everything on the side and almost everything on the other side and just a little on the top and left me an 8 inch rat tail on back because it was the 80s and I looked great. So I returned home with my newfound zeal and my new haircut and these new muscles that I had from physically building God's kingdom. And I pulled my backpack, my very stinky backpack up, you know, onto my mom's porch and I said, don't I look like a new creature in Christ? And she got like a tear in her eye and she said, you look a lot the same. And I thought, oh, my God, that's so sweet. She really missed me. I have been telling that story socially for 20 years, and I have been an out queer for almost that long. And I mostly use it to illustrate what it was like to be an evangelical Christian in Florida in the 80s. Right? That's how I used to illustrate. Was not until three summers ago when I was googling the Lord's boot camp missionary training, I wanted to show my girlfriend a picture of the obstacle course. It wasn't until I googled it and I found it on a list of de facto conversion camps for Christian parents without a lot of money that I realized what you all have known for quite a while. I have never talked to my mom about this. And it's not just that she's 87 years old and just kind of given up. She just understands that, like, my tomboy swagger and my girlfriend are just part of our lives now. That's part of it. But also it's partly because it was just so, so skillful.

[Unidentified Female Speaker (Carvana Ad)]

Right?

[Kelly Dunham]

She didn't just send me to a conversion camp. No, no, no. She sent me to a conversion camp where I went willingly. And I raised all my own money to go there. And I was convinced for 20 years that it was completely my idea. I mean, that's almost fair to play to you, homophobic parent. Fair play to you. But the real reason why I've never brought this up with my mom is that I spent an entire summer learning how to use power tools. If you know my people, You know that Home Depot is our grinder. So the summer that was meant to stop my progress as a lesbian just made me exceptionally good at picking up other lesbians. And for that, I do not owe my mom a scolding, but rather I should send her a thank you note. Thank you, Foreign.

[Kevin Allison]

This is risk. This is the north behind me now and we just heard from Kelly Dunham. Kelly is hosting a brand new podcast from PRX and Good Get Productions. Cared for is about surviving health care, caregiving, grief, and the general mess of being alive right now. Each episode blends funny true stories with practical tools. How to advocate, how to ask for help, how to get yourself an appointment, how to use humor constructively, how to take small steps when everything feels huge. It's warm and real and deeply on your side. The podcast Social media is @CaredForPodcast on TikTok and and Instagram and you can find Kelly those same places. Kellydunham so folks, I moved my April online storytelling workshop to April 22, 2026. A slight scheduling change there. That's eight Wednesdays at 8:30pm Eastern Time and then my next Sunday morning's workshop will start on May 31. So those will be at 10am Each Sunday morning for eight weeks in a row. That's 10am Eastern time. There's over seven hours of video content. There are many opportunities to share 5 minute stories, 12 minute stories, improvised stories, carefully written and crafted ones, and revised drafts of stories. A lot of students have taken this workshop two or three times now, and currently there's a woman in my latest one who's taking it for a third time and I'm gobsmacked at how far she's come and how much of her own niche she's carved. Her stories might become a memoir someday, or might become a sub stack sort of online memoir, and they are just the most striking super short vignettes, often under five minutes and they're just packed with life. She talks about how it's the flexibility, the leeway and the supportiveness of wherever and however someone is working on things in these workshops that have allowed her all the room to breathe and experiment and find her own unique groove. We've had folks in the workshops talk about how all this story mining has led them to have a more mindful and gratitude filled perspective on day to day life and others who feel like they're more confident in their own skin just being themselves when sharing about their lives with others. We've had several grandparents in the workshops excited about how they're now sharing much more with their grandkids. We've had folks in their early 20s so invigorated that they're connecting with people in so much of a deeper and more fulfilling way than other things they've been exposed to otherwise. This whole thing inspired me to lead a storytelling workshop in Bangkok for the first time last weekend. And wow, it was so wonderful. We had nearly 20 people, Thais and non Thais, and so many of them said it was just such a wonderful discovery for for them. And that inspired me and John Englander here in Bangkok to host another storytelling show, Bangkok Stories, at the Garage Burger and Grill in Tonglo on May 1. All of this is to say, just jump in. Whether you're in Bangkok or it's my online storytelling workshop. Starting on April 22nd and May 31st. The next live storytelling show here in Bangkok will be May 1. Just email me at kevinrisk-show.com for more information. I believe more than ever now, so deeply in storytelling as an inspiring creative, educational, therapeutic and social connector, and I would love to have you. Jump on in, folks. Today's the day. Take a risk.