On an overcast and rainy spring night in Milwaukee, we sat down for a cross-country conversation with Italian author (On the Warrior’s Path, 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know: Religion, and Create Your Own Religion: A How-To Guide Without Directions), university professor, podcaster (The Drunken Taoist), and martial artist (Because who isn’t these days, right?) Daniele Bolelli.

Always the gentlemen, we shared a fun and incredibly informative discussion with Mr. Bolelli from the long-standing allegories of today’s most popular religions to the great thinkers of eastern philosophy. We had a wonderful time and appreciate the passion and energy Mr. Bolelli gave us.

As always, you can check in with us on Twitter or Facebook, and please be sure to subscribe, rate, and share in our journey. The five-star ratings and references really go a long way in growing our audience, which is genuinely all we ask. 

This week Midwest Real hosted author of Perfecting Sound Forever and contributor to such publications as Spin, Salon, Wired, Village Voice, among many others. The guys conversed about Greg's writing background, his current book in progress, as well as topics revolving around the music and recording industries as a whole. Enjoy.

Steve Volk, senior writer at Philadelphia Magazine, 2013 National City and Regional Magazine Award finalist, and author of Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable - And Couldn’t, joined us for an hour this week. We almost immediately found a sort of kinship with Mr. Volk, and by halfway through the conversation we were discussing the questionable writing decisions of certain Marvel Comics’ characters.

The conversation is as captivating as it is endearing, which is precisely how we’d describe Mr. Volk.

We ran into a few technical hiccups throughout the conversation - as is the nature of cross-country communication - but we were able to fix almost all of the issues in post-production.

Enjoy. See you next week.

This week the guys welcome Milwaukee's own stand-up comedian, Adam Loeding. Adam began his career as a professional comedian this past year and immediately struck a chord with audiences around town. He is now one of the prominent stand-ups in the city, and he shared his story with guys on a cool March evening in Milwaukee. The conversation branches off into a discussion about the newest Pope as well as this latest season of The Walking Dead. At the end of the episode, a note is made regarding an interview with The Onion's AV Club Milwaukee. That article is now live on the AV Club's website here: http://www.avclub.com/milwaukee/articles/podcast-for-the-people-the-strange-and-wonderful-w,83612/

Welcome back around, dear Realers. Part two of our utterly fascinating interview with Sacred Geometry International's Randall Carlson is here. We continue our discussion on lost civilzations, catyclisms, and how humanity can move forward from the precarious state we find ourselves in. Its a fantastic conversation you aren't going to find from many other outlets.

Randall Carlson is a master builder and architectural designer, teacher, geometrician, geomythologist, geological explorer and renegade scholar. He has four decades of study, research and exploration into the interface between ancient mysteries and modern science. Carlson has been an active Freemason for 30 years and is Past Master at one of the oldest and largest Masonic lodges in Georgia.

Randall spoke with the guys frankly and openly about his expieriences within Masonry, his research into ancient cultures and cataclysms, sacred texts and numerology and much, much more. Get ready to go into the deep end with this one.

This week marks the first 'Family Podcast' episode of Midwest Real, where the guys catch up with each other and discuss current events and random musings, including a discussion regarding the 'overview effect', a phenomena experienced by those who have gone to space. 

This week MwR brings you a conversation with Iraq war veteran Mike Lang. Mike hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and served in the United States Air Force during both pre and post surge Iraq. He spent 500 days in the country and discusses his time there. The discussion leads to his views and opinions on the both the Bush and Obama Administrations, as well as the drone wars and civil rights.

This week the guys sit down with Brad Clifford. Born and bred in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Brad was a member of several Milwaukee aggressive musical acts (Since By Man), as well as joining national metal/hardcore band Poison the Well. He now travels the world with acts such as The Gaslight Anthem and Taking Back Sunday as a guitar tech and tour laborer. The guys talk to him about his time as a performer, a world traveler, and human being. 

This week's episode features Spencer Chumbley, photo/video journalist and fellow under Al Jazeera English's documentary program, FaultLines. The guys talk to Spencer about his background, his current work with Al Jazeera English, and some of the hotly debated current events of the past few weeks, including the highly controversial film, Zero Dark Thirty.