A Weird Show for Weirdos Who Make Things
How do you make art when the world feels like it’s on fire?
Welcome to Craft and Chaos, the podcast for creative minds trying to thrive in the madness. Whether you write, paint, build, perform, or daydream ideas that keep you up at night, this show is your companion through the wild ride of making something out of nothing.
Join Misty, Pete, Kyle, and Ryan — a ragtag team of creative types — as they dive into the joy, frustration, and beautiful mess of the artistic process. From the spark of inspiration to the reality of “I actually made this,” they’ll share honest stories, epic wins, total flops, and the weird, wonderful chaos that comes with being possessed by a new idea.
This isn’t just about craft. It’s about surviving the noise, embracing your weird, and making cool stuff anyway.
Wherever the strangest podcasts are found.
Specifically Specific: A Love Letter to the Humor We Do Not Write
Ryan kicks the season finale off in a British accent, which we will not explain, and from there the episode is about humor — specifically, the humbling realization that the comedy you love and the comedy you write are often two completely unrelated genres operating in two completely unrelated brains. Pete worships the broad, sandwich-falling-from-the-sky lunacy of The Young Ones. Kyle reveres physical comedians who can walk into a room funny. Ryan grew up on Monty Python. None of them, it turns out, write anything resembling any of that.
Up top, Kyle tells a story about a script of his turning up somewhere it should not have been, by mechanisms still unclear, with an ending we won't spoil. Pete confesses he's drowning in two writing projects at once, learns from Ryan about word clouds, and longs for the halcyon days of just moments before he learned about them. Then a Conan O'Brien tangent, a Harrison Ford appreciation, and a Mae Martin break-up story.
We close out the season with Romance Novel or Death Metal Band, Part Two — Pete is on a heater, several of these are not what you'd guess, and one of them is Howlers in Heat — and a parting line from Douglas Adams about the knack of flying. We'll see you next season. Go make weird art.
Mentioned in This Episode
Films
The Hangover — Letterboxd (https://letterboxd.com/film/the-hangover/)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall — Letterboxd (https://letterboxd.com/film/forgetting-sarah-marshall/)
Tig (2015 documentary) — Letterboxd (https://letterboxd.com/film/tig/)
Shows
The Young Ones — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Ones_(TV_series))
Freaks and Geeks — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks_and_Geeks)
Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_O%27Brien_Needs_a_Friend)
The Sarah Millican Television Programme — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sarah_Millican_Television_Programme)
Good One: A Podcast About Jokes — Vulture (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-one/id1203393721)
Comedy Groups
Monty Python — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python)
The Lonely Island — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Island)
People
Conan O'Brien — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_O%27Brien)
Sona Movsesian — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sona_Movsesian)
Matt Gourley — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Gourley)
Sarah Millican — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Millican)
Harrison Ford — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Ford)
Jason Segel — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Segel)
Mae Martin — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Martin)
Tig Notaro — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tig_Notaro)
Buster Keaton — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton)
Harold Lloyd — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd)
John Ritter — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ritter)
Jim Carrey — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey)
Dick Van Dyke — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Van_Dyke)
Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson character) — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Bean)
Jen Silverman — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen_Silverman)
Ithamar Enriquez — IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2439800/)
Douglas Adams — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams)
Books
Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_the_Universe_and_Everything)
Stage Show
Ithamar Has Nothing to Say — The Elysian (https://www.elysiantheater.com/shows/ithamar)
(00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos
(02:07) - A Kyle Hijacking
(07:53) - Pete's Weekly Creative Chaos
(21:53) - "Sponsor:" Bears
(22:40) - On Humor
(50:21) - "Sponsor:" Bears
(50:38) - Romance Novel or Death Metal Band?
30 Apr 2026
Cold Read.
Kyle saw a Jen Silverman play that broke every formatting rule he thought theater had, which turned out to be the perfect prompt for an episode about what happens when creatives stop asking whether they're allowed. Mandy goes to bat for Lynn Shelton's Humpday. Pete makes the case for The Lego Movie, unironically and at length. And Ryan reminds us that Lord and Miller cast a puppeteer as the year's most beloved alien because the guy was too good at the scratch track to replace.
Then: a pair of 24-hour plays, both written to the same brief. Pete returned with Tail, a play about two parents trying to reverse-engineer the psychology of a sixteen-year-old who has decided, unremarkably, to wear a squirrel suit. Kyle — going in a different direction — returned with Best Served Cold, a cooking-competition finale in which a disgraced contestant has plans. Both plays are read live and cold on the episode.
Then a listener asks about the difference between being vulnerable online and being performatively vulnerable online, and all four hosts — each of whom has at some point posted something and later wondered what kind of person wrote that — try to answer honestly.
Links & Notes
Witch by Jen Silverman (https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/66152/witch)
Humpday by Lynn Shelton (https://boxd.it/1ySC)
The Lego Movie (https://boxd.it/4pDO) and Project Hail Mary (https://boxd.it/pEeQ) by Lord and Miller
Batman: The Audio Adventures (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/batman-the-audio-adventures/id1585025879)
Connect
craftandchaos.fun (https://craftandchaos.fun/)
(00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos
(02:14) - Taking Big Swings
(16:28) - A Brand New Segment!
(20:34) - Tail: A Family Play
(33:53) - Interstitial Chaos
(54:58) - Interstitial Chaos
(01:03:56) - Listener Questions
16 Apr 2026
Understanding the Heroes, Gods, and Monsters in Creative Work
There is something almost embarrassing about the relief that comes from owning a thing entirely. Pete self-published his first novella, Lattice (https://amzn.to/4sIbTuR), and what he keeps coming back to is not the early reader responses or the question of whether people will like it. It is the dashboard. The group digs into what gatekeepers actually do (less line editing than you think, more echo chamber than you would hope), what self-publishing opens up and what it absolutely cannot guarantee, and why Ryan Dalton's first question to any aspiring author is not about craft but about goal.
Mandy is in Greece, surrounded by ruins built for gods that still feel alive, and she wants to know what makes a hero, how thrasheth the gods, and whither our monsters. Everyone has opinions and nobody picks the same examples, and yet somehow the whole conversation keeps circling back to the same question: what are you actually worshipping? We are haunted by the forces that guide us this week. We thrive in the chaos.
Mandy does not like horror movies and would like to understand why everyone else does. The group obliges with a theory about indifference that is genuinely unsettling, a taxonomy of monsters that ends somewhere near Eldritch horror and the insect kingdom, and a merch opportunity. Meaning is for hats.
(00:00) - Welcome to Craft and Chaos
(02:02) - The Creative Brief
(15:42) - What Makes Your Heroes
(34:14) - "Sponsor" Gibberish
(35:12) - Our Gods
(50:41) - "Sponsor:" Hit Send
(51:35) - Monsters
Who has been a guest on Craft and Chaos
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Pete Wright
Misty Stinnett
Ryan Dalton
Skittles
Pete Write
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