Flailing

"Stung" is a set of four live stories from June 2014 back in the feed, each about someone caught off guard. Matt Kirshen, 18 and backpacking through France with two sisters from Berkeley, plans to sleep in a Bordeaux park until a priest and a local drug dealer both warn him off. The dealer's alternative invitation lands him somewhere stranger. Jen Kirkman dissects why she never wanted to take care of anyone, working through an elderly woman feeding her wheelchair-bound husband, a husband who fell in the shower while she stayed in bed, and a grandmother's wake full of relatives she could never picture creating herself. Eli Olsberg signs up for a blood drive offering two free movie tickets and ends up with three nurses semicircled around him. Janine Brito, raised religious by her Cuban father, is four days into her freshman year of college when a voicemail changes everything. Leave your comments plus find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/stung-cre534  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in N.Y.C. on Tuesday, December 8, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three people come within reach of what they want and are nearly undone grabbing for it. Karen Ibarra brings a self-described nerd's devotion to a heated Los Angeles delegate election, where bad blood between two party factions turns personal. David Zellnik spends his childhood worshipping the stage, then auditions for the bad-boy role he wants most in his high school's production of Oliver!, only for the director to pull him aside with a wounding notion about which part he should play. And thanks to EST's "Truth Be Told", the New York show and podcast where this story first appeared. Amy Sohn hits bottom and pins everything on an elderly Manhattan analyst for one ridiculous reason, a rumor that he is Woody Allen's therapist, then sinks into his Freudian world without admitting why she came. Leave your thoughts on the stories, and find details and music credits, at risk-show.com/podcast/almost  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in New York City on December 8, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode first surfaced back in June 2014, presenting two people who’d run out of road and somehow had to find more. Joe Mulligan, a stand-up whose marriage and career have both come apart, flies to Boulder for a peyote ceremony and finds his spirit guide is the last thing he would have chosen. And Olga Schmutz, gutted by a breakup, walks into a Philadelphia shop at 3 a.m. and walks out with a strap-on named Carlitos and a brand-new sense of purpose. Leave your comments on these stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/second-wind-cre533  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on December 8, 2026 in N.Y.C. ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three stories about laughing at exactly the wrong moment, and finding out it was the right one all along. Three ways of getting through it sideways. Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ in NYC - Tuesday, December 8, 2026 ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three wildly different stories from a night RISK! recorded live in Boston at the Nameless Coffeehouse back in May of 2014, pulled from the archive and dropped back into the feed. (Content note: attempted suicide) Josh Poirier grew up as the kid every bully found, singled out for years by an older boy named Paul. At his lowest, broke and checking himself into an inpatient psychiatric ward, the nurse who comes to wake him is the one person he spent his whole childhood running from. Lillian DeVane lands the dream job: managing a plush vintage store with her three closest friends. The catch is the owner, a wealthy heiress whose generosity comes wrapped in cruelty, and whose promise to sign the store over to Lillian sits just out of reach. Will Luera adored a father who kept disappearing for years at a stretch. The reasons turn out to run through prison, cocaine, and a charming, determined man who keeps rebuilding the exact life that took him away,, and Will can feel it all starting again. Leave your comments on these stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/live-from-boston-cre532  Be Part of RISK! 🎟 See RISK! live⁠ on September 8, 2026 in New York City ✍️ Pitch your story⁠ ❤️ Support us on Patreon⁠ 💵 Make a one-time donation⁠⁠ via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected] 📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book⁠ 🎓 Take storytelling classes with us⁠ 🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices