Shows
NowherePeter Hough: Building CommunityThis is a very exciting episode for me, I talk with Peter Hough, pastor at the Alton Mission in Alton, IL. I found Peter through searching for winter survival practices for people experiencing homelessness and found about the OWL program he helped launch (Overnight Warming Location). But in the first half of the episode he talks about what having a congregation of people in poverty and experiencing homelessness looks like, and also what building community WITH those members looks like. Peter speaks about the difference between the transactional nature of targeting people for a mission or to be fed...2025-07-291h 05
NowhereFinding CommunityIn this episode I talk with my friend Ian (poet/author/monk) about finding community locally. I speak about my own experience with finding community in recovery, and Ian speaks about the moments that led to him to seeking community at our local Buddhist temple. Ian has become involved there, working around the temple, driving monks to other temples for ordination ceremonies, and has received teachings from the Sayado and essentially become an assistant there. Issues with mental health led (along with a strange dream) led Ian there, and we wrap up the episode talking about mental health in...2025-07-221h 05
NowherePeter Theil's obsession with the Anti-ChristIn this episode we discuss recent events like the Bitcoin conference in Vegas attended by JD Vance, the SEC cases dropped on different crypto people and the open season of financial crime in the US, the United Arab Emirates welcoming Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto company and using it to pass 2 billion dollars through. Also: the Big Busty Bill and how it redistributes wealth to the rich while furthering the authoritarian reach of the government and their ability to control detention centers within our borders. We end with clips from an interview with Peter Theil, co-founder of...2025-07-151h 20
NowhereHow Tech-Right Billionaire Joe Lonsdale Helped Criminalize HomelessnessThis episode starts off with a background on the ideologies of the far-right tech elite that have gained more and more power in our country, acting out decade’s long plans such as the “Network State.”Joe Lonsdale co-founded Palantir, the Silicon Valley tech company that has countless contracts with the US military and recently used AI to help the IDF automate genocide in Gaza. Lonsdale’s Cicero Institute has affected legislation across America, including the Supreme Court Grant’s Pass decision that removed constitutional protections of homeless people under cruel and unusual punishment. They offer law-makers a cut-and...2025-05-1546 min
NowhereNicoleIn this episode I interview Nicole, who was in foster care and became homeless at a young age. She was homeless in my local city Springfield, as well as a period of time where she traveled to Memphis and eventually made it back to Illinois. She talks about her struggles with addiction and the services that helped her in Springfield as a young mother, and how she was able to get through nursing school while in transitional housing with her son. We also discussed the stigma of homelessness, camping bans, and how community-based action is needed to help address...2025-04-2953 min
NowhereColleen (Donny's fiance)In this episode I speak with Colleen, who was Donny's fiance and lived with him on the street up to the night when he passed away from freezing temperatures. They were together for 12 years. We talk about how she is doing now, how rough it is trying to survive during the winter, and how she met Donny. We both discuss that there needs to be more done in the wintertime to ensure people have what they need to survive. To support the podcast, subscribe on your app of choice, leave a review, and share with your friends. 2025-04-1731 min
NowhereDonny RememberedDonny tragically passed away from hypothermia a couple days before receiving housing and getting off the street. This episode revisits some clips from his interviews, and I interview Pastor Steve from the Washington St. Mission, the religious non-profit through which Donny was connected with a case worker that linked him with housing. Pastor Steve performed a memorial service for him, as he does for many others in the community. We talk about other recent deaths and the difficulty of navigating those as part of his job, his interactions with Donny, and more. Listen to the episode titled "Donny" first...2025-03-2056 min
NowhereHomeless SweepsIn this episode I cover the surge of homeless sweeps since the Supreme Court Decision that removed constitutional protection from being criminalized for being homeless. I talk about several different investigations that cover the multimillion-dollar private industry around sweeps in CA and also the deplorable conditions of shelters as well as the aggressive sweeps that even jail people for being homeless. It ends with an interview with the editor of The Challenger Street Newspaper in Austin, TX, and we talk about the importance of building community. Stop the Sweeps Flyer from itsgoingdown.orghttps://www...2025-02-281h 15
NowhereBeautiful Rowdy PrisonersThis episode is about me, my struggles with searching for "freedom," and becoming lost along the way in addiction and relationships. It's essentially a summary of the defining moments of my life leading up to the time I finally left home and society behind for Slab City. This kicked off a 3-year journey of homeless wandering via hitchhiking and living out of different vehicles that would take me all over America, through every state but Utah, and briefly into Canada and Mexico. It's about why I chose to leave behind a life of relative stability for the unknown. Why...2025-01-1758 min
NowherePepperIn this episode I interview Pepper, who has traveled via freight-train, hitchhiking, vehicle, and bicycle off and on for the last 17 years. He was passing through my town, traveling by bicycle from Wisconsin down to St. Louis. He has struggled with heroin addiction since his early teens, and he shares with brutal honesty about his struggles in the past and recently. He also talks about the trauma that comes from living in and around hard drug use, and about a shooting he was witness to that killed two people and injured one and was reported on globally due to...2024-12-121h 38
NowhereDonnyCW: Addiction, Suicide, Childhood TraumaThis episode consists of a series of interviews with Donny, a man from my local community who has been experiencing homelessness over the past six years. He was a union electrician foreman who was injured twice while working on laying fiber optic along a railroad right-of-way, his second injury put him out of work for good. This was the early 2000's, and his doctor prescribed him three 80mg oxycontin daily, the drug pushed by Purdue Pharma that is considered responsible for kicking off the opioid epidemic in the US. We talk about...2024-11-281h 15
NowhereStrange LightsIn this episode I talk about an experience I had with UFOs and my current attempts to interact with the phenomenon through a form of meditation called CE-5, that is used by some to try and attract attention from UFOs and non-human intelligence. We look at these universal experiences through the framework of Jacque Vallee's book Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact in which Vallee posits that the UFO phenomenon has far-reaching implications and that the answers lie in other dimensions interacting with our own. Music is by Luke Otwell and also within is the song Dark...2024-11-0129 min
NowhereTheoTheo is part of a traveling subculture whose way of life is traveling. Living and sleeping outside and traveling with little to no money. I talk to him about he got started traveling, and what the last 4 years of his life on the road has been like. He longboarded hundreds of miles around the US, as well as hopping freight trains. One of those freight train rides was almost his last. Support this show by subscribing, reviewing, and sharing! This show is a labor love. You can also donate at https://ko-fi.com/keeganotwellMusic...2024-10-221h 17
NowhereWelcome to NowhereWelcome to the podcast Nowhere, featuring interviews with people living on the fringes of society, on the road, and those currently homeless, living nowhere. I'm the host Keegan Otwell and I was homeless all over the USA, traveling for three years. You'll hear a little about that, but I'll also be exploring the fringes of the human condition, our spectrum of beliefs, and places where science greets the unknown. Look forward to interviews and episodes about the paranormal, spirituality and new frontiers of science, human connection and AI, and conspiracy theory culture. Humanity in one weird nutshell. I'll be...2024-10-1503 min