Welcome to Getting Curious. I'm Jonathan Beness and every week I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that meets me curious.

But today, the tables are turning. On today's episode, I'm joined by all of you for a special listener.

You and I episode hosted by my husband, where you were all asking, what's it like to get curious?

Welcome to Getting Curious. This is Jonathan Beness and on this week's episode, tables have turned. I am in the hot seat. I am going to get 21 questions, but it'll probably be more than 21 questions.

And with none other than my husband, Mark Pekak, who will be the conduit of your questions, we asked social media, we had tons of responses, we're really excited to break it down without further ado.

Welcome, Mark. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I feel like we're Anna Gasteyer and Molly Shannon in that SNL, because you don't know about because you're British. But where they would put on these sweaters and they worked at this MPR station, I'll have to show you when we get home. But it's cute and I'm excited that you're here and I'm excited that you're going to interview me, babe. I'm excited to be doing it.

Okay, so tell everyone what the first segment title is. So the first segment is about the Getting Curious podcast. Yay, babe, what's the first question? Okay. So Jessica asks, how did the idea of getting curious, get it stop? It's been six years. It's such a long time that we've been going, but it really started with in the beginning. It was myself and a sound engineer and we did everything. So I was like the producer. I was the idea maker.

And really, I wanted to create something that was really creative and didn't have a lot of oversight as far as like, yes, you can ask that question. No, you can't ask that question. So it was really just a very like creative idea that I had in my head where I wanted to explore things that I was curious about.

And so I wanted to do it in a way that I was new to which at the time was podcasting. And so that was really kind of how it got started, but really at the beginning, it was definitely nobody flocking to me and me booking so many people like, you know, finding.

Like 15 people that were like historians of Islam, I also like interviewed my cousin about diva cups. I think that was like the third one I did was about like different menstrual cycles, which is so typical for you to talk to your first cousin about, but actually it was a really good episode because my cousin's amazing and she is brilliant. And his work so hard to bring advocacy and equity to people in her life. So I am really proud of how the of how the podcast started and what I was able to accomplish and especially how long it's gone.

Okay, so Megan asks, do you have a giant list of topics for the show and how do you decide what you want to learn about first.

So for the podcast, it's like I have notes and folders and like running less of things that I'm always thinking about. I have an amazing production team for getting curious to podcast, which is really helpful for the show.

So it was like we had three weeks for pre production. So it was like nine of us thinking about all of these different ideas and then thinking about what did we have access to in Manhattan to create the series knowing that traveling was not going to be an option with the coronavirus pandemic and knowing that, you know, traveling in experts was going to be difficult if not impossible.

So of the questions that we came up with, which you know, the guiding light for all of getting curious and you know, the TV show and the podcast is that I really need to be curious about it and like really want to learn about it.

So once we had all of these ideas, it was about figuring out what we could accomplish in New York City or more like the north eastern corridor because we were really like very local.

And that was kind of how we decided what to pursue for the TV show.

Jane asks, I'm curious about how you seem to have a non-judgmental curiosity when interfering your guests. How do you remain present and open with the people you're interviewing?

I think that it's really hard for us to give something as RuPaul says that we don't have. It's something we also talk about in program. And so if you're constantly judging yourself and you're not in a place of acceptance with yourself, it's going to be really difficult to interview people and stay present with anyone when you're asking them questions.

So I think it's from having a good relationship with myself where I'm like, I've had good practice with meditation and therapy and yoga to like not judge my thoughts as I have them.

And to try to like realize that I'm not my thoughts. I'm like the observer of my thoughts. So just like when I'm interviewing someone if they are saying stuff that either, you know, is hurtful or like offensive, which doesn't happen too often, at least on my show.

But in general, when I'm having a conversation with someone, I'm trying to recognize their humanity and not necessarily like what it is that I'm hearing them say.

Because I always will try to meet someone where we have common ground, which is that like we're both humans, even if I am diametrically opposed to your views.

...