VH US

“Workers employed at a French vineyard follow old pagan rituals that call for the life of the marquis owner to save his crops during dry seasons.” – IMDB This week's guest:Oenophilia came easily to Kristen Castagna. It likely catalyzed in a glass and snowballed into the vineyard, winery, and maps, travel, books, classes…Kristen has grown grapes and made wine from them (it’s not poisonous!) and made wine from other grapes too, sold wine, bought wine (she is a certified sommelier), led several educational programs, and has drunk (double entendre) a LOT of wine in hopes of passing on this love while finding increased understanding of wine’s multifaceted and endlessly fascinating nature.

“Sidney Poitier returned to the big screen in this action-thriller, after a decade-long absence. When a cunning murderer vanishes into the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest, pursuing FBI agent Warren Stantin (Poitier) must exchange familiar city streets for unknown wilderness trails. Completely out of his element, Stantin is forced to enlist the aid of expert tracker Jonathan Knox (PLATOON’S Tom Berenger). The killer has infiltrated a guided hiking trip led by Knox’s girlfriend Sarah (Kirstie Alley, at the height of her Cheers fame). Viewers don’t know which of the hikers is the killer, and the tension lasts well into the movie.” – (Donny Dollar /IMDB) This week's guest:Brooke Weeber is a Portland-based illustrator who brings whimsical, nature-based scenes to life. Her complex pieces combine animals with instruments, ribbons with clouds and always feature her iconic subtle color palate and playful aesthetic. Brooke finds her inspiration from various natural landscapes, her own life experiences as well as Folk art. She started drawing when she was a young thing, but started focusing on it in high school and later in college. After receiving her BFA in painting from the University of Oregon in 2003, Brooke flew her native Northwest for the big city, where she focused on her other passion – professional baking. She received a degree in Professional Pastry Baking at the French Culinary Institute of New York in 2005 and worked as a high-end cake decorator immediately. Craving more trees and more drawing space, Brooke packed up her apartment and re-rooted herself in Portland in 2009. She’s been cranking out pieces ever since and has had shows locally at Mississippi Studios, Compound Gallery, Pony Club, and Tribute Gallery. She sells prints and greeting cards featuring her art at local boutique shops and various places across the US, Canada and even Australia. ( The Little Canoe)

“Sully is the producer of a cable news network program. Christy is his ex-wife and best reporter. Her desire to quit the news business and marry Blaine, a sporting goods manufacturer comes as an innocent man is about to be executed. Sully’s attempts to keep her in town and break up her upcoming marriage happen against the backdrop of a botched execution, a prison break and a possible pardon.” ( John Vogel / IMDB) This week's guest:Nina Mehlhaf is a news reporter and Sunrise weekday anchor for KGW News. Before coming to Portland, Nina was the main anchor of KTVZ NewsChannel 21 in beautiful Bend, Oregon. While there she earned awards from the Oregon Association of Broadcasters for Best Coverage of Breaking News in 2008 and 2011. She’s also been honored for her reporting by Oregon Press Women. The Source Weekly newspaper and Central Oregon Magazine have also awarded her Best TV Personality.

Sean is a stand up comedian living in Los Angeles by way of South Dakota. He made it out even though South Dakota is the greatest state in the country! Sean spent his formative years in Portland OR where he was voted the funniest person in 2014. In 2015 he was named one of the "Comics to Watch" by Splitsider and in 2016 was awarded the same title by Comedy Central. Sean moved to Los Angeles just over a year ago where he wasted no time digging into the stand up scene performing on the top shows in the city while also maintaining a non stop touring schedule. If you're a podcast fan then you've most likely heard Sean on the wildly popular podcast All Fantasy Everything, where he is a regular cohost. IndieWire magazine even crowned an episode: One of the 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2017! How fun is that?! Sean is also a regular guest and fan favorite on Doug Benson's podcast Doug Loves Movies. You may have also heard him on Professor Blastoff, The Crabfeast, Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction, Put Your Hands Together and ARIYNBF (Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend). Sean is no stranger to the festival circuit doing festivals like this one all over the country. Those festivals include: Sketchfest in San Francisco, High Plains Comedy Festival in Denver and The Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland to name a few. Sean was also a part time staff writer on Live Wire radio and just recently wrapped up as a member of a writing team for a Comedy Central pilot. https://headgum.com/all-fantasy-everythinghttps://www.seanjordancomedy.com

This week’s film: Arcade Attack: Silverball Heroes vs. Video Invaders.Synopsis: “Heroes of the Pinball Arcade race to stop the invasion of the Video Game terrors!” Extras:I believe Tommy Hogan is in this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL79tRp9PpgThese are chairs from The Edwardian club. weird video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHg1JxEuclY

“High school misfit Louise, at a loss for romance, discovers magical abilities, but the teenage witch finds that she cannot conjure herself true love, so what?” – IMDB This week’s links:EnchantedTemple of WitchcraftThe Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation and Psychic Development

“In this humorous paean to the joys of food, the main story is about trucker Goro, who rides into town like a modern Shane to help Tampopo set up the perfect noodle soup restaurant. Woven into this main story are a number of smaller stories about the importance of food, ranging from a gangster who mixes hot sex with food, to an old woman who terrorizes a shopkeeper by compulsively squeezing his wares.” (Reid Gagle, IMDB) This week's guest:Lola Milholland is a creative food event planner and award-winning writer and multimedia producer. A Portland-native, she studied Japanese language and culture since kindergarten, first in the Portland Public Schools and later at Amherst College and Doshisha University. Before launching Umi, she worked at the nonprofit Ecotrust for eight years on regional food and farming issues and as assistant editor of Edible Portland magazine. This week’s links:Umi OrganicShizuku RestaurantMississippi RecordsPortland Mercado

“Mame is an unconventional individualist socialite from the roaring 20’s. When her brother dies, she is forced to raise her nephew Patrick. However, Patrick’s father has designated an executor to his will to protect the boy from absorbing too much of Mame’s rather unconventional perspective. Patrick and Mame become devoted to each other in spite of this restriction, and together journey through Patrick’s childhood and the great depression, amidst some rather zaney adventures.” – IMDB This week's guest:Native Portlandian and thrift store junkie, Michelle Lesniak hasn’t followed the traditional path down fashion lane. Born into a family of quilters, seamstresses, and interior decorators, needle and thread were predestined to find their way into her hands. From a young age, Michelle took her minimal clothing allowance and hit thrift and vintage stores, where she purchased wacky pieces that she altered to fit her taste. By remaking previously worn garments, she learned construction, destruction, and how to tailor garments. Determined to jumpstart her career in fashion, Michelle tried out for Project Runway, landing a spot on Season 11. Her lack of formal training gave her an edge; there were no rules to follow. As a self-proclaimed, professional rule breaker, Michelle won the season and the ability to design full-time, a luxury many designers never achieve.This rule-breaker, no-shit-taker continues to live in Portland, Oregon focusing on small production and emotive clothing, as she likes to say, “Fashion with a purpose”. Fun Facts: Favorite color – dirty chartreuse. Chihuahua lover. Project Runway All-Stars alum. Former trombonist. 5’5” in flats – wicked tall in heel – (bio from michellelesniak.com)This week’s links:Altar PDXMoore

“A man becomes destructively obsessed with killing a dangerous rat, which has taken residence in his, recently renovated, house.” – IMDB Mangled Bohemians (Bandcamp)Summit Pest Managment

Deceiver: “The gruesome death of a prostitute brings suspicion on one of her clients, James Wayland (Tim Roth), a brilliant, self-destructive and epileptic heir to a textile fortune. So detectives Braxton (Chris Penn) and Kennesaw (Michael Rooker) take Wayland in for questioning, thinking they can break the man. But despite his troubles, Wayland is a master of manipulation, and during the interrogation, he begins to turn the tables on the investigators, forcing them to reveal their own sinister sides.” – IMDB https://www.polygraph.org

The Ambulance: “A comic-book artist meets a woman on the NY streets, but after a quick flirtation, she suddenly collapses, and is picked-up by an old ambulance. He checks all the hospitals in the area, but the woman seems to have disappeared.” –IMDB UPDATED 7/28/20 - This was one of our early episodes, before we added movie clips and other enhancements, so we did a quick "redux" of the episode, and added a special surprise (right around the 1:03 mark).This week's guest:Leila Del Duca draws Sleepless, Shutter and writes Afar for Image Comics. In 2015 she was nominated for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer award for her work on Shutter. Her client list includes Vertigo, Oni Press, IDW, Image Comics, and National Geographic. Leila likes to be creative during her free time, making music, cooking food, knitting, sewing, and can be found staring off into space a lot, drinking coffee and contemplating life. (Helioscope)Please be sure to click the links to find the impressive art being created by these people as well as head over to the vh.us Instagram for the accompanying visuals.Leila’s links:Image ComicsMike MignolaSean Gordon MurphyHelioscopeSteve LieberTerry DodsonCat FarrisDylan MeconisCurrently reading:Sarah MirkNaoki Urasawa’s 20th Century BoysA Bride’s StoryJuli Berwald

“Mystery abounds when it is discovered that, one by one, the greatest Chefs in Europe are being killed. The intriguing part of the murders is that each chef is killed in the same manner that their own special dish is prepared in. Food critics and the (many) self-proclaimed greatest Chefs in Europe demand the mystery be solved.” – IMDB This week's guest:After graduating from the California School of Culinary Arts’ Cordon Bleu, Aaron did an externship in his native Canada at Lumiere in Vancouver, BC and was immediately taken with the flavors and produce available in the Pacific Northwest. He moved down the West coast back to California to work under Gary Danko in San Francisco, shortly thereafter taking a sous chef position at Myth under Sean O’Brien. Reminiscing of the Pacific flavors that caught his palate in his externship, Aaron headed back up North to Oregon. After working in Portland kitchens for a couple of years, he opened St. Jack in 2010. St. Jack has won multiple awards in Portland, including the Oregonian’s Rising Star, in addition Aaron was given the Portland Rising Star award in 2011 as well as, received a nod from James Beard in 2012.– ChefsTable

“A delicious, mysterious goo that oozes from the earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation, but the tasty treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers who only want to consume more of the strange substance at any cost begin infesting the world.“ This week's guest:Heather Arndt Anderson is an award-winning author, food writer, and botanist. Heather is the author of four books on culinary history and wrote the Pacific Northwest chapter in the 4-volume Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2011). Her work has been quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her recipes have been published in the cookbooks One Big Table: 600 Recipes from the Nation’s Best Home Cooks, Farmers, Fishermen, Pit-Masters, and Chefs, and Boozy Brunch: The Quintessential Guide to Daytime Drinking. Heather is a contributing writer to the magazines Roads & Kingdoms,Taste, Portland Monthly, Render Feminist Food & Culture Quarterly, Narratively,Remedy Quarterly,and Fish & Game Quarterly. She has appeared on “The Splendid Table” and is a regular panelist on the James Beard- and IACP award-winning podcast, “The Four Top.”Heather runs a test kitchen from her home in Portland, Oregon, where she develops recipes and content for food brands, teaches cooking and pickling classes, and tests recipes for cookbooks by other authors.