One Step Beyond

Boff Whalley is an author and musician (you may remember his old band Chumbawamba and their global hit "Tubthumping"),who put "Fell Runner" as occupation on his daughter's birth certificate. Gary Devine is his mate from the Leeds punk scene of the 1980s, who is a former British champion fell runner. "Faster! Louder!" is Boff's new book, all about Gary, and fell running, and punk rock. It is a damn good book, because Boff is a damn good author.Beaming in from the Yorkshire Dales (Boff) and the Swiss Alps (where Gary now lives) to the base of the Catskill Mountains (where host Tony Fletcher resides), they answer the question on every non fell-runner's lips:What is Fell Running?They also answer the question:Why Is It Punk Rock?And over the course of a fun-filled conversation, they also discussWhy fell running does not follow designated trails.Why the shortest way to the bottom of a hill is not always the quickest.Why the shortest way to the top of a hill is not always the quickest.Why the best way to get to the pub early is to finish the race early.Why Brits join running clubs and whether that is truly punk.Whether to sniff glue or not sniff glue.Whether Gary Devine is a force of nature, was genetically predestined to be a champion, trained as hard as he partied, or whether it was a combination of all three that made him national champion.Why everyone should listen to the One Step Beyond episode with Damian Hall.The importance of women runners in fell running.The importance of protecting the environment.And the importance of getting out in nature so as to relate to that environment.Throughout, Tony resists asking Boff what a fell runner should do if he gets knocked down."Faster! Louder! How a punk rocker from Yorkshire became British Champion Fell Runner" is available through Great Northern Books.Boff Whalley can be found at https://www.facebook.com/boff.whalley if you ask nicelyGary Devine can be found running up the French Alps, if you can catch him.Tony Fletcher will be found running again, if he recovers from his fractured knee. His website is tonyfletcher.netFollow One Step Beyond:Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcastFacebook is One Step Beyond with Tony FletcherTony's other podcast, the [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available via https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodesTheme song is 'Yes Men' by the Dear Boys. https://linktr.ee/thedearboysLogo by Mark Lerner. Photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review, and feel free to follow the acast.supporter link below to buy us a coffee!

For this episode, we reconnect with Ric Dragon, originally featured way back on Episode 7 of Season 1, in July 2020, shortly after he had opened Arte Sumapaz, a Centre for the Arts outside of Bogotá, Colombia. That episode focused on Ric’s middle-aged reset, in which he migrated to a new country with a troubled history and had just started this ambitious project. Now that I have been to Arte Sumapaz for an incredible residency myself, it’s time to check back and see how things are progressing.Specifically, what is going on ith the plan to create an Intentional Community amidst the 280 acres of land? In fact, what is an Intentional Community and can we all be part of one? How do we re-integrate our lives to better share communal values without living in a commune? How does Arte Sumapaz integrate itself into its own community of rural Colombians? What is sociocracy as a form of Government? How is the country faring under the new leftist Presidency? What are the plans for reforestation of the land – and how does that gel with plans to build more accommodations and open up trails? And, specifically, when can I personally go back for a longer stay?Ric Dragon describes himself as a painter, percussionist and writer. He has been an art teacher, and a reluctant entrepreneur who founded Dragon Search in the Catskills, a company that led him into the world of social media marketing and even to author a book on the subject. He is a relaxed and engaged commentator and an excellent interviewee. The points we hit on in our discussion are relevant to our lives far beyond the vast and varied land of Colombia and the visual arts.Arte Suamapaz is at www.artesumapaz.orgAnd on socials at https://www.facebook.com/artesumapaz and www.instagram.com/artesumapaz/Ric Dragon posts more personally, including his own art, at: www.instagram.com/Ricpdragon/The episode with artist Clare Yandell, who I met at Arte Sumapaz and who subsequently painted murals all around Colombia to help finance her constant travels, is here.One Step Beyond on socials:Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcastFacebook is One Step Beyond with Tony FletcherTwitter is OneStepBeyondP1The [Jamming!] Fanzine Podcast is available on your preferred streaming platform from https://wavve.link/JammingPodcast/episodesTheme song is 'Delaymania' by Noel Fletcher. Logo by Mark Lerner. Logo photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.If you like the show, please subscribe, rate, review, and always feel free to follow the acast.supporter link to show your appreciation and buy us a coffee! They make it good in Colombia! 

Michael Anthony is the 36-year-old author of the new graphic memoir JUST ANOTHER MEAT-EATING DIRTBAG, published by Street Noise with art by Chai Simone. While Michael describes his new book as essentially a ‘love story’ between two seemingly distinct characters with different outlooks on life and death in the human and animal kingdoms, it draws in part – as did the entirety of his first two books, Mass Casualties and Civilianized – from his experiences serving in the US Army in Iraq in the 2000s and the PTSD he suffered upon release from duty. After penning his way out of his troubles, which included additional substance and drug abuse, Anthony became a writing mentor to other Army veterans so that they too, can learn to live with their experiences by putting them on paper. In this discussion with host/fellow author Tony Fletcher, the pair tackle all manner of subjects: the merits of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bloody field hospital operations that Anthony assisted in, the sense of failure knowing that Iraqi lives saved in surgery were likely lost once the Americans left, the cowardice and deception of certain military ‘leaders’, the prevalence of PTSD and suicide among veterans, how writing can help, how writing directly from experience can help even more, how Anthony came to pen a graphic memoir, and the all-important role of the illustrator. Especially, he discusses the relationship, detailed in Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag, with the love of his life, ‘Coconut’, a vegetarian and animal rights campaigner who Anthony describes as having a soul like ‘exposed nerve endings’. As their relationship develops, the memoir follows Anthony’s attempts to go ‘under cover’ by becoming a vegetarian in the hope of converting Coco, who had been fat-shamed by her mother as a child, back to meat. The conversation wraps up with a discussion about slaughterhouses in the food industry and on the battlefield, the surprising prevalence of vegetarianism among 'bad-ass army dudes', the movie The Game Changers, and the difficulties of giving up life-long habits, from meat to cigarettes. It is, believe it or not, an upbeat conversation!More info about Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag, including links for purchase: https://www.streetnoisebooks.com/just-another-meateating-dirtbagMichael Anthony is at https://masscasualties.com/ He can also be contacted directly through his website.Street Noise is at https://www.streetnoisebooks.com/Chai Simone is at https://www.instagram.com/limina_1999/One Step Beyond on socials:Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcastFacebook is One Step Beyond with Tony FletcherTwitter is OneStepBeyondP1Theme song is 'Yes Men' by The Dear Boys. Listen in full here.Logo by Mark Lerner. Logo photo taken at Arte Sumapaz in Cundinimarca, Colombia.