A talk show with soul

Based in San Francisco, the live show regularly sells out and has been compared to “This American Life in real-time.” Past guests include CorningWare designer and past Director of Stanford’s Process of Change Lab Sara Little Turnbull, Dr. Lillian Rubin, novelist Michelle Tea and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake.

Heather takes people from very diverse backgrounds and connects them around a passion (chosen with the guests) so that the room has many routes of curious inquiry to connect to something of universal interest.

Unlike traditional talk shows, the guests on The Heather Gold Show engage each other and the audience. No one is there to sell anything or has pre-scripted their conversation. We are actually talking about what we care about most.

Before now we’ve had to choose between cynicism to have humour and touchy-feely therapy environments to work on togetherness. We’ve had to choose between daytime talk programming for women and late night talk programming for men. We’ve had to choose between stiff substance or “lite” comedy fueled by pre-rehearsed “talk” designed to sell a product or give the host a setup for a punch line. We’ve had to go to expensive conferences or schools to find public conversation around the most important ideas of our time and lives. We’ve had to choose between warm family time, and professional stimulation. We’ve had to choose between being together or being ourselves.

So people move away and the nation labels it’s regions by color and the media carves us up into affinity groups. And as we all spend more and more time in front of a computer screen and working, we have less time and fewer places to meet and really know each other. Perhaps that’s where we should have been looking all along.

The Heather Gold Show is a place to reflect, connect and have a good laugh.

The history, from Heather

My extended family of 15 had Friday night dinner together every week till I left for university. When I left university, I felt alone. missed the warmth from my family and I missed the learning and all those great conversations I had at school. So I created salons in my home to have both. I’d cook and invite someone I found interesting to talk about what they were most passionate about.

I had guests like Wall Street Journal tech columnist Kara Swisher talk about vengeance, and spoken word genius and intersex activist Thea Hillman talk about her activism and bodily integrity and gender. I had a friend who drove convoys behind the front lines in Serbia and the founder of Macromedia whose first love was singing opera. People had a great time and I got really good at making brisket.

As I started performing more on Friday nights I really missed my Salons. I missed time to reflect. But I’d also made connecting with the audience part of my stand-up and performing. I learned a lot about how to bring a larger room together and thread a much larger conversation really quickly. It’s important to me to have a soulful place where different people can connect as their whole selves. It’s the greatest feeling.

Genuine diversity (this means not just Benetton-ad diversity, but age, ideas, conservatism—everything) is really important. It’s all about the mix. It’s the contrast that allows the shared humanity to shine. For some reason I always think of Andy Goldsworthy’s “Rivers and Tides” when I think of this. It’s the ability to hold the difference in the room that leads to the magic. The “audience” has so much to share. I want to really connect with people, and I’m not alone.

Come join the community. I can’t make brisket for the whole audience, but I still bake.