In this Tuesday episode of Simple Joe, I’m checking in with Paris, France, celebrating birthdays including Peter Sellers, Patsy Cline, Pink, Martin Freeman, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Wiz Khalifa, and Gaten Matarazzo, and looking back at moments in history including the founding of St. Augustine, the national launch of The Oprah Winfrey Show, and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. I also mark Star Trek Day, National Actors Day, National Date Nut Bread Day, and National Iguana Awareness Day before getting into Tuesday’s Random Questions. This week’s questions take me into the difference between real knowledge and opinions picked up online, places and experiences still on my bucket list like the Grand Canyon and skydiving, my completely irrational inability to watch The Exorcist, why I’d choose Spanish if I could instantly learn another language, and the cords, cables, and old wrestling magazines I’ve held onto far longer than practicality would suggest. It’s a good example of why I like Random Questions: you never quite know where one simple question is going to take the conversation.

• What is something people often mistake for intelligence?
• What ordinary experience somehow still remains on your bucket list?
• What fear makes no logical sense but still gets to you?
• If you could instantly become fluent in one language, which would you choose and why?
• What possession have you kept far longer than makes practical sense?

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this Labor Day episode of Simple Joe, I’m talking about slowing down, getting a few things accomplished over a long weekend, and why something as simple as detailing a car can sometimes feel surprisingly therapeutic. We check the weather in Las Vegas and Cincinnati, celebrate birthdays including Grandma Moses, Paul Brown, Buddy Holly, Gloria Gaynor, Julie Kavner, Chrissie Hynde, Corbin Bernsen, and Diane Warren, and look back at moments in history including the first submarine attack, the first Miss America pageant, the opening of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the launch of ESPN. Then it’s time for Monday’s Interesting Headlines, with stories about dark matter, a 106-year-old scuba diver, a rescued kitten with its own bobblehead, remarkably clever pygmy raccoons, and a Viking-age silver hoard discovered in a garden. Along the way, I wander into raccoon intelligence, an old bobblehead yard-sale story, buried treasure, Labor Day, salami, New Hampshire, and the idea that a good holiday is really about spending time with people you love and making memories worth keeping.

Monday Interesting Headlines

Scientists make potential breakthrough in search for dark matter Oldest male scuba diver celebrates 106th birthday Rescued kitten inspires bobblehead Critically endangered pygmy raccoons observed making their own paper toys Man discovers Denmark’s largest Viking Age silver hoard while digging a terrace in his garden

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this Sunday episode of Simple Joe, I start with the incredible complexity of human vision and the idea that each of us may experience the world a little differently, before checking in with Torrington, Connecticut, celebrating birthdays including Jane Curtin, Jeff Foxworthy, Macy Gray, Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, and John Wall, looking back at moments in history like the opening of Piggly Wiggly, the premiere of The Phantom of the Opera, the television debut of Star Trek, and Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive-games record, and recognizing a few September 6 celebrations. Then, in Faith Connections, I ask a much more personal question: Which thief on the cross are you? Looking at Luke 23 and the two criminals crucified beside Jesus, I explore the difference between demanding that God prove Himself by fixing our circumstances and simply turning toward Jesus with trust. I admit that I often recognize myself in the first thief, wanting God to solve the problem, give me direction, or make things work the way I want, while I’m trying to learn the surrender of the second thief, who simply asked Jesus to remember him. We talk about grace, unanswered questions, faith when circumstances do not change, and the reminder that we do not have to clean everything up or understand everything before turning toward Christ. My faith is deeply important to me, and this conversation left me asking whether I am approaching Jesus with demands or with trust, and maybe that is a question worth asking yourself today too.

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this episode of Simple Joe, I’m talking about a personal development question that has been on my mind since returning to the podcast after a seven-month break: Why do we stop doing the things we love? I love podcasting, creating, working with audio, and putting something into the world that did not exist before, yet when the process became frustrating and time-consuming, something I loved quietly disappeared from my life. That got me thinking about other things we enjoy but somehow stop making time for, from riding a bike and playing an instrument to writing, painting, building things, or simply doing something creative. We talk about the friction that gets in the way, competing priorities, the guilt of feeling like we should always be doing something else, and the difference between easy leisure that consumes an hour and meaningful activity that leaves us feeling like we actually participated in our own lives. I share why finishing a podcast, riding my bike, or even detailing a friend’s car can leave me with the satisfying feeling that I made or improved something. Most importantly, I encourage you to acknowledge something you genuinely love without immediately judging whether it is productive, practical, or perfect, and then take one small step toward doing it again.

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this episode of Simple Joe, I kick things off by thinking about how something as ordinary as the refrigerator completely changed the way we live, shop, and organize everyday life, before checking in with Reading, Pennsylvania, and Cincinnati, Ohio, celebrating birthdays including Paul Harvey, Tom Watson, Damon Wayans, Mike Piazza, and Beyoncé, and looking back at moments involving Kodak, the first live transcontinental television broadcast, Mark Spitz, Google, Kelly Clarkson, and Steve Irwin. Then it’s time for Friday’s Top 10 as I count down my Top 10 Clean Stand-Up Comedians, featuring Tim Hawkins, Jeff Allen, Henry Cho, Leanne Morgan, Greg Warren, Dusty Slay, Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld, Brian Regan, and my number-one pick, Nate Bargatze. Along the way, I talk about why I appreciate comedians who can get huge laughs without depending on profanity or shock value, share some of my own favorites and podcast recommendations, and give honorable mentions to Ryan Hamilton, Joe Zimmerman, and Brad Stein. As we head into the weekend, I also encourage you to find some way to make a positive impact on somebody, create a memory worth talking about, and remember that memories are better than stuff.

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this episode of Simple Joe, I’m starting with a look back at the rough-and-tumble early days of passenger air travel before checking the weather in Falkenstein, Germany, and Cincinnati, Ohio. We celebrate birthdays including cartoonist Mort Walker, actress Eileen Brennan, Beach Boys co-founder Al Jardine, Charlie Sheen, and Olympic snowboarder Shaun White, then look back at Richard the Lionheart’s coronation, Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery, and NASA’s Viking 2 landing on Mars. I also revisit a childhood memory involving Welsh rarebit and Gomer Pyle, talk about the very humbling experience of bowling when everybody is watching, and then dig into Thursday’s Story Behind the Headline: the remarkable discovery of a missing Picasso hanging behind a bedroom door in a trashed Milwaukee apartment. The artwork had disappeared from a gallery eight years earlier, was worth tens of thousands of dollars, and somehow spent years hiding in plain sight before a landlord found it while cleaning up after an eviction. The story leaves plenty of unanswered questions about how it got there, who originally stole it, and what happens to it now. Along the way, I wonder about the valuable things people unexpectedly discover in thrift stores, yard sales, old houses, and maybe even their own homes, and I wrap things up with the reminder to make the day memorable for yourself and somebody else, because memories are better than stuff.

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this Wildcard Wednesday episode of Simple Joe, I’m talking about artificial intelligence and why I believe AI is ultimately just a tool, a very powerful one, but still a tool that we should learn to use instead of simply being afraid of. I share some of the ways I’m already using AI for research, organizing ideas, planning trips, solving problems around the house, developing business ideas, drafting emails, improving my work, and most importantly, defeating the blank page when I know there’s an idea in my head but I haven’t quite figured out how to express it yet. We also get into the legitimate concerns surrounding artificial intelligence, including jobs, privacy, data centers, energy and water use, misinformation, and the possibility that technology could make us intellectually lazy or even replace some of the human interaction we desperately need. My approach is simple: use AI to help you think, not to tell you what to think. Let it do some of the heavy lifting, but continue asking questions, verifying important information, staying curious, spending time with real people, getting outside, creating things, wandering, wondering, and living your actual life. I also talk about how AI has helped me rethink the Simple Joe production process after what was supposed to be a short break turned into seven months away from the show, allowing me to spend more time on the creative and human parts of podcasting that I love. Technology is going to keep changing, jobs and skills are going to change with it, and none of us knows exactly where artificial intelligence ultimately leads. But I know which side of that change I want to be on: learning the tool, understanding it, questioning it, and using it to create more room for the things only human beings can do. And if the robot overlords eventually take over anyway, I would just like the record to show that I’ve always been very nice to AI.

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!

In this episode of Simple Joe, I’m celebrating Tuesday, September 1, 2026, with weather from Ashburn, Virginia, birthdays, history, celebrations, and another round of Tuesday’s Random Questions. We celebrate birthdays for Rocky Marciano, Conway Twitty, Lily Tomlin, Barry Gibb, Dr. Phil McGraw, Gloria Estefan, Nathan MacKinnon, and Zendaya, then look back at the first female telephone operator, the extinction of the passenger pigeon, and Pioneer 11 becoming the first spacecraft to visit Saturn. National Forgiveness Day gets me thinking about letting go of grudges and giving and receiving forgiveness, while National Burnt Ends Day reminds me just how much I love good barbecue, and National Hotel Employee Day brings back memories of working as a bellman at the Ramada Inn in Blue Ash, Ohio. Then the Random Questions take me everywhere from the family phrase “Help me up, Carl,” to traffic and self-driving cars, naps and afternoons at Kings Island, automating exercise, and what useful modern knowledge I could actually bring with me if I traveled 500 years into the past. As usual, the questions wander into some unexpected places, but that’s part of the fun.

Tuesday’s Random Questions

• What family tradition would make absolutely no sense to an outsider?
• If you could permanently delete one minor inconvenience from daily life, what would it be?
• What is your ideal way to waste an afternoon?
• If you could automate one part of your life, what would it be?
• If you traveled 500 years into the past, what modern knowledge could you actually use?

Email me at joe@thesimplejoe.com or send me a text at 513.399.6468. Just say hi, I would love to hear from you.

You can get Simple Joe T-Shirts and other cool stuff at thesimplejoe.com/store

Check out what I'm reading at thesimplejoe.com/reading

If you share the show on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, please use #simplejoeismyfriend; you might get a free t-shirt!