From The Casbah to Your Ears...
Introducing You to The Creators Podcast & A Deep Dive Into Poetry
Ducking out of the Café Baba in Tangier, Morocco, the faint blue of the walls peeling around me, everything covered in the smell of Turkish coffee and hashish, I felt the hum of the ancient city. A world between worlds. We were staying there in the casbah—the heart of it all.
It was the kind of place that felt more like a mirage than somewhere that could be located on a map. The air was particularized—it clung to you—not just with the humidity but with the weight of decades, centuries, maybe millennia of stories layered on top of one another.
Tangier was a living, breathing thing—a psychic crossroads for spies, outlaws, dreamers, and the hopelessly lost. You could feel it in the cracking tiles underfoot and in the way strangers’ eyes lingered a little too long.
We walked past the shops and stalls where vendors hawked brass lanterns, woven rugs, and spices so bright they looked photoshopped into reality. The shopkeepers leaned in, their sales pitches both charming and pure unapologetic hustle:
"My friend! Have I got a deal for you. Just down from the hills. Today only. I am Berber. Do you know us? Today only! Don’t miss your chance, Ali Baba!’”
All of it laced with a kind of sly knowingness. You’d look at their faces and wonder: Did they know Paul Bowles? Or Burroughs? Had they met Bourdain when he came?
The casbah itself was like a maze designed by someone who loved secrets. The walls closed in more tightly than a whisper, painted that unmistakable shade of Mediterranean blue, crackling and fading, as if the city itself was too aristocratic to maintain its own fineries. Cats darted around corners like hungry ghosts—rulers of an invisible empire
At night, the energy shifted. The streets emptied out, and the city became a skeleton of its daytime self. I was sitting on the rooftop of a riad, looking out over the desert of rooftops and satellite dishes that sprawled like an art installation no one consented to. The muezzin’s call to prayer echoed across the city, bending in the wind. A child’s cry came from a house down below. Music drifted from somewhere else I couldn’t quite pin down. Rattling modern beats. The throb of house rhythms. Footsteps. Cheers. Whispers.
Tangier felt like it didn’t just tolerate your voices—it craved them, thrived on them, celebrated them, elevated them into an art form.
And that was when I knew it…
I wanted to make a podcast again.
And I knew exactly what it would be about. I wanted to take people with me—not just around the world.
I’ve been traveling across the globe for years—seeing sites, talking to people who had lived their lives in the shadow of history’s resplendence, eating meals on street corners that told stories no photograph or book could ever hold. But it was always a singular experience—a moment captured on an Instagram story or tucked away in my notes somewhere. I was ready for something more….
When I began The Creators Collective I realized that I wanted to share the lives and lessons of amazing individuals who had contributed to the world. By learning their stories, we learn our own story.
In The Creators Collective, we’ve gotten to know how to edit the content of our life with Hemingway, how to dream big with Bowie, how to embrace revolutionary love with Neruda, and how to create your own character with Jim Carrey.
But beyond the headlines of these Main Stage creators—I was discovering a backlog of women and men who had left marks on the world, even if their names had been forgotten or weren’t easily remembered.
They were the misfits, the rebels, the outlaws, and the rule-breakers. They weren’t taught in history classes or valorized heroically. They were the footnotes, and their stories were often written in a trail of blood.
I was interested in them. Who were they? What were their names? What were their stories?
I wanted to find a way to stitch it all together. A narrative, a thread that tied not just places and people, but eras and ideas.
Enter The Creators Podcast.
The podcast wouldn’t just be another dry and boring history class or chit chat. It wouldn’t be about bucket lists or top ten guides to Creative People or Cool Places to Go Before You’re Dead. No, this would be something different.
A way to dive deeper, to connect dots most people didn’t even know existed. It would be about the liminal spaces—the cracks in the timeline where the magic happens. The cafés where revolutionaries whispered conspiracies over tiny cups of espresso. The streets where poets walked until their feet blistered, chasing muses that weren’t theirs to catch. The conversations that changed the world. The soul that dared. The question that was asked. The invention that was created. The line that was drawn. The poem written then burned. Someone’s great-great-grandmother who invented a dish that became the soul of a city.
I wanted to actually take my listeners to Tangier in the 1950s, when the Beat poets turned the city into their bohemian playground. Or to Kyoto in the 16th century, when tea ceremonies were more about politics than zen. I wanted to go to Mexico City and walk the streets where Burroughs was accused of murder, or to the hill country of Oaxaca in search of the mystic. I wanted to walk listeners through the back alleys and into the smoky Berlin cabarets of the 1920s, where performers blurred the lines between art and rebellion.
And it wouldn’t just be about the past. I wanted to find the modern heart of these stories—the people keeping those traditions alive or breaking them apart to create something entirely new. The artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and dreamers who are still building their worlds on the foundation of the older ones.
Most of all—I wanted to invite listeners into something evocative where they could sit for a few minutes, tuning into a different world, tuning out of whatever distractions may exist in their own lives for 15-20 minutes, and discovering stories not their own—because maybe, just maybe…
it might inspire a new kind of spark…a new fire for new living in them—just like it has in me…
It would be a journey through the messy, beautiful, chaotic intersection of culture and history, where stories are never just stories, and music is never just music, and words are never just words. Because nothing exists in a vacuum. It’s all revolutionary.
So—that’s what I created. A podcast. About creators.
It airs next Monday, January 13, 2025 for the first time.
But the trailer for it just dropped.
I’d be truly grateful if you could take a moment to listen and, if you feel so inspired, leave a 5-star rating on either Apple or Spotify, or both platforms.
Your support would mean the world and help the podcast reach more creators like us.
Here are the links to listen and rate:
For more information, you can also visit the podcast website: www.thecreatorspodcast.live.
Thank you so much for being part of this journey.
Looking at the pictures of Tangier— the blue walls of Café Baba, fading into the evening, the scent of hashish and coffee curling through the air, I think back to the first moment this idea hit me—a spark in a city built on sparks.
Maybe that’s the beauty of it all. Places like that were never meant to be pinned down, just like these stories. They’re meant to live on—out there, in the ether, waiting for someone to pick them up and pass them along. Maybe that’s exactly what this podcast is: a chance to keep the creativity of the world burning…
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Speaking of The Beats Generation & The Creators Collective…
THIS MONTH IS ALL ABOUT POETRY & FRIENDSHIP with the Beats in the Creators! And I cannot wait to teach not ONE, but THREE classes.
We will be learning not just from ONE voice, but an entire generation—the Beat Generation—and the bedrock of friendship that tied its creators together. Because let’s face it—we need connection and friendship more than ever in these times…
The poetry of Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg was more than words on a page; it was a movement fueled by connection, creativity, and fearless rebellious exploration.
Together, we will dive explore the bonds that shaped their art and the restless energy that defined their generation. Through immersive classes, we’ll not only study their works but embrace their spirit—-writing, writing, writing as they did—spontaneously, cut-up, and alive.
Join Rainier on the road…as we journey into the wild landscapes of Beat poetry, discovering the alchemy of friendship and the power of creative rebellion. Let’s connect, create, and carry the Beat forward.
This is a great month to GET YOUR CREATOR on!