KMO

KMO is the host and producer of the C-Realm Podcast, a cartoonist and author of the book 'Conversations on Collapse.' He has lived in Japan, Australia and 9 US States, including two years at the Ecovillage Training Center on the Farm in Summertown, TN. In 2016, he moved from Brooklyn, NY to a small village in rural Vermont. He describes himself as, "a recovering libertarian and Singularitarian."

KMO was an early employee of Amazon.com, made a lot of money on stock options, spent it all, and had to re-enter the rat race with a decade-sized hole in his resume. He spent a good portion of his temporary, early retirement studying NLP, public speaking, and leadership while working to establish himself as a web-cartoonist. During this period he also traveled repeatedly to the Peruvian Amazon to participate in Ayahuasca ceremonies.

Libertarian ideology and techno-utopian fantasies are very attractive and self-validating when one is living on the proceeds of an internet stock-option windfall. They are less attractive and self-validating when scrambling to earn a living and starting from scratch in middle age.

Within a couple of months of learning of the existence of podcasts he was creating weekly episodes of the C-Realm Podcast. That was in 2006. Since then he has conducted over 400 podcast interviews on topics ranging from organic farming and permaculture, peak oil and the collapse of industrial civilization, to psychedelic spirituality and drug policy reform. The C-Realm Podcast archive documents the succession of worldviews KMO has tried on and found wanting.

Perpetually stumped when asked to pick a label to encapsulate his worldview and identity, KMO defaults to describing himself in terms of the points of view he once held and eventually discarded. He is a former techno-utopian, a recovering libertarian, a failed prepper, a reformed kollapsnik and ex-doomer.

Doug Lain, creator of the Diet Soap on-line zine (later to manifest as the Diet Soap Podcast and later still as the Zero Squared Podcast and Zero Books YouTube channel) wrote, "KMO was once a winner in the capitalist game. He had high tech dreams and plenty of ambition, but somewhere along the line KMO dropped out, spent what he had, and started over in a simpler way. No longer rich and no longer so enamored with the technocratic fantasies of the prevailing order, he squeaks by in this world while seeking another. More than anything KMO is a broadcaster and interviewer who has a gentle and amiable way of challenging and inspiring interesting conversations with authors, artists, psychedelic gurus, sociologists, NASA scientists, economists, and more on his weekly podcast called the C-Realm."

The roster of C-Realm Podcast guests includes Bill McKibben, Douglass Rushkoff, Dmitry Orlov, David Brin, Albert Bates, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Charles A.H. Hall, Albert Bartlett, Richard Heinberg, Ellen Brown, Nicole Foss, Steve Keen, Charles Stross, Nate Hagens, Charles C. Mann, James Howard Kunstler, Derrick Jenson, Lierra Keith, Jeremy Narby, Bruce Damer, Neil Kramer, and Dennis McKenna.

In addition to the C-Realm and C-Realm Vault Podcasts, KMO is the co-host of the Z-Realm Podcast with Marty and the Lovely Olga K. He also teams up with Olga to create the monthly Psychonautica Podcast for the Dopefiend.co.uk Podcast Network. While at the Ecovillage Training Center, KMO published several episodes of the ETC Voices Podcast.

KMO has appeared as a guest on various other podcasts and radio programs, and in the fullness of time a complete listing of those appearances may appear in this space, but in the meantime, here's a smattering in roughly chronological order:

 

Changesurfer Radio with Dr. James Hughes: KMO on Singularity and the End of Oil - 1 June 2008

Agricultural Innovations with Frank Aragona #49 The C-Realm with KMO - 20 April 2009

Expanding Mind with Erik Davis: KMO of the C-Realm talks Zombies and Couch Surfing - 9 December 2010

Two Beers with Steve: KMO of the C-Realm Podcast stops by... - 16 December 2010

Diet Soap Podcast with Doug Lain: #114 Bageant's Hologram - 5 August 2011

 The Ozark Harvest Radio Hour with Dan Krotz: Season 3 Show 19 - 7 July 2012

The Extraenvironmentalist with Justin Ritchie and Seth Mozer-Katz: #52 Market Monsters - 28 October 2012

From Alpha to Omega with Tom O'Brien: #029 I Need Brains (And a Little Oil) - 6 April 2013

The Kunstlercast with James Howard Kunstler: #252 Chatting with KMO of the C-Realm - 24 April 2014

Greening the Apocalypse: Epistemological uncertainty with KMO - 12 September 2017

Mixed Mental Arts: #282 KMO - 17 January 2018

Ten Laws with East Forest: - #17 KMO of the C-Realm 26 July 2018