the Heather Gold Show

Heather Gold

I am a geek comedian who likes truth, people and making connections. I do this on stage, page and screen and interactively when I can.

After growing up in the last shtetl in Niagara Falls Canada, playing ice hockey, feminist activism at Yale, coming out, going to law school, working at New Line Cinema, Apple’s first webcasting team and the iPod precursor Fuse, speaking my mind at work once too often, going solo, doing stand up, making 23,000 chocolate chip cookies with audiences in my baking comedy I look Like An Egg, but Identify As A Cookie, spending a lot of time as part of early Net culture, videoblogging, moderating and speaking at many conferences, navigating, then opting out of identity politics but always bringing people together, meeting wonderful and interesting people, learning and provoking thought and laughter. After all that, this “show” makes perfect, logical sense. More about me here.

I am interested in what you are interested in and uncertain about.

It’s easy to bring the show to your event or home. Just contact me.

The Show

The Heather Gold Show hosts honest conversations we’re craving. It’s a live and online experience that brings together three very different guests and you (the people formerly known as the audience) in collective inquiry around live, universal questions and themes. It’s a place to be our whole selves together. It’s a lot funnier than that sounds. tHGS is committed to being relevant and accountable to its community first and foremost. The show has been bootstrapped to make this the case. It often has cake.

The Team

When you commit to your passion, amazing people come into your life.

Paul Schreiber

First, I met Paul Schreiber at one of my shows. Paul is the code and pixel master. He likes to bring people together at his awesome house concert series.

Steven Tornello

Steve Tornello

Steve Tornello and I met when we were hired to be shut in a room to write 500 jokes in a few days. Now we write jokes while 3000 miles apart. Steve live directs the show.

David Minkow

is our senior producer. I knew his name from his producing Forum on KQED, but we met through his wife Cara. David likes to bring people together to make stone soup.

Kyung Lee

Kyung Lee came into our lives via Christian Bruno. She’s a videographer/editor based in Oakland, CA. She shoots and edits the show.

Alysha Naples

Alysha Naples and I met making a Website That Must Not Be Named. Alysha is hilarious and a designer.

Anca Mosoiu

Anca Mosoiu and I met via a friend on the no end humanize list. She is the fixer: does tech, community and more. Anca likes to bring people together online and at great parties.

The Story

I grew up having Shabbat (Friday night) dinner with my extended family of 15 every week in Niagara Falls, until I went to university (or college as they call it here in the US). This was the best part of my week and it grounded me. Once I graduated, I missed the diverse people and great stimulating conversation. I ate dinner alone. I missed the warmth and inclusion of home. I was on my own and did not have a space where I belonged. I missed brisket. You do not cook brisket for one.

I began to do Shabbat Salons in my home. I invited someone I found interesting to talk about their passions. I invited interesting people who I hoped would become friends. I made brisket. And cake. We connected over conversation for its own sake. These nights were the best moments in my month. And many people who came told me the same thing. Bars and soccer games were not the best way to meet people and have the deeper conversations I missed.

As I performed more and developed a way to perform interactively, I found a way to share this experience with more people, and David helped me craft it into a show format.

I knew enough from my time in Hollywood and Silicon Valley that funding “content” was not close to the piece of cake I like to have at the show. I also know that beginning with these funding systems means serving advertisers or a serving a business model first. That’s the fundamental trouble with both of these systems.

I want to serve you, and the conversation first.

If I could have continued to live based on doing things the way they’ve always been done, I would not have begun to create. I would be a lawyer.

We’ll be sharing the journey in the show blog. Join us. Everyone’s help and ideas are needed and welcome. One thing is certain. I can’t make brisket, or do this, alone.

The show

The show was developed at the JCCSF. Many thanks to Rhys, Lenore and everyone there.

We had an incredibly cool home for a while at Luscious Garage in San Francisco, with a hydraulic lift for a stage.

A Traveling Jewish Theatre is the best small theatre in San Francisco and where we hold the live shows in SF.

Seabrook Jones shoots the show at SXSW.

Thanks to Lisa Rein for media hosting.

Jen Simmons/Milkweed helped with our time using the vlogging platform Show In A Box on Wordpress.

Anne Cook managed me, helped develop the show and had the great idea for the original necklace logo.

David De Rosa did the painting the graphic and logo are based on. He just voluntarily does this for other artists as well as via many commissions. How great is that? Here I am with Mos Def, Nas and Snoop.

Eddie Codel, Ryanne Hodson, Steve Garfield, Schlomo Rabinowitz, George Oates and José Hernandez continue to kindly answer my many questions as we all explore video on the Net. I would like to thank everyone who’s helped individually but then this page would be as long as the Net.

There is no more audience. Welcome.