Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey
Chris Kursel
Publishing Details
About This Podcast
When Chris was born, the youngest of seven sons, his father (Joel) was 64 years old. Joel was the child of immigrants and grew up poor in a cement factory town in western Pennsylvania. He was a bomber pilot in World War II. Then an ad man who went by another name. Then, when Chris was 16, Joel died of brain cancer.
Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey tells the story of Chris's quest to discover who his father really was, reconstruct his life and reflect on his long lingering grief.
A blend of narrative nonfiction and memoir, each episode weaves together the past and present in a dance of voice-driven storytelling, music and sounds.
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Recent Episodes
S2E20 Episode 20 - Inside Her
Reflecting on a startling conversation with his father from twenty years in the past, Chris confronts renewed mysteries about the mother of his oldest half-brother. As he copes with the traumas…
S2E19 Episode 19 - PDQ
Chris's life takes on new velocity as his relationship with Alex Green rivals the gravity of his father's illness. Parked squarely in late 90's suburban Milwaukee, this episode explores the unique…
S2E18 Episode 18 - Golden Valley
The growing Kursel family, buoyed by Joel's promising new position at an advertising agency, takes root in a rural Milwaukee suburb called Golden Valley. In this episode, Chris explores the history…
S2E17 Episode 17 - Alex Green
While his father's illness advances, Chris's life is gripped by a new and completely different energy -- first love. The thrills and fears of Alex Green, a spirited and intellectual dynamo Chris…
S2E16 Episode 16 - Another Tube of Military Metal
In the period directly following WWII, Joel and his growing family take up residence in a Quonset Hut -- a refabbed piece of corrugated metal issued by the U.S. military -- in a hardscrabble suburb…
S2E15 Episode 15 - City of Light, City of Magic
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which acutely experienced the trauma and depression emblematic of the late 20th century -- racism, industrial contraction, economic and social segregation -- before turning the…
S2E14 Episode 14 - Time Shapes
This episode traces Joel's harrowing and mysteriously brief trajectory as a combat pilot over WWII Europe. After longstanding beliefs about his father's war experience fall under question, Chris…
S2E13 Episode 13: The Man in the Cabinet
This episode is anchored in Chris's increasingly frequent feelings of his father's presence during the eerie quiet of the COVID pandemic. It also introduces a series of consequential questions about…
S2E12 Episode 12: Velocity
This episode traces the making of Bill into a wartime pilot (and a wartime husband) from bases in rural America to the skies over Europe. Following the trail of artifacts his father left behind,…
S2E11 Episode 11 - You've Got the Music in You
In this episode, Chris looks back on being sixteen in the late ’90s as the reality of Joel’s illness unfolds. Music, friendships, teenage routines, and small acts of rebellion play out alongside…
S1E10 Episode 10: Bumps
Chris recalls a trip to the movies with his father that unlocked a deeper understanding of Joel's past as a WWII bomber pilot. While never hidden, Joel's stories of war existed fragments, woven into…
S1E9 Episode 9: A Well-Selected Man
In this episode, we follow Joel’s journey from the familiar streets of Bessemer, PA to the academic halls of Allegheny College in the late 1930's. As he grapples with homesickness and financial…
S1E8 Episode 8: Winter
Christmas 1999. Chris, now 17, faces the traumatic reality of his father's cancer diagnosis. After Joel undergoes brain surgery, weekly visits to the hospital test Chris's mental and emotional…
S1E7 Episode 7: 100% Perfection
In this episode, we step into the world of the Kursel family of Bessemer, Pennsylvania circa 1930. We see life through the eyes of Joe and Linda’s growing family as they navigate the grit of…
S1E6 Episode 6: Thanksgiving
At a pivotal Thanksgiving gathering, Joel's health reaches a critical point. Chris reflects on his complex relationship with his much older half-brothers, the drama of their shared language of…
S1E5 Episode 5: Birth
Drawing on the haunting nature of an old wedding photo, Chris excavates the lives of his immigrant grandparents, Joe and Linda. From their early days in Pennsylvania’s steel and limestone towns to…
S1E4 Episode 4: The Virus and The Man
As 2020 New York City reels from the crisis outside—empty parks, ambulance sirens, and protests shaking the streets—inside, a different kind of reckoning unfolds. Chris continues the excavation of…
S1E3 Episode 3: Carrots
In this episode, we unravel a deeply personal and unsettling moment--one that begins with a plate of uneaten carrots. In late 1998, Joel's health takes a sudden turn. As a teenager, Chris struggles…
S1E2 Episode 2: His Name Was Joel
As the world teeters on the edge of lockdown in early 2020, Chris takes a deep dive into the digital traces of his father’s life — and his father's name, which mysteriously changed soon after he…
S1E1 Episode 1: Timeline
Twenty years after his father's death, Chris, a film editor in New York, reflects on the weight of his grief and how it has evolved since he was a teenager. Through fragmented recollections—his 17th…
Frequently Asked Questions
Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey has published 20 episodes since March 2025, covering topics in Documentary, Personal Journals.
Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 24m.
