What if Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything grew up, got political, and accidentally became a spiritual teacher? The Tao of Lloyd features Lloyd as a middle-aged dissident broadcasting "mixtapes of sacred refusal and midlife mischief from the burned-out cassette deck of the multiverse—straight into the algorithmic hellscape of late stage everything."

The ‘Lloyd’ in The Tao of Lloyd is a fictional character intersecting with your infinite doom scroll and monetized memories.


The Tao of Lloyd is written, voiced, and produced by Dennis Trainor Jr. Dennis is a Boston based actor, and writer— most recently of the critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe hit, Manifest Destiny’s Child. Of his documentary on Occupy Wall Street, American Autumn, The New York Times raved: “as manifestoes go it is calm and smart, offsetting its stridency with discussion, music, even humor, while issuing a call to arms.” His work blends political satire, performance, and a deep skepticism of American empire.

Anti-Guru for the Anti-Establishment

Episodes blend Taoist wisdom with political analysis duct-taped to your doom scroll for listeners to lob back like a Molotov cocktail through the Overton window.

"Welcome to the Tao of Lloyd," Lloyd says at the top of Episode 3. "I know: you just woke up, and without a thought, opened that dopamine slot machine you call a phone, and suddenly, whatever fascist diarrhea just exploded out of Donald Trump's face is coating your morning scroll like toxic whipped cream.

"And you haven't even brushed your teeth yet.

"So, let's start over, shall we? This is a sort of guided meditation for when you open your eyes in the morning and feel like a handful of blueberries tossed into a blender in a cafe inside a horror film timeline where they only serve up dystopian smoothies.

"Let's begin."

And so begins his 10-minute guided meditation, "Lloyd Dobler's Sort-of Guided Morning Meditation for When the News Won't Let You Breathe."

Unlike traditional meditation apps or spiritual teachers, Lloyd explicitly rejects guru status. As he says in Episode 2: "If you've ever sat down to find inner peace and instead spent twenty minutes doomscrolling MAGA Karens, while stressing that Mark Zuckerberg is monetizing your memories or you have admitted, 'no! I don't know what the sound of one hand clapping is, actually!'— then this meditation is my humble gift to you."

This anti-hierarchical approach resonates with listeners exhausted by both commercialized spirituality and performative activism.

Compassion Meets Political Analysis

Lloyd's approach combines compassion with unflinching political critique. In a direct address to ICE agents in Episode 1, he argues: "You're not Luke blowing up the Death Star. You're the stormtrooper guarding the detention level. Right now, you're enforcing policies written by people who treat suffering as a strategy and families as leverage."

The podcast refuses to separate personal responsibility from systemic analysis, offering practical tools for sustainable resistance while maintaining moral clarity about the systems causing harm.

Critical Acclaim and Cultural Impact

Creator Dennis Trainor Jr. brings serious activist credentials to the project. His documentary about Occupy Wall Street, American Autumn, was praised by The New York Times as "calm and smart, offsetting its stridency with discussion, music, even humor, while issuing a call to arms." His Edinburgh Fringe hit Manifest Destiny's Child was called "a refreshingly self-aware and honest perspective" by The Scotsman, demonstrating his ability to blend political satire with deep cultural critique.