The State of Our Union is … long, apparently, with Trump holding court for close to two hours. It was an evening of hyperbole, hockey players, trolling, so many medals and about 5-10 too many guests. Our hearts go out to the fact-checkers.

Also discussed:

* Nancy makes no apologies for her hairdo (but really should)

* Without the hyperbole, Trump’s SOTU would have 20% shorter

* Hottest! Country! Ever!

* Isn’t the emphasis here supposed to be on union?

* “Seven pounds of Botox.”

* Melania’s tight miserable smile

* “Third term” ???

* The Men’s US Hockey Team players were made in the Nancy factory

* Medals! Medals! Medals!

* The BAFTA dust-up

* That Atlantic essay on the measles sure did stir the pot!

* Some 10,000 Maniacs love

Plus, will the most caustic word in the English language always remain caustic? An invitation for listeners to write the addendum The Atlantic should have written, Nancy has her greatest hot box ever, and much more!

REMINDER: First Sunday Zoom is this Sunday, March 1, 8pm ET/5pm PT. Paid subscribers get link-day of.

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Nancy and Sarah talk Love Story, the latest Ryan Murphy jam, about the romance between, and tragic end of, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. Do the kids even know about these two people anymore? (One of them, it turns out.) Based on the book, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, by Elizabeth Beller, the series takes liberties — and one is unforgivable. But there are things to like! Top of that list is Sarah Pidgeon, the actress playing Bessette, who transforms a little-known figure with ice-queen vibes into a carnal and mesmerizing presence.

Also discussed:

* Nancy’s back in Tulsa, wants to buy a house

* The best Ryan Murphy series to date is …

* One Degree of Nancy Rommelmann!

* Naomi Watts as Jackie O??

* Ooooh, the Darryl Hannah in this show

* Nancy does a pretty good Jackie O. impersonation

* Mazzy Star, “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” and the ‘90s jams Sarah is digging in “Love Story”

* An understandable reaction on Dallas’s grassy knoll

* Almost three weeks since Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping

* Hepola, cub reporter!

* Jenny Craig or Kate Moss: Who said it?

Plus, pouring one out for Robert Duvall, who died this week at 95; the subversive humor of Paul Rubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, a hot box pick that changes how we understand #MeToo, and much more!

Last-minute alert: Nancy will appear tomorrow morning — Thursday, February 19 —on the FOX show “America’s Newsroom,” to talk about her recent piece, “Caring for Mom Is an Education in Scams and Fraud.” Scheduled time 10:15am ET.

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January 2026 was bleak, and February ain’t doing much better. Or is it just a matter of where you’re looking? Nancy and Sarah talk about bright spots in the culture, which starts with a big communal TV experience and somehow involves… a lot of sports.

Also discussed:

* Patriots’ coach Mike Vrabel, kind of hot?

* Football needs stories (for Sarah)

* Nancy does accents!

* Super Bowl ads we loved

* A bad day for MAGA, a good day for America

* What up with that Brad Pitt trailer?

* Nancy wants to see what new movie?

* The Epstein saga is longer than the Friday the 13th franchise

* The abandoned Western movie Larry McMurtry wrote before Lonesome Dove

* Peter Bogdanovich vs. Peter Boghossian

* What Olympic sport would Nancy and Sarah choose?

* Our sports crushes

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“I had started out determined to learn about Amanda, but as more people contacted me wanting to talk, it was Jason they wished to talk about.” - from To the Bridge, A True Story of Motherhood and Murder*

This 7th installment of “The Sociopaths Among Us” is about the person who put me I mind to do the series in the first place. His name is Jason Smith, and he is the father of the two children his estranged wife, Amanda Stott-Smith, dropped from Portland’s Sellwood Bridge shortly after 1am on May 23, 2009. Amanda was arrested later that same day, a story I partially tell you in the audio (and fully in the book).

Walking into a story like this, one knows nothing other than one’s own and others’ preconceived notions. In the case of a mother who kills a child, these notions run from evil to crazy and not much more. Neither answered for me why Amanda did what she did.

It can also be the case, in stories like this, that the real story, or stories, reveal themselves slowly. You can charge directly at it all you like and you are not going to get it. But if you wait, and you listen…

In the audio you will hear how people started coming to me with stories about Jason Smith, he was not the man he presented himself to be, they said; that he was very, very good at what he did, and what he did was practice deception.

“He could sell ice to an Eskimo, he could sell you the dream,” I was told by the man who’d thought of Jason as his best friend, a thought the man had, by the time he called me, been thoroughly disabused of.

I have written before of the sociopath’s terrific and terrible talent of being able make you feel as though you ‘get’ him as others do not. They spin webs of so, so, so many, lies that eventually catch up with them. They do not register the damage they leave in their wake, or not as something they should care about, and by the time people realize what has happened, the sociopath is onto the next person or situation from which he can gain sustenance. From To the Bridge:

“We become grist for the sociopath’s mill, in other words; we become his fuel. Dr. Hervey Cleckley, in his seminal work on the psychopathic personality, The Mask of Sanity, posited that what sociopaths lack is ‘soul quality.’ Another work I came across called sociopaths “soul eaters of Psychophagic.’ Reading this, I pictured Goya’s painting Saturn Devouring His Son and considered the idea that sociopaths must feed on others because they lack souls of their own.”

Consider what this consumption can do to others.

I can understand someone wondering right about now why I do not have more sympathy for Jason Smith, who after all lost his four-year son. Read on…

* To the Bridge is a"Kindle Exclusive Deal" this month. If you grab it, let me know what you think.

“The Left has done itself a huge disservice by demonizing men,” says Sebastian Junger, while discussing his recent piece, “Young Men and How the Democrats Lost Them.”

The post ran on his new Substack, named TRIBE, also the title of his 2016 book, though readers may know him best from his 1997 blockbuster, The Perfect Storm, about the sinking of the commercial fishing vessel Andrea Gail.

More recently, Junger is the author of In My Time of Dying, a chronicle of a medical emergency that brought him within seconds of death.

“And then my dead father appears above me to welcome me to help me cross over,” says Junger. Did it make sense that Junger, an atheist, would be visited at that moment by his father, who was “a physicist and an atheist, which is like atheist squared”? Or is that the wrong question? Had he come, as physicist Sir Author Eddington did 100 years ago, up against the essential nature of existence and concluded, “Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.”

Nancy and Junger talk politics, publishing, the liberal publication that asked him to write a piece about what it means to be a man in today’s society and then spiked it because, as the editor wrote, “The science seems solid but the conclusions go against the prevailing political currents at this publication,” and the public capacity for collective resistance, viz. Minneapolis.

“At the end of the day, our politics have to be calm and reasonable,” Junger says. “If they’re inflamed and angry, it leads to chaos and conflict.”

Also discussed:

* Sebastian Junger, flip-phone devotee

* Substack is the new busking

* On 95% of workplace and combat fatalities being male: “You can kill enormous numbers of men with almost no impact on the population. You kill the same number of women and the population crashes.”

* “Megyn Kelly’s, in my opinion, almost sociopathic remarks…”

* The deeply empathetic filmmaker Meg Smaker and the shame of the people who don’t want her work seen

* Some love for National Review

* Hemingway’s penchant for five-syllable titles

* The sinking this week of another fishing boat off Gloucester

Plus, Junger on Restrepo, the documentary he made with his late friend Tim Hetherington (“A human and experiential look at what it feels like to be a soldier in combat”); on WWI/WWII reporter Mary Heaton Vorse (“One of the most extraordinary voices in American literature”), the sexiness of a book that fits in the back pocket of your jeans, and much more!

NOTE: Sarah’s schedule kept her from being on this podcast, but she will be back soon.

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It’s been a rough few weeks, especially in the city of Minneapolis, which saw two citizens engaged in protest gunned down in the streets. Nancy and Sarah talk about how much has gone wrong, including statements from federal officials that directly contradict video evidence, a hiring spree at ICE that seems to have left many without training, and creeping paranoia in Minnesota and beyond. As Trump begins to course-correct, following pushback from his own side, we wonder if Minneapolis can be a turning point for an administration that has gone too far.

Also discussed:

* How’s the snow?

* 2020 protests versus 2026 protests

* Nancy’s daughter forbids her from going to Minneapolis

* “The city is a giant eyeball”

* Bye-bye, Greg Bovino

* Is Kristi Noem on her way out?

* Sarah tells Nancy about watching Alex Honnold climb Taipei 101; Nancy spazzes out

* Layoffs coming to WaPo, which, frankly, Nancy could be a little nicer about

* Nancy and Sarah’s favorite Instagram-er reacts to Alex Honnold

* Amanda Seyfried and her “moon-maiden eyes”

* Holland, England, whatever

* Lewis Pullman, flirty birdie

Plus, the time Nancy shimmied up an elevator shaft, the time Sarah thought she might fall into an abyss while rock climbing, Nancy mixes up Hemingway titles, and much more!

REMINDER: Monthly Zoom hang is this Sunday! 8pm ET/5pm PT. Link sent day-of.

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Nancy and Sarah speak with Ellie Avishai, who offers an inside look at how the ambitious project to build a bold new university — based on liberalism and open dialogue — fell victim to some of the same censorious behavior it sought to oust. The University of Austin was announced in 2021 with big names attached, perhaps none bigger (or more controversial) than Bari Weiss. Touting itself as a “coalition of the sane” at a time when college campuses seemed to be veering off-course, UATX was an inspiration to many, including Avishai, who joined forces with UATX through her own project, the Mill Institute, to help educators foster more open dialogue in classrooms. As a recent Politico story lays out, things did not go as planned.

We talk about why a modest social media post led to Avishai getting booted from UATX and how the dogma of woke is transforming into the dogma of anti-woke, not just at one university but throughout culture.

Also discussed:

* How education departments got flooded with reductive social justice ideas

* The prescriptive, anti-meaning-making stuff that went on in the social justice movement…

* “… to be clear, this wasn’t just Harvard.”

* Also: Harvard is pretty awesome!

* Intellectual “space spaces” versus psychological “safe spaces”

* “If you can’t teach Plato in a college course, you’re out of your mind.”

* #MeToo controversy at UATX

* How do you prove the strength of your core ideas if you won’t let them be tested?

* Where is Bari Weiss in all this?

* When open dialogue is perceived as weak sauce

* Cannibal-Americans?

Plus, ‘70s football greatness, three books to read aloud in bed, the phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry, and much more!

Emily Zanotti is a writer, a Catholic, a political operative, a mother of three, and a professional chicken tender, which is a thing. Nancy and Sarah know her from Twitter, where she is a great follow, but they’re taking this relationship to the next level. Podcast guest! The three talk about the mental health benefits of putting hands in the dirt, how Emily came to define herself as conservative (and what happened when the conservative movement shifted from her), all those female troubles women rarely talk about, and the booming fertility-industrial complex.

Also discussed:

* Chickens and gunshots

* “My goal is to not be a hypocrite”

* The intellectual side of Catholicism

* The beauty of having bees come to die in your garden

* “2016 broke a lot of people.”

* The Greeks identified endometriosis, but Western medicine didn’t come up with a treatment until… last year?

* Infertility as a Catholic …

* The mirage of egg freezing

* Storage fees for zygotes

* Endometrial tissue in women’s … brains??

* Clocking your kids’ personalities while they’re in utero

* Is misogyny what drives laws that allow women to die on the floor of ERs from ectopic pregnancies, or nah?

Plus, Japanese New Wave vinyl! Werewolf romance fiction! Forty years and we still haven’t gotten over David Bowie’s pants in Labyrinth! And much more.

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The end of 2025 is here, whether we like it or not. Nancy and Sarah celebrate with a year-end episode that includes a pop quiz, their favorite culture recommendations, and even a few resolutions. Have and attend more parties! Don’t pay attention to nonsense! It’s an annual look-back with cameo appearances by Paul Thomas Anderson, Sean Combs, Sydney Sweeney, Charlie Kirk, Billy Joel, Chappell Roan, old classic books, and the AI future that awaits us.

Also discussed:

* FaceTime doesn’t work in Australia?

* Hard times for America’s bourbon industry

* Nancy doesn’t flunk the pop quiz!

* Sarah favorite 2025 pop song is actually from …

* Nancy explains VistaVision; gets it wrong

* Sarah’s love-hate thing with Yorgos Lanthimos

* Olivia Colman gives an all-time performance

* The time-weathered face of Ethan Hawke

* American Studies is a bangin’ major

* A John Travolta gifting story

* Whoodoggie, did things get hot on the set of Cleopatra

Plus, Sarah invents Drinking School, Nancy accidentally chugs weed lemonade, we all have Moby Dicks to climb, and much more!

The great Kat Rosenfield, Free Press columnist and novelist, joins Nancy and Sarah for a very special Christmas-themed conversation that includes: a new holiday short story by Kat, the whole man-keeping/emotional labor debate, the role dirty socks can play in the unraveling of a marriage, and what it means to “get what you deserve.”

Plus, each of the ladies builds her Mount Rushmore of Hotness, but only ONE MAN makes the cut on every woman’s list. Who will it be??

Also discussed:

* Will people ever stop freaking out about Bari Weiss?

* “I don’t want a birthday party!”

* Sarah would like to man-keep, thanks

* Kat and Nancy have thoughts on pie crust

* Epstein: Is the media trying to make “fetch” happen?

* Nobody likes the word “deserve.”

* Crying in trees, sleeping in trees …

* A totally unironic Leo DiCaprio calendar

Plus, sorrow over Ben Sasse’s announcement that he has terminal cancer, animatronic milk in Connecticut, what Kat texted her husband after watching that scorching “Wuthering Heights” trailer, and much more!

It’s Christmas and Kat has a special gift for you, if you’ll just step right into this post office, so cozy, so inviting, what could go wrong?

All we want for Christmas …

Andy Mills, audio storyteller extraordinaire, joins Nancy and Sarah to talk about the “AI hinge moment” we’re living in, the subject of his new podcast “The Last Invention.” How scared should we be? Let’s discuss. They talk creative process, journalism’s inflection point and what was lost and gained in “the war of public shaming.” Plus: Books books books!

Also discussed:

* Gotta love a rotund tree

* “The thing about when you’re making your sauna …”

* The country mouse/city mouse ideal

* Are we really living in “unprecedented times”?

* The secrets of how Andy builds a podcast

* The trend to exaggerate victim status is REALLY UNHEALTHY

* Bringing down a deer with a bow-and-arrow is harder than you think

* When pain comes your way, don’t add regret to it

* The Wall Street Journal is crushing it

* Make centricism sexy again!

* One was joyous, one was meh: Apple vs. Free Press holiday parties

* Andy explains frog embryology to Nancy

* Andy and Sarah are Magnolia stans

* Alexander Hamilton got what he deserved

* Demon Copperhead: Even funnier than Moby Dick!

* “There’s so much comfort in history.”

* WANTED: Presidential biography recommendations

Plus, three cheers for Bari Weiss and building new media, everyone loves Anna Karenina, “to be alive is to be heartbroken,” and much more!

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This is a hot one! Pamela Paul — longtime editor of the New York Times Book Review, author of nine books, current writer-at-large for the Wall Street Journal — tells Nancy and Sarah about her unceremonious exit from the New York Times, where she had been an Opinion columnist. What happened? Well, it’s a long and juicy story, one that includes a J.K. Rowling column, a “lot of dishonesty and fear,” and an email dispatched in the middle of the night, a story that caused Nancy’s and Sarah’s jaws to literally drop. (It’s on video!) Paul joined the Opinion section in 2022 to “create space for liberal opinions that had been snuffed out,” the thorny topics most journalists in 2020 were afraid to write about — and might still be. “It’s really unsettling when an Opinion section is afraid of opinions,” says Paul. “You cannot pretend culture out of existence.”

Also discussed:

* How were things inside the New York Times in 2020? “Really awful.”

* George Will, 2014: “Victimhood [as] a coveted status that confers privileges.” NYT 2020: “Hold my beer.”

* “You’ve lost the room…”

* We are not finished talking about the defenestrations of Times’ James Bennett, Bari Weiss, Donald McNeil Jr….

* New York Times readers are smarter than we give them credit for.

* Props for Jesse Singal, Michael Powell, whoever Pamela’s editor was at Opinion, whose stand-up-ness makes Nancy tear up

* “The truth is a motherfucker.”

Plus, tasty bits in the hotbox: a Disneyland for Netflix grown-ups, the 1000-page book about revenge and justice you should be reading, a new old-skool medical drama, and much more!

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we told you…

Going to Gacy: A Cross Country Journey to Shake the Devil’s Hand, tells the story of a drive I made cross-country with a pen pal of John Wayne Gacy’s, to visit the serial killer in prison in the weeks before his execution. I originally sold the piece -- my first feature -- to Details. I wrote a draft and faxed it to the editor - this was 1994 - who told…

Mary Katharine Ham is a journalist and political commentator who’s worked for both CNN and Fox. Her book End of Discussion: How the Left’s Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun) came out in 2015 but basically predicts the next decade. A “natural contrarian,” Ham came to conservatism at a time when culture (and her Durham hometown) was dominated by liberals. It’s made her a rigorous and original thinker, clear-eyed and calm amid the political circus.

She talks with Nancy and Sarah about why Trump isn’t a conservative, how her faith helped her endure the death of her first husband, and how that experience shaped her perspective on Erika Kirk’s role since her husband Charlie’s assassination, when Ham found herself playing “widow defense.” We also talk the Trump-Mamdani summit, motherhood, and the utility of political commentary.

Also discussed:

* It’s good to have a weirdo in the room.

* Unintended lessons of a ‘90s public-school education

* MKH early inspiration: Rachel Campos-Duffy from The Real World

* “Politics is just not fun,” and yet…

* What is conservatism?

* What Obama and Trump have in common

* The Russiagate delusion

* Marjorie Taylor Greene folds

* The Tetris movie: Go, capitalism!

* “Charlie himself, as an example, was a bulwark against so many bad examples.”

* Admiration for George W’s post-presidential ride into the sunset

* The radical efficiency of freaking people out

* The hunger to find hypocrisy among people of faith

* A sunnier portrait of motherhood

* “God is good no matter what.”

* The necessary solace of Jeremiah 29:11

* Enthusiasm plus delusion is a very bad combination, and yes, we’re looking at you, Candace Owens

* Mary Katherine to Nancy: “Get lifting.”

* Sarah “resisted Apple TV for a heroic amount of time.”

Plus, Kelsea Ballerini wonders what she missed, the over-selling of freezing one’s eggs, Usha Vance gives good advice, and much more!

Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful. Perfect time to become a paid subscriber!

Nancy and Sarah discuss political writer Olivia Nuzzi, who became the main character on Twitter this week when an excerpt from her new memoir, published in Vanity Fair, coincided with a bombshell story by ex-fiancee Ryan Lizza. The scandal included cameos by broadcaster Keith Olbermann, politician Mark Sanford, and Livvy, a pop-music persona Nuzzi created at 16.

Nuzzi is a talented journalist who’s appeared on this podcast. Last year, she lost her gig at New York magazine after news hit about an entanglement with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This sordid new chapter created a feeding frenzy among (many less talented) journalists, but Sarah and Nancy try to push past the schadenfreude to understand how we got here: the little girl drawn to the spotlight, fluent in the double-speak of politicians, and the ambitious young woman who lost both parents by 30.

Also discussed:

* That time Patty Hearst and the SLA hid out in Disneyland

* The magic of the open road

* “I like messy people.”

* A political profile vs. a celebrity profile

* Rule #1: Don’t sleep with your sources.

* Rule #2: Do not look through your significant other’s stuff

* The Keith Olbermann of it all

* Vanity Fair and glamour of the 90s

* Remember that time a governor from New Jersey was caught having sex with a dude, and it became a whole giant scandal? Yeah, us neither

* More Monmouth Musings could use a better name …

* Livvy, the “morally bankrupt” and “undeniably infectious” pop tartlet

* The dirty-girl era of Ke$ha and Lady Gaga

* The exhibitionism of the iPhone

* Sarah will lay her chips on Nuzzi’s future

Plus, Sarah can see alcoholism in people’s eyes, Nancy reconnects with a former flame, a nearly unbelievable story about a 38-year-old unopened letter from Ken Kesey and much more!

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Nancy and Sarah discuss a viral essay from British Vogue, “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” The free-wheeling conversation touches on dating changes over the generations, the different ways women tell stories about their relationships online, and how women over the past half century have tried to balance independence and attachment.

Also discussed:

* First Kurt Rambis reference, for those who celebrate

* Sarah gets her colors done, has hair problems

* We need a producer!

* Our email, for the record: smokeempodcast@gmail.com

* Please, we beg you, no more videotaped marriage proposals

* On men traveling alone: “Who did that guy kill?”

* Influencer culture and the egg-freeze flex

* Was the world built for “men’s comfort”?

* Do men want to be protectors? Do women want them to be? A debate!

* Having a boyfriend is… Republican?

* Might we have a moratorium on quotes from content providers living in Dimes Square?

* “I just want a spinach salad…”

* The Hulu show that almost broke up your podcasters

Plus, a flashback to an early 20th century Edith Wharton banger, the glory that is Sebastian Junger, and much more!

The rich jewel box colors of fall will be yours when you become a paid subscriber

Mike Pesca, host of the longtime daily news podcast “The Gist,” joins Nancy and Sarah to talk about sports betting scandal that threatens to destroy an entire industry. Marked cards, special contact lenses, the mafia: This is deep Scorsese territory. Sarah is so checked out on sports she didn’t know Pete Rose was dead, but she has questions about how betting went from taboo to industry goldmine. Pesca is Smoke’s resident “voice of men,” whether he likes it or not, so we also talk about his take on the Great Feminization (last week’s pod controversy) and women taking testoserone to boost their sex drive.

Don’t miss the backstage drama on Pesca’s podcast interview with former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. He’s done thousands of celebrity interviews, and only spiked a few. This was one of them.

Also discussed:

* A burning UTI of a question!

* Over-under and point spread, discussed

* Eight Men Out, a good movie

* When the mafia ruled porn …

* Three cheers for the red, white and corrupt

* Theo Von, Louis CK, Chris Rock, greatest sex addicts anonymous group ever?

* Longing for a “she-pee” that plays “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor

* Norm MacDonald, poster child for gambling addiction

* But what is addiction?

* Mike suggests Karine Jean-Pierre should have called her book Incoherent

* Sarah’s parents were Cuomo-sexuals

* Nancy tries to explain “boofing”

* A tone-deaf article about harm reduction

* Women, sex drive, and Nancy’s testosterone levels

* Andrew Cuomo: “I’m not perverted. I’m Italian.”

* “Get me off the Lady Testosterone ride!”

* Ozempic kills the urge to gamble

* Pesca’s wife has complaints

* Sarah’s Ethnic Stereotypes Corner!

Plus, Sarah reconsiders One Battle After Another, Nancy’s erotic gym-class epiphany, Mike explains how to read marked cards, and much more!

REMINDER: First Sunday this Sunday! Come one, come all, link sent out day-out. 8pm ET/5pm PT.

Nancy’s birthday is October 30, and a girl likes presents. You know what to do …

Nancy and Sarah talk about “The Great Feminization,” a Compact essay that’s stirred the hornet’s nest of social media. The recent story, by Helen Andrews, argues that many recent cultural shifts — cancel culture, wokeness, safetyism — can be explained by the influence of women, who tend to prioritize empathy over rationality and cohesion over competition. Is it true? Is it offensive? Let’s discuss!

Also discussed:

* Compliment sandwiches

* Twelve-year-old Nancy gets piled on by the older girls at camp

* Dreamy Argentinian boys causing trouble

* Spilling to a journalist = tattling to the teacher?

* “Math is hard”

* Male bosses versus female bosses

* Mean-girl behavior

* “I think” versus “I feel”

* Am I allowed to get an orange soda?

* Nancy equates cancel culture with communism; Sarah says, WTF?

* No adults in the room

* What is a “meta-textual performance? Is it a puppet show?

* “Misogynist howlers”

Plus, a true-crime documentary that exposes surveillance culture, Nancy on the chef whose recipes actually work — and more!

Thank you to Andrew Wimsatt, who snatched our video from the jaws of defeat. It’s one battle after another with technology around here! As penance for being later than we’d like, please accept an image of the homemade lasagna Nancy is making, more on that in the hot box

It’s a chunky lasagna of a time when you become a paid subscriber.

Nancy and Sarah discuss a leaked Telegram group chat among Young Republicans with at least 251 slurs. Is it bad? Yes. Is it THAT bad? Let’s discuss, but let’s also ask the question: Does anyone care about privacy anymore?

A conversation about gossip, the contagious nature of bullying, when we expect people to grow up, and how foul-mouthed dirty-minded men navigate the guilt that comes with maturity and fatherhood.

Also discussed:

* Do frogs really fall from the sky? Yes, yes they do

* New boy band: The Vinces

* New York City mayoral debate: Let’s debate!

* Is “melting pot” racist?

* Sarah of Liberty: Bring us your poor, your weak … your hot?

* New Yorkers = scrappers

* Nancy apologizes to Finland

* “I’m a little horny today.”

* The dry humping of virtual connection

* The kid-ults of Brooklyn

* 1488 vs. 666

* The moral argument for leaking Jennifer Lawrence’s nude photos?

* Nancy’s possibly offensive observation about the Young Republicans

* In the UK, the word for cigarette is … ?

* “A big tamale of understanding”

* Before Nancy dated Eddie Vedder, she hung out with Laurence Fishburne?

* Yes you need to re-read Days of Rage

* POTP! Trademark it now.

Plus, JD Vance still has a lot of hillbilly in him, when Sarah started taking naughty selfies, Nancy sings Alicia Keys — and much more!

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Because Philip Michael Thomas’s name came up, let’s revisit a glorious TV opening:

Nancy and Sarah talk Portland, where Nancy just returned from her forever-beat. The city of Portland is not on fire. What it is, instead, is a reminder of 2020’s worst political violence, and Nancy and Sarah talk about how it’s changed, and who wants that old feeling back.

Then we discuss One Battle After Another, one of the most talked-about movies of 2025. It’s Big Lebowski meets political thriller meets father-daughter saga, and our PTA stan (Sarah) faces off against our normie moviegoer (Nancy), but you might be surprised who loved the movie more.

P.S. Sarah is in a battle with the sun and blinds throughout this episode. We did what we could.

Also discussed:

* Trump administration wants to re-litigate 2020 so bad

* Days of Rage is Sarah’s lullaby

* But what IS antifa?

* Nancy met a Groyper!

* “Why can’t I have a goat and smoke pot?”

* Tragic moments in self-own: Palisades fire starter was a climate activist

* Charlie Kirk followers practice … civil disobedience?

* How Sarah fell in love with Magnolia

* Paul Thomas Anderson is Sarah’s guy

* “Ocean waves, Bob.”

* Sarah’s Mount Rushmore of actors: DiCaprio, Rockwell, Hoffman, Washington

* “You can’t make a life and take a life at the same time.”

* The character of Perfidia and The Power of the Pussy

* Any Pynchon readers around here? Anyone?

* Sean Penn is a caricature: good or bad thing?

* To Chase Infiniti and beyond!

* “Semen demon”

* Owen Glieberman’s OBAA review: We have notes

* Christmas Adventurers’ Club

* Santa is not a white supremacist

* Diane Keaton, style icon

* Diane Keaton never condemned Woody Allen

* This week’s hot boxes are spooky in different ways

Plus, John C. Reilly will always have a place in Sarah’s heart, Daniel Day-Lewis would be too scary to talk to, Diane Keaton wore life like a loose garment, and much more!

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How it started:

How it’s going:

Nancy and Sarah talk about a lightning-rod conversation between NYT podcaster Ezra Klein and award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. The two men spar on the political project of Charlie Kirk and the problem with / way forward for Democrats, and pretty much every side of the audience gets ticked off.

Nancy was underwhelmed with the conversation; Sarah was reminded of private arguments she’s had and sees more common ground between Coates and Kirk than either might like to believe.

Also discussed:

* Sarah is done with echo chambers

* Coates: “I think Charlie Kirk was a hatemonger” mmmmkay

* The animating fuel of hate is bipartisan

* The world could use another James Baldwin

* Cue Rodney King: Can’t we all just get along?

* Buckley-Vidal cage match!

* Behold the sound of Sarah’s Diet Pepsi

* We are caught between real life and floating in the cloud

* America, a country of spoiled children?

* The ‘80s comic novel that wins every season

* Sarah vs. her ring light

* Nancy’s mantra: “I disagree with you. Let’s have dinner.”

* Does Sarah look like Nicole Kidman? Her parents think so.

* Pro/con: Keith Urban’s hair

* Baby Girl as overcompensation

* That time Nancy met Nicole Kidman and became the first journalist to learn Kidman and Tom Cruise were getting divorced

* Farts, snores: Human embarrassment, discussed

* Is Portland a war zone? Nancy reports.

* Wet panties are not a political endorsement!

Plus, love for Neil Armstrong and his son, Nancy and her daughter crush on a portly CIA director, and why America has many many stories.

Welcome to episode #2 of The Sociopaths Among Us. If you haven’t listened to the disclaimer at the opening, go ahead and do that.

I’ve been wanting to write about Candace Owens since 2019, when I engaged in a very short interview with her backstage at a political event. Was she charming and poised? Yes. Also, I’d never in all my years of reporting (or, heck, living) had someone suss me up so intensely and with such speed, deciding in an instant whether to trust or not trust me, and to deflect whatever might need to be deflected.

I didn’t write about Owens then, but I kept tabs on her. I wasn’t interested in the content she was promoting; I don’t believe Owens believes in anything other than whatever will advance Candace Owens. But she was the most masterful opportunist I’d encountered (such as it is), able to hone in immediately on what was hot in the culture, to shove her way into that patch of sun and consume its energy before moving on. This “get in, get what you need, get out” is a classic hallmark of the sociopath — their marriages, business partnerships, friendships do not last long — as is the lack of conscience.

It’s hard to know why Owens is so successful, and then again, it’s not. People crave conspiracy theories, and boy howdy has she been doling them out to her 5 million+ YouTube fans. I started on this series only two weeks ago, and since then, she has doubled-down on Brigitte Macron being a man, made a post-assassination claim that Charlie Kirk changed his mind on Israel, indulged the idea of a trap door in the floor where Kirk was killed and where the shooter might have taken aim, and suggested the murder of the Turning Point USA founder was an inside job. I said in the audio that by the time this posts, she will have floated another theory. Sure enough.

Do smart people wonder why she continues to do as she does?

I don’t wonder. Owens needs our attention like a fish needs water, and by water I mean tragedy or controversy or star-shine, and if she perceives a lack of these or, heck, if she’s just bored, she’ll invent some. There are many wounds in the culture right now, wounds into which Owens can insert herself, something she’s been doing since she came onto the scene: she’s been the girl boss, the anti-doxxer (by way of doxxing; details after the paywall), anti-GOP then pro-Trump, decrier of victim culture except when it serves her to play victim. She is someone who makes an eight-part series about the president of France’s wife having a penis. (What?!) This might all be seen as lunacy, easy to ignore, a flesh-and-blood version of The World Weekly News…

… but for the fact that she is feeding on real people’s tragedies: Kirk’s assassination, the slaughter in Israel on October 7. She is vampiric, and while it’s awful to see, can you imagine how tragic it is to be Owens? What must be going on inside of her that she makes these outlandish and cruel statements and, under the guise of “just asking questions,” demands people disprove them?

The charitable among us might say, “Just ignore her.” But this woman will not be ignored. She will claw her way to staying relevant, day after day, and thanks to our overheated media environment, people you consider smart sometimes lend credence to her theorizing. Have I mentioned the screenshot of the Fifth Column boys as Megyn Kelly pondered whether some of Owens’ theories might be true?

It would be a fool’s errand to predict what Owens will say next. But I can tell you some of her origin story and how she got where she did ...

Nancy and Sarah speak with Meghan Daum, the podcaster behind The Unspeakable and author of a great new collection of essays, The Catastrophe Hour. They talk about writing, Charlie Kirk, young people casting around for meaning, and a very eye-raising report in the New York Times about a recent blockbuster memoir about MDMA-assisted recovered memories of violent sexual assault. It raises some questions!

Will this be a tipping point for the publishing industry? We discuss integrity, celebrity, Oprah Winfrey, the challenge of selling books, and how to fact-check memories in the first place.

Also discussed:

* Tylenol: Latest tool of the Resistance

* Are Reddit posts the new sad girl diaries?

* That time Meghan observed Turning Point gatherings …

* The return of Alex P. Keaton!

* Books usually don’t have fact-checkers

* Sarah’s hard lessons when editing personal essays

* Incoherence, the theme of our time

* Fabulists in the memoir genre like moths to a flame

* Toot’n Totum!

* “Nancy is Marie Antoinette.”

* The 90s are back, and if you invite us to your party, we will totally stand around the kitchen smoking clove cigarettes

* “Monchhichi, monchhichi, oh so soft and cuddly”

* The truth vs. my truth

* How is Meghan’s new book like a handgun?

* Paul Newman used French eye drops?

* NYT reader comments FTW

Plus, the John Brown Gun Club, a tragic story of literary shame, more Robert Reford love, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss the Charlie Kirk memorial. Was it a Nazi rally? Of course not. Was it a turning point in saving Western Civilization? Hmm, sounds like a high bar. But it was: Huge, culturally important, occasionally annoying, occasionally profound, mixing feel-good megachurch vibes with a saber-rattling political rally. It also included one of the most moving speeches in political memory.

Also discussed:

* Why does Nancy’s shirt says PORHN?

* Will Jimmy Kimmel coming back on the air be a dead-cat bounce?

* Why is Destiny mad? (Who is Destiny?)

* The algorithm wants to keep us mad

* “Amazing Grace,” a good jam

* Tucker and the “hummus eaters”

* What is a Stephen Miller?

* “Have a baby!”

* Who’s gonna get Sarah pregnant?

* Are we a Christian nation?

* Is Pete Hegseth hot? Nancy and Sarah debate!

* Sarah requests fireworks at her funeral

* Nancy has never seen Only Fans (which is exactly what someone would say if they were addicted to OnlyFans)

* What AA teaches you about spirituality

* Actual quote about Teddy Roosevelt (by his daughter Alice): “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening”

* The usefulness of prayer

* “Forgiveness is a muscle you flex”

Plus, Nancy is REALLY excited about her hot box, the majestic perfection of Redford’s 70s hair, the necessary rightness of Ezra Klein right now, and much more!

Isn’t it time to jump the paywall, and become a paid subscriber?

Investigative journalist Michael Tracey is hard to pin down, maybe because he doesn’t play for one team. A journo in the old-fashioned “stick-poking” mode, Michael started debating Sarah on his own introduction before she was half-way through. Fair enough! We go on to discuss Charlie Kirk — whom Tracey sees as a “mouthpiece” for the administration — and then go deep on the Epstein Files, which Tracey tore into, in part, because no one else was. You might be surprised at the gap between the wild fantasy spun online and the facts on the ground.

We disagree on a lot (who doesn’t?), but Tracey has done some of the most honest journalism on Epstein — a case everyone talks about, and few people know. He’s also stood up for free speech, something that’s getting crushed as the right discovers their own powers of cancel culture.

Also discussed:

* Wikipedia suuuucks

* Why Michael thinks Kirk is not a martyr

* Pro tip: Don’t bring up that Ann Coulter story from Michael’s college years in your intro …

* Charlie Kirk the podcaster vs. Charlie Kirk the campus debater

* OK, well since the Ann Coulter story was already brought up, here it is …

* What happens when your ACLU lawyer is drunk

* The Jewish mafia of Ohio

* Epstein Survivors, Inc.

* The accusers in the Epstein saga are … complicated

* Was Epstein murdered in prison? It’s not impossible!

Plus, Nancy on the erotic power of 16-year-old girls, Sarah on vigilante justice-by-internet, Michael explains Nintendo Switch 2, and much more!

Marjorie Taylor Greene gets Michael thrown out of a press conference that Ro Khanna invited him to. For more of Michael’s reporting, hit him up on Substack

Freedom isn’t free, and neither is the entire version of this podcast. Become a paid subscriber.

We talk about political violence, radical movements, violence versus microaggressions, bloodlust in the human animal, ideology as a leverage for murder, and how politics became religion. We also discuss the case of Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on a Charlotte, NC subway. What stories make the news? What do we want our news to tell us? These are deep/complicated questions, and whether this moment pushes us closer or farther from the light, Nancy and Sarah are in it together.

Also, here we are again, at September 11.

This is a free episode. Pass it around!

Nancy and Sarah go deep on Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, whose new memoir has been excerpted in New York magazine. We have thoughts! Does Gilbert have her finger on the tender heart of what women want? Is she a serial grifter who makes millions off women’s low rattle of unhappiness?

We talk about Gilbert’s long career — which has shifted from magazine profile writer to memoirist to social media something-something, plus novelist — and it’s hard not to see a woman caught in her own spin cycle. Sarah is a memoir writer; she lives in this glass house, so she is loath to throw stones. But some truths need to be said. What part of her success is narcissism, what part marketing savvy, what part is con? Plus, we put our hands on a third rail: Gilbert never had kids.

Also discussed:

* Nancy’s hair looks … okay

* Sarah and Nancy sing on-camera; lose subscribers

* Nancy will die in any ditch

* Malcolm Gladwell comes correct, Nancy skeptical

* Sarah says love addiction is maybe not a thing?

* The divorce memoir, unpacked

* Men’s magazines of the ‘90s

* Grape Nuts: “It’s like bullets in milk”

* Yoga in Indiana!

* Sarah wants an Eat Pray Love pilgrimage. Nancy says, nope!

* “You’re just Harold.”

* Nancy cannot get past the scenery-chewing in Tombstone

* Some love for author Jennifer Egan

NEW FEATURE! Today in Everyday Heroism. This MAN did something remarkable this week. When notified of his new title, inspired by his comment about the ubiquity of the term “survivor,” he replied, “It’s insane, and everyone knows it!”

Plus, that time Terry McMillan wrote a book about falling for a younger man who turned out to be gay, affection for Oprah’s weight loss/gain/loss/gain journey, Sarah’s new documentary obsession, and much more!

We have a letters episode coming up so send ‘em in! smokeempodcast@gmail.com

REMINDER: It’s first Sunday Zoom. Sunday, September 7, at 5pm PT/8pm ET. Link goes to paid subscribers day-of. Show us your animals! Come hang. Discuss a possible group read! It’s not scary, unless you want it to be, and then it’s soooo scary.

Become an everyday hero when you become a paid subscriber.

Nancy and Sarah chat with Bryan Burrough, author of Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild. Bloody history is something of a specialty for Burrough, a former Vanity Fair scribe whose other (great) books include Days of Rage, about violent radical movements of the ‘70s, Public Enemies, about the ‘30s crime wave, and Forget the Alamo, about, well, trying to remember that famous Texas showdown in a more accurate light.

Their conversation takes place several days after a shooter opened fire at a Minneapolis church, killing two children and injuring many more. Online discourse has yo-yo’ed from gun control to trans issues to the problem of marijuana, but America’s history of violence goes much deeper than culture-war issues. We’re a country forged in guns, whether we like it or not.

Burrough talks about the psychopaths, swindlers, and survivors who shaped the frontier and went down in pop-culture history: Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp. We also talk Westerns: What’s his take on Tombstone? Deadwood? And which critically acclaimed Western movie made Bryan and Sarah bored out of their skulls? (Hint: It stars Brad Pitt.)

For a conversation ostensibly about the Old West, there’s an awful lot of talk about modern movies, books, and the craft of writing.

Also discussed:

* Sarah says: The Old West = BORING!

* Sam Colt’s pistol was initially a flop

* Honor culture, explained

* Why did Bob Dylan add a “g” to John Wesley Hardin?

* Doc Holliday was a … dentist in Dallas?

* “A man with that great equalizer: a gun.”

* Billy the Kid, the “most ambivalent” of the Old West gunfighters

* “Texans. We have a lot to answer for.”

* Lawlessness can be thrilling

* Wild Bill Hickok, the greatest fraud of the Old West

* Unforgiven is the ultimate anti-Western

* Comanches were not messing around

* When “whore” was a job description

* Jesse James, the first celebrity criminal

* Lonesome Dove is Texans’ War and Peace

* A big gush of love for author Beverly Lowry

* Sarah vs. Nancy on the movie Tree of Life: Pistols at dawn!

* The postpartum aimlessness that comes with finishing a book

* Remembering actor Graham Greene

Also, Nancy, Sarah and Bryan choose the Old West characters they’d most like to be (guess who chose “whore”?), the frontier’s go-to slur, and much more!

REMINDER! First Sunday Zoom hang this week! Sunday, September 7, 5pm PT / 8pm ET, link sent day-of.

OTHER REMINDER: Need advice? Have a story to share? Thoughts/feelings/playful recriminations? email us: smokeempodcast@gmail.com

Sonofabitch, you forgot to become a paid subscriber.

Didn’t happen this way, but great nonetheless:

Nancy and Sarah interview journalist Paul Kix, author of the award-winning book on the Civil Rights movement, You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live. Paul writes about the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s ten weeks in Birmingham through fully realized characters and complicated detail, and he tells us how the experience changed him.

We also talk about Paul’s 2023 personal essay, “Liberals Once Embraced Interracial Marriages Like Mine. What Changed?” The conversation skip-hops around race, spirituality, faith, discipline, journalism — and Paul makes Nancy cry (twice!).

Also discussed:

* Marfa, too many metal chairs and cement surfaces

* The Disappearance of Hotel Bathtubs: A lamentation

* How Sarah changed Paul’s life

* Summer 2020: Oh, how it transformed us

* “There’s a liberalism that abandoned me”

* Can a white man tell a black story?

* “Mis·ceg·e·na·tion” “Man·i·chae·an” “Hag·i·og·ra·phy”

* George Floyd, quite the football player

* How the Eagles’ Glenn Frey knew Jackson Browne was the real deal

* “Bombingham”

* Humanizing Bull Conner

* Would you allow your children to get fire-hosed for a righteous cause?

* Harry Belafonte, the George Soros of the civil rights movement

* New Yorkers love to say “No”

* “In the wake of war is the big beating heart of love”

* How to bet on yourself

* “What cause would you die for?”

Plus, Sarah falls into a Weather Underground rabbit hole, an argument for more art told from the perspective of a resentful loser, why Paul kept a photo on his fridge that looked like Billie Dee Williams, and much more.

This is one of our favorite episodes xx

Nancy and Sarah take on the kerfuffles of the week: Chris Rufo mines the anti-woke vein by digging up the old tweets of a New Yorker writer, the Minnesota Vikings introduce two male cheerleaders (and people lose their minds), hunky provocateur-lite Matt Rife stars in a commercial for ELF makeup (and at least two people object). Welcome to the Outrage Opportunists, who glut up our social media feeds with their Very! Angry! Posts! Are we working out the kinks of a changing society, or just serving up thin gruel?

Plus: Ass, boobs, or legs? Tell us what you love, and we’ll tell you who you are.

Also discussed:

* No Pants Day!

* Nancy’s cute new haircut (cue Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical”)

* Sarah’s dad suffers from chronic integrity

* Sydney Sweeney everlasting

* 2025 Beyonce looks a little like … a panda bear?

* Twitter, megaphone for our id

* “The ass is the engine of a woman’s body”

* Doreen St. Felix: vile racist or 20-something with a social media account?

* The New Yorker blocks Chris Rufo, David Remnick weeps

* “They’re eating the dogs” is kinda an all-timer

* Men in cheerleading: A brief history

* “Sashay, shantay” + other gay stereotypes

* Joaquin Phoenix in a role that fits right

Plus, more on the Canadian hockey trial, Eddington director Ari Aster swings for the fences, Nancy takes a trip to Sally’s Beauty Supply, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah talk about the latest in the “WTF is wrong with men?” media series, this time in The Cut/NY Mag. They also discuss the strange case of the Canadian hockey team recently found not guilty in a high-profile sex assault case. They intended to talk about the new Marc Maron HBO special, but that’ll have to wait till next time.

Also discussed:

* Mexican barber shop!

* That time Walter Kirn dressed down Nancy on-air

* Sarah’s cat is spoiled, go figure

* Nancy throws down a moral dilemma: Nazis or Hamas?

* “Emotional erection”

* Slinky! Slinky! Boing-boing.

* But who takes the hell-child to the doctor?

* Are same-sex couples happier?

* “Pies Against Patriarchy”

* The “evidence-based case” for lesbianism

* Hetero-antagonism: We’ve gone too far.

* WE LOVE MEN.

* “And another thing about dinosaurs …”

* Don’t let your dumb things define you

* Open invitation to the family Pesca

* Football is Sarah’s ZIP code

* Vagina dentata

Plus, Sarah’s falling for Bill Buckley, Nancy’s theory on why men fall asleep after sex, remembering when New York Magazine was “a well-rounded meal,” and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss a new Sydney Sweeney ad for American Eagle. Is saying “my jeans are blue” a dog whistle? Or is “dog whistle” a 21st-century term for finding outrage in absolutely anything? Speaking of, you can count on the New York Times to detail another thing men are doing wrong. This week we talk “mankeeping!”

But most of this episode concerns one Billy Joel, whose HBO doc has thrust him in the spotlight again. Why do critics hate him so much? Like REALLY, REALLY hate him? We have thoughts! It’s a conversation about art, criticism, envy, and the joy of singing along.

Also discussed:

* Wikifeet!

* We want to eat cute widdle baby feet

* Sarah is a volunteer “man-keeper”

* What wine moms will never admit to

* Josh Hepola, Captain Mansplainer

* Retired men and coffee shops: it’s a thing

* Don Henley is handsome

* “Schlock-n-roll”

* Sarah tweets from a Target Superstore; mistakes were made

* Smoke ‘Em gals are pro-Eagles

* Nancy likes a mosh pit, does not recognize Shakespeare

* Do not tell people you’re a bestselling author

* Billy Joel Lyrics Quiz!

Plus, the song that made Sarah weep in the car this week, what Sarah learned from Jon Ronson’s Twitter, “the quality of mercy is not strained” and much more!

Reminder: First Sunday Zoom! Aug 3, 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Paid subscribers only. Link the day-of.

Nancy and Sarah discuss a recent viral essay in NYT magazine called “The Trouble With Wanting Men.” Nancy had a meltdown reading this story, while Sarah saw romantic problems she recognized as well as behavior designed to fail. The two ladies talk about a vogue for female bitchery, a lack of grace in women’s voices, and whether men and women can ever repair the anger and resentment that’s erupted between them — at least online.

Also discussed:

* The time Nancy’s mom bought Black Sabbath PARANOID on 8-track

* That time Ozzy peed on the Alamo

* diddle-diddle-diddle

* Sarah propositions Kat Rosenfield, mispronounces her last name (again)

* Maybe that Mars/Venus guy was onto something

* Sarah wept through the Kavanaugh hearings

* “Why didn’t you tell me you had a uterus?”

* Girlboss versus YouPorn; YouPorn wins

* Cormac McCarthy lunges from ambush

* Sarah negs Nancy, proves that negging works …

* Open marriages, oy

* “Bratty sub”

* Nancy does not want a man to bend to her whims

* A debate over the word “thrill”

* That Texas Monthly flood essay, damn

* Nancy gives advice to overheated feminists

* Sarah waxes sociological about equality and same-sex relationships

* “hermeneutic labor” is …?

* All snuggle, all the time

Plus, what Sarah wants Nancy to read her on her deathbed, Pedro Pascal is too much with us, Christopher Hitchens on Bill Clinton, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss the viral story of the week: Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and head of HR Kristin Cabot get caught cuddling on camera at a Coldplay concert. Who are these people, and why do we care? Good question! Celebrity in the 21st century is a relative term, and this story raises questions about surveillance, social-media Schadenfreude, the danger of online sleuthing, and why we have Kiss Cams in the first place.

The ladies also talk about a NYT story on how decadence at Peak Conde Nast is reminiscent of the fall of Rome. (Hint: There will be elephants.)

Also discussed:

* Ice cream got too complicated.

* Death by Grok

* Why is there a Kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert?

* WHAT WOULD YOU DO? A hypothetical on Kiss Cams.

* Sarah’s salty texts with Oscar Isaac

* Don’t you go dipping into Nancy’s DMs

* What Succession teaches us about shareholders

* “Blow-in cards”

* Sarah’s Columbia Records & Tapes scam

* Expectations of privacy when having illicit affair

* Nancy has not read Pride and Prejudice

* Rock music critics have dopey prejudices

* That $475k Vanity Fair photo shoot

* The New Yorker, not really a money-maker

* Who is the real Conde Nast?

* Sarah makes Nancy blush

* Pam Colloff, the GOAT of longform

* … But is the tampon singing?

Plus, love for 30 Rock, the writer who made $12 a word, why you should reach out to friends (and strangers), and much more!

Nancy and Sarah are stumbling into land mines — quickly! — in this episode, where a convo about Jennifer Love Hewitt’s recent turn in the spotlight proves the ladies don’t even agree on that. It’s hard to talk about women and their bodies: Fat vs. curvy, skinny vs. anorexic, body positive vs. morbidly obese, Ozempic-face vs. mom-bod, Lena Dunham vs. #SkinnyTok. How the ladies discuss these subjects may offend some people (warning: a lot of boob talk), but maybe it’s time to stop taking such easy offense on a vital and complicated subject. As Sarah says, “It’s a weird time to have a body.”

NOTE: Want to judge our appearance? Only fair. Join us on our YouTube channel.

In the second half of the show, we ask: Will the Epstein story be what splits MAGA?

Also discussed:

* A plague of mosquitos!

* Sarah is a sensitive flower; Nancy is pigeon-toed

* Love for The Dumb Zone

* How is Lena Dunham like Woody Allen?

* Sarah’s “absolute milk sheds”

* The miracle of “nursing boobs”

* “We have all these conversations about guys and their dicks” (???)

* Liv Schmidt, a 23-year-old influencer who looks exactly like you assume

* Shame, the most powerful motivator

* The getting-our-period anecdotes no one wanted to hear

* Respect: Nancy’s dad loved Helen Mirren

* Props to Tina Brown

* Stalin: hot or not?

* A moral telling of a tragic story

Plus, true-crime talk, coming around on Ozempic, the time Sarah flashed an 80-year-old at Oktoberfest, and much more!

Eli Lake, host of the Breaking History podcast, loves America. But what does that mean? We discuss the long unfinished experiment of our country, and the fashionable anti-semitism that’s swept colleges/the youngs, or as Eli calls them, “barista socialists.” We talk about how elite colleges fell apart, when the left becomes violent, and why valuing ideology over human lives is never a good look.

Also discussed:

* Eli’s July 4 AI song is a BOP

* Sarah tells Nancy she “looks older,” this goes over great

* We knew we’d made it on YouTube when …

* Commenter warns: DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO!!

* Eli explains how he makes his bangin’ AI songs

* Third rails and Gen Xers

* Spy Magazine!!!

* Sarah doesn’t want to make Eli the point-person on antisemitism but …

* “You suck, Bob Vylan!”

* How shockingly close boredom is to death lust

* “It goes back to the Books of the Maccabees…”

* NYC mayoral politics: “Vote for the felon or for the fedayeen.”

* The bill has come due for radical academics

* Does Bernadine Dohrn deserve eternal contempt? Let’s discuss!

* “Who is Menachem Begin?”

* What young actor should play Ted Bundy?

* Sarah has a FOURTH OF JULY SURPRISE!

Plus, heroes of the Texas floods, a Monica Lewinsky theory from the Middle East, Sarah falls asleep listening to serial killer narratives, and much more!

We’re PROUD to call you a paid subscriber. Now you just have to, umm, become one.

You can listen to Eli’s entire July 4 episode, but if you want to choke up and hear Eli’s bangin’ “If You Don’t Leave (We Gonna Fight),” start here (47:49)

Dan Savage: What better person to explain the mess that is the P Diddy trial? The “Savage Love” columnist/podcaster chats with Sarah and Nancy about the hip-hop mogul’s fetishes, OCD kinksters, the troubling statute of limitations on domestic abuse, and the dangerous elasticity of the term “sex trafficking.” This one is fascinating, fraught, and taught us a lot!

Also discussed:

* “It’s not RICO, it’s FREAK-O!”

* Dan stans Steve & Eydie

* Sarah is a little cinnamon, Nancy’s straight-up vanilla

* White parties started in gay culture?

* “A moment of silence for the staff of these hotels…”

* Clive Owens gets swapped with Clive Davis in a WILD WAY

* “There’s something Caligula about Combs …”

* It’s all about the glisten

* “Sex always wins.”

* Hotwifing??

* “I got cheated on, YAHTZEE!”

* “Pity sex is not rape”

* Men find their kinks at 15, women at 35

* Very tricky: Consent versus coercion

* “Good giving and game” might needs some corrections/clarifications

* The case for decriminalization of sex work

* The moral panic of “sex trafficking”

* The elasticity of the word “rape”

Plus, some (qualified) props for Monica Lewinsky, Sarah pouts because Nancy’s going on a date with another Sarah, New Orleans cops know all the lyrics to "Fairytale of New York,” and much more!

Nancy and Sarah debate a Modern Love column called, “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.” Nancy is gagging. Sarah thinks it’s an imperfect swing in the right direction. Who will reign supreme? Eh, they both have a point. Also, the girls go deep on Karen Read, blackouts and causes celebre.

Also discussed:

* Nancy’s new nickname: Maidenform!

* New York, a socialist utopia?

* Be a YouTube subscriber, either because or despite our promise to only wear bras

* The Hepola trifecta: cops, excessive drinking, and blackouts

* Karen Read: Where to begin?

* No, really: Blackouts, blackouts, blackouts!!

* The defense lawyers are experts in… Kevin Spacey?!

* More people need jobs

* Are men “hiding” — if so, from what?

* Sarah gets rant-y about dating apps

* Nancy gets rant-y about female whining

* A male listener’s fraught text exchange with a woman

* “What is your role in this?”

* When heading to possible war, learn about previous wars

* William Langewiesche, revisited

* Osama bin Laden was a rich kid

Nancy and Sarah are joined by Katie Herzog, co-host of the Blocked and Reported podcast and author of an up-and-coming book on quitting booze, Drink Yourself Sober. They talk about getting canceled, navigating public backlash, and why Katie’s drinking tale is different from Sarah’s — she used Naltrexone, an opioid-blocker, to help quit. They discuss AA, the meaning of the word “alcoholic,” the nature of addiction, and why there’s no wrong way to get sober.

Also on tap:

* Jesse Singal, analyzed

* If you walk into the online arena, expect to get gored

* Helen Lewis, epic BARpod co-host

* Dan Savage is brilliant, but can he help us understand “freak offs”? (Please?)

* The Onion was once sold for $10,000?

* Andy Mills, top-tier man!

* Missing Twitter, pre-Elon

* Do NOT type your name into BlueSky

* When Katie realized she had a drinking problem

* “Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet”

* Sarah breastfed until what age?

* The Sinclair method

* Fun drunk v. sleepy drunk

* The tragic death of Jonathan Joss

* Sarah was Katie’s AA sensitivity reader

* Naltrexone, the Ozempic of booze

* Sarah learns a new phrase: “pharmacological extinction”

* “My life is monumentally better than when I was drinking”

* AA founder Bill Wilson = weirder than you think

* Writing a recovery book is a weird form of insurance

* GETTING FREE

* That Salon personal essay Katie can’t get off the Internet

* Piled on by Milo Yiannapoulos, oh the irony

* Katie is fine being cringe

* RIP, William Langewiesche

So much wisdom in this podcast, but the best parts are for paid subscribers

It’s hot, it’s June, and there’s mayhem in a major American city, this time Los Angeles. Nancy lived through the Rodney King riots, and though LA will hopefully not explode thusly, Nancy is heading there to cover the action. Want to help her? You can.

In other news, the Musk-Trump bromance imploded last week. Sarah has theories about the timing of certain tweets and deletions, in addition to what might come next. She catches us up on the Manhattan re-trial of Harvey Weinstein, who did not take the stand in his defense, though he did give a news interview. Verdict incoming — maybe this week!

Also discussed:

* SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE, especially if you’re a woman

* Nancy’s had it with the Trump nicknaming

* Looking for some conspiracy theories? We got ‘em

* “Green troll hair on the sour cream”

* No dramatic hyperbolic yelling, please, Sarah’s still waking up

* Jared Leto: Ick or hot?

* Citizen: Protect the World app sounds kinda cool

* Benjamin Franklin was a lot of things, but he was not a bangin’ father

* “Women with broken dreams …”

* Changing the names of battleships is hard, explained

* Please don’t mention Faces of Death

Plus, big love for The Dumb Zone, props to the brotherhood of the foxhole, another installment of “Let’s Be the Judge!” and more!

Our bromance only gets better when you become a paid subscriber.

Brooke Siem is the author of the 2022 memoir, May Cause Side Effects, about the decade and a half she spent on anti-depressants (prescribed after her father died when she was 15) and what happened when she ditched them. Sarah is currently on anti-depressants, though she wonders whether she needs them. Nancy is not on SSRIs, though she was part of a gentle brigade who nudged Sarah to increase her dosage last year. This is a complicated knot! The ladies talk about over-medication, how cultural taboos migrate, and the problem with treating sadness, anger, frustration — very human emotions — with a pill.

Also discussed:

* Nancy suddenly cares about the Navy; Sarah questions this

* That time Brooke wore a foxy denim jumper

* “Chemical imbalance” is a hoodwink

* The “Come Out of the Dark Campaign” meant to eradicate depression stigma leads to an explosion of SSRI prescriptions

* SSRIs and orgasm

* The opiate epidemic tracks with the anti-depressant era

* “Chemical castration” didn’t start with puberty blockers …

* 70s-80s Ritalin vogue

* Related: Does Ritalin suppress male growth?

* Hold up: a link between transitioning genders and SSRIs?

* Drinking and depression, a tangled saga

* “Headaches are caused by an Advil deficiency”

* Beware Wellbutrin

* Gothic SSRI withdrawal

* “I never boned a cabbie … that I’m aware of.”

* That time Sarah went hypomanic …

* 1 in 4 American women are on anti-depressants

* The hormones and menopause of it all

* “Fuck you, person at Whole Foods!”

* Big Pharma / Big Food = same playbook, different expression

* “Do you bake with yeast?”

* WTF with Pol Pot?

Plus, boozy cupcakes, a coyote sighting, was Tom Cruise right about pharmaceuticals — and much more!

This one’s a banger! Listen to the whole shebang when you become a paid subscriber.

Nancy has a “virus of unknown origin” while Sarah is rarin’ to go on a story she sunk her teeth into years ago: the trials of Harvey Weinstein, this time, his current NYC re-trial for criminal sexual acts. (His previous NY conviction was overturned in April 2024.)

The Weinstein case is interesting, because most people think they know it, but they really just know the salacious details and hype of early-#MeToo media stories. The criminal case against Weinstein — particularly in New York, though he was convicted in LA, too — is a murkier thing, littered with ambiguous exchanges, years-long relationships and rides on private planes. Weinstein may be a “sexual pig, an opportunist, a philanderer and a bully,” but does that mean the women accusing him played no role in this? And if not, what does that say about all that women’s “empowerment” we keep hearing about?

Also discussed:

* Ethan Strauss brings the rain

* Is Taylor Lorenz monstrous? Troubled? Both? Nancy and Sarah discuss

* Sarah used to make jokes about crack babies (in college, y’all!)

* Rejected from a threesome? Yeah, that happened

* Ronan Farrow: It all begins with mom

* “Candace Rogan” ???

* 2020: Let’s not put people in prison! Also 2020: Men accused of #MeToo crimes should go to prison!

* Who will play Jessica Mann in the “American Crime Story” version of the Weinstein trials? Who, Harvey?

* Should Harvey take the stand?

* Gloria Allred’s daughter learned from the best

* Sarah does not have an extra-large vagina

* The sigh of Russell Brand exhaustion

* Diddy may be going to prison forever

* The genius of Don DeLillo

Plus, Sarah and Nancy discover they both just started gardens from seeds (so satisfying!), Polish women are the hottest on the planet, cunnilingus as weapon, and much more!

First Sunday Zoom is this Sunday! June 1, 8pmET/5pmPT. Paid subscribers (come on, now!) get link the day-of.

Real empowerment comes from being a paid subscriber

Meanwhile over on YouTube …

Episode Notes:

So this happened:

How it started/how it’s going

“Exclusive interview: Harvey Weinstein’s youngest accuser speaks out” (News Nation Now interview with Kaja Sokola)

“Weinstein Trial to Shift to Defense After 3rd Accuser’s Striking Account,” by Hurubie Meko (New York Times)

“Medical expert talks about erectile dysfunction shot at Harvey Weinstein’s NYC sex assault retrial” (New York Daily News)

Yes, we’ve been down this road…

… and yet there seems always more to learn from the pivots and how they are/are not explained to the public

“Harvey Weinstein and the Death Rattle of #MeToo,” by Kat Rosenfield (Free Press)

Forty Bucks and a Dream: Stories from Los Angeles, by Nancy Rommelmann

What’s in your hot box?

Sarah:

Nancy:

Libra, by Don DeLillo

REMINDER: Subscribe to our YouTube channel (it’s free). Even better: Watch it.

Happy Memorial Day! Nancy and Sarah discuss a Columbia Journalism Review bombshell about the alleged sexual misdeeds of journalist Wes Lowery, who shot to fame during the Black Lives Matter era and is perhaps best known for popularizing the idea of journalism guided by “moral certainty.”

This is hot one! Sarah gets kneejerk over blackout confusion, Nancy doesn’t understand “situationships,” and they argue over the definition of “glory hole.” Whether Lowery is guilty of these misdeeds we can’t say, but we both hope #metoo stories start to pivot away from “tearing someone down” to pointing to a better way to engage with people you love/bone/covet/teach/mentor/etc.

Also discussed:

* The latest Mission: Impossible — wanna guess who liked it?

* A blender full of stunts, frappéd

* When did we start celebrating Memorial Day?

* The smell of a nuclear submarine (let’s ask Sarah’s brother)

* SLEEP BUFFET!!!!

* Ken Burns’ theory on binary thinking shaped by computer code

* Fifth Column + Lowery = “exactly what you want from mega-minds”

* Buying a woman a drink: Predatory behavior — or kick-ass?

* Do people get roofied? Yes, but way less than hype suggests

* How dating fell apart

* Assholes vs. criminals / regret sex vs. rape

* The sad and endless hamster wheel of the compulsively sexual male

* When Sarah was a drunk bully …

* Slutdom during Nancy’s “Eddie Vedder years”

* Rise of violence on on the left: To be continued!

Plus, Nancy has a request for sociopaths, Sarah makes a hopeless pass at Douglas Murray — and much more!

Memorialize the day you became a paid subscriber…

Ethan Strauss is a straight shooter in a (slightly) crooked profession. As a writer who follows sports and culture, the Substacker and podcaster has a land grab on pointing out things that others have become reluctant to acknowledge. He talks with Nancy and Sarah about the contradictions of the WNBA, the popularity of Caitlin Clark and the reluctance of sneaker brands to give her a shoe (at least first), how men have changed the audience for women’s sports, and NBA teams as a mini-Game of Thrones, replete with palace intrigue. We also discuss Bill Belichick and his very young girlfriend Jordon Hudson, third-runner-up to Miss Maine.

REMINDER: Don’t forget our whisper-soft launch over on YouTube! Please subscribe to the SMOKE EM channel, which costs you nothing and brings us joy.

Also discussed:

* “Nancy knows she’s a narcissist”

* When selfies kill (mostly men) …

* Do all sports announcers sound like Marv Albert?

* Why authors hated when Stanley Kubrick made movies of their books

* Sports betting meets the WNBA

* “Girls can do anything” era meets “Girls can’t win” era

* Vanessa Bryant, Kobe Bryant’s widow, may NOT the best person to negotiate the future of her late husband’s brand, but please don’t aggregate this.

* Sorry, Dirk, we don’t buy shoes for centers

* Luka, the hot girlfriend Dallas lost

* Why people can’t leave Bill Belichick’s age gap relationship alone

* “Did he get a real blowjob, and lose his mind?”

* The most romantic philosophy book Belichick ever signed

* Viagra, the body hack with consequences

* That time Sarah matched with a silver fox who was 72 …

* The Boomers won’t leave!

* Did Kerry really love Logan on Succession?

* The problem of an aging father who is also single

* Which former NFL superstar hangs around Dallas’s Katy Trail without his shirt on, chatting up the ladies?

* The surprisingly tender story of Anna Nicole Smith’s old rich husband

* The best role Tom Cruise ever played, and it’s not Magnolia

Plus, why Nike should have made an ad about girl dads, that time Nancy discovered Steve Nash, Ethan doesn’t know how Australians learn to read, and much more!

NOTE: Ethan’s new show, RANDOM OFFENSE, premieres this Friday at 4pmET/1pmPT. Fancy Pommelmann will be there, and you come too!

LOVE WINS, when you become a paid subscriber.

Before we talk about this episode: Pretty-please go to YouTube and subscribe to our new channel. It costs you nothing! It could give you so much joy! Now, on to the show:

Nancy and Sarah go deep on the Sean Combs case, thus inspiring them to slap the first warning label on a Smoke ‘Em episode. This one’s explicit! It’s also sad, confusing, funny-depressing, one more cautionary tale about fame, money, and power. They talk about the recent conviction of Gerard Depardieu, the one-time Casanova of French cinema who confessed in the course of his trial that he was “ill suited for the current era.”

Also discussed:

* Age of consent laws are wild

* France reckons five years later

* Zut alors, the jerk lawyer in that Depardieu case!

* Nancy needs seven showers

* Mise en place, mise en scene …

* Cowboys 4 Angels

* Baby oil, so much baby oil

* Dan Savage, you’re our last hope

* “But I don’t want to go to a Brazilian steakhouse!”

* The backstory behind that violent March 2016 footage in the hotel

* Beware the scared man who fears his woman is getting too powerful

* Does the public have a right to see Diddy freak-off footage? Nancy: Yes. Sarah: No. Wanna guess who would watch it, though?

* Nancy flirts with victim-blaming, pulls back from the brink

* Send hate mail to Gavin de Becker

* But what is sex trafficking?

* Nancy tells a tragic story about an old acquaintance

* A drinking problem starts as a drinking solution

Plus, the book that is blowing Sarah’s mind, Nancy’s magical trip to a land before time, altogether too much freaking off, and much more!

Because we’ll never cover you in baby oil (unless you ask nice) — become a paid subscriber

Poet and author Nick Flynn joins Nancy and Sarah to talk about poems that blew his mind, the destabilizing experience of watching your life re-enacted in a movie (his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City became Being Flynn with Robert DeNiro, Julianne Moore, and Paul Dano), why DeNiro demanded Nick be on set, riding in a limo to said set with the young Dano, and why white male writers are alive and well, at least in the classes he teaches.

“The poets I’ve met are assholes,” Sarah confesses to Nick, although upon further reflection, it’s more like the assholes really stand out. Nick isn’t friends with assholes, but he does know many amazing poets, including Marie Howe, who just won the Pulitzer.

Also discussed:

* Sarah hates poetry, then proceeds to recite poetry

* Nick defends Robert Frost

* Pantyhose vending machines at Hooters

* The surprising diversity, art/dining scene of Houston

* Nick reads “Bag of Mice,” blows our minds

* “Aristotle did not promise writing would be cathartic”

* The greatness of Lili Taylor, better known to Nick as his wife

* Who will play Nancy in the movie?

* What’s Amy Adams doing in, oh-say, two or three years?

* Houston museums! Iranian films! Barn dance!

* Sinners is a must-see, but…

* … not a lot of love for Black Panther on this podcast

Plus, Nick yells at a marriage therapist, why making stuff is dangerous, a rare sighting of Nancy’s daughter in the wild, and much more!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not become a paid subscriber — oh no, wait you can:

Stop what you are doing and subscribe to Smoke ‘Em’s new YouTube! Right now yes thank you. On to our regular program!

Nancy and Sarah are joined by culture critic/novelist Kat Rosenfield to talk about who we can blame for our current morass: Social media? Heterodox thinkers? Everyone? The trio end up discussing the difference between activism and storytelling, what it means to be “disingenuous,” Kat’s Twitter beef with Cathy Young, writer’s envy (or maybe just Sarah’s envy), and Kat’s long-promised kimono, a gift for her most-frequent-guest status, which has not been bought yet (ed note: Sarah glares at Nancy).

Trump’s 100 Days: How did we get here? And if we all got into this together, can we get out together, too?

Also discussed:

* Three votes for the moon

* Surprise cat appearance!

* Trump “corrupts his allies and deranges his opponents in a way that makes the culture worse.”

* Why categorizing anyone as “anti-anti Trump” is axiomatically corrupt

* Ambiguity frightens people.

* Losing friends for speaking up

* Dick Cavett, the Joe Rogan of his day

* Politics as a litmus test for moral character

* England, don’t stick your dick in a box of badgers

* Dad-Bod-Gate

Plus, Sarah offers a poignant quote from Milan Kundera (or maybe Instagram; whatever), Nancy unintentionally inaugurates a “Hate Thing of the Week” feature, the problem with men wearing teensy-tiny pants, and much more!

REMINDER: Paid subscribers can join us this Sunday, May 4, for our First Sunday Zoom, 5pm PT / 8pm ET, link sent out day-of!

It’s already May! Looks like the perfect month for you to become a paid subscriber.

Reliable, beautiful and bright candidate that wasn’t on the ballot (though Kat wrote it in)

Also discussed:

* The Smoke ‘Em guests that riled up listeners

* Ross Douthat “places his finger on the deep wound”

* We love a dorky wedding!

* Pop quiz for Nancy: Pronounce “swastika”

* Our 2025 guest wish list: we’re looking at you, Douglas Murray.

* Conclave, cleavage, whatever

* Mike Pesca and his “New Substack” panic button

* “Don’t put it down, put it away …”

* Nancy will never lose her contempt for Bernadine Dohrn

* The hotness of Diego Luna

* The hotness of Tom Hardy

* Nancy’s mom

* POP ROCKS!

Plus, things that are sexy: men who take the lead, flying toward the story, pleather, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss the continuing saga of Luigi Mangione, newly minted folk hero and alleged assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “Here’s this man who is a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, he’s smart, he’s a person who seems like a morally good man, which is hard to find,” said journalist Taylor Lorenz on CNN, and while there was some context to that comment, there wasn’t much. At Coachella, Circle Jerks’ frontman Keith Morris called for an “army of Luigis,” while folk singer Jesse Welles is selling out venues with his Luigi-inspired song “United Healthcare.” Nancy and Sarah talk about anti-heroes, the politics of protest music, the catharsis of Netflix, and why our culture has a hard-on for murderers.

Also discussed:

* Would you go to space?

* Why wasn’t Oprah on that flight?

* Nancy’s Circle Jerks encounter

* Sarah eats two-week old steak. Pays the price.

* Cody Balmer is no Luigi Mangione — or is he?

* Taylor Lorenz is one strange bird

* Luxembourg, Rosenberg, same diff …

* Missing Ross Perot

* Sarah confuses Dallas Morning News baseball writer Evan Grant with Ryan Murphy favorite/teen heartthrob Evan Peters …

* Weinstein case = can of worms with snakes inside

* Sarah tells a dad joke, stands behind it

* Someone looks like four miles of bad road

* Candace Owens, if we must

* You gotta put batteries in your vibrator

Plus, Clyde Barrow was not impotent, ChatGPT roasts Sarah and Nancy, a special friend-of-the-pod on Bill Maher this Friday, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss former “Shagger of the Year” Russell Brand, who’s been charged with sexual misconduct, a year or two after an explosive documentary landed on British TV about the comedian/entertainer/podcaster/New-Age guru. That show kicked off a criminal investigation, now headed to the courts.

Brand is at once an obvious and peculiar #MeToo target, since he was so outspoken about his misdeeds in real time, including a memoir about his sex addiction called My Booky Wook. The ladies discuss changing cultural climates, why women are drawn to charming reprobates, the logic of age-of-consent laws, and the appropriate legal consequences for someone who behaved badly and got lavishly rewarded for it.

Also discussed:

* Are Americans horny for anger, or is it just our Twitter feeds?

* Disinhibited by a nap, Sarah falls into Twitter spat

* Carrie Coon stans came to win

* The spitfire that is (recent Smoke ‘Em guest!) Meghan McCain

* Sarah regrets editing out a line about Russell Brand asking about panties

* “Attention hunger”

* The late great David Carr

* “Feeding the fat kid” into perpetuity

* Beware the older man saying, “I want to buy you a dress and take you out in it.” Honeytrap!

* Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver screenwriter, should have known better

* Sarah challenges Kmele Foster to an “antic conversation”

* “It’s dudes all the way down.”

Plus, Sarah tries to explain a “vacation hat,” Nancy nominates Tom Hardy for perennial “Sexiest Man Alive,” a pic of where dozens of your favorite podcasters have peed, and much more!

Correction: Nancy said the tariffs had wiped out $10 trillion in “debt,” when she meant to say “wealth.” Management regrets the error, while thinking she might have been wish-casting …

Liz Wolfe, Reason writer/podcaster, joins Nancy and Sarah to talk about the mess of politics, the value of free speech, and how to talk about parenting in a world where fewer and fewer women are parents. Wolfe is not your average 28 year old: Unapologetically pro-life and pro-natalist as a time when many in her generation haven’t even started contemplating freezing their eggs. Or, in the case of singer Chappell Roan, 27, they might tell an interviewer, “All of my friends who have kids are in hell. I actually don’t know anyone who’s happy and has children at this age.”

Liz has thoughts!

With her surfboard in the background and her toddler occasionally in her lap, Liz talks about choices, wonders, border chaos, her Catholic faith, reproductive tech, and why she’s pleased that Grok compared her to Kat Timpf.

Also discussed:

* Happy Liberation Day?

* Grok summarizes your narrators, and Sarah gets grumpy

* Nancy’s alter-ego has a pie in her backpack, with a gun

* Truth Czar, Disinformation Chief … have the American people not suffered enough?

* Sarah is pissed on Matt Taibbi’s behalf

* Talk to your hairdresser about the New York Times …

* Warren Beatty quote: “One of the nice things God does is, he does not let people who don't have kids know what they're missing.”

* Chappell Roan, a second-rate Lady Gaga

* “Ambiguous loss”

* Will Sarah have a kid on her own?

* Do NOT call Nancy a single mother

* Unrealistic expectations about our fertility window

* “I bite Mama!”

Plus, sliding out of Obama-era liberalism, the hazards of toxic empathy, poop under your fake nails, and much more!

Investigative reporter Lee Fang talks with Nancy and Sarah about his latest Substack story, “Democrats' Dark Money Fund for TikTok Influencers,” about secret forces behind the sudden media enthusiasm of Kamala Harris’ presidential announcement. “As it turns out, the tidal wave of enthusiasm was not entirely genuine. Much of the content,” writes Fang, “was quietly funded by an elusive group of Democratic billionaires and major donors in an arrangement designed to conceal the payments from voters.”

Fang may be familiar to listeners from a kerfuffle in summer 2020, when his colleagues at The Intercept turned on him publicly after he tweeted about riots amid the George Floyd moment. Fang talks about how he came to journalism, how to remain an honest broker, and why he’s fascinated by the money behind power.

Also discussed:

* “Tits,” “rack,” and “bosom” all on-air in record time!

* Fang, raised on WaPo and cereal

* The eerie brilliance of Michael Savage

* On being addicted to conservative radio

* Fitness bloggers and Mommy bloggers go pro-Kamala!

* Nancy has other thoughts about Kamala in the kitchen …

* Why do conservative voices dominate the podcast space?

* Kamala as “intersectional dream” and “where intersectionality goes to die”

* “Call Lee Daddy”

* Sarah’s been pimping Diet Coke for 20 years and got bupkis

* Going viral on Twitter. (Lee does not recommend.)

* Sarah repeatedly refers to “Twitter Files” as “WikiLeaks” (durr)

* That time Nancy and Lee went to Israel…

* Sarah dives back into Depp/Heard; comes back with new information!

* The possible Pfizer vaccine hold-up of 2020

Plus, Lee recounts “The Intercept Incident,” why dark money won’t see the light of day any time soon, Lee dispels conspiracy theories about him, and much more!

REMINDER: First Sunday Zoom is this Sunday, April 6, 8pm ET/5pm PT, for paid subscribers only. We’ll send the link day-of.

Watch the video that caused so much trouble for Lee but made him a better journalist. Become a paid subscriber …

Nancy and Sarah are joined by Aaron Gywn — paragon of good will on Twitter/X (follow at x.com/AmericanGwyn), literature professor, and author of numerous works of fiction, including The Cannibal Owl — to discuss a recent viral story in Compact Magazine, “The Vanishing White Male Writer.” We talk about shifts in publishing/culture, the trap of identity, and what great literature can do. Since Gwyn is a Cormac McCarthy expert, we also discuss the controversial 2024 Vanity Fair story about McCarthy and his muse, Augusta Britt.

Also discussed:

* The lost Pop Rocks episode

* St. Louis, cool town

* The epic beauty of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove

* “Jonathan Franzen is too much with us.”

* 2014, the cultural swing year

* The Michel Foucault of it all

* “Most of publishing is throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks.”

* Nancy needs to go to therapy

* Aaron’s message for writers: “If you want something, go get it.”

* “NICE TITS”

* Love and admiration for fiction writer Phil Klay

* Male writers trying to “reassure the reader that he is the right sort of white man.”

* On not getting over the 2008 death of David Foster Wallace

* Butt-chugging Infinite Jest

* How Ric Ocasek won Paulina Porizkova

* Drakkar Noir makes Sarah horny

* How Aaron reacts when caught in the tractor beam of beauty

* “I contain multi-tools”

* Mary Gaitskill, the honey badger of writers

Also, why Aaron cannot get fired up about anything that happened after 1876, how fiction writing is like ventriloquism, why we’re all broken but still deserve love, and much more!

Donald McNeil Jr., a 45-year New York Times veteran, comes on the pod to talk with Nancy and Sarah about … so much. The prompt was the recent NYT story, “We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives.” As the paper of record tries to come correct on Covid, we wanted to hear from the science journalist, one of the first to tell Americans about this strange thing called the coronavirus. A self-declared “cranky old-school” reporter, McNeil landed the story of his career in 2020 and became part of a team that won the Pulitzer. But by 2021, he was gone, amid scandal and speculation. He talks about the bizarre kerfuffle that led to his resignation, mean girl dynamics at the paper, being misled by scientists, and what we do and don’t know about Covid-19’s origins.

As McNeil wrote in Wisdom of Plagues, "Covid coarsened us as a nation... The coarsening cracks our national skin. It makes us more vulnerable to infection."

Also discussed:

* Nancy tries not to fangirl. She fangirls anyway.

* “It’s a great newspaper but it’s a second-rate corporation, and its personnel stuff is particularly bad.”

* The walk McNeil took with James Bennet, a year after both getting booted from the Times, is a play we’d like to see

* “Looks like Don nailed it. Let’s not tell him.” (!!!!!!)

* NYT brass on their writing staff: “Widgets made here.”

* Young turks vs. cranky old-timers in union leadership

* The Daily Beast and Gawker do not cover themselves in glory

* "The Western focus on personal liberty above all can kill."

* The Mike Pesca of it all

* The hope that Covid might “unite us with a common enemy” like WWII. Awww, what happened instead? We turned on each other.

* “Ecstasy is a very good drug to get you talking”

* McNeil = not a fan of Jay Battacharya

* Thoughts on RFK!

Plus, McNeil explains what “hot-box” once meant, where he thinks H5-N1 is going, how cancel culture is like the French Revolution, and much more!

Does McNeil think Covid-19 was engineered in a virology lab or evolved in the wet market? Paid subscribers find out!

As we mark the fifth (yes, fifth!) anniversary of Covid, Nancy and Sarah look back at the mistakes, the time warp, the lessons. While some of these experiences are collective, some are quite specific, especially in blue states where enforced lockdowns and school closures stretched on longer. Was the misery of that time period a symptom of authoritarianism — or democracy?

Big topic of the day: Ruby Franke, the Mormon mom with a YouTube channel currently serving time in prison for child abuse. A new docu-series on Hulu, Devil in the Family, connects the dots on how she got there. Nancy and Sarah talk toxic fundamentalism, mind control, sexual shaming, child abuse (and how it’s culturally constructed), and the ethics of talking/blogging/profiting from your children. We also watched the Baldwins’ new reality show, bless our hearts.

Also discussed:

* A crushing piece by a father on how COVID changed his young son

* Hitchhiking!

* The problems of safetyism

* Sarah’s secret petty side

* “Sorry I didn’t grow up in Appalachia…”

* JD Vance memes are fun for everyone!

* The ethics of writing/blogging about kids

* How Sarah disappointed Katie Herzog

* The vengeful figure of Jodi Hildebrant, therapist

* Visions of Glory, the controversial Mormon book

* We need to talk about Kevin

* Nancy teaches Sarah the meaning of “May-December” romance

* That time Alec Baldwin screamed at his daughter Ireland

* Bad fathers can make good grandfathers

Plus, a new theory on the Manson murders, Steve Kornacki’s secret identity as a Lifetime movie scribe, Senator Bob Kerrey on grace, and more!

Nancy and Sarah are joined by the Great Mike Pesca, one-time Jeopardy! contestant and host of news podcast The Gist, to talk about dudes and dude-related topics. They discuss men’s-only spaces and whether women’s workout wear has become hyper-sexualized (and is that a bad thing?). They also break down Gavin Newsom’s podcast debut with his guest, conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk. Good idea? Dangerous idea? It’s always a good time when Pesca visits the Smoke ‘Em pod.

Also discussed:

* In this house, we believe in peanut butter

* Booo, Daylight Savings Time

* A Pesca discourse on the copper content of pre- and post-1982 pennies

* Lady Gaga on Saturday Night Live

* High school Sarah had a crush on Mike Myers!

* What Lululemon did to women — and men

* Nancy does not like to see men without their shirts on!

* Curves is the Jenny Craig of gyms

* Why does a man buy a woman a steak?

* Sarah is the whore of Babylon Williamsburg

* Murder podcasts should not be snack food

* The RFK Salon story that had to be retracted

* Why do men dominate the podcast space?

* Theories on Chris Hayes

* Parker Posey’s Lorazepam accent

* Sadness and horror over Gene Hackman’s death

Plus, why Sarah said no to Megyn Kelly, the time Pesca thought Lady Gaga was a drag queen, a PSA to take care of your olds, and much more!

It’s always an hour earlier when you become a paid subscriber.

“It was a very bad night for American boobs,” Sarah observed of the 2025 Oscars, where a conspicuous fashion trend has gone mostly unnoticed. Nancy and Sarah are on record for believing boobs are magic, so why did so many gorgeous actresses hide their tractor beams under a bushel? Could it be a sign of fashion’s increasing androgyny… or Hollywood’s increasing irrelevance? Then, Nancy goes on a multi-part rant about the Tate brothers coming back to the U.S., while Sarah ponders how those two became avatars of American manhood. Finally: Body language in the Trump-Vance-Zelenskyy showdown.

Also discussed:

* McDonald’s serves the world’s best Diet Coke

* Please don’t tell Sarah you appreciate her

* 75% of Eagle Scouts are girls?

* “Your Dune 2 fan is not watching the Oscars.”

* “Boys just want the pretty girl in math class.”

* Is J.D. Vance being cast as the heavy?

* The end of reading?

* Don DeLillo was “a beautiful culmination of the 20th century.”

* Why Sarah shies away from talking politics

* Has news replaced our need to read tragedy?

Plus, Smoke gets a “Dear John” letter, the mystery of Gene Hackman’s death, and much more!

PS: Spare a thought/prayer for Kat Timpf, recently diagnosed with cancer, whose boobs are rightly being used right now only (or mostly!) to feed her newborn son. Love you Kitty Kat, godspeed xx

Actual footage of Sarah watching Oscar dresses on the red carpet …

Oscars fashion fun behind the paywall, only for paid subscribers …

Eli Lake is not a historian but a “journalist who loves history.” The former “Re-Education of Eli Lake” host and current Free Press contributor comes on Smoke for the second time to discuss his latest pop-history podcast, “Why We’re Obsessed with JFK Conspiracies.” As usual, Lake puts his own distinctive spin on a story that may have been told before, yes, but not this way.

First, though, Nancy and Sarah have to talk to Eli about Israel. Eli explains that what happened to the Bibas family has hardened his heart, but he’s trying not to let it radicalize him. We talk morals and ideologies, the horrors of war, and the necessities for civil society.

Also discussed:

* “A rabbit hole the country has never been able to climb out of”

* Eli teaches Sarah some Yiddish

* “If Baruch Goldstein had been Palestinian, they’d be naming schools after him.”

* Gaza-lago?

* On conspiracy susceptibility: “It’s either, ‘You’re a moron’ or, ‘How can you be so naive, kid?” And yet we want to believe …

* Eli coins new and helpful word: Mono-cause

* JFK is the “octopus conspiracy”

* Even LBJ thought something weird was going on …

* The unspeakable abuses exposed by the Church Committee

* We are a pro-Norman Mailer podcast!

* Nancy says something profound?

* Sarah quotes Timothee Chalamet award speech, nobody cares

* Editor’s note: Hal Ashby directed Harold and Maude

* Second editor’s note: Waylon Jennings sand Dukes of Hazzard theme song

* “What happened to normal movies?”

* The Emilia Perez kerfuffle is so 2020

Plus, Eli is such a good guest he brought his own outro (AND wrote Nancy a Sleater-Kinneyesque theme for her new interview series CHEFS TALK), Nancy and Sarah wrassle over what movie wins Best Picture, we imagine a woke Dukes of Hazzard, and much more!

You might know Meghan McCain from her stints at FOX, The View, SiriusFM, but surely you know her as the daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain. “Nepo baby!” McCain jokes during her podcast introduction, but McCain is much more than that. She’s a savvy media fixture who has very strong opinions about, well, everything. Nancy and Sarah like that in a gal! The three of them talk about politics, body image, #MeToo, and the vibe shift that has made conservatives cool for the first time in Meghan’s life.

Also discussed:

* “The most radical thing I’ve ever done is not dieting.”

* Thoughts on Ozempic

* Megababe for chub rub

* “Nobody was cooler than an Obama bro, and my dad tried to stop him.”

* Meghan on her dad: “He carpied the diem.”

* “The uptight, HR-department, school-marm dorks are the Democrats?”

* The anchoring sanity of The Fifth Column

* Aziz Ansari and Meghan’s #MeToo breaking point

* The cringe of working for Roger Ailes

* That time the New Yorker claimed Brett Kavanaugh was a gang rapist

* Friends we lost in the culture war …

* Austin: a lost paradise?

* Some love for Mark Halperin

* Immigration and the lack of humanity

* The heartbreak of the Bibas family

* Meghan gives “Texas babe vibes”

* LET’S GO TO THE RODEO

Plus, Meghan on what happened at Columbia (her alma mater), Nancy has a Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct moment, Sarah doesn’t think she’s a Bad Bitch, and much more!

“Would you have Elon Musk’s baby?” Sarah texted Nancy the other day, to which she responded, “Fuck no.” Thus launches the latest Smoke ‘Em debate, in which our co-host who is without child confesses she’d take some of that SpaceX sperm. Has she lost her mind, or is she merely responding to nature’s imperative? We discuss this, as well as Musk’s new babymama, Ashley St. Clair.

Then it’s on to a double-dip from New York Times Magazine: “Why Gen X Women are Having the Best Sex” and “How I Learned That the Problem in My Marriage Was Me.” Is 20th-century licentiousness dead? Has therapy bled too far into the culture?

Also discussed:

* Diet Pepsi > Diet Coke

* “On accident” vs. “by accident”?

* Sperm ice cubes at the 7-Eleven

* Milo Yiannopoulos has entered the chat

* Can you make yourself sexy or nah?

* Netchix and flill

* Nancy declares she does not like declarative sentences

* The saddest divorce book

* Why does Nancy get so annoyed when people talk about their sex lives?

* Sarah’s string of younger men

* Moynihan’s not kicking those bikini-clad girls out of bed

* Women have rage problems, too

* Announcement: CHEFS TALK!!!

* “The thing about Led Zeppelin songs is, none of the names make sense.”

Plus, the speedball of intimacy, the obsession with being obsessed, Nancy gets a crush on Jimmy Page, and much more!

Correction: Listener Mavis wrote: “In ‘Iphigenia in Forest Hills,’ she killed her child’s father, not her daughter!” Absolutely correct! Nancy regrets the error, and for more Janet Malcolm, see this week’s hot boxes

Nancy and Sarah celebrate Valentine’s Day with a civil disagreement on how stupid the holiday actually is. Also: Sex trivia! The conversation ranges from how people can masturbate in an MRI to Super Bowl controversies and the greatness of Janet Malcolm. Also discussed:

* All New Yorkers go to Miami?

* Sarah explains women to Nancy

* Gifts are not meant to be manipulations

* Kanye and AI nonsense

* “Swat-sticker” (!!!!!)

* Bill Gates on the upside of AI

* The low rattle of unhappiness

* Salmon sperm facials

* Tafv, we want your blood

* Something strange is afoot at the Kinsey Institute

* How often do people over 45 masturbate, and why is that number a lie?

* Orgasms in your sleep

* “How are you masturbating in an MRI?”

* Taylor Swift booed

* Farewell to the penny!! You served us well.

* Great new Janet Malcolm story by Katie Roiphe

* People vs. the story: A journalism debate!

“Ready to go ten rounds?” Nancy asked Sarah, when Sarah asked her to watch Emilia Pérez, a Spanish-language musical for which there is no shortage of agitation on both the right and the left. Trans activists hate it, Ben Shapiro called it garbage, Mexican film goers are apparently asking for their money back. And yet, the movie got a whopping 13 Oscar nominations. What gives?

Nancy reluctantly watched Emilia Pérez, and — was completely surprised. Her reaction was, in fact, very similar to Sarah’s. (That’s why Sarah wanted her to see it.) Is this wild, unconventional movie a triumph, a “glittering disaster,” a “trans Mrs. Doubtfire”? The answer is all of the above.

Also discussed:

* “Happy Monday!”

* Nancy fat-shames the poor widdle groundhog

* New coinage: “Western Time”

* Sarah’s pre-flight soul inventory is arduous

* “The denial of death shapes most people’s lives.”

* “House of Strauss” has the best theme music (and, ahem, the best guests)

* General Hospital, remembered

* We hate lecture films

* Why Emilia Perez makes sense as an opera

* Selena Gomez is like watching fourteen cupcakes shimmy around in a dress

* Johanne Sacreblue!

* The Pope version of Survivor

* Kieran Culkan is a bad-ass

Plus, Nancy writes a nice essay, Sarah is up for an award, what the hell is Groundhog’s Day, and much more!

Sarah and Nancy discuss the Atlantic story “The Anti-Social Century,” about how much of modern life is being lived in isolation. They talk about eating alone, parasocial relationships, and why Sarah feels completely nailed by the data point that “the typical female pet owner spends more time actively engaged with her pet than she spends in face-to-face contact with friends of her own species.”

Also discussed:

* Okay, we’ll talk about that thing Elon did

* Is the blue/gold dress the metaphor of our times?

* Trump is the candidate Americans built brick-by-brick

* Who did Nancy write-in for president 2024? This guy…

* Gotta agree with Sarah’s old roommate on the Kleenex thing

* Shark Tank love

* McLuhan: “Every augmentation is an amputation”

* Sarah finds listening to Jon Ronson is “deeply edifying”

* Nancy is impressed — again! — with the concept “skin hunger”

* Someone admits to watching Rock of Love

* Character.ai: Let us know if you’re using it!

* Late-breaking Oscar nominations

Plus, the generosity of David Lynch’s dreamscapes, “let me sell you a solution to a problem you didn’t know you had,” Sarah requests you send her postcards stating your favorite hm-hm-hm, and much more!

Reading Noah Rothman’s new piece in Commentary, “A Clockwork Blue: How the Left Has Come to Excuse Away and Embrace Political Violence,” I felt as though he had written it just for me; this, because he called to account institutions and individuals who proclaim violence from the left justified, a trend I found maddening when I covered 150+ nights of violent street protests in Portland in 2020.

And about that: How long did Rothman think that violence would have been explained away had it been committed by the right?

"Hours," he said.

In a discussion that calls out violence on all sides, Rothman addresses the roots of political barbarism, how the power of crowds can lead well-adjusted people to commit orgies of violence, the juvenile cop-out of making avatars of people in order to justify brutality against them, and some especial opprobrium for the intellectual and spiritual poverty that makes a hero of Luigi Mangione, who, weeks after murdering UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, was given a round of applause by an SNL audience.

“The point of this piece is a call for political consistency,” said Rothman. “Only when we have consistency will we see a decline in political violence.”

Noah Rothman is a senior writer for National Review. He is the author of Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America (Regnery, 2019) and The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun (HarperCollins, 2022). His work has been published in USA Today, the Washington Examiner, the New York Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. Follow on Twitter/X at NoahCRothman

Nancy and Sarah dive into the messy New York magazine cover story on literary superstar Neil Gaiman, accused of sexual assault by multiple women. The story broke over the summer in a British podcast — which Nancy and Sarah listened to, and much preferred — and they zero in on the story’s different presentations and ethical tangles. It’s a tale of celebrity, status-seeking, boundarilessness, and cruelty. But is it criminal? Let’s discuss.

Also discussed:

* Joe Biden made a speech

* Bathtub as flytrap

* If I serve you a steak, and you write to tell me you loved it, then logically do I:

* Serve you another steak

* Assume you don’t really like steak and only told me you did so we can keep hanging out

* Report me because I pressed the steak on you while knowing you hated steak

* What does logic have to do with it?

* To be clear: We are anti-vagina whipping

* Do women want sexual freedom, to be protected class — or both?

* Please don’t trot out experts to support your insupportable point

* Nancy knee-jerks over journalism

* Is consent really black and white? And if so, why has it spawned five million think pieces and hours of podcasts like this?

* Jon Ronson puts Sarah to sleep but “in a loving way.”

* “If my literary hero appeared to me when I was 22 when I happened to be hot and not a binge-drinking chubby lonely-heart watching Real World marathons while hungover on the futon …”

Plus, Sarah hates the “cup of tea” consent video, some love for fact-checkers, the 1-minute video that’s made Nancy laugh 20 times, and much more!

Be warned, beloveds: Lots of sex talk here; hide the kiddies and the squeamish. Also! Due to some ghost in the machine, our last episode, “Meghan Daum on What We've Lost in the Los Angeles Wildfires,” may have included a paywall that we did not put there. It is free for all, and it’s fixed now.

No worries if you haven’t seen “Babygirl,” the erotic drama wherein a tightly wound CEO with an Instagram-perfect life (Nicole Kidman) gets down and dirty with a much younger male intern (Harris Dickinson). Sarah and Nancy are discussing a lot more than just a movie: The nature of female desire, why domination fantasies are so taboo, and whether masochism is threaded into the female sexual experience. (Sweeping generalizations alert!)

Also discussed:

* Nancy’s name makes a comeback and she can’t take it

* Consent does not line up with desire

* The thing about negging is …

* Don Draper, feminist icon?

* All hail Showgirls, the best-worst movie ever

* Nancy likes to wrestle

* The orgasm gap

* Why does a man buy a woman a steak?

* Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden

* Define “hypergamy”

Plus, Nancy picks an “obscure book” for her hotbox only to find it has 105,000 reviews on Amazon, a male companion robot that looks like Harry Dean Stanton, “Freedom for Scotland!” and much more

Are there heretofore unexperienced pleasures when you become a paid subscriber? One way to find out

We might be paywalling this episode, but we’re not monsters…

“I am still waiting for my bathrobe, and until you give it to me, I am going to be forced to do this podcast in the nude,” Kat Rosenfield tells Nancy and Sarah, who really need to move on this gift they keep promising her for repeat appearances. Kat is here to discuss her recent Free Press column on Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, “a turducken of a story” about alleged misbehavior and creative control on the set of It Ends With Us. The stars’ dueling legal documents lit up social media over the holidays, but it’s … confusing. Kat sees it less as a “he said/she said," and more of a battle of PR narratives.

Also discussed:

* But who is Colleen Hoover?

* “I have a series of really hot takes…”

* Justin Baldoni: sexy or nah?

* Nancy likes a dad bod

* Is asking someone what they weigh “fat-shaming”?

* “I have been taken on a journey of eroticism and repulsion, and that’s what I count on you for…”

* Shades of Depp-Heard

* Megan Twohey strikes again

* “Astro-turfed pseudo-consensus”; rolls right off the tongue

* How to pronounce “simulacram”?

* Reflexive outrage: what is it good for?

* Wait, that’s not Markle’s kitchen?

* Ascribing a richness of interior life to people that they neither have nor deserve

Plus, dry cake, Nancy’s failing face, a movie trailer that gives all the cringes, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah share their highs and lows from the year that was. Which movie did Nancy love, and Sarah despise? (Hint: It’s not the Bob Dylan movie.) Which book did Sarah love, even though Nancy finds the author “twee”? Plus, Sarah quizzes Nancy about momentous events in 2024, and Nancy mostly bombs, no cap.

Also discussed:

* “It’s always butter with you”

* Was Joan Baez that hot?

* The movie that set both Sarah and Nancy’s nerves on edge

* What live televised event got a Taylor Swift bump?

* Who was that guy that bombed at the Golden Globes, again?

* Big love for Andy Mills

* No Problematic Coffee

* “As a childless cat lady …”

* Michael Moynihan’s Melania impersonation gets a run for its money

Plus, knee-jerk Nancy on the year’s worst politician, Sarah panic-votes for macaroni and cheese, and more!

It’s the end of 2024, and Sarah and Nancy wonder if two recent media phenomena represent a paradigm shift in two areas: porn and the collective consciousness. On one side: “I’m Lily Phillips, and today I’m getting run through by a hundred guys.” On the other side: “This groundbreaking series challenges everything we think we know about communication and the human mind, inviting viewers to step into a reality where the impossible is not only possible but happening every day.”

Yes, we’re talking about the YouTube documentary I Slept With 100 Men in One Day and the podcast The Telepathy Tapes, exploring the potentially telepathic abilities of nonverbal autists. What do these two things have in common? Join us to find out, in a conversation that veers from unexpected sex toys to Carl Jung. Also, Nancy cries about something other than journalism.

Also discussed:

* Nancy pens a viral tweet!

* The how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet debate

* Wait, there are drones over LA, too?

* Sarah wants Nancy to start an OnlyPans page

* The orange street cone goes into WHAT, now?

* Lily Phillips’ understatement of the year: “I don’t know if I’d recommend it”

* The arrogance of thinking we know everything about science

* When Freud and Jung parted ways …

* Babe Paley’s husband

Nancy and Sarah discuss the very online experience of watching both the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the capture of the man named as his killer, Luigi Mangione. We discuss the memes, conspiracies, tasteless jokes, and crushes on the alleged shooter. Did the tragic incident offer a pressure-valve release to Americans frustrated by a limping healthcare system, or is it an inflection point for something more dangerous? And how should we feel when murder becomes entertainment?

Also discussed:

* The Daniel Penny verdict

* The floating-in-space feeling between election and inauguration

* Activism ain’t what it used to be

* “Will you forgive me for loving to say his name?”

* Piers Morgan, the Jerry Springer of political shows

* “The brain is a dangerous thing”

* Bonnie & Clyde and glamorous crime

* “Desire knows no ethics”

* The detail that helps Luigi Mangione’s capture in a McDonald’s make sense

* Caitlin Flanagan, the master storyteller

* “What will survive of us is love”

* Did Sonny Liston take a dive?

Plus, Sarah’s brain makes “popcorn” in the middle of the night, Nancy thinks CBD makes her sing better, Ben Dreyfuss talks with Taylor Lorenz (let’s listen), and more!

As the poet says, what will survive of us is love. As the podcasters say, we survive only if you become a paid subscriber

Smoke ‘Em welcomes favorite repeat guest and self-proclaimed “absolute newspaper romantic” Matt Welch. He talks with Nancy and Sarah about whether legacy papers can ever make a comeback and how they ignore local news at their own peril, plus whether civility might be on the upswing.

Also discussed:

* Pink hair don’t care

* How the Los Angeles Times “changed the physical landscape of the West.”

* Scott Jennings joins the editorial board at the LA Times. And?

* “Like perestroika, incivility starts in the home”

* They’re still counting votes in California!

* Is activism dead or just sleeping?

* “Throw any Russian in a skirt at Hegseth and he’s going to loosen his tie”

* “A dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president …”

* Meghan McCain, flashpoint

* “Mono-politics is bad for governance”

* Maybe people should disengage from politics and take up streaking and fart books?

* People who voted for Kamala, but were pulling for Trump?

* Nancy thinks “raw-dogging” means …

* Sarah interviews Ken Burns, American treasure

Also, a wretched New York Times “Ethicist” question, thoughts on why Biden pardoned his son, dick-shaped cookie cutters, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah discuss two recent dust-ups between men and women: One is fraught and potentially career-damaging, the other is (arguably) romantic, but also potentially legacy-damaging. Trump’s nominee to lead the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is facing scandal that stems from a 2017 encounter at a Republican women’s convention, and the details are … confusing? Don’t really add up? Then we discuss the secret muse of Cormac McCarthy, 64-year-old Finnish lass Augusta Britt, who shares the story of her underage love affair (and lifelong connection) with McCarthy in a Vanity Fair story that was much-loved and much-trashed. Wanna guess where we fell?

Also discussed:

* Can anyone pronounce the last name Hegseth?

* The detail that brought the case together for Nancy

* Never name your bar “Knuckles”

* What if he were in a blackout, and she wasn’t …

* Cock-clock, crotch-block, what?

* The two foods all men love

* “We don’t get enough Finnish chutzpah”

* “Well baby, that’s what I do. I’m a writer.”

* Nancy just keeps vibrating

* Purple prose? Bring it

* The case of Joyce Maynard

* Sarah is really mad at Wicked

Plus, controversy over a writer’s hair, Nancy’s stuffing recipe, and more!

After a brief discussion of the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight, Nancy and Sarah talk about health, weight, and other confusions. The inspiration is a recent New York Times story that three-quarters of Americans are overweight or obese, a report that coincides with the rise of new gurus like Dr. Casey Means, who recently appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher to talk about how little doctors understand nutrition and why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be a disruptor in the Department of Health. (Debatable.) Sarah, who has struggled with weight most of her life, expresses frustration at the mixed messages around eating. Nancy, who carried 20 extra pounds as a young woman, wonders how much people let weight keep them in a holding pattern.

Also discussed:

* JerryWorld!

* Was the fight fixed?

* “You gotta let people take their shot.”

* One word: Plastics

* Glucose monitors?

* The U.S. state with the most obese women is …

* To Ozempic, or not to Ozempic?

* Bill Maher is never backing down from January 6

Plus, Sarah gets a walking desk, a new Taylor Sheridan show drops, Nancy’s daughter has a doppelganger, and more!

“I didn’t transition to replace cis women in sports,” begins Brianna Wu, the straight-shooter who chats with Sarah and Nancy this week. “I transitioned because I wanted to get along.” Joined by Kelly Cadigan, who co-hosts their new podcast “Dollcast,” both women talk openly about the frustration of watching the trans civil rights conversation hijacked by extremists, pitting people against each other. We discuss how the election may have been affected by the trans issue, the challenge of integrating trans women into sports, and what a more sane approach to dealing with trans minors might look like.

Also discussed:

* The newest member of Sarah’s family

* Gamergate

* Brianna just wants to have lunch uptown

* Vaginoplasty, actually rare among trans women

* “You do not want to know me without HRT”

* The nonbinary phenomenon

* “I don’t have any delusions I’m a biological woman, just admit I’m a kind of woman, albeit a weird one.”

* 15 is terrible for every girl!

* “It’s dangerous for me to out myself.”

* Who drank the Zionism super-serum?

Plus, the conundrum of granting grace, the hope that we’ve reached a reset on conversations, the sexiness of Seth Moulton, and more!

Rats in the walls, ghosts in the bull rushes and some extreme reactions to the election of Donald Trump as president. What to do? Swear off sex? Buy a blue bracelet at Target? Excise at least 53% of Americans from your life? Sounds tragic. Maybe what we need is a child actress from the ‘80s to deliver some common sense …

Also discussed:

* A 🌹 is code for …

* Worry is not useful

* When a protest for sexual freedom becomes a vow of chastity

* Say “blue bracelet” three times fast

* Top o’ the morning, I doff my blue top hat

* Nancy wants the ladies to “bring their bushels”

* Joy Reid gonna Joy Reid

* Young men and #MeToo

* Justine Bateman’s cri de coeur

Plus: A fond farewell to “A Special Place in Hell,” Nancy pronounces the word “pianist” a lot like a DIFFERENT word, and Sarah studies up for this week’s biggest! boxing! event! of all time!

Trump won, Kamala lost. People have feelings about this (including us). But it’s not going to get easier imagining that 50% of Americans are racists, misogynists, or whatever other -ist can be deployed to explain how Republicans pulled off a stunning victory on Tuesday, which some worry is ushering in an unprecedented period of darkness…

As it turns out, the sun rose! And Nancy and Sarah talk about What Happened: Are people uncomfortable with a woman leading? How big a factor was abortion? Do people just want change?

Also discussed:

* “Hollywood lost its grip on the popular imagination.”

* Polling: What is it good for?

* I mean we like Queen Latifah too, but …

* Sarah once wrote a column called “Crying in Restaurants”

* Trump announced during his acceptance speech that Melania’s book was #1. Does it shock anyone that this is not exactly the case?

* What’s up with all the crying videos?

* “Shut up, Mom!”

* Some love for Brianna Wu

* Is kissing cheating?

* Wishing our pal Steve Kornacki a nap

Plus, some day-after podcasts that made sense of the election, an eye-popping new Netflix bio on Martha Stewart, and a bonus video of … Eli Lake dancing?

Also discussed:

* Is Jaws a horror movie: a debate!

* Nancy’s almost-star turn in said same movie

* 2023’s #1 Halloween costume

* Alligators in the sewers: real or urban myth?

* The movie image that freaked out 12-year-old Sarah

* The devil’s entrance from hell was in … Nancy’s dad’s apartment?

* Everyone is afraid of one of these: snakes, rats or …

* Small planes have a better chance of survival?

* “The guy with the pin cushions in his face.”

* Elevator shaft close calls

* “The line between blooper reel and tragedy is very thin”

Plus, how to swim out of a riptide, Nancy does a Vincent Price impersonation, Sarah’s top scary movie, and much more!

First Sunday — and last call before the election — Zoom: For paid subscribers, this Sunday, November 3, 8pmET/5pmPT. Bring your predictions, your fears, what’s left of your kids’ Halloween candy and/or something stronger.

It was a dark and stormy night when you finally became a paid subscriber …

Forgot to mention: Our pal Michael Moynihan will be on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this Friday. Last show before the election should be a doozy.

Episode Notes:

“Bannon's Prison Sentence Is Over and He Has Nothing New To Say,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)

“Highest Grossing Horror Movies of All Time,” by Travis Bean (Forbes)

“What Are Americans Really Afraid Of?” Chapman University survey

Americans’ #1 fear? Corrupt politicians. In related news …

“Alligators in the sewer myth is true: City workers find out in jaw-dropping video,” by Ben Cost (New York Post)

Thank you, Stephen King

What’s in your hot box?

Sarah: Stoner, by John Williams

Nancy: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, by Simon Schama

Sarah picks the outro

“The election is a week from tomorrow, thank God,” says Sarah, speaking for the rest of us, feeling as though we are Danny in The Shining and the candidates are the twins…

We take a break from political news (well, kind of) to talk about two recent TV distractions: Anatomy of Lies, a three-part docuseries about the bundle of fraudulence that was Grey’s Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch, and Woman of the Hour, a tense Netflix drama directed by and starring Anna Kendrick and based on the real-life story of a serial killer contestant on The Dating Game.

Also discussed:

* Tony Hinchcliffe’s very bad joke

* Nancy wants the media to use more precise language

* Joe Rogan podcast: Trump has logorrhea

* Be careful what you say in the supermarket …

* Andie MacDowell and the afterlife

* A side effect of knee surgery replacement is … obsessive lying?

* What with all the serial killers?

* Should we watch the Menendez Brothers documentary?

Plus, Sarah can’t go anywhere without being recognized, Nancy has a question about crossing over, a very enthusiastic hot box recommendation, and much more!

Correction: Nancy initially said the pro-Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden took place in 1939, then changed it to 1936. Right the first time!

First Sunday — and last call before the election — Zoom: For paid subscribers, this Sunday, November 3, 8pmET/5pmPT. Bring your predictions, your fears, what’s left of your kids’ Halloween candy and/or something stronger.

Our girl Nancy has a birthday this week, and we know the perfect gift:

Let’s say you want to promote a book and you have a little ad money to burn. If you are author and communications consultant Melanie Notkin, you might contact Shelf Awareness, which sends free newsletters to, per its Instagram bio, “booksellers, librarians, publishers, book collectors, literary antiquarians, and everyone else who loves to read.” Shelf Awareness publisher Matt Balducci was happy to run the promo, for the U.S. release of Bernard-Henri Lévy's latest book… until two days later, when he emailed Melanie to say they were cancelling the ad.

“I’ve never been denied the ability to pay for an ad in any outlet,” says Notkin, who knew, before she spoke with Balducci — a conversation Notkin recorded — that he was backing out because of one of the words in the book’s two-word title, and it wasn’t “Alone.”

Francesca Block at The Free Press reported on the story earlier today. Here, Notkin picks up the conversation, including:

* Is the anti-Israeli movement contracting or going underground?

* Pro tip: When you basically tell someone you’re caving to the mob, maybe try not to sound patronizing

* The shadow-banning of books and authors leads nowhere good

* Quick: A group of masked people on the subway chant, “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist!” What do you do?

* “I don’t want to live in a world where my friend denounces me.”

* #nevershuttingup

Plus, big love for Douglas Murray, when intolerance becomes a show of valor, and did casual Fridays ruin everything?

Greetings from Nancy’s 31st hotel room! Our roving reporter is on the scene in Asheville, North Carolina, where she gives Sarah the scoop on hurricane damage, what the politicized coverage has gotten wrong, and why it’s good to live near churches when catastrophe strikes. The two of them talk Ted Cruz vs. Colin Allred, as well as Kamala Harris vs. Bret Baier. Then it’s on to the New York Times’ latest story on University of Michigan’s DEI double-down.

Also discussed:

* What up with those shower half-doors?

* Fewer “talking points” Kamala, more Feisty Kamala

* Name someone more weasely than Ted Cruz. We’ll wait …

* “Whore’s bath”???

* FEMA controversy = not that controversial

* Does DEI cause plane crashes?

* How long will colleges ignore the ROI?

* Anatomy of Lies: Next week’s topic?

* What does it say about us that we love exposing liars?

Plus, the problem with the docu-series, the man who puts Sarah to sleep every night, Nancy needs a bath, and more!

“The path to success may not always be easy, but with determination and courage, you can achieve your dreams.” So writes Melania Trump (or ChatGPT?) on page 34 of the memoir released yesterday by the former first lady. And we have questions! Such as, did any of the Big Five publishers bid on the book? Who wrote Melania’s memoir and has she seen it? Is Donald Trump, as portrayed here, actually made out of wood?

Also discussed:

* Every Ta-Nahesi Coates interview doesn’t need to be a tongue bath

* Nancy’s turning point with Palestinian protestors

* Will Melania’s pro-choice position sway undecided voters?

* But really: No way is Donald Trump pro-life

* Why did Skyhorse, which published Melania, demand $250,000 when CNN asked for an interview?

* “Who gives a fuck about Chrismas decoration?”: Melania caught on hot mic

* The explanation of that weird “I don’t care, do you?” fashion moment

* Point-counterpoint: Was Melania truly out of the loop on January 6?

* Melania’s plastic surgery

* The case for the middle ground on abortion

* How to get “maximum spillage and bobble”

Plus, the viral performance artist imitating trash bags, the disturbing face-eating disease Nancy brings up at the last moment (why?!), some love for FIRE, and more!

Nancy here. It is the 29th of September, 2024, and I'm going to take us back a few years to, February 24th, 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine and started a war that is ongoing. We are going to hear from two people in Lviv, Ukraine, and by way of introduction, I'd thought I’d tell you how I know them.

I wound up in Ukraine on March 4th of 2022, a little over a week after the war started. I got over there simply because I wanted to go. Michael Moynihan of The Fifth Column podcast was then at Vice News. He was going to be heading over and I said, Hey, can I tag along with your crew? He said, sure. But then his trip was delayed.

I had already bought my ticket, so I headed over alone. I'm not a war correspondent, and I was only in Ukraine for about a week, so I'm not telling you some super-secret anything, but it is the case that you learn very quickly what the fog of war means, because nobody really knows what's going on. Modes of communication had been cut. I don't speak Ukrainian. It was a tense time, obviously; the country's being invaded.

I wound up in Warsaw and had no idea how I was getting into Ukraine. You can't take a bus, you can't take a plane, you can't drive over. But I got a DM from a woman on Twitter; I'll call her T. She was from the area around Lviv, Ukraine. She lived in Portland, Oregon now and had been following my reporting from that city in 2020 and 2021. She contacted me and said, Listen, I have a friend in Lviv. If you can get there, I'm sure you can hook up with her. I'm like, that sounds great.

I bought what I thought was a bus ticket to the border, to Przemyśl in Poland. It turned out to be a train ticket. On the train, I met a Ukrainian who was coming from Holland. Vitaly had been working there and was going back to Odessa. He had to. All Ukrainian men between certain ages were being called back to fight, and those in-country were not allowed to leave. The elderly and some women and children were allowed to get out. Anyway, Vitaly was also going back because he had family in Odessa. They'd been staying in his house; his sister and nieces and nephews. He's got to go back, first of all to fight, and also to see how they were doing. So we met, he spoke pretty good English, and we get to Przemyśl and it’s a madhouse.

We're not very far from the border, probably about 10 miles, but it's pretty much the middle of the night, and while there are some cabs, it’s a bit sketchy and what are they going to do? Take you to the border and drop you off in the woods? This doesn't sound so smart. Anyway we get off the train and walk past all this stuff that's already been donated. There are baby carriages, there's food, there's clothing, just piles of it. We walk past it all and to an area where there are a lot of people waiting, mostly men, mostly Ukrainian, coming from different parts of Europe. They've been working in Spain and other countries. There are a few Americans, these guys with an attitude like, We're going to go over and we're going to help the Ukrainians. I don't think things worked out well for a lot of them. My friend Antonio Hitchens wrote a really good piece about them for the New York Review of Books, you can read that here.

Anyway, I don't know what's going on, nor does Vitaly, and we are just waiting in this line of a couple hundred people. It's getting really cold, too. I went to Ukraine with just a child-sized knapsack, it had my computer a warm jacket that folded to about the size of a deck of cards and a tiny bit of clothing; I didn't pack much because I didn’t know how I was going to get around, if I were going to be on the back of a motorcycle or something. Anyway, I'm freezing; we're all pretty much freezing as we watch hundreds of people come out of this doorway, women, the elderly, children, carrying no more than a shopping bag and sometimes not even that. We don't know where they’ve come and we don’t get a chance to speak with any of them, but we figure, correctly, they are refugees coming from the eastern parts of Ukraine and into Poland. [For more on this journey see, “Dispatch from Ukraine: The Road to Lviv.”]

After about an hour and a half, two hours, the refugees peter out and we are allowed to walk in. Nobody knows where the train is going. It could be going to Odessa. It could or could not be stopping first in Lviv, but Vitaly feels pretty certain it will. Meanwhile, I’ve been trading messages with T in Portland, she’s saying, When and if you get to Lviv, my friend Oksana’s husband, he's going to be waiting for you at the train station. I'm like, okay; if we get there.

We board this train. It’s very rudimentary, no bathrooms, hardwood seats. We get on, it's about midnight now, and we're just sort of hurtling through the night. We can see nothing really out the windows and no way of knowing where we are going. A few young men walk through with rifles; a few young women ask to see some ID, which we show them. We have no tickets and no one asks for them. Meanwhile there are a couple of gals sitting next to us. They're probably in their thirties. They have gone over the border and dropped off their children. Think about this. It's the first week of the war. You want to keep your children safe so you cross the border and drop them off, hopefully with family, and then you go back because you want to go back. You want to help protect your country. This is the message I will get later on, over and over. In any case, they gals are very sweet with me. I hadn't eaten anything and they're forcing a sandwich on me. I'm like, I'm going to take their sandwiches, after what they are going through? No, no. But they’re like, You have to eat, eat please. I did.

Anyway, Vitali is just heroic and wonderful, and after about an hour and a half, the train stops. Are we in Lviv? Not sure. We all get off and walk for a bit through a dark empty area. Vitaly is going to try to catch a train for Odessa, he doesn't know if there will be one, we are all hoping the connections we need are going to happen. We walk through the darkness and then we make a turn, and in the distance, maybe a quarter of a mile, there are thousands of people, we walk toward and then through and among them, people trying to get out of Ukraine, people moving further in-country, aid organizations like World Central Kitchen there feeding and clothing people, and while it could have devolved into mayhem, it does not at all, there is no shouting or pushing, it’s like a very efficient ant colony working under bright lights in the middle of the night.

The train station is massive, with big wide gigantic steps leading in. T texts again -Oksana’s husband is there, he will meet me on the train steps, he's wearing a blue jacket. There are literally hundreds of people moving on the train steps, and I don't want to hold up Vitaly any longer; he’s been so wonderful and so protective, and he's got to catch a train to his family. I'm like, Go, go. I'm going to be fine. And he's says, No, we are going to find your friend’s husband. And he turns around and says, Maybe that is him. He is looking at a man looking at us, a man who holds up his phone, and on the phone is a picture of me. [He recognized me, he will later say, from my pink hair.] He and Vitaly grasp hands and say something I took to mean, I got her this far; you will take her now? Yes, I will take her.

I'm getting overcome remembering this, that people who don't know you at all will come in the middle of the night to pick you up, during the second week of a war. This is what he did. And he didn't speak any English. And I spoke no Ukrainian. I tried to be composed as we drove in his nice very warm car to his home, where his wonderful wife Oksana opened the door to me at 3:30 in the morning and we sat in her kitchen and we talked. Her English was very good. She worked as a travel agent. They had two daughters, at the time ages 8 and 14, the 14-year-old was staying with the grandparents nearby and in whose bedroom I slept for five nights and reported, including on Oksana and her family.

Oksana and I went and did a lot of different reporting, and I was unbelievably fortunate to have had this happen. And then you also wonder if it’s the case if you get yourself there, things are going to work out. I was never in any danger. I was not running into any kind of war zone. But there was bombing there soon after I left, which brings me a little bit up to today.

Oksana and I have stayed in touch. She and her two daughters came to New York in September 2022 and stayed with me for five days. They were in the States for a couple of months traveling around. Her husband had really wanted her to get out because do you want your wife and kids around during the war? She had definitely not wanted to leave when I was there. She said essentially, I'm going to stay here, I'll pick up a gun if I need to. And that was very much the sense I had when I reported from Ukraine, how devoted people were to keeping themselves safe and protecting their countrymen and protecting their country.

More than two and a half years later, the war is still going on. We have obviously been preoccupied with another war, in Israel. There are so many stories of carnage that I think Ukraine sometimes sort of fades, but of course there are still bombings and there's still information we're trying to parse, what's happening and what's true from propaganda and wishful thinking. I have stayed in touch with Oksana, who last week sent me information about a family who had perished, all except for the father. More of their story is here and it’s brutal and horrible and includes the line, “The world hardly notices anymore…”

I asked Oksana if she would record with me, and perhaps with her brother Roman, a software developer, to let people know what is going on in their country from people living it day by day. Without further ado, here is Oksana and Roman Hutnyk.

Related reading:

“Dispatch From Ukraine: 'Let's Go. Let's Not Go,’” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)

“Dispatch From Ukraine: The Hutnyks of Lviv,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)

“Dispatch From Ukraine: Living as a Russian in Ukraine,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)

If you appreciate this Substack, consider a paid subscription. Your support lets us keep bringing you the stories

To talk or not to talk about this week’s red meat media story? Well, we’re talking. Are we surprised at the appetite that some in media take in shredding one of their own in public? Of course not; it’s the same old boring mob behavior. But what’s really behind it? Professional jealousy? The moronic idea that if you knock a person off her perch, that gets you closer to her gig? And does anyone believe, as a kajillion tweets enjoin us to believe, that women and journalism have been set back decades?

Also discussed:

* Melania Trump as new and improved political spouse

* Who among us has not posed for tasteful nudes?

* No one should doubt the pulverizing power of the Kennedy machine

* The irresponsibility of running “too good to verify” stories

* The necessary intimacy between reporter and subject. “It’s a dance of sorts.”

* Status, the new fragrance for men…

* Things worked out well for the creator of the Shitty Media Men List: yea or nay?

Also discussed: the literary imposter Laura Albert (aka, J.T. Leroy), an unrecognizable Colin Farrell, Nancy’s got a new book (if no pre-publicity nudes, dammit!) and much more!

As did Michael Powell, one of my favorite journalists working today, currently at The Atlantic and previously at The New York Times, where, during the height of our national meltdown (aka 2020 to 2022), Michael took on subjects many of his colleagues and others in media would not touch: DEI, Title IX, and using identity as a scythe to cut down those deemed not the right color or gender or whose whose views were opportunistically seen as problematic. “We lost our bearings,” says Michael, who kept true to course, and to say his clear-eyed work made me feel less crazy is an understatement.

Of deep value and delight is also his 2019 book, Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation. I felt as though I were living inside the work as I read, and I cannot wait to see Rez Ball, the movie it inspired and which opens September 27.

Also discussed:

* The explosive DNC protests that weren’t

* COVID would cool down the culture wars, right? [Insert laugh track here]

* The “scurrilous piece of journalism” in the Daily Beast by a writer Nancy now admires*

* The firing of veteran New York Times science reporter Donald McNeil Jr.? “Not the best moment of the New York Times, at all.”

* The tenderness and importance of Jihad Rehab (now retitled The UnRedacted) and the shame of Abigail Disney

* “Hey Michael, you’re white…”

Plus, the permeability between worlds that you start to see when hanging in the Native world, the politician Michael always thought of as “a clown,” some high-tone hot boxes, and much more!

Want to become a paid subscriber? Skoden!

*Max Tani, now at Semafor

Cross-posted at Make More Pie

Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation, by Michael Powell

“Star New York Times Reporter Donald McNeil Accused of Using “N-Word, Making Other Racist Comments,” the Daily Beast piece that Michael calls “scurrilous” and which drove Nancy up a tree…

Michael tweeted repeatedly in support of McNeil…

“The New York Times Succumbed to Another Mob. Journalism is Unrecognizable,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Newsweek)

“Kids and Cowards: What Really Happened to Donald McNeil at the New York Times,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Newsweek)

McNeil writes his own story on Medium, starting with, “NYTimes Peru N-Word, Part One: Introduction” (Medium)

“Sundance Liked Her Documentary on Terrorism, Until Muslim Critics Didn’t,” by Michael Powell (New York Times)

Michael wrote several articles about rez ball before embarking on the book, “For Navajo Team, a Season of Change and Challenge”…

… and “In Navajo Nation, a Basketball Elder Earns Respect.”

Nancy inadvertently referred to Mendoza at “Menendez.” Management regrets the error

“The membrane between life and magic is very thin there…”

What’s in your hot box?

Michael: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

Nancy: Small Rain: A Novel by Garth Greenwell

Michael picks the outro

Clip Nancy filmed in final day of “Reservation Dogs” shooting, season 1…

… and on the red carpet at Emmys 2024

“It’s a Tuesday night in downtown Austin, and Joe Rogan is pretending to jerk off right in front of my face. The strangest thing about this situation is that millions of straight American men would kill to switch places with me.”

With that on-fire of a lede, Helen Lewis explores the appeal of the world’s top podcaster and, by extension, the city of Austin, to whence a platoon of self-proclaimed heterodox thinkers have decamped, in her latest essay for the Atlantic, where she’s a staff writer. (Our own Sarah Hepola is interviewed for the piece.) Helen discusses the podcasts of the man-o-sphere, how Trump’s conversations with Theo Von, et al, were like a chat show circuit for men, and her upcoming book, The Genius Myth.

Also discussed:

* That infamous Jordan Peterson interview

* The time Helen was invited to Tucker Carlson’s log cabin

* “The male Oprah”

* What is the “heterodoxy,” anyway?

* Elon Musk is to Thomas Edison is to Prometheus

* “Shit-posting has eaten the world”

* Can a genius also nurse a baby?

* The optimum age to be considered a genius is …

* Teal Swan is not a good hombre

Plus, Helen lives up to Sarah’s idea of British stereotypes, Robin D’Angelo disappears, the mysteries of the corn dog, and much more!

Does your IQ go up by 10 points when you become a paid subscriber? Listen and find out

Before you go! Home team represent. More info at Have I Got News For You

Nancy and Sarah talk about a recent story in The Cut, “Was Casual Sex Always This Bad?” (Answer: Probably.) They discuss how subjective the phrase “good sex” is, but for both of them, the playfulness and abandon that makes sex one of life’s great pleasures almost never comes after picking up a stranger at the open-bar wedding reception. (Although Nancy does have that one story.)

Also discussed:

* Silent discos

* Pittsburghian slang

* The TikTok sex video we want to see

* The cinematic tyranny of people having sex against a wall

* Consent: the starter manual for drunk college kids

* Oof, blackout sex

* Men regret sex, too

* Swooning: it’s a goal!

* “Sex is not a thing you do, it’s a place you go.”

* A thing you should really, really not do to your teeth …

Plus, the classic conspiracy film that made Sarah pretty sure everything is a lie, the brand-new podcast Nancy wants to shoot into her veins, the existential thrill of home renovation, and much more!

Nancy talks about the protests outside Democratic National Convention, where the expected hordes did NOT show. After ten-plus years of fashionable dissent, have we moved beyond the activism moment? We discuss the limits and rewards of protest: big on catharsis, light on real change.

Also on the docket:

* Sarah’s birthday bash at Nancy’s

* The secret sartorial life of Steve Kornacki

* When pink was for boys …

* “It’s like masturbating when you can’t get off.”

* The man who will always be Sarah’s president

* When did the Dems hatch the Kamala plan? A debate!

* Martin Luther King Jr. writes one hell of a letter

* DON’T FORGET! Forty Bucks and a Dream available for pre-order

Nancy and Sarah try to diagnose how we got here. Their discussion covers vibrators and dating apps, Obamacare and social security, politics and the patriarchy, social justice and social media, pets vs. children, and the ocean of meaning that lies underneath the phrase, "I'm fine." Also discussed:

* Nancy’s new book Forty Bucks and a Dream now on presale!

* Fifth Column live event tonight, WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.

* When will Wikipedia acknowledge that Nancy dated Eddie Vedder?

* Kneejerk Nancy asks, “Do I need to know everyone’s effing feelings?”

* Sarah asks, “If my cat is not a baby, why is he baby-shaped?”

* The “compare and despair” trap of social media

* Feminism and happiness: It’s complicated!

* Men on women’s tears: It’s annoying!

* The whole SSRI thing

* Fault vs. responsibility

* WE MISS THE ‘90s

* Camille Paglia, aka Sarah’s fake Italian grandmother, brings us home

Also: A (short) debate on Miranda July, how Andy Warhol turns out to be fascinating, Nancy drops a bomb about women’s happiness and birth control — and MORE!

Nancy and Sarah tackle the week’s most controversial Olympics bout, when Algerian boxer Imane Khelif defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini in a 46-second fight. JK Rowling howled! JK Rowling-haters roared back at her! Has anyone ever cared this much about women’s boxing?

This actually isn’t a story about trans women in sports — though it kicked up plenty of opinions about that subject — but a more nuanced discussion of how genetic abnormalities should play out in athletics. Our roving conversation covers:

* DSD cases (Differences in sexual development)

* Why is boxing called “the sweet science”?

* The spectacle of women being hit —> kind of uncomfortable

* Title IX was never intended to expand women’s sports, but it did anyway

* What kind of sports do girls want to play?

* The golden age of female trick riders

* Stella Walsh, early intersex Olympic champion

* How much do men hate seeing women cry?

* The old Italian woman who yells Sarah to sleep each night

* But wait: What is a man?

… and much more!

REMINDER: First Sunday Zoom TONIGHT! 5pm PT/8pm ET. Check your email later today for link.

Ann Bauer is a top-notch personal essay writer, who built a reputation for eloquence and honesty at Salon.com, back in the aughts when the site was still a cultural force. (Sarah was lucky enough to work with Ann back then.) More recently, Ann has become a spitfire on Twitter, where she’s sounded off on COVID-related school closures, the progressive politics of Minneapolis, where she lives, and the various absurdities of our culture-war era.

Nancy and Sarah had a far-ranging and often profound conversation with Ann: About what speaking her mind on social media cost her (professionally, personally), about the potential link between RenFests, polyamory, and Rachel Maddow, and about the son she lost a few years ago, whose autism diagnosis Ann now questions (along with many scientific “certainties”).

Also discussed:

* The ickiness of self-promotion

* “You’re trying to kill me and my family”

* Getting dropped by the Washington Post

* Bruno Bettelheim, somehow

* Writing: It’s all in the execution

* Ann did NOT burn down Minneapolis’s Third Precinct

* The Stations of the Cross for Trump Derangement Syndrome

* “Why are you dressed up as druids and maidens?”

* Big love for Tablet Magazine

* No love for an author who promotes autism as magic that makes you special

* The Cinderella story of Kamala Harris

* The lonely estrangement of the white male in culture

* Writing about your own children: good? bad? both? all?

* What is autism, really?

Plus, people who should not wear leather, Sarah gets sucked into a classic 70s mini series, the coolness of Debbie Harry, and much more!

Nancy and Sarah are back after a brief summer hiatus to talk about: white women for Kamala, “brat” and its aftermath, why Gen Z has so many slang terms for oral sex (or is that just our intern?), and how JD Vance radicalized childless cat ladies and prompted Twitter to make jokes about sex with a couch. America: It’s going great! Note: This episode gets pretty blue, might want to keep it out of the little ones’ earholes.

Also discussed:

* “Did I miss anything?” asks Sarah, after emerging from a literal cave in the desert.

* Gen Z pop star Charli … MCM?!

* Childless cat ladies were trending, and nobody called Sarah for a quote?!?

* You say KOMM-uh-lah, I say Kuh-MAH-lah, let’s call the whole thing off.

* Trump avoiding an assassin’s bullet was 60,000 news cycles ago.

* The Kamala Harris prosecution that Nancy cannot get over

* What is the sound of 100,000 white women clapping?

* "I am here tonight, embracing myself in your incredible, profound white women midst, because we've got a fucking job to do, y'all” is a thing that was said.

* Race essentialism + radical self-care = cringe-fest

* Brat, cap, munch, throat goat: Nancy learns to speak Gen Z

* That time Sub Pop Records trolled the New York Times

* Did Elon Musk succeed in making Twitter a public square?

* “Ass play is not my jam.”

* Ben Shapiro for president?

* Steve Kornacki will chase down that Snackwells truck

* J.D. Vance, the punching bag for a post-assassination-attempt Trump

Plus, the wisdom of NOT talking politics, report cards on how Biden dipped, and that time Hemingway married an African woman when he was already married.

We are here tonight, embracing ourselves in your incredible, profound audio-listener midst, because you’ve got a fucking subscription to pay, y'all

Also discussed:

* Bill Maher’s double-fisting handjob Trump videos

* Can Trump actually change?

* “God is among us.”

* Smoke Em’s first sincere usage of the word “rizz”

* Nancy rejects an organ!

* Pretty women, walking down the stage

* Make Kid Rock stop!

* Trump, the grandpappy

* Love for Semafor

* Amber Rose, online avatar

* Trump as king: Kissing the ring

* Media feeds us shit sandwiches

* In the future, will we all be Melania Trump?

* RIP to the people we lost, the people we miss

Thank you to the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum for letting Nancy tap into their WiFi and upload this episode. Also: Christy Mathewson has Nancy’s vote

Biden on the ropes! What’s the over-under on his time in the race? Who might replace him? Sarah and Nancy discuss the political theater of a broken system. What’s the solution? Here’s Nancy: “Let it fucking break, man.” Then, Alice Munro’s daughter reveals family secrets that cast her mother and her writing in a troubling new light.

Also discussed:

* “Those Australians are so confused”

* New word: Parkinsonism

* As goes George Clooney, so goes the country …

* Intervention time! Joe Biden, will you accept the help we’re offering today?

* Is Jon Stewart back?

* Kamala Harris is Out Here in These Streets

* What if we all write-in “Michelle Obama” for president …

* Wes Moore = a super-sexy man, and also a governor

* Nancy on how Joe Biden can bow out with dignity

* Alice Munro’s Runaway and a woman who can’t leave her husband, hmm

* Art Monsters

* Joe Biden press conference: Sarah loses a bet

Plus: The spookiness of Joyce Carol Oates, the greatness of Citizen Kane, and — ahem — Nancy names a new hot box!

REMINDER: First Sunday-Schmirst-Sunday, we’re doing the monthly Zoom this week. Come hang! 8pm ET/5pm PT, July 14. Paid subscribers get a link the day of.

We do the goodest we can. Become a paid subscriber.

The hustle, the friendliness, the informality, the unshakeable faith that we can be anything we want to be — all while drinking Diet Coke and huffing donuts. Fuck yeah, America! In honor of July 4, Nancy and Sarah celebrate our country’s bounty in the long shadow of all that is wrong. (For example: Presidential debate!)

Nancy and Sarah can’t quite decide: Is the American experiment over? Or does our scrappy country of constant reinvention have more time on the clock?

Also discussed:

* The freedom to not wear pants

* Let Joe Biden rest!

* Is Smoke Em podcast the Fireside Chats of 2024?

* Free speech and great tits!

* Morgan Spurlock, RIP

* Diet Coke, a “horrible bath of ick” that we love

* Sarah learns to free-style, drops a verse, immediately regrets this

* America’s greatest export is …

* Sarah discovers she’s average!

* Name That Founding Father: The Pop Quiz

Plus, Nancy proves she’s never seen Hamilton, how to make $1.08 last a decade, a history of oliebollen donuts, and more!

Oh say can you see, it’s the paid subscriber button.

The first Trump-Biden debate is hours away, and pundits are predicting along punditry lines (Trump gonna Trump! Biden’s booster-packet will conk out midway!), including the only person to have debated both Trump and Biden opening a “What I’m watching for…” piece by telling us about the new Broadway play she’s producing.

But before we get to Hillary Rodham Clinton, we cite some odds out of Vegas, including whether the candidates will shake hands first, the length of Biden’s longest pause, and how many times Trump will say “rigged.”

Then it’s on to the evergreen topic of who is having sex with whom, or in this case, who’s not, unless it’s with a mythical creature with a four-foot long magical tongue and a dick the size of a Coke-can. Don’t ask, just listen.

Also discussed:

* The #1 new show on Netflix? Sarah’s in it!

* We love Jake Tapper

* Who we want to see storm the debate stage

* Competitive celibacy and the dick embargo

* Dear god, enough with the women-only utopia

* Yes, we do need people to have babies

Plus, Hair-flipping and booty-bumping, the time Sarah tried to edit Rick Springfield, and…

All of the above and more, when you become a paid subscriber.

Also discussed:

* Civics Bee!

* In defense of plastic straws …

* Purple states = the place to be

* Keeping the memory of Rachael Abraham alive

* West Coast liberalism, so bad even Nicholas Kristof admits it

* Who cares what BuzzMuffin43 says, anyway?

* Hepped Up, the fragrance

* No cameras in our bedrooms, please!

* She-Pee, denied

* Which Brat Packer turned out best?

* That weird tension between Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez

* Journalist, meet your disgruntled subject

* John Hughes and British synth-pop

Plus, an emergency cookie recipe, some Demi Moore goddess love, a new media podcast that’s doing it right, and more!

This episode is free for all so share it with your friends.

Learn about the world long before the NYT reports it. Become a paid subscriber.

Episode Notes:

“What Have We Liberals Done to the West Coast,” by Nicholas Kristof (New York Times Opinion)

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner)

“Columbia Administrators Fire Off Hostile and Dismissive Text Messages, Vomit Emojis During Alumni Reunion Panel on Jewish Life,” by Eliana Johnson and Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon)

”Hollywood’s Brat Park,” by David Blum (New York Magazine, 1985)

“I Called Them Brats, and I Stand By It,” by David Blum (Vulture)

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography, by Rob Lowe, highly recommended on audio!

What’s in your hot box?

Sarah:

Nancy: Horror Movie: A Novel, by Paul Tremblay

Got 20 minutes and $2.99? Read The Queens of Montague Street, “journalist Nancy Rommelmann's memoir of growing up in Brooklyn Heights in the 1970s, and excerpted in the New York Times Magazine as the essay, ‘Dazed and Confused.’”

Outro suggests itself:

“Boys in crisis.” People write books about it. Melinda Gates just pledged $20 million to study it. Pundits make their bones rolling the phrase around in their mouths. But a crisis according to whom? Who profits when the American Psychological Society claims “traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful"? And is telling boys they must change, with those changes often determined by women, just another recipe for resentment?

To find out whether boys will be boys, regardless of how often they’re told not be, we went to the source: 17-year-old Milo Pesca, son of the Great Mike Pesca, host of The Gist podcast and broadcaster/thinker extraordinaire.

On the table:

* Milo’s voice is like a warm blanket

* Did Ann Curry draw swastikas in the school bathroom?

* Women and their endless talking

* Sarah’s favorite mispronunciation

* Can anyone define “toxic masculinity”?

* Is vulnerability overrated?

* Babysitter Maggie might have been going through some things

* “I know I’m just a white dude …”

* The land acknowledgment-ing of gender

* “Girls Run the World,” or do they?

* Male role models!

* Watching boys is kind of cool

* If men don’t like to talk, what’s up with those three-hour podcasts?

* Paw Patrol: Threat or menace?!

Also, how lazy idioms affect our thinking, and — stop the presses — Nancy and Sarah disagree on the quality they want in a man. Plus: Four hot boxes!

by Nancy Rommelmann

I’d like to introduce you to my mother. Not the woman I am sitting one foot away from in a Connecticut hospital bed, the skin on her hands as fragile as phyllo dough, the veins showing livid purple and the blue-green of old tattoos. Though it is true, her hands have always been this way.

“You have such beautiful big veins,” I recall six-year-old Karen telling my mother. Maybe it was during one of the weekends Karen’s mother and my mother, not yet 33, drove a carful of kids out to Westhampton, to an out-of-rental-season house along the beach road. The house had many wooden decks, it was always cold, and our first night there, I told my mom to add more water to the Lipton chicken soup mix; that it was too salty. Turned out there was salt water in the taps. It was the 70s, when kids were expected to stay outside until after dark and take out our own splinters, of which the decks supplied many. We slept in sandy beds while, my mother later told me, Karen’s mom went to the bar and brought home this or that new friend. My mother did not do this; she was not much of a drinker, though these were the days when parents did things we absorbed without understanding: the white lie about why dad had not come home, the woman’s voice that woke me late one August night in a different rental house, and my knowing her cries, which I at first mistook for the howls of a cat, had something to do with her husband and my mother.

“Mom, do you remember going to Westhampton?” I ask her now, interrupting her trying to eat a piece of chicken with a straw. She says yes and allows me to swap in a fork, it’s amazing how much she eats and yet keeps shrinking, 30 pounds gone since last fall, her legs not much more than long bones now. I’ve asked the nurses how this happens; how she burns so many calories while hardly moving.

Or hardly moving but for her hands, ever looking for something to fix, folding and refolding a cloth, picking a shred of cheese from her blouse, holding my right hand in both of hers and pumping up and down for four minutes. I cannot glean the reasoning here, just as I could not see why, in the month before he died, my father held my wrist and stared in otherworldly fascination at my watch-face for 20 minutes. I asked my resolutely unspiritual (unless you count basketball and opera) math-savant dad, then, whether he was between here and some other next place.

He considered this. “I think so,” he said. And was it okay? Yes, he said; it was.

What else can I tell you about my mother? That the only picture she carries in her purse is one of herself. That the orange VW bug she drove us around in as kids had a bike rack and a ski rack and a bumper sticker that read, “Lacrosse: The Fastest Game on Two Feet.” That she used to wake up my brother and me by singing, “Everybody was kung fu fighting!” That when she walked, which she can no longer do, it was faster than any of us, she was ever in motion; even when she slept, she rocked and rocked and woke up in the mornings with her hair all ruched on one side. She also talked so fast that my father said, if he weren’t around her for a few weeks, he couldn’t understand her; that he could not keep up.

What sentences my mother starts now usually trail off. She does not seem bothered by this. We are past the being bothered years, the taking mom's word for things years, the hiding the car keys and then disconnecting the battery years, the calling the oil company to see if I can wrest back some the excess $11,000 mom has sent, mailing check after check in an attempt to stay on top of her bills. It brings me no joy to see the fight gone out of her, while understanding, it makes it easier, in some ways, for the rest of us.

My favorite thing to do now is to make her smile. She is always happy to see me, to see my brother, my daughter. She knows us still, though sometimes she will say, to me, "It's been so long since I've seen Nancy."

But then, she can surprise. "You have a skirt on," she tells me, just now. Also, "I'd like to know in advance..." before looking back at the TV. My mother, who never watched television, is now enamored of cop shows, "Law & Order SUV" and "Chicago PD."

"That's my guy," she told me, as recently as three months ago, of Jason Beghe.

"This was less than a year ago," my daughter says, sending a video of my mother half-running to greet her.

There will be no more running, not after the broken hip. The previous rehab facility was gruesome, garbage on the floors, an orderly yelling that his paycheck wasn't available. The staff where she is now is cheerful and attentive, and I try, as I did when looking at my mother's hands, to find the beauty: the woman two doors down cooing in German to a plastic baby doll. P., her lipstick perfectly applied, waiting in her wheelchair by the nurses' station like a real-life Delta Dawn.

My mother has buried three husbands, none of whom took the slow leave taking. My dad had lunch at his assisted living facility and, while talking to the nurses, went weak-kneed. They were tucking him in bed and, he dipped. Very elegant. My stepdad died after a short hospitalization. I was with him and, as I wrote, “There was so much beauty at the moment of death, near audible like a sip through a straw rushing into the night, the skin on his face going taut in an instant, and the color of beeswax.” My mother's last husband shrank and shrank from leukemia, my mother was with him when he died. Afterwards, she told me, she fell on her hands and knees into a snow-bank and shouted to the air, "I can't do this!" But she could. If I had a dollar for everyone who's ever said to me, "Your mother is a force of nature," I would have enough to buy her a fine steak dinner, though it might be wasted on her.

"The first time I took her out, she ordered a steak well done," my dad would say, insinuating, it had almost been a dealbreaker.

What can I tell you about my mother? That she painted super-graphic stripes, including up and around a set of pocket doors, down the long hallway of our apartment. That she was a very good tennis player. That she grew up working-class on Long Island and wound up traveling the world. That at 25 she lost her own mother, a Greek immigrant who had my mother at 17, and missed her every day. I am hoping that whatever next place my dad saw, my mother gets to meet her mother there.

"I'm going to go now, Mom," I tell her tonight, and she forms her first sentence in three hours. "Is there enough?" she asks, and I don’t know how to answer.

Our guest Kat Rosenfield is one of the best cultural critics of our day: Funny, incisive, fast-moving, and a great novelist to boot (see You Must Remember This). She’s a third-timer on this pod, which might be a record, and she’s just landed a plum gig as a columnist for the Free Press. You may know Kat from her podcast Feminine Chaos, with Phoebe Maltz-Bovy, or you may know Kat from Twitter, where she always keeps it interesting. She came on to talk about her latest column for the Free Press, “Does Divorce Make You Hotter?”

Also discussed:

* Divorce rings

* So many Emilys

* Bad-mouthing your former spouse in public

* Tom Wolfe: “The right to shuck overripe wives”

* Red flags in men are somehow not red flags when women do it?

* The point of a personal esssay

* WE LOVE MEN, good husbands edition

* The people who crow their happiness on social media are almost never happy

* Rasputin, the cat

* Social media breakup announcements: We are the celebrities now

* In defense of the “over-ripe” demographic

* Sarah announces her new boyfriend, which almost certainly means she’ll break up tomorrow

* But what does he eat for breakfast?

* Do real criminals rap about their previously undetected crimes?

Plus, Diddy and the potential dangers of confusing the artist with his art, some Andy Mills love, the origin story of Sarah’s new romance, and much more!

Olivia Nuzzi is the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine, and a total fox, not that it’s AT ALL relevant to the work she does, which is top-tier. She began her career as a teenager at an alt-weekly in New Jersey and worked on the Anthony Weiner campaign (oh boy), and a story she wrote about that experience brought her to prominence. These days, she’s a rock-star writer with bylines in Politico, GQ, Esquire, and The Washington Post, and she was a finalist for the 2023 National Magazine Award for feature writing. She’s been covering the recent Trump trial from the courtroom — until she got kicked out, that is — and her insight into that uniquely American character has made her reporting a must-read. “Trump is not really there if he’s not being looked at by other people.”

Also discussed:

* “It’s certainly ‘Weiner.’”

* How an obsession with comedy led a political beat

* The peculiar power of being professionally curious

* Olivia did not steal Corey Lewandowski’s photo album!

* The journalist’s question: What the fuck is going on here?

* How to NOT bribe a cop

* Donuts as micro-aggression

* Is Trump sleeping during his trial, and if so, why?

* The beige oppression of a courtroom

* Why Trump needs a beauty blender

* Stormy Daniels: “I slept with THAT?!”

* Trump as the classic American striver

* “Bimbo eruptions”

* But ARE we living in a simulation?

* The greatness of Eddie Pepitone

* “Just because something is not true doesn’t mean it can’t be a problem”

* Olivia is named after who?!

Plus, how being unable to say “More Ovaltine, please” changed the course of Olivia’s career, one of the great movie soundtracks according to Sarah, Olivia’s predictions about the trial and the 2024 election, and much more!

Everyone knows gun violence is a problem, but whose problem, exactly? Big cities or rural areas? Republicans or Democrats? Most people respond to these questions with emotion, best guesses, knee-jerk anger, but our guest Magic Wade responds with data. A professor in Illinois, Wade started the profound 1000 Cities Project on Substack to show that “gun violence isn't merely a ‘red state’ or ‘blue city’ problem. It's a widespread, worsening phenomenon affecting too many American communities. This isn't moral panic, it's rational outrage.” The old storylines about gun violence aren’t working, but if we’re going to confront one of the great social catastrophes of our time, we need more robust information, and Magic Wade (her real name!) has it.

Also discussed:

* Growing up in Alaska with homesteader parents

* Sometimes Mom sleeps with a loaded gun beside the bed

* Assault-rifle deaths are a drop in the bucket

* Why some victims of gun violence elicit more sympathy than others

* When journalists turn academic research into hot takes

* “When conflict escalates past a certain point, the conflict itself takes charge. The original facts and forces that led to the dispute fade into the background. The us-versus-them dynamic takes over.”

* How Salon went hyper-partisan …

* Mike Schmidt, ouuut in Portland

* A better de-carceration movement

* That time Minneapolis wanted to abolish the police

* Surveillance vs. safety

* Requested: More men dancing!

* Two Degrees of Nancy Rommelmann

Plus, tips from a homicide detective that Sarah once dated, the feel-good caper of the summer, and the masculine hotness of Gene Kell

People are mad, version five million: A recent anti-celibacy ad on Bumble sparks outrage, a Catholic commencement speaker touting Catholic values sparks outrage, a rap mogul caught enacting violence that rap moguls are only supposed to rap about (not actually do) — well, you see the pattern.

Nancy and Sarah find themselves out-shouted by the online hordes of angry social media users, ticked-off feminists, Benedictine nuns, Change.org users et al as they discuss the culture news of the past week.

Also discussed:

* “I Choose JIF”

* What is a Harrison Butker, and why did it take over the news cycle?

* The tyranny of “I don’t agree with everything they said…”

* Should Nancy spring for a billboard protesting bleu cheese?

* S. Korea floats the idea of paying people $70,000 to have a baby, which gives Sarah an idea for her next vacation…

* The toxic stew of rom-com fantasy and porn kink that is online dating

* Sarah takes a vow of what now?

* Door-slammy feminism

* “I like dick.” / “Thank you for sharing that.”

* Can Diddy ever come back from this moment?

Plus: Creative solutions for accidental boners, the Studio 54 of Dallas, and will Nancy and Sarah ever find a yacht rock song they both love?

Go follow our new Facebook page. But don’t forget about our Instagram page.

First Sunday Zoom is June 2, 8pmET/5pmPT. Our group watch/discuss is Pulp Fiction, which Nancy watched last night and about which she will say, while John Travolta’s charisma may be undeniable, there’s also…

Choosy moms choose JIF, and choosy podcast listeners choose to be paid subscribers …

Also discussed:

* How to make a nasal strip look sexy

* Ken will fly to Dallas and bang on the door if Sarah tries to date Tucker Carlson

* Cardinal podcast sin = slow starts (#guilty)

* Chronic dreams about grizzly bears

* Studying journalism as journalism circles the drain

* Liberal arts education: Yay or nay?

* Van life before #vanlife

* “Can we make this podcast sponsored by peanut butter?”

* Radiolab and chill

* Great moments in IDW

* Bibliotherapy

* Would you rather wake up to an hour of bird sounds or an hour of Twitter?

* “A battering-ram kind of schlong”

* That time Ken was a wet blanket in The New Yorker

Plus, the first podcasts we remember listening to, the YouTube video that Sarah has watched 100 times, Ken chooses a hot box especially for each of the hostess (did it just get warm in here?) and much more.

We have a Facebook now too! Give it a follow.

No paywalls on this episode so feel free to share it.

Freedom’s just another word for becoming a paid subscriber.

Episode Notes:

“I live in a van down by Duke University" by Ken Ilgunas (Salon)

Ken Ilgunas’ website

More Ken Ilgunas stories at Salon

Walden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas

Columbia University faces calls for tuition refunds as school moves to hybrid classes for rest of term in wake of anti-Israel protests

Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie Bowles

What’s in your hot box?

Ken, for Sarah:

Ken, for Nancy:

Sarah: Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates

Nancy: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman

Ken picks the outro (great song)

But he’s struck out on his own. Last year he gave us The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, one of 2023’s best podcasts, and now he’s back with a new podcast, Reflector, which tells “stories about the strange experiences of being human — sparking wonder, unveiling complexity, and igniting curiosity.” The first episode tackles a familiar topic, over-drinking, and centers on an unexpected subject: Katie Herzog, the very funny host of Blocked & Reported, who shares her experience with the anti-drinking drug Naltrexone. Nancy and Sarah chat with Andy about addiction, storytelling, faith, and how to push back on the media’s excesses.

Also discussed:

* The burden of knowing who is going to hell

* The Bible, it has slow parts

* The love of God is a very hard thing to lose

* Drinking as a spiritual experience

* How the social justice movement is deeply Protestant

* The Caliphate scandal

* About Andy’s exit from the New York Times …

* Sarah, the black belt of dumping beer on people’s heads

* Jealousy’s role in the media meltdown

* More on Donald McNeil Jr. ouster, and Nancy could not be happier/angrier

* Did Infinite Jest predict social media?

* Naltrexone: Miracle drug, or “quick fix” that doesn’t address what’s wrong?

* “You’re a smoker? Lucky you.”

* A civil war on the movie Civil War

* “I wanna listen to a podcast that’s just Nancy saying, ‘William Langewiesche.’”

* The Harry Potter of adult romance novels

Plus, video texts equal love, why no stories are actually neutral, why alcohol is an “analog drug,” and much more!

April 22, 2022 will go down in the history books — for some reason, surely, though it’s also the date of our first Smoke ‘Em podcast. We celebrate our second year on the books with a pop quiz, some serious giggles, and (of course) Kegels for Peace.

Coleman Hughes was still an undergrad at Columbia in 2018 when the Quillette contributor landed a high-profile appearance on Sam Harris’ podcast. Since then, his own podcast Conversations with Coleman — along with his writing on race, tribal politics, and free expression — have made him one of the country’s most important commentators. He’s also a very talented musician and rapper and, as of this year, an author, with a new book called The End of Race Politics. He recently appeared on The View to promote that book, and the result was a viral clip that demonstrated the barbed agenda of co-host Sunny Hostin and the calm, rational demeanor of Hughes. His is the kind of grace in the face of unreason that could actually save the planet.

Also discussed:

* So how are things at Columbia University these days?

* Did you know if you read the word “SHAME” 1000 times in a row, it changes minds?

* What does “Zionism” mean?

* Suddenly discovering the virtues of unbridled free speech on campus the moment you want to denounce Israel

* Neo-racism and its cultural moment

* “Lynching is the natural state” of humanity, but we create necessary edifices to control our baser instincts

* If the DEI bureacratics didn’t show up to work, would anyone notice?

* What is a “conservative,” anyway?

* How Coleman maintains his super-power

* Fighting words: “John Wick sucks”

* The Cat Rapper, the C-A-T Rapper, people there is a CAT RAPPER

Plus why Benny Morris is such a good ambassador for Israeli history, meditation app recs, and can Coleman finally solve Nancy and Sarah’s Knives Out: Glass Onion debate?

Send us your letters! To smokeempodcast@gmail.com, and let us know if you do/do not want your name read on-air

Free speech isn’t “free.” It takes a fight. Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Not Ann and Phelim. “This is of course not any surprise at all us, and to any of you who’ve been listening,” McElhinney said during the “special news breaking episode” recorded yesterday, “We Were Right - Weinstein Case Collapses.”

Catherine A. Christian, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, was also unsurprised. “A number of us were expecting that it probably would be reversed if there was some sort of intellectual honesty,” she told Politico Magazine.”You don’t want to make bad law for bad defendants.”

Few people followed this case as closely — or produced the kind of hard-hitting journalism as Ann and Phelim. Listeners may recall Sarah’s beloved holiday tradition for three years running: She listens to all 23 episodes of the podcast, which is very weird, although Ann called it “the most precious compliment I’ve ever had.”

McElhinney and McAleer join Nancy and an awestruck Sarah to discuss “the silence of the laptops” in the courtroom, why actress Annabella Sciorra should never have been on the witness stand, the transactional nature of Hollywood relationships, and whether Weinstein will be tried again in New York. Strap in!

Support Ann & Phelim at The Unreported Story Society.

Anyone in or around New York City is invited to McElhinney and McAleer’s latest project, October 7: In Their Own Words. Tickets at www.october7theplay.com

And don’t forget to send your letters to smokeempodcast@gmail.com. We’ll read them on-air in an upcoming episode.

The media has snoozed through some of the day’s most important stories. Meanwhile, we’re not sleeping (literally), so please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Episode Notes:

“Harvey Weinstein Conviction Overturned by N.Y. Court of Appeals” (New York Times)

The Molineux Rule, explained

“What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial,” by Ronan Farrow (New Yorker)

“‘Hindsight Is 20/20’: Why Harvey Weinstein’s Conviction Was Overturned,” Nick Reisman (Politico)

“Harvey Weinstein’s Rape Conviction Overturned by New York Appeals Court—What’s Next?” by Savannah Walsh (Vanity Fair)

“Why Harvey Weinstein Might Walk,” by Joann Wypijewski (The Nation, 2020)

“The New Truth: When the moral imperative trumps the rational evidence, there’s no arguing,” by Jacob Siegel (Tablet)

“Asia Argento’s Time Is Up,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Reason)

Our guest KC Johnson, a tenured professor at Brooklyn College, began his Title IX education back in 2006, when the Duke lacrosse team was accused of rape. The case became a national scandal, pulling in faculty, administration, lawyers, and the government, with the accused students at the center, though they were eventually exonerated. It’s a case Nancy and Sarah discussed way back in episode 10 (“Fabulists!”), and one Johnson spent years investigating and eventually co-authored a book about.

Since then, Johnson has become the go-to guy on this topic. Who better to explain the new Title IX guidelines from Biden? Don’t forget: Biden is the original crusader behind Title IX’s more recent iteration as a way to address campus sexual assault.

Eli Lake is a longtime journalist, but we know him best for the tremendous “Re-Education With Eli Lake” podcast (Nancy’s #1 pod pick in 2023). Lake has recently become a contributor to the Free Press, where he writes about this world as it explodes. Nancy and Sarah talked with him about the paradox of anarchists attending meetings, why writers can be precious little bitches, the upcoming DNC in Chicago, and how he made our outro song, or at least instructed the robot to do so.

* “When I kiss you on your mask you understand”

* What does PEN America do?

* Eli and Nancy’s Wikipedia pages are full of lies

* “You’re not the boss of me” as the spirit of America

* Will things go full Baader-Meinhof at the Chicago DNC?

* Don’t go to journalism school, kids

* Some love for Tom Wolfe, Bryan Burrough, Ask a Jew

* Newsroom is the Jay Rosen of TV shows

* “Norman Finkelstein is the Jew-y Jew who performs for anti-Semites”

Plus, Lenny Bruce as a podcaster, Menachem Begin as OG punk rock, and is marijuana the Jewish kryptonite?

Send us your letters! We want them!

We’re not the boss of you, but we’d still like you to become a paid subscriber.

Also discussed:

* Sarah puts her vibrator on time-out

* The unfortunate rise of “churnalism”

* AJ Cowling? Tacos anyone?

* The Big 5-0 murder-suicide plan

* That time Tracey Ullman talked to Michael about Morrissey

* The affliction of presentism

* Ronald Reagan as “the pretty ship of ideas that Buckley could load up and push out to sea.”

* What did Hitchens think of Buckley?

* Gore Vidal, dragged

* James Baldwin, praised

* The Buckley biography 20 years in the making

* Are WE the new conservatives?

* Don’t cancel Milk Duds!

* “Free trade is a net gain for people, but there are going to be losers”

* “Technology made us rougher people when it came to politics”

* Who will lead a new campus movement. Could it be… Michael Moynihan? (If you let him do it over Zoom?)

Also, why we watch documentaries we disagree with, Nancy’s kind of town, and more literary and video links than you can shake a Rabbit vibrator at.

Also: CALL FOR LETTERS! You have questions? We have answers! smokeempodcast@gmail.com

Paid subscribers have more fun.

Episode Notes:

Japanese Maple, by Clive James

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.So slow a fading out brings no real pain.Breath growing shortIs just uncomfortable. You feel the drainOf energy, but thought and sight remain:Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever seeSo much sweet beauty as when fine rain fallsOn that small treeAnd saturates your brick back garden walls,So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?Ever more lavish as the dusk descendsThis glistening illuminates the air.It never ends.Whenever the rain comes it will be there,Beyond my time, but now I take my share.My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.What I must doIs live to see that. That will end the gameFor me, though life continues all the same:​Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,A final flood of colours will live onAs my mind dies,Burned by my vision of a world that shoneSo brightly at the last, and then was gone.--New Yorker, September 15, 2014

“Go Back to the Cold!” Clive James on John Le Carre (New York Review of Books)

Best of Enemies documentary about Buckley and Vidal

A Traitor to His Class by H.W. Brands (about FDR)

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Hitchens

Nearer My God by William F. Buckley

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher Buckley

Cancel Your Own Goddamn Subscription by William F. Buckley

Reagan in His Own Hand by Kiron K. Skinner

Overdrive: A Personal Documentary by William F. Buckley

Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America by Ted Morgan

Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, by Sam Tanenhaus

“Firehose #84: Did We Really ‘Mostly’ Endorse ‘The Fall of Minneapolis’?” by Matt Welch (Fifth Column Substack)

What’s in your hot box?

Sarah:

Nancy: A love of Chicago and, in anticipation of the 2024 DNC in that big-shouldered town, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, by Mike Royko

Michael:

“The Secret Army: The True Story of a Lost Documentary”

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and The Snakehead, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Unanimously chosen outro:

Nancy’s still pissed they interrupted the 1994 Rockets-Knicks NBA finals to show the slow-speed OJ Simpson chase on every LA channel, and Sarah is driving through Texas in, yes, a Bronco, as the gals talk OJ Simpson, who died yesterday of cancer at age 76.

Where were they heard about the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and that OJ was the main suspect? What were the factors behind the nation’s lurid fascination? Did the OJ case spell the end of mono-culture as the internet splintered our fascinations? Has the nature of fame changed? Have we?

Also discussed:

* Seeing the sky turn black from the 968 concurrent fires during the 1992 LA riots

* Some background on Al Cowling

* The note Nancy’s daughter’s preschool sent home on the eve of the OJ verdict

* The greatness of “The People v. OJ Simpson,” including the jacaranda, the pepper trees, the bad beige 90s furnishings…

* David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian: yea or nay?

And much more!

Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin launched Phoenix New Times in 1970. Working out of a closet in a women’s clothing store, the paper covered stories most media at the time would not, including then-Arizona senator John McCain’s involvement with the Charles Keating Savings & Loan scandal, McCain’s wife Cindy forging subscriptions and stealing pills from a children’s charity she’d founded, and the humanitarian horrors associated with Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio.

“You get paid for castrations,” Lacey would tell the makers of HOLD FAST, an Audible podcast that covers New Times’ salad days and what came later, including the fateful turn when people the paper had once gone after went after them, including the McCains, Arpaio, and then-senator Kamala Harris.

As Sarah recently wrote for the Dallas Morning News:

“Things don’t turn out well for Lacey, or his more copacetic business partner Larkin, as they get dragged through two federal trials on charges of money laundering and (buried the lede) sex trafficking, thanks to the adult ads that were once the lifeblood of alt-weekly revenue and which the pair spun into the notorious Backpage.com, prompting the Justice Department to label them the biggest pimps in the history of the world. Whether these two men are free-speech champions, or smug bastards hoisted on their own petards, will be for the listener to decide.”

HOLD FAST, named for the words Lacey tattooed across his knuckles, is created by former New Times writers Trevor Aaronson (also behind the podcasts “American ISIS” and “Alphabet Boys”), Sam Eifling, and Michael J. Mooney, who joins Nancy and Sarah - who spent a combined 25 years in the alt-weekly trenches - to talk about working for New Times during its heyday. “It was a meat grinder of employment, but also, the Shangri-La of journalism,” he says. “It was both things at once.”

Also discussed:

* Eclipse!

* postrate not prostate

* Post Malone does a chicken commercial

* “We don’t get the free speech warriors we want, we get the free speech warriors we deserve”

* Erotic cake toppers, anyone?

* Does Sarah love Mike Lacey? Does she hate Mike Lacey? Maybe both?

* Who did — and who did not — get those $5000 checks

* Reason magazine’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown does heroic journalism

* A gift from Wallace leads to the tiniest Viking burial?

This episode of Smoke ‘Em, dealing with the threats to journalism and free speech, is, maybe not paradoxically for former alt-weekly scribes who covered the “freak beat” (Mooney), interviewed serial killers (Nancy), and walked around the office barefoot (Sarah), also one of its funniest.

HOLD FAST is available on Audible.

Participants in April’s First Sunday Zoom kindly submitted to being recorded while discussing the 1973 film version of Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, which we watched as a group. How did people feel about Elliot Gould playing the classic 1940s gumshoe? What about all those naked women (too much, too little)? And was it possible to appreciate director Robert Altman’s update only once you’ve gone through the looking glass of post-Helter Skelter Los Angeles?

Correction to this episode: In our discussion of the late comic Ed Piskor, accused of sexual misconduct, we conflated the accounts of two women, both of whom happened to be named Molly. In the first case, 17-year-old Molly D. never claimed a physical relationship with Piskor, only messages she exchanged with the artist. In the wake of this accusation, an older woman, Molly W., added her own story, framing a past sexual relationship with Piskor as exploitive, a charge Piskor addressed in his suicide note, claiming they’d had sex twice, and that both times were consensual. The age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16.

* First Sunday Zoom

* Earthquake. Steve Kornacki.

* Eclipse mania

* Jennifer Senior wins award, keeps kicking ass

* “Harmonica virgins”

* Sarah’s new car, picture for paid subscribers only

* Lessons of Isuecardealers.com

* “The True Cost of the Church Going Bust,” by Derek Thompson (Atlantic)

* The Matt Welch

* Everyone meets at Paloma/Nancy’s apartment

* “My Mom Has No Friends,” by Monica Corcoran Harel (The Cut)

* Sarah’s first act of civil disobedience

* “Nut pick” definition

* The Journalist and the Murderer, by Janet Malcolm

* Ed Piskor Comics Beat

* “Don’t give me a gun and tell me not to use it.”

* Bananas bananas bananas

* The best musical of all musicals told at the twilight of the Americane experiment

Nothing worth doing comes without a cost. Become a paid subscriber.

The new HBO docuseries about Nickelodeon’s dark side, Quiet on Set, reveals the bad things that can happen when kids do adult work while actual adults behave like (troubled) kids. Child stars can be ultra-performers: Michael Jackson, Judy Garland, Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Olivia Rodrigo. But at what cost? Let’s ask Amanda Bynes and Drake Bell. (Or the cast of Diff’rent Strokes.) How many child stars will lose their marbles before we agree that a heady mix of celebrity, toxic task-masters, freeloaders, and easy money isn’t wise for a demographic that would otherwise be hanging at the mall? So much to discuss.

Christine Blasey Ford is back with her memoir One Way Back, and Nancy took one for the team and read it. Sarah, meanwhile, re-watched the eight-hour 2018 trial, because she’s insane. The Kavanaugh trial was a real moment: squee, boof, “I like beer.” Beyond the memes, however, it was more: a reckoning, a moral panic; an education, a national disgrace. Five years have passed. What can we see — or say — that we couldn’t back then? A lot!

Leigh Stein worked at Richual, a fast-rising women’s wellness company, when she was fired for posting about the company’s colon hydrotherapy requirement. *Actually, this did not happen to Leigh Stein, it happened to a character in her 2020 female empowerment satire SELF-CARE, which Stein has been promoting in a gonzo PR campaign on Instagram, delighting fans and confounding casual followers, who’d grown accustomed to her tart publishing advice (her official lane). 

Nancy and Sarah talk to Stein about the absurdities of wellness and modern feminism, the circular firing squad of women’s-only spaces, and whether MFAs make any sense (mostly no). Also covered:

* “Does Mike Pesca know we think he’s cute?”

* Leigh Stein, book crisis expert

* A famous writer (among others) falls for Leigh’s Instagram satire

* Why TikTok/IG videos get filmed in cars

* Women Full of Binders / Binders Full of Women / Full Binders of Women What?

* That time Sarah ruined Leigh’s life

* Save the world every time you take a bubble bath!

* When Leigh’s husband wouldn’t call himself a feminist

* Woke Leigh delves on why feminism and social justice mattered so deeply

* The MFA racket

* What today’s cancel mobs have in common with Renaissance poisoner Lucrezia Borgia

* Leigh wrote a poem for Lip Smackers magazine

* Nancy wrote an ode to peanut butter

* Sarah is sexting with the Fletcher’s corny dog account

* “We get these mixed messages, like, we should help each other; do it for the sisterhood; are you lifting up other women? If not, you’re a bad woman. And then you do that and everyone destroys you.”

Plus, a poetry tempest in a teapot, the times when Sarah vacuums in a wig, why women don’t want to be objectified (until they do), and much more!

Want to meet your heroes the second-best host of this podcast AND Mike Pesca in person? If you’re in NYC this Thursday, you can! Details after the break.

Gratuitous hot pic of Nancy that Sarah found while recording:

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Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough is a modern classic. Nancy gushed over it so often Sarah finally read the thing, and damn, Nancy was right. Burrough is a longtime Vanity Fair contributor whose seven (!) books cover oil tycoons, Fortune 500 companies, and true crime, but we’re here to talk about his 2015 epic on 70s radicalism and political violence, which was criminally under-rated upon its release but has become a cult classic.

Trigger warning: This episode drips with fan-girling.

Also included, in TIME-STAMP FORMAT (possibly for the last time):

* Buc-ee’s: Pro or con? (7:30)

* George Mitchell, father of fracking, HL Hunt and Clint Murchison. (7:53)

* How Days of Rage came about, and why Burrough wouldn’t do it again. (12:30)

* When the media ignores your politically inconvenient book (19:50)

* Weather Underground (29:30)

* How journalism fell apart (31:00)

* Bernadine Dohrn: Radical-era bomb-thrower turned law professor (35:40)

* Protests were about race: “We didn’t really care about the war” (44:29)

* BLM activism compared to 70s: “This is kiddie college” (49:30)

* The Capitol was bombed by leftist activists?? (52:50)

* “More people in the FBI went to jail because of the Weather Underground than people in the Weather Underground went to jail” (1:00:00)

* “Our jobs are so much fun” (1:09:00)

* The heist book Burrough just inhaled (1:10:00)

Plus, why oil tycoons are low-hanging fruit, a podcast debate about George Floyd, the writer Burrough most wishes he could emulate — and more!

Want more conversations like this? So do we. Become a paid subscriber, because things that matter are never free.

It was Hollywood’s big night! Oscars 2024, a spectacle Nancy hadn’t seen in years (ed: she watched it last year) and Sarah found exhilarating, especially the Oppenheimer sweep (ed: her quote was, “It’s so boring”). But both found plenty to love — mostly Ryan Gosling burning down the house and reminding us this is fun.

“I need to be clear that I don’t want to like Tucker Carlson,” Sarah says, right before going to the mat with Nancy over the controversial news host’s recent appearance on The Lex Fridman Podcast. Fresh from his Putin interview and his discovery of coin-operated shopping carts, Carlson gave a three-plus hour interview with Fridman, whom Nancy and Sarah both like. But Carlson? That’s a tough one. Carlson is the kid in school everyone hated, with the Kennedy-esque hair and the sports car at 16. And Sarah — though she really wishes this weren’t the case — defends some of Carlson’s more piquant opinions on beauty and architecture, power and corruption (and Navalny), feminism and beauty.

Also:

* Sydney Sweeney’s boobs, smoke ‘em

* OnlyCans page: Yea, or nay?

* Does Nancy know the dirty phrase “vinegar stroke”? She does not.

* Sarah’s crush on Lex Fridman

* Sarah’s (former) crush on Jon Stewart

* Sarah’s crush on The Rock, hmm, Sarah needs to get out more …

* Yes, but who built the beautiful Moscow subway?

* Nancy and Sarah get heated over … architecture?

* Don’t worry, kids, your mommies are not getting a divorce

* Tucker Carlson vs. Jon Stewart, two shadow sides of each other

* “Don’t listen to the critic, listen to the man in the arena.”

* Nancy and Sarah really only admire two politicians. Now, they’re running against each other.

* The vocal stylings of a blobby loser

* Pro-Palestine protests inch toward violent Altamont territory

* The time the 1960s ended as The Rolling Stones sang “Under My Thumb”

Plus, Nancy explains Oregon’s messy drug laws, we debate which American city has the prettiest buildings, why Catherine Deneuve chose her face over her ass, and more!

“I Was a Heretic at the New York Times,” an Atlantic essay by Adam Rubinstein, exploded on the old Twitter/X/Hate Machine. The story opens at a staff orientation where Rubinstein expresses love for Chick-Fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich and gets rebuked. Did it happen? Can we know? What sauce goes best with a spicy chicken sandwich ? That one we know: Honey-roasted BBQ.

So what is this journo-kerfuffle about? Why should we care? Nancy and Sarah get down and dirty about this week’s lightning-rod essay, and along the way …

* Nancy goes viral …

* We’re hawking Fifth Column merch, because Nancy needs closet space

* Shane Gillis sighting! Shane Gillis hug!

* Throwdown! Chick-Fil-A vs. Shake Shack

* “Running this puts Black @NYTstaffers in danger.”

* Sarah takes out her personal-essay scalpel, slices carefully

* Who is Michael Hobbes, and why did he block you?

* Southern writers are like chicken sandwiches (we swear)

* Nikole Hannah-Jones = untouchable?

* Jesse Singal = always hungry

* Why are people fighting so hard over this?

Plus: Do French fries need ketchup? Does Nancy’s face look and different after the treatment she got yesterday? Should we sell merch?

Nancy and Sarah discuss male nudity: Barry Keoghan going bare for Vanity Fair, shirtless men in public, and which of them actually enjoyed getting a dick pic, though that’s NOT an invitation. Also discussed:

* Sarah gets a new gig, and it’s a good one.

* Did Shane Gillis bomb on Saturday Night Live?

* “Our love, Mike Pesca”

* Sarah will be barefoot at your party

* Nancy learns the meaning of “spank bank”

* Cinema’s famous moments in penis

* Nancy does a racism?

* Sarah’s strict rules on sexting

* A story about a stripping nun

* Actually Max Tani is a good reporter

* A man is sexiest when he is … working.

* Impeachment is a great series, but …

* Monica Lewinsky’s size-12 blue spooge dress

* Lily Gladstone is the real girl boss

Plus, the NBA star you might run into at a Dallas supermarket, 80s wrestling greatness, big-ass Trans Am love, and more!

This is a hot one! Nancy and Sarah fundamentally disagree about Emily Gould’s viral essay on the lure of divorce. Nancy compares the story to the rot in France before the formation of the Vichy regime. Sarah believes personal essays like this help people feel less alone. Can she change Nancy’s mind, as Walter Kirn did on the most recent episode? (Fast-track to 33:08 for that 🔥 exchange.)

Also discussed:

* Should we start texting our vote for president, and does that mean Taylor Swift wins?

* The $125 divorce? It’s a thing.

* Anti-depressant-induced hypomania. It’s a thing.

* Eat, pray, sell: The divorce memoir industrial complex

* Sarah is a gender essentialist on the topic of raising kids

* Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath is not THE divorce memoir (according to Nancy)

* FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (30-minute mark)

* The problem with “brave”

* Awkward pause while Nancy searches for a passage to prove a point while Sarah claims she’s addressing a different point

* “Maybe it was possible to be married and not married at the same time.”

* The best essay Sarah knows about writer’s envy is by Jonathan Franzen’s girlfriend

* The writer’s monstrous ego

* The conflict between women as a protected class and agents of their own destiny

* “Mr. Piss” rips that financial scam essay a new one

* Have we ever fallen for a scam?

* That time Sarah was robbed at gunpoint

* That time Nancy talked herself out of getting robbed at gunpoint

* Send us pictures of your pets!

* Love to the family of David Frum

* NANCY AND SARAH STAY FRIENDS

Plus, Sarah accidentally scams her own father, Nancy offers a public service announcement, and “Smoke ‘Em” names its 2024 presidential pick AND comes up with its campaign slogan!

AND HEY! Look at this brand spankin’ new “Smoke ‘Em” Instagram account our intern CJ built for us. COME PLAY.

Vote Smoke Em 2024. Become a paid subscriber.

Walter Kirn sees the world with a spooky clarity. He’s an acclaimed novelist, podcaster, and the editor-in-chief of the print-only publication County Highway, a reading experience that could also be called, What We Lost in the Clickbait Era. Kirn joins Nancy and Sarah to discuss the absurd pageant of politics and media, domestic censorship and curated …

It’s Valentine’s Day, like it or not. To celebrate, Nancy and Sarah brought on Dan Savage, the most influential sex expert of the past 30 years, and he did not disappoint! Savage is the man behind the long-running Savage Love column and its audio sibling, the Savage Lovecast, but he’s no longer with The Stranger, the Seattle-based alt-weekly he ran for a long time (and there’s a story behind that).

Savage came on to offer a counter-argument for polyamory after listening to our recent pod on the subject. The conversation that followed is a banger. Also discussed:

* Welcome to all our new Sam Harrises!

* Valentine’s Day rule #1: No flash mob proposals!

* Savage is a pothead?

* How a cultural firebrand writing about dildos became The Man

* Savage does not do dick jokes on command

* “The Tear Veto”

* Sarah wonders if she’s a conservative, and also what does that mean?

* Neologisms of Dan Savage: “monogamish,” “tolyamorous,” “pegging”

* We never talk about the relationships saved by non-monogamy

* Why poly-prosthelytizers are the worst

* Sorry, kids: Polyamory is not an orientation

* The good ole days when straight men went to gay men for blowjobs …

* Nancy learns the term “down-low”

* Marriage for women up until the Seventies: Musical chairs meets Squid Game

* Of course your wife wants to fuck her personal trainer!

* “Sexual desire and lust are chaos agents”

* Are men and women ultimately sexually incompatible?

* Watching trash TV with your husband’s boyfriend

* Dan Savage, how was your #MeToo?

* Asking for what you want in bed: You gotta do it!

* Why gay men are better at sex (not because they’re magic)

Plus, the reason Savage watches True Detective, a collective disappointment over Capote vs. The Swans, and how straight people can vastly improve their sex lives with four magic words.

On Jan 2, a writer named Celeste Marcus published an essay entitled, “After Rape: A Guide for the Tormented” in the free-speech literary journal Liberties, where Celeste is managing editor. She wrote about an incident in 2021 with a close male friend as they slept beside each other in bed. She called it rape; he did not. The man remained unnamed until February 4, when Celeste posted an email exchange to Twitter with Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. In one email, Marcus had written, “The rapist was Yascha Mounk. You have a rapist on the staff of your illustrious publication.”Mounk is an Atlantic contributor who specializes in free-speech issues. He’s the founder of the journal Persuasion and host of The Good Fight podcast. On Sunday, the Atlantic announced they’d cut ties with Mounk, who has mostly stayed silent.

We brought on criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield to discuss this thorny situation. Greenfield is a straight-shooter who wrote about the case in a recent blog post called “The Atlantic Caves to #MeToo.” To question a victim’s story has become taboo, but to interrogate every story has been a necessary tradition of justice, journalism, and rational discourse. Greenfield is not a fan of what he calls “the sex police.”

Can we ever be sure what happens in other people’s bedrooms? And why has it become so popular, even noble, to try? Gird your loins for a conversation about #MeToo and its aftermath that is frank, illuminating, and challenging — possibly to listeners, definitely to the narrative. Notable talking points:

* “Am I allowed to say, ‘I call bullshit’ on this pod?”

* When did people go from being the heroes of their own stories to the victims of their own stories?

* Why drinking matters in sexual assault cases

* “A lot of the campus policies under Title IX are unlawful.”

* The clear bright line of “no means no”

* Plot twist! Leon Wieseltier, #MeToo casualty, is the editor of Liberties journal

* How feminist activists bypassed the dead-lock of “he said/she said”

* “You can’t call a woman crazy. But what if they are crazy?”

* Felicia Sonmez, remembered

* How do Atlantic writers feel about Goldberg kicking a contributor to the curb?

* What should Yascha Mounk do now?

* Let’s built tolerance for ambiguity!

* The bravery of journalist Emily Yoffe

* The sadness of “compare and despair”

* Can we ever walk this back?

* Advice to parents!

* “Hot box???”

Jon Ronson’s 2021 podcast Things Fell Apart was that rare example of journalism that explains our current divisions without getting dragged down by them. A journalist and storyteller, Ronson’s documentaries, books, and essays have taken him into strange worlds — porn, the paranormal, neo-Nazis — and he’s always kind enough to bring us along with him, though it often feels like he’s leading us back to each other. The second season of Things Fell Apart takes place during the pandemic, particularly the volcanic year of 2020, and it’s a humdinger.

Also discussed:

* Is Jon Ronson related to Mark Ronson?

* The astonishing true-life tale of Jon’s Aunt Mavis

* Alex Jones can’t help himself

* The problem with Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger

* The Great Reset?

* Is narcissism an epidemic? Is loneliness? What’s our epidemic?

* Speaking of: Plandemic!

* How to tell a new story about George Floyd?

* Nancy and her “excited delirium”

* The dangers of connecting the dots wrong

* The CNN anchor who got ticked off at Ronson

* Activist journalism vs. evidence-based journalism

* When the right lies, they go big (Pizzagate). Lies from the left are subtle (“bigot”).

* An update on Justine Sacco

* Living with our trolls and their addiction to trolling

* Sarah and Nancy pick the same hot box, and it’s an important one about cancel culture and, inshallah, its demise

Plus, Nancy and Sarah debate the hottest guy on Friday Night Lights, a brilliant podcast re-telling of a media shitshow, and more!

Actual footage of Jon Ronson avoiding cancellation:

Fall down the rabbit hole of becoming a paid subscriber.

American Nightmare is a docu-series on Netflix that has everyone talking. Sarah and Nancy are no exception! They discuss the case of the “real-life Gone Girl” who became a 2015 media sensation after her boyfriend reported a home invasion and a kidnapping with details so bizarre they couldn’t be real … or could they? (Conversation contains spoilers.) Also:

* AI Nancy: Nicer and prettier than IRL Nancy?

* Glamping in a cave

* Nancy is the Energizer Bunny of air travel

* Sarah recommends Nancy’s writing from Israel, though she’s read none of it

* Matt Welch interviews Bill Maher, need we say more?

* High-functioning daily pot smoker: Hot or not?

* Sarah’s least favorite Taylor Swift song

* Taylor Swift’s boyfriend is named … Chad?

* Knockers, milkers, fun bags, “cowboy pillows”

* Fight! Fight! (Not really a fight, but a debate about journalism)

* Lie detector tests: Mostly accurate or junk science? Yes!

* Take it from a detective: Cops do not throw chairs when questioning suspects

* Swiping right on that serial rapist

* Wait, which college scandal?

* Sarah’s journey to learn more about Vince McMahon other than the detail that he might have pooped on a woman’s head during sex

Plus: Super Bowl speculation, Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, Ben Affleck rescues hostages — and more!

The Oscar nominations dropped, and folks are MAD. Despite breaking box-office records, Barbie failed to get the nod for Best Director or Best Actress. Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, foiled again! As our friend Ben Dreyfuss tweeted: “The Other Genocide: The Oscars Treatment of White Women.” We talk about who really got snubbed, and why some people will never stop complaining about the treatment of women. Also:

* Sarah has a scary stalker (no really)

* More polyamory talk? We got you!

* Did Barbie even make sense?

* But the Ryan Gosling dance sequence!

* … so mad we got our periods.

* Saltburn burned again

* “Do you lick the equipment?”

* Moms and technology <3

* Hear us out: The show opens with hummus being rubbed on her breasts …

* Nancy is the fake Joan Didion

* Vince McMahon allegations are not safe for work — or home, really

* Is it even possible to p**p and have sex at the same time?

Nancy and Sarah get down (!) to the serious business of ethical non-monogamy, thanks to the cover story in this week’s New York magazine. Is polyamory really a trend? Does opening your marriage ever work? Sarah finds this subject (professionally) fascinating; Nancy thinks it all ends in tears and grubbiness somewhere in Park Slope. Also discussed:

* 2024: The Year of More Punching

* Axl Rose was once an Indiana kid named William Bruce Rose

* Nancy’s squeaky little voice vs. Nancy’s va-va-voom photos

* Nancy’s reasonable objections to sex writing

* Sarah’s reasonable arguments FOR sex writing

* Stats, stats, we need stats

* New lingo alert! “comet partner,” “metamour,” “one-penis policy”

* Obviously Burning Man is involved

* We design our perfect ethical polycules

* Amazon employees are mad about moving to Austin?

* Love for Israel during hard times

Plus, the many haircuts of Camille Paglia, our new Fight Club, and how a persimmon is like a penis.

With Nancy off in Israel, Sarah sits down with Matt Welch, crackerjack co-host of The Fifth Column — not to be confused with Matt Walsh, conservative commentator, or Matthew Welch, everyone’s favorite bagpiper. Matt is editor-at-large at Reason, whatever that means, and a long-time journalist, musician, and libertarian, a term Sarah tries to pin down (good luck with that). Also discussed:

* Matt’s blood-boiling anger for bagpipes and pan flutes

* That time during the pandemic when we all lost our minds

* 1968 or 2020: Who wore it best?

* Did you know Matt spent time in Czechoslovakia?

* Media integrity: Going, going, gone

* Why Matt doesn’t own a gun

* Is it embarrassing to still love Hunter S. Thompson?

* Trade secrets of appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show

* Q: “Does Bill Maher still date exclusively black women?”

* Public schools might be fucked

* Steel-manning the case against Israel

* The question about Kmele Foster and Michael Moynihan Matt refuses to answer

* Who would win in a fist-fight between Fifth Column co-hosts?

* Who would win in a fist-fight between Sarah and Nancy?

* Why “One in a Million” by Guns N Roses is a work of art

* Who will be president in 2024?

Our MLK Day episode kicks off with stories about the chain-smoking, philandering civil rights leader who is also one of the founding fathers of the American Dream. We discuss the terrific new movie American Fiction, and somehow segue to a discussion about Buckminster Fuller and geodesic domes. Which one of us will be guilty of “contempt prior to investigation”? Take a guess. Also discussed:

* How is Sarah like Ron DeSantis?

* Nancy’s creepy close encounter with an Amazon delivery guy

* Sarah tippy-toes to the razor’s edge of being a Crazy Cat Lady

* MLK Jr. had a letter opener lodged where?

* When Gawker writers become movie-makers …

* American Fiction is the first great woke satire

* The hotness of Issa Rae

* Love for Push by Sapphire and Precious, the movie it became

* Sterling K. Brown is the best part of The People vs. OJ Simpson

* Why Nancy called the TV station during the slow-speed OJ chase

* OMG the new Truman Capote vs. the Swans television show OMG

* What is “Taliban glamping”?

Plus a plane crash in the Andes, a gripping new French film, and Sarah and Nancy discover who is the wife in this relationship and who the husband, the litmus test being …

The Bill Ackman-Neri Oxman-Claudine Gay-whoever else storm continues to rage. How does anyone get work done? We sort through the madness, and along the way:

* Sarah gets a curious invitation …

* Nancy is the “Epstein Island” of the Illuminati

* Did Sinead die of a broken heart?

* Bill Ackman’s tweets are longer than the Bible

* How is Claudine Gay’s op-ed like Amber Heard’s?

* What constitutes cheating, and should the rules be clarified?

* The ethics of stealing from Tom Waits

* The new Atlantic writer who’s captured our hearts

* Who is Jo Koy, and why do we hate him?

* The Golden Globes monologue wasn’t that bad

* Margot Robbie and Jennifer Lopez in pink gowns: Who wore it best?

* Jeremy Allen White’s Calvin Klein ad ha-cha-cha

* Succession, Succession, suhk-sesh-SHON!!!

* Wait, who kissed Sarah?

Nancy and Sarah welcome their first-ever repeat guest, Kat Rosenfield, and the result is a hot and steamy conversation about beauty standards, fatphobia, plastic surgery, sexual awakenings (and creep-outs). Along the way we discuss:

* What rhymes with “potsticker” AND is a symbol of the worst of mankind?

* The time Sarah was doxxed by the White Pages

* Is “fat postivity” a fantasy? If so, is it a good one?

* “Him-pathy”

* Growing up under the lash of Kate Moss

* Is Martha Stewart going for for “Russian Oligarch’s Fourth Wife”?

* Madonna going for … something

* Zee French, zey ahh diffuh-runt

* Sarah does TWO Monty Python accents (both lousy)

* The Jeffrey Epstein “molestation Ponzi scheme”

* You can at least buy us a drink first, Rob Henderson!

* Who wants to sit in the melty lap of Stephen Hawking?

* Sarah tries to get cancelled, again!

* What is society supposed to do with dirty old drunk men? (Gerard Depardieu edition)

* We will never get a Honey Baked Ham sponsorship

And much more!

Whose DNA does Sarah want to roll around in? What does “uncanny valley” mean anyway? Whose music did Sarah find “a beautiful Frankenstein amalgam”? What podcast helps us move out of the wood-chipper of the culture wars? Is 2023’s worst political story also its best? Plus, hot guys, SO many hot guys, and Sarah reveals the good thing about comedy!

My better half Sarah Hepola is expecting me on-air within the hour so quick notes today… I was about to write, and then remembered what the gypsy lady told me…

The voice of Ken Layne is something everyone should have in their life in 2024.

I used to write fiction (and maybe there’s one more novel in me, the beginnings of which, genealogy charts and architecture books and 150 handwritten pages, are on a shelf behind me...) Become a subscriber and I’ll send you a book!

The piece I read, “Three Sets of Keys,” is over on Make More Pie, where I hope to plunk a lot of reporting - written, audio and video - while in Israel. Go subscribe!

The essay by Benjy I referenced. Gosh he can write.

The 6-inch springform pan you will need if you decide to make yourself and your loved one(s) a sexy little cake.

Petit Gateau au Chocolat, adapted from Maida Heatter

* 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

* 1/2 cup sugar, divided

* 6 T. (3/4 stick) butter

* 2 T. flour, plus flour for dusting pan

* 2 eggs, separated

* Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 6-inch springform pan, line it with parchment paper, butter that and dust with flour, shaking out any excess. (You can use pan spray instead of butter; I won’t tell.)

Melt chocolate over low heat or in the microwave. Allow to cool several minutes. Stir in the butter, all but 2 T. of sugar, the flour, sugar, salt and then egg yolks, one at a time.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the remaining 2 T. sugar until they form soft peaks. Fold whites into chocolate mixture, then turn into prepared pan.

Bake 30 minutes. The cake will look soft. That’s fine. Cool on a rack until it’s warm, remove springform ring and invert cake onto a serving plate. If you are being fancy - and why not? It’s New Year’s Eve - place four strips of wax paper around the edges of the cake to catch the icing drips.

If you want a mirror like glaze: In a small saucepan, melt three ounces bittersweet chocolate with 2 T. sugar and 2 T. water. Whisk in 2. T butter until smooth. Allow to cool, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes, then pour slowly over the cake. Remove the wax paper and, look how pretty!

You can also ice with ganache, which is ridiculously easy to make, just chopped chocolate and heavy cream. I will let Sally of Sally’s Baking Addiction - one of my two favorite baking sites, the other is Smitten Kitchen - show you how easy.

Happy New Year everyone, I love you all. This post is free today so feel free to share xx

We’ve reached that joyous time of year when Sarah listens to the 22-episode podcast about the 2020 Harvey Weinstein trial, an annual tradition. Nancy takes a break from baking to tell us about peeing in the woods and the giant stuffed hedgehog (maybe? see photo below) she just (kinda) wrapped. But the centerpiece of our celebration is sex scandal. First, a discussion of the Weinstein trial, because even three years later, it’s hard to get your head around it. Then we’re on to a veritable holiday calendar of misbehavior, starting with January poster boy Paul Haggis and ending with December’s … listen to find out!

We interview Sherman Alexie, Native American author and top-tier Substacker, about Pretendians like Sasheen Littlefeather and Buffy Sainte-Marie, who steal trauma for their own status. We also discuss:

* The ruse of the word “indigenous”

* How inclusivity plays out in a younger generation of “defendians”

* “I grew up in hell”: hard life on the rez

* The genetic link of blackout drinking

* You wake up naked on the top of a hill, what do you do?

* You should be so lucky to have an ancestor named Thunder Meatflayer

* Will the current surge in Indian film and TV creation continue?

* The “shocking and amazing” classic novel Sherman just re-read

* Scorsese Scorsese Scorsese

Writers write. And sometimes talk shop! This week, Sarah and Nancy chat with one of the best: Kerry Howley, essayist extraordinaire and author of the superlative and unclassifiable Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, a book about “the deep state,” according to its cover, though Kerry admits, “I don’t know what this book is about.” Bottoms Up is unsettling, quietly profound, introducing us to whistleblowers like Reality Winner (yes, her real name) and how technology has us flattened us into data that can be harvested to create whatever story the Powers That Be want to tell. Good times! Also discussed:

* Is Monster energy drink a tool of the devil?

* Why Kerry thought the subject of her book sounded boring, too

* Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning are not the heart of this book

* Reality Winner is a hell of a character

* The Intercept’s fateful mistakes

* Do you have to interview a person to profile them?

* When the “compulsion to help” leads to dangerous places

* Why a bad memory is the key to good writing

* Empathy for Britney Spears’ father Jamie

* Profiles on Larry Nassar, whistleblower Daniel Hale

* The argument for reading celebrity memoirs

* We love a journalism assignment!

* The first pages of Moby Dick are … funny?

* The writers we turn to for inspiration

* Kerry and Nancy each have a daughter named Tavi

* Why writing is like a possession

Sarah and Nancy dive into that mess of a Congressional hearing on college antisemitism. Did the three presidents — Claudine Gay from Harvard, Liz Magill from University of Pennsylvania, Sally Kornbluth from MIT — step up to the moment? They did not. But were the questions unfairly stacked? Did they make fair points about “context”? Is part of living in a diverse society the privilege — yes, privilege — of being offended? We answer these questions, as well as:

* Did the Swiss Family Robinson live in a tree?

* Is “It’s a Small World” the most annoying song ever?

* Are the ideological chickens coming home to roost on college campuses?

* Can Nancy successfully include two audio clips in one episode?

* Why are so many women leading Ivy League universities?

* What’s going on in the field of social work?

* Which cat made CAT HISTORY this week?

* What literary tragedy is Sarah currently obsessed with?

And much more, including darkness and life lessons in our hot boxes and a banger of an outro by some lady with a cat.

Amid the protests that have shut down more than one New York bridge, we take time to celebrate our rizz, explain why the term “tipflation” won’t catch on, and invent an entirely new word. Also on tap:

* Word of the year

* What happens when the right to free speech clashes with your right to get to work?

* Philadelphia pro-Palestinian protest gets ugly

* Columbia School for Social Workers are not sending their best

* The ambient anger over tipping

* Europe brings tipping to the New World, leaves it behind like trash

* That time Nancy bribed the guy performing her daughters’ baptism

* The lameness of Hot Topic

* Nancy kneejerks! Sarah slut shames (but only because she loves sluts)!

* Is The Golden Bachelor sadistic?

* Has a man ever lied and told you he loved you?

* “Who’s the boss?! Who’s the boss?!”

* Buffaloes are sexy

Sarah and Nancy are together in New York, along with a pink tree and some confusing Christmas lyrics. In this season of love and war, we discuss:

* Which holiday standard will make us millions?

* What is “parse and brown” and what does it have to do with Christmas?

* What was Nancy’s Not Finest Hour and does it involve yelling at protestors on the Manhattan Bridge?

* Macy’s Day Parade protesters apply Super Glue directly to their hands

* Your hosts decline to “pick a lane”

* Susan Sarandon says a dumb thing, gets the boot

* Matti Friedman educates us

* Is Nancy the last person to realize her unconventional reporting from Portland might have impacted her career?

* The steep decline of family dining and the rise of solo-everything

* The younger the woman, the more they report “disrespect from the opposite sex”

* Who’s lonelier: Boomers or Gen Z?

* Sarah mixes up Leonard Cohen and Leonard Bernstein

* Nancy mixes up the actress from The Gilded Age with the actress from Deadwood

Plus, delightful new hot boxes, and a sultry money pitch you won’t want to miss.

The Fall of Minneapolis is a crowd-funded documentary that raises serious questions about the George Floyd trial. Was officer Derek Chauvin actually following protocol? Why didn’t jurors see critical body cam footage? And what was going on with that autopsy? Buuuut the documentary comes from a Minnesota group with right-wing politics, so you likely won’t read much about it outside Fox News. Too bad, because one of the biggest news stories of the decade deserves real scrutiny. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the documentary, plus:

* Minneapolis as special source of white guilt

* Revolution is not getting with the season of gratitude

* When evidence doesn’t fit a public narrative

* Are protests getting more violent, or is Nancy cherry-picking?

* Did the sexual revolution mostly serve men?

* Attachment-free sex is not a good end point

* A new beauty box (or, as Sarah calls it, “dirty hair ahead”)

* Albert Brooks (and Tom Arnold?) love

* An outro song that captures what it means to make a place at the table, to know that “everyone's a little broken, and everyone belongs.”

And much more!

As I mention in the audio, my plans this year got a little kiboshed. But! From adversity, opportunity, and I’ll now go to two Thanksgivings, one day-of event with a lot of people I don’t know and to whom I will get to feed pie, and a smaller one with family, for which I am not going go the whole 9 yards, there will be only 5 or 7 of us, a number likely to swell. We will not have turkey at this one but a roast goose, because one of the guests ate it once 30 years in Prague and remembers it fondly. I have never roasted a good but did watch some YouTubes and scanned for recipes and feel pretty confident, though will be very happy for your tips, and especially for a not-too-sweet glaze with which to baste the bird. I like sweet-and-meat but others do not so, hit me up.

I am also going to be making a change to a standard recipe, if not a change this horrific. As I mentioned yesterday on the Twitter* machine, the correct number of eggs in mac-and-cheese is zero.

What a I changing? The stuffing. Let me be clear: THIS WOULD NEVER BE THE CASE WERE I MAKING THE TURKEY. Stuffing, the kind I learned from my mom, is my favorite food, and while this means I should make it more than once a year, maybe just to stick in a chicken, I do not. A lack of at-hand giblets (which I knew meant the whole mess of innards you find in the bird; in the audio I meant gizzards, which I think is probably a fake word but anyway) might contribute, but mainly it’s because to my mind you need to make vat of stuffing because it’s so delicious and you want to feed it to many people and, if you are me, you need eat a great deal of it for yourself, before it goes into the turkey, and while you’re stuffing the turkey, and at the dinner (three helpings), and cold from the fridge. I already look forward to 2024’s repast.

This year, along with the goose - and the potatoes that will be roasted in the goose fat - I will try a new stuffing recipe, one from my girl Alison Roman. As mentioned in the audio, I am already making changes to the recipe in my head. Here she is making it.

Food is love (say it with me), and we’ve had a lot of both in this apartment these past few weeks, dinner parties and late-night hangs, including a few nights ago with a lot of the Reason mag peeps as well as the Fifth guys and their most recent guest, the awesome, funny, super-cute, whip-smart Mary Katherine Ham.

Then two two nights ago - I am typing this at 8:39am on Sunday, hoping to get this up in time! - we welcomed our beloved Yael Bar Tur back from Israel. She was on the pod last month and in our hearts always.

We ate all the food and drank all the wine and sang some songs and gave each other shirts we picked up in war zones. These friends, this life, I love it so much.

A few links mentioned in the audio:

“Sam Harris: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil,” Honestly podcast

And the recipe! This, too, I love to much, and am sending all buttery love to you and yours xx

Thanksgiving Stuffing

* 3 loaves white bread, supermarket variety, not too dense. I am liking potato bread these days.

* 2 good-sized yellow onions, small dice

* 6-8 stalks celery, small dice

* 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter

* salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, thyme if you have it

* 6 - 8 cups turkey stock, plus the giblets you’ve simmered in the stock, chopped

A day or two before you plan to make the stuffing, let bread slices dry out a bit. Turn then a few times so somewhat evenly dried but don’t stress. Once semi-dry, cut bread into cubes.

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter. Add onions and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent and onions are starting to brown just a bit. Add your chopped giblets.

(You are of course welcome to add the meat you chop off the turkey neck. I eat the neck, sending all squeamish people running from the room.)

Unless your pot is massive, remove half of the onion mix; you’ll be making the stuffing in two batches.

Add half your cubed bread to onion-mix, stir to start coating the bread, sprinkling with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning and some thyme. Stir stir. Now start adding your stock, a cup at a time, until stuffing is moist but not wet.

Stuff your turkey - or not! Any that does not fit in the bird, and there will be plenty, you can put in a buttered dish, maybe drizzle a little melted butter, and bake at a 350F oven until crisp on top.

*And some outro love from the original X (man). Would that I could, I would feed him a wheelbarrow of stuffing and it would not give him half the joy he’s given me. Happy Thanksgiving John Doe!

Protests are the gift of a free society. But also: Annoying! We talk about three recent stories on the explosion of activism over the Israel-Hamas war, and when “building a better world tomorrow” ends up tearing apart the community today.

* Nancy stans Dave Barry; Sarah needs convincing

* Humanity is hard. Protesting is easy.

* Why has the 21st century seen a threefold increase in protests?

* What would you do if your kid tore down posters?

* “We need to stop acting like these are serious people.”

* The moral rot of anti-Semitism

* Political cartooning as latest culture war battlefield

* Ayaan Hirsi Ali is down with Jesus

* Do you feel comfortable in church?

* A Beach Boys confession

* We ❤️ Jeff Tweedy

Where else are you going to hear about Home Goods, Philip Roth, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Rammstein in one convo? Plus a listener request (in episode notes), and what’s in our hot boxes!

After an update about how mice might have gotten into Nancy’s apartment (human trafficking, anyone?), she and Sarah discuss the 44 minutes of footage Nancy recently saw at a screening in New York, “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre.” Nancy wrote about it in a recent essay, “This is Terror,” and they talk about the carnage, sorrow, and soul murder that is war.

It’s our 100th episode! Time for a pop quiz, then on to the following:

* HBO president caught secretly striking back against critics

* But is working on HBO’s The Idol grounds for any lawsuit?

* Love for Alan Sepinwall, fastest TV critic in the West

* Behind the scenes at Tucker Carlson’s exit from FOX

* The “c-word”

* “She said Tucker Carlson is a messenger from God, and he said nope.”

* The word Nancy cannot stand, and the phrase that makes Sarah blush

* Can The Real Housewives ever be a moral enterprise?

* How RHONY’s Leah McSweeney became “Hurricane Leah” and the lawsuit she recently filed

* Drinking and reality TV

* “If you go to a whorehouse, you’re gonna get fucked”

* Wild, hopeful, morally fraught stuff in the fertility industry

* A baby made with the DNA of three people: Wait, what/how?

* We cannot countenance an image of the Fleshlight, but if you must

Plus, a “pretend-ian” scandal and a smoking-hot sports star in the hot box

Our guest is the “Long Island-accented, turbocharged” Mike Pesca, host of The Gist. We begin — and end! — with fabu tech failure, but along the way, we talk to the intrepid podcaster about getting thrown on the funeral pyre at Slate, why he can’t stand slow talkers, Israel-Hamas press coverage and culture clashes, and his high metabolism for information. Also discussed:

* Pesca’s podcast listening hack

* When is a testicle like avocado toast?

* The Jeopardy! question that cost Pesca the championship

* How NYT journalist Donald McNeil Jr. got fired and won a Pulitzer the same year

* Which publications are failing in their coverage of Israel-Hamas, and which might be getting better?

* Is there any proper context for the tweet, “How great you are Hitler”?

* Pesca suggests new Smoke ‘Em segment: “Kneejerk Nancy”

* Is “from the river to the sea” the new “All Lives Matter”?

* Wiccan priestesses at NPR? Bring ‘em on

* Is Sarah crazy to think Joe Biden’s kinda rockin’ it these days?

* Can anyone beat Donald Trump?

* Our “I ❤️ Mike Pesca” tattoos will be inked soon …

* Let’s not over-catastrophize about the world right now

* Sarah remembers Matthew Perry

Plus a cavalcade of hotboxes, and even Sarah is following the World Series.

This week has left many of us on a razor’s edge, watching posters of the Israeli kidnapped torn down,* protesters banging on the glass of Cooper Union’s library while Jewish students hide, and all variety of, “Did someone really say that”!? A “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” march takes place tomorrow, the Sabbath, in a heavily Jewish section of Brooklyn (and if you think the “flood” allusion is arbitrary, think again); meanwhile, Israeli air strikes have hit more than 7000 targets in Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians, and the ground invasion is only just starting. Things are tense, and we are worried, but mostly, we want to be prepared.

And to speak to/hear from you this week about:

* The chaos at Cooper Union

* The campus fight to be seen as “oppressed”

* Someone actually said, “The Holocaust wasn’t special”

* Israel has lost the battle for TikTok

* Schlubs dressed as Nazis at the Torchy’s Tacos in Fort Worth, Texas

* Radicalism without consequences

* Geopolitical tragedies as opportunities to advance your personal brand

* Has Hasan Minhaj redeemed himself?

An air raid siren went off the moment we sat down to interview Yael Bar Tur. “Give me five minutes,” said the co-host of the “Ask a Jew” podcast. “I have to go to the bomb shelter.” An Israeli who lives in New York City, Yael was visiting her family in Tel Aviv when Hamas massacred 1400 Israelis and kidnapped 220 others on October 7. She has so far decided to stay, documenting the conflict and terror on her Twitter feed, which has become a must-read of incredible human drama and, sometimes, the world’s horrifying response to that. “The thing about antisemitism is, there’s something for everyone,” she said. She also talks about:

* The eerie quiet of Tel Aviv

* Are Israelis united? You bet. Do they agree politically? Not so much.

* The Twitter story on Yael’s feed that brought Nancy and Sarah to tears

* WTF with people tearing down Israeli hostage posters?

* BDS should not be confused with BTS, the K-Pop band

* Viet Nguyen, an Open Letter supporting Palestine, and literary chaos at 92NY

* Should colleges even make public statements of political support?

* The celebrity who likes every one of Yael’s tweets

* Papa Joe, the most popular man in Israel

Also: Thomas Sowell is suddenly everywhere, a must-listen podcast, and a documentary that dares to humanize insurrectionists

Nancy and Sarah are here to talk about beauty and wonder and love and heartbreak, from a wave of Natives in film to a new twist on an old reality show. But first, they discuss the utter failure of media outlets covering the missile strike on a Gaza hospital, most likely a misfire from a Palestinian group that was initially reported as an Israeli rocket because, well, Hamas said so. We hope the journalistic fails of the past week prove a corrective, as there are grave consequences to misreporting when the situation is this hot.

Onto beauty and wonder! Namely the release of Killers of the Flower Moon, the three-plus-hour Scorsese adaption of David Grann’s 2017 book, which Sarah and Nancy saw on opening day. Discussed:

* How Scorsese changed the screenplay after meeting with Osage members

* The greatness of Leo and the luminosity of Lily

* We will not spoil the movie, but we will say: It has big twists!

* That time Charlton Heston played Geronimo, and other historical absurdities

* Why “The Bachelor” franchise is the hunger games of love

* Is “The Golden Bachelor” the most transgressive of the “Bachelor” shows?

* What films Sarah has still not seen, for god’s sake!?

Plus, a memoir on the Cultural Revolution, revisiting a journalism fraud - and Nancy and Sarah discover they have the same crush! Photo reveal in final episode note.

Nancy and Sarah chat with the charming Bridget Phetasy, host of the podcast Walk-Ins Welcome and the YouTube show Dumpster Fire, her weekly take on the news-and-nonsense cycle. Bridget is ten years sober (tomorrow!), and we revisit her reckless youth with a discussion of her essay, “I Regret Being a Slut.” She also explains how motherhood snuck up in her 40s after she’d come to peace with not having kids. Also discussed:

* What age does the good-time van start to break down?

* The days when Sarah’s first morning question was, “Do I recognize this ceiling?”

* Bridget asks of her daughter, “I have to serve you three meals a day for how long?”

* Why Nancy is the Jane Goodall of sexual encounters

* Bridget coins a term, “wasted womb syndrome,” and no one is happy about it

* On second thought, let’s not smash the patriarchy

* Why do celebrities go from making movies to making tequila? Hint: it’s the money

* We don’t want to close our eyes to the horrors in Israel and Gaza, but when does bearing witness tilt over into rubbernecking?

* Are buffaloes kind of sexy?

* The most underrated season of The Wire

And much more!

Our guest is Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and author of the new book, The Canceling of the American Mind, which he wrote with Ricki Schlott. The book is a “walk down trauma lane” of the past several years, covering the feeding frenzy to go after people with views other than your own — and how we get out of it. Greg can chart when this mess began, late 2013 and 2014. But why? And what monster has been created now? (One answer might be found in a bunch of college groups publicly supporting the mass murder of civilians in Israel.) Also discussed:

* People who say cancel culture isn’t real

* What is the actual scope of the problem?

* “The horrible phenomena of Tumblr, out of which all terrible mental health ideas seem to have arisen…”

* Yale University has one administrator for every four students. “That’s the same ratio the government recommends for childcare of infants under twelve months.”

* What is the worst college for free speech?

* The link between wealth and performative justice

* People telling Greg, “We do not hire elite college graduates anymore…”

* Matt Welch gets name-checked as “an autodidact”!

* Steven Pinker, too big to cancel?

* Book banning and other problems with the right

* Why you want to send your kid to U of Chicago and UVA

* What Taylor Swift and the Pope have in common

I had not yet read anything else, but for her tweet below. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Yael, who will assuredly be posting updates.

Ten minutes before I checked in with Yael I’d gone through the handwritten recipes I have sitting on top of the microwave, to choose what I would write about today. It would be kugel, because it’s delicious and easy; because October is a month of Jewish holidays, and because I had a funny story about the first time I ate it and got the recipe. Also, the last time I made one, it was for a Passover this spring hosted by Yael and her parents. Today, I told Yael I was sending all love and courage and faith, and that overnighting cookies seemed beside the point but…

“Can I have the cookies when I get back?” she wrote.

Of course, I told her, that today’s Pie Talk would be kugel, at which she responded with today’s subtitle: “Pies for peace!”

Episode notes and recipe:

The Bad Mother: A Novel, by Nancy Rommelmann

Michael Moynihan, yours truly, Yael Bar-Tur and Matt Welch at Israel Supreme Court, 2022

The light in Israel, plus Michael shows appreciation for the Israeli military

Reporting from Israel 2022:

* T-1: Israel

* The Rabbi Offers His Broccoli

* 15 Meals in 36 Hours

* The Olive Trees

* Hebron

* You Don’t Know Anything

* Yad Vashem

Bill Schulz reads at Yael’s family Passover in NYC, 2023

American Playhouse’s Roanoak, on which I met my daughter’s dad. We built those villages in swampland, weathered one hurricane and 10,000 chigger bites; I crashed a truck into a tree and got chased up a different tree by a wild boar. Two marriages ended, one baby was born, and I fell in love so hard I thought a train had fallen on me. Tim is not in any of the scenes of this clip (which I’ve never before seen), but during the opening scene (or one like it), he and two other guys in the longboat fished me out of the river when my over-the-shoulder hip-waders filled up and pulled me under. At 2:43 you can see, rear right carrying the wounded man, the man who would become my daughter’s godfather, and at 3:03, Tim’s dad and my daughter’s grandfather Will comes in, as the Chief, always cast as the Chief, both because that’s where Natives in film were back in 1985, and also, maybe, because he was 6’7”.

Just after Tavie’s baptism, with her two non-Catholic godmothers

I misspoke when I said, the priest pressed $220 into my dad’s hand. It was of course the other way around!

Alison Segan’s Mother’s Kugel

* 1 12-ounce bag egg noodles

* 8 ounces cream cheese, softened

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened, plus more for buttering the pan

* 1 cup milk

* 4 eggs

* 1/2 cup white sugar

* 1 teaspoon vanilla

* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

* 1/2 cup white raisins

* Frosted Flakes cereal

Boil noodles in boiling salted water until just cooked. While noodles are cooking, with a hand-mixer or standing mixer, blend the cream cheese and butter. Add all remaining ingredients (except noodles and Frosted Flakes) and blend until smooth. Combined drained noodles and cream cheese mixture, toss, and pour into an 8 x 12 (or so) buttered dish. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Unwrap noodles, sprinkle with a generous amount of Frosted Flakes, and bake for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

Nancy and Sarah dig in to the ever-so-complicated Savior Complex, a new HBO docu-series about a young white missionary in Uganda who may or may not have been responsible for the deaths of young children in her care. Is Renee Bach a murderer, as the activist group No White Saviors insists, or a do-gooder who got in over her head? This is a cautionary tale about missionary zeal on both sides. Also discussed:

* An activist stabbed in random street violence, and some people … celebrate?

* Baseball player Trevor Bauer gets dragged for two years following accusations of violence and sexual assault, but apparently, that was not the whole story

* Why even the mention of false accusations makes the media queasy

* The discomfort of withholding judgment in the outrage media cycle

* When the kids at Sarah’s school went on mission trips and milked her for money

* The particular wrath of former evangelicals turned activists

* America’s mayor on the skids: Rudy Guiliani’s drinking problem

Plus: The sensuous pleasures of an old-fashioned newspaper and, a true-crime bonanza

Nancy and Sarah talk with Marisa Meltzer, author of the new book “Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier.” The pretty-in-pink makeup brand Glossier became a phenomenon after it debuted in 2014, and the book tracks the rise and not-exactly-fall of its founder Emily Weiss — telegenic, driven, an MTV star at 22 — who built a billion-dollar company that exploded on Instagram and defined the effortlessly chic life young women coveted, at least for a time. How did she do it? Weiss has a “WASPier version of chutzpah,” as Meltzer puts it, and she somehow managed to survive the “Girlboss gotcha” purge that ousted other female CEOs.

Also discussed:

* The verboten intimacy of people’s make-up rituals

* “Emily the super intern” on “The Hills”

* How is makeup actually made?

* #girlboss blah blah

* The higher the pedestal, the longer the fall

* The “zest for blood” that was 2020

* Which actor is making Marisa hornier than she’s been in a while?

* Nancy’s energy fields

* Breast milk soap anyone?

Nancy is transmitting from the Mojave Desert, Sarah is staring at the same old closet wall, and they’re glad to be reunited to talk about the other pizzagate, this one between the Washington Post and Dave Portnoy, certified douche-bro of Barstool Sports who nonetheless came out the winner in this week’s viral standoff. Other topics discussed:

* The way the desert smalls you

* The cringe factor of Portnoy’s phone call

* The response piece the Washington Post SHOULD have written

* Did Sarah dump a drink on Nora Ephron’s head?

* Is it better to get married, and other unanswerable questions

* What Dr. Joyce Brothers told Nancy

* Single mothers, single women: the discomfort of being someone’s poster child

* Gamify biology? How’s that working out?

* Holy smokes, the cost of egg freezing

* Sonic bad-assery

This week Nancy and Sarah butter up the prolific and enviably clever journalist/novelist Kat Rosenfield. Kat takes us back to the days of writing $15 posts for MTV News and through the confounding episode of her cancellation in the young-adult fiction world, which led to a stellar career as, among other things, a culture columnist at UnHerd and co-host of the podcast Feminine Chaos. She writes compulsively readable thrillers, too! Also discussed:

* That time Kat was suspended from Twitter for telling someone to …

* The YA lit dogpile that Kat wrote her way out of

* Why she thinks most cancellations are “an overcoat over some personal beef”

* Her obsession with the loss of social trust

* Our conflict between wanting women to have the agency of their own choices and wanting to keep them safe

* Ahhh, Howard Stern memories (and how apparently no woman should be over 120 pounds in the 90s)

* The disappointing reveal of the Lauren Boebert footage

* How to solve a problem like Russell Brand?

* Age of consent and 16 year olds

* The podcaster that makes Kat bite her lips

* New Beauty Mark recommendations to make you smooth, soft and sleepy

And much more!

This guy was just sitting in Nancy’s apartment, so we invited him into the studio, and by “guy,” we mean Michael Moynihan, co-host of “The Fifth Column” podcast, former Vice correspondent, and favorite big-brained raconteur. And what did Michael — did we all! — want to talk about but the attempted LA Times takedown of this week’s Bari Weiss debate, a piece so deliberately rancid, we decided to read it aloud, with commentary!

“We should be welcoming debate in all its forms,” says Michael, who referred to the Times’ piece as “the pyromaniac in the straw-man debate.”

NB: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is one of our favorite organizations, and we support it wholeheartedly (and not only because we get to doll up and go their swank events). Of all the snark in Ali’s piece, this one really stinks.

Also:

* Sarah becomes the 85th woman to call Michael Moynihan an asshole

* Why Michael is such a keen student of history and how this relates to WWII and being very cold while walking to school

* Why we’d never recommend journalism school

* Christopher Hitchens’ rule on when to stop listening to someone

* Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore take heat for going back on-air

* A new podcast revisits the 80s New York crime wave

* The greatness of Shane Gillis

It’s September 11, and what does it say that neither of us recalled the date the minute we woke up? And what would it be like to wake up and find you are, perhaps, being made an example of? Danny Masterson, star of That 70s Show, found out last week, as did former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, each receiving what seem to be outsized sentences, in Masterson’s case, 30 years to life for rape, in Tarrio’s 22 years for seditious conspiracy. Were the men’s long sentences affected by their affiliations to Scientology and the Proud Boys, respectively, and a public hunger for a whipping boy? And what do Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis have to apologize for? (Hint: nothing.)

Also discussed this episode:

* What it was like for Sarah to be in Bolivia when the towers came down

* An alleged LAPD/Scientology conspiracy seems unlikely …

* But how did Scientologists thwart the victims in the Masterson case (in one case charging $15k for auditing)?

* Thing we really didn’t want to know about Mackenzie Phillips

* How “intentional” was January 6?

* Men are turning away from college: Could the “bro-chure” bring them back?

* The debut of Beauty Bump, a regular tidbit wherein Nancy and Sarah share the products/gizmos/routines that keep them soft and lovely (please do not disabuse us of this notion).

* Gen Xers dig Olivia Rodrigo

Also, tonight, September 11, Nancy will be reading at P & T Knitwear Bookstore, 180 Orchard St, 6:30-8pm. Come by and say hi!

And don’t sleep on heading over to Apple podcasts to rate and review ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️!

We become ever softer and lovelier when you become a paid subscriber

Nancy and Sarah are joined by Chaya Leah Sufrin, one-half of the wonderful “Ask a Jew” podcast, to talk about a subject she’s mostly avoided: Weight and her own body. Chaya Leah recently lost 45 pounds, which coincides with a season when Sarah was shedding weight too, making for one big conversation about diets, discipline, self-care versus self-neglect, and the mental health savior that is exercise. Topics include:

* The forbidden TV show Chaya Leah used to sneak-watch as a young girl

* The secret to weight loss is deciding to do it

* How do you balance body positivity with, umm, reality?

* Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Scarsdale, etc etc.

* The Jane Fonda workout and the 80s VHS fitness craze

* Vitamin B12 shots, yea or nay?

* Everyone thinks Chaya Leah is on Ozempic (she’s not)

* Nancy and Sarah share a fantasy and it involves … pills?

* Chaya Leah’s crush on Elon Musk

* Did the ADL go to the way of the ACLU?

* Who Nancy wants to play her in the movie

And much more!

Ethan Strauss, the wunderkind of the House of Strauss, joins groupies fans Sarah and Nancy to talk about …

* Nike ads and the failure of trying to sell what does not resonate

* Sports in an era of “toxic masculinity”

* The atomization of men?

* The podcaster/comedian Ethan and Sarah bonded over

* Ethan’s 2 + 2 magic formula for success

* Why football’s downfall was greatly exaggerated

* Why we love old men in coffee shops and their fart jokes

* Aspirational groupies are a thing

* Ethan’s favorite sports movie

* That time Sarah made Ethan cry

* Why The New Yorker no longer excites us

* The MSNBC anchor in an Under Armour scandal?

And much more!

Don’t forget: First Sunday Zoom hang happens this Sunday, September 3, where we talk Shattered Glass! We’ll send the link to subscribers on the day-of …

The thrill of victory will be yours when you become a paid subscriber

* Porno chic = a real moment in American culture

* A NYT column introduces a great question about sex, but the advice? zzzzz

* Jesse Singal on sex drive differences between men and women

* That time Sarah’s boyfriend lost his attraction for her

* How often do married people actually have sex?

* The problem with sex statistics: Everyone lies

* Could extramarital sex be a marital aid?

* Why is Nancy glowing?

* New Depp-Heard docu-series is like a greatest-hits record of a six-month trial

* Nerds + fandom in one bang-up (and short) documentary

* Tell us why we should do a live show in your town!

Our guest today is the remarkable Jennifer Senior, who won the 2022 Pulitzer for Feature Writing for her Atlantic essay “What Bobby McIlvane Left Behind,” written on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. She’s been a book critic and columnist for the NYT, a staff writer for New York magazine, and her book All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, spent eight weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. She talks with Sarah and Nancy about her past work and her moving recent Atlantic essay about an aunt who was institutionalized, “The Ones We Sent Away.”

* What does a Pulitzer look like, anyway?

* When NYT wanted Jennifer to be “the Terry Gross of the op-ed section”

* The importance of writing without judging your subjects

* The “yearning and searching” part of grief

* “We are always inventing and reinventing the dead”

* The aunt Jennifer didn’t know she had

* When children were sent away “for their own good”

* The hell hole that was Willowbrook

* Arthur Miller and psychologist Erik Erikson both had children in institutions?

* The sinister tale of Rosemary Kennedy

* How much power do we actually have over our children’s development?

“You guys have the best podcast name,” Jen said just after taping. And the best guests! Become a paid subscriber and miss not a one

Up for discussion this week:

* The mysterious “TMFINR” woman on the plane is found, and it turns out she was Sarah’s neighbor!

* Is it wrong to reveal the identity of someone who accidentally became famous?

* Florida school officials fear Romeo and Juliet may make teenagers horny

* Sarah celebrates with some of Shakespeare’s dirtiest lines

* Nancy was a soft-core pornographer???

* A new law has Pornhub shutting down in certain states

* Would you give your driver’s license information to a porn site? Neither would we.

* Billie Eilish says watching porn at 11 destroyed her young mind

* Could online porn ever become unfashionable like teen smoking?

* An outro ode to the late Robbie Robertson

CALL FOR LETTERS! Send any burning questions to smokeempodcast@gmail.com

Shall I compare thee to a paid subscriber? No even better, just BECOME one

* Wait, Lizzo wants that dancer to eat a banana from where? We look at the lawsuit filed against Lizzo by three dancers that includes many wild details, but Sarah is suspicious of that “fat-shaming” accusation

* How did Jim Larkin and Mike Lacey, two alt-journalism pioneers and heroes, get smeared by government lawyers as “child sex traffickers” and have their assets, their reputations and their freedom taken from them? We talk about the fight over Backpage.com, and the tragedy this week of Larkin’s suicide

* Why alternative newsweeklies matter(ed?)

* Joe Biden finally acknowledges his seventh grandchild (sigh of relief)

* Nancy’s got a new nickname

* Sarah’s finds a narrative podcast fix

* The sweetness of the county fair (and piglet races!)

Don’t forget: FIRST SUNDAY ZOOM this Sunday, August 6, 8pm ET / 5pm PT, for paid subscribers. Come hang! We’ll send out a link on the day-of.

Nancy ate six zeppole at the Ulster County Fair yesterday. Become a paid subscriber and she’ll double that!

“They tried to bury me,” Sinead O’Connor said in the 2022 documentary about her, Nothing Compares. “They didn’t realize I was a seed.” We look back at the life and legacy of Sinead O’Connor, who died this week at the age of 56. Sinead was a firebrand onstage, but her 2021 memoir Rememberings reveals her to be funny and unpretentious and not very interested in fame. She was a protest singer cast in the role of pop star. Topics discussed:

* Ghosts in the piano, writing songs to the rhythm of a rocking chair

* Why do some children of abuse mourn their parents so deeply?

* That time she shaved her head

* A bizarre anecdote about Prince, who wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U”

* How she managed to sneak the Pope moment onto “SNL”

* Four children with four different fathers

* Morrissey gets the last word

* Pivot to Israel: What is going on?

* Kevin Spacey exonerated, but huh, there’s a pattern here

* Graphic novels are cool

We Barbenheimer-ed! And we weren’t the only ones: Sarah found a 20-minute concession line in Dallas, the loo in NYC was out of toilet paper, and the two films took in more than $500 million globally. Still, would America have cared as much had the cinematic landscape not been so scorched-earth? Would Oppenheimer have been better as a mini-series? Did a Ken doll get more screen time than all the women in Oppenheimer’s life combined? We ponder these questions, as well as:

* That time Tony Bennett wrote a hate letter to Sarah in the New York Times

* Nancy has “guy-dar”

* The Oppenheimer supporting actor who captivated Nancy

* The problem with biopics

* Which is scarier: the atom bomb or AI?

* How seriously should we take the gender politics of Barbie?

* How great is Ryan Gosling?

* Did one of us cry during Barbie? Hold on, did both of us?

* X marks the Twitter?

* The Eddie Murphy sketch that Nancy swears she’s never seen (but how?)

* The WWII book that made a bigger impact on Sarah than Oppenheimer

What’s cheaper than a movie with much shorter lines? Becoming a paid subscriber!

On the docket this week:

* Nancy has crisis-of-masculinity fatigue

* Jonah Hill and what do people expect from posting private encounters

* Lost Girls, the Gilgo Beach serial killer, (not) understanding sadism

* The unlikely origin story of Barbie

* Is Barbie “everything the feminist movement was trying to escape from,” as Gloria Steinem said, or is she actually a feminist success story?

* The question of Ken’s bulge

* Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach take on Barbie, because why not?

* George Michael, rats, and a new book Nancy cannot tear herself away from

* Don’t sleep on a new Smoke ‘Em interview series, which launched on Wednesday with Sophie Scott, professor of cognitive neuroscience and author of the new book, The Brain: 10 Things You Should Know, which in addition to being brilliant, is a sexy little size that fits in your purse

* Plus, since “Choose Your Own Adventure” comes up several times in this episode, Nancy thought she’d show you hers:

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Nancy here. Among the things I learned reading Sophie Scott’s fabulous, super-smart and sexy new book, The Brain: 10 Things You Should Know: The brain itself has no feeling, I could be poking your exposed brain with my fingers (though I wouldn’t!… I don’t think) and you’d be like, “Pass the salt, please.” That everything we experience is the brain’s best guess at what is out there. And that while your body constantly renews itself - the lining of your gut in 2 - 4 days; all your red blood cells in 40 - there is one and only one body part you keep from birth to death.

"I am also interested in the expression of emotion in the voice, especially laughter,” writes Scott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and director of the Institute for Cognitive at Neuroscience at University College in London, who joins me to talk about:

* “The good glue” that is laughter

* Why left-handed people pay attention to the world differently

* “Synaptic exuberance,” or humans’ terrific inventiveness and flexibility in adapting to different environments, all of which relies on our brains’ ability to change

* The endorphin rush that made Scott fall backwards into a bath while attempting to take off her coat

* The reason my brain once created the sound of a hard hat striking cement

And much more!

Intro/outro music: “Sleeper Awake” by Kelly Hogan

In this week’s episode:

* Nancy’s pro tips on trying to stitch herself

* The TikTok lady on the plane who claimed “that m***erfucker isn’t real” prompts a talk on the dangers of mixing Ambien and alcohol, the nature of religion, and what technology is doing to our sense of reality

* The New Yorker’s story on penis enlargement surgery makes Nancy yelp

* The REAL reason men want larger penises is…

* What is tetanus anyway?

* Nancy makes squoogy food sounds while talking about The Bear

* Sarah has a new reality show addiction

And much more!

And so Meghan Daum, Sarah, and Nancy took the stage last Thursday at Old Parkland, an eye-popping and glorious campus founded in 1984 and now owned by real estate billionaire Harlan Crow (yes, that Harlan Crow). The conversation was hosted by the Mill Institute, an initiative that works in “educational settings to explore and challenge the entrenched thinking that leads to a breakdown of conversation on contentious issues.” Our moderator was Ilana Redstone, the faculty director of the Mill Institute and associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

See if you can guess which one of us remembered to take pictures!

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Nancy here. It was 15 minutes before sound check when my daughter and I decided to scoot around Old Parkland for a few minutes. I mean, the place is crazy gorgeous, very grand, we get a few steps out of the building and …

“Is that a bar?” my daughter asks. It is, right there on campus and a stone’s throw from where we will be speaking, and I mean, we do have 15 minutes.

It’s a Negroni for Tavie, a glass of rose for me, which we might have had plenty of time to sip but for the bartender, a guy who had many many stories to tell before making the drinks. Which was fine! He was entertaining and sweet and very funny, and if I had to lay money, I’d say he might also do stand-up (or should). As he went finally to grab the drinks, Tavie looked at who was at the bar with us, maybe 15 people, all dudes, in button-down shirts but not fancy.

“These guys are probably younger than me,” said Tavie, who is 33. Maybe so. Also, we were definitely not in Fort Greene.

“I like preppy guys,” she said. Me too.

We brought our cocktails with us for sound check. The camera guy told me I better keep my legs crossed, because the way the cameras were positioned, below the stage, made it, um …

“It is kind of Sharon Stone,” said Sarah, referring to the then-scandalous scene in Basic Instinct, and you know what? She was right!

Anyway, Stone is not the beautiful girl I referred to above. That would be my girl. Thanks for subscribing!

Nancy reports from storm-strewn Tulsa while Sarah reports from the future, where they discuss:

* The worst storm in Tulsa since 2007, not that the news is covering it

* Sarah has a new boyfriend, and he is exactly one day old

* The predictive genius of the movie Her

* Is it cheating if you’re fooling around with an AI?

* Do we have to tell our partners everything?

* The future where Siri becomes personalized, and we all get AI assistants

* The difference between “falling in love” and “being in love”

* A new season of The Bear is coming

* Is Nancy’s Native American accent offensive?

* Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

* Black Mirror is back, baby!

* UATX event with Nancy, Sarah, and Meghan Daum

Also in Texas, where I’ll be headed Monday or Tuesday, and eventually on Thursday to Dallas, for an on-stage event with the University of Austin (yes in Dallas, though apparently there are more local digs in the works) with Hepola and Meghan Daum. The event is for students-only but UATX is growing - check them out.

I interrupt the usual Pie Talk by reading an essay as, alas, I have not been making much pie or anything else, the only thing in my refrigerator are condiments and Diet Coke and maybe a half-bottle of wine. At least Cameron Diaz’s has some salad…

So I mention in the episode a short book/manual/pdf thingie written by two genre authors about 15 years ago, about the ways and whys of self-publishing. I thought it was called “Be the Monkey,” and maybe it is, but alas, I cannot find it. What I can find are oodles of other books about self-publishing as it’s gone so mainstream and become for many so lucrative. I mean, hello Colleen Hoover, who knows the trick to success (and practices it better than any of us) is to write write write; there lies the radiance.

I did yesterday, over on Make More Pie, and the response has been gratifying. It’s the piece I read for you here. Go ahead and subscribe over there if you have not already, and thank you.

Onto the deliciousness! Do try this one, which is just in time for zucchini season, which lasts at least a week (though it won’t) and, I am told, freezes beautifully.

Must-Try, Super-Moist Zucchini Bread from Alexandra’s Kitchen

* Scant 2 cups (227 g) flour

* ¾ teaspoon baking powder

* ¾ teaspoon baking soda

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

* 1 teaspoon kosher salt

* 1 cup light (213 g) brown sugar

* ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar

* ¾ cup vegetable oil

* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

* 2 eggs, lightly beaten

* 2½ cups grated zucchini (12–16 oz.)

* Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Grease a 8.5 x 4.5-inch loaf pan or a 10 x 5-inch loaf pan if using as much as a pound of zucchini (see notes above). For easy removal, line the pan with a sheet of parchment paper that hangs over the edges. 

* Whisk together first five ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk remaining ingredients except zucchini. Add zucchini to the flour mixture and toss to coat. Add dry to wet and stir till until combined. Pour into pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. If you have an instant read thermometer, it should register 205ºF or above. (Note: Every oven is different, and different pans conduct heat differently —  be patient with the cooking. It may take 20-30 minutes more. With the longer cooking time, the bread shouldn’t burn, but if you are noticing the bread getting too brown, cover it with foil.)

* Let bread cool for 15 minutes in pan, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing. 

She also offers a step-by step video!

This week, we tackle:

* Elizabeth Gilbert’s para-social relationship with her fans

* Victimhood as status, online campaigns as feel-good mirage

* Will Sarah defend Elizabeth Gilbert? Yes, she will.

* Our Moderate MILF watched “The Idol,” and she has thoughts!

* Is HBO’s new show a critique of our hyper-sexualized world, or a victim of it?

* Which Britney Spears was the hottest Britney Spears?

* Tom Wolfe gives a wedgie to the world

* The greatness that is Rick Rubin

Nancy has messy beach hair, and Sarah is expanding her yin, so this week we tackle:

* The meltdown at CNN

* Who is Chris Licht, and no, it’s not L-i-c-k-e-d. (Note: This episode was recorded before Licht resigned on June 7.)

* Can cable news be saved?

* FAIR vs. FIRE, and the push from the center

* Walking is not exercise?!?

* A New York Times arts critic skewers Hannah Gadsby’s Picasso show

* Sarah and Nancy take the over-under on said show’s popularity

* The sleazy 90s bad-good thrill that is HBO’s The Idol

* The line between women’s sexual agency and women’s sexual exploitation

* The joys of local news

And much more!

Being in Los Angeles reminds me of coming to Los Angeles, which reminds me of Tim and what, as a rural Oklahoma boy, he wanted with every meal, an item a New York City ate maybe twice a year, at the holidays, namely: Gravy.

But not this kind!

Cleaning out my mom’s pantry earlier this year I found a can of this and, more as a science experiment, decided to see what might be done with it. After adding salt, pepper, a splash of sherry and some butter, my best solution was to pour the stuff down the drain, really, save yourself the trouble (and the money!) and make homemade, recipe in episode notes.

As I relate in the episode, I met Tim Sampson on the PBS miniseries Roanoak, about the lost colony thereof. I am not sure whether this opening canoe scene is the same one I tell you about, the one where Tim saved me from drowning. But maybe!

I mention here that, after Tim and I fell in love, I followed him out to California. I bought a used station wagon in upstate New York and slept in truck stops on my way west. My first stop was somewhere west of Pittsburgh. It was late, and the all-night diner was open. I sat at the serpentine counter and ordered a grilled cheese and watched the waitress pout coffee for a man in a Carhartt (or similar) jacket and watched them quietly talk, watched as she lingered holding the coffee pot. My impression was that there was intimacy here, maybe not a relationship so much as a conversation picked up each time he stopped in. Or maybe it was just this one time. Maybe this was her gift, her job. I am sure I had some sort of reading material that I ignored as I watched them.

It was not until four years later that I wondered whether I always somehow knew the work I was headed for. By that time, the drive cross-country yielded what’s below.

Episode notes:

“The neighbors at Curson Avenue in West Hollywood were mostly Armenian, including the dozen or so housedress-clad older women in the apartment complex next door, women who would verily ululate at our fence when they realized we were having another get-together for two hundred. On the other side was a two-story complex where my brother’s friend Todd lived. Todd was a plumber who shared an apartment with his mother-in-law, an Armenian widow in black, and his SoCal, short-shorts-wearing wife. At twenty-four, Todd already had two kids, the first born blind. Todd spent every afternoon in our yard smoking pot, and that’s where he was when his wife banged open the screen door and stood on their balcony. 

“TAHD!” she screamed, “I’M PREGNANT AGAIN!” 

“Cool,” Todd squeaked, trying not to exhale. - “Meet the Neighbors,” from Forty Bucks and a Dream, Stories of Los Angeles, by Nancy Rommelmann

Dances With Wolves was a pretty massive cultural event, especially so for Native actors, as many more historical westerns were about to be made and provide employment.

Many of these young actors started down to LA from the rez, some of whom wound up hanging at the home in Hollywood where Tim and I lived with our baby girl.

These included Rodney Grant and the late Steve Reevis. Tantoo Cardinal had appeared in an earlier movie with Tim called War Party.

Will Sampson talking about how all the Indian heroes for kids are dead.

I’ve told the story (scroll down) of how my daughter Tafv wound up playing the part of “Gram” on Reservation Dogs. The below does not include her opening scene with Lily Gladstone:

Tafv went on to set decorate an independent film called Fancy Dance, which also stars Lily, who also stars in another movie you might have heard of.

You see this trailer, and her appearance in Rez Dogs, and it does not need to be explained that her acting is otherworldly.

Writing about Josh Drum and all the other young Native actors who passed through our home and whom I cooked and cooked and happily cooked for, in 1990-1992.

“Taking My Ex Back In (for His Own Good),” by Nancy Rommelmann (New York Times “Modern Love”)

I cannot carve out the video of Tim going “Mmmm!” but it’s here, scroll through. The second to last image is from our daughter’s wedding day, when we knew Tim was terminal.

Okay okay, let’s make some gravy. It’s flexible, just remember the ratios and up them depending on how much you want to make:

2 tablespoons fat or meat drippings, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 CUPS stock or other liquids. (I accidentally said tablespoons in the audio.) You can play with this in any number of ways; add some wine or sherry or fresh-chopped herbs. It’s super-easy and makes dinner festive!

Gravy

Add chicken fat or beef drippings to a frying pad. Heat over medium heat until bubbly. Using a rubberized whisk, add flour. Cook two minutes, stirring constantly, until flour takes on a bit of color. Add about a 1/4 cup of liquid and whisk, Mixture will seize up. Add another 1/4 cup and keep whisking until gravy loosens. Continue adding and whisking until you have a smooth gravy. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Gravy is very flexible! Using cream for up to half your stock in a beef gravy is lovely.

And please, I beg of you, send me your best biscuit recipes xx

* Who saw the ending coming?

* The “failson” that was Kendall, and why does Sarah want to fix him?

* The louche character of Roman, nihilist

* Shiv meets the fate of her mother, her worst fear

* Why the Greg theory of victory was never gonna wash

* A father’s love: The real narrative drive of the show

* “It takes three generations of American life to make a Shakespeare scholar”

* Freud’s repetition compulsion

* The funeral episode and the speech that was Nietzsche meets The Fountainhead

* Shiv and Tom: “A change has come / she’s under my thumb”

* That nasty Jeremy Strong profile in the New Yorker

* Why “privilege” is a shallow metric to talk about a human life

Topics covered:

* Which American cities have the highest percentage of people wanking at work, and evidence that we've entered “a golden age of masturbation” for better or worse

* Is Ozempic also an anti-addiction drug? The secondary benefits are compelling

* How is the Martin Amis novel Money like foie gras?

* Amis, who died last week, joins the list of voices we miss: Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, Christopher Hitchens

* How Anna Nicole Smith shape-shifted into the American dream, and what it cost

* The documentary scene about Smith’s life that super-disturbed Nancy

* That time Sarah almost got plastic surgery

* The men in our hot boxes

And much more!

The writer/podcaster/documentarian Jon Ronson joins Nancy and Sarah, and they could not be more excited. Highlights include:

* Jon compliments Sarah, Sarah swoons

* The podcast inspired when Jon’s 11-year-old son asked if he knew PornHub

* Jon’s pronunciation of porn (“pohhhhhn”) and the strange spectacle of adult entertainment, including two-camera orgies and bespoke porn

* The sin of “both-sidesism”

* The hardest story Jon ever had to report

* Why Jon turned down Piers Morgan

* Jon’s new Audible podcast “The Debutante” about the mystery of Carol Howe, who may or may not have been able to prevent the Oklahoma City bombing

* Dial-A-Racist?

* Informants get $25 a day??

* “Things Fell Apart” season two on the way!

* The problem with defining people by small slivers of their lives

* A judge caught masturbating during trial and other untold stories

Go see Jon in London! He’ll be appearing at two events later this month, a May 24 “Things Fell Apart LIVE!” and a non-fiction writing workshop on the 28.

Things fell apart, but we try to put them back together. Why not become a paid subscriber?

In this exclusive North American interview, Wallis covers the following:

* The nature of false accusations, borderline personality diagnoses, and whether “mutual abuse” exists

* How live-tweeting the UK trial “fed a rapacious audience” that went tribal during the pandemic, and how his tweets got more than 10 million views

* Why “believe women” clashes with a journalist’s mandate to question everything

* Can you ever accurately litigate something that happened behind closed doors?

* How one bad marriage wound up in two different legal judgments

* Is the court of public opinion more important than real courts?

* Curious encounters with American food, including Blondies (“what are they?”) and half-and-half (a big thumbs-down)

* Jimmy Saville, Britain’s #MeToo poster boy

* The best Australian comedy series right now

* Period drama, by which we mean menstruation

* The greatness of Eurovision

* How many inches is Sarah’s integrity? The answer may surprise you!

We hustle out of love, but it never pays the bills. Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

In what might be Nancy’s favorite Smoke ‘Em episode to date, she and Sarah discuss:

* The mass shooting on May 6 in Allen, TX, where Sarah drove the next morning to check out the scene

* The problem of guns and the moral dilemma of violent real-life pictures: Do they numb us to reality or push us toward action?

* The subway killing of Jordan Neely, including attempts to paint his killing as racially motivated and politicians “gravestanding” for political goals

* Sebastian Junger on “Why Men Seek Danger” and maybe why you should, too

* Our coronation correspondent wonders: What up with Michael Strahan’s lisp?

* When you write something controversial and the subjects who once derided you start looking to you for answers

* The best survival movie Sarah has seen in years

* What is the sexiest quality in men?

* Sarah squirms in her chair as Nancy tells a near-death driving story from Panama

* How we deal with geniuses

And much more!

Also: Mail-call! Send us your compliments, criticisms, suggestions, and desires, and we’ll read them on an upcoming episode. smokeempodcast@gmail.com

We believe in reporting that is calm and compassionate and following our curiosity and our guts. Doing this podcast gets easier when you become a paid subscriber

* Who wore it best? Jared Leto’s catsuit, Chrissy Teigen’s negligee, Kendell Jenner’s bathing suit and other appropriate/inappropriate attire at the Met Gala and the Washington Correspondents’ Association Dinner

* The decline of BuzzFeed and Vice, and some love for Traffic author/media columnist Ben Smith

* The problem with women’s magazines, including the time Marie Claire inserted something disturbing into Sarah’s, um, opening

* The time Gene Simmons told Nancy he wouldn’t pay her

* Is Robert Kennedy Jr. a rancid narcissist or a troubled addict who deserves sympathy. And by the way, who is he?

* Some Robert De Niro love, and the dress Sarah wants to buy after watching Casino

* A lesson from Succession on undermining someone’s confidence at the last minute

* Sarah’s triumphant appearance on House of Strauss

And so much more!

Don’t forget (what we forgot to mention): This coming Sunday is the First Sunday Zoom! Deets sent to paying subscribers day-of. It’s not too late!

Become a paid subscriber, and find out who will show up to our Zoom hang in a cat suit.

* Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon getting the heave-ho on the same day and what this might portend for TV news

* You gonna trust Ben Dreyfuss?

* Blue checkmarks: Who cares?

* “Blocked and Reported” makes a case for why you might care

* Podcast names that (thank God) didn’t make the cut

* Amanda Fortini, awesome writer

* Cokie Roberts gives marriage advice

* Nancy’s fave part of “Smoke” so far (hint: it involves Sarah’s writing!)

* Meanwhile Sarah reminisces about … Pop Rocks?

* Nancy makes kick-ass fake animal noises

* What did we teach each other?

* That time David Sedaris tried to avoid writing in the first person

* Nancy’s least favorite words are …

* FIRE is the new ACLU

* Sarah gives Nancy an anniversary gift, firmly establishing who the wife is in this relationship, and who the husband.

And much more!

We’re sharing this entire episode with our listeners, whether they pay or not, but if you’d like to give us a gift, we have some ideas:

Thank you for coming along with us. Let’s keep going.

The Dalai Lama did a very weird thing. Harlan Crow’s memorabilia collection causes a national scandal. Over in Dallas, Sarah drives to Crow’s mansion to confirm that rich people do indeed buy the craziest things, while Nancy jets off to good old Portland and finds: So much! (The phrase “death eaters” is used.) Also: Sober sex, fancy hotels, and which of us is more likely to dance?

In the paid-subscriber bonus: MILF Manor finale! The greatness of Succession’s Matthew McFadyen, the Fox-Dominion lawsuit, and Sarah drops her head on her lap as Nancy uses a word you’re not supposed to use anymore.

ATTENTION: There will there be an IRL Smoke ‘Em meet-up this Sunday, April 23 in NYC, starting at 6pm. Details coming soon for paid subscribers.

Rumor has it there will be dancing. Will Nancy be imbued with grace from her current Barre3 addiction? Will Sarah bust out David Lee Roth moves? Come find out!

Confirm we aren’t ChatGPT bots with a groovy meet-up, but only when you become a paid subscriber.

Push Off From Here became the title of Laura’s second book, following her much-beloved 2020 memoir, We Are the Luckiest. Laura is a friend as well as an inspiration. In addition to her Substack LoveStory, she also runs an online community for folks who want to get ahold of their drinking, called The Luckiest Club.

Laura and I talk about the false binary of “alcoholism,” why 12-step programs might be the biggest pain in the ass to ever save you, whether “love addiction” is a thing, and if substance abuse problems are better understood as a disease or a disorder, or neither But we talk about more than booze: Chasing boys and attention, body-image issues, quieting inner demons. Laura’s book is fundamentally about change — how hard it is, but how worth the struggle. Her story is testimony to the quiet and profound choice of owning your own life.

Special guest Matt Welch apologizes “for being a dude, for being taller, and that I’m not from Texas.” All of which is to say he can never replace the lovely Sarah Hepola as co-host. Nevertheless! Matt, editor-at-large at Reason and true-bluest member of the Fifth Column podcast (fight me), joins Nancy to talk about the tantrum Elon Musk threw last week when Substack unrolled a new feature called Notes, which appears to be a lot like Twitter, sans ads and tribal warfare. Musk wants to make Twitter “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner,” but he more than blinked at the advent of competition, making a bunch of bogus claims and planting his edge-lord boot between the platforms. This led to some very staunch allies, including Twitter Files news-breaker Matt Taibbi, to vamoose and declare Musk “a hostile rival.”

Then it’s on to Portland, where Nancy lived from 2004-2019 and a city where Matt has deep family ties. Both now wonder: Why does the news media in the Rose City hedge on certain subjects? And what up with local scribes declining to appear onstage with Nancy to discuss those hot topics?

Will there be a baseball segment? You bet! Topics include: taxpayer-funded ballfields (boo!); the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum; the World Baseball Classic Ohtani-Trout nail-biter (video in episode notes), never-before-seen fan footage of Yankee Roger Maris breaking the home run record in 1961 (ditto), and Matt’s new Substack, “The View Level,” where he expresses opinions on all-things-baseball, including an iconic film that New Yorker writer Roger Angell declared his least favorite, although ballplayers loved it. “I remember coming out of a screening of that awful film and running into my friend and neighbor Mike Wallace,” Angell wrote. “‘Wasn’t that awful?’ I said, and then noticed he was weeping.”

It’s a vote for baseball, which is to say a vote for America’s old-school favorite past time, when you become a free or paid subscriber.

I am deeply fortunate to be staying in a 5-bedroom home (it’s just me!) arranged by my friends Laura and Andy, who live next door. Here is the breakfast room:

And here, a bit of that wind. I love it here so much.

As mentioned in the audio, I have been extended this invitation because of a podcast, The Fifth Column to be exact, and the community of people that has grown around them in the past seven (!) years. These people include Laura and Andy, fans of the Fifth (and twenty year subscribers to Reason, where Matt Welch is editor-at-large). Back in 2021, my last scheduled stop of a 5,000-mile road trip was Miami, to see a live Fifth show, drive the guys to Key West, hang out for a few days, then zip home solo to NYC.

I didn’t have a place to stay on the trip’s last leg, and I am not sure how it transpired, but Laura and Andy invited me to stay.with them. Their house is right on the Sound. I fell in love. I realize we often say that about places we visit, but let’s just say, I can see spending time here…

Which I did last night at Laura and Andy’s, including with their friend Kim - ooh did we have a lot to talk about, including the move, happening even in Virginia, where Kim is a juvenile court judge, to get rid of cash bail entirely. Meaning, no matter what you do, stab me in the eye, run over my kid, the judge has the option to let you go free until trial. Having written about a case in which such a practice resulted in murder, I have a problem with repeatedly setting recidivistic violent felons free, a policy on which we will never all agree. Anyway! Also there last night was Andy’s friend Sludge, a name given to him his first week in college after he drank the backwash from the keg bucket (or whatever that’s called; I don’t drink beer). Sludge is a former engineer who now works in healthcare, but what does he love more than anything? BAKING! I have never engaged in a conversation like this, the words were spilling (the margaritas helped), we talked T45 flour and canele pans; he ate some shortbread (Pie Talk #7) I’d brought as a hostess gift, he gave me English muffins he made here because, of course, he travels with his starter.

The last person I spoke baking with was… drumroll please… Alison Roman. Anyone who’s spent a few minutes here knows I am a super-fan of Roman’s, that I bake her blueberry-cornmeal tart compulsively all summer (scroll down), that it was her tweet about induction ranges that convinced me to buy one. That she wound up at my apartment last month was… it was just right. We sat for several hours with a few others, talking media and eating a pie I’d made (of course I made her a pie, and no I still cannot recall what kind it was!), and when everyone else peeled off to the living room, she and I talked crusts, and cookbooks, and whose recipes work (hers, always) and whose sometimes do not. I wish there were a video of Roman making the salted chocolate pudding, but in lieu, let her tell you about her new book:

As mentioned, I once owned more than 100 cookbooks. Alas, these were sold to Powell’s when I left Portland, all that is but five: The Silver Palate Cookbook, which I rarely use and keep, maybe, for sentimental reasons, including a note I wrote in the back when I was a few months pregnant; New York Cookbook by Molly O’Neill, Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts, in which I’ve tucked the handwritten thank you note Heatter sent me after I gave the book a nice review in Bon Appetit (I mean…), Tartine (are you sensing a dessert theme?), and How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, by Nigella Lawson, whose late-night snacking videos my daughter used to watch obsessively, to the point where she said, “I feel like she’s another mom to me.” More moms, more snacking, what is not to like?

I have not yet made Roman’s a bowl of salted chocolate pudding so cannot tell you what I might change (likely nothing).

I can tell you I learned, because she told me in the book’s “Ingredients” introduction, to not add more salt to her recipes; that she’s already done that, which is good for me to know as I almost always add more salt than called for; your cookies will thank you if you do. I can also tell you, her “Equipment” intro convinced me to get a kitchen scale, look, it’s nine bucks.

Because everyone has been so nice to me, and because the sky is right now pink, this Pie Talk is free for all. May you, as Roman suggests, eat the bowl of chocolate pudding communally with friends, “when the lights are low and the music is loud.” xx

Succession’s final season debuted, and it’s already giving us memes (all hail The Disgusting Brothers). The tragic arc of Logan (Brian Cox) makes the cruel media mogul a tad sympathetic, while suck-ups like Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Tom (Matthew McFayden) have become the show’s most lovable characters. Is Succession the best show on TV? What else could top it?

Rising star Jonathan Majors, of Creed III, was arrested for domestic abuse, but the woman in question recanted her story. Is this justice, or the power of NDAs? The case will be a Rorschach for the peanut gallery, much like Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski trial. The glamorous star/wellness guru took to court this week, and boy, do folks love to hate her. What did the queen of Goop/jade eggs/bone broth ever do to you?

Movie critic A.O. Scott makes a classy exit from the NYT film desk, prompting a discussion of Hollywood’s decline and how anger was turned into clicks. What is the 1999 film that made Scott (and Sarah) burst into tears? Does — debate alert! — There’s Something About Mary hold up? Plus: Boogie Nights, 70s vs. 90s cinema, movies as sacred texts, Lex Fridman, the allure of fashion, what the hell is an “atelier,” and more importantly: Can it really rain frogs from the sky?

Ed. note: A distracting mechanical rumble happens three times during this pod. Best guess? This is Sarah adjusting her microphone, which she will not do again.

This week only, we’re opening our boudoir to (part of) our copious episode notes, to show non-paying subscribers what they’re missing. Have at it, friends.

Episode Notes:

Correction: Kathleen McCormack Durst (left, below) was a medical student and Robert Durst’s first wife. Susan Berman (right, below) was a journalist and author. The management apologizes for not naming them in the last episode.

* Q: How to make every day better by doing one simple thing?

* A:

“How do I listen to episodes on my podcast app?” (Substack)

It will be #HotChicksColdTakes redux when Liz Wolfe sits in during Sarah’s hiatus

My Favorite Murder. Not to Nancy and Sarah’s taste but extremely popular and one of the highest-earning podcasts …

Pie Talk #7: Shortbread

“Boar on the Floor,” a classic scene of villainy from Succession’s second season:

“On ‘Succession,’ Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke,” by Michael Schulman (New Yorker)

“Jonathan Majors Arrested in New York After Domestic Dispute,” by Matt Stevens (New York Times)

“Jonathan Majors’ attorney claims woman recanted assault allegations after arrest,” by Christi Carras (Los Angeles Times)

“Jonathan Majors U.S. Army Commercials Pulled After Actor’s Arrest for Alleged Assault,” by J. Kim Murphy (Variety)

“With Few Able and Fewer Willing, U.S. Military Can’t Find Recruits,” by Dave Phillips (NYT)

“The Agony and the Ecstasy of Depp v. Heard,” by Sarah Hepola (Substack)

“Cowboys' Williams And Irvin Investigated,” by Sam Howe Verhovek (NYT)

“Women Recants Rape Tale” (LAT)

“In Cowboy Case, a Flagrant Foul?” by Howard Kurtz (Washington Post)

“Woman who says Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is her father now accuses him of defamation,” by Don Van Natta Jr. (ESPN)

“Mining a Few Thick Desires …” by Luke Burgis (Anti-Mimetic Substack)

“Gwyneth Paltrow ski crash trial: Paltrow testifies that the accident wasn't her fault” (NBC News)

There’s Something About Mary bears up upon repeat viewing for Nancy. Sarah, not so much. What say you, listeners?

Goop Wellness Jade Egg, $66, “final sale,” in case, you know, you were thinking of returning it …

You could buy a jade egg from Goop OR you could take that same money and buy a year’s worth of bonus episodes, Zoom hangs, premium extras, and belly laughs. Now which of these is better for your health?

Sarah and Nancy discuss the new documentary, Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax, about the fake hate crime of the Empire star who once dubbed himself “the gay Tupac.” The real stars are the Osundairos, two Nigerian brothers and aspiring actors hired for the bizarre stunt. Why did they do it? What was up with that bottle of hot sauce? And is celebrity culture a bigger problem than victim culture?

Also: Stanford Law School has a DEI mess following an appearance by Fifth Circuit court judge Kyle Duncan, and once more, ambition overrides judgment (a running theme). Which moment in the 2015 HBO miniseries The Jinx turned Nancy off entirely? Who is the godfather of true crime, and why is it Skip Hollandsworth? The rise and fall of PornHub; yet another glowing recommendation for Jon Ronson’s oeuvre; a fascinating convo about journalism’s working-class roots; and the mysteries of our Google searches. But don’t forget MILF Manor, because Sarah cannot.

In the bonus episode: Mysterious allegations against Michael Irvin prompt Sarah to talk about that time he stabbed his Dallas Cowboys’ teammate in the neck, why it’s hard to write about the dark side of sports, plus the notorious Jerry Jones and the NFL force field. Matt Taibbi testifies before Congress, enrages some journalists, becomes a hero to others. MILF Manor has a quality twist coming our way.

Welcome to our longest episode yet! The Oscars were surprisingly good this year. We discuss the most moving moments, including the teary comeback of Brendan Fraser, the resilience of Ke Huy Kwan, the art-school weirdos who became the big winners, The Daniels, and why Lady Gaga is the Real Deal. Also discussed: The Carpenters (pro or con?), the tricky business of the American Dream, the argument for cultural appropriation, should Sarah do Ozempic, and how tall is Salma Hayek? Hint: Sarah-size.

In the bonus episode: Mysterious allegations against Michael Irvin prompt Sarah to talk about that time he stabbed his Dallas Cowboys’ teammate in the neck, why it’s hard to write about the dark side of sports, plus the notorious Jerry Jones and the NFL force field. Matt Taibbi testifies before Congress, enrages some journalists, becomes a hero to others. MILF Manor has a quality twist coming our way.

Also: Send us your letters! smokeempodcast@gmail.com. We’ll read the best listener letters and answer salient questions in an upcoming episode.

Everything everywhere all at once (possible oversell) when you become a paid subscriber.

After sustaining “the atom bomb I needed to follow my passion” (her imminent layoff, her husband having an affair), Lisa Schroeder went to cooking school and, in 2000, opened Mother’s Bistro in Portland, Oregon. From day one the place was packed, everyone wanting what Schroder calls “Mother Food” – meatloaf and gravy, chicken & dumplings, and a brunch t…

“Nency, Nency, can you write something for us?” This is Leticia - and here I am badly botching her Brazilian accent - asking back in 2009 that I write to the local licensing bureau explaining what coffee roasting was, the idea being totally foreign and apparently causing officials to think someone was trying to burn down the city. I did; Panther opened in 2010 and now has something like four million locations in Miami (okay, six). You should go.

We are going back further today! To 1990, when my daughter was less than a year old and I saw two young women my age pushing baby strollers past my house on the street that led up to the Hollywood Reservoir. Stay to the end for a sweet addendum.

Two corrections: Charlie’s first band was the Plugz. (The Cruzados were second.) And toward the end I accidentally say “mash the garlic” when of course I mean, mash the avocado. Also: COVID, negative.

Episode notes:

Charlie Quintana, whose first and only job besides as a drummer was delivering flowers for one day in his native El Paso. He was sixteen when the band he formed and The Plugz (video) became successful. Charlie went on to become part of the Cruzados, The Havalinas and other bands, and toured and/or recorded with Bon Dylan, Social Distortion, John Doe, Cracker, Joan Osborne and, if I am not mistaken, the Gin Blossoms. I remember (though I am finding no confirmation of) this because sometimes when Charlie played in Los Angeles he would nab me some tickets, and when the Wallflowers played at the Greek Theater, lead singer Jakob Dylan announced (I am not kidding here), “This goes out to Nancy,” before launching into, “One Headlight.” (I had told Charlie I loved the song.) Maybe I’m wrong! But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Well lookie here, I found some audio of “Meet the Neighbors.” (Or you can read it.)

“Charlie Quintana, drummer for the Plugz and Social Distortion, dies at 56,” by Randy Lewis (Los Angeles Times)

“Taking My Ex Back In (for His Own Good),” by Nancy Rommelmann (New York Times Modern Love)

Guacamole, adapted from Charlie Quintana

* 5 ripe avocados

* Salt

* One-half yellow onion, chopped small

* 2 - 3 jalapenos, chopped small, leave some seeds

* Handful of cilantro, chopped

* Juice of 2 - 3 limes

Mash the avocado and salt. Add onion, jalapeno, cilantro and stir. Squeeze on lime juice. Adjust to taste.

Charlie playing with Bob Dylan on David Letterman 1984

The journalistas discuss whether “women writer” is a valuable identity and then welcome guest Stephen Elliott (who is many things but not a woman). Once a celebrated author and the founder of The Rumpus, Elliott is better known these days as the man who sued “Shitty Media Men” creator Moira Donegan, a lawsuit he recently settled. Elliott was raised in group homes, and he says his legal action came from a moral obligation to fight a list he characterized as a “false accusation machine.” Donegan pledged never to apologize, a promise she kept, but the eventual settlement ran into the six figures. Elliott opens up about the danger of anonymous accusations, the pain of losing deep friendships, why nobody remembers joining a mob, and the strange freedom that comes with literary exile. As he says, “You can’t be canceled twice.”

In the bonus: Nancy’s AI reads her ChatGPT. The Toronto Raptors basketball team celebrate Women’s History Month — and promise to do better. Chris Rock splits Twitter, lights up Netflix, and what does “misogynoir” mean? Sarah thinks Nancy just started a beef with Chris Rock; Nancy claims they’re all good (weigh in, commenters!). Hot boxes include a documentary on the Sarah Lawrence con man, Matt Welch’s questionable advice for dealing with a bear, and a message for the ladies on this international day in our honor.

By Nancy Rommelmann

I put most of my Portland coverage on my Substack, Make More Pie, where I almost never post audio. Since you all are audiophiles, and on the chance the story is of interest, I am cross-posting the episode here - NR

The streets of Portland may be calmer than during the 108 straight nights of violence in 2020, but are things better? Or are they just as bad but in different ways?

Photographers Chelly (@hunnybadgermom on Twitter) and Michelle (@cocainemichelle) cover the city, including the current rise in homelessness and drug addiction, the uptick in crime, and the exponential shredding of the social fabric. They chronicle the deterioration of downtown, where the vacancy rate is set to hit 40%, and speak with those filling the void. Lifelong Oregonians, they see citizens variously unwilling to see these issues as problems, and fleeing the City of Roses because of them.

How did Portland get to where it is? Have decisions based on presumed compassion - to not prosecute property and some violent crimes; to provide support if not treatment to drug users — led to bad outcomes? And are better days two years away, or two decades?

Episode notes:

Video I took while driving Thomas Chatterton-Williams, February 2022

One Michelle took, January 2023

Rebranded Foster-Powell, Felony Flats was a great neighborhood name

From Measure 110, which decriminalized personal-use amounts of drugs:

“On November 3, 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, approving two shifts in how the state deals with the use of illegal drugs. First, the measure reduces penalties for drug possession, making Oregon the first state to decriminalize the personal possession of illegal drugs. Secondly, the anticipated savings achieved from the current cost of enforcing criminal drug possession penalties will be combined with marijuana sales revenue to fund a new drug addiction treatment and recovery grant program.”

Emphasis mine. Oregon ranks second-highest in rate of substance abuse and 50th in access to treatment. Since the passage of 110, “funding has been slow getting out of the gate and instances of drug abuse and overdose deaths have increased,” and agencies are currently fighting over who gets to siphon off funds earmarked for drug treatment.

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner Magazine)

“Destruction and Hope in Portland,” which I wrote for Persuasion, featured North Portland resident Kurt Martig who, like Michelle, was shocked at how many people on NextDoor are willing to reimagine the destruction of other people’s property as no big deal. (NB: Martig and his family moved out of Portland last year.)

“I go on Nextdoor.com and I’m seeing things like, ‘People have insurance, things are less important than lives,’” Martig said. “I’m like, guys, you’re hurting innocent bystanders, the business owners are getting hurt, the employees are going to get hurt, the customers, it’s all the way down.”

Others disagreed. Someone at the dog park told Martig he should factor in “the decades and centuries of oppression and understand why people are doing what they’re doing.” A friend told him that the cops were always worse.

“It kind of breaks down to, you can either be one way or the other,” Martig said. “Which is a false choice.”

“Nike Offers to Pay Police to Guard Portland Store From Shoplifters,” by Mike Impelli (Newsweek)

“Portland, Ore., Once Among Safest U.S. Cities, Struggles to Cut Homicide Rate,” by Zusha Elinson (Wall Street Journal)

“We looked at Portland's crime rates. Comparatively, they're not so bad,” by Andy Giegerich (Portland Business Journal)

About that bucket of diarrhea sloshed into a police station…

Welcome new subscribers to Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em! We are super-stoked that Substack included our little pod as a Featured Publication. Quick lay of the land: Free subscribers get notified whenever we post an episode, and can enjoy 45-60 minutes of a free preview. Paid subscribers get our undying love and the full fig — including pop-culture recommendations and the juiciest bits of the conversation — along with the ability to comment in our active and (may we say) impressive Smoke ‘Em community, plus exclusive access to bonus episodes and solo ventures, like Sarah’s Friday-night “Smoking Diaries” and Nancy’s Sunday morning “Pie Talk.” We have Zoom hangs every first Sunday of the month for paid subscribers, where we enjoy laughter, civic debate, and (occasionally) wigs. Now, as they say, on with the show …

We start with the sad tale of Alec Baldwin and the Rust gun tragedy, then discuss a blockbuster New York Times magazine story on the inner lives and private turmoil of police in Louisville, where Breonna Taylor was killed. It’s a rich, empathic portrait that likely wouldn’t have appeared last year, just like recent stories on the probability of a lab leak in China and the futility of masking. Is culture taking a turn? Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot was ousted the evening after we recorded this episode; it could be a referendum on violent crime.

Here at Smoke ‘Em, we aim to humanize stories that get ripped of context and nuance by an ever-churning media machine and its social-network accomplice. The NYT story — which is, full disclosure, written by one of Sarah’s closest friends, journalist Jamie Thompson — gives us an opportunity to sympathize with another side, and prompts stories about lost love (for Sarah) and Portland chaos (for Nancy).

Plus: Sarah squicks out “moderate MILF” Nancy by telling her about a massage challenge on the latest episode of MILF Manor; the etymology of “cuffing season”; the secret allure of Alabama; blue eye shadow, Y/N? And much more!

Reminder: Zoom hang this Sunday, 3/5, 8pm ET/5pm PT, for paid subscribers. Link will be emailed on the day-of!

We are also talking this week’s literati flare-ups (the stealth editing of Roald Dahl, the never-ending crusade against of J.K. Rowling, dust-up #609 at the Times) and their opposite, the people who come to your aid. Why not also feed them some chicken?

Episode notes:

“Taking My Ex Back In (for His Own Good),” by Nancy Rommelmann (NYT Modern Love)

I misspoke when I said You Must Remember This is Kat Rosenfield’s second book. It’s her fifth! But the second I’ve read, and which I love love love love love.

Paloma-cam during Kat Rosenfield’s party for No One Will Miss Her

My Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em partner, Sarah Hepola, went on record saying “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling” will be the Podcast of the Year

I think we are all coming to realize that late 2020/early 2021 was a time when certain segments of the media and the public-at-large became absolutely possessed with a desire for the blood of their colleagues. I’ve written and talked about Donald G. [I accidentally said “J.”] McNeil Jr. a dozen times. He and Andy Mills, an original creator of the NYT’s “The Daily” as well as its once-crown jewel podcast “Caliphate,” were both ushered out of the Times in February 2021. McNeil now writes on Medium, and Andy is working with Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, including on “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” Good work will out.

And speaking of not canceling people…

Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal update the NYT flame-wars on the most recent episode of Blocked & Reported, “Times Wars, Episode IX: The Normies Strike Back.”

Signs of the tide shifting? Penguin Random House to publish 'classic' Roald Dahl books after censorship criticism, by Theara Coleman (The Week)

“NPR to Cut 10% of Its Staff,” by Katie Roberson (NYT)

Hoisin Chicken

This recipe is very easy to double or triple. Cooking time will depend on the size of the chicken thighs and how many you have in the pan.

* 8 chicken thighs, skin on

* Salt and pepper

* 3/4 cup hoisin sauce, Lee Kum Kee brand preferred, thinned out with 3 - 4 tablespoons soy sauce

Preheat oven to 375F.

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs on both sides and place them, skin side up, on a rack inside your baking pan or sheet. The rack will prevent the thighs from sitting in the cooking juices and becoming less crisp. No problem if you don’t have a rack!

Bake until chicken skin starts to brown, about 25 minutes. Pour and brush on hoisin-soy mixture. Make about another 20 - 25 minutes, until thighs are nicely shellacked.

The drippings from the pan can be poured as-is over rice or, better, heat them in a small saucepan until somewhat reduced and yummier, about 5 minutes.

Serve chicken with sticky rice and a cucumber salad: peeled and seeded cucumbers, sliced and mixed with rice wine vinegar and a large pinch of sugar and a smaller pinch of salt. Add some chopped fresh basil, mint or cilantro if you’re feeling fancy.

Three ways to make sticky rice! (Also called glutinous rice, sushi rice, and sweet rice.) I have not had great luck making sticky rice in the rice cooker, and have never tried the microwave method. Let me know if you do!

Everything is more delicious when you become a paid or free subscriber

Two recent controversies prove the power of words, and also our country’s near-hopeless division. Publishers of Roald Dahl’s children’s classics, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, were busted making edits that removed “offensive” passages for modern audiences, an effort spearheaded by a group called Inclusive Minds (“consultants and campaigners,” according to their website). Nancy and Sarah sift through the reactions and dangerous implications, and wonder: What are we asking — or rather, enforcing — that our children give up? Could it be delight?

Meanwhile, Nancy and Sarah are loving a new podcast from The Free Press, “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” Hosted by Westboro Baptist Church apostate Megan Phelps-Roper, and masterminded by exiled The Daily producer Andy Mills, the show interviews the author born as Joanne Rowling and reveals her to be sympathetic, deep-thinking, and (of course) complicated. The show has only dropped two episodes, but it’s Sarah’s current vote for Podcast of the Year. Whatever you think of Rowling (and can anyone tell us how to pronounce her last name?), this podcast is an extraordinary peek into a pressing controversy — not that such value would ever stop the haters.

Also: Sarah sings the Oscar Meyer jingle. MILF Manor gets a new MILF. Who is Nancy’s vote for the most popular humorist of the past 50 years? (Hint from Sarah: It’s not the most popular humorist.) And: Is Dave Barry funny? A debate.

Earlier this week, nearly 200 New York Times contributors sent an open letter to the “paper of record,” excoriating its coverage on trans issues. GLAAD followed suit, with a letter that also made clear demands. The Times responded with a cool head. The end, right?

Nope. The ensuing drama consumed journo Twitter, and by Friday, more than a 1,000 contributors signed the open letter. What’s at stake is not merely the paper’s coverage of trans issues (which is far deeper and more rigorous than the open letter suggests), but the nature of journalism itself: Should it describe the world as it is, or as it should be? What role should activism play in today’s newsroom? Are the people who signed the letter on the right side of history, or the wrong side of history? And what if history actually has no sides?

This week we devote the entire episode to this impassioned, twisty, and personally high-stakes conversation for us as journalists. We talk about fear, careerism, peer pressure, along with friends who signed the list and those who conspicuously did not. Cameo appearances by: Emily Bazelon, Judd Apatow, Michael Powell, Matt Welch (duh), Bari Weiss, Alex Pareene, Taylor Sheridan, and someone named Peppermint.

Also: Will Nancy pen the Moderate MILF manifesto? Why is Sarah on the bacon Wikipedia page? Plus, love and romance in our hot boxes.

The Internet knows him as “Chartthrob” and “Map Daddy,” but once upon a time, Sarah knew him as “Snackwells,” the boy-genius politics editor at Salon and sweetheart of a co-worker who bought her a daily Diet Dr Pepper and picked stray vegetables out of everything he ate. The one and only Steve Kornacki joins the pod to talk about his stratospheric popularity as elections analyst on MSNBC (“I don’t fully understand what happened”), the Super Bowl and sports betting, his #1 Spotify listen of 2022 (Bobby Vee, anyone?), his famous Gap khakis, and his fantastic new podcast, “The Revolution,” tracking the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, whose Nineties’ tenure as Speaker of the House had an outsized influence on American politics.

In the bonus: Sarah and Nancy discuss Rihanna’s fumble of a halftime performance: the pregnancy reveal, the amazing dancers who (unintentionally?) looked like sperm, and the bizarre moment when Rihanna sniffed her own crotch. (Sarah has some hot sports opinions about that one.) But there was one performer going for broke during that show, and we adore her. Also: The Waco siege, 30 years later, and will a Netflix show make Nancy change her mind about Glass Onion?

In 2021, actor Armie Hammer’s career crashed into the side of a mountain. The recently separated star had lined up a series of high-profile projects when an anonymous Instagram account called the House of Effie began posting eye-popping messages of violent sexual fantasy that purported to be from Hammer. “I am 100% cannibal,” read one. More women joined the fray, bringing accusations of coercion, power abuse, and eventually rape. The Internet, no surprise here, was riveted. Cue a cascade of clickbait articles and a high-profile documentary, but along the way, there was one side of the story curiously missing: Armie Hammer’s.

Journalist Jamie Kirchick changed that with his barnburner new profile, “Armie Hammer Breaks His Silence,” recently published in Graydon Carter’s magazine, Air Mail. Kirchick comes on the podcast to talk about a scandal gone wild, a media in absentia, kink shaming, the parts of those salacious messages we never got to see, the problem with the court of public opinion, and whether consent can ever be taken back. It’s a hell of a story.

In the bonus: gamifying your healthcare, Nancy reveals her big TV commercial break, how to eat a cupcake, MILF Manor gets real (silly), the brilliant and controversial third episode of HBO’s The Last of Us, and a whole bunch of hotness in our hot boxes.

What up with the language police? Nancy and Sarah take on the one-percent who insist on scrubbing the mundane (“he,” “she,” “the”) and the arcane (“graybeard”?) from our mouths on the off-chance the words cause harm or feelings of exclusion. Language is shape-shifting, and good communication aims toward inclusion, but who does it help when we replace basic words with the un-fun, the opaque, and the workshopped? Sarah and Nancy may disagree on how to pronounce Latinx (“Lah-TEENix”? “LaTINKS”?) but agree with Substacker Rob Henderson when he writes that “only the affluent can afford to learn strange vocabulary, because ordinary people have real problems to worry about.”

Speaking of language, New York Times Opinion writer and former head of the Times Book Review Pamela Paul revisits the novel American Dirt and its author Jeanine Cummins, both fed to the cultural appropriation fires of 2020. More than a hundred writers wrote an open letter denouncing Cummins to Oprah Winfrey (who’d made American Dirt an Oprah pick), and such campaigns have left publishers running in fear, but the public? They made the book a bestseller.

Plus: Nancy and Sarah on deep-fried anything, the legacy of Tom Wolfe (the best American novelist on the subject of “status”) and some cracking 20th-C essays about the sexual revolution, a time when “finding yourself” left many people lost.

In the bonus: Sarah takes us to MILF Manor, while Nancy talks about her mom and memory loss, wishing a pox on those who prey on the elderly. An update on journalist Felicia Sonmez, star of the 2022 melodrama, “As the Washington Post Turns.” Then it’s into the hot boxes, of which Sarah’s appears to be gushing lava, lots and lots of lava … And we tease our next guest. You may call him “Map Daddy”; we call him friend.

Please note! Zoom hangs for paid subscribers will be the first Sunday of each month. We gather THIS SUNDAY, Feb 5, at 8pm ET/5pm PT. We’ll send a Zoom link the day-of. Will Sarah wear a wig? Will Nancy wear a halter? Find out.

Come for the deep-fried Oreos, stay for the MILF Manor recap and straight talk. Isn’t it time to become a paid or free subscriber?

We discuss a viral advice column titled “You Fat-Shamed Your Beautiful Girlfriend.” It begins with a letter from someone wrestling over how to handle a partner’s weight gain. The advice giver’s clap-back (“If your girlfriend wrote into this column with this story, I would tell her she should break up with you”) prompts an antic conversation about fat, shame, sexual desire, pharmaceutical interventions like Ozempic, integrity, and the long relationship we have with our own bodies.

Also: Update on a Twitter spat, more philosophical musings on sex with a dead chicken (of course), and we share a dissenting opinion from a listener (and mother) on last week’s episode about “All Gas No Brakes” host Andrew Callaghan, accused of being a “sexual pest.” Sarah points out she’s not here to talk about how things should be, but how they are. Nancy knows you can never protect your kids enough, from the tiniest mean glance to a plane crash. What you can do, she argues, is to teach them good survival skills and tell them it’s absolutely fine to say no.

In the bonus episode: MILF Manor may be a sign of cultural collapse, but the second episode sure was fascinating! We revisit a 1980 Stockard Channing movie about an “ugly ducking” who transforms into a hottie with a mind for revenge. Nancy gets hooked on an Israeli television show, and Sarah rediscovers the brilliance of a 1994 movie along with the hotness of Ralph Fiennes.

Nancy and Sarah dive back into the faked death of romance novelist Susan Meachan, thanks to journalist Ellen Barry, who did a deep dive in the NYT. After learning details of her (actual) life, do we have any more empathy for Meachan and her seduction by and escape into Romancelandia?

Next we look at the scandal around Andrew Callaghan, YouTube star of All Gas No Brakes who was hit with allegations of sexual coercion on the eve of his HBO debut. Nancy is suspicious of the timing, as well as the request for money from one of his accusers. Sarah thinks this kerfuffle raises good questions about coercion, alcohol, and sex. They both found Callaghan’s four-minute apology video like a bingo card of social-justice catch phrases.

Also: Why can’t we stop talking about sex with dead chickens? And Sarah gets dinged on Twitter by someone accusing her of “agreeing with the boss’ wife about Justice Kavanaugh.” Nancy is confused. Isn’t she Sarah’s boss?

In the bonus, it’s onto (into?) the new reality series MILF Manor, which Sarah is mainlining and whose title Nancy can barely bring herself to say. The journalistas took the “Are You a MILF?” quiz. We reveal who scored higher, what’s in our hotboxes, and news about upcoming live events.

And speaking of events! Nancy and Sarah will be appearing onstage with Meghan Daum and Sarah Haider (of A Special Place in Hell) on Thursday June 22, as part of the University of Austin’s 2023 Forbidden Courses event. Despite the name of the university, the event is actually being held in Dallas, 7:30-9pm central, at the Old Parkland.

For full episodes, go to our Substack page: https://smokeempodcast.substack.com/podcast

Nancy has been enjoying the audiobook of Harry Windsor’s blockbuster memoir, “Spare,” but Sarah thinks a more fitting title might be “Spare Me.” They debate the controversial figure of Prince Harry, grieving son in a golden cage but also emblem of millennial entitlement and empty social-justice activism. Sarah has a problem with the ghostwriter’s heavy hand, while Nancy has a problem with cruise ships, which becomes relevant when the terrific film “Triangle of Sadness” (which takes place on a boat) prompts a debate on 21st-century American masculinity. Do men still know how to build a fire? What about fixing an engine? And just how manly is it to get frostbite on your penis — and is that even possible?

In the bonus: We discuss the life of the late Lisa Marie Presley, who grew up as American royalty, and how far (if at all) she was allowed to fly from the golden cage. Were her marriages to troubled men an attempt to help the troubled father who died when she was nine? Plus, we revisit lustrous moments from the Golden Globes and — again! — Sarah and Nancy disagree about an award-winning film.

Have you ever known someone who came back from the dead? (Aside from JC and Manti Te'o's girlfriend.) Well, you do now: Susan Meachan was a prolific writer of self-published romance novels when, following reports of online bullying, her suicide was reported in 2020. Alas, Meachen apparently found being dead a bit boring, and announced her resurrection this month. We dig into this story, leading to a discussion about the scorned but popular genre of romance, the endurance of boy bands, endless social media frauds, and how far people will go for love and attention. Susan, if you’re reading this: Sarah has questions.

We then look at the latest university scandal, which PEN America calls “one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory”: An adjunct art history professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, showed the class a painting of the Prophet Mohammed. While she’d alerted the class in a syllabus as well as prior to the discussion, a Sudanese student nevertheless described herself as “blindsided”; a forum was held, accusations of Islamophobia and misconduct flew, and the whole thing wound up in the New York Times.

Also discussed: What is nonbinary workwear? Is Sarah a nicer person than Nancy? Is it morally acceptable to have sex with a chicken if said chicken is dead? And what is a robot kitten (or as Nancy puts it, “kit-ten”)?

Bonus content: The Menu is the dark foodie satire we need. We rediscover our love for Ralph Fiennes and praise Anya Taylor-Joy (recently of The Queen’s Gambit) and disagree on whether foodie culture has gone too far. Also: How much did Nancy pay to eat at the fabled Chicago restaurant Alinea, and who doesn’t have a crush on Harry Styles?

2023 is off to a roaring start, as the Twitter vultures rip apart the carcass of podcaster Lex Fridman’s reading list of the classics. (On the Road? Biiig mistake.) We discuss the passing of TV pioneer Barbara Walters, whose gently probing style allowed her to act as a kind of collective consciousness. She merged soft celebrity and hard-hitting politics to become a fixture in the American home. (And we didn’t even mention “The View”!) Did you know Walters filmed a TV segment dressed as a Playboy bunny a year before Gloria Steinem’s famous expose? The woman had one hell of a career.

Vice assembled a genuinely diverse panel of nine women to discuss feminism, and oooh boy, it was fascinating. Arguments over abortion, trans women in sports, beauty privilege, #MeToo, the hour-long conversation was a real intersectional shit show. Is feminism dead? Maybe. Definitely. Certainly not. As Sarah says, “Feminism is an ongoing project that shape-shifts over time.” What’s cool about the panel is also what made it so contentious. These conversations are fraught, and no one agrees.

In the bonus: New Year’s resolution talk about food and writing, let’s not bring Darren to the party, possible book club reading list, and Sarah makes a weird but touching offer to Nancy should they ever get stranded in the Sierra Mountains.

Episode Notes:

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner Magazine)

“The Reality Portland Does Not Want to See: Everything modern Portland did led up to the horrific, predictable murder of Rachael Abraham,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Nancy’s Substack — go ahead and subscribe!)

I mean, the guy was just asking to be cancelled …

It’s all good!

“Barbara Walters, a First Among TV Newswomen, Is Dead at 93,” by Alessandra Stanley (New York Times)

“Cindy Adams remembers her friend Barbara Walters,” by Cindy Adams (NY Post)

“Monica, you have been described as a bimbo, a stalker, a seductress. Describe yourself.” Barbara Walters interviews Monica Lewinsky on 20/20:

Barbara Walters learns “the Bunny Dip”:

“Slow Burn podcast: The Clinton Impeachment”

“Why I Hope top Die at 75,” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (Atlantic)

“Headlong: Missing Richard Simmons” podcast by Dan Taberski

“A Psychologist Explains Why Life is Easier For Attractive People,” by Romano Santos (Vice)

“'Ugly Ducklings' On How People Treated Them When They Got Hot,” by Amelia Tait (Vice)

“Anti & Pro Feminists Debate Abortion, Trans Rights, and #Metoo” | VICE Debates:

“I did want to acknowledge the violence brought to my trans and non white counterparts during this whole thing,” Mindie Lind’s Instagram

“The Problem With Intersectional Feminism,” by Helen Pluckrose (Areo)

You’ve been called a bimbo, a stalker, a seductress, but with one simple text field, you could become a paid subscriber.

It’s our year-end wrap-up, and a flirtatious/contentious one! Nancy and Sarah spar over “Glass Onion,” the latest “Knives Out” mystery, before running down the most memorable moments of the past year (and 49 episodes!), from Will Smith’s slap to Teal Swan’s manipulation. We chat celebrity, cults, and spiritual voids. (Kwanzaa turns out to have a pretty bleak history, but Joyous Kwanzaa to you, anyway.) Why is Nancy so drawn to narcissistic liars? Why is Sarah so willing to defend terrible people? The tension grows thick. Will our hosts ever stop quibbling and admit they’re in love? (That’s for the paid subscribers, people.)

Bonus content: Who are our picks for person of the year? Villain of the year? We share our favorite movies, TV shows, and books, and make our bid for the most important news story of 2022. Then we confess all our secrets. Or at least, like, two.

Meghan Daum is an acclaimed essayist who hosts two podcasts, the interview show “The Unspeakable” and the current topics-based “A Special Place in Hell” with Sarah Haider. Meghan is an inspiration to many, including Sarah. While Nancy bakes pie in some upstate New York location, Sarah engages in a far-ranging solo interview with Meghan that somehow includes: Terry Gross, Michael Barbaro and his noises of affirmation, Fran Lebowitz, Meghan’s unconventional childhood of music theory and tiny adulthood, Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell, the birth of “call outs,” Roxane Gay and Bad Feminist, why heterodox writers might be the new counter-culture, the invisibility of Generation X, whether Meghan and Sarah are “conservative” despite identifying as liberals (and what “conservative” even means in an era of political realignment), why neither of us became mothers, and if there’s any truth to Candace Owens’ crack about childless women that “if you don’t use your eggs, they scramble.”

On the paid-subscriber-only episode (Ed. note: It’s really good): The perils of writing about people in your life, why Sarah dates younger men, the most controversial claim Meghan can make about herself, marriage versus singlehood, and how feminist discourse got swallowed by gender ideology.

The Los Angeles trial of Harvey Weinstein ended with jurors proclaiming the disgraced movie mogul alternately guilty, not guilty, and [shrug emoji]. Nancy and Sarah plumb deeper on the trial, centered on the allegations of four Jane Does (including one spouse of a California governor). The two-month trial gained little traction in the press, perhaps because Weinstein was convicted in the court of public opinion five years ago. People are done with him, the monster in his cage. But not Nancy and Sarah! The latter goes deep on Weinstein’s childhood, his bullying mother, the forces that shaped him. Nancy reminds us how much young women will sacrifice to step into the Hollywood magic machine.

They discuss Ken Auletta’s book Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, and Ronan Farrow’s HBO docuseries Catch and Kill.

In the paid-subscribers-only content (sign up on Substack): Why are people talking about “nepo babies”? Also: Twitter, twittered, twittering. What we gain (and maybe lose) when we step away from social media, and why it’s always better to complicate the picture.

Twitter seemed so simple at first. Both of us joined in 2009, and Nancy loved the economy of form, though Sarah was confused by the purpose and character count. She wound up live-tweeting things like, “Her hat is weird.” Thirteen years later, Twitter is the white-hot center of a cultural debate over politics, civility, and the future of journalism. Elon Musk is trying to build the plane while he flies it, and it’s unclear whether that plane is finding new altitude, or crashing into a mountainside.

We discuss former head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth, ambitious world-builder/left-wing pariah Bari Weiss, and of course Musk himself, who has become #1 hero and public enemy. (This was recorded before Musk polled Twitter users to ask if he should step down. They voted yes, by the way.) Nobody knows where this wild ride is heading, but Sarah cautions against what folks in AA call, “Contempt prior to investigation.” Nancy agrees, with a parable about how she actually does like eggplant.

In the paid-subscriber-only content (on Substack): Sex sells, but who’s the customer? Not Nancy, who has zero interest in hearing about other people’s sex lives (or discussing her own). Not so fast, says Sarah. Sex is an expression of character, one of the deepest connections you can find with another human, and the problem is not sex writing but the shallow, performative way it’s written. Then we discuss: MILF Manor!

Nancy and Sarah watched the Harry and Meghan series on Netflix so you don’t have to. Actually, they never finished it, but that doesn’t stop them from having opinions. “I’d rather watch an hour-long ad for Purina cat food,” Nancy declares, while Sarah is still processing how the Prince was first drawn to Meghan after seeing a SnapChat photo where she’d used the filter of a puppy dog.

Then it’s on to the Golden Globes nominations. Sarah and Nancy disagree about “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” Sarah rants about not liking “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and they clash over the value of shopping malls. Debate for another time. The Golden Globe noms did have a few snubs, such as season two of “Reservation Dogs” (which Nancy raves about again, and not for the last time). And no female film directors were nominated, notably Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King” and Sarah Polley for “Women Talking.” But what’s up with these lame titles? (See also: “She Said,” discussed on episode 44).

The New York Times stages a (one-day!) strike, and Nancy and Sarah debate unions, or what Sarah sees as a “20th-century infrastructure being dragged to 21st-century.” We also talk the Twitter Files, in which Elon Musk releases thousands of internal Twitter documents to two independent journalists, and legacy media lose their collective minds. The first Twitter Files dump (ew!) came a week ago Friday, a 40-plus thread by investigative reporter Matt Taibbi, who was swiftly labeled savior, has-been, and scumbag. “I take it all back, TWITTER IS THRILLING,” Sarah texted Nancy around tweet #15.

Sarah also got sucked in to the second season of The Vow, the HBO documentary on NXIVM, the human-potential company better known as a “sex cult.” The six-part doc (much better than season one) follows the trial of leader Keith Raniere, a master manipulator who teaches personal empowerment as he exerts a scary control. Talking with apostates and true believers, The Vow asks: When are we responsible for our own behavior? It’s a haunting tale about belief, coercion, and our need for belonging.

Our paid-subscriber-only content includes a favorite topic, lying sociopaths — in this case, Grey’s Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch, whose fake cancer and sympathy scams were exposed in a Vanity Fair article discussed in episode 11. Now comes a follow-up where Finch, “disgraced and in exile, explains what made her do it.” But does she?

Plus! A special on-air appearance by bingo-card favorite and Fifth Column co-host Matt Welch, whose thoughts on Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em are …

All this and much more!

You can fill that “un-fillable love hole” and get access to juicy bonus content when you become a paid or free subscriber

Episode Notes:

“NY Times staffers walk out — but two key reporters cross picket line” (New York Post)

Nancy was live at the scene:

“Ousted NY Times Reporter Donald McNeil Jr. Speaks Out: ‘I’ve Been a Jackal Circled by Jackals’” by Lindsey Ellefson (The Wrap)

“NYTimes Peru N-Word, Part One: Introduction,” by Donald McNeil Jr. (Medium)

“Unionizing Salon Is Easier Said Than Done: 'We're Incredibly Frustrated,' Staffer Says,” by Dave Jamieson (HuffPo)

“Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom,” by Michael M. Grynbaum (New York Times)

Transcript from the Munk Debates: "Be it Resolved: Don't Trust Mainstream Media" (TK News)

Bari Weiss resignation letter

Journalists having trouble authenticating anything Jim Baker says? That’s not new.

No, not that Jim Bakker!

“Controversial Take: It’s Bad To Put Words In The Mouths Of Murder Victims,” by Jesse Singal (Substack)

“Twenty years ago, in Moscow, Matt Taibbi was a misogynist asshole—and possibly worse,” by Aimee Levitt (Chicago Reader)

NXIVM Wikipedia entry is a solid crash course

“Inside Nxivm, the ‘Sex Cult’ That Preached Empowerment,” by Keith Raniere (New York Times)

Performer Irene Cara died this week, but what was she doing before that? How did a major ‘80s talent just … disappear? We answer that question and discuss the cultural impact of the 1980 musical Fame, which is like a blueprint for our American Idol-inspired, TikTok-addled moment. The Alan Parker movie may be remembered for its kick-ass theme song (and lesser TV adaptation), but the film holds up, kinetic and dark and deeply ambivalent about a career in the arts. Also, both Sarah and Nancy were obsessed with it.

Nancy tells us about a doxxing controversy in Portland among black-bloc activists, who are angling for their own kind of fame. Then we discuss Ben Smith’s story on disgraced novelist Junot Diaz, including what it means to “forcibly kiss” someone (we both know from experience). In the subscriber-only bonus content, we come to different conclusions about the new Hulu series “Fleishman Is In Trouble,” though we both agree the show runner and author of the novel, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, is one of the best cultural observers out there. Also: The movie that made Sarah love going to the movies again, and Nancy discovers a new author-love.

Episode Notes:

“What is the origin of the term hoochie mama?” (Quora)

“How ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’ Reveals Roger Ebert’s Values as a Film Critic,” by Matt Singer (Indie Wire)

Olive Tree Cafe/Comedy Cellar is where the best band in the world performs every Monday night at 9pm. You will sometimes find Nancy there! Here’s a shot from this past Monday, with Michael Moynihan and her daughter Tafv Sampson.

Oh, but you want to Coleman Hughes and the band? Okay!

Four journalists walk into the Supreme Court of Israel

Girls Night In board game

Irene Cara obituary (New York Times)

Fame on Wikipedia

Fame trivia on IMDB is a very satisfying read

“An Oral History of Fame, 40 Years On,” by Catherine Shoard (The Guardian)

Fame official trailer

Eight-year-old Irene Cara appears on “Ted Mack Amateur Hour”

Irene Cara, “Flashdance … What a Feeling”

Gene Anthony Ray obituary (New York Times)

“Remembering His Name: The Legacy of Gene Anthony Ray,” by Jeremy Kinser (LGBTQ Nation)

Gene Anthony Ray playing Leroy Johnson in Fame

Irene Cara, “Out Here On My Own”

As Sarah mentions, Fame grew out of the Broadway play A Chorus Line, which the cast of Hamilton honored several years ago by singing the Chorus Line hit “What I Did For Love.” Has Nancy watched this video a dozen times and cried every time? Well…

Midnight Express official trailer

Irene Cara wins Best Original Score for “Flashdance… What a Feeling”

“Ready for an Encore,” by Jennifer Wulff (details of Cara’s law suit, People)

The Back Story with Irene Cara podcast

“Junot Diaz in Limbo,” by Ben Smith (Semafor)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the Junot Diaz book whose title Sarah flubbed

“The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma,” by Junot Diaz (The New Yorker)

Felicia Sonmez has something to say …

“The Shiv in the Hand of Kindness,” Nancy on Sonmez, part googolplex (Arc Digital)

“To Tell You the Truth,” by Sarah Hepola on meeting Jayson Blair (The Morning News)

Stephen Elliott talks “Truth, Consequences, and "S****y Media Men” (Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, episode 41)

The best holiday gift is the one you give yourself, so isn’t it time you become a free or paid subscriber?

Nancy and Sarah talk Thanksgiving turkeys — both the actual food, and the items we could do without. After killing off some sacred cows (Nancy’s looking at you, Brussel sprouts), we delve into She Said, the movie about the New York Times investigation that helped bring down Harvey Weinstein and launch #MeToo. Despite Oscar buzz and critical acclaim, the film tanked at the box office. What happened? We talk escapism, the bore of righteous cinema, and what a braver movie would have included.

Next, we turn to the young grifters among us, who sniff out exactly what we can’t resist: Saving the world! The multibillion-dollar collapse of Sam “what’s a washing machine?” Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth “I don’t blink, I really don’t!” Holmes have become riveting dramas, satisfying that need we have to see false gods brought low.

Then it’s on to our new bonus feature, a subscriber-only portion of the episode where we talk the power of the pussy, what’s in our hot boxes, and what we’re grateful for this Thanksgiving (besides stuffing), which includes you, dear listener.

Now go subscribe!

Pass the popcorn, crunch the chicarrones, and snuggle up with us when you become a free or paid subscriber.

Episode Notes:

Pie for Everyone: Recipes and Stories from Petee's Pie, New York's Best Pie Shop, new baking book that is Nancy’s obsession

“A Special Place in Hell” podcast, with Meghan Daum and Sarah Haider

Nancy’s traditional stuffing: Dry out 2 loaves of cheap white bread for a few days. Cut into cubes and toss with poultry seasoning, salt and black pepper. Melt one cup butter in the biggest pot you have, heavy bottomed preferred. Dice 2 yellow onions and a half-head of celery. Toss into the hot butter and saute, stirring occasionally to avoid scorching, until softened and with some brown bits. Add the giblets and liver, finely chopped, you’ve simmered in your turkey stock. (You did that right? If not, chicken broth works perfectly.) Some time during this process chew on the turkey neck you’ve also simmered, causing your husband every year to say, “I cannot watch you do that.” Toss the bread in the onion/celery butter, add more melted butter if it looks as though it needs it, moisten with stock or broth until it has the moistness you like, remembering that it will get moister inside the turkey. Yes, that’s right, you’re baking the turkey stuffed, don’t listen to all the health freaks, just make sure stuffing is cool before you stuff the turkey. Also make sure there’s a gigantic mound sticking out of the neck cavity. This will get deeply brown and crunchy and buttery from the basting. Cook’s prerogative to break off several hunks and eat these immediately.

She Said, by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

“‘She Said’ Bombs: Why Aren’t Awards Season Movies Resonating With Audiences?” by Brent Lang (Variety)

“Harvey Weinstein, Convicted Rapist, Gloats Over ‘She Said’ Fizzling at Box Office,” by Elizabeth Wagmeister (Variety)

“The Plan to Make Harvey Weinstein a Hero” by Megan Garber (Atlantic)

“Former Harvey Weinstein Attorney Lisa Bloom, Angling for a Hefty Payday, Now Faces Fraud Allegations” by Lloyd Grove (The Daily Beast)

“SBF: The Virtue Was the Con” by Lane Brown (New York)

“They Lived Together, Worked Together and Lost Billions Together: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Doomed FTX Empire” by WSJ staff (Wall Street Journal)

“Moynihan Taught Me,” crypto edition (Vice)

“Elizabeth Holmes Is Sentenced to More Than 11 Years for Fraud” by Erin Griffith (New York Times)

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

“Humiliation is part of the punishment for Elizabeth Holmes” by Stephen L. Carter (Bloomberg)

Episode notes continue for our paid subscribers! Including what we’re grateful for, a discussion of pussy power, and a 1977 chanteuse in a plunging gold-sequined top. (Ed. note: Aren’t these all kind of the same thing?)

Are we saving the best for last? Find out by becoming a paid subscriber!

“It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about things,” comedian Dave Chappelle lamented in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue, a watertight fifteen minutes that might have satirized Jewish stereotypes but also might have normalized them. Whatever your perspective, we dare you to beat Chappelle’s description of Trump as an “honest liar” and Melania as “the kind of chick James Bond would smash but not trust.”

Meanwhile, Twitter convulses as Elon Musk takes over, a mess that’s also a bit fun. Sarah stans for “Infamous” comedian Andrew Schulz, and Nancy gives the view from Israel, along with a story about a Holocaust survivor that leaves us both wiping tears.

It’s possible the only thing this country can agree on is Steve Kornacki, MSNBC data analyst and khaki-wearing dreamboat who also happens to be a friend of the pod. We delight in KorSNACKi fan-fiction generated on election night, and contemplate which Dem should run in 2024, given that the current guy is — well, you know.

Then it’s on to the barnburner of a Britney Spears profile by Kerry Howley in New York magazine, “House of Spears,” about why the singer’s father placed her under a conservatorship. It’s also a sprawling intergenerational tale of violence, poverty, and mental illness told like a Southern gothic. We doubt anyone will write a better story this year.

In this week’s New York Magazine, journalist Lila Shapiro tackles the controversy and the personalities behind it as the legal battle heads toward court. Elliott, a friend of Nancy’s, was afraid the story would be a hit job. It wasn’t. Both Nancy and Sarah found it balanced, if favorable to the spirit of the list. Elliott agreed to come on the show to talk about his experience of being accused of rape, the personal and professional fallout, and whether these sorts of campaigns can ever (or eventually) have a positive impact.

One detail not included in the story was Elliott’s car being spray-painted with the word RAPIST and his garage marked with the letters S C U M. We’re not sure why this was left out; Elliott says he sent the photos as well as the police report to the author. We share them with you here.

We also discuss a current raft of #MeToo lawsuits, including cases against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Paul Haggis, and Danny Masterson. The details aren’t pretty.

Finally, the girls talk about Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native activist best known for refusing Marlon Brando’s Oscar for The Godfather on his behalf. A recent SF Chronicle piece exposed Littlefield as a “pretendian” who invented her Indian background, according to her sisters. (The family was Mexican.) Nancy, with her connections to the Native world, could potentially be exercised about this; she is not.

No hotbox this episode, but we do reveal that Rachel Dolezal has an OnlyFans. Not that we’re linking to it!

Find out why we’re the “OnlyFans of podcasts” when you become a free or paid subscriber.

Episode Notes:

“Bad Reputation,” by Lila Shapiro (New York Magazine)

“What to Do With ‘Shitty Media Men?’” by Doree Shafrir (Buzzfeed)

“On Pandering: How to Write Like a Man,” by Claire Vaye Watkins (Tin House)

“Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyers Say Everyone Had ‘Transactional Sex’ in Hollywood Before #MeToo,” by Elizabeth Wagmeister (Variety)

“Harvey Weinstein Accusers Are Furious His Lawyer Called Gov’s Partner ‘Bimbo’,” by Pilar Melendez (The Daily Beast)

“Woman describes alleged rape by ‘dead-eyed’ director Paul Haggis as trial opens,” by Priscilla DeGregory (NY Post)

“Documentary Filmmaker Testifies Oscar Winner Paul Haggis Assaulted Her at Film Festival: ‘I Felt Humiliated,’” by Antonio Ferme, Brent Lang (Variety)

“The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology,” by Lawrence Wright (New Yorker)

“Kevin Spacey Is Cleared of Anthony Rapp’s Battery Claim,” by Julia Jacobs and Nate Schweber (New York Times)

“Actor Anthony Rapp: Kevin Spacey Made A Sexual Advance Toward Me When I Was 14,” by Adam B. Vary (Buzzfeed)

“Scientology church looms over actor Danny Masterson rape case,” by Noah Goldberg (LA Times)

“4 Women Claim the Church of Scientology Came After Them for Reporting Their Rapes,” by Gwynedd Stuart (LA Magazine)

“Cuba Gooding Jr. Pleads Guilty to Forcible Touching,” by Benjamin Weiser and Colin Moynihan (NYT)

“Sacheen Littlefeather was a Native American icon. Her sisters say she was an ethnic fraud,” by Jacqueline Keeler (San Francisco Chronicle)

Outro song: “Apology Song” by the Decemberists

So you’ve been lurking for a while. No apology needed, but isn’t it time to become a free or paid subscriber?

Nancy and Sarah have fallen hard for documentary filmmaker Meg Smaker after her recent appearance on Sam Harris’ podcast. Smaker’s film, originally titled Jihad Rehab (now called The UnRedacted), was canceled before it was ever released, having met a perfect storm of identity politics, institutional cowardice, and social media pile-on. But what we see in Smaker is a champion of radical empathy. She’s also a bad-ass, a former firefighter who cusses like a Marine and describes herself as a “six-foot albino godzilla.” Our kinda woman.

Our friend Meghan Daum, of The Unspeakable and A Special Place in Hell podcasts, brought our attention to the dust-up at Hobart literary journal, where Cuban-born writer Alex Perez gave an interview filled with the spot-on observations everyone knows but no one talks about (Sarah calls them “truth clicks”) and which — surprise! — led to five editors quitting.

A new site called Semafor drops some truth bombs about tensions at The New York Times, including an exchange with a former editor that gave Nancy a mental orgasm. Speaking of orgasm: We climax with a discussion of the clitoris, and agree to volunteer for any future research. For science.

It’s not hard to find the button where you become a paid or free subscriber

Episode Notes:

Arkansas Hot Springs

There are many good Korean spas in Los Angeles, including Olympic Spa and Beverly Hot Springs. Plan on spending 2-3 hours.

Sojo Spa Club, in Edgewater, NJ, with free shuttle from 42nd St. in NYC

“Sundance Liked Her Documentary on Terrorism, Until Muslim Critics Didn’t,” by Michael Powell (New York Times)

Sam Harris: A TALE OF CANCELLATION: A Conversation with Meg Smaker

Jihad Rehab/The UnRedacted website and GoFundMe

“Who Killed Creative Writing? Thoughts on Alex Perez, Hobart magazine, and the price of literary citizenship,” by Meghan Daum

“Alex Perez on the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, baseball, growing up Cuban-American in Miami & saying goodbye to the literary community,” by Elizabeth Ellen (Hobart)

“Inside the Identity Crisis at The New York Times,” by Ben Smith (Semafor)

“New York Times Journalists Scared to Have an Op-Ed Page,” by Matt Welch (Reason)