In one of our best episodes yet, Brody and Michael go deep on a topic often discussed, but rarely understood: education. Questions are asked (and answered) like: why are teacher’s unions the most misunderstood organizations in America? Why are they so often scapegoated for education’s ills? Why are Charter Schools a “cure” that’s worse than…
End of the World…Party [A Montage of Trumpocalypse]
A quick montage I put together to prepare you. Hey, the apocalypse may not be so bad, I hear cockroaches taste better than you’d think…
Book Review: the Terrific “Movie Freak”
Great books about movies are rare, and books that manage to truly capture the feeling movies can give you (like Patton Oswalt’s “Silver Screen Fiend”) are even rarer. Yet Owen Gleiberman’s “Movie Freak” may be the best book about movies I’ve ever read, and is the best book ever written about the lure of films, as evidenced from the book’s…
Book Reviews: “The Girls,” “Barkskins,” and “Lily and the Octopus”
It may seem like a cop-out to praise all three of these very different books, but they take wildly divergent paths to being equally terrific… Barkskins by Annie Proulx…A big, bold, ambitious book that practically has “Great Novel” stamped on the book cover. It’s about two “barkskins” (tree cutters) who settle in New France and…
Episode 35–What Will Obama Do Post-POTUS? And Predicting His Legacy
In our first truly “Obama Episode” we pull out our crystal ball to wonder what Obama will do after his presidency, and trying to predict how he’ll be remembered as President. Such burning questions include: Will Republicans miss torturing him? Exactly what bugs Republicans about Obamacare (their own plan)? Do Americans know we have the…
300 at 30: Episode 12–Binge, Diet, Exercise, Quit, Repeat
Binge, diet, exercise, quit, repeat–the vicious cycle of weight loss, and how to avoid it and that pre-diet binge meal…
300 at 30: Episode 11–Why Most Diets Fail
How can your diet last longer? Rethinking food into chemical processes (and drugs)…with budget-busting visual aid!
300 at 30: Episode 10–My Name is [Food Addict]
Are you a food addict? Listen to my checklist and see how many apply to you…
300 at 30: Episode 9–Sugar, the Abusive Relationship You Never Wanted
Sugar is a Helluva a drug…find out how I made my July weight loss goal, and then gained all of it back in August…
Episode 34–Do We Need a Revolution? And the Third Party Myth
In the final part of our “Sacred Cows” trilogy, we ask “Do We Need a Revolution?” and explore Bernie’s, Trump’s, Obama’s, and even Hillary’s revolutions, and wonder if things ever really change or our battles are echoes of the past. Why do some Trump fans seem okay with nuclear apocalypse? Are third parties only appealing…
“Hell or High Water” Is the Perfect Film to End the Summer
In a season of big-budget flops, “Hell or High Water” is the most purely enjoyable movie of the Summer. On a budget less than one-tenth that of “Suicide Squad,” “Independence Day 2,” and various other trash spectacles promising thrills but leaving me with a numb feeling—like I’d just watched someone else have the time of their…
Movie Review: “Don’t Think Twice” Perhaps the Best Comedy About Comedy
As someone who’s on the peripheral edge of being a comedian, I’ve always sought-out films, TV shows, books, or anything that can give us a peek behind the The Order of the Clowns, an exclusive unisex fraternity that has been breached in films from the biopic “Lenny” to Seinfeld’s documentary “Comedian” to Marc Maron’s podcast…
Movie Review: Can “Jason Bourne” Get Beyond Himself?
A few years back, when Jeremy Renner tried his hand as a Bourne-replacement in “The Bourne Legacy” I wrote an article about just how damn similar all the Bourne movies were—same basic plot, American character-actor CIA baddie, more internatonal-character actor rival assassin, outlandish car chase through a city towards the end with more hand-to-hand fights…