Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast

Ken Ilgunas may be the coolest writer you haven’t heard of yet. Sarah worked with him at Salon, where he wrote personal essays about: living in a van while attending Duke University; camping in the rain at Occupy Wall Street; and hiking the XL Pipeline. He’s since written memoirs about discovering the natural world and himself, including Walden on Wheels. He’s lived in Alaska and now lives in Scotland, but as a boy, he never went hiking, never went hunting, knew nothing of the natural world outside his small upstate New York town. Recently, he wrote in his newsletter about the profound effect podcasts had on him, and we’re here for it. Where else are you gonna get a primer on oral health, a disquisition on Jordan Peterson, and a plug for JIF peanut butter?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 YorkerPlus, 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’ websiteMore Ken Ilgunas stories at SalonWalden on Wheels: On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken IlgunasColumbia University faces calls for tuition refunds as school moves to hybrid classes for rest of term in wake of anti-Israel protestsMorning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by Nellie BowlesWhat’s in your hot box?Ken, for Sarah:Ken, for Nancy:Sarah: Black Water, by Joyce Carol OatesNancy: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne FadimanKen picks the outro (great song) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

You may not recognize Andy Mills’ name, but you likely know his work: He co-created The Daily podcast for The New York Times, where he also produced Rabbit Hole, a fantastic series on the internet, and – quite fatefully! – the war on terror podcast, Caliphate. Shit happened. It was complicated. Andy is no longer at The New York Times. 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 novelsPlus, video texts equal love, why no stories are actually neutral, why alcohol is an “analog drug,” and much more! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comApril 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comColeman 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 RAPPERPlus 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-airFree speech isn’t “free.” It takes a fight. Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Married journalists Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer are the forces behind “The Harvey Weinstein Trial: Unfiltered” podcast, in which actors read daily excerpts of the courthouse testimony verbatim. Released during the trial in 2020, it’s an extraordinary document of a cultural flashpoint, providing a far deeper and more troubling portrait than most media coverage did at the time. Nobody was shocked when Weinstein was slapped with a 23-year sentence, but it seems many people were when that conviction was overturned on Thursday, April 25.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.comAnd 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) This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Title IX started as a modest part of the Education Amendments of 1972; it was the part that prohibited sex-based discrimination in education programs. In the 50+ years since, it’s become shorthand for many things: Women in sports, a sexual reckoning, a cultural over-correction, a legal shitshow. What no one ever seems to ask is: Why are colleges adjudicating sexual matters between students anyway?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. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comEli 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.

Michael Moynihan, FIFTH COLUMN co-host and man about town, joins Nancy and Sarah to discuss The Incomparable Mr. Buckley, the new PBS documentary about conservative firebrand William F. Buckley. They discuss his eloquence, mistakes, and political evolution, and Sarah calls the old Firing Line episodes “a call to civility in a time of chaos.”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.comPaid subscribers have more fun.Episode Notes:Japanese Maple, by Clive JamesYour 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 VidalA Traitor to His Class by H.W. Brands (about FDR)Letters to a Young Contrarian by HitchensNearer My God by William F. BuckleyLosing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher BuckleyCancel Your Own Goddamn Subscription by William F. BuckleyReagan in His Own Hand by Kiron K. SkinnerOverdrive: A Personal Documentary by William F. BuckleyReds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America by Ted MorganWhittaker 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 RoykoMichael:“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 KeefeUnanimously chosen outro: This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comNancy’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!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comMike 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comParticipants 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?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comCorrection 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 experimentNothing worth doing comes without a cost. Become a paid subscriber.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comThe 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comChristine 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!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comLeigh 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:Those low-cut dresses don’t buy themselves. Become a paid subscriber.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comDays 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comIt 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.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com“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!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com“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?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comNancy 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 bossPlus, the NBA star you might run into at a Dallas supermarket, 80s wrestling greatness, big-ass Trans Am love, and more!