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Waiting to X-hale

Author: Karen Tongson and Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh

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A Gen X-themed show with podcast veterans Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh and Karen Tongson (Pop Rocket). W2X revisits the pop culture & social issues that defined Generation X from a (queer) woman-of-color perspective in a way that sheds new light on the pop culture from both then, and now.
123 Episodes
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Wynter and Karen are back with season 6 to ask each other, “what did I miss?” as they cover some of the notable pop culture moments that went down during their holiday hiatus.   Before they get into Spare, The Last of Us and M3GAN, the two debrief about the 2023 Oscars, as Wynter goes against the tide of criticism around The Whale, while Karen considers the significance of Everything, Everywhere All At Once’s sweep of the top prizes.   The two also catch up about their recent travels (KT went to Sydney for World Pride, and Wynter went to the backwoods of Washington as well as Philly with Wanda Sykes). Plus, us a nuo-lingo to ICK about and songs of the week!
It’s our 100th episode and season 5 finale!!! To help celebrate the occasion, the one and only BOB ODENKIRK was kind enough to join us for a chat about Mr. Show, comedy in the 90s, and the great Janeane Garofalo. Karen is cautiously optimistic about the new season of White Lotus, while she and Wynter process the ramifications of El-n M-sk’s purchase of Twitter. Plus, a few other 100th episode surprises, to go with nuo-lingo and our songs of the week.
Wynter & Karen dive into the new Shudder documentary series, Queer for Fear: The History for Queer Horror, and are inspired to make some of their own queer horror recommendations for the spooky season.   Wynter considers which streaming services she needs to drop, while Karen claps back at the WaPo piece claiming GenX’s shift to the right by considering how “Generation Jones” skews those purported numbers.   Plus, Negroni Sbagliato (with prosecco in it), and two new songs of the week.
Wynter assigns Karen a range of true crime offerings with varying degrees of budget and prestige, from Lifetime’s The Gaby Petito Story, to Netflix’s limited series, Dahmer and the cinematic offering, Blonde. The two discuss when true crime is too much in both quantity and affect. KT’s viewing habits have veered to deep straight dude sportiness, while Wynter walks us through some major GenX anniversaries for 90210 and Janet’s The Velvet Rope, plus Hocus Pocus 2 on Disney+. Nuo-lingo has a long reality story attached to it, and our songs of the week are bonafide jams.
The end of the Elizabethan-era (part II) prompted us to reflect on how British pop culture has dominated GenX’s imaginaries, from new wave and the new romantics, to Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, to iconoclasts like Bowie and the Sex Pistols up to and including contemporary favorites the Great British Bake Off and The Crown, to the British royal family itself as pop culture. Plus, it’s a very Hulu week for us with Welcome to Wrexham and Reboot. We drop a nuo-lingo for new relationships and two songs from beloved icons from the 80s and now.
Karen and Wynter are back together again, just in time to drop their Emmy predictions for all the Comedy and Drama acting categories. They tell you who they want to win, as well as who they think will actually win, so listen-up before you fill out your ballots for the awards broadcast on Monday, September 12!  Fresh from her vacay, KT talks about the “couple” shows she and Sarah watch together, like Industry on HBO. Wynter is stoked about the impending return of the Great British Bake Off and tells us about all the nuo-lingo that has officially been incorporated into Merriam-Webster. Plus, two sweet sweet songs of the week for coastal grandmas, grandpas and/or thembas.    Canceling Cable - SNL 370 New Words and Definitions Added to Merriam-Webster
Wynter is in the driver's seat one more time and wants to know if you're watching She-Hulk. It's a refreshing glass of characters and story that you don't even need to have watched all 432 Marvel movies to enjoy.  Ryan Bailey (So Bad it's Good Podcast) stops by for the main segment to talk about all things snark and why we love to hate on the internet.  PLUS: nuo-lingo to help you sift through bad vibes and a SOTW from a Gen X icon's kid! 
While Karen is on vacation, Wynter brought in special guest host Abby Gardner (We Have Notes Podcast/Substack) to talk about ALL THE THINGS: Biopics, Harry Styles, mixtapes, movies, Kate Bush, old Hollywood, new Hollywood, Joan Crawford, Florence Pugh...seriously, it's a dense pop culture discussion from top to bottom.  Grab a snack and settle in! 
Karen and Wynter have been seduced by Irma Vep, Olivier Assayas’ “serialized” HBO Max revisitation of his own 1996 indie film of the same name starring screen goddess Maggie Cheung (his ex-wife). The two get into all the series’ meta-narratives,, including Alicia Vikander as a modified K-Stew. Light SPOILERS. Karen is obsessed with #PREATH’s (Christen Press and Tobin Heath’s) sizzle on the ESPYs red carpet, while Wynter loves up on Nathan Fielder in The Rehearsal. (Where’s our HBO Max sponsorship already?!) Are we or are we not “BASED”? Plus two songs of the week from the 80s, and info about KT’s new food-related BoCo on our Patreon. 
Wynter has returned from her European vacation to tell us about her encounter with Aline–not to be confused with Celine, who the main character of this French-Canadian film very closely resembles. Karen tells us about Chris Belcher hot new memoir Pretty Baby (Simon & Schuster), chronicling her life as a queer teen rebel who escapes small-town Appalachia to become  a renowned Lesbian Dominatrix in L.A.  The two also offer their rundown of TV series that have taken a long hiatus (Stranger Things, Atlanta, Barry, Umbrella Academy, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) only to return after several years, assessing whether or not they were worth the wait.  Plus, nuo-lingo and songs of the week with totally different vibes.
This week Karen is joined by author, curator, and former kitchen-geek Jennifer Doyle, as well as Chef Courtney Storer to talk about the buzzy and bingeable FX series The Bear.  As the culinary producer on the show, Chef Coco gives us the inside scoop on how the actors recreated the tense, fast-paced atmosphere of professional kitchens, while revealing what happens to all the food they make on set.  KT and Jennifer talk about women’s soccer and mutual aid, and share their profound love for L.A.’s NWSL team, the Angel City Football Club. (LAFC gets its props too). Plus, they get into Apple TV’s Loot and Showtime’s I Love That For You. Nuo-lingo explains what it means when someone is “a 10, but…” and we offer up two songs of the week with a dose of hope.
Wynter is out of the country, so Karen invited her longtime gaysian/theysian pals, Summer Kim Lee (a cultural critic and UCLA professor), and JJ Chan (an artist and designer based in Brooklyn) to talk about the highly anticipated gay(sian) rom-com, Hulu’s Fire Island. The three talk about some of their own summer gaycations together and apart, while diving deep into the details of Fire Island down to its most resonant moments with Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, to what JJ calls the “Cherry Grove aesthetic” of Margaret Cho’s house, despite the film’s setting in the Pines.    Plus: Karen takes her wife Sarah to Disneyland for her very first visit to the Magic Kingdom, JJ gosses about “eyebrow gate” on Gentleman Jack, and Summer FINALLY gets into Survivor after 42 seasons.    And, nuo-lingo from a real life millennial and three #thatgirl summer jams!
CW: discussions of violence, self-harm, domestic abuse, mass shooting–in other words, of our everyday lives in the U.S.A. Wynter and Karen welcome special guest Raquel Gutierrez, author of the new book Brown Neon (out June 7). The three revive a conversation they started over drinks during the Gen X festival about vengeance movies centering women, and fantasies of fighting back in a bleak timeline moving increasingly from the genre of horror to realism.  Karen talks about why she undertook a double-feature of the new Downton Abbey film with Alex Garland’s latest, Men starring Jessie Buckley. Wynter anoints The Kids in the Hall honorary Gen X-ers, while telling us why she comfort-binged their latest revival three times.  Plus, nuo-lingo is back from retrolingo, and two VERY different songs of the week for your enjoyment. 
This is an edited version of the live show - Patreon members get the full unedited video! The Gen X festival’s Humanities co-curators (Wynter & Karen!!!!) take the stage for a live podcast recording along with special guests Sandra Bernhard and Kevin Smith!   
Wynter and Karen reflect back on the music of 1992 and 2002, from Pitchfork favorites to the Billboard Hot 100. In addition to selecting their MVP songs and albums from each year, they each get into what they were wearing and gift an NFT idea to Ja Rule in the process.  Wynter continues delving into the saga of millennial overreachers by entering the world of WeCrashed, while Karen sobs to the epic, multigenerational saga that is Apple TV+’s  Pachinko, while revisiting the thrills and jiggles of the Lakers’ showtime era of the 80s reimagined in Adam McKay’s Winning Time.  Plus, nuo-lingo and songs of the week from 1992 and 2012 (in an extension of our episode’s timeline).
This week Karina Longworth, the creator, producer and host of You Must Remember This joins us for a preview of the pod’s  latest season on the “Erotic 80s.” Before the three regale you with tales of peering at their parents’ Playboy magazines (and whatever played late at night on cable), Wynter and Karen tell us what’s up this week by diving into the first Adrian Lyne offering in 20 years, Deep Water starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. Plus, The Gilded Age finale, Life After Beth, a nuo-lingo phrase about phones, a Selena classic, and a sexy queer song about “Pisces Eyes.”
Wynter and Karen look back on their favorite Oscars years and winners in recent, i.e. prime GenX decades, as we round the corner to the 94th Annual Academy Awards.  Before they take a 1985 and 1992-heavy trip down memory lane, the two get into the latest TV exegesis on millennial hustlers, The Dropout and Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, before launching into an unexpected Guy Fieri lovefest, especially for his Food Network Tournament of Champions.  Plus, more retrolingo as nuo-lingo and two songs that will move your feet in some pretty different ways.
We’re thrilled to welcome back Ann Powers of NPR Music, and author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music to talk to us about the future of music. We explore other critics’ predictions about the future, including Ted Gioia’s speculation that we may have more dead musicians performing for us in the form of holograms, deep fake vocals, and more. From A.I. K-Pop artists, to Kanye’s STEM player, and what Karen calls “micro-dosing mega mixes,” all three peer into the future together, while also listening to our past.  Wynter tells us what’s up on Love is Blind season 2, while Karen gives us the final word on her wife Sarah’s viral tweet about “cat butter.” Plus, the two get into Netflix’s Inventing Anna, which they each binged in a single sitting. Nuo-lingo explores the “vibe shift” and a resurrected SOTW accompanies a brand new one to close out the show. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana learning how much money they make per show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdb271UMb50&feature=youtu.be
Ep. 83: THE FUTURE IS NOW

Ep. 83: THE FUTURE IS NOW

2022-02-2101:09:27

Karen returns from her bout w/ the Omarion variant to catch up with Wynter about Super Bowl Sunday, including all the ads, and the “GenX has arrived” halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent.  Their main segment focuses on how uncannily films and TV from the past have predicted elements of our present (or their future), from 1973’s Soylent Green set in 2022, to Robocop, Her, Idiocracy, and many more, including detours into present day “pandemic” shows like Station Eleven and Y: The Last Man.  Nuo-lingo continues as retro-lingo with an education in denim cuts, and our songs of the week anticipate next week’s episode about the future of music.
Hot on the heels of our last episode on Yellowjackets, Wynter and Karen are inspired to revisit the year 1996 and what it gave to us in fashion, fragrances, music, TV, movies and more. Before they get into all that, and what they were each up to at the time, they finally sit down for a much needed & extended processing session about And Just Like That… the SATC reboot on HBO which has made the non-binary character, Che Diaz (played by Sara Ramirez) into a cultural lightning rod. Is the show irredeemable? Or does ALJT teach us something else about GenX white women, privilege and a changing world? Plus more retrolingo as nuo-lingo (it’s new to you!), and two songs of the week that spoke to us from 1996.
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