Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comIt’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 mustPlus, a “pretend-ian” scandal and a smoking-hot sports star in the hot box

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comOur 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 PerryPlus a cavalcade of hotboxes, and even Sarah is following the World Series.

The podcast discusses recent incidents of anti-Semitism on university campuses, the campus fight to be seen as "oppressed," someone denying the Holocaust, Israel losing the battle for TikTok, Schlubs dressed as Nazis at Torchy's Tacos in Fort Worth, and the opportunities for personal brand advancement during geopolitical tragedies.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.comAn 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 IsraelAlso: Thomas Sowell is suddenly everywhere, a must-listen podcast, and a documentary that dares to humanize insurrectionists

Topics discussed include media failure in covering the Gaza hospital missile strike, the release of Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, the controversies around the film adaptation, and the success of Taylor Swift's concert movie.

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

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

Good morning Pie Talk listeners. Waking up to the news that Hamas attacked Israel and that the country is now at war. I immediately texted my friend Yael Bar tur, who lives in NYC but is home in Tel Aviv visiting with family, a family I know and love. 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 RommelmannMichael Moynihan, yours truly, Yael Bar-Tur and Matt Welch at Israel Supreme Court, 2022The light in Israel, plus Michael shows appreciation for the Israeli militaryReporting 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 VashemBill Schulz reads at Yael’s family Passover in NYC, 2023American 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 godmothersI 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 cerealBoil 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. 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

Nancy and Sarah discuss the Savior Complex and a controversial docu-series about a white missionary in Uganda. They explore the allegations against a baseball player, Trevor Bauer, and the discomfort of false accusations in the media. The dangers of missionary zeal and the activist group No White Saviors are also explored. Plus, Rudy Giuliani's drinking problem and the joys of an old-fashioned newspaper.

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