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!