Remember Shuffle

Skip ahead to 9:30 for Robin Williams content. We dive headfirst into the lightning-fast, unfiltered mind of Robin Williams's 2002 stand-up special, Live on Broadway. After a 16-year hiatus from major touring, Williams stormed the stage like a human cyclone. Was it improvised? Was it structured? This episode dives into whether the sheer volume of material and the relentless pace overshadowed the strength of the jokes themselves. Was it a brilliant display of Robin’s unique mind, or did the "stream of consciousness" become a bit more of a facile chaotic torrent?So grab your water bottles, prepare for rapid-fire associations, and listen in as we try to keep up with the one, the only, Robin Williams.Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  Join the patreon to support the shuffle bois and for an extra episode per month at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle

This is a free Demo--Full episode can be found at: patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleThe Shuffle Bois turn from the worst Classics adaptation of the 2000s (Troy) to what might be the best, the Coen Brothers' "O Brother Where Art Thou." After describing the source material - Homer's Odyssey - the bois give a plot summary of the Cohen brothers' southern folklore epic. They then discuss some themes of the film - the North's view of the South in 2000, the place of music in the film, and the various mythologies of the film. They close out, as always, with the echoes in the culture, looking forward to Christopher Nolan's 2026 Odyssey adaptation.

In part four of Remember Shuffle’s ongoing series on the Iraq War, Remember Shuffle is joined by guests Lyle Jeremy Rubin and Van Jackson, the hosts of the [Bang-Bang] podcast. We turn now to the ramping up of violence in the years 2004-2005, and the United States refusal to recognize the current battle space: one of counter insurgency. As always we end our discussion with a movie set during this period: American Sniper and Warfare.Follow Bang-Bang at: www.bangbangpod.com/Van Jackson: x.com/realvanjacksonLyle Jeremy Rubin at: lylejeremyrubin.com/For more on Counter Insurgency as “conservative, high-modern utopianism”, see Van’s conversation on his other podcast, Un-Diplomatic: www.un-diplomatic.com/p/the-reactionary-worldmaking-of-counterGive Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  Join the patreon to support the shuffle bois and for an extra episode per month at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffl

In part three of Remember Shuffle’s ongoing series on the Iraq War, the Shuffle Bois turn their investigative eyes to the CPA and the first year of the occupation. They close out by reviewing The Green Zone, a very weak attempt to fictionalize the story of Green Zone: Imperial Life in the Emerald City.Baghdad Burning Blog: https://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  Join the patreon to support the shuffle bois and for an extra episode per month at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle

The Wolfowitz of Wall Street--In part two of Remember Shuffle’s ongoing series on the Iraq War, the Shuffle Bois turn their investigative eyes to whose fault this war was. After digging down into the ideological tenets of Neoconservatism and describing the prime suspects of this mass murder case, they do a deep dive into the history of the lead-up to the war from 2001-2003. En route, they describe the stifling of any substantial debate on both the grounds for the war and its grand strategy, the fabrication and misrepresentation of flawed intelligence, and the bureaucratic machinations that led to the worst possible outcome. They close out by reviewing a brilliant British satire of this period of history, Armando Ianucci’s “In the Loop” (2009).Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests.  Join the patreon to support the shuffle bois and for an extra episode per month at ⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleBig thank you to S.E. Doyen for sending us the excellent episode art

Full episode can be found at: patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleIn an episode that will echo through the millenia, the Shuffle Bois return to the world of sword and sandals flicks to review a film that got Ben Troygered, “Troy” (2004). Troy is a perfect example of the "grounded and realistic" period pieces that proliferated in the 2000s that somehow were neither grounded or realistic or fun. After doing a deep dive into the source material behind the film (the Greek epic poetry of Homer), they look at the film's flat characters, first-draft quality script, and phoned-in performances before turning to themes and a short pedant's corner.

It’s “Anarchy” in the UK as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of V for Vendetta by metaphorically blowing up the veneration for this very mid movie. Alan Moore himself disassociated himself from this movie after complaining that they had made the movie about “current American Neoconservatism vs current american liberalism” rather than ANARCHY VS FACISM.Totalitarianism, Reddit Guy-ness, and SYMBOLOGY–enjoy our Guy Thoughts with your favorite Guy Thots. Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. Join the patreon to support the shuffle bois and for an extra episode per month at https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleBig thank you to S.E. Doyen for sending us the excellent episode art

A fun slice-of-life indie movie from the 2000s, which teaches the exact opposite lesson to The Bear Check out our Patreon feed for the full episode: ( https://patreon.com/RememberShuffle?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink )And make sure you sign up through the browser–not through the app, to save yourself 50%

Remember Shuffle finally turns to the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 2000s, the Iraq War. On this table-setting episode, tThe Shuffle Bois trace the long history of American collaboration with Saddam Hussein’s regime, the souring of that productive relationship in the 1990s, and the obsessive fixation America developped for regime change in Iraq, both on the Neoconservative and Liberal Interventionist sides of the divide. They then look at some of the Themes and Big Ideas of American Middle Eastern foreign policy through the late 20th century. They then close out with a palate-cleanser film review of 1999’s “Three Kings.”Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. (soft launch) Join the free patreon (for now) at https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffleEpisodes on the Patreon will be up in the next couple weeksBooks we recommended:Steve Coll’s ‘The Achilles Trap’ : https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602066/the-achilles-trap-by-steve-coll/Debriefing the President, by John Nixon:

In part two of the Shuffle Bois’ two-part series on Burger, they turn to the goliath-pioneer of fast food: McDonalds. They trace the company’s flailing attempts to rebrand itself in the 2000s, some of the lasting innovations that they implemented in the decade, and outline some of the reasons that McDonalds’ revenue peaked in the 2000s before starting to decline. They pair this brief corpo-history with a film review of the 2000s documentary “Super Size Me,” which had some influence on the fall of McDonalds.Give Remember Shuffle a follow on Twitter⁠⁠⁠ And on Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@RememberShufflePod⁠⁠⁠ to interact with the show between episodes. It also makes it easier to book guests. (soft launch) Join the free patreon (for now) at https://www.patreon.com/c/RememberShuffle