Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast

Questions Kyle and Jennie join me for an unusually strong mailbag. In this first part we talk the wild events of the last month in the presidential election, fielding several questions about what is …

Questions Kyle and Jennie join me for a close look at three of the wildest weeks in recent American political history - we talk the Trump assassination attempt, Biden's brain, JD Vance, and (checks n…

Kassia St. Clair, author of the 2017 best-seller The Secret Lives of Color and the Sunday Times Book of the Year follow-up The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History (2019) joins me to talk abou…

In 1972 a middling team from the Scottish Premier League played four exhibition matches in Nigeria and distinguished itself so profoundly with its pitiful play (and boorish attitude) that its name be…

Question Kyle and Question Jennie join me as we discuss the 18th century fad of using the emerging understanding of the phenomenon of electricity to entertain. Men who considered themselves worldly n…

Perhaps you've heard of Operation Gladio, the infamous post-World War II NATO program to train "stay-behind" agents to fight guerilla-style against a future hypothetical Soviet invasion of Western Eu…

Dr. Laine Nooney (NYU) joins me to discuss the early days of personal computing - particularly how people figured out what to do with home computers after they became convinced that they needed one -…

Professor and author Nicholas Dagen Bloom joins me to discuss his new book The Great American Transit Disaster: Austerity, Autocentric Planning, and White Flight (University of Chicago Press). You k…

Continuing a topic we broached on a recent bonus episode on Patreon, Questions Kyle and Jennie join me as we sort through the wonderful if baffling world of school assemblies submitted by listeners …

Question Cathy returns for a long overdue dip into the mailbag. We hit a range of topics including: how the recent Supreme Court ruling will affect college admissions, 90s cultural fads, the mind-be…

Artist and author Brian Brown joins me to discuss his new book The He-Man Effect: How American Toy Makers Sold You Your Childhood. We talk about our memories of toy advertising and cartoons from the…

Question Kyle and Question Jennie join me to discuss one of the most poorly thought-out, pretentious stunts in the history of pop culture, wherein an early UK techno-electronica duo churn out a novel…

David Roth (@david_j_roth) of Defector (@DefectorMedia) joins me to talk about one of the most memorable ad campaigns in the history of sports and pop culture, Reebok's $30,000,000 1992 "Dan vs. Dave…

Question Kyle joins me for musings on concept albums as I fondly recall the 1999 gimmick-compilation "Short Music for Short People" from the pop-punk mavens at Fat Wreck Chords. The idea: 101 bands, …

Motivated by the Chinese balloon story that recently if briefly dominated the news, Kelsey Atherton (@AthertonKD) joins me to talk about PROJECT GENETRIX (1956), a Pentagon scheme to float almost 600…

At the height of the Cold War, the looming existential dread of human extinction in a nuclear holocaust was punctuated by a three-way battle for the Grand Ballroom of New York City's famous Waldorf-A…

Labor journalist and author Max Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) takes a break from hosting the essential podcast Working People (@WorkingPod) and reporting for Real News Network to talk about the recent …

Dr. Erin Thompson (@ArtCrimeProf), the Art Crime Professor, joins me to talk about her book Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments. We cover the illusory permanence of mon…

In which I stoop to being my own guest on my own podcast to talk about my book, which is available from wherever you prefer to get books in Ebook, Hardcover, and Audiobook formats.

If you listen t…

Two vagabonds with great luck and big balls perpetrate a hoax that made them extremely rich and hoodwinked some of the finest, most respectable citizens of early Gilded Age America. In our modern era…