It’s been twenty years since the United States invaded Iraq, a key moment of the last two decades. During the lead-up to war, there were controversies over opinions on the war and support for the military. In this episode, I take a look at two of the more well-known of those controversies: “Freedom Fries” in reaction to France’s opposition to the war, and The Chicks’ comments about President George W. Bush.
Content Note: Politics are discussed and my political views are voiced. Listener discretion is advised.
If I can point the true origin of my comic book collecting career to one point in time, and especially one character, it’s the spring of 1990 and the character is Batman. For this episode, I’m going to take you through “My Batman Phase,” starting with how I first got to know the character, and walking through my experience with some of the biggest Bat-related events of the 1990s.
New Year, New You! At least that’s what they tell ourselves. Back in episode 96, I talked about my efforts to “uncollect” the piles of stuff I own. Well, it’s been a few years, so how is it going?
That’s what this episode is about. I talk about two books I read about hoarding and clutter, the Marie Kondo series Sparking Joy with Marie Kondo, and the “Curiosity Inc.” YouTube series before getting into my own experience with The Uncollecting. So come along and clear the clutter with me!
By the way, if you’re interested in the blog I have set up for The Uncollecting, check out theuncollecting.com.
It’s been TEN YEARS since I started this podcast, and it’s time for my TENTH trip to the Baltimore Comic-Con. Once again, Brett cosplays up and joins me to meet creators and buy comics. I’ve got interviews with Bob Hall, Joe Staton, Jill Thompson, and a number of other creators as well as a rundown of what I did, what I bought, and how I prepared. Then, I take a moment to reflect on ten years of podcasting.
It’s third and final episode in a series of three episodes about America: its history, its people, and its culture. This time around, I am looking at walking across America through the lens of the seminal travel memoirs A Walk Across America and The Walk West: A Walk Across America 2 by Peter Jenkins and Barbara Jenkins. In addition, I take a look at the book their son, Jedediah Jenkins, wrote, To Shake the Sleeping Self. It’s the portrait of a journey, a country, and a family.
Content Warning: This episode includes me sharing my political views. Listener discretion is advised.
In 1988, NBC produced three television movies starring a gaggle of teenage stars from some of the most popular sitcoms of the day. And for this episode, I sit down and talk about them. So strap in for “Crash Course,” get on the floor for “Dance ’til Dawn” and set sail on a “Class Cruise!”
We’re back to the world of Paper Girls with the release of Amazon Prime’s new series. Once again, Stella joins me to talk about the show and we give our takes on the characters, the story, and its faithfulness to its source material.
While I am in no way an anthropologist nor an anthropology student (even if I did take a couple of intro classes in grad school), I am fascinated by the concept of culture. I don’t know where it comes from and this is not the moment I am going to explore it, but I enjoy looking through the windows of others’ societies to see how they live their lives in ways that are both unique to them and common to so many of us. As I have been reading about America and exploring our history and culture on my podcast, I have come to appreciate our differences and similarities even more. Due to to our vastness, the nuance that you can find in our people is amazing.
Vladivostok, 7:30 a.m.: Sunrise over Golden Horn Bay. Photo by Lev Sherstennikov.
Why, then, I often wonder, do we assign a monoculture to a group that’s not like us?
I know the answers to this question involve one’s ignorance, prejudices, or hate. It’s even to think of, say, Black Americans as acting or living a certain way when you’re a racist; it’s simple to assign characteristics or behaviors to Latinx people when you’re xenophobic; and when you don’t know much about another country, it’s easy to make assumptions based on what you see in the media. Thankfully, there is travel as a way to erase that ignorance, and if you don’t have the privilege or luxury to travel to France or Morocco or India or Japan or anywhere else, there are plenty of travelogues to read or shows to watch.
Sometimes, though, the monoculture is the result of politics, a way of seeing a supposed “enemy” in only one way so the government or a particular political party can gain or maintain power. That can be easily wrapped together with racism and xenophobia, as we have seen throughout our history when it comes to countries with predominantly non-white populations. In fact, we wrap entire continents into said views–I have lost count of the number people who act like Africa is a country or anyone who comes from a country south of the United States is a “Mexican.” But then there’s the Soviet Union.
I spent the better part of two years taking a look at how Americans viewed the Soviet Union during my Fallen Walls Open Curtains miniseries, and came across so much media that basically described the average Soviet citizen as a bloodthirsty commie zombie ready to destroy America on command. At least, that is, until Rocky Balboa defeated Ivan Drago … I mean, until the mid-1980s when Gorbachev came to power and enacted Perestroika and Glasnost. Then, the media turned toward building a bridge with the USSR. The Russians (never mind that there were multiple Soviet republics, they were all Russians) liked blue jeans and Coca-Cola and rock and roll just like us!
Of course, looking at the people of the Soviet Union through that lens is just as ignorant because you’re grafting your own cultural identity onto them and therefore dressing them up in your own monoculture. To truly remedy the ignorance we all had about the people of the Soviet Union, we would have had to actually go there and meet people from all over the place. But that wasn’t possible for the average American in the 1980s (and is still well out of reach these days). Thankfully, we got A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union, a project conducted by 100 photojournalists on May 15, 1987.
It’s second of a series of three episodes about America: its history, its people, and its culture. This time around, I am looking at A Day in the Life of America. My coverage includes a 1968 Department of Defense film called “A Day in America”, the 1986 photo book A Day in the Life of America, the 2003 photo book America 24/7, and the 2019 documentary A Day in the Life of America. What do they capture and tell us about ourselves? Listen and find out.
Content Warning: This episode includes me sharing my political views. Listener discretion is advised.
After four years and six films, John Hughes left the teen movie subgenre behind in 1987, but not before producing one last film, Some Kind of Wonderful. Join me as I take a look at the film, its novelization, the soundtrack, and evaluate its place in the teen movie canon and 1980s film history.
Pop Culture Affidavit 