Episodes
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R.E.M. is one of the most influential rock bands in American music history, with a legendary arc that took them from college radio punks in the early 80s to critical darlings and arena rockers with multiple smash albums throughout the 90s. But what happened after that? This week Justin shares a thesis about the final phase of R.E.M.’s career, during which the band signed an $80 million contract with Warner Brothers – and it all went downhill from there. As we take a close look at Michael Stipe’s creative output and public persona, we recoil at how even our favorite artists can succumb to the poisonous influence of money and fame.
Check out our Patreon for daily News Trap episodes, bonus interviews, documentary shorts, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap
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Anti-immigration politics are winning the moment, the market for testosterone replacement therapy is booming, child labor is on the horizon, and United Health EATS PEOPLE.
And so ends this week's FREE PREVIEW for News Trap. Subscribe to continue the News Trap journey and keep up with all new episodes next week and beyond:
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Missing episodes?
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A stunning new piece in The Atlantic offers details on the fall of America as seen from Phoenix, Arizona. Folks, 2024 is gonna be a hell of year.
This is FREE PREVIEW WEEK for News Trap, subscribe to hear 'em all: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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Today we take a detailed look at this incredible Wall Street Journal piece featuring text messages from Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and architect of 10/7. What's Sinwar's strategy? And how does it fit into an American antiwar movement's calculations?
This week's episodes of News Trap are free for everyone but next week we're back to subscribers-only...so subscribe! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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Nobody likes new cars, everyone loves old cars, Americans are on a spending spree while complaining about the economy, the anti-AI rebellion is growing.
This is a free episode of News Trap, subscribe to our Patreon for access to daily episodes:
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This week Justin and I talk about the 2008 Coen brothers film Burn After Reading, another “acid take” on American politics and culture with uncanny implications for our 2024 carnival timeline.
Check out our daily News Trap updates to catch up on the "map of the future," in real time: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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David Rensin is the author of more than a dozen books, five of them New York Times bestsellers. I was lucky enough to meet David through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and he joins me here for a conversation about his long, strange trip as a journalist and author, from writing for Rolling Stone and Playboy in the 1960s and 70s to co-authoring massively popular books with Tim Allen and Jeff Foxworthy (!) in the 1990s. Rensin’s 2013 book All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora is one of the most compelling visions of mid-century California I’ve encountered, and we talk here about Rensin’s decades-long odyssey to capture Dora’s significance as a surfer and cultural figure.
Check out my daily NEWS TRAP updates: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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"Everyday carry" and "prepper" culture, unsold Teslas piling up at dealerships, AI as the future of global capitalism, AI does not in fact work, Biden is not properly buying our votes.
Follow all our News Trap episodes by subscribing to our Patreon feed, free with 7 day trial membership: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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We've been posting daily news wrap-ups/freakouts every morning over at the Nostalgia Trap Patreon page for our subscribers. I'm posting today's episode on the main feed, hoping you'll subscribe.
My goals with News Trap are to share perspectives on the big trends shaping our present and future, to fill in the gaps on stories you may have missed, or offer challenges to orthodoxies on the left and right, and to avoid the nauseating cycle of social media bullshit.
If that sounds like your thing, please join us. A Nostalgia Trap subscription includes access to every News Trap episode, along with our entire library of bonus content, interviews, and videos. Thanks!
Check out News Trap here: https://www.patreon.com/collection/520366?view=expanded
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Trump can't control himself in court, food prices are gonna decide the election, Tik Tok is gearing up for a Supreme Court battle, the U.S. can't make enough weapons for both Israel AND Ukraine, and RFK, Jr. has a brain worm (no, literally).
Stay informed! Subscribe so you won't miss all our News Trap updates: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103876807?pr=true
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As campus protests against Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza continue, Justin and I pick up on our discussion from last week about the wider historical issues at play. This week we talk more about anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s, and consider the idea of “divestment” at elite colleges. The neoliberal, corporate university is having quite a moment – confronting the contradictions of its hyper-capitalist structure and social justice culture – and we are here for it.
Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap to access our library of bonus episodes and News Trap updates: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap
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On today's News Trap I share some snippets about Chinese state capitalism, RFK's hilariously shitty presidential campaign, Elon Musk pulling the plug on everyone's dumb car chargers, the normalization of guns in schools and, of course, more on the campus protests against Israel's still unfolding genocide in Gaza.
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx2c4y469qCQM0YZlhxhh0w
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This week Justin and I attempt to put the latest round of campus protests into historical context, both in the wider view (19th century abolitionism, Vietnam, South Africa) and in our specific moment (Occupy, Black Lives Matter, pandemic, Israel/Gaza). What are the students’ demands, and how do we reconcile them with a popular social movement that could actually win?
Subscribe to hear the full episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-389-wish-103116444
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It’s been a minute since Justin and I have shared our takes on “the news,” so this week we have a typically dark, unhinged conversation about what’s coming for us in 2024, with an American population frothing at the mouth to BUILD THE WALL and weapons-crazy madmen lashing out around the globe. It’s an incredible time to be alive.
Full episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102232361?pr=true
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Conspiracy theories are a hell of a drug. Justin and I know this from experience, so watching the new Netflix documentary American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders brought up some deeply identifiable thoughts and emotions for both of us. Do you REALLY want to know the exact details of the dark forces at work within our most sacred institutions? As we discuss here, there’s a heavy price to pay for that knowledge, one way or another.
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This is the first half of this week's episode, go to our Patreon page to listen to the whole thing!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-386-of-98833719
It’s Part Four of our six-part adventure through the history of American automaking and car culture, and we’ve finally reached the moment when everything starts to unravel: the 1970s. When Arab nations decide to flex their oil muscle against the United States in 1973, they deliver American consumers into an entirely new economic reality, and Detroit struggles to meet the era’s new demands for fuel efficiency, safety, and lower emissions. Meanwhile, Japan enters the market with a new approach to cars and the production process that further erodes Detroit’s power – until an unlikely hero, the minivan, takes over the 1980s suburbs and points to a rocky road ahead.
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In Part Three of our journey through the history of American car culture, we explore how the massive cultural and political shifts of the 1960s made an impact on American automaking. From the Chevrolet Corvair spinning out and making Ralph Nader a household name, to the Ford Mustang turning boring housewives and husbands into hip celebrities, this was a wild era. When Detroit takes a sinister turn with the 1965 Pontiac GTO, a muscle car war grips American street racing subcultures, before it all burns out when the gas gets too expensive and the smog chokes the skies.
Full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-385-of-98244614
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As we continue our story of America’s love affair with the automobile, it’s time to look at the tailfin behemoths of the 1950s, the cars that look like “guns you can fuck.” With the automakers morphing into weapons manufacturers to help Uncle Sam win World War II, the postwar consumer reaped the strange benefits of military technology and imperial ideology seeping into the design of his suburban luxury sedan. Meanwhile, a cute little car produced by the Nazis was slowly stealing the hearts of America’s budding counterculture.
Full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97593008?pr=true
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This week we watch Fast Five (2011), the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, and contemplate how these movies embed radical ideas about criminality, subversion, insurgency, and family in often goofy stories about driving really fast cars, furiously.
Full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-383-fast-97420130
For more reflections on car culture, check out Part One of our new series, The History of America in Six Cars: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-382-of-t-97179277
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The supreme object of the 20th century, the automobile’s development as both transportation technology and cultural totem is literally the story of American capitalism. In the first episode of a six-part series, we examine the life and legacy of Henry Ford, whose Model T took the nation by storm after its debut in 1908. As Ford rises to an unprecedented position of wealth and power, his virulent anti-semitism and destructive business impulses threaten his company’s dominance of an emerging mass market in the 1920s.
The Model T’s rise and fall as the nation’s most popular commercial product gives us a chance to examine the dark forces at the heart of the progressive era, connecting Ford’s business innovations (the assembly line, the $5 day, etc) to the racism and hypernationalism that plunged the world into depression and war.
The series will continue with Parts 2-5 on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap
Sources/inspiration for this episode include:
Paul Ingrassia, Engines of Change: The American Dream in Fifteen Cars
100 Cars That Changed the World: The Designs, Engines, and Technologies That Drive Our ImaginationsWilliam Knoedelseder, Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
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