Shows
JournosWe Compete in the Olympics of Fast Food and TeethWe did our first live show! It was a bold evening of truths revealed and improvised scenes conjured as if by magic from the rude materials of current news. We thank our friends Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, Annie Savage, and Janet Varney, and all the folks at the Elysian Theater. JOURNOS plans to do it again soon. You cannot want to miss it.
And so — in this episode, Brandon and Stephen talk about the Olympics and its obsession with all the hot young new sports, including ... drugs? Then it's on to Iraq, where militias are waging war on...2024-07-3129 minJournosMiracles of the First Millennial SaintBig news! JOURNOS is doing its first live show! If you're in the LA area, come out and see us Wednesday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Elysian Theater! We'll be taking the stage to make the dumb news smart and the smart news dumb.
And we won't be alone, because we'll be joined by some improviser friends — Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, Annie Savage, and Janet Varney! to create scenes out of our Live Journalism. News leads to improv, which in turn inspires the next news story. It'll be a true stream-of-consciousness experience!
Check out al...2024-06-0630 minJournosThe Foundation of the Internet Is in Danger ... and That May Be a Good ThingFor years, rear view mirrors have urged us to be aware that "objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." And if you think about it, that's a pretty heady statement for a piece of automotive equipment -- reminding drivers that nothing in reality is exactly what it seems.
That was certainly the case for a bunch of despondent youngsters and their families in Glasgow, Scotland, upon entering what was billed to be an interactive, mind-bending, immersive Willy Wonka experience. Instead, the tots and weary parents were faced with something much more reminiscent of a...2024-03-1134 minJournosDry January is the Most Selfish HolidayIt's a new year, and at least one of us at JOURNOS is celebrating Dry January. But what is this strange holiday? What are its origins? And how are booze brands evolving to adapt to the selfish preferences of those who forswear drinking for an entire month?
The hard seltzer White Claw offers some answers here, as it unleashes a zero-alcohol product, turning its seltzer into ... seltzer. It is an absurd miracle of form following function.
... Much like the second story we tackled, about how the lifeforms in the emoji kingdom don't match the biodiversity...2024-01-3038 minJournos”What Is Consciousness?” with Janet VarneyWe're introducing a new feature here on JOURNOS: a sort of journalism detective agency. You've got a question, we do journalism on it and find the answer.
(I should say that the term "do journalism on it" has had a mixed reception.)
Our first question comes from friend and guinea pig of the show, Janet Varney, who asks a pretty simple little question: "What is consciousness?"
Brandon & Stephen hunted far and wide and interviewed a couple of experts about theories of consciousness, the hard and soft problems, whether you can communicate with people...2024-01-041h 13JournosAI: Miracle Tech or Just Another Pair of Chopsticks Lodged in Your Brain?Suggested new phrase for the confusing pace of modern life:
"It's like having chopsticks stuck in your brain."
Not, of course, the song (we would never be so basic). No — literal chopsticks, but lodged in such a way that you can still go about your business ... just, everything just seems a lot harder. One man unwittingly has become the symbol for this new symbol, a man who got chopsticks lodged in his brain ... and didn't even know it.
So begins our exploration of weird stories about bodily invasion by foreign objects, from houseflies to...2023-12-1340 minJournosBad News? Simulated Universe. Good News? Simulated Universe! w/Dr. Melvin VopsonIs the universe a simulation? If so, is there someone twisting the dials or is the universe a big computer running itself, a program that includes things like the coati and those sneakers with wheels in them?
It's a big question (the biggest, really), and in this episode we dig into it with Dr. Melvin Vopson. Melvin is an Associate Professor of Physics at the UK's University of Portsmouth, and he's made news for his work studying the nature of information and entropy. His conclusion? The way things work — from electrons on up to stars — looks suspiciously like...2023-11-0650 minJournosNo, Your Candy Isn’t Poisoned ... But Climate Change Is Coming for Your BeerThis Spooky Season, two twisted tales ...
In the first fearsome fable, an old monster returns: drugs in the Halloween candy. Fear not, because while there are terrifying candy-looking drugs out there, they're not aimed at kids. But the familiar holiday myth is a reliable zombie, dumb yet unkillable. To address the misnformation, we dress as wet, sexy vampires and go in search of truth ... or treats.
In the second sinister story, a terrifying force develops a taste for wine: we learn that climate change will actually improve the taste of Bordeaux. (But at a ghastly...2023-10-2140 minJournosThat Time Fake Aliens Invaded Mexico and Real Rats Invaded D.C.It's mankind versus nonhuman invaders in this episode of Journos! Stephen's big talk about pant legs gets Brandon thinking about a Washington Post story on rat-hunting that reads like a newspaper version of a snuff film ... only with rats.
What's with WaPo's obsession with the city's rats? Our sleuths dig into the last few years of coverage to sort out whether the city's paper of record really really loves rats, or really really hates them. (Seems like a cross-species frenemy situation.)
All this talk of invasion inspires Stephen to ruminate on Mexico's space alien problem. T...2023-09-2337 minJournosWe Nearly All Died Out, But We Survived ... to Create Barbie!After some discussion of one of the lesser-known markers of climate change (sticky leather seats), we kick off this episode by introducing you to a new guest host: Hondo!
Then it's on to the question of how we endure crises. First, the unfortunate recent diarrhea incident that forced a Delta plane to turn around. Then, we talk about a recent study in the journal Science that posits the human population went through a bottleneck such that we were down to fewer than 1,300 people.
That the modern human is the product of pretty serious inbreeding guides...2023-09-1032 minJournosTrying *This* in a Small TownIn this episode — stories of small towns, starting with a moral quandary for Stephen in the smallest town of all: the open ocean(?) What would he do if a rogue otter tried to steal his surfboard?
From there we get territorial on two country songs that are topping the charts of the culture war: Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" and Oliver Anthony's "Rich Men North of Richmond." Both songs are big conservative talking points, but while Aldean's traffics in big-city stereotypes, Anthony's is a folky class commentary, even if its policy positions are a lit...2023-09-0226 minJournosAre We Living in ... Medieval Times? w/Jake ”The Knight” BowmanIt's the season of unions, and we've found a union story that's nearly mythic.
In February, performers at the Buena Park, CA, location of the Spanish-chivalry-dinner-theater-experience Medieval Times went on strike. They claim dangerous working conditions, low pay, sexual harassment, and unacceptable treatment of the horses all contribute to a work environment that is (might as well just say it) medieval.
In this episode, we talk to union organizer and strike captain Jake Bowman about living out the modern metaphor of a peasants' revolt, joining a union with The Rockettes, and why it's still cool t...2023-07-2432 minJournosSetting the Doomsday Clock w/John MecklinThe news media is a pretty literal biz. It regularly reports on only two metaphors: One is what that groundhog does every February. The other is what the Doomsday Clock does every January.
The Doomsday Clock is that thing that has been ticking intermittently toward (and sometimes away from) midnight (AKA the end of the world) since it was created in 1947 by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a publication launched by Albert Einstein and some scientist chums after WWII to keep people informed on the risk of man-made apocalypse.
(The Bulletin has since added s...2023-06-2627 minJournosElon Musk’s Neuralink Broke a Lot of Animals to Get Ready for Human Trials, w/Valerie Demicheva(UPDATE: Here's Valerie's story.)
Hold on to your brain stems: Elon's in the news again.
This time, it's because the FDA approved Musk's company Neuralink to begin human trials for its brain implants, which he's claimed will do everything from curing paralysis and autism to turning us into web-surfin' cyborgs.
But on this episode, our second-time guest, Valerie Demicheva, takes us through Neuralink's history of animal-welfare violations, which have led to investigations by the USDA and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
We talk with Valerie about the promise of brain-implants, the q...2023-06-1026 minJournosPrince Harry & Meghan vs Florida ManUsed to be, we had forest spirits and talking animals and whatnot. But those days are long over, and now the closest to a mythology we moderns have is celebrities — those magical sprites that materialize in a puff of self-regard and vanish in a flash of cameras. It's not Grimm, but it is grim.
The Great American Fairy Tale added a new chapter recently when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were involved in a post-gala paparazzi pursuit that the royals' PR called "near catastrophic." Since nothing seemed to have happened, it suggests that just being in the ne...2023-05-2341 minJournosA Classic Orgasm MysteryIn this episode, two stories about trying to figure out what’s on someone’s mind.
In the first, we ogle the news media's obsession over the story of a woman who may or may not have had a "full-body orgasm" during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 at the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. The only folks who hope the music moved her to sexual ecstasy more than the press? The LA Phil, no doubt.
The story hinges on the frustrating fact that we just can't get into that woman's head, and so — speculation is the moth...2023-05-0636 minJournosA Death *in* San Francisco Becomes the Death *of* San Francisco w/Joe EskenaziSometimes a story isn't a story at all. It's a ball that interested players use to score points in whatever game they're playing — politics, cred, likes, lols.
In this episode, we're talking about one such story.
In San Francisco, a man named Bob Lee, a tech luminary, was murdered in the early morning hours of April 4. He'd been stabbed and left for dead. It was game on for commentators in the world of tech and elsewhere, like perpetual gamer Elon Musk, who used the opportunity to criticize the city's approach to violent crime.
A...2023-04-1643 minJournosRaccoons Are the Real AI Threat, w/Suzanne MacDonaldIn our last episode, we talked about the hows and whys of engineering dogs to look like humans, and the consequences of monkeying around with nature. That got us thinking of an interview we did back in 2021 with Suzanne MacDonald, a psychologist at Toronto's York University who studies animal intelligence. She's become, for better or worse, an expert on one species vying with humans for control of our cities: the raccoon.
In this episode, we ask whether we're creating a new, smarter species, one trash can at a time, whether squirrels have a hoarding problem, and who...2023-04-0721 minJournosStep Inside and SEE ... the Dog with the HUMAN FACE!Conspiracy abounds in this episode! We consider the not-so-secret breeding programs of the elite, who have for centuries manipulated the very laws of genetics themselves to produce ... cuddly-wuddly faces that you could JUST PINCH AND PINCH AND PINCH UNTIL THEY HAUL YOU AWAYYY
Yes. This episode is about dogs. Specifically, America's newest number One dog — the French Bulldog. The Frenchie toppling the 31-year-reign of the Labrador Retriever received the kind of media treatment you'd imagine, a lot of it with the ALL-CAPS enthusiasm of the American Kennel Club's own press release (stop yelling, jeez). But look closely an...2023-03-3039 minJournosA.I. Is Devouring Artists w/Ted RallFuture shock? Who's got future shock? In this episode, we dig back into our Official Topic of 2023: the AI Revolution.
OpenAI just dropped a shiny new chatbot, GPT-4. This delighted tech journalists, who turned a product launch into lofty thinkpieces and listicles about all the things GPT-4 can do, from diagnosing illness and generating Madonna jokes to making it easier for everybody to sue everybody.
As AI continues its siege of the white-collar, we wondered what all this will mean for artists.
So, we turned to our friend — cartoonist, writer, and general troublemaker Te...2023-03-1938 minJournosPlumbing the Depths of the Teenage Mind w/Denis Barron, MFTIn this episode, Stephen (who, by the way, used to be a high school teacher) strikes off on his own to discover what went wrong during his wayward teenage years. Well, not really. But he does track down San Francisco-based therapist Denis Barron, MFT to learn more about what makes young minds tick.
Barron has spent his career working with adolescents, and has some great insights on everything from the reasons teens do the crazy shit they do, to the apparent evolutionary benefits of ADHD. He also gives some great advice on what developmental milestones are most i...2023-03-1436 minJournosPay No Attention to the Story About that Blown-Up Russian Gas Pipeline!In this episode, we ask: Must a story be told? What happens if it isn't? Could we be better off?
Brandon & Stephen are somewhat boggled by the existence of a story that seems out of journalism's primordial past. Not a "man bites dog" story, but an even more ancient piece of news: "dog bites man." We consider a story about how, when dogs attack mail carriers, sometimes whole neighborhoods lose delivery service. It seems that, indeed, everything must be made into news eventually.
But — apparently not everything. From postal pith helmets, we look at a st...2023-03-0345 minJournosSuddenly, Everyone Pretends to Care About Reindeer PenisIn this episode, Brandon has an idea with multimillion-dollar potential:
Lowercase numbers!
We, humans of the 21st century, are the proud consumers of such a huge variety of products and experiences that it would make a cornucopia blush. And yet ... we're all just resigned to one single way to write numbers. What's the deal?
So, yeah, we blow our horn of plenty a bit about the creative and financial opportunities for this new invention ... before Brandon drops the inconvenient truth.
But that gets us thinking about the way cultural innovations come in...2023-02-1424 min
The JV Club with Janet VarneyEpisode 500 with Journos' Stephen Jackson & Brandon R. Reynolds!It’s The JV Club’s 500th episode! We did it, everybody! And to celebrate this landmark, JV is joined by the Journos podcast’s Stephen Jackson and Brandon R. Reynolds to talk about some bigger picture teenage stuff. We get philosophical! We get scientific! We get silly! All this, PLUS some very special messages from some very special folks celebrating JV’s 500th ep. Happy Birthday, kind of!If you want to hear more from Brandon and Stephen, listen to the episode of "The Journos" where they spoke with Mark Gagliardi and Hal Lulblin.
2023-01-261h 12JournosIs There a Right Way to Grow Up? with Janet Varney(When you finish this episode, listen to us solving the mystery of "teenagers" over at The JV Club!)
Few have plumbed the depths of the teenage experience more deeply than Janet Varney. For 11 years, she's interviewed actors, artists, comedians, scientists, and other creative types for her podcast, The JV Club. She's amassed quite a lot of research on such things as when "a late bloomer" is just "a bloomer," and how exactly one goes about becoming an artist (pro-tip: the wandering path may be the best path, or at least the most typical one).
In...2023-01-2636 minJournosFridays: America’s Dumping Ground for Bad News, NachosBefore you head off into your weekend, do you pull loved ones aside and tell them you've accidentally polluted a rainforest, or defrauded retirees, or contributed to a massacre? If so, you might be a popular corporation or politician!
In this episode, we're talking about a venerable American institution: the news dump. If you absolutely have to tell the whole nation that you screwed up, why not do it right before everyone's off for the weekend? We're Americans! We love to grill out and forget! By Monday, we're totally refreshed and entirely ignorant of whatever bad thing...2023-01-2134 minJournosCivil F***ing Discourse, feat. Mark Gagliardi & Hal Lublin of We Got This!(After you listen to this episode, make sure you listen to the second part, over at We Got This!)
How hard is it to have a conversation these days? When it comes to politics, it is very, very hard. It ranks just below "Talking about your grandparents' sex life," according to an official totally made-up Journos survey we just conducted.
So! We need to have a conversation ... about how to have a conversation. The kind that advances civilization rather than one that ends with tears and sharpened sticks. (This is even hard for people who...2023-01-1044 minJournosFrom Stone Carving to ChatGPT: 11,000 Years of ContentIt’s the last episode of 2022, and in the spirit of auld lang syne, we’re taking it all the way back to the 9th millennium BCE, to a region found in modern-day Turkey. That’s because it’s there we find what archeologists and artsy types are calling the “oldest known depiction of a narrative scene.”
But watch out — this neolithic masterpiece is a bit NSFW! Carved into a stone bench in an area likely used for rituals of some kind, cheeky enthusiasts can gaze upon a composition consisting of “a squatting male figure holding a rattle or a snake...2022-12-3127 minJournos”Killer Robots!” w/ Will JarrettAs stories go, it was pure, uncut catnip to news media around the world: San Francisco, that bastion of liberal values, was giving police the go-ahead to use KILLER ROBOTS on its enlightened middle-class citizenry of young moms, tech bros, recent immigrants, and people who like to drink coffee on steep hills.
There was hand-wringing on the left and hand-wringing about the left on the right. The majority of stories we saw were about as deep and nuanced as a 1950s sci-fi movie. "Robots! The chrome menace strikes!"
But: What about the rest of the...2022-12-2136 minJournosWhat’s the Best Way to Brew Meat?Innovation is weird. One moment, you’re an early human spending half the day chewing raw, possibly tainted meat. The next, you’re sending your prehistoric carp back to the waiter because it “just wasn’t the same as last time.” Let’s talk about technological breakthroughs, and let’s do it through the lens of two stories that dropped, seemingly in sync, the other week.
Big news in the world of archaeological geochemistry: Scientists in Israel recently discovered evidence that humans have been cooking food for at least 780,000 years. Pretty cool, given that we previously believed we’ve been doin...2022-11-2223 minJournosThe Dirty Truth About ClickbaitWe awaken from troubled naps into the existential horror of clickbait. Two stories in particular caught our attention recently: the sad tale of the "World's Dirtiest Man" who lived and died in Iran, and a restaurant for dogs in San Francisco.
Like angry media-addicted teenagers, Brandon & Stephen ask: why were these stories even born? Is it just good old "churnalism" — press releases reformatted into news articles by overworked reporters? Or is there something more sinister at stake, like trying to distract from revolution in the streets?
We all think we know from clickbait, but do we...2022-11-0929 minJournosIs the Covid Story Ever REALLY Over? w/ Dr. Bob WachterIt’s late October, winter is fast-approaching, and there’s one big question on everyone’s mind: What the heck is going on with COVID? Compounding this confusion was President Biden’s declaration that the pandemic was over — despite the fact that the virus is still significantly deadlier than the flu. (This was later walked back, as the public health emergency has been once again extended through January 11.)
Quite the noggin scratcher indeed. To make sense of it all, we’re joined in this episode by Dr. Bob Wachter, a professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at...2022-10-2447 minJournosTomatoes on Our Highways, Mammoths in Our MidstLet's take a look at things in places where they shouldn’t be, the illusory nature of reality, and bringing mammoths back from the dead to save the world.
First up, truck spills — the story that America just can’t quit. Not too long ago 150,000 tomatoes were strewn across the road from a big truck in California. Then — that very same week — thousands of jars of Alfredo sauce found their way onto an interstate down in Tennessee. But are stories like these just clickbait, or do they reveal something deeper about our yearning for order to prevail? Probably b...2022-10-0731 minJournosIs ”Serial” Guilty ... of Bad Journalism? w/Rebecca Lavoie & Janet Varney
News from the "Wrongs Righted" Desk ~~
Adnan Syed, imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit, was released after 23 years in prison. If you've heard of Syed, it's from the podcast "Serial," which kick-started the ... trend? genre? industry? ... of longform podcasting.
But is it good journalism? After "Serial" premiered in 2014, questions arose about its accuracy; "Serial" creator Sarah Koenig's reporting focused on aspects of the story that made Syed look guilty (or just made the story look better) and ignored some crucial evidence that argued for his innocence. In the years since, there's been a lot...2022-09-2650 minJournosThe Vikings are at the DoorbellSay what you will about the Vikings, but one thing’s for certain: They had a strong brand. So strong, in fact, that it’s easy to draw a pretty clear through line between their insatiable appetite for conquest and the relentless march of tech companies into our personal and private lives.
The only difference? Nobody back then would ever agree to a Viking's Terms of Service (ToS).
But before we get there, what’s up with Japan’s National Tax Agency, and why are they trying to get us drunk? And why is Coca-Cola hoping to...2022-08-3029 minJournosMake America Wolves AgainFor every season, there is a boogieman. Once upon a time, it might've been vampires, and your average British nobleman might've felt protected by an ornate, classy vampire-killing kit.
Ah, but times change. Boogiefolk change. Nowadays, the monster might be something more hip & modern, like wolves. Wolves! Unleashed by environmentalists! In which case, the best defense for some is to vote right. Way right. The righter the better.
The question of monsters and appropriate responses — that's what we're puzzling through in this episode. It means digging into a study with a cool name, asking why con...2022-08-1226 minJournosDefacing the Mona Lisa and DALL•E’s Horrifying Netherworld of AI-Driven ArtWhat makes life worth living? What kind of cake does the Mona Lisa prefer? What does a chair made of avocados look like?
Art, in its many forms, seeks to answer all of the above. And for years, humans have enjoyed a near monopoly on creating it. But things are changing — and fast. Here, we take a look at people, our penchant for environmental destruction, and our even stronger proclivity for creating technology that may one day wipe us from the face of the earth — but not before creating next year’s fall lineup on Netflix.
First...2022-07-2933 minJournosIt’s Psychedelic Wedding Season, Y’all w/Jenni Avins
Is this our first real "summer" type summer since the pandemic? The signs of a returned normalcy are there: people traveling, people complaining about traveling. People are even going on cruises again, which is normal, and having threesomes on those cruises, which is presumably also normal, and those threesomes are leading to 60-person battle royales of jealousy, which ... maybe we're all still a little feral.
But so to this question of "How do we come together as people anymore?" our friend and fellow journo Jenni Avins has one possible answer: psychedelic mushrooms.
Jenni w...2022-07-1735 minJournosWhat Happens in Your Face, Stays in Your FaceProving that all the good science has already been found out and all that's left is the weird, gross stuff, Brandon & Stephen return from hiatus to tackle the recent discovery of a mite that lives on our face, where it has sex, and where it's gotten so good at having sex on our face that it doesn't know how to live independently anymore.
At a time when even humans have a hard time believing in other humans, it's somewhat heartwarming to know these little guys are going all-in on our species. Ride and/or die!
...2022-06-2822 minJournosThe Truth About “Soylent Green” w/ Dana GouldWe did it! If you’re reading this, you’ve made it to the present day, and may have noticed that many erstwhile promises of science fiction have been delivered on. That's not great: Most sci-fi books and movies of yesteryear — with the notable exceptions of Star Trek and The Jetsons — spell out a blighted future for humanity, and among the most famous to do so is Soylent Green (1973), a film set in, you guessed it, 2022.
But to what extent does fiction predict the future? Or instead, does the past’s vision of tomorrow serve to inspire events to...2022-06-0355 minJournosKinky Dolphins, Bodies in Barrels, and Seeing What We Want to SeeWe begin with a mystery:
What does it mean when a pair of sexually aroused river dolphins engage in rough play with an anaconda? Science has no definitive answers, but the media — from Business Insider to The New York Times to BroBible — will happily cover the confusion.
So begins an exploration into pareidolia, that cognitive quirk where we see faces in all kinds of stuff, and "find" patterns of meaning in just about everything else. In this episode, Brandon & Stephen ask whether pareidolia applies to how we read (and produce) the news, too.
Is t...2022-05-2025 minJournosWho Are Cities For, Anyway?Some interesting experiments around transportation cropped up lately:
In one, a study of big art projects painted on the streets cut down on "incidents" involving drivers and pedestrians. In another, a state called Utah lowered the legal limit for drunk driving while offering more ways for the intoxicated inhabitants of the desert to get home. The result: fewer drunk driving crashes, even as the state sold more booze.
This got us thinking: what's it look like when we design cities for the people we have, rather than the people we claim to want?
W...2022-05-1123 minJournosA Visit to Elon Musk’s New Mall of AmericaElon bought Twitter. (You may have heard.) The analysis, hand-wringing, and general worrywart-ery about how bad it might be for media has been great for media, giving journalists and pundits lots to fill up pages and airtime. And to tweet about, of course.
It's a lot to take in, but for us, it helps to think about the whole thing as a visit to a mall in a state of flux. What will happen to the sunglasses kiosks? Or the fountain where everyone chit-chats? And will an attempted government overthrow begin in the Orange Julius?
...2022-05-0231 minJournosAriZona Iced Tea Defies Inflation & Hijacks EvolutionFor AriZona Iced Tea, the 99 cent price printed on the festive southwestern design of its big old cans might as well be carved into tablets lugged down a mountain. Marketing-wise, it's word-of-God stuff.
So the company's decision not to raise prices in 30 years became a fun story republished all over the place during the volatility of this inflationary period. "Billionaires Buck Economy Itself ... for the Little Guy!" is kind of the takeaway. But AriZona's founder, Don Vultaggio, knows a little marketing secret that'll keep us coming back: humans are primates.
It's true! The Iced Tea E...2022-04-1827 minJournosCan We Still Trust Science When it’s Calling Black Holes ”Hairy”?Some conflict in this episode: Brandon wants to talk about a new study that suggests black holes have quantum "hair" and Stephen wants to at least take a moment to discuss why the great minds behind the science didn't think a little harder about the branding of their hypothesis.
Chortling aside, the hairy black hole story is interesting to us for a few reasons. One is that, if correct, the hypothesis would resolve a contradiction at the heart of modern science — which involves whether or not anything can really escape the gravity of a black hole.
...2022-04-0930 minJournosBugs in the System: Cancer-Sniffing Worms, Hackers, and the New Cold WarStephen said this episode was about "diagnostics," but no one's going to listen to an episode about "diagnostics." Even a diagnostician is going to pass on a diagnostics episode in favor of some vintage white-lady killings on "My Favorite Murder."
So! This episode is all about things infiltrating systems, which is much more interesting.
Check it -- scientists discovered that the ever-useful C. elegans roundworm, a research favorite, is naturally attracted to the smell of lung cancer. What did we ever do to deserve such a great little fella?
Also -- let's talk ab...2022-03-3026 minJournosWould You Become a Yacht Pirate for Ukraine?Well, would you? You don’t have to decide now, but be aware that lawmakers in Texas have introduced legislation to bring back privateering in order to empower citizens to seize the yachts of Russian oligarchs docked in American harbors.
Ahoy.
In this episode, Brandon and Stephen take a look at forms of protest and resistance in solidarity with and defense of Ukraine. First up is Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who poached the state-run Russian airwaves with a message for her country’s people: “Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” Brandon then takes a l...2022-03-2432 minJournosWhat Shipwrecks Can Teach Us About Hot Cars, Fast Ice, and Human ProgressBrandon's on vacation ... a cruise, actually! Which some people might consider work, but after a few dozen piña of coladas, he's feeling philosophical...
... And that's right when Stephen tracks him down to talk about, what else?, shipwrecks, because they're topical and because Stephen isn't reading the room. Still, it was interesting to talk about the Felicity Ace, that Portuguese ship carrying luxury cars that caught fire and had to be abandoned. Particularly, the viral rumor that all those Porsches and Bentleys were now up for grabs because something something law of the sea, which is not a...2022-03-1932 minJournosWhat Jesus’ Foreskin Foretold About the Skincare IndustryAmong the tiny relics dotting the timeline of Christian history, few items pack a bigger punch than the holy prepuce. For the uninitiated, that’s fancy-talk for Jesus’ foreskin, and the provenance and authenticity of numerous specimens purported to be the one-and-only bit of flesh have been questioned for years.
That’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg in this episode, as Brandon and Stephen pull back the layers of the holy prepuce to reveal that it may have, if nothing else, the ability to knock a few years off the penance of a wayward Italian from ti...2022-03-0934 minJournosStorytelling: Corporations Want to Replace Daydreams with Good Clean AlgorithmsIn this solo outing, Brandon talks about the big business of personalized, AI-generated music.
Companies with names like Spotify, Amazon, and Apple want to suck up all your valuable biorhythms and kick out the jams, while startups like Endel want to use artificial intelligence, and Grimes, to create a soundtrack for your mind because, as the company says, “we need new technology to help our bodies and brains adapt to the new world.”
Meanwhile, meditation apps like Headspace and Calm are recruiting celebrities and sports heroes to whisper encouragement, or deeply sensual lullabies, right into your...2022-03-0615 minJournosA Ukraine State of Mind w/Valerie DemichevaAs the Russian invasion of Ukraine loomed, Brandon reached out to his colleage, journalist Valerie Demicheva, to see if she'd be interested in writing a piece for WhoWhatWhy. Valerie talked to Ukrainians in the days and hours before the invasion to understand their feelings on Russia (and Russians) and how they were preparing.
We talked to Valerie about the people she met and how they're coping with Russian incursion. We also talk about Valerie's own history: she and her family left Ukraine when she was a child and the country was part of the Soviet Union. For...2022-03-0227 minJournosEarworms of Mass DestructionHow should we feel about city officials blasting pop songs to disperse protesters? Better than tear gas, but more disturbing that they're trying to weaponize our precious "Macarena?"
Big Brother's DJs were in effect in Wellington, New Zealand's capital — where protesters, inspired by Canada's own anti-vax demonstrations, took to the streets. The Wellington authorities' response? Barry Manilow, "Baby Shark," and even some James Blunt (at his request).
We decided to look at why weaponizing music is such a popular pastime for governments trying to assert control over public dissent ... or to break suspected terrorists.
T...2022-02-2322 minJournosLet’s Talk About Why That Adorable Jim from ”The Office” Is Spying on UsIn this episode, we start by reflecting on the mystery that is "Gazpacho Police." It's either a flub by Marjorie Taylor Greene, or the stunning reveal that the US Capitol Police's jurisdiction includes soups. Mistake or political ploy, it gave the news media something to freak out about, and the Right something new to fundraise around, probably.
But we're not here to talk about cold starter dishes. The MTG outburst reminded Brandon and Stephen that the government may indeed be spying on us, as was confirmed by the reveal that the CIA is indeed still spying on u...2022-02-1723 minJournosA No-Fly List for Jerks, Sex Jets, and Other Mysteries of Modern Air TravelWe've talked about Cucumber Time before: that "silly season" in summer and late in the year when the media decides not much is happening (all evidence to the contrary) and crams its news hole with frivolity.
A species of Cucumber Time is on us again: this one we call Horny Time, when outlets scramble to find stories about love and lust to fluff us up for Valentine's Day. NYT served us up a moist one about a Las Vegas airplane charter biz that rolls out the satin pillows for customers to join the Mile High Club. It'll...2022-02-1121 minJournosWill the Next Civil War Be Livestreamed? w/Ronald Weaver IIOn today’s episode, we chat with aspiring documentary filmmaker Ronald Weaver II. Ron’s had an interesting couple of years: He’s attended over 200 Black Lives Matter and, later, Trump-related events (yes, including the one on January 6). During this time he’s meticulously captured this batshit-crazy moment in American history, live-streaming some…pretty tense moments to his thousands of followers on Instagram.
We picked his brain, fittingly, just a few days after he returned from filming those protests in Ottawa. We also hear some first-hand accounts of what it was like covering some heavily-armed events in...2022-02-0847 minJournosSpoiler Alerts! Wordle, Chinese Censorship, and the Zen of Knowing the End in AdvanceWe talked about memes as "mind viruses" a few episodes ago, but boy, "Let's Go Brandon" got nothing on Wordle. The daily word game has become America's newest pandemic, so it was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to spoil everything on Twitter.
So, we got to thinking about "spoilers." That led us to ideas about "controlling the narrative," which has taken some interesting forms lately:
China changing the ending of "Fight Club" and other movies to make sure the state always wins
American thickneck John Cena calling Taiwan a country...2022-01-3140 minJournosWhy Are Politicians Still Embarrassed About Weed? w/Chris RobertsThis week, we're joined by fellow Journo Chris Roberts to talk about why it took so long for an American politician to finally smoke a blunt in a campaign ad. That man is Louisiana's Gary Chambers, Jr., and he's running for a U.S. Senate seat, and the story went all over the place, because of course it did.
Chris wrote about it, too, so we had him on to talk about using stunts to draw attention to bigger issues and why so many politicians claim to support cannabis but never smoke it publicly.
We...2022-01-2631 minJournos”Let’s Go Brandon” Is Gonna Be America’s Hottest New Money-Making Mind-VirusWe at JOURNOS believe that art, freed from the author, belongs to the recipient. So art can mean something particular to you, or me, separate from any authorial intention.
With that in mind, Brandon reads the "Let's Go Brandon" meme not as a political slight against President Joe Biden, but rather as a constant and enduring message of positivity and reinforcement to Brandon himself. It's uttered by NASCAR fans, Southwest airlines pilots, politicians, and an assortment of hoodies and camouflage tees, and it makes Brandon feel pretty great.
What does it all mean beyond a...2022-01-2417 minJournosThe Great Los Angeles Train KerfuffleWhen the media gets a good story about a TRAIN ROBBERY, why, it's a special kind of glee. Headlines may read things like “Thieves loot freight trains in Los Angeles with impunity” but beneath the newsy professionalism is a childlike desire to write what reporters really feel about trains, crime, & policing:
"Choo-Choo's Boo-Boos Are No-Nos for the Po-Po"
In other words, some simple-ass storytelling, y'all.
Never fear, because our two intrepid news hoboes, Brandon & Stephen, dodge the bulls to hop aboard the story of these freight-train robberies in Los Angeles. Oh the boxes! So m...2022-01-2127 minJournos”The World’s Deadliest Podcast”In this solo outing, Brandon bravely confronts America's fear and hatred of ... the cassowary, "the world's deadliest bird."
There's a great study out from Penn State on how humans 18,000 years ago harvested cassowary eggs. It shines a light on how ancient, indigenous humans shaped their environment. News media went nuts over the bird's resemblance to velociraptors, which is a problem not just with media, but with our own dumb brains.
Brandon (again, very bravely) looks into how our evolutionary wiring makes us susceptible to fearing non-existent dangers and ignoring the really big ones right in f...2022-01-1513 minJournosPiñatas and Two-Steppin’: Companies Dodge Responsibility, FestivelyWhen you do something wrong, what's your move? To accept responsibility, or to create a dirty little simulacrum who takes the blame while you cavort?
If you're an American company, you might go with the Mini-Me approach.
Today, we're telling two tales of bankruptcy. In the first, Cyber Ninjas is shutting down. They couldn't assassinate the will of the voters in Arizona, so they are attempting to vanish into the night, having at least pushed The Big Lie of voter fraud a little further toward this year's midterm elections.
(Not great that faith i...2022-01-1321 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day 12: Should Society Invest in Brains or Farts?On the Twelfth and Final Day of the 12 Days of JOURNOS, Brandon and Stephen reluctantly cover the story about the reality TV star who sells her own farts. Sigh. Not surprisingly, said farts are also available as NFTs. Double sigh.
All this gets them thinking about the need to invest in the collective brainpower of humanity, which has apparently dropped to an all time low. It’s time to “buy the dip” and prevent any future “fartrepreneurs” from poisoning the well of civilization any further.
How? The folks over at The Brookings Institute have an idea: The Wh...2022-01-0615 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day 11: Elizabeth Holmes vs. NFTsOn the Eleventh Day of JOURNOS, we got ourselves a Special Guest: Elizabeth Holmes, fresh from her conviction on four of 11 charges (the ones related to rich folks, not the ones related to regular folks).
Brandon & Stephen walk through the rise and fall of Theranos, while newly minted Friend-of-Show Elizabeth looks on the bright side, including croquet with "Mad Dog" Mattis, joining a very exclusive crime club with Martha Stewart, and selling NFTs of herself making ... noises.
All this NFT talk gets us thinking about the strange world of tech investment. What's really the difference...2022-01-0515 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day 10: Let’s Count to a TrillionOn the Tenth Day of JOURNOS, we’re talkin’ turkey about tech stocks, big bucks, and the jobs of tomorrow. You may have heard that Apple just received the first $3 trillion valuation in history. But you’ve certainly never seen anyone count to a trillion. Why? Would take too long, obv. Nevertheless, in an effort to demystify this astronomical price tag, Stephen walks us through a few somewhat more tangible examples to help us wrap our brains around the company’s mind-boggling market cap.
Brandon then brings us down to earth with a run down of the most sough...2022-01-0413 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Nine: Bugs, Blood & Other Future Menu ItemsOn the Ninth Day of JOURNOS, we remind ourselves that the year 2022 was first popularized in 1973 by the film Soylent Green. That vision of the future of cuisine gets Brandon & Stephen talking about other plans for how and what to feed people that isn't made of people.
Turns out one option is ... soylent, the food-replacement drink with the recommended daily allowance of misplaced irony.
But for reals, the near-future of food is wild: vertical farming, urban shrimp, upcycled coffee, plus algae, kelp, more kelp, heme, and, of course, insects ... so many insects. If the taste f...2022-01-0318 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Eight: The Color Conspiracy of 2022On the Eighth Day of JOURNOS, we unpack Brandon's first conspiracy: the secret marketing machinations that produce the Color of the Year. This year, a hitch: most of the colors were basically the same riff on greenish-gray. With this crack in the facade, Stephen & Brandon discuss the terrible power of the true palette-masters over at the Pantone Color Institute, which exercises considerable sway over the design and marketing choices of all sorts of brands.
Pantone's Color of the Year? A sick purp called "Very Peri!" Pantone's choice, as well as all those near-identical green-grays, was inspired this...2022-01-0213 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Seven: Nature, ah, Finds a WayOn the Seventh Day of JOURNOS, fish rain down from the heavens into Texarkana, Texas. A Biblical tale rendered unto the news by a blessed waterspout, and a fitting end to a year of nature's oddities.
As the fishy heavens open up, we open an umbrella and do some updates to our episode on space, sea, and desert. Even though I reported on the issues with solar-energy development in the Mojave Desert, the Biden administration still opened up more desert land to those panel-lovin' freaks. The news covered the politics of the Joes Biden and Manchin, and B...2022-01-0118 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Six: Real-Life Ninjas and Our National SecurityOn the Sixth Day of JOURNOS, we first look back on a ninja attack on American soil. Well, not really — but a guy in Kern County did dress up as one in September to ambush a special forces unit under a cloak of darkness.
But speaking of vulnerabilities, how about that Colonial pipeline shitshow back in May? Among other things, it brought to light the burgeoning industry of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS), where organized crime starts to look a lot more like Salesforce than the Gambino Family.
While the threat of ninja attack is nothing to be worried about in...2021-12-3111 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Five: The Mental-Health OlympicsOn the Fifth Day of JOURNOS, we sprint, dive, and slalom into the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, held in summer of 2021. We glory at the spectacle of so many controversies, from bribery and shameful resignations to a stadium sourced from endangered rainforests and the traditional procession of vomiting Australians that ends every Olympiad.
We linger voyeuristically at that other tradition: how Olympians are going to screw each other. This time around, it was complicated by cardboard no-sex beds, a utopian vision of corrugated-cardboard idealism from the 1960s that like everything these days was infected by disinformation.
Th...2021-12-3011 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Four: Is Clickbait Bad?On the Fourth Day of Journos we check in on a Denver Area bear that, back in July, got a bucket stuck on its head. The incident made national news, and it wasn’t the only such story involving a rascally Ursus and a bucket that the media picked up in 2021. Needless to say, the bear/bucket saga was far from the most pressing issue that day.
That’s right, we’re taking a look at clickbait and why we can’t stop falling for it. Stephen looks into the psychology of it all, while Brandon pulls a few cho...2021-12-2911 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Three: Get on the Influencer BusOn the Third Day of JOURNOS, Brandon tells the story of three women who met over the social medium of a cheating boyfriend, bought an old school bus, and went on a road trip across the US, scattering feel-good news stories across this great nation and then creating their own content like a bunch of Johnny Appleseeds of the Influencer Economy.
Beating back our cynicism, we ask whether this is an earnest voyage of discovery, or just a good opportunity to generate some Intellectual Property, addressing thorny questions of how it's any different than travel writing of...2021-12-2812 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day Two: The Great Rooster Virility CrisisOn the Second Day of JOURNOS, Stephen sinks his teeth into a juicy story: What happened to the chicken tenders? Is there really a shortage, or is it just a case of price fluctuations leading to crispy, clickable headlines?
Stephen watches with cool amusement as a poorly sourced TODAY story inspires a sampling of imitators, and the occasional sales pitch. It's a game of Southern-fried telephone that leaves out essential ingredients like drought and climate change.
Meanwhile, Brandon recalls the flurry of stories in which chicken shortages were blamed on roosters not being cock enough t...2021-12-2714 minJournos12 Days of JOURNOS, Day One: Oh a Sarcasm Detector I’m So SureWe kick off "The 12 Days of JOURNOS," a collection of weird stories we loved but didn't get to, and follow-ups to those stories we did. It's short tales told through a phone call or two.
On the First Day of JOURNOS, Brandon interrupts Stephen's "Irish Goodnight" with the story of a sarcasm detector funded by the US government's DARPA. The goal? To scientifically determine if that dude on Twitter *really* thinks we're "so f*ckin funny" or if it's all a put-on.
We discuss the puzzles and pitfalls of one of humanity's greatest inventions — language it...2021-12-2511 minJournos”Don’t Look Up” Reviewed + Asteroid Mining and a Great End-of-the-World Chicken RecipeBrandon and Stephen dig into Adam McKay's new climate-change-apocalypse parable Don't Look Up and spin out on the state of journalism, satire, and whether American comedy can handle existential threats (or even the quietly sad).
Brandon goes in search of answers about how big a business asteroid mining might really be, and Stephen shares a favorite chicken recipe for when it all falls apart.
Find a spot at the table, grab the wine, and remember that the future is somewhere else.
Notes
All kinds of people are getting into th...2021-12-241h 13JournosIt‘s the JOURNOS Holiday Spectacular, Charlie Brown! Stories of Oil Scandal, Helium Shortage, and American Consumer TheaterA few weeks ago, we performed an experiment: a live report on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, with deep dives into which beloved balloon has ties to Mussolini's fascists, why Snoopy is a hero of existentialism, and what we'll do when we run out of helium. In this episode, we revisit the parade and how it embodies the best and worst of the holidays.
We at JOURNOS wish you a Happy Red Snapper Season and hope a giant runaway balloon lands at your doorstep this year. (It's worth a hundred bucks!)
Special appearance by Janet...2021-12-1853 minJournosAudio Short: Let the Music Save You! AI Will Build You the Secret Playlist of Your SoulBrandon tells a story about how companies like Spotify are using artificial intelligence to learn all kinds of things about us from the music we listen to — and how one company is using AI to (maybe) turn our own playlists into a kind of stress-reducing medicine.
But this is also a story about how tech journalists tell tech stories, particularly the one about how "AI knows you better than you know yourself." It's a little bit sci-fi, a little bit wishful thinking, and a little bit of a guess about our uncertain future. Listen and hum along; it...2021-12-1512 minJournosWhat Could Go Wrong? The Big Business of Exploiting Space, Sea, and TortoisesFrom deadly space sprinkles to undersea Faberge eggs to the risks posed by flying tortoise shells, we're talking about unintended consequences in distant places.
The recent lunar eclipse has us looking to the sky, where we see ... a ton of debris. A Russian anti-satellite test gifted Earth's orbit with a lot of shrapnel. Astronauts on the International Space Station had to hide out in "lifeboats" probably trying not to imagine that scene from Gravity.
The whole affair got us thinking about how our orbit is getting crowded by more & more government and commercial satellites, raising th...2021-12-0654 minJournosAudio Short: What Fixing Your iPhone Means for !!FREEDOM!!Apple just announced a huge change: The company is finally going to stop big-timing us and let us fix our own i-Things. This is a significant piece of business for the Right-to-Repair movement, which we talked about in our Nov. 12 episode, "An Inside Look at the Yogurt Cup Mafia and The McFlurry Racket."
In this Audio Short, Brandon gives us an update on what Apple's move means for the Right to Repair and what it means for Big Concepts like "ownership," "freedom," and God's own feelings on corporate desserts.
Music by Nathan "Sticky Blizzard Fingers" R...2021-11-2710 minJournosA Trip to Toronto — the Nexus of Identity, Baseball, and Sexual Exhibitionism
Brandon reports in from a hotel in Toronto that hides an amazing mystery, which gets our heroes thinking about the nature of pilgrimage, memory, and why people apparently can't stop themselves from boning whenever a TV camera is around.
Plus, Stephen tells the story of searching for his father's childhood home in Honolulu and a wild story of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
So open your curtains wide and go on a journey with us.
Notes
- All about the Rogers Centre, aka the SkyDome
- People really like to have sex during Blue Jays games.
- Like, really like to hav...2021-11-2343 minJournosFuture Cities and the Inevitable Doomsday Yacht (with a Good Wine Selection)We dive into some utopian city concepts. Brandon walks us through Saudi Arabia's NEOM, Marc Lore's Telosa, and a big ole boat for billionaires to escape pandemics and poverty, plus some failed utopian projects of yore.
Meanwhile, Stephen obsesses over slime molds, finds out his dream home is actually an 18th-century prison, and frets over the duo's job prospects after the apocalypse.
2021-11-1955 minJournosAn Inside Look at the Yogurt Cup Mafia and the McFlurry RacketToday, we're talking about stuff — the stuff we don't want that we can't get rid of, and the stuff we do want that we can't quite keep.
Two big stories clutter our minds: one is about a new report on how organized crime controls the lucrative, and corrupt, recycling market; the other is about the "Right to Repair" movement, a struggle to give consumers the ability to fix our own damn smartphones, dishwashers, and million-dollar agricultural equipment.
What we learn is that there are powerful forces not only in control of all our stuff, but th...2021-11-1246 minJournosAudio Short: Havana Syndrome, TikTok Tics, and When Mass Hysteria Goes to WarBrandon reads his latest for WhoWhatWhy:
Throughout history, social stresses manifested as strange afflictions, from dancing plagues to fainting spells. But now we may be seeing one that goes from tremors to saber-rattling.
Music by Nathan Readey!
2021-11-0910 minJournosUnfriending the Metaverse In this episode, we take a look at Facebook's algorithmic missteps and giant, exploratory leaps into the metaverse. But will Zuck's new plane of digital existence be an open-source nightmare or a high-def utopia? Probably neither. But maybe a bit of both. Let's take a look.
2021-11-0345 min