Shows
Totally Classic"Is Anyone Transgender?" (PART TWO)Andy & Brendan dance back into the fray to examine by what means can anyone said to be (or not to be - that is the question!:) "transgender."
Is it equivocation or a paradigm shift? Is it semantic colonialism or indigenous linguistic revival? Is it a delusion or is all of society deluded and this is clarity?
All this & more on this week's episode of Totally Classic!
originally recorded on 12/2/25
2025-12-1754 minTotally Classic"Is Anyone Transgender?" (part one)This week, Andy & Brendan ask a question of the modern semantic chaos moment where a sentence like "My gender is not my gender, because gender isn't gender, it's gender." exists and CAN have some cogent meaning!
Does the claim make a coherent case?
Can the modern novel proposal of gender exist and mean the same as transgender and not be self-defeating?
Does subcohort "social reality" count as reality? This is a wild yes and no but yes but no but maybe but also... kind of a question!
What do you think?
2025-12-031h 45Totally Classic"Is Chicago Under Attack?"This week, Chicago-area-met friends Andy & Brendan interrogate the popular regional claim that the city with big shoulders is under being invaded (by ICE).
They explore how many actual options there are (and different layers of evidence and proof to assess said options) for who exactly is assaulting the second city.
Does novelty, federal intent or citizen action lead the way? What do YOU think?
originally recorded on 11/4/25
2025-11-1957 minTotally Classic"Is AI an Existential Crisis?" (PART THREE)This week, Andy & Brendan bring the plane in for a landing on this epic, three-part discussion of what may well bring about the downfall of humanity!
It's the end of the world as we know it... and we feel... fine?
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude & CoPilot all have distinct and pronounced and self-confessed Progressive bias (meaning the most extreme cohort in the bipartisan array) which is, if unregulated (and even worse, if unrecognized), could very well be the greatest and most extreme propaganda machine ever wielded against a citizenry in world history!
Semantic colonialism, silent b...
2025-11-051h 04Totally Classic"Is AI Bias an Existential Crisis?" (PART TWO)This week, Andy & Brendan, continue the conversation on whether AI Bias could end us, as we know "us," or end us, entirely?
Does the Progressive bias (which exists within ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude & CoPilot), specifically, threaten all in any unique fashion?
Is the programming of relativistic or utilitarian ethics inevitable, in the modern context? Are all ethics relativistic? AND HOW do we ascertain the rate and manner of receipt of biased transmission, already? Or when would critical mass exist strongly enough to identify more than mere signal?
And does Andy, a Progressive, see less...
2025-10-221h 14Totally Classic"Is AI Bias an Existential Crisis?" (w/ guest Jacob Ward) (PART ONE)Andy & Brendan are joined by their first guest, Jacob Ward*!
This week, they discuss the existential dangers of AI bias - on cognitive processing, on outsourcing of evaluation, on fight or flight And shaping the very grounds of understanding and meaning the human family has relied on since time immemorial!
Will it the be the end of us all? The liberation of us all? The subjugation of us all? Or something else altogether?
WHAT DO YOU think?
*Jake Ward is the author of the book The Loop: How AI is...
2025-10-081h 13Totally Classic"Are Land Acknowledgments Helpful?"Andy, a Progressive & Brendan, an Independent, both agree that the Indigenous people of North America were abused, lied to, killed and conquered in many ways unconscionable.
We don't agree on whether verbal land acknowledgments are in any way net benefit to anyone, including said Indigenous persons of North America.
But we will talk about, will reason and feel our way through it together, and see how we come out the other side of our experiment in dialogue, curiosity and love!
What do YOU think?
2025-09-241h 12Totally Classic"Are Progressives The Worst?" (part two)This week, Andy - a progressive - & Brendan - an independent - conclude their discourse on the modern Progressive movement!
Is it the worst? Is semantic gerrymandering more destabilizing than misinformation? Is moral relativism immoral? Can the subjective be the primary basis for cohesive society? AND WHO WOULD BE WORST, present day OR all time?
All this and more on this week's TOTALLY CLASSIC!
2025-09-101h 28Totally ClassicSeason 3, Episode 1 "Are Progressives The Worst?" (part one)Andy & Brendan start the new season off with a bang, pow, whammo!
Are Progressives the worst? The worst political subcohort in the US? The worst political movement in the world? All-time, world history?
Andy, a progressive & Brendan, an independent, are besties and love talking about the sort of thing that supposedly gets you fired and spat on. IT DOESN'T NEED TO!
On Totally Classic, we talk about all the things people say not to talk about!
Are Progressives the worst? The best? What do YOU think?
2025-08-271h 34Totally ClassicCan AI Co-host Our Season 2 Wrap-Up?This week, Andy & Brendan & Charlie (& Charlie?) all survey the season 2 behind us - the intentions met, the debates unsettled and the conclusions shared.
Charlie, by the by, is an AI (Google's NotebookLM) who not only summarizes and highlights our season but also enters into conversation with the hosts of Totally Classic.
Will AI have as many biases and blind spots as your average human? Will Brendan flirt with or argue with Charlie? Will AI be a better host than any of us!?
Find out... on this week's Totally Classic!
2025-05-2157 minTotally ClassicShould We Smash the Patriarchy (part two)?This week, Andy & Brendan dig into their patrilineal inheritance, the loving sacrifice necessary for a healthy patriarchal paradigm & whether smashing ANYTHING is the answer.
From bumper stickers to dinnertime shushing, the beginnings of gender and the. endings of fun, from fathering for freedom to fathering for fetters, it’s all here on this weeks’ Totally Classic!
2025-05-0747 minTotally ClassicShould we smash The Patriarchy? (part one)This week Andy & Brendan - two patriarchs - try to examine if one of the credos of their age is a worthwhile one - The Patriarchy: Smash or Pass?
Is Patriarchy inevitable - evolutionarily, biologically, under religious dictum or secular examination? Is Patriarchy based in oppression or responsibility? Can Patriarchy BE egalitarian?
From craftivism to Max Headroom, from wage gaps to age gaps, from the dawn of everything to the beginning of it all... it's all here in this weeks' Totally Classic!
2025-04-2342 minTotally ClassicIs Sex Sacred?This week, Andy & Brendan explore the regions nether and higher and interrogate the question about whether sex is sacred, profane, or something else entirely?
From sex positive Christianity to sex negative Buddhism, from new age to new lovers, polyamory, polygamy and polyglot versions of "the talk"... it's all here in this episode of Totally Classic - "Is Sex Sacred?"
2025-04-101h 19Totally Classic5 Years After Lockdowns... Did we learn anything?In keeping with the plethora of retrospective coverage of the 5 year anniversary of Lockdowns in March of 2020, Andy & Brendan return to, in many ways, ground zero for the podcast where divergent viewpoints are explored on every topic people claim cannot be discoursed with rancor. What, if anything, did we all learn the past 5 years?
From somatic sensations to celebratory cessations, from masked kids to life on the skids, from zoom everything to doom everywhere, it's all in this week's episode of Totally Classic!
2025-03-261h 32Totally ClassicIs Donald Trump a Racist?This week, in an experiment in brevity (30 minute episode this week, let us know what you think!), Andy & Brendan try to parse through a grand & oft-repeated assumption for almost a decade "Donald Trump is a racist."
But... IS he? Neither of Totally Classic hosts are fans of his, but they are fans of truth. What is the evidence at hand to prove or disprove this catchphrase of the Anti-MAGA movement?
2025-03-1330 minTotally ClassicIs Porn Harmful?This week, Andy & Brendan unpack their lived experience, their innate & modified perspectives and the literature on pornography.
What is pornography? Is it helpful? Is it harmful? Net harm? All harm? Is "ethical porn" a healthful way forward or detriment greenwashed?
Tackling topics to undermine stigma against cross-idealogical conversation, Totally Classic shows you CAN talk about everything.
2025-02-261h 21Totally ClassicShould the United States Let Everyone In?This week, Andy & Brendan take divergent vantages on the immigration debate and try to find points of synergy, crossover and mutual understanding.
Are nations necessary? Are boundaries beneficial? Are immigrants integral to the intricacies of international ideals?
Or are we all just vagabonds absconding from our burglary of time & space?
All this and more on this weeks' Totally Classic!
2025-02-051h 00Totally ClassicIs Gender-Affirming Care Ethical? (Part 3 of 3)This week, Andy & Brendan launch into the trifecta session of trying to ascertain not merely the answer to the question, but even agreeing on what the question is asking!
Meaning this week they can actually start referencing evidence and parsing out whether it's ever ethical... by its own standards as well as classical medical and social ethics.
From they/them to we/us, from anorexia nervosa to gender dysphoria, from executive orders to quotidian considerations... It's all here on this weeks' Totally Classic!
Have conversations and arguments! Avoid dismissals and strawmen! Excelsior!
2025-01-221h 12Totally ClassicIs Gender-Affirming Care Ethical? (Part 2)This week, Andy & Brendan return to interrogate the question of gender-affirming care, and their conversation reveals that the societal discord over the practice is rooted far deeper than mere political squabbles... into the depth of how semantics are proven or disproven, into what truth itself is. Needless to say, they have, in part two (of three? of four? of 44?) come to either agreement or resignation of difference on what the question even MEANS.
From Swifties to Hoverboards, from classic to novel, from 1474 to 2025... it's all on this week's Totally Classic.
2025-01-0948 minTotally ClassicIs 'Gender Affirming Care' Ethical? PART ONEThis week, Andy & Brendan - as humans, parents and citizens of the nation whose highest court in the land just heard arguments on "gender-affirming care" bans (U.S. v. Skrmetti) - explore with great curiosity whether such care is A) accurately termed and B) ethically applied?
In this part one (of two) on this question, much time is spent on defining terms - for how can one agree on whether affirming something is ethical if you cannot even agree on WHAT it is you're affirming?
From from liars to visionaries, from mustache envy to hating th...
2024-12-181h 21Totally Classic"Should Non-Christians Celebrate Christmas?"This week, Andy & Brendan ruminate on the seasons' eatings at one's soul - is Christmas cultural appropriation? Is it colonialist imposition? Capitalist frenzy? All or none of the above?
From Saint Nick's assault record to hating Satan Claus, from gifts around the tree to singing in harmony, from elf on a shelf to Muslims in Bethlehem... it's all in this week's TOTALLY CLASSIC!
2024-12-0551 minTotally Classic"Is Elon Musk a Supervillain?"This week, Andy & Brendan evaluate the nature & impact of the richest man in the world, from their very different vantage points.
Can they ask about the villainy of everyone's favorite autistic centibillionaire without descending in gross ad hominem?
Can they bounce from spaceX rockets red glare to starling satellites twinkling in air, giving proof through the night that a Tesla was still there on our block?
Without descending into rancorous escapism, seeking out a blue sky to hide from the x-cruciating atmosphere down here on earth?
YES THEY CAN!
2024-11-201h 12Totally Classic"Are We Doomed?" (A Very Special Post-Election Episode!)Yesterday was the final day of voting in the 2024 election.
Today, two friends whose candidates (they didn't vote the same and still love each other! Gasp!) lost early this morning get together to ask the question "Are We Doomed?" and do their best to muster up some evidence we AREN'T... and some that we are.
From a surrender in Gaza to apologies for lockdowns, from 9 year old political pundits to 80 year old presidents, from progressive to Christian conservative and back again... it's all on this weeks' TOTALLY CLASSIC!
2024-11-061h 14Totally Classic"Should we trust corporate media?"This week, Andy & Brendan discuss whether the modern news media landscape is a trustworthy map of reality or not.
From McDonald's fries to Washington Post's lies, from correcting your parents to deceiving yourself, from AI Trump to real life trust issues, it's all in this episode of Totally Classic!
2024-10-2352 minTotally Classic"Is Climate Change Real?" Part TwoThis week, Andy & Brendan meet back up after a month to explore the literature, the arguments strong & shoddy and the strange manipulations around climate change!
From unmodelable clouds to model google usage, from adhd Brittanica forays to conspiratorial arrays, from the ground to the atmosphere and back again... all on this weeks' Totally Classic!
Every episode of Totally Classic is a conversation between friends about subjects that have, reportedly, ended friendships.
We aim to show how phenomenally unnecessary interpersonal hostility is to talking about even the thorniest of issues!
2024-10-031h 03Totally Classic"Is Climate Change Real?"This week, Andy & Brendan tackle a subject they are both admitted novices in: Climate Change.
They do their best to parse out not only their apprehension of the landscape of theory but seek to posit a means of validating or invalidating those apprehensions, from the place of admitted ignorance.
What arguments are convincing, what arguments are weak, who is and isn't trustworthy as a source... and how do we proceed from here?
In one months' time, they'll reconvene and discuss their deeper assessment!
What do YOU think?
2024-08-281h 05Totally Classic"Is a Third Party Vote a Waste?"This week, Andy & Brendan interrogate a popular supposition about the United States' purported two-party system.
Does any party "deserve" you vote? Is voting for a third party candidate "stealing" from some other candidate with a larger bankroll? What arguments are tenable that a third party candidate is a "spoiler campaign" for a more likely victor? Is Voting like sports betting or is it an ethical obligation wherein one selects the
best candidate possible (regardless of "odds")?
What do YOU think?
2024-08-141h 09Totally Classic"Should We Vote Based on Identity?"This week, Andy & Brendan wrestle with a question about elections, in part spurred by the sudden new Democrat nominee for President.
Should a citizen vote for a candidate based on what identity categories that candidate falls under?
It is hypocrisy? Machiavellian? One last gasp of error to right the past? A chance to be part of representational history?
Or is it just positive-spin racism or sexism?
Let's talk about it!
2024-08-011h 05Totally Classic"Have I Fallen for a Media Hoax?"This week, Andy & Brendan stroll down media memory mayhem lane, remembering and analyzing a trio of Media Hoaxes they've fallen for and why.
What fears did they prey upon? What biases did they tickle? What do they tell us about our media and ourselves?
What Media Hoaxes have YOU fallen for?
2024-07-181h 02Totally Classic"Is Circumcision Appropriate?"This week, the conversation goes a bit below the belt.
This episode is relatively uncut, but the two conversants are.
Puns misbegotten aside, this episode Andy & Brendan wrangle with the seeming lack of forethought put into removing foreskin.
Is this mild form of genital mutilation cultural appropriation, a patriarchal ritual meant to humble the future man or provoke him to violence or something else entirely?
2024-07-0445 minTotally Classic"Is JK Rowling Transphobic?"In just 4 short years, it's become more of an assumption than even a belief that author JK Rowling, who altered the literary landscape for more than a decade in the 90s & 2000s, is "transphobic." But is this assumption accurate or inaccurate?
Andy & Brendan try to sleuth, feel and reason it out!
What do YOU think?
2024-06-191h 12Totally Classic"Has DEI DIED?"Andy has worked in the DEI space, both professionally & passionately.
Brendan is skeptical of DEI as a methodology of social justice.
But they can still talk to each other - even about this.
DEI might be the modern antidote to racism. DEI might the modern manifestation of racism.
Either way, DEI has had a climactic rise and a calamitous fall, in just a few years. Is it on deaths' door? Is it simply due for a tune up? What does the present look like and the future hold?
2024-06-051h 01Totally Classic"Are the Gaza Protests Charlottesville 2.0?"A much repeated perspective on the series of protests against the Gaza War is that they're anti-semitic. While antisemitism certainly is extant in the protests, does this make the movement entire essentially so?
Having heard the oft-repeated comparison of these Free Palestine rallies to Charlottesville (VA, 2020!), this week Andy & Brendan question whether this is a salient comparison, an offensive one, or something in between?
Is it intellectual lazy or dishonest to sum up an entire event according to the ideas or actions of the minority there? Or is it simply a consequence of evolution that we...
2024-05-1656 minTotally Classic"Is This the End of the US Empire?"The demise of the American Enterprise, the US Empire, has been ballyhooed since the very first ballys in stars & stripes were freshly hooed. The signs were there, are there... and thanks to non-stop, custom-made media content flushing out our ocular and aural units on a near continual basis, the signs have never been louder in our collective subjective reckoning. But is that sensible or just submission to the repetition of sensory overload?
Is the US Empire collapsing before our eyes or are our very eyes collapsing?
2024-05-0257 minTotally Classic"Are We Throwing Out the Dictionary?" (Pt. 2 of 2)This week on Totally Classic, Andy & Brendan further explore the phenomenon of the revolutionary proposal of topsy-turvy semantics that undergirds many of the dominant cultural theorems of the left.
When did the inflection point happen - culturally? Individually? Is the proposal malevolent or beneficial? Why is no one talking about this ALL THE TIME?
2024-04-0350 minTotally Classic"Are We Throwing Out the Dictionary?" (pt 1 of 2)This week on Totally Classic, Andy & Brendan wrangle with the novel semantic system progressives may have somewhat silently proposed. From topsy-turydom of classic semantics (first is typically primary) to embracing novel definitions of "racism" and "gender" and "person," much of the modern progressive philosophical set is based on these proposals.
Is new always better? Is ancient wisdom always the best? Is language always evolving or can it devolve?
Are these polar opposite approaches a key part of the communication difficulties between the left and right?
Andy & Brendan try to define terms, def...
2024-03-201h 18Totally ClassicIs Google/AI Racist?This week, Andy & Brendan inquire as to the conclusions about Google's all time boondoggle of a launch of their AI platform, Gemini. Gemini was swiftly revealed to be racist, intensely politically biased and, perhaps strangest of all, heavily subjective in its output.
Many germane questions resound: does AI, like children, require someone to teach them to be racist? Is this a failure of technology or ideology? Is this the summit of DEI failures or the failure to properly understand DEI? Or is this all just a mirror back to humanity itself?
As always, one of th...
2024-03-061h 08Totally Classic"Is TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) Real?"This week, Andy & Brendan play cultural critics (with a side of armchair psychoanalysts), attempting to ascertain whether the popular online diagnosis of TDS is a genuine phenomenon... and maybe a genuine mental illness, to boot?
We consider it highly likely you've encountered someone with TDS in your life. And maybe didn't even know it!
TDS was popularly coined as a term to describe folks who cannot seem to have a rational conversation about Donald Trump, who seem to find just about everything our former president does to be repugnant (even if its something someone they...
2024-02-141h 23Totally Classic"Was Dr. Claudine Gay Taken Down by Racism?"This week, with the removal of Dr. Gay as President having finally transpired (after a month plus of extensive pressure), Andy & Brendan ask whether the theory offered by many that racism was vital in her loss of position.
Specifically, they skip through the presentation of such a thesis by DEI advocate & Northwestern University (where Andy & Brendan met) Professor Alvin B. Tillery to guide their examination of how to answer this weeks' question.
2024-01-251h 21Totally Classic”Was January 6 an Insurrection?”In recent weeks, both Colorado & Maine have struck likely Republican Nominee for President, Donald Trump, from their state ballots, on the basis of having been involved in "insurrection."
This centers on the activities of the afternoon of January 6 at the Capitol in D.C. in 2021.
Which Brendan would classify as a "nothingburger" & Andy is comfortable with "insurrection."
Today, they'll question the premise under the premise that is either Constitutional justice or stabbing democracy in the back!
Without rancor for one another, ya'll. It's, honestly... not hard.
2024-01-041h 10Totally Classic”Is ’Restorative Justice’ Justice?”Andy & Brendan explore what "restorative justice" is, how it's being implemented & how it may or may not have become a straw man for noted recent imbroglios in legal policy.
Does it center the perpetrator & abandon the victim OR does it aim to do what justice has always classically been intended to do?
Does it reward misbehavior or seek to understand & remedy misbehavior?
Is "Restorative Justice" anything truly innovative or a return to form?
Andy & Brendan interrogate that question!
What do you think?
2023-12-201h 17Totally ClassicSeason 2, Episode 1: ”Can Palestine Be Free?”We're back to wax philosophical & engage in dialogue on the subjects many will pretend are impossibly impassable.
This week, Andy bring his experience in the West Bank last year to bear on an interrogation of the Gaza War. He & Brendan ask whether the frequent chant of protestors is even a tenable goal.
Less than 2 hours on a conflict that goes back thousands of years... We hope, in some small way, it helps.
2023-12-061h 51Totally ClassicEpisode Thirty-Two: ”Is White Supremacy Real?”In an era where headlines call Latinos, Muslims, Asian-Americans agents of "white supremacy?" it is naturally incumbent upon us to ascertain A) whether such accusations are true, in specific and B) whether such accusations are true, in the broadest sense. That is, does White Supremacy exist? Is it real? Does it permeate every thread in the fabric of our culture? Or is it a boogieman based in a blend of fact & fiction?
This week, Andy & Brendan wrangle over traditional & novel semantic propositions of the phrase and do their best to parse out whether it exists, where it a...
2023-07-121h 15Totally ClassicEpisode Thirty-One: ”Are Republicans the New Liberals?”Have we reached the next "big switch" re: our two big, cola wars political parties in the United States?
The US is a culture built upon the framework of liberalism, generally, but has it reached such a point where our popular moniker for The Left/The Democratic Party is more akin to using "literally" as "figuratively?"
Would the term "liberal" now better describe The Right/The Republican Party? Is it possible the secular religious fundamentalism in one party has overtaken the traditional religious fundamentalism in the other?
This week, Andy & Brendan, both with a...
2023-06-281h 22Totally ClassicEpisode Thirty - ” Is Binary Natural?”A black and white thinker & a moral relativist walk into a Zoom &... talk about binaries.
As popular as the swap-out of "binary" for "spectrum" has become, does the binary still have a use in our culture? The question below that question is Andy & Brendan's question today - a version of "Do binaries exist?" Is binary thought or binary construct fundamental to the very fabric of things or only (IF that) our perception of the universe, as we can perceive it?
What do you think? Yes? No? (There we go, tempting you towards a binary response!:)
2023-05-3158 minTotally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Nine: ”Are Gun Control Laws Relevant?”This week, Andy & Brendan question whether the populist response to incidents of gun violence are relevant or irrelevant... or somewhere in between!
When a mass shooting tragedy unfolds AGAIN, the political and personal response seems to have been funneled into a univariate focus of "Gun Control NOW!" Is this a reasonable or unreasonable response, FUNDAMENTALLY (being that it's next to impossible to prove or disprove whether any individual actor proclaiming this as relevant is running their OS: Reason function:)? What does logic tell us? Intuition? The evidence? What does the mosaic of our operable humanity succeed to...
2023-05-121h 08Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Eight - ”Does Safety Make Us Safe?”Where do babies come from?
Okay... when a Helicopter Dad meets a Tiger Mom and they love each other very very much and when they kiss and their bodies figure out from pheromones and saliva that their offspring would be more resistant to disease...
Blah blah blah they have a baby!
A baby that's safer than they are. And we've been doing this for eons & getting even more serious about safety in the last few generations than ever before.
Are we... getting better at it? Or have we long since crossed a cu...
2023-04-201h 37Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Seven: ”Is this Pandemic a Time Machine?”This week, Brendan brings his question to bear with Andy, positing a theory that this Pandemic offers us a glimpse into the multiverse and tells us with stunning accuracy how we would have behaved in, say, Germany in the 1930s... or in Northern California in 1942... or Mississippi in 1955
OR... OR...
In what ways did we fail to live up to our own code of ethics these past three years and what ways did we succeed? And who would that have made us in the past? Did we just brush by the Other pleading f...
2023-03-221h 29Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Six: ”Is Technology Evil?” (part two of two)Andy & Brendan continue their divigation flow through thoughts on technology (intimate & grand) concerns on AI and their own use of technology and how it enhances both the shadow and the light elements of their individual and collective selves.
You are right now using some quite advanced technology to access this podcast.
So... thank you?
:)
2023-03-0855 minTotally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Five: ”Is Technology Evil?”As we stand on the precipice of an AI-integrated future, Andy & Brendan ruminate on what technology has meant and may yet mean for us as modern vessels of sentience, purpose and utility.
And it all starts with masterful modern miracle that is the #2 pencil.
2023-02-2253 minTotally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Four: ”Is this movie racist?”It is hard to enjoy anything these days.
It has become very haute to not simply appreciate art & entertainment but do seek to divine and judge the worldview the creator is setting forth.
Have we all become Neo-fundamentalists, seeing "the work of the DEVIL!!" everywhere or have we begun to enact a pre-technocratic synchronicity with the virtual world and we are finally seeing the binary flow everywhere of The Matrix?
Or do we just like a chance to trash something?
This week, Andy & Brendan question whether this phenomenon is helpful, if i...
2023-01-261h 15Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty Three - ”Why Rest?”Within the swirl of winter, within the season for giving, within the happy holiday vacation run... how much attention to we pay to actual rest?
Do we give ourselves... rest? And what is rest?
As a culture, what are we lacking? Are we OBSESSED with rest or with productivity? What are we, individually, lacking? OR should we be turning our focus away from lack altogether?
This week, Andy & Brendan, themselves lacking rest in the midst of holiday mayhem and illness, try to cogently examine what rest means to us and when it is vi...
2023-01-041h 25Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty-Two - ”Amnesty for What?” (part 2 of 2)Can we find our way to an amnesty for the pandemic thus far? Does that question even make sense to you? Do you wonder what an amnesty is already being proposed for? Do you wonder if it's a legitimate claim? And can one have amnesty without first trial and conviction? What are the crimes we're talking about!?
This week, Andy & Brendan ask and answer and re-question all that and more. You're welcome.
2022-12-161h 23Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty-One - ”Amnesty for What?”The Atlantic published a think piece that launched a thousand think pieces with the title "LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY."
What does this statement mean? What would an amnesty require beforehand? What crimes would be forgiven? What criminals would be acquitted? Are we trying to skip accountability and jump straight to forgiveness without apology or are we trying to find a path of healing out of the thick of it all?
Andy & Brendan try to navigate the question and find the questions behind the question that greet a statement as bold as this!
2022-12-071h 13Totally ClassicEpisode Twenty - ”Is Fear Dangerous? (part 2 of 2)”Do we have more to fear than fear itself?
This week Andy & Brendan seek to navigate how to move away from fear and disgust towards empathy, how quickly one can become convinced to fear, whether or not your intuition has affirmed this response... and where fear becomes concrete reality.
What do you think? IS fear dangerous?
2022-12-0150 minTotally ClassicEpisode Nineteen - ”Is Fear Dangerous? (part 1 of 2)”This week and next, Andy & Brendan were wondering... Is Fear Dangerous? Is fear simply an essential emotion, a fundamental survival instinct? Or was Mr. New Deal spot on when he spoke "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?"
They question this question and try to find the line were fear goes from damage control to damage creation.
What do YOU think?
2022-11-231h 20Totally ClassicEpisode Eighteen - ”Pronoun or Anti?” (part two)This week, Andy & Brendan further range into the quagmire of presupposition, science, ethics, semantics, kindness & niceness AND "WHY AREN'T WE ALL TALKING THIS THROUGH?" of whether pronouns (or gender itself, for that matter) are subjective/malleable. Have these noun simplifiers ceased to simplify? Have these ceased to correspond with material reality as we understand it? All this and more on this week's Totally Classic!
2022-10-121h 32Totally ClassicEpisode Seventeen -” Pronoun or Anti?”In light of the recent imprisonment of a teacher in Ireland over accusations of “misgendering” and recent Twitter addition of “misgendering” as HATE SPEECH, it appears a moral and legal battleground has been established and shots are being fired on a daily basis over not only speech, but a basis upon which truth is established. And it all circles the drain of pronouns.
Who knew a noun simplifier would be at the crux of a potential reinvention of human congress?
Today on Totally Classic, Andy & Brendan BEGIN to ask the question “Pronoun or ant
2022-09-291h 00Totally ClassicEpisode Sixteen - ”Is speech free?”In this week's episode, Andy & Brendan use speech to talk about speech, words and pauses and verbal punctuation to talk about the same.
How free is speech? How important is free speech to our, or any, society? What are the limits on free speech? What SHOULD the limits be? What are the harms of speech? Of restricted speech? Where are we at right now with censored speech a daily occurrence and self-censored speech at an all-time generational high?
IS SPEECH FREE? And was it ever even meant to be?
2022-09-221h 22Totally ClassicEpisode Fifteen - ”Is Intersectionality Helpful?” (part two)A continuation of the previous conversation (see Episode 14) on this topic, this week Andy & Brendan look more closely at the Power & Privilege claims popularized by modern Intersectionality ideology & look back to the origins of the term from within the nest of Critical Race Theory & other Critical pedagogies.
And try to figure out if white people exist:)
2022-09-0744 minTotally ClassicEpisode Fourteen - ”Is Intersectionality Helpful?”"Intersectionality" was coined in 1989 in regards to discrimination lawsuits that could be regarded as overlapping in the Venn diagram of mere SEX and RACE discrimination.
Flash forward decades and now it's a comprehensive theory relating to myriad aspects of purported identity.
This week, Andy & Brendan try to examine whether this way of viewing discrimination allegations OR EVEN THE WHOLE WORLD is helpful or harmful? Or, as most things are, how it is BOTH!!
2022-08-171h 40Totally ClassicEpisode Thirteen - ”Is Woke a Religion?” (part two)Spoiler Alert: This is the first episode where Andy & I actually have the same answer to the question, when all the conversation is through. Which is remarkable. Hence this remarking upon it. Now the remarks have been delivered and re-remarked, here's what we're trying to ascertain - is Woke a Religion? It obviously satisfies some of the metrics. But does it satisfy enough that it would be helpful to all to consider it as such? Come on along on the dialogic voyage!
2022-08-111h 36Totally ClassicEpisode Twelve - ”Is Covid Real?”A very special episode (yes, like an after-school special vibe) where Andy has Covid and so he & Brendan talk through questioning the reality of the situation, the reality of Covid itself and the reality of the Covid response. A true panoply of pandemic pontification!
2022-08-031h 26Totally ClassicEpisode Eleven - ”Is Woke a Religion?”Is Woke a Religion? Is it a Cult? Is it even a useful word anymore? If we could reasonably classify it as such, it COULD reduce the tension around the belief system spiraling out in eldritch tendrils into every aspect of society.
But IS it? How do we classify it thusly? How would we validate the claim yay or nay? What IS going on with the wildly divergent views of fundamental realities - par for the course for the human race and/or is this rise of a new theology?
That, and more... and less... an...
2022-07-271h 22Totally ClassicEpisode Ten - ”Is Abortion Ethical?” (part two)In this episode, Andy & Brendan continue their conversation looking as forthrightly as possible from two opposite angles at the same question. They do a duet of harm/benefit analyses, discuss ethical principles involved and attempt to properly ascertain the way to properly regard and dialogue about abortion. And try to find moments of levity in this question everyone is wrestling with in the midst of our candy-coated social cataclysm.
2022-07-211h 54Totally ClassicEpisode Nine - ”Is Abortion Ethical?”This week, Andy & Brendan begin a discussion on the ethics of abortion. In this first of two conversations (actually third of four, technically, but that's the long story told in LAST week's episode:) on the subject, here they attempt to accurately ascertain which popular arguments are tenable or untenable as central considerations. Hopefully it will be helpful to stop having the wrong arguments on the way to at least having the right ones!
2022-07-131h 37Totally ClassicEpisode Eight - ”Is Talking Dangerous?”In this weeks' episode, Andy & Brendan talk through a set of episodes they recorded - and then, in lieu of very similar feedback from a trio of friends - agreed to shelve.
They attempt to relay the process and ascertain whether they did the right thing or not and interrogate if talking to someone with whom you don't agree - and publicly sharing that conversation - is dangerous. And if so, to what or whom?
2022-07-061h 04Totally ClassicEpisode Seven - ”Is Cancel Culture Just Accountability?” (part two)In this episode, Andy & Brendan zoom out to the macro and wrangle with how cancel culture does and does not foster a culture of collective responsibility OR a culture of weaponized mob zeal.
Is Cancel Culture Just Accountability... or something else entirely?
Is Cancel Culture JUST Accountability... or definably unjust?
What do you think? What do you feel?
2022-06-011h 28Totally ClassicEpisode Six - ”Is Cancel Culture Just Accountability?”This week, Andy & Brendan examine "Cancel Culture" and get extremely micro as to how anxiety and perceptions at harm on the individual level form the basis for what can become a mass movement. Is that beneficial or harmful? Well, it's at least understandable, yes?
2022-05-261h 28Totally ClassicEpisode Five ”What does it mean to wear a mask?”Today, Andy & Brendan discuss the topic of masks - masks for aerosol respiratory virus, masks in a pandemic, masks as metaphor. They shift through harm/benefit analysis, personal experience and the ruptures that can arise from talking about putting or NOT putting fabric on your face.
2022-05-191h 17Totally ClassicEpisode Four - ”Is Anti-Racism... Racist?”This week, Andy & Brendan wrangle with the almost polar opposite points of view on what Anti-Racism is and find common ground in, as is so often on so many divisive issues, the mutual desire to make the world better.
2022-05-111h 30Totally ClassicEpisode Three - ”Are Vaccine Passports Ethical?” (part 2)It's of vital importance not to one and done a conversation on a thorny subject. So this week Andy & Brendan strive to more fully unpack the ethical impact of medical apartheid ... and find out when it comes to pancake houses, you can truly never go home again.
2022-05-041h 42Totally ClassicEpisode Two: ”Are Vaccine Passports Ethical?” (part 1)A triple-vaccinated human and a previously infected human talk about why only one of them could have gone out to eat in Chicago, NYC, New Orleans, Boston, etc...
They are not Others to one another, despite what the President of the United States or many headlines may have led you to believe:)
In this wide ranging discussion, they talk thrift store return policies, the American dream & who we trust.
What do YOU think?
2022-04-271h 15Totally ClassicEpisode One: Who are We and Why are We Here?An introductory conversation for a podcast about the ease of difficult conversations.
A getting to know us episode so you can become familiar with the pathfinders of this show.
A bit of history, a bit of curiosity, a dose of affection and statements of intention.
Hello. Let's begin.
2022-04-211h 09