This week Nicole docks the conversation on the topic we were, surely, all told to bring up at the dinner table: politics. Brett and Nicole ask the question… does “apolitical” exist? If politics is about power, community, and how we negotiate space with one another, can anyone really opt out?

They trace how repeated crises, platformized news, and cultural flashpoints (from sports to Super Bowl halftime to global conflict) have made politics feel inescapable. Through a conversation about the political as social — and the “geography of reason” that shapes what we see, center, or ignore — they unpack neutrality, privilege, and the choices we make about media, language, and engagement. Because whether you “do politics” or not they remind listeners… Politics is gonna do you, babe.

Show Notes

Nicole’s Notes

📚 Katherine McKittrick: Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle

📚 Lewis Gordon: Shifting the Geography of Reason in Black and Africana Studies - https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2020.1780861

🎬 Darkest Hour (2017)

🎬 The West Wing (Mercator Project Scene)-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Xyz9MgDWA 

Brett’s Notes

Tor Publishing - https://torpublishinggroup.com/ 

TJ Klune - https://torpublishinggroup.com/search/tj+klune

Dr. Brett’s TJ Klune Rec’s

• Under the Whispering Door

• Green Creek series (four-book series)

• In the Lives of Puppets

• The House in the Cerulean Sea

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation from a perspective of millennial angst, political fatigue, and generational survival. What begins as a reflection on the low-grade anxiety humming through millennial adulthood shifts when breaking news of military escalation in the Middle East reframes the moment in real time. Framing the past 25 years as a darkly comic infomercial — Now That’s What I Call Millennial Angst — Nicole and Brett trace the emotional track list that shaped their generation: 9/11, the 2008 collapse, endless wars, Trump(s), COVID, and the persistent sense that the next headline is always waiting. Humor, loyalty, and even absurd protest become survival strategies, not forms of denial, but ways of metabolizing crisis without surrendering to it. Rather than offering geopolitical expertise, they reflect on place, perspective, and the daily practice of staying engaged while protecting joy.

Show Notes 

Nicole’s Notes

• 🎬 Vice (2018) A dramatized look at Dick Cheney, the Bush administration, and the lead-up to the Iraq War.

• 🎧 Blowback (Podcast, Season 1) A narrative deep dive into the Iraq War; how it started, how it was sold, and its long-term consequences.

• 🎬 The Big Short (2015) A dark comedy breakdown of the 2008 financial crisis and the Wall Street decisions that triggered it.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from a perspective of curiosity, joy, and survival.

After a candid account of living with suicidal ideation, Brett shares a clinical reframe: curiosity as an actionable, sustaining practice. Brett and Nicole explore how small pleasures, obsessive fandoms, and everyday curiosities can become lifelines. They weave personal stories (from Lord of the Rings to Ted Lasso and Pokémon Go) into a larger argument about utopia as practice, the difference between hope and actionable care, and how genuine curiosity builds connection. Gentle, practical challenges and reading/listening recommendations are offered for listeners who want to lean into joy without erasing the darker realities.

Content note: This week’s episode discusses themes around suicide and mental health. 

Brett’s Notes: 

• Julien Baker “Appointments” music video

• Ted Lasso “Be curious, not judgemental” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FofLSherM

• Lord of the Rings “Theoden’s Battle Speech” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdknqszMDY 

Brett’s suicide writing:

• Thoughts on/of Suicide

• On Hope and Despair

• On Writing, Connection, and Emotions in a Pandemic

• Inside/Out … or … The Workplace

Nicole’s Notes

• Lord of The Rings “The tales that really mattered” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6C8SX0mWP0

• Playlist LOTR: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Jijv5dCRvZX1RqgjQTSLc?si=c9674fb8b6274893 

Need help? Know someone who does?

- Call or text 988- Chat at 988lifeline.org 

Connect with a trained crisis counselor. 988 is confidential, free, and available 24/7/365.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from Minneapolis, reflecting on the visible escalation of state violence and the rhetoric surrounding ICE. Together, Brett and Nicole interrogate the phrase “American Gestapo”: why it resonates, where it illuminates, and where it risks obscuring a harder truth — that ICE is not a foreign aberration but a product of a long U.S. genealogy of racialized containment.

Drawing on history, geography, and Nicole’s framework of cartographies of subordination, they ask what it means to confront authoritarianism without exporting it elsewhere.

Trigger/content note: This episode discusses police and state violence, murder, and systemic racism. Listener care is advised.

Brett’s Notes

• Hamilton, 2015. 

Nicole’s Notes

• Whitman, James Q. Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. Princeton University Press, 2017.

• Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Random House, 2020.

• Blee, Kathleen M. Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s. University of California Press, 1991.

• McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World, 2021.

• Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.

• Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall, Sage, 1997.

• Mayberry, Nicole K. Shrouded Cartographies of Subordination: How Science Fiction Stories Build Anti-Black Futures. PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2022.

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation by sitting with a question that keeps coming up in her friendships and relationships: can men and women actually be just friends?

Thinking about When Harry Met Sally, Nicole and Brett unpack how popular media, religion, and gendered socialization shape the limits placed on friendship. Nicole reflects on growing up in rigid religious gender worlds and later relationships structured by mistrust and surveillance, while Brett situates the question within architectures of masculinity, loneliness, and entitlement.

Together, they explore why jealousy is treated as inevitable, trust as naïve, and friendship as something that must be justified or closely monitored. The conversation moves through questions of power, emotional capacity, and boundaries, challenging the expectation that intimate partnerships should be everything, and asking what gets lost when other forms of connection are restricted or devalued.

It’s a reflection on friendship, desire, and what it means to build a life shaped by relationships that expand, rather than narrow, who we’re allowed to be.

Nicole’s Notes

• When Harry Met Sally (1989)

• We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

• History of Sexuality Vol 1 by Michel Foucault 

Brett’s Notes

• Stud: Architectures of Masculinity by Joel Sanders

• American Pie (1999)

• “APT.” – Rosé & Bruno Mars

Doc to Dock is co-hosted, written, produced, and edited by Dr. Brett S. Goldberg and Dr. Nicole K. Mayberry. 

Original music by Matt Bogdanow; artwork by Andre Gonzalez. 

Doc to Dock is recorded between Washington, D.C. and Orange County, CA. We record on Nacotchtank/Anacostan, Piscataway, Pamunkey, Hashemann and Tongva lands.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this bonus episode for season 1, the Docs are joined by Dr. Gabby Lout, Ph.D., to talk about friendship—the kind that travels across time zones, life phases, and shifting priorities. Together, they reflect on what it means to keep showing up for each other when careers, continents, and calendars get in the way. The conversation explores the work of maintaining connection, how adult friendships evolve, and why having “friends everywhere” is both a gift and a challenge.

Show Notes

Nicole’s Notes 

• Infusion Coffee & Tea Crafters in Tempe, Arizona 

Brett’s Notes

• Little Ox Coffee in Fullerton, CA @littleoxcoffee) - Instagram

Gabby’s Notes

• Ocean Outcomes 

The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original music written and composed by Matt Bogdanow. Podcast artwork designed and illustrated by André Gonzalez.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation, asking what it means to live between ambition and ease—to want success and still long for stillness.

Brett and Nicole talk about the pull between striving and slowing down, and how that tension shows up in everything from career choices to the curated calm of social media. They look at the trad-wife phenomenon as an extreme expression of this desire for comfort, and how it blurs the line between resistance and retreat. The conversation explores how feminism, surveillance, and selfhood intersect online, and what it means to negotiate the parts of ourselves that want different things. It’s a thoughtful and grounded reflection on ambition, rest, and the contradictions of wanting a life that feels both full and free.

Nicole’s Notes

• Passport to Paris (1999)

• Gilmore Girls (TV series, 2000–2007)

• Maintenance Phase (Podcast, hosted by Aubrey Gordon & Michael Hobbes)The Truman Show (1998)

• Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975)

Brett’s Notes

• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)New York Minute (2004)

• Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake

The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original music written and composed by Matt Bogdanow. Podcast artwork designed and illustrated by André Gonzalez.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation, asking what love looks like under patriarchy—and why so many men are, well, mid.

Nicole and Brett unpack how capitalism, masculinity, and social expectation shape the ways we love, labor, and stay. They talk about the pandemic’s impact on intimacy, the loneliness of settling, and why so many cultural narratives end at the chase but skip the realities of a relationship. The conversation explores emotional imbalance, accountability, and the tension between comfort and fulfillment. It’s a grounded and candid reflection on love as work, patriarchy as constraint, and what it means to build relationships that nurture our individual freedoms rather than limit them.

Show Notes

Brett’s Notes

• Love Actually (2003)

• bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (2000)

• Marriage Story (2019)

• Annie Hall (1977)
  

Nicole’s Notes

• Moulin Rouge! (2001)

• The Materialists (2025, forthcoming)

• Hitch (2005)

• Pride & Prejudice (2005)

• Gone Girl (2014)

The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original music written and composed by Matt Bogdanow. Podcast artwork designed and illustrated by André Gonzalez.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation, asking what the American Dream really promises...and to whom.

Brett and Nicole unpack the myth of individual success, tracing how race, class, and history shape who gets to dream and who gets left behind. They talk about the emotional and existential debts of chasing fulfillment through capitalism, the tension between visibility and belonging, and what it means to build a life beyond meritocracy. It’s a reflective and grounded conversation about reimagining success, community, and the dreams, or perhaps the credit or debts, we inherit.

Nicole’s Notes 

• How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America by Manning Marable

• How Racism Takes Place by George Lipsitz

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

• Utopia by Sir Thomas More

• Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm

Brett’s Notes 

• The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America by Margot Canaday https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691149936/the-straight-state?srsltid=AfmBOoo-gj_IPV9bLJ0JAkyCc9rk_BXXG99fyiuwvWuHwsUPQs3__YLw

The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original music written and composed by Matt Bogdanow. Podcast artwork designed and illustrated by André Gonzalez.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube. 

In this episode, Dr. Brett docks the conversation, unpacking the culture of self-care and asking what it really means to care for ourselves in a world that often profits from our exhaustion. He and Nicole explore the rise of the self-care industry, the structural roots of burnout, and the tension between personal healing and systemic change. From the allure of quick fixes to the deeper work of therapy and collective care, they question whether our pursuit of “wellness” brings true happiness or just another form of distraction. It’s a candid conversation about redefining self-care—moving beyond individual coping toward community, connection, and genuine emotional well-being.

Show Notes

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne (2025)

Happiest Season (2020)

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

P.S. I Love You (2007)

Mental Health Resources

When engaging with crisis lines, it is important to know that if you disclose the following information, they may be required to call local law enforcement for a wellness check intervention:

• Thoughts or desire to die by suicide

• Plan and intent to die by suicide (ex, setting a time and place and defining how you would die by suicide)

• Means to fulfill your plan (ex, having access and ability to carry out your plan)

Law enforcement wellness checks may or may not involve armed police officers with or without trained mental health professionals. 

The Trevor Project - https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ Suicide prevention hotline with phone, text, and chat lines. Though their focus is on LGBTQ+ young folks, they have expanded services in light of many states shutting down mental health resources. This is also a great starting point for finding resources that do not include law enforcement wellness checks that could put someone in crisis in danger.

988 Crisis Line - https://988lifeline.org/ Suicide prevention hotline with phone and text lines to connect with a crisis intervention counselor. 988 is sometimes connected to local resources and call centers, depending on the state. Depending on your state and available local resources, contacting law enforcement may be part of their intervention strategy, depending on the state and your expressed needs. 

The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original music written and composed by Matt Bogdanow. Podcast artwork designed and illustrated by André Gonzalez.

For more or find us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod and follow the show at @doctodockpod on Instagram and YouTube.