Is cheese political?

That’s the question.

And apparently, the answer requires Mickey, Christian, and Ian to discuss ancient Rome, government cheese, raw milk, war, capitalism, comedy, mold, Upton Sinclair, American food, and the horrifying process by which humanity apparently discovered what was safe to eat.

Also, Jacki isn’t here.

This is the first episode of Everything on Nothing without her, so obviously things go completely off the rails.

Mickey has a question about cheese, and because Mickey is Mickey, answering it means going all the way back to the beginning. Cheese turns out to be tied to politics, war, trade, government regulation, food safety, cultural identity, and some truly questionable decisions made by people thousands of years ago.

Along the way, the conversation takes some very necessary detours into:

• Comedy bombing, Big Tim Murphy, and the strange science of making people laugh.
• Raw milk, government cheese, and why apparently cheese is an American political issue now.
• Moldy cheese, oysters, mushrooms, and the eternal question: Who was the first person to eat that?

And because this is Everything on Nothing, we eventually end up talking about Alexander the Great, Rembrandt, Marvel cookbooks, television, teaching, technology, and why there are apparently too many podcasts.

Everything is connected.

Nothing really matters.

Is cheese political??

Listen to the episode and decide for yourself.

Are the Dutch evil sons of bitches?

That’s the question.

Mickey, Jacki, and Christian attempt to answer it, which obviously means we have to discuss swamp people, imperialism, weed, cheese, Civilization, Nazis, Taylor Swift, and approximately 2,000 years of Dutch history.

We get into:

• Neanderthals. Obviously.
• Rome, Germany, and defensive wars that get… less defensive.
• The Netherlands: literally the Lowlands. Wet!
• Dikes, windmills, and telling the ocean to fuck off.
• William of Orange and why the Dutch are so aggressively orange.
• Amsterdam, money, drugs, and keeping extremely good records.
• The Dutch East India Company and capitalism doing capitalism.
• Colonialism, imperialism, and Civilization making genocide look weirdly fun.
• Gandhi. Nuclear weapons. Somehow.
• Napoleon, Corsica, Genoa, France, Italy, and salami.
• Dutch resistance fighters and the very ugly reality of Nazi occupation.
• Weed. So much weed.
• Comedy festivals and collecting comedians like stray cats.
• Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, billionaires, and celebrity worship.
• Dolly Parton having more money than anyone needs.

Also: Florida is basically Dutch. Disney World is built on swamp. And at some point we start questioning whether the Dutch are actually evil or just extremely committed to spreadsheets.

So.

Are the Dutch evil sons of bitches?

Listen to the episode and decide for yourself.

In this Everything On Nothing episode, we tackle the question:

“Is Dropout TV the most ethical streaming service out there?”

We talk:

• Dropout TV, CollegeHumor, and the increasingly unusual idea that a company might actually like the people who work there
• Brennan Lee Mulligan’s “Evil is boring” philosophy and why being good turns out to be considerably more complicated
• Sam Reich, creative control, and what happens when the people making the shows get to keep making the shows
• Profit sharing, loyal crews, and the radical proposition that employees might deserve some of the money they helped make
• Channel 101, ComedySportz, and the strange little comedy incubators that somehow keep producing famous people
• Donald Glover, Derrick Comedy, Community, SNL, and the sprawling Hollywood family tree where apparently everybody knows everybody
• Hollywood consolidation, streaming, and the thrilling prospect of having approximately six companies decide what the entire world gets to watch
• AI-generated entertainment and the bold new future of making things cheaper so nobody has to enjoy making them
• Gary’s filmmaking adventures, WWE NXT, Full Sail, and the glamorous world of running cables while other people get to be on television
• Ryan, vinyl, Dungeons & Dragons, and the suspicious number of hobbies that can become a career if you refuse to get a normal job
• Los Angeles, Channel 101, Harmontown, Santa Monica Pier, BMX, skateboarding, police chases, and other perfectly normal activities 
• Why weird little creative communities matter, especially when nobody in them has any idea what they're going to become
• How artists build something together, become successful, and eventually discover they are the system they spent ten years complaining about
• Why treating creative people like human beings might be a surprisingly effective business strategy
• And several other tangents that absolutely did not need to happen but did anyway

So is Dropout really a better way to make entertainment?

I (Jacki) vote yes. 

In this Everything On Nothing episode, we tackle the question:

“Why did Ske Lo want a ’64 Impala?”

We talk:

• Skee-Lo, “I Wish,” and why he walked away from the music business
• The Good Life Café and the LA hip-hop scene that came out of it
• Why the 1964 Chevrolet Impala became such a big deal in hip-hop
• Lowriders, hydraulics, murals, candy paint, and cars that cost more than the house
• Black and Chicano car culture and why the Impala meant more than just looking cool
• Redlining, segregation, the Civil Rights Act, and how all of that somehow ends up involving cars
• How an affordable family car became a status symbol and cultural icon
• Eazy-E, Skee-Lo, ’90s rap, and the six-four showing up all over hip-hop
• Grand Theft Auto, California road trips, the Salton Sea, Slab City, and other completely necessary detours
• The music industry, Motown, Eminem, and the many ways artists get chewed up by the machine
• Why supporting weird little creative communities actually matters
• And several other tangents that absolutely did not need to happen but did anyway

So why did Skee-Lo want a ’64 Impala?

Because that car comes with a whole lot more history than you might think.

In this Everything On Nothing episode, we tackle the cursed Facebook classic:
“Why do women get so mad when they see a man relaxing?”

We talk:

• Slammed screen doors, stolen Saturday morning cartoons, Catholic indoctrination, and Mickey getting trained young that if someone is working, you get your ass up and help
• Mr. White Christmas the belt, paddles with holes, fly swatters, the springy Tupperware ladle, and how the “beating utensil” always seems to evolve
• My secret Facebook thread on this exact question, with Mariah’s “kids feral, dogs barking, dinner cooking, bro get up and help so we can both sit down” and the cis het mom’s “women have 1,000 tabs open, men have 10” brain
• The stay-at-home breastfeeding mom “fighting for her life with the kids” while her ex golfs, comes home, naps, and still finds time to criticize
• Mickey’s cortisol breakdown, traffic, construction crews, lazy coworkers, and why your brain spikes when you are working, and someone else looks like a frozen NPC
• Our house rules: my “no one in the kitchen while I am cooking or I go feral” reality, Mickey’s doorway brain resets, forgotten laundry, and our post-work kitchen check-in to keep the twitchy at bay
• Periods, perimenopause, and moms who only called it “lady stuff,” plus Clancy in yearbook class teaching teenage Mickey that sometimes it is just not a jokey day
• Cats, consent, and why “the kitten bit me” somehow makes more sense to people than “she might be struggling inside, how can I help”
• World War II factory women, 70s feminism, men’s liberation drifting into men’s rights and the manosphere, and how women got shoved back into the house while still doing everything
• The inventors behind Kevlar, frequency hopping, paper bags, windshield wipers, and Monopoly, and how that rhymes with me pitching ideas in meetings that only land when a man repeats them
• Girls on Mickey’s football and soccer teams running through boys, crushing nuts, winning games, and then getting spun off into their own leagues once they proved they were good

By the end, that “why is she so mad, I’m just sitting here” line hits a little different.

In this Everything On Nothing episode, we ask the only real question about wrestling: “WWE … WHY?!” How did a grimy little carny hustle turn into the loudest, shiniest wrestling empire on Earth?

We talk:

• Carnivals, the Gold Dust Trio, and the moment wrestling decided to fake it on purpose
• The National Wrestling Alliance, the McMahons grabbing the Northeast, and why Madison Square Garden was the cheat code
• USA Network, cartoons, and WWF quietly moving into every living room
• WrestleMania as the “bet the farm” show with Cyndi Lauper, Mr T, Captain Lou and celebrity chaos
• Hulk vs Andre and the slam that made WWE the brand even your grandma knows
• Steroids, scandals, and the pivot to smaller but better workers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels
• Ted Turner, WCW, and the Monday Night War that almost killed WWE
• The NWO high, the booking hangover, and fans bailing when the magic cracked
• ECW’s bloody punk rock energy getting cannibalized into ladders, tables and chairs
• The Montreal Screwjob and Vince discovering his final boss supervillain energy
• Stone Cold, The Rock, DX, and the “stun your boss” fantasy that saved the company
• Ted Turner selling, corporate wrestling haters, and WWE buying WCW and ECW to stand alone

By the end, “WWE … WHY?!” sounds less like a joke and more like a diagnosis. WWE won by mixing carny tricks, cable timing, dumb luck and pure stubbornness into one giant, sweaty universe we still can’t stop watching.

“Was Woodrow Wilson a bad President?” 

In this Everything on Nothing episode, we drag Wilson off the dusty earnest progressive bookshelf and dump him out as a segregation-obsessed admin nerd who helped invent the modern presidency, the modern propaganda machine, and the modern who counts as a person problem, all while insisting he was saving the world.

We talk:

• Princeton’s sweater vest god king of homework somehow speed running into the White House
• Segregating federal offices like it is a fun new settings menu: fewer Black jobs, more “attach a photo so we know you are white”
• Women marching for the vote, getting jailed, chained, force-fed, while Professor Morals in Chief drags his feet on suffrage
• The guy who yells “states’ rights” while quietly federalizing everything with income tax, the Fed, and a bigger regulatory maze
• Fourteen Points and the League of Nations, huge peace on earth energy that still helps lay the track toward World War II
• His daughters and suffragettes yanking him inch by inch toward “maybe women are people,” while the system keeps grinding them up
• Edith Wilson soft launching a secret co-presidency after his health collapses because the country is already trapped in his vibes
• Kissinger calling him the guy with big ideas and bad follow-through, and Mickey tracing how that combo still haunts foreign policy hangovers

By the end, “Was Woodrow Wilson a bad President?” might be the wrong question. He is the guy who helps wire up the whole cursed operating system we live in now, then wanders off convinced he wrote a poem. We are the ones stuck inside his group project, clicking around the menus, realizing the bug-ridden beta he shipped is still the version running real people’s lives.

Esports has UNIFORMS?! In this Everything on Nothing field trip, Mickey chucks the teacher hat at Christian, who drags us from single‑celled organisms trying to win lunch all the way to five kids in matching jerseys, approved footwear, and sponsor logos beaming out on a jumbotron.

We talk:

• Bacteria as the first little freaks chasing “high score” by eating each other.
• Ancient board games and ball courts inventing rules, winners, and losers long before Wi‑Fi.
• Spacewar, Tennis for Two, and the era of “please don’t sneeze on the mainframe while we chase dots.”
• High scores in arcades turning quarters into personality tests.
• The Atari crash, ET in the desert, and everyone deciding video games were over.
• Nintendo showing up with Mario like, “No, we’re actually doing this for real.”
• Arcades teaching us that competition = attention = more tokens.
• Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat turning “I’m better than you” into a public blood sport.
• Quake LANs: shirtless guys, tangled cables, Texas ballrooms, zero fire code vibes.
• Korean StarCraft as full‑on TV event: casters screaming, bug armies, national heroes in headsets.
• One weird custom map that mutates into Dota, then Dota 2 and League, then “oh cool, this is our whole economy now.”
• The glow‑up from “free sponsor T‑shirt” to actual matching jerseys.
• Tournament dress codes quietly inventing the esports “look.”
• The shoe rules: no Crocs, no open toes, no tripping and suing the publisher.
• Why organizers hate rogue hoodies with mystery logos.
• How uniforms make teams feel like real sports instead of “five guys sharing a Discord.”
• League of Legends printing money off skins like it’s a side hustle from god.
• That skin money bankrolling giant stages, lights, and the jerseys hanging in your closet.
• Live‑service games locking your library behind server vibes and trust.
• Christian’s verdict: we’ve crossed from “inspired chaos” to “corporate coked‑up decision‑making.”

By the end, “Esports has UNIFORMS?!” stops being a punchline and turns into a whole messy story about how competition, TV, and capitalism stitched together those jerseys—and why somewhere, a very serious man is still updating the rulebook to make sure no one wins a championship in beachwear and Crocs.

Is The Warriors just a grimy ’79 gang flick with face paint and leather vests… or a neon‑lit Greek epic about outcasts, cops, capitalism, and who actually runs New York after dark? We start with the question, “Is The Warriors a popular movie?” and immediately end up asking, “Then why does everybody know the quotes but not the film?”

In this episode of Everything on Nothing, Mickey, Christian, and I track The Warriors from its chaotic theatrical release (with real gangs showing up to screenings and studio execs yanking the ads) to its second life as a cult classic, a Rockstar beat ’em up, and a movie your favorite shows won’t shut up about. We dig into how a supposedly “small” gang film, built by a stacked crew (Walter Hill, Frank Marshall, future Alien producers, set dressers from Superman and Raging Bull), quietly helped shape the look and feel of ’80s and ’90s Hollywood.

We talk:

• How The Warriors leapfrogged from box office troublemaker to cult royalty, quoted in The Simpsons, Family Guy, Community, Spike Lee joints, and even John Wick 4
• The Greek epic hiding under the subway grime: Anabasis, the Odyssey vibes, the long walk home to Coney Island, and why this feels less like “crime drama” and more like myth in denim vests
• Why the Baseball Furies, Orphans, and other crews play like video game factions... and how that visual language made the 2005 Rockstar game feel inevitable
• The radio DJ as Greek chorus, beaming coded messages to every gang in the city, and how that idea echoes through Do the Right Thing and modern action movies
• David Patrick Kelly’s feral Luther, the improvised “Warriors, come out to play‑ay,” and his secret MVP career from Dreamscape to Twin Peaks and John Wick
• The politics under the cult‑movie sheen: New York’s real gang history, Irish cops, Hell’s Kitchen, and the theory that Luther isn’t just unhinged... he’s a tool of the people in power sent to blow up Cyrus’s plan for unity
• Costumes and set dressing as storytelling: wet streets, subway maps, graffiti, Kiss‑inspired face paint, and all the little background choices that turn ’70s NYC into a living comic book

In between, we swap:

• The story of the half‑drunk Bronx guy at a Florida bar who spent 30 straight minutes insisting we watch “this movie they filmed in the Bronx, right there in the Bronx” until we finally tracked it down on Netflix
• That first watch where we realized we’d been absorbing Warriors references our whole lives (radio drops, sitcom gags, throwaway movie lines) and only now had the key
• The Warriors‑themed art show we threw at a tiny Orlando bar: themed cocktails, the PS2 game running in a corner, action figure art titled “Warriors Come Out to Play,” subway‑map collages, and a gorgeous Mercy portrait that still lives on our wall
• How the film keeps echoing through Cyberpunk 2077, tabletop RPGs, and the way people imagine “New York after dark,” long after the real city cleaned up

It’s part cult‑cinema history, part personal confession, part love letter to every weirdo who ever discovered a movie way too late and then realized it had been quietly rewiring culture (and their own brain) since before they were born.

Is punk rock just loud, fast music for pissed‑off teenagers… or was it the first time a bunch of weird kids collectively realized, “Oh, the system is bullshit, actually”? We start with the question, “Is punk political?” and very quickly end up asking, “How could it not be?”

In this episode of Everything on Nothing, Mickey, Christian, and I pull at the loose threads of punk until the whole sweater comes apart. We go from postwar anxiety and bored suburban kids to basement shows, zines run off on stolen office copiers, and that moment when three chords and a half‑broken PA became a way to say, “I’m not okay, and neither is any of this.” We trace the line from the Ramones and Sex Pistols to tiny DIY scenes that tried to build their own worlds because the existing one clearly wasn’t working.

We talk:

• How “Is punk political?” is really code for: who gets to speak, who gets shoved to the edges, and why screaming into a mic sometimes feels more honest than “using your inside voice”
• The jump from post‑World War II trauma and nationalism to safety pins, leather, and songs that sound like a fire alarm going off inside a collapsing government building
• The holy rules of punk—DIY, community, cheap shows, couch‑surfing tours—and what happens when that runs face‑first into major labels, MTV, and people who’ve never been to a VFW hall show
• Chumbawamba and the cognitive dissonance of screaming “fuck the corporations” while signing the paperwork, Sham 69 accidentally attracting neo‑Nazis, and bands like Dead Kennedys trying to kick the fascists out of a scene they didn’t build
• Vans Warped Tour evolving from dusty punk circus to full‑blown brand activation, with $6 water, sunstroke, and a lot of parents who definitely did not read the lyrics before dropping their kids off
• Green Day, Rancid, and the uncomfortable truth that the bands that saved your life might also be the reason punk ended up in mall soundtracks and on T‑shirts next to “Live, Laugh, Love”

In between, we swap stories about first punk records smuggled into school, tiny shows that felt like alternate universes, terrible hair choices, and why some of us never grew out of that “burn it all down but also hug your friends” wiring. 

It’s part history, part confession, part group therapy for anyone who’s ever loved something that was supposed to stay small and strange... and had to watch it get turned into merch.