Fiasco

Here's episode 3 of Leon's new series, Death of an Artist.

There's still 3 more episodes to go. Find the rest of Death of an Artist wherever you get podcasts and binge the full season now by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's episode 2 of Leon's new series, Death of an Artist, a story about the joint suicide of a beloved children’s book author and her photographer husband that left behind an uneasy fellowship of friends and family caught between grief, confusion, anger, and envy. 

Michael and Petra Mathers left their house and the logistics of their afterlife to their friend Patty—unbeknownst to Patty’s sister Virginia, who considered herself one of Michael and Petra’s best friends. Patty and Virginia have different perspectives on what Michael and Petra did, but they agree on what it was like to be around them as a couple: awestruck and a bit excluded, something even Alice and Leon pick up on while looking at their dozens of photo albums. 

Find Death of an Artist wherever you get podcasts. And get early, ad-free access to the entire season now by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leon here bringing you a preview of a new series of mine, Death of an Artist. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing a few episodes with you right here on the Fiasco feed.

In February 2024, celebrated children’s book author and illustrator Petra Mathers and her husband, photographer Michael Mathers, mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Petra and Michael were by all accounts healthy, happy, and deeply in love. As much a love story as one about death, it begs the question: what did that decision do to the people left to mourn them? My wife, journalist Alice Gregory, and I set out to interview everyone who got one of Petra and Michael’s letters—as one married couple trying to understand another. Through intimate conversations with Petra and Michael’s friends and family about their own relationships to aging, grief, death, and the friends they thought they knew, Death of an Artist weaves together a portrait of a community grappling with the Mathers’ deaths and the final words they left behind.

Here's episode 1, where we visit Oregon to begin putting together the pieces of Petra and Michael’s shared life: the start of their love story, and the end.

Search for Death of an Artist wherever you get podcasts. And get early, ad-free access to the entire season now by subscribing to Pushkin+ on the Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But what the founders were most angry about in our country’s most famous document was Indian affairs. How did generations of Americans miss this?

Hosted and reported by Indigenous author Rebecca Nagle and featuring leading Native historians, First America shares the true story of how the United States came to be, and how our current political moment was 250 years in the making. 

Here's the first episode. Rebecca sits down with historian Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) to talk about how hunger for Indigenous land drove the Revolution.

Find more episodes of First America wherever you get podcasts. Get episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the First America show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Male comedian-led podcasts need a savior, and W. Kamau Bell is the man for the job. Instead of hosting a podcast that turns young boys into assholes, fans the flames of fascism, plays footsie with war criminals, and lies more often than it tells the truth, Kamau is going to do something different with his new podcast Who’s With Me? 

In this episode, Kamau sits down with Congresswoman Lateefah Simon, a lifelong organizer and public servant representing California’s 12th District, which includes Oakland, Berkeley, and several neighboring cities. 

The conversation dives into what it means to represent a district that spans deep poverty and intense wealth, from West Oakland to Piedmont, and why she believes every kid in West Oakland deserves the same schools, childcare, and opportunities that affluent cities provide. 

Listen to Who's With Me wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this provocative investigation into OnlyFans— the adult platform where subscribers around the world spent more than $7 billion in 2024— journalist Leon Neyfakh teams up with comedian and OnlyFans creator Gracie Canaan for a one-of-a-kind exploration into the current state of human connection.

Captivating and tender, OnlyFantasy is about the cost of loneliness, the seductive power of desire, and how the rules of human intimacy are being rewritten online. Is what’s happening on OnlyFans real? Or is it only a fantasy?

Find OnlyFantasy wherever you get your podcasts, or binge all episodes ad-free on Audible. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jerry Springer wasn’t supposed to become the host of The Jerry Springer Show. Before the chairs started flying and the fights became a daytime TV staple, the man then known as Gerald Springer was an idealistic rising star in Democratic politics, with ambitions to one day be elected governor of Ohio. From Leon Neyfakh and Prologue Projects — the team behind Fiasco, Slow Burn, Backfired, and Think Twice: Michael Jackson — comes Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer. Find it wherever you get your podcasts, or subscribe to Audible to binge the whole series now, ad-free. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did a quasi-fictional novel about Vladimir Putin’s spin doctor become an international bestselling sensation and now, a political thriller starring Jude Law and Paul Dano? Filled with real political insight and intrigue, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a riveting look at the nature of power and the inner workings of Putin’s regime at a time when the Russian leader’s decisions are reverberating across the world.

Here's a preview of The Wizard of the Kremlin (01:00). If you like what you hear, get the audiobook now on Audible, Spotify, Apple Books, pushkin.fm/audiobooks, or wherever audiobooks are sold.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're sharing an episode from another Pushkin podcast, Business History. Hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small, bringing to life the greatest innovations, the boldest entrepreneurs and the craziest mavericks in the archives of commerce and finance.

It's 1945. The Volkswagen factory has been bombed and members of the staff have been arrested as war criminals. So how did the company turn around in just a few years and begin making Beetle cars that became a global sensation? Big political and economic moves helped - but a British Army officer, Walt Disney and a New York ad agency also played pivotal roles in turning a car that Hitler had championed into the favourite ride of surfers, school teachers and hippies.   

This is part 2 of a two-part series. Check out part 1 from last week.

Find more episodes of Business History on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're sharing an episode from another Pushkin podcast, Business History. Hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small, bringing to life the greatest innovations, the boldest entrepreneurs and the craziest mavericks in the archives of commerce and finance.

The VW Beetle was the biggest selling car of all time, and it found particular favor with people like hippies and surfers. But this icon of the 60s counterculture had its roots in Nazism. The Volkswagen—the People's Car—was an obsession of Adolf Hitler. He wanted to transform Germany into a land of drivers—and needed an affordable, but reliable automobile. Germany's private auto manufacturers knew the project was doomed to failure. So Hitler assembled a team of designers and factory managers to enact his vision - even if that meant enslaving workers and committing murder.

This is part 1 of a two-part series. Find part 2 here next Wednesday.

Find more episodes of Business History on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.