Important Question? Podcast

End-of-life conversations can be difficult, so let the Important Question? Podcast jump-start the awkward scenario by asking if we would euthanize our own mothers.

We understand that some of you out there have probably been forced to make this decision. For those people, might I recommend you skip this episode? In typical Important Question? Podcast manner, we don’t take the topic too seriously.

But if you do skip this episode, you’ll miss out on actual phone calls with Caleb’s and Gordon’s mother!

We’ve all had that one beautiful dream that we wish never would have ended. Whether you’re on the beach with a model or on the beach with a giant bowl of ice cream, having your pleasures interrupted sucks, even if those pleasures are entirely fictional. So then, how cool would it be if we could script our dreams? One would assume it to be damn cool. But really think about it.

Step up to the Faustian bargaining table and negotiate the earthly value of your damnation in this episode. Papa Mephistopheles awaits your signature with bated, sulphuric breath.

There’s something magical that happens when animals are anthropomorphized and placed into a narrative feature film. We get giddy. Excited. We tend to imagine how great it would be for us to have our own talking animals. We already treat our pets like friends. Give them a voice and the capacity for complex thought and who knows, maybe true colors will fly and we’ll find out that our four-legged friends are actually four-legged assholes. But at least in that case we could still leverage their miraculous capabilities for our own personal gain, right? Well, that’s probably what I would do. That’s because I am, as I assume a talking animal to be, an asshole.

Is the view better through your windshield or your mirrors? This week Gordon and Caleb pit potential against nostalgia.

The oldest profession in the world is prostitution. The second oldest is the executioner. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense. It seems that the natural progression of the human mind, whether explored at a macro level or a micro level, goes from sex to violence pretty quickly. Snuff films, anyone?

Despite most of the world (I hope) understanding executions as terrible, terrible things, that same world tends to have a curiosity toward the morbid. So if you had an opportunity to watch an execution, would you? My apologies for anyone lead to believe by the opening sentence that this episode would be about prostitution).

In this Very Special episode, a pair of guest hosts tackle the ever-thorny issues of racism and bigotry like no podcast before. Submitted for your Webby consideration.

Do you dream of electric sheep? Does your birth certificate include a serial number? If so … you might be an android (even if you’ve always thought of yourself as an iPhone guy). I understand this discovery of your true self may be painful, and the eventual social coming-out awkward. At least you don’t have to tell your parents; they’re toasters. But don’t you kinda wish I hadn’t said anything? This week we ask: Would you want to know if you were an android?

Convenience is so powerful. Powerful to the degree that an entire genre of general store is named for it. But even more convenient than corner stores is this wonderful invention we all know as the Internet. None of us would dare give it up, right? What if the alternative was to have your private search history made public and broadcast to the world?

Today we’re discussing the international language. No, I don’t mean love, I’m talking music. From Rodgers and Hammerstein to Hammertime, music communicates on a visceral level, the libretto be damned. Not like I can understand what D’Angelo’s saying anyway, and the man’s speaking English, from what they tell me. But if words are your currency, you’re probably limited to your native tongue, aside from maybe being able to order tapas or proposition a French hooker. Imagine, though, for a moment that your cunning linguism transcended such barriers. Or alternatively, that the entire world’s music fell easily under your calloused fingertips. And so we ask, would you rather know every language on Earth, or every instrument?