Fast kickin, low scorin, and ties, ties, ties?!? YOU BET! We're talking futbol (soccer) with our friend and sports journalist Noah Davis. Noah walks us through what we need to know going into the 2018 World Cup. We discuss the USA/Canada/Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup, soccer strategy, and what teams to bet on going into this year's event. Noah gives us some insight on how team USA blew it going into this World Cup and how they can rebuild for the future. Maybe this is the year we finally find out which is the greatest country in the world...Mexico or Portugal!

Oh also we talk about baseball at the top, because...Bartolo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yniWxbPAA2I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVFsq9FQBlc

Took our time getting this one out, a nice discussion with comedian, homelessness preventer, and fellow podcaster Sander Randall. At the very end he asks us an uncomfortable question and everything gets gooey.

2m - We start talking about Bill Keys / Lynn Gentry and street poetry, and end up talking about obsolete technology

12m - Sander talks about what it was like growing up in the US Virgin Islands, and we discuss what we did during Hurricane Sandy, like get ripped off by a Russian guy.

22m - Sander introduces us to homelessness prevention work, which he does for $$$, and why tax help is the GOAT of volunteerism

32:50 - Conversation about podcasting. Sander is a podcaster extrordinaire and we learn his ways.

39m - Announcing the return of Moon Crew!!

Song: “Horizon” by Real Estate

Charlie Walden returns for a little bonus action to talk about the Cynthia Nixon campaign so far. What would marijuana legalization, stable housing, and jobs be in a Nixon world? Brian & Charlie also talk about what Cynthia has got to do to win over upstate voters.

Reality TV meets Buddhism meets crypto-rotica in this conversation with writer Becky Scott. We entered this podcast with a whole bunch of topics we never got anywhere near. Instead, we talked about the film Becky wrote and is now producing (2m); what it’s like to report on The Bachelor and Real Housewives (9:30); Cat Person, a mere 8 months after it blew up (25m); and Becky’s new love of Buddhism, inspired by Pema Chödrön (33:20).

Philip Markle joins the IL boys to discuss improv, live performance, and La Croix. Philip is the co-founder of the Brooklyn Comedy Collective and shares his thoughts on what it means to perform. We discuss whether it is controversial to pay performers as a theater.

Lenny and Brian also fight about who has ASMR or doesn't with very hilarious results.

Links to articles discussed in the show below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/arts/television/brett-davis-comedy.html

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/01/the-case-for-paying-improvisors.html

"Burn This Disco Out" by Michael Jackson

IL report on the Cynthia Nixon launch party, where we spoke to some folks and imagined a future in which a TV celebrity could win office (14:30). We also talk about Justice Stevens' 2nd Amendment op-ed (2:45)and the NFL's flawed new catch rule (39:30).

Lenny returns from Brazil to discover that gasp Facebook has been gasp improperly giving our data to craven gaspalytics firms. Brian does not care. He does, however, get fired up about Mirandizing Governor Cuomo.

0:00 - Recap de Janeiro: A real good time in a real-ass city

13:45 - Cambridge Analytica gets O'Keefe'd, riles some

32:00 - Sex and the State: Cynthia Nixon's gubernatorial run

Intro / Outro: "Do Leme Ao Pontal" by Tim Maia

What's worse, guns or Apu? We settle this super woke question with noted media consumer Ben Contillo, who joins us this week to talk about how only the good kids will suffer if teachers have guns (8m) and "The Problem With Apu," a documentary about why Hank Azaria's worst mistake was not Godzilla (19m). Free Tay-K.

Cinemaphile Cat Green joins us for a pretty actually decent preview of the 2018 Academy Awards. We start off by debating the merits of the Oscars, which both Lenny and Brian are pretty iffy on, but which Cat sees as an integral cultural touchstone (9m). We then embark on a journey of discovery (talk about all the nominated films) and learn important truths about ourselves (about film stars). Pretty much the best Oscars preview you’re going to find—sorry St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Friend of "the License," Lance Pauker, returns to the cast to discuss the massive influx of capital that has come into New York City and the adverse effects that have followed(10:00). We lament the banality of modern glassy architecture and the demise of the Landmark Sunshine Cinema(28:00). We also speculate on ways that we can preserve the things that make New York well... "New York."

We also round out the podcast with conversations touching on Tim Wu's "The Tyranny of Convenience" from the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html) and Elizabeth Dunn's "The Inflated Promise of the American Food Hall" from the New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/the-inflated-promise-of-the-american-food-hall).

Finally, we promise to one day travel to Tuscaloosa, Alabama...the "Tajikistan of America"

Intro & Outro music credit: "New York City Boy" by the Pet Shop Boys