Low Culture Boil

In this whirlwind ep Rax and Amber talk to Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about construction, revenge and boos baby. They also eventually get to talk about Kayla's piece for Autostraddle "We Went to Every Dyke Bar in NYC in One Day" that she wrote with Drew Burnett Gregory and which we highly recommend!

If you listen to the whole ep you will get to hear about all the lesbian bars they visited and the Shyamalan-like twist at the end, they were the lesbian bars all along, no it's not that, but it kinda is. Also, if you listen to the end, you will hear the insistent babbles of Amber's baby.

Remember, bars are about the people you are in them with and feminism is about pissing wherever you want.

Josh Gondelman (comedian, friend of the pod, and official Boston correspondent) joins us once again to talk about Boston's finest, Ben Affleck. Why is he so grim and does it have anything to do with that incredible phoenix tattoo? 

Don't call it a comeback, actually you totally can, that's what it is. Amber and Rax are back to talk about the most important cultural event happening right now, that's right, we're talking about Red Lobster filing for bankruptcy. We just had to come back from hiatus to look into this because something about the headlines smelled...shrimpy. Of course before we get to that we spend about half the podcast catching up, and after we spend a third of the podcast griping, so you get like a quarter or something (we don't do math) of Red Lobster content. Which is all you really need because it's a story as old as time.

But if you want to read more about it we (Rax) read these articles, Amber read Rax's outline:

• The forgotten racial history of Red Lobster - Nathaniel Meyersohn for CNN

• Red Lobster, an American Seafood Institution, Files for Bankruptcy - Ali Watkins for NYT

• Red Lobster and Waffles - Jordan Lebeau, NYT

• The Fishy Death of Red Lobster - Emily Stewart, Business Insider

• If Red Lobster dies, part of me will, too - John Semley, Toronto Star

listen up <3

Rax and author Elyssa Maxx Goodman discuss drag from 17th century kabuki theater to RuPaul's Drag Race and pandemic-born Zoom drag shows, all as told in Elyssa's forthcoming book "Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York"! The book comes out on 9/12 and is a must-read for anyone who loves, duh, glitter and concrete.

Amber and Rax talk about one of their favorites, Eve Babitz. The LA Woman, the groupie, the muse, the artist, the author and ultimately the star. IYKYK, if you don't, listen.

Info for this ep comes from:

The “Sex and Rage” of Eve Babitz (Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 2017)

Eve Babitz, a Hedonist With a Notebook, is Dead at 78 (Penelope Green, NYT, 2021)

How Eve Babitz Saw Herself (Kevin Dettmar, The Atlantic, 2022)

and of course

Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik, 2019

Rax and Amber dive into RV history and culture, touching on the development of the National Parks Service and the USPS along the way. We wouldn't even have the Margaritaville RV Resort if not for the Postal Service!

Amber and Rax (btw love how we write these in the 3rd person like we have a fancy producer, it's just us) anyway, Amber and Rax (definitely not us) talked about the Goosebumps books series and it's superstar author R.L. Stine. The series is known for getting boys into reading, and being despised by adults and critics, which is how you knew it was cool. Listener beware, you're in for a scare, not really, just some fun facts and opinions on children's books.

Rax and Amber sort of can't believe they've never talked about Goop before, so here it is! Tune in to learn about some of Goop's most insane recommendations, among other things.