Podcast for the New American Century

Erik, Ben and Tim are all together to celebrate another 9/11 along with the less crazy but still wild three year anniversary of the podcast. Everyone made the mistake of listening to Ben and we wound up watching and talking 2006’s bewildering Death of a President. We wade through an insanely twisty 96 minutes that left all us scratching our heads trying to figure out what the hell this movie is actually supposed to be about. We also talk Syria, Bush era derangement syndrome, Green Day. We marvel at James Urbaniak’s show stealing bit part, do competing W impressions and end with not one but two big announcements about the future of the show. Neither involves us quitting, sorry to the haters and nothing but love for the rest of you xoxo

Welcome to the week of 9/11, and the third anniversary of PNAC pod! As a special treat this week, we're releasing a bit of a prototype episode in which Erik does a solo scene talking about Gary Berntsen's 2005 book, Jawbreaker. This is the first in a rolling series of more book report episodes to come, hopefully each successive entry more streamlined than the last. Check back next week for 1-2 episodes in this same vein that will go a bit more indepth than this one on Patrick Seale's 1991 book, Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire. 

Ben and Erik are joined all the way from Beiruit by independent journalist Séamus Malekafzali (@seamus_malek) to get a firsthand report of a week where Israel only continues to ramp up regional aggression and murder civilians (and journalists, and humanitarian aid workers). Together, we talk about the twin assassinations by Israel that sparked a response from Hezbollah while Iran continues to leave us all guessing. We also talk Sinwar hiding in women’s clothes (?), Rape Rebellion vets on the Israeli talk show circuit, Judith Miller, polio, and grim future plans for Egypt & Jordan. All that, plus US CENTOM goes looking for love in all the right places.

Check out Sèamus’ excellent substack: https://www.seamus-malekafzali.com/

And stay tuned some more fun guests as we celebrate the build up to the 3 (!!) year anniversary of us starting the show. Thanks as always for listening, some exciting news will be coming soon!

Classico PNAC, the boys get together to spin a yarn about a very cool Saudi businessman with 9/11 ties and some very cool kids and grandkids. This story has everything from interior design to combat sports to Israel and KSA normalizing relations over their love of really bad electronic music. Remember to follow us on Triller!

Dan Christensen article on Florida Bulldog: https://www.floridabulldog.org/2017/05/mysterious-saudi-businessman-in-911-puzzle-surfaces-online/

We're not exactly sure how this happened, but it seems like most of twitter decided to watch Prometheus at the same time Ben and Tim decided to do an episode about it while Erik was away. 

Ben and Erik are back to discuss a round-up of best remembered current events from the last 3 weeks as the boys have been away. We actually buckled down and did our homework to discuss the KSM et al. Gitmo trial/plea deal/reversal story starring our favorite Defense Secretary. Shouts out to Carol Rosenberg for her articles covering the trial and all the work she does from Gitmo. 

What even is time, anyway?

Apologies for the choppiness throughout, we were both experiencing connection issues while recording. Super producer Erik is of the belief that he did a good job cleaning it up.

Or “The Woman Who Was Cool”. The boys sit down with good friend of the show Gus to remind you that Todd Field invented Big League Chew and also that his movie Tár absolutely rules. We dare to ask “is Cate Blanchette good at conducting?”, spot ghosts, trying to enjoy Monster Hunter, playing the triangle right and “what this movie is actually about?” Watching the End of History will return next along with Hollywood Tim as we tackle another deeply weird Stephen Spielberg/Tom Cruise 00s sci-fi movie. This time though, a movie that is almost as obsessed with 9/11 as our show is: 2005’s War of the Worlds.

Transition bits include:

• Bernstein obsessing over the triangle section in rehearsal: https://youtu.be/ebf6_7nHciw?si=4Pf9cuzYp9r7raGh
• Bernstein lecturing on Mahler 5 from the piano: https://youtu.be/A7O5zcQPRQQ?si=OcB-xcprNZe9I_4P
• Bernstein conducting Mahler 5 with Vienna Philharmonic: https://youtu.be/Bj6KLv7kv2Q?si=6C_RBoOoJdR6pcu1
• Jacqueline du Pre playing the Elgar Cello Concerto under Barenboim: https://youtu.be/OPhkZW_jwc0?si=8_s1VcrFi288l03n

Oh shit. Oh no. No no no. Oh shit,  fuck fuck fuck. Holy fuck, this ain’t good.

Ben also formally apologizes to our listening public for repeatedly confusing 747s and 767s. We will do better.

Atlantic article referenced: https://archive.ph/PomMR (that URL reads "P...o..m...not Po- you know what, nevermind). Anyway, this should get around any paywalls.

Tim read an ungodly amount of background material about Southland Tales, so we can consider this a followup to PNAC ep. 23 on Richard Kelly's masterpiece (https://podnac.libsyn.com/ep-23-pimps-dont-commit-suicide).