Brian relates the family vacation to, well, not exactly Branson, MO. Wenger mumbles and gripes about today’s NFL and remembers Bill Clinton who is still very much alive and Norm MacDonald who sadly is not. But the boys remain united in their regard for character actor Margo Martindale.

William Styron’s book Darkness Visible is the best book on depression; Robert Timberg’s The Nightingale’s Song shows us Robert “Bud” McFarland’s own struggle with it after the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Now take your best shot.   

Places you don’t want to visit, foods you don’t want to eat! 

MEP Supplemental - Wenger waxes solo on expatriate communities and how they got that way. He revisits a column he wrote in April 1997 about remembering the fall of Saigon.

Wenger and Jared talk about the Olympics again and also Nazi Sculpture 

Brian talks about the direct-to-streaming business model while Wenger tries to figure out who owns Warner and HBO. They talk Scarlett Johansson, Christopher Nolan, going to the movies vs sitting on your own sofa and watching a movie, The Bad News Bears, Loki and the MCU reset, and negotiating deals with an eye on the back end. 

Wenger and Brian discuss the coming eviction crisis, Anne Applebaum’s book Iron Curtain, journalist David Halberstam, the war in Vietnam, Maoism, Stalinism, the Olympics, Putin, and the new Match Game. Listen and judge for yourself which is the greatest scourge of mankind.

A public reading of Esquire’s Guide to Modern Etiquette, connecting Smokey & the Bandit and Annie Hall, and a thorough retrospective of Denver’s iconic Casa Bonita. Also we learn that it’s harder to pilot a helicopter than a plane!

Wenger and Brian celebrate Bobby Bonilla Day - or at least explain it. And then they talk (seriously) about Portland as Wenger digs out his old review of a Chuck Palahniuk book.

Paid By The Interruption - Wenger talks with Elena Vee, one of the Mystery Solving Grannies about Eastern Europe, Houston, education, and a crummy job market. If Lucille Ball knew how to make borscht, you’d have E.V.