The Radke Show

Y’all. A woman walks down the steps at a San Francisco Giants game. Baby on the front. Backpack on the back. Three trays of food in her hands. Her husband is sitting in the seat. Just sitting. He stands up to let her through, takes a tray of food, and begins to eat it. The announcers catch the whole thing on camera and they start going in. The internet finds out this couple’s name and address. Death threats start rolling in. Over a baseball game snack run.

And here is the thing. Had Melissa just seen the video, she would have been furious. She said so out loud. But then the wife came out and told the world what nobody knew. A few weeks before that game, her husband had lost one of his best friends. He had not left the house. She was the one who said, let’s go. Let’s get you out. Let’s watch your team. And suddenly the whole video looks different.

That is the episode. The video that had half the country calling for blood and what happened when one woman said, let me tell you what you actually missed. David and Melissa get into it on how fast we all reach for the torch, what going viral does to regular people who never asked for it, and how Rocco calling in the middle of everything to ask about dinner is very on brand for this family.

It is 39 minutes. It is worth every one of them.

Timestamps

00:00 — David Asks If That Is What Melissa Is Wearing Today

01:47 — The Nightgown Dress, the Bobby Pins, and the Hair Situation

03:32 — David Prints Something in the Middle of Recording and Melissa Loses It

04:48 — The Viral Baseball Video: Baby, Backpack, Three Trays, One Husband Sitting There

06:15 — The Announcers Start Heckling and the Internet Finds the Address

09:14 — What It Actually Means When a Video Leaves Your Circle

11:26 — Rocco Calls Live to Ask About Dinner and Nate

12:30 — Melissa Admits She Would Have Been Angry Too

12:49 — What the Wife Said That Changed Everything

Links Mentioned

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

✍️ Stretch Marks on Substack: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

Watch / Listen

▶️ YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

🎙️ Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

🎧 Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more of Melissa every single week? Become a FREE Substack subscriber today!

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Okay so we missed Tuesday. We know. Gene already told us. He called it out with zero hesitation and honestly he was not wrong. We got one job and we did not do it. To be fair, it has been a year. Like, an actual year. The kind where you come up for air in October and realize you are roughly the same person you were twelve months ago, except maybe slightly worse and significantly more tired. Melissa owns it. David does a bit from an SNL skit that nobody alive remembers. And somehow we end up talking about a grown man who just found out his biological father is Michael McDonald, which sent us both completely off the rails.

We also talk about the Dear Nina podcast, Melissa being a guest on other shows, the women who listen to us at six in the morning while walking their dogs (no pressure, no pressure at all), and why October might actually be the real new year except that information did not help Melissa one bit.

It is 37 minutes. It is honest. It is us. Come sit down.

Timestamps

00:00 — Cold Open: Doobie Brothers, gravel voices, and a very wrong key

01:17 — Michael McDonald Has a Grown Child and We Have Questions

02:20 — Welcome Back (Sorry Gene, We Missed Tuesday)

04:25 — Episode 89 and a Brief History of Everything Melissa Has Ever Recorded

06:15 — The Dear Nina Podcast and Why Melissa Was a Guest

09:02 — October Is the Real New Year (According to Thought Leaders and Also Accountants)

10:41 — I Am the Same Person I Was Last Year Maybe Slightly Worse

11:35 — We Get a Pass This Year and Here Is Why

12:03 — David Does a Bit Nobody Remembers and Melissa Cannot Explain It

Links Mentioned

📖 Chicken-Fried Women (Paperback coming soon): bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

🎙️ Dear Nina Conversations About Friendship Podcast: https://ninabadzin.com/podcasts/ or Search “Dear Nina” on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

📬 Stretch Marks on Substack: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

Watch / Listen

▶️ YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

🎙️ Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

🎵 Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more Melissa than twice a week? Check out Stretch Marks (Melissa’s Substack)

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Listen. Finding a couple unicorn is one of the hardest things a married person will ever do, and nobody is talking about it with the seriousness it deserves.

Melissa and David are diving headfirst into the thing that has silently wrecked more Friday nights than anyone wants to admit: trying to find another couple you both actually like. Not just tolerate. Not just agree to see twice a year at somebody’s crawfish boil. Actually like. The kind where all four of you are texting on the way home saying we have GOT to do that again.

But first, Melissa tells you about a conversation she had this morning on another podcast about whether men and women can ever be truly platonic friends. She has opinions. David has more opinions. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, David turned a camera light directly onto Melissa’s face and she looked like she was about to perform open heart surgery on live television.

Then we get to Jack and Jill. No last names. No context needed. Just know that Jill was a downer, Jack was a let’s get it started, and David and Melissa had to make some hard decisions about their social calendar.

This episode is 38 minutes of real talk about friendship, marriage, and why the couple unicorn is so rare it might as well be mythological.

One Marriage. Two Mics. Zero Filters.

Timestamps

00:00 — David moves the lights again and Melissa threatens to go solo

05:23 — Can men and women actually be platonic friends

09:16 — What a real couple unicorn actually looks like

10:15 — Two pairs of friends is not the same thing as couple friends

12:19 — The Jack and Jill story begins (no last names, full drama)

20:00 — What makes a unicorn reciprocal and why that part matters most

30:00 — When you are someone’s unicorn but they are not yours

Links Mentioned

📖 Melissa’s Substack, Stretch Marks: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

🍗 Chicken-Fried Women (Melissa’s book): bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

▶️ YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

🎙 Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

🎧 Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more Melissa in your week? The Substack Insider community is where the real conversation happens.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

This episode starts with David questioning why I needed to let my hot rollers sit, and it ends with me ugly-crying about a cocker spaniel who has not left my mother’s closet in five weeks.

In between, we tell you everything about our Parents Weekend at the University of Arkansas, including the fact that I did not go to the football game and I have zero regrets about. David, my Dad, Rocco, Taylor, Remi, and her sweet boyfriend Vin, whose real name is Van but he will not correct you, all went to what turned out to be the best game of the season. In the rain. Without me.

But the part that wrecked us in the best possible way was taking my dad. Poppy has not done a single thing for himself since last October, when my mom got her diagnosis on her birthday, of all the cruel days for news like that to land. This trip was his first time out. His first college football game ever. And it was Remi’s school.

And then there is the dog. Cooper. My parents’ cocker spaniel. And if you have ever watched a dog grieve someone they loved, you already know what I am about to say.

Come sit with us. We are glad you are here.

Timestamps

00:00 — Hot Rollers, Resting Steaks, and Why David Is Wrong About Both

01:30 — Welcome to the Show, Jethro

01:56 — Parents Weekend at University of Arkansas: The Full Recap

04:50 — Why the Weekend Would Have Been Better Without the Students There

07:18 — Melissa Stays In, Orders Thai Food, Has No Regrets

09:30 — The Night Game, the LED Lights, and the Rain Melissa Did Not Sit In

10:13 — Poppy Goes to His First College Football Game Ever

11:19 — What the Last Year of Caretaking Actually Looked Like

12:11 — Cooper the Cocker Spaniel and What It Looks Like When a Dog Grieves

Links Mentioned

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

✍️ Stretch Marks on Substack: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

▶️ YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

🎵 Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

🎵 Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more of us than just the podcast? Come inside.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Listen. There are two kinds of women in this world. Women who see an actress on television and think, oh, she is lovely. And women who see an actress on television and immediately think, I don’t like her and she knows what she did.

I am the second kind of woman.

This week, Jamie Lynn Sigler walked across our TV screen and David got real quiet real fast, and I had approximately forty-seven follow-up questions. You have to understand, I have known since before we were married that David had a type. Dark hair, green eyes, olive skin. His high school girlfriend Amanda. Alyssa Milano from Who’s the Boss. And yes, Tony Soprano’s daughter. I put it together a long time ago. I just needed him to say it out loud on a podcast.

Also this week, David and I drove to Houston to spend the weekend with my dad Gene at his apartment in Rice Village. He wanted to take us to a seafood restaurant called Navy Blue and y’all, they brought a fish to the table and boned it right in front of us like it was dinner theatre. David got scallops. Gene refused to split an entree because he did not want the waiter to think he was cheap. I ordered something with a sauce on it without reading another word of the description.

This is forty-four minutes of a real marriage and a really good fish.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome and Melissa Has a Million Things to Tell David Before They Even Start

01:31 — Jamie Lynn Sigler Walks Across the TV Screen and Nothing Is Fine

03:25 — David’s Type: A Thorough Investigation Melissa Has Been Conducting Since 2003

05:17 — Elisabeth Shue, Alyssa Milano, and the One Time Someone Said Melissa Looked Like a Celebrity

06:46 — Weekend in Houston: Gene’s Apartment and Dinner Plans Begin

08:58 — Navy Blue Restaurant and the Dover Sole That Became a Whole Moment

10:48 — Gene Refuses to Split the Entree and David Explains the Table Side Boning of the Fish

Links Mentioned

🐟 Navy Blue Restaurant Houston: navybluehospitality.com

📬 Stretch Marks on Substack: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

Watch on YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

Listen on Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more of Melissa? Join her on Substack at Stretch Marks.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Y’all. We are thirty-eight minutes of chaos and I need you to know that this episode opens with me trying to pull off a skin tag in the middle of recording. That is who I am. That is who I have always been. My Aunt Melba clips hers off with whatever sharp object is nearby while making direct, unblinking eye contact with you, and honestly she is the most powerful woman I have ever met in my life.

From there we somehow end up talking about a Columbia fleece ad campaign where a girl runs around begging strangers for a fax machine, and David, bless his heart, announces that he could absolutely fake a fax if he really wanted to. Sir.

Then we go full nostalgic because those AI videos of Pizza Hut circa 1988 have got me in a chokehold and I cannot explain why I have watched the same eleven seconds approximately one thousand times. We also spend a meaningful amount of time grieving the loss of our local Dairy Queen, which is apparently a community crisis so severe that our pastor has brought it up from the actual pulpit three separate Sundays in a row. The congregation murmured, people. They murmured.

This episode is funny and warm and a little unhinged and it ends mid-story because that is just who we are over here.

One Marriage. Two Mics. Zero Filters.

Timestamps

00:00 — Melissa is pulling off a skin tag live on air and we are all just going to deal with that

01:13 — Aunt Melba clips skin tags with her bare hands and stares you in the eye doing it

02:22 — The Columbia fax machine ad campaign and why Melissa is obsessed with it

04:52 — David announces he could probably fake a fax if he really wanted to

06:01 — Poppy’s Rolodex and the Sam Walton museum in Bentonville that is only 30 minutes long

07:30 — Those AI nostalgia videos have Melissa in a full emotional chokehold

09:05 — Pizza Hut on a Friday night with a sleepover friend and calling Miss Campbell

10:57 — The Dairy Queen is gone and our pastor has mentioned it from the pulpit three times

Links Mentioned

✍️ Stretch Marks on Substack (Melissa’s writing and audio community): bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

Watch on YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

Listen on Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want to stay in the know? Melissa’s Stretch Marks (Substack) is where the real stuff lives.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Well. Here we are.

We started this episode talking about tea. Specifically the new tea place in town, McAlister’s Deli tea memberships, and David Radke’s deeply committed relationship with Rudy’s Barbecue plastic cups that he has been storing in the back of his truck for SEVEN WEEKS on the off chance that we might one day pass a Rudy’s again. Which, for the record, we will not. Because Rudy’s is not a Taco Bell. There are not seventeen of them between here and the grocery store. But you cannot tell this man anything.

Then somehow, bless the Lord, we landed on Hyrox. Which is either a fitness competition, an athlete’s fever dream, or a German word that no one will explain properly. Melissa still does not know what a kilometer is. David tried to explain it. Siri got involved. Nobody won.

And then. Then. A 24 year old woman at a Hyrox competition in Beijing lost control of her bowels mid-race. In front of everyone. On camera. And she kept going.

We talk about it. We have opinions. We have feelings. We have questions. And somehow this is still a family friendly show.

Buckle up, y’all.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome and why Melissa’s chair height is a whole conversation

02:05 — The new tea place HTO and David’s Georgia Peach moment

03:11 — McAlister’s Deli tea memberships and the dream of free refills forever

03:49 — Rudy’s Barbecue, the plastic cups, and the seven week truck situation

06:51 — What is High Rocks and why does nobody know what it means

09:21 — Melissa and Siri attempt to define a kilometer (it goes poorly)

12:20 — The Beijing High Rocks competition and the bowel incident heard round the world

Links Mentioned

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

✉️ Stretch Marks on Substack (Melissa’s weekly writing and audio): bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

Watch / Listen

Watch on YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

Listen on Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more Melissa in your life during the week? Follow allow at Stretch Marks, Melissa’s Substack community.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

Okay so here is what happened. Melissa burned an entire pot of potatoes, Rocco walked in saying the house smelled like a smokers house, David was in a hoodie in September while it was a hundred degrees outside, and somehow all of that became a full conversation about sleepmaxxing. Which is a real thing. Harvard referenced it. David is already annoyed.

This episode is about the maxxing explosion and how Melissa and David are apparently the case study nobody asked for. One of them is a biological furnace. One of them eats Cheez-Its in bed. Neither of them is sleeping. And one of them has a skincare shelf and a pre-bed shower routine that tells a very different story than the words coming out of her mouth.

David’s position is that maxxing is just anxiety wearing a productivity costume and he is holding that hill. Melissa’s position is slightly more complicated because she has been accidentally maxxing things for years without the vocabulary for it.

They get into lookmaxxing, soft maxxing, Melissa’s very specific plans for Istanbul, the kiwi thing, Rocco’s hyper fixation, and the quiet thesis underneath all of it.

Funny throughout. Unresolved at the end. Exactly how it should be.

Timestamps

00:00 — Rocco Walks In, Burned Potatoes, and the House That Smells Like a Smokers House

01:50 — David in a Hoodie in September and the Thermostat That Started This Marriage

03:15 — What Is Sleepmaxxing and Why Is Harvard Involved

05:00 — The Full Maxxing Breakdown: Lookmaxxing, Soft Maxxing, and What Melissa Googled

08:40 — Melissa Wants to Go to Istanbul and David Has Feelings About That

10:15 — Is Maxxing Just Anxiety Wearing a Productivity Costume

11:35 — Rocco, Hyper Fixation, and the Core Four Radke Confession

12:21 — Hobbitmaxxing: The Only Maxxing That Actually Delivers

Links Mentioned

🧢 Concho USA, licensed hats for 55+ schools, ships from Texas in 24 hours: https://conchousa.com

📖 Stretch Marks on Substack (Melissa’s writing, audio messages, and community): https://bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

🍗 Chicken-Fried Women (Melissa’s book): https://bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

Watch on YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

Listen on Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Want more Melissa Radke in your week? Join the fun on Melissa’s Substack, Stretch Marks.

MelissaRadke.Substack.com

There is a woman in Memphis who used to wait tables. Two women sat down, ordered food, ordered drinks, watched her run herself ragged, then picked up their kids and walked right out the door without paying a single dollar. Not a dime. Not even a backward glance.

Now she is standing at an empty table staring at a $105 tab that is coming straight out of her pocket. Her rent money.

And she has a choice to make.

Melissa heard this story from a woman at church and immediately needed to bring it to David because it opens up the thing neither of them can fully agree on: what do you actually do in that moment? Do you chase them? Do you say something? Do you stand there and let it happen because confrontation feels impossible even when you are the one being robbed?

Melissa will fully admit she looks like someone who would flip a table but is actually the person who would walk to the back and quietly cry into a dish rag. David has opinions about that. They also somehow end up talking about a towel, a bathtub, a brilliant idea that required no clothing, and a woman at church who does not understand personal space.

It is a whole thing. Come on in.

Links Mentioned

📖 Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke: bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

💊 Beautiful Yu Health Supplements: https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

✍️ Stretch Marks on Substack: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

Watch / Listen

▶️ YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

🎙️ Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

🎵 Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Follow + Subscribe

📸 Instagram: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowInstagram

👥 Facebook: bit.ly/TheRadkesFacebook

Want more of this every single week? Join us on Substack.

- Weekday POV Audio Messages

- Twice-monthly We’re Here for You Wednesday advice podcasts

- Monthly paid-only posts

- Community access for real conversation

- Subscribe for $9/month or $90/year: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

David walked into Home Depot in the pouring rain carrying his mama’s peacock umbrella and then had the nerve to text me about it like he deserved a trophy. That is where we are starting today and honestly I do not know why I share a microphone with this man.

From there we get into Rocco’s 18th birthday celebration, which ended with me carrying a double cookie sheet of loaded crinkle fries through the living room with no plates, no napkins, and enough Wingstop ranch to cause a minor emergency. People had ranch on their faces. I regret nothing.

Then David and I get into the great coffee debate of our marriage, specifically why I have fully abandoned Starbucks and given my whole heart to Seven Brew. I am getting free coffees. Girl math is involved. David does not understand girl math and that is his problem.

We also need to talk about the Seven Brew drive-through that put a Santa question on their window while people had children in their cars. Someone made a decision that day and it was the wrong one.

Rocco is officially 18, Taylor is home from college, and David thinks a peacock umbrella is a personality. It’s a full episode. Grab something to drink and come sit with us.

Runtime: 40 minutes and worth every single one of them.

Links Mentioned

Stretch Marks on Substack (Melissa’s personal newsletter and community)

bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack

Beautiful Yu Health Supplements

https://bit.ly/beautifulyu

Chicken-Fried Women by Melissa Radke (book)

bit.ly/ChickenFriedWomen

Watch / Listen

Watch on YouTube: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowYouTube

Listen on Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowApple

Listen on Spotify: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowSpotify

Follow + Subscribe

Instagram: bit.ly/TheRadkeShowInstagram

Facebook: bit.ly/TheRadkesFacebook

Want more of us than one episode a week can hold? Join the Substack community and get all of this:

- Weekday POV Audio Messages

- Twice-monthly We’re Here for You Wednesday advice podcasts

- Monthly paid-only posts

- Community access for real conversation

- Subscribe for $9/month or $90/year: bit.ly/MelissaRadkeSubstack