Tom and Don are joined by beloved third mic AgileTablet and our charming friend Cyd to chat about the summer and learn some interesting facts about firearms. Cyd tells us funny stories about her glamorous Los Angeles life amid that global disease we all love.

Cyd's twitter: @screamcummer // Mentioned: @akhchronicles

Intro music by auntie004. Outro music by reiyashi.

We talk Drake! And a bunch of other topics you asked us to chime in on - buying a first home, the divinity of Jesus, samurai, foreign trade, money in politics, autism... All sorts of things! Featuring just Tom and Don this week.

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Our friends Leo and John V return to commiserate about the horrors of covid brain and the never-ending pandemic. John V relates his big city trials and tribulations of concussions and wild wandering while we all remember to laugh because you can't win.

Mentioned: Youtube channel "VisualPoet1". Intro music by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Mike and Khalid join Tom and Don to discuss William Dudley Pelley, an eccentric writer who promoted his own unique brand of American fascism and a complex spiritual system. Beginning his career in Hollywood, Pelley becomes an important influence on everything from grail quests to UFOs. We dig into his life and ideas as we set up a series about the connections between esotericism and postwar American politics.

References: William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult by Scott Beekman, The Terrorist Next Door by Daniel Levitas and Steven Snyder's VISUP blog: visupview.blogspot.com

Mentioned: A Case at Law (1917), One-Thing-at-a-Time O'Day (1919), What Women Love (1920), The Light in the Dark (1922), My Seven Minutes in Eternity by William Dudley Pelley, The Over-Soul by Ralph Waldo Emerson, No More Hunger by William Dudley Pelley, Dark Crystal (1982), Mind War by Michael Aquino

Our friend Lex joins the crew to talk baseball's return amid rampant disease. We discuss the already-disastrous MLB mini-season and some recent bungles like the Houston cheating scandal.

Mentioned: @done_watching, @AwfulPundits

Intro by auntie004. Outro by reiyashi.

Hateful return guest 'Ed Buck' drops in to share his negative opinions on film criticism. We talk about the (often false) dichotomy between blockbusters and festival films. Ed is not hopeless, though, that people could still make some good movies, while Don starts wondering about why to write at all.

Mentioned: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, 12 Years a Slave, Get Out, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, Blow-Up, Vitalina Varela, "A Certain Tendency in French Cinema" by François Truffaut, The Last Jedi, Avatar, Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry.

Recommendations: Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami), Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Wenders), Le Gai Savoir (Godard).

We are joined by returning guest Khalid to discuss the Occult. While strange rituals and hidden knowledge are often seen as silly, such language permeates our ways of thinking about even "scientific" knowledge. We chat about what that means for critiques of modernism and its relationship to world religions. And we get real weird with it.

Mentioned: Against the Modern World by Mark Sedgwick, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail.

Intro music by auntie004. New outro by reiyashi.

After a few solid months of interviews we dig back into the mailbag for your questions. We start with the Hagia Sophia and Catholic profiteering, crystal ball our futures, talk about Birthright trips and Islamophobia, discuss Charles Bettelheim and Skyrim, MOOCs and Northern Ireland, Maoist rebels and racism, and even have a bit on Rosa Luxemburg.

Mentioned: Charles Bettelheim's Class Struggles in the USSR.

Intro music by auntie004. Outro is Billy Woods - Western Education is Forbidden.

Our friend Mike, Professor Pizzagate himself, returns to discuss the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP is Canada's federal police force which was recently back in the spotlight after a bizarre shooting in Nova Scotia. We work through some of the stranger moments in the Mounties' history and why it matters for understanding our corrupt world.  

Mentioned: Dispersing the Fog by Paul Palango. Intro music by auntie004. Outro is John Carpenter - Night.

Tom and Don are joined by our old friend Ismail to talk about his fascination with Albania and the history of socialism. Beyond the infamous bunkers, we talk about the viability of planned economies and the development of Marxism-Leninism. We also chat about eRegime, a game community that Ismail helps lead.

Ismail's website: http://eregime.org/

Intro music by auntie004. Outro is Enver Hoxha Tungjatjeta!, Albanian Communist Patriotic song.