[TEASER] Justin Halpern is back from the WGA strike

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This episode is free, but $5 a month gets you all the premium ones (two a week!). Welcome back to another episode of The Frotcast; on this podcast we hold space for opera singers and ballerinas. Dave Weigel joins us this week to talk current events and Marty Supreme. To kick things off, we take advantage of having a real-deal reporter on the show to talk about current events. Dave takes us through the latest on the Iran War and what it means: nothing! We’re still trying to figure out if we’d like to get drafted and die in Iran, or stay here and die of Measles. Choices, choices. Because this is now a looksmaxxing podcast, we discuss Clavicular. More importantly, Brendan has a bone to pick with the fellas for not appreciating his one-word message in the group chat: cloacular. These philistines don’t understand true art when they see it. Chatmogged. We are unfortunately discussing Glenn Beck again, and his good pal AI George Washington. General Sloppington makes some very interesting insights into the current situ-haha just kidding. He makes a bunch of mouth sounds that resemble coherent sentences as Beck drools in awe. As they say online “this must hit so hard if you’re a dumbass”. Finally, we discuss Marty Supreme. Once again, Josh Safdie brings us a tense, grimy NYC thriller with stunt casting and parts that have no business working, yet do anyway. Case in point: Mr Wonderful from Shark Tank plays a major role and knocks it out of the park. May we humbly suggest a starring role for Senor Wonderful in a Harry S Truman biopic? Finally, we round things up with some Oscar prognosticating. Please do not bet on our favorites, unless you win and then you have to give us a cut. By reading this sentence you have agreed to the above terms. Thank you.

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This episode is free, but $5 a month gets you all the premium ones (usually at least two a week!).  The penguin meme- Where does it come from? What does it mean? What message is the Trump administration trying to convey by sharing it? Is electing a president whose brain has been turned to beef stew by the internet good? Answers to one or two of these questions, and MORE…on this week’s Frotcast! Vince shows us why Up**xx made him expendable: so they could use that money to hire Will.I.Am. The erstwhile Black Eyed Pea was recently seen lecturing Arizona State students on why they need to buy an Nvidia processor to host their own AI that will work [citation needed] for them so they can at least profit from being replaced by AI. Well well well, looks like Mr. Fancy Pants Mancini did himself a fat lot of good going Ivy League, he could have been banging strippers (present and future) and programming a digital slave in Tempe! Ilhan Omar got sprayed with apple cider vinegar by some weird old dude and she almost beat his ass lol. Dude’s brother also called him a piece of shit in the newspaper and everything. Let’s just ignore what this may say about our current state of affairs in America or what it portends, and just enjoy one of life’s simple pleasures, pointing and laughing at a buffoon. Finally, cuck ethics- watch us turn into right wing influencers in real time as we discuss a true cuckolding situation that plays out in the pages of the failing New York Times. That will be 400,000 dollars, comrades. Matt also tells a story about taking an injured Loon to an animal rescue, but I’m not sure what the point was.

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This episode is free, but $5 a month gets you all the premium ones.  Well it looks like our wish a few weeks back for things to suck less shit really blew up in our faces. Sorry about that, everyone. It turns out that the largest donor to the party that is actively obstructing the investigation into the Michael Jordan of pedophiles because our current president was best friends with said prolific pedophile owns a website that generates nudes of minors on demand. HEY GROK SHOW ME A TEN YEAR OLD’S GENITALS To distract ourselves from the crackpot conspiracy-pilled eldritch horror of this current administration we watched Bugonia, a movie about a schlub who suffered an overdose of podcasts and youtube and is now convinced he’s the victim of a vast cosmic alien plot. We get into spoiler territory early on, so consider yourself warned. In the non-spoiler department, we all liked it. Jesse P Lemmons and Emma Stone are great as always, and former Pod Yourself guest Stavros Halkias is a delight. Did I mention Producer Brent is here? Producer Brent is here. He watched Anaconda, and let me tell you, this man has takes on snakes. Solid B+. Tony Dookiepill, who was hand-picked by Bari Weiss to read the news, reads the news like a person who was hand-picked by Bari Weiss to read the news. This man apparently has had two circumcisions as an adult? There has never been a better time in history to be an absolute freak. Finally, we all watched the Chevy Chase documentary and then forgot to talk about it. Solid B+. ICE executed a nonviolent citizen in the street yesterday. Fuck ICE. Sorry, we don’t have any jokes about that. If you are angry and able, please donate to Renee Good’s gofundme. Wocka wocka! -Description by Brendan

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This is just a teaser, but you can hear the full episode by signing up on Patreon.  This week, Matt is unhappily parenting, or maybe just looking for parking, in Sedona, Arizona, and Brendan is fixing an exploding pool pump, but that’s no reason to fret, because we’re ringing in the year with Sean Keane, from the Roundball Rock podcast and soon to be playing Cobb’s Comedy Club this January 7th in San Francisco. We’re discussing New Year’s Eve, and how it’s by far the most overrated holiday, but also mourning the death of a true poster, Mike Fossey, aka Mike F, by reading a few of his greatest posts. Then we mourn our dead The Wire actors, Ziggy and Clay Davis, and I tell the story of my one Isiah Whitlock Jr. encounter, which Matt rudely interrupts to call in from Sedona, Arizona while he’s in the middle of pooping. He tells us all about the crystal vortex and why he hates vacation parenting and thinks everyone in Sedona is actually on drugs. After that, we discuss Gwyneth Paltrow’s journey from actress to Goop CEO and back to actress again (Sean read a book!), and since it’s year-end list season, we review the one awards season film that Sean has seen, which happens to be Jay Kelly. Didja ever notice that Jay Kelly would’ve been much better if it had been about Adam Sandler’s character? Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? That leads into a bunch of related discussions, about American Beauty, Ben Affleck’s greatest roles and how well he lays pipe. And also Is This Thing On? and movies about stand-up comedy just generally. The regular Frot boys will be back next week, but in the meantime hope you like Sean and I just bullshitting about movies for a while. As always, no refunds.

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This past week (actually, the week before Thanksgiving, if we want to get technical) I got to interview Mike Makowsky, creator of Netflix’s Death By Lightning, for GQ. You can check out that GQ piece here. I was a big fan of the show, and it seems like I’m not alone in this (it is the beau ideal of a “dad show”). When I read the book a few years back (Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic) it seemed like the kind I’d love to see as a movie or show, even though those kinds of adaptations often don’t turn out that well. To my surprise, Makowsky’s adaptation seemed to capture most of what I loved about the book, without trying to cover everything in it. It had a take on the book, which is what any great adaptation needs. And then, of course, the cast brought a little something special and surprising to every role. In fact, I this bluesky post by Klungar kind of sums it up: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:73flhcapo35zmccahktbtvpe/post/3lpp2pelhzk2l?ref_src=embed Yep. Anyway, check out the GQ piece (in which I go into much greater detail about the historical background of the show and its parallels), listen to the interview here, and if you enjoy this kind of audio #Content, maybe give the Frotcast a follow too if you haven’t already.

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This Thanksgiving, we at Frotcast LLC would like to collectively give thanks to you, our listeners. And also to RFK Jr for answering all the questions we have about what it’s like for a 70 year old guy to text you demanding you drink his cum. The question we’d still like to have answered is, “is it weirder to be the aforementioned 70 year old, or a 30 year old who’s totally into it?” This marks two straight episodes of Nuzzi discussion, let’s hope Ryan Lizza drops even more disgusting revelations over the holiday so we can shoot for three. Chuck Grassley POV video? Lauren Boebert interracial gangbang? Mitch McConnell Goatse? Next, thanks to Elon Musk of all people, we now know that the last decade of American politics has mostly been about literally making up a guy to be mad about. Yep, it turns out that the platform that Elon tried to back out of buying due to the bot problem has a bot problem. We’re sorry you had to find out all those hot patriotic fefos of yours are actually a Macedonian guy. In this week’s big news, our Big Beautiful President has successfully bullied Paramount into making Rush Hour 4. No word yet on how exactly 71 year old Jackie Chan is going to be able to make that happen, but surely this will be the feat that finally earns the big man his Nobel Peace Prize. Brett Ratner redemption arc, here we come (while eating shrimp cocktail)! Have a great holiday everyone, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your new life partner Dragomir. (-Description by Brendan) 

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Patreon dot com slash frotcast! Sign up at Patreon to listen to the full episode. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one!  It’s another week in our slow, inexorable march towards death, which means more sweet content for you piggies! This week, we at Frotcast, LLC regret to inform you that A House of Dynamite was… not so dynamite. It’s supposed to be about a nuclear missile strike on America, but it’s really about people looking at computers and talking to other people on Zoom. If you think about it, it’s really wish fulfillment for what it feels like to be on Zoom. I guess it’s also wish fulfillment for people who are really into “what if Rashomon but shitty” and “my brain stopped accepting new information after Obama’s second inauguration”. Slightly related, we share the Washington Post’s review of Karine Jean-Pierre’s new book about why she’s leaving the Democratic Party. Let’s just say her book is just as idea-free as the party she’s leaving, so we’d really like to see these crazy kids put aside their differences so they can have pretend HR meetings in a desperate attempt to feel like they’re doing something. Also, Vince gets horny on main and Matt thinks he’s not nearly freaky enough. Do you know what sissy-hypno is? Don’t worry, Matt will break it down for you. You’re feeling verrrrry fruity…

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This week’s Frotcast guest: Michael Waldron, co-creator of Chad Powers on Hulu! (Previously: Heels and Loki). Don’t miss the Chad Powers season finale, Tuesday, October 28. Anyway, Michael is dishing the dirt and legitimizing us with his presence this week, telling us all about how an Eli Manning sketch became a TV show that’s actually good, how he got permission to use real college teams in his show about college football, the joys of letting Glen Powell be silly, and why the best writing advice is actually “pretend you’re really stupid.” The show is great and the interview is too, which is why we’re giving you the interview portion over here on the free feed! For the whole show, with current events and riffing and all, head on over to patreon.com/frotcast and sign up, wouldja?? — Hey! Hi. It’s another episode of the Frotcast, pretty much the same as the last 652 times. Yep. Anyyyywayyyy, what’s in the news??? AI parties are in the news, that’s what! It’s a perfect descriptor because it’s an unnecessary, shoddy, low-effort facsimile of an original idea. The short version is, a group of besties in San Francisco have gotten together to show us that you can’t spell “alienated from your friends and family” without AI. Listen to the whole segment if you want to feel really sad, though. We then hear the harrowing tales of discrimination and harassment that our poor Cybertruck owners have to endure. We hear from several, none of whom seem to say anything about the truck itself, and instead focus on the reactions it elicits. There’s probably a lesson there but this podcast is about the doo doo, brother. Anyway, it absolutely cements the Cybertruck’s status as America’s Most Divorced Car. You know what they say, being a Cybertruck owner means never having to put the seat down. Finally, long time Frotfan/first time Frotguest Michael Waldron joins us to discuss his new show, Chad Powers starring Glen Powers. Powell! Glen Powell. He walks us through how he and Powell turned a ten-minute prank sketch into a hit TV show (through a mutual deep and unabiding love of the 1998 action blockbuster Armageddon, of course), the challenges of writing a show based around time travel (For his other show Loki, Chad doesn’t have those kind of powers), and the majestic soaring height of the Manning Brothers. It’s kinda nice because short kings Vince and Michael get to commiserate over having tall colleagues. Must be rough. Everything’s computer, including Vince’s smart TV, which is working out great for him, so stream Chad Powers now on Hulu.

Before it was a presumed Oscar contender starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, The Smashing Machine was a documentary about MMA pioneer Mark Kerr, directed by John Hyams. Arguably one of the most influential documentaries of the 21st century, I was so obsessed with it that the first time I tracked down John Hyams to pepper him with questions about it was 13 damned years ago. That’s right, before my retrospective about The Smashing Machine documentary was a GQ feature, it was a FilmDrunk Frotcast. I haven’t seen the upcoming scripted A24 version starring The Rock, but knowing that Benny Safdie was at least as obsessed with John Hyams’ documentary with I am, obsessed enough to recreate certain scenes right down to getting the hats and trunks right, makes me think it’s going to be pretty good. Point is, this has no spoilers for The Smashing Machine (2025), because I haven’t seen it yet. What this is is the most comprehensive behind-the-scenes interview about The Smashing Machine (2002) that I could conduct. Did you know it was originally supposed to be called “The Specimen?” That HBO considered calling it “The Bloody Punch?” That Hyams wrote his own scripted version of it that was once intended as a vehicle for Mark Wahlberg? That in a roundabout way, it would go on to evolve into what became Warrior? All of these things are true, and we know them because John Hyams was cool enough to sit in for an hour-plus interview. A handful of quotes made it into my GQ retrospective (up there with my Freddy Got Fingered oral history in terms of things I’m most proud of having written) but I always intended to post the whole conversation. Feel like I owed it to posterity. Funny that Dana White and the UFC are now gung ho on Dwayne Johnson playing Mark Kerr–as Hyams recalls it, Zuffa used to try to scrub every mention of the documentary back when the UFC was still fighting for legitimacy (perhaps understandably so). The original came from a different time, when MMA fighters were far more concerned with convincing the public that they were legitimate athletes and not scary monsters (let alone trying to do rightwing demagoguery or whatever). That’s what makes it such an incredible time capsule, and Hyams was more than game to let yours truly Remember Some MMA Guys, specifically from the PRIDE days. Not always successfully, but that’s why editing exists. Hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did, and don’t forget to check out some of John’s other great movies like Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Sick while you’re at it.

PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Sign up now at Patreon. It’s two podcasts (Pod Yourself and the Frotcast) for the price of one! Patreon dot com slash frotcast! Returning champion Billy Corben (The U, Screwball, Cocaine Cowboys) is on this week to discuss his new documentary Men of War, which covers a wide-eyed Canadian idealist’s journey from thinking Full Metal Jacket is a movie about how the military is cool, to the US Special Forces, to ham-fistedly attempting a coup in Venezuela. It’s quite a ride. Billy generously goes deep on Venezuelan politics to set the stage for how this unlikeliest of coup plotters got himself in that position to begin with. Billy also discusses his interpretation of coup leader Jordan Goudreau as a “post-modern” soldier in that his entire point of reference seems to be old war movies. “I’ll infiltrate with an inflatable boat, suit up theatrically on the beach, attack the island, scalp a guy with a saw blade, then impale Maduro with a steam pipe. Just like Commando!” Billy has to go because the people running the studio he’s in have turned the lights off like bouncers at last call, so we then segue into this week’s hot topic that surely no one is tired of discussing, the Charlie Kirk shooting. Specifically, why are we still trying to shoehorn people into a left/right spectrum, and where does a guy making jokes about a furry with a boner fit in? Political incoherence is the new manifesto. Also, we are begging just one reporter to ask what “trans ideology” entails and how it can fit on a shell casing. We wrap up by discussing the Verhoeven-esque scene that emerged from the shooting as  Mormon influencer “Elder TikTok” posted a selfie video from the ensuing moments after the shooting, imploring his audience to like and subscribe to both his Instagram and the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Grim stuff. He also contaminated the crime scene by picking up blood-soaked items, presumably to sell on eBay. Nevermind, this is worse than anything Verhoeven came up with. Smash that like button and sound off in the comments! Rent Men of War on Prime Video and Apple TV (or wherever Men of War are sold!). Please.