Low Culture Boil

In this ep Amber talks to Rax about her sobriety and her new collection of essays Sloppy Or: Doing It All Wrong PREORDER IT NOW! Like before you finish this sentence. They catch up as usual, get resentful about resentments and there is a special guest at the very end, because she woke up from her nap early. Look out for Amber's next gripe zone about her daughter hogging the mic.

Gay Florida novelist Kristen Arnett joins Rax and Amber to talk about retirement communities in the Sunshine State, of which there are 8 in Kristen's immediate vicinity alone! What are the environmental and social impacts of importing seniors by the thousands to live on island time in Florida? Also, what the hell is "NYPD Pizza"?

In this ep Amber and Rax talk about the 2017 animated film The Boss Baby. But before that they talk about baby botox, how music is a drug and everything that has ever happened to them. PS: I'm sorry it took me (Amber) forever to edit this one.

In this whirlwind ep Rax and Amber talk to Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about construction, revenge and boos baby. They also eventually get to talk about Kayla's piece for Autostraddle "We Went to Every Dyke Bar in NYC in One Day" that she wrote with Drew Burnett Gregory and which we highly recommend! If you listen to the whole ep you will get to hear about all the lesbian bars they visited and the Shyamalan-like twist at the end, they were the lesbian bars all along, no it's not that, but it kinda is. Also, if you listen to the end, you will hear the insistent babbles of Amber's baby. Remember, bars are about the people you are in them with and feminism is about pissing wherever you want.

Josh Gondelman (comedian, friend of the pod, and official Boston correspondent) joins us once again to talk about Boston's finest, Ben Affleck. Why is he so grim and does it have anything to do with that incredible phoenix tattoo? 

Don't call it a comeback, actually you totally can, that's what it is. Amber and Rax are back to talk about the most important cultural event happening right now, that's right, we're talking about Red Lobster filing for bankruptcy. We just had to come back from hiatus to look into this because something about the headlines smelled...shrimpy. Of course before we get to that we spend about half the podcast catching up, and after we spend a third of the podcast griping, so you get like a quarter or something (we don't do math) of Red Lobster content. Which is all you really need because it's a story as old as time. But if you want to read more about it we (Rax) read these articles, Amber read Rax's outline: The forgotten racial history of Red Lobster - Nathaniel Meyersohn for CNN Red Lobster, an American Seafood Institution, Files for Bankruptcy - Ali Watkins for NYT Red Lobster and Waffles - Jordan Lebeau, NYT The Fishy Death of Red Lobster - Emily Stewart, Business Insider If Red Lobster dies, part of me will, too - John Semley, Toronto Star  

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Rax and author Elyssa Maxx Goodman discuss drag from 17th century kabuki theater to RuPaul's Drag Race and pandemic-born Zoom drag shows, all as told in Elyssa's forthcoming book "Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York"! The book comes out on 9/12 and is a must-read for anyone who loves, duh, glitter and concrete.

Amber and Rax chat about another 90s classic, Rugrats! This weird looking show about babies getting into shenanigans was the first cartoon with truly multigenerational appeal. It first aired in 1991 and we're here to say, it still slaps. Shoutout to listener Rachel Feingersh for the topic suggestion!   Sources: The Oral History Of 'Nicktoons', Part III: Exploring The Multigenerational Appeal Of 'Rugrats' (Caseen Gaines and Mathew Klickstein, Decider, 2016) Talk About a Baby Boom (Paul Brownfield, LA Times, 1998) When Grownups Let Children Have a Say (Laurie Midflin, NYT, 1997) 'Rugrats' Creative Force (Rugrats Writers, LA Times, 1996) You Dumb Babies! (Mimi Swartz, The New Yorker, 1998)

Amber and Rax talk about one of their favorites, Eve Babitz. The LA Woman, the groupie, the muse, the artist, the author and ultimately the star. IYKYK, if you don't, listen. Info for this ep comes from: The "Sex and Rage" of Eve Babitz (Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 2017) Eve Babitz, a Hedonist With a Notebook, is Dead at 78 (Penelope Green, NYT, 2021) How Eve Babitz Saw Herself (Kevin Dettmar, The Atlantic, 2022) and of course Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik, 2019