Puzzles and Recipes

Clowns are buoyant, which may explain how this podcast stays afloat. This month, Jonah, John, and Rob ponder the lousy-man theory of history, admire a podcast whose hosts actually do research, and demonstrate why seminary hasn’t made Rob any less cranky. Along the way: TV greatness, a longstanding dispute over Miller’s Crossing, and the academic credentials of professional clowns.

The GLoP crew celebrates America’s 250th birthday the only way they know how: by trying to name five movies that explain the country and somehow ending up in a ditch full of Fire Birds, Paper Moon, The Best Years of Our Lives, the mayor from Jaws, Mel Brooks at 100, Gila monsters, late-stage capitalism, early-stage diarrhea, and the eternal question of whether this is still technically a pop-culture podcast. It’s patriotic, digressive, occasionally disgusting, and probably more grateful for Western civilization than Western civilization deserves.

John Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, and Rob Long er, "ricochet" from Trump potentially skipping his son’s wedding to the collapse of late-night television, the strange death of black-tie culture, the rise of “Technogerd” pharmaceutical ads, and whether the future belongs to GLP-1 drugs, Episcopalians, or Chinese vertical dramas. Along the way: Jane Fonda at the Chinese Theatre, yacht-rock pedophilia lyrics, the comedy gold of the JPMorgan sex-lawsuit texts, Netflix sitcoms, empty Manhattan churches, Johnny Carson’s killer instinct, and the immortal phrase “Fiddla Please.” It’s a classic free-association GLoP: equal parts cultural criticism, showbiz war stories, theological detour, and middle-aged panic attack — all powered by Dongfang energy and sustained by propofol-grade banter.

If you came for structure, coherence, or basic human decency—wrong podcast. In this unhinged episode of GLoP Culture, Rob Long, Jonah Goldberg, and John Podhoretz wander from a cornhole champion murder story to Helen Keller trutherism, pausing only to take gratuitous swings at Gandhi, Princess Diana, and basically anyone history has been too polite to re-examine. Along the way: deeply suspect jokes, aggressively niche cultural references, unsolicited architecture criticism, and a surprising amount of time spent litigating the moral failures of long-dead public figures. There is no thesis. There is no arc. There is only digression.

It’s February, the weather is trying to kill us, the garbage hasn’t been picked up, and somehow this leads—inevitably—to Frank Sinatra insulting his fans, Catherine O’Hara being a comic genius for half a century, the Washington Post lighting itself on fire, and the uncomfortable possibility that puzzles and recipes are the last functioning pillar of American journalism. Also Jeffrey Epstein and a trio of off-color jokes. Obviously.

What starts as a polite podcast immediately face-plants into profanity, pop-culture archaeology, and three grown men asking the most important question of our time: What would TJ Hooker do? From ventriloquists on the radio to Emmy-night humiliation rituals, from ICE raids and clerical angst to Scooby-Doo’s latent homicidal potential. Along the way, our hosts lovingly argue about bad uniforms, worse TV, feral cats, frozen smiles, Hollywood’s slow collapse, and why every great American moral crisis can (and should) be resolved by referencing Columbo, All in the Family, or a half-remembered episode of Different Strokes.

Welcome to another episode of GLoP, America’s only podcast where three grown men debate television, theology, demon scratch marks, and the cultural meaning of Mr. Ed — all while Rob Long eats shrimp noodles into a muted microphone.  On this outing, demonology, alien hive minds, and whether Pluribus is actually a right-wing parable about American exceptionalism disguised as a friendly invasion of body-snatching Marxist Care Bears. Also, the deeply important question of why Hollywood produced a series of Talking Mule movies, and what that has to do with Clint Eastwood, and why turkey Peking Duck is the greatest Thanksgiving delicacy.

After a brief hiatus, GLoP is back and, well, not much has changed: John can’t remember the month, Rob’s in Los Angeles for reasons unknown, and Jonah is courageously trying to keep the conversation somewhere near coherence. The trio tackle vital topics like bad bosses (biblical and otherwise), forgotten ’70s variety shows, why The Blues Brothers is accidentally beautiful, and how nostalgia has officially gone off the rails. Somewhere along the way, there’s circumcision talk, theological tangents, and at least three references no one under fifty will understand. In short: classic GLoP — smart, ridiculous, and slightly embarrassed of itself.

Yep, it's another episode of GLoP, where three middle-aged men wander from topic to topic like your drunk uncles at Thanksgiving—except with more references to 1970s TV pilots and less pie. This week’s meandering odyssey covers the full spectrum: wiping Faye Dunaway’s… dignity, debating whether puppies can survive her PR aura, discovering that Superman might be unpopular overseas because America is now “meh,” lamenting the death of big loud comedies (RIP, Naked Gun), and reviewing TV shows no one under 50 has heard of but everyone pretends to watch. Along the way, you’ll get unsolicited opinions on Colbert’s cancellation (spoiler: yay), the economics of late-night TV, why Hungarian tax rebates are the real star of international thrillers, and an extended meditation on historical body odor.

This podcast has never been above (or below) using a title to click-bait you into listening and this episode maintains that high standard. But rest assured, that’s not all that is discussed: the guys delve into F1, that New York Times Top 100 movies of the 21st Century list, the miracle that is Andor, what the Anchorman pitch meeting must have been like, Rob has a moral dilemma in Egypt, a very weird Broadway play, Jonah has a bad experience with an EV, and is Peter Thiel actually the Anti-Christ? We report, you decide.