The Occasionalists Podcast
Examining the human condition. Sometimes. Mostly jawing about pop culture and other nerdy pursuits.
Episodes
Our next minisode, shining a light on the country's financial health in 2008, has us taking a deeper look at the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, Bernie Madoff.
How could someone swindle so many people out of so much money?
As it turns out, rich people and the people regulating wealth aren't actually that smart.
You think things are bad now? They could always be worse.
Case in point: The Great Recession.
In 2008, the global financial system spun out of control, pushing the US and other developed nations to the brink of another depression.
We avoided that fate, but at a significant cost. What will the current affordability crisis cost us?
Besides credibility on the world stage and the lives of American soldiers, of course.
***UPDATE***
Some technical difficulties scuttled the original episode. However, that has been corrected. So please enjoy this episode as usual. THANK YOU!
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Our next episode of The Outsiders examines how the tools of digital activism and online protest were co-opted by the oppressors and turned against The Outsiders in just a few years.
And how in less than a generation, the idea of digital acti...
Our first political minisode of 2008, The Mirror Twins, is here!
Surely there's nothing that Barack Obama and his public nemesis, Donald Trump, share in common. Right!
Right?!
*Insert Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker meme here*
The March of Minisodes is upon us, and so is a brand new year! This time, we are tackling the latest year of our challenge, 2008.
For many of us older folks, 2008 feels like only yesterday. Yet, despite that sense of recency, it was a year of pivotal beginnings and endings—many of which flew under the radar at the time.
Pause that special edition VHS and have a listen to The Year of Firsts and Lasts.
As it turns out, the physics-defying Einstein-Rosen Bridge in my apartment receives multiple frequencies from across different times. This one is from exactly 44 years in the future, believe it or not!
So, without further ado, I present a Chicago-based movie review show featuring two aging Gen Alpha culture critics: From The Balcony.
We close out our 1991 coverage by examining the most dangerous weapon ever unleashed on the American public: RAP MUSIC. That's right — not the threat of nuclear war, not the crack epidemic, not even a backmasked Judas Priest record begging every child to join their local Satanic Church — Rap.
Thanks to the tireless moral guardians at the Parents Music Resource Center, we now know that 2 Live Crew, NWA, Public Enemy, and Ice-T wer...
Our next 1991 pop culture episode is live. This week, we're looking at how cinema diverged sharply from its past — and discuss whether or not that divergence still holds today.
We're highlighting three movies from 1991 that show how studios and filmmakers were positioning their movies along three distinct tracks, and give the hallmarks for each:
- The Silence of the Lambs (Prestige Cinema)
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Modern Bloc...
Our first episode of February finds us navigating a big year for pop culture, 1991.
We kick off our coverage of this critical numerical palindrome with a look at how the dedicated fans of underreported music genres and proper data collection radically changed the musical identity of an entire decade.
Plus, we talk about how to make your music more mechanical and why it's super chic to rebel against your parents.
Dust off those flan...
In one of the more interesting developments on this podcast, we accidentally found a direct signal from the future. It's only tuned into this one news broadcast, but it seems like a valuable resource we're definitely going to tap every month.
Here's the first dispatch we received from 20 years in the future.
We wrap up 1965 with a look at how the media covered the height of the Civil Rights Movement. From the Deep South to the West Coast, America was embroiled in a civil rights battle that the establishment would prefer to have crushed rather than even acknowledge.
The similarities to our present are stark—once more, the establishment is using state-sponsored violence and repression in the face of civil unrest, and is actively trying t...
The second episode of our dive into 1965 is now live.
We pick up and head to Vietnam for the beginnings of a generation-defining conflict that reshaped the government's relationship with the media, showcased the cost of American interventionism, and changed public perception of the US forever.
Our first episode of 2026 is here!
To kick off our brand new theme, we are taking it way back to a year of political turmoil, foreign wars, and true crime. That may sound very current, but that's the point!
We are discussing the year 1965 for all of January, and we are starting with the unprecedented rise in violence in the United States, headlined by America's budding interest in serial killers.
Our final episode of 2025 is a revisit to the top episode of the year, and it's no surprise what's taking the top spot: The Walking Dead!
Specifically, our look at The Walking Dead during Franchise February with Chemma.
This episode's popularity is proof that not only is TWD a legit mega-franchise, but maybe the biggest in television history. Maybe?
Let's discuss it!
Our last new episode of 2025 is a look at some of the best of pop culture in 2025.
Short and sweet synopsis, no?
See you next year, kiddos!
Our #2 episode of the year is another academic-style episode where we broke down the differences between movie scores and soundtracks and some of the key terminology that comes with this musical territory.
Enjoy!
It's time for our first of two wrap-up episodes, offering a direct look back at each month and what was learned throughout the year.
Enjoy the first part of our Year in Review.
The #3 episode as voted (there was no vote) on by you is another intro minisode. This time, it was our intro to the world of Horror Comedies.
What makes a horror comedy great and how do the two genres overlap? Listen and find out!
This past week has been one of the hardest all of us associated with the podcast have ever had. Our dear friend Dennis Kisela passed away unexpectedly last week. He was a building block of what this show would eventually become, teaming up with me almost two decades(!) ago to produce our stupid little sports and pop culture podcast.
Needless to say everyone who knew him is crushed and words alone cannot do him justice.
I think re-s...
The #4 episode of 2025 has been revealed and it is...an intro episode?! I'm assuming this is because it's really short and our brains can't focus for more than 30 minutes at a time. I get it!
Enjoy this brief minisode on the goings on for the first ever Musical Movie May.
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