The Middlebrow Multiverse

Our revenants return with mailbag follow-ups on Beethoven vs. the Beatles, the correct temperature for coffee, the broad appeal of Philip Roth, and the evolution of the Boy Scouts of America. 

The fellas do two speed brackets, facing off concepts, foodstuffs, jail sentences, and geopolitical outcomes, crowning two champions as between pizza, live sports, nice hotels, weddings, donuts, The Wire, non-fiction, and much more.  Predictably, hilarity ensues.

The bros get back to their roots with top threes and fuck 'ems.  They address the Japanese vs. German schools of automotive engineering and how they reflect life at large. Danny describes his first YouTube crush and complains about inaccurate euphemisms in dentistry. A good time is had by all.

The gents kick up their feet and manifest a good old fashioned BS session in which they each divulge four perfect things (including a $10 bottle of red wine), ponder bullshit jobs, touch on history and techniques of coffee, and generally bloviate with their characteristic wit and candor.

The lads dive into the mailbag to answer questions about AI, freeway ne'er-do-wells, and irony.  We blame society's ills on finance bros and ponder the definitional contours of middlebrow.

Our champions are back at it with a look at the news. They ponder why Trump and Taylor Swift are so ever-present, when did America hit its peak foreign power, and wow, what a time to be a Gen-Xer. Finally, they discuss a little-known army of smart home products and its nefarious deeds.

We get our first report card from our Middlebrow Ombudsman, who is watching out for our dear listeners and making sure Danny and Pete keep their content as middlebrow as possible. What is the definition of middlebrow? And do the lads hit the mark or fuck it up completely?

The lads splash some cash to determine which of the Oscar Best Picture winners from the 2001-2010 decade is the zenith of middlebrow entertainment. Cash is King as they examine (WITH SPOILERS) Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Million Dollar Baby, Crash, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Hurt Locker. There can be only one winner.

The guys start off with Danny's top 3 things that have grabbed his attention, then challenge Left Coast conventional wisdom 5 times and round it out with some Fuck 'Ems and Cheers. 

Our heroes dig deep into the mailbag and answer questions about Pete's fancy car, an illicit fireworks show, the numbing sameness and mediocrity of modern life, the illusive concept that is middlebrow, and elite travel status. Ka-chow!

The fellas discuss peoples' secret beliefs then dive into the news to cover Canada's superpig problem, the return of the secession fantasy, and Harvard's dark web body snatching scandal. 

The lads begin their spirited inquest into prize-winning middlebrow culture by sending three of these four Pulitzer Winners for Fiction to a grisly and untimely end: The Shipping News, The Road, American Pastoral, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Only one will survive to advance to the next round.

Danny misses a primo opportunity to do something whimsical and instead fumbles up some rather alarming statistics, setting the tone for a darker-than-usual episode. Then the fellas read you the news, including Boeing's problems, the self-taught savant that is decimating the pro bowling circuit, and the sad practical death of cryptids and UFOs. Finally, why is Joe Biden so unpopular, and what could be better than Balloon Boy?

In the first installment of this intentionally myopic series, Pete shares the various forms of moral anxiety that accompanied his finger injury, the guys divulge what numbers they track most obsessively, and Pete offers a refreshing tonic to Dad bod shame.

The fellas peer at the zeitgeist and assess Taylor Swift as Time Magazine's Person of the Year, the utter chaos that has replaced cable tv, the devolution of tipping culture, and how often we think about the Roman Empire.

The gents are back with a Top 3 and some Fuck 'ems (and some "Cheers"), providing hot takes on dopamine, the two remaining categories of popular music, the divine nature of citrus libations, the disposal of equine remains, the leaping over of lecterns, and more.

In the inaugural outing for the Middlebrow Culture Warrior, the boys discuss Jeeves & Wooster, the highly specific nature of Japanese culture, the latest breakthroughs in group text thread foreign policy, how the Metric System has failed Europe, and more. And we round it out with some "Fuck 'ems."