Author: Peach Fish Productions

Maria Bamford has been making top comedian lists for years, but she knows her stand-up isn’t for everyone: “I can bomb any moment of the week, any day.” On The Gist, she rebuts Mike’s assertion that comics are more likely to struggle with depression. Bamford also explains why she wishes ESPN’s postgame analysis were swapped out for televised confessional booths for the athletes. Her new Netflix show is Lady Dynamite.

In the Spiel, Mike reads some of the mail responding to his takedown of the term white privilege and names another Lobstar.  

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It’s a special combo Gist, with an interview and Spiel rolled into one segment: Zoe Chace, producer for This American Life, digs up some old audio from one of her conversations with Anthony Scaramucci. The tape is from 2016, when the Mooch was pondering whether to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. What Scaramucci said back then may indicate what he’ll do next. 

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What would you expect from a video game inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s sojourn in the woods? In Walden, a game, players can contemplate the forest, go boating with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and practice civil disobedience. The game was developed by the Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. Lab Director Tracy Fullerton explains why she thinks Thoreau might have liked the game. 

In the Spiel, our faith in the military might not be blind, but it is blinkered. 

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Psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett is the grand inquisitor of human emotions. Her book, How Emotions Are Made, inspired a big chunk of the latest season of NPR’s Invisibilia. Barrett says scientific research shows that emotions are highly variable and utter creations of our minds. Some of her resulting conclusions may surprise you. 

In the Spiel, Mike goes there: white privilege and rape culture. 

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A few years ago, an unassuming young woman named Kelly Sun teamed up with Phil Ivey, the world’s most famous poker player. Using some questionable strategies, the two managed to win millions of dollars from casinos across the world. Now the casinos are saying what they did is cheating, and they’re trying to get their money back in court. Reporter Rose Eveleth tells Sun and Ivey’s story in a new audio documentary, A Queen of Sorts, part of the ESPN podcast series 30 for 30. 

In the Spiel, yeah, no, #NoConfederate.   

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Alan Alda’s new book is called If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? The title comes from his own bad experiences talking to doctors and other science professionals, including one that screwed up his smile for years. “We need to get people talking like people…it’s all about empathy,” says the actor, who also founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.  In The Spiel, why we should actually care about the bizarre Scaramucci–New Yorker interview.  

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Tom Jennings dug through hours of archival media footage to tell the story of Son of Sam, the serial killer who terrorized New York City in 1976 and 1977. The resulting documentary is part of the Smithsonian Channel’s Lost Tapes series. The Lost Tapes: Son of Sam airs Sunday on the Smithsonian Channel.

Also, a breakdown of the Boy Scouts’ apology for Donald Trump’s jamboree speech.

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According to Joan C. Williams, about a third of the country feels talked down to. These are the white working class folks, the people who went for Trump, the people who feel that terms like disruption just mean more hassle and pain. “We can’t expect people to have elite values if we don’t give them elite lives,” says Williams. She’s the author of the book White Working Class. 

For the Spiel, why does everyone sound like Goodfellas while doing an Anthony Scaramucci impression?

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After the G-20 Summit, Ian Bremmer broke the news to Americans about Trump’s secret second meeting with Vladimir Putin. He says he did it because so many American allies were commenting on the rendezvous in private. “The people in the room, they found it disconcerting that the person Trump was more comfortable with is their adversary,” says Bremmer. He joins us to discuss Russia, Rex Tillerson’s future in the White House, and the decline of American power. Bremmer is an author and risk analyst at the Eurasia Group.

For the Spiel, did you know the Washington Post is owned by Amazon? Trump really wants you to know that.

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When Kevin McDonald moved to New York, his sketch troupe, Kids in the Hall, had a deal with Lorne Michaels to make a new comedy show. But these were during some lean years for Michaels. “We were in a closet,” says McDonald, “and he was being audited, so it was us and a bunch of auditors. Once in a while, if we said something really funny, we could hear the auditors giggling on the other side of the room.”

While Kids in the Hall was never as famous as Saturday Night Live, the show became legendary for a discerning subset of comedy fans. “It’s like unsweetened lemonade—only 20 percent of people like us, but those who do really love us.” McDonald is now hosting a podcast with live shows across the U.S.

For the Spiel, a not so surreal end for Salvador Dalí’s remains. 

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