Rats In The Gutter

Everything is faaaaaaaarked. And yet, the rats are here. Picking the carcass of the west for views and likes. This week, Winnie Peters is a big brown anti christ! Doxing is not all good, but self-hating brownies who live in glass houses (or the beehive) should NOT throw stones (cough cough lol). Also, Taylor versus Charli. Taylor McSwift made a serious blunder when she came for the people’s prince...

Another day, another National bequeathed nightmare. And yet more fixation on the unbearable incompetence of Nicola Willis. I know I know blaming a single person for the ruinous policies of an entire party is a bias, and in this particular instance borderline misogyny. But at this point we’re kinda not feeling beholden to considering the feelings of our shit-brained self-interested bloated-bellied...

This week, Melbourne vs Auckland. Which is better? Just kidding; it;’s obviously Melbourne. And yet the rats, being measured journalists, provide a balanced review of both locales, two places that are so different but also so similar; like their resemblance in local cuisine (meth). Or the casual and continued usurpation of the indigenous! With that in mind Johanna is settling in well, having just...

well well well the rats are back and despite their hiatus they are NOT feeling rested. If anything their personal lives reflect the disarray of global politics. Though if they had to pick a favourite cluster fuck from the last week, it would definitely be the Nepalese uprising of angry zoomers literally burning their government to the ground for kicking them off twitter. In that vein, the rats wou...

What a time to be alive! The states are stating, the gulags are gulaging, and the labubu continues to rise as a new synthetic super power with total fractal. Domination of the collective human psyche in its sights. But what of toy-crazes of yesteryear? Such as, the Sea Monkey. Revisiting Johanna’s private shame this week, we reminisce about an earlier episode in which she confesses (is found out,...

What a world we’re living in! They say god is dead but the rats know our One True Lord and Saviour is convenience, a modus operandi that’s convenient to some and kind of a bum deal to others depending on which side your bread’s buttered on; (Global) North or South. And so, the rats spend some time swapping misadventures on Uber Pool that’s equal parts sympathetic to the plight of neo slavery (whic...

Guests! Give a very warm welcome to our very special guests actor Matt Whelan and writer/actor Sophie Henderson, two of NZ’s finest film and television talents whose recent film Workmates just premiered at the NZIFF to acclaim and accolades and the kind of national pride our government should be aspiring to, rather than allying itself closer to a genocidal behemoth by letting them build an intelli...

Like they’ve never done before (cough) the rats talk about democracy’s failings and how its formal and informal elements need to be kept distinct enough we have a functioning society, which anyone with a semi-functioning only marginally divergent brain can see we currently don’t have (or worse, are in the agony stages of losing permanently; use it or lose it!). but on a lighter note . . . eugenics...

The clubs that raised us! The rats get nostalgic about a time when all venues were open til six AM, where supper clubs could serve you a pre-work night cap at eight, and the shame flowed as thick and hot as mid morning vodka red bulls. It’s a time that seems comparatively free and footloose, where the youths of today wouldn’t hit the club without checking their weekly schedule for important obliga...

Okay, so the Katy Perry abuse might’ve crossed over into primal woman-hate; on a local scale we mean. Like, it’s overkill at this point. In this being the rats dissect where the admittedly gleeful train of celebrity hate might accidentally be a mouthpiece for systemic misogyny; or worse, a cultural loathing of brunettes. And what vivisection of the bittersweet phenom known as Katy Perry would be c...

For some reason, or perhaps because a show about surviving late-stage capitalism with your friends and sanity intact is relevant now, the rats revisit some ancient Buffy lore. Or perhaps it’s because a show about the undead resonates with recent national conversations (in actual mainstream media) about resurrecting the moa, or the kiwi when it’s finally extinct; because apparently conservation is...

Twinks; what even are they? This is just one of many hard hitting questions the rats tackle in this week’s free to air (fuckin freeloaders) episode. They don’t come to a conclusion mostly because doing so is grossly homophobic (or do they?). Also on the agenda is whether or not David Seymour should unalive himself which, as always, the rats are pretty strongly in favour of, if only because he repr...

SORRY FOLKS - this ep is coming out about a week late due to a technical error If the rising seas don’t vanish Venice then surely Jeff Bezos’ repugnantly lavish wedding and its vile attendees will sink it faster than nineties-sized Oprah on a boogie board. So hypothesise the rats. Also, Lorde’s Virgin is finally here and so the rats share their initial impressions, and relief that Ella’s stepped a...

This ep is proudly sponsored by One Percent Collective: opc.nz/RATS Reality bends, warps, is vulnerable to liberal edits by every twelve year old with an iPhone, and is the worse off for it. That’s what we’re dealing with, collective sanity taking an extended sabbatical. And that’s the exact tone the rats take with its free-to-you ep this week, a shame-free fact-free spiral down various rabbit hol...

The rats have contracted a mental illness whereby they can’t stop name dropping. Symptoms include swapping stories about famous people who may or may not hate them. Also, seasonal depression is getting mixed up with the existential dread of democracy’s very violent and drawn out end, which the rats have various strategies for combatting; like keto friendly sweet treats courtesy of local brand Just...

There seems to be a lot of negative chat re Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover, and while at least one of the rats thinks Sabrina is the pop world’s most beige offering since Missy Higgins, they both agree that women policing women isn’t on; unless it’s a grown woman advising another grown woman to keep her love of Taylor Swift on the d-low (because like every conservative grifter with a secret G...

Wow, what a week it’s been. And this is certainly not a valid review because what’s a week, where am I, whose jiz is this and what even IS time? Featured in this week’s democratically available episode is the following; the evils of physically repellant politicians being allowed to attend music awards that no one invited them to anyway; the particular sadness of Helen Keller and why we love her (d...

This week the rats discuss the proverbial (delusional?) lure of escape; whether it be from an alien abduction themed escape room, or between the bars of your frankly mis-advertised air bnb at Abu Ghraib, we ask what the true cost of freedom is (hint; it’s a flaying of the face). Also, are all bisexuals ‘vers’, or is this just another myth (much like bisexuality itself; just joking, we know it’s re...

Twin or tumour, length or girth, polyamory or cheating. The rats are asking hard questions this week and, like most media, reducing the nuances of reality to subsets of easily digestible binaries (you’re welcome). Notably, gender is explored and the fractious myth of ‘male loneliness’ which is actually, so the rats think and say, a symptom of toxic masculinity; which, they add, no one is immune fr...

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus. As late-stage capitalism devours us all the rats turn inward, applying the same journalistic principles of critical analysis which they’re known for to the ways in which they move through the world. This includes looking at their morning routines, vari...

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus. This week at least one of the rats is experiencing the kinds of performance exhaustion that made Houdini fake his own death back in 1926 (unverified). That said, the pair drag themselves up from the bowels of ennui to deliver a refreshing overhaul of T...

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus. Not an easter special by any measure but Jesus Christ does get a mention by way of his unofficial bio-epic JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, of which Johanna is a recent convert. We’d also be remiss if we didn’t touch on Katy Perry going to space, mostly because...

Jubba Hive Rise! This week (under the looming shadow of . . . well, everything right now) the rats find small (guilty) joy in spending absurd amounts of money. We explore the magic of mushrooms, and in doing so are forced to confront the abjectly humiliating auras of those who love mushrooms a little too much. We touch on China’s mycelial trade reach, the absurdity of tariffs, the unbearable light...

Johanna is in Melbourne doing the comedy circuit. So begins a month or so of long distance episodes. Kinda like Heloise and Abelard but without the platonic eroticism. And instead of a medieval cloister the rats are sending each other passionate missives from an air mattress and a shared artist studio, respectively. Highlights include sudden death, the Abu Ghraib-adjacent regimen of reformer pilat...

Despite there being very little reason to live at the moment, what with the kinds of geopolitical instability unseen in the west since the end of WW2, the rats manage to find joy in the little things. Like wings from Dominos. The ferocious ally-ship of Azealia Banks (and how JK Rowling betrayed the millennials responsible for her ill-begot fortune). DIY glory-holes with strangers (only a towel and...