Amos and Ex: Living in the End Times

Today's theme: Gnosticism! After beginning with a discussion of Greil Marcus's transcendent book Lipstick Traces , the boys talk punk, secret histories, "fake news," COVID, and film as late examples of late gnostic thinking. Plus Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing .

With Ex back, A&E take up the twin questions of police violence and the public response by way of Frantz Fanon, MLK, Malcom X, and–obviously–Weird Al Yankovic’s take on Ghandi from his 1989 film UHF .

Part two of our addendum to our 2019 episode on Joker . Cold Case: Hammerskjold aside, points of discussion, include Trump, Bernie, climate change, racism, and the social instability that was evident even before COVID-19.

Amos is rejoined by friend and colleague Joe to discuss a series of films that emerged simultaneous to Joker in 2019 and complement/extend that film’s political argument, including Luce and Cold Case Hammerskjöld .

Just when we were at our wits end, a ray of sunshine poked its way through the clouds. That ray is former Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura–who is mulling a run for president. Plus: the democrats still hedge at Medicare for All, despite the pandemic, and instead suggest we put all those uninsured people on a health plan literally named for a G.I Joe international crime syndicate.

There’s a compelling link between Protestantism and Jokerfication in a time of social and economic collapse. A&E discuss at the same time as they play “Where in the world is Bernie Sanders?”

COVID-19 takes over the nation as Bernie Sanders effectively vanishes from the scene, right when healthcare for all is more necessary than ever.

As COVID-19 sweeps across the country and Bernie’s campaign soldiers on, A&E discuss the serendipitous confluence of this Chinese “year of the rat,” Mayor Pete, and the coming need for a MASSIVE rat-like solidarity at the social level if we hope to make it through this storm. Plus: “The Adventures of Pete and Pete.”

The second installment of the conversation between Amos and guest Rich, recorded before the fuller impact of the COVID-19 event was evident.

In this first in a two-part episode, friend-of-the-pod Rich visits to chat with Amos about everything from Joe Rogan to Bernie to fake radical leftist academics who are addicted to losing. And much more.

After beginning with a discussion of Aaron Hernandez, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Traumatic Brain Injury, and the military, A&E shift to Mark Ruffalo’s Dark Waters, which details how teflon is literally in EVERYTHING. Then Tom Steyer interrupts just to say “hi.”

Ah! Simpler times. In this lost episode from January 2020, A&E move from a discussion on industrial-synth music to the Iowa caucus to an analysis by Slavoj Zizek on the American political scene as it looked pre-COVID.

So, like, is this the 1990s? Scrolling through social media you might get that impression: histrionic doves, shrugging neoliberals, Clintons still in the news, and calls to sign anti-war petitions every 30 minutes. Oh, and Rage Against the Machine is on tour again or something. Lord have mercy.

In this first episode of 2020, A&E discuss the end of the decade and the legacy of eight years of Obama, which is Trump. From rising income inequality and climate crisis to medical and college debt and a crumbling political structure, the neoliberal democratic order is coming to an end. Just in time. Plus Taylor Swift.

Beginning with a discussion of the defunct Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) as a model for organizing, A&E discuss both the fragility of capital. Spoiler alert: It’s cracking. Plus: how organizing itself has been undermined by policy since at least 9/11. Plus, plus: Sleater-Kinney.

Admit it: You’re Yang-curious. You should be–he’s one of the few candidates actually campaigning for president by bringing new and compelling ideas to the stage. Amos and Ex chat today about the prospect of a ticket that includes Andrew Yang, and go into more detail about why Buttigieg is not the candidate for you.

The Internet sucks. What could’ve been a platform to truly connect people and spread productive ideas has devolved into a paywall and fake news. And porn. Or as Dark Helmet put it in Spaceballs, “Even in the future nothing works.” So do A&E spend the hour chatting not only sci-fi but the Labour Party Manifesto as a new 95 Theses, the U.K. as a barometer for American politics, and having the courag...

As the impeachment hearings drag on, A&E discuss the ways in which the democrats seems determined to hurt their own case and bolster, perhaps unintentionally, if not Trump then likely Bernie. Also: is Buttigieg a spook, Kamala drops out, and the situation in Bolivia.

OK Boomer, we’ll give you Bob Dylan. But that’s it. And we’ll even forgive you for trying to sabotage the various Occupy events across the nation and world in 2011, but only because we won anyway–as evidenced in the popularity of Bernie and AOC and Medicare For All. Before allowing this tired meme to fade away, though, A&E give it one last analysis, talking Dylan, racism, and elections along the w...

Are you feeling exhausted, hopeless? Worried about the raging fires in California and flooding in the Midwest? Have you found that you don’t enjoy the things you once loved–like Radiohead–due to the ongoing sociopolitical unrest in Chile, Hong Kong, Iraq, Bolivia, and Haiti? These may be symptoms of corporate capitalism, a serious condition affecting more than 7 billion people worldwide. But there...

A&E debrief on the October 2019 Democratic debate and chat up the significance of the Squad’s endorsement of Bernie. Also, as Biden fails a panicked mainstream news media goes out of its way to advance, in sequence, EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE except Bernie. Oh, and Hillary might run? Did we travel backwards in time? Maybe so: Turkey is attacking the Kurds and the Minnesota Twins were again swept out of...

Amos and Ex are today joined via phone by our friend Joe, who lives in Alaska and was asked to speak to the Todd Phillips film Joker (2019). Is the film for reactionaries and incels? Is it a Leftist film? Is it an Antonin Artaud biopic? And why can’t Joe afford a 9-volt battery for his only smoke detector? Also discussed: the corporate media’s response to Joker and the life and times of G.G. Allin...

Amos celebrates his burfday by musing on the likelihood that we’re living in a simulation. Plus: humans as quantum beings, entanglement, uncertainty, black holes in our own solar system, and life on Mars. As you might imagine, all of this is a different way of describing the American two-party political system and the chaos of our current political moment.

As Brian returns from Boston, the gents talk about eastern North Dakota’s own “Yankeedom.” Also discussed are all things Turkey: Paul of Tarsus, Kojin Karatani’s theory of “isonomia,” and Kurdistan as both the seat of this century’s decentralized model of political organization and the source of a new theology. Why? Because as with the Christian Church, it’s unlikely that the nation-state will mak...

The gents return from a trip to Anaheim in summer 2019 to chat about the degree to which their own hometown is NOT California. Discussion ultimately focuses on a certain palatial hockey arena and a citizenry that doubled-down on its American Indian sports nickname and logo–with some hockey fans even arguing that THEY were the one being discriminated against. Srsly.