Cast Iron Brains - A Podcast with Bob and Abe

It’s another episode of your favorite podcast, and it is somehow one of the shortest episodes we’ve made in a long time but also as it turns out just about our normal two hours of yapping. What strange majicks make such a thing possible? Failure and editing, that’s what! Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining t...

CIB takes a slight detour before getting into the news of the week with a discussion that centers around the question: can too much communication actually be bad? That plus Strassmann on the Gulf and 70s kids movies full of bad words. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or yo...

Plenty of fun to be had this week yapping about all the stupid stuff happening in the world, even if we are a couple of days behind the news at this point. Also, a new study says phone are actually BETTER for your kids’ mental health, and Mark Strassmann goes to the midwest in search of some sad sisters to lay a nasty pun upon. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you...

CIB mostly aimlessly meanders through the news of the week in this episode, with thoughts on the ongoing fallout from the leaked Signal group chat, Trump’s executive orders to defund public and state-sponsored media, and plenty of other headlines. Also, though this doesn’t come up in our discussion of The White Lotus—if we’re right in suggesting that the audience’s appetite is what drives content...

Today on the show we’re discussing the fact that you can do everything right in this tough old world and still end up getting in trouble because some meddling journalist refused to do the right thing and exit himself from the group chat BEFORE you started discussing war plans with your buddies. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us a...

It’s another week of lawless anti-American nonsense from the Trump administration, couched ever more frequently in appeals to the underlying popularity of the things Trump is aiming to do. This is a democracy, after all, so why should something like the pesky law get in the way of the apparent will of the people? CIB goes full MAGA?! Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, ma...

Show Rundown Open — Abe and the Profligate, Pauperish Pub Patron 7:58 — The Speech to the Nation 34:35 — WGAS NewsBag; Study finds happy wife, happy life; people and their robits; assorted other news bits 50:58 — Did Mark Strassmann Get Off a Good One? 57:47 — Mel Gibson’s Gun Rights in the Crosshairs! And a romance novel gets cancelled 1:16:26 — Wrap-up! Last Breath; Mickey 17; Severance; The Whi...

There’s not a whole lot else to talk about besides what happened in the Oval Office last Friday, so that’s pretty much all we do this episode. Hopefully we bring some new perspective to the proceedings, or at least provide an opportunity to let off some steam. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversa...

What if much of the infrastructure of the modern world—or at least the technology and the roads and the food—has accidentally put into the hands of humans things that they know make them more miserable and that they absolutely cannot stop using, for an assortment of reasons? We discuss that and many other cheery topics on this week’s really quite fun episode! Listen, if you must! Has something we...

The first month of the second Trump administration has looked almost exactly like what you might imagine it would look like if the president decided that the law, broadly speaking, simply doesn’t matter. We discuss that in terms of the specific examples of Mayor Eric Adams, mafia-like demands on Ukraine, and utter contempt for the notion of a free press. Listen, if you must! Has something we said,...

The Super Bowl is much more than just a football game—it is also one of the last remaining American sacraments, and it is the considered position of this podcast that it is sacrilegious and unamerican to choose not to engage with it, one way or another. If you sinned by skipping the big game on Sunday, your penance is to listen to us yap about all the non-football aspects of the evening. Plenty of...

Super Bowl 59 is in the history books and we have no choice but to discuss it, warts and all. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or you can send us an email here . Enjoy! Relevant Linkage can be found by visiting https://brainiron.substack.com/ , where, if you would like to...

Vegas is a super weird place, and we’re here to talk about its strangeness and immensity and how we felt just kinda walking all over the strip. And also there was an awful lot of news that happened in the last couple of weeks, so we reluctantly pick a couple of illustrative stories and chat amiably about them, as is our wont. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you F...

After a couple of weeks away, we’re finally sufficiently recovered from our travels and travel-acquired illnesses to talk about sports and sports-adjacent topics. Lucky for you! We’ve got hoop talk, massage table inappropriateness, poop in the mail, and plenty of other silliness. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by...

The second Trump administration is off, as expected, to a running, chaotic, wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man start, and CIB is here to talk about the parts of it that seem particularly egregious so far. But worry not, both-sidesers, because we start with a total condemnation of Joe Biden’s actions on his way out of office. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say,...

After a thoroughly enjoyable weekend of NFL and college football action, your favorite sports podcast is here to rehash it all. Is Ryan Day STILL who we thought he was, or has winning changed everything? Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or you can send us an email here . E...

We’re back to preview this long football weekend’s playoff action and discuss the sports news of the week. We’ve also got a brand new recurring feature: it’s CIB’s 2025 National Title Game Battle of the Bands, where we determine the winner of the upcoming national title game based on music from the teams’ cities. Be sure to head to the Substack to cast your vote. Listen, if you must! Has something...

The fires raging in southern California have us feeling a little helpless and a little philosophical and a little hesitant to come to any firm decisions about who ought to be blamed, contrary to seemingly everyone else out there. We further digress about medical assistance in dying and one forgettable new song and one extraordinary old one. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to...

Cast Iron Balls is back with thoughts about the wildly entertaining College Football Playoff semifinal games and the ret of the weekend in sports, and we somehow end up talking about a recurring nightmare about overwhelming guilt around unspeakable crimes you’re not even sure you committed. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all a...

Cast Iron Balls makes its first 2025 appearance in your podcast feed with a recap of the college football quarterfinal action and some thoughts about how the rest of the playoffs will shake out. And Jimmy Carter returns, along with the rest of our usual silliness! Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conv...

The weather outside has been frightful, but the aimless chatter is quite delightful as we ring in 2025 with fresh CONTENT. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or you can send us an email here . Enjoy! Show Rundown Open — The perks of being two generations younger than your ne...

2024 has come to its natural end and CIB is here to talk about everything we got wrong about it. Or at least the things we remember being wrong about and are willing to acknowledge. It was a fun year, podcasting-wise—thanks for listening along! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or you can send...

The most popular spinoff sports podcast of the Brain Iron Media Empire is here to send off 2024 in style, with a playoff preview and a call from the greatest presidential pigskin prognosticator to ever walk the earth, live from Plains. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or y...

We’re having a holly, jolly time plowing through the news of the week and we leave plenty of time for Strassmann, the Billboard Hot 100, and our other usual assortment of complaints about the media and culture. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to say, made you FEEL something? You can tell us all about it by joining the conversation on our Substack or you can send us an email h...

It’s Christmas Eve! You’re cozied up by the fire or banging about in the kitchen making your final preparations for the big day tomorrow, and your favorite multinational media empire is putting out fresh content for you to stick in one ear while the Christmas songs blare away in the other. We’ve got poetry and football and silliness aplenty. Listen, if you must! Has something we said, or failed to...