The Daily Whatever

I always knew this day would come. As many of you know, I’m a west-coaster and a night owl. So a 7am daily podcast requires discipline as well as a loud alarm. Guess which one I forgot to set this morning? It was a delight to realize how much concern you all had for me—so many messages!—and a relief my amazing guests Walter Rhein and Frederic Poag were such good sports about it all. We still had a...

Chat, who amongst us hasn’t had a moment where they’ve thought “You know, fuck this America shit. I’m going to sell my things and move my husband and adorable daughter to quasi-rural France and ride this shit out while drinking some lovely wine with a nice baguette and brie.”? I have! Many times! And I don’t even HAVE a husband and an adorable daughter! But Rich Kagan does, and he and his family h...

Huge thanks to everyone who tuned in for our Live chat with Steve Uppendahl today! It was a blast to talk about parenting teen daughters and traveling internationally to take them to see Taylor Swift—as well as the impact Taylor has had on them (and us). Here are links to the stories: Steve’s story is on Medium so the link won’t unfurl, but you can find it here . To the Whatevers— BiffBiff , Brand...

It’s not everyday you get to connect with an old friend from highs school, but today we were lucky enough to do just that. Dana DuBois and I went to school with our guest, Gen-X Crisis with Robert Guess , and it was excellent to reconnect. We started off reviewing some breaking news: Trump* left the G7 early for mysterious reasons, up to and including the possibility of a wider war with Iran. Addi...

Keeping this writeup short, Chat! It was a jam-packed episode, with so much to cover from the weekend. We talked about the assassination of MN lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the attempted assassination of State Senator of John Hoffman and his wife—and the sheer lack of surprise that the gunman was a disgruntled MAGA fool. The No Kings protests were huge, and Trump’s parade was bust....

I went into this No Kings Day with huge apprehensions—with just cause. We had a president itching to pull the trigger on the Insurrection Act, a baltallion in Washington DC for his “I’m a Big Boy” military parade, millions gathering for protests, the National Guard deployed in multiple states, the Marines in Los Angeles, and Israel and Iran lobbing weapons at one another. Then we awoke to news of...

Thank you Amy Beeman , Andrew , Stephanie Beauvais , Beth Cruz , BiffBiff , Brandon Ellrich , Callie🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇲🇽 , Carolina Baffigo , Cat , Cecily Wilson , OldHenCharlie , Chris Esko , Claire at Backpacking Bella , Random_Crow , Craig Nixon , Dale Scaringi , Damon Kenner , Eileen Dougharty , Everett Taasevigen , Füsun Aydın , GenXcellent , Greg , Sarah , Ira Krakow , Jeremy George , Jon Michael Ahrens...

Chat, we had so much fun with Liz LaPoint from GenXcellent today! It totally smelled like teen spirit up in the joint, full on Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! meets the Tarantula Tiki God episode times infinity +1. What am I saying? GenXy meets GenXcellent was a kick in the pants! A house on fire! By the end of the hour we all agreed that there wasn’t enough time, and that we could have kept going, well,...

Lawrence Winnerman and I knew we wanted to host a pre-Father’s Day Live where we shared stories about our dads. We decided we needed to bring on an amazing father as our guest—and The Opinionated Ogre was a top choice. So we asked him. He replied yes, and then shared a link. “You might want to read my story first…” he told us. And… whoa. After reading it, we knew he was the only possible guest for...

It’s no secret that Dana DuBois and I are fans of Füsun Aydın . What’s not to love? She’s smart, funny, and has a rapier wit so scathing and funny that you have to laugh, even if it’s impaling you. But what brought us together to begin with—and what keeps us enraptured—is her writing. Füsun has announced an ambitious plan to write and publish her first memoir on Substack—an autobiography of her fi...

Thanks to our amazing The Whatevers crew for another fun day in the chats, even as we were discussing serious topics. We covered both of my recent articles about the situation in LA: and We’re keeping a watchful eye, and hoping for peace and healing for everyone in LA. Fuck Trump! Thank you Barbara , BiffBiff , Brandon Ellrich , Callie🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇲🇽 , Cat , Craig Nixon , Damon Kenner , Dana DuBois , Füs...

We here at The Daily Whatever try to run a tight ship, with planning and production values and whatnot, but sometimes things don’t go according to plan—a lesson we’ve learned a lot this week! Today, Dana DuBois was going to ask me about the story I was supposed to have just published—but I collapsed into bed at 8:30pm last night, and never got to finish it. The joys of working two jobs, and co-hos...

Fans of The Daily Whatever know Lawrence Winnerman and I are huge fans of The Opinionated Ogre . His impassioned, swear-filled political rants are the antidote to the legacy media that we all need in these fascist regime times. So when the Ogre himself agreed to come on our humble podcast, we knew how to show up... …as sock puppets, of course. Turns out, talking about the fucked-up news of the wee...

Melissa Corrigan, she/her and her publication CounterStory Media are on a mission: to use storytelling to change the world—and people’s votes. Melissa is multi-hyphenate as a writer and podcaster: A veteran. An adoptee. A mom of a trans son. Her voice is powerful and she’s not shy about raising it, especially to champion for others. In short: she’s spectacular. Having her on the podcast was such a...

I was so excited to discuss today’s topic. I made an outline and a plan. And you know what happens when you make plans…? Yeah. Today Lawrence Winnerman and I demonstrated our GenX resilience, as we dealt with repeated fuck-ups for the first 15 minutes of the podcast—starting with when I stepped in the dog mess my darling dog left under my desk during the night, continuing with Lawrence power going...

Attention, students! School is in session, the library is open, and it is Time. 👏 To. 👏Learn. 👏 Queer. 👏 Herstory. 👏 Periodt. 👏 Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈 the Druid joined Dana DuBois and lil’ ol’ me ( Lawrence Winnerman ) for the first of what we hope are many sessions of schoolwerk. First of all, Wendy is the owner of ThistleAndMoss.com , a Substack dedicated to—an amazing combo of things: Queernes...

Happy Monday, and more importantly, Happy start of Pride Month! It’s a challenging time for Pride. I have my apprehensions the US will remain a relatively safe place to gather and celebrate Pride. I hope I’m wrong, Today I perused LinkedIn ahead of the podcast and checked for the rainbow logos we’ve all grown so accustomed to in June. And I saw literally none. Wait, I take that back. Grindr has a...

Saturdays tend to be pretty chill here at The Daily Whatever (unlike weekdays when we’re super locked-down and professional). We wanted today to feel like a gathering of friends. So we put it out there to our community of regular “Whatevers”—those who frequent the podcast—that everyone was welcome to come online to say hello, and tell us what they’re into and how they came to find us. Unsurprising...

What an amazing treat! Mr. Troy Ford stole the show at The Daily Whatever today as we ramped up for our fave day of the week: Fucked-up Friday! Troy, we could not have had more fun with you, and thank you for joining us! Please come back soon! We kicked off by talking about Troy’s book release—out on June 3rd! I’ve pre-ordered my copy , and I hope you’ll get yours, too! It sounds fun and poignant...

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We had such a blast chatting with our new gay bae Brandon Ellrich! We covered a range of topics ranging from challenging fathers and families of origins, early iconic queer characters in film, and Brandon’s forthcoming Pride tour throughout the midwest. We’re hoping he and Lawrence Winnerman can meet IRL, so stayed tuned into June to find out—Kansas City may never be the same. Huge thanks to Füsun...

There’s no business like show business, amirite? And what a show we had today! Thanks to the always loquacious and irresistable Frederic Poag whose wild hair presaged a wild time talking about dating, sex, desire, and a whole lotta nonsense! If it ain’t clear, Frederic is ALWAYS welcome to talk to us, and when the topic is as spicy as today—well, we might just have to make that a thing! “The GenX...

Welp, that was a blast! It’s the holiday weekend, so I’m gonna keep this short. When you’ve been best friends for over 40 years, turns out you’ve got a lot of goods to share about each other during an “ask us anything.” What questions did we answer? You’re gonna have to listen and find out. Thank you John Pearce , Cat , Peter William Murphy , Lahboss , Karen Marie Shelton , Robin Wilding , The One...

Every Friday, The Daily Whatever hosts “Fucked-up Friday,” where we invite a guest to join us and discuss the news from the previous week. Or specifically—we each share what we thought was the most fucked-up news of the week, and we make the case for why it’s the most fucked up of all. And then our live audience votes for which story was, indeed, the most fucked-up. This week, we were delighted to...

In the days following the election, as I grappled with the enormity of what Trump 2.0 would mean, I had a personal struggle as well: what to do with Pink Hair & Pronouns , my publication for parents and caregivers of trans and nonbinary kids? I researched the risks by reading Project 2025. I reached out to the CEO of Medium to ask him about guardrails and protections. And in the end, I realized—it...