The Occasionalists Podcast

Was it a hoax? A fear-mongering tactic? A crisis that was carefully averted? A little bit of all of the above? One thing is for sure, though: Y2K was THE hot topic of 1999.

July is here, which means hot dogs, fireworks, swimming, and a new theme month! It's 1999 all month long on the podcast, and what better way to introduce some of the big things we're going to be talking about than with some pop culture trivia?! Is that your final answer?

An oddity sprang up today, as if having an Einstein-Rosen Bridge in your house wasn't enough of an oddity, but we received our first broadcast signal from the past. This is a very exciting development in the short existence of this seemingly one-way street of communication. More puzzling is that it seems to be a combination of two distinct signals from different times in the past. It's getting wei...

Our final episode of 1959 takes us to Moscow to fight the Soviets on unusual turf: the kitchen! While scientific and medical leaps defined the Space Race and the broader Cold War, the geopolitical and ideological struggle had a tangible impact on the American household. Rapid advancements in consumer technology and everyday goods dramatically elevated the domestic standard of living, placing the U...

The next episode in The Gateway to Tomorrow series has us rediscovering the incredible medical breakthroughs of 1959 that changed disease treatment for millions worldwide. We also look at how stigma and shame around diseases perpetuate the barbaric treatment of the most vulnerable in society.

Our first full topic episode of the month takes us back to when the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union really kicked into high gear. By 1959, the Soviet Union held a massive technological lead in the Space Race. Driven by intense Cold War geopolitics, the United States and its newly formed space agency, NASA, went all-in on a singular, daring goal: beat the Soviets to the Mo...

It's June, and you know what that means....new month, new year! We are stepping into the WAAAYback Machine to take a look at the year 1959. The earliest possible year for this year's parameters and very likely, one of the farthest looks back ever on this podcast. This whole month, we will be focusing on the pivotal scientific advancements from this year that touched the lives of everyone on Earth...

Once again, the spatial anomaly in my house has delivered, albeit later than usual, a radio signal from the future. We are checking back in with the movie review tandem of Brayson Lee and King Garcia Sato Jr. and their long-running movie review show, From The Balcony.  This time, they are tackling some legacy sequels, including a new Star Wars installment. Shocking, I know!

Our final episode for this double-feature Movie May special takes us back into one of my favorite comedy subgenres: the spoof! Yeah baby! We are looking at the movie that reinvented what movie spoofs would look like for the next 3+ decades with the ZAZ classic, Airplane! Then we are off to posh, 1930s England to view a send-up of British period pieces, Fackham Hall. Will Airplane! Hold up to anoth...

Our next double feature for Movie May finds us tackling a horror movie that feels decades ahead of its time and its sequel that somehow manages to balance a whole bunch of stylistic spinning plates.  First, we hammer down on The Shining. The movie that beat the "Trauma = Horror" trend by about 30 years and remains a polarizing film for fans and critics alike. Then we take on The Shining's lega-seq...

Our first review of Movie May is now live! We tackle the "Dark Blockbuster" with a look at the second installment of the Star Wars franchise, The Empire Strikes Back. Somewhat controversial in its own time, it set the standard for how to create a blockbuster that was downbeat and saw our heroes lose and lose big.  Much more controversial in more recent times is its franchise mirror, The Last Jedi....

New month! You know what that means...new theme and a new year to cover! For Movie May, we are jumping into the blockbuster films of 1980. A truly great year for film. HOWEVA — We need to make a detour through the late 1970s to see exactly how films, marketing, technology, and even the business model changed in just a few short years. 

Once again, we are using the spatial anomaly that has taken up residence in my house to explore the future. This time, we are getting what appears to be a series of previews for the Summer slate of programming on the newly formed mega-network, SkyMount Universal on Verscovery Bros+. We are getting a rare glimpse at a new Yellowstone spinoff, and it looks like a grittier reboot of Star Trek. How ex...

Our final TV in 73 episode for Boob Tube April finds us doing a mini-review for the gritty, visceral, macho cop show, Police Story. Abandoning escapist storylines for something more real and borderline cynical, Police Story broke new ground in the early 1970s with a true-to-life approach to the criminals and cops that make up the Los Angeles crime world. There are few happy endings in Joseph Wamba...

Boob Tube April rolls on! Our next episode of TV in 73 explores how the shift from escapist, light-hearted entertainment changed drastically over a few years. It was perhaps best exemplified by the massive popularity of the Watergate Hearings, where the American people watched in droves and in real time as all goodwill between them and the institutions they had come to trust evaporated over 47 day...

Our first breakdown for Boob Tube April finds us taking a deep dive into the seminal docuseries An American Family. A first-of-its-kind show that followed the everyday lives of the Loud Family of Santa Barbara, CA, and put all of their strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, troubles, and turmoil on display for millions of Americans every night. A controversial and groundbreaking series, the show is wide...

Our first episode of April has us examining the TV landscape in the year 1973. A turning point for emerging TV technology, the Golden Age of the Sitcom, and some landmark programming that marked the first steps toward shows recognizable even today. Television...That's what makes America great, buddy.

Once again, we are tapping into the astronomical anomaly in my house to peer into the future. This time, a much nearer future as we hear some of the big headlines from March 31st, 2028.  

We are back to wrap up this week's minisodes on the demise of physical media with a brief chronicle of the most vicious device ever created. The smartphone! Vicious in the sense that it ruthlessly killed its biggest competitor in less than a decade and then began killing other everyday devices that had enjoyed their place in the consumer marketplace for decades. The smartphone takes no prisoners a...

Our last full week of minisodes is here, detailing the change in our media consumption habits that hits an interesting inflection point in 2008. First, we examine how rapidly our physical media of choice changed over a few decades. Or in some cases,  in the course of a couple of years. One question that might be impossible to answer: What comes after streaming media? And how fast will it take over...

Our next minisode, shining a light on the country's financial health in 2008, has us taking a deeper look at the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, Bernie Madoff. How could someone swindle so many people out of so much money? As it turns out, rich people and the people regulating wealth aren't actually that smart.

You think things are bad now? They could always be worse.  Case in point: The Great Recession. In 2008, the global financial system spun out of control, pushing the US and other developed nations to the brink of another depression.  We avoided that fate, but at a significant cost. What will the current affordability crisis cost us? Besides credibility on the world stage and the lives of American s...

***UPDATE*** Some technical difficulties scuttled the original episode. However, that has been corrected. So please enjoy this episode as usual. THANK YOU! ------------------------------------- Our next episode of The Outsiders examines how the tools of digital activism and online protest were co-opted by the oppressors and turned against The Outsiders in just a few years. And how in less than a g...

Our first political minisode of 2008, The Mirror Twins, is here! Surely there's nothing that Barack Obama and his public nemesis, Donald Trump, share in common. Right! Right?! *Insert Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker meme here*

The March of Minisodes is upon us, and so is a brand new year! This time, we are tackling the latest year of our challenge, 2008.  For many of us older folks, 2008 feels like only yesterday. Yet, despite that sense of recency, it was a year of pivotal beginnings and endings—many of which flew under the radar at the time. Pause that special edition VHS and have a listen to The Year of Firsts and La...