Totally Classic

This week, Andy & Brendan - both parents of young children - address a topic with notable Venn diagram overlap with many of their previous topics that's gone strangely unaddressed! Especially with Andy's extensive experience in social-emotional learning, across multiple ventures & platforms and Brendan's acting training & history! SEL - the particular teaching program that endeavors to...

Is there a Transfemicide Emergency in Chicago? Is there a Trans Genocide, ongoing? Is one being planned? In part two of exploring this question, with curiosity, reason, emtpathy and nuance, Andy & Brendan ask the questions behind the questions, hold the claimants to their own standards and try to understand both the inflow and outflow of these claims. Is Lily Wachowski correct when he says JK...

Sparked by politicians and comedians alike this week, the Transfemicide Emergency Declaration by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the podcast comments by Margaret Cho converged to create a curiosity: are we living through anything like a Trans Genocide or even an epidemic of anti-transgender bias? Is there anything to this or is it pure rhetoric? Is that rhetoric appropriate or inappropriate? Eth...

This week, Andy & Brendan are joined by Brandon Peele - author and facilitator of purpose-centered leadership and communities - to press further into whether The Matriarchy is underserved in the bumper sticker and T-shirt "Smash ______" category:) They dig into the differences between belonging & conformity, between feminine and masculine energies, and between the arguable strawman of Patr...

This week, Andy & Brendan use Christopher Nolan's recent adaption (the space that launched a thousand thinkpieces) of Homer's The Odyssey to examine whether the archetypal hero Odysseus is, indeed a hero or, as some of those thousand think pieces have posited, not a hero at all, perhaps a villain?  What makes a hero? What unmakes a hero? Does storytelling require contextual interpretation, in...

In the inevitable companion piece to "Should We Smash the Patriarchy?" Andy & Brendan look at how one would coherently define modern society (with especial focus on the U.S., where they live) and what does that mean, in terms of net harm or net benefit? Are we living in a Matriarchy? If so, for how long? 1970s? 1990s? And is this novel or a reverse of the speculative global queering of the Agr...

How far will one go to WIN if the body keeps the score? Andy & Brendan, this week, try to avoid winning whilst still chasing TOGETHER the rabbit of truth around the track:) A recent article by four authors (one of whom is amongst the premier neurologists in the world, Karl Fristen) laid out the mechanisms by which the popular "the body keeps the score" premise is untenable as anything more tha...

This week, inspired by our "Is Gender a Social Construct?" episode (both progressive bias Andy & independent bias Brendan voted yes by the end of the dialogue), we turn to Pride-month-centric examination of the potential social construct "LGBTQ!" Gender was NOT, but IS this acronym? Andy & Brendan explore the mixed set acronym and attempt to ascertain which aspects are rooted in objective...

This week, Andy & Brendan discuss the electoral process, ground-level, in the democratic republic of the United States. VOTING! Is voting rigged? If so, in what manner of "rigged?" They explore re-districting & gerrymandering, voter suppression & disenfranchisement, packing & cracking, conspiracy theories & conspiracy truths (confessed) and more! Do you vote? Why? Do you believ...

This week, Andy & Brendan examine a popular claim - is it aphorism or shibboleth? "gender is a social construct." Um... but IS THAT TRUE? From ancestral wisdom to modern medicine, from German to Sanskrit, from tautologies to taxonomies, it's all here in this week's Totally Classic! originally recorded by 5/5/26

This week, Andy & Brendan try to unravel a lifetime of historical evidence and place it in context of the radically divergent narratives around the target of U.S. military action in the present.  From two divergent pre-perspectives (prespectives?:) they seek to find common great (love Iranis!) and try to test the usual ontological methods to see if ENEMY is a relevant category... and if it app...

This week, Andy & Brendan chart the history of minstrelsy - from Al Jolson & Bert Williams TO RuPaul & Pabllo Vittar! Why is Drag given a pass for doing all the same TYPE Of things that blackface does? OR why is blackface not given a pass for doing all the same TYPE OF things that drag does? Is this just full-on hypocrisy ("it's not bad cause I LIKE IT") OR is there something fundament...

PART TWO OF TWO - Andy & Brendan continue to explore whether ICE are BAD GUYS or FLAWED GOOD GUYS? In a world where "F@%# ICE" and "ABOLISH ICE" are de rigueur, DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE? What makes an entire organization prosecuting over 400 laws A BLACK HAT? Are Neighborhood Watches AGAINST Law Enforcement just... the suburban version of "TRAPHOUSE LOOK-OUTS?" OR a modern militia fighting Gov...

Cops & Robbers. Cowboys & Indians. Chutes &... ladders? Binary good guy/bad guy is fundamental to the stories humans have shared since time immemorial and key to understanding our modes of reckoning, today. Is ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) the Gestapo of our American Era? Or are they law enforcement officers just doing their job? Is the Anti-ICE sentiment justified or atten...

This week, Andy & Brendan continue (& conclude) their conversation of Religion, Spirituality and the synonymity and potential difference between the two. Can dictionary synonymity prove logical contradiction of the SBNR claim? Can they devise a taxonomy that doesn't have to alter definitions at all? Can one be religious but not spiritual? Is anyone spiritual? How do we determine the differ...

On this episode of Totally Classic, Andy & Brendan explore the question around the zeitgeist adage of our generation - "I'm spiritual, not religious." Is this a coherent claim? Is it a Buddhist Koan or a logical impossibility? They're synonymous terms in Merriam Webster, Thesaurus.com & Roget's alike:) Is this a falsehood that is simply a popularly accepted one? And, perhaps most fascinati...

This week, Andy & Brendan examine the recent accusations against job board/social networking site LinkedIn, to get curious about whether the platform is biased against women. Is there evidence besides assertion? What would a non-misogynist algorithm look like? Is bias UNAVOIDABLE? All this and more on this weeks' Totally Classic. TOTALLY CLASSIC is a podcast where two friends with divergent pe...

In the third and final volley, Andy & Brendan integrate AI analysis to ascertain where they may be suffering from logical or ethical mismatch and if ANY ethical system supports affirmation of subjective self-claim.  From freedoms gained to empathy employed to the conclusions empathetic understanding would support, it's all here on both sides of the table... on this week's Totally Classic!  ori...

Andy & Brendan dance back into the fray to examine by what means can anyone said to be (or not to be - that is the question!:) "transgender." Is it equivocation or a paradigm shift? Is it semantic colonialism or indigenous linguistic revival? Is it a delusion or is all of society deluded and this is clarity? All this & more on this week's episode of Totally Classic! originally recorded on...

This week, Andy & Brendan ask a question of the modern semantic chaos moment where a sentence like "My gender is not my gender, because gender isn't gender, it's gender." exists and CAN have some cogent meaning! Does the claim make a coherent case? Can the modern novel proposal of gender exist and mean the same as transgender and not be self-defeating? Does subcohort "social reality" count as...

This week, Chicago-area-met friends Andy & Brendan interrogate the popular regional claim that the city with big shoulders is under being invaded (by ICE). They explore how many actual options there are (and different layers of evidence and proof to assess said options) for who exactly is assaulting the second city. Does novelty, federal intent or citizen action lead the way? What do YOU think...

This week, Andy & Brendan bring the plane in for a landing on this epic, three-part discussion of what may well bring about the downfall of humanity! It's the end of the world as we know it... and we feel... fine? ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude & CoPilot all have distinct and pronounced and self-confessed Progressive bias (meaning the most extreme cohort in the bipartisan array) which is, if unre...

This week, Andy & Brendan, continue the conversation on whether AI Bias could end us, as we know "us," or end us, entirely? Does the Progressive bias (which exists within ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude & CoPilot), specifically, threaten all in any unique fashion? Is the programming of relativistic or utilitarian ethics inevitable, in the modern context? Are all ethics relativistic? AND HOW do we...

Andy & Brendan are joined by their first guest, Jacob Ward*! This week, they discuss the existential dangers of AI bias - on cognitive processing, on outsourcing of evaluation, on fight or flight And shaping the very grounds of understanding and meaning the human family has relied on since time immemorial! Will it the be the end of us all? The liberation of us all? The subjugation of us all? O...

Andy, a Progressive & Brendan, an Independent, both agree that the Indigenous people of North America were abused, lied to, killed and conquered in many ways unconscionable.  We don't agree on whether verbal land acknowledgments are in any way net benefit to anyone, including said Indigenous persons of North America.  But we will talk about, will reason and feel our way through it together, an...