CJ 007: 2016 Recap: Rogue One, Carrie Fisher and The Algonquin Roundtable

On our very special tenth episode, Chuck and Paul explore the culture of Dungeons & Dragons by playing Paul's campaign, The Blackheart King.  

It is two-and-a-half hours of campaigning, swearing, accents, birdmen, dwarves and leather armored clerics.

And on January 21, 2017 hundreds of thousands of women (and a bunch of guys, too) came together in cities around the globe for the Women's March.  

Guests Sarah Schuster Kuhnell and Lisa McLymont both attended the Women's March in Washington DC; they have very different perspectives but very similar concerns and commitment to being active in today's political climate.

As Sarah and Lisa share their experience, we explore whether a "middle ground" exists, what it takes to create coalition and how privilege can be used for good.

It was an intriguing conversation covering the need to act, what we think might work and the power of empathy.  

On a very special episode of Culture Junk, Blossom deals with addiction.  

Just kidding. This time around Chuck and Paul provide color commentary for Riverdale, The Archies dark reboot on the CW.  It's got everything: letter jackets, cheerleaders, alpha bitches, bow ties, closeted jocks, Pop's burgers, Lolita glasses, dark pasts and MURDER!!!

Actually, it's pretty good.

We are holding out hope for Jughead and Josie and the Pussycats.

"A giant a** lightsaber!"

Chuck and Paul are back with a recap of 2016, which includes a deep dive on Rogue One and the legacy of Carrie Fisher, Thee Oh Sees, The Algonquin Roundtable, The Oculus, The Get Down, and Anohni. 

And we wrestle with why Prohibition was doomed from the start.

From "Music Jail" to "A Twist of My Sobriety" to "Block of Ice" our first stab at music includes They Might Be Giants, Tanita Tikaram, Thee Oh Sees and a whole bunch in between.  Join us for an interview with guest Mike Bills who still listens to WNCI and Whitman Paul gives you the download on Valve, Team Fortress 2, and how the Steam platform can change your life.  If you want your life changed.

Or is it the history of the future? No, that's something else.  Chuck talks with history professor and futurist David Staley about how technology and social media is changing how we understand our personal and cultural histories.  Listen up for General Patton, Civil Wars, Juaquin Phoenix's mustache and high waistline, Tony Stark's drinking problem, cosmic cubes, the history of japan, Diogenes the Cynic and of course, Johnathan Livingston Seagull.

"The past of the future is the history of today." -Whitman Paul Palmer

We could talk about (and eat) food all the live-long day. And in this super-sized episode we pretty much do.  Take a big gulp of peanut butter milk shake, strawberry hand pies, Pointe Break, the magic of Fox in the Snow and learn what a tavern cut is.

Chuck and Whitman Paul welcome two very special guests.  Wife and Mom, Anne Leonard-Palmer who holds our lives together with baked goods and Mike Beaumont of SpaceJunk Media who is the best kind of foodie there is: the kind you can get drunk with. And I do.  Some sort of toxic pale ale or something.  It went down smooooth.

Chuck talks with Amy Turn Sharp about words, putting them together to make people think and feel things and how Walt Whitman is a pretty cool dude. It turns out (see what I did there?) that poetry is a potent subject.  

Culture Junk 002 Deadpool and the Oscars

This week we have our first guest, film writer Melissa Starker.  We talk about movies, why the Oscars are really important to some people and why the Deadpool movie is pretty much perfect. Chuck learns that turning the right microphone on is important and Paul explains why Watchmen is pretty much one God and a bunch of Batman.

This episode of Culture Junk reviews recent art exhibits at The Columbus Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. We discuss the proper way to experience art and whether or not that guy might be a Nazi.