Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast

Perhaps you've heard of Operation Gladio, the infamous post-World War II NATO program to train "stay-behind" agents to fight guerilla-style against a future hypothetical Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Believe it or not, the United States Air Force, briefly in partnership with the FBI, devised exactly such a program it carried out in Alaska between 1951 and 1958. This went beyond the planning stage - it was actually implemented. At least 89 civilians in Alaska were paid, trained, armed, and prepared to do...something...if the USSR charged across the Bering Strait and occupied what at the time was a US Territory.

Here is the exhaustive five-part FBI tell-all on the now-declassified project. 

These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.

Dr. Laine Nooney (NYU) joins me to discuss the early days of personal computing - particularly how people figured out what to do with home computers after they became convinced that they needed one - in their 2023 book The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal. If you were alive in the pre-internet era, this book is both a great trip down memory lane and a new way to think about the usual hagiographic "Great Man" retellings of the early years of the industry. If you're a bit younger, you'll get great insight into just how not obvious it was what in the hell we would do with computers at home, even though it seemed like everyone wanted one.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.

Thanks: Dr. Laine Nooney, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

Professor and author Nicholas Dagen Bloom joins me to discuss his new book The Great American Transit Disaster: Austerity, Autocentric Planning, and White Flight (University of Chicago Press). You know transit is a mess in the United States but take my word for it: after reading this book you will understand how and why in a brand new way. If you think you already know the story, you don't! 

Question Cathy is traveling the world, so Question Kyle and Question Jennie pinch-hit for her in a truly stellar Mailbag. Half of the Mailbag is included in this episode, and then the rest is available as bonus content on patreon, because capitalism.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.

Thanks: Nicholas Dagen Bloom, QK & QJ, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

Continuing a topic we broached on a recent bonus episode on Patreon, Questions Kyle and Jennie join me as we sort through the wonderful if baffling world of school assemblies submitted by listeners and readers. You have to hear some of this stuff to believe it, but suffice it to say America's educational system is very concerned about abstinence and marijuana.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.

Thanks: the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

 

Question Cathy returns for a long overdue dip into the mailbag. We hit a range of topics including: how the recent Supreme Court ruling will affect college admissions, 90s cultural fads, the mind-bending heat affecting much of the planet this summer, what the DeSantis campaign's flop tells us about the war on "wokeness," and how some state-level Democratic parties have gotten so much done with razor-thin majorities. Plus I drop the least obscure hints yet about my forthcoming book and we reveal the most appealing presidential candidate for a post-Biden Democratic Party.

Cathy mispronounces "Patreon" creatively and I recognize mid-recording that Bath & Body Works and Bed, Bath, and Beyond are two different things.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.

Thanks: the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

 

Artist and author Brian Brown joins me to discuss his new book The He-Man Effect: How American Toy Makers Sold You Your Childhood. We talk about our memories of toy advertising and cartoons from the Eighties and the political and regulatory changes that opened the floodgates to marketing at children. Inhumanoids, M.A.S.K., SilverHawks, and Sectaurs are just a few of the D-list intellectual properties of the era that we recall with accuracy I can only describe as alarming. Brian's earlier books on Andre the Giant, Vladimir Putin, and the criminalization of marijuana are all worth your time too.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.

Thanks: Brian Brown, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

Question Kyle and Question Jennie join me to discuss one of the most poorly thought-out, pretentious stunts in the history of pop culture, wherein an early UK techno-electronica duo churn out a novelty song, one hit single, and a book about how to write a novelty song before topping it all off by burning one million pounds, one £50 bill at a time. It's the kind of anti-capitalist, Art School edginess that blew your mind at 20 and I sincerely hope does not blow your mind as a functional adult.

After scoring a gimmick hit about Dr. Who called "Doctorin' the Tardis" in 1988 as The Timelords, the duo rebranded themselves as KLF to release the minor Nineties hit single "3am Eternal." Somehow that was enough for them to amass £1,000,000, which in 1994 they fed into a roaring fire in a video called "The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid." If you ever wondered what kind of face a person makes as they are actively ruining their own lives on camera, check it out. 

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Kyle and Jennie, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

David Roth (@david_j_roth) of Defector (@DefectorMedia) joins me to talk about one of the most memorable ad campaigns in the history of sports and pop culture, Reebok's $30,000,000 1992 "Dan vs. Dave" commercials that briefly turned two decathletes into household names and was supposed to culminate with one of them being crowned the world's greatest athlete at the Barcelona Olympics. Along the way we remember plenty of guys and dig deeper into the way pop culture references from early adolescence tend to have great staying power and an inflated sense of importance.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: David Roth, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

Question Kyle joins me for musings on concept albums as I fondly recall the 1999 gimmick-compilation "Short Music for Short People" from the pop-punk mavens at Fat Wreck Chords. The idea: 101 bands, 101 songs, each one 30 seconds long. The royalty of the genre all contributed - Blink-182, NOFX, The Offspring, everyone you remember from the late Clinton years. An impressive, if not especially listenable, idea for an album.

The podcast opens with a brief sample of "Ketchup Soup" by the Teen Idols, their contribution to this album. To purchase the album, please visit the Fat Wreck website for a digital download or other format.

Bonus: 29 minutes in I start singing "Uptown Girl."

These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.

Motivated by the Chinese balloon story that recently if briefly dominated the news, Kelsey Atherton (@AthertonKD) joins me to talk about PROJECT GENETRIX (1956), a Pentagon scheme to float almost 600 balloons over remote parts of the USSR and China. Turns out balloons are not well-suited to espionage duty for reasons that should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten. 

We also talk plenty about the recent balloon incident, the link between GENETRIX and the phenomenon of UFO sightings, and about how a crashed GENETRIX balloon is indirectly responsible for mankind's first photos of the dark side of the moon.

Check out Kelsey's substack, Wars of Future Past, and his recent contribution to Slate on the China incident.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Kelsey, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

At the height of the Cold War, the looming existential dread of human extinction in a nuclear holocaust was punctuated by a three-way battle for the Grand Ballroom of New York City's famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel fought by Nikita Khrushchev, the US State Department, and the American Dental Association. You'll never guess who won.

These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.

The book referenced in this episode is available wherever you like to buy books.

Labor journalist and author Max Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) takes a break from hosting the essential podcast Working People (@WorkingPod) and reporting for Real News Network to talk about the recent labor issues on America's freight railroads. Also joining us is Matt Weaver, a maintenance of way crew member based in Toledo working for freight giant CSX. He’s active with BMWED-IBT 2624, a Teamsters-affiliated union for whom he has recently been chosen to serve as legislative director for his state. He has worked on the railroad since 1994. 

If you're interested in learning more or finding out what you can do to help, Matt asks that you visit the Railroad Workers United online or locally.

Max's recent book The Work of Living: Working People Talk about Their Lives and the Year the World Broke is also highly recommended. Be sure to check it out.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Matt and Maximillian, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

Dr. Erin Thompson (@ArtCrimeProf), the Art Crime Professor, joins me to talk about her book Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments. We cover the illusory permanence of monuments, the politics of taking them up (and down), and the fate of removed monuments sitting in storage right now, waiting for a more reactionary political climate to re-erect them.

Question Cathy joins me for the mailbag, where we discuss the Denver Broncos, Starbucks workers' organizing efforts, the scourge of paywalled scholarly research, and the ultimate fate of Twitter.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Dr. Thompson, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

In which I stoop to being my own guest on my own podcast to talk about my book, which is available from wherever you prefer to get books in Ebook, Hardcover, and Audiobook formats.

If you listen to this podcast you're almost certainly aware by now that I have a book, and in fact you may be sick of hearing about it. Nonetheless, here's a little teaser if you're still on the fence about checking it out. 

Two vagabonds with great luck and big balls perpetrate a hoax that made them extremely rich and hoodwinked some of the finest, most respectable citizens of early Gilded Age America. In our modern era of boring electronic fraud, the romance of walking into a bank with a bag of dirty diamonds you claim you pulled out of a hidden mine is hard to match.

These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.

Dr. Olufemi Taiwo (@OlufemiOTaiwo) joins us with his new book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). We talk about the future of organizing and activism and what those of us without power should be doing to avoid falling into the traps more powerful actors set for us. I also do my best to embarrass him by recalling an incident from ~2005, when he and I first met in a classroom at Indiana University.

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Dr. Taiwo, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

This is a quick teaser to let non-Patreon subscribers know that you missed the last Minicast, which I uploaded two weeks ago on Patreon. 

I won't be putting all Minicasts behind the paywall, but this one was a special treat for subscribers. If you want to listen and can spare $1, join at

https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos

The resplendent radio voice of Ryan Cooper joins me to talk about his new book, How Are You Going to Pay For That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. You might be familiar with his writing from his tenure at The Week, or from his cohosting duties on the Left Anchor podcast. He currently is the managing editor of the American Prospect. We talk the social welfare state, unemployment, why workers being able to quit lousy jobs drives so many people crazy, and Spuds MacKenzie, Reagan-era America's horny drunken dog-id. 

Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila). 

Thanks: Ryan Cooper, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.

In 1989 Kraft held a promotional sweepstakes (grand prize: a new minivan) with game pieces in packages of Kraft Singles and due to a series of errors, every single one was a winner. By the time they caught the mistake, over 10,000 people had already "won" $17,000+ minivans.

Kraft is based in the Chicagoland area, so the heavy local coverage this fiasco received in Summer '89 led 10 year-old me to believe this was the biggest news story of the century. Of course in reality, nobody really noticed or remembered. Wasn't local news great like that? Micro-sensations nobody outside of your area knew about? I miss it.

I value your support on Patreon.

The Glass-Steagall banking bill was one of the most important progressive reforms of the 20th Century. It's gone now, but as often happens with members of Congress, Glass and Steagall have been almost entirely forgotten. Glass's story offers some very interesting insights into how the ideological range of American politics has narrowed. Because Glass and Steagall, the Great Reformers, were actually interested in preventing reform.

I value your support on Patreon.