Episode 53 – The Blues Brothers

“It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

This month, we’re getting the band back together with the Station Manager of KTQA 95.3 FM in Tacoma (and former Illinois resident) Sam Mulvey. We’re on a mission from God to drive our car through John Landis’ anarchic car chase musical guest-starring a Mt. Rushmore of classic R&B/soul artists from Aretha Franklin to James Brown: The Blues Brothers!

Released from a 3-year prison sentence, “Joilet” Jake Blues is reunited with his brother Elwood and learn that the Catholic orphanage they grew up in is about to be shuttered unless it can pay an outstanding $5,000 property tax bill in the next eleven days. Now on a mission from God, the Blue Brothers must reunite their ne’er-do-well rhythm and blues band to put on a big show, no matter how many shopping malls they have to drive through. But first they must outrun a rival country western band, a gang of neo-Nazis, a heavily armed mystery woman, and seemingly every cop in the state of Illinois.

Episode 44 – Fight Club

“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

In the first Single Serving Selection in over a year, we are Jack’s complete lack of surprise. We’re stealing human fat from dumpsters and peeing into fancy soup with friend of the show Patrick Johnson. This month, we’re breaking the first two rules, because we’re talking about 1999’s Fight Club.

Is this David Fincher dark comedy a brilliant and scathing satirical deconstruction of toxic masculinity and how disaffected men can be drawn into extremism and violence? Or is it a shallow and pretentious edgelord glorification of the same thing? Or is it somewhere in between? We dig into the cult film we all adored as young twenty-somethings and dissect it under the harsh light of 2021.

Episode 40 – Columbo: Murder By the Book

“Just one more thing…”

In this month’s Single Serving Selection, we join Ask an Atheist‘s Sam Mulvey to snoop around the first episode of the beloved inverted-mystery series, starring Peter Falk’s rumbled detective: 1971’s Columbo: Murder By the Book.

When one half of an award-winning mystery writing team learns that his more-talented partner is leaving for a solo career, he sees his meal ticket slipping away. The only way to save his career and claim a sizeable insurance policy is to commit the perfect murder. The only hitch is that the crime is being investigated by a personable and seemingly-clownish police detective who just might have his number.