NOPE Rachel Dodes and Brian Hecht

This week, we have gone super niche, covering a controversial episode of an obscure fashion podcast, The Cutting Room Floor, featuring a former fashion-blogger-turned-CEO, Leandra Medine aka Man Repeller. Meanwhile, a SoftBank-funded humanoid robot named Pepper is slacking on the job and getting fired all over Japan, but may nevertheless be called upon to represent the country at the Tokyo Olympics. Finally, we turn our attention to the worst song-video combination ever to hit No. 1: the Steve Miller Band’s 1982 abomination, “Abracadabra.”

As New York City’s Board of Elections struggled with tabulating ranked-choice votes, we shut down Bill Barr’s attempts at a reputational glow up and “pastel Qanon,” aka California yoga instructors who are embracing bonkers right-wing conspiracy theories. Sea snot is taking over the Turkish coastline and threatening to disrupt NATO. Finally, the latest installment of our Summer Music Series, in which we explore the meaning and message of Billy Idol’s iconic video for “Dancing With Myself.”

This week, CNN legal analyst and public masturbator Jeffrey Toobin was suddenly back on the air, much like an unexpected erection popping up in a Zoom conference call. Over at NBC, production of the reality competition “Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide” was shut down after 40 members of the crew came down with explosive diarrhea. A lobsterman in Cape Cod said he was swallowed and spit out by a humpback whale. And our Summer Music Series is back as we deconstruct Bonnie Tyler’s classic video for “Holding Out for a Hero.”

Joined this week by a new friend of the pod, retired Harvard Business School professor Steve Rogers, we shut down the French Open as well as a Canadian member of parliament who can’t seem to stop getting naked on Zoom. Also, the hottest new fashion trend for men: 4” inseams. We talk to Steve about his excellent new book, “A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community.”

This week, GQP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene compared mask mandates to being sent to the gas chambers in Germany. Rand Paul received a mysterious package containing white powder and blamed it on 1980s pop icon Richard Marx. Mullets and skinny jeans were banned in North Korea. Phil Collins, musician and historian of the Alamo, donated his extensive memorabilia collection to Texas only to discover that it might be counterfeit. A former “Bachelor” contestant rebelled against new CDC guidelines to prevent salmonella infections by kissing a rooster on Tucker Carlson’s show. And a woman in El Paso jumped a zoo barrier to feed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to a pair of spider monkeys.

As the weather warmed up and trillions of sex-crazed Brood X cicadas emerged from the earth, we shut down Mar-a-Blogger’s latest screed against New York Attorney General Tish James and asked the only question that needs to be asked about Rep. Matt Gaetz: how is he still in Congress? Meanwhile, Scott Stringer tried to persuade us to vote for him in the NYC Mayoral primary by featuring a child named Benjamin Bridgntunnel on a large campaign postcard with no explanation of who this person was and why we should be convinced by his apparent endorsement. And finally, the New York Post made a grave error about the number of peacocks Martha Stewart has on her Connecticut farm.