It’s been a minute since Justin and I have shared our takes on “the news,” so this week we have a typically dark, unhinged conversation about what’s coming for us in 2024, with an American population frothing at the mouth to BUILD THE WALL and weapons-crazy madmen lashing out around the globe. It’s an incredible time to be alive.   Full episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/102232361?pr=true

Conspiracy theories are a hell of a drug. Justin and I know this from experience, so watching the new Netflix documentary American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders brought up some deeply identifiable thoughts and emotions for both of us. Do you REALLY want to know the exact details of the dark forces at work within our most sacred institutions? As we discuss here, there’s a heavy price to pay for that knowledge, one way or another.  

This is the first half of this week's episode, go to our Patreon page to listen to the whole thing! https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-386-of-98833719 It’s Part Four of our six-part adventure through the history of American automaking and car culture, and we’ve finally reached the moment when everything starts to unravel: the 1970s. When Arab nations decide to flex their oil muscle against the United States in 1973, they deliver American consumers into an entirely new economic reality,...

In Part Three of our journey through the history of American car culture, we explore how the massive cultural and political shifts of the 1960s made an impact on American automaking. From the Chevrolet Corvair spinning out and making Ralph Nader a household name, to the Ford Mustang turning boring housewives and husbands into hip celebrities, this was a wild era. When Detroit takes a sinister turn with the 1965 Pontiac GTO, a muscle car war grips American street racing subcultures, before it...

As we continue our story of America’s love affair with the automobile, it’s time to look at the tailfin behemoths of the 1950s, the cars that look like “guns you can f**k.” With the automakers morphing into weapons manufacturers to help Uncle Sam win World War II, the postwar consumer reaped the strange benefits of military technology and imperial ideology seeping into the design of his suburban luxury sedan. Meanwhile, a cute little car produced by the Nazis was slowly stealing the hearts of...

This week we watch Fast Five (2011), the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, and contemplate how these movies embed radical ideas about criminality, subversion, insurgency, and family in often goofy stories about driving really fast cars, furiously.  Full episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-383-fast-97420130 For more reflections on car culture, check out Part One of our new series, The History of America in Six Cars:...

The supreme object of the 20th century, the automobile’s development as both transportation technology and cultural totem is literally the story of American capitalism. In the first episode of a six-part series, we examine the life and legacy of Henry Ford, whose Model T took the nation by storm after its debut in 1908. As Ford rises to an unprecedented position of wealth and power, his virulent anti-semitism and destructive business impulses threaten his company’s dominance of an emerging...

Our friend Andrew Schustek is back with an all-new Housing Trap conversation all about the unfolding crisis of housing in 21st century New York City and beyond. This time he talks with returning guest Samuel Stein, a geographer, urban planner and housing policy analyst whose book Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State is a must read for housing policy nerds (you know who you are). The boys talk about Sam’s new piece in the New York Review of Architecture and contemplate the...

This week Justin and I discuss the 1989 tearjerker Field of Dreams, a film about ghosts playing baseball in some guy’s backyard that endures as a beloved classic of American cinema. What’s going on with  that? As a lifelong devotee of the film, Justin articulates why Field of Dreams hits so hard, as we explore how the secular religious magic of baseball and movies intermingle with dreams of capitalist and socialist utopias.    Sign up for a free 7 day trial of our massive library of...

Float Universe is an Instagram meme/troll account that’s ostensibly focused on the intersection of floatation tanks and psychedelic culture. The account’s creator joins me this week to explain how the floating experience mirrors the druggy rush of online dopamine adventures, as we explore how trolling and conspiracy theories are bending our everyday realities.  Sign up for a free 7 day trial of our massive library of podcasts, videos, and more: https://patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

We simply did not cover enough topics in our first “2023 Year in Review” episode, so this week Justin is back to talk about some of the big trends looming on the horizon of 2024: another grim yet insanely consequential U.S. presidential election, rising anti-immigrant sentiment on both left and right, the ominous march of genocidal war in Gaza, and the accelerating violent race for resources to light up our dumb little devices.  This is the first 7 minutes of a 70 minute conversation --...

Clay Routledge is a teacher, writer, and researcher in the field of existential psychology. His latest book, Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life explores a topic near and dear to our hearts: nostalgia and its power to shape the future. In this conversation, we talk about our own obsessions with specific pop cultural objects from our respective youths (video games, music, movies), and reflect on how nostalgic memories shape our individual and collective...

It’s time to take a nostalgic look back at the past year, as we survey some of the big trends from 2023 that will inevitably f**k up our collective 2024. This year we end up talking a lot about tech’s grip on our political and cultural imagination: labor strikes in Hollywood and the auto industry, the impact of AI, and the giant lie of green capitalism glimpsed in the debacle of electric vehicles. Will 2024 be the year the tech spell breaks?  Listen to the whole episode with a 7 day free...

Following last week’s episode all about Elliott Smith, this week Justin and I continue our discussion of sad boys and bad dads with a conversation all about Stand By Me, the 1986 Stephen King/Rob Reiner nostalgia-fest about four boys journeying into the postwar American hinterlands to find a dead body (spoiler: the body is a metaphor). In this conversation, we explore how this movie’s sentimental, disturbing vision of mid-century American adolescence fits into a longer historical discourse of...

This week Justin and I talk about the genius singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who produced a stunning body of music in the late 90s before dying, tragically and cryptically, in 2003 at the age of 34. Smith's life and art intersects with the world of punk and grunge that emerged from the Pacific Northwest in the 80s and 90s, from the "boy culture" of Gus Van Sant films to the anti-rape politics of riot grrrl era feminism. In this conversation, we try to situate Smith within that wider history...

Anthony Galluzzo’s new book Against the Vortex: Zardoz and Degrowth Utopias in the Seventies and Today offers a delightfully adventurous set of takes on some of this podcast’s running obsessions: the collapse of the 1960s left, revolutionary violence, cult cinema, weird sex rituals, 1970s communes and “intentional communities,” population bombs, nuclear futures and, perhaps most of all, the religious belief in infinite technological progress that animates both the right and left. Fully...

Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us for a conversation all about the life, work, and legacy of George Carlin, a key American cultural figure whose standup comedy transmitted radical ideas in the form of hilarious, often profane, “jokes.” What are “jokes” anyway? In this episode we find the traps in Carlin’s perspectives and reflect on the larger concept of standup comedy, particularly in the context of a Trumpian political reality that seems closer to Carlin’s dark, apocalyptic comedic vision than...

This week we’ve got a brand new Housing Trap conversation with guest host Andrew Schustek talking with Charlie Dulik, whose latest piece in The Baffler explores the controversy and mythology surrounding the “mom and pop landlord” in 21st century American life. Is collecting rent from tenants just another hustle for working class people? Or is “landlord” a distinct category of capitalist exploitation?  Sign up for a 7 day free trial of our big beautiful library of bonus episodes, videos,...

This week Justin and I try to wrap our minds and hearts around what's happening in Gaza. We offer some historical context, share some incredible Chomsky quotes (of course), and attempt to map out the future possibilities for the region. As always, though, it's hard to separate political analysis from the "fog of war" and the deep emotional stakes of watching an ongoing genocide funded by the United States government. We do our best to offer some directions for hope in an unfolding nightmare. ...

We are “back in action” and “ready to roll” and also just “ready” to continue our discussion of Mr. Show with Bob and David, a comedy television thing from the Before Times. On this episode, Peter, Geoff and David cover the opening episodes of Season 3: “Heaven’s Chimney” and “Peanut Butter, Eggs, and Dice.” There’s a lot of fun and challenging stuff here, as the show gets more confident in attacking its cultural targets, from right wing Christian cultists to self-congratulating liberal...

This week Justin and I watched the forgotten 1996 science fiction thriller Chain Reaction, starring Keanu Reeves as a scientist (lol) who discovers a source of infinite free energy and becomes the target of multiple global conspiracies aimed at controlling the world’s energy future. Seen from 2023, Chain Reaction reveals high anxiety about fossil fuels, the CIA, and the “just right” porridge of liberal masculinity (hint: it’s Obama/Morgan Freeman). This is first-rate Hollywood crap that...

In the past few weeks I've received many messages asking about the future of the show, so I wanted to put out a quick update about what's happening in my life (nothing too dramatic!) and where I expect the show to go. Long story short? I'm going to law school, and Nostalgia Trap will continue as I make my way through it. If you want to hear the whole story of why the hell anyone would go to law school in 2023, I tell it here, including all the weird signs and synchronicities that have set me...

This week I crank up the doom machine and cover a few troubling trends for a dystopian future, drawing connections between this week's horrific destruction of Lahaina, Maui to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. What are young people supposed to think about all this? And more importantly, will today's kids ever become HOMEOWNERS? Subscribe for all our NEWS TRAP episodes and tons of bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-366-news-87551091