Category: Off The Chain Episodes

Episodes of Off the Chain

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Episode 47: Occupy OTC

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In this episode, Dave and Steel are joined once again by their old friend Spencer. Together the three of them discuss the top ten topics of conversation among the ‘patriots’ occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, answer listener questions about what to eat and how to keep yourself entertained if you decided to occupy a federal building, talk about ghost towns, share great music to occupy federal buildings to by Rage Against the Machine, Courtney Barnett, Twisted Sister, Ted Nugent, Woody Guthrie, and T. Powell, and drop some immortal book wisdom from Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Resistance to Civil Government”.

Links

Top 10 Topics of Conversation Among the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Occupationists

10. Best attire for occupation.
9. Supplies.
8. Guns & ammunition (and their various -bores)
7. How socialism is the worst
6. Soldering stuff. Your favorite soldering iron, techniques, etc.
5. Beard grooming
4. MREs and other food served in pouches
3. Survivalism: including how to catch rabbits in snares; making fires out of nothing; tracking stuff [esp. people]; walking silently like you’re a native, primitive shelter building; also yurts and snow caves; leather working.
2. Making your own jerky
1. What manner of heartbreak led you to this place today (she was probably beautiful).

Ask OTC

Best Films to Watch During a Federal Occupation

Red Dawn

The Rescue

The Full List of Supplies Required by Malheur Occupationists

Ghost Towns

Unchained Melodies: The Occupying Federal Buildings Edition

Book Wisdom

This week Steel shared passages from Henry David Thoreau’s classic essay urging nonviolent resistance to unjust governments, “Resistance to Civil Government.”

Featured image by DonkeyHotey

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Episode 46: New Year's Predictions

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This week Dave and Steel are rejoined by their friend Aaron to discuss their New Year’s Resolutions and New Year’s Predictions. Dave shares his top five presidential haircuts of all time, the three of them give their predictions for 2016 and 2116, they share extreme stories of human endurance on another installment of To the Limits, share great dance party music from Prince, Outkast, the Notorious B.I.G., LCD Soundsystem, Missy Elliott, and Miley Cyrus, and Steel shares New Year’s themed poems from Naomi Shihab Nye, Louis Zukofsky and W. S. Merwin.

Links

Presidential Hair

Big prediction for the coming year: presidential hair will become a major issue in 2016. With that in mind, here’s our list of the top 5 presidential hairstyles of all time.

  1. John Adams: the Nohawk.
    John Adams
    John Adams modeling the Nohwak

    Adams’ celebrity doppelgänger: Paula Dean.

  2. James K Polk: the original mullet.
    James K. Polk
    James K. Polk, 11th president of the United States and inventor of the mullet.

    Polk’s celebrity doppelgänger: Mel Gibson

  3. Franklin Pierce: the curly elevator.
    Franklin Pierce
    Franklin Pierce, sporting the ‘Curly Elevator’

    Pierce’s celebrity doppelganger: Lyle Lovett

  4. Andrew Johnson: the man bob
    Andrew Johnson
    Andrew Johnson proudly sporting the ‘man bob’

    Johnson’s celebrity doppelgänger: Tommy Lee Jones

  5. John F. Kennedy: the handsome man

    John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy, owner of the ‘handsome man’ since he was a child.
  6. HONORABLE MENTION: William Howard Taft: the wounded walrus.
    Willam H. Taft
    Taft relaxes, secure in the knowledge that no one can do the wounded walrus quite the way that he can.

    Celebrity doppelgänger: Richard Riehle

To The Limits

  • Carlton Williams, a 50 year old Welsh construction worker living in Australia, completed 2,221 pushups in one hour. He broke his own record, which had previously been 1,874 to 2,221–which is unworldly!
  • George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen were the first people to even row across the Atlantic Ocean, which they did in 1896 for a $10,000 prize that never came. Their time record for rowing the North Atlantic Ocean was not broken for 114 years, and then by four rowers instead of two.
  • In November, Shia Labeouf participated in a fascinatingly mundane movie marathon where he sat in a New York theater and watched all of his movies. It lasted three days and consisted of 29 movies. The public was allowed to come into the theater, and watch Shia’s movies with Shia. A live feed was broadcast where you could watch Shia’s face react to his own movies. At one point he fell asleep in the aisle during “Transformers 3.” Perhaps the most amazing thing about this was that Shia wore a giant winter coat with a hoodie underneath it the entire time. You’d think he’d get really sweaty.

Unchained Melodies: New Year’s Eve Dance Party

Book Wisdom

This week Steel shared three New Year’s themed poems: “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye; “[untitled]” (Celia’s birthday poem) by Louis Zukofsky; and “To the New Year” by W.S. Merwin.

Featured image by seanmcgrath

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Episode 45: Everybody's A Critic

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by Steel’s old friend Aaron Peck, a real-life professional film critic. Together the three of them recap their holiday adventures with children, talk with Aaron about his expertise in running, reading, and reviewing films (Aaron shares his perspective on the best films of 2015), play great movie soundtrack music from The National, Van Morrison, Bill Conti, R. Kelly, The Who and Radiohead, and Aaron shares some book wisdom from Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself.

Links

Expert Testimony: Aaron Peck

Reading:

Aaron’s Best Books of 2015:

Films

Film recommendations
Aaron’s Best Films of 2015:

All the new releases Aaron saw in 2015, ranked (1-120!).

Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, 2013) [for Steel]

Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-Ho, 2013) [for Steel]

The Raid (Gareth Evans, 2011) [for Dave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f6f_kfp1Z8

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011) [for Dave]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0

Lost the Plot

Daylight (1996)

Unchained Melodies: Classic Tracks from Film Soundtracks

Book Wisdom

This week’s book wisdom came from legendary film critic’s Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself.

 

Featured image by blondinrikard

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Episode 44: The Best of 2015: The Year in Review

2015

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This week Dave and Steel reflect on the year that was 2015. We discuss news you might have missed in science, technology, and medicine, and give our 2015: The Year in Review summary, covering highlights from the year in sports, and share our list of bests from 2015 (new bands, food, day trips, films, children’s books, podcasts, films, magazines, humans, and social issues), say goodbye to some prominent people who died this last year, share great music from Leon Bridges, Anna B. Savage, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Handsome Family, and Dom La Nena & Rosemary Standley, before closing the episode out with some timeless wisdom from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address.

2015!

Links

2015: The Year in Review [Important News You Might Have Missed]

Science, Technology, & Medicine

  • January 13: The first lab-grown, contracting human muscle is announced by Duke University
  • March 2: First ever image captured of light as both a particle and a wave!
  • March 6: NASA’s Dawn probe orbits Ceres, the first time a spacecraft from earth has ever visited a dwarf planet [Ceres is the biggest object in the asteroid belt]
  • March 30: A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections – containing onion, garlic and part of a cow’s stomach – has been shown to completely wipe out staphylococcus aureus [MRSA]
  • June 19: A major study confirms that Earth is currently witnessing the start of a mass extinction event the likes of which have not been seen for at least 65 million years. It is being precipitated by human actions over the past 500 years
  • June 30: Cuba becomes 1st country in the world to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of HIV & syphilis. July 20: Cuba & US establish full diplomatic relations (after 54 years!)
  • July 21: Men who become fathers experience weight gain according to a new, large-scale study that tracked more than 10,000 men over a 20-year period. Men who didn’t become dads actually lost weight over the same time period. SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF DAD BOD.
  • October 21: Emmett Brown, Marty McFly and Jennifer Parker arrive from the year 1985, see shoes with self-tying laces, people riding hoverboards and learn that Cubs finally won the World Series, beating the Miami Gators. [Also the day the Cubs lost the NLCS to the Mets]

The Year in Sports

  • Basketball: The Warriors rule the NBA. And rule it beautifully!
  • Rugby: New Zealand won the Rugby World Cup. Amazing, considering the size of New Zealand. The country has just 4.5 million people: fewer than Costa Rica, or South Carolina or Louisiana!
  • Soccer: USA won the Women’s World Cup against Japan by a score of 5-2. Carli Lloyd scored a hat trick in the final, including a goal from inside her own half.
  • Baseball: Royals win the World Series!

Other News

  • February 14 – The New York Police Department reports no murders in New York City over a 12-day period for the first time in the city’s history, citing extreme weather as possible reason.
  • March 21: Dan Jennejohn gets married to Camille Gamboa. Steel and Dave and their kids see each other in person!
  • June 17: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announces that an image of a woman will replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill starting in 2020, with Lew planning to choose the woman by the end of this year. Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Susan B. Anthony are considered frontrunners.
  • August 21: Banksy opens Dismaland in Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. Dave almost takes his kids here on vacation before trauma dreams about Skegness force him to revise his plans and go to the real Disney World instead.

Best of [the year in review]

Best new band

Best Food you had in 2015

Best Meal under $10

  • Dave – Backyard Taco in Mesa, AZ
  • Steel – Luang Prabang Thai food cart in Madison, WI

Best Day Trip

Best expensive purchase of the year

Best Hike you took

Best Film

Best Children’s Book you read this year

Best board game

Best Non-OTC podcast

Best Condiment

Magazine you subscribe to

Man of the Year

Woman of the Year

Social Issue of the Year

Unchained Melodies: Songs of the year edition

Book Wisdom

Dave shared the concluding paragraphs of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered just before the conclusion of the American Civil War.

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Episode 43: Our Favorite Things

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This week Dave and Steel take a page from the Oprah playbook and discuss some of their favorite things from 2015. They also tell some stories about their kids, share great music from their favorite musicians: Pavement, Damien Jurado, Wilco, and M. Ward, and Steel reads George Oppen’s poem “Psalm.”

We’re going to be taking next week off, so enjoy this one for the next little while. Here’s our plan for the rest of the year: on Christmas Eve we’ll release a very special present: Dave’s 2015 family spoken word Christmas album, and we’ll have a New Year’s Eve episode with the year in review (our Best of 2015 episode). Hope you all have a safe, loving December.

Links

Our Favorite Things

Beverage

Live Performance Experience

Penis Shaped Bread Tridents

  • Dave – The one Oprah recommends. The best review I saw was by Adam W:

    For years, I’ve searched the internet for assorted-size bread penises. When I have found them, they’re either way too expensive or uncircumcised. Well, now I don’t have to worry about that. This is one amazing bread penis set. The best part is the single penis with two heads that tangles itself to form the base of this treat. I can’t wait to gobble down every inch of this.

  • Steel – I’m partial to the bread penises baked by WeedPriest, a former Subway employee [Steel]

Salt

Mail order Catalog

Animal

  • Dave – Giraffe
  • Steel – Otter or capybara

    Month

    • Dave – May
    • Steel – December

Matching Family Pajama Set

 

Hat for a dog

 

Dance Party Song

  • Dave – Lotus Flower – Radiohead
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfOa1a8hYP8
  • Steel – Kiss – Prince

Place to take the kids on walks/outings

Poem

  • Dave – that one about the guy in WWII talking to the shop keeper [it’s by Charles Reznikoff — ed. note]
  • Steel – Psalm – George Oppen

Local Attraction

Footwear

  • Steel – Oliberte shoes
  • Dave – Socks

Unchained Melodies: Favorite Musicians Edition

Book Wisdom

Steel shared his favorite poem: George Oppen’s “Psalm”

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Episode 42: Engerland, Oh Engerland

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This week Dave and Steel were joined by their old friend Dan to discuss the joys and virtues of the North of England, where each of the three served an LDS mission in the early 2000s. We talked about England for a long time, which was probably cathartic for all of us. Dan also did a great round of Expert Testimony: answering questions about weightlifting, hair care, clean energy business models, Middle Eastern food and weather women, and boxing, and we all shared great British Invasion music from The Rolling Stones, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Joe Cocker, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, and Lindisfarne and Steel read the Philip Larkin poem “The Explosion”.

Links

Unchained Melodies: British Invasion

Book Wisdom

This week’s passage of book wisdom was Philip Larkin’s gorgeous poem “The Explosion“

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Episode 41: College Memories

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On this week’s episode, we reunited with two old college friends, Matt Howard and Jarom Sidwell. The four of us shared stories of our undergrad adventures, talked about our favorite early morning cartoons and breakfast cereals, caught up with Jarom, who gave up a Hollywood animation career to spend more time with his young family, played tearjerkers from animated films, and heard some book wisdom from C. Terry Warner’s The Bonds that Make Us Free.

Links

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Episode 40: Characters

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Dave’s old neighbor Rosie joins us for our latest episode, in which we discuss times we pretended to be something we weren’t, share some small talk stories featuring some incredible characters, describe some of our most memorable literary personas, take some ‘everyday questions’ with Rosie, play great songs by The Cure, Led Zeppelin, Phish, Jefferson Airplane, Bruce Springsteen, and Loggins & Messina, and hear some book wisdom from Benjamin Hoff’s wonderful little book The Tao of Pooh.

Links

Small Talk

OTC Literary Characters

Unchained Melodies

Book Wisdom

Rosie shared the foreward to Benjamin Hoff’s philosophical classic The Tao of Pooh.

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Episode 39: In Praise of Youth

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Spencer. Together the three of them catch up on old reading assignments, talk about child prodigies, debate whether various prominent public figures peaked early or late in their career, play youth-themed music by the Jackson 5, Hanson, Laura Marling, Big Star, Peter Tosh, and Cat Stevens and Dave shares some heartbreaking book wisdom from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Links

Wunderkinder: Child Prodigies

OTC Debate: Picasso or Cezanne

University of Chicago economist David Galenson wrote a book called Old Masters and Young Geniuses, in which he theorized that there are two types of creative minds: “Old Masters” and “Young Geniuses.” He argued that some people (like Picasso) hit their creative peak relatively quickly with an intense burst of production in their youth. Other geniuses (like Cezanne) peak later in life, after a lifetime of tinkering and amassing experience. We decided to debate whether various public figures were Picassos or Cezannes.

Unchained Melodies: In Praise of Youth Edition

Book Wisdom

This week Dave shared a passage from Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road.

Featured image by Rosino

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Episode 38: All Hallows' Eve!

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by Jordan for a special Halloween edition of the podcast. We discuss our all-time greatest Halloween costumes, share spooky stories, talk about scary films we’ve enjoyed, give an update on Vin Diesel and his latest Witch Hunter film, share spine-chilling tunes from Thurl Ravenscroft, Perfume Genius, Henry Hall, Nina Simone, Vince Staples, and Mastodon, and read a scary story to tell in the dark.

Links

Diesel: Running on Gas

  • Grantland’s Shea Serrano developed a Vin Diesel character matrix that we all agree is pretty accurate.
  • The folks at the Nerdist invited Vin to join a round of Dungeons and Dragons. They made a short teaser, called D&Diesel:

Unchained Melodies: Spooky Songs Edition

Book Wisdom

Jordan read “The White Wolf” from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a book which features haunting tales collected and retold by Alvin Schwartz and very memorable illustrations by Stephen Gammell.

Featured image by vandalog