Infinity License

We forgot to mention this in the episode but today the 8 billionth person is being born on planet Earth. To celebrate, the fat cats at FIFA have decided to throw a World Cup in the most improbable of seasons. Soccer expert Noah Davis joins us for the second time in four years to preview the tournament — and unlike last time, there’s actually a US team to speak of.

The male urge to podcast cannot be stopped at any age. Topics: A deep dive into an experiment with TikTok and the announcement of frustration with a once-favored sports franchise.

Chattin about fat boys in baseball and the wisdom of sports gambling in a society without ethics. Also might no longer identify with bitcoin as a movement, we'll see.

People, it is time we finally talk about Covid-19. Lenny is back from Covidlombia and Brian is raising a child of what will surely be called "the covid generation." Vax drama and more inside :)

Life updates: Brian's new son is making him tired and Lenny is part of the solution not the problem in Colombia. Brian talking about fatherhood: "I need a longer refractory period." Time capsule pt. 4: At covid's end, the libs begin to eat themselves (6m) Three times we got an accidental window into how the world is run - Substack (21m) - CIA's generalized anxiety (28m) - The Super League (38m)

Trumpism is not going away — which begs the question, what exactly is Trumpism? We debate the issue and take stock of what the sunsetting era will mean for future charlatans. We also remember the highs and lows of the Trump years and celebrate a moment in history in which everyone was convinced they could achieve anything while knowing nothing.

The wheels are coming off and the IL boys are here to mumble about it. Covid at the (emotional) halfway point — Labor Day Weekend 2020 — social dissolution, and left's rightful subsuming of sports.

Quarantine life begins with a remotely-conducted podcast talking about the current crisis, the shitty Dem race that basically ended before it began, and eating each other. Sicko Mode > Somebody I Used To Know get it.

IL is taking a long walk off a too-short, badly planned sidewalk into the realm of urban planning. Hear why cars are bad, how a certain Brooklyn moped company is free to operate, and the one time an urban planner ever got angry at a bicyclist.

What's the role of identity and demagoguery in politics? Should we be capitalists? How important is representation in art? Can three white guys talk about this stuff intelligently and not sound pretentious? Let's find out. Join us as we set the Left as straight as we are on these questions and more. Our spirit guide in this discussion is Griffin Sharps, someone who over the last decade has moved from being a dogmatic Communist to a mainstream, capitalism-loving Democrat.

Allison Kooser (ig: @alkooser) travels around the world telling stories for nonprofits, she gets up at 5:28 every morning, and for one full year, she endeavored to not buy anything she didn’t need. She joins us here for a conversation on the nature and state of nonprofit work, conscious consumerism, and why gifting is a Baby Boomer fetish.

The New York Times called him the "low rent Bo Burnham" but we think he's more of a "overpriced condo Stephen Lynch." Our friend Matt Buechele (BOO-shell) joins us to talk about comedy and life on the information superhighway. Matt tells us how it feels to "go viral" and shares strategies for being extremely online while maintaining your sanity. Check out his work on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mattbooshell) and his music on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/1gFHHF3QyQxjbbKXV3qLu9)

Dive into life as a software engineer with undercover correspondent Dick Reckerd, a developer who has interviewed at Google, Amazon, and tons of startups. Are they really the smartest people on earth?

The US withdrawal from Syria is possibly the ultimate Trump maneuver: overdue yet radically impulsive, populist yet prosecuted by the worst elites in the country. Joined by Mid-East expert Hart Uhl, we walk through the American presence in Syria and discuss the pros and cons of sunsetting the era of unfettered adventure in Middle Eastern regime change. 6m: Trump / GOP willingness to fight in the Middle East 15m: Hart’s experience in Cairo in 2011, the US influence 21m: Comparing the failure of the Arab Spring to the failed dream of Web 2.0 29m: Why did General Mattis quit? 34m: Exactly what promise to the Kurds are we reneging on? 46: Why this is the ultimate Trump maneuver 52m: A series of super-easy quick fire questions about American proxy power in the Middle East Intro / Outro: Buzzcocks - "Why Can't I Touch It?"

One year from now, the Democratic presidential field of 275,000 will be narrowed down to about half that. To lead off the year, we sit down with politics crank Benji Kantrillion to survey the field and make predictions about who, if anyone, will be left standing to take on Trump. (Michael Moore audio via the 11/14/18 episode of “Intercepted”with Jeremy Scahill.) Intro / Outro: “S’Cooled" by Blood Orange

The License bois take on a certain TRILLION dollar company walking into their backyard. They are visited by the recently reelected and renamed Governor of New York and have some fresh takes on life in Jefe Besos' future home (or at least part time home). Buckle up for a convo about New York area infrastructure folks! Also, Lenny reports back from his time on the west coast where he got to see a lot of people participating in the latest urban trend...involuntarily sleeping on the street!

As NY primary results roll in, we talk about where the Democratic Party, and the left is supposed to go after a resounding victory for the status Cuomo.

The New York State primary election for governor is on Thursday, September 13th, 2018. Our colleague, Azeem Haider, was able to lock down a short interview with Cynthia Nixon (actress, turned activist, turned political candidate for NY State Governor). We have spent a good portion of this podcast following Cynthia's campaign and debating whether she can defeat the incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo with one of the most progressive policy platforms in the nation. Universal Healthcare for all New Yorkers, a functioning MTA, and well funded public schools. We can't tell you who to vote for, but for those that will be voting on Thursday all we can say is... vote for what you think the people of the great state of New York deserve. Also, if you see anything that could be construed as voter suppression...post about it and report it. Cheers.

We did it. We made 50 episodes of a podcast in about a year and this is the final one. Recorded live at Bluebird in Brooklyn... in Uncle Karl's Sleaze Pit aka "the Nest." Please enjoy this episode where we reminisce about the journey to 50 episodes with our closest friends. We share our hottest and coldest takes, invite close family & friends on stage to roast us, and cap it all off with a drinking game. We hope you have enjoyed this audio experience with us. This is the end of the podcast for now, but we might add some content to this channel at a later date. This is the end of an era for the OG Infinity License crew. If you've enjoyed this, please shower us with compliments from your favorite social media platform OR in person...the original social media platform.

Culture vulture Cat Green joins us for the second-to-last episode of Infinity License, which is a Very Special Episode as we all get addicted to huffing, the drug of the 90s. Cat is about to start her own podcast, which offers us a poignant vantage from which to offer our own reminiscences of the project. Plus we talk about this other stuff: 6m - Cat’s childhood fascination with “Twister" 10m - Would you rather live Ron Goldman’s life (not death) or your own? 22m - Lenny hates that InfoWars got kicked off Facebook 37m - Bill O’Reilly and the problem of contards 45m - A preview of Cat’s forthcoming podcast about the most fun thing of all: fear.

The penultimate-penultimate episode of the License features Brooklyn comedian George Gordon, whose upcoming album “You’re A Good Friend” will drop at 2:47pm on September 16, and who will be performing at our live event next Saturday.

Pre-trial cash bail predates pretty much every legal convention in our system, and yet persists because Americans love punishing each other and have even less creativity than empathy. Rachel Foran, Managing Director at the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, takes us through the crisis that is the cash bail system, and introduces us to the term “abolition” as referring to the ultimate end of our prison system.

We announce Infinity License L in conversation with Karl Bernholtz, owner/janitor of The Nest, where we’re holding the event. Karl’s done a lot in his life, from getting naked in Florida bands to watching murders in New York bands. No murders here tho.

Psychedelics, space, and baseball: there is no better combination so don’t even try. Brian reviews “How To Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan, which leads to a conversation about droogs. Then we talk Elon Musk, and why Lenny is still a fan even as Elon does everything possible to show how much a boring bonehead nerd-ass weirdo he is. 3m - Psychedelics, microdosing, Ram Dass, transcendence 25m - Elon Musk’s extremely online self-owning

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes is the next big thing in the Democratic Party. Right? We discuss the complexities around that question, even though we want her to be so, so badly. Also immigration and a story about Walsh Hall at Fordham that used newspapers for insulation.

Icelandic / Berliner improviser Steindór Grétar Jónsson and volunteer culture critic Ben Contillo join the cast to talk about comedy across the NATO world and how useless the American South is. Did you know the US occupied Iceland until 2006? Shit. Song: “Adventures In Success” - Will Powers

Philosopher-In-Residence Robbie Kubala joins the cast after a restorative 25-year sabbatical. Fresh off being tiara’d as a PhD, Robbie is here to answer all of our philosophical questions. Unfortunately, he answered every last one of them, and as a result, the remainder of philosophy has been cancelled. Here’s how the destruction went down: 1:30 - Reminiscences about how Robbie’s superior intellect dated to when Lenny met him: approximately 1991. 15 - Discussing Robbie’s dissertations on ethical theorizing in everyday life, and what we morally owe to our own aesthetic urges. Note: this is different than the feeling one gets when "the funk” makes them get up offa that thing. 29 - Are trivial pursuits like sports valuable? Robbie’s Latin-German alter-ego says “sí” to the extent they bring you involuntary and/or convulsive joy. 35 - Jamelle Bouie’s Enlightenment controversy: Was it responsible for Western civilization’s racism or a shining moment of the mind? 47 - We pick our favorite philosopher. Originally we all chose Jesus so we had to go again to pick different ones. Also, Robbie chooses his next project: dissecting the aesthetics of gun ownership. Intro: "Rock Steady" by Aretha Franklin Outro: "A Fan's Mail" by Thundercat

Impeachment is a hell of a thing. So is David Riccardo. Trump may end up getting away with not knowing either. Recorded the day of the Trump / Kim summit, we talk not at all about that because we knew it would be bullshit. Instead, we spend much more time on Clint “Deuce” Dempsey’s rap career and Brian realizes that bitcoin is, after all, the global currency dreaded by the Amero crowd. 0:30 - DJ Deuce takes a deuce all over your ears 2:30 - Which of these is uncool: Montreal or Lenny? 5:30 - Cynthia Nixon hits the stump hard / good / mm fuck yes 15:30 - Family separation: Worse than internment camps? 21:30 - Trump’s idiotic mercantilism needs to get called out as fucking stupid as his ideas on everything else. Please do not mention his “tariff agenda” without adding how leotard-ed it is. 37:00 - Lenny offers helpful insight into the concept of impeachment and why the system is prob not going to punish Trump 52:30 - World Cup bet. Brian won his .002809 bitcoin, which ended up paying $17.39 on the $20 we wagered. The future!

Pretend you’re sitting dehydrated on a plane for 12 hours because the License is going to the Middle East! We chat with Middle Eastern affairs expert Hart Uhl about his time living in Kurdistan and the prospects of the US actually helping that to become a thing. 1m - We talk coxswain life and what the hell they’re doing up there. 5 - What Kurdistan is and why it cannot exist, despite the moral case for the US making this happen. 29 - Hart explains Iraqi politics to us, including the May 12 election that nobody believes 39 - We learn how to pronounce Qatar 40 - Memories of the Mubarak overthrow 44 - Speculation on North Korea, including John Bolton’s awesome outreach about Gaddafhi 49 - Could the US devolve into Civil War a la the Middle East? That’s the subject of a book that Brian is way too into for a non-sleeper cell American. Intro/outro: “Slip Kid” by The Who, a song about child soldiers, which are not actually covered in this episode.

Fast kickin, low scorin, and ties, ties, ties?!? YOU BET! We're talking futbol (soccer) with our friend and sports journalist Noah Davis. Noah walks us through what we need to know going into the 2018 World Cup. We discuss the USA/Canada/Mexico bid for the 2026 World Cup, soccer strategy, and what teams to bet on going into this year's event. Noah gives us some insight on how team USA blew it going into this World Cup and how they can rebuild for the future. Maybe this is the year we finally find out which is the greatest country in the world...Mexico or Portugal! Oh also we talk about baseball at the top, because...Bartolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yniWxbPAA2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVFsq9FQBlc

Took our time getting this one out, a nice discussion with comedian, homelessness preventer, and fellow podcaster Sander Randall. At the very end he asks us an uncomfortable question and everything gets gooey. 2m - We start talking about Bill Keys / Lynn Gentry and street poetry, and end up talking about obsolete technology 12m - Sander talks about what it was like growing up in the US Virgin Islands, and we discuss what we did during Hurricane Sandy, like get ripped off by a Russian guy. 22m - Sander introduces us to homelessness prevention work, which he does for $$$, and why tax help is the GOAT of volunteerism 32:50 - Conversation about podcasting. Sander is a podcaster extrordinaire and we learn his ways. 39m - Announcing the return of Moon Crew!! Song: “Horizon” by Real Estate

Charlie Walden returns for a little bonus action to talk about the Cynthia Nixon campaign so far. What would marijuana legalization, stable housing, and jobs be in a Nixon world? Brian & Charlie also talk about what Cynthia has got to do to win over upstate voters.

Reality TV meets Buddhism meets crypto-rotica in this conversation with writer Becky Scott. We entered this podcast with a whole bunch of topics we never got anywhere near. Instead, we talked about the film Becky wrote and is now producing (2m); what it’s like to report on The Bachelor and Real Housewives (9:30); Cat Person, a mere 8 months after it blew up (25m); and Becky’s new love of Buddhism, inspired by Pema Chödrön (33:20).

Philip Markle joins the IL boys to discuss improv, live performance, and La Croix. Philip is the co-founder of the Brooklyn Comedy Collective and shares his thoughts on what it means to perform. We discuss whether it is controversial to pay performers as a theater. Lenny and Brian also fight about who has ASMR or doesn't with very hilarious results. Links to articles discussed in the show below: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/arts/television/brett-davis-comedy.html https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/01/the-case-for-paying-improvisors.html "Burn This Disco Out" by Michael Jackson

IL report on the Cynthia Nixon launch party, where we spoke to some folks and imagined a future in which a TV celebrity could win office (14:30). We also talk about Justice Stevens' 2nd Amendment op-ed (2:45)and the NFL's flawed new catch rule (39:30).

Lenny returns from Brazil to discover that gasp Facebook has been gasp improperly giving our data to craven gaspalytics firms. Brian does not care. He does, however, get fired up about Mirandizing Governor Cuomo. 0:00 - Recap de Janeiro: A real good time in a real-ass city 13:45 - Cambridge Analytica gets O'Keefe'd, riles some 32:00 - Sex and the State: Cynthia Nixon's gubernatorial run Intro / Outro: "Do Leme Ao Pontal" by Tim Maia

What's worse, guns or Apu? We settle this super woke question with noted media consumer Ben Contillo, who joins us this week to talk about how only the good kids will suffer if teachers have guns (8m) and "The Problem With Apu," a documentary about why Hank Azaria's worst mistake was not Godzilla (19m). Free Tay-K.

Cinemaphile Cat Green joins us for a pretty actually decent preview of the 2018 Academy Awards. We start off by debating the merits of the Oscars, which both Lenny and Brian are pretty iffy on, but which Cat sees as an integral cultural touchstone (9m). We then embark on a journey of discovery (talk about all the nominated films) and learn important truths about ourselves (about film stars). Pretty much the best Oscars preview you’re going to find—sorry St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Friend of "the License," Lance Pauker, returns to the cast to discuss the massive influx of capital that has come into New York City and the adverse effects that have followed(10:00). We lament the banality of modern glassy architecture and the demise of the Landmark Sunshine Cinema(28:00). We also speculate on ways that we can preserve the things that make New York well... "New York." We also round out the podcast with conversations touching on Tim Wu's "The Tyranny of Convenience" from the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html) and Elizabeth Dunn's "The Inflated Promise of the American Food Hall" from the New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/the-inflated-promise-of-the-american-food-hall). Finally, we promise to one day travel to Tuscaloosa, Alabama...the "Tajikistan of America" Intro & Outro music credit: "New York City Boy" by the Pet Shop Boys

This week we’re hanging out with Chris McCole, a US Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. We talk about: - What it’s like to go to West Point (3:00) - The problem with civilians having no relationship with the military (14:20) - Chris’s ruminations on the war in Afghanistan (21:20) - Whether the US should have mandatory service (35:00) - The challenge of transitioning back to civilian life (45:00) - Whether there are any good Afghanistan movies (50:50) - The full Paul Wall verse of Grillz

This week we are all about Russian hacking, health care, and other stuff you wish you never thought about. First we discuss why the correct reading of the Nunes memo story is that the US government is now too dysfunctional to respond to overt military attacks (2:20). Then we talk about how the stock market took a dive when news came out that was actually positive for working people (20:45) before predicting what Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett, and Jefe Besos have up their sleeves for health care (26:45). Music: “Aoede," Mashrou' Leila

We're joined by friend of the show and actual friend John Murray. We all took personality tests at https://www.16personalities.com/ and found out the John is a total "Carrie." We discussed the upcoming Super Bowl where John Murray (open Patriots fan) said he wouldn't mind seeing the Eagles win if it meant offering the city of Philadelphia to the altar of self-destruction. This episode is also served with your standard side of your hosts complaining about the NFL....but refusing to stop watching. Have a good Super Bowl everyone! We hope you're watching in Tajikistan!

We’re joined by comedy writer Julia Reiss (@thereisspiece) for a conversation on the possibilities and pitfalls of the #MeToo movement. Julia talks about why she prefers New York to LA (2m), her life as a comedy writer (5m), and we entertain the thought that Brian might own Computer.com. Julia also takes us through getting blocked by “President” Trump (7:30) and argues that our culture’s sexual repression leads to miscommunications like the one that befell poor Grace and Aziz (32:50).

We discuss Brian's recent trip to China and now since he has been there for two weeks is a certified Asia expert. The conversation follows silly anecdotes on how Brian broke his foot, to deep analysis on the definitions of communism and capitalism. We also cover the bull to bear run in Bitcoin over the past few weeks and debate over whether this might be a "Minsky Moment" for cryptocurrencies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment). Finally, there is a crypto-style parlay of a bet we made on the cast before this NFL season (Brian bet on the Dolphins to make the playoffs #dumb). Shoutout to our fans in Japan! We didn't visit you on our Asia tour, but we'll get to you next time. Show notes and time stamps: 0:00 - China trip recap 25:00 - minsky moment 32:30 - AFCrypto bet - Warren Buffett was announced as the face of Cherry Coke as it launched in China in April 2017. Berkshire Hathaway is the largest single shareholder in Coca-Cola, Buffett is a superstar in China, and apparently he personally loves Cherry Coke. How is he still that healthy. - The US has around 800 military bases abroad. Jesus! - The football bet is for ~0.061 ether, equivalent to $20 at the start of the 2017 NFL season.

We have a conversation about our holiday plans. Lenny is going back to Chi-CAGO and I am going to Chi-NA, coincidence??? We discuss whether the PRC will overtake America as head-honcho-hegemony (probably). There is a very serious discussion about line or queue culture. Lenny proposes the ultimate solution for happiness and NO it's not scientology! It's deleting a certain app from your phone. An app that is useless because it is full of olds who have a weird idea about what is appropriate to share on said app. If everyone who listens to this show deletes this app the world will be a better place and most of Silicon Valley actually agree with us. We discuss the article that Paul Lewis wrote for the Guardian which confirms our ongoing thesis of this show, the Internet is breaking our brains. Happy Honda Days from the License boys everyone! Link to Guardian article by Paul Lewis: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia Intro Music: The Pogues "Fairytale of New York"

Twelve hours after a pipe bomb didn’t blow up the Port Authority and 24 hours before the polls closed in Alabama, we sat down with journalist John Light to talk about whether horoscopes are really, really real. Jk we talked about the failson who tried to kill people in the Port Authority (2m); a segment called Mommy, Why Do They Hate Us? - Inside The Republican Tax Bill (10m); how Roy Moore (R.I.P.) has touched America (34m); and the fantasy that is the Russia story (45m). Is the pee tape real? I’ve definitely seen A pee tape, so maybe. Show notes: - The Business Plot involved Gen. Smedley Butler (25m) - Here’s the Cowboy Code that was finally able to displace Sharia law in Wyoming - Opening: “Skanks For the Memories” by Dave Attell - Intro / Outro: “I’m A Ram” by Al Green

While getting ready to record Episode 24 (dropping this week) we got into a discussion about Bitcoin’s current tear (December 2017) and the prospects it will continue to grow long-term. Turns out Brian actually read the original white paper in 2008 and didn’t invest! Now he works for a living. Enjoy! Brian's note: I really hate working and kick myself everyday for being a lazy college student with a lot of foresight and little initiative.

Lance, Lenny, and Brian reminisce about their entry into life in the City. A deep dive into local history, life in New York City(2017), and speculation on the future of the City of New York. We also discuss what it means to be "last generation New York" vs new generation New York. Lenny shares some great local restaurant tips and good advice about crushing it in other cities and grants a "Second City" lens to this episode. We also discuss our favorite statues in NYC. SPOILER: They are either anti-confederate or socialist/communist statues. DISCLAIMER: multiple references to Colin Quinn, Tuscaloosca(s), and a lot of hate on Instagram tourism. Local Business Shoutouts: Cafe Dushanbe in Sheepshead Bay, 7th Avenue Donuts & Diner in Park Slope, and Pretty Good Tours NYC. To our fans in Tajikistan, Cafe Dushanbe is now the unofficial sponsor of this podcast. We love you! Music by Darius Weil, a non-musician who randomly made this song and posted it to Facebook.

In this very special holiday episode, Infinity License sherpas you through the art of owning your conservative family members. You won’t be able to pincer your relatives with pure wit like an English public schoolboy, but you will be able to get drunk in good conscience. ARGUMENTS YOU WILL HEAR: Spoiled NFL players are disrespecting the military The US is the most highly taxed nation in the world Obamacare is failing We can’t afford your hippie public programs The one who REALLY colluded with Russia was Killary We shouldn’t support the greedy foreigners of Puerto Rico The liberal media is waging a war on men

IL is joined by Gizmodo writer Tom McKay (@thetomzone), who is on Twitter way more than any brain can handle. He explains Twitter, including his battles with Colonel Kurt Schlichter and whether the site should just be nationalized. We talk about the weird meta movement in media, Roy Moore, and the wave of assault allegations we’re all enjoying so much. Finally, Brian coins The Thirsty Firsters to refer to the nerds who subtweet Trump with bad owns and too much research. *Brian mentions this Whitest Kids U Know sketch @ minute 29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsWLBOyEv6o