Cooler Heads

This week, we speak with Johnny’s sister, Kristie, about the excitement of living abroad—the adventure of new places, fresh connections, and building a life somewhere new. We also touch on the feeling of being a stranger in a strange place, and how that experience shapes identity, independence, and connection while navigating expat life and being single abroad.

This week: chaos in the Middle East — the Iran war, ceasefires, and Strait of Hormuz brinkmanship — plus a blunt look at what Donald Trump’s foreign policy even is (if anything). Then we pivot to something far more human: a striking, intimate conversation between Ben Sasse and Ross Douthat on mortality, meaning, and how to live when time is suddenly finite.

This week, we unpack Louis Theroux’s newest documentary, “Inside the Manosphere” alongside a heated Jubilee face-off featuring Jillian Michaels and body positivity activists—two equal and opposite extremes in the ongoing battle of the sexes. When both sides push to the edge, what does a way forward actually look like?

This week we walk through how a “contained” war somehow managed to squeeze the Strait of Hormuz, rattle global markets, and drift into the familiar “no boots on the ground…unless” phase. None of it is surprising—every escalation was basically sitting in the pregame notes. Less fog of war, more willful blindness.

This week, a State of the Union with the tenor of a wrestling match: jeers, applause lines, and red-meat rhetoric set the tone for a country already on edge. We break down the drama in the chamber (Ilhan Omar vs Trump, “these people are crazy”, etc) before diving into the escalating fallout from the strikes on Iran: questions of war powers, international law, civilian risk, whether the operation deters conflict or accelerates it, and the cascading geopolitical dominos.

What shapes music — the artist, the audience, or the architecture?This week, we dive into How Music Works by David Byrne and explore the deeper currents behind sound itself. From cathedral ceilings to village drum circles, we unpack how environment, technology, and culture shape what gets composed — and what gets heard. We also discuss our own pasts with music, playing, and current projects.Drawing on the ideas of Marshall McLuhan and Walter J. Ong, we examine the shift from oral to written traditions, from communal rhythm to isolated composition, from acoustic space to electric media.Why did symphonies bloom inside churches?Why did polyrhythms flourish in open air communities?And how has recording technology rewired the way we experience music?This conversation moves across continents and centuries.

This week: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show—loved, loathed, endlessly litigated.Then we crack open the latest Epstein file drop. What’s new, what’s noise, and what does our fixation on the abyss say about us?

Aliens, awkward cosmic silence, and a cult that thought salvation came on a spaceship. We hop from global UFO sightings to the Fermi Paradox to the bizarre legacy of the Heaven’s Gate cult.

This week we dive into Greenland—its history and growing geopolitical importance—then unpack the emerging “Donroe Doctrine” of the Trump admin and how it compares to past administrations’ views of power.

This week, we welcome another friend of the show, Ilya, for a wide-ranging conversation on the evergreen subject of AI. We explore the origins of thought and language, and how early, habitual engagement with AI may atrophy those human capacities. Along the way, we examine a recent case involving a young man in Pennsylvania who used ChatGPT as both therapist and pickup-artist coach—with predictably chaotic results.

This week, friend of the show Evan Barker joins us to discuss the recent ICE-involved shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, and the subsequent fallout. Evan also fills us in on the details of her new book.Preorder Evan’s book here: “Nothing Left, Confessions of a Democratic Operative”

While America invades Venezuela, Johnny and Jess discuss looksmaxxing and one of its biggest proponents, an influencer named Clavicular. What’s the nature of beauty? Is Clavicular some modern result of our image-obsessed algorithm culture? Will the world still love us when we’re no longer young and beautiful?

This week we discuss the series of tragedies that shocked the world, all in one weekend: the mysterious shooting at Brown University, the antisemitic terrorist attack on Bondi Beach in Australia, and the horrific murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele. We touch on FBI incompetence, father-son dynamics, and our favorite Reiner films.

This week we have a wide-ranging conversation on the malaise of modern relationships, the nature of commitment, happiness vs immediate satisfaction, and how luck plays a role in all of this.

This week we discuss the decline of deviance and what it means for cultural stagnation. Are the kids even cool anymore?Inspired by Adam Mastroianni’s piece here.

This week we pardon some turkeys and delve deeper into the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein drama and its ever-growing facets: More emails! Establishing back channels between foreign leaders and arms dealers! Honeypots! How much more can our trust in institutions be eroded? Is nothing surprising anymore?Plus, how to navigate politics at the Thanksgiving table. And our favorite holiday dishes.

This week we discuss the newest Ken Burns documentary, “The American Revolution”, loyalists vs patriots, and the perception of “history” in 2025

This week, we interview Julie Behling, a filmmaker, blogger, and education activist. We discuss the years she spent in post-Soviet 1990s Russia, her work as a Christian missionary, and her fears and analysis of what she feels are insidious trends towards Communism in American society today.

This week, we discuss the Democratic sweep of the recent elections in New York City, Virginia, New Jersey, California and others. Is this surprising? How should the Republicans take these developments? We also hone in on Zohran Mamdani and the hype surrounding him. Is he a true rising superstar in the Democratic Party or a flash in the pan? Are his socialist ideas feasible to implement in NYC? We break all of it down.

What could be spookier than the utter futility of consciousness? What if it’s an “error” in our wiring?Today, Johnny is the teacher and Jess is the student as we do a deep dive into the work of Peter Wessel Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher. His work was forged in the aftermath of the first and second world wars, a time of mechanized violence never seen before in human history. Is this what inspired his beliefs? What led him to become such a proponent of antinatalism? Are there parallels to today?Enjoy this nihilistic journey and Happy Halloween from the Cooler Heads!

This week, we take a wild ride through the NYC mayoral race, Katie Porter’s behavior toward reporters and staffers, the national guard in blue cities, and the feigned humility of Karine Jean-Pierre’s new book, “Independent”.

This week, we welcome a special guest: friend, writer, and commentator Evan Barker. A former Democratic political strategist, Evan made a break from the party in last year’s presidential election. We discuss Evan’s disillusionment with party politics, progressive ideology, and the Democrats’ young men problem. Follow Evan’s work:X: @evanwchSubstack: evanbarker.substack.com

This week, we discuss Johnny’s recent visit to Brazil and do a deep dive into the prosecutions of its former and current leaders, Jair Bolsonaro and Lula Da Silva. Then, we discuss this in the larger context of political prosecutions in the US and why it feels like everything is a LARP now. Is it possible to be a political change agent in the 21st century or are we truly living in the End of History?

This week, we discuss the sudden suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show and its entanglement with the Charlie Kirk assassination, the first amendment, free speech, Trump, and media consolidation. We reminisce about the late night ecosystem of our 90s and early 2000s youth and the loss of the monoculture. Is truth and reconciliation possible? Plus, college professors and free speech-is it fair to expect specific figures (like teachers, nurses, etc) to uphold a certain kind of moral seriousness in their position? What are we allowed and not allowed to expect?

In the week after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, we discuss our emotional states in the days after, reactions to the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, and the pernicious role social media has played in all of this. Plus, a bonus discussion on a 70s classic, “The Parallax View”.

Charlie Kirk has been assassinated. We react in real time to confirmation of his death and the implications for the country.

We discuss antinatalism, degrowth, plummeting fertility rates, and how having kids is a radical act in a world seemingly set on cancelling the future.

We discuss the minefield that is modern dating-the scolding, the guilting, the political purity testing, etc. How do we find our way out of the wilderness and back to our instincts and following our hearts?

Johnny, an Eastern European and Russian studies scholar, fills us in on his experiences abroad. From the early 2000s in Moscow and Vladivostok to the 2020s in Poland. How long is the shadow of the Soviet Union? What is the Russian temperament like? How does Russia’s liminal location, in geography and spirit, play out in its politics?

The Streisand Effect at full throttle: from CEOs behaving badly at Coldplay concerts to the Epstein coverup. Plus, what happened to the Late Night franchise and Stephen Colbert? Does comedy have to die to be reborn again?

This week we dive right in to the heady waters of the Jeffery Epstein controversy and our theories on who he was and what he did. What does it mean for the true believers in MAGA? Then we discuss the floods in Texas, the DOGE of it all, and the risks inherent in living in beautiful places. 

The war that wasn’t; and a new superstar launches in New York. Is Zohran all hype or the real deal?

Happy Pride! Has the growing acronym umbrella created a Tower of Babel? We cover the history of the modern gay/queer movement, the Pride flag, and the strange journey since 2015, when gay marriage was legalized nationally. That moment felt like an apex victory, but where are we now? 

In an era of bottomless guilt and endless shame, how are these foundational human impulses weaponized by crowd-funding? We cover some truly outlandish campaigns that have popped up over the last few years. We also discuss an interesting tangent in the Canadian trucker protests of 2022 and how private citizens can be locked out from the financial system for questionable reasons.

Jess and Johnny discuss their days in college, which span multiple decades. From the Bush era through Obama and now in the disruption of the Trump years. Just how “woke” is college? What does that mean and what’s it like being in a college classroom in 2025?