David Boles: Human Meme

All the Good People Are Taken

October 19, 2017 14:00 - 15 minutes - 29.1 MB

Being alone is painful. How do we live in a world where everyone good, and righteous, is already connected with someone else? We unearth the values of belonging, and the perils of coveting -- all in the unified, identified, effort of finding that one, certain someone, you can love.

Sex as a Commodity

October 11, 2017 22:27 - 11 minutes - 21.3 MB

How do we negotiate the power dyad between the sexes? We examine the nature of sexual human attraction, and the powerful abuses therein. Did the catching of the predator begin in the modern world with Monica's Blue Dress? How should we view the victim who accepts a check to keep quiet in the future? How do we mark the real heroes who stand against the monster, and fight in the light of day?

Fake News and the Baldfaced Confession

October 04, 2017 22:29 - 10 minutes - 19.5 MB

Those who speak of Fake News are spreading the thin lie of the truth. We chip away at the cheapening of a moral reality by those with vested, evil, interests in obscuring what is really happening in fact without fiction.

Genesis of Moral Authority

September 27, 2017 14:43 - 13 minutes - 24.3 MB

How do we interpret our moral code? Are we born "bad in the shell" as Shakespeare believed? Or are we taught to be evil, and our goodness must be earned, and never purchased? Join us as we struggle to endure the immoral among us.

Have Gun -- Will Hire People With Dreams

September 21, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 21.6 MB

Be not afraid of those who work for you so they may realize their own dreams. We recall the right lessons of the classic television Western, "Have Gun -- Will Travel," and the lessons that show still leaves on us, to teach us today, about dreams, and belonging, and helping other people in need, even when it conflicts with our own best interests.

Once is Always Enough: To Punish You, I Will Do Without

September 14, 2017 14:00 - 16 minutes - 29.7 MB

A short history of Racism and Genderism in America. We take on the notion that the majority power prefers to do without -- than to share their wealth and privilege -- with the poor and the genetically undeserving. From the "Whites Only" Pool, to the darkness of "Title IX" Voodoo Economics, no harbor is safe from the discrimination of the power majority against the basest, minority, interest.

Oedipus Among Us: The Sad and Sorry State of Debralee Scott

September 07, 2017 14:00 - 14 minutes - 25.9 MB

If we only knew then what we know now, would we still want to live? That question has bedeviled the human mind for a millennia. We travel back in time to meet the young actress Debralee Scott -- to ask her about the life, the tragic end, that would befall her in a few short years -- and to wonder, with her, and against her, if the rest of her life would have been worth living.

Style is Substance: Design in Being

August 31, 2017 14:00 - 14 minutes - 27.3 MB

We can buy the banal, or we may invest in Beauty. We examine the idea of Beauty, and invention, by using reading glasses design as a theory exemplar. We can settle for ordinary, or we may celebrate the functional Divine.

No Time for a Gracious Winner

August 24, 2017 14:00 - 13 minutes - 24 MB

The time for crushing Hate Speech is now! We tempt grace against ferocity -- as the world around us is divided between winners and losers. Humanity is cleaved into the moral and the immoral -- and knowing the difference is the key to spinning a right world.

Golfing with My Grandfather

August 17, 2017 14:00 - 19 minutes - 35.9 MB

A small town is defined by its passions. We share the story of his William Henry Vodehnal, a small town pharmacist from North Loup, Nebraska, who made a difference in every life he knew. Plus, you'll learn the real perils of sandlot golfing, and what it really means to die alone.

Spending on the Dead

August 10, 2017 14:00 - 12 minutes - 22.3 MB

How much value do we place on a human life? Are all lives created equal? Or do some lives deserve more money, attention, love, and support? We share the story of a wounded life that died too young -- and what was done to make the unpredictable end, bearable, in sorrow.

Fighting Back Against Identity Theft

August 03, 2017 14:00 - 12 minutes - 23.4 MB

How do Hackers find you? We share the experience of thwarting identity theft. There are methods and motives you can use to create a Black Hole and not a honeypot. Nothing is foolproof against dedicated intention -- but you must always try to prove you are not the fool.

Outline of a Human Being

July 27, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.4 MB

How do we know when we are a fully realized Human Being? How do we know we are not just a ghost of a person, or the suggestion of a living thing? We unravel our soft code for the hard-boiled truth!

Violating Your Privacy with a Cardboard Box

July 20, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.2 MB

Sometimes, your best ally in fighting discrimination, is information. Have you ever been mistaken for someone else and then had to pay the social penalty for the mislabeling? There are several ways to redefine your accuser. We explore what we know, and how we know where to fit its finest exposure.

What Remains

July 13, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 16.4 MB

Who can predict what stays and not what will change? We take a look at predictions. It's easy to guess the future, but it takes more insight, and longing, to understand what will never change, knowing what stays, and accepting what remains.

A Catlow Killing

July 06, 2017 14:00 - 13 minutes - 18 MB

Who killed Irving Catlow? We investigate the homicide of a beloved member of the Jersey City Heights community. Irving Catlow owned Catlow Movers, and he found his undeserved end in a chrome gun pistol-whipping, a smashed eye socket, and a busted up nose. A blood clot put him in a coma, and the rest, killed him. With your help, we can solve this Catlow Killing! Please listen; and make goodness win one for the day!

Journal Squared Live

June 29, 2017 14:00 - 14 minutes - 20 MB

In the Hilltop neighborhood of Jersey City, a new king of the skyline emerges. Known as the "Journal Squared" development, by the Kushner Group, we take you inside this new monolith in the sky for an insider look at what makes an aesthetic great in filling the empty space. Journal Squared 1 is currently the tallest building in Jersey City, and in this moment, you'll begin to discover why.

Failure to Pitch

June 22, 2017 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.4 MB

If you’re a freelancer, you know well we now live in a, "Pitch Me!" Culture. We reason why some people expect other people to give up their grand ideas for free -- all without any money, fame, or gratitude, applied!

Thoughts on the Human Form

June 15, 2017 14:00 - 10 minutes - 13.8 MB

We only appear to be what we are not. We take to the skies of the scalpel to wonder how we can change who we are in the facade, and never think how our infrastructure may never be modified or laded.

Twentysomething

June 08, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 16.1 MB

If you’re Twentysomething, the world appears set against you, and it is! We share thoughts on the young, who are and abandoned into a world that has lost patience for the doctor's note afterthought.

Danger of Becoming the Establishment

June 01, 2017 14:00 - 15 minutes - 20.9 MB

There are always unknown, underworld, perils to the spirit. We examine the careers of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Charles Strouse, J.D. Salinger, and Truman Capote to decipher the dangers of becoming the new, mainstream, standard of excellence -- and the trap it sets for the aesthetic of the True Artist.

As Alfonso Drinks His Urine

May 25, 2017 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.2 MB

"If I were to write a subtitle today, it would read this: 'When You Pay Horrible People to Teach You!'" We share the story of an old foe -- an Ivy League Playwriting Instructor -- who, on the first day of class, declared he would "rather drink his own urine" than to have to "teach another section of new Playwrights." Salud!

Freedomland, White Flight, and How the Bronx Turned

May 18, 2017 14:00 - 14 minutes - 19.6 MB

Freedomland, USA was an idealized experience of what a true melting pot the United States had become; it lasted four years. We dig into the murky depths of the Baychester salt marshes in the Bronx -- where "White Flight" became a social test of turning.

Hate is Made of Small Things

May 11, 2017 14:00 - 12 minutes - 17.3 MB

Small things fester into big things that kill you. We take a look at the tiny insults we hold onto for 40 years, so that we may feel better, later, about the first betrayal. Who knew a small town, Doppler Weather Radar system -- overlay idea! -- at a small, Midwestern, radio station, could cause such dishonesty and longing?

Not Missing Richard Simmons

May 04, 2017 14:00 - 16 minutes - 22.8 MB

There is no right to privacy when you ask people to follow you, and you then take their time, attention, money, and admiration, in the exchange. We wonder why Richard Simmons, and even Dr. Drew, appear to feel besieged by the very bespoke fame, and attention, they bespake while starting out on their Hollywood careers.

Art of the Kayfabe Presidency

April 27, 2017 12:52 - 10 minutes - 14 MB

Kayfabe -- can be dangerous -- if you don’t know the game is fixed right from the first bell. We apply -- The Art of Kayfabe -- to the modern world, and the Evildoer Presidency. If Kayfabe is the fourth wall -- what happens when that suspension of disbelief, is never believed?

Marcus Aurelius on Meditations

April 24, 2017 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MB

Marcus Aurelius spent time alone to think about the world. Because of that rightful introspection, in writing, from one of the last five great Emperors, we have insight into the history of what fed us. We share some favorite quotes from Marcus' "Meditations" in examination.

I Prefer Not To

April 20, 2017 14:00 - 10 minutes - 13.9 MB

“Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” We share why Herman Melville's short story classic -- Bartleby, the Scrivener -- is the perfect anti-hero-protagonist-villain for memeing in our modern world. We are Bartleby. We cannot be Bartleby.

All Men Fall

April 17, 2017 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.1 MB

All men fall. The great man stands back up. The greater man helps his fellow man rise again, too. We examine what it means to be a man in the meme of a modern world where circumstances spin and facts change on the whim of the whirlwind.

How a Musical Dies

April 13, 2017 14:00 - 17 minutes - 24.2 MB

Most musicals die ugly and forsaken deaths. We reveal the ugly underbelly of creating the Broadway musical -- where money and mischief -- are more important, and valued, than doing the right thing for the benefit of humanity.

When Most I Play the Devil

April 10, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.7 MB

"Tell them that God bids us do good for evil." We unravel the wrappings of the Evildoers among us. They have taken over and are preparing to drown the rest of the non-believers. Now is the time to stand up to stare them down!

Last Stanchion of Cruelty

April 06, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 16 MB

The last question of cruelty we have left to answer is if we need to kill to live. We cut open the Omaha Stockyards, animal cruelty, and our life habits of aging diseases -- all related to eating the right foods and not the wrong lives.

Don't Fall

April 03, 2017 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.8 MB

Judge Judy has two words for us, and two words only: DON'T FALL! We explore aging, and health, and the physiological, and social norms, of falling, and of being, felled.

Aching Actor Archetypes

March 30, 2017 14:00 - 17 minutes - 24.5 MB

What happens to a classically trained actor who turns to a life in television? We take a turn as he discovers the vortex where talent and expectation meet to find an undivine end in 1970s episodic television.

Love is Never Enough

March 27, 2017 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MB

If we have one, singular, predictable, human failing it is this: We LOVE too much! Yes, love is NOT the answer. Love is never enough. Love is overrated, overexposed, and over-occupied! We take the Tricorn love beast for a wrangle in the depths of definition.

Black English? Black Accent?

March 23, 2017 14:00 - 14 minutes - 20.2 MB

Can you identify someone’s Race only by listening to the way they speak? Can you identify someone’s Race by the way they pronounce words? Can you identify someone’s Race by the the way they pattern a spoken phrase? We investigate the definition of speech against Race against the color of expectation.

Shooting the American West Western

March 20, 2017 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.4 MB

Values of the American West have been preserved in television. We watch the history of the Wild West unfold in many broadcast television series that aired over three decades. What is lost to history? Was anything won back in the dramatizations?

Entrenching the Thucydides Trap

March 16, 2017 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.6 MB

Thucydides warned us against war with the minority power. We extend the argument of the Thucydides Trap into the trenches of living a modern, conflicted, life.

Writing is Not a Collaborative Process

March 13, 2017 14:00 - 12 minutes - 16.7 MB

We write to reveal, but we must act alone. We share how collaboration is important -- but only when it is done separately and apart -- as a writing project.

How to Know a Bad Singer

March 09, 2017 15:00 - 12 minutes - 17.3 MB

A singer ruins a slow song with slow singing. We share analysis of three, infamous, "slow singer" failures: Alison Krauss, Rumer, and Diana Krall! Plus, he shares some bonus singers along the way!

Blackballed: Audree Norton

March 06, 2017 15:00 - 11 minutes - 16.2 MB

You beat back a Blackball by ignoring the Blackball. We share the aesthetic legacy of Deaf actress, Audree Norton, who fought against discrimination of the minority, by the minority, in casting -- and for her historic effort -- she was Blackballed by the television industry.

David Boles: Human Meme

Episodes