The Daily Whatever

Saturdays tend to be pretty chill here at The Daily Whatever (unlike weekdays when we’re super locked-down and professional).

We wanted today to feel like a gathering of friends. So we put it out there to our community of regular “Whatevers”—those who frequent the podcast—that everyone was welcome to come online to say hello, and tell us what they’re into and how they came to find us.

Unsurprisingly, everyone was wonderful. First Sarah came on and shared her multihyphenate interests: everything from writing to canning to making her own CBD healing creams. We a...

What an amazing treat! Mr. Troy Ford stole the show at The Daily Whatever today as we ramped up for our fave day of the week: Fucked-up Friday! Troy, we could not have had more fun with you, and thank you for joining us! Please come back soon!

We kicked off by talking about Troy’s book release—out on June 3rd!

I’ve pre-ordered my copy, and I hope you’ll get yours, too! It sounds fun and poignant and touching all at the same time, and I can’t wait to read it.

“The...

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We had such a blast chatting with our new gay bae Brandon Ellrich!

We covered a range of topics ranging from challenging fathers and families of origins, early iconic queer characters in film, and Brandon’s forthcoming Pride tour throughout the midwest. We’re hoping he and Lawrence Winnerman can meet IRL, so stayed tuned into June to find out—Kansas City may never be the same.

Huge thanks to Füsun Aydın, Jim Dandy, Karen Marie Shelton, Robin Wilding, Peter William Murphy and all the “Whatevers” for tuning in. Join us every weekday at 10am ET/7...

There’s no business like show business, amirite? And what a show we had today! Thanks to the always loquacious and irresistable Frederic Poag whose wild hair presaged a wild time talking about dating, sex, desire, and a whole lotta nonsense!

If it ain’t clear, Frederic is ALWAYS welcome to talk to us, and when the topic is as spicy as today—well, we might just have to make that a thing! “The GenX Dating Show with Frederic, Dana, & Lawrence!” Smash the heart button ❤️ on this post if you’d like to see that weekly show, friends!

W...

Welp, that was a blast!

It’s the holiday weekend, so I’m gonna keep this short. When you’ve been best friends for over 40 years, turns out you’ve got a lot of goods to share about each other during an “ask us anything.”

What questions did we answer? You’re gonna have to listen and find out.

Thank you John Pearce, Cat, Peter William Murphy, Lahboss, Karen Marie Shelton, Robin Wilding, The One Minute Daily Boost, Brandon Ellrich and so many others for tuning in!

We’re taking Sunday and Monday off f...

Every Friday, The Daily Whatever hosts “Fucked-up Friday,” where we invite a guest to join us and discuss the news from the previous week.

Or specifically—we each share what we thought was the most fucked-up news of the week, and we make the case for why it’s the most fucked up of all. And then our live audience votes for which story was, indeed, the most fucked-up.

This week, we were delighted to have fellow card-carrying GenXer Jonathan Small as our special guest, and the ensuing conversation was such an insightful takedown of what fuc...

In the days following the election, as I grappled with the enormity of what Trump 2.0 would mean, I had a personal struggle as well: what to do with Pink Hair & Pronouns, my publication for parents and caregivers of trans and nonbinary kids?

I researched the risks by reading Project 2025. I reached out to the CEO of Medium to ask him about guardrails and protections. And in the end, I realized—it was risky to leave my content up. And even riskier to keep writing.

But in the end, I knew: I couldn’t obey in adva...

Patrick B. Stewart is a writer and publisher and a Taoist/Daoist.

When he joined us on The Daily Whatever last week, he dropped a big truth bomb—that Medium stopped giving writers access to the email addresses of their new subscribers, moving forward.

And as we GenXers do—he researched. He aligned with his values. And he pivoted—away from Medium, removing his The Taoist Online publication. He plans to relaunch on June 1, 2025 at https://thedaoist.online.

On today’s podcast, we discuss why he left, why we think Medium has made these un...

We’d say Happy Monday, but really, it’s a bit of a rough morning. Dana DuBois and I are both feeling varying shades of sadness and anger. The news about President Biden is hitting a lot of us hard, and we’re trying to wrap that into the overall narrative about his cognitive decline occurring earlier than we knew, and the general state of the world under Trump 2.0.

The truth is—I wrote my article about the Democrats yesterday, and as I was editing in the evening, the news broke about Biden’s cancer diagnosis. I almost did...

Today we had the joy of hosting Char Sundust of Spirit Sanctuary on The Daily Whatever, for a soulful and deep conversation about writing and safety and showing up with our words in the world.

Char read her award-winning poem I Want to Move Things with My Mind

We had the best time—a fun reunion of Seattle friends and writers. Yay!

We love sharing the love of Substack on Sundays, and here’s who we recommended:

* Char suggested reading Andrea Gibson for their gratitude work at Things That Don’t Suck.<...

It was just Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman today on The Daily Whatever, talking about the stuff we usually talk about. In this case, it was discussing our latest articles—Dana on her dating debacle, and mine comparing and contrasting the articles on GenX from the Economist and Vogue:

In classic The Daily Whatever fashion, we had a wide ranging conversation that ended up with the idea that we need to create a genXy University, where one of the classes is called Understanding This Late-Stage Capitalist Society You Were Born Into, and another is called Understanding Tyrrany (™ Kare...

It’s always an amazing day when Frederic Poag joins your Live.

Even when it’s Friday, so it’s time to talk about the fucked-up news of the week.

For those of you new to GenXy, each Friday we invite a guest to join us—and all three of us present our pick for most fucked-up news story of the week. Here were our respective picks:

* Frederic: Kristi Noem Wants Migrants to Compete for Citizenship on New Reality Show. Like “The Long Walk” or “The Hunger Games,” only real life! So fucked-up!

* Lawrence...

Well, that was something, wasn’t it?

Friend of the Pod, Untrickled by Michelle Teheux, was booked to speak with us, but her pup, Mr. Joe needed an X-Ray, and so, of course, she had to attend to that. We’re all sending good vibes, Michelle! Let us know how Mr. Joe is doing, please and dogspeed for healing wishes.

Another Friend of the Pod, Robin Wilding, volunteered to jump in and THANK GOD she did! No sooner had she joined than Dana DuBois’ phone died, leaving me and Robin to improvise a show from scratc...

For the love of all that is holy, Substack, save the chat with the video! As usual we had a rollicking sidebar in the chat with many of our favorite people, who all helped me give a warm welcome to the inimitable Amy Fallon from Bring The A-Game!

Thanks, Amy for being such a great sport, and for being willing to hold court with me to talk about journalism, politics, comedy, the death of print media, the Pope, and so much more. My dear co-host Dana DuBois was taking pup Kira to get ACL surgery, but Amy...

Our huge thanks to Peter William Murphy of The Exile Files for joining us this morning on The Daily Whatever! He was so kind and willing to share with us his writing process and we had a lively conversation of everything from inspiration to editing.

As usual, our chat was off the hook, and apparently Henrik Hageland of Fragments of a Northern Mind baked a cake while listening to us. Thanks to everyone who showed up for the chat—y’all make our days, every day, and we’re so grateful that we have such a lovely, lively...

Fellow Medium mourners,

Thank you all for joining me and sharing your memories both fond and frustrating of what Medium has meant to you—with extra special huge thanks to Walter Rhein and Patrick B. Stewart for being such incredible guests.

This was exactly the cathartic moment I was hoping for. We shared our stories, our joys, our laments, all of it. We have loved Medium. We continue to love Medium. We hope Medium gets it together, because we’d love to keep writing and thriving there, going forward.

Thank you Robin Wilding, Füsu...

What an absolute delight to welcome Robin Wilding of Wilding Out onto The Daily Whatever this morning/ afternoon!

We had a great conversation with her about a multitude of things, and we got to shout out that our little Substack venture here is only two months old, and The Daily Whatever is really only two weeks old.

CONFIDENTIAL TO ROBIN: Next time we have you on, we’ll do a better job of prepping questions in advance and, you know, share them with you beforehand, too. 🙈🙈🙈

Hey, we’re learning over here, and we cannot tha...

We were so excited to welcome Ben Ulansey from The Gen Z Report to The Daily Whatever this morning! Ben is an amazing writer, with opinions on everything from politics to popular culture, which means he’s a great add to the genXy fam. He may be two generations removed from us, but clearly, he’s one of us in spirit and vibe. We mean that in a GOOD way, Ben! 😜

Today was Fucked-Up Friday, and as per the rules, all three contestants entered the ring with a story that they could credibly argue was THE most fucked...

One of the great things about having a daily podcast with your bestie, Dana DuBois, is that you get to focus entire episodes on featuring each other’s writing! Yesterday we spoke about Dana’s piece on her lifetime love affair with the band The Cure, and today we dug into the nuts and bolts of my latest spec-fic piece, The Book of Deek.

Dana is a great interviewer, and so we dug into everything from my friendly non-binary Muse, who shows up and delivers stories to me, fully formed, to the themes that permeate the story, as w...

Today we discussed one of my favorite stories I’ve written, about one of my very favorite bands of all time: The Cure. 🖤🖤🖤

I adore music memoir. For a music super fan like me, observing how songs have intertwined themselves into my lived experiences and using them as a narrative arc to tie a story together is a thrill.

This is especially true as we age, and have the perspective of decades worth of memories and listens. Plus, we all know GenXers have the very best taste in music…

The Cure is that band for me...

There are rare peak moments in life, and rarer still that we get to recognize we’re having one while we’re in it. Today we had the chance to speak with Füsun Aydın about writing, and her Substack, Letters from a Prostitute by Füsun Aydın ; this was one of those moments for me, for sure.

Please come take a listen to our wide-ranging conversation. Dana DuBois and I had the chance to talk to Füsun about everything from her skill with languages to her lyrical-to-the-point-of-poetry writing. For someone who did not speak Eng...

Huge thanks to Karen Marie Shelton for joining us on The Daily Whatever!

I believe Karen is the one-and-only person who’s attended every single The Daily Whatever podcasts, so it was a thrill and an honor to have her on. The fact that we spent most of the hour talking about our cats? That was a bonus.

I was so inspired, I posted this for you, Karen:

If anyone has photos or stories about their cats, please feel free to share them in the comments! Most days we’re gonna be talking abou...

Happy Sunday, friends!

Today Lawrence Winnerman and I had a great conversation about this story I wrote about demisexuality:

But really, it was a conversation about much more, including...

* When does something cross over from being a modifier to an identity?

* Do neo-identities like demisexual belong on the LGBTQ+ continuum, or are they taking up space where they don’t belong?

* Is identity immutable?

* Does it harm tweens and teens to identify as asexual or demisexual, because they apply a label that might be hard to escape ov...

As Robin Wilding said, today’s The Daily Whatever felt like catching up with our besties.

We talked about Lawrence’s long and winding road back to employment, as after ten months and 700 interviews, he got not one but TWO job offers this week. What a thrill!

But in true GenX multi-hyphenate fashion, that’s not all the work he’s got. He’s also a writer and podcaster here on Substack, of course. He’s also got a snarky political t-shirt side hustle at Alpaca Lunch, and as of this week, a burgeoning career as Santa Law...

Thank you Walter Rhein, Debra Groves Harman, Polly Walker Blakemore, Karen Marie Shelton, Lahboss and so many others for tuning into The Daily Whatever: Fucked-Up Friday with Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois featuring our guest Kevin Alexander!

Y’all! I (Lawrence) got a job! Huzzah! Also, I’m planning a new side hustle as Santa Claus. Read Santa Lawrence’s origin story here:

Today we had a battle royale for the most fucked-up thing that happened this past week. We agreed that deporting kids with cancer without their meds is by far the worst thing, but it...

What a blast we had, hosting the delightful Walter Rhein and nerding out about all things writing.

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet so we can send the video live straight away. Have a listen to learn about our respective writing styles.

The TL;DR is:

* Walter favors a rapid-fire write and publish approach.

* Dana favors a “stew for hours in memoir dust” approach.

* Lawrence has a nonbinary muse entity who visits him with story ideas.

What’s your approach to writing? Let us know...

Thank you Karen Marie Shelton, techwriter35, Sarah, Obladioblada, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dana DuBois! Join us tomorrow for “Writers on Writing with Walter Rhein” for The Daily Whatever!

First of all, CONGRATS to Canada and the Liberals and Mark Carney! The liberals will form a minority government (meaning they don’t outright have 172 seats to form a majority government; they’ll need a junior party to team up with.) AND, Pierre Poilievre has lost his seat. The power of Trump—to kill everything he touches, again!

Brace yourselves, word on the street is that Carney has a bigger tariff retaliation plan, and was waiting until he had been elected to a full term to impose them. Here he is sounding tough on ‘Merica to the Beeb.

Today was a groggy Monday morning Live, but we still had a blast.

Why were we groggy?

Well, I am trying to adjust my circadian rhythms to adjust to this daily 7am podcast. Good thing I love it so much, it’s like a jolt of energy that sustains me through my day.

Lawrence? He was up half the night battling with Descript, trying to make our pre-recorded podcast with Jonathan Small work. It appears Descript won, mostly, as multiple versions of me appear in place of Lawrence or Jonathan in the video.

Figuring out job/work/career these days during the Great Career Meltdown feels a little like trying to find a clean bathroom at a music festival — chaotic, unpredictable, and occasionally miraculous. Gen X sits right in the middle of it all, caught between the Boomers' "stay at one job forever" mindset and the Millennials and Gen Z who basically invented side hustles as a lifestyle.

Listen as Lawrence Winnerman and Dana DuBois team up to dive headfirst into this wild landscape with our very first podcast guest— Jonathan Small from the Substack Small Talk. We talked careers crum...

Well now, this is strange.

Just yesterday, I checked the “Live” functionality and determined I could go live to any of my publications. I indended this one to go to the Pink Hair & Pronouns audience. But instead it went to GenXy.

Clearly I still have much to learn in the ways of how Live functions.

It was still a lovely way to spend a Sunday late-afternoon, reading one of my favorite stories to the kind Substackers who showed up to listen. Huge thanks to all of you.

The story is called My G...

Now this was a lively Live, wasn’t it?

Lawrence Winnerman and I hosted Jonathan Small on the weekly GenXy recorded podcast (going live tomorrow), and we had so much fun, we decided to continue to conversation Live.

We were joined by about 30 of our favorite Substack pals as we explored the quintessential GenX anthems.

Some songs and artists we discussed: the Beastie Boys (“Fight for Your Right” versus “Sabotage”), Nirvana (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”), a slew of one-hit wonders (from “Take on Me” to “Tainted Love”), and a lively conversation about Prince, whereby Lawrence and I...

Yesterday’s Fucked-up Friday podcast was a bit grim.

So today we wanted to talk uplifting news—and Substack’s own Jennie Young and her Burned Haystack Dating Method delivered that with a massive #Bumblegate win.

The Burned Haystack Dating Method (BHDM) is a feminist dating methodology that teaches women to recognize harmful rhetorical patterns —things like “disciplinary/directive,” “I’m the prize,” or my personal favorite, “test and apologize.” Men displaying these patterns are giving early clues they’re too problematic to date.

In BHDM, we “block to burn” these men, and move on.

Instead of t...

Today was the debut of “Fucked-up Friday,” where we discuss the most fucked-up news of the week in friendly competition. We were joined by the incredible Walter Rhein for an engaging, earnest conversation about the reality that we’re facing down is ethnic cleansing—or more simply put, genocide— Walter’s suggestion as the most fucked-up news of the week. And really, all the fucked-up news really rolls up to that, doesn’t it?

Dana DuBois’ contribution was this horror: Barnard College staff alarmed by federal survey asking if they’re Jewish—and during Yom HaShoah, no less.

Lawrence...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into for our debut The Daily Whatever live podcast, and especially our real-life pals Craig Weissman, Sunny Hong, and Diane Wilder as well as Medium friend Walter Rhein!

Today we discussed how suddenly, the news is like, paying attention to GenX? We’re not totally sure why. And sometimes, we hate it (hello, the whole “career meltdown” NYT story, bleh). But some of today’s stories were pretty great.

Lawrence brought a few fascinating GenX stories to our attention. The first was from Forbes, called 7 Critical Ways Gen X Strength...

Huge thanks to everyone who tuned in to our short but sweet Live, including Bob Daniel, Kassandra Ignored 🤓, and Grey Galaxie (over whom I had a ridiculous but sincere fanboi moment. LOL Sorry, Grey!)

We kicked off talking about my desperate search for a remote job in the wilds of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the piece of flash fiction I wrote yesterday for Earth Day, The Last Bloom. Please check it out if you have a moment.

Dana shared the background of her latest piece, a moving and deeply felt rumination over her daughter’s searc...

Thank you Cat, NOT A FASCIST!, Stan Mroczek, Irish clover☘️, Susan Genser, and many others for tuning into my live video with Cat, Susan Genser, and Frederic Poag!

We talked about damn near everything under the sun, from us both battling depression, to The Citizen’s Oath (https://thecitizensoath.org) to the nature of the fight ahead of us, to dating.

Thanks to everyone who joined, and a huge thanks to Cat and Susan Genser for jumping on the video and taking the Citizen’s Oath!

We’ll see you next time, friends!

A few weeks back, I noticed Facebook Dating launched a “Dating AI” bot.

Fine. I know this is the future of online dating, so I decided to test it. If nothing else, I figured it would be fodder for a story, something like, “I tried out the new Facebook Dating AI bot so you don’t have to.”

For a few weeks, it suggested profiles to me, all pretty innocuous stuff.

Then today—as I strolled around lovely Galway, Ireland with my family—it suggested I might like “Ryan,” a 50-year-old contractor in Seattle who loves...

Hello friends! This is just a quick live to say hello from my hotel room in Galway, Ireland, where I’m lowkey jet-lagged and feeling super light be outside the United States this week.

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the thousands of you who’ve visited/read/restacked/commented on my silly Hello, I Have Amazing Boobs story. I’ll likely write or podcast about the responses I’ve gotten in more detail. The short version is: so far, 99% of you have gotten the paradox in the light-hearted gravitas of the story, and left...