147. BRATS! West Coast Liberals + '80s Movie Stars

Nancy and Sarah are one-on-one today for a roving conversation that covers: Nancy’s Portland story in a Nicholas Kristof NYT column about West Coast liberalism, a violation of privacy in the latest Free Beacon scoop, and revisiting the Gen X fever that was The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire.

Also discussed:

• Civics Bee!

• In defense of plastic straws …

• Purple states = the place to be

• Keeping the memory of Rachael Abraham alive

• West Coast liberalism, so bad even Nicholas Kristof admits it

• Who cares what BuzzMuffin43 says, anyway?

• Hepped Up, the fragrance

• No cameras in our bedrooms, please!

• She-Pee, denied

• Which Brat Packer turned out best?

• That weird tension between Andrew McCarthy and Emilio Estevez

• Journalist, meet your disgruntled subject

• John Hughes and British synth-pop

Plus, an emergency cookie recipe, some Demi Moore goddess love, a new media podcast that’s doing it right, and more!

This episode is free for all so share it with your friends.

Don’t call them the Brat Pack (unless you want to collectively refer to them, in which case, yeah, Brat Pack works).

Episode Notes:

Civics Bee!! Winner: Front row, second from right (sixth grade!). Civics Bee Judge: Lady in wrap dress, back there in the middle of the second row.

“What Have We Liberals Done to the West Coast,” by Nicholas Kristof (New York Times Opinion)

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner)

Why We Should Write About the Murder of a Mother in Front of Her Children

Eldon Smith, who with his sister Trinity, was dropped by their mother from Portland’s Sellwood Bridge in 2009. Eldon drowned; Trinity survived. Their mother died last year in prison, where she’d been serving a minimum of 35 years. Nancy wrote the story in the book, To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder

“Columbia Administrators Fire Off Hostile and Dismissive Text Messages, Vomit Emojis During Alumni Reunion Panel on Jewish Life,” by Eliana Johnson and Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon)

”Hollywood’s Brat Park,” by David Blum (New York Magazine, 1985)

“I Called Them Brats, and I Stand By It,” by David Blum (Vulture)

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography, by Rob Lowe, highly recommended on audio!

What’s in your hot box?

Sarah:

Nancy: Horror Movie: A Novel, by Paul Tremblay

Got 20 minutes and $2.99? Read The Queens of Montague Street, “journalist Nancy Rommelmann's memoir of growing up in Brooklyn Heights in the 1970s, and excerpted in the New York Times Magazine as the essay, ‘Dazed and Confused.’”

That cover! Sigh. — SH

Outro suggests itself:

smoke ‘em