Important Question? Podcast

Today we talk social justice warriors, vigilantes, and the dangers (and joys) of taking the law into your own hands. Anything you listen to can, and will, be used against you in a court of law.

For careerists, it’s a question better answered than asked. Nearly rhetorical today, these six words that tempt even the healthiest among us. Ah, screw it; it’s your cheat decade. This week, we unsnap our top buttons and get the skinny on competitive eaters, couch potatoes, and so-called “food science.” Mmmm … couch potatoes.

How far would you go for fame? Would you be willing to kill a person? Or worse, would you be willing to…well, killing is pretty bad, so I’ll leave it at that for now. But surely there are other unthinkable horrors one could commit for the purpose of notoriety. Today we talk the awful lengths we would traverse for fame.

Ha, made you look! Get clicky and learn about listicle evils, sponsored content, and other obstacles to finding your kitten memes at the end of the browser rainbow. Brawndo: It’s got what plants crave.

Oh, them freaky ghosts. Even freakier, the paranormal investigators who seek to bust them (it makes them feel good, apparently). If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? And what exactly was Slimer before he died, anyway?

Weer gud reeders and righters, but if remaining literate meant never again experiencing the joys of the moving image (e.g., porn), would we kill our TVs, or burn our useless library cards? Thankfully, neither is a prerequisite for hosting podcasts.

Oh, what a wonderful year 2015 was. We were all a bit more innocent back then, weren’t we? Just thinking about it makes me happy and strangely makes me want to hoard unopened action figures and pristine snap bracelets.

Childhood was a carefree time in most of our lives, a time we’d all love to get back to. But can those hyper-colored glasses be trusted? Chances are what we loved about our childhood–the moves, the music, the toys–probably aren’t nearly as great as we remember them. So today we look back on fond childhood landmarks to objectively ask ourselves if these things tokens of nostalgia were really that good.

We discuss:

• the Atari 2600
• The Lost Boys
• American Beauty
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Nirvana
• Chuck E. Cheese
• The Goonies
• Seinfeld

Traveling for religious purposes. People do it all the time. Overweight white people visit Elvis’ grave. Boring English students find time for Yeats’ grave in Ireland (full disclosure, I fit into this group). Chaucer depicted a rag-tag group of actual pilgrims traveling from Southwark to Canterbury in the Tales of one of those cities. Three famous wise men did it all the way back in the year 0. I think Jesus counts as a celebrity. And that’s what we’re asking today. Would you go on a celebrity pilgrimage?

Imagine a world of real-life capes walking and flying among us. Could they be trusted with such power? What might that mean for the world’s religions? Does this sequined corset make me look fat? This week we unmask and debate everything from bigotry to bowel functions in the superverse.

About one in nine people on earl don’t have enough food to lead a healthy lifestyle. That sounds awful. But consider this staggering statistic. 100% of Important Question? Podcast hosts have too much home to be considered homeless. What if we could reverse both of those figures? What if shedding our sheds for a year would somehow eliminate hunger from the world. Would you go homeless for a year to end world hunger?

Nature. Nurture. Evolution. Eugenics. They’re not just excellent stripper names, they’re critical considerations when deciding whether the universe needs more yous. Strap in and hold onto your chromosomes as we debate the Multiplicity effect.

The slammer. The big house. Club Fed. A 6×9’ cage to contemplate the error of your ways while your cellmate eyebangs you like a hyena. Yep, you’re somebody’s bitch now, convict. But it didn’t have to be this way. You’re not even supposed to be here. Prosecutors today, man. They scare you into taking plea deals, figuring that even an innocent man will rather do a dime than gamble on a trial. Today on Important Question Podcast we’re asking: Would you endure a 10-year prison stint to spare a loved one from a life sentence without parole?

Candy has quite the positive association for many of us. Easter hunts, grandma’s glass coffee table bowl, and of course Halloween. Unfortunately, candy has been roped into some pretty nasty things as well, most recently we’ve been re-awakened to the Trayvon Martin tragedy (and its Skittles association) when George Zimmerman posted pictures of the teenager’s lifeless body to his Twitter account.

So, the way we see it since candy has been associated with tragedy, we might as well help the threatening candy association to spread.

With the NFL season in full swing, we divulge secrets to strengthen your fantasy bench, trade-bait, and various other ’bating techniques.

For too long we’ve been putting up with climate change. We’ve heard the bickering and the arguing, the endless debate and the stagnant conclusions. But when are we actually going to do something about it? When are we going to finally take action to increase the rate of global warming?…That is the concern, right?

Thomas Kinkade or Basquiat? Stephenie Meyer or Vivian Maier? Andy Dick or Philip K. Dick? Do you covet wealth and fame over skill and potential? Of course you do, but humor us anyway.

The needle or the spoon? To shoot up or chow down? Some burdens are more manageable than others, but what if we fatten the coffers as well? Misery awaits, so go with your gut. Or veins.

End-of-life conversations can be difficult, so let the Important Question? Podcast jump-start the awkward scenario by asking if we would euthanize our own mothers.

We understand that some of you out there have probably been forced to make this decision. For those people, might I recommend you skip this episode? In typical Important Question? Podcast manner, we don’t take the topic too seriously.

But if you do skip this episode, you’ll miss out on actual phone calls with Caleb’s and Gordon’s mother!

We’ve all had that one beautiful dream that we wish never would have ended. Whether you’re on the beach with a model or on the beach with a giant bowl of ice cream, having your pleasures interrupted sucks, even if those pleasures are entirely fictional. So then, how cool would it be if we could script our dreams? One would assume it to be damn cool. But really think about it.

Step up to the Faustian bargaining table and negotiate the earthly value of your damnation in this episode. Papa Mephistopheles awaits your signature with bated, sulphuric breath.

There’s something magical that happens when animals are anthropomorphized and placed into a narrative feature film. We get giddy. Excited. We tend to imagine how great it would be for us to have our own talking animals. We already treat our pets like friends. Give them a voice and the capacity for complex thought and who knows, maybe true colors will fly and we’ll find out that our four-legged friends are actually four-legged assholes. But at least in that case we could still leverage their miraculous capabilities for our own personal gain, right? Well, that’s probably what I would do. That’s because I am, as I assume a talking animal to be, an asshole.

Is the view better through your windshield or your mirrors? This week Gordon and Caleb pit potential against nostalgia.

The oldest profession in the world is prostitution. The second oldest is the executioner. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense. It seems that the natural progression of the human mind, whether explored at a macro level or a micro level, goes from sex to violence pretty quickly. Snuff films, anyone?

Despite most of the world (I hope) understanding executions as terrible, terrible things, that same world tends to have a curiosity toward the morbid. So if you had an opportunity to watch an execution, would you? My apologies for anyone lead to believe by the opening sentence that this episode would be about prostitution).

Do you dream of electric sheep? Does your birth certificate include a serial number? If so … you might be an android (even if you’ve always thought of yourself as an iPhone guy). I understand this discovery of your true self may be painful, and the eventual social coming-out awkward. At least you don’t have to tell your parents; they’re toasters. But don’t you kinda wish I hadn’t said anything? This week we ask: Would you want to know if you were an android?

Convenience is so powerful. Powerful to the degree that an entire genre of general store is named for it. But even more convenient than corner stores is this wonderful invention we all know as the Internet. None of us would dare give it up, right? What if the alternative was to have your private search history made public and broadcast to the world?

Today we’re discussing the international language. No, I don’t mean love, I’m talking music. From Rodgers and Hammerstein to Hammertime, music communicates on a visceral level, the libretto be damned. Not like I can understand what D’Angelo’s saying anyway, and the man’s speaking English, from what they tell me. But if words are your currency, you’re probably limited to your native tongue, aside from maybe being able to order tapas or proposition a French hooker. Imagine, though, for a moment that your cunning linguism transcended such barriers. Or alternatively, that the entire world’s music fell easily under your calloused fingertips. And so we ask, would you rather know every language on Earth, or every instrument?

Mankind, even with its self-destructive tendencies and weak links, is probably worth keeping around, especially when you consider that me, you, and everyone else in the world is a part of it. Sure, we’ll destroy ourselves eventually, but until then we should take comfort in the fact that overall, despite a few rotten apples, mankind is alright. After all, you couldn’t do better. Or could you? What if you had the chance to try? Would you sacrifice your only child to save mankind, essentially choosing between the world as we know it or a world as your sperm would know it?

What if you were drunk when your very pregnant wife went into labor at home? Well, aside from the marital counseling that would surely need to take place (who the hell is drinking that much with a wife that pregnant?) your options would be to either drive drunk to the hospital or deliver drunk at home. Which do you choose?

The only thing better than a simple glazed donut is the ability to taste it. Well, that’s not true. Take away the taste and you’re left searching for some kind of utilitarian purpose–maybe you can fill the hole of the donut with paperclips or use it to frame your favorite Jim Varney headshot. The fact is food is often inextricably linked with taste. So what if you had the chance to trade your sense of taste for say a lifetime of immunity? Would you do it?

Today on Important Question? Caleb and Gordon Highland play taste-taker and ask would you donate your taste buds for a lifetime of immunity?

Sellout! Once the go-to insult for a generation of grunge musicians as well as doc Martens and flannel wearing wanna be grunge musicians, the term connotes a lost battle of sorts, the end result of artistic integrity losing to the promise of money and fame.

So, on this episode of Important Question? we measure our artistic weight in gold and ask would you sellout?

Despite our abundance of both intelligence and good looks, your hosts must choose to sacrifice one with age. Will they take life’s beating with the ugly stick, or succomb to a dumbing?  Listen to find out.

As the old joke goes: What’s the difference between Hitler and jock strap? One’s a dictator, the other a dick-toter. Absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but can you get anything done in a democracy? And so we ask, would you rather be a dictator or an elected president?

We’re also trying something new this time. We recorded the podcast in Gordon’s studio. Watch all the visual glory below. And let us know what you think of the format. We may do more in the future.

The greatest thing about childhood is of course the lack of shame when gobbling down copious amounts of candy. We even have Halloween, a day dedicated to begging strangers for the sweet vibrantly colored starter-heroine. And even better is being a baby with candy. Because we all know that taking candy from a baby is easy and wrong. Or is it?

On this episode of Important Question? we ponder to what degree would our taffy-like ethics have to be stretched before we take candy from a baby.