After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: Emily Answers YOUR Questions About Behind-The-Scenes at Breaking Points, Faith, SNL, and Her Lilith Fair Hot Take

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Emily Jashinsky discusses her skincare routine and the one product she swears by, when she wears glasses, if she’s a Cheesehead, her favorite podcast to listen to, what it’s really like behind the scenes at Breaking Points, her take on Trump and taking away broadcast licenses, how much the U.S. should be supporting its allies, her personal faith and advice she’d give kids, and kind messages from fans.  Emily also reflects on balancing friendships and working relationships with people across the political spectrum and why it’s been hard following Charlie Kirk’s death. On a much lighter note, Emily also talks SNL, best Trump impressions, preferred pronouns, why she spends so much time talking to people across the political spectrum, Google facing pressure from the Biden Administration, what she reads for pleasure, PLUS Emily picks up her guitar and talks about her love of music, Lilith Fair, and Dawson’s Creek. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, after-party listeners. Welcome to a new installment of AfterParty started just last week that we are calling Happy Hour an even more casual version of an already casual show, where I get to chat with all of you through the great questions and comments you send in via social media and via email. So let's get to it this week. All right, I'm going to find some questions here. I'm actually really doing this in real time. I'm going to pull them up. and go through what we've got. Oh my gosh. This one, this one's from Instagram. Viro Green. Your skin looks amazing. What products do you use? I promise you that my skin might look amazing on camera.

But I do have, like the most obnoxious product that I use is a skin product. I don't have a skin routine or anything like that, but I do swear by Chanel's lay lift cream. That I have been using for a long time. I actually had a family friend who, long story short, worked for Chanel, and that's how I tried this product, like a free sample and got addicted to it. This must have been back in college. And, you know, like many people, have had all kinds of skin challenges.

This one did the trick for me, so it's like the one thing that I am willing to pay a lot of money for. So thanks for asking. I've never, I don't think I've gotten a lot of comments. I don't know if I've ever gotten that one before. This one is from I Love Ho's, who says, love your perspective. I get this one a lot, by the way. What makes you decide whether or not you're wearing glasses?

So the only time that I wear glasses on camera is if I have to look at a teleprompter or a monitor that's far away. So typically that just means I'm breaking points now. If I have to read off of a screen, for example, anytime we put like a, a statement up on the screen on breaking points. I'm usually reading it off the monitor, the feedback monitor in the camera or one of the big return monitors that we have in the studio. So that's, that's the decision. I mean, I wear glasses to drive. I wear glasses if I have to read something, like if I'm at church, I wear glasses. But on camera, I really only do it if I have to read something from a distance. That's the, it's a pretty easy answer. I'm not, I don't have super bad vision or

anything, but if I'm more than like, I don't know, 15 feet, 10, 15 feet, I have to wear those guys. Otherwise I'll be squinting. Let's see, this one is from Betsy L. Hello, Emily. I'm loving the podcast as a fellow Wisconsin native. My happy hour question is, are you a Green Bay Packers fan? And if so, do you own a cheesehead? Love the Packers, of course, big Packers fan. Had, like, every Wisconsin kid in the 90s and early 2000s had Brett Favre posters in my bedroom growing up. Why not? And still follow the Packers very closely. Not, I don't own a cheesehead.

I don't think I've ever worn a cheesehead in my life. You can take my street credit away for that. You could also take my street credit away for the fact that I've never been to Lambeau Field. and I get asked why a lot. I think probably the best reason is that my dad who loves, loves, loves watching sports likes to watch sports. I bet I'm going to get a lot of messages

for people who agree with us. It's a hot take, but it's a popular take, a surprisingly popular take that nobody talks about. Really swears by watching sports in person. I'm sorry, not in person, over the TV, the opposite of in person. So, like, you can pause, you can rewind, you can more easily get up to refill snacks, all of that stuff. It's not, you know,

negative 10 degrees outside in Green Bay. So I think that's probably why we never made it up to Green Bay. I'm from a little bit closer to Milwaukee, probably 40 minutes west of Milwaukee, but Green Bay is a little further. So lots of brewers, bucks, games, even admiral's games, if you know, you know, but have not been up to Lambo. And that is something I hope to do very, very soon. Let's see. Texan 316, what is your dream podcast to be a guest on, whether it's a political show or not? Hmm, that's a good question. I don't really, I don't know if I have a dream podcast to be a guest on, But the podcast I have the most fun listening to is Red Scare. And I've been going back years listening to Red Scare since they were first starting to

pop up on the scene, La Vanna and Dasha. And it's just one of those things that some people absolutely hate. I have friends and family. I'll be like putting that on in the car. I love listening to them on long drives or long bike rides. And other people just absolutely cannot stand it, mainly just because of the vocal fry. That gets people. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Different strokes. But I love Anna and Dasha. This one's from Cameron R. Hi, Emily. I am a daily list from breaking points because I want an honest perspective from the left. And the right, that being said, by the way, I really am reading these in real time. I have read these questions first. That being said, it seems like what I hear from you on breaking points versus what I hear from you on after party are very different. The same goes for Sager. It seems like anytime you two argue a point, Ryan or Crystal, push back, not always based in reality, and you two fold. It seems like you're allowed to argue your views to a point, but have to hold back while they are allowed to say whatever they want without limits at all. Am I crazy for thinking this is happening? Well, I'll say, Cameron, you're definitely not crazy from thinking this is happening because you're not the only person that has that, uh,

same feedback. But I can say from behind the scenes, that's not true. I think what comes out is more of a personality difference. So for me, for example, I'm more passionate about ideas than I am about most of what's in the daily news cycle. So like politics. And that's definitely for a news show. I think most people are the other way around. I think that's true for, You know, I don't know if that's true. I don't know if it's totally true for Ryan and Crystal. I think it's true for Sager. You can tell, for example, Saga is like very, very, he's very passionate about ideas when it comes to, like, discipline and the proper rule of government, like his takes on gambling and weed and all of that.

I think the best way to put it is that Crystal and Ryan are probably equally interested in ideas in the news. And for me, unless it's like a media story or something like that, the reason that I'm more interested in ideas than daily news stories, meaning like I don't have, I don't always have a really strong take on daily news stories. Not always. Sometimes I do. But for me, like one of the things that complicates all of this, and you probably know this if you've if you've listened, is Trump. Like a good example with this is Jimmy Kimmel. such a good example of this. Like, teeing off on Jimmy Kimmel asking for sympathy or even implying that he deserves sympathy, like that's very easy for me. That's a media story. I'm all for it. The FCC question I'm much more ambivalent on.

And one of the reasons is that Donald Trump is drawboning as the president of the United States. It's not just like Brendan Carr is one thing. But when you have the president of the United States threatening to yank broadcast licenses, do I think he's just threatening? Yes, absolutely. I don't think he's actually interested in yanking anyone's broadcast licenses. I think he actually loves tough coverage of him

because then you can go back and forth and sort of he knows how to score political points. Rightfully so, by the way, from bad media coverage. So I don't think he has any attention of yanking anyone's broadcast licenses, but I do think it's a crazy thing for the president of the United States to be talking about taking away broadcast licenses. And again, like, I just can't get worked up about that because it always comes back to Trump at some point being, you know, to say the least, imperfect ambassador for conservative values.

And so he complicates a lot of what otherwise, from my perspective, might be more strongly held opinions about, like, right versus left. So I think that that's part of it, too. it's definitely that that's definitely part of it um and also i'm just i'm not an argumentative person i get that a lot too just like why don't you i don't know about saga i feel like saga is a pretty argumentative person but uh i get that a lot with with me and i just don't i'm not really interested in debates um that are like cable newsy like i've been asked to do pierce morgan a couple of times it's just not my thing um those panel shows or everybody's like getting really

worked up. I think of myself as I always push myself to have more questions than answers. And, you know, I feel like I have answers on some foundational, like, value questions, you know, like that to me is not the hard part, but translating them into black and white answers on a lot of the daily news cycle. Immigration is another really good example of this. Like, I did a ton of immigration coverage when I was at the Federalist. It's an issue area that I know pretty well, but in North of Mexico, Texas covering this stuff and, you know, directionally aligned with the right. But there's some of the stuff like the, some of the tactics that ISIS resorted to, some of the silly social media posts, it does make it harder to defend overall. And that doesn't mean I don't

have a fairly strong opinion in one direction, but it's just hard when, you know, it's hard to get super worked up when you also are like, okay, well, it's not as low the moral high ground is completely claimed by the right on this question. So, you know, in that case, you end up agreeing with others a lot. I end up agreeing with any time that I'm talking to someone on the left. People who are just like, you're agreeing with them. I'm hearing them out. I'm hearing them out. I'm interested. And that's kind of where I come down. This is a super long answer to this question, but I do get a lot. I just, I like listening to people. I like asking questions. I have pretty clear answers in my mind on some like really foundational values based questions.

But basically, I'm a journalist because I don't trust either political party. I'm often just as disappointed in Republicans, as I am in Democrats. So I don't get worked into a lather in the defense of Republicans versus Democrats. And I think a lot of the daily news is that. And also, I'm just not like into the sport of debating, to be honest. But anyway, long answer to that question. This one is from Chelsea, Lazzari. How much less little should the U.S. be supporting its allied countries. I laugh because I know Chelsea. It depends on the country, I suppose. I think our foreign aid has been crazy and a lot of it is a relic of the Cold War time period that, you know, I'm sort of a populist in the sense that you look around communities in

middle America and compare what we've sent to, for example, like a Guatemala in recent years. You know, well, could some of that have been reinvested in the United States? I have that same kind of populist instinct. I do think we spend too much in foreign aid. It is overall a small portion of the budget. But I also think it's been allocated in some really foolish ways. And this gets back to the other question, by the way, like USAID, I can't stand USAID. I think USAID was used as a soft power cover.

In all of the ways, you know, people like Mike Binns have directionally reported some of this out. And he's super in the weeds on this. But I agree with all of those critiques. The immediate yanking of funds did cause problems. And like, again, as a journalist, someone who's covering this closely, I can't completely defend the way that it was done, even if directionally. So it's a question of direction versus process for me. And that's how I've been thinking about things just over the last six months. Do I agree with something directionally? Yes. Does the process to get from point A to point B, does the cost of that process outweigh the benefits of the endpoint? And that's my formula often for getting to the answer of where I stand on a certain question that's in the news cycle, whether it's immigration or free speech on campuses, that sort of thing, and foreign aid as well.

Texan 316, what's your relationship with faith? Did you grow up religious or did you become religious later in life? I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran. Mom was pretty involved in church, you know, Sunday school, a total Sunday school for confirmation classes, all that good stuff. There are, there's at least one really strong LCMS, so Missouri Synodd Lutheran Church out here in D.C. But the church I grew up in was sort of more what people would call low church, you know, rock band, all that good stuff. So I got a non-denominational church here in D.C. and have, yeah, always been always been pretty active. I think like many people who grew up in the 90s and 2000s, you know, it, it, Michael Knowles talked about this actually on Tucker Carlson. And he had a period where he was like enamored with the new atheists. I think this was when he was in college and then realized he realized he said that all of the smart people around him at, I think it was at Yale, were actually religious. And it was, you know, sort of this faux intellect to posture against organized religion and all of that.

So that was really in vogue when, yeah, I was a teenager, early 20s. I never really went through that to be honest. But that's kind of my background. What advice would you give for raising a young girl to grow up holding and maintaining strong Christian values in today's world? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. As a non-parent, I can't imagine how difficult it is. And I think like this gets to the last question.

And like a lot of people, my age, I've done a lot, I've just read a lot of apologetics in my 20s. And that I feel like keeps me strong. It's what's interesting to me, but it keeps my face strong too. So I just like surrounding myself with apologetics. But it's intellectually stimulating and, you know, helps you sort of come to where you land at the end of the day. It's sort of constantly challenging you to answer any of the nagging. modern doubts. And as long as you can, I mean, for me, the formula is really simple. As long as you are, you look at the historical Jesus and there's all kinds of evidence. I mean, give people

copies of case for Christ and books that do a good job on that front. But once you sort of accept that, you realize you have to accept everything that flows from this incredible miracle that's well-documented historical reality. And it becomes sort of facile. A lot of the criticisms that you see becomes sort of facile and reflexive. And it's much more, I think, it's much more rewarding and opens up your eyes so much to reason and order once you're able to kind of get over that hump. And it's just incredible. It's like the most amazing gift that anyone could ask for. So just focusing on the truth of the gospel. And as long as you accept that point A, you know, you have this amazing sense of purpose and order in front of you through

scripture and prayer. And that is, I just, I mean, I think anybody for their children, I imagine, And, you know, especially in a hyper modern world, that's the biggest fear that you would have is whether or not you can accept that fundamental premise. So that's where I would focus. But again, I'm, I say that with great humility as a non-parent. Max C says, hi, Emily. My name's Maxwell Curry. I'm a PhD student in Pollyca here at Nebraska. I saw you mentioned on your show something about sending in questions to your Instagram for Happy Hour.

I'm sure I'll have a million questions I'll want to send in. But I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the grace and weight and meaning you brought. the past two weeks through your show. I've been so profoundly shaken and horrified and angered by Charlie's assassination and everything afterward, and you've been a light in the dark. I love your show tons and have always really enjoyed your contributions to political discourse. Thank you so much for everything you do from a profoundly grateful fan and friend. Oh, Max, that's so nice. Our great producer sent these questions in. Like I said, I'm reading them as I go here, and that one really stops being in my tracks, Max. I appreciate that more.

more, more than you know. And I've gotten similar emails from a lot of you just about what these last couple of weeks have been like. And actually was talking a Megan show Wednesday, a bit about, I'm sorry, Thursday, a bit about this very point that people in media are underestimating the psychological effect of what happened to Charlie. the psychological effect that that had on a lot of average Americans, the psychological effect that have a lot of people in positions of power, definitely people in conservative media, but think about the White House where so many people were actually close, so many very powerful people were close to Charlie Kirk. I mean, I was at the White House the day after it happened because

I had new media pool duty, and it was, I mean, as you can imagine, it was a strange and dark and heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy mood. So it's, I know everybody was shocked by what they saw. Everybody in the media was, you know, for that afternoon horrified. And I think the left doesn't realize, and sort of center left reporters who consider themselves neutral, but definitely are not. They don't realize what this did, A, to like sort of young leftists, like, like Dean Withers' reaction, he was just really, really upset and crying when he reacted to what happened to Charlie Kirk. But, you know, people who were engaging a lot with political content and saw Charlie Kirk on their algorithm all of the time.

But then especially, that's doubly, triply, quadruply true for young conservatives who had seen Charlie, loved Charlie. Maybe he brought them to faith. Maybe he brought them to the right. And then they saw what happened to him on that same little screen in their pocket. So I've gotten this note from a lot of you, and I think that's a commonality. And maybe if you talk to people in your life, you'll probably hear the same thing. And maybe you can sort of find solace in that common ground and talk through these things with other people. Because I've heard that in many emails. This is from, let's see, this is from Jalen. Smith, who says, you seem to be an S&L fan. So who did the best satirical impersonation of a political figure? I think Tina Faye did not pull any punches, but wasn't too mean with the jokes and did a fantastic job, unlike Maya Rudolph's Harris, which was downright horrible, way too comfy and was

not funny. Faye would be first, followed by Phil Hartman's Clinton. I'm curious about your take. What's the guy's name on SNL here? I'm going to Google it while we're talking, who does Trump now. I think he actually does a good job. The Shane Gillis' Trump impression is unbeatable. Yeah, James Austin Johnson. He has a really good Trump, I think. Like, he has a really, really good Trump. Let's see. Sorry, my alarm just went off. S&L political impressions. I'm Googling it to have a list in front of me of ones that were really, really good. I don't know that historically it's just not their strong suit is one of my opinions. Because I'm looking through these and like, oh, yeah, some of these were really, really bad. Oh, the Alec Baldwin Trump was horrible. I was thinking about this the other day. Nobody really nailed Trump until Shane Gillis did because what Shane Gillis brought to his impression was in the bit that first really made Gillis, he started to kind of anatomize what the Trump impression was made of. So he broke it down

in a way that you could sort like what's his bit where he's like Trump walks into a room and says like, wow, what a nice room, what a big room. I've never seen a bigger room. He really anatomized the Trump impulses and the Trump patterns in a way that made it easier for other comedians to follow in his footsteps. So shout out to Gillis, of course, who's obviously brilliant and none on SNL. Although he's been great on his recent SNL appearances. Just doing one quick scan here. Well, just to make sure that I'm not missing anyone that I really, really love. Maybe something else will come to mind.

But as of now, I'm just going to stick with saying, I just don't think it really is there. I don't think it's really their strength. You go back further. There's some good ones. Oh, man, Norm McDonald doing Bob Dole is one of them on this role. Rolling Stone list that I googled. That's pretty funny. Let's see. Oh, man, some of these. Janet Reno, Will Ferrell. Oh, that was good. I didn't think the Bernie Sanders, Larry David was that great,

to be honest. That's on this list. So anyway, let's go to another question here. This one. is from Elizabeth, who sends in and says, why are we forced to parrot pronouns multiple times in such a rope manner? How did it get this way? Elizabeth's experience is coming from left-wing nonprofits that waste countless minutes at the start of meetings, forcing everyone to share their preferred pronouns. I've actually, I mean, I've been in those spaces a couple of times where I'm, you know, let's say, since

college, I've mostly worked at conservative places where this doesn't come up. And I've mostly socialized in conservative spaces where it doesn't come up or to the extent that I'm hanging out with people on the left, they're on like the, they're like leftists, not so much liberals or, you know, progressives in a kind of upper class affluent way. So I haven't had a ton of experiences with that, to be honest, but the couple of times that I have, it is just performative. And I think that's where a lot of this comes from. I think this question is really specific about the roadway that people are forced to do it. It's almost like a ritual, a ritual, let's say, penance, a ritual paying tribute to anyone who may be from a minority, a vulnerable minority. And I think that's probably where it stems

from my perspective on some of these things. Just again, as someone who spends probably more time than the average conservative, not more than everybody, but as the average conservative and left up-up center spaces where people disagree with me on some of this is not everybody. But a lot of people are coming from a position of fear. They didn't want people who identified as trans that they knew to be of course offended and upset with them but also they were told for a long time that literally people's lives were on the line that their mental health was on the line that their psychological well-being was on the line and that their lives again their lives were on the line because all of this research was showing and I put research in air quotes that you can't hear

of course unless I say I'm putting research in air quotes and people were like genuinely terrified terrified terrified terrified terrified um let's see what else we have have another person. This one's from Daniel who says, I've been listening to you ever since you joined breaking points. I really like your perspective and values. I tend to agree with you on most things. I just listen to your conversation with Knowles on After Party. And I was wondering how you balance what to push back against and not to push back against. He was calling Tren de Aragua and Antifa terrorists. And you've sounded me on breaking points that you've been hesitant to call them terrorists. But you did not challenge him in that conversation. I've also wondered in general, how do you balance the differences between all your podcasts? That last question is a really good one because the three main ones that I do are totally different. They don't have like overlap. purposes and they actually don't have fully overlapping audiences. The reason that I still do all three ones, because I feel like they're distinct and they're very specifically serving different purposes. And so that has been, since After Party started in June, that is definitely a professional challenge, is just making sure that each is special in its own right and maintaining the integrity. It hasn't been like that difficult. It's just another

thing that you have to take seriously. So, you know, I just see them as having distinct purposes. After party is relaxed and chill. And it's a place for me to be more like opinionated and flex those conversational muscles. Breaking Points is obviously like a daily news show. And then on undercurrents for unheard really trying to challenge. Like that's a show we really try to challenge. something going on in the media or in the news that is an undercurrent, right? Like an opinion or an event or story that's an undercurrent. And like this week we did a video on social contagion of political violence. It's something that people aren't really talking about, but is obviously relevant to the violence that's happened from Minnesota to Utah to Dallas. So they sort of

serve different purposes. The Trenda-Irago example is a really good one. And Antifa is a really good one. I don't have a problem with calling terrorists from Antifa terrorists. I don't think it makes sense to categorize Trenda-Irago as a foreign terrorist organization because of the legal parameters of that, but I'm not at all opposed to saying people who are intentionally flooding the country with fentanyl. China is a good example. Why were they sending so many precursor chemicals to Mexico? It wasn't just about making money. It was. actively about harming Americans and getting Americans addicted to a deadly drug and fomenting chaos in our society. So I have no problem saying that some of that was narco-terrorism. I don't think

Trenda-Ragwa, their primary purpose is narco-terrorism. They do a lot of human trafficking and all of that. So, you know, I would be much more open to that designation for like Sinaloa. I'm totally, like, some of these Mexican cartels. They're taking pre-cursor money from China, precursor chemicals from China, buying it from China, and putting it into the U.S. in a systemic way. So there's just, that is actually a good example. I definitely have friends on the right who talk much more broadly about the left than I think is fair. Like, that's one of the reasons that I stay in these spaces where I talk to a lot of people on the left or even in the center, someone like Tim Miller, who a lot of my friends can't stand. Um, it's that I am always just like forcing myself to see where people are coming from. Sometimes it's a deeply cynical place. Sometimes it's not really well thought off, thought out. But I do know people in just about every position on the political spectrum who are fundamentally coming from a real place. Um, where like a real decent place. And so that's, I just see my role in the media ecosystem as being one of,

of the people. It's just getting much, much harder to do. It's been very difficult the last couple of weeks. These have been some of the most challenging weeks of my professional life, just because the level of sensitivity and anger has understandably been really high. So the last couple of weeks have been very difficult balancing friendships. And a lot of these friendships are professional relationships too, because these are people who I talk to professionally and bring on the show, go on their show, those sorts of things. And I think we're getting through it. But I just see my role as like for whatever reason I have this maybe because I've been thrust into the state of ambivalence by my own ambivalence on Trump, the state of like sort of daily political ambivalence as we were talking earlier by just my disagreements with Trump. but for whatever reason I feel like I'm, to the extent that I have skills, one of them is just that I like to get along with people. I'm not a big, like, debate me type person,

and I try to bring the kind of best version of the arguments that I think exist on the right and the left to each other and allow for some of that cross-pollination to happen. James asks, I love your diction. Maybe it's a Midwest thing. When I listen to your show, I have two thoughts. I feel like the young boy from Slingblade that tells Billy Bob Thornton. I like the way you talk. And at the same time, it conjures memories of Greta Vancestrian looking at the camera with only her jaw moving reporting Operation Desert Storm. So Greta vancestrian is also from Wisconsin.

So if there are similarities, it might be because Greta is also from Wisconsin. David asks any thoughts on the mainstream media, not even mentioning that YouTube admitted to censoring channels for the Biden ad. man, that story felt like a lead balloon, a lead balloon in the news cycle this week, because it totally subverted the narrative that, actually it subverted some of the Kimmel narrative, by the way. Google was talking about how they faced undue pressure from the Biden administration. And remember, these companies, YouTube, for example, X, Facebook, Facebook, meta, Instagram, whatever, wanted to say they aren't publishers to get around Section 230. And that's why this is a pretty clear example. From my perspective, they're acting as publishers in the Section 230 context.

But anyway, they're coming out and admitting that, yes, they face pressure by the Biden administration. I think that's why that story especially struggled in the news cycle this week. It wouldn't have been a big story anyway because it challenges the priors of producers and assignment editors who are sitting. in these newsrooms and the C-Speets in particular. But, you know, this week it was especially challenging from that perspective. This is from Marlowe. Marlowe says, how many books do you read weekly slash monthly? What is the ratio work slash pleasure? Work slash pleasure, all the same thing for me. I do not read novels anymore. I probably should. I probably read like one novel a year, sometimes maybe a little bit more. But I'm just like on a quest to inhale as much information,

particularly history. I don't read a lot of contemporary political books, but I do read a lot of history books. So that one, man, I don't know how many I read. I read a lot from the authors that are on any various shows. Like I get galley copies, PDFs, and go through them. That's one of my favorite parts the job. And I do try to read every book that I talk about in that sense. Let's see, we got another one here. Rachel says, I just want to tell you how much I've been appreciating after party. It's been great. Started following breaking points and after party after it was recommended on the church politics podcast from the end campaign. I've really enjoyed your perspective, even while the news is heavy and terrible. I like the people I'm getting it from and I respect you all, which is such a big deal.

Thank you. That is a really, really great note. So then goes on to say, I've always has been the girl was too conservative for public school and too liberal for church. Finding you has been so helpful for me in my own journey of processing the world. Thank you. Thank you. That's super, super kind. I'm going to cut it off here today because I could do this like for hours. I love answering questions, which is one of the reasons that I was super excited to start doing happy hour. And I really could, like if you don't cut me off, I'm just going to keep doing this. So one of the themes of today's show is you've, if you didn't already know, know this, you've learned that I really like talking. And I'm an introvert. So I especially like talking

alone in a room to a microphone. It's like one of those things you can't pull me away from. But I'm going to cut myself off at this happy hour. See what I did with the pun? You just can't beat it. Fantastic work on my end. I'm patting myself on the back. Like I'm a CVS reporter saying we can't know the motive in the, let's just say, in a clear, clear example of left-wing political violence. I'm just going to pat myself on the back. We don't know the motive. We may never know. It may remain a mystery until we leave this earth. All right. So I know I promised on Monday show to talk about the Lilith Fair documentary. Then I said, well, we'll talk about it on Wednesday show. And the Wednesday show got so crowded that it just never got around to it.

So I bunt it to happy hour. So before I forget, let's do a little riff. on Lilith Fair. Before I do... Okay, so that is the only time you're ever going to hear me playing guitar, ever, ever. I'm putting it back right now as we speak, because, you know, I love, I love it, but I'm not good enough. That's the first chord to you were meant for me by Jewel, which as like a, maybe a 12-year-old. I actually even just played it on the guitar I got for my eighth birthday, but that was the same guitar that I learned to start playing. Jule was the first song that I, you were meant for me. It was the first song that I tried to play myself, that I tried to teach myself to play.

I took lessons when I was younger, but that is a, yeah, this is a special record. I'm supposed to have the guitar tune to half step down. So those of you who know about music were probably like, this is not right. But I didn't think you needed me to do it for the purposes of just explaining, illustrating, sonically illustrating why I'm obsessed with this Lilith Fair documentary, not so much with the documentary, just with Lilith Fair itself. If I had a time machine, I would not go back to experience like the moon landing. I think I'd go back to experience Lilith Fair. And that is so lame and just embarrassing to say. But that's also one of my hottest takes in the world is don't let

anyone embarrass you about the kind of music that you listen to. As I learned at an early age, because I was listening to tons of Jewel, for example, in the early odds in particular. But the documentary harkens to this time where in the 1990s, the late 1990s in particular, by the way, there's someone who works on our show who worked at Lilith Fair. I don't think I'm at liberty to docks anyone or reveal more, but that has been a fascinating experience to chat a little bit with this person who works on our show about Lilith Fair. too, but, you know, I'm being a little hyperbolic right now. It's just there's something, you know, the Dawson's Creek nostalgia of this week as well, praying for James Vanderbeak, man, he's going through it. He wasn't able to make the reunion in New York City. And so the whole cast

was on stage with his children singing, I don't want to wait by Paula Cole, who was, of course, at Lilith Fair, pretty prominent among the Lilith Fair cohort. And that's why I say, if I could go back in time, I would go to a Lilith Fair, um, because it just, it just, was a concentration of the artist that I listened to that you can't find, like, in many other places. So I've mentioned this before. My first concert was Buddy Miller, Emily Harris, Sean Colvin, and Patty Griffin. And I'd have to go back to confirm. But I think, obviously, Emilia Harris was there.

Obviously, Sean Colvin was there. And I bet Patty Griffin did Lilith Fair at one point or another. but you go back and also indigo girls i love the indigo girls um man so many policole indigo girls jewel um i wasn't a huge sarah mcclachlan fan but the doc is called building a mystery and that is my favorite sarah maclachlan song i don't know if torrey amos was ever on lilith fish not in the documentary um but paulacole i love paulacol um i loved dawson's creek so obviously i love paul of col dixie chicks I think this is another hot take. Maybe we can do a happy hour just about music at one point.

But yeah, I think they're one of the best American bands of all time. They're super underrated. Politics aside, we can have a politics conversation about them too, but we don't need to right here. It just harkens back to this time in the 1990s where it was like the sandbox at the end of history, right? The Cold War ends and not to get too deep, it just was this time where, you know, as they are reflecting on Lilith, Their big complaint was Jay Leno making jokes about Paula Cole not shaving her armpits. It's like, this is the profound cultural impact of Lilith fair was that they could say, what a patriarchy we live in, where Jay Leno is making fun of a wonderful singer-songwriter for not

shaving her armpits. And it's like, it doesn't matter what time we live in. It doesn't matter whether there's a patriarch you're not everyone is always going to find that funny. I'm sorry. But it was this time where I think, you know, things felt more linear. Time felt more linear. It felt like sort of progress, again, not in a political sense. I think for the left it was a political sense and for the center it was a political sense. But this feeling, this sense of progress was with us, that life was getting better and better. And that what had been getting better was the things that were making life better were not ultimately going to undermine that sense of progress. We're not ultimately going to make things feel worse because at the end of the Cold War, we had sort of paused on the nuclear panic.

And that's not pejorative. We should have been in a nuclear panic. We still should be in a nuclear panic over these technologies for all I'm concerned. But it felt like we'd sort of solved the big problem of the 21st century. And we were playing in the sandbox at the end of history. It was just like glittering time where we, many people, especially middle class, upper middle class people, had the luxury of playing in that sandbox of ideas. And people have been worrying about this stuff. Like people have been worrying about technology and all of that for years.

But it just wasn't the mainstream consensus at that point in time. Of course, there were people who were, you know, still with Chomsky or McLuhan at that time period. were big, like people who were in protesting against nuclear war and nuclear weapons and all of that. Like that existed. But the mainstream was a pretty comfortable place where we were debating what I would argue were mostly like luxury concerns. And Little bit of Fair feels like that. It feels like on the one hand they were celebrating the, the capstone of the sexual revolution in the last 50 years. And on the other hand, they still

were not quite satisfied because they had the luxury to not be quite satisfied. So, you know, I'm not with the, I'm obviously conservative and most of the big Lilith Fair acts were not conservative. But all that is to say, it's a really interesting documentary. And those are my thoughts on it. I almost forgot, but I promised my thoughts. So those are my Lilith Fair thoughts. Thank you. Happy hour once a week. As a reminder, Emily at Devil Maycaremedia.com is where you can email. If it's a question for after-party, you can put that in the headline or you can put that in the subject line. And I'm answering a lot of emails on Emily at Devil Maycare Media, but also follow us on Instagram. We do a little, we put out little things where you can ask questions there every week, too. And we post some great highlights from the show. But we appreciate it if you subscribe on a whatever podcast app you use, subscribe on YouTube, of course. But happy hour is only here on the podcast feed, which is partially why I love it. It's becoming one of my favorite things to do.

So I will see you back here next week with more Happy Hour on the podcast feed. And of course, we'll be back on the podcast feed live and on YouTube, Monday, 10 a.m. Eastern, Wednesday. Wow, I just said 10 a.m. I just said 10 a.m. 10 p.m. Eastern is when we are rocking. with after party. So Monday, Wednesday, 10 p.m. Easter. We're live on YouTube and we will see you

back here with more after party and happy hour soon. Have a great weekend, everyone.