The Colin McEnroe Show

Believe it or not, Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt (and their kitchen knife) entered the public consciousness 25 years ago last week.And this week, former UConn athlete Sue Bird and her girlfriend, Megan Rapinoe, became the first same-sex couple to appear on the cover of ESPN The Magazine's The Body Issue.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Connecticut will hold primaries on August 14 to determine which candidates get on the ballot in this November's midterm elections. Since Connecticut runs a closed primary system, only voters registered with a party get to vote in that party's primary. Unaffiliated and Independent voters are out of luck.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's SUMMER! And every year around this time, we gather up a few music mavens who help us analyze and celebrate the kind of music that gets us dancing and singing as soon as it comes on the radio.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1955, Connecticut experienced catastrophic flooding that killed more than eighty people. Two back-to-back hurricanes  - Connie and Diane - dropped over two feet of rain across Connecticut. The rains overwhelmed the Naugatuck, Farmington, and Quinebaug Rivers and their tributaries too quickly for many to escape its wrath. After the flood, Connecticut enacted flood control measures that led to several new dams. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we have no guests. Just a conversation between you and Colin about Stephanie Wilkinson's request that Sarah Huckabee Sanders leave the Red Hen restaurant Friday night. Wilkinson owns the Red Hen, where Sanders and her party were dining Friday night.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are three movies that deserve the credit (blame?) for the superhero/comic book movie renaissance/boom(/apocalypse?) that we've been living through now for nearly a decade and a half: Batman Begins (2005), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Brad Bird's The Incredibles (2004).Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. Dave Itzkoff's new biography is Robin.And: For the tenth anniversary of his death, a look back at the work of George Carlin.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nearly ninety-percent of Americans own a smartphone.On average, we spend more than four hours a day on our phones, which adds up to about 56 full days a year. That's like sealing yourself in a room on the first day of summer and not emerging until the kids head back to school. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the first Olympic games in 776 B.C. to the 2018 World Cup currently underway, referees have always played an integral part in competitive sports. But as technology advances and the means to make more accurate on-field calls improves, these men and women find themselves under increasing pressure to keep up.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite First Amendment protections separating the press from unchecked presidential power, President Trump is pushing limits beyond any president before him.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ocean's 8 is about as 2010s a movie as there's ever been. It's a reboot sequel of a series that started with a remake. The fun part, though, is that this movie (unlike the four that precede it) stars eight women. And the even funner part is that it's the number one movie in the country. Our all-star, all-lady (plus Colin) Nose has thoughts.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Fast and Furious franchise includes eight feature films and two short films, and it looks like it's about to include a series of spinoff films. It's Universal Pictures's highest-grossing film franchise with a combined box office of more than $5 billion.Uhh, how did that happen?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all regret and we should not regret that we regret.  I regret buying that pair of pink sneakers that I'll never wear. I can't take the sneakers back but I can call the brother that I regret not speaking to for several months. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You probably know Larry Wilmore as the host of the Black on the Air podcast or of Comedy Central's The Nightly Show. Or maybe you know him as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart's Senior Black Correspondent. Or you could know Wilmore as the co-creator of Insecure and The Bernie Mac Show or as a writer on The Office and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and In Living Color.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's lonely at the top.President Trump has a lot of acquaintances but not many close friends, according to those who know him best. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kim Kardashian rose to fame as a friend of Paris Hilton. She has a sex tape. She's been the subject of any number of reality TV shows. Kardashian is, for many people, the very definition of "famous for being famous."The Nose's charter includes a provision specifically requiring that we cover all things Kim Kardashian. But then, this week, we learned that she has the power to will presidential commutations into being. That's actually almost too much substance for The Nose to parse. Almost. But not quite.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Pesca is one of our very favorite guests -- on any number of topics. And he's got a new book out: Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who's afraid of the Bix bad Beiderbecke?Hartford has an amazing jazz history, and Colin has a lot of jazz musician friends. This hour, a little onstage jazz party.Colin and the panel look to make jazz accessible to mere mortals. They talk about what makes jazz jazz, invite the audience to sing, and teach the audience to scat.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From the penny press, to yellow journalism, to supermarket tabloids and beyond, sensationalized news has been around for centuries. But while this style of reporting may have its critics, it may also serve as an important reflection of American culture and democracy. This hour we speak with journalists and historians about the evolution and influence of tabloid journalism. We'll also discuss the alledged connection between President Trump and various tabloid publications, the true nature of which continues to unfold.GUESTS:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There has been a lot of confusion about how many people died in Puerto Rico as the result of Hurricane Maria and its aftermath. Several publications reported last week that approximately five-thousand people may have died. They based their reports on a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that reflected more ambiguity than often reported.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solo is the tenth feature-length, live-action Star Wars film. It is the fifth Star Wars prequel. It is the second Star Wars anthology film (following 2016's Rogue One), and it's the second Star Wars movie to come out in just the last six months (along with The Last Jedi).It is, though, a number of Star Wars firsts too: It's the first Star Wars picture to have its director(s) fired midway through production. It's the first to star Woody Harrelson. It's the first Star Wars movie that may well lose money.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've been trying to push this show out for quite a while now. It's been a bit of a strain, and we got kind of backed up.But, this hour, we let loose a long look at... constipation.It should be a big relief for everyone involved.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Numbers are so fundamental to our understanding of the world around us that we maybe tend to think of them as an intrinsic part of the world around us. But they aren't. Humans invented numbers just as much as we invented all of language.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have traveled to three foreign countries since President Trump was elected. While I have always been proud to be American, even as I criticize much in my country, I was humbled by what people thought of America in the countries I visited. They were puzzled by our health care system, and appalled by our guns and voter apathy. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Radiation is everywhere. It's emitted by our sun, by cat litter, by bananas and occasionally by nuclear bombs. It's even emitted by you, and by me, and by every living (and dead) person in the world. So why are we so scared of something so prevalent in our everyday lives?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Amazons of ancient Greek mythology is that they were not entirely mythical. While many of the deeds and details ascribed to these women warriors were imagined, the Amazons themselves were inspired by a real-life horse-riding tribe of nomads called the Scythians.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, etc. These are just the beginning of what experts believe will be a future filled with verbally interactive, digital and robotic assistants. And as we become more accustomed to interacting with machines, the machines are becoming more life-like.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I hear the word "diorama," the first thing I think of is Mr. Mack’s fifth grade class and painting hills and grass and clouds and a fence into a shoebox and making little cardboard cut outs of Lassie and the boy she loved. God, I hated that stuff.The second thing I think of is a place like the Peabody Museum in New Haven and their incredibly, obsessively, over-the-toply detailed dioramas of the plant and wildlife of Connecticut.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flags have been in the news a lot lately. South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its Statehouse and one Missouri county threatened to lower the flags at their courthouse for one full year to mourn the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. I'm in awe of the emotions a simple flag can evoke. On the surface, it's a piece of cloth with pretty colors and designs. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's just a dance, right?Actually, maybe that's the last thing the prom is. Maybe the photo is even more important, because it freezes you. It's your chance, as high school trickles away, to say "This is who I am. This will be who I was."We've been looking at prom photos by Mary Ellen Mark, who will be on our show today, and they're striking in the range of emotional states they convey. We see joy, hesitation, confidence, detachment and some flat-out haunted looks.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You remember the dress, right? In case you don't: Three years ago, a poorly-lit photograph of a dress pretty much tore the internet to pieces. Some people saw a black-and-blue dress; some people saw a white-and-gold dress. The black-and-blue-dress people couldn't understand how the white-and-gold-dress people were living their lives; the white-and-gold-dress people called the black-and-blue-dress people "fake news" (no they didn't).Well, this week there's a new the dress. Except it's a the dress for your ears, not your eyes. It's an audio file. Some people hear the word "laurel." Some people hear the non-word "yanny." And the dispute over which word is right and which word is wrong is very important (no it isn't).Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sarah Kendzior predicted that the conditions she witnessed in 2013 from her home in America's overlooked heartland would lead to the rise of a candidate like Donald Trump. She was one of the few that saw it coming.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule is back in our Hartford studios to sing and play and talk and who knows what else!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there's one thing that unites us all (literally, ALL of us) it's gravity. Gravity attracts every bit of matter in the universe to every other bit of matter in the universe, no exceptions! But for something (a warping of space-time, to be precise) so universally present, it remains one of the least understood forces in physics.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Connecticut's political parties are in the midst of choosing who they will endorse in this November's elections. How much do you trust that they've endorsed the candidate most likely to represent your interests? On the other hand, how much do you want or need to know to cast your vote? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Glover can do anything. He's an actor and a comedian, he's a singer and a songwriter, he's a rapper and a DJ. Mainstream audiences know him from Community and maybe the FX series he created, Atlanta. Nerdy audiences know him as the voice of Spider-Man, and they're about to know him as a young Lando Calrissian.But Glover's music -- he sings and raps as Childish Gambino and DJs as mcDJ -- has never quite punched through into the wider popular consciousness, despite some chart success. Until this week, maybe. The new Childish Gambino video, "This Is America," which dropped last Saturday in concert with Glover's hosting Saturday Night Live, has just about 75 million views on YouTube. It is "a milestone" and "a media phenomenon," and it has finally made Glover "a superstar."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lauren Bacall probably does have the most famous line about smoking in all of cinema. But there are other good ones too. "What are you gonna do? Charge me with smoking?" "Smoke if ya got 'em." And many more.Cigarettes have been such an integral part of movies for so long that one big concern in the lead up to Disney and Fox's planned merger is -- seriously -- all the smoking in Fox movies.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Comedy forces us to confront uncomfortable realities that we prefer to ignore. It also makes us laugh. Laughter is a powerful force. It can release chemicals in our body that make us feel good and help us better cope with the daily stress of living in a world that can lately seem to be spiraling out of control. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From its humble, South Korean origins in the early 2000s to its current place as an international, cultural phenomenon, esports is certainly on the rise. Huge venues including Madison Square Garden, the Staples Center and others are routinely selling out to diehard fans of these competitive video gaming tournamentsSupport the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We live in a big world and we're focused on one small speck in it named Donald Trump. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The bands Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rush, Asia, and Styx have sold, literally, hundreds of millions of albums.And that's despite the fact that This Is Spinal Tap is a devastatingly accurate spoofing of, ya know... all those bands.This hour: a look at the rise and fall of progressive rock.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in the early 1830's to gather observations that he would later put on the pages of Democracy in America, he was impressed with the efficiency of our American Postal Service.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Old asylums give us the creeps. The reality of asylums may pale in comparison to the horrors we conjure in our minds. Yet, they were awful. They were dark and dirty and overcrowded. Diseases were rampant and deadly. Staff was abusive. Food was scarce and inedible. Death and suicide were common.So, why does President Trump want to bring them back? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As President Trump talks about draining the swamp in Washington D.C., we turn our attention to actual swamps. Associated with death and decay, while also celebrated for their beauty and biodiversity, few landscapes evoke such contradictory sentiments as swamps.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A man kills women because he can't have them. An elected politician reacts harshly to speech he doesn't like. Supporters and critics of Wolf's monologue rip each other apart over whether Wolf went too far or got it just right. This is our second Monday in a row where we book no guests and take your calls. What does this mean to you? It's your calls and Colin.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's Nose tackles Kanye's bromance with President Trump. And we've got an update on monkey selfies!Plus: Courtney Balaker's Little Pink House, which opens today at Real Art Ways in Hartford, tells the story of Kelo v. City of New London. Catherine Keener plays Susette Kelo. There's an unnamed version of Governor John Rowland. Keith Kountz makes an appearance. The movie is kind of Erin Brockovich, but on the Connecticut Shoreline in the Late '90s/Early 2000s. The Nose has seen it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Taibbi is an American journalist, author, and iconoclast. He is a contributor to Rolling Stone and the author of nine books, the most recent of which are Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus and I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each election year, we invite candidates running for public office who are on the 'fringe' of voter consciousness to join our show. We like to talk to these candidates. They're passionate, they want to talk about the issues important to them, and they don't necessarily follow a party platform. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I find great joy in walking in the dead of winter along the river trail near my house. Everything leaves my mind as I watch the Canadian geese take flight, their wings flapping together as they lift and swoop over my head. I'm in awe of their beauty.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We didn't book any guests today. We decided to take your calls for the entire hour so you could share what's on your mind.A lot happened this weekend in the news that you may want to talk about. But, instead of encouraging reactions to the latest news, many of you expressed interest on Colin's Facebook page in talking about something deeper. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.