The Colin McEnroe Show

On today's Nose we're stuffed into the facade of the XL Center in Hartford on Trumbull Street. Come on over and join the live audience.We got interested in funeral Selfies, the practice more common than you might think among young people taking smart phone pictures of themselves at a funeral or memorial service.  You can well imagine our first reaction. Is there any basis on which this practice is defensible.We're always interested in public relations disasters, and this week they happened to Senator Rand Paul, in an odd case of plagiarism, Jay-Z , caught in a collaboration with Barney's. The upscale clothing store. Another public relations disaster is brewing a few blocks from where we sit as civil rights attorney Gloria Allred sets up yet  another  UConn press conference today. All this and more.Leave your comments below, email us at [email protected], or tweet us @wnprcolin. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ok, Ok, you're a super-rational public radio listener but you live in a place drenched in supernatural legend. In fact, historians like David Hall and David Hackett-Fischer have argued that the new world was imbued with notions of magic and superstition from Jumpstreet. One of the paradoxes of the Puritan migration was that even as they imported a belief system that rejected popish superstition in favor of what they saw as leaner, cleaner Calvinist faith, they somehow also brought all kinds of magical nuttiness. And, you could say it never left. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've been writing a newspaper column for The Hartford Courant since 1982. For my first 15 years or so, I tended to write the column at The Hartford Courant. In the last ten years, I have written columns in the following places: a sports bar in San Francisco; a boat moving along the Rhine; the famous Brasserie Balzar in Paris; an outdoor clearing in the Yucatan jungle where, bizarrely, there was WiFi; and a living room in Kobe, Japan.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Salt! It's the only rock we eat!That gets us into some touchy territory. Some say that salt is a major factor for high blood pressure, and some say that it's more complicated than that. We can't NOT eat salt, but in the grand scheme of things, are we eating more now than ever, or way less?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do Lou Reed, President Taft, and this past weekend's violence in New Haven have in common? They're all part of our first episode of Mystery Surprise Monday Theater on today's Colin McEnroe Show, where we'll bring you up-to-the minute and interesting bits of cultural news, some from Connecticut, some much bigger. The news will be so new that we won't even know what we're going to air until we do it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On The Nose this week, a viral video musical tribute to Chinese food triggers cries of racism, a father welcoming his fourth daughter into the world, and opens up a can of complicated thoughts about that. And we talk about the time we walked in the shoes of the opposite sex. Listen to our weekly culture panel live from New Haven on WNPR.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The electrical grid has been described as the glass jaw of American industry. According to some reports, we’re just one solar flare or cyber-attack away from massive, cascading power failures. This has happened before. In 2012, a cascading power failure in India plunged around 680 million into darkness. And in 2011, some Connecticut residents found themselves without power for more than a week thanks to a freak October snowstorm. We’ll chat with energy experts about how to strengthen the electrical grid.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's hard to believe that each one of us throws away over seven pounds of trash every day, adding up to about 102 tons over a lifetime. In part, that's because we're used to having our garbage whisked away while we sleep, waking to an empty barrel and a license to buy some more.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today you're going to meet the new State Troubadour, Kristen Graves, and renew your acquaintance with three former troubadours.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A popular video this week was a highlight reel of Stephen Colbert being unable to stay in character as a pompous, self-pleased right wing blowhard. Instead, Colbert is swept up in the hilarity of the material. One of his adorable tricks is to hide the lower half of his face behind something, allowing us to see only his laughing eyes.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Almost every cure and treatment of diseases exists thanks to medical research on animals. Through animal research, we can understand the addictive nature of Oreos like in a study from Connecticut College recently, and Macaques are crucial for the development of AIDS vaccine strategies. We’ll find out why certain animals work best for certain studies, some big challenges in finding the healthiest control subjects, and more.GUESTS:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watching the movie "Captain Phillips" -- in which Tom Hanks plays a commercial freighter captain kidnapped by Somali pirates -- I had a sense of deja vu. Movies like this are becoming a type. They're about the interaction between the U.S. and people who don't like us. In "Zero Dark 30" and "Captain Phillips," a crack Seal team shows up, so much better equipped and trained than our adversaries that the whole thing feels like an overmatch.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's probably an accident that there are so many ways to experience the story of Macbeth right now.We seem to be living in a moment where ambition has gone mad.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Consumer activism is older than the nation. The colonists’ rejection of British imports started a tradition of voting with your knife, fork, teacup and credit card. But it’s complicated! Whole Foods isn’t perfect. And maybe you should reward Wal-Mart for at least trying to improve. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's become a cliché to say everything has a story, but in baseball, you could make the argument that everything really does. Even the baseball itself is a story -- one of geography and symbolism -- an almost holy relic of American culture. Sportswriter Steve Rushin tells the story of these objects in his latest book, The 34-Ton Bat.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in New Haven today, and The Nose, our weekly culture panel, wants to talk about the hazards of 3D movies and the increasingly competitive world of Halloween costumes. And because we're in New Haven, we'll turn our attention to a couple of prominent stories down here. One of them -- not for the squeamish -- is the Poopetrator, a laundry prankster who has created such a national stir that even the official account for Clorox bleach is tweeting about him.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I really meant to donate to the NPR fund drive. I just forgot. Well, actually I didn't. But still, I should have donated. I feel so guilty! Guilt is a funny thing. It's a pervasive emotion with the power to both motivate--and oppress.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the heart of a new Frontline documentary is a simple question - does playing football expose you to life-threatening brain damage?It's a question putting America's most popular sport on notice - raising concerns for moms, players' wives, and all of us who love football. Today we talk with Jim Gilmore, producer for Frontline's new documentary "A League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fear of Flying sold 18 million copies worldwide and helped tip feminism into a new focus on fulfilled sexuality. But it also introduced a meme so pervasive that the book's author, Erica Jong, worried the phrase "zipless f--k" would appear on her tombstone.Jong recenly defined the phrase on NPR's Weekend Edition:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the November municipal elections approaching there have been some nasty battles involving alternative parties fighting their way onto the ballot. There’s something about local politics that leads to hand to hand combat. We’ll be looking at East Hampton, Middletown, Westport and any other town with a feisty third party.Leave your comments below, email us at [email protected] or tweet us @wnprcolin.Guests: Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Slate embarks on a quixotic search for the "most beautiful woman in the world," The Nose will examine how feminine beauty plays a role in American politics. Earlier this week, a U.S. Representative from Indiana dissed a CNN anchor saying, "You're beautiful, but you have to be honest." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Reality TV" is perhaps the biggest misnomer in the entertainment industry today. A better name would probably be "scripted unscripted television." It's not catchy, but at least it's accurate.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Wolman visited a Scottish castle designed for left-handed sword fights, and a Paris museum to inspect 19th century brains. He observed chimps with a primatologist who may help unravel the mysteries of handedness. He met with a left-handed satanist, an amputee whose left hand was reattached to his right arm. He's part of a left-handed episode of The Colin McEnroe Show. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now that we're reeling at the prospect of life after "Breaking Bad," let's find out about the real lives of chemistry teachers! Hear from Dr. Donna Nelson, the consultant "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan hired to make sure the on-screen science was correct, and then go beyond the test tubes, and meet some chemistry teachers to hear about what actually goes on in the classroom.What did you learn in the chemistry classroom? What's the future of understanding and harnessing the power of chemistry? Remember to wear your safety goggles for this Colin McEnroe Show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You could say that most of the live comedy done by young performers in cities around the United States is just one big feeder system for Saturday Night Live, which launched a new season this weekend.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What can a sandwich say about a relationship? It turns out, a lot. What very well may have been an inside joke between a young couple turned into a controversial essay by New York Post writer Stephanie Smith this week. Smith's tips on wooing her man via meat and bread featured such gems as:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe you've heard the numbers. An estimated 40 percent of food in the United States never gets eaten. Americans waste 160 billion pounds of food a year. Every day, that amounts to enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. Twenty-five percent of America's freshwater use goes into the production of food that is then wasted.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a shot in the dark, this week I asked my rather large Facebook audience whether any of them were lapsed Catholics thinking about tiptoeing back to the church based on the recent comments of Pope Francis, who talked about rebalancing the church's priorities with possibly less emphasis on what he called an obsession with abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's an art form that came out of the chaos of World War One, when times were desperate, yet the art world was still celebrating still lifes, landscapes and nudes. In protest, artists began rebelling with politically aware ironic work, making bold, sometimes vicious points with their art. Times have changed, and Dada resurfaces periodically, like in the exhibition at the Pump House in Hartford.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We first got interested in the people inside sports team mascots back in 2010 but that was before we knew about Kelly Frank. Kelly Frank has done time inside several major league mascot costumes and she's a very funny human being with a lot of stories to tell about the abuse heaped on mascots-- as you're about to discover. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Havenites reclaiming a beautiful park in their city got us thinking about urban parks in general. Frederick Law Olmsted is the undisputed father of American city parks, including Central Park itself. He came from Hartford, and he is buried here.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Infinity is weird. It's neither even nor odd. It's not a number. Really, it's just a concept we use to summarize that which we can't understand.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can read a lot into media depictions of minorities.Richard Pryor was  hilarious at it. One time he said he had just seen a movie called "Logan's Run." It was set in the future, and there were no black characters in it. "That means white folks ain't planning for us to be there," he said.Media critic Eric Deggans joins us today, and one of his major theses is that extremism and division make for a bad public discourse and great television. Big media, says Deggans, thrive on division and tension, whether it's on cable news shows or reality TV.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It just goes on and on. We're in New Haven today where the Yale Rep is getting ready to mount a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," but there's already one playing in Dublin at the Gate. There probably hasn't been one year in the last 50 when there wasn't a significant staging of this play.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"This is worse than that time we did that Gilbert and Sullivan parody.” That was a Tina Fey line from 30 Rock, and it was a devastating punch at a similar show, Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60," in which a fictional late night comedy show attempted to wow its audience with a song about itself set to the music of "A Modern Major General." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's New York City primaries featured a an intern-groper, a Scrabble harasser, a hooker user and, of course, a Weiner tweeter. And guess what? All of them lost!   And a continent away, the Filner Headlocker got out of the mayor's office too.So does that mean that pervy politicians are experiencing a temporary lull? We talk about that  on The Nose, our weekly culture roundtable.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may eat out a lot, but do you really have tipping figured out?Or do you stress about whether you left the right amount?Would you be happier with an 18 percent service charge added on and no obligation to tip?These are the shifting restaurant rules we'll talk about today.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A roommate will  either get on your last nerve or change your life for the better. In my freshman year, I was assigned to live with two football players, one of whom dropped out at Christmas. I roomed with the other, Ken Jennings, for three years. He was African-American, from right outside D.C. and much more of a straight arrow than I was in those days. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You could argue that two trends are in a state of modern collision. Women are hitting puberty earlier than they used to, and their breasts are arriving in larger sizes.  There's a complex matrix of factors making this happen.Average bra size in the fifties was a B. A British bra manufacturer now makes an L cup. Meanwhile, we're watching an explosion in women's sports driven here in the U.S. at least partly by Title IX.Why are these two things on a collision course?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, asexuals seem like brothers and sisters from a distant solar system. Western societies are gradually growing accustomed -- with varying degrees of comfort -- to the initials in LGBT, but what about A? On our show today we explored the idea that some people have no sexual orientation -- not because of a hormonal deficiency or a position on the autism spectrum or some buried childhood sexual trauma -- but because they don't have a discernable sex drive.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Come on, you must be outraged about something! These are the headlines: "Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World." "Dave Chappelle's Hate-On For Hartford Called 'Sad,' 'Asinine.'" "No Exception For Newington Veteran Being Evicted For Smoking." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Bolton has reinvented himself many times. A few years ago, he cut off his trademark hair.  He put out an album of opera arias and another of American Songbook Standards. But probably his biggest challenge was dealing with his image as a romantic icon so permanently rooted in the dead center of the mainstream that poking fun at him became an easy way for people who really weren't all that cool to prove they were at least cool enough to reject Michael Bolton.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you seek parallels between J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon they're easy to find. Both were literary geniuses. Both were publicity-shunning recluses. Both men were psychosexually arrested by God knows what primal wound. Salinger seemed able to bond only with very young women and girls. Pynchon had a pattern -- somehow linked to inability to form normal alliances --  of hijacking the wives and partners of his friends.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thirteen years ago, I wrote an amusing but fairly ignorant op-ed piece for The New York Times triggered by watching a planetarium movie narrated by Tom Hanks. I wrote: "I miss the days of the anonymous, nobody-special narrator. Playing next door to Mr. Hanks at the museum was a Mount Everest Imax movie narrated by Liam Neeson. Take a cab to get there, and Isaac Hayes tells you to take your stuff when you get out, and don't forget your receipt." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Through the lens of time, the anti-disco backlash looks a little ugly. What was disco, really? It started as an underground dance movement propelled by blacks, gays, and Puerto Ricans. It was a liberating and hedonistic music of the oppressed, and people from those groups gathered and mixed in the early downtown clubs.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Home birthing? Doulas? Midwives? Hypnobirthing? Prenatal massage? Today, we’re talking about alternative birthing.Fifty years ago, it was pretty simple: you went to the hospital, they knocked you out, and you had your baby — while dad smoked a cigar in the waiting room. Or if no hospital was nearby, you gave birth at home and hoped a savvy neighborhood lady could to help out. In later years, the question became home birth versus hospital birth.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let me tell you, in the bluntest possible manner, why we're doing a show with Ivor Hugh today.Last year, I had the idea of doing a show that would have been a gathering of some of the voices from the era when radio was king. One of the names in my head was Ivor's. The other one was my friend and former colleague Arnold Dean. Arnold started in radio within a year of  Ivor; and, like almost everybody doing radio in the 1950s, both men then dabbled in the early days of television, because the early tv talent was radio talent.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know who needs this show today?Me.I'm having a musically starved summer, at least in terms of modern recorded music. I've made it out to some live shows, but I really have no idea what's being released these days.I can sum up my relation to music his summer in the following way: I was going to order the new Laura Marling CD, but I didn't. That's it. Meanwhile to force myself to do bicycle training runs every night, I've been playing an obscure 1978 Todd Rundgren song called "Determination." Sad, really.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Lennon said they were the greatest comedy team since the Marx Brothers.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're not a hobbit or a college professor, smoking a pipe is a differentiator.  It's a signal to the world that your tastes run in a slightly unusual direction. The character played by Chion Wolf's brother Michael Gladis in the early seasons of Mad Men was one of those people. Always looking for a way to be different. Hence the ever present pipe. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.