Tag Archives: Podcast

Talkin’ Mother’s Day

Ah, Mother’s Day.

That day of the year that brings with it a mixture of guilt, apprehension, obligation and confusion.

You know: The essential ingredients of any familial relationship.

For Pedro and Chris, the relationships with their mothers are fraught with baggage — some more than others.

In Chris’s case, it’s more the size of carry-on luggage.

And with Pedro…well, let’s size it up as a steamer trunk.

And having the bombardment of commercial messages from retailers, florists, online advertisers and the media about the importance of Mother’s Day does not help.

Should we, as sons, act out of a sense of obligation?

Shouldn’t we be honoring our mothers all year-round?

Do we automatically owe them our respect and love because, let’s face it, they gave birth to us, wiped our asses when we were little and put up with our nonsense for lo these many years?

How do we define the relationships with our mothers as sons and adult men and fathers ourselves?

Well, we dive into all of that in this latest episode of About Men Radio.

Give a listen and tell your friends.

And by the way, would it kill you to call your mom just once in a while?

Retirement? Hahahahaha!

There is a kitchen magnet I have that boasts about drinking coffee: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Yeah, it’s a similar feeling I have about retirement. I’ll retire when I’m dead.

When you are in your 20s, retirement, pensions, 401(k) and Social Security are a foreign language.

Saving for when I’m in my 60s? Pshaw! Go on!

At the time, that seemed very, very far away and retirement seemed like an elusive No Man’s Land.

Hell, I had an entire work life ahead of me.

Well, time marches on.

Rather, time has MARCHED on, and here I am at 53 and what is supposed to be retirement age is well within sight.

It might be in sight but my bank account has not kept up with the times, however.

In this episode of About Men Radio, the full posse talks about the prospect of retirement, how well (or ill) prepared we are for it, and what retirement could look like for each of us.

In the meantime, I keep looking at the word “retire” and I try to convince myself it means putting a new wheel on my car.

On a Haunted Hayride, A-Shrieking I Will Go

If it’s Halloween time, it must mean it’s time for Chris to show the bravery of Sir Robin from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

You remember him, right? He was not exactly brave but pretended to be.

Well, in the spirit of Sir Robin, Chris went on a haunted hayride at Woodloch Resort in the Poconos.

He figured it would be fun.

He figured he could show one of his nephews how brave he is.

He figured wrong.

We all know what happened the last time he went to a haunted Halloween attraction.

Thankfully for you, dear listener, he did not learn his lesson.

The results of this latest venture are captured in this show, in which Chris narrates the ride and his resulting hysteria.

Related content:

Me? Afraid? You Betcha!

AMR 29: Happy Halloween Edition

Chris and Pedro Come Clean About Housework

So after three years of doing this podcast, Chris and Pedro decided to go where fools rush in and angels fear to tread and that is an honest man-to-man conversation about chores and housework.

What is revealed is as about as pretty as balled-up sweaty socks turned inside out.

I’m not sure we know the business end of a mop or a broom.

It’s not that we are total knuckle-draggers in our views of domestic work (Pedro, for example, does not mind cleaning the bathroom and Chris is happy to do dishes).

It’s just that, well, when we examine the totality of the division of labor on the home front, let’s just say that we come up short.

One of the things we address is our perceived inability (read: copout) to meet our wives’ high standards for getting certain things done just right.

And oh yeah, completely unrelated but just as important, we talk about why music from the ‘80s was so influential and how it remains important in our lives.

We celebrate so-called New Wave radio stations like Long Island’s WLIR and discuss why radio stations today largely suck.

So yeah, give a listen.

And whatever hate mail you send will go straight in the trash – which Pedro never takes out anyway.

 

Lost Podcast Is in the Wild!

We found it!

Pedro and I recorded an episode a few weeks ago that fell somewhere into the couch cushions but fear not, we’ve dusted it off and it’s as good as new.

Well, almost.

We do discuss (belatedly for you dear listeners) our sense of loss at the death of our beloved Carrie Fisher, aka Princess Leia from “Star Wars.”

We share in the sorrow of fans everywhere and marvel at her achievements.

May she long be remembered for her literary contributions and her help in removing the stigma of mental illness.

And on a more cheerful note, Pedro and I celebrate 40 years of friendship and recount how we first met lo those many years ago.

It’s a pretty funny story, one told in a blog post a while back.

Yes, 40 years we have been together.

Convicted killers do less time in prison, but like Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in “The Defiant Ones,” we are chained together for life!

Give the show a listen!

Unbreak my Heart, J.J. Abrams

They aren’t just movies.

As Chris and I discuss on this episode of About Men Radio, the original Star Wars trilogy continues to be an important part of our lives and a cultural touchstone for the entire AMR posse.

While Chris has gone “all in” and is already set to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens multiple times over its opening weekend, my plan is to tread cautiously. 

The crushing disappointment of the prequels forced me to reconsider how much I would continue to emotionally invest in the Star Wars universe now that it appeared George Lucas was no longer in tune with his creation. Georgie-boy broke my heart.

J.J. Abrams did an amazing job with the Star Trek reboot so I hope he can make lightning strike twice. I miss Luke Skywalker. I miss Leia, Han and Chewie. I especially miss the Millennium Falcon.

I want nothing more than to be that 13-year-old kid watching Star Wars (minus the “New Hope”) for the first time, totally swept away by the epic adventure.

Please, J.J. Help me fall in love again.

By Pedro Rafael Rosado

One of my favorite scenes from the fifth season of Mad Men perfectly illustrates what we discuss on the latest episode of About Men Radio.

In the segment Don Draper, Ken Cosgrove, and their spouses are having dinner at Pete Campbell’s new home in the suburbs. While the men are swapping stories over apéritifs, the woman break into giggles and shrieks in the kitchen. The men rush in and find the sink doing a great impression of a geyser. Pete scurries off to find his shiny new tools while Don leaps into action and fixes the sink without effort.

The women admire Don’s macho handiness and Pete looks like a complete schmendrick.

Being able to handle simple “fix-it” jobs around the house was a prerequisite for earning and keeping “man of the house” status as I grew up but is that still true in the 21st Century?

I am not ashamed to admit that much like Pete on the show if my kitchen sink busted the best I could do is scrape off the price tags from my lightly used wrench and wait for the superintendent to show up.

I was eager to find out which of the About Men Crew were Don Drapers and which of us were Pete Campbells . In true About Men fashion, the conversation took many twists and turns but, as always, fun was had every step of the way.