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Why has crime (true and fictional) seized the culture? From books, plays, docs, features, series, and podcasts, crime is on a spree. This week Jim and JB talk to veteran crime novelist Charles Salzberg (author of the popular Swann series) about how everyone is a criminal at heart. As a bonus, Charles shares his top crime books and films.

Also, JB celebrates the centenary of a living British national treasure and salutes a woman in a café who has her two young kids reading books instead of phones. Readership lives!

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

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What does it mean to be a "folk hero?” While figures like Robin Hood and Paul Bunyan once inspired ideals, like wealth redistribution and frontier progress, today’s larger-than-life characters carry the scent of cynicism. Jim and JB trace the evolution of the folk icon, starting with the 1970s mystery of D.B. Cooper—the enigmatic hijacker who vanished into the clouds with a bag of loot— to the obsessive revival of the Unabomber manifesto and the zealous courthouse support for Luigi Mangione. We ask: Do today’s "folk villains" signal a legitimate breakdown in our social institutions or a reckless descent into nihilism?

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

As the UK commemorates the late Queen’s centenary and King Charles is scheduled to visit the US, Jim and JB discuss whether maybe the late Liz maybe wasn’t such a great queen after all, leaving a right royal mess in her wake. Was it all due to bad parenting? And Jim bewails the utter chaos represented by the recent gunfire at the White House Correspondents Dinner, as JB recommends a brilliant BBC satire called W1A — about the BBC itself. Break out the toast and marmalade!

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

This week Jim and JB shepherd readers through “Lost Lambs,” a buzzy new book by 29-year-old New York writer Madeline Cash. Will they be sheepish to suggest how much they like it? Or is celebrating Lost Lambs just following the flock? (Okay, I’ll stop now.) Relatedly, are boomer critics too dismissive of young writers? Also: JB celebrates the UK giving fresh rights for lobsters (at least when they die), and Jim complains about famous literary complainer Lionel Shriver. Plus Alexander Payne, Wes Anderson, and HBO’s “DTF St. Louis.”

And Finally, Boomer Has It! has a new corporate sponsor. (It's monetization time...or at least, puppy time!)

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

The Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor scandal has been a huge story in the UK, with the first royal arrested since King Charles I was taken into custody and beheaded in 1649. Andrew’s prospects look better than that, but not by much. He’s lost his mansion, his titles, and his reputation, but will he take the rest of his family down with him?

As the author of Duch, a novel that imagines the royals' reaction to a returned Princess Diana, JB trains his regal eye on the current situation, offering historical precedent for the modern monarchical morass.

Also, Jim salutes the late centenarian art reporter Calvin Tomkins and recommends Andy Weir’s new novel Project Hail Mary, just released as a film starring Ryan Gosling.

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

Was James Carville right? In 2025, he argued that the best Democratic strategy was to just "play possum" and let the Republicans self-destruct. This week, Jim and JB take stock of the GOP’s unforced electoral errors, the 'property portfolio' future of Hollywood giants, and a New York Magazine profile that has Jim’s head spinning.

Headquakes for episode 5:

NYMag WaPo coverage (with pay walls)

Hollywood Reporter on the acquisition: David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

Mad Men is Back!

Twenty years after studio executives rejected it, Mad Men is finally on HBO. Much to its chagrin, the cable network passed on the groundbreaking series, which debuted on the second-tier network AMC on 2007 and went on to win 16 Emmys, including 4 for Outstanding Drama.

Now a whole new generation is finding it along with its original audience, who are taking another look. Advertising never looked so sexy, clever, or cut-throat. But does the series have anything to say about toxic masculinity in the 1960s, about the culture clash between the Rat Pack and the Woodstock generation? Were privileged white New Yorkers really that oblivious to the civil rights, gay rights and “women’s lib” movements? Did people really smoke that much?

Join us for a three-martini lunch as Jim and JB discuss the return of a modern classic!

This week's Headquakes and vital links:

Is Mad Men just for white folk? Maya Phillips shares her rewatch experience in the NYT and sheds much-needed light.

Read Food & Wine’s excellent coverage of the SCOTUS tariff decision, reported by Ray Isle.

Explore anticipatory-crisis strategy with Michele Wucker.

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.

Send us Fan Mail

March 1, 2026

Good riddance to the Washington Post?

The Washington Post has been a DC institution for 149 years, but is it time to say goodbye? Since Jeff Bezos took over, WaPo has suspended presidential endorsements, intruded on its opinion pages, and jettisoned sports, metro, daily podcast, book coverage, and 350 reporters.

Whoops! Correction:

Jim mistakenly confused Citrini Research (the firm behind the viral 7,000-word "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" report) and Robert Citron (the treasurer who bankrupted Orange County in 1994). Both rocked Wall Street, but in different decades. It’s a case of confusing oranges with oranges. Here's the doomy, gloomy report: https://www.google.com/search?q=citriniresearch.substack.com

FInally, an intro to Percival Everett from WaPo’s now defunct book world

Everett was born in Georgia in 1956 and raised in Columbia, S.C. His background is as multifaceted as his writing, though the relationship between his biography and his fiction is slant at best. He’s a former philosophy graduate student, a fly fisher, a woodworker and a painter. He can play and repair guitars, he can castrate bulls, and he spent 12 years training horses in Moreno Valley, Calif. In fact, he connects his experience with horses to his ability to write under any circumstances: “You can’t make a 1,200-pound animal calm by being excited.”

Boomer Has It!

The transatlantic podcast you never knew you needed.

About the Hosts Boomer Has It! brings together two seasoned writers from two different worlds to find common ground (or a good-natured argument) in the middle of the Atlantic through an unfiltered boomer lens.

Join the Conversation We don’t just want to talk at you; we want to hear from you. Whether you agree with our take or think we’ve missed the mark entirely, get in touch:

• Instagram: @boomer.has.it
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoomerHasItPodcast

Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support us is to follow the show on your favorite app and leave a 5-star review. It helps us stay visible in a "fractured age" and keeps the conversation going.

Two writers. Two cities. Two opinions. One perspective you won't find anywhere else.